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Agriculture - Business - Commentary Development - Education - Governance History - Investment - Lifestyle/Culture Technology/Science

"2021"

New Year New Decade New View New Start

Special Feature: Tourism T ourism p page age 4 40 0 Special Feature: Launch of AfCFTA page 22

Awakening the African Giant Within Africa Business Association News November-December 2020

CONTENTS November-December 2020 4

In This Issue

Business 7

8 12

22

14 16 17

Electric Car 35

18

The Case for a Nigerian-Born Woman to Lead the World Trade Organization The Black Billionaires 2019 Ivory Coast, Ghana Cancel Cocoa Sustainability Schemes Run by Hershey The Future of African Fashion, Post-Covid-19 African Development Bank Appoints Yacine Fal as DG, Cabinet Office This Mother-Daughter Duo Created a Mobile Gaming App Designed to Empower Black Girls UBS Launches Athletes and Entertainers Strategic Client Segment led by Adewale Ogunleye

Business - AfCFTA 22 24

Africa Heralds Onset of Free-Trade Pact After Years of Talks Historic! Trading Under the AfCFTA Launched

Development 26 28 33 34 35 36 38

Understanding Africa’s $180 Billion Internet Economy Future Why an Abundance Mindset?

8 African E-commerce Startups Selected for Facebook Accelerator The World's First Trillionaire is Learning 1 Skill and Discovering How to Use it in Now Unimaginable Ways Citroen Ami Electric Car Work from Anywhere: is 2021 the Future of Work?

Is Big Tech Setting Africa Back?

Feature - Tourism 40 42 44

A Guide To Experiential Travel: 5 Tips To Make Your Trip, A Journey Condé Nast Traveler: 2020 Reader's Choice Awards Egypt Unveils Scores of Ancient Coffins, Statues Found in Saqqara

Governance Africa's Street Food 40 2

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Sudan says Deal with US Blocks Further Compensation Claims DAWN

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Stripe Acquired 60 47 48 50 51 52 54

Animation is Booming 70

Biden Selects Nigerian Adewale Adeyemo as Deputy Treasury Secretary 5 Things to Know about Linda ThomasGreenfield, the Superstar Diplomat Biden Nominated as UN Ambassador How Communicators Can Help Fight Disinformation Ghana to Build ‘Wakanda City’ to Serve as a Pilgrimage for People of African Descent UN Warns of War Crimes in Spiralling Ethiopia Conflict Ghana's Former President H.E. Jerry Rawlings Dies

Black Cuisine Matters 86

Investment 55 56 60 63

A South African Startup Will Rent Your 'Spare’ Car so it can be Used by Uber Drivers African Stock Exchange/Bourse Stripe Acquires Nigeria’s Paystack for $200M+ to Expand into the African Continent Pacer Ventures Launches Early-stage Fund for African Startups

Technology/Science 64 65 66 67 68 70 73 74 3

Victor Glover to Become the First Black NASA Astronaut to Live on International Space Station Riverside.fm Launches its Video Podcasting Platform Former Mining Sites to Become Solar Farms William E. Kennard Named Chairman of AT&T’s Board of Directors Floating Solar Panels - A Big Stepping Stone Towards the Energy Transition Why Africa's Animation Scene is Booming This South African Scholar Earned Africa's First Ph.D. in Infigenous Astronomy How Facebook's Africa Expansion Could Help

November-December 2020

76

Foster New Hubs Like Nigeria's 'Silicon Valley' Diamonds 'from the sky': This Entrepreneur is Making Environmentally Friendly Gemstones

Lifestyle/Culture 78 80 82 84 85 86

Adjaye Associates Reveals the new Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library in Johannesburg Nigerian Playwright Wole Soyinka is set to Publish his First Novel in Nearly 50 Years Pope Names 13 New Cardinals, Includes U.S. Archbishop Gregory This Young Nigerian Man Created a Digital Collection of African Stories for Kids Here's How You can Work Remotely from the Beaches of Mauritius for a Year Marcus Samuelsson's New Cookbook Reminds Us That Black Cuisine Matters

Resources 88 90

Recipes from "The Rise" - Doro Wot Rigatoni & Collard Green Salad Events Around the African Continent and the World DAWN

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In This Issue

Ricky Muloweni, Publisher

THE AFRICA BUSINESS ASSOCIATION looks at the coming year and years ahead with articles on the inauguration of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and on Tourism.

Both trade and tourism hold great promise for expansive and long term economic growth for the people of the African continent. Long term success in these areas will open channels for expansion in technology, agriculture, science, product development, creation industries and education.

With all of the challenges that we face at this time, the possibilities and promise that the future holds should encourage use all to find our best path forward and to be a positive actor in this new beginning.

Look around you to find sources of encouragement. ABA presents article after article on individual and business successes throughout this issue and our past issues. Some of the stories should encourage you to continue your personal move forward.

If you need more encourage, review the life stories of your heroes and our collective icons to add fuel to your personal fire to achieve success.

Take the next step.

Ricky Muloweni Publisher/President dawn@africabusinessassociation.org aba@africabisinessassociation.org www.africabusinessassociation.org

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About the

Africa Business Association The Africa Business Association is an independent international business development organization. We offer access to the latest resources, information, and best practices in advocacy and communications for the African Diaspora and the African entrepreneurs in Africa.

We work to help you have access to news and events as starting points for constructive conversations and calls to action. We seek to cut through the froth of the political spin cycle to underlying truths and values. We want to be so focused on progress that together we can provide a credible and constructive generation of Africans that take seriously our previous generations and act upon all their wishes, our hopes and aspirations to make lasting change for all future generations.

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Africa Business Association

"DAWN"

PUBLISHER/PRESIDENT Ricky Muloweni

ADVISORY BOARD

Earl 'Skip' Cooper, II, CEO, Black Business Association H.E. Sheila Siwela, Ambassador H.E. Kone L. Tanou, Ambassador

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ricky Muloweni

LAYOUT/TYPESETTING Lion Communications

AFRICA BUSINESS ASSOCIATION NEWS 6564 LOISDALE COURT, SUITE 600 Springfield, VA 22150 USA 1-571-278-9441 aba@africabisinessassociation.org dawn@africabusinessassociation.org www.africabusinessassociation.org

Copyright © 2020

by Africa Business Association News All Rights Reserved.

The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.

Image credits: Cover-http://creativafrica.blogspot.com

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Business

Th to By

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala speaks at a news conference on July 15, 2020, in Geneva, following her hearing at the World Trade Organization as part of the application process to head the international organization.

(FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

THE TARIFF WARS OF U.S. President Donald Trump's administration have garnered enormous press coverage over the past four years, and rightly so. They have pitted America against the other major economies in the world in head-tohead high-stakes disputes.

Global trade practitioners, however, have been equally focused on a battleground far from the eye of the general public — the World Trade Organization. The WTO, made up of 164 members, is tasked with trying to bring new global trade agreements and resolve disputes over existing trade activity. This has been a longstanding aspiration.

Since 2016, the Trump administration has energetically pushed a strong indictment against 6

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he Case for a Nigerian-Born Woman Lead the World Trade Organization Jendayi Frazer and Rosa Whitaker

the WTO, arguing that it had allowed judicial overreach in its dispute settlement, failed to rein in China's massive state subsidies, and ceded so much leadership in crafting new trade accords that it bordered on irrelevance.

The surprise? Trump received comparatively little pushback. Indeed, an undercurrent of reform had been building, and WTO officials themselves were quick to acknowledge the shortcomings.

With the WTO director-general post now open, the Trump team has hit the pause button. The two finalists are Yoo Myung-hee, trade minister of South Korea, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian-born economist and international development expert who also holds U.S. citizenship. The consensus candidate backed by the overwhelming number of member nations is Okonjo-Iweala. She has a director-general's dream resume.

She holds dual citizenship in the United States and Nigeria. She has degrees from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She served two terms as finance and coordinating minister of the economy of Nigeria (Africa's largest economy) and, over 25 years, rose through the ranks of the World Bank Group (the largest development agency in the world) to become managing director.

She proved a reliable and pragmatic interlocutor with the U.S. government in negotiating bilateral debt relief while leading the Nigerian government's senior economic team. She brought a pragmatic approach, insisting that Nigeria first undertake internal reforms to ensure that canceled debt would sustainably boost its economy. In her role at the World Bank, she proved her alliance-building bona

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fides by helping to negotiate a politically delicate, multilateral replenishment — on the order of $49 billion — for the World Bank's lending arm for the poorest nations.

She is also willing to break some china, if it stands in the way of reform. An economist by training, she challenged entrenched interests in Nigeria to help create a long-term macroeconomic stability fund that would be drawn from oil revenues when oil prices surged above a certain point. She successfully pushed transparency programs that eliminated "ghost workers" that were sapping the Nigerian treasury. There is broad recognition that she is an institutional reformer who leads with distinction and impact.

Okonjo-Iweala is a triple-threat in the realm of global commerce. She is regarded as an authoritative diplomatic voice in both the United States and the developing world. She has a global macroeconomic perspective and a willingness to roll up her sleeves inside bureaucracies. She has a strong backbone in a fight and, when necessary, a soft hand for finessing a consensus. Not the least of her qualifications is having more trade experience than many of the previous U.S. trade representatives – combined.

It is surprising, then, that the Trump administration would throw shade on her readiness for the post and signal support for a dark-horse candidate, Yoo, the South Korean trade minister who lost to Okonjo-Iweala in round after round of voting for the director-general position.

This need not be a cliff-hanger. There's no question which candidate is better poised for the see page 8

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Business

The Black Billionaires 2019

By Mfonobong Nsehe OF THE 2,153 PEOPLE who made it to the 2019 FORBES list of the World’s Billionaires, 14 of them are Billionaires of African Ancestry, up from 11 a year ago.

These are the 14 richest black people on earth:

14. Jay-Z, $1 billion, American, Artist Though he’s hip-hop’s first billionaire, Jay-Z’s lead on the rest of

the pack is even larger if his entire family fortune is taken into consideration: He and wife Beyoncé are now worth a combined $1.4 billion. So much for the notion that music is a dying business.

“To convince artists that you can’t be an artist and make money … was the greatest trick in music that people ever pulled off,” Jay-Z told Forbes in 2010.

“I think the people that were making the millions said that.”

13. Mohammed Ibrahim, $1.1 billion, British, Mobile

WTO - from page 7 immediate months and years ahead. OkonjoIweala, among other roles, is on the board of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.

Who better to referee the patent brawl that awaits once a COVID-19 vaccine goes from approval to distribution?

Beyond qualifications, the history-making nature of her well-earned and expected appointment as the first woman and person of color to lead the WTO has inspired so many around the world. The Trump administration's objection to the consensus vote has immeasurably raised the ire of Africans who are still trying to reconcile the avalanche of insults over the past few years from America.

There is truly only one candidate in this contest who is capable of both knocking heads and achieving a meeting of minds. It is Ngozi OkonjoIweala. She would be immediately acclaimed by those impatient for a fairer contest in global trade, and immediately feared by those who have not been playing by the rules.

Contributors 8

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Jendayi Frazer Ambassador Jendayi Frazer is the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa and U.S. Ambassador to South Africa under the administration of President George W. Bush, and is an adjunct senior fellow for Africa at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Rosa Whitaker - Rosa Whitaker is the former assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Africa under the administrations of presidents George W. Bush and William J. Clinton. She is currently CEO of The Whitaker Group. www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-11-02/ commentary-nigerian-born-economist-best-to-lead-the-wto Image credits: landportal.org, globaldispatchespodcast. com, www.spokeo.com

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Telecoms, Investments Sudanese-born Mohammed “Mo” Ibrahim founded Celtel International in 1998, one of the first mobile phone companies serving Africa and the Middle East. He sold it to Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications Company for $3.4 billion in 2005 and pocketed $1.4 billion. In 2006 he founded the Mo Ibrahim Foundation which promotes good governance in Africa.

12. Folorunsho Alakija, $1.1 billion, Nigerian, Oil Nigeria’s first female billionaire is the founder of Famfa Oil, a Nigerian company that owns a substantial participating interest in OML 127, a lucrative oil block on the Agbami deep-water oilfield in Nigeria.

Alakija started off as a secretary in a Nigerian merchant bank in the 1970s, then quit her job to study fashion design in England. Upon her return, she founded a Nigerian fashion label that catered to upscale clientele, including Maryam Babangida, wife to Nigeria’s former military president Ibrahim Babangida.

struck out on his own in 1988, importing rice, sugar, edible oils as well as steel and iron rods.

10. Michael Lee-Chin, $1.9 billion, Canadian, Investments Lee-Chin, a Canadian of Jamaican origin, made a fortune investing in financial companies.

He owns a 65% stake in National Commercial Bank Jamaica, which makes up the bulk of his fortune. Under Lee-Chin, the Canada-based wealth management and mutual fund business managed more than $10 billion in assets by 2002.

But the firm was hit hard by the 2008 recession, and Lee-Chin sold AIC to Canadian financial services group Manulife in 2009 for an undisclosed price.

9. Michael Jordan, $1.9 billion, American, Basketball

Basketball’s greatest player is the majority shareholder of Charlotte Bobcats and enjoys lucrative deals with the likes of Gatorade, Hanes 11. Abdulsamad Rabiu, $1.6 billion, and Upper Deck. His Nigerian, Cement, Sugar Abdulsamad Rabiu is the biggest pile comes founder of BUA Group, from Brand Jordan, a Nigerian conglomerate a $1 billion (sales) with interests in sugar sportswear partnership refining, cement with Nike. Regarded production, real estate, by most as the NBA’s steel, port concessions, greatest all-time player, manufacturing, oil gas, Michael Jordan won and shipping.

BUA six titles with the Chicago Bulls. The Hornets are Group’s annual revenues now worth $1.05 billion with Jordan owning 90% are estimated at over of the team. $2 billion. Abdulsamad got his start in business 8. Patrice Motsepe, $2.3 billion, South working for his father, Isyaku Rabiu, a successful businessman from Nigeria’s Northern region. He see page 10 9

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Business Billionaires - from page 9

African, Mining

6. Strive Masiyiwa, $2.4 billion, Zimbabwean, Telecoms

South Africa’s first and only black billionaire is the founder of African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), a Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed mining company that has in platinum, nickel, chrome, iron, manganese, coal, copper and gold. He also owns a large stake in African Rainbow Capital, a private equity firm focusing on investments in the financial services sector. In 1994, he became the first black partner at law firm Bowman Gilfillan in Johannesburg and then started a contracting business doing mine scut work.

7. Isabel Dos Santos, $2.3 billion, Angolan, Investments The oldest daughter of Angola’s former president, Isabel dos Santos has built an impressive investment portfolio that includes a 25% stake in Angolan mobile phone company Unitel and a 25% stake in Angolan bank Banco BIC SA. Other holdings include a substantial stake in Nos SGPS, a Portuguese cable TV company and just under 20% of Banco BPI, one of Portugal’s largest publicly traded banks.

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Masiyiwa, who is worth $2.4 billion, is the founder of Econet, one of the leading mobile telecoms companies in Africa. It has more than 10 million subscribers spread across Zimbabwe, Botswana, Burundi and Lesotho. In February, he pledged the sum of $100 million to establish a fund to invest in rural entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe

5. Oprah Winfrey, $2.5 billion, American, Television Oprah is still the richest African-American woman in the world t h a n k s largely to the 25 years of her profitable daytime TV show and earnings from her H a r p o production company.

Her cable channel, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) is also cash flow positive for the first time and is enjoying favorable ratings as a result of securing exclusive TV interviews with headline-grabbers like disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, Beyoncé and gay NBA player Jason Collins. One of America’s most generous philanthropists, Oprah continues to give to education causes and has spent about $100 million on the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa..

4. David Steward, $3 billion, American, Tech DAWN

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D a v i d Steward is the cofounder and chairman of IT provider World Wide Technology, an $11.2 billion (sales) IT provider, w h o s e customers include Citi, Verizon, and the federal government.

3. Robert F. Smith, $5 billion, American, Private Equity

Conoil Producing Company was one of the first indigenous Nigerian companies to be granted an oil exploration license in the early 90s. The company is the operator of six blocks in the Niger Delta and also owns a 25% stake in the Joint Development Zone (JDZ) Block 4. He is also the founder and sole owner of Globacom, a Nigerian mobile phone network that has more than 40 million subscribers in Nigeria and neighboring African countries. His property company, Cobblestone Properties, owns hundreds of prime residential and commercial property all over Nigeria.

1. Aliko Dangote, $10.9 billion, Nigerian, Sugar, Cement, Flour

The Cement and commodities tycoon retains his title as the world’s richest black man this year. After R o b e r t building his fortune in sugar, flour and cement, the F. Smith, N i g e r i a n is a former tycoon G o l d m a n embarking S a c h s on his most executive, is a m b i t i o u s the founder project to of private date - a equity firm private oil Vista Equity r e f i n e r y P a r t n e r s in Nigeria that focuses which will a e x c l u s i v e l y have on investing r e f i n i n g in software companies. The firm has more than $46 capacity of billion in assets and is one of the best-performing 6 5 0 0 , 0 0 0 a private equity firms, posting annualized returns of barrels day and is 22% since inception. expected to reduce Nigeria’s dependence on oil 2. Mike imports. Dangote started out in business more Adenuga, than 3 decades ago by trading in commodities $9.1 billion, like cement, flour and sugar with a loan he Nigerian, Oil, received from his maternal uncle and went on to Telecoms build the Dangote Group, the largest industrial Nigerian-born conglomerate in West Africa.

Mike Adenuga, www3.forbes.com/business/the-black-billionairesthe world’s 2019/?utm_campaign=The-Black-Billionairessecond richest 2019&utm_source=yahoo-gemini&utm_mediu black person, m=yh121406n1us&lcid=yh121406n1us&utm_ built his fortune content=DAILY_MAIL in oil and mobile telecoms.

His 11

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Business

Ivory Coast, Ghana Cancel Cocoa Sustainability Schemes Run by Hershey

By Ange Aboa and Maytaal Angel

IVORY COAST AND GHANA are cancelling all cocoa sustainability schemes that U.S.-based Hershey runs in their countries, accusing the chocolatemaker of trying to avoid paying a cocoa premium aimed at combating farmer poverty.

In a letter addressed to Hershey and seen

by Reuters, the Ivorian and Ghanaian cocoa regulators accuse Hershey of sourcing unusually large volumes of physical cocoa on the ICE futures exchange in order to avoid the premium, known as a living income differential (LID).

The letter, which also accuses Fuji Oil Holdings' Blommer subsidiary of aiding Hershey, was verified as authentic by spokespeople for the regulators.

Ivory Coast and Ghana, which produce two-thirds of the world's cocoa, said they are also barring third party companies from running sustainability schemes in the West African nations on behalf of Hershey.

The schemes certify cocoa as sustainably sourced - meaning its production is free of environmental and human rights abuses, such as using child labour or being grown in a protected forest.

This allows companies to market their chocolate as ethical and charge a premium for it.

Hershey, makers of such popular candy items as Hershey chocolate bars, Hershey's Kisses and Kit Kat, said it is fully participating in the LID and will continue to do so. It sources substantial volumes of supply from West Africa, it added.

"Our concern is that by cutting off industry sustainability programs, cocoa farmers will no longer receive the benefits provided by our programs... (like) the price premium for certified cocoa," the company said in a statement.

Blommer had no immediate comment.

Several market sources said Hershey had recently struck a deal with the ICE exchange to take physical delivery of a large amount of cocoa, allowing it to buy less from Ivory Coast and Ghana and so avoid 12

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the premium.

The West African nations last year introduced a $400 a tonne LID on cocoa sales for the 2020/21 season, but have since struggled to sell their beans as chocolate demand has been hit by the coronavirus-induced recession.

In a separate document seen by Reuters, the world's top cocoa producers said they had withdrawn from membership of a U.S. cocoa industry association, accusing the body of helping companies including Hershey avoid paying the LID. The Cocoa Merchants Association of America (CMAA http://cocoamerchants.com) is "condoning and conniving with American companies against poor West African cocoa farmers", the document, also verified as authentic by the Ivorian and Ghanaian regulators, read.

The CMAA did not respond to Reuters requests via email and phone for comment.

Ivory Coast and Ghana also said they are reviewing their membership of the Federation of Cocoa Commerce (FCC www.cocoafederation.com), a UK-based international organisation that aims to promote, protect and regulate the cocoa trade. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ivory-coast-ghana-cancelcocoa-145601805.htm Image credit: www.walmart.com/HERSHEY'S

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Business

Rwanda Recruits Tidjane Thiam to Boost Kigali’s Finance Offer years after leaving the country where he was Minister of Planning and Development.

And he officially chose the ranks of the opposition in the Ivorian presidential race, won on November 3

by Alassane Ouattara in a third term.

AFTER HIS HASTY DEPARTURE from the Credit Suisse bank, Tidjane Thiam confirms his African ambition. The Franco-Ivorian banker has just been appointed by the Rwandan government to head the Board of Directors of Rwanda Finance Limited.

The appointment, which comes at the same time as six other members, was signed by Rwandan Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente at the end of a cabinet meeting chaired by Head of State Paul Kagame on Wednesday, 11 November, at Village Urugwiro, headquarters of the Rwandan presidency.

Since February 7, when he resigned as managing director of the Swiss banking group, Thiam was first reported to the board of directors of the French luxury holding company Kering, before making a name for himself again on the continent.

Two months later, he became involved in the economic response to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, joining the African Union task force – alongside Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Trevor Manuel and Donald Kaberuka – in charge of finding a coordinated and continental solution to the health crisis. On this occasion, he chaired a working group on the fight against COVID-19 with the Rwandan president on 5 June.

Then he made a return, first unofficial, then more clearly in politics in Côte d’Ivoire, more than 20

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Promoting the financial sector A return to business, therefore, for what some consider to be an African financial prodigy. The banker who is credited with the turnaround and restructuring of the second largest Swiss bank, as well as the earlier development of the British insurer Prudential.

Tidjane Thiam is once again extricating himself from the torments of Ivorian politics. And to integrate, in contrast to the continent, a recently created public structure. The Rwanda Finance Limited is the counterpart of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) – the public agency responsible for attracting foreign investment to the country – and has a mandate to develop the Kigali International Financial Centre (KIFC). The KIFC is a worldclass financial center designed to promote foreign investment and the creation of highly skilled jobs in finance for the benefit of Rwanda and the African continent. www.bansoro.com/rwanda-recruits-tidjane-thiam-toboost-kigalis-finance-offer www.theafricareport.com/50498/rwanda-recruitstidjane-thiam-to-boost-kigalis-finance-offer Image credit: CEO Tidjane Thiam of Swiss bank Credit Suisse addresses the bank's annual shareholder meeting in Zurich, Switzerland April 27, 2018.

REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann.

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Business

The Future of African Fashion, Post-Covid-19

By Ugonna--Ora Owoh

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS turned the African fashion industry (www.voguebusiness.com/ fashion/african-luxury-fashion-thebe-magugu-lvmh) on its head. Designer production is halted, fashion shows and events are postponed or moved online, and brands have had to scramble to set up proper online businesses to make up for sales lost to store closures. As the global fashion industry grapples with the effects of the pandemic, Africa’s network of designers is particularly vulnerable to disruption.

In June, more than 100 African fashion creatives and digital innovators from across the continent joined a webinar series hosted by Fashionomics Africa (https://fashionomicsafrica.org), an initiative launched by African Development Bank Group (https://twitter.com/AfDB_Group) to create jobs and drive growth for the local fashion industry, worth $31 billion. The group discussed the plausibility of several digital innovations that would help designers transition their businesses for a postpandemic reality.

These designers rely on store sales, in-house production and physical shows to gain audience followings and run their businesses. Africa’s e-commerce industry is stunted by last-mile delivery challenges, and a years-long effort to bring raw material production domestically means that all manufacturing is closed. The resulting action plan from June’s meetings: fashion designers and creatives in Africa must take advantage of online tools to strengthen their businesses.

Rethinking retailer-brand relationships With retailers closed, African designers have turned to establishing their own direct businesses.

“Lockdown restrictions are unique in every country. In South Africa, we have seen different stages of lockdown that have negatively affected every business,” says Rich Mnisi, (www.richmnisi. com) creative director of his eponymous fashion 14

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© Aart Verrips/Rich Mnisi

label. “Retailers need to stop expecting business to return to [normal]. There’s no going back to how it was any time soon.”

In Africa, most bricks-and-mortar retailers have held back from building out their e-commerce operations, meaning physical stores and online retailers including Konga (www.konga.com) and Jumia (www.jumia.com.ng) are pitted against each other. Pre-pandemic, fashion designers without direct online businesses or vast store networks of their own largely relied on retailers to reach customers across the continent. Retailers, meanwhile, rely on brands to bring designer cachet to their stores.

During a pandemic that has forced stores to close, that dynamic has changed, says Mnisi.

Only some designer brands had websites prior to the pandemic, and those were targeted at a global customer. Customers in Africa have been wary of shopping solely online for fashion due to restrictions in delivery. Now, a shift to online sales has suited customer behaviour amid stay-at-home orders. African customers are shopping online DAWN

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says. “It has shown how resilient we are in the face of progress.”

As e-commerce ramps up, digitisation of the fashion show (www. voguebusiness.com/ fashion/west-africandesigners-explorevirtual-worlds) has

brought thousands of designers online much faster as designers push their latest collections across social media.

C o n g o l e s e designer Anifa Mvuemba (www.

© Ricardo Simal/Rich Mnisi

fastcompany. com/90513959/ hanifas-virtual-3dfashion-show-ishaunting-beautifuland-brilliantlyexecuted, www. instagram.com/

hanifaofficial) led the initiative by creating 3D models

© Duque Photography/Christie Brown

more, and visiting malls less. Retailers are now rethinking strategy, organisation and staffing to better suit evolving customer preferences.

The push to digitise Despite obstacles, some designers believe the digitisation of the African fashion industry is inevitable. “We can’t stress the relevance of having a strong digital presence enough,” says Aisha Ayensu, creative director of Ghanaian brand Christie Brown (https://christiebrownonline.com). She says that the Fashionomics Africa webinar series has prompted a push for a more robust digital presence as well as education for designers setting up online businesses. “These [wouldn’t have] happened if the pandemic hadn’t intruded,” she

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and sending them down a virtual runway.

Some designers are propelled by the global inclusivity movement prompted by protests, and the attention it’s begun to afford local artisanship.

“We’ve been focusing on fixing our foundational issues and what we can do to build from within. It’s time we grow all the aspects of our supply chain,” says Adebayo Oke-Lawal, creative director of Orange Culture Nigeria (https://orangeculture.com. ng).

Ayensu hopes the protests lead to permanent change, with brands rethinking representation in their own companies. “We’ll see its effects five, 10 years from now with a more diverse, global fashion industry that embraces African brands.” www.voguebusiness.com/fashion/the-futureof-african-fashion-post-covid-19#intcid=_ voguebusiness-uk_6bd2c25a-c20b-4a54-a2efa87eda5488d4_text2vec1 DAWN

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Business

African Development Bank Appoints Yacine Fal as DG, Cabinet Office

By Chike Olisah

THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK (AfDB) has announced the appointment of Ms. Yacine Fal as the DG, Cabinet Office of the President with effect from November 1, 2020.

The disclosure was made in a press statement that was issued by the African multilateral organization on October 13, 2020.

The statement says that Ms. Fal is expected to oversee the administrative and operational activities of the President’s Cabinet Office.

Primarily, she will provide oversight of all units and departments directly reporting to the President.

She will also ensure enhanced delivery efficiency and effectiveness for all Presidential initiatives and Bank operations, as per agreements with respective Vice Presidency Complexes.

She will oversee the works of senior staff to improve overall coordination and engagement of the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors with the Board.

experience in the banking, legal, and procurement fields.

She joined the African Development Bank as a Principal Legal Counsel in the procurement unit (1998-2007) and subsequently served as Manager in charge of the reform implementation team in the office of the President (2007-2008).

She was appointed Officer in Charge of the Procurement and Fiduciary Services Department (2010-2011), and Manager of the Procurement Services Division (2008-2013). Yacine later served as the Resident Representative of the Bank’s Morocco Office (2014-2017).

In 2016, AfDB President, Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina appointed Yacine as the Deputy DG of the North Africa Business Development and Service Delivery Office.

She holds a Masters of Law degree (1984) from the University of Dakar, where she specialized in Corporate and tax law, and a postgraduate degree in International Law (1987) from the Universite What you should know Yacine Fal, a Senegalese citizen, is a seasoned Paris X -Nanterre. https://nairametrics.com/2020/10/14/african-developmentand results-oriented business development and bank-appoints-yacine-fal-as-dg-cabinet-office/ service delivery professional with over 20 years of 16

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Business

This Mother-Daughter Duo Created a Mobile Gaming App Designed to Empower Black Girls

By Dana Givens ACCORDING TO THE INTERNATIONAL Gamers Developers Association, less than 4% of game designers in the industry are Black. For one mother, it was important to expose her daughter to games that would make her feel empowered and build self-confidence–so she decided to create her own for young Black girls to feel represented.

Yvonne Oatley is the founder of the mobile gaming app, Frobelles (https://frobelles.com, www.facebook.com/ frobelles). She created the game with her daughter, Alyssa, who helps designs the characters and elements for the game. “My daughter and girls like her should be able to find games with characters that they can relate to,” Oatley tells BLACK ENTERPRISE through email. “It’s also important for children of other ethnicities to be able to see more diverse characters, as this helps them to learn and understand racial differences, in a positive way.”

Oatley says it was important for her daughter to play games that reflected Black girls with positive images. “As a mother, I am passionate about ensuring games are appropriate and impacting

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positively to my child’s mental health,” Oatley says.

“We (my daughter and I) discovered that whilst the games my daughter played were safe and childappropriate, there was a distinct lack of diverse characters. My daughter didn’t feel represented– she wanted characters with skin and hair like hers.

It was this feedback that prompted me to step into the world of mobile gaming as a creator.”

Oatley says it took a moment to adapt to the challenges of app development and business development when entering the niche industry.

Culturally, she adds, it’s not that different from what she and other Black woman entrepreneurs have to face when starting a new business.

“With the fast pace at which technical requirements for game approval update, I’ve had to adapt my way of thinking to keep up with the constant movement,” says Oatley. “I think that culturally, the challenges in this space are similar to those that Black women entrepreneurs face in other areas of business–the challenge of being seen and heard.”

The gaming app is expected to launch later this November. www.blackenterprise.com/this-mother-daugther-duo-createdan-mobile-gaming-app-designed-to-empower-black-girls Image credit: Yvonne and Alyssa Oatley (Image via Shani Weekes)

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Business

UBS Launches Athletes and Entertainers Strategic Client Segment led by Adewale Ogunleye Press Release UBS

GLOBAL WEALTH MANAGEMENT (www.ubs.com) recently announced the launch of the Athletes and Entertainers Strategic Client Segment, a group formed to provide holistic financial advice and guidance to clients across sports and entertainment industries.

The segment will be led by professional football veteran Adewale (“Wale”) Ogunleye, who following his football career, pursued his passion for business. He earned an MBA from George Washington University and joined UBS in 2019 as the Head of Sports and Entertainment at UBS Global Wealth Management.

The Athletes and Entertainers Strategic Client Segment will work in close collaboration with UBS Financial Advisors, who have long been advising and supporting athletes and entertainers on their financial plans. Wale’s insight and experience on and off the field will help shape the segment’s overarching strategy, which will address and support the unique needs of individuals across both industries.

“I joined UBS to create a sports and entertainment business that educates and speaks to our clients in an authentic and relatable manner,” said Wale Ogunleye. “Far too often we see stories of athletes and entertainers making poorly guided financial decisions, which leads to a loss of personal wealth and trust in those who can provide sound financial advice and guidance. Our main priority is to change that narrative and help athletes and entertainers build a path to long-lasting financial success.”

Within the segment, Wale and UBS Financial Advisors will work hand-in-hand with some of sports and entertainment’s most prominent figures

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Adewale Ogunleye finews.ch

to drive awareness of the importance of financial literacy and wealth management, utilizing UBS Wealth Way to develop a financial plan to maintain their current lifestyle, to prepare for their future and to leave a legacy that matters and can change the world.

“At UBS, we are always adapting to the needs and wants of current and prospective clients relative to today’s financial landscape and societal shifts,” said Jane Schwartzberg, Head of Strategic Client Segments at UBS Global Wealth Management.

“Wale’s real-life experience in professional sports and knowledge of the wealth management industry combined with our leading platform creates a competitive and dynamic offering that will provide our clients with the opportunity to build generational wealth.”

About UBS Global Wealth Management As the world's largest wealth manager, UBS Global Wealth Management provides comprehensive advice, solutions and services to wealthy families and individuals around the world. Clients who work with UBS benefit from a fully integrated set of wealth management capabilities and expertise, including wealth planning, investment management, capital markets, banking, lending and institutional and corporate financial advice (www.ubs.com). www.marketwatch.com/press-release/ubs-launchesathletes-and-entertainers-strategic-client-segmentled-by-former-professional-football-player-adewaleogunleye-2020-11-18 www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201118005753/ en/ DAWN

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Business - Market for the Holidays

Holidy Shopping Hints ABA IS REPEATING THIS story to offer extra support for the business community during this holiday season which is marked by additional gift-giving and family gatherings. We suggest that you check out the September-October issue of DAWN (address here) to review the articles on holiday shopping. In this issue we are reminding our readers to visit sites like Black Nation (https://blacknation.app) to help find African and African American retailers and service providers. We also have a brief listing here of some African businesses that are offering items that are appropriate for gift giving and celebrating at this time of year. Of course, neither Black Nation or ABA have all of the businesses in our databases but we are working on it. Send us information on the African businesses that should be in our database at africa@africabusinessassociation. com.

Toys - Games Queens of Africa Dolls www.QueensOfAfricaDolls.com Tinga Tinga Tales www.youtube.com/c/TingaTingaTalesofficial Cosmetics hanahana beauty www.instagram.com/p/BkLkNuxH1LO Liha Beauty www.lihabeauty.co.uk (London) Lingerie Nubian Skin www.nubianskin.com (London) Clothing - Fabrics Queen Ahneva Ahneva queen@classic97.net (some production in Nigeria) House of Prints www.facebook.com/HouseOfPrintsGh Djenne Collection www.djennecollection.com (source in Mali, etal) 19

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Andrea Iyamah www.andreaiyamah.com Sarah Kuenyefu www.sarahkuenyefu.com (items from Eswatini) Shoes - Accessories Sole Rebels www.solerebels.com (Ethiopia) Sued Watches https://sued.co.ke Interior Design - Art Horn Products Uganda http://hornproductsuganda.com Southern Guild https://southernguild.co.za Food - Beverages Kitchens of Africa www.kitchensofafrica.com Essie Spice www.essiespice.com ’57 Chocolate www.57chocolategh.com Chocolate Mamas www.facebook.com/ChocolateMamas The Sweet Art Company www.facebook.com/TheSweetArtCompany Niche Cocoa www.facebook.com/nichecocoa Bamenda Coffee www.BamendaCoffee.com Kivu Noir https://kivunoir.coffee/pages/buy-online (rwanda) West Rock Coffee https://westrockcoffee.com/collections (ethiopia) Wines of South Africa www.wosa.us Nomu available on Amazon (south Africa) Starr African Rum xxxxxxxx Zanzi Crème Liqueur www.konyagi.co.tz Amarula www.amarula.com Wild Africa Cream Liqueur http://wildafricacream.blogspot.com

Happy Holidays from the Africa Business Association (ABA)

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Business - AfCFTA

Africa Heralds Onset of Free-Trade Pact After Years of Talks

By Monique Vanek

THE FIRST GOODS WILL begin to flow under an Africa-wide free-trade pact on Friday, January 1, 2021, the culmination of more than five years of negotiations on cutting cross-border tariffs.

The accord comes to fruition at a time when trade tensions are rising across much of the rest of the world. The 55-nation Africa Union marked the occasion in a ceremony that came just hours after the U.K. left the European Union’s single market and a new post-Brexit trade agreement entered into force.

It’s “a day in which we take Africa a step closer to a vision of an integrated Africa, a vision of an integrated market on the African continent,” Wamkele Mene, the Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), said during the event.

The treaty seeks to lower or eliminate cross-border tariffs on most goods, facilitate the movement of capital and people, promote investment and pave the way for a continent-wide customs union. The bloc has a potential market of 1.2 billion people with a combined gross domestic product of $2.5 trillion, and could be the world’s biggest free-trade zone by area when the treaty becomes fully operational by 2030.

The accord will assist the continent to recover from the “devastating impact” of the coronavirus pandemic, said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who holds the AU’s rotating chairmanship.

Intra-African trade fell to 14.5% of the total in 2019, from 15% the year before. The free22

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trade pact could bolster the proportion to 22%, and commerce within the continent could rise to more than $231 billion even if all other conditions remained unchanged, the African Export-Import Bank said in report published on Dec. 15. Internal shipments accounted for 52% of total trade in Asia and 72% in Europe, according to Afreximbank data.

All but one of the 55 nations recognized by the African Union have signed to join the area and more than half have ratified the accord. Eritrea, which has a largely closed economy, is the sole holdout.

The pact will help Africa to industrialize on a big scale, said President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana, the host country of the bloc’s secretariat.

All outstanding issues relating to the bloc’s various operation instruments, such as an online platform for tariff negotiations and a digital payment and settlement system, would be finalized and made operational by the end of March, Akufo-Addo said. www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/africa-heraldsonset-of-free-trade-pact-after-years-of-talks/arBB1copBa Image credit: giz.de DAWN

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View the Launch Ceremony on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5HrckaRmPpM ON 1ST JANUARY 2021 trading under the AfCFTA will start in Africa. This is a historic milestone for the continent as Africa will really start to trade with Africa. To mark the occasion, a lunch time ceremony including speeches by some African Union Heads of State and Government, representatives of development partners and the private sector as well as showing of videos on different aspects of trade and development in Africa is being organised by the AfCFTA Secretariat.

African citizens from all over the continent are invited to witness this historic and important event on New Year’s Day 2021.

Currently, the percentage of trade that African countries do with each other is a mere 16 - 18%.

The bulk of the continent’s trade is with the rest of the world, and most African exports are in raw materials including extractive commodities like oil, gas and minerals which are vulnerable to market volatility.

Under AfCFTA trading, tariffs on various commodities where rules of origin have been agreed will be drastically reduced and traders of all sizes will have access to a much bigger market than they used to before. Non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade will also be addressed and a mechanism for speedy reporting and resolution of NTBs has been put in place (www.tradebarriers.africa). The bigger market will spur producers to upscale and so support increased industrialization and value addition on the continent. More employment opportunities will thus be generated for Africa’s burgeoning youth population.

It has already been demonstrated that to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic medicines and personal protective equipment need to be produced and moved to where they are needed expeditiously.

The AfCFTA will be a tool for mitigation of Covid-19 by allowing free and unhindered trade in health products across the continent. https://au.int/en/newsevents/20210101/afcfta-start-trading-ceremony-webinar 23

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Business - AfCFTA

Historic!

Trading Under the AfCFTA Launched

By Adam Alqali & Abdulrahman Olagunju The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in collaboration with the African Union Commission, Friday virtually hosted Start of Trading under the much-awaited Free Trade Area (FTA), which is the world’s largest free trade zone since the formation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1994.

TRADING UNDER THE FTA, which was earlier billed to commence July 1, 2020 but had to be postponed to January 1, 2021 due to the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic (www.undp.org/ content/undp/en/home/coronavirus.html), epitomizes the manifestation of Africa’s long-held dream of continental economic integration ever since the formation of the Organisation for African Unity (OAU www.panafricanalliance.com/organizationof-african-unity) in 1963. Thus, the FTA creates out of Africa’s current 55 balkanized economies, a single continental market of 1.3 billion people with a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) valued at US$3.4 trillion.

It would be recalled the Agreement establishing the AfCFTA was signed at the 10th Extraordinary Summit of the AU Assembly on the 21st of March 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda, and entered into force on the 30th of May 2019. The Agreement creates a single continental market for goods and services which allows for free movement of business persons and investments and will consequently expand intra-Africa trade across Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (RECs www.un.org/en/africa/osaa/peace/recs.shtml) as 24

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President Cyril Ramaphosa Sowetan LIVE well as enhancing competitiveness and supporting economic transformation.

In his keynote address at the virtual launch, President Cyril Ramaphosa of the Republic of South Africa cum current chairperson of the African Union, said the fact that 54 out of 55 AU countries had signed the AfCFTA Agreement, about 33 countries had ratified it while over 40 countries had submitted their tariff offers, was a strong signal as to Africa’s readiness to start trading on the basis of the new rules and preferences that would guarantee the One African Market. He thus urged member states that were yet to ratify the AfCFTA to fast-track the FTA process so as to ensure no one was left behind.

The AU chairperson also emphasized the need for recommitment of efforts towards the AU’s overarching goal of Silencing the Guns in Africa (https://au.int/en/flagships/silencing-guns-2020) – as effective and successful intra-Africa trading would solely depend on peace, security and co-existence between African communities. “As we look forward to ushering the AfCFTA trading, we shouldn’t forget our common commitment, ‘the silencing the guns campaign’, as we can’t have a successful trading without peace. We need to fast track all pending matters and make the Agenda 2063 a priority,” Ramaphosa urged.

In his opening remarks, Secretary General of the AfCFTA Wamkele Mene, underlined that the AfCFTA would not be just another trade agreement; instead, it would be a mechanism for Africa’s development by closing the gender pay gap, and creating the opportunity for African DAWN

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value and supply chains to increase industry efficacy on the continent, adding that the FTA would generate more employment opportunities Secretary General of the AfCFTA for Africa’s burgeoning youth Chairperson AU Commission Wamkele Mene population.

Moussa Faki Mahamat thebftonline.com canadianinquirer.net Faki further said in order to guarantee ceaseless SMEs to access new markets. “We are working supply of needed commodities for the over 1 very closely with our technical partners to develop billion population of the continent, there was need digital technology platforms that will enable to upscale the SMEs by providing conducive connectivity of Small to Medium Enterprises, and business environment for them to thrive, noting enable connectivity of young Africans in trade. that the AfCFTA had provided such a conducive This Agreement does not benefit only the big environment through drastic reduction of tariffs on corporations on the African continent, but it should various commodities, thereby allowing the SMEs always be inclusive of young Africans, women and the opportunity to access a much bigger market than they used to before.

African SMEs,” he said.

The AU Commission chief called on African The AfCFTA principal said he was now convinced Africa had taken active steps to dismantle the entrepreneurs, pension funds and other colonial economic model it had inherited and stakeholders to invest in the One African Market so sustained over a period of 60 years. He therefore as to spur rapid growth of the continent’s economy restated the need for the continent to stop being and its competitiveness in the global value chain. exporter of primary products to countries of the “The African Continental Free Trade Area will global north and instead create jobs on the African fundamentally change the economic fortunes of continent, by developing its regional value chain our continent. I call on the entrepreneurs of our and becoming self-sufficient through its own nation to seize the abundant opportunities that this historic development will present to explore new continental production.

“In 2020, Covid-19 has demonstrated, that markets and build new partnerships.”

According to the African Union, Friday’s virtual Africa is overly reliant on import of primary goods, overly reliant on global supply chains, and when Launch of Trading under the AfCFTA, held in these global chains are disrupted, Africa suffers. partnership with the UN Economic Commission www.uneca.org), Africa When these global chains are subdued, we know for Africa (UNECA www. that Africa suffers. So we have to take active Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank steps to make sure this industrial development afreximbank.com), and AfroChampions Initiative is accelerated and this African Continental Free (www.linkedin.com/company/afrochampions), was the Trade Area and the Launch of Trading today are first of a series of events that would take place the first steps we take into that direction,” Mene virtually and physically over the coming weeks, in commemoration of this important occasion in stressed.

In his address, Mr Moussa Faki Mahamat, the fulfilment of the OAU founding fathers’ dream of a chairperson of the AU Commission, identified truly united and integrated continent. the AfCFTA as undoubtedly an opportunity to www.africannewspage.net/2021/01/historicspur African industries to upscale and create new trading-under-the-afcfta-commences 25

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Development

Understanding Africa’s $180 Billion Internet Economy Future

By Sérgio Pimenta, Nitin Gajria GENETIC SCIENTISTS STUDY HUMAN DNA to better understand medical conditions and how to treat diseases. But their research is often based on samples that don’t actually reflect the world’s population. Around 80% of the human DNA used in genetic studies is from people of European descent. This means that researchers are often unable to study and address conditions that affect global ethnicities.

In January 2019, Abasi Ene-Obong, a young tech engineer from Nigeria, founded 54gene (www.54gene.com/about-us) with the aim of making gene studies more representative by increasing access to African genomic data—which currently accounts for less than 3% of all genetic data sets.

After securing two rounds of funding, 54gene has gone on to complete a fully resourced biobank in Lagos, crucial to support academic research, drug development, and disease detection.

Ene-Obong’s story is just one example of how talented African entrepreneurs are creating new opportunities across the continent. As a new report from Google and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) (www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/ corp_ext_content/ifc_external_corporate_site/about+ifc_ new) shows, the startup ecosystem is helping drive

Africa’s internet economy towards a projected value of $180 billion by 2025, or 5.2% of the continent’s GDP.* We collaborated on the report—titled "e-Conomy Africa 2020: Africa’s $180 billion internet economy future”—to highlight the strengths and challenges of the internet economy today, and to better understand where it might go in the future.

Here are some other things we learned.

Startups in Africa are progressing and reaching new milestones According to Partech Ventures Africa (https://

par techpar tners. c o m /p r e s s - r o o m / partech-africapublishes-itsannual-reportafrican-techstar t-ups-reachnew-symbolicmilestone-us202-billion-raisedequity-fundingrepresenting74 - y o y - g r o w t h) ,

African tech startups reached a new milestone in 2019 with $2.02 billion of equity funding raised.

That’s 74% more than in 2018, and represents an average deal size of $8.08 million.

At the forefront of the internet economy’s growth are startups in sectors like financial technology (fintech), e-commerce, health, e-logistics, e-mobility and food delivery. Fintech leads the way in terms of funding, receiving 54% of all African startup investment in 2019. This indicates high investor trust, which is significant given the sector’s important role serving unbanked and financially excluded Africans.

One example is the Nigerian digital payments and commerce platform Interswitch, which received $200 million in equity funding from Visa in 2019, as well an IFC investment of $10.5 million. These investments came at a time of big growth for the electronics payment market, and, as a result, Interswitch has helped transform the infrastructure of Nigeria’s banking system, while extending its services to 23 other countries.

E-commerce startups have also shown strong growth, thanks to improved digital payment services and a rise in mobile technology and payment channels. In 2019, e-commerce accounted for

*e-Conomy Africa 2020: https://kstatic.googleusercontent.com/files/ad1166fd6e3289b5e6445c73e4cff5bbb9df1927d35cff4f4b5efa8ebb4fe16620d5ddb499d17956 26

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$134 million in funding across 30 deals--a 36% increase in the number of deals compared with 2018. With COVID-19-mandated lockdowns in countries across the continent, consumers have quickly gotten much more used to e-commerce, and their new online shopping behavior may well extend beyond the pandemic.

Young developer talent is shaping the future The African developer scene boasts 700,000 professional software developers, many of them trained through university programs, others selftaught.

There’s an enormous amount of talent, but these developers need help to find jobs and take their ideas forward.

Coding classes, like those offered by Google, Decagon (https://decagonhq.com/capabilities.html), Gebeya (www.gebeya.com) and others, are helping close knowledge and skills gaps, while professional communities continue to grow. There are more than 160 active Google Developer Groups and 200 Developer Student Clubs in Sub-Saharan Africa, offering training and support to help

6ea850bcac8f6d05faf1c2f1ca7f558bf1296b5303958f334

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developers meet job requirements.

And since its launch in 2018, the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa program has worked with 47 startups from 17 African countries— helping them develop products and build successful companies and products.

One of the 2016 global accelerator graduates, Nigerian fintech startup Paystack, was recently acquired by Stripe for over $200 million. (see page 60) IFC is also playing its part to advance digital skills development, making investments in regional startups and accelerators that cultivate tech talent. Gebeya—a company IFC supports in Ethiopia—has trained over 500 young software developers, most of whom are women, and is providing seed funding to 30 graduates to pursue their own digital ventures. IFC investee Flat6Labs is fostering tech entrepreneurship (and women entrepreneurs in particular) by directing early stage funding to startups in both Egypt and Tunisia.

Whether it's helping startups grow, training developers or providing tools for small businesses, both Google (https://blog.google/topics/google-africa) and IFC are committing to bringing the benefits of technology to millions more people across this extraordinary continent. We invite you to read the report and learn more about the opportunities unfolding throughout Africa’s thriving internet economy. https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-africa/ understanding-africas-180b-internet-economy-future Sérgio Pimenta, Vice President, Middle East & Africa, IFC Nitin Gajria, Regional Director, Sub-saharan Africa, Google Africa

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Development - Commntary

Why an Abundance Mindset?

Blog by Peter Diamandis

DO YOU HAVE AN abundance mindset? What the heck is an abundance mindset? And what’s the advantage of having an abundance mindset?

In the middle of a pandemic, it’s hard to think about abundance… especially when people are losing their jobs, their businesses or wondering if and when they will get access to a vaccine.

Nonetheless, the world is heading rapidly towards abundance, and understanding this could transform your life and your business.

Exponential tech like computation, AI, 3-D printing, robotics, VR are rapidly dematerializing, demonetizing, and democratizing products and services. What used to only be available to the richest and most elite, is now available to almost anyone on the planet. A child in the middle of Zimbabwe can Google any information or video conference for free with someone on the other side of the world.

Many things we paid millions of dollars for just two decades ago are now available for free on your smartphone.

The challenge is that our minds evolved during a world of absolute scarcity, and most people are trapped in an unhealthy “Scarcity Mindset”.

In a world of scarcity, there is a limited pie. If your neighbor gets a slice, that means you get a smaller slice. It’s a world of limited resources and fierce competition.

With an Abundance Mindset, rather than slicing the pie into thinner and thinner pieces, we just bake more pies… millions of more pies. This is the future that exponential tech enables. And this is true across almost every sector whether or not people see it or recognize it yet.

Creating a world of abundance isn’t about creating a world of luxury, it’s about creating a world of possibility.

I believe that an Abundance Mindset is 1 of the 6 critical Mindsets for a leader and an entrepreneur to actively develop and firmly command.

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So, what are the benefits of an Abundance Mindset? And how do you develop one?

Here is a summary on WHY you should desire and develop an abundance mindset: With an Abundance Mindset…

1. You understand that the world is becoming more abundant, and this allows you to maintain a hopeful and compelling vision for the future. This positive mindset sets you apart from others, and attracts the best team to your mission.

2. You don’t resent missed opportunities because you understand that you are living in a world of ever-increasing opportunities. The future holds many more exciting, fulfilling and profitable opportunities for you to pursue.

3. You don’t fear the future. Instead, you embrace it and are excited to learn all you can to create the future you and your business desire.

4. You view competitors as potential collaborators in a world of ever-increasing business opportunities. Why worry unnecessarily about your competitors when you can create another, larger pie? You focus your time, attention and resources on pursuing Moonshots that are 10x (1000%), versus fighting in the trenches for 10% improvements.

5. You are reinventing your business through a digital lens -- constantly dematerializing, demonetizing, and democratizing your products and services, making them available to a larger and larger customer base at a lower and lower cost.

6. As a leader, you convey a hopeful and DAWN

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compelling future that inspires and guides your employees and customers. People inherently want good news: *data-driven optimism* rather than continuous dribble of negative, crisis-oriented, amygdala-energizing banter.

Now take a look at *data-driven optimism.* This is an optimism that comes from awareness of the overwhelming evidence as exponential technologies improve access to renewable energy, reduce childhood mortality, and reduce global poverty, just to name a few. All the improvements below are arguably a result of the continuous improvement of exponential technologies and their ability to democratize, demonetize, and dematerialize access to products and services for the 8 billion people on Earth.

With Data-Driven Optimism we see that…

1. We’re Living Longer & Child Mortality Rates are Falling - life expectancy continues to climb. Global life expectancy has been rising steadily since the turn of the 20th century, and has increased nearly 3 years in the last decade alone. It’s now 72.6 years old, compared to life expectancy just a century ago when most people didn’t make it to 40.

Perhaps more important than longevity is the dramatic decline in child mortality. From 1990 to 2010, child mortality decreased by over 40%. And in the last decade, it fell a further 26%. We can expect this trend to continue

due to advances in technology.

2. We’re More Connected Than Ever Before - nearly 60% of the world’s population has access to the internet. We passed the 50% milestone in 2018 and the trend is only accelerating. With such rapid progress, internet access may soon become a universal human right.

3. Rapid Growth of Solar & Wind Energy - Humanity’s two major renewable energy sources have seen massive growth in the last decade. Solar energy generation increased twenty-fold from 2010 to 2019. During that same period, renewable energy generated by wind increased three-fold to 1,430 gigawatts.

4. Extreme Poverty is Declining - in the last ten years, we have reduced global extreme poverty by nearly half to 9.3% in 2020. If it weren’t for COVID-19, that number would be even lower. For example, the World Bank estimates that if the pandemic hadn’t ravaged the world economy, the global extreme poverty rate in 2020 would be 7.9%.

Exponential technologies are the driving force behind many of the improvements we are experiencing. The good news is that those technologies are themselves increasing rapidly, both in terms of sophistication and adoption.

This trend of accelerating technological change not only provides endless opportunities for ambitious and energetic entrepreneurs, it also leads us to the compelling, hopeful, and abundant future that I know is possible.

Almost all of our exponential tech trends discussed in this blog are being built on top of ever-increasing computational power.

For the past ~70+ years, Moore’s Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Moore's_law), the

exponential

growth see page 30

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Development - Commntary Abundance Mindset from page 29

of computing power has continued non-stop.

The following chart, plotted on a log-scale, demonstrates this trend.

Computers are also becoming much more efficient. Processing efficiency is measured as the number of watts needed per million instructions per second (watts per MIPS).

Processing efficiency has increased by a factor of 100,000 since 1990. With continued advances in quantum computing, we’ll see an explosion of information-processing capability.

By 2023, IBM expects to reach 1,121 qubits with their processor codenamed Condor. This would be a 17-fold increase from today. IBM sees 2023 as the inflection point for the commercialization of quantum technology.

One key effect of continued improvements in computation is an explosion of the total amount of information produced. Between now and 2025, we will produce 3x the amount of information and data globally.

efficiency have helped to limit energy demand growth from data centers and data transmission networks, which combined accounted for just 1% of global electricity use in 2019.

Today, nearly 60% of the world’s population has access to the internet.

We passed the 50% milestone in 2018 and this trend is only accelerating.

As I’ve written previously, with such progress, i n t e r n e t access may soon become a universal human right.

Another way to appreciate just how much and how quickly the internet has grown is to look at the number of internet searches conducted.

For example, the number of Google searches alone has increased by 2,000x during the last 20 years.

One factor that has made such a dramatic increase in internet searches possible is the

Be

The Internet Continues its Explosive Growth Since 2010, the number of internet users worldwide has doubled while global internet traffic has grown twelvefold.

At the same time, rapid improvements in energy 30

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increasing speed of an end user’s connection, which is measured in megabits per second (Mbps) and end user connection speed has jumped 10x in the last decade alone.

Mobile Devices, Smartphones & 5G Growing Rapidly After an extended period of exponential growth, the number of mobile subscriptions globally is greater than the number of all people on Earth.

Given the total number of mobile subscriptions in the world, as of 2019 global mobile penetration was 108%.

In the US, the share of Americans who own a smartphone is 81%. According to the Pew Research Center, this is a 50% increase from when the organization first started collecting this data in 2011.

The advancement of 5G networks and technology will both accelerate and enhance mobile and smartphone adoption.

Ericsson projects that there will be 80 million 5G mobile subscriptions by the end of 2020. That number will then balloon to 2.8 billion in 2025.

We’ll also see an explosion of all sorts of connected devices. Cisco estimates that by 2022 (just a few years away), we’ll have over 1 billion total connected wearable devices in the world.

Some of the most dramatic growth in devices and hardware will come from VR & AR headsets.

Research firm IDC estimates that between now

e More 3D prints/builds house in Africa

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and 2024 we will see a 10x growth in global VR & AR headset shipments worldwide.

Dramatic Growth in Battery Technology We’ll need a significant increase in battery storage to power all of these devices. According to McKinsey, by 2024 we will see a 17x increase in battery demand.

Growth of Digital Memory Storage DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) is a type of memory chip used in most desktop and laptop computers. Demand for DRAM chips has been increasing for years, and over the next three years we’ll see at least an additional 100 billion 1 GB equivalent modules shipped globally.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Solar Energy With rapid growth in electric car sales over the past decade, electric cars now make up about 1% of the global car fleet.

Solar generation is one of humanity’s major renewable energy sources. We saw massive growth of solar during the last decade, increasing by a factor of twenty from 2010 to 2019.

The Digitization of Retail Global retail e-commerce sales more than doubled from $1.5 trillion in 2015 to $3.5 trillion in 2019. see page 32

3D printer builds a wall one layer at a time.

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Development - Commntary Abundance Mindset from page 31

That trend will only continue. By 2023, global e-commerce sales are projected to be almost $7 trillion.

Growth of Industrial Robots The market for industrial robots has been growing at record rates of 19% per year since 2013, and is expected to continue double-digit growth at least through 2021.

3D Printing Adoption In 2018, the global additive manufacturing market grew to over $10.4 billion, crossing the pivotal double-digit billion threshold for the first time in its decades-long history.

Exponential Growth in Biotech We have made progress in reducing the cost of sequencing the human genome. In 2008, that progress began to exceed Moore’s Law. This rapid growth continues and direct-to-consumer genome sequencing is now widely available.

NIH funding for CRISPRr e l a t e d research grew from $5 million in 2011 to $1.1 billion in 2018. During that time, the number of CRISPRr e l a t e d scientific publications increased by a factor of 45x.

To repeat, with an Abundance Mindset, rather than slicing the pie into thinner and thinner pieces, we 32

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just bake more pies… millions of more pies.

Craft and actuate your own Abundance Mindset and address the future positively rather than negatively. Create a world of possibility.

ABA - Bake More Pies!

Africa Business Association (ABA) is pursuing a path to abundance for the people of Africa and of the Africa Diaspora. We invite you to indiividually pursue the development of your Abundance Mindset while joining the ABA community in a collective discussion of how we work as continentals and diasporans to grow a "Bake More Pies" spirit.

Visit with the ABA community on our LinkedIn page (www.linkedin.com/company/africa-businessassociation/) to share ideas on some of the topics in this issue, prior issues and coming issues of DAWN. www.abundance360.com image credit: 3Dprint.com, 3dnatives.com, piedesigns. co.za

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Development

8 African E-commerce Startups Selected for Facebook Accelerator

By Tom Jackson DISRUPT AFRICA REPORTED IN August on the launch of Facebook Accelerator: Commerce is a 12-week non-equity programme supporting innovative commerce startups who renew shopping experiences for buyers and sellers.

Throughout the virtual programme, the selected startups will have access to a dedicated Facebook mentor, comprehensive training, Facebook’s suite of products and technologies, and a valuable network of product experts and fellow founders to connect with.

In all, 36 innovative commerce startups in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America have been selected to take part. They were chosen for having products focused on driving customer value, diverse and focused leadership teams, groundbreaking technology or research and evidence of business growth.

Eight of those were from Africa, with Egypt the best represented country. Three Egyptian e-commerce companies will take place in the accelerator, namely commerce chatbot-building platforms Botme (https://botme.com) and WideBot (https://widebot.net), and Convertedin (www.converted. in), an ad automation platform for retailers and e-commerce businesses.

Two startups are from South Africa, in the shape of BoxCommerce (www.boxcommerce.

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com),

a platform for small and medium-sized businesses to create e-commerce websites, and ShoppingFeeder (www.shoppingfeeder.com), a leading feed management and multi-channel marketing platform for online stores.

Kenya is also represented by two startups, in the shape of Digiduka (www.digiduka.com), which helps informal retailers get access to digital inventory, and next generation addressing system OkHi (www.okhi.com), while completing the list of African participants is Ghana’s FeedGeni (https://feedgeni. com), a product feed generator that helps online merchants increase product visibility and sales by listing their products on shopping engines.

The programme officially kicked off in midNovember, with startups connected with Facebook commerce experts and beginning their journey towards building solutions on commerce platforms that billions of people globally can use and benefit from. https://disrupt-africa.com/2020/11/8-african-e-commercestartups-selected-for-facebook-accelerator Image credit: ietp.com

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Development - Commentary

The World's First Trillionaire is Learning 1 Skill and Discovering How to Use it in Now Unimaginable Ways

By Jeff Haden, Contibuting Editor, Inc. WHAT DOES MARK CUBAN* feel will drive the next wave of business change?

At the Consumer Electric Show (www.ces.org) this year, Cuban said: If you don't know A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) you're the equivalent of somebody in 1999 saying, "I'm sure this Internet thing will be OK, but I don't give a shit." If you want to be relevant in business, you have to, or you will be a dinosaur very quickly.

There's going to be A.I. haves and have nots.

If you're a have not, you might as well rip out all the computers in your office and throw away your phones. That's how impactful it's going to be.

Cuban has put his mind and money where his mouth is. He frequently recommends books about artificial intelligence--the most recent is Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World.

And he's committed $2 million to expand his AI Bootcamps Program (https://analyticsindiamag.com/ mark-cuban-investing-in-ai-bootcamps-for-low-incomecommunities), an organization that teaches artificial-

intelligence skills at no cost to high school students in low-income communities across the USA. (Bootcamps are currently taught by A.I. and datascience experts at companies that extensively use A.I. in their business operations, like Walmart and McDonald's.)

According to Cuban: If you don't know how to use it and you don't understand it and you can't at least at have a basic understanding of the different approaches and how the algorithms work, you can be blindsided in ways you couldn't even possibly imagine.

Fortunately, developing a basic understanding of A.I. is, if not easy, at least simple. Coursera (www.

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currently lists over 800 A.I.-related courses, many of them free. Google offers a free machine learning crash course (www.updatevilla. coursera.org)

com/2020/06/29/free-machine-learning-crash-coursefrom-google-2020/#:~:text=Google%20provindingfree%20 machine%20learning%20crash%20course.%20Google%20 is,a%20career%20in%20the%20field%20of%20 Machine%20learning); it is the same course every new Google engineer takes. Udacity (www.udacity. com) offers a free course for those who want to

learn the basics of artificial intelligence and how it can be applied to business.

"The world's first trillionaires," Cuban says, "are going to come from somebody who masters A.I. and all its derivatives and applies it in ways we never thought of."

While most of us don't aspire to be trillionaires, as the business landscape continues to change, we do all hope to stay as close to the leading edge as possible.

If it turns out that Cuban (along with Bill Gates and Elon Musk and Warren Buffett) is right and AI is the new Internet, it's time for all of us to "give a [crap]" and start getting up to speed. *Mark Cuban: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cuban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence www.inc.com/jeff-haden/mark-cuban-worlds-first-trillionaire-islearning-1-skill-discovering-how-to-use-it-in-now-unimaginableways.html?utm_medium=40digest.7days3.20201102. carousel&utm_source=email&utm_content=&utm_ campaign=campaign Image Source: Wilton Park

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Development

Citroen Ami Electric Car

By Ronan Glon

CITROËN EXPANDED ITS LINEUP towards the bottom by introducing an electric, two-seater city car you don't need a license to drive. Called Ami, it was developed with both private users and car-sharing programs in mind.

The newest addition to the Citroën range is about a foot shorter than a Smart ForTwo (www.autoblog. com/2018/07/03/smart-fortwo-electric-drive-review) , shaped like a vacuum cleaner attachment, and named after a slightly more conventional-looking vintage model introduced in 1961. It looks like a car, and it's ostensibly marketed as one, but the French government begs to differ; the Ami joins the Renault Twizy (www.autoblog.com/2013/06/26/ renault-twizy-cargo-is-an-ev-and-shopping-cart-in-one) in the light quadricycle segment, meaning anyone can drive one without a license as long as they're at least 14. The catch is that its top speed is limited to precisely 27.9 mph — on flat ground, of course.

Power comes from an eight-horsepower motor, which is enough to move a 1,070-pound vehicle.

Citroën quoted up to 43 miles of driving range thanks to a 5.5-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery stuffed under the floor. Charging the tiny pack takes three hours when using a standard 220volt outlet found in every European house, though it's also compatible with public charging stations.

Fourteen-inch wheels deliver "easy handling," according to the firm.

Visually, the Ami takes the quirkiness Citroën is known for to new heights with a head-turning, opinion-splitting design loosely inspired by the Ami One (www.autoblog.com/2019/02/19/citroen-amione-concept-geneva) concept unveiled in 2019. It offers space for two passengers in closed, heated cabin with a panoramic sunroof and windows that flip up manually like on the emblematic 2CV. 35

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The interior is more practical than its dimensions suggest because users have numerous storage bins at their disposal.

The instrument cluster consists of a small, rectangular LCD screen. Want music? There's a smartphone cradle for that, and a place to put a Bluetooth-enabled speaker. Want navigation?

Again, use the cradle. Keeping the Ami as basic as possible allowed Citroën to make it cheap, though there's no word yet on where it's built.

Citroën envisions several use cases for the Ami. Motorists can lease one for €19.99 (about $22) per month after making a €2,644 (around $2,900) down payment. They can purchase their Ami (which, by the way, means "friend" in French) for €6,000, or approximately $6,600, or they're able to reserve one for roughly 30 cents a minute via app-based car-sharing programs in select cities.

It's cheaper than many scooters no matter how you look at it.

Those who choose to buy or lease one will be able to order it online and get it delivered straight to their door, Amazon-style. Citroën has a website where you can learn more, will begin taking orders on March 30, 2020 and the first deliveries are scheduled for June 2020 (www.citroen.co.uk/aboutcitroen/concept-cars/citroen-ami-one-concept). www.autoblog.com/2020/02/27/citroen-ami-electriccar/#slide-2212532 Image cedit: dailyrevs.com, Prix

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Development

Work from Anywhere: is 2021 the Future of Work?

By Greg Nichols This article references USA cities and towns. Replace the references with cities and towns in your region.

AUDREY KHUSID, FOUNDER AND CEO of Miro (https://miro.com), the digital whiteboarding platform, which has doubled its user base from 3.7M to 9M since March 2020 and is now used by 95% of Fortune 100 companies, has a front row seat to the evolution of the changing workplace.

Based on his observations from 2020, he predicts that work from home will become work from anywhere (WFX) (www.zdnet.com/article/remoteworking-101-professionals-guide-to-the-tools-of-the-trade), and there will be a massive digital transformation

The phenomenon of highly skilled college graduates leaving their hometowns in middle America and relocating to economic centers like Silicon Valley, New York, and Austin is commonly known as "Brain Drain," -- and remote work may finally bring it to an end. Instead of fleeing the heartland en masse for new opportunities, remote work will allow these workers to stay settled in regional hubs like Madison, Grand Rapids, Asheville, Boulder, Nashville, and Raleigh. This regionalization of talent will have a massive impact (www.zdnet.com/article/digital-transformation-spotting-the- on American culture, affecting everything from winners-and-losers-in-2020) as a result. What else will real-estate markets to electoral politics -- while still change? I caught up with Khusid to discuss the giving companies from around the country access future. Here are his six most poignant predictions to top talent. for 2021, with thanks for the insights.

Hybrid work will present new challenges to Mastering remote work is all about finding the unequipped teams right tools to stay productive and connected. This Thousands of enterprises will gradually begin guide will help you and your team be synchronized phasing teams back into the office (www.zdnet. and working in harmony. com/article/return-to-work-how-the-technology-mix-weWork from home will become work from anywhere (WFX) More and more companies are announcing that remote work will be permanent, even when travel restrictions and social distancing will not be. The result: As travel opportunities begin to reopen, millions of employees will turn their newfound remote status into the chance to work from anywhere, relocating outside of urban centers, making up for lost time with family, or participating in remote areas and other "workation" opportunities.

And because companies have spent the last year investing in technology that enables virtual collaboration -- for many of these employees the transition will be seamless.

The heartland will see an "undraining" of brains 36

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by adopting hybrid strategies that combine remote and in-office work.

While hybrid work is a good compromise to protect employees with health concerns, the risk becomes introducing "worst of both worlds" work habits into company collaboration.

To mitigate these effects, enterprises can embrace a culture of asynchronous sharing to replace many of the status and other routine meetings that fill up employee calendars. For brainstorms and real-time meetings, companies must make meetings interactive so that virtual attendees can participate with just as little friction as in-person ones, and craft collaborative practices that are inclusive to remote workers, like holding meetings entirely virtually even if some members are in the office.

rely-on-is-about-to-change-again)

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Mauritius Engagement is the new productivity Since the start of the SaaS era, billions of dollars have been invested into technology solutions that offered improvements to productivity in the enterprises. Many of the startups built by offering these solutions are now publicly traded companies like Slack and Asana, and even more solutions in the space have come from giants like Google and Microsoft. Looking forward, CIO priorities and budgets will shift away from making employees more productive and into making them more engaged.

Engagement is different from productivity.

Engagement refers to the passion employees have for their jobs and the connection they feel to their teams. In an era of remote and hybrid work, high levels of engagement will be a competitive advantage in developing products, attracting talent, and building customer loyalty in a crowded landscape.

In the new world of work from anywhere (WFX), employees must amplify their engagement to find advancement opportunities One of the drawbacks of remote work is that it's more difficult to draw attention to what you're working on day-to-day. In an office setting your attitude, body language, and relationships help drive the way you're perceived, opening doors for those with genuine enthusiasm and passion for their workplace. But in a remote setting where employees collaborate predominantly with text, such enthusiasm is harder for employees to

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convey and for employers to identify.

In 2021 it will be important that employees put extra effort into amplifying their engagement virtually to make sure they get new opportunities.

They must participate in virtual events, be active in group messaging, and keep their enthusiasm high during Zoom calls to stand out as leaders while working from home.

Young careers may suffer from lack of organic mentorship opportunities Particularly early in their careers, young workers depend on a combination of observing experienced colleagues and formal, hands-on mentorship to improve the job skills that allow them to grow. In a remote work environment, organic opportunities for this kind of learning are fewer and further between. In an office, you can hear colleagues think out loud, hop in informal huddles to share the reasoning behind decisions, and observe professional behavior in-person to learn the ropes.

In a work from anywhere (WFX) world, this is not possible.

To help develop a new generation of talent, companies will need to be proactive and deliberate in 2021 in building mentorship programs, and managers must give time and love to new employees to make sure they are learning the ropes and ultimately mastering their jobs to take on new challenges. Those who fail to do so risk losing rising talent. www.zdnet.com/article/work-from-anywhere-is-2021the-future-of-work Image credits: www2.deloitte.com

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Development

Is Big Tech Setting Africa Back?

By Nima Elmi

TECHNOLOGY TRANSCENDS NATIONAL BORDERS, so it shouldn’t be surprising that, in 2020, private technology and telecommunication companies control more data on the average person than governments do. And it’s not just data ownership: Policymakers similarly fall behind in understanding the power of data. That’s a problem, particularly as social media platforms are able to influence political outcomes with few to no repercussions and geopolitics becomes a duopoly of technological trailblazers like the United States and China, with the rest of the world looking on as spectators—and reluctant participants.

The coronavirus pandemic has moved many people’s lives online and demonstrated the revolutionary power of technology in driving economic growth despite physical stasis—whether 38

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in e-commerce, continuing employment for those able to work digitally, or virtual schooling. This dramatic shift wouldn’t have been possible without artificial intelligence (AI) embedded within nowessential services like Alexa, Siri, and Zoom.

Artificial intelligence is usually talked about in sensationalist terms. But hyperbolic language can mask simple business truths: AI capabilities— understanding everything from shopping habits to future careers or propensity for criminality—will only ever be as good as the datasets that feed them and, without diverse data sets, the ability to innovate and enhance existing AI functionalities is limited. The de facto U.S.-China AI duopoly doesn’t accurately represent the cross-cutting, global consumer bases tech companies serve; for the game to go on, spectators need to pitch in— DAWN

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lest they lose their pastime.

It is against this backdrop—a thirst for new data to keep the AI engine chugging—that colonialism has morphed into its latest form: data colonialism. Data colonialism is driven by the control of data as a proxy for the control of people and is quickly becoming the reality faced by many emerging economies today. Far from decolonized, these countries are subject to the whims of Big Tech’s unfettered rise; vulnerable peoples’ data is used to enhance companies’ innovations, entrench their economic and political might, and, in effect, occupy the daily lives of billions of people. Data extraction, monopolization, and monetization are data colonialism’s core tenets.

Africa is ground zero for data colonialism.

It is the continent with the largest number of countries; most cultural, linguistic and racial diversity; least connected nations; and its data protection regulations range from limited to nonexistent. Africa has always been a continent rich in natural resources, and, today, the diversity of the continent’s population renders it equally rich in data resources. But Big Tech’s exploitation of this diversity—heralded under the guise of internet-for-all initiatives—actually undermines the data sovereignty of African nations and impedes their ability to develop their own digital economies. That’s hardly a tide that lifts all boats.

In 2017, data overtook oil to become the world’s most valuable commodity, but it remains hard to define. At its most basic level, data is us—humans—in digital form: how we look; the languages we speak; our viewing preferences, medical records, voices, learning habits, and music preferences. For AI, all data is valuable fodder— enhancing algorithms’ capabilities and generating revenue for the companies that collect it.

When it comes to obtaining this data, the latest figures from the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development highlight just how vulnerable Africa is in comparison to its European counterparts.

In Europe, 96% of countries currently have data protection laws in place—versus only 50% in

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Africa. Globally, only 43% of the U.N.’s designated Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have such laws; 33 out of the 47 LDCs are in Africa.

As well as the unrivaled, diverse datasets that Africa offers tech companies, the continent’s relative absence of data protection policies— and a limited understanding of how valuable and influential data can be—is a central causal factor behind its vulnerability to data colonialism. There are myriad reasons for this vacuum in regulation on the continent, including a general lack of capacity, conflicting priorities, and political instability.

Data colonialism is at times conflated with humanitarian efforts—after all, who can object to expanding digital access, which nearly all agree is crucial for economic growth? But corporations’ support for emerging economies may be a doubleedged sword, as data extraction undermines African nations’ abilities to develop indigenous digital economies that can enhance their own capabilities. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/11/is-big-techsetting-africa-back Image credit: Facebook

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Tourism

A Guide To Experiential Travel: 5 Tips To Make Your Trip, A Journey

By Venkat J, CEO/Founder, Woovly (www.woovly. com) for Entrepreneur India

TRAVEL CAN MEAN DIFFERENT things to different people. It is a matter of perspective and experience. While some people consider travel as an escape from their monotonous life, some strive for the knowledge they can find in far of places.

Many travels for sightseeing and many others consider it a bucket list goal to complete.

In the 21st century, travel is an immersive experience. That's where experiential travel comes into play. It is nothing but an amalgamation of knowledge, history, culture and tradition, that is, what it means to be a part of the place. Experiencing real life in a place is when you get the true essence of that place. Moreover, it not only comes from the food we eat, the places we see or the adventure we find ourselves in but also the people we meet and bond with. It is an experience that we take back home as a learning and understanding of the vast world out there and our purpose to figure that out. That is when a short trip becomes a journey of our lives.

Given a chance, experiential travel is not something you would want to miss out. However, the question arises on how to plan it out through an itinerary. Given below are some vital tips that could help you in experiencing the essence of your travel.

Connect With The Locals

know what you should not miss out on when visiting the town or city.

May it be the Cherry Blossom Festival of Japan or the Loktak Lake boat ride in Manipur.

Furthermore, an ideal suggestion to connect with them is through booking home stays or do couch surfing for accommodation. Not only would you get an idea of how the lives are lived but understand what makes it different. Besides, nothing tastes better than home food, and perhaps, that is the real taste of the place you are visiting.

Choose Offbeat Towns Over Big Cities Big cities are usually the first choice of the visit.

With their changing architecture and the inter-mix of nationalities, they seem to be rather calling out. However, most of the cities are metropolitan ones and have the base experience as a common ground. Leaping from Mumbai to Bangalore, one wouldn't find what India has to give. Most of the activities in a city are well designed for tourists and their comfort. It is the offbeat towns and villages that make a difference. Without much tourist flow, they show you a calmer state of the world away from the hustle. Moreover, they give an authentic experience of the place.

People make the soul of a place. Could you imagine a place with no people? The best way to understand a place is through connecting with the people who live there. In the age of social media, it is rather easy to find localities who can give you Try Hands-on Activities an idea as to how they go about their daily lives.

Learning as the locals give away a lot of hidden Planning an itinerary becomes smoother when you ways as to how they live their lives. Classes or 40

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adventure activities can give away a lot of aspects to learn the local culture better.

For instance, a cooking class to learn the authentic dishes or perhaps, taking a hot air balloon ride to see the vast desert of Rajasthan. Moreover, there is no better way to learn the history of art and craft of the place than understanding how they do it. You learn from the locals in activities by the locals.

Learn The Language A language paves a way into the hearts of the people. The basics of the local language can help you navigate through a place with the help of the people.

Not everyone around the world would know English or your native language.

When people see the effort you put in to understand them deeply; they help you out in ways you will always remember. Duolingo (www.duolingo.com) is probably the best and easiest way to learn foreign languages.

Moreover, reading books and watching movies can

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give an insight into their culture and tradition for you to understand the place better while travelling.

Eat Street Food Food is the way to the heart. But while talking about it, we talk about the authentic local cuisine that charms its way into the heart, giving you the taste of the place. The streets have a variety for domestic as well as international food but with a twist. While restaurants and dine-in have perfected their ways to cater to the taste of the visitors from around the world, street vendors stick to their roots. www.entrepreneur.com/article/348037 Image credit: Jumia Travel Kenya, Pinterest, WordPress.com

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Tourism

Condé Nast Traveler:

2020 Reader's Choice Awards Jesse Ashlock, U.S. Editor

THE READERS' OF CONDÉ NAST Traveler magazine m vote annually on o their selection of the t world's "greatest" hotels, h islands, cruises, c and more.

The selections that related to Africa are reported here. The full report can be found in the November 2020 issue and at www. c n t r a v e l e r. c o m / the-bests/readerschoice-awards. choice awards

HOTELS There are 30 hotels listed for Africa. The national breakdown is: Morroco - 7, Kenya - 1, South Africa -19, Tanzania - 1, Zimbabwe - 1, Zambia - 1.

The first 10 on the list with their ratings are: • Royal Mansour Marrakech, Morroco - 99.52 • La Mamounia, Marrakech, Morroco - 99.49 • Giraffe Manor, Nairobi, Kenya - 99.44 • Delaire Graff Estate, Stellenbosch, South Africa - 99.22 • The Plettenberg, Plettenberg Bay, South Africa - 98.79 • Cape Cadogan Boutique Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa - 98.68 • The Last Word Long Beach, Cape Town, South Africa - 98.67 • Gibb's Farm, Karatu, Tanzania - 98.51 • Ellerman House, Cape Town, South Africa - 98.46 • The Oyster Box, Umhlanga, South Africa 98.44

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There are 10 railway systems listed for the world in this profile.

Africa's one system is #9 in this listing: • The Pride of Africa, Rovos Rail, South Africa - 93.00

COUNTRIES There are 20 nations listed in this category. Africa has one nation in the #8 position in this listing : • South Africa - 92.20

RESORTS There are 45 resorts listed for Africa. The breakdown is: Kenya - 5, South Africa - 20, Tanzania - 9, Zimbabwe - 2, Zambia - 3, Rwanda - 2, Botswana - 3, Namibia - 1.

The first 10 on the list, without South Africa, and their ratings are: • Singeta Grumeti, Grumeti Game Reserve, Tanzania - 99.89 • Chamilandu, The Bushcamp Company, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia 99.87 • Bisate Lodge, Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda - 99.81 • Oliver's Camp, Tarangire National Park, Tanzania - 99.75 • Singita Pamushana Lodge, Malilangwe Wildlife Reserve, Zimbabwe - 99.71 • andBeyond Ngorongoro Crater Lodge, Tanzania - 99.64 • Elewanda Sand River Masai Mara, Kenya - 99.62 • Angama Mara, Great Rift Valley, Kenya 99.55 • andBeyond Serengeti Under Canvas, Tanzania - 99.55 • Bilimungwe, The Bushcamp Company, DAWN

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Ulusaba Private Game Reserve Sabi Sands

South Luangwa National Park, Zambia 99.54 The first 10 on the South Africa list with their ratings are: • Morukuru Family Beach Lodge, De Hoop Nature Reserve - 99.88 • Singita Sabi Sands - Boulders Lodge 99.71 • Royal Malewane, Greater Kruger National Park - 99.62 • Lion Sands Game Reserve, Sabi Sands 99.57 • Londolozi, Sabi Sands - 99.55 • Tintswalo Safari Lodge, Manyeleti Game Reserve - 99.49 • andBeyond Phinda Private Game Reserve - 99.48 • Ulusaba Private Game Reserve, Sabi Sands - 99.32 • The Outpost, Kruger National Park - 99.24 • Makanyi Private Game Lodge, Timvabati Private Nature Reserve - 99.23

ISLANDS There are 5 islands listed in this category which is

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labled 'Africa and the Indian Ocean.' The 4 islands generally acknowledged as "Africa" are shown below.

• Bazaruto Archipelago, Mozambique - 97.36 • Mnemba Island, Tanzania - 97.00 • Seychelles - 91.18 • Mauritius - 89.37 In the categories Cities, Airlines & Airports and Spa Resorts no Africa-based entities are listed.

Publisher's Note Congratulations to all who have achieved recognition within this tourist group, the Condé Nast Traveler readers and voters. Special kudos to those who achieved ratings in the 99.00 range.

It may be time to address the Tourism Industry the way we approach the Africa Cup. Let's decide to compete at the international and continenal levels; review our strengths and weakenesses, build our teams and fan base and then get out on the field of play.

Image credits: elegantresorts.co.uk

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Tourism

Egypt Unveils Scores of Ancient Coffins, Statues Found in Saqqara EGYPTIAN OFFICIALS HAVE ANNOUNCED Grand Egyptian Museum that Egypt is building the discovery of at least 100 ancient coffins – some near the Giza Pyramids. with mummies inside – and some 40 gilded statues The discovery at the famed necropolis is the in a vast pharaonic necropolis south of the capital, latest in a series of archaeological finds in Egypt.

Cairo.

Since September, antiquities authorities revealed Colourful, sealed sarcophagi and statues that at least 140 sealed sarcophagi, with mummies were buried more than 2,500 years ago were inside most of them, in the same area of Saqqara. displayed on Saturday in a makeshift exhibit at Egyptian archaeologists found other “shafts full of the feet of the famed Step Pyramid of Djoser at coffins, well-gilded, well-painted, well-decorated,” Saqqara.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Archaeologists opened a coffin with a well- Council of Antiquities, told reporters. preserved mummy wrapped in cloth inside. They Egypt frequently touts its archaeological also carried out x-raying visualising the structures discoveries in hopes of spurring a vital tourism of the ancient mummy, showing how the body had industry that has been reeling from the political been preserved. turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that Tourism and Antiquities Minister Khaled El-Anany overthrew longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak. The told a news conference that the discovered items sector was also dealt a further blow this year by date back to the Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled the coronavirus pandemic.

Egypt for some 300 years – from around 320 BC www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/14/egypt-unveilsto about 30 BC, and the Late Period (664-332 BC). ancient-coffins-statues-found-in-saqqara The Saqqara site is part of the necropolis at Egypt’s ancient capital of Memphis that includes the famed Giza Pyramids, as well as smaller pyramids at Abu Sir, Dahshur and Abu Ruwaysh. The ruins of Memphis were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in the 1970s.

“Saqqara has yet to reveal all of its contents. It is a treasure,” El-Anany said.

“Excavations are still under way. Whenever we empty a burial shaft of sarcophagi, we find an entrance to another.”

The minister said authorities would move the artefacts to at least three The sealed wooden coffins belonged to top officials of the Late Period Cairo museums including the and the Ptolemaic period of ancient Egypt [Nariman El-Mofty/AP]

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Pandemic-Health

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Governance

Sudan says Deal with US Blocks Further Compensation Claims

By Samy Magdy, Associated Press

SUDAN SAYS IT HAS signed an agreement with the U.S. that could effectively stop any future compensation claims being filed against the African country in U.S. courts, following Washington's decision to remove the country from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The deal restores in U.S. courts what is known as sovereign immunity to the Sudanese government, and comes after a year of negotiations between the Trump administration and Sudan's new leadership, the Sudanese Justice Ministry said.

A transitional government led by a mix of military and civilian figures currently rules Sudan, after the overthrow of former leader Omar al-Bashir in April 2019 led to the country seeking better ties with the U.S. Sudanese Justice Minister Nasredeen Abdulbari said that the agreement will allow Sudan “to resolve historical liabilities, restore normal relations with the United States, and move forward toward democracy and better economic times.”

The ministry said the deal, signed at the U.S. State Department Friday, was meant to settle all lawsuits against Sudan in American courts, including those related to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The deal would enter into force after U.S. Congress passes legislation needed to implement the agreement.

Sudan’s transitional government has agreed to pay $335 million in compensation for victims of the

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Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok © Provided by Associated Press

attacks that were carried out by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network while the militant leader was living in Sudan. The ministry said the money would be held in an escrow account till the U.S. finalizes the restoration of Sudan’s sovereign immunity.

The State Department has notified Congress of the agreement, which it described as a “monumental win for victims of terrorism.”

It said the deal also included compensation settlement for victims of the deadly 2000 bombing of the USS Cole at Yemen’s southern port of Aden which killed 17 Marines, and for the killing of John Granville, an official with the U.S. Agency for International Development, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum in 2008.

“The signing .. marks a critically important step toward achieving justice for the tragedy our families experienced,” said Edith L. Bartley, spokeswoman for the families of the Americans killed in the Kenya attack.

Bartley urged U.S. Congress to “immediately” pass legislation needed to implement the settlement and release the money.

The U.S. designation of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism dates back to the 1990s, when al-Bashir

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ruled Sudan and his government briefly hosted bin Laden and other wanted militants. Sudan was also believed to have served as a pipeline for Iran to supply weapons to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

De-listing Sudan from the blacklist was part of the U.S. administration's efforts to have Sudan normalize its ties with Israel. Sudan has become the third Arab country — after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — to normalize ties with the Jewish state in the run-up to Election Day on Nov. 3.

However, President Trump’s decision on Friday to extend the U.S. national emergency regarding Sudan stirred up confusion and concern among Sudanese over American policy.

The U.S. embassy in Khartoum on Saturday

sought to reassure Sudanese, saying in a tweet that the decision “in no way impacts the removal of Sudan from the state sponsors of terrorism list.”

It said the extension was meant to maintain U.N. sanctions related to the Darfur conflict.

Darfur has been gripped by bloodshed since 2003, when rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government, accusing it of misruling the region. The United Nations says 300,000 people have died in the conflict and 2.7 million have fled their homes.

Sudanese transitional authorities have promised to hold elections by 2022. www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sudan-saysdeal-with-us-blocks-further-compensation-claims/ ar-BB1azm79?ocid=msnews

Biden Selects Nigerian Adewale Adeyemo as Deputy Treasury Secretary

UNITED STATES PRESIDENT-ELECT, JOE BIDEN, has selected Nigerian-born attorney, Adewale Adeyemo, as the Deputy Treasury Secretary.

This was disclosed by Biden on Sunday, November 29th according to Wall Street Journal /www.wsj.com/articles/biden-to-name-rouse-tanden-toeconomic-team-11606684256).

Previously, Adeyemo was a former senior international economic adviser during the Obama

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administration. Under the Biden administration, he will serve under former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who Biden plans to appoint to lead the US Treasury Department.

Adeyemo’s appointment is one of the cabinet positions Biden is expected to announce in the coming days.

Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo (born 1981) is the first president of the Obama Foundation. During the Obama Administration, Adeyemo served as Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics from 2015 to 2016 and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.

He was raised in Los Angeles, California.

Adewale earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley and Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2020/11/30/bidenselects-nigerian-adewale-adeyemo-as-deputytreasury-secretary

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Governance

5 Things to Know about Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the Superstar Diplomat Biden Nominated as UN Ambassador

By Christopher Rhodes PRESIDENT-ELECT JOE BIDEN ANNOUNCED several key choices for his foreign policy and national security team on Monday, November 22, 2020. While he has not yet nominated any of the individuals that Blavity (https://blavity.com) previously identified as potential Black cabinet picks, one nominee who stands out is Linda Thomas-Greenfield. The career diplomat and Louisiana native is Biden’s pick for United States Ambassador to the United Nations, a cabinet-level position that serves as one of the most important foreign policy positions in the U.S. government. Although she is not a household name, Thomas-Greenfield has had an incredible career trajectory and history.

Here are five things to know about the Black woman who is likely to become America’s most prominent ambassador.

1. She endured going to college with David Duke, who'd go on to become a notorious KKK leader Thomas-Greenfield grew up in Louisiana in what she describes as a "town in which the KKK regularly would come on weekends and burn a cross in somebody's yard."

After graduating in 1970 from a segregated high school, Thomas-Greenfield chose to attend Louisiana State University for college. Though integrated, LSU was not at the time a particularly welcoming atmosphere for Black students. This was especially true due to the presence of another undergraduate at the time – David Duke, the future Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (https://blavity. com/tags/Ku-Klux-Klan). Duke first gained national 48

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attention during his LSU days, as he paraded around campus in Nazi-like gear, made daily racist and anti-Semitic speeches, and founded the White Youth Alliance, a campus branch of a larger neoNazi organization, the National Socialist White People's Party.

As Thomas-Greenfield later described Duke, “He was preaching the same hatred, antiSemitism, white supremacy that he preached in Charlottesville, VA," she said in reference to the violent 2018 Unite the Right rally.

2. She survived the 1994 Rwanda genocide After graduating from LSU and earning a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin, where she also did doctoral work, and teaching at Bucknell University, Thomas-Greenfield entered into foreign affairs.

According to her State Department bio, she served in a number of countries including Pakistan, Kenya, The Republic of Gambia, Nigeria and Jamaica over a career spanning more than three decades.

Thomas-Greenfield narrowly escaped death in 1994 after arriving in Rwanda the day before the genocide began. Standing 6 feet tall with dark skin, she fit the stereotypical description of a woman from the Tutsi ethnic group, the main targets of the genocide killers, and was held at gunpoint by DAWN

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men threatening to execute her.

She managed to convince her captors that she was American and was spared, an incident she described in a 2019 TED (www.

Talk

Jendayi Frazer (www.cfr.org/expert/jendayi-e-frazer).

Thomas-Greenfield held the position during the world’s worst Ebola outbreak (https://blavity.com/ tags/ebola), which occurred in West Africa from 2014 to 2016, and she helped shape U.S. policy to help contain the deadly disease.

5. She hopes to fix the State Department and repair the U.S. relationship with the United Nations The Trump administration forced out many career diplomats from the State Department and refused ted.com/talks/ to refill many of the positions, leaving the agency linda_thomas_ greenfield_how_i_ understaffed and demoralized.

Like many State Department officials, especially found _ st rengt h _ and_compassion_ women and people of color within the agency, through_adversity). Thomas-Greenfield was pressured to leave once the Trump administration took power. As Blavity 3. She worked previously reported, Thomas-Greenfield said after Linda Thomas-Greenfield with Africa’s her 2017 retirement that she did not “feel targeted first elected as an African American.” Rather, she said, “I feel female president Thomas-Greenfield has visited or lived in Liberia targeted as a professional.”

Trump publicly berated the United Nations at several points in her career.

She conducted graduate research in the country and even withdrew the United States from the while a student at the University of Wisconsin. UN Human Rights Council, creating a tense In 2005, she was part of a U.S. delegation relationship between the United States and the that observed the 2005 Liberian presidential international organization.

Earlier this year, Thomas-Greenfield coelection. That election was won by economist Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (https://blavity.com/tags/ellen- authored an op-ed in Foreign Affairs magazine johnson-sirleaf), who became the first elected female outlining a plan to revitalize the State Department head of state in Africa. Thomas-Greenfield was (www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-09-23/ appointed United States Ambassador to Liberia diplomacy-transformation). The piece argued, among other things, that the State Department should be in 2008, a post she held until 2012.

Serving as Ambassador to Liberia during Sirleaf’s repopulated, and that the principles of diversity, administration, Thomas-Greenfield worked closely inclusion and equity should be among the driving with the Liberian president and helped promote factors for evaluating new hirers. The memo painted Sirleaf to western audiences. “We see her as one the lack of diversity in the agency as a “national of us,” Thomas-Greenfield said of Sirleaf in 2010. security crisis” and argued that “study after study has shown that more diverse organizations are 4. She served as U.S. Assistant Secretary more effective and innovative organizations.” of State for African Affairs Under President Now, having set an agenda for repairing the State Obama Department that the Biden team seems poised In 2013, Thomas-Greenfield was appointed by to follow, Thomas-Greenfield will also have the President Barack Obama to serve as Assistant opportunity to repair the relationship between the Secretary of State for African Affairs, the top United States and the United Nations.

State Department official in charge of policy https://blavity.com/5-things-to-know-about-lindaconcerning Africa. She joined a distinguished list thomas-greenfield-the-superstar-diplomat-bidenof diplomats to serve in this role, including Susan nominated-as-un-ambassador Rice (https://blavity.com/search/susan%20rice) and Image credit: eurweb.com

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Governance

How Communicators Can Help Fight Disinformation

By Bob Pearson and Christina Nemr WHEN IT COMES TO our home and the outdoors, we all want to breathe clean air and drink clean water.

When it comes to our education, we want clean copy and trust what we see and hear.

Unfortunately, we’re dealing with a wave of information pollution (https://greentarget. com/insights/research-report/fake-news-2020) that is impacting our planet.

Since we all want to trust the content that we read, hear or see, the question is, how do we get better at doing this in a media world, where there are fewer gatekeepers and more channels being created every day?

The answer is that there is a growing series of solutions designed to make the information world safer. We can all play a role in vetting and potentially using some of these tools and platforms.

It's Easy The backdrop is simple. The ability to exaggerate the truth, spin a conspiracy, start a hoax or spread falsehoods has never been easier due to the availability of so many channels operating without gatekeepers.

This relatively new area of disinformation (www.npr.org/2020/10/24/927300432/robocalls-rumorsand-emails-last-minute-election-disinformation-floodsvoters) can be broadly defined as false information

deliberately created to mislead, create distrust and sow uncertainty and chaos.

Though used interchangeably, disinformation is not to be confused with misinformation, which, while also being false information, is created and spread unintentionally by citizens around the world.

The key question is what can we do about it?

It is here that we look to you to join us in being part of a larger gatekeeper community to protect our 50

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global village.

What’s Available?

There are tools, approaches and applications (www.prnewsonline.com/fake-news-AI-research-Burke)

that can help spot disinformation, how to expose it and push back against it.

For example, First Draft News (https://firstdraftnews. org) is working to help everyone from the average news consumer to newsrooms understand and deal with disinformation. It provides easy-touse flashcards, accessible text courses, and illuminating webinars.

Poynter (www.poynter.org/poynter-training) offers similar trainings and courses designed for the classroom, office or newsroom.

An online hub like Disinfo Cloud (https:// disinfocloud.com) highlights the latest technologies and tools to help fight disinformation. It features social listening tools common in the marketing industry as well as consumer-friendly browser extensions. These help discern factual information from contested information and reputable sites from low-quality news sites that frequently peddle misleading information.

These tools are assessed according to their perceived strengths and weaknesses and their ability to help combat disinformation. Disinfo Cloud users determine which tools might best help them as they navigate the information environment. In addition, it compiles the latest news, research, and events around the world to help keep users

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Governance

Ghana to Build ‘Wakanda City’ to Serve as a Pilgrimage for People of African Descent

By Parker Diakite

CAPE COAST OFFICIALS HAVE signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the Africa D i a s p o r a Development Institute (ADDI) and two local companies to create an ultramodern city known as “Wakanda One”.

The city, which name is inspired by the technologically advanced fictional African nation portrayed in the movie “Black Panther,” aims to be a pilgrimage for the people of African descent to learn about their history, culture, the civilization of Africa, and its role in the creation of the new world economy.

There are five phases to the city project. Once complete, the city will feature a one thousand-bed teaching hospital, a university and technical college, five-star hotels and resorts, a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant, parks and green space, a informed of trends in misleading information.

November-December 2020

https://travelnoire.com/ghana-to-build-wakanda-city Image credit: Photo by nappy from Pexels

are developing solutions that may benefit all of us.

What you learn may help you protect our to companies, communities, children and our countries.

Communicators' Role So, why does disinformation matter communicators?

Our belief is that combating disinformation is an emerging discipline for communicators. If you think of it as the next generation of issues management, it becomes a skill we all need to learn and study to avoid getting caught up in the quagmire of misleading information.

The best next step is to look into the above tools and keep an eye on how innovative companies

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shopping center, roads that are ready to support self-driving electric cars, and more.

The project is expected to create approximiaetly 3,000 jobs in Cape Coast.

“The African Diaspora is committed to change the African narrative and strongly feel that a united African Diaspora can bring the capacity that is needed to move Africa to its rightful place on the world stage,” the city’s project team released in a statement (https://ouraddi.org/wakanda-project).

[Editor's Note: Christina Nemr, co-author of this essay, operates DisinfoCloud.com for the US State Department.] www.prnewsonline.com/misinformationdisinformation-fakenews/?oly_enc_ id=7910C8518789D0B Image credit: Power of Positivity

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Governance

UN Warns of War Crimes in Spiralling Ethiopia Conflict

By AFP

THE UNITED NATIONS WARNED recently of possible war crimes in Ethiopia's Tigray region, as the US condemned the massacre of civilians in fighting which the prime minister claimed had left his enemy "in the final throes of death".

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize, ordered military operations in Tigray last week, shocking the international community which fears the start of a long and bloody civil war.

Hundreds of people are reported to have been killed, some in a gruesome massacre reported by Amnesty International, and thousands have fled fighting and air strikes in Tigray, whose leaders Abiy accuses of seeking to destabilise the country.

The United States urged an immediate deescalation.

"We condemn the massacre of civilians in MaiKadra and strongly urge immediate steps to deescalate and end conflict throughout the Tigray region," said Tibor Nagy, the top US diplomat for Africa, referring to a town where Amnesty International reported mass killings.

UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet called for a full investigation into the report of mass killings in Mai-Kadra, where Amnesty said it had "digitally verified gruesome photographs and videos of bodies strewn across the town or being carried away on stretchers".

"If confirmed as having been deliberately carried out by a party to the current fighting, these killings of civilians would of course amount to war crimes," she said in a statement.

Amnesty said it had not been able to confirm who was responsible for the killings, however witnesses 52

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blamed forces backing the region's ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

Witnesses also reported the identity cards of some victims indicated they were from the Amhara region, an area with a long history of tensions with Tigrayans, notably over land.

Tigrayan leader Debretsion Gebremichael told AFP on Friday the accusations were "baseless".

Abiy says his military operation was in response to attacks on two federal military camps by the TPLF, which once dominated Ethiopian politics and claims it has been sidelined and targeted under Abiy.

The party denies carrying out the attacks.

Surrounded on all sides On Friday Abiy addressed the region's soldiers, urging them to "rise up" and side with the national army.

"This mischievous force is surrounded on all sides. It is a force in its final throes of death" he said in the Tigrinya language in a speech broadcast on Facebook.

"Rise up against the clique or defect to the Ethiopian defence forces."

A communications blackout in Tigray has made it difficult to verify competing claims on the ground, but Abiy has vowed to deliver a decisive win "in a relatively short period of time".

"This is a daydream," Debretsion said. "We are proud people who can defend ourselves. This is a burial ground for invaders."

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Bachelet warned that if the conflict continues "there is a risk this situation will spiral totally out of control, leading to heavy casualties and destruction, as well as mass displacement within Ethiopia itself and across borders".

"I am also extremely alarmed at reports of cuts to essential water and electricity supplies, in addition to the communications blackout and blocking of access by road and air."

Exhausted and scared The UN refugee agency UNHCR said more than 14,500 people have fled into Sudan this week, where aid workers have been overwhelmed.

"People are arriving with very few belongings indicating they fled in a hurry. Arriving children are exhausted and scared," it said.

The agency also warned that fighting was moving closer to a camp in Tigray that houses 6,500 Eritrean refugees.

Alarm is growing over reports of ethnic tensions.

The UN's special adviser on the prevention of genocide Pramila Patten in a statement "condemned reports of targeted attacks against civilians based on their ethnicity or religion".

Ethiopian state media reported that an arrest warrant had been issued for Debretsion and other TPLF leaders, while almost 250 have been arrested in the capital for allegedly conspiring with the TPLF. A government statement said Friday it had

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"credible and specific evidence" of TPLF operatives working for local and international organisations.

The statement said police had presented a list of such individuals to the World Food Programme (WFP) in Amhara region, but this was not a "general ethnic profiling".

"We continue to receive credible reports of job suspensions of Tigrayan residents elsewhere in the country as fighting escalates in Tigray," said Laetitia Bader of Human Rights Watch.

"Given the incredibly tense and volatile context in the country, Ethiopian authorities should push back against language and measures that fuel intolerance and risk alienating Tigrayans from all walks of life." https://news.yahoo.com/un-warns-war-crimesspiralling-115956598.html

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Governance

Ghana's Former President H.E. Jerry Rawlings Dies

By Reuters and Eoin McSweeney

JERRY RAWLINGS, WHO SEIZED control of Ghana twice in military coups before becoming the country's democratically-elected president, has died at the age of 73, his party said in a statement Thursday.

Rawlings' takeovers in 1979 and 1981 were marked by authoritarian rule and the executions of senior military officers, including General Frederick Akuffo, whom he overthrew in the first coup.

But Rawlings went on to oversee Ghana's transition to multi-party democracy, winning election in 1992 and 1996 before stepping down in 2001 (www.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/ghana-electionsgeorge-ayittey/index.html).

"A great tree has fallen, and Ghana is poorer for this loss," said the current president, Nana AkufoAddo, in a statement.

National flags will fly at half mast for a week from Friday across the west African country, he added. The president and vice president, who are members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), will suspend their political campaigns for the upcoming general election on December 7 for the same period of time.

Former president John Mahama, who is running again in this year's presidential campaign for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) -- the party Rawlings founded -- will also suspend his six-day 54

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campaign tour of the Ashanti region with immediate effect, his campaign spokesperson said in a statement.

"Africa has lost a stalwart of Pan-Africanism and a charismatic continental statesman," said the chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, in a tweet on Thursday.

Rawlings first came to power in the 1979 coup when he was an air force lieutenant. He transferred power to civilian rule soon after but then led another coup two years later, decrying government corruption and weak leadership.

From 1981 to 1993, he ruled as chairman of a joint military-civilian government. In 1992 he was elected president under a new constitution, taking up that office the following year.

As president, he liberalized Ghana's economy, encouraging investment in the oil and gold sectors.

In 2001, he handed over power to John Kufour of the opposition party who had defeated Rawlings' vice president in the previous year's election.

After stepping down, Rawlings remained a power broker in Ghanaian politics while serving in various international diplomatic posts, including as the African Union's representative in Somalia. www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ghanasformer-president-jerry-rawlings-dies/arBB1aXd0o?ocid=uxbndlbing Image credit: © Chris Stein/AFP/Getty Images Jerry Rawlings pictured in February 2014

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Investment

A South African Startup Will Rent Your 'Spare’ Car so it can be Used by Uber Drivers

By Bombi Mavundza

SOUTH

AFRICAN STARTUP FLEXCLUB (https://flexclub.co.za) lets you rent out your 'spare' or unused vehicle - and get paid for it. After three years, the company will buy the car from you if you so wish.

The vehicles are, in turn, rented out to Uber drivers who cannot afford to buy vehicles of their own. According to Flexclub co-founder, Tinashe Ruzane, the Uber drivers also have the opportunity to buy the vehicles from them.

Speaking to Business Insider South Africa, Ruzane says they have up to R50 million worth of cars rented out to them since their launch last year.

Growing up in Doornpoort in Pretoria, Ruzane was introduced to Uber while working on a social enterprise initiative in Soweto in 2013.

"They approached us during that time and I got curious and started reading up on them," he says.

Impressed by the idea, he bought his own vehicle and rented it out to a driver. He noticed that a lot of would-be drivers could not secure vehicle finance. He then approached Uber with an idea to, hopefully, change that.

"There was a lot of data that they had on the drivers that if used properly could help the drivers clear their records, making them trustworthy for a vehicle loan."

Uber hired him in 2015 and in 2016 he moved to Amsterdam where he worked as their Head of Vehicle Solutions in charge of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

While in Amsterdam, Ruzane says he realised that South Africa's problems were not unique and decided to return home and create a platform that would assist those wanting to be part of the ehailing industry.

He launched Flexclub in 2018.

Ruzane explains that the vehicles must, of course,

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f o l l o w U b e r X rules.

To be part of FlexClub, the vehicle's mileage must be less than 60,000 kilometres, must be a 2013 or newer sedan.

Those renting out their vehicles to Flexclub get paid R4,500 a month. Over three years, car owners can expect to have earned over R200,000.

"We pay the owners directly, so even if the Uber driver does not make a lot in that month, they are still guaranteed their money."

"We also insure the vehicles and cover all the maintenance costs so that the owners are not overburdened."

Ruzane has been nominated for the FNB Business Innovation Awards. He currently has over 400 registered vehicles on the platform and hopes to have thousands registered vehicles globally over time. www.businessinsider.co.za/the-startup-flexclubwill-rent-your-vehicle-to-be-used-by-uberdrivers-2019-11 DAWN

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Investment

African Stock Exchange/Bourse • Algeria • Angola • Botswana • Cameroon • Cape Verde Islands • Cote de Ivoire • Egypt • Ethiopia • Ghana • Kenya • Libya • Malawi • Mauritius • Morocco • Mozambique • Namibia • Nigeria

Algiers Stock Market Angola Stock Exchange and Derivatives Botswana Stock Exchange Douala Stock Exchange Bolsa de Valores of Cape Verde Bourse Regionale des Valeurs Mobilieres UEMOA (Abidjan) The Egyptian Exchange Ethiopia Commodity Exchange Ghana Stock Exchange Nairobi Stock Exchange Libyan Stock Market Malawi Stock Exchange Stock Exchange of Mauritius Casablanca Stock Exchange Bolsa Valores de Mocambique Namibian Stock Exchange Nigerian Stock Exchange

• Rwanda • Seychelles • Somalia • South Africa

Rwanda Stock Exchange Seychelles Securities Exchange Somali Stock Exchange Bond Exchange of South Africa Johannesburg Stock Exchange

• South Sudan • Swaziland • Tanzania • Tunisia • Uganda • Zambia • Zimbabwe

Khartoum Stock Exchange Swaziland Stock Exchange Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange Tunisia Stock Exchange Uganda Securities Exchange Lusaka Stock Exchange Zimbabwe Stock Exchange

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Resource: Daily News Egypt

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es/default.aspx

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Stocks Mirror the Economy Africa has around 29 stock exchanges representing 38 countries including two regional exchanges.

Africa has become the newest destination for emerging markets investors. From 2000, according to the World Economic Forum, "half of the world's fastest-growing economies have been in Africa." By 2030 one in five people will be African. Combine the continent’s soaring population with technology, economic growth, increasing demand from its growing middle class, improvements in infrastructure, political stability, health and education, and Africa could be the next century’s economic growth powerhouse. Nobody can predict the growth trajectory with accuracy, but Africa is poised for growth.

Profile: The Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM) is the regional stock exchange of the member states of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, namely, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. The Exchange is located in Abidjan but maintains market offices in each of the affiliated countries. Being both an economic and political institution, the BRVM is governed by the provisions of the OHADA Uniform Act relating to Commercial Companies and Economic Interest Groups. The operations of the Exchange are entirely digital making it a technical success story on the continent.

Dealing members therefore need not be present on the premises of the central office but can engage from their own offices which the bourse guarantees equal access regardless of the economic operator's location. https://afx.kwayisi.org/

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Investment

DFC Convenes U.S., African Leaders for Investment Conference ON OCTOBER 16TH, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC www. dfc.gov) and the Atlantic Council (www.atlanticcouncil. org) hosted the virtual Investing in Africa’s Future conference (www. atlanticcouncil.org/event/ investing-in-africas-future) to

bring together African heads of state, senior U.S.

government officials, African development finance institutions and others to announce new efforts to promote and strengthen U.S. trade and investment in Africa, in support of the Administration’s Prosper Africa Initiative.

“We are pleased to convene leaders from across the public and private sectors to increase investment in Africa,” said DFC Chief Executive Officer Adam Boehler. “The initiatives announced today will help advance investments that strengthen economic growth, technology, energy independence, and infrastructure in Africa.”

During the conference, Boehler provided remarks along with President of the Republic of Senegal Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Mozambique Filipe Nyusi, Former President of the Republic of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and UN Under Secretary-General and Executive Secretary for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Vera Songwe.

The conference also included remarks from Assistant to the President for National Security

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Affairs Robert O'Brien, Acting Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) John Barsa, Millennium Challenge Corporation Chief Executive Officer Sean Cairncross, President & Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States Kimberly Reed, Head of Agency for the U.S. Trade and Development Agency Todd Abrajano, and others.

DFC made the following announcements during the summit: New Prosper Africa Investment Unit: To underscore DFC’s commitment to financing more transactions in sub-Saharan Africa, DFC announced it is establishing a dedicated DCbased Prosper Africa investment unit (https:// prosperafrica.dfc.gov) to source, underwrite and execute transactions in support of the Initiative’s goal of substantially increasing two-way trade and investment b e t w e e n the United States and Africa.

The investment unit will be established with support from the Prosper Africa Secretariat (https://prosperafrica.dfc.gov/how-we-help/ invest-in-africa) and will help DFC grow its portfolio of commitments in Africa, which currently stands at over $8 billion. This investment unit will serve as an integral complement to DFC’s Africa Investment Advisor Program (www.devex.com/jobs/investmentadvisor-africa-trade-and-investment-program-atip-759125)

on the continent. Boehler serves as the Executive Chair for Prosper Africa.

The TIES program: DFC and the U.S. Africa

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Development Foundation (USADF www.usadf. gov) launched the U.S.-African TIES program—a partnership to promote investments in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurial solutions in African countries. The program combines DFC’s powerful financing tools with USADF’s on the ground presence in key countries. DFC and USADF will work together to provide loans between $50,000 and $500,000, accompanied by grants between $10,000 and $100,000 to African entrepreneurs whose projects advance innovation, technology or entrepreneurship. The TIES program will initially seek to support 10-20 transactions per year and advance DFC’s new development strategy.

Collaboration with African Development Finance Institutions: DFC also announced it will join three African development finance institutions, Africa50 (www.africa50.com), Africa Finance Corporation (www.africafc.org), and the East and Southern Africa Trade and Development Bank (www.tdbgroup.org), to work collaboratively to support economic resilience and recovery across Africa in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The DFIs intend to work together in areas of mutual interest on a non-exclusive basis to support projects in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in lower income and lower-middle income countries, subject to each DFI‘s respective internal policies and procedures.

LOI for Nuclear in South Africa: In July 2020, DFC updated and modernized its nuclear energy policy—ending its prohibition on supporting nuclear power in order to help meet the energy needs in the developing world. DFC signed a Letter of Intent to support NuScale (www.nuscalepower.com), a U.S. nuclear energy technology firm, to develop 2,500 MW of nuclear energy in South Africa. If successful, NuScale would be the first U.S. nuclear energy IPP on the continent and would help 59

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support energy resilience and security in one of Africa’s leading economies and a key partner on the continent for the United States Government.

A digital Call for Proposals to Support COVID-19 response: DFC launched a partnership with Asoko Insight (https:// asokoinsight.com), a deal sourcing and market intelligence platform focused on Africa.

Under this partnership, Asoko has built a “digital deal room” that serves as a virtual call for proposals for DFC financing. The potential deals must support economic recovery or resilience in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. For more information, visit the dealroom.

Financing for the Africa Finance Corporation: During the event, participants highlighted DFC’s recent approval of a $250 million tier-2 capital loan for the Africa Finance Corporation (www.africafc.org), a regional development finance institution that finances critical infrastructure and is an existing DFC client. The deal will support COVID response and recovery by providing liquidity to help combat the economic slowdown in Africa in the wake of the pandemic.

About DFC U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is America’s development bank. DFC partners with the private sector to finance solutions to the most critical challenges facing the developing world today. We invest across sectors including energy, healthcare, critical infrastructure, and technology. DFC also provides financing for small businesses and women entrepreneurs in order to create jobs in emerging markets. DFC investments adhere to high standards and respect the environment, human rights, and worker rights. www.dfc.gov/media/press-releases/dfc-convenesus-african-leaders-investment-conference Image credit: prosperafrica.com

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Investment

Stripe Acquires Nigeria’s Paystack for $200M+ to Expand into the African Continent

By Ingrid Lunden

WHEN STRIPE ANNOUNCED EARLIER this year that it had picked up another $600 million in funding, it said one big reason for the funding was to expand its API-based payments services into more geographies. Now the company is coming good on that plan in the form of some M&A. Stripe (https://stripe.com) is acquiring Paystack (https:// paystack.com), a startup out of Lagos, Nigeria that, like Stripe, provides a quick way to integrate payments services into an online Ezra Olubi and Shola Akinlade sold their fintech company for over $200 or offline transaction by way of million. an API. (We and others have Photo credit: Nairametrics Source: UGC referred to it in the past as “the Stripe of Africa.”)

Paystack currently has around 60,000 customers, smaller companies to expand its technology stack, including small businesses, larger corporates, rather than its global footprint.

The deal underscores two interesting points fintechs, educational institutions and online betting companies, and the plan will be for it to continue about Stripe, now valued at $36 billion and regularly tipped as an IPO candidate. (Note: It has never operating independently, the companies said.

Terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but commented on those plans up to now.) First is sources close to it confirm that it’s over $200 million. how it is doubling down on geographic expansion: That makes this the biggest startup acquisition to Even before this news, it had added 17 countries date to come out of Nigeria, as well as Stripe’s to its platform in the last 18 months, along with biggest acquisition to date anywhere. (Sendwave progressive feature expansion. And second is how (www.sendwave.com), acquired by WorldRemit Stripe is putting a bet on the emerging markets of (www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200825005820/en/ Africa specifically in the future of its own growth.

WorldRemit-to-Acquire-Sendwave) in a $500 million “There is enormous opportunity,” said Patrick deal in August, is based out of Kenya.)

Collison, Stripe’s co-founder and CEO, in an It’s also a notable shift in Stripe’s strategy as it interview with TechCrunch (https://techcrunch.com). continues to mature: Typically, it has only acquired “In absolute numbers, Africa may be smaller right 60

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now than other regions, but online commerce will grow about 30% every year. And even with wider global declines, online shoppers are growing twice as fast. Stripe thinks on a longer time horizon than others because we are an infrastructure company.

We are thinking of what the world will look like in 2040-2050.”

For Paystack, the deal will give the company a lot more fuel (that is, investment) to build out further in Nigeria and expand to other markets, CEO Shola Akinlade said in an interview.

“Paystack was not for sale when Stripe approached us,” said Akinlade, who co-founded the company with Ezra Olubi (who is the CTO).

“For us, it’s about the mission. I’m driven by the mission to accelerate payments on the continent, and I am convinced that Stripe will help us get there faster. It is a very natural move.”

Paystack had been on Stripe’s radar for some time prior to acquiring it. Like its U.S. counterpart, the Nigerian startup went through Y Combinator — that was in 2016, and it was actually the firstever startup out of Nigeria to get into the worldfamous incubator. Then, in 2018, Stripe led an $8 million funding round for Paystack, with others participating, including Visa and Tencent. (And for the record, Akinlade said that Visa and Tencent had not approached it for acquisition. Both have been regular investors in startups on the continent.)

In the last several years, Stripe has made a number of investments into startups building technology or businesses in areas where Stripe has yet to move. This year, those investments have included backing an investment in universal checkout service Fast, and backing the Philippinesbased payment platform PayMongo.

Collison said that while acquiring Paystack after investing in it was a big move for the company, 61

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people also shouldn’t read too much into it in terms of Stripe’s bigger acquisition policy.

“When we invest in startups we’re not trying to tie them up with complicated strategic investments,” Collison said. “We try to understand the broader ecosystem, and keep our eyes pointed outwards and see where we can help.”

That is to say, there are no plans to acquire other regional companies or other operations simply to expand Stripe’s footprint, with the interest in Paystack being about how well they’d built the company, not just where they are located.

“A lot of companies have been, let’s say, heavily influenced by Stripe,” Collison said, raising his eyebrows a little. “But with Paystack, clearly they’ve put a lot of original thinking into how to do things better. There are some details of Stripe that we consider mistakes, but we can see that Paystack ‘gets it,’ it’s clear from the site and from the product sensibilities, and that has nothing to do with them being in Africa or African.”

Stripe, with its business firmly in the world of digital transactions, already has a strong line in the detection and prevention of fraud and other financial crimes. It has developed an extensive platform of fraud protection tools, but even with that, incidents can slip through the cracks. Just last month, Stripe was ordered to pay $120,000 in a case in Massachusetts after failing to protect users in a $15 million cryptocurrency scam.

Now, bringing on a business from Nigeria could give the company a different kind of risk exposure.

Nigeria is the biggest economy in Africa, but it is also one of the more corrupt on the continent, according to research from Transparency International.

And related to that, it also has a very contentious approach to law and order. Nigeria has been embroiled in protests in the last week with demonstrators calling for the disbanding of see page 62

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the country’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad, after multiple accusations of brutality, including extrajudicial killings, extortion and torture. In

fact, Stripe and Paystack postponed the original announcement in part because of the current situation in the country.

But while those troubles continue to be worked through (and hopefully eventually resolved, by way of government reform in response to demonstrators’ demands), Paystack’s acquisition is a notable foil to those themes. It points to how talented people in the region are identifying problems in the market and building technology to help fix them, as a way of improving how people can transact, and in turn, economic outcomes more generally.

The company got its start back when Akinlade, for fun (!) built a quick way of integrating a card transaction into a web page, and it was the simplicity of how it worked that spurred him and his co-founder to think of how to develop that into something others could use. That became the germination of the idea that eventually landed them at YC and in the scope of Stripe.

“We’re still very early in the Paystack payments

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ecosystem, which is super broken,” said Akinlade.

The company today provides a payments API, and it makes revenue every time a transaction is made using it. He wouldn’t talk about what else is on Paystack’s radar, but when you consider

Stripe’s own product trajectory as a template, there is a wide range of accounting, fraud, card, cash advance and other services to meet business needs that could be built around that to expand the business. “Most of what we will be building in Africa has not been built yet.”

Last month, at Disrupt (https://techcrunch.com/ events/disrupt-sf-2020), we interviewed another successful entrepreneur in the country, Tunde Kehinde, who wisely noted that more exits of promising startups — either by going public or getting acquired — will help lift up the whole ecosystem. In that regard, Stripe’s move is a vote of confidence not just for the potential of the region, but for those putting in the efforts to build tech and continue improving outcomes for everyone. https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/15/stripe-acquiresnigerias-paystack-for-200m-to-expand-into-theafrican-continent Image credits: okay.ng, technext.ng See page 27 for related article.

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Investment

Pacer Ventures Launches Early-stage Fund for African Startups

By Karin Wasteson WITH OFFICES IN LAGOS and Johannesburg, the firm has begun to support early stage founders by participating in seed rounds, including in financial services app VPD.Money (https://vpd.money).

The GSMA Mobile Economy Report states that 84% of Africa's population – or one billion people – will have access to a SIM connection by 2025.

Gbemi Akande, general partner at Pacer Ventures, said: "We see a huge opportunity to support early stage founders who are making meaningful contributions to their local economies and communities by leveraging the high mobile penetration on the continent."

Antoinia Norman, general partner at Pacer Ventures in charge of Southern Africa, adds that the firm doesn't just contribute equity. "We won't just write a cheque, we will enable founders to work in and on their business, by supporting them along every step of their journey, with resources and access to markets."

The main differentiator, according to Pacer Ventures, is the fund's focus on sourcing high potential African startups, as well as being able to leverage its strategic partnership with Founder Institute (https://fi.co) in Africa.

"This collaboration with Founder Institute gives us an undeniable edge particularly with quality deal-flow at an early stage and we will leverage this to spread our footprint quickly," Chukwuemeka Agbata, regional director of Founder Institute in Africa and Co-founder of techbuild.africa (https://techbuild. africa), commented on the partnership.

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Ventures, whose portfolio includes VPD.Money, Analytics Intelligence (www.analyticsintelligence. com), FARM365 (https://farm365.farm), and LearnPower (https://learnpower.ng), have extensive experience in deal flow sourcing.

Geoffrey Weli-Wosu, general partner at Pacer Ventures and co-founder of VoguePay (https:// voguepay.com) and Domineum (www.domineum. io), commented: "We are leveraging our in-depth experience in startups and ecosystem development to take advantage of the early-stage funding gap in Africa.” www.privateequitywire.co.uk/2020/11/16/292272/ pacer-ventures-launches-early-stage-fundafrican-startups Image credit: greatest.deals/Pacer, https:// techbuild.africa/

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Technology/Science

Victor Glover to Become the First Black NASA Astronaut to Live on International Space Station

By Dana Givens

This past weekend, NASA celebrated a historic moment with the launch of the SpaceX Crew-1 mission and Victor J. Glover became the first Black astronaut to live on the international space station for an extended stay. The flight left on Sunday, Nov. 15 from the Kennedy Space Center based in Florida.

“It is something to be celebrated once we accomplish it, and, you know, I am honored to be in this position and to be a part of this great and experienced crew,” Glover said during a news conference on the new mission last week, according to Space.com. “And I look forward to getting up there and doing my best to make sure that, you know, we are worthy of all the work that’s been put into setting us up for this mission.”

The team for the first operational flight will also include NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins,

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Shannon Walker, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Soichi Noguchi in addition to the California native. The Navy veteran expressed excitement about the new milestone and embarking on the missions with his team.

“Listening to Shannon and Soichi and Mike talk about their Soyuz experience, their space shuttle experience, and their lives on the International Space Station, and how they managed their families and communication and keeping their things together, all of that has been so valuable to me and to top it all off,” Glover said in an interview with Spectrum News. “We have a great time.”

Glover also took to his own Twitter (https:// twitter.com/AstroVicGlover) to celebrate the news of the mission with followers. “Crew-1 is complete with Dragon Rider training,” he wrote. “We’ve got our license to fly! Thank you to all that made this possible. We hope to make you proud!” NASA also shared a short video on Glover’s history with the organization and his work with the Crew-1 mission.

NASA posted a clip of the mission launch on Sunday on their Instagram page with the caption “At 7:27 p.m. EST the @SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon “Resilience” spacecraft launched from @NASAKennedy en route to the @ISS. Its precious cargo? @NASAastronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, @ JAXAjp astronaut Soichi Noguchi, and more than 440 pounds of science experiments and supplies.

This is the first official flight of the Commercial Crew Program, helping pave the way for the future of space exploration.” www.blackenterprise.com/victor-glover-tobecome-the-first-black-nasa-astronaut-to-live-oninternational-space-station

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Technology/Science

Riverside.fm Launches its Video Podcasting Platform

By Anthony Ha

RIVERSIDE.FM IS A NEW startup with an easy-to-use platform for recording professional-quality video podcasts.

In fact, although the company only recently came out of stealth, it already has a number of high-profile customers, including TechCrunch’s parent company (Verizon Media) and Hillary Clinton, who’s using Riverside.fm to record her new podcast “You and Me Both with Hillary Clinton.”

“Just imagine, we needed a recording platform that could help us make a podcast during a pandemic, and, boy, did they step up,” Clinton said in a statement.

The startup was founded by brothers Nadav and Gideon Keyson — Nadav, who serves as CEO (Gideon is CTO), explained that they first created a platform where politicians could participate in video debates, but then realized there was a more promising business model for a broader podcasting tool.

In addition to officially launching, Riverside.fm is announcing that it has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Oren Zeev .

Gideon gave me a quick demo of the platform, showing me that it’s a fairly straightforward recording experience — the host just shares a link with the guests, no software installation necessary.

There are plenty of other browser-based podcasting tools (for example, Zencastr recently expanded beyond audio with video support), but the Keysons suggested that they’ve spent a lot of time solving common technical issues for podcasters.

For one thing, each participants’ audio and video is recorded as a separate track on their device, so that a bad internet connection won’t affect recording quality. The recording is uploaded during the session, so you don’t have to have a long wait for files to upload. And there are automatic 65

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backups, in case someone’s browser or computer freezes.

“Stability … is so important,” Nadav said. “[Otherwise,] you could spend half a year to get a certain guest and then you lose their recording.”

Despite its simplicity, Riverside.fm supports 4K video and uncompressed WAV audio. It also includes an interface where podcast producers can monitor each guest’s equipment and adjust audio levels.

“We do really make it easy for the beginner and faster for the professionals,” Nadav said Gideon added that Riverside.fm isn’t interested in getting involved in the podcast distribution, but instead focuses on being a reliable production platform, as well as providing cross-platform analytics.

“We don’t want to start competing with Spotify and YouTube,” he said — in fact, Spotify is already a Riverside.fm customer.

The brothers also suggested that even if you’re not interested in creating a full-fledged video podcast, Riverside.fm is still the right choice for recording audio. Plus, you could still use the video recordings to create promotional clips for YouTube and social media. https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/rverside-fm

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Technology/Science

Former Mining Sites to Become Solar Farms

By Grace Turner

TWO FORMER MINE SITES will be transformed into solar arrays through an agreement with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and a Royal Oak-based company.

Circle Power has been awarded a five-year land lease agreement with the department to develop the large-scale arrays.

“Enabling opportunities for cost-effective, renewable energy is good for the environment, for Michigan’s beautiful outdoor spaces, and for the people of Michigan,” says Dan Eichinger, director of the Michigan DNR. “Our department is entrusted with taking the best possible care of the state’s natural resources and creating quality outdoor experiences. It is just as important that we do our part to foster the development of renewable energy sources that will provide new sources of power for northern Michigan, increase local tax bases, and repurpose old mining sites for greater public benefit.”

The sites to be developed include the Groveland Mine in Dickinson County (in the Upper Peninsula southwest of Marquette and on the Wisconsin border), a former 347-acre iron mine tailings site gifted to the state, and 7 Mile Pit in Crawford County (includes Grayling in the northern Lower Peninsula), a 169acre property previously used for sand and gravel mining the state acquired through tax reversion.

The projects will be developed through Copper County Power I, Circle Power’s affiliate. Circle Power is backed by Amber Infrastructure and its U.S. parent, Hunt Cos. Inc. “We look forward to working with the Michigan

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Department of Natural Resources on the 7 Mile Pit and Groveland Mine projects,” says Jordan Roberts, managing partner at Circle Power.

“This is an important opportunity to provide low-cost power to Michigan residents while supporting the state’s renewable energy goals.”

A construction start date and expected project duration are not yet known. Both sites are located on land left in a degraded condition.

Criteria for establishing solar farms include open land with minimal forest cover, no conflicts with rare, threatened, or endangered species or sensitive ecosystems, and consistency with local zoning plans and ordinances.

The Michigan DNR put out a request for proposals in June. Utopian Power of South Lyon and Telamon Enterprise Ventures of Indiana responded in addition to Copper Country Power I. “An installed project could provide $50,000$100,000 per year in lease payments to the DNR in addition to generating state and local revenue through property taxes,” Roberts says.

Michigan Energy Options, an East Lansing nonprofit under contract with the DNR, worked on evaluating the proposal. The firm has assisted the DNR with the technical aspects of understanding solar energy.

“The potential development of two former mining sites for large-scale solar power, in my opinion, checks all the boxes,” says John A. Kinch, executive director of Michigan Energy Options. “The siting doesn’t negatively affect the natural lands and waters the DNR manages and, further, it is a great reuse of industrial legacy properties. It doesn’t affect private landholdings. What the project does do is to drive the creation of more clean, renewable energy in Michigan, with the DNR leading by example. My nonprofit is excited to be working on these and future projects with the DNR.” www.dbusiness.com/daily-news/former-mining-sites-innorthern-michigan-to-become-solar-farms/ Image credit: acmqt.com

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William E. Kennard Named Chairman of AT&T’s Board of Directors THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS of AT&T Inc.* (NYSE:T) has selected William E. Kennard to serve as its chairman, effective January 2021, upon the retirement of Randall Stephenson, currently AT&T’s executive chairman of the board.

AT&T announced earlier this year its plan to elect an independent chairman when Mr. Stephenson retired from the board in January, after serving as chairman since 2007. This change continues AT&T’s commitment to strong corporate governance.

Mr. Kennard served as general counsel to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from 1993 to 1997. In 1997, he was appointed FCC Chairman, a position he held until 2001. From 2009 to 2013, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union.

Kennard also has held positions with The Carlyle Group, a global asset management firm, at which he led investments in the telecommunications and media sectors, and the law firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand (now DLA Piper), where he was a partner and member of the board of directors.

“Bill’s deep knowledge of communications, media and technology, proven leadership and broad experience across capital markets and government uniquely positions him to serve as AT&T’s new chairman,” Stephenson said. “He is an outstanding choice to lead our board of talented directors who possess diverse expertise and experience.”

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of AT&T’s board of directors,” Kennard said.

“On behalf of the board, I want to thank Randall for his outstanding leadership and countless contributions as chairman. We wish him all the best. I look forward to working with our CEO and fellow board member John Stankey and the entire board to continue creating long-term value for all stakeholders – investors, customers, employees and the communities we serve.”

Mr. Kennard joined AT&T’s board of directors in 2014. He currently serves on the corporate governance and nominating committee and the public policy and corporate reputation committee.

Kennard serves on the boards of Duke Energy Corporation, Ford Motor Company and MetLife, Inc. He is also co-founder of Astra Capital Management, a private equity firm.

Kennard received his B.A. in Communications from Stanford University and earned his law degree from Yale Law School. He currently serves on the board of trustees of Yale University. https://about.att.com/story/2020/william_e_ kennard_att_board_of_directors.html Image credit: fleetnewsdaily.com

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Technology/Science

Case Study by Triodos Investment Management

Floating Solar Panels - A Big Stepping Stone Towards the Energy Transition GIVEN OUR LEADING ROLE as financial innovators in the renewable energy market, it was perfectly natural for Triodos Groenfonds to finance the first large-scale floating solar plant in Europe. This floating plant is in Tynaarlo in the north of the Netherlands and is exploited

by GroenLeven, a highly experienced solar project developer. In this interview, GroenLeven CEO Roland Pechtold explains the need for innovation to step up the energy transition.

Dual purpose Big changes have small beginnings. The Netherlands are on the threshold of a huge transition, presenting an unprecedented challenge.

From fossil energy sources to renewable power, from centralised to decentralised generation, in the face of an ever-increasing demand for power.

Roland Pechtold, CEO of GroenLeven, outlines the dilemmas and the need to take steps forward. “The Netherlands generates less renewable energy than any other country in Europe. We are right at the bottom of the class. That is a disgrace.”

GroenLeven is the market leader in the development of large-scale solar power projects in the Netherlands, specialising in solar farms with a dual purpose. In Tynaarlo, in the Dutch province of Drenthe, the company last year realised one of the largest floating solar farms in Europe, on a lake owned and created by sand extraction company Roelofs. The 23,000 panels have a capacity of 8.4 megawatts and supply enough power for around 2,300 households.

activities. The support of investors is very important for our company. A great deal of research needs to be carried out with regard to technical, ecological and social issues and in terms of logistics. We learn from that. Certainly not just yet, but eventually, in the longer run, solar power may no longer need to be subsidised, because we will be able to install increasingly efficient solar farms.”

Roland Pechtold, CEO GroenLeven refers to the development of offshore wind power, which is now no longer dependent on subsidies. The same applies to solar farms that are being constructed in Spain and closer to the equator. Due to the greater number of sunshine hours, solar farms in that part of the world can already break even without subsidies.

For GroenLeven the project in Tynaarlo constitutes an important stepping stone in the process to make the Netherlands fossil free. The company first gained experience with panels on a floating structure by installing an experimental arrangement on a small lake near the Friesian village of Oosterwolde. The special panels let light through, so that plants and animals that live in the water underneath are affected as little as possible. The construction method developed by GroenLeven was tested extensively, in order to ensure that it has no negative impact on the environment but is also able to withstand the impact of wind and waves. “We found that during gales they remain steady as a rock.”

Public support essential GroenLeven closely monitors the impact on flora and fauna. According to Pechtold, local residents feared that birds such as geese would Subsidy and private finance The innovative project was made possible by a start avoiding the lakes. But in fact, quite the government subsidy under the Stimulation of opposite has happened. The lakes were created Sustainable Energy (SDE) scheme and substantial as a result of sand extraction and are only partly co-funding by Triodos Groenfonds. “Really great covered by floating panels. The resulting sheltered that we received this contribution. This allowed us areas actually attract waterfowl. The experience to realise the solar farm and further develop our gained in Tynaarlo will get a follow-up through the

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construction of solar farms on a number of lakes near the town of Zwolle. These projects will have a capacity of 42 megawatts. Even bigger floating solar farms beckon.

Triodos Groenfonds finances the first largescale floating solar plant in Europe.

As Pechtold points out, these are necessary steps in a full transition from power from fossil sources to renewable energy. The founders of GroenLeven realised that public support is essential. Using Google Earth, they searched for locations in the Netherlands where solar farms might serve a dual purpose, for instance rooftops, parking lots, landfill sites, industrial estates and bodies of water. This approach is paying off. Pechtold was appointed as CEO in 2018 and was the company’s 19th employee. The company now has a workforce of 160. “At the moment our portfolio consists of 1,200 rooftop plants and 70 projects.”

The total amount of solar power capacity in the order portfolio equals the power production of three power stations. There is a catch, however.

The grid operators have stated that in accordance with current laws and regulations not all the locally generated sustainable power can be fed into the national grid.

Call for close cooperation GroenLeven has already taken the initiative to get all the parties involved. “We are facing a huge challenge. We will definitely not meet the green 69

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power objectives for 2020. But let’s at least try and reach the goals that have been agreed for 2030.

There is a reason why the energy transition is called just that. I believe that we are going through a shift to a new era. During such periods, no single person has a monopoly on wisdom. We will have to work together.”

Pechtold compares the challenge that our society is facing with running a marathon in the wrong shoes and without a support team handing out water bottles. “The Netherlands is like Singapore on the North Sea. We live in Europe’s most densely populated country. This makes it a huge challenge to generate 90% of our energy requirement from solar and wind power. GroenLeven does not run away from this challenge.” The floating solar farm in Tynaarlo is a very valuable way to gain more expertise. “We have taken an important step in the energy transition process.”

“This project is a great addition to our portfolio and a perfect match with our mission to finance innovation in the renewable energy market”, Angeles Toledo Rodriguez, Triodos Groenfonds fund manager, agrees. “It is also a landmark project for the dual use of scarce space in the Netherlands, just like another project in our portfolio, solar park Avri Solar, which is built on a decommissioned waste dump.” www.triodos-im.com/articles/2020/case-studygroenfonds---floating-solar-tynaarlo DAWN

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Why Africa's Animation Scene is Booming

By Vivienne Nunis & Sarah Treanor NIGERIAN ANIMATOR RIDWAN MOSHOOD was so determined to learn how to make cartoons, he spent hours in internet cafés in Lagos, watching YouTube lessons and taking notes.

"I would go to a cyber café, watch video tutorials and write down whatever I'd learnt," he says.

Today, the 26-year-old is a rising star in Africa's blossoming animation scene.

Two years ago, he was recognised by the Cartoon Network Africa Creative Lab for his animation Garbage Boy and Trash Can. In what must have felt like sweet revenge, his cartoon was inspired by a bad experience at high school, involving a rubbish bin and school bullies.

"Garbage Boy is basically me," he says. "I was bullied and called names.

"I decided to create Garbage Boy as a beacon of hope and forgiveness. And to show others who had been bullied that those names don't define who you are."

He has since formed a production company and he's now hoping to have his latest idea, a cartoon set in Lagos, called In My Hood, commissioned into a series.

Self-taught talent Surprisingly, Ridwan Moshood's journey into animation, is not particularly unique.

"All over the continent we hear these stories," says Nick Wilson, the founder of the African Animation Network (https://africananimation.net), who is based in Johannesburg.

He reels off a list of countries where local animators are starting to make their mark: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, South Africa, Mozambique and Burkina Faso.

"Wherever we've been able to scratch the surface and connect the community, we've found pretty exceptional talent and the majority of this talent is self-taught," he says.

But while stories of self-taught animators breaking into the industry are inspiring, more formal training

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"I created Garbage Boy to show others who had been bullied that those names don't define who you are. RIDWAN MOSHOOD opportunities do need to be developed, he says.

Doh D Daiga is a Cameroonian animator who lives in Burkina Faso. He's responsible for skills and development at the African Animation Ridwan Mishood Network.

"My experience in this industry shows me there exists an immense pool of young, talented and creative minds that never get to the see the day," he says.

"The only problem keeping Africa behind is a lack of training."

Recently, partnerships have been announced with international animation studios Toonz Media Group and Baboon Animation. Both companies plan to establish animation academies in Africa, adding to the handful that exist already.

Pan-African production Despite the scarcity of formal training opportunities, locally-made productions are

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Africa's first female pilot.

When it was broadcast in Kenya earlier this year, My Better World quickly became the top rating children's TV show. It was also nominated for this year's Annecy International Animation Film Festival, one of the world's top animation competitions.

Difficult stories, easily told But not all African animation work is aimed at the young. Nairobi-based artist and animator Ng'endo Mukii uses the medium to tell stories that are The series was nominated for this year's Annecy challenging and at times, confronting.

International Animation Film Festival Her most famous film, Yellow Fever, tackles the MY BETTER WORLD/CHRIS MORGAN use of whitening creams by African women.

"I wanted to look at the way women are using skin bleaching products in Kenya, and what we believe is beautiful," she says, adding she wants "to know why".

Other themes covered in her work include migration and people smuggling.

For Ng'endo Mukii, animation is the ideal way to approach sensitive or hard-hitting issues, especially when case studies are involved.

"Animation allows people to have an anonymity The animated series My Better World was made by a and a distance between what they say and how others perceive it," she says. team of 100 producers in seven African countries MY BETTER WORLD/CHRIS MORGAN It also allows people to "not feel necessarily attacked by what you're discussing, so they can maybe engage with it a bit better". already starting to take off.

Her work has received numerous international Chris Morgan of Fundi Films was able to draw on awards including the Best Animated Short at the a pan-African talent pool for his recent production, Chicago International Film Festival for Yellow My Better World.

Fever in 2013.

The educational series aimed at African schoolchildren and young teenagers involved a Covid boosts demand As more African animators win professional team of creatives working remotely across the acclaim, international studios are taking note of continent.

"We had over 100 producers working in seven the continent's grassroots industry.

Last year Netflix acquired its first African different countries, and this was pre-Covid," he animation, Mama K's Team 4 - a cartoon about says, speaking from Mpumalanga, South Africa.

The end result is a series made up of 55 short four teenage girls set in Lusaka, Zambia.

At the same time, foreign companies such as animated films that are available in English, Pixar are hiring Africa-based animators to carry Swahili, Hausa and Somali.

In each episode, the characters navigate out production services for their films.

In fact, the global market for animated content is complex situations - such as negotiations about early marriage - but in a lively and accessible booming, according to Rob Salkowitz, a Hollywood way. As well as a cartoon, each film features an and entertainment reporter at Forbes. interview with a real-life high achiever, such as see page 72 71

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Technology/Science

Ng'endo Mukii's film Yellow Fever tackles the issue of whitening creams used by some African women NG'ENDO MUKII

Animation from page 71

"There is an incredible demand for animated content right now. This was true even before the pandemic because the streaming networks are really hungry for new content; and animation is a great way to get viewers from all different audiences," he says.

Demand has increased during the pandemic, as live productions were shut down or limited to socially-distanced teams.

"We are seeing a ripple effect," he says.

With advertisers and other video producers unable to film in the field, those who can afford it, are turning to animation to fill the gap.

"That's putting a lot of demand on the pipeline," he says. "Because professional animation studios are suddenly getting offers they can't refuse from other, non-traditional clients."

But while more animators are joining the profession in Africa, many are facing an obstacle to getting their content on local screens.

It's cheaper for broadcasters to import readymade shows from abroad, than fund original productions.

The African Animation Network hopes to overcome that problem by launching its own TV network - if it can attract enough investment.

"Broadcasters are not incentivised to invest in the local industry because they can turn a profit on really cheap [foreign] content," he says.

The channel is currently in a pilot phase and is set to launch in the next few months.

"We're on that precipice of being potentially a thriving and sustainable industry," says Nick Wilson. www.bbc.com/news/business-54438334

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This South African Scholar Earned Africa's First Ph.D. in Infigenous Astronomy

By Dana Givens

ONE SOUTH AFRICAN ACCOMPLISHED a milestone that made him go down in his history. Motheo Koitsiwe became the first African man to receive a Ph.D. in African Indigenous Astronomy from North-West University (NWU). He also holds a B.A. in social sciences, and master’s in Indigenous Knowledge Systems.

Koitsiwe says he was inspired by years of listening to oral traditions in his local community and hearing stories from an early age from his grandmother.

He began to start learning more about the African indigenous astronomy in South Africa and Botswana.

“This passion was ignited by my late grandmother, Mmamodiagane Tladinyane, when she narrated stories, poems, riddles, [and] songs of African night skies and cosmologies around the fireplace,” Dr. Koitsiwe said in a university press release.

“The study revealed that the Batswana use their indigenous knowledge of celestial bodies for agriculture, reproductive health, navigation, time calculation, calendar making, rainmaking and thanksgiving ceremonies, and for natural disaster management,” according to the university.

Koitsiwe also added that he was happy to complete his degree during the same time that the country passed the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Act to help provide more resources

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Dr. Motheo Koitsiwe image via North-West University to teaching those in the country about their indigenous roots.

“The [university] campus in Mahikeng is the pioneer of IKS in South Africa and started with teaching, learning, and research in IKS in 2001,” he says. “It is the first higher institution of learning in the country to have a registered teaching, learning, and research program in IKS, accredited by the South African Qualification Authority (SAQA).”

According to the university, Koitsiwe is currently working on translating his thesis in the Tswana language with aspirations to pursue a career in academia. www.blackenterprise.com/this-south-africanscholar-earned-africas-first-ph-d-in-indigenousastronomy

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How Facebook's Africa Expansion Could Help Foster New Hubs Like Nigeria's 'Silicon Valley'

By Vivienne Nunis & Sarah Treanor

UPON HIS FIRST -- AND UNANNOUNCED -- visit to Nigeria in 2016, Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg met with developers in Lagos, pushing startup enthusiasm and sparking new interest in innovative companies in the region.

Now, four years later, the social media giant recently announced that the first Facebook office will open in the second quarter of 2021 in Lagos, further solidifying the area's reputation as "Nigeria's Silicon Valley."

Facebook also unveiled more details on its

Nunu Ntshingila, Facebook's head of Africa expansion plans to tap into Africa's 1.2-billionperson market, including new tech hubs for startup development and the construction of 37,000 kilometers of underwater internet cable, which will encircle the entire continent.

CNN's Eleni Giokos spoke with Facebook's regional director for Africa, Nunu Ntshingila, to break down how the company has been fostering a growing audience and what the expectations are for the platform on the African continent.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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taught us that we don't necessarily need to be at the office physically every day.

Has Facebook got a global strategy to get people back to the office in the future?

Nunu Ntshingila: I think we have seen ups and downs, and I think right at the beginning we saw a lot of people were quite excited about working from home. We've also started to see the unintended consequences. And this is a global phenomenon. How do we make sure that this is not a sprint? This is a marathon.

This is something that Mark Zuckerberg has spoken a lot about -- the idea that actually we could look into many areas of the world for talent. And I think that is a very positive outcome of the period that Facebook is co we've just gone through.

EG: How much has Facebook grown since then the opening of the first hub in sub-Saharan Africa?

NN: In sub-Saharan Africa alone, we've grown by over 50 million over time. These are new users that are coming to use our platform very differently.

These are businesses that are now coming on to our platform to grow their own businesses and finding new customers. So yes, we have seen an exponential growth in terms of users, just across our entire set of platforms -- whether it's Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

EG: It's almost a vote of confidence that Lagos is going to be one of the most important tech startup cities on the continent. Is that what you're expecting?

NN: We are already seeing that right now. We've made this investment because we already see how active the startup community is there. We've got one of the largest developer ecosystems based out DAWN

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onstructing 37,000 kilometers of underwater internet cable, which will encircle the entire African continent. of that market. We felt that it is actually important for us to make sure that the talent hub grows and that we continue to build out our neighbors.

EG: Connectivity was one of the biggest challenges. And I know that you've been part of laying one of the longest cables bringing the internet to the continent, increasing bandwidth in Africa. Would you say that was part of the most important mandate in terms of ensuring that you increase users?

NN: The single biggest barrier to entry is that of connectivity. This is a partnership with a lot of our global telco partners, whereby we are going to build a sea cable that will go around the whole continent. And we anticipate that this will be completed by 2023. What we are trying to do is to expand 4G access, 5G access and broadband to millions more people than we are currently servicing today. The sea cable is going to be 75

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landing in 16 countries. And once it's completed it'll be the largest subsea cable to go around the continent.

EG: How important is the African market for Facebook?

NN: We believe that Africa will continue to play a significant role for Facebook into the future. This is one of the youngest continents in the world. If you just think about it, there's 1.2 billion people in this region, there's a lot of people that we continue to serve. we are excited to see how Facebook is going to develop going forward. I've been very lucky to work in this region and begin to develop what Facebook will look like into the future. And up until now, it's been an incredible ride. www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/africa/marketplaceafrica-facebook-nunu-ntshingila-spc-intl/index. html

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Diamonds 'from the sky': This Entrepreneur is Making Environmentally Friendly Gemstones

By Sara Spary, CNN

DALE VINCE, WHO IS also founder of green energy provider Ecotricity (www.ecotricity.co.uk), says his lab-grown diamonds are environmentally friendly because they are made using carbon drawn from the air.

Vince's new venture, SkyDiamonds, said in a press release it was capable of creating the world's first "zero impact diamond."

The stones are made by specialized machines at a factory in Gloucestershire, England, transforming carbon into diamonds that are "physically and chemically identical to Earth-mined diamonds," it said.

Synthetic diamonds are nothing new -- scientists have been making them since the 1940s in a bid to find cheaper, ethical and environmentally friendly stones.

The only difference with lab-grown stones is that the intense heat and pressure required to form them, which usually happens deep underground over millions or billions of years, is simulated via a process called chemical vapor deposition -- the same process used by SkyDiamonds, taking a matter of days.

Dr. Paul Coxon, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge's department of materials, told CNN that a diamond was formed by carbon being treated with heat and pressure.

To the untrained eye, he said, a lab-made diamond might look the same as a natural diamond, except that because it was so pure and pristine it could appear almost too brilliant.

"We've had synthetic diamonds for a long time, he said. "Chemically they are almost

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indistinguishable, but they are almost a bit too good [looking]."

Whereas a natural diamond would take "millions and millions of years" to form with "a whole planet squashing down on the carbon," he said, synthetic diamonds eradicate the need to wait -- and the ▲ Entrepreneur Dale Vince claims need to have people impact" lab-made diamonds. © Jeff mine them.

"That's why synthetic diamonds were such a breakthrough -- as you could quick start [the process] and take all the materials, squash it at about 3,000 degrees, and leap forward several millions of years in time," he added.

But while SkyDiamonds' manufacturing process is not unique, Vince says the way he manufactures the gems is better for the environment, because the materials and energy used in the process are all sustainable -- with carbon from the wind, water from rainwater and energy sourced from solar and wind power.

"Making diamonds from nothing more than the sky, from the air we breathe is a magical, evocative idea -- it's modern alchemy," Vince said. "It's industry fit for the 21st century... Our new process

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to have created the world's first "zero ff Moore/SkyDiamond Sydiamonds puts back air that is cleaner than we take out -- we have negative emissions," he added.

Many people still associate diamond mining with exploitative environmental and labor practices surrounding conflict or "blood" diamonds. From 1989 to 2003, a series of civil wars in Africa were funded by the illegal trading of diamonds from unregulated mines that violated workers' rights and sometimes used child labor.

The industry has been working to clean up its image with new standards, but synthetic diamonds are often seen as a way to avoid any doubt.

Lab-grown diamonds are much cheaper, and their popularity could contribute to a catastrophe 77

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for the industry. De Beers, the world's largest diamond miner, posted an 87% drop in underlying 2019 earnings in February, according to Forbes, as the average price of its gems fell by 20%. www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/diamonds-from-the-skythis-entrepreneur-is-making-environmentally-friendlygemstones/ar-BB1azzHZ?ocid=msnews IMAGE CREDIT EXPRESSANSTAR.COM

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Adjaye Associates Reveals the new Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library in Johannesburg

By Matt Hickman

ADJAYE ASSOCIATES, THE EPONYMOUS practice of RIBA Gold Medal-winning Ghanaian– British architect Sir David Adjaye, has unveiled its design for the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library, a rammed earth structure with granary influences set to include a museum, research center, and more in honor of the second postapartheid President of South Africa. Born in 1942, Thabo Mbeki served as president from 1999 until his resignation in September 2008, nine months before the conclusion of his second term.

Described by the firm, which maintains offices in New York City, London, and the Ghanaian capital

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of Accra, as “a space of excellence, learning, research, discourse and cultural exchange predicated on the African perspective,” the presidential library is planned for Riviera, a suburb of Johannesburg. Flanked by a public plaza, the interconnected cylindrical forms—eight in total— that top the long, tilted base of the building are meant to evoke grain storage structures in a metaphorical nod to the library’s function as a place to seek “knowledge-based nourishment.”

Spread out across just over 52,000 square feet, the library will serve up quite the feast. In addition to the aforementioned museum and

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research center, the facility will also house an exhibition space, a women’s empowerment center, auditorium, cafe, seminar facilities, administrative offices, “digital experience space,” reading rooms, and an archival hub that will hold artifacts and key documents of Mbeki as well as other significant African historical figures. “Providing infrastructure for the preservation and distribution of African history and knowledge, the library will become a new anchor point and campus for local and international scholars,” explained the firm in its project narrative.

The program will be dispersed throughout the lower level of the library and the eight cylindrical structures that rest squarely atop it. Renderings depict the library’s main reading room and Reading room (Courtesy Adjaye Associates)

research center, for example, as being located in two of the granary-inspired domed forms.

Each dome features an aperture—all a different shape, size, and orientation—that will create a controlled natural light source for each individual chamber. A photovoltaic panel-topped interstitial space—a nucleus of sorts or “indoor den” per Adjaye Associates—will run the length of the eight-barreled structure and connect each of the domed chambers. This area will be accessible via a grand interior staircase (also situated in one of the cylindrical forms) leading up from the lower 79

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level to the ground-level plaza, which can be accessed via steps on the high end of the sloping base structure and a ramp at its low end.

In addition to the compressed mud that will comprise the facade of the Library, both the wood cladding and stone used in the terrazzo flooring will also be locally sourced in an effort to reduce the building’s overall carbon footprint. The aforementioned rooftop solar panels, geothermal heating system, and the high thermal mass of rammed earth, which absorbs heat during the day and release it at night, will help passively regulate the building’s temperature while reducing its dependence on mechanical cooling and heating.

“The Thabo Mbeki Centre presents an opportunity to realize the ambition of the dreams of President Thabo Mbeki to advance and empower an African renaissance,” said Adjaye in a statement.

“The architecture of the Library taps into the collective memory of the continent through the establishment of a new historical centre for African consciousness in which knowledge, education and sustenance are nurtured in the representation and intelligence of the continent.”

Johannesburg-based MMA Design Studio is acting as the local architect for the library, which was officially unveiled during a conversation between Adjaye and Mbeki in Johannesburg that was viewable on Zoom. As of this writing, a construction timeline and anticipated completion date for the project has not been announced. www.archpaper.com/2020/11/adjaye-associatesreveals-thabo-mbeki-presidential-library-injohannesburg/

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Nigerian Playwright Wole Soyinka is set to Publish his First Novel in Nearly 50 Years

By BOTWC Staff

NIGERIAN PLAYWRIGHT, WOLE SOYINKA, is set to publish his first novel in nearly 50 years, The Guardian reports.

Soyinka rose to prominence during the 60s, publishing his critically acclaimed debut novel, The Interpreters, in 1965. His second novel, Season of Anomy, was released in 1973 and in 1986, he made history as the first African to win the Nobel prize for literature.

A playwright, poet, and political activist, Soyinka was called “one of the finest petical playwrights that have written in English” by the Nobel prize. He was detained as a political prisoner in the 1960s, smuggling his poems out of prison on toilet paper and going into exile after he was released. He returned to Nigeria in 1975, leaving again in 1994, after having his passport confiscated by Nigerian military general Sani Abacha. Soyinka spent most of his exile teaching in the United States, returning to Nigeria in 1998 after Abacha’s death and destroying his green card for permanent residence in the U.S. after the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth is the 86-year-old’s third book and the first novel from Soyinka in nearly five decades. Soyinka’s publisher, Bookcraft (www.bookcraftafrica.com), said in a statement about the new story, “[The novel is] a narrative tour de force. [It] has got everything friendship and betrayal; faith and treachery; hope and cynicism; murder, mayhem and no shortage of drama, all set against the backdrop of contemporary Nigeria. As you would expect from a Soyinka work, it’s got plenty of colourful characters, profound

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insights, witty commentary, and the most elegant language.”

Soyinka said he was inspired to write during quarantine as a result of the global pandemic.

In addition to the new novel, he also has new theatrical work, with plans to direct a revival of his play, “Death and the King’s Horseman,” in Lagos this December.

“You just find yourself literally rolling from your desk to your bed to the dining table, back to the desk for five months of continuous writing. At the end of that exercise, when you finish that book, you will want to stretch your mind in a different direction.

So with a combination of circumstances, it occurred to me that, ‘wait a minute, it might not be a bad idea to do a production,’” Soyinka told This Is Lagos.

Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth is to be released in Nigeria before the end of the year, with an international release slated for 2021. www.becauseofthemwecan.com//blogs/culture/ nigerian-playwright-wole-soyinka-is-set-to-publishfirst-novel-in-nearly-50-years Image credit: Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images

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Famed Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Announces Free Virtual Season

By BOTWC

THE FAMED ALVIN AILEY A m e r i c a n Dance Theater announced a free virtual season of works slated for this December, Playbill reports.

The theater company will offer several works paying homage to six decades of Ailey’s Revelations.

New pieces presented include Testament, a modern-day approach to Revelations, curated by Associate Artistic Director Matthew Rushing alongside Clifton Brown, Yusha-Marie Sorzano and Damien Sneed on scoring.

There will also be an Ailey & Ellington program composed of 14 ballets choreographed by Ailey during his career that honor Duke Ellington, including a remake of Pas de Duke filmed on top of NYC’s Woolworth Building. Jamal Roberts will also be presenting A Jam Session For Troubling Times, in honor of the centennial celebration of Charlie “Bird” Parker.

Artistic Director Robert Battle spoke hopefully about the new season.

“We hope Ailey’s groundbreaking season will provide inspiration and unity as we celebrate six

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decades of Revelations, reinvent classic works by our beloved founder, and premiere choreography by members of the Ailey family.”

In addition to the reimagined Revelations and roster of new works, the virtual season will also feature varied educational programming, including an interactive Family Matinee to engage the next generation of theatergoers.

The show kicks off with a Revelations Reimagined opening night benefit stream December 2.

For more information about the upcoming season and schedule, you can visit the Ailey All Access platform at www.AlvinAiley.org. www.becauseofthemwecan.com//blogs/culture/famed-alvinailey-dance-theater-announces-free-virtual-season

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Pope Names 13 New Cardinals, Includes U.S. Archbishop Gregory

By Elana Schor WASHINGTON D.C. ARCHBISHOP WILTON GREGORY is set to become the first Black U.S. prelate to assume the rank of cardinal in the Catholic Church, a historic appointment that comes months after nationwide demonstrations against racial injustice.

Gregory’s ascension, announced on Sunday, October 25th by Pope Francis alongside 12 other newly named cardinals, elevates a leader who has drawn praise for his handling of the sexual abuse scandal that has roiled the church. The Washington-area archbishop also has spoken out in recent days about the importance of Catholic leaders working to combat the sin of racial discrimination.

The 72-year-old Gregory, ordained in his native Chicago in 1973, took over leadership of the capital’s archdiocese last year after serving as archbishop of Atlanta since 2005. The ceremony making his elevation official is slated for Nov. 28.

“With a very grateful and humble heart, I thank Pope Francis for this appointment which will allow me to work more closely with him in caring for Christ’s Church,” Gregory said in a statement issued by the archdiocese.

Gregory helped shape the church’s “zero tolerance” response to the sexual abuse scandal while serving as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2001 to 2004. During that period, the bishops adopted a charter designed to govern its treatment of sexual abuse allegations made by minor children against priests. The church’s efforts since 2004 have helped achieve a sharp reduction in child-sex abuse cases. But some abuse continues to occur, and the church’s procedures for addressing abuse continue to incur criticism from those who feel there’s a lack of consistency and transparency.

More recently, amid nationwide protests this summer sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Gregory made headlines

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for issuing a statement critical of President Donald Trump’s visit to the Saint John Paul II National Shrine. That presidential visit to the shrine came one day after demonstrators were forcefully cleared to facilitate Trump’s visit to an Episcopal church in Washington, and Gregory responded that he considered “it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated.”

During a June dialogue hosted

by Georgetown University, Gregory talked frankly about his own response to Floyd’s killing and emphasized the value of church involvement in pressing social issues.

“The church lives in society. The church does not live behind the

four doors of the structures where we worship,” Gregory said then.

The Washington D.C. archdiocese has created an anti-racism initiative under Gregory’s leadership, offering focused prayer and listening sessions.

In addition to his work combating racial injustice and sexual abuse in the church, Gregory has drawn notice for his more inclusive treatment of LGBTQ Catholics. In 2014, while serving in Atlanta, he wrote a positive column about his conversations with a group of Catholic parents of LGBTQ children.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which represents LGBTQ Catholics, said his group is “very excited” to see Gregory’s elevation and connected it back to Francis’ recently reported comments supporting civil unions for same-sex couples.

Gregory’s elevation, while pathbreaking for Black Americans in the church, also follows a pattern of D.C.-area archbishops getting named to the rank of cardinal. Five of the six prelates who previously held Gregory’s position were later named cardinals.

The archdiocese, though, has become embroiled in the abuse crisis since its previous two leaders — Donald Wuerl and Theodore McCarrick — were implicated in the church sex scandal.

Francis in February 2019 defrocked McCarrick after a Vatican-backed investigation concluded he sexually abused minors and adults over his long career. It was the first time a cardinal had been dismissed from the priesthood for abuse.

Francis reluctantly accepted Wuerl’s resignation in October 2018 after he lost the trust of his priests and parishioners in the months following the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report. The report accused Wuerl of helping to protect some child-molesting priests while he was bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006. www.huffpost.com/entry/pope-names-13-new-ca rdinals_n_5f9565fcc5b6a2e1fb6227a4 Image credits: nbcnews.com, cathstan.org, lebanon-express.com

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This Young Nigerian Man Created a Digital Collection of African Stories for Kids

By DeAnna Taylor

WE CAN’T SAY IT enough, but representation matters. For 23-year old Dominic Onyekachi, the lack of stories available for school-aged children across Nigeria, bothered him.

An avid storyteller himself, Onyekachi found himself trying to read stories to his 6-year old niece only to see that her library mostly contained books from other countries and they didn’t contain many characters that she could identify with.

“I wrote a few stories for her and I got my friend to illustrate. She liked it, her friends in school liked it too. And that’s when I really thought about writing more books and putting them in a place where many more children can access them,” Onyekachi said in an interview.

After seeing how well-received the stories were among his niece, and her friends, he decided to create an entire digital platform of stories that children could access.

In May of this year, he launched Akiddie (www. akiddie.com.ng), along with his friends Fanan and Tolulope. The online portal gives young children across the continent of Africa an entire library of stories that they can not only understand, but also

those where they can find characters that actually look like them.

“More children should have characters to look up, characters that have their hair, look like them and share their culture,” he said.

The platform currently has 21 books available, with more on the way. The stories range come in a beginner reading level and intermediate, and has now been used by six schools in Lagos, Nigeria.

Users of the platform are gifted with five stories to start out, and they can then opt for a subscription which costs about $1.55 per month. The stories have been translated to Yoruba language, spoken in West Africa, Hausa language, spoken in SubSaharan Africa, and Igbo language, spoken in southeastern Nigeria.

To learn more about Akiddie, you can visit the website: www.akiddie.com.ng. You can also follow along on Instagram: @akiddie.ng. https://travelnoire.com/young-nigerian-created-digitalafrican-stories Image crredit: techpoint.africa

Dominic Onyekachi

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Lifestyle/Culture

Here's How You can Work Remotely from the Beaches of Mauritius for a Year

By DeAnna Taylor

JUST OFF THE EAST coast of the island of Madagascar, is where you can find some of Africa’s most pristine beaches and exotic wildlife.

Mauritius (www.mauritius.net), an island nation itself, draws in visitors from all over wanting to walk its soft-sand beaches.

What if we told you that you could make this exotic island your home office for the next year?

Well, you can! The nation recently announced a new Premium Travel Visa program (www.

insurance for at least the initial part of your stay.

You must be a tourist, retiree, or professional traveling with family but intending to work remotely.

The visa program will prevent you from securing a job within Mauritius’ workforce, so you must have your own source of income lined up.

Once you arrive, you are required to quarantine for 14-days, as well as present a negative COVID-19 PCR test. Mauritius has been able to keep their cases pretty low throughout the pandemic. edbmauritius.org/newsroom/posts/2020/october/mauritiusThe applications for the visa will be available introduces-premium-travel-visa-for-long-stays) for non- soon. To learn more and to apply once available, citizens, looking to change the scenery as we visit; https://edbmauritius.org. continue to move through this new normal of https://travelnoire.com/work-remotely-from-theremote work. The visa is valid for at least 12 beaches-of-mauritius months, with an option to extend your stay.

Image crredit: marriott.com To apply, you will need to show proof of your long-term visit as well as have travel and health

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Lifestyle/Culture

Marcus Samuelsson's New Cookbook Reminds Us That Black Cuisine Matters P A R T COOKBOOK, PART HISTORY book, part chronicle of today’s Black chefs, Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s new book, The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food, is an ode to the complexity of Black cuisine. Released on October 27th, it’s also a call for society to recognize the contributions of this cuisine, a mission standing on three pillars: “authorship of our food and rituals; memory of history, where we started, and where we’ve gone; and aspiration for the future.”

The story of where the James Beard Awardwinning chef — once named Best New Chef in New York City by the foundation — started and where he’s gone is equally complex. Born in wartorn Ethiopia, he was adopted by a family from Gothenburg, Sweden, where he was raised. In 1994, after studying at the culinary institute there and apprenticing in Europe, Samuelsson came to the United States at age 23, apprenticing at Aquavit in New York. By 2003, he garnered that nod from James Beard as Aquavit’s executive chef, and he went on to open his critically acclaimed signature restaurant, Red Rooster, in Harlem in 2010, which has expanded to Overtown, a historically Black neighborhood in Miami.

Over the years, Samuelsson, a married father of one, has used his ever-expanding platform — TV shows, podcasts, best-selling books — to champion causes near to his heart as well as share his story and that of those like him: immigrants and chefs of color.

But, The Rise, which features 150 recipes alongside profiles of Black chefs, writers, and activists, is perhaps his most ambitious project to date. Written with Osayi Endolyn with recipes with Yewande Komolafe and Tamie Cook, the 86

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sheer depth of research is astounding. The recipes are diverse, and, throughout, Samuelsson’s commitment to the subject shines ever bright.

Shondaland sat down with Samuelsson, 49, to discuss why Black food matters (as he states in his author’s note) so much, being a New York restaurant owner during the pandemic and what it’s like facing 50.

CHELSEA GREENWOOD: When and why did you first decide to create a book like The Rise?

MARCUS SAMUELSSON: The work itself started four years ago. But I think it's been an evolution. Coming up as a young Black chef, there were very few books that spoke to my aspiration.

But the other thing I noticed was the enormous amount that Black people contributed to American food. But when I would read about American food, it was like Black people were written out of history.

So, this is an opportunity to really document where aspiration meets inspiration, but also authorship.

I know that this book is going to get documented, which means that it's now part of something. So it sets a legacy.

CG: Why do you think Black writers, musicians, athletes, etc., have earned recognition where Black cooks have not?

MS: We were brought here to work in the fields, and cooking and serving, right? When we had the opportunity eventually to go to college and get professions, there were the five professions that our parents or grandparents wanted us to go into: lawyer, doctor, etc. We're the only ethnicity that has a stigma around serving, because we were the serving class. We also didn't have access to finance, to banks. So, very often, our food also didn't matter, although most of the food came from us.

When you think about the origins of barbecue, it comes from Africa. You think about the incredible brilliance of the slaves when they brought over the rice, okra, peanuts, etc. When you think DAWN

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about Southern American food and American food, you cannot write out Black people. We are the originals of that. It is as clear to me as Black contribution to music. You can't imagine jazz without African-Americans; you can't imagine hip-hop without the African-American contribution. And it's the same. You can’t talk about American food without the contribution of Black people.

CG: Does the book’s title refer to the past rise of Black food, the future of it or both?

MS: It really talks about the past, present and future rise. It was important to include the AfricanAmerican women that have many different roles in this, and it has not been written into American food history as it should. That’s the past. But it's really connected to the present because what's happening now is the same thing. I think about Leah Chase: A lot of the Civil Rights movement was planned in her restaurant. Then there's a young cook in the book, Patricia, she’s 18 years old. The oldest person is 96, and the youngest is 18. I take a lot of pride in that because you see the past and the future.

CG: What does an equitable American food landscape look like to you? Is it Black celebrity chefs, Black-owned restaurants winning Michelin stars, etc.? Or is it something more substantive?

MS: We're in a very important time right now.

During Covid and post-Covid, I can see the biggest innovation coming out of it. I see Black chefs being part of leading that path, because we always come through struggles, and out of struggles comes great things. What's real here is that we have to have access to capital. My goal with The Rise is to create a Rise residence program, where we pick a chef for two years that can go away and have a residence and think about her work or his work, and come back to us and upload.

The rise of a celebrity chef — all of those things are important, even if they sound superficial, They're important because of the combination between aspiring and inspires. We've had it in writing; we've had it in music. We've had it in all other creative fields, so we need it [with food].

But, more importantly, post-Covid, what does

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that look like? And we have to have a seat at the table and a meaningful seat. You see this dialogue happening everywhere, and I just want to make sure that it continues. www.shondaland.com/live/travel-food/a34484073/ marcus-samuelssons-new-cookbook-reminds-us-thatblack-cuisine-matters Image credit: https://bookshop.org/books/the-riseblack-cooks-and-the-soul-of-american-food-acookbook/9780316480680

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Lifestyle/Culture

Recipes from "The Rise" - Doro Wot Rigatoni & Collard Green Salad

"DORO IS A CHICKEN STEW FROM ETHIOPIA -- WITH BEAUTIFUL SPICE TO IT." Ingredients • 5 pounds chicken leg quarters (about 4) skinned • 2 teaspoons kosher salt • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper • 2 large red onions, peeled and quartered • 1 (2-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced • 8 cloves garlic, peeled • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter • 1 teaspoon ground fenugreek • 2 1/12 tablespoons berbere seasoning • 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes • For the squash • 1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil • 1 teaspoon kosher salt • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 88

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• 1 pound rigatoni cooked until al dente • 1/3 cup avib • Freshly grated Parmesan and fresh basil for garnish

Preparation To make the doro wat: Season the chicken with the salt and pepper and set aside at room temperature.

Place the onions, ginger, and garlic in a food processor and pulse until the consistency is a chunky puree.

Heat the butter and fenugreek in a large, 8to 10-quart Dutch oven set over medium-high heat. Once the butter has melted, add the onion mixture and stir to combine. Decrease the heat to low, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is melted and caramelized, about 45 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Add the berbere and stir until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, stir to combine, and bring to a DAWN

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simmer, about 5 minutes. Place the chicken in the pot and spoon the sauce over the chicken. Cover and braise in the oven until the chicken is cooked through and tender, about 1 hour.

• 1 cup packed finely sliced Napa cabbage • 1 radicchio head, finely sliced • 1 grapefruit, peeled and segmented

To make the squash: Combine the squash, olive oil, salt and pepper in a large mixing bowl and toss to coat well. Transfer the squash to a baking sheet and spread into a single layer. Roast next to the chicken for the last 30 to 35 minutes, tossing occasionally, until the squash is tender.

Preparation Pickle the peaches: Place the peaches and jalapeño in a 1-quart canning jar.

Combine the water, vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, garlic, star anise, and bay leaf in a small saucepan.

Set over medium-high heat and bring just to a boil, 5 to 7 minutes. Using a funnel, pour the hot liquid over the peaches. Put the lid on the jar and refrigerate until ready to use.

Make the cheese: Line a colander or a fine mesh sieve with cheesecloth and set aside.

Combine the buttermilk, milk, and salt in a small saucepan set over medium-high heat and bring just to a boil. Decrease the heat to maintain a bare simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool for 15 minutes.

Transfer the buttermilk mixture to the lined colander and place the colander in a bowl. Cover with a clean dish towel and refrigerate for 1 hour to allow all the liquid to drain and the cheese to cool.

Transfer to an airtight container, add the chives, and gently toss to combine. Cover and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Make the vinaigrette: Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a small sauté pan set over medium heat.

Once the oil shimmers, add the jalapeño and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, for 3 to 4 minutes, until the gar- lic is fragrant and the jalapeño begins to soften. Add the coconut flakes and continue cooking until lightly browned, 2 to 3 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly.

Combine the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil, the coconut milk, lemon juice, egg yolks, sesame oil, mus- tard, and Worcestershire in a blender or small food processor and process until combined and an emulsion is formed. Transfer to a bowl, add the sautéed jalapeño mixture and the parsley, and whisk to combine. Set aside until ready to use.

Assemble and serve the salad: Combine the collard greens, cabbage, and radicchio in a large serv- ing bowl, add the vinaigrette, and toss well.

Add the cheese, peaches, and grapefruit and gently toss. Serve immediately.

To serve: Place the cooked pasta into a large serving bowl. Add the sauce from the chicken and the squash and toss to combine. Place the chicken on top, dot with the ayib, and garnish with freshly grated Parmesan and torn basil leaves.

Collard Green with Fresh Cheese Salad Ingredients For the pickled peaches • 4 peaches, peeled, pitted, and cut into 1/4-inch slice • 1 jalapeño chile, sliced in half lengthwise • 2 cups water • 3/4 cup white wine vinegar • 3/4 cup sugar • 1 teaspoon yellow mustard seed • 2 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled • 1 star anise • 1 bay leaf For the fresh cheese • 1 cup whole buttermilk • 1/2 cup whole milk • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt • 2 teaspoons chopped chives • For the coconut vinaigrette • 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil • 2 jalapeño chiles, chopped • 2 cloves garlic, minced • ½ cup coconut flakes • ½ cup unsweetened coconut milk • Juice of 1 lemon • 2 large egg yolks • 1 teaspoon sesame oil • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard • 4 dashes Worcestershire sauce • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley For the salad • 2 cups packed finely collard greens ribbons 89

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Trade Shows/Exhibitions/Conferences

Events Around the African Continent and the World Africa's Big Seven 21-23 June 2021 Gallagher Convention Centre Johannesburg, South Africa www.africabig7.com/africa-trade-week

Africa Energy Indaba 2-3 March 2021 Capetown International Convention Centre Cape Town, South Africa www.africaenergyindaba.com

Essence Festival 2020 Summer 2021 Mercedes-Benz Superdome New Orleans, Louisiana USA www.essencefestival2020.com

Hotel & Hospitality Show 20-22 June 2021 Gallagher Convention Centre,

Johannesburg, South Africa www.thehotelshowafrica.com

IFAT Africa 13 - 15 July 2021 Gallagher Convention Centre Johannesburg, South Africa www.ifat.de/en/trade-fair/ifat-impact/

International Fair of Algiers 14 - 19 June 2021 Palais des Expositions des Pins Maritimes Algiers, Algeria http://safex.dz

South African International Trade Exhibition (SAITEX) 20-22 June 2021 Gallagher Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa www.saitexafrica.com

globalafricanetwork.com

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Celebrations

African Diaspora Independence Days J R CAMEROON - J . 1, 1960 R HAITI - J . 1, 1804 D R SUDAN - J . 1, 1956 F G GRENADA - F 07, 1974 R T GAMBIA - F . 18, 1965 SAINT LUCIA - F 22, 1979 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - F . 27, 1844 A R EGYPT - F . 28, 1922 WESTERN SAHARA - F . 28, 1976 M K MOROCCO - M 2, 1956 R GHANA - M 6, 1957 S MAURITIUS - M 12, 1968 R TUNISIA - M 20, 1956 R NAMIBIA - M 21, 1990 A R SENEGAL - A 4, 1960 S N Z MOROCCO (M )-A 7, 1956 R ZIMBABWE - A 18, 1980 MOROCCO (S S Z , M )-A 27, 1958 R SIERRA LEONE - A . 27, 1961 R TOGO - A 27, 1960 M P ' D R ETHIOPIA M 5, 1941 R CUBA - M 20 ,1902 S ERITREA - M 24, 1993 C R GUYANA - M 26, 1966 R SOUTH AFRICA - M 31, 1910 J NIGERIA (B C N )-J 1, 1961 A A ' R V (J )-J 19, 1865 R MOZAMBIQUE - J 25. 1975

D R MADAGASCAR J 26, 1960 R DJIBOUTI - J 27, 1977 R SEYCHELLES - J 29, 1976 D R CONGO (KINSHASA) - J 30, 1960 MOROCCO (I ) - J 30, 1969 J R BURUNDI - J 1, 1962 R RWANDA - J 1, 1962 D R SOMALIA - J 1, 1960 D P R ALGERIA - J 3, 1962 R CAPE VERDE - J 5, 1975 F I R COMOROS -J 6, 1975 R MALAWI - J 6, 1964 C THE BAHAMAS - J 10, 1973 D R SÃO TOMÉ AND PRINCIPE - J 12, 1975 R LIBERIA - J 26, 1847 A R BENIN - A . 1, 1960 R NIGER - A . 3, 1960 P D R BURKINA FASO - A . 5, 1960 G JAMAICA - A 06, 1962 R CÔTE D'IVOIRE (I C )A . 7, 1960 R CHAD - A . 11, 1960 CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC - A . 13, 1960 R CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE) A . 15, 1960 R GABON - A . 16, 1960 R TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO - A 31, 1962 see page 92

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Celebrations

African Diaspora Independence Days Independence Days - from page 91

S K SWAZILAND - S . 6, 1968 F S C ST. KITTS AND NEVIS - S 19 1983 G BELIZE - S 21, 1981 R MALI - S . 22, 1960 R GUINEA-BISSAU - S . 24, 1973 R BOTSWANA - S . 30, 1966 O CAMEROON (B C S )O . 1, 1961 F R NIGERIA - O . 1, 1960 R GUINEA - O . 2, 1958 K LESOTHO - O . 4, 1966 R UGANDA - O . 9, 1962 R EQUATORIAL GUINEA - O . 12, 1968 R ZAMBIA - O . 24, 1964 G ST. VINCENT AND THE

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GRENADINES - O 27, 1979 MOROCCO (I Z ,T )O . 29, 1956 N G ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA 01 N 01, 1981 C DOMINICA - N 03, 1978 P ' R ANGOLA - N . 11, 1975 R SURINAME - N 25, 1975 I R MAURITANIA - N . 28, 1960 BARBADOS - N 30, 1966 D U R TANZANIA - D . 9, 1961 R KENYA - D . 12, 1963 LIBYA (S P ' L A J ) - D . 24, 1951 www.thoughtco.com/chronological-list-of-africanindependence-4070467 www.caribbeanelections.com/education/independence/ default.asp, EverFest

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"Awakening the African Giant Within" The Africa Business Association (ABA) is pleased to invite you to be an integral part of our publication the DAWN - Awakening the African Giant Within. DAWN is a voice through which public and private entities and people share pertinent information and market business and investment opportunities in Africa and the African Diaspora. Gain access to these trillion dollar markets via ABA DAWN outreach and advertising opportunities.

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