Memorandum 230

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MEMORANDUM Nº 230/2012 13/12/2012

The EBCAM’s Memoranda are issued with the sole purpose of provide daily basic business and economic information on Africa, to the 4,000 European Companies affiliated with our Members, as well as their business parties in Africa.

Should a reader require a copy of the Memoranda, please address the request to the respective National Member. See list of National Members at www.ebcam.org.

SUMMARY: ONE) – EU SCALES UP HUMANITARIAN AID FOR SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN BY €30 MILLION – Page 2 TWO) - EU-UNICEF PROGRAMME AGAINST UNDERNUTRITION – Page 2 THREE) – BRAZILIAN FIRMS BRING WATER AND POWER TO ANGOLANS – Page 2 FOUR) - ACP: NO TO THE 11% CUT IN EU DEVELOPMENT FUND – Page 4 FIVE) – UK STOPS AID TO RWANDA – Page 4 SIX) – EU, OTHER DONORS URGED TO BACK SOCIAL FUND FOR POOR NATIONS – Page 5 SEVEN) – FIRST PLEDGES AT DOHA: £133M FROM UK TO AFRICA – Page 6 EIGHT) – DREAMS OF A ‘GREEN UTOPIA’ WITHER IN THE MAGHREB – Page 6 NINE) – MOZAMBIQUE WILL GROW UP TO 8,4% IN 2013 – Page 8 TEN) – TANZANIA: FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL INVESTMENTS BOOST SUGAR INDUSTRY – Page 8 ELEVEN) – SOUTH SUDAN: NO BASIC SERVICES FOR OIL COUNTRY – Page 8 TWELVE) – INDEX INSURANCE PROGRAM IN AFRICA – Page 10 THIRTEEN) – LIBYA: INJURED STRUGGLE IN THE SAHARA – Page 10 FOURTEEN) – NIGERIA NEEDS 100 000 PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTANTS – Page 11 FIFTEEN) – EAST AFRICA: LANDLOCKED EAC MEMBERS CAN FORCE KENYA, TANZANIA TO REMOVE TRADE BARRIERS – Page 12 EBCAM NEWS -

- NETHERLANDS AFRICAN BUSINESS COUNCIL – Page 13

European Business Council for Africa and the Mediterranean The European Private Sector Organisation for Africa’s Development

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ONE) – EU SCALES UP HUMANITARIAN AID FOR SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN BY €30 MILLION Due to the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Sudan and South Sudan, the European Commission is boosting its humanitarian assistance by €30 million for both countries. The main concern is the ever increasing number of refugees and displaced people fleeing the conflict area of South Kordofan and Blue Nile State in Sudan, mainly to South Sudan and Ethiopia.

“The conflict in the border region has turned more than 210,000 people into refugees. Another 650,000 are internally displaced. These numbers keep rising. On top, food prospects are dire for more than half of the population, as floods and war have damaged the harvest. We have to react fast before it’s too late. And reports about the situation in South Kordofan and Blue Nile are very worrying. There can be no excuse for not letting in humanitarian assistance to people who need it,” said Kristalina Georgieva, the European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response.

More and more refugees are arriving in already-full camps in South Sudan. They are completely dependent on humanitarian assistance and increase the risk of cholera and other diseases. Almost half of the South Sudanese population, 4.7 million people, suffers from food insecurity.

In Sudan, the delivery of aid is extremely difficult due to restricted access. In South Kordofan and Blue Nile, humanitarian workers are not allowed to reach hundreds of thousands victims of conflict. After nine years of conflict in Darfur, there are still 3.5 million people dependent on humanitarian assistance, including 1.7 million internally displaced.

Commissioner Georgieva renewed her appeal to all parties to allow access to Sudanese people in need: “It is vital that neutral, impartial and experienced humanitarian workers can reach vulnerable people to assess their needs and to deliver the assistance necessary for their survival.”

The new funding brings the Commission's relief aid in Sudan and South Sudan to €157 million for this year. It will support immediate life-saving activities such as distributing essential food and non-food items, as well as providing shelter, health, protection, water, hygiene and sanitation. The assistance will reach the most vulnerable people including refugees, returnees and internally displaced people.

The European Commission has been supporting life-saving activities in Sudan and South Sudan since the mid-1990s. A team of humanitarian experts of the Commission is on the ground monitoring the situation, assessing needs and overseeing the use of EU funds. The European Commission is working with humanitarian organisations that are best placed to deliver assistance in the countries concerned (The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and several NGOs).

The EU has also provided Sudan and South Sudan with €285 million of development assistance since 2012. This assistance targets the basic needs of the most vulnerable people in conflict-affected areas.

TWO) - EU-UNICEF PROGRAMME AGAINST UNDERNUTRITION The EU has engaged to offer €41 million over four years to fund programmes in Bangladesh, the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and the Philippines, as well as Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali and Uganda, UNICEF announced on Thursday December 6. The aim is to improve nutrition security for children during the first 1,000 days of life, including pregnancy.

The EU-funded programme will focus on high-level policy engagement, as well as making sure that nutrition goals are incorporated into health, development and agricultural sectors.

It will also feature low-cost, high-impact interventions, including promoting the use of available foods and resources, breastfeeding, distribution of vitamin and mineral supplements, appropriate complementary foods, fortification of staple foods and integrated management of acute malnutrition. (UNICEF)

THREE) – BRAZILIAN FIRMS BRING WATER AND POWER TO ANGOLANS

3 The Kwanza River in the heart of Angola will be a symbol of Brazilian partnership in African development when power stations along the country’s main source of water are fully operational.

Nine hydroelectric plants and water treatment stations will Endeavour to supply the most urgent needs of the metropolitan area of Luanda, and to extend the electricity supply at least to the centre-north of Angola.

The process will take more than a decade.

Supplying clean water to 90 percent of the residents of Luanda will take until 2025, according to the master plan. The difficulty is to keep up with the growth of the population in the capital, which is projected to reach 13 million people by then, around twice the present number.

The Cambambe hydropower plant benefits from the Kwanza river’s location in the centre and north of the country, but it also reflects Angola’s misfortunes. Only now, five decades after the first phase was completed, is the complex about to become fully operational. The delay was mainly due to the civil war which wracked the country from independence from Portugal in 1975 until 2002.

An expansion of the hydroelectric station will increase the power supply five-fold, by raising the height of the dam by 30 metres (to 132 metres), as had already been planned in the time of the Portuguese colonial authorities, said Fabricio Andrade, the local manager of the Brazilian company Odebrecht which heads the consortium in charge of the works.

The greater height of water in the reservoir will increase the capacity of the four old turbines, from 45 to 65 megawatts (MW) each. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the expanded station will be ready in 2015, to generate 960 MW and mitigate power outages in Luanda.

The legacy of the war continued to have an effect on the plant during the expansion phase. Construction of the spillway needed was only able to commence after an area of landmines was cleared, which took six months, Andrade said.

Odebrecht was contracted by the Angolan state National Electricity Company (ENE) to carry out three tasks at Cambambe.

The first, which began in 2009, is to refurbish the four original turbines which had deteriorated to the point that they could not generate even half their nominal capacity of 45 MW. A final turbine remains to be refitted with electronic control panels, which will provide “more safety with fewer workers,” Andrade said.

The other two tasks are to raise the height of the dam and spillway, and build a new generator complex, which is to be ready by 2015.

The construction site employs 2,100 people, 89 percent of whom are Angolan, mainly from the surrounding area or the nearby city of Dondo.

There are also 238 workers of a wide range of nationalities, who live together on-site. They come from 15 countries, from Latin America to Eastern Europe, Andrade said.

The foreign employees work for Odebrecht or its partner companies in the project: the Brazilian firm Engevix, France’s Alstom and Germany’s Voith Hydro.

Rufino Álvarez, from Peru, is a typically mobile worker who goes from one mega works project to another.

He started out in his own country in 1981, working for other Brazilian transnational corporations, before he joined Odebrecht 25 years ago.

The company sent him to several countries, and he arrived in Angola in 2009 along with his boss, Brazilian equipment manager Roberval Fonseca. They worked on various infrastructure projects in Luanda. Before coming to Cambambe this year, he went home to Peru for a long visit and then to Colombia.

“My work is two-fold: I have one job at the work site and another teaching Angolans, so that this country can continue to grow,” said Álvarez, adding that he has not brought his family over because his children “are all grown up.”

Fonseca, for his part, is keen on employing women and training them to work on soldering jobs and electrical apparatus and motors – trades that were once considered exclusively men’s work. “They are quicker learners, they do everything more carefully and with greater discipline, and are more efficient,” he said, adding that he was happy with the six women workers he has hired so far.

The structures built at Cambambe are small compared with other power plants with a similar capacity. That is because its machine room is underground, installed in a tunnel that fits a large truck. The new second generator will also be underground, with water flowing under the hill to turn the turbines.

And the reservoir itself is small in size. In its middle reaches, the Kwanza river has a steep descent of 940 metres over just 200 kilometres, and its riverbed forms deep valleys and curved gorges, all of which are favourable to the generation of hydropower.

4 This means the expansion of the Cambambe complex will also have minimal environmental impact. The reservoir will only be enlarged by six square kilometres, said Vladimir Russo, the head of Holísticos, the firm that carried out the environmental impact assessment for the project.

No population will be affected by the dam, because people were never allowed to settle around the hydroelectric station, which was protected during the war, said Russo, who was a management director for the Environment Ministry and a founder of Juventude Ecológica Angolana, an environmental NGO created by young Angolan activists.

Laúca, the biggest power station to be built on the Kwanza river, will have a reservoir size of only 16.6 square kilometres, according to a feasibility study by Brazilian consultancy Intertechne. That is next to nothing for a capacity of 2,067 MW. Odebrecht is also the Brazilian partner in the Laúca dam on the Kwanza, a river that has given its name to Angola’s currency since 1977, in recognition of the symbolic value of the river.

The Brazilian corporation has also built the Capanda dam, 140 kilometres upstream. The project was contracted in 1984 but only completed in 2007, due to delays caused by the civil war.

This year the company was in charge of diverting the Kwanza river in preparation for the construction of the Laúca hydroelectric complex – situated between Capanda and Cambambe – which has still not been put out to tender.

Odebrecht is also responsible for the public company Águas de Luanda’s project to draw water from the Kwanza for treatment and distribution in the suburbs surrounding the capital.

Near the Capanda hydropower station, Odebrecht has undertaken the development of an agroindustrial hub where it plans to produce sugar, ethanol and electricity from sugarcane, maize and other crops. The project will be based on the large Pundo Andongo estate and will also promote family farming.

This is only part of the Brazilian company’s business activities and projects in Angola, where it is the largest private sector employer, with a total of nearly 20,000 workers. (IPS)

FOUR) - ACP: NO TO THE 11% CUT IN EU DEVELOPMENT FUND At the last session of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly taking place in Suriname, the Secretary General of the ACP Group Mohamed Ibn Chambas has expressed regret at the European Council’s proposal to cut development aid funding by more than 7%, compared to figures put forward by the European Commission. This includes a disproportionate 11% slash to the European Development Fund (EDF), which benefits 930 million people in ACP countries.

“While we appreciate the fiscal challenges that some of our European partners are facing, we do not believe that now is the time to be cutting back on development finance. To do so is rather short-sighted.

Vulnerable communities in ACP countries are the worst hit by the global economic crisis – we should all show solidarity and responsibility with the world’s poorest during these times of need, rather than attempt to balance budgets at the cost of millions of lives,” stated the Secretary General.

He pointed out that the proposed budget would not allow the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals, which include within others the reducing by half of the number of people living in absolute poverty.

The Secretary General welcomed the stance of European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and his Commissioner for Development Cooperation Andris Piebalgs, who proposed at least €30 billion for EDF covering the period 2014-2020 (as compared to €26.9 billion, proposed by the Council). (ACP Group)

FIVE) – UK STOPS AID TO RWANDA The UK International Development Secretary, Justine Greening, announced today that the UK Government will not release the £21 million (25,8 million Euro) aid payment to Rwanda, amid concerns about its involvement in the conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Greening designated the support for the M23 militia in DRC as a breach of the partnership principles set out in the Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries, resulting in freezing the aid for the month of December.

In the same time, The UK Government also announced that it will provide a further £18 million (22,2 million

5 Euro) of support for immediate humanitarian needs in DRC which will provide 100,000 people with three months of emergency food assistance, as well as access to clean water, essential household items and emergency education. "We are committed to finding lasting solutions to the conflict in this region and will work with the Governments of Rwanda and DRC to secure a peaceful resolution to the situation in eastern DRC", Greening said. (DID)

SIX) – EU, OTHER DONORS URGED TO BACK SOCIAL FUND FOR POOR NATIONS While Europeans’ cradle-to-grave social benefits are increasingly facing the budget axe, the European Union and other big donors are being asked to help the 5.1 billion people worldwide who lack basic social safety nets.

The EU’s proposal for a revamped foreign aid plan, the Agenda for Change, calls for European investment in social insurance for the world’s poorest nations. And the 184-member nations of the International Labour Organization (ILO), including the 27 EU states, in June adopted a resolution urging all countries to provide minimal social protections in the build-up to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

Since then, advocates for the poor have called for creation of a global fund to help the nearly 80% of the global population living without a safety net.

Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur for food rights who is a proponent of the donor-financed fund, said many poorer nations cannot afford unemployment, disability and healthcare insurance of basic food support.

“The governments of these countries do no dare to take the risk of establishing standing social protection schemes because they fear that it may not be fiscally sustainable for them to do so,” he said in an interview.

“So the global fund for social protection is a mechanism by which the international community would support these poor countries, the least developed countries, to allow them to move towards the establishment of social protection floors.”

Tight budgets But officials concede that finding the money won’t be easy. The largest sources of development assistance, the EU, United States and Japan, are all under budgetary stress and poverty-fighting groups fear that foreign aid will be among the first casualties of long-term austerity measures.

“There are always difficult choices to be made,” said Krzysztof Hagemejer, policy development chief in the ILO’s social security department. “But social protection is part of the normal functioning of the state and its social and economic importance is more and more widely recognised that every market economy should have institutions that should provide at least basic social protection systems.

“Donors have begun to recognise social protection is one of the important of things that should be done … as part of their development aid,” Hagemejer told EurActiv from ILO’s Geneva office, noting that the EU has recognised this in its Agenda for Change.

Rescuing banks … and people De Schutter, a law professor in Belgium, and his colleague Magdalena Sepúlveda, a lawyer from Chile who serves as the UN special rapporteur for extreme poverty, have urged advanced countries to pay into the Global Fund for Social Protection that developing nations can tap to co-finance insurance schemes.

In mapping out their ideas this autumn, the two rights advocates said the need for social protections is amplified during a time of economic problems that has hurt the economies of the least-developed nations and taken a bite out of foreign aid.

“When the global financial crisis struck, governments stepped in to prop up banks that were deemed too important to fail,” they said in a joint statement in October. “The same logic must now be applied to basic social protection, which is too crucial to be denied.”

Some emerging economies, including Brazil and South Africa, have well-developed safety nets. And a recent ILO-World Bank report shows that 66 out of 77 countries studies expanded social protection systems such as unemployment, pensions and health care during the economically troubled years of 20082010.

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‘Moral hazard’ The ILO estimates that safety nets could cost developing countries between 2.2% and 5.7% of their gross domestic product. The EU average is around 3%.

Under the ILO agreement, even in the poorest nations should bear responsibility to devote some of their spending to social security.

“There is a risk here of ‘moral hazard,’ some governments not be so willing to allocate domestic resources, having an escape to such a fund without doing what they should be doing,” ILO’s Hagemejer said. “This is difficult part of it.”

But he says governments are taking a more serious attitude, capped by the decision of ILO members to support the gradual development of social security globally. “There are many things going on,” Hagemejer.

"When I was the first time in Tanzania, for example, in 2005, everyone was asking what is social protection ... we have this beautiful informal ways of providing social protection through communities and families.

Now the discussion is completely different. There is agreement that in addition, there is a need for public social protections. So the landscape is changing.”

SEVEN) – FIRST PLEDGES AT DOHA: £133M FROM UK TO AFRICA UK has promised a £133m (163,7m Euros) funding to Africa for adapting to climate change and reducing emissions, the British energy secretary announced on Tuesday 4 December at the Doha conference. £98m (121m euro) are to be allocated to the Green Africa Power project, £14m (17m Euros) to small-scale renewable projects, mostly in Uganda, while £21m (25,7 m Euros) will fund water-supply projects.

NGOs representative declared themselves satisfied with UK’s announcement of increasing its contribution to the fast start finance after 2012, but asked for a longer-term commitment, up until 2015. (The Guardian)

EIGHT) – DREAMS OF A ‘GREEN UTOPIA’ WITHER IN THE MAGHREB When the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII), an alliance of 21 major European corporations, first unveiled plans to install a network of solar thermal, photovoltaic, and wind plants across the North African Maghreb region to generate electricity, the project was greeted as a ‘green utopia’.

Expected to generate 100 gigawatts by 2050, the project demanded an investment of 400 billion euros.

In a study released last summer, Desertec predicted that an integrated power system for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa would allow Europe to meet its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction target of 95 percent in the power sector by importing up to 20 percent of its electricity from the Maghreb, thus saving 33 billion euros per year.

Meanwhile, the project would enable Middle Eastern and North African countries to meet their own energy needs using the abundant solar and wind resources in the region, and achieve 50 percent of CO2 reductions in the power sector despite a massive increase in demand.

The region would benefit from an export industry worth up to 63 billion euros per year.

Now, three years since the project was announced, the Desertec dream is yet to be realised, and euphoria has given way to harsh criticisms ranging from accusations of incompetence to shortfalls in corporate governance.

The project has been nicknamed “desperate tec” by internal staff members discontent with its trajectory.

Huge potential In a so-called White Book on the project, the DII claimed, “The long-term economic potential of renewable energy in EUMENA (Europe, Middle East and North Africa) is much larger than present demand, and the potential of solar energy dwarfs them all.”

7 Based on figures by German research institutes and the Club of Rome, the report estimates, “From each square kilometre (km²) of desert land, up to 250 gigawatts of electricity can be harvested each year using the technology of concentrating solar thermal power.”

Indeed, every square kilometre of land in MENA “receives an amount of solar energy that is equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of crude oil. A concentrating solar collector field with the size of Lake Nasser in Egypt (Aswan), of some 6,000 square kilometres, could harvest energy equivalent to the present Middle East oil production”.

Morocco, which will host the pilot project, has been especially keen to see the venture come to fruition, since it will have a huge impact on the local economy, particularly with regard to job creation in the renewables sector.

Back in 2009, ‘green networks’ were created in several cities around the kingdom, including in Casablanca.

Comprised of small firms run by young professionals, these networks were designed to create the necessary infrastructure for the project.

“We have created companies, received training, but in reality nothing has happened yet,” Abdellah Benjdi, one of the young company heads, told IPS. Ordinary citizens suffering from astronomical electricity bills in Morocco are eagerly awaiting the so-called ‘green utopia’.

But by all indications, their patience is not about to be rewarded.

Endless obstacles Experts first received confirmation of Desertec’s difficulties on Nov. 7 in Berlin, during the official presentation of the first solar thermal, photovoltaic and wind plants to be installed in the southern-central Moroccan province of Ouarzazate, which are scheduled to deliver electricity by 2014.

Although construction plans have technically been sealed, they still depend on Spanish approval – Spain being the primary partner in the project – to allow the electricity generated at the site to be transported to Europe.

The Spanish government, battered by a grave economic recession, has so far been unable to confirm its support for the project, a situation that is unlikely to change given that Spain is a net exporter of electricity to Morocco and would not like to see this trend reversed by successful implementation of the pilot project in Ouarzazate, experts say.

The DII alliance includes the leading German Deutsche Bank and the Spanish transmission agent and grid operator, TSO Red Eléctrica.

“The business case for a Desertec Reference Project, prepared by (us) and the Moroccan Solar Agency Masen, has been extensively discussed for the past two years with Spanish companies, the TSO Red Eléctrica and the European Commission, and declared feasible,” DII CEO Paul van Son said during the presentation in Berlin.

The first project in Morocco led by the German energy giant RWE would comprise an installed capacity of 100 megawatts of photovoltaic and wind power.

A second project, using solar thermal plants and overseen by Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power International, will have an installed capacity of 160 megawatts.

Both plants are expected to be functional by 2014.

Van Son confirmed, “Investors have been found, initial subsidies are available, and industry wants to get involved.” But Spain refused to send representatives to the presentation in Berlin, and has so far failed to undersign the Morocco project.

Van Son is convinced that “the other partners in this negotiation, from Morocco and the EU, will be able to convince Spain,” since the Spanish government, too, stands to benefit from the project.

Lack of coordination But Spain’s refusal is just one example of the enormous political, technical and financial coordination hurdles the venture must overcome.

Another indication of these difficulties came in late October, when the German electronics giant Siemens announced its withdrawal from the alliance, despite being a founding member of the DII back in 2009.

This move has been widely interpreted as proof that Desertec is failing.

8 According to Friedrich Fuehr, founding member of the board of directors at the Desertec Foundation, the DII “has been following the wrong strategy”.

Fuehr told IPS that DII’s main responsibility since 2009 was to conceive a political roadmap that could overcome all international coordination difficulties and solve the pressing questions of how subsidies and taxes would be implemented.

Fuehr, a prestigious German lawyer and business consultant, said that “a coalition of such powerful and capable private companies such as the Deutsche Bank, UniCredit, RWE and SCHOTT Solar should be able to formulate within three years the political framework they need to make Desertec come true”.

“But we are still waiting for this framework,” Fuehr said. “Instead, the DII has concentrated all its action in launching one single model project (in Ouarzazate).”

Fuehr lamented that the energy revolution the world needs in order to confront the realities of global warming “is already happening. But Desertec is not involved in it”. (IPS)

NINE) – MOZAMBIQUE WILL GROW UP TO 8, 4% IN 2013 The Government of Mozambique expects a growth of the national economy up to 8,4% next year and an inflation of less than 7,5%, as stated by the Plano Económico Social presented today to the Parliament.

The Government estimates that in 2012 the exports of goods and services wil increase by 14%, well over 3,5 billions of dollars (more than 2,6 billions of Euro) and the net international reserves will reach 281 millions of dollars (more than 215 millions of Euro enough to cover 4,8 months of imports.

Government priorities will be the school network, sanitary improvement, electric network and supply, roads construction and rehabilitation, bridges and water supply.

TEN) – TANZANIA: FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL INVESTMENTS BOOST SUGAR INDUSTRY In contrast to the current yearly sugar gap, Tanzania's sugar industry is expected to increase its exports in the next four years as more foreign agricultural investments flow in by 2016. This will represent a great contrast from the current situation where there is existence of sugar gap every year, authorities say.

The Sugar Board of Tanzania (SBT) says its nine projects whose implementation will see the country tripling its annual sugar production from the current estimate of 300,000 metric tonnes to 910,000 metric tonnes come 2016, targets the current gap sugar. "These projects should come to fruition come 2016. With the total amount of sugar we are producing, we'll be able to export some to our neighbours in East Africa," the SBT project manager, Mr Abdul Mwankemwa, says. Currently, the country has four major sugar factories with an annual sugar production of at least 300,000 metric tonnes against the demand of 500,000 metric tonnes. (all Africa)

ELEVEN) – SOUTH SUDAN: NO BASIC SERVICES FOR OIL COUNTRY South Sudan may have received slightly more than 10 billion dollars in oil revenue from 2005 to January 2012, when oil production shut down, according to both government officials and the World Bank.

But development experts have urged the government to begin investing in the country and its people, as basic social services remain scarce.

South Sudan shut down its production of oil after a dispute with neighbouring Sudan over transit fees earlier this year. But production is expected to resume in the next few months, after an agreement between the two countries was reached in September.

However, Dr. Leben Nelson Moro of Juba University’s Faculty of Peace and Development Studies told IPS that the government needed to start setting part of the oil revenues aside to build much-needed infrastructure to kick start this east-central African nation’s development.

9 “The oil money must be used in a manner that will be beneficial to the whole country and not the few people who are close to the treasury,” he said.

While the government helps fund primary and secondary school education and health services at hospitals in some state capitals, its contribution to these services is minimal.

In some hospitals, workers’ salaries and medicines are paid for by NGOs, and sometimes the not-for-profit organisations are the sole providers of school textbooks and other stationary supplies in schools here.

“The government needs to adopt new ways of managing the oil revenues so that money goes to development projects that benefit the whole country,” Moro stressed.

“We know that while many parts of the country are food insecure, there are places like Yei (Yei County in Central Equatoria State) and Western Equatoria state that produce plenty of food. You need to build roads to where the food is produced,” he said.

South Sudan has only 110 kilometres of tarmac roads in the capital, Juba, with only one tarmac road linking the city to the Ugandan border. In addition, many areas here are only accessible by air.

Moro said that the government also needed to prioritise education and also provide basic services like healthcare.

“We have many young people who need skills. The government should ensure young people receive skills training to enable them to get jobs.

“In order for our people to work hard and develop the country, they must first be in good health. But for them to be healthy there must be good healthcare services in the country,” said Moro.

The majority of South Sudan’s nearly nine million people have no access to any form of healthcare.

According to the Ministry of Health, South Sudan currently has 120 medical doctors, slightly over 100 registered nurses and less than 150 qualified midwives.

In some rural areas patients have to walk for two or more days to reach the nearest healthcare centre.

South Sudan has some of the worst health indicators globally. According to the United Nations Population Fund, this country’s maternal mortality rate is the worst in the world with 2,054 deaths for every 100,000 live births, largely because about 90 percent of women give birth away from formal medical facilities.

Hospitals here lack drugs, equipment and trained workers. In addition, they are overcrowded.

Kenyi Spencer, an environmental economist and World Bank consultant on private sector development, told IPS that given that oil is a non-renewable resource, the money earned from it should be used to develop other sectors, like agricultural production.

“Agriculture will be the real driver of South Sudan’s economy in future, but the government has to take measures to develop it,” Spencer said.

He urged the government to prioritise education, arguing that the country’s high illiteracy rate was hindering development efforts. In 2011 the government announced that South Sudan’s illiteracy rate was 73 percent.

This country became Africa’s newest nation in July 2011. But decades of war with Sudan have meant that only a handful of the population were able to attend school.

“What is needed here is really a technical, rather than a theoretical, education. For this country to develop it needs plumbers, electricians, mechanics, carpenters and so forth. That is where the money should be invested,” Spencer said.

High among expectations is that as oil begins to flow again, the government will end the current austerity measures introduced in February. The measures, which included a cut in civil servants’ salaries, were implemented soon after the shut-down in oil production, which accounted for 98 percent of the country’s total GDP. Many have not been happy with the forced cutbacks in this landlocked nation. On Sep. 7, in Rumbek Central County in the Lakes state, a group of 30 policemen attacked and shot the county’s Police Inspector Lieutenant Colonel Mangar Kajeny Kamich in the arm. They were reportedly unhappy about pay cuts.

The previous day, wildlife officers in the same state beat up their immediate superior after a reduction in their pay was announced, according to a report by the local Sudan Tribune newspaper.

Moro said that the government needed to increase civil servants’ salaries once the country began producing oil.

“Many civil servants were affected by these measures. In the universities, some of the staff lost almost 75 percent of their income. Once oil begins to flow, it is inevitable that the government will have to do something about salaries,” he said.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir promised in November that once oil production began, resources would be devoted to service delivery. Currently 40 percent of the country’s budget is spent on defence, and significant amounts have be lost through corruption.

10 “Our physical and food security are top on the list of priority services we want to provide to our people. We will use the oil money to improve agriculture by providing farmers with seeds, tools and improved access to markets,” he said.(IPS)

TWELVE) – INDEX INSURANCE PROGRAM IN AFRICA The EU in collaboration with the ACP group supports a pilot program aimed at introducing the index insurance in the African market. The Global Index Insurance Facility program (GIIF) is managed by the World Bank and the International financial corporation (IFC), and was launched at the end of 2009 in Kenya, in order to address the scarcity of affordable insurance protection against natural disasters in developing countries.

By the end of 2013 it is expected that 200.000 insurance contracts to have been signed. This would benefit around 1 million total households. Up to present, eight different project partners (insurance companies) have been involved in the program. In its first phase, the GIIF offers premium supports, but organizers hope to be able to faze it out within the next two years.

According to Shadreck Mapfumo, GIIF Program Manager, the idea of the program is to move beyond payloads, and to concentrate on building capacity, given that the more institutions start offering insurance, the less premium have to be paid by the GIIF. Also, an extension of the GIIF to the Caribbean is being considered.

Index insurance uses a weather index (for example rainfall), and not a possible consequence of weather (for example crop failure) to determine payouts to the insured farmer.

The GIIF program has been presented on Tuesday 4th December by European Commission, ACP and the World Bank representatives at a conference organized by the Development and Cooperation – Europe Aid DG in Brussels.

THIRTEEN) – LIBYA: INJURED STRUGGLE IN THE SAHARA Safia’s six-year-old body is riddled with scars from the rocket that hit her home in February. With her immediate family all killed in the violent attack, this sole survivor smiles shyly as she visits the medics that fought to save her life.

Their makeshift clinic is in Kufra’s impoverished and war-torn Gadarfai neighbourhood, a segregated stretch of flimsy dwellings, piles of rubbish and scorched earth occupied by the indigenous Tabu tribe.

Spent ordnance and a gaping hole left by a mortar round in the clinic’s compound is a reminder of the recent brutal clashes between the Tabu and the town’s majority Arab tribe, the Zwai, over local power sharing and lucrative cross-border smuggling routes.

As fighting got under way, Tabu medical staff at Kufra’s downtown government hospital were threatened.

“I worked there for ten years as a nurse,” says Khadija Hamed Yousef. “The Zwai security guard and ambulance driver came in with Kalashnikovs and warned: ‘This is your last day or we will shoot you’.”

Since the July ceasefire, the Tabu clinics in Gadarfai and Shura are still overcrowded, and lack equipment and medicine. Two North Korean doctors recently assigned to the facilities by the Ministry of Health speak only their native language.

Fearful pregnant Tabu women bring Zwai acquaintances to Kufra’s hospital during childbirth to ensure their safety, and Tabu with serious injuries or illnesses now travel outside for care.

The small oasis town of Kufra lies hundreds of miles south of the Mediterranean, in Libya’s isolated Saharan corner bordering Egypt, Sudan and Chad.

While Kufra’s Zwai tribe benefited from Gaddafi’s favouritism, the semi-nomadic Tabu were deprived of citizenship and ID cards, accused of being ‘foreign’ despite generations born on Libyan soil. They faced state-sanctioned discrimination in jobs, education and housing.

Local roles during the revolution against the Gaddafi reflected this pecking order: the Zwai largely backed the status quo while the Tabu – whose networks stretch west to Sebha, and south into Chad, Niger and Sudan – joined the rebellion to fight for their rights.

11 Once the revolution was won, Kufra’s tribal-driven conflict over the spoils was ignited last November at a desert checkpoint.

A weak response from the Tripoli-based government and international community did little to quell a raging battle in February, which broke out again in April and June.

Almost 200 were killed, the majority Tabu, with hundreds more injured before the ceasefire took hold.

While the Tebu move freely across the area’s desert, the Zwai control Kufra’s local government, downtown commercial zone and the airport. During the clashes the Zwai held sway over who entered the town, including humanitarian aid.

The defence ministry’s decision in March to assign as peacekeepers the Shield of Libya – a loose-knit collection of ill-disciplined militias from the northeast – disastrously backfired.

Biased towards Zwai claims that Kufra was under attack from Tabu ‘outsiders’, the fighters soon aimed their weapons at the Tabu in besieged Gadarfai and Shura communities.

Halim Abdullah Mohammed, 26, was a core staff member working a 24-hour shift throughout the February clashes at the Gadarfai clinic, sandwiched between two Zwai checkpoints and often under direct fire.

They received over 200 patients then, half of whom are recorded as women and children.

She admits her first aid training was hopelessly inadequate for the patients they received. There was the 12-year old girl whose head was partially blown off by a mortar and died, and the 29-year-old man with a bullet in his head that they managed to save.

“We controlled bleeding with bandages, used local anesthetic and sutures,” Mohammed says.

With electricity cuts there was no water, no refrigeration, and little medication. They operated with flashlights, using dirty well water and direct blood transfusions.

Unable to bury the dead for fear of being shot themselves, the medical staff stacked bodies in the compound’s guardroom. They decomposed in the desert heat.

Across town, in Shura neighbourhood, Rajab Hamid Suri quietly sobs as he recounts the death of his 16year old son Mohammed. Hit by a mortar targeting their home, he bled to death slowly at Shura’s makeshift clinic next door. “He was talking. We didn’t expect him to die,” he says.

Tabu medical staff underscore the lack of aid they received under siege, and describe how they were forced to ferry some seriously wounded across the desert hundreds of miles west to Murzuq for treatment.

They say they received no support from the local Red Crescent Society, and that the Tripoli-based International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) conducted medical evacuations only.

In April, Amnesty International released an urgent statement appealing for humanitarian access. “We also asked that individuals should not be denied health care based on their identity, and should be protected when seeking care in the Kufra hospital,” says Libya researcher Diana Eltahawy.

“In terms of the Red Crescent, there is some truth to what the Tabu are saying,” she explains. “However, when a member of the Red Crescent tried to deliver aid someone on the Tabu side attacked him and no one tried to intervene. So the picture is a bit mixed.”

Laurent Perrelet, an ICRC protection delegate, was in Kufra in June during an evacuation of wounded. “It was most dangerous transporting Tabu from the clinics to the airport in vehicles,” he describes.

“What was striking were the clinics. There was a lot of wounded and not enough space to accommodate them. They were outside the clinic – within the compounds, but outside.”

Perrelet believes training Tabu and Zwai Red Crescent volunteers should be a primary focus, as well as figuring out “how we can work together in Kufra, and with the Red Crescent.”

Halima Salah, an energetic 28-year old nurse, juggles her intensive schedule at the Shura clinic with caring for a son with cerebral palsy, and her civil society organisation that promotes dialogue between Tabu and Zwai.

“I still talk with one of my close Zwai friends,” she says. “During the clashes we couldn’t because it involved families. But now we do and we ask each other: ‘Why are you sending mortars instead of tomatoes?’” (IPS)

FOURTEEN) – NIGERIA NEEDS 100 000 PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTANTS Hajiya Maryam Ibrahim, president of the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN) says Nigeria needs no fewer than 100, 000 professional accountants for effective coverage.

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Ibrahim, who featured at a forum of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday, said the services of accountants were needed in all sectors of the economy.

She commended the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) for assisting ANAN to secure recognition and membership of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and two other professional bodies, the Pan-African Federation of Accountants (PAFA) and the Association of Accountancy Bodies in West Africa (ABWA).

"If we combine what we have now, I will say that for a business to thrive, you need the internal control, you need the marketability whether in the public or private sector, you need the marketability, you need the control of your business.

"I will say that for a population of about 170 million, if we can, as much as possible, generate up to a 100 000 professional accountants in Nigeria, it is good enough.

"We should congratulate ICAN who sponsored us to move into the IFAC body and the other two bodies PAFA and Association of ABWA. "We have in the past attended professional outings, IFAC, ABWA and what have you; with the two combined and properly recognised, the enormous advantage is there for the country where we can talk with one voice.

"Two of us, by the time we join forces, I want to tell you, it will be great thing for the country.

Ibrahim told NAN that the partnership between ICAN and ANAN started in 1979 when it was realised that the population of the country could accommodate two accounting professional bodies conveniently.

She said there was the need to encourage Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to keep their records properly and engaging professional accountants.

The ANAN president said the bulk of its members worked in the private sector.

She noted that the association had no fewer than 20, 000 members working in universities, polytechnics and in various cadres of the public and private sectors. (News 24)

FIFTEEN) – EAST AFRICA: LANDLOCKED EAC MEMBERS CAN FORCE KENYA, TANZANIA TO REMOVE TRADE BARRIERS For more than a decade, member countries of the revived and now expanded East African Community (EAC) have been talking about opening borders for free movement of goods and people, but with little progress.

I cannot recall how many workshops, conferences and summits that have taken place in all the capital cities of the five-member states to discuss this very issue of how to make trade free in this region.

Pessimists say the politicians are paying mere lip service and there is no political will to free trade by removing non-tariff barriers--the biggest obstacle any importer or exporter in this region can attest to. I had also been tempted to point to the lack of seriousness from political leadership, but not anymore.

My eye opener on this matter is the recent World Bank report--the third edition of Rwanda Economic Update subtitled: Leveraging Regional Integration. According to authors of this report, it is very difficult to get all the five EAC-member countries to agree on common policy and regulation aimed at improving intraregion trade because there are obvious differences in levels of commitment towards reform. This indeed is at the core of this apparent indecision when it comes to implementation of the good recommendations and policies agreed upon during the very numerous workshops and conferences that have taken place in the past.

It is a fact that when we talk about removing trade barriers, we are actually taking about making movement of goods easier especially for landlocked countries in the community--Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

13 These three members of the community have no coastline and ports. Naturally, their costs of imports are more expensive than those of the other two partners--Kenya and Tanzania who happen to own sea ports.

So, whatever the talk about being members of the same family (the EAC), Kenya and Tanzania will not feel the same pain as the landlocked members of the community. Therefore, to the Kenyans and Tanzanians, it is simply a mere show of solidarity when it comes to tackling issues such as numerous roadblocks, checkpoints and weighbridges that significantly delay goods to landlocked neighbors.

It is therefore incumbent upon the landlocked countries to individually or collectively engage our bigger brothers (Kenya and Tanzania) to see the good in improving the flow of goods into the hinterland.

Last week's bilateral talks between Rwanda and Tanzania prove this observation right. Incensed by the several non-tariff barriers (checkpoints, police roadblocks, weighbridges, cumbersome customs documentations etc) whose combined effects are said to cost importers 172,236 hours and about $9.6 million in bribes per year, Rwanda has sought to engage Tanzania over the issue.

This, I think, is after realizing that the bigger forum (EAC) had failed to effectively come to a logical conclusion on the matter.

So, in just two days of talks between respective ministers of trade and industry, Rwanda has managed to secure a breakthrough in dealing with some of the non-tariff barriers from Tanzania.

When presenting its case to the Tanzanians, Rwanda was certainly not begging for favors. The country presented itself as customer--yes, a customer of Tanzania's port who needs to be served well. And this is the point that the Kenyans and Tanzanians have so often missed and need to be reminded.

In removing obstacles to faster movement of goods, port owners stand to benefit a lot.

The faster the cargo gets to final destination inland, the more money Dar-es-Salaam and Mombasa will make. It is a business whose revenue certainly depends on the tons of cargo handled per hour, per week, per month or per year.

Therefore, following last week's deliberations in Kigali, Dar stands a chance of snatching all Rwanda bound cargo from Mombasa.

With 24-hour operation in Dar and all border posts, reduced paperwork, fewer roadblocks and checkpoints and above all free simplified certificates of origin for goods from the region, Rwanda and Tanzania have reached a good trade deal.

And if conditions in the Tanzanian port continue to improve, a bigger number of Ugandan importers might also find it friendlier to route their cargo via Dar. (Rwanda Focus)

EBCAM NEWS

Netherlands African Business Council -

AFRICAN AMBASSADORS DINNER 2012

From this afternoon NABC celebrates its Annual Ambassadors Dinner and we are pleased to inform you that 18 African country representatives will be present.

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NABC DOING BUSINESS IN AFRICA AWARD 2012 December 13, 2012

Online voting closes today at 3pm. Our three nominees are: - Blok Kats van Veen Architects - Kroftman - Van Beest Cast your final vote here NOW.

NABC OFFICES CLOSED FOR HOLIDAYS

Dear Relation, Between the 24th December and 1st January our office will be closed. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.

NABC NEW YEAR'S RECEPTION - 17 JANUARY 2013

This annual event is exclusive and free to NABC members.

Time: 16:00 - 19:00 Venue: Molenzolder, Heineken Experience, Stadshouderskade 78 1072 AE Amsterdam If you would like to sponsor this event (or part thereof), please contact NABC at info@nabc.nl or call +31 70 304 3618.

Online registration will be possible soon.

ONE DAY CROSS CULTURAL TRAINING - 31 JANUARY 2013

DATE: Thursday, 31 January 2012 VENUE: Brussels Room, WTC The Hague Business Center (Prinses Magrietplantsoen 33, 2595AM, The Hague) Black and White tools for expanding your perspective on Africa. Read More

15 Fernando Matos Rosa Brussels

European Business Council for Africa and the Mediterranean The European Private Sector Organisation for Africa’s Development Rue Montoyer – 24 – Bte 5 1000 Brussels (Belgium) www.ebcam.org

Contact: info@ebcam.org