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It's A New Day! Africa Continental Free Trade Area
AfCFTA
Holiday Economy page 19-25 SSpecial pecial Feature: Featture: Investment Profiles Republic of Senegal page 26
Awakening the African Giant Within Africa Business Association News
September-Otober 2020
Senegal National Profile 26
CONTENTS September-October 2020 4
Publisher’s Message
Business 9
12 14 19 20 20 22 24 25 25
‘Africa is Open for Business, Based on a Single Rule-Book for Trade and Investment Digital Trade is the Next Big Thing in Africa 4 Expert Tips to Internationalize* Your New Business Market for the Holidays Boutique Owner sees Skyrocketing Sales for Michelle Obama’s ‘VOTE’ Necklace Beyoncé’s Black Parade Route Catalog Giving African-owned Businesses a Boost Style with a Purpose This App Allows Users to Search and Support Black-Owned Businesses Around the World Sell Black. Shop Black. Online Marketplace for Black-owned Enthusiasts.
National Profile 26 30 Africare Reboot 38
33 36
Republic of Senegal Akon Just Unveiled his $6 Billion ‘Futuristic’ City in Senegal. To Give African Food a Bigger Stage in New Orleans, a Chef Reaches Across Restaurant Scene Black Rock Senegal
Development 37 38
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New Report on Aging in Africa Africare Commemorates its 50th Anniversary with Planned Sunset of all U.S. Operations and Assisting in Standing Up a New “PanAfricare” on the Continent Africa’s Great Green Wall Just 4% Complete Halfway Through Schedule
Pandemic-Health 46 47
Flying Doctors Raising $1 Billion to Meet Africa’s Rising Health Care Needs U.N. World Food Program Wins Nobel Peace Prize
Governance Vertical Indoor Farming 62 2
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48 49 50
The 75th UN General Assembly Newly Posted Ambassador to the USA President Akufo-Addo of Ghana Emerges as DAWN
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Facial Recognition
Boseman Tribute 84
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AfCFTA
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Market for the Holidays 19 52 53 55 56
New ECOWAS Chair Burundi Joins Congo Demanding Nearly $43 Billion in Reparations From Belgium For Its Colonial Past Zimbabwean Diplomat Appointed AU Ambassador to USA Queen Elizabeth Will No Longer Be Head of State in Barbados Next Year Black Church Leaders Demand Apology for Trump Campaign Ad
Village based minipower grid concepts 82
Investment 58 62 66 68 70 72 72
African Stock Exchange/Bourse Automated Vertical Indoor Farming Set to Sprout 10 Funding Options for Women-Owned Businesses WPEC Titans Tank 2020 Top 5 Winners Disney Partners with Nollywood to Bring American Movies to English-Speaking West Africa Inside Safari Valley: The “African Disneyland” and Ghana’s Largest Resort
Technology/Science 73 74 76 78
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African Telecom Giant to Exit Iran Over ‘Complexities’ Physicists Build Circuit That Generates Clean, Limitless Power From Graphene How Bitcoin Met the Real World in Africa Lagos Supports 23 Innovators and Tech Startups with N100m Grant
September-October2020
80 82
The Race to Build Facial Recognition Tech for Africa is being led by this Award-winning Engineer This Startup lets Villagers Create Mini Power Grids for their Neighbors
Lifestyle/Culture 83 84 86 88 90
Trevor Noah is on the Cover of the ‘Wall Street Journal’ September Issue Chadwick Boseman was the Definition of a Hero Alphonso Davies: Canada’s Humble, Joyful Soccer Phenom African Diaspora Themed Podcasts - A Directory Senegalese Cuisine
Columns 92 95
Events Around the African Continent and the World Resource Vault DAWN
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Publisher's Message
FINANCING AFRICA’s SMEs
Ricky Muloweni Publisher's Message “Africa is one continent, one people, and one nation... The community of economic life is the major feature within a nation, and it is the economy which holds together the people living in a territory. It is on this basis that the new Africans recognize themselves as potentially one nation, whose dominion is the entire African continent.” ― Kwame Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite
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IT IS GRATIFYING TO finally have the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) activated and ready to go. Africa Business Association (ABA) is calling upon the African Union (AU) to put together an enterprise financing program working through the Regional Economic Communities and reaching down to the local entrepreneur in the village. The AU needs to deliberately address its people and emphasize that the time to get involved in building the continent is now. All hands are needed on deck. The AU needs to take deliberate steps to set in motion Skills Development Programs for entrepreneurship and provide more access to credit, capital and mentoring. We have gone through the process of understanding the main objectives of the AfCFTA; “to create a single continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business persons and investments, and thus pave the way for accelerating the establishment of the Customs Union”, okay, but what does this mean to the kiosk owner on the streets of Kigali or Lusaka? Clearly if the kiosk owner is selling Jasmine rice from Vietnam or Hershey’s chocolates then their part of the negotiation in this Free Trade was conducted by the East or West, for them to have these DAWN
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products to sell in their stores. Clearly sales of these products will not provide much of a net gain on the economic front, rather a substantial net loss on many fronts for them, their communities and the country. Let’s unpack this last statement: At this point in our lifetime we can accept some global brands in our society such as Hershey’s to be with us for the long haul. But to say that African local producers of cocoa cannot come up with competitive products in this sector is clearly surrendering too early. Africa being a major producer of COCOA, begs the question, why we want to front Hershey’s to negotiate this trade deal in the first place. That also brings us to the elephant in our room; most of these products that Africa seems to want to negotiate for, the raw materials originate in Africa. Secondly, importation of goods affects the ability of the local economy to produce the same goods for the purpose of providing them to the local market. It thus also affects the ability of the local economy to produce the same goods for export. Accordingly, the import process must be conducted carefully so as not to be detrimental to the local economies. Clearly the best avenue is to encourage robust value addition on the continent followed by local partnerships with the Western producers. Again, skills training for the people… Yes, it has to be done and it must be done. If China 5
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made it mandatory that Caterpillar or IBM manufacture from within China, the African Union can surely do the same. Intra-Africa trade will only happen if the entrepreneurs in Africa get to have the required financing and capital to conduct business. We all understand by now that most of Africa is a net importer of its goods and services from the East and the West. Import reliant communities have overtime devolved into the current economic and unemployment bind that Africa is going through. Healing a culture of liking only imported products and shunning locally produced product is a must for all of Africa. Corvid19 has worsened the economic structure of families and local communities in Africa. There is no way to predict what the outlook could be post Covid19, even though it must be known to all that the continent has sufficient local resources and markets to trade from within the regions. The decline in the world’s GDP will no doubt lead to a severe fall in the exports demand for African products. Given the specificities of African economies, the negative impact would be more than proportional. The AfCFTA will thus have the advantage of boosting intra-African trade, contributing to mitigating a rapid decline in African GDP. It is important to communicate to the African citizenry the fact that there could most likely be winners and losers. The see page 6
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Publisher's Message
Rice Farmer in Africa from page 5
question is how does the African Union get to notice that and who will pull the plug? Who is in charge of ensuring success for all? We know that the Asian marketers have been bringing into Africa products ranging from rice to cocoa butter; how will that trade be aligned to ensure Africa’s rice farmers have capacity to reach their customers, what mechanisms are being developed for the local African farmers to scale their capacity to grow more rice? If we are to look at the past record as a measuring stick for progress, it is clearly going to be very wary for ordinary entrepreneurs to believe in this journey. In all fairness they have the right to be skeptical, as well the AU should go beyond the envelope to ensure effective communication is done to assure buy-in of the majority. For the most part African entrepreneurs come to the table with zero financing - this must change. For the sake of encouraging a robust business environment in Africa perhaps the Africa Development
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Bank should rethink its approach to funding programs in Africa - what about directly engaging the small businesses with a goal to strengthen regional value chains. The AU has identified the challenges that could hinder actualization of value chains across the continent - countless customs stamps, customs signatures and certificates to simply move a container from one nation to another. Now we need a program for capitalizing entrepreneurs across Africa to fully participate in this free trade opportunity. Yes, standing together as one market to negotiate trade deals is one foot in the door but the other foot, the people of Africa being the traders, manufacturers and suppliers, is still weak and cannot drag through. ABA suggests a plan to bring capital directly to the people. We must seize this moment with the right measure and understanding full well knowing that out of all this the key client is the African citizen. As Kwame Nkrumah said, “Africa is one continent, one people, and one nation... The community of economic life is the major feature within a nation, and it is the economy which holds together the people living in a territory. It is on this basis that the new Africans recognize themselves as potentially one nation, whose dominion is the entire African continent.” Africa Business Association will play it’s role for this success to reach the household units of all Africans. Ricky Muloweni Publisher/President dawn@africabusinessassociation.org aba@africabisinessassociation.org www.africabusinessassociation.org Image credits: Tumblr
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About the
Africa Business Association The Africa Business Association is an independent international business development organization. We oer 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. 7
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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
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