Business24 24th January, 2022

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MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

BUSINESS24.COM.GH

Monday January 24, 2022

Vice-President Bawumia attends UN Security Council Meeting

NO. B24 / 296 | News for Business Leaders

The C.H.I.N.A. way for a better post-COVID world

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Ghana Gas moves to power industrial activities mid-country

By Patrick Paintsil p_paintsil@hotmail.com

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tate gas services provider, Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC), has announced plans to lay pipelines to the middle-belt of the country to improve the supply of gas for both power and industrial activities in the area, especially the bauxite exploration and processing business.

Working with its partners, the company is looking at installing a pipeline from its loading facility

Dangote oil refinery project a gamechanger, says AfDB boss

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frican Development Bank (AfDB) President Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina has described the Dangote oil refinery and petrochemical plant projects as a “gamechanging initiative” that will spur Africa's development and deepen regional integration.

On Saturday, the continent’s premier development bank chief toured the $19.5 billion Nigerian greenfield crude oil refinery and petrochemical production plant owned by Dangote Industries Limited.

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Government must invest more in climate smart agriculture—Aspassion CEO

By Reuben Quainoo

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Asharami Energy exceeds industry target with 2m LTIfree man-hours

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he Chief Executive Officer of ASPASSION Farms, Farmer Robben Asare, is asking government to invest more in climate smart agriculture which will help drive increased productivity, enhanced resilience and reduced emissions across the country.

zero harm to e m p l o y e e , stakeholders and environment commitment has produced 2,000,000 man-hours without Lost Time Injury (LTI) over 1085 days at Asharami Energy, a Sahara Group upstream

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Editorial / News

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

Editorial

Climate-smart agriculture is the way to go

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he future of agriculture lies in climate-friendly technologies that proffers increased productivity, enhanced resilience and reduced emissions from agro-based by-products, and as growing global population and changing diets keeps driving up demand for food, the urge to adopt these innovations are now more critical than ever.

Climate-smart agriculture is an integrated approach to managing landscapes, cropland, livestock, forests and fisheries that address the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change.

The effect of climate change or unpredictable weather patterns has seen farmers struggling to keep up as crop yields are going down across the continent and ocean health declines whilst

natural resources including soils, water, and biodiversity are stretched dangerously thin.

A 2020 report by the United Nations found that nearly 690 million people of the global population are hungry. The food security challenge will only become more difficult, as the world will need to produce about 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed an estimated 9 billion people.

Climate change’s negative impacts are already being felt, in the form of increasing temperatures, weather variability, shifting agroecosystem boundaries, invasive crops and pests, and more frequent extreme weather events.

On farms, climate change

is reducing crop yields, the nutritional quality of major cereals, and lowering livestock productivity.

Substantial investments in adaptation will be required to maintain current yields and to achieve production and food quality increases to meet demand in Ghana and across the continent.

Government has shown strong commitment to revamping the dominant agriculture with the right level of investments and expertise to the sector but the real impact of these interventions will be stifled if we fail as a nation to adopt smart agricultural practices that forestalls the harms of climate change on the output of the sector.

Ghana Gas moves to power industrial activities mid-country Continued from cover

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in Prestea through Nyinayin to Kumasi on the westside and another one from Tema through Atewa and Konongo on the eastside, purposely to serve the bauxite enclave.

“It is impossible to industrialise without reliable, available and affordable energy supply and gas is becoming the fuel of choice for the future compared to its hydrocarbon siblings—crude and coal,” Chief Executive Officer of the company, Dr. Ben K.D Asante, said at a press soiree in Accra.

“We are looking at power generation in mid-country. This will significantly improve the supply of gas for both power and industrial activities in that part of the country,” he added.

The gas company will also construct an onshore gas pipeline linking Takoradi and Tema, the two critical load centres in the country, offering a reliable and ready infrastructure to transport gas in a bi-directional fashion between the two stations.

“Currently we only have WAGP which belongs to someone, being operated by someone and with this onshore pipeline, we’re going to increase the reliability of that system between the two critical load centres.

We are also looking at expanding our processing

capacity, specifically the expansion of its gas processing plant to handle the incremental upstream flow from the Jubilee and TEN oilfields,” he added.

Dr. Asante said that Ghana Gas will continue to operate as trusted and reliable gas services business involved in the gathering, processing, transporting and marketing of the commodity for

both power and industrial usage.

This vision, he said, will be supported by three core pillars centered around business development, building and developing indigenous intellectual capacity for the business and the industry and impacting the communities in which they operate.

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MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

Government must invest more in climate smart agriculture—Aspassion CEO Continued from cover Farmer Asare explained that climate-smart agriculture is an integrated approach to managing landscapes, cropland, livestock, forests and fisheries that address the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change.

He adds that the growing global population and changing diets are driving up the high demand for food.

Farmer Asare made these remarks in an interview with this reporter on Ghana’s Agricultural Sector and how Climate Smart Agriculture can help increase production.

He said the discussion had been that the youth could find employment in Agriculture but we are not embracing new innovations, the very sector that could employ majority of the youth of Ghana.

“Production is struggling to keep up as crop yields are going down across the continent, ocean

health declines, and natural resources including soils, water, and biodiversity are stretched dangerously thin.

A 2020 report by the United Nations found that nearly 690 million people of the global population are hungry. The food security challenge will only become more difficult, as the world will need to produce about 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed an estimated 9 billion

people” he indicated.

According to him, the challenge is intensified by agriculture’s extreme vulnerability to climate change.

“Climate change’s negative impacts are already being felt, in the form of increasing temperatures, weather variability, shifting agroecosystem boundaries, invasive crops and pests, and more frequent extreme weather events.

On farms, climate change is reducing crop yields, the nutritional quality of major cereals, and lowering livestock productivity.

Substantial investments in adaptation will be required to maintain current yields and to achieve production and food quality increases to meet demand in Ghana and across the continent” he indicated.

Farmer Asare explained that while there is the need to build on existing knowledge, technologies, and principles of sustainable agriculture, CSA is distinct in several ways.

“We all know that CSA systematically considers the synergies and tradeoffs that exist between productivity, adaptation and mitigation.

CSA aims to capture new funding opportunities to close the deficit in investment” the 2019 national best Agroforestry farmer said.

Dangote oil refinery project a game-changer, says AfDB boss Continued from cover The Dangote oil refinery and petrochemical complex, located in Lekki Free Trade Zone, covers a land area of approximately 2,635 hectares.

In 2014, the African Development Bank’s board approved a $300 million loan to Dangote Industries Limited to support the construction and operation of the greenfield crude oil refinery and the greenfield fertilizer manufacturing plant.

The two facilities are expected to create 38,000 jobs during construction Adesina said: “The Dangote group is an “Africa growth accelerator … I am completely blown away by the magnitude of what I see here. This is a worldclass industrial complex that will make Nigeria and Africa proud.

We at the African Development Bank are proud of this project.

Every African country needs to have an Aliko Dangote to help the continent industrialize.”

He added: “Dangote's success demonstrates that governments should prioritize industrialization.

We must continue to support the private sector, considering the value they bring.”

The oil refinery and petrochemical plant projects are examples of the African Development Bank's strategy for fostering industrialization

through improved natural resource transformation and exports, as well as support to accelerate indigenous African entrepreneurship.

Adesina said the African private sector was crucial to the execution of the African Continental Free Trade Area.

According to Dangote Group president and chief executive Aliko Dangote, the refinery, which has the capacity to meet 100% of Nigeria’s requirements for refined products with a surplus for export, is the largest single train petroleum refinery in the world, with a capacity to process 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day. It is estimated that by 2023, Nigeria will import zero petroleum oil products – down from approximately $50 billion current oil product imports per year.

The refinery includes a 440-million-liter water treatment tank farm and a housing estate built for 50,000 staff and their families onsite.

Dangote said: “We appreciate the support of the Nigerian government, our lenders, and development finance institutions like the African Development Bank, without whom we would not have come this far. We have enjoyed a good working relationship with the Bank and this visit further encourages us.”

The successful completion of

the refinery project is expected to have a significant impact on Nigeria's foreign exchange through import substitution and substantial savings in earnings.

Officials explained that the refinery will be commissioned by the end of the year.

Adesina and Dangote discussed the potential of collaboration between the African Development Bank and Dangote Industries Limited to expand business to other African countries.

Possible collaboration could include the establishment of an African industrial manufacturing corps made up of engineers and other technicians who constructed the refinery. Adesina said this would be invaluable for skills sharing across the continent.

Devakumar Edwin, Dangote Group's Executive Director for Strategy, Capital Projects, and Portfolio Development, described the fertilizer plant as "Africa’s largest granulated urea fertilizer complex."

He said the fertilizer facility

has two production train lines, with each producing 2,200 tons of ammonia and 4,000 tons of granulated urea each day. The first train was built and deployed in the second quarter of 2021.

More than 300,000 tons of urea have been produced and sold as of the fourth quarter of 2021, primarily to export markets.

The second production train is expected to be commissioned in the first quarter of 2022. The plant now makes Nigeria a net exporter of fertilizer.

Adesina said the African Development Bank would continue to work with the Dangote Group to do more for Africa. He said the Bank's industrialization strategy included identifying and backing "African regional champions" like the Dangote Group.

He added that the African Bank was willing to assist the Dangote Group in such areas as agriculture – including rice and dairy products – as well as cement expansion into other countries.

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MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

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MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

Asharami Energy exceeds industry target with 2m LTI-free man-hours Continued from cover company.

Henry Menkiti, Chief Operating Officer, Asharami Energy, made this disclosure during the company’s Safety Week - an annual event geared towards reinforcing Asharami's commitment to global occupational safety and health (OSH) standards.

Lost Time Injury, a key oil and gas sector OSH benchmark, is a measure of injury or illness resulting from a work-related event which involves lost days away from work or resulting in

downtime in operations.

Menkiti said Asharami Energy's OSH standards guide the company's operations, community relations, procurement, environmental, social and governance impact as it continues to spearhead sustainability in Africa’s oil and gas sector.

According to him, the 2 million LTI-free achievement makes Asharami Energy a foremost African upstream brand in the management of Health, Safety, Security and Environment (HSSE) issues in the sector.

"We have consistently

surpassed the industry standard which is set at 1,000,000 LTIfree man-hours in keeping with a deliberate, proactive and sustained pursuit of our zero harm to people and the environment commitment.

Our people are unrelenting when it comes to safety and we have successfully transmitted this passion to our host communities and other stakeholders to make our operations seamless and productive across the value chain," he said.

Menkiti said the Safety Week provides platform for Asharami Energy employees review its

safety process and protocols, optimize gains from previous year and re-commit to ensuring every stakeholder remains vigilant and involved in preventing and eradicating threats.

“Operational safety and health issues receive daily attention at Asharami Energy as we all share the passion of safety being above every other pursuit in the course of our operations. Our employees have been phenomenal in this regard and our host communities and other stakeholders also deserve commendation for lending their support. With continuing investment in technology and spearheading responsible engineering across our operations, we are confident of sustaining impressive safety records as the business continues to expand,” he added.

Asharami Energy is one Africa’s leading independent Exploration and Production (E&P) Companies with a diverse portfolio of eight oil and gas assets in prolific basins across Africa.

Asharami Energy Limited and Sahara Energy Fields Holdings UK Limited are the entities at the forefront of Sahara’s upstream operations.

These assets are at various stages of development ranging from exploratory fields to mature producing fields with huge potential for positive returns.

Vice-President Bawumia attends UN Security Council Meeting

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he Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, left Accra yesterday (Saturday, January 22, 2022) for New York in the United States of America (USA).

Prior to holding meetings with senior officials of the United Nations (UN), Dr Bawumia will on behalf of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, deliver a statement during the Open Debate of the UN Security Council, to which Ghana was recently elected as a non-permanent member.

The Vice-President is also expected to hold discussions in Washington DC with the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Ms Molly Phee on

strengthening the co-operation between the two countries on

issues of mutual interest.

Dr Bawumia is expected to

return to Accra on Friday, January 28, 2022.

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MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

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MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

Microsoft, AGA-Africa fight cybercrime in Africa

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icrosoft Corporation has signed a partnership agreement with the Attorney General’s Alliance Africa (AGA-Africa), a nongovernmental organisation, to combat cybercrime in Ghana and selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The partnership seeks to build the capacity of investigators, prosecutors and other officials of law enforcement agencies to fight cybercrime, enhance cyber capability and resilience of regional authorities in the sub region.

Global cybercrime damages, according to experts, were $6 trillion as of the end of 2021 and they project a 15 per cent growth rate per year, reaching $10.5 trillion by 2025.

Speaking at the signing agreement in Accra yesterday, a board member of the AGA-Africa, Mr. Markus Green, said following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, there had been increased use of cyberspace, while access to the internet in

Africa had brought its challenges of cyber security.

He said the partnership would build capacity in investigation and prosecution to address cyber security.

Building the capacity of officials in the justice ecosystem, Mr. Green said, would “help us stay ahead of the criminals. This is because just as the criminals are organised, the justice system must also be organised and all stakeholders must work together

to fight organised crime.”

Mr. Green also pointed out that cybercrime was linked to all forms of crime such as human trafficking, money laundering, cybercrime, counterfeit drug among others.

The AGA-Africa would work with partners and stakeholders in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia.

The Regional Director of Microsoft Corporation in

charge of Emerging Markets and Engineering, Mr. Mark Ihimoyan, said the cybercrime threat was real and that Microsoft Corporation, which was a digital platform, was one of the most attacked companies.

He said the company had over the years built tools and had the latest technologies to fight cybercrime.

Microsoft, Mr. Ihimoyan said, had invested in a broad set of technology, industry and government partnerships to address cybersecurity and build a safer world.

Cybercrime presented a major setback to the increasing e-commerce markets and threatened to reverse the gains made by the rapidly growing uptake of technology.

“The partnership with the AGA will enhance the exchange of information, strategies and training to prevent, regulate, investigate and prosecute cybercrime in Africa’’, Mr. Ihimoyan said. indicated.

Be entrepreneurs – Ken Ashigbey urges Data Link Institute graduates

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he Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr. Ing. Kenneth Ashigbey has urged graduands at the 12th graduation of Data Link Institute of Business and Technology to focus on becoming entrepreneurs in order to stay employed.

According to him, engaging in entrepreneurship is the surest way to eradicate the trend where graduates rely on the limited jobs in the country.

Speaking as a guest speaker at the event, Dr. Ashigbey said graduates must acquire entrepreneurial skills in addition to the knowledge obtained in school.

“I dare say we need to also look at how we are educating our youth and preparing them for the world of work. They should also be evaluating how they plan for the world of work. Quite recently, a government official was quoted as saying, “Government payroll is full.” All these calls for the need for graduates to acquire entrepreneurial skills and nature the environment to put them into practice. There is growing evidence globally about the immense contributions entrepreneurship has made.”

“Entrepreneurship is seen as means for accelerating job opportunities for youth

employment and for poverty reduction. Apart from being selfemployed, entrepreneurship also brightens a graduate’s chances of employability with already established businesses. It is important to instil the spirit of entrepreneurship even when you work for others. That is a skill that would keep you in the job and push you to the very top”.

Mr. Ashigbey further called on government to create a conducive environment for entrepreneurship to thrive.

“As a country, we should also believe in our youth and offer them opportunities. We should be ready to offer national, regional and district projects to young entrepreneurs. We need to invest in them, to allow them to fall forward and build their capacities. We should also have means of putting them together for national projects. The example of the Ghana.Gov project is a good example by Government that should be made the norm”.

President of Data Link Institute of Business and Technology, Prof.

Mrs. Gavua Dzisi charged the 204 graduating students to be good ambassadors of the institution as they step into the working environment.

“Dear graduands, accept my congratulations for a battle well-fought and a crown well

deserved. The skills, the drive for initiative, the creativity, and the entrepreneurial urge you developed from this Institute remain your trump card. Indeed, the education you received from this institute places you at an advantage in the competitive world out there, but an advantage remains a mere concept until it is exploited. Your teachers, parents, guardians, partners, colleagues and friends who have been part of your Data Link dream now rejoice with you. Please go out there, conquer the world and make us proud: As you leave this ceremony, remember that you have in fact become role models.

Others are looking up to you.

They may even want to follow in

your footsteps and enrol in this institution.”

The overall best graduating student who was the valedictorian of the 12th graduation ceremony, Samuella Yaa Abraham, called on her colleagues to be goal achievers.

“Be yourself, be focused and determined to achieve your goals and stay away from distractions.

You owe it to yourself and to God to be fulfilled in life. Dare to be distinct and make a difference wherever you find yourself; be the light that leads the way; a solution, not a problem and a blessing and not a curse. Never let your presence and absence cause the same effect; in other words, be productive and competent”.

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Opinion/Analysis

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

How the euro divided Europe

Yanis Varoufakis

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wenty years ago this month, Europe’s common currency became a tangible reality with the introduction of euro banknotes and coins. To mark the occasion, eurozone finance ministers issued a joint statement that called the currency “one of the most tangible achievements of European integration.” In fact, the euro did nothing to promote European integration. Quite the contrary.

The euro’s primary purpose was to facilitate integration by eliminating the cost of currency conversions and, more importantly, the risk of destabilizing devaluations.

Europeans were promised that it would encourage cross-border trade. Living standards would converge. The business cycle would be dampened. It would bring greater price stability. And intra-eurozone investment would yield faster productivity growth overall and convergent growth between member countries. In short, the euro would underpin the benign Germanization of Europe.

Twenty years later, none of these promises has been fulfilled.

Since the eurozone’s formation, intra-eurozone trade grew by 10%, substantially lower than the 30% increase in global trade and, more significantly, the 63% increase in trade between Germany and a trio of European Union countries that did not adopt the euro: Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.

It’s the same story with productive investments. A huge wave of loans from Germany and France washed over eurozone countries like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, resulting in the sequential bankruptcies that lay at the heart of the euro

crisis a decade ago. But most foreign direct investment went from countries like Germany to the part of the EU that chose not to adopt the euro. Thus, while investment and productivity were diverging within the eurozone, convergence was being achieved with the countries that remained outside.

As for incomes, back in 1995, for every €100 ($114) earned by the average German, the average Czech earned €17, the average Greek €42, and the average Portuguese €37. Of the three, only the Czech could not withdraw euros from a domestic ATM after 2001. And yet, her income in 2020 converged toward the average German’s €100 income by a whopping €24, compared to just €3 and €9 for her Greek and Portuguese counterparts, respectively.

The key question is not why the euro failed to bring about convergence, but rather why anyone thought it would. A look at three pairs of well-integrated economies offers useful insights: Sweden and Norway, Australia and New Zealand, and the United States and Canada. Close integration of these countries grew – and was never jeopardized – because they avoided monetary union.

To see the role of monetary independence in keeping their economies closely aligned, consider their inflation rates.

Since 1979, the rate of inflation has been broadly similar in Sweden and Norway, in Australia and New Zealand, and in the US and Canada. And yet, during the same period, their currencies’ bilateral exchange rates fluctuated wildly, acting as shock absorbers during asymmetrical recessions and banking crises and helping to keep their integrated economies in alignment.

Something similar happened in the EU between Germany, the leading eurozone economy, and euro-less Poland: When the euro was created, the Polish złoty depreciated by 27%. Then, after 2004, it appreciated by 50%, before falling again, by 30%, during the financial crisis of 2008. As a result, Poland avoided both the foreign-debtfueled growth that characterized eurozone members like Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Cyprus, and the massive recession once the euro crisis was in full swing. Is it any wonder that no EU economy has converged more impressively with Germany’s than Poland’s?

In retrospect, it was as if the architecture of the euro was designed to cause maximum divergence. In effect, Europeans created a common central bank that lacked a common state to have its back, while simultaneously allowing our states to carry on without a central bank to have their backs in times of financial crisis, when states must bail out the banks operating in their territory.

During the good times, cross-border loans created unsustainable debts. And then, at the first sign of financial distress (either a public or a private debt crisis), the writing was on the wall: a eurozone-wide spasm whose inevitable outcome was sharp divergence and enormous new imbalances.

In layperson’s terms, Europeans resembled a hapless car owner who, in an effort to eliminate body roll around corners, removed the shock absorbers and drove straight into a deep pothole. The reason countries like Poland, New Zealand, and Canada weathered global crises without falling behind (or, worse, surrendering sovereignty to) Germany, Australia, and the US

is precisely that they resisted a monetary union with them. Had they succumbed to the lure of a common currency, the crises of 1991, 2001, 2008, or 2020 would have rendered them debt colonies.

Some argue that Europe has now learned its lesson. After all, in response to the euro crisis and the pandemic, the eurozone has been reinforced with new institutions such as the European Stability Mechanism (a common bailout fund), a common supervisory system for European banks, and the Next Generation EU recovery fund.

These are undoubtedly large changes. But they constitute the minimum that was needed to keep the euro afloat without changing its character. By implementing them, the EU confirmed its readiness to change everything in order to keep everything the same – or, more precisely, to avoid the one change that matters: the creation of a proper fiscal and political union, which is the prerequisite for managing macroeconomic shocks and eliminating regional imbalances.

Twenty years after its creation, the euro remains a fair-weather construction, fueling divergence rather than driving convergence.

Until recently, this outcome inspired heated debates – and thus hope that Europe was aware of the centrifugal forces threatening its foundations.

This is no longer so. When the eurozone finance ministers issued their joint paean to the single currency, something remarkable happened: Nothing.

No one joined in the celebrations.

No one cared enough to dissent.

Such apathy does not bode well for a union that is being torn apart by widening inequality and xenophobic populism.

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MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

DTI, GSA collaborate to improve SMEs delivery

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he Design and Technology Institute (DTI), an accredited private Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) institution, and the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate in developing standards and practice guidelines to improve the products and service delivery of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Officials of the two institutions said the three-year project sought to create about 40,000 direct and indirect work opportunities for the youth, especially young women, through TVET. The MoU signed between the two institutions in Accra targeted mostly at master craft persons as well as women and youth operating in the technical and vocational sectors of the economy.

It formed part of the DTI’s collaborative strategy to work with key stakeholders to reach the objective under the ‘Transforming youth TVET livelihood for sustainable jobs’ project which is being

undertaken in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation’s ‘Young Africa Work strategy’ to enable three million young people, particularly women, to access dignified and fulfilling work opportunities by 2030.

Furthermore, there will be the development of standards and guidelines on precision quality for the beneficiaries who will also have their products embedded in precision quality.

Speaking at the ceremony, the Director-General of the GSA, Professor Alex Dodoo, said as the government agency mandated to promote standardisation in the country, the authority was uniquely positioned to work together with the DTI and other entrepreneurship training institutions to streamline their efforts and ensure that international standards and best practices were adhered to in a sustainable manner.

“Our ultimate aim is to facilitate the creation of dignified, well-paying and fulfilling job opportunities in the country.

If the products from these companies are standardised

and of high quality, they will be capable of competing effectively in the export market,” he said.

Prof. Dodoo, who is also the President-elect of the African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO), called on Ghanaians to have a precision-quality mindset that settled for nothing but the highest quality of goods and services.

That, he explained, would help make the country visible for quality and improve its global competitiveness.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder of the DTI, Ms Constance Elizabeth Swaniker, stated that the collaboration with the GSA would help develop acceptable standards in the

development and testing of prototype products for Ghana’s industries while maintaining international standards.

“At the DTI, we are championing the adoption of precision quality in TVET institutions and among master craft persons across the country as well as industries.

The signing of the MoU affirms the regulator’s trust in what we are doing and how it will bridge the product development gap for consumers,” she said and added that “we will continue to work with the authority in the area of policy development and advocacy which will lead to a mindset shift among Ghanaians when quality is concerned.”

The C.H.I.N.A. way for a better post-COVID world a storm, only a giant ship can brave a storm. Strong confidence and close cooperation are the only right way to defeat the pandemic. Holding each other back or shifting blame would only cause needless delay in response and distract us from the overall objective. Countries need to strengthen international cooperation against COVID-19, carry out active cooperation on research and development of medicines, in particular ensure the equitable distribution of vaccines, speed up vaccination and close the global immunization gap so as scale up efforts to build a global community of health for all.

As a responsible stakeholder that delivers on its promises, China has sent over 2 billion doses of vaccines to more than 120 countries and international organizations. Still, China will provide another 1 billion doses to African countries, including 600 million doses as donation.

By H.E. LU Kun, Chinese Ambassador to Ghana

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or China, 2021 was a year filled with accomplishments.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) celebrated its 100th anniversary of founding. China has achieved the First Centennial Goal of realizing a moderately prosperous society in all respects as scheduled.

China is now marching on a new journey towards the Second Centennial Goal of building a modern socialist country.

In 2021, China's GDP grew by 8.1% on a year-on-year basis to about 17.7 trillion USD, the second largest worldwide and over 18% of the global total, realizing the dual targets of higher growth and lower inflation. Total value of imports & exports of goods amounted to 6.05 trillion USD, up 21.4% than 2020. GDP per capita reaches 12,551 USD, exceeding global average.

2021 was also a year filled with challenges. As changes of our era combine with the once-ina-century pandemic, the world has entered into a new period of turbulence and transformation.

How to beat the pandemic and how to build the post-COVID

world? These are major issues of common concern to people around the world. President Xi Jinping shared the C.H.I.N.A. answer at the 2022 World

Economic Forum Virtual Session.

C--Cooperate against COVID-19 Small boats may not survive

H--Handle Risks to Reboot Recovery The

world

economy

is

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9 emerging from the depths, yet it still faces a myriad of constraints such as industrial and supply chain disruption, commodity price rise, tight energy supply and multiple-factor inflation risk.

If major economies slam on the brakes or take a U-turn in their monetary policies, there would be serious negative spillovers, posing challenges to global economic and financial stability, and developing countries would bear the brunt of it.

We need to explore new drivers of economic growth, facilitate cross-border trade, keep industrial and supply chains secure and smooth and strengthen macropolicy coordination. Countries around the world should uphold true multilateralism, remove barriers instead of erecting walls, seek integration instead of decoupling so as to build an open world economy. We should guide reforms of the global governance system with the principle of fairness and justice, uphold the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its center and make economic globalization more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial for all. Major developed countries should adopt responsible economic policies, manage policy spillovers and avoid severe impacts on developing countries.

I--Initiate Global Development Agenda The process of global development is suffering from severe disruption, entailing more outstanding problems like a widening North-South gap, divergent recovery trajectories,

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

development fault-lines and a technological divide. No matter what difficulties may come our way, we must adhere to a people-centered philosophy of development and build greater synergy among existing mechanisms of development cooperation to promote balanced development worldwide. We need to implement the outcomes of COP26 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change under the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

Developed economies should take the lead in honoring their emissions reduction responsibilities, deliver on their commitment of financial and technological support, and create the necessary conditions for developing countries to address climate change and achieve sustainable development.

Last year, President Xi Jinping put forward a Global Development Initiative at the UN General Assembly, which aims to form synergy with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and boost common development across the world. China stands ready to work with all partners to jointly translate the Initiative into concrete actions and make sure that no country is left behind in this process.

N--No Cold War Mentality History has proved time and again that confrontation only invites catastrophes rather than solutions. Acts of overstretching the concept of national security to hold back economic and technological advances of other countries, and of fanning ideological antagonism

and politicizing/weaponizing economic, scientific and technological issues, will gravely undercut international efforts to tackle common challenges.

The right way forward for humanity is peaceful development and win-win cooperation. Different countries and civilizations may prosper together on the basis of mutual respect, and reach common ground and win-win outcomes by shelving differences. We should work for a stable international order, advocate common values of humanity, and build a community with a shared future for mankind. We should choose dialogue over confrontation, inclusiveness over exclusion, and stand against all forms of unilateralism, protectionism, hegemony or power politics.

A--Abide by Promises 2022 is a crucial year for China to implement the 14th FiveYear Plan. We will hold the 20th National Congress of the CPC. Looking ahead, we will: --stay committed to pursuing high-quality development. “The wealth of a country is measured by the abundance of its people.”

We are working hard to achieve common prosperity of the entire population, which is not egalitarianism. To use an analogy, we will first make the pie bigger, and then divide it properly through reasonable institutional arrangements. As a rising tide lifts all boats, everyone will get a fair share from development in a more substantial and equitable way.

--stay committed to reform and opening-up. Whatever change in the international landscape, China will always hold high the banner of reform and opening-up. China

will continue to let the market play a decisive role in resource allocation, and see to it that the government better plays its role.

All types of capital are welcome to operate in China in compliance with laws and regulations. China will continue to expand highstandard opening-up, steadily advance institutional opening-up that covers rules, management and standards, deliver national treatment for foreign businesses, and promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

--stay committed to promoting ecological conservation.

Achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality are the intrinsic requirements of China’s own high-quality development and a solemn pledge to the international community. We have unveiled an Action Plan for Carbon Dioxide Peaking Before 2030, and now has the world’s biggest carbon market and biggest clean power generation system. China will also push for international cooperation on climate and jointly work for a complete transition to a greener economy and society.

Dear friends, the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games will open in about two weeks. We are confident that China will present a simple, safe and splendid Games to the world.

“Together for a Shared Future”!

In just a few days, We will celebrate the lunar new year, the Year of the Tiger. On behalf the Chinese Embassy in Ghana, I wish all the Chinese in Ghana good health & luck in the year of tiger.

I wish my motherland prosper with the vigor of tiger. Finally, I sincerely wish all Ghanaian friends peace, health, happiness and prosperity in the year of tiger!

11

Feature

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

How Facebook became the opium of the masses

František Vrabel

I

n the war on disinformation, the enemy can be hard to determine. Journalists, politicians, governments, and even grandparents have been accused of enabling the spread of online falsehoods.

While none of these groups is entirely innocent, the real adversary is more mundane. As Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified late last year, social media’s own algorithms are what makes disinformation accessible.

Since its launch in 2004, Facebook has grown from a students’ social networking site into a surveillance monster that destroys social cohesion and democracy worldwide.

Facebook collects troves of user data – including intimate facts, like body weight and pregnancy status – to map the social DNA of its users. The company then sells this information to anyone – from shampoo manufacturers to Russian and Chinese intelligence services – who wants to “microtarget” its 2.9 billion users. In this way, Facebook allows third parties to manipulate minds and trade in “human futures”: predictive models of the choices individuals’ likely will make.

Around the world, Facebook has been used to sow distrust in democratic institutions. Its algorithms have facilitated realworld violence, from genocide in Myanmar to the recruitment

of terrorists in South America, West Africa, and the Middle East. Lies about election fraud in the United States, promoted by former President Donald Trump, inundated Facebook in the lead-up to the January 6 riots.

Meanwhile in Europe, Facebook enabled Belarusian strongman Aleksandr Lukashenko’s perverse efforts to use migrants as weapons against the European Union.

In the Czech Republic, disinformation originating from Russia and shared on the site has swamped Czech cyberspace, thanks to Facebook’s malicious code. One analysis done by my company found that the average Czech citizen is exposed to 25 times more COVID-19 vaccine disinformation than the average American. The situation is so dire, and government action so inept, that Czechs rely on civil society – including volunteers known as the Czech Elves – to monitor and counter this influence.

Facebook has given users the ability to opt out of custom and political ads, but this is a token gesture. Some organizations, like Ranking Digital Rights, have called for the platform to disable ad targeting by default. That is not enough. The micro-targeting at the root of Facebook’s business model relies on artificial intelligence to attract users’ attention, maximize engagement, and disable critical thinking.

In many ways, micro-targeting is the digital equivalent of the

opioid crisis. But the US Congress has moved aggressively to protect people from opioids through legislation designed to increase access to treatment, education, and alternative medications. To stop the world’s addiction to fake news and lies, lawmakers must recognize the disinformation crisis for what it is and take similar action, starting with appropriate regulation of microtargeting.

The problem is that no one outside Facebook knows how the company’s complex algorithms work – and it could take months, if not years, to decode them.

This means that regulators will have no choice but to depend on Facebook’s own people to guide them through the factory.

To encourage this cooperation, Congress must offer blanket civil and criminal immunity and financial indemnification.

Regulating social media algorithms seems complicated, but it is low hanging fruit compared to even greater digital hazards on the horizon.

“Deepfakes” – the AI-based largescale manipulation of videos and images to sway opinion – is barely a topic of conversation in Congress. While lawmakers fret over the threats posed by traditional content, deepfakes pose an even greater challenge to individual privacy, democracy, and national security.

Meanwhile, Facebook is becoming more dangerous.

A recent investigation by MIT

Technology Review found that Facebook funds misinformation by “paying millions of ad dollars to bankroll clickbait actors” through its advertising platform. And CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to build a metaverse, “a convergence of physical, augmented, and virtual reality,” should frighten regulators everywhere.

Just imagine the potential damage those unregulated AI algorithms could cause if they are permitted to create a new immersive reality for billions of people.

In a statement after recent hearings in Washington, DC, Zuckerberg repeated an offer he has made before: regulate us. “I don’t believe private companies should make all of the decisions on their own,” he wrote on Facebook. “We’re committed to doing the best work we can, but at some level the right body to assess tradeoffs between social equities is our democratically elected Congress.”

Zuckerberg is correct: Congress does have a responsibility to act.

But Facebook has a responsibility to act as well. It can show Congress what social inequities it continues to create and how it creates them. Until Facebook opens its algorithms to scrutiny – guided by the know-how of its own experts – the war on disinformation will remain unwinnable, and democracies around the world will continue to be at the mercy of an unscrupulous, renegade industry.

12

Comment/Analysis

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

The case for strategic price policies

By James K. Galbraith

W

ith a single commentary in The Guardian (and an unintended assist from New York Times columnist Paul Krugman), economist Isabella Weber of the University of Massachusetts injected clear thinking into a debate that had been suppressed for 40 years.

Specifically, she has advanced the idea that rising prices call for a price policy. Imagine that.

The last vestige of a systematic price policy in America, the White House Council on Wage and Price Stability, was abolished on January 29, 1981, a week after Ronald Reagan took office. That put an end to a run of policies that had begun in April 1941 with the creation of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply – seven months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

US price policies took various forms over the next four decades.

During World War II, selective price controls quickly gave way to a “general maximum price regulation” (with exceptions), followed by a full freeze with the “hold the line order” of April 1943.

In 1946, price controls were repealed (over objections from Paul Samuelson and other leading economists), only to be reinstated in 1950 for the Korean War and repealed again in 1953. In the 1960s, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations instituted pricing “guideposts,” which were breached by US Steel, provoking an epic confrontation. In the following decade, Richard Nixon imposed price freezes in 1971 and 1973, with more flexible policies, called “stages,” thereafter.

Federal price policies during

this period had a twofold purpose: to handle emergencies such as war (or, in the cynical 1971 case, Nixon’s re-election) and to coordinate key price and wage expectations in peacetime, so that the economy would reach full employment with real (inflation-adjusted) wages matching productivity gains.

As America’s postwar record of growth, job creation, and productivity shows, these policies were highly effective, which is why mainstream economists considered them indispensable.

The case for eliminating price policies was advanced largely by business lobbies that opposed controls because they interfered with profits and the exercise of market power. Rightwing economists – chiefly Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek – gave the lobbyists an academic imprimatur, conjuring visions of “perfectly competitive” firms whose prices adjusted freely to keep the economy in perpetual equilibrium at full employment.

Economists with such fantasies held no positions of public power before 1981. But in the 1970s, the practical conditions for maintaining a successful price policy started to erode. Problems multiplied with the breakdown of international exchange-rate management in 1971, the loss of control over oil prices in 1973, and the rise of foreign industrial competitors (first Germany and Japan, then Mexico and South Korea).

Relations with organized labor started to go bad under Jimmy Carter, who also appointed Paul Volcker to run the US Federal Reserve. But even as late as 1980, Carter imposed credit controls – a move that won public acclaim but also arguably cost him his re-

election, because the economy slipped into a brief recession.

Reagan and Volcker succeeded against inflation where Carter had failed, because they were willing to pay an enormous price: unemployment above 10% in 1982, a global debt crisis that nearly brought down the largest US banks, and widespread deindustrialization, particularly in the Midwest. A new economic mainstream defended all this by falsely proclaiming that price policies had always failed. The era of TINA (“there is no alternative”) had begun.

The Reagan-era policies also paved the way for China’s rise.

As Weber’s scholarly work shows, China’s economic strategy in the 1980s relied on price controls with slow adjustments, similar to the US policies of the 1940s.

Then, in the 1990s, as Russia’s economy collapsed following “Big Bang” price liberalization, China continued on its gradual path, allowing its industry to mature as America’s declined.

We now inhabit the world that Reagan, Volcker, and China made. For many years, inflation remained low because wages were stagnant and goods imported from China were cheap (as were energy and commodities, owing to a strong dollar and the shaleenergy boom much later). But the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted this world, giving us an oil-price shock and shortages in autos and some other goods. That is where current US “inflation” comes from.

Today’s strategic prices include oil. While oil prices are already being knocked back by sales from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, this measure is temporary. Energy policy and pricing will be a huge challenge

in the future, because the entire system must be transformed to mitigate climate change.

Then there is health care, and sky-high drug prices specifically.

A public purchasing agency would help here; but Medicare for All, with explicit price controls, would be even better. A public agency with discretionary authority could rein in rising supply-chain prices as well, by stopping opportunistic price gouging, which can make a bad situation worse.

Finally, there is the services sector. Wages here must rise as a matter of justice, and though such increases may show up in the inflation measures, the effect will be modest. The loudest complaints will come from those who like their services cheap at the expense of decent wages for the people who provide them.

If supply-chain issues can be sorted out, the current inflation tizzy will probably subside early this summer, when last year’s oil and used-car price spikes finally drop out of the 12-month numbers. But if inflation persists, the government should step in to manage strategic prices. Failing that, the next best option is to do nothing, declaring firmly that policy levers will be used to defend full employment over price stability, as US law specifies.

The worst option is to punt the issue over to the Fed, which will raise interest rates and fight inflation by letting Americans be gouged on their student loans, rents, mortgages, and health-care debts, and ultimately by kicking them out of work. That is what today’s mainstream economists are advocating, stuck, as they are, in the reactionary mindset that has prevailed for 40 years.

13

Feature

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

Digitalisation is key for resilience Introduction Building a truly resilient community, business, or organization today depends on how well you can use data to increase visibility in each stage of the chain and how quickly you can respond to disruptions. But without digitalisation, it becomes more difficult to garner insights and respond to them successfully.

Digital transformation provides organizations with a certain purpose: increased visibility across their entire supply chain.

Many of the socio-economic and development challenges arising from the pandemic are being tackled with digital tools.

Although digital tools cannot fully replace the human element of social interactions, they are the next best alternative—more relevant than ever. Organizations need to stay in touch with their suppliers and customers, employees need to engage with their team to execute operational tasks remotely. Customers or consumers are increasingly demanding, leaving businesses to find all possible channels to reach them.

Digitalisation Digitalisation is a generic term for digital transformation. It is a key driver for operational resilience, which should not be considered as an end, but to ensure business continuity.

Digitalisation is about leveraging technology and innovative tools to improve the efficiency of a process. According to Gartner, “Digitalisation is the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and valueproducing opportunities; it is the process of moving to a digital business.” It makes workflows and processes easier and more efficient. Especially in today’s tech-driven world, it is crucial to adopt a digital culture to survive and succeed.

In every part of the world, particularly Africa, COVID-19 altered many reactions and responses, from school and workplace closures to keeping employees engaged and operational while working from home, restrictions on movement, and lockdowns. Handling cash, paying for daily essentials, and conducting business in person have become unsafe, and more people than ever turned to mobile money as a safer option. During the pandemic, the progress of digitalisation and infrastructure

seemed to influence many delivery processes and channels.

In early 2020, it quickly became clear that mobile technology, digital services, and mobile money, would have a massive role to play in keeping people connected, delivering essential financial support, and providing safe, contactless ways to pay for consumables, and other life essentials. With more than $2 billion being transacted every day, mobile money became a part of a new daily routine for millions around the world. With 5.2 billion mobile users worldwide, the mobile industry has the reach and innovation it will take to deepen financial inclusion and build more equitable societies (GSMA, Industry Report on Mobile Money 2021).

Also, as Ghana’s digital services and payment system improve significantly, it is worth noting that the current trend in Ghana’s payment systems development is being driven by a growing local ICT industry and global trends in payment systems development.

According to the Bank of Ghana, the development of payment and settlement systems in Ghana has been premised on some key objectives, including discouraging the use of cash for transactions while encouraging the use of non-paper-based instruments; promoting financial inclusion without risking the safety and soundness of the banking system; and developing an integrated electronic payment infrastructure that will enhance interoperability of payment and securities infrastructures.

This means governments must put in more efforts towards creating a “cashless society,” (focusing on mobile and internet banking) which should further promote non-face-toface services, especially if we are to contain or live with such pandemic for a longer period or survive future disruptions.

However, the digitalisation of services must be accompanied by greater digital literacy and

accessibility. While digitalisation can be seen more as a natural progression reinforced by the conditions created by the pandemic, challenges persist.

These include low digital literacy, and the lack of internet access, to mention just a few. With all these getting more important — developing or improving digital literacy, managing remote and automated operations to increase the resilience of business models — there is an apparent need to invest more into digital literacy and digital infrastructure. Creating resilient capabilities which allow for service accessibility options or recovering from disruptions.

Cultural change Partial application of digital transformation in one or the other of an organization’s processes or activities is not enough to compete today. Without understanding business processes, the mere application of technology will not help us, and we will continue to be exposed to the disruption of native-digital competitors in our sector. Initiatives must come along with the needed usage literacy and infrastructure. Consumers must be educated on using digital services and solutions introduced for efficiency. Beyond the application of new technologies, the digitalisation of an organization requires important cultural changes and ways of doing. Digital transformation requires general management to be aligned because it is not an isolated challenge in one division or another, it is a challenge for the entire business setup or organization.

Digitalisation requires cultural change, questioning existing models, and being open to new ways of adding value to the customer. It takes a lot of responsiveness to put the user at the center. Understand the end-user, be in their shoes, place them at the center of the whole process, and understand their needs from their point of view

and reality. This way, it gets easier with usage and literacy.

Again, faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, many nations were better prepared than others to respond to the crisis and ensure the delivery of essential public services—including healthcare and education.

The key differentiator was their level of digital resilience.

Estonia, brands itself as “the first fully digital republic”, has the world’s most advanced e-government along with a dynamic start-up community.

From the onset of the pandemic, the government launched a global hackathon to incubate and scale practical solutions. Estonia’s digital responses to COVID-19 were successful because of the country’s digital maturity, including lessons learned from experience—For example, efforts to integrate telemedicine and electronic patient records into healthcare facilities in many parts of the country were ongoing since 2016, as well as the creation of the Centre for Electronic Healthcare in 2017.

Conclusion The years 2020/2021 tell us that digitalisation cannot be ignored.

A big lesson in all of this is that digitalisation and connected societies require a trained workforce. Across the world, including Africa, many countries still need thousands of new IT specialists to fill many available roles. Hence, the need for digitally enabled workforces is essential for digital resilience and the future of work, which can only be sustained through purposeful and constant investment in education and training.

Resilience as a concept is top of mind, both in our professional and personal lives. The global pandemic has forced us to rethink how to respond to unexpected situations, and manage new and ongoing risks, knowing that such events can happen in the future.

To prevent and recover from future crises, Africa must be digitally positioned to adapt early and invest in fundamentals like digital skills. This will not only improve its resilience but also its competitiveness while ensuring that the needs of many are met.

Author: Richard Kafui Amanfu – (Director of Operations, Institute of ICT Professionals, Ghana) For comments, contact richard. amanfu@iipgh.org or Mobile: +233244357006

14

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

15

News

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

Absa Bank's corporate banking campaign to light up Accra

W

hat does a bank have in common with a cup of coffee, an adaptor, a cowrie or cake?

This is part of the thrust of Absa Bank Ghana's new corporate banking advertising campaign that is set to get the capital talking for the most part of the first quarter of 2022.

The thought-provoking advertising campaign uses powerful creative imagery of unique products from several sectors of the economy and links their relationship to Absa Bank’s corporate banking mandate across the country and the continent. This is complemented by sector specific executions (Infrastructure, manufacturing, agriculture, telecommunication, oil and gas, power, mining financial institution and consumer goods) across a multiplicity of media channels and platforms.

The campaign, designed to shimmer and glitter in Ghana’s capital city and other regional centers on January 24th, 2022, uses four proof points – global reach, digital solution, value

chain and expert solution- to drive home the Bank’s corporate banking credentials.

Absa Bank Ghana’s significance in Ghana’s economy has been a constant feature in the country’s developmental journey for more than a century.

The Bank has supported several sectors, including empowering businesses to be sustainable and helping clients with transformative investment services. It has become a symbol of the Ghanaian financial identity since it first commenced operations as Barclays Bank in 1917.

The corporate banking business, especially, has a history of consistent financing support to many areas, including License Buying Companies in the cocoa sector and the largest single day domestic currency issuance in sub-Saharan Africa at US$2.25bn in 2017. Additionally, Absa Bank has acted as lead arranger for a number of big-ticket deals in Ghana’s finance and energy sectors.

As Regional Corporate Director for West Africa at Absa Bank,

Ellen Ohene-Afoakwa says: “Our fundamental task is to deliver value, experience, expertise and reach to ensure that our clients can put their businesses at the forefront of the financial world, whilst positively impacting their communities and powering their global vision.

We are relevant in every sector of the Ghanaian economy from private, public, small and large entrepreneurship ventures and we shall continue to make capital available to grow the markets, transform the continent and maintain our image as the go-to partner of choice.”

Ultimately the advertising campaign is a call to action for both prospective and current businesses to partner a bank with demonstrable bravery and expertise to get things done.

The campaign will utilize all key touchpoints in the external media space (TV, Online, Radio, outdoor, PR) together with an ambitious digital and social media approach.

It’s innovative creative execution, will undoubtedly elevate the conversation around the crucially important role Absa Bank plays in Ghana’s economy.

5 areas to deliberately plan for in 2022 - EDC's Paul Mante champions financial literacy

T

he Managing Director of EDC Investment Limited, Mr Paul Mante has urged the working class to actively take steps to plan for 2022, citing five key areas they should focus on.

He urged workers to strategize and think through their finances, noting where they find themselves now and where they want to see themselves in the future. “Planning for your future is important and these are the five areas you need to plan for.”

First and foremost, the

financial planner explained that per statistics, 53 percent of retirees earn around a thousand cedis a month or less, an amount not enough for their expenses.

With this in mind, he advised the working class to plan for their old age and retirement. “If you plan for your old age, you will have a different plan so plan for it,” he stated.

With shelter being an important need for all, the money man cautioned workers against investing all they have in their

dream homes. “Housing is an important basic need but don’t make the mistake of building your dream home as your first home. Your first home must be comfortable for you and your family but it shouldn’t be a dream home.”

As every parent seeks to provide the highest quality of education for their wards, it is always important for one to plan for that. Paul Mante intimated that with proper planning right from the birth of one’s child, parents can take active steps to invest in their children’s educational future, taking into consideration the schools they want them to attend. With the aid of a financial planner, “you plan for both the child’s basic and college education. It is quite simple, just divide the child’s annual fees by 12 and contribute that amount monthly and that way you will not have any headache in paying their fees.”

A strong believer in giving, Paul Mante posited one must always make it a point to give back to

society by using a part of their income to embark on charitable causes.

Sharing these insights with Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show, he emphasized that workers must also make it a point to enjoy the ‘High Life’.

“Spend some of the money you make on yourself. Go on a vacation or go a good restaurant to eat once in a while.”

Ecobank Development Corporation (EDC) Ghana is the securities, wealth and asset management subsidiary of the Ecobank Group in Ghana.

EDC’s flagship fixed income fund is the biggest fund in Ghana and has grown to over Gh₵2.7 billion ever since its inception in 2012. With over 80 percent of the fund invested in government and quasi-government securities, investors are assured of the security of their funds.

One can join the EDC family by walking into any branch of Ecobank and needs a minimum of Gh₵50 to subscribe to a preferred policy.

16

Feature

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

No Ghanaian woman should die from cervical cancer: Know your risk

By: Dr. Emmanuella Amoako, Head of Clinical Affairs, Yemaachi Biotech

H

istorically, cervical cancer plagued women for a long time. A breakthrough came in the mid-20th century when screening measures started being implemented.

The healthcare industry was hopeful that screening would drastically reduce cervical cancer incidence globally.

Unfortunately, the disease is still prevalent worldwide, with sub-Saharan Africa bearing the burden of the disease. In Ghana, cervical cancer is the second most frequent cancer seen in women. Every year 2,797 women in Ghana are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 1,699 die from the disease.

In many cervical cancer cases, there are no early stage signs and symptoms. The cancer develops in the cells lining a woman's

cervix (the entrance to the uterus from the vagina) and is almost always linked to infection with high-risk Human Papillomavirus (HPV) - an extremely common virus transmitted through sexual contact.

Advanced-stage cervical cancer may have symptoms like vaginal bleeding and unusual discharge, which women often dismiss as normal menstrual cycle-related events, or selfdiagnose as another infection.

Women are recommended to always look out for bleeding during or after sex, or in between menstrual periods, pain during or after sex, changes in vaginal discharge, or pain in lower back or pelvis. These may be signs of more advanced-stage cervical cancer. It is important to note that having these symptoms does not necessarily mean you have cervical cancer; you should however get them checked out by your doctor.The good news

is that cervical cancer does not have to advance to this late stage. It can be detected early through regular screening, and successfully treated.

Screening for cervical cancer involves a pap smear or an HPV test, or both. A pap smear, also known as a pap test checks for the presence of pre-cancerous cervical cells. An HPV test checks for infection with certain high-risk variants of the human papillomavirus, which cause cervical cells to become precancerous and develop into cervical cancer. If an HPV test determines that a woman is at high risk for cervical cancer, additional screening, like a pap smear, and a colposcopy ( visual examination of cervix) are recommended. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that women 26 years and above should get screened for high-risk HPV at least once every 5 years.

Thanks to Yemaachi Biotech, an African cancer research company based in Ghana, there is an affordable, accessible and easy-to-use test that will detail women’s level of risk for HPVmediated cervical cancer. The Sheba HPV Test enables women to collect their own samples discretely at home, and drop them off at a conveniently located collection point for HPV testing at Yemaachi’s advanced molecular diagnostic laboratory.

Detailed results are returned via email within 72 hours of drop-off.

Women are recommended to share their HPV test results with their physicians or other healthcare workers, especially in the event that a high-risk variant is detected, for further guidance on further testing or treatment.

When diagnosed early, cervical cancer is one of the most successfully treatable forms of cancer. Early detection saves lives.

17

Agribusiness

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

Bringing degraded Africa land back to life

By FAO

F

arming in the Sahel region of Africa isn’t easy. It’s an area that suffers from degraded soils, erratic rainfall and is often subject to long periods of drought. For that reason, farmland soil is often very hard, making it difficult for farmers to plant seeds and for crops to flourish. But new technology can reduce this burden for farmer and help restore land for future generations.

When Moctar Sacande, Coordinator of FAO’s Action Against Desertification programme, talks about restoring land in Africa, the passion in his voice is evident.

“Restoring degraded land back to productive good health is a huge opportunity for Africa. It brings big social and economic benefits to rural farming communities,” he says. “It’s a bulwark against climate change and it brings technology to enhance traditional knowledge.”

The Delfino plough Luckily, there is a piece of technology that can aid farmers who are dealing with tough farming conditions and restore farmland: the Delfino plough.

FAO brought this state-of-the art heavy digger to the Sahel region as part of FAO’s Action Against Desertification (AAD) programme, using it to cut through impacted, bone-dry soil to a depth of more than half a metre. Four Delfinos have been introduced into four countries – Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal – as part of FAO’s Great Green Wall initiative.

The Delfino creates large halfmoon catchments ready for planting seeds and seedlings, boosting rainwater harvesting tenfold and making soil more permeable for planting than the traditional - and backbreaking – method of digging by hand.

The half-moon is a traditional Sahel planting method which creates contours to stop rainwater runoff, improving water infiltration and keeping the soil moist for longer. This creates favourable micro-climate conditions allowing seeds and seedlings to flourish.

The Delfino plough is also hugely efficient. One hundred farmers digging traditional halfmoon irrigation ditches by hand can cover a hectare a day, but when the Delfino is hooked to a tractor, it can cover 15 to 20 hectares in a day.

Once an area is ploughed, the seeds of woody and herbaceous native species are then sown directly and inoculated seedlings planted. These species are very resilient and work well in degraded land, providing vegetation cover and improving the productivity of previously barren lands.

The importance of restored land By bringing degraded land back to life, farmers do not have to clear additional forest land to turn into cropland for Africa’s rising population and growing food demands.

In Burkina Faso, for example, a third of the landscape is degraded. This means that the over nine million hectares of land that was once used for agriculture cannot be used any more, and it is projected that degradation will

continue to expand at 360 000 hectares per year. If the situation is not reversed, forests are at risk of being cleared to make way for productive agricultural land.

Africa is currently losing four million hectares of forest every year for this reason, yet has more than 700 million hectares of degraded land viable for restoration.

In Burkina Faso and Niger, the target number of hectares for immediate restoration has already been met and extended thanks to the Delfino plough. In Nigeria and Senegal it is working to scale up the restoration of degraded land.

“Local engagement is essential,” says Moctar. “The whole community is involved and has benefitted from fodder crops such as hay as high as their knees within just two years.

They can feed their livestock and sell the surplus and move on to gathering non-timer products such as edible fruits, natural oils for soaps, wild honey and plants for traditional medicine.”

Improving life for women According to Nora Berrahmouni, who was FAO’s Senior Forestry Officer for the African Regional Office when the Delfino was deployed, the plough will also reduce the burden on women.

“The season for the very hard work of hand-digging the halfmoon irrigation dams comes when the men of the community have had to move with the animals. So, the work falls on the women,” Nora says.

Because the Delfino plough significantly speeds up the ploughing process and reduces the physical labour needed,

it gives women extra time to manage their multitude of other tasks.

The project also aims to boost women’s leadership and participation in local land restoration on a bigger scale, offering women leadership roles through the village committees that plan the work of restoring land. Under the AAD programme, each site selected for restoration is encouraged to set up a village committee to manage the resources, so as to take ownership right from the beginning.

“Many women are running the local village committees which organise these activities and they are telling us they feel more empowered and respected,” offers Moctar.

Respecting local knowledge and traditional skills is another key to success. Communities have long understood that halfmoon dams are the best way of harvesting rainwater for the long dry season. The mighty Delfino is just making the job more efficient and less physically demanding.

“In the end the Delfino is just a plough. A very good and suitable plough, but a plough all the same,” says Moctar. “It is when we use it appropriately and in consultation and cooperation that we see such progress.”

And it is urgent that progress is made. Land loss is a driver of many other problems such as hunger, poverty, unemployment, forced migration, conflict and an increased risk of extreme weather events related to climate change. And as Moctar said, “That’s too many problems for us at FAO to allow vulnerable people to face.”

18

African Business

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2022

Information operations: An understudied facet of Russian influence in Africa

By Miriam Roday and Sarah Daly

I

n a quiet neighborhood just outside of Accra, 16 Ghanaians were instructed to create social media accounts, representing themselves as Americans, to post content about divisive political issues, where and when U.S. audiences were most active online. Starting in June 2019, posts like this tweet trickled into users’ newsfeeds: “How can a #police officer kill an 11 year old #black boy and go unpunished? Why, are some lives more important than others?”

In the run-up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Russian operatives from Ghana and Nigeria crafted fake profiles on social media to stoke tensions and widen cleavages in American society. Russian trolls posted in Facebook groups about police brutality and racial inequity, implying or claiming that they lived in the United States, and in one case, purported to be the cousin of a Black American who had died in police custody.

These trolling tactics may sound familiar. They were central themes of Moscow’s “sweeping and systematic” campaign to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Under the direction of Russian financier Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin deployed an army of professional trolls from the now-infamous Internet Research Agency (IRA) based in St. Petersburg to manipulate social media platforms and flood the

information space with divisive and inflammatory narratives.

During the 2016 election cycle, the effort succeeded in fomenting unrest and conflict.

Russia’s most recent campaign to sow discord within the American electorate, however, marks its first use of Africa as a launchpad for disinformation campaigns aimed at the United States. Earlier in 2021, the intelligence community confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to influence the contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, including by “exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US” and using troll farms in Ghana and Nigeria to “propagate US-focused narratives.”

A months-long investigation

by CNN uncovered details about the pop-up operation in Ghana masquerading as a non-profit that received funding from an “anonymous source” in Europe.

Its 16 employees, some unaware they were working with and for Russian operatives, built audiences and coordinated their posts by time and topic to maximize engagement with American users. Facebook corroborated these findings and linked several of the accounts to Prigozhin’s IRA that it had previously removed for “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

The Kremlin uses these troll accounts on social media to establish digital networks of influence and advance its agenda in the information space—to subvert public discourse and disseminate

anti-Western messaging. Russia’s interference campaign in 2016 illustrated how damaging these low-cost, low-risk tactics can be, especially against a fractious electorate in a highly polarized media environment. This threat is particularly palpable in Africa, where geopolitical developments and democratic backsliding make many states vulnerable to Russian interference.

And while the Kremlin’s use of Africa as a base for its information operations targeting a U.S. election may be novel, Russia has been running information manipulation campaigns within Africa for years. Moscow’s weaponization of information is an understudied, overlooked component of its strategic influence efforts that presents immediate national security risks to democratic processes and institutions across the continent.

Russia’s Evolving Information Operations The conversation surrounding Russian power projection in Africa often focuses on its revitalization of Soviet-era relationships and strategies to strike military, trade, and resource deals across the continent. Russia’s use of parastatal and opaque private military companies to accomplish its goals has drawn international scrutiny. Nominally private, these entities and individuals operate at the direction of the Kremlin, and often deploy information operations to advance Russia’s broader goals in Africa: building a positive reputation for Russia as a “revitalized great

power, international mediator, humanitarian actor, and effective counter-terrorism partner”; and courting current and future African leaders to establish longterm ties that will benefit its strategic interests.

Russian reputation-building campaigns involve circulating propaganda through various media, from social and statefunded to proxy sources in foreign news outlets.

The Kremlin infiltrates and controls the information space by buying local media outlets or inserting Russian state-owned television channels RT and Sputnik incountry. Establishing mass media control allows Russia to shape the citizenry’s impressions of current events. The resulting dedemocratization of information creates a similar effect to that of Russia’s social media campaigns: the Kremlin can develop and disseminate narratives not immediately identifiable as foreign propaganda and impose them onto a population.

Russia sees sidelining Western influence in Africa as integral to its campaign of upending the international order led by the United States. Using an adhoc blend of private military companies, non-governmental organizations, and local agents to carry its messages, Russia can launder narratives through the information ecosystem that paint the West as exploitative interventionist actors, and Moscow as a benevolent partner

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19 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18 engaging with Africa on mutually beneficial terms. Common tactics include criticizing U.S. and French security assistance efforts and praising Russia’s ability to serve as a mediator and counter-terrorism partner despite limited evidence to support its effectiveness at either.

In addition to propagandizing, Russia uses its “franchised” proxies—local troll farms established by Russian operatives and affiliates—to influence domestic politics in Africa, often as a means to court political elites and secure support for extracting resources and building Russian military bases. In October 2019, researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory together with social media analytics firm, Graphika, uncovered Russianlinked information operations aimed at influencing the politics and public discourse of eight African countries. Their joint report shows how using local trolls to augment mass and social media campaigns pays dividends allowing Russia to deploy effective, low-cost operations to more easily evade detection and obviate the need to conduct the operations within its own borders.

Russia has demonstrated a preference for autocratic or authoritarian-leaning political leaders and regimes that often coexist with a controlled information and media space.

For instance, in 2019, Russia

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orchestrated information operations in Sudan aimed at delegitimizing protestors in Khartoum and Moscow. Private researchers found that Prigozhinlinked proxies set up a Facebook page disguised as a local news network and frequently re-shared Sputnik articles. The proxies, who were attempting to preserve President Omar al-Bashir’s leadership against popular opposition, also recommended public messaging themes to the regime and security responses to demonstrations. Though alBashir was deposed in April 2019, Russia’s influence campaign in Sudan corresponded to interests in licensing for gold mines and military basing in Port Sudan on the Red Sea. For Russia, relationship building, with later economic and security agreements in mind, supersede loyalty to a particular candidate or political platform.

Moscow has demonstrated this ideological flexibility in its extensive electioneering and propaganda efforts in the Central African Republic, Libya, Madagascar, and Mozambique, among others. The Kremlin seizes upon the information space as a means to gain political allies and threaten U.S. and French interests, even if it only manages to hijack African social and political discourse in the short term or on a particular issue. To this end, Russian state-backed media outlets offer training courses on social media and the Kremlin sends “spin doctors”

or propaganda specialists overseas to African clients. These impermanent and relatively agile information operations are ideal for producing maximum effect on African states with minimum effort.

Growing Threat to Democracy Russia’s efforts to infiltrate the information space in Africa, brought to the fore with its most recent attempt to influence the 2020 U.S. election, will likely grow in scale and sophistication.

In the past few years, such campaigns have enabled the Kremlin to dictate the terms of the truth and to degrade democratic discourse, which directly undermines U.S. stated interests in the region, namely its commitment to strengthening democratic progress and peace.

These campaigns draw Africa into the spotlight as a battlefield where Russia can hone its weaponization of the information space against the United States and its allies. Just as the Soviet Union did during the Cold War, Russia perceives the African information environment as permissive and less monitored, a place where it can experiment with tactics to influence political processes, fan the flames of social unrest, and deflect culpability.

The threat to Africa, however, is acute. Russian information operations could fuel conflict in states prone to election violence, could destabilize governments and economies, and further erode democratic gains across the continent.

The United States and its

allies can mitigate this risk by bolstering the African information environment against Russian exploitation.

Specifically, the West can double down on its support for African nations and leaders working to strengthen election integrity and public discourse and to preserve independent and diverse media.

Also, establishing the means for greater collaboration between governments, civil society, and tech companies to expose and raise awarenessabout Russian disinformation can increase societal resilience against it.

Countering Russia’s subversive activities in the information environment will not only stymy its attempt to broker political, economic, and security deals across the continent, but promote the endurance of democratic institutions at home and abroad.

Miriam Roday is a researcher in the Joint Advanced Warfighting Division at the Institute for Defense Analyses with a focus on digital disinformation, Russia, and transatlantic security.

Sarah Daly is an adjunct researcher in the Intelligence Analysis Division at the Institute for Defense Analyses with a focus on geopolitical and security developments in Africa.

The views, opinions, and findings expressed in this paper should not be construed as representing the official position of the Institute for Defense Analyses, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

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MONDAY MAY 3, 2021

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Emirates signs MoU to promote tourism to The Bahamas

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mirates has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Public Service of The Bahamas to explore joint initiatives to promote tourism to the island nation.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates Group Chairman and Chief Executive and The Hon Frederick A Mitchell MP, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Public Service, The Bahamas at the Emirates Group Headquarters. Also present at the meeting were Adnan Kazim, Emirates’ Chief Commercial Officer; Salem Obaidalla, Emirates’ Senior VP Commercial Operations for the Americas; and HE Tony Joudi, Ambassador of The Bahamas to the UAE. HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates Group Chairman and Chief Executive said: “Across the world, Emirates plays a key role in boosting tourism to various destinations by providing travellers with reliable,

convenient and comfortable flight options for travel. We are delighted to work with The Bahamas to strengthen transport links and to support the country to welcome tourists from around the world. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership.”

The Hon Frederick A Mitchell MP, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Public Service, The Bahamas, said: “We are happy to be working together with Emirates to promote The Bahamas as a destination of choice for travellers from across the world. The Bahamas is truly an unmatched destination offering a wide variety of leisure experiences that can appeal to every visitor. We are grateful to the support offered by Emirates and we look forward to welcoming tourists from the UAE and other global markets to The Bahamas.”

Spread across 16 major islands and boasting more than 100,000 sq. miles of the world’s clearest ocean, The Bahamas is one of the most sought-after tourism destinations in the Caribbean offering a rich mix of leisure and

cultural activities for visitors.

Through the MoU, Emirates will develop initiatives to promote The Bahamas as a tourism destination to customers across its global network, including developing enhanced connectivity to Nassau Lynden Pindling International Airport (NAS) from American gateways through its codeshare and interline partners.

Additionally, through its tour operating arm Emirates Holidays, the airline is also making available to customers and its travel retail partners across its markets, a range of travel packages including

hotels and flights to The Bahamas.

Currently Emirates customers can connect to Nassau airport on codeshare flights with JetBlue from four major US airports including Boston (BOS), Newark (EWR), New York ( JFK) and Orlando (MCO). Customers can also opt to fly through Toronto on interline flights with Air Canada to Nassau and George Town.

Emirates operates a modern fleet of Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 aircraft to a network of more than 120 destinations across six continents.

UGBS receives cheque donation from Phoenix Insurance

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hoenix Insurance has made a cheque donation to the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) to aid in the creation of office spaces on the top floor of the old Graduate Building at the main University of

Published by Business24 Ltd. Nii Asoyii Street, Mempeasem East Legon-Accra, Ghana.

Ghana campus.

The donation, which took place on Tuesday, 11th January 2022, at the Phoenix Insurance premises, was received by Mr. Emmanuel Poku-Sarkodee, the School Administrator for UGBS,

Tel: 030 296 5297 | 030 296 5315 Editor: Benson Afful editor@business24.com.gh +233 545 516 133

together with Ms. Saratu Salifu, the Assistant Registrar in charge of General Services.

Dr. Emmanuel Adu-Sarkodee, the Group Chairman of Phoenix Insurance, together with the Managing Director (MD), Mr.

business24.com.gh

Henry Bukari made the donation on behalf of the company.

In an interaction with the UGBS staff, Dr. Adu-Sarkodee mentioned that the company has an ongoing relationship with the Business School. He further added that the company’s MD is equally passionate about giving to UGBS. Hence, he is willing to assist the school in any possible way whenever he is called upon.

Commenting on the donation, the School Administrator, Mr. Emmanuel Poku-Sarkodee indicated his gratitude to the company for their kind gesture and benevolence. He further indicated that the intervention is timely and will be of immense benefit to the business school.

A few pleasantries were exchanged, and the event was brought to a successful end.