Tar86 lr no country files

People to watch, key data and analysis to guide you through the political and economic year ahead

w w w.t hea f r ic a r ep o r t .c om

54 Double issue

country reports

N ° 8 6 • d e c e m b e r 2 016 - j a N u a r y 2 0 17

the africa report

2017 Africa in

double edition • n° 86 • december 2016 - january 2017

GRoUPE jEUNE AFRIqUE

INTERNATIONAL EdITION

Algeria 550 DA • Belgium €5.90 • Canada CA$ 7.95 • DR Congo US$ 9 • Denmark 60 DK • Ethiopia 90 Birr • France €5.90 • Germany €5.90 • Ghana GH¢ 10 • Italy €5.90 • Kenya KES 410 • Morocco 40 DH • Netherlands €5.90 • Nigeria 800 NGN • Norway NK 70 • Portugal €5.90 • Rwanda RWF 6,000 Sierra Leone LE 15,000 • South Africa R40 (tax incl.) • Spain €5.90 • Sweden SEK 70 • Switzerland 9.90 FS • Tanzania TZS 10,000 • Tunisia 5.4 DT Uganda UGX 10,000 • UK £4.50 • United States US$ 6.95 • Zambia 48 ZMW • Zimbabwe US$ 4 • CFA Countries 3,500 F CFA • Euro Zone €5.90

cover crediTs: v.fournier/jA; f.sennA/Afp; TAmpA bAy Times/reA; r.unKeL/reA; XinhuA/reA; K.oshALusi/insignA; c.W Lee/nyT/reA; London neWs picTures/reA; m.osTergAArd/reA; vincenT fournier/jA; dimiTrios mAnis/reA; y.bogu/XinhuA/reA; j.cendon/bLoomberg/geTTy imAges)

People to watch, key data and analysis to guide you through the political and economic year ahead

w w w.t he af ri ca r epo r t .c o m

54 country reports Double issue

DOING BUSINESS IN AFRICA

A business capital and land of opportunity

2017 Africa in

The AfricA reporT # 86 - december 2016-jAnuAry 2017

Togo has been investing heavily in recent years to provide businesses with the physical and administrative infrastructure necessary for their growth. Lomé, an African financial and business capital, can also count on its modern port, now indispensable because of its strategic location in a market of 300 million people.

FREE with this issue: an invesTing guide on Togo. not to be sold separately

GROUPE JEUNE AFRIQUE

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

contents

TOGO

2017

N ° 8 6 • D E C E M B E R 2 0 16 - J A N U A R Y 2 0 17

Algeria 550 DA • Belgium €5.90 • Canada CA$ 7.95 • DR Congo US$ 9 • Denmark 60 DK • Ethiopia 90 Birr • France €5.90 • Germany €5.90 • Ghana GH¢ 10 • Italy €5.90 • Kenya KES 410 • Morocco 40 DH • Netherlands €5.90 • Nigeria 800 NGN • Norway NK 70 • Portugal €5.90 • Rwanda RWF 6,000 Sierra Leone LE 15,000 • South Africa R40 (tax incl.) • Spain €5.90 • Sweden SEK 70 • Switzerland 9.90 FS • Tanzania TZS 10,000 • Tunisia 5.4 DT Uganda UGX 10,000 • UK £4.50 • United States US$ 6.95 • Zambia 48 ZMW • Zimbabwe US$ 4 • CFA Countries 3,500 F CFA • Euro Zone €5.90

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art & life

118

27

county profiles

frontline

06 Editorial Pluralism against populism

56 soUth africa Tug of war at the ANC

ARt & LIFe

08 lEttErs

58 flashpoints Keep your eye on these hotspots

108 cinEma Genevieve Nnaji The former Nollywood actor has a love-hate relationship with the industry. She is now writing and producing fiilms as part of a new wave of Nigerian cinema that goes beyond the Nollywood clichés

10 opinion Elnathan John 14 QUiZ 16 questions on 2016 16 yEar in imagEs

Focus

FRontLIne 27 What liEs ahEad Africa in 2017 From technological game-changers to key leadership shifts in South Africa, the DRC and Kenya 45 calEndar 46 opinion Comfort Ero & Elissa Jobson

poLItIcs 48 nigEria The 12 labours of Buhari Like the fabled Hercules, the president faces gargantuan challenges as he tries to stabilise the country and drag the economy back into the black 54 opinion Crystal Orderson the africa report

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60 opinion Nana-Ama Danquah

67 East african commUnity Breaking barriers Intraregional trade is booming, but deep-rooted concerns about Kenyan dominance continue to plague its rival Tanzania

BusIness 82 WhErE to invEst in 2017 In search of growth If governments remove obstacles, there is huge productivity to be unleashed in the agribusiness, manufacturing and tech sectors 92 profilE Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank 96 innovation Hacking Africa’s infrastructure 98 nigEria Mining for diversity

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112 looking ahEad A guide to 2017 116 rEviEWs What we loved in 2016

countRy pRoFILes Your indispensable guide to the crucial economic and political events, across Africa’s 54 countries throughout 2017.

And meet the women and men making it happen in our people-to-watch pages 118 introdUction 123 soUthErn africa 143 East africa 163 cEntral africa 177 WEst africa 199 north africa This issue carries an insert between pages 34-35 for selected countries

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editorial

The AfricA reporT A Groupe Jeune Afrique publication

By Patrick Smith

Pluralism against populism

A

57‑Bis, rue d’Auteuil – 75016 PAris – FrAnce tel: (33) 1 44 30 19 60 – FAx: (33) 1 44 30 19 30 www.theafricareport.com

Cha i r m a n a nd f o und e r Béchir Ben yAhMed P ub l i s he r dAnielle Ben yAhMed publisher@theafricareport.com e x e Cut i ve P ub l i s he r JérôMe MillAn

ll things are possible. That was the opening of Barack Obama’s speech lauding the power of democracy after he won the United States presidential election in 2008. A few days before this year’s elections, when he was asked about the chances of a Donald Trump win, Obama replied: “Anything is possible.”

Just eight years separate those two statements of possibility, but the political realities to which they refer could be a century apart. One, almost a decade ago, represents a pluralism, a commitment, albeit too cautious at times, to tackling inequities and oppression. The other, today’s reality, offers the demagogue’s fusion of populism and nationalism in answer to rising social anger; horribly reminiscent of the puffed-up vanities that led the world to war in 1914.

Demands for trade protectionism and tighter borders, laced with racism and Islamophobia, did not start with Donald Trump, nor will they end with him. Populistnationalists making their voices heard in Europe are heartened by swelling nationalist ambitions in countries as diverse as Russia, Turkey, Israel, China and Japan.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, infuriated by international sniping at his human rights record, was the first leader to congratulate Trump on his win. The signals are clear. Economic discontents are being met by authoritarianism.

A toxic landscape of competing nationalisms is growing up.

It will become apparent that their mix of xenophobia, closing borders and projecting military power doesn’t help working people. Tearing up a few trade treaties will not make them richer.

Addressing the woes of global-

isation has to be an international project. It’s not only reactionary protectionists who complain about rules at the World Trade Organisation. In the name of globalisation, drug and agribusiness companies enforce tougher patent laws, sometimes selling back biotechnology to the countries, such as Madagascar, that they took it from.

Likewise, banks and information technology companies have secured access to markets across Africa and Asia, offering little reciprocal benefit. Multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund failed to react to warnings Billions about currency manipulation, skewed trade could be deals and rampant trampled unemployment. underfoot, Beyond this clash between the sponwhether the sors of globalisation elephants and their adversaries in populist-nationalist fight or governments, billions make love of people could be trampled underfoot – whether the elephants fight or make love, as the proverb has it.

A trade war between the US and China will quickly reverberate across Asia and Africa just as the US financial crash under former president George W. Bush did.

That should send an urgent message to enthusiasts for economic integration. African diplomats will also have to respond to the new populist order. Against the wave of climate-change deniers it’s time to build international support for a carbon tax, both as a sanction against environment-wrecking companies and as an incentive for green and sustainable enterprises. ●

edit editorial@theafricareport.com

the africa report

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m a r K e t i nG & d e ve l o P m e nt AlisOn KinGsley‑hAll e d i t o r i n Chi e f PAtricK sMith m a na G i nG e d i t o r nichOlAs nOrBrOOK editorial@theafricareport.com a s s o Ci at e e d i t o r MArshAll VAn VAlen b us i ne s s e d i t o r MArK AndersOn e d i t o r i a l a s s i s ta nt OheneBA AMA nti Osei re G io na l e d i t o r s crystAl OrdersOn (sOuthern AFricA) Billie AdwOA McternAn (GhAnA) sub - ed i t o r AlisOn culliFOrd erin cOnrOy P r o o f r e a d i nG KAthleen GrAy a rt di r e Ct o r MArc trensOn desiGn VAlérie OliVier (leAd desiGner) JeAn‑PhiliPPe GAuthier christOPhe chAuVin (inFOGrAPhics) cAMille chAuVin r e s e a r Ch sylVie FOurnier P ho t o G r a P hy PierAnGélique schOuler sales sAndrA drOuet tel: (33) 1 44 30 18 07 – Fax: (33) 1 45 20 09 67 sales@theafricareport.com cOntAct FOr suBscriPtiOn: webscribe ltd unit 8 the Old silk Mill Brook street, tring hertfordshire hP23 5eF united Kingdom tel: + 44 (0) 1442 820580 Fax: + 44 (0) 1442 827912 email: subs@webscribe.co.uk expressMag 8275 Avenue Marco Polo Montréal, qc h1e 7K1, canada t : +1 514 355 3333 1 year subscription (10 issues): All destinations: €39 ‑ $60 ‑ £35 tO Order Online: www.theafricareportstore.com d i f Co m internAtiOnAl AdVertisinG And cOMMunicAtiOn AGency 57‑Bis, rue d’Auteuil 75016 PAris ‑ FrAnce tel: (33) 1 44 30 19‑60 – Fax: (33) 1 44 30 18 34 advertising@theafricareport.com a d ve rt i s i nG d i r e Ct o r nAthAlie Guillery with JeAnny chABOn, séBAstien BlAche re Gio na l m a na G e r s iBiJOKe FABOrOde PAscAle lAlleMAnd cécile lOuedec Printer: sieP 77 ‑ FrAnce n° de cOMMissiOn PAritAire : 0720 i 86885 dépôt légal à parution / issn 1950‑4810 the AFricA rePOrt is published by GrOuPe Jeune AFrique

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letters For all your comments, suggestions and queries, please write to: The Editor, The Africa Report, 57bis Rue d’Auteuil - Paris 75016 - France. or editorial@theafricareport.com

enough of elitism!

Y

COP22 Morocco blazes a green path

Nigeria Yabacon Valley searches for unicorns

South Africa Companies go intercontinental

our article [‘Elections on the edge’, TAR85 November 2016] argues that elections in Africa as a political mechanism for capturing the will of the people have essentially failed.

Despotic regimes are more adept at political survival and entrenching themselves; the opposition has lost steam and is often also involved in sharing Elections the patronage and so cannot offer any meaningful on the edge Is populism leading us down a dangerous path? check or balance; and corruption is not an aberration in the system, it actually is the system.

Although the article’s blurb indicated that “in this vacuum, a new wave of grassroots and activist politics is spreading”, a mere three paragraphs tucked at the end of the story described this so-called wave of political movements outside the party system. The article asked if “elections are really about political pluralism, or are they a contest between political elites?” Structurally, I see your article entrenching these very elite voices, with only a cursory glance at how ordinary Africans are determining their own political future outside the structures that failed.

Christine Mungai, writer, journalist and executive editor, Africapedia.com N ° 8 5 • N OV E M B E R 2 0 16

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does not work like that [‘The Question’, TAR85 Nov 2016]. Ghana, among others, spent so much money on Obama’s state visit that it entered into debt! As Obama finishes his tenure, the continent is more troubled in different ways than before their ‘brother’ entered the White House. One cannot point to any policy of Obama’s government that has benefited Africa and Africans.

Wole Akinyeye, via Facebook

GROUPE JEUNE AFRIQUE

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Algeria 550 DA • Belgium €5.90 • Canada CA$ 7.95 • DR Congo US$ 9 • Denmark 60 DK • Ethiopia 90 Birr • France €5.90 • Germany €5.90 • Ghana GH¢ 10 • Italy €5.90 • Kenya KES 410 • Morocco 40 DH • Netherlands €5.90 • Nigeria 800 NGN • Norway NK 70 • Portugal €5.90 • Rwanda RWF 6,000 • Sierra Leone LE 15,000 • South Africa R40 (tax incl.) • Spain €5.90 • Sweden SEK 70 • Switzerland 9.90 FS • Tanzania TZS 10,000 • Tunisia 5.4 DT • Uganda UGX 10,000 • UK £4.50 • United States US$ 6.95 • Zambia 40 ZMW • Zimbabwe US$ 4 • CFA Countries 3,500 F CFA • Euro Zone €5.90

Parental advisory As a youth in Ghana, I will not follow the NDC/NPP display like our parents have in previous years [‘Ghana: The 10% election’, TAR84 October 2016], but I will rather choose my party based on my own analysis. As a child I grew up knowing “we are for this political party, so we vote for this political party no matter what!” Now, as an adult, I realise that elections go beyond partisan politics and the voter must be wellinformed. Yes, the NDC/NPP’s strong roots will guarantee them 40% plus

ankara’s african ambitions

Considering Turkish Airlines flies to 46 destinations in Africa and the country has opened 27 new embassies across the continent, it is not far off to say that Turkey is going to play a major role in Africa in the near future [‘Turkey: Breaking ground in Africa’, TAR84 Oct 2016]. According to the Turkish African Business Association’s (TABA) latest votes. However, being part of the 10% report, two of three major companies of voters who will determine the results in Turkey are either working with in the 2016 polls, the power of my thumb African companies or in progress to must be used to empower Ghana do so. A railway tender worth $1.7bn in as a whole and not just a political party. Ethiopia won by a Turkish construction Dr. Kojo Owusu-Krah, Accra, Ghana company is a good example. Defy, a South African appliance producer, has been bought by a Turkish company. obama was no silver bullet The trade volume between Turkey and African countries was $4.5bn In mother Africa, many were happy in 2002, and increased to $21bn in 2015. [at Barack Obama’s election to US From my perspective, this figure has president] and expected his the potential to go up to $100bn by 2040.

Fatih Akbulut, President, Turkish African administration to support Africans and Business Association African nations, forgetting that America

How To gET youR copy of THE AfRIcA REpoRT On sale at your usual outlet. If you experience problems obtaining your copy, please contact your local distributor, as shown below. ethioPia: SHAMA PLC, Aisha Mohammed, +251 11 554 5290, aisham@shamaethiopia.com – ghana: TM HUDU ENTERPRISE, T. M. Hudu, +233 (0)209 007 620, +233 (0)247 584 290, tmhuduenterprise@gmail.com – kenya: NATION MEDIA GROUP, Christine Wangari, + 254 (0)20 328 8574, cwangari@ke.nationmendia.com – nigeria: NEWSSTAND AGENCIES LTD, Marketing manager, +234 (0) 909 6461 000, newsstand2008@gmail.com; MAGAzINE CIRCULATION NIGERIA LIMITED (MCNL), Distribution manager, +234 (0)803 727 5590/805 357 0984, mcnl3@yahoo.com – sierra leone: RAI GERB ENTERPRISES, Mohammad Gerber, +232 (0)336 72 469, raigerbenterprise@ gmail.com – southern africa: RNA Distribution, Yasmin Moodley, +27 11 248 3500, yasminm@rnad.co.za • SUBSCRIPTIONS: RNA SUBSCRIPTIONS, Tarryn de Swart, +27 11 248 3559, tarrynds@rnad.co.za – tanZania: MWANANCHI COMMUNICATIONS, Milli Makula, +255 716 500 500, mmakula@tz.nationmedia.com – uganda: MONITOR PUBLICATIONS LTD, Micheal Kazinda, +256 (0)702 178 198, mkazinda@ug.nationmedia.com – united kingdom: COMAG, Mark Swan, +44 (0)1895 433791, Mark.Swan@comag. co.uk – united states & canada: LMPI, Sylvain Fournier, +1 514 355 5610, lmpi@lmpi.com – Zambia: BOOKWORLD LTD, Shivani Patel, +260 (0)211 230 606, bookworld@ For other regions go to www.theafricareport.com realtime.zm – Zimbabwe: PRINT MEDIA DISTRIBUTION, Ian Munn, +263 778 075 147, ianmunn@mweb.co.zw

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Experience the Progress.

www.liebherr.com info.lex@liebherr.com www.facebook.com/LiebherrConstruction

10

opinion Ellnathan John Satiris st and novelist*, Nigeria

How to be a good African

I

like to think I am a good African – or at least that having visited nearly a dozen countries in Africa and Europe, I can say something about what it means to be a good African. I see it in your eyes, the question: How do I travel to so many countries so quickly? You are right to ask. It is not by paying anyone money. I have no travel agent who secures visas for me. I have no special connections. I just decided one day to stop being an ordinary African and become a good African.

An ordinary African is confined to his/her country or subregion like a chick in an egg that never hatches. An ordinary African – or, God forbid, a bad African – will never see another country outside their subregion, except perhaps illegally, by boat or through some desert, in both of which cases you are as likely to survive as you are likely to receive an email about money from a real Nigerian prince. We both know you do not desire death. So, swallow your pride and listen.

is the most important rule of all and you will find this coming up a lot as we move forward.

A good African knows that migration is a dirty word Migration is a dirty, dirty word. Migration causes instability. No right-thinking, good African would wake up and decide they want to move to another continent. I know Americans and Europeans do this, but it is mostly to help people and all. Who will you be helping when you decide to abandon your country? What value will you be adding to Europe or America? Why would you see a politically and economically stable country and just decide you want to move there? A good African does not allow the things of this world to determine their choices in life. I know, I know. You are thinking you are a professional who will not be a burden and you just want to exercise your right to movement, blah blah blah. Those are not rights a good African desires. Contentment is a virtue.

And a good African is virtuous.

A good African knows his place Now, don’t take this the wrong way. Knowing your place is simple to understand. You know that the only place where you belong – that is, assuming you are not an undesirable minority or vulnerable person in your own country – is your own country.

If you are a skilled professional, especially, you do not want to be a traitor by desiring anything other than living in the country of your birth and origin. Have a conscience. Don’t add to brain drain.

A good African doesn’t complain about paperwork

You are not an American or European who just decides “I want to see the world” Respect the good men and women who worked on the Khartoum Process and stay in Africa. The Europeans, and especially Germans, are not spending all that time and effort with your leaders to stop the Europe-bound flow of people like you for nothing. No one is saying don’t ever travel, but knowing your place means realising that to travel, you need a compelling reason. You are not an American or European who just finishes school, decides “I want to see the world” and books a ticket online. This

A good African does not ask why they are required to produce a certain document or sign a certain document. If it is on a list, a good African produces it without complaining. A good African is truthful and doesn’t have creases on their forehead when answering the questions: “Are you a member of a terrorist organisation?”, “Have you ever been involved with torturing someone?”, “Are you coming to our awesome country to engage in prostitution?”, “Have you ever been involved with human trafficking?”, or “Do you plan to engage in espionage activities while in our awesome country?”

A good African does not covet humans that do not belong to him/her To be clear, all love is not the same. Some types of love are regular, while others lead to severe and official consequences. The latter can lead to paperwork that can radically affect your ability to the africa report

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travel, thereby subverting the necessary process of verifying good Africans. Do not covet this extreme consequence. I am not implying that you want to do a fake marriage. I know you believe in love and all, but I am saying you shouldn’t risk being associated with bad people. And isn’t there a nice African you can marry?

A good African does not try to settle As a good African, you must provide proof that you have no intention of staying one minute beyond the period of grace as specified on your visa. One way of doing this is by making sure you always have your return ticket with you at all times. Don’t be proud. You are not an American or European who can just travel and decide on a whim when they want to return. Not knowing exactly when and how you will return is bad and is a sign that you are one of those dangerous Africans who sneak away upon landing in Europe or America and try to stay there forever, ruining a country that took a lot of time and energy to make perfect.

A good African discourages other Africans from spoiling chances for other good Africans You must frequently speak up against those bad Africans who smuggle themselves onto boats or through deserts and spoil things for people like the africa report

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you. Regularly refer to the Khartoum Process.

Write against Africans who give you a bad name.

Embassies should be able to read that you are of the opinion that dangerous Africans who try to settle do not represent you. Say occasionally that Africans who have somehow settled abroad should come back home and stop embarrassing the rest of us good Africans who need to travel for conferences and training and medical treatment and short holidays.

A good African always comes back home No one can read your mind. You must prove that you will return home by swearing that you have strong family and economic ties to the country where you belong to for life. It is nicer if you have a wife and many children who you could never abandon because you are a child of God. And a nice bank account that shows that you are not poor or anything. Sometimes, however, coming back home is not sufficient. Depending on what country you travelled to, you may be required to write to the kind embassy that granted you the privilege of travelling, telling them that, as you swore in the beginning, you are truly back in your country avoiding all temptation that may have come from bad Africans abroad. The temptation was great, but you had given them your word. And the word of a good African is their bond. ● *Born on a Tuesday (Cassava Republic Press).

quiz 16 Questions from 2016 Think you’ve had your finger on the pulse of news across the African continent?

Well, here is your chance to find out with The Africa Report news quiz.

The first five people to answer all the questions correctly will receive a year’s free digital subscription to www.theafricareport.com. Please send your answers to quiz@theafricareport.com by 8 January 2017.

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Which president sacked his speechwriter after he stole lines from one of Barack Obama’s speeches? a) Muhammadu Buhari b) Jacob Zuma c) Uhuru Kenyatta

AfolAbi Sotunde/reuterS

▲ In which rooms did President Buhari expect to see his wife? a) The kitchen b) The other room c) The dining room

2

How many presidential elections were held in Africa in 2016? a) Eight b) Twelve c) Fourteen

3

Where was Kenyan crisis-mapping platform Ushahidi deployed? a) Central African Republic b) South Sudan c) United States of America

6

For how many months was Nigeria the largest economy in Africa?

Which African footballer of the year nominee complained of not receiving enough cake on his birthday?

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15

What was the age difference between President Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s youngest-ever university graduate, Maud Chifamba, when she got her diploma in September 2016?

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Whose half-brother backed US president-elect Donald Trump? a) Michael Jackson b) Barack Obama c) Uhuru Kenyatta

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How did South African President Jacob Zuma pay back the money he misappropriated for chicken housing at his Nkandla homestead?

4

Which family has been named

by South Africa’s Public Protector in a report about influence-trafficking? a) The Simpsons b) The Kardashians c) The Guptas

Which African monarch is known as the ‘King of the Selfies’? a) Ghana’s Asantehene b) Morocco’s Mohammed VI c) Swaziland’s Mswati II

How much did ‘billionaire’ Ashish Thakkar claim he was worth in his London divorce proceedings?

Which African president led the country in a clean-up exercise on Independence Day? a) John Magufuli b) Robert Mugabe c) Yoweri Museveni

Who wrote a controversial article entitled ‘How my dream gap year in Africa turned into a nightmare’ that sparked a backlash on Twitter? a) Louis C.K. b) Louise Linton c) Louis Theroux

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Which foreign minister said: “Life expectancy in Africa has risen astonishingly as that country has entered the global economic system”? the africa report

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1

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Actress Lupita Nyong’o provoked no little astonishment when she admitted she could not make her national dish.

But what is it? a) Jollof rice b) Ugali c) Attiéké

y riet r/VA A iP kne buc tter/S u Sh

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Pioneering collaboration

Partnering with our farmers, cooperatives and communities to help secure livelihoods for future generations across the globe.

Smallholder farmer harvesting cashew, Côte d’Ivoire

70 countries 62,500 employees 4 million farmers 16,200 customers Visit olamgroup.com

year in images

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP/SIPA

Growing economies couldn’t mask tough times faced by many this year, but new infrastructure and people power show the underpinnings of a hopeful continent

january Obama begins his farewell lap The world says ‘goodbye, gonna miss ya’ to United States President Barack Obama, as he delivers his last State of the Union address in Washington DC.

Michael Ohiarlaithe/AP/SIPA

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july for too many, life is lived on the road South Sudan’s capital, Juba, is hit by heavy fighting between government troops and rebels, killing about 300 people. the africa report

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Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

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Sun Ruibo/XINHUA-REA

may trying to get a clean vote can cost you your life Police disrupted rallies organised

by Kenya’s opposition parties to protest against irregularities at the electoral commission.

august KenyaN Jemima jelagat Sumgong takes olympic gold African sports fans looked on in pride as records were smashed and new heroes emerged.

Nigeria’s football team deserve a mention both for their bronze and the calamity of logistical errors they overcame. the africa report

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Adrian DENNIS/AFP photo

October the spine of the new ethiopian economy Shortly after the launch of the 17km Addis Ababa Light Rail, the 752km Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway opened to great fanfare. Both are Chinese-built and heralded as the latest successes of Sino-African friendship.

year in images

april petrol shortages for a top oil exporter A shortage of foreign currency and the poor state of the country’s refineries meant day-long queues for fuel in Nigeria.

MARCO LONGARI/AFP photo

Ashley Gilbertson/VII/Redux-REA

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july fashion first ahead of the horse races Models and punters put on their best and brightest outfits for a fashion show at the Greyville Racecourse in Durban, South Africa, before the horses got some exercise. the africa report

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year in images

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october the push to chase Islamic state rebels out of sirte With the help of US air raids, forces allied to the United Nations-backed government in Tripoli conducted house-to-house raids in the birthplace of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

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Eduardo Soteras/AFP photo

july Tshisekedi’s triumphant return Ageing opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi returned to the Congolese capital after spending two years taking care of his health in Belgium.

His arrival reinvigorated protests against President Joseph Kabila’s plans to stay in power.

Amr Abdallah Dalsh/REUTERS

Hani Amara/REUTERS

april anger at island giveaway Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi faced rare protests in Cairo after his goverment gave two islands in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia. Gulf countries have been supporting Cairo with billions to help it cope with difficult times.

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year in images

FADEL SENNA/AFP PHOTO

november Marrakech mobilises for cop22 The 7-18 November global climate summit took place in Morocco for the first time.

The kingdom is promoting its own green growth and adaptation measures for agriculture across the continent.

Francis Kokoroko /TAR

Petterik Wiggers/PANOS-REA

Afolabi Sotunde/REUTERS

May worst dryness in decades The El Niño weather pattern delivered drought to eastern and southern Africa. In Ethiopia (pictured), the drought was the worst in 50 years but the government was prepared.

May some chibok girls freed The Nigerian government has been working on obtaining the release of the 219 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014.

Here, former kidnappee Amina Ali Darsha Nkeki meets President Buhari.

september On the campaign trail in ghana NPP candidate Nana AkufoAddo and his allies went on a door-to-door campaign in the city of Cape Coast ahead of presidential elections on 7 December. the africa report

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year in images

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july modi in africa India’s prime minister toured Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania (pictured) and Kenya.

May riding the rails Chinese contractors lay the groundwork for the standard gauge railway that will link Kenya’s capital with the port city of Mombasa. The railway should be operational by 2017.

MUJAHID SAFODIEN/afp photo

Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP/SIPA

August flowers not firebombs Police in Harare attacked several people participating in a peaceful march against bad governance and the country’s economic troubles.

october #feesmustfall Students at Vaal University of Technology face off against anti-riot police and other security forces in protests that target the high cost of university education in South Africa. the africa report

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Côte d’Ivoire

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© STUDIO LABELFOTO

© SIA KAMBOU

© OLIVIER / JA

© SIA KAMBOU

© LOIC LE BRUSQ/FOTOLIA

The new engines of the economy

etermined to occupy a leading industrial and commercial position in West Africa, Côte d’Ivoire is banking on its exceptional potential in hydrocarbons

and mines, as well as on total electrification, to build its future, with the desire to

ADVERTORIAL

share the results of this growth with all sections of the population.

DR

Côte d’Ivoire > The new engines of the economy

 Flagship of the region’s refineries, the SIR produces 4 million tons of fuel per year.

Hydrocarbons: a west african “major”

J

ust like other oil industry giants, called “oil majors”, Côte d‘Ivoire produces oil and gas, carries out exploration to produce more, refines it into fuels and distributes these petroleum products to professionals and individuals. It certainly has enough assets with which to develop new industrial and commercial activities in the hydrocarbons sector.

ADVERTORIAL

Refining and distribution The Société Ivo irienne de Raffinage (SIR) fosters the ambition of supplying the West African market, which consumes between 10 and 15 million tons of refined products each year (petrol, diesel, jet fuel, and butane, etc.). Flagship of the region’s refineries, the SIR already exports to Burkina Faso, which is one of its shareholders. Its four million ton annual distillation capacity and state-of-the-art

technology enable it to look to the future with confidence. The situation is all the more favourable because African countries are generally exporters of crude and importers of fuels that are obviously more expensive than locally produced fuels.

To this end, a pipeline will link Abidjan to Ouagadougou, the capital of neighbouring Burkina Faso, and thus serve landlocked West African countries, as well as the provinces of Côte d’Ivoire.

The first section came into operation in July 2013. It connects Abidjan to Yamoussoukro and transports products to the centre of Cote d’Ivoire. Once connected to Ouagadougou, it will be able to carry four million litres of petroleum products per day, the equivalent of 130 tankers.

Increased oil production In 2015 Côte d’Ivoire’s crude oil production increased by 55.5%

and that of gas by 4.4%. This allowed Petroci, the national oil and gas exploration and production company, which also distributes fuel via its network of petrol stations, to offset the decline in international crude oil prices. At the same time, a

Oil production rose from 18,000 bpd to 41,000 bpd in five years. The target is 200,000 bpd by 2020.

new pricing methodology at the pump has lowered fuel costs for motorists while boosting government revenues.

Building on the well-established credibility of Petroci, Côte d’Ivoire implemented an extensive exploration development programme to increase its hydro-

carbon production to 200,000 barrels per day by 2020. New wells have entered into service and oil production has increased from 18,000 bpd to over 41,000 bpd in five years. In order to continue developing new deposits, 23 production sharing contracts were signed at the end of 2015, including two promising ultra-deepwater blocks.

More gas for power plants There is a strong demand for natural gas as it is the primary energy source for Côte d’Ivoire’s power plants. A planned Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) should help improve the supply. It is one of the many investments featured in the 20162020 Development Plan, which aims to mobilise $60 billion from public and private sources to support the country’s economic development.

Mining: underground wealth 20 tons in 2014 (+17.5%) and 1.5 tons in 2007. The Agbahou gold mine alone, which came into operation in 2014, accounts for 26.7% of this production.

The dynamism in this sector is set to continue, with a quarter of the existing prospecting permits awarded in 2015. Two new deposits will enter into service

Côte d’Ivoire produced 23.5 tons of gold in 2015 against 20 tons in 2014 (+17.5%) and 1.5 tons in 2007.

in the coming months. The first gold bar of the Sissingué mine in the Tengréla county (far north of the country) is expected to be smelted in 2017. In Afèma, about 100 kilometres east of Abidjan, Taurus Gold invested around 70 billion CFA francs to operate a site with reserves estimated at 43 tons.

Giant iron deposits There are high hopes in the east central part of the country. This is where two giant iron deposits, Mount Klahoyo-Tia (1.2 billion

tons) and Mount Gao (1 billion tons) were discovered. The region also has a large nickel laterite deposit (Sipilou, 205 million tons).

The development of the mining industry will significantly transform the infrastructure of the regions concerned. One of the most important integrated projects currently under discussion concerns the construction of a railway to export iron ore from Mount Klahoyo-Tia, as well as other deposits in the west of the country, via San Pedro, the country’s second biggest seaport, where a new mineral ore terminal will be built.

© SIA KAMBOU

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he mining sector had been neglected for a while but is now on the way to becoming a new driver of Côte d’Ivoire’s economy. In addition to fossil resources (crude oil and natural gas), the country has considerable mineral wealth. Its iron reserves are among the largest in the world, estimated at more than 2 billion tons. It also has 1.2 billion tons of bauxite (containing aluminium), 390 million tons of nickel, 3 million tons of manganese and 100,000 carats of diamonds. The government wants to operate these deposits as Public-Private Partnerships. In 2014 the country produced about 400,000 tons of manganese and 300,000 carats of diamonds.

A real gold rush Up until now, it is the country’s gold reserves that have been reeling in the investors, who are taking advantage of the new mining code. This code has been regulating relations between the State and mining operators since 2013. In total, Côte d’Ivoire produced 23.5 tons of gold in 2015, compared with

 The open pit of the Tongon gold mine.

Profitability and socio-economic outcomes

A

s soon as he came to power, President Alassane Ouattara reinstated the tradition of planning that had driven Côte d’Ivoire’s economic development after its independence. The development strategy that was carefully

defined in the 2012-2015 Development Plan and led to an average economic growth of more than 9% per year, was completed in the 2016-2020 Plan.

The projects are led by the entire government and its leader, Prime Minister

Daniel Kablan Duncan, is personally involved in their success. Projects completed since 2012, notably in infrastructure, along with reforms to improve the business climate, have reinforced investor confidence. This

is particularly true of the legislation governing the oil and mining sectors.

It guarantees companies the profitability of their operations while providing significant social and economic benefits to local residents and the State.

© NABIL ZORKOT

Côte d’Ivoire > The new engines of the economy

 Kossou hydroelectric dam.

Electricity at all costs

ADVERTORIAL

Total electrification by 2025 Several programmes are underway to electrify 95% of the territory by 2020, compared to 31% in 2009, with the aim of delivering electricity to the entire population. By the end of 2016, all villages with more than 500 inhabitants will have been connected and the distribution of low energy light bulbs will be complete. At the end of 2015,

2.5 million units had already been distributed. Côte d’Ivoire is expected to be the first country in West Africa to achieve total electrification by 2025.

By the end of 2016, all villages with more than 500 inhabitants will be connected to the grid.

Supplying industry and neighbours True to a long-standing tradition, Côte d’Ivoire wants to supply its neighbours with electricity. The entry into service of the extensions to the Azito thermal power plant in 2015– from 290 MW to 430 MW – and Ciprel in 2016 – from 320 MW to 550 MW – have already strengthened the country’s power capacity position in West Africa. Since the early 1980s, the country has been exporting electricity to Ghana, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Mali. Ultimately, it will be linked to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. All of these high-voltage lines will enable Côte d’Ivoire to export quality electricity at a competitive price.

Environmental protection

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ôte d’Ivoire is currently one of the only countries on the continent to have set up a regulator y mechanism exclusively dedicated to the UN process of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD +). As part of the 2 016 - 2 0 2 0 D e v e l o p ment Plan, a first “Zero Deforestation” project was launched in the Mê region in the south. Côte d’Ivoire aims to regain a forest area rate of 20% by 2040 (5% today).

Environmental protection

commitments are an integral part of Côte d’Ivoire’s economic development plans. Investments in electricity, for example, take into account a c ha ng e in the e ne rg y mix. By 2030, renewable energy plants (hydro, solar and biomass) will produce 50% of the country’s electricity, compared with less than 10% today. The current dominance of thermal power stations will cease in 2018, after the entry into service of the 275 MW Soubré hydroelectric dam in the southwest of the country.

More electricity to industrialise Côte d’Ivoire Installed capacity*

Population

Morocco

8,200 MW

33 million

Tunisia

4,800 MW

11 million

Côte d’Ivoire (2015)

2,000 MW

23 million

Côte d’Ivoire (objective 2020)

5,000 MW

* Electricity production capacity, data from countries and AfDB 2015

PHOTOS: THE PRESIDENCY OF SENEGAL, EXCEPT WHERE OTHERWISE MENTIONED.

T

he refinery, metallurgical plants, railway and mineral ore port, not to mention agricultural processing plants and meeting the needs of the population: all this progress will not happen without continuous access to electricity.

In 2012, Côte d’Ivoire embarked on an extensive programme to increase electricity production and support its strong development momentum. Côte d’Ivoire’s installed electricity capacity is already at 2,000 megawatts (MW), almost twice as much as in 2011, and investments will continue to at least double this capacity by 2020. By then, the mining sector alone could use up to 500 MW.

frontline

What to watch in

2017

By Mark Anderson, Jon Marks, Billie Adwoa McTernan, Nicholas Norbrook, Patrick Smith

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frontline | what to watch in 2017

recovery A steep road back to growth and jobs

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new era is dawning, and it’s one of uncertainty. Western powers toy with protectionism and confront growing protests against globalisation; Asian economies are slowing down; and African govern­ ments are looking for ways to boost growth and cut dependence on com­ modity exports. For bankers thriving on high risk, this climate offers lucrat­ ive deals; for everyone else, political question marks are hitting trade and the money markets.

Lower export earnings are stretch­ ing state treasuries; loans are getting scarcer and African banks’ balance sheets are being hit by bad debts. In Egypt, Zambia and Ghana – countries who have either accepted or are about to accept an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme – there will be a tightening of belts, and a spike in inflation as measures such as energy subsidies are rolled back.

Governments are scrambling to find the cash to meet the bills. In Algeria, for example, having burned through $100bn of foreign exchange reserves in a few years, the treasury has raised value added tax by 2% to 19%.

Determined optimists forecast that Africa’s economies will grow by an average of 3% in 2017 – that’s double the rate of 2016, when crashing oil and mineral prices put the brakes on the biggest producers such as Angola, Nigeria and South Africa.

That is hardly a recovery. Average growth would have to hit 6% a year to create jobs in the required num­ bers. Without radical restructuring and reform, many economies in the region risk stagnation or worse, warns Abebe Aemro Selassie, the new Africa director at the IMF. All eyes will be on the key loco­ motives of South Africa and Nigeria, whose travails or turn­ around will reach well into their respective regions.

Policymakers in

resource­rich countries should allow currencies to weaken as well as cut subsidies and the state sector wage bill, Selassie argues. Albert Zeufack, chief Africa economist at the World Bank, has told finance ministers to “think twice” if they are hoping for a resurgence of commodity prices to boost public finances.

Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (see page 92), concurs with such assessments but points out that 20 economies are set to continue going robustly in 2017.

These include Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya (which is due to hold elections in August).

Adesina is less worried than other economists about the risk of heavy debts pushing countries into the type of harsh adjustment programmes which had devastating consequences in the 1980s and 1990s. After a decade of investment in power and transport, Africa can weather the recessionary pressures, insists Adesina, provided governments do much more to set up processing and manufacturing oper­ ations rather than waiting for higher commodity prices.

That is easier said than done, given the deindustrialisation that most African countries suffered since the 1990s. Harnessing Asian industri­ alists fleeing ever­rising wage hikes in southern China’s factory towns is one solution jumped on by certain governments across the continent, with a slew of investments into car­ assembly and manufacturing.

That infrastructure is not just talk, but increasingly delivery: from dams and railways in Kenya and Ethiopia to the painfully slow but

what to watch in 2017 | frontline

Philimon Bulawayo/ReuteRs

genuine progress in power provision in Ghana, to the new bridges and road networks in Côte d’Ivoire.

And no matter how hard the recession, it is hard to take away the power of new connections. Africa will chalk up its billionth mobile phone subscription in December 2016. New fibre-optic cables land on the continent’s shores. Plummeting smartphone costs and new off-grid solar solutions make the prospect of a classroom of children in Kitale, Kenya, interacting with another classroom in Wuhan, China, a genuine possibility.

And the likelihood of the next budding tech entrepreneur to deliver a ‘unicorn’ – a tech company valued at over $1bn – being African keeps rising, too. Just speak to the committed businessfolk of Yaba, a suburb of Lagos that wants to take on Silicon Valley. ●

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Let them eat cake

rural votes

eRhui1979 /getty images

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ertainly, the epic struggles at the summit of the state matter.

In Southern Africa, both Zimbabwe and South Africa will see strong-arm manoeuvring to succeed the current incumbents, which will most likely turn into bitter infighting in Pretoria, as the ANC attempts to choose a path beyond beleaguered Zuma (see page 56).

But often it’s the story from the countryside that matters most. Drive down the A5 motorway in Zimbabwe from Harare to Gweru and you will cross a few dozen small bridges. Only a third had water running beneath them last April. And even then, often just a trickle.

Such has been the grip of the drought in Southern Africa that news of better planting conditions across the region will lift spirits, and ripple through into cheaper food, fatter cows and hopefully fewer hungry bellies. South African farmers are expected to plant 35% more maize than last year, as prospects of a rainier winter improve.

And concerns over water – especially with fast-receding polar ice caps raising fears over accelerated climate change – will remain paramount across the continent, from the Sahel to the disputes over Nile waters between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. Deals such as those struck at the recent COP22 climate conference in Morocco, which promise $30bn to help African agriculture adapt to higher temperatures and drier seasons, are unlikely to make a dent any time soon.

And, as every African political leader knows, losing the support of rural populations is critical. The ANC under Zuma has discovered this, as it haemorrhaged votes in the local elections, even in rural strongholds like Limpopo, North West and Mpumalanga provinces.

In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni has been photographed handing out bags of grain to win affection in the countryside. President John Mahama of Ghana has been snapped handing cash to rural chiefs, with his December election date on his mind.

And while the drought in Zimbabwe pushed over four million people onto food handouts to survive, protests against the regime of President Robert Mugabe have gathered pace and look set to continue in 2017. Seeing a leader eating a generous portion of cake each year on his birthday in lean times has kicked off revolutions before. ●

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Polarised polls

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3

everal high-profile elections occur in 2017.

While veteran leaders in Rwanda and Angola head for certain victory, tensions will be high in Liberia and Kenya. For the AU and South Africa’s ANC a change of leader has wide-ranging implications.

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Liberia

Vincent Fournier/JA

Liberia will hold presidential elections in October 2017. With incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf stepping down after serving two terms, vice-president Joseph Boakai is expected to be the Unity Party candidate. On the opposition, retired footballing hero and senator George Weah is making a second play for top office on the Congress for Democratic Change ticket. The stakes are high, as Liberia could effect its first peaceful democratic change of government in this election.

1

African Union

In January a new chairperson of the African Union Commission will be elected when Nkosazana DlaminiZuma steps down. Among the five candidates to replace her, Kenya’s foreign minister, Amina Mohamed, is the favourite. Mohamed has denied reports by human rights groups and the US of torture and abuse of ethnic Somalians in Kenya. The AU said it will hold a debate for the candidates for the first time ever in December.

4

Kenya

Kenya’s general elections in August are most likely to result in incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta being re-elected to another four-year term in power. Kenyatta’s ruling Jubilee Party will face off against the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) led by Raila Odinga. In August the two leaders shared a podium to call for peaceful elections.

5

Angola

No one will be holding their breath during August’s parliamentary election. José EduardodosSantos,thecountry’s president since 1979, is certain to lead the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) to victory.

Dos Santos announced in 2016 that he would step down by 2018. He made the same promise in 2001.

2

Rwanda

After 98% of Rwandans voted to abolish presidential term limits, long-serving head of state Paul Kagame will run for re-election for another seven-year term in elections expected in August. Under the new legislation, Kagame could run for two more five-year terms after that, potentially staying in power until 2034. Kagame has been president of the country since 2000, but he has been in de facto control since 1994, when he led forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front into Kigali, ending a civil war and genocide. Economic development under Kagame contrasts with tight restrictions on freedom of speech and political space.

6

South Africa

Africa’s largest political party, the ruling ANC, will have a new party president after elections in December.

Incumbent Jacob Zuma is facing perhaps his biggest political test to date after a government report accused him of state capture (see page 56).

Zuma will remain president of the country until elections due in 2019 – unless the ANC recalls him as they did former leader Thabo Mbeki in 2008. ● the africa report

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frontline | what to watch in 2017

Brace for Trump

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onald Trump’s dearth of political experience makes it difficult to predict how his administration will affect the United States’ relationship with Africa.

Aside from championing the now infamous claim that outgoing US President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, Trump has made little mention of the African continent.

Trump’s presidency begins at a time when American interest in Africa is waning. The US already invests less in Africa than either Europe or China do. Trump’s administration is widely expected to further reduce Washington’s involvement in the continent.

For many Africans, Trump’s impact on the global economy is the biggest cause for concern. Trump has said he will slap tariffs on Chinese and Indian exports to the US. That would likely reduce Asian demand for Africa’s raw minerals, causing commodity prices to decline further.

If translated from campaign rhetoric into policy, some economists say it could lead to another financial crisis.

Many on the continent are worried that Trump will abolish the US’s key trade deal with Africa known as the the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

This deal gives Africans duty-free access to the US market for about $4bn of African exports each year.

Trump could change the US’s status as the world’s biggest bilateral aid donor. Last year Washington spent $31bn on overseas development assistance, with much of those funds going to Africa. In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump said his presidency will focus on internal programmes rather than overseas aid. Trump has, however, spoken out in support of the US President’s Emer-

gency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was former President George W. Bush’s main Africa-focused initiative during his presidency between 2000 and 2008.

Trump’s claim that climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese is perhaps the most damaging for Africa. He has pledged to pull the US out of 2016’s Paris Agreement on climate change within one year of taking office. That will slash the funding that is available to countries impacted by climate change, many of which are in Africa. In Nigeria alone, 20 million people are affected.

Likewise, for the two in three people on the continent who rely on agriculture and are threatened by drought and water shortages, this is very bad news. ●

usa

ERIC THAYER/THE NEw YoRk TImEs-REDUX-REA

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naTionalism Economic populists stay in fashion

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he image of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI being driven to the airport by an enthusiastic President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, as the king left for Ethiopia, was a sight to behold for lovers of authoritarian developmental states. All three countries are led by strong economic nationalists who have real ambitions to build up their manufacturing sectors.

Their rhetoric is the other end of the spectrum compared to Donald Trump, of course. But the US president-elect remains their ideological bedmate: using the power of the state to bolster local companies.

And they have company. Tanzania is thinking of forcing big telecoms companies to list on the stock market, to boost liquidity. Nigeria has

plans to use its budget to favour the emergence of national champions in the automobile and energy sectors.

And while in recent decades Asian countries have made the strategy work, it can be hard to move from theory to practice. In Algeria, for example, which has a long-standing 49/51% rule on forcing foreign investors to partner with local companies, there has been a signature lack of… foreign investment.

Now that the oil price has crashed, the country is searching for more pragmatic ways to hoist up domestic players.

Still, our primary trio of Morocco, Rwanda and Ethiopia may be the ones to prove the route to Africa does indeed run through Asia. ●

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frontline | what to watch in 2017

Future unlimited

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ead out into the countryside of almost any African country or drive along the roads of some of the major suburbs, and it will not be long before you see the telltale rectangular flash of blue and purple. With the cost of photovoltaic (PV) solar power plummeting thanks to cheap Chinese imports, a new generation of renewables is sweeping across emerging parts of the globe, Africa included.

New technologies are reshaping the way everyone works, relaxes, travels, eats, saves, learns – the list is inexhaustible. For a continent struggling with an infrastructure backlog (see page 96), cheap green power will change lives, even if it may not yet shoulder an industrial revolution. Countries like South Africa and Morocco lead the way in green energy.

The ‘early adopter’ status of other African countries unencumbered by a legacy of telecoms systems will help this technological transformation, too.

So will cheaper smartphones. And though less than 30% of the continent has access to mobile broadband according to PwC, the benefits of cloud computing are not all about checking Facebook. The response to the Ebola epidemic, for example, showed the effectiveness of ‘big data’ analytics when health workers were hooked up

to laptops in the field to quickly map the spread of the disease.

In the fast-growing financial technology field, African countries are also on the leading edge. Two countries, Tunisia and Senegal, now issue currency using the blockchain ledger technology popularised by bitcoin (see TAR85, Nov. 2016). Ghana, meanwhile, is using the same system to register its land deeds. Expect future uses in government – like procurement, for example, which is often a cesspool for graft. More innovations in African payments technology and mobile-money platforms are in the works.

And governments may soon come to realise they are sitting on a golden egg of data. Huge pools of data are generated by administrations across the health, education and infrastructure fields, which future generations of African tech entrepreneurs will harness to better structure classrooms and vaccination priorities.

Cities are an obvious place for the application of these technological fixes, with their pressing needs for smarter, better-managed urbanisation. But rural areas have their own requirements, in particular spurring the green revolution that is needed to feed not only Africa’s population, but also some of the more than nine billion people expected on planet earth by 2050. ●

CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA

tEcHnology

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ast Africa’s promising economic growth prospects have turned the region into a battleground for influence and market share.

China’s economic downturn has led Beijing to take a more risk-averse approach to the continent, creating a vacuum that other countries are eager to fill. Several Asian countries are vying for influence: in recent months delegations from Japan, India and Israel have visited the region, with all calling for closer ties and more trade.

Which is not to count Beijing out, especially with nearly $10bn committed to rail projects in East Africa

by China since 2000, according to research from Johns Hopkins University in the US. Asian companies are also interested in taking part in the region’s oil and gas boom, and can see East

Africa’s utility-scale PV costs by project size and region

2015 USD/W 6

Central Africa East Africa North Africa Southern Africa West Africa

5

4

3

2

Project size (MW) 1

0

1.0 50.0 100.0 10.0 200.0 251.0

2010

2010

2010

2010

2010

2010

2010

2010

2010

2010

source: IreNA

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Chinese and Kenyan teamwork in action on the construction of the NairobiMombasa standardgauge railway

AfricA/AsiA Global attention turns east Africa’s potential to scale-up agricultural production to meet growing demand from the middle classes.

The region is a key location for countries looking to expand into the rest of the continent. The sight of Japan scrambling to beef up its military presence in Djibouti – also home to a Chinese base – shows how critical control of the sea lanes are to both major trading powers.

CommentatorslikeGideon Rachman of the Financial Times are warning of accelerating conflicts between Beijing and Tokyo in the years to come. US president-elect the africa report

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Donald Trump’s disavowal of allies such as Japan may well strengthen hardliners in Tokyo who want to ramp up military spending and confront China.

East Africa is not likely to be the venue for any hot military conflicts, but it certainly will see a battle for influence. In a dramatic move to catch up with Beijing, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to invest $30bn into the continent over the next three years at its Africa summit in Nairobi in 2016.

This will be met through spending $10bn in infrastructure financing, and

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investing $20bn through the country’s private sector.

Japanese companies will need to work hard to meet this promise, Hiroyuki Ishige, chief executive officer of Japan’sExternalTradeOrganization, tells The Africa Report: “There is huge competition between foreign companies in African markets so we need to make more effort to penetrate [them].”

A recent tussle over which country’s companies get the contract to overhaul a terminal at Mombasa port foreshadows the competition to come: smart East African governments will play Asian

investors off against each other to get better deals.

India’s deep roots in East Africa make it a strong trading partner for the region.

In July, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first Indian head of state to visit Kenya in 35 years. “Indians in general, and Gujaratis in particular, have had their second home in Kenya,” he told a business forum in Nairobi. After meeting with Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, he pledged $30m in credit to Kenya’s textile industry. The two leaders also signed a wide-ranging defence agreement to share intelligence in cyber security and drug- and human trafficking. More activity is likely to come in 2017 – expect a healthy phalanx of businessfolk when the African Development Bank heads to Ahmedabad in May. ●

frontline | what to watch in 2017

m

orocco is quietly gathering up the votes it needs to push through its re-entry into the African Union. That will put it into conflict with Algeria (see page 38).

But could the two North African neighbours see eye-to-eye? It is widely believed that reopening the Algerian-Moroccan border alone could add 1%-2% to Morocco’s GDP.

Open borders and shared infrastructure could offer so much more, like integrating railway systems and roads across the region. Greater trust between partners might see Algeria supplying more natural gas to Morocco. Electricity connections could be completed; the most enduring gap in the entire MedRing system linking Europe and North Africa are links across Libya.

Sadly,forthisageinggenerationof leaders politics remains paramount.

When a group of Moroccan bankers visited Algeria’s president earlier this decade, they were greeted warmly until they suggested buying into local banks interested them more than confirming letters of credit for government-to-government deals.

Impossible, they were told, before the meeting was wrapped up. ●

Libya

Algeria

Number of refugees

<100k 50-100k 20-50k 10-20k <10k

Mauritania

maghreb

Morocco strives for Maghreb reunion

Niger

Mali

Chad

Refugee camp

Malian refugees Nigerian refugees Central African refugees Sudanese refugees

Senegal Gambia GuineaBissau Guinea

Number of internally displaced persons

Sierra Leone

>1.5M

Sudan

Burkina Faso Benin Côte d’Ivoire

Ghana

Nigeria

Togo Cameroon

Displaced movements

500K 1K

C.A.R.

Liberia

Refugees Returnees

Gabon

Aircraft carriers and fungible frontiers

F

D.R.C.

Eq. Guinea

rom Mauritania on the Atlantic seaboard to Sudan on the Red Sea, the Sahelian belt will be at the top of Africa’s security concerns in 2017. Trade routes dating back centuries have been taken over by traffickers of arms, people, drugs and even cigarettes. Smugglers, kidnappers and drug lords work alongside regime politicians and insurgents.

The Sahel is also a transmission belt for insurgent Islamist groups such as Al-Shabaab and Al Qaeda supplying military training and weapons to their affiliates on the other side of the continent.

In 2017, a particular focus will be on the Western Sahel: that is Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad, whose regimes are fighting against sundry jihadists. Mali has been at the centre of

Congo

these clashes since the jihadist takeover of its three northern provinces in 2012 and the near collapse of its national army.

Multi-party elections and the determined Western courting of the presidents of Mali and Niger hasn’t changed the political realities. Mali hosts one of the biggest UN peacekeeping missions – some 17,000 troops – and the most dangerous: at least 106 soldiers have been killed since it was established in 2013.

And Niger has become a terrestial aircraft carrier for France and the United States, which launch drone attacks and bombing raids on Islamist insurgent groups in the region. Their targets include Libya, where the running battles between secular nationalist militias and jihadi groups are spilling southwards across the Sahara towards the Sahel, as well as into neighbouring states in North Africa.

Meanwhile, European Union officials are negotiating deals in the region worth billions of euros in exchange for tighter border controls and more effective interdiction of the people smuggling routes. ●

sahel

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SOURCE: OCHA

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38

Idealists of yesterday and pragmatists of today at the AU headquarters

A deluge of super-urgent mails

T

he weirdly-shaped headquarters of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa – like a flying saucer with a pipe protruding from its edge – should be frantically busy in 2017.

In January, the 54 member states are due to elect a new chair of the AU Commission to succeed Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

After a stalemate in July, it’s getting urgent. DlaminiZuma is in a hurry to return to South Africa to join the race for the presidency there. Six contenders are vying for the top AU job.

Leading the field are the foreign ministers of Botswana and Kenya, that’s Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi and Amina Mohamed respectively.

The latest soundings put Mohamed ahead, thanks to Kenya’s formidable lobbying efforts, and fears

among more authoritarian leaders that Venson-Moitoi might be too liberal. The autocrats failed to coalesce around more hardline candidates such as Equatorial Guinea’s Agapito Mba Mokuy, Uganda’s Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe or Chad’s Moussa Faki Mahamat. Most respected intellectually and

here could be revolutionary (see page 36).

As political clashes worsen in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, sparked by sitting presidents trying to inveigle an unconstitutional third term for themselves, the AU should respond more robustly.

Perennially short of cash and dependent on Asian and European states, which get diplomatic influence in exchange for finance, the AU will have to do more to sanction its non-paying members. It should also get Africa’s richest countries to pay much higher membership dues.

Angela Merkel was the latest European leader to speak at the AU, as she inaugurated the new Julius Nyerere Peace and Security Building on the AU campus – paid for by Germany. It sits awkwardly across the square from the main AU building – paid for by China. ●

withdraw from regional peacekeeping missions.

Kenya plays a key role in both, which might boost Mohamed’s chances.

Fighting in the Sahel, where the AU plays a secondary role to regional organisations and the UN, could worsen. The AU has been sidelined further still

african union ethically – though that won’t help him much – is Senegal’s Abdoulaye Bathily.

There are at least 12 urgent security crises for the successful candidate to help manage, and a raft more situations that may yet emerge.

Most critical are Somalia and South Sudan where AU member states could

in Libya and Egypt, where secular nationalists do battle with jihadists.

Morocco’sbidtojointheAU – despite the organisation’s continuing recognition of the Polisario-led government in Western Sahara (which Rabat insists is Moroccan territory) – will test member states’ ingenuity. The political gains the africa report

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frontline | what to watch in 2017

Nigeria spearheads expo revolution

T

he tide is changing on the continent as the art market matures.

Increasingly, local institutions are giving African artists the space they require. The growing number of platforms for contemporary art help provide visibility to artists who rarely get a look in on the international stage.

In November 2016, for example, West Africa had its first art fair with ART X Lagos. Running concurrently with the annual LagosPhoto festival, it helps

showcase a vibrant network of galleries and art spaces in Nigeria. With work from artists across the region, founder Tokini Peterside says she hopes to see the closing of the gap between visual arts and popular culture.

Make no mistake, Western art-selling boutiques are sniffing around for deals, too. The fair comes just months after famed salerooms Sotheby’s announced its would be running auc-

Contemplating work by Nnenna Okore at ART X Lagos

A

s November drew to a close, Libyan fighters loyal to the government beseiged the final few blocks held by Islamic State (IS) fighters in the coastal city of Sirte. Some 2,500km to the east, the IS strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa in Iraq and Syria are also surrounded.

There are many Africans fighting for IS, nearly 10,000 according to security consultants the Soufan Group. What happens to these ‘repats’, the men (and some women) who may come home if the movement is defeated and disbanded?

North Africa is worst affected, with Tunisia sending 6,000 fighters to the Middle East – perhaps a legacy of Islamist party Ennahda’s brief time in power. Almost 2,000 Moroccans are thought to be there, and a thousand Egyptians joined up to fight for the grim utopia of IS. Security experts warn of battle skills being brought back and used to deadly effect in home countries, such as the deployment of mustard gas. But the societal impacts need to be thought through, too.

Many of the Moroccan fighters come from the neglected north around Tangiers, for example, where a fish-seller was recently crushed to death by a refuse truck after an altercation with the police. ● the africa report

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REpATs

Losing paradise

tions of modern and contemporary African art. The first sale is scheduled for the first quarter of 2017.

And so established collectors and dealers on the continent will be paying close attention to a crop of up-andcoming artists. They will be hoping to make a few shrewd investments in the future before the international market sweeps them away.

Meanwhile, emerging and hopeful collectors are trying to get a foot in the door, as the new patronage class on the continent starts to (finally) buy more paintings and sculptures at home. The shift is also causing African collectors to look toward establishing more museums on the continent to house these works.

Sadly, one of those left us this year.

The art world lost a great collector in 2016 with the death of Sammy Olagbaju.

On the back of his stellar collection of over 1,500 works acquired over the past 50 years, Olagbaju was planning to open a private museum in Lagos.

Others are carrying on the charge.

Nigeria’s Omooba Yemisi Shyllon has vowed to set up a privately funded museum for the public, filled with his collection of more than 6,000 artworks including those by pioneers like Bruce Onobrakpeya as well as newer artists like Oresegun Olumide.

Meanwhile conversations about returning heritage pieces from Western museums and galleries back to the continent are once again at the fore as alternative institutions are being built. In Cape Town the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa will be the largest of its kind on the continent, scheduled to open at the end of 2017. ●

ART

ART X LAGOS/ARTHOUSE FOUNDATION

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SENEGAL

T ADVERTORIAL

here are marked disparities between the different regions of Senegal. Dakar, the capital, and its surroundings, which constitute less than 1% of the national territory, are home to 25% of the population and 80% of the economic activities of the country, which contribute to more than half of Senegal’s GDP!

Almost all major infrastructure is found in and around the capital, such as the autonomous port of Dakar, through which most of Senegal’s trade transits, and the Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport. The country’s main markets, hospitals and sports and tourist facilities are concentrated in this region. In terms of educational infrastructure, 83% of young Senegalese graduates were educated at schools and universities in Dakar.

© YOURI LENQUETTE

© YOURI LENQUETTE

© YOURI LENQUETTE

Dakar on the path to decentralisation

Senegal’s political, economic and cultural activities are concentrated mainly in the capital and its surroundings.

Twenty years ago, the country embarked on an ambitious plan to reorganise the country and relieve congestion in and around the capital.

This is an overview of the measures taken to achieve this objective.

Protect people from flooding

The levelling and grading of the Aibd-ThièsMbour section is underway and should be completed on time.

There are areas in the vicinity of the capital that are equally strategic for the country’s economy, such as those around the towns of Thiès, M’bour and Rufisque. In terms of agriculture, the Niayes area, north of Cap-Vert peninsula, has very fertile soil and produces most of the country’s fruit and vegetables. It is also the location of the country’s first artisanal fishing cluster and the cement factories belonging to Sococim, Ciments du Sahel and newcomer Dangote. These companies supply the Senegalese market as well as those beyond its borders. Along the Petite-Cote, south of Dakar, the city of Saly is the country’s main seaside resort. This concentration of activities around the capital and in nearby counties is creating increasingly untenable pressure on housing which is now overflowing into flood zones.

The result is informal settlements springing up in the area.

Since the late 1990s, Senegal has been tackling this problem to relieve the city of Dakar and its surroundings which are suffering from severe overpopulation. It is crucial to prevent any form of anarchic urbanisation in the vicinity of the capital.

It was urgent that better use be made of the resources and potential in the Thiès-M’bour-Rufisque triangle, while at the same ensuring that the population is protected from the permanent risk of flooding. This area has 5,374 people per km² compared with an average of 71.8 people per km² for the entire country.

Therefore, in 1997, Senegal drew up a National Spatial Development Plan (PNAT) for two bordering regions which, in the long term, must form a consolidated whole. The Dakar-Thiès-M’bour zone, which was originally outlined in the Spatial Planning and Development Master Plan (SDADT), was detailed in the Grand-Côte Planning and Development Master Plan a few years later, with the aim of improving the Niayes economic zone which extends from Dakar to Saint Louis, in the north of Senegal.

In 2013, the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE), which aims to make Senegal an emerging country by 2035, put a special focus on the issue of spatial planning and land use.

The ambitions of the PSE go well beyond a simple decentralisation policy. The PSE also has the task of strengthening the technical and financial capacities of previously weakened local authorities. It must also create new centres of development, habitat, infrastructure and natural resources operations.

Solid infrastructure by 2021 The National Spatial Development Plan (PNAT) is based on the scenario of “sustainable and harmonious development by 2021, aiming at the optimum on-site operation of resources, as well as the best balance between the various regions of the country, through decentralisation”.

Among the objectives specifically put forward: the promotion of hierarchical development clusters evenly distributed throughout the territory; increasing the number of communications infrastructure and collective facilities; the rational management of natural resources and living conditions and the sustainable development of the national economy.

Work has started on the bypass roads.

© YOURI LENQUETTE

The Dakar-Diamniadio toll road The Dakar agglomeration has become the centre of attention. Three counties occupy the 175 km² Cap-Vert peninsula: that of Dakar, bordered by the coast, is extended towards the east by those of Guédiamayé and Pikine, where the Niayes ecosystem, consisting of numerous lakes and other bodies of water, begins.

In recent years, priority has been given to the improvement of roads to open up the capital. Some major road links have been modified and extended, like the Northern Bypass Road (VDN), or upgraded like the seafront road and certain lanes of the National Road 1.

The major achievement is the Dakar-Diamniadio toll road, which came into service in 2013 and provides over 34 kilometres of good road from the capital to its hinterland.

The planned Blaise Diagne International Airport will be located on this road and should be open by the end of the year.

It will also be connected to the capital via a regional express train (TER) with a jour-

ney of around 45 minutes, according to Macky Sall, the president of the Republic who, in May 2016, confirmed the construction of the Dakar Regional Express Train, for an investment 687 million euros in the form of a public-private partnership (PPP).

© SYLVAIN CHERKAOUI / JA

The cornerstone of Dakar’s expansion

The head of state officially opened the Diamniadio highway.

At the entrance to the Cap-Vert peninsula, the new town of Diamniadio occupies a strategic position. Due to its location in the heart of the Thiès-M’bour-Rufisque triangle, it is an essential node of interconnection between Dakar and the rest of the country.

Due to the youthfulness of its population (52% of its inhabitants are under 20 years of age), Diamniadio has significant training and employment needs. These needs are all the more important as each year the population growth rate increases

Lowering water levels In addition to being affected by coastal

Year Flood Risk Management Plan (PDGI),

erosion, the Cap-Vert peninsula remains

with 700 billion CFA francs ($1.4 billion),

at risk of flooding, made worse by the lack

and supported by the World Bank. In Au-

of sanitation and the constantly increasing

gust, drainage works were built in Pikine,

number of houses built too close to the

in the suburbs of Dakar, while in Mbour,

sea. Almost 2.5 million people now live on

Kaolack and Diourbel pumping stations

this strip of land, compared with less than

were set up to drive the water back into

2 million in 2002. In 2012 the government

ocean. Everything possible is being done

responded with the adoption of the Ten-

to end flooding for good.

The final model of the Diamniadio urban centre.

40%

Annual population growth in Diamniadio.

Putting Senegal on the map of major international business centres The urban fabric of the area is constantly densifying. To cope with this, the PSE plans to build 10,000 to 15,000 social housing units per year. At the same time, this initiative should make it possible to develop a real production industry in the construction sector.

To achieve this, the Government undertook to revise the legal and regulatory framework for the sector, in particular by defining a code of property development which should detail the tax incentives that will facilitate access to land.

Official opening of the Sonatel Group headquarters in Dakar on 11 June 2015.

At the same time, Senegal is seeking to become the flagship destination for the headquarters of large companies in the region. Private companies and major international organisations that set up there will benefit from Special Economic Zone status.

In addition to turn-key office space, they will have access to an administrative Single Window. The objective is to attract about 50 head offices and thus put Senegal on the map of major international business centres.

4.3%

The proportion of land in Guédiawaye and Pikineo occupied by informal settlements.

PHOTOS: THE PRESIDENCY OF SENEGAL, EXCEPT WHERE OTHERWISE MENTIONED.

by around 4.3%, compared with the national average of 2.5%.

The Emerging Senegal Plan has made this city the cornerstone of Dakar’s expansion towards the east. The “Diamniadio cluster” is structured around several projects that range from the Bargny mineral ore port to the establishment of industrial zones and other “business parks”. In addition, there are fundamental projects such as the Abdou Diouf International Conference Centre and Dakar’s second university. With an official population of 100,000, this town is expected to accommodate three times more people in the medium term, thanks in particular to the large, easily constructible areas of the city.

A bright future stations were built for a total investment of 40 billion CFA francs (61.2 million euros) as a public-private partnership (PPP).

The Bokhol plant, located 400 km north of Dakar, is presented by experts as the first of its kind to enter into operation in West Africa. With its 77,000 solar panels installed on 50 hectares, it will provide electricity to 9,000 households.

ADVERTORIAL

Senegal has decided to bank on solar power. After commissioning two photovoltaic plants in October, the first in Bokhol and the second in Malicounda, five new installations are due to be commissioned in 2017. At that date, renewable energies will account for 21% of all electricity production in the country. With a capacity of 20 MW each, the two power

what to watch in 2017 | frontline

CALENDAR AFRICAN UNION SUMMIT

AFRICA ENERGY FORUM

30-31 January

7-9 June

ADDIS ABABA | ETHIOPIA Elections for a new AU Commission chairperson. au.int

COPENHAGEN | DENMARK The search for new business models in the energy sector continues. africa-energy-forum.com

CAINE PRIZE FOR AFRICAN WRITING

INVESTING IN AFRICAN MINING INDABA 6-9 February

CAPE TOWN | SOUTH AFRICA The world’s premier mining investment conference; includes the adrenalin-filled Investment Battlefield competition, where emerging miners pitch live to investors. miningindaba.com

OXFORD | UK The coveted literary award for the best original short story by an African writer. caineprize.com M

KENYA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

8 August

RWANDA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

August

NIGERIA OIL & GAS

ANGOLA PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS

27 Feb. – 2 March

ABUJA | NIGERIA Learn about the Buhari government’s priorities and policies for petroleum. cwcnog.com

August

72nd UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

AFRICA CEO FORUM

NEW YORK | US Seven months into a Trump presidency, the prospects for progress in international forums may be limited. The lobbying for inclusion in the security council will continue. un.org

GENEVA | SWITZERLAND The leading international meeting for African CEOs and investors. theafricaceoforum.com nth

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM ON AFRICA

Following the India-Africa Summit held in new Delhi last year, the African Development Bank (AfDB)’s Annual Meetings – the Bank’s largest annual event – will take place at Ahmedabad, about 800km west of the Indian capital, new Delhi. Some 5,000 delegates and participants will be expected at the Mahatma Mandir Convention and Exhibition Centre to debate the economic development of the African continent. It is the second time in a decade that the Bank takes its AGM to Asia. Sign of the times.

A key member of the Bank’s 26 non-regional member countries since 1982, India contributed $18.5m in 2013 to support the African Development Fund, the concessional resource window of the Bank. afdb.org

LIBERIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 10 October

WORLD BANK/IMF ANNUAL MEETINGS WASHINGTON DC | US The meeting of the governors of the Bretton Woods institutions.

DURBAN | SOUTH AFRICA The African offshoot of Davos returns. weforum.org n° 86

AHmEDABAD | INDIA

13-15 October

3-5 May

•

AfDB ANNUAL MEETINGS

22-26 May

12-25 September

20-21 March

the africa report

LUC GNAGO/REUTERS

July

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AFRICA COM

6-10 November CAPE TOWN | SOUTH AFRICA africa.comworldseries.com

AFRICA OIL WEEK

13-17 November CAPE TOWN | SOUTH AFRICA globalpacificpartners.com

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frontline | what to watch in 2017

opInIon

Comfort Ero & Elissa Jobson

Africa programme director and African Union relations adviser at the International Crisis Group

Tripartite changing of the guard

I

n January 2017, Donald Trump and António Guterres will take office in the United States (US) and at the United Nations (UN), respectively.

Later that month, the African Union (AU) will elect a new commission chairperson. The US, the UN and the AU, each in their own way, have played a vital role in attempts to secure peace and stability in Africa. But the uncertainty of Trump’s Africa policy – he barely mentioned the continent during the campaign – has left most guessing as to what his presidency will mean for US engagement.

These significant leadership changes come at a time when the policy environment for conflict prevention and resolution has grown considerably more complex. Washington, like other Western powers, has lost some of its traditional leverage in an increasingly regionalised and multipolar world, especially as China’s foothold in Africa has strengthened. The credibility of the UN and the AU has been dented by their hesitant response to the Burundi crisis and inability to shape a political strategy for beleaguered South Sudan. But a retreat from international cooperation – whether in intergovernmental forums or on a bilateral basis – will make it harder to address the main challenges these leaders must confront in Africa: violent Islamic radicalism, the assault on democratic governance and the persistent failure to prevent conflicts erupting or reigniting.

to combat rebel groups – Islamist and non-Islamist alike. Guterres should caution against using UN peacekeepers in dangerous counter-terrorist operations like those in Mali.

Since winning the election, Trump has not repeated his statements regarding the use of torture in counter-terrorism activities. Any attempt by his new administration to authorise its use would be

Africa will not be a top priority for president-elect Trump, and he could well maintain the status quo of his predecessors – including their approach to the threat from jihadist groups like Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, and Islamic State in Libya. But the past decade has demonstrated the limits and costs of military intervention, especially in the absence of a political strategy. An increasingly militarised response, coupled with extreme rhetoric on Muslims, could spur recruitment for violent extremist groups on US, as well as African, soil. Similarly, the AU should guard against its propensity for military solutions the africa report

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disastrous, especially in Africa where the rule of law is weak or absent. Any signs of ambivalence would embolden African regimes engaged in their own brutal campaigns to suppress political opponents and those they deem violent extremists.

Democracy and the rule of law are under severe strain in Africa, Nigeria’s peaceful political transition in 2015 notwithstanding. Disregard for constitutional term limits has become commonplace, and corruption and maladministration feed grievances that can be exploited by armed opposition groups.

Africa’s autocrats may feel that a Trump administration will pay less attention to projecting democratic values and be more forgiving of their transgressions. But the president-elect has vowed to “drain the swamp of corruption in Washington” and fix a system in which “political insiders can break the law without consequence”. These are sentiments that will resonate with many African citizens. Linking US aid to good governance would be a positive step, but it would need to be applied equally, including to traditional allies.

In 2017, presidential elections where there is a risk of violence will take place in Kenya, Liberia and Rwanda. But perhaps the greatest threat to democratic consolidation and the UN’s legacy of postCold War state-building comes in the Democratic

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Republic of Congo. President Joseph Kabila’s determination to stay beyond the two-term limit threatens a dangerous political impasse that could have catastrophic consequences for the Great Lakes region. The US, the UN and the AU must align themselves with the vast majority of Congolese and ensure an inclusive transitional government and a monitored electoral calendar with a clear statement that Kabila will not run again.

Globally, deadly violence is on the rise for the first time in a generation, with unprecedented humanitarian consequences. The international community appears continually caught off guard when new conflicts erupt and short on options to prevent those crises it does foresee.

The US, UN and AU must align themselves over the Democratic Republic of Congo

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Guterres has signalled his intention to focus on early warning and action, telling journalists his top priorities would be “prevention, prevention, prevention”. It seems unlikely this will be the bedrock of the Trump administration’s policy on Africa, but the new AU chair should likewise make prevention their top priority.

Both the AU and the UN have access to tools for conflict prevention. Using them effectively has proven problematic, especially for the AU, given its resource constraints and the influence wielded by member states with competing political interests.

A more self-sufficient AU Commission might have greater confidence in its own early-warning and earlyaction capabilities, and full support should be given to its efforts to increase its financial independence.

For conflict prevention to be successful, cooperation between the AU and the UN needs to be more effective. The Burundi crisis clearly demonstrated their inability to act collectively.

President Pierre Nkurunziza capitalised on divisions, stalling the deployment of AU-authorised human rights and military observers, and UN Security Council-sanctioned police.

Much will also depend on improved cooperation at the Security Council, where disagreements in other contexts – Syria and Ukraine – have affected decisions on Africa. The prospect of less-strained relations between the US and Russia could ease tensions here.

New leadership at the UN and AU may provide opportunities for earlier and more cooperative responses to crises in Africa. Multilateralism does not have a cost when done right, something that should appeal to business-minded Trump. It is too early to tell what his “America first” approach to foreign policy may mean for peace and security in the continent. But it could force the AU and its member states to take even greater responsibility, both politically and financially, for shaping conflict prevention and resolution – a welcome outcome. ●

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politics Nigeria

The 12 labours of

Buhari

By Firstname Lastname in Nameofcity

RĂŠmi SaillaRd foR TaR

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49

Despite their own rich culture of myth and legend, Nigerian politicians love to quote from the epic poetry of the Greeks and Romans to convey their heroic mission to cure the country’s ills. So we are drawing symbolic parallels between the 12 daunting labours that the fabled Hercules took on to pacify the gods and the obstacles facing President Muhammadu Buhari as he tries to stabilise Nigeria and rebuild its economy

By Patrick Smith

1

Nemean Lion Vanquishing Boko Haram

The first labour of Hercules was to kill the Nemean Lion, which was reputed to take female hostages and lure would-be rescuers to their deaths. Successive Nigerian leaders have compared their feats to lion-slaying. Buhari’s campaign against the Boko Haram insurgents qualifies. Before he was elected, Buhari faced a suicide bomber sent by the insurgents to attack his convoy in Kaduna. Boko Haram is on the back foot militarily, and the ongoing insecurity and social and economic devastation require a $10bn rebuilding programme in the north-east. Until that starts, the insurgency could rebuild some of its former strength.

2

Lernaean Hydra Niger Delta militants Military officers refer to militancy in the oil-rich Niger Delta as a Hydra-like monster. Living in a swamp near Lake Lerna, the mythical Hydra tested Hercules’ ingenuity with its capacity to grow new heads when one was severed. Recent history has shown the hollowness of military claims to have defeated Delta militants. The once formidable Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta was bombed and bribed into submission by Goodluck Jonathan’s government. But the inequities and environmental despoliation were not tackled. Now two powerful new militant groups have grown to confront Buhari and the international oil companies. Tentative negotiation efforts have started.

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3

Ceryneian Hind Reforming the civil service Capturing the Ceryneian Hind would be a feat of intelligence and endurance rather than physical strength. Sacred in the eyes of Artemis, the goddess of chastity, the Ceryneian Hind was said to run faster than an arrow. Reforming Nigeria’s civil service – with its 250,000 employees and 500 ministries and departments – requires a lightning-fast intellect and the determination of the long-distance runner. Reinvigorating the civil service was a Buhari election pledge, but it seems less urgent than armed clashes and economic meltdown.

5

4

Erymanthian Boar Rebuilding the military Ordered to capture a fearsome boar on Mount Erymanthos and bring it back to King Eurystheus alive, Hercules took advice from his old friend Pholus, a wise centaur. A retired general who fought in Nigeria’s civil war, Buhari does not lack military friends and advisers. He is one of the few politicians that the military commanders respect. All that is reflected in the building of a more effective and less corrupt military over the past 18 months. Yet there are still worries about ructions in the high command as well as pervasive human rights abuses by troops, committed in the course of their fight against Boko Haram.

Augean Stables Cleaning up corruption As a ritual, each new regime in Nigeria speaks of cleaning the Augean stables of corruption.

The task of clearing out the dung of 1,000 cattle from the stables of King Augeas was meant to humble Hercules and frustrate him.

For Buhari, tackling corruption takes priority over everything else.

Unimpressed by wealth, Buhari has tried to set an example and appoint exemplary officials, but he struggles to implement a comprehensive strategy that requires radical reform of the police and judiciary.

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Stymphalian Birds Silencing the critics Ares, the god of war, saw the man-eating Stymphalian birds, with their bronze beaks and metallic feathers, as sacred. Faced with a flock of such birds, Hercules shook a giant rattle at them, shooting them as they flew off. More paranoid politicians in Nigeria see journalists and civic activists as lethal. As a military leader 30 years ago, Buhari had no truck with critics. As a born-again democrat, he is more circumspect.

7

Cretan Bull Bola Tinubu and ruling-party dissidents King Minos of Crete invited Hercules to capture the bull that had been devastating farmlands on the island. New-generation politicians like power minister Babatunde Fashola and mines minister Kayode Fayemi are locked in combat with Bola Tinubu, the political godfather of Lagos, who is now seeking new allies ahead of elections in 2019. the africa report

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All illustrations from the book: le feuilleton de Thésée,la mythologie grecque en cent épisodes de Murielle Szac/Rémi Saillard © 2011 Bayard Editions

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Mares of Diomedes Working with the National Assembly Hercules slayed King Diomedes of Thrace, who had raised a stable of man-eating mares, reputed to breathe fire. To calm the mares, Hercules fed them the remains of Diomedes.

President Buhari’s long-running tussle with Senate president Bukola Saraki parallels such an epic struggle. Saraki, who comes from a powerful family, is a canny politician with national ambitions. He knows the power of the National Assembly to block bills and budgets. Poor relations between Buhari’s team and the legislature are undermining the government’s reforms, yet Buhari seems unable to score a symbolic victory against Saraki and calm the Assembly.

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Belt of Hippolyta Taking on the Amazons Nigeria’s formidable women are dubbed Amazons by a respectful but male-dominated press. Hercules was tasked with seizing a magical belt from Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. Although socially conservative and a career military officer, Buhari appointed six women ministers including Kemi Adeosun at finance and Amina Mohammed at environment. Buhari’s joking reference to his domestic arrangements after his wife, Aisha, gave a critical interview, however, fell very flat.

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Cattle of Geryon Search for international investors Seizing and herding cattle from the monstrous King Geryon was Hercules’ longest journey, though helped by a golden chariot from the sun god Helios. No such conveyance is available for trade and industry minister Okechukwu Enelamah. However, his record as founder of African Capital Alliance, the country’s biggest private-equity company, has boosted the Buhari government’s market credibility. Falling state revenue and the lack of reliable power are holding back productive projects.

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Apples of the Hesperides Retrieving stolen loot in Western banks Zeus, king of the gods, hoarded a crop of golden apples jealously guarded

by Ladon – a hundredheaded dragon – and the Hesperides, the daughters of Atlas.

Global Financial Integrity reckons Nigeria has lost some $400bn since 1960 through theft, bribes, tax evasion and trade mispricing. Much of it ended up in Western banks. Buhari has successfully pressurised governments to force the banks to return this money, but prosecutions continue at a snail’s pace.

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Cerberus The defeat of poverty By most accounts, the capture of Cerberus, the three-headed hound that guarded the gates of the underworld for King Hades, was the most gruelling of Hercules’ labours. For Buhari, progress in ending widespread poverty and crass inequality will be the key measure of his legacy. His government is struggling to finance education, health and job creation after government revenue dropped along with global oil prices.

Buhari’s anti-poverty strategy – boosting agriculture, processing and industry – is focused on the medium term. Immediate socio-economic measures – perhaps financed by $30bn in borrowing – are needed to the help 100 million Nigerians struggling to break out of dire poverty.

The Lomé Charter An economic, security and environmental victory for Africa will contribute to the success of this challenge. Harmonisation of national legislation is also a major objective of the text.

© L.VINCENT POUR LA PRÉSIDENCE

DEVELOP A BLUE ECONOMY AND STRENGTHEN INTRA-AFRICAN TRADE

ADVERTORIAL

At an Extraordinary Summit, held in Lomé, the African Union adopted a strategic document for a united fight against piracy and trafficking.

This event confirms Togo’s return to the international arena.

On 15 October, more than thirty African countries signed a charter on maritime safety and security, the economy and environmental protection – this is now known as the Lomé Charter. It is the first binding document aimed at coordinating actions between African countries to combat piracy and the trafficking of drugs, arms and human beings, to end illegal fishing off African coasts and to protect the environment. Through this Charter, Signatory States commit themselves

to making available the public and private human and financial resources necessary to achieve these objectives. The establishment of a Maritime Safety and Security Fund is thus provided for in article 11 of the document.

A BATTLE THAT CAN ONLY BE WON TOGETHER The Charter will be incorporated into the 2050 Africa’s Integrated Maritime Strategy (AIM 2050). The AIM 2050 was adopted in 2012 and the countries present in Lomé have undertaken to step up its implementation. However, because of its binding nature, the Charter involves the responsibility of the States in a struggle that can only be won through coordinated action. Regional cooperation, information sharing, the creation of special marine forces and the strengthening of judicial systems

The Lomé Charter also puts the emphasis on the development of a “blue” economy, as the continent possesses maritime assets that should be seen as opportunities for sustainable development. Of the 54 countries in Africa, 38 are coastal states. The continent has a total of 13 million square kilometres of maritime economic zones and 17% of the world’s freshwater resources. In addition to this, 90% of the world’s imports and exports are transported by sea and many of the most strategic shipping lanes are in African waters.

However, intra-African trade remains disappointing. With the aim of improving and strengthening trade on the continent, the Charter encourages “private investment in the management of maritime industries”, as well as “the development of African shipping lines”. It also contains recommendations to give these new African-owned shipping companies priority in trans-African transport and cabotage.

TOGO MARKS ITS RETURN TO AFRICAN DIPLOMACY Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé and Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno, the current

© L.VINCENT POUR LA PRÉSIDENCE

A LONG-TIME COMBAT FOR TOGO This conference is the first large, high-level event in Lomé in sixteen years. Togo, a member country of WAEMU and ECOWAS, has always been a strong promoter of African cooperation, as shown by the 1975 signing of the Lomé Agreement on Trade Cooperation between the European Economic Community (EEC) and 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Togo’s organisation and hosting of this summit, for which the Head of State himself prepared the ground, reinforces the country’s stance.

During its two-year mandate (January 2012 to December 2014) on the UN Security Council as a nonpermanent member country, Togo

had a “pen-holder” role, taking the lead in drafting Council decisions on piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.

This part of the world has been the most active area of maritime insecurity for the past six or so years, after the initial phenomenon hit the Horn of Africa. At the time, President Gnassingbé had suggested holding a summit in Lomé dedicated to these maritime issues along with the drafting of a binding charter and not just a code of conduct.

LOMÉ, CAPITAL OF AFRICA Togo was also chosen as host country for its exemplary maritime policies. The government has made significant investments to strengthen the capacity of its navy, thereby contributing to its own security and that of neighbouring countries.

The safety of Togo’s territorial waters is known to international cargo shipping companies, whose vessels dock there during their crossing of the Gulf of Guinea.

More than twenty Heads of State and Government, as well as nearly 3,000 delegates, were present in Lomé, which became the capital of Africa from 10 to 15 October.

Side meetings were attended by eminent world leaders, including Carlos Lopès, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, former Prime Minister of Benin Lionel Zinsou and France’s Minister of Defence, Jean-Yves Le Drian. ■

A Committee to ensure the implementation of the Charter A committee of fifteen countries representing all of Africa’s regional economic communities will ensure the Charter’s technical follow-up.

They are elected every three years on the basis of rotation and geographical distribution between the five regions of the continent and the mainstreaming of gender equality.

Each Signatory State undertakes to submit a report to this Committee on the measures taken to implement the Charter, the first of which must be submitted two years after its adoption and every five years thereafter.

For more, go to: www.sommetdelome.org www.african-union-togo2015.com/fr/accueil

DIFCOM - PHOTOS: ACCORDING TO CREDIT.

chairman of the AU, did not hide their satisfaction at the conclusion of the event. The Togolese President, who has made the link between maritime security and development in Africa a constant reference point, has been personally engaged for several years towards achieving this goal. The success of the Lomé Extraordinary Summit on Maritime Security and Development is a diplomatic victory for Togo.

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opinion

C Crystal Orderson S Southern Africa editor, The Africa Report

The ANC’s broken promise

T

he year was 1994: a year of transition for my country, South Africa. Nelson Mandela was going to become our president. Change was in the air. I was part of the cohort of first-year black students entering higher education.

I am from the working-class area of Mitchells Plain, the last big apartheid housing development for people of colour, located 40km from Cape Town’s city centre.

With an unemployed father and a mother working at a clothing factory, there was just enough money to ensure we had a roof over our heads and food to eat.

With the help of my grandmother, we managed to scrape together the R500 to register for the academic year. Somehow, not having tuition fees wasn’t a concern for youthful, naïve me. I was armed with a tattered copy of the African National Congress’s (ANC) Freedom Charter and the slogan ‘The doors of learning shall be open to all’ to guide me as I confidently headed off to Peninsula Technikon.

I enjoyed my journalism studies and was excited about my first story, covering the first democratic elections in South Africa. As I settled into campus life and worked hard, the bills for outstanding tuition fees started arriving at my parents’ house. Luck-

ily, our head of department, a Nigerian professor, admired our enthusiasm and commitment to the new South Africa. He said we reminded him of the students of Biafra. He worked tirelessly to assist us in getting a loan and scholarship from the Desmond Tutu Trust, a fellowship created by the Nobel peace laureate and Archbishop of Cape Town for poor black students. This enabled us to work part-time as administrative assistants in the faculty, with our earnings going towards our outstanding fees.

There was very little money for books, and I relied on the library. Travel to campus was either hitching a lift or riding the train without a ticket. I counted myself lucky. The first in my family to study, I gritted my teeth through the challenges.

Three years later, I pursued a post-graduate degree at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Africa’s number-one tertiary institution. Sharing lecture halls with mostly white students from affluent families, I felt like an outsider. I also noticed how black students were alienated from university life and their voices largely silenced.

Twenty-two years later, I am not surprised that UCT is the epicentre of the #FeesMustFall movement.

Watching the media coverage of the militant activthe africa report

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ists across the country reminds me of the struggle when you do not have the financial support. I know where they come from. I know how they feel: the indignity, the struggle, the stress and anger you feel when your voice is not heard. I wholeheartedly support the movement and the call for free education.

We are told that the #FeesMustFall movement has become violent and we cannot support the mayhem and disregard for state and personal property. However, police brutality against students is unacceptable. It is painfully reminiscent of our not-too-distant past when students were tear-gassed and mowed down by apartheid police in the streets. While the violence, burning and looting of institutions cannot be condoned, for too long the ANC government has not delivered on its own promise of free education and the born-free generation is calling them out.

This is the price we are paying for an ANC that was desperate to negotiate a settlement in the early 1990s: a compromise between the black political elite and white or foreign capital. While the newly elected ANC won political power, it failed to address the most fundamental challenges facing South Africans: the apartheid legacy of educational and economic inequality.

Now the #FeesMustFall movement is calling the ANC to account for this failure. Conspicuously,

President Jacob Zuma has avoided providing any leadership on the issue. Instead, he has instructed the police to “protect” universities, warning that education subsidies should not come at the expense of other sectors like health and housing. And it is poor black students who will be left behind, unable to pay their fees and excluded from entering higher learning.

With the country’s sluggish economic growth, treasury officials say there is simply no room to manoeuvre. But one can understand why students are angry when we are informed that Zuma will be purchasing a brand new R4bn ($280m) aircraft.

The current crisis has its origins in years of steadily declining government funding. For years now, university administrators have passed more and more of the financial burden onto students. Many institutions are run like businesses, and if you are poor and working-class, historically white institutions like Wits and UCT are virtually impossible to access.

There is an urgent need for an increase in funding from a mere 0.75% of gross domestic product (GDP) on higher education to at least 1.5% of GDP. This increase could perhaps be funded by a special tax for university graduates, which I would gladly support, and pay! The #FeesMustFall movement is about the transformation of a nation, and government’s failure to take this into account means the class of 2017 is likely to pay the price. ●

purpose beyond power Pursue innovation and entrepreneurial engagement for the common good. Our multidisciplinary graduate programs in Public Policy prepare future changemakers to deal with global issues.

Students can study the following tracks: Development, Governance, Media and Communication, Security, and Higher Education Policy. www.spp.ceu.edu | sppadmissions@ceu.edu

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South AfricA

Tug of war at the ANC

Zuma has survived a no-confidence motion and a damning report; he and his allies are gearing up to ensure their chosen successor wins the ANC leadership in a vote planned for December 2017

B

lack limousines and four-wheeldrives, outriders, black-suited men talking into wires and a retinue of praise singers: Number One was going to parliament. It was 10 November, and the opposition Democratic Alliance was trying – yet again – to push through a no-confidence vote against President Jacob Zuma.

Zuma strolled into the parliamentary buildings, remarkably resilient for a man in the worst month of his presidency since his election in 2009. Outgoing public protector Thuli Madonsela’s report had just been released, calling for a judicial inquiry into the political and commercial influence of the Gupta family on the presidency, and allegations of state capture by the family’s companies.

Zuma’s mission was to rally the troops ahead of the vote. His pep talk to the MPs, one of them tells The Africa Report, was a Machiavellian mixture of promises and threats – a not-so-subtle reminder of how tied their fortunes are to Zuma’s own political survival. It was enough for Zuma to win by more than 100 votes.

Jackson Mthembu, the ANC’s popular chief whip, was at the centre of the ferment in parliament. In November, he publicly called on the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to resign in response to the row over Madonsela’s

A house divided S’dumo Dlamini

President of the Congress of South African Trade Unions [but several member unions of Cosatu are now anti-Zuma]

ST STAY

ZUMA MU

report on the Guptas. “When I said the entire ANC leadership must take the fall, I meant everybody, President Jacob Zuma, Gwede Mantashe and myself included,” Mthembu told the eNCA television channel. There are growing calls for Zuma to step down from the presidency before his term ends in 2019.

Mthembu also cracked the whip on ANC MPs who neglected to turn up to parliament and push through a vital revenue bill for the provision of public services. “The absence of these MPs is disgraceful, and the harshest punishment will be taken against them,” Mthembu told The Africa Report. The bill finally went through on 22 November.

According to Ralph Mathekga, author of the best-selling book When Zuma Goes, government business is taking second place to control of the transition from Zuma to his successor who, as head of the ANC, would become the party’s presidential candidate in 2019. Mathekga says the fight over the transition is part of a bigger argument about how the ANC should work in South Africa’s high-volume democracy. transition obsession

David ‘Des’ van Rooyen

“There is a false choice put up between stability and democracy,” Mathekga says.

“The idea of stability is used to back the narrative of support for one person, one party – but also that too much contestation is disruptive.”

Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister of Mineral Resources

Director, National Prosecuting Authority

Ace Magashule

Berning Ntlemeza

David Mabuza

Premier of Mpumalanga

For many new MPs and local activists, stability and strong leadership sound reassuring. But whose leadership?

Contestation, disruptive or constructive, will dominate the country’s politics for the next three years, argues Mathekga: “The contest of credentials among the contenders is being fought out by organisations such as the Youth League and the Women’s League.”

ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe has said that six contenders for the leadership have raised their hands already but would not name them.

Two of them – outgoing chairwoman of the AU Commission Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and parliamentary speaker Baleka

Collen Maine

President, ANC Youth League

Shaun Abrahams

Mosebenzi Zwane

ANC Veterans’ League

Commander of the Hawks investigative Supra police unit Mahumapelo Premier of North West

Premier of Free State

Economic freedom fighters call for Zuma’s resignation during protests sparked by Madonsela’s report

Bathabile Dlamini

President, ANC Women’s League

Ace Magashule Premier of Free State

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Jacob Zuma, Duduzane Zuma, Edward Zuma and extended family Nkosinathi Nhleko Minister of Police David Mahlobo Minister of State Security

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AtANCheadquartersinJohannesburg, top officials echoed that view with less enthusiasm. “Every time outsiders call on Zuma to go, we will close ranks whatever our views on the issue,” a senior official said. “Outside pressure is closing down debate on the issue within the party.”

But the ANC’s two partner organisations – the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) – are far from taking vows of silence.

Deaan ViVier/FoTo24/Gallo imaGes/GeTTy imaGes

unions speak out

Mbete – are reckoned to have President Zuma’s backing. Any attempt to get Zuma out of office before next year’s party elections would benefit deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, who already has trade union backing.

Other candidates would mean a bigger change in the party.

Zuma’s team is ahead on the numbers.

It still has a majority on the 104-strong NEC, the National Working Committee and organisations such as the Youth League and the Women’s League.

While newspapers and television dissected Madonsela’s report on the Guptas, Zuma went on the campaign trail to win support from branch officials, who will provide most of the ANC elders and veterans:

delegates to next year’s elective conference. At these rallies, Zuma drew parallels between the impeachment of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff and no-confidence votes he has had to face in parliament. “We must be united. We must not be misled by personal wealth but strive for the country’s wealth,” he told ANC members in a packed hall in KwaDukuza, northern KwaZulu-Natal on 18 November.

Standing next to him was his key ally Sihle Zikalala, chairman of the ANC in the province, which has the largest number of ANC branches and will have the most voting delegates in 2017. Zuma was not going anywhere, said Zikalala.

Jackson

Ahmed Kathrada, Mavuso Msimang, Thabo Mbeki, Cheryl Carolus and Trevor Manuel Sipho Pityana Convenor, Save South Africa

Premier of Eastern Cape

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Crystal Orderson in Cape Town and Patrick Smith in Johannesburg

Mthembu

ANC Chief Whip

Mathole Motshekga former ANC Chief Whip

Derek Hanekom Minister of Tourism

Aaron Motsoaledi Minister of Health

Phumulo Masualle

In mid-November, Mzwandile Makwayiba, president of the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union, announced that it was withdrawing its support for Zuma. Aubrey Tshabalala, secretary general of the Communication Workers Union, told The Africa Report: “Under Jacob Zuma’s watch, we have had Nkandla and state capture. The call is clear, he must step aside.”

The SACP’s president, higher education minister Blade Nzimande, called for more trade unions to mobilise against state capture – that is code for campaigning against Zuma: “The biggest loser if we allow the state to be stolen will be the working class,” Nzimande told a party rally after the Madonsela report.

Such pronouncements were out of order according to ANC spokeswoman Khusela Sangoni: “The ANC does not meddle in the election of Cosatu and its affiliates. Instead, it supports and works with whatever collectives are elected.”

Yet for the next 12 months it will be open season for the rival factions in the ANC and its affiliates. There is likely to be a challenge to S’dumo Dlamini, president of Cosatu and a Zuma loyalist.

Zuma will need all his fabled political stamina for the year ahead. ●

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Blade Nzimande

General Secretary of the South African Communist Party

Jeremy Cronin

First Deputy General Secretary of the South African Communist Party

David Makhura Premier of Gauteng

Clyde Mervin

Mzwandile Makwayiba

President, Communication Workers Union

President, National Education Health & Allied Workers Union

ZUMA MUST GO

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politics

Flashpoints

Keep your eye on these hotspotss

Tunisia Morocco

In conjunction with International Crisis Group, we draw a map of the civil unrest, economic insecurity and armed groups which are of greatest concern in the months ahead.

Algeria

Mali Violence resumed in the north; jihadi groups are still very active despite the French military presence and the UN peacekeeping mission.

Mauritania

Mali

Niger

Senegal

Violence now spreading to Central Mali, around the city of Mopti.

Gambia

The peace process is at a standstill. No solution in sight.

Sierra Leone

Guinea-Bissau

Burkina Faso Benin

Guinea

Liberia

Togo Ghana

Côte d’Ivoire

Nigeria

Cameroon Equ. Guinea

Nigeria The Boko Haram insurgency, a long-running phenomenon in the north, has recently escalated in the central northern zone and spread to some southern states, heightening risks to human security and national stability.

Boko Haram regional dimension: with Islamic militants finding it harder to operate in Nigeria they are extending their reach into neighbouring countries, and turning more to crime at home.

Niger Delta militants slow to down weapons; pipeline attacks continue, hitting Nigeria’s key export and dragging the currency down with it.

Politics

Security

Economy

Central African Republic Armed groups holding out against the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme in the hope of either gaining places in government or continuing to hold sway over territories they control through violence.

DRC A blocked election process and looming constitutional crisis raises the risk of sporadic or more organised violence.

Zimbabwe Increased potential for political instability within ruling ZANU-PF and between ZANU-PF and opposition formations and protest movements.

Tanking economy that curtails productivity and patronage options, fanning discontent.

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Gabon Congo

politics

Libya

Egypt

Fight for control of oil facilities could lead the country to bankruptcy.

Government crackdown on opposition groups risks sparking protests.

Possible de facto partition of the country between forces loyal to General Haftar and those loyal to the UN-backed government.

South Sudan The peace accord fell apart in July; fresh heavy fighting has caused many casualties and a million fleeing their homes.

Egypt

Libya

Chad

Prospects for a political solution look bleak.Vice-President Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir have shaken hands but never pushed hard for peace.

Sudan

Ethiopia

Eritrea Djibouti

Ethiopia

South Sudan

C.A.R

Somalia D.R.C.

Uganda

Somalia

Burundi

Despite significant progress on federalisation and elections, no political settlement has been reached and much of the country is plagued by insecurity and violence orchestrated

by Al-Shabaab militants.

Tanzania

Malawi

Zambia

Zimbabwe

Namibia

Swaziland

South Africa

Mozambique Madagascar

Botswana

Lesotho

While the protests do not currently pose an existential threat to the state it is likely that we will see slow, simmering unrest with periodic upsurges throughout 2017.

Kenya

Rwanda

Angola

Unrest on a scale unprecedented since the disputed 2005 elections.

Kenya Elections in 2017 carry the threat of ethnic violence.

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opInIon

Nana-Ama Danquah Author and travel writer

No room for African apathy towards Trumpismo

I

’m not sure what the stages of grief are but on that first night, as the votes were being counted and it appeared the results would favour the election of Donald Trump as United States president, I resorted to alcohol, copious amounts of alcohol. The following day, I woke to news that David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, had called the win a great victory for “our people”.

He also tweeted: “Make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump!”

I woke to reports of an alarming number of hate crimes happening throughout the country, even in traditionally liberal areas: swastikas painted in parks and on the walls of university campuses; racial epithets and messages like #whitesonly, #whiteamerica and “Go back to Africa now” painted on student lockers and bathroom doors in middle

MOLINA/The New YOrk TIMes sYNdIcATe

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and grade schools. In the dorm elevator of one college was a black doll with a noose around its neck. Kindergarten-age kids were being taunted that they’d soon be deported with their families.

Klan members dressed in full costume marched through a North Carolina town.

This is not the America I have always known, the America to which I’d immigrated with my parents in 1973. But it is an America that I am aware once existed. I recognise the outbursts of white supremacy, the hate and bigotry, from the grainy black-and-white films that were shown during my elementary-school history classes.

That’s how I first watched Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech, the audio from the rickety projector cracking and ● ● ● the africa report

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20-21 March 2017, Geneva

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● ● ● snapping, somehow adding to its gravitas.

King seemed ethereal as he spoke of his hopes and desires: “We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

I woke understanding that the era of dreams was over. America had decided to turn back.

The day that Donald Trump was officially declared the United States president-elect, 9 November, is the anniversary of Kristallnacht. This did not at all feel coincidental; it rather felt like a message, a harbinger being delivered by history. Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass”, refers to the pogrom in 1938 when Nazi stormtroopers and German civilians vandalised the homes and business of Jews.

Synagogues were set on fire; schools, cemeteries and hospitals were destroyed. The streets of Germany were strewn with shards of glass. Thousands of Jews were killed, expelled or sent off to concentration camps. That pogrom, which marks the descent into the most murderous stage of fascism, was especially traumatic because the perpetrators had once been neighbours, customers, and even friends of their victims.

It’s the sort of betrayal that makes you question everything you thought you knew about your life and the people in it. Which of my friends, you wonder, which of the people with whom I have smiled, shared a coffee or a taxi cab? Which of the people in my life had been keeping these feelings hidden just below the surface? These questions now keep me awake at night.

Many of my friends were surprised to learn how many close relatives of theirs voted for Donald Trump. One told me: “Dad is not a racist, but he just feels the races need to be ‘returned to their rightful places.’”

From the age of six, I grew up in Washington DC, a predominantly black town that was jokingly referred to as ‘Chocolate City’. That was my rightful place. Gentrification has now transformed it into a predominantly white city. The weekend after Trump’s election, a white nationalist group held a convention in DC to celebrate their rise.

The term ‘alt-right’ is a sanitised moniker for the white nationalist movement, coined by Richard Spencer, who said in a recent speech: “To be white is to be a striver, a crusader, an explorer and a conqueror […]. We don’t exploit other groups. We don’t gain anything from their presence. They need us and not the other way around […]. America was until this past generation a white country, designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation.

It is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.”

So what does it all mean to African immigrants like me who were brought to America as children? What does it mean to African immigrants who braved perilous waters, crossed borders by foot, suffered the indignity of placing aside their advanced degrees to do menial jobs, played by all the rules and succeeded against all odds?

That is the American dream, is it not? To start with nothing, to work hard and create something awesome; that dream is what attracted people of all nationalities to come and help build one of the greatest and freest nations ever.

So what do we do now that the era of dreams is over? The eyes of the world are watching. Some people are applauding and hoping to replicate the same results in their own country. Far-right populist parties in Europe are gaining strength. The Front National in France, the Eurosceptic Freiheitlichen Partei Österreichs in Austria, the Partij voor de Vrijheid in the Netherlands and Alternative für Deutschland in Germany all hope to pull off Donald Trump’s feat. Of course, with its Brexit vote buoyed by a populist and nationalist campaign, the United Kingdom Independence Party already has. And Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of the Fidesz party is now consolidating one of Europe’s most xenophobic and Islamophobic regimes.

The rest of us will keep watching. We are ready for the coming challenges. We will not easily surrender our countries. The truth is that the majority of Americans did not vote for Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton received nearly two million more votes than Trump. She is the first candidate to win the popular vote by such a large margin but not win the presidency, which is decided through the electoral college, an outdated system of weighting votes.

So many of us born after a certain time have taken our freedoms for granted When seen from that perspective, things don’t look nearly as grim. Even so, we will have to roll up our sleeves and fight for every right we want to keep.

Perhaps this wave of American and European populism, the ugliness and divisiveness that it brings with it, can serve as a lesson for Africans – a reminder. So many of us born after a certain time have taken our freedoms for granted, freedoms for which people sacrificed and died.

We live in a world in which there is no room for apathy. If we do not claim our space – if we do not fight for the policies, ideals and freedoms that matter to us – then nobody else will. We will simply lose them.

Whether on African soil or in the diaspora, we have never lost sight of ourselves as dreamers and believers. Now, more than ever, we need to also make ourselves people of action, and of civic engagement.

“The day will come when history will speak. But it will not be the history which will be taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations.

Africa will write its own history and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and dignity.”

– Patrice Lumumba, the assassinated first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. ● the africa report

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DJIBOUTI

ADVERTORIAL

THE INFRASTRUCTURE

CHALLENGE

D

jibouti’s economic growth in recent years has been the result, in large part, of increased activity in the transport sector, and specifically the volume of traffic coming through – and the performance of – the ports. Djibouti is not only well-placed in terms of access to Africa and the Middle East but also sits on the major shipping route between Europe and Asia. As a result, the Port of Djibouti currently serves as a gateway to one of the fastest-growing regions in the world,

> DJIBOUTI: THE INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGE

with 30,000 ships transiting per year, 90 ships per day. To help expand Djibouti’s ability to serve as a platform for East Africa – including not just Ethiopia but South Sudan and further afield – we are investing in six new ports. These ports will target several different sectors and activities, from minerals to livestock, and three of them will be operational in 2017. These required major investments, as do many of the other large projects currently under way in the country – like the two airports.

The new port facilities are just one component of a much bigger infrastructural plan that looks to leverage Djibouti’s location and its role as a gateway to Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia – even Yemen and the Great Lakes of Africa. To ensure that the improvements in performance and efficiency in our ports carries through our entire transport network, there are a number of projects under way to boost intermodal connections, thereby reducing delays and costs. This is particularly important given that Djibouti has one of the most efficient ports

RED SEA BUNKERING

The establishment of fuel supply services is not something new to Djibouti. Up to 1967 and before the closure of the Suez Canal for maritime traffic, Djibouti was a top five bunkering centre with a volume of more than 3 million tons per annum. By establishing Red Sea Bunkering which is already achieving more than 400,000 tons in just one year, DPFZA is working to re-establish Djibouti as a prime bunkering centre. Today the company is a ship-toship bunker supplier offering offshore refuelling via a double-hull 9,300 dwt bunker tanker which can carry two products at the same time.

in the world, with up to 34 movements per hour per crane. To ensure we are able to keep pace with demand, and increase our share of traffic from competitors, a holistic approach is crucial. Among the biggest projects are the two new railways linking Djibouti City and Tadjourah with Ethiopia. Between them they will significantly reduce congestion on the motorways and bring down the time it takes to transport cargo from the port to Addis Ababa by more than a day. In addition, Air Djibouti’s recent revitalisation will help develop sea-air connections not just within the region but also to West Africa and beyond.

With all these major and key transport infrastructure unfolding in Djibouti, the timing was appropriate for us to establish DFTZ,

AIR DJIBOUTI

The airline commenced operations in 2015 and currently serves destinations such as Addis Ababa, Dire-Dawa, Hargeisa, Bosaso, Berbera, Mogadishu, Jeddah and plans to start services to Khartoum, Dubai, London and Paris by early 2017. With increased capacity in the hospitality sector and the construction of a bigger airport, the airline can capitalise on the location of Djibouti and its highly developed logistics infrastructure to build a hub for passengers and cargo alike. The current aircraft fleet includes a B767, B737 and two BA146 regional jets.

THE INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGE : DJIBOUTI <

(Djibouti Free Trade Zone) which is expected be the biggest free trade zone in Sub-Saharan Africa spanning 4,800 hectares.

DPFZA in recent years alone has established key infrastructure assets such as Doraleh Container Terminal, Horizon Oil Terminal, Red Sea Bunkering and the national flag carrier Air Djibouti. By identifying key growth areas and opportunities, the authority initiates and finances its own studies which has helped it in forging strategic partnerships with key players in the respected industries. All of these is helping to accelerate the positioning of Djibouti as a centre of excellence for all things logistics.

9

Million

GENERAL CARGO & LIQUIDE BULK FROM 2007 TO 2016

General Cargo Liquid bulk Total 7 5 3 1 2007

2008 2009 2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015 Jan to Sept 2016

(DJIBOUTI FREE TRADE ZONE) The construction of this mega free zone has already started with 240 hectares appropriately named The Pioneer Phase. This is expected to be finalised by mid-2017 with companies with diverse business activities already reserving their spaces. Targeting mainly countries with export economies, the DFTZ team has been actively promoting these new facilities in major events such as Transport & Logistics and at the international Free Trade Zone Summit while conducting forums in countries such as Japan, China, Egypt and India with plans to do similar events in Germany, South Africa, Turkey, Malta, UK and the USA. The free trade zone, which is a joint venture with China Merchants Holdings Group, Dalian Ports Authority and IZP will offer facilities in the way of plots of land for lease, warehouses, offices and other facilities for heavy industries. Costing up to $3.5 billion over the 10 year development period, it is expected to create up to 200,000 new jobs which will have a major impact on the local economy while contributing to increased traffic in both passenger and freight cargo.

> DJIBOUTI: THE INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGE

PORT OF TADJOURAH The Port of Tadjourah started taking shape in October, less than six months after the government broke ground on the project on the 12th November 2012. A few weeks earlier, Canada’s Allana Potash Corp. signed an agreement with Djibouti Ports & Free Zones Authority (DPFZA) to use the future facility primarily for the export potash from Dallol in Ethiopia some 300km away. Allana Potash puts the mine’s estimated export capacity at five million tons/year for over 30 years. This ore port is expected to be operational by March 2017.

Mr. Aboubaker Omar Hadi President of the Ports and Free Zone Authority

HEAD OFFICE Republic of Djibouti Route de Venise BP: 197 Tel: +253 21359 070 Fax: +253 21 359 059 Email: info@D-PortsFZ.dj ETHIOPIA 3rd Floor ESL Building Bole Road ADDIS ABABA Tel: +251 115 533 3744 Fax: + 251 115 534 659 Email: port.office.addis@gmail.com SOUTH SUDAN Hai Mission, Opposite Juba Football Stadium Juba Tel: +211 927 992 807 Email: hassanroblehmahamoud@gmail.com GREAT LAKES COUNTRIES ( UGANDA, BURUNDI, RWANDA)

City Hill Hotel BP: 817 Bujumbura – Burundi Tel: +257 222 784 40 Email: delphin.nzosaba@D-PortsFZ.dj

PORT OF GHOUBET The Port of Ghoubet, located at the western end of the Bay of Tadjourah, will export 6 million tons of salt a year from Lake Assal to key markets, particularly Asia. It required investment of $64 million and is expected to be operational by early 2017. Lac Assal is the world’s largest salt deposit and the lowest point in Africa at 155 meters below sea level.

EUROPE 6 Amberside- Paradise Ind. Est Wood Lane – Hemel Hempstead Herts – HP2 4TP – United Kingdom Tel: + 448 707 605 794 Email: dawid@D-PortsFZ.dj

PHOTOS : DR - DIFCOM /CCHVN

The Port of Tadjourah will open up Ethiopia from the north

focus

Sven Torfinn/PANOS-REA

East African Community

Peanut-sellers at the Uganda border will have to be nifty, as truckers now get through in record time

Breaking barriers At a time when cracks are showing in some other customs unions, the East African Community is going from strength to strength. Intraregional trade is booming and joint infrastructure projects under way.

However, deep-rooted concerns about Kenyan dominance continue to plague its rival Tanzania

By Mark Anderson in Busia

the africa report

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D

ozens of trucks hauling fuel, beer and refrigerators form an orderly queue along the road leading to Busia, one of East Africa’s busiest border crossings. “It used to take as many as three days to cross this border,” says truckerAmosRuto,39,whoistransporting 1,080cratesofbeerfromKenya’sshipping hub of Mombasa to Kampala, Uganda’s capital. “Now, we can do it in one day.”

Busia is a crucial artery for East Africa’s trading network: more than half of Uganda’s imports pass through here. The border post has been ● ● ●

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South Sudan

Uganda

Kenya

Sources: UN 20161, IMF 20162, World Bank 20153, UNCTAD 2014 & 20154, The Mobile Economy Africa 20165

Rwanda Burundi

Indian Océan

Tanzania

400 km

the eAC IN NUMBERS POPULATION

178.9 million1

GDP (current prices)

$155.2bn2

gdp per capita

$720.62

gdp growth (annual %)

2.6%3

fdi, inflows (current US$)

$4.2bn4

total imports

$40.2bn4

total exports

$13.6bn4

urban population (% of total)

22.3%3

mobile PHONE subscriptions (per 100 people)

465

$10bn

gdp growth 2015 figures (annual %) -2.5

Burundi

5.6

Source: world bank

Kenya Rwanda

6.9

South Sudan -6.3 Tanzania

7

Uganda

5

mobile phone penetration Subscriber growth in the EAC

Source: GSMA Intelligence

Subscriber penetration (%) 25%

36

43%

EAC

41 45

2010 11

51

49%

SSA

23% 57

63

69

74 78

82 86

Unique subscribers (M) 12

13

14

15

16

17

posed a common external tariff – in 2010.

Interregional trade has grown by about 80% as a result, according to research

by TradeMark East Africa, a nonprofit development outfit.

The EAC has also enabled free movement of people throughout the bloc. “On the whole I think the [EAC’s] integration process is going well, and certainly relativistically [it’s] probably the most advanced in terms of real gains on the ground,” says Frank Matsaert, chief executive officer of TradeMark East Africa.

Léontine Nzeyimana, Burundi’s EAC minister, says that trade is booming in the region because of the customs union and the reduction of non-tariff barriers. “If we have your goods from abroad, they don’t free movement of goods have to wait until they get to Bujumbura Part of Busia’s success is down to the to pay for it to clear. Everything is done in efforts of the East African Community (EAC), a regional organisation comDar es Salaam and in Mombasa.”

For decades, the dominance of Kenyan prised of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. firms in the region has prevented other EAC member states from relaxing trade The EAC was founded in 2000 and has barriers. Today, East Africa’s biggest combeen pushing for a closer political and monetary union among the region’s 180 panies are Kenyan (see page 80). Kenya exported $1.4bn worth of goods to other million people ever since. It has been dubbed “the fastest-growing bloc on the EAC countries in 2014 while importing African continent” by the International just $415m over the same period. Financial services giant Kenya Commercial Trade Centre.

Libérat Mfumukeko, Bank (KCB) is rolling out new branches in every EAC secretary general of the EAC, tells The Africa Recountry. Plastics company port:“TheEAChasbeenreSafepak and equipment company Metal Crowns are cognisedasthemostintegboth expanding quickly into rated regional economic Uganda and Tanzania. community in Africa.

Market capitalisation Goods are moving freely Kenyan dairy producer of the Dar es Salaam Brookside is one of the East all throughout the EAC.” stock exchange Intraregional trade is African companies that is best positioned to benefit booming. In 2014, the bloc’s members registered from closer regional trade about $5.5bn of internal links. Brookside has capMarket capitalisation of the Nairobi stock trading, comprised of tured about 40% of Kenya’s exchange $3bn in exports and dairy market and is hungry toboostitspresenceinother $2.5bn in imports. That EAC countries. But the company’s manfigure climbed considerably in just a agement says it is frustrated by the red few years. In 2007, when Burundi and Rwanda joined the grouping, total trade tapethatisblockingtheirexpansionplans. in the EAC amounted to less than $2bn.

During a meeting last year, Brookside’s One of the reasons for this climb is that chief operating officer, Faiz Taib, told EAC it is now cost-effective for EAC members lawmakers that the lack of a common market is holding back economic growth. to trade with each other. “Goods from Kenya are cheaper for [Uganda and Tanzania] to bring in at zero tax rather than big wide world importing them from wherever else,” says MuhohoKenyatta,Brookside’schiefexecutive officer, tells The Africa Report: “Right Aunali Bhaiji, chairman of the Kenya now thereare still issueswe needto tackle International Freight and Warehousing Association (KIFWA). in terms of interregional trade. A lot still The EAC’s greatest achievement to needs to be done.” East Africa needs to date is the formation of a customs union band together to compete with the rest of – which abolished internal tariffs and imthe world, Kenyatta says. “The competi-

● ● ● dramatically improved in recent years. Busia is now heralded as a prototype border crossing.

Until recently, these truck drivers were required to have their passports stamped and their goods cleared on both sides of the border. Now, they only stop at the point of entry, where representatives from both countries conduct a joint inspection. “We have different agencies, but now they are placed in one stop, in one place,” says Muni Kasolo, director of enforcement at the Kenya Revenue Authority, as she gestures towards a cluster of fuel tankers parked next to an office in an island between two lanes.

18

19 2020

$19.9bn

the africa report

•

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Source: DSE and NSE, 14 November 2016

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focus

STUART PRICE/MEAACT PHOTO

Goods arriving at Mombasa Port (Kenya) can be customs-cleared for other EAC member states

tion is international. The competition is not about Kenya, it’s not about Uganda, it’s not about Tanzania,” he says. “The competition is out in the big wide world.”

Today, countries in the bloc are still reluctant to encourage Kenyan companies to enter their markets. “It’s not a worry [that Kenyan companies dominate], it’s a reality,” says Burundi’s Nzeyimana. “But being a member of the EAC will make [services] easier and [goods] cheaper for us.”

The main rivalry in the region is between its two largest economies – Kenya and Tanzania. KIFWA’s Bhaiji says: “Tanzania has always had this […] suspicion that Kenya has got the better end of the bargain and hence there are

times that they will have not moved fast enough in terms of some of the projects the presidents have agreed upon.”

Regional tensions simmered above the surface in September when Tanzania refused to sign the EAC’s Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU), which would have granted all EAC countries duty-free and quota-free access to the EU market. However, the EU already has an EPA with low-income countries, meaning that Kenya, which is now a lower-middle-income country, is the only EAC country that would be affected if the EAC’s EPA is not signed.

“For Kenya, the EPA is very important to secure its trade interest particularly

for flower exports, for its horticulture, which would be very highly affected [if the deal were not signed],” says Matsaert of TradeMark East Africa. Kenya is now pursuing talks with the EU on its own.

It will also be forced to review its trade deals with Britain after the latter voted to leave the EU in June.

EAC countries are looking to diversify their trade routes. Rwandan and Ugandan importers announced on 25 October that they would begin routing their fuel imports through Tanzania’s port at Dar es Salaam because some of their shipments through Mombasa had been contaminated. The EAC’s regional trading dynamics are set to change even more when oil begins to flow next year (see page 76) and pipelines are needed to export it to international markets.

About 95% of the region’s trade passes through the Northern Corridor (from Mombasa) and the Central Corridor (from Dar es Salaam). A host of ambitious infrastructure projects are on the cards, including the Lamu corridor project, which aims to build a highway, railway and pipeline between Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Ethiopia.

The Tanzanian government has its own designs on regional trade and has contracted Chinese firms to build a standard-gauge railway to link Rwanda and Burundi, which will rival Kenya’s new railway and its connection to Uganda. ●

C

support for private sector development continue to curtail entrepreneurial activity.

Four years ago, we wanted to participate to the changes made by the state to ameliorate the business climate by bringing information to those interested in investing in the DRC through our structure.

It is true that the uncertain regulatory environment and absence of institutional

Large Swiss institutions, diplomatic missions, private companies and one of the largest American foundations have trusted us to ensure their impact in the DRC. If you want to do like them and allow us to meet your needs for the success of your investments in the DRC, do not hesitate to call our services, as ‘Yes, CIC can’.

ongo-Invest Consulting is an advisory firm that conducts strategic studies, proceed through competitive intelligence to respond to the needs of investors. It also facilitate the dialogue for its clients by organizing meetings with the right stakeholders or economic missions to allow strategic alliances with the private and the public sector. Fundraising is one of the many services that we render to Congolese SMEs with great success.

Email: Info@congo-Invest.com Web: www.congo-Invest.com Phone number: +243 81 708 0501 Address: Immeuble crown tower, 7ième/suite 703 Av. Batetela n°3098, Commune de la Gombe Kinshasa, DRC

69

Incorporated in 1967, the Development Bank of Rwanda (BRD) has recently reviewed and formulated its vision of becoming a world-class finance institution focused on accelerating Rwanda’s economic transformation.

The Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Alex Kanyankole, noted that over the past years of its existence, the Bank has consolidated its position as the leading financier providing long-term facilities to private sector investments into the priority economic sectors aligned with the national development agenda – the Vision 2020 and the Second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS 2).

“Our refocused and expanded mandate to deliver na onal development goals”

ALEX KANYANKOLE - CEO

Despite some challenges, such as sourcing for affordable patient funds, the Bank has consistently shaped strong partnerships with international development finance institutions (DFIs) whose support has been immeasurable. These partnerships are built on the Bank’s good track record in compliance with best standards and practices in areas such as governance, financial and operational standards.

Exports

Housing

literacy

Education Agriculture

The Bank’s financing interventions led to positive development impact through creation of employment, upsurge in tax revenues and exports, availing affordable housing solutions, improved literacy, quality of education, and support to agriculture modernization.

A housing study undertaken by the City of Kigali in 2012 indicated a very high housing market demand which requires ntional efforts and timely approach, hence BRD’s priority focus for housing financing.

Rugarama Park Estates – jointly undertaken by BRD, Shelter Afrique and City of Kigali to build 2,674 housing units in Kigali.

(housing units)

At the end of 2015 the Bank’s loan book had grown to Rwf 125 billion

The total assets reduced to Rwf 132.8billion from Rwf 185.6 billion post-split of the commercial banking portfolio sold to Atlas Mara Co-Nvest.

(Year)

2012

2020

The study showed that Rwanda needs more 35,000 housing units on average per year to be able to meet the growing demand of up to 344,068 housing units by 2020.

BRD maintained its position as the leading long-term lender by registering approvals of Rwf 67.5 billion into the priority sectors.

It is in this line that BRD is promoting affordable housing basing on two-twin pillars of “mortgage finance and production of bankable housing” through focusing on both short, medium and longer term market interventions to address challenges around housing fiznance in Rwanda.

“BRD will inject $66.3 million to enhance our objective of providing affordable housing.

Currently, we are sourcing funds to fast-track key projects such as Rugarama Park estate, Kimisange and Kagarama Estates, and also finance housing development in the six secondary cities” - said Kanyankole

$66.3 million

Perspective of the peat to power plant by Yumn Ltd - jointly owned by Hakan Mining and Electricity Generation Co. Ltd and Quantum Power Ltd - to generate 80 MW in Gisagara District,Southern Province.

“Currently, the domestic power generation is about 190 MW, yet our target is to reach 563 MW by 2018.

The electrified households represent 24% which is expected to grow to 70% by 2018. This provides an opportunity for investors to support the Government’s rural electrification efforts through investments in mini-grids and off-grid solar home solutions” he added.

563 MW

BRD’s interventions have been designed to address key constraints in the sector such as high startup costs and risks involved. Energy projects require significant time and financial investments and their long-term nature requires specialized financing terms.

These interventions are grouped into three main programs;

Energy generation

Energy efficiency

Technical support

Investments in energy generation have seen the bank financing hydro-power, bio mass and peat fired energy projects and contemplating methane gas fired plants.

190 MW

24%

BRD is committed to support the Government’s targets for electricity access to all Rwandans by investing USD 185 million in the Energy sector. As indicated in its 2016-2020 Strategic plan, the Bank’s financing will contribute to the generation of at least 66 MW and energy savings of 6 MW. BRD will foster syndications and co-financing to catalyze investments from other development partners.

70%

AVAILABLE INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES TO ENHANCE ACCESS TO RELIABLE AND AFFORDABLE ENERGY

2016

NEW EXPANDED AND REFOCUSED MANDATE (2016 – 2020)

BRD recently completed the sell off its commercial business (equivalent to 31% of its business) to Atlas Mara Co-Nvest. Since then, the Bank adopted a new expanded and refocused mandate as a typical development finance institution that provides long-term financing and advisory services to impactful entrepreneurs in key priority sectors including energy, agriculture, education, housing, infrastructure, and exports.

“Over the next five years, we remain committed to continuously support Rwanda’s development aspirations through targeted financial interventions in sectors that have higher potential to increase production, exports, create jobs and eradicate poverty.”

Kanyankole concludes.

BRD - Facts and figures $66.3 million Rwf132.8 billion

2012

160,000

2018

Rwf125 billion

BRD CONTRIBUTING TO NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT GOALS

2016

570,000 Total assets

Mr. Kanyankole noted that though access to electricity has grown from 160,000 households connected to the national grid in 2012 to 570,000 electrified households

by February 2016, the country is still experiencing energy deficits.

Bank’s loan book

$185 million

Congratulations to BRD on the Golden Jubilee celebrations!

P.O Box 1341, Kigali, Rwanda Phone: (+250) 575079 - Fax: (+250) 573569 Email: brd@brd.rw

focus | East african communit y

The mood was relaxed at the EAC’s March 2016 summit in Arusha, Tanzania

flickr paul kagame

72

Politics

The backyard bonanza

The East African Community is moving in the right direction, but the bloc’s member states are distracted by their own private agendas

I

nside the revamped Zanzibar House of Representatives building about 50 lawmakers from the East African Community (EAC) gather to discuss new legislation beneath the framed Persian rugs that adorn the walls. The session’s programme is wide-reaching: on the agenda is a bill to tackle human trafficking and another draft law to ban polythene materials.

These are some of the initiatives being undertaken by the EAC, which has been lauded as the continent’s most successful regional bloc. The group has taken impressive strides towards forming a customs union and a common market. In September, a delegation from the Economic Community of West African States went to Arusha to learn about the EAC’s customs union and trading regimes, as well as its regional infrastructure projects.

Libérat Mfumukeko, the EAC’s secretary general, tells The Africa Report: “The integration of East Africa is around a number of pillars, and a common market is one of [the most positive signs that non-trade barriers are being removed]. A number of trade barriers have been removed,

and we are very conscious that the remaining barriers will be removed.”

But all is not well today. Back on the courtroom floor in Zanzibar, senior politicians show their frustration that the bloc has yet to secure $8m in annual funding from each of its member states. Kenyan lawmaker Nancy Abisai tells the assembly of officials from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi: “We are facing a funding crisis […]. Are we sure we have enough funding to sustain the committee until the next financial year?” donor funding

This call for funding is an important reminder of how far the regional organisation has to go. While the EAC expects its members to pay their share of the operating budget eventually, more than half of this bill is currently footed by international donors.

Another major problem is that member states are pursuing their own agendas. They are not opening

their borders to trade in the way the regional organisation had originally trumpeted. A report released by the EAC on 31 October casts doubt on the willingness of member states to abide by the EAC’s common-market protocols. “States have remained largely non-compliant in their services and trade liberalisation commitments,” said Jesca Eriyo, the EAC’s deputy secretary general, at the report’s launch. Earlier this year, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania could not agree on plans for a joint pipeline, so the two decided to work without Nairobi’s involvement.

Even more elusive are Kenya the EAC’s loftier goals of a political federation and a monetary union within the next decade. Many of the region’s leading busiTTanzanie ness figures are frustrated by the piecemeal progress the bloc has made towards these grander ambitions.

Anzetse Were, a developKenya's exports to ment economist at Kenyan Tanzania in 2015, up research outfit Vantage from $404.3m in 2010 Point Consulting, tells The Source: IMF DIrectIon Africa Report: “If you ● ● ● oF traDe StatIStIcS

$501m

the africa report

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focus | East african communit y

look at the EAC monetary union that’s being established, there’s a lot of indication from official government channels that that’s a very serious direction that they’re taking […]. But when you look at business and private sector activity, the picture is really quite different.”

The focus on domestic agendas is not likely to change any time soon, according to Were. “This whole notion of free movement of trade and services and people is really not a reality because […] there’s a sense of competition between EAC [countries],” she says. ●●●

give and take

In the absence of progress towards a shared currency or a political union, the EAC is seeking another role: crisis mediator. Led by Tanzania’s former president Benjamin Mkapa, the bloc played an active role in hosting Burundi’s peace talks in May. “[Mkapa] knows the root causes – that the people do not understand each other. He heard all the allegations,” says Léontine Nzeyimana, Burundi’s EAC minister. “Now I think it will be time to sort out and to try to convince parties to give and take so that they can meet in the middle ground.”

The EAC also recently deployed electoral observers to Zanzibar. “We are getting involved better [in regional crises] than anyone,” Secretary General Mfumukeko says. “We are committing resources, time, better than any organisation trying to get the stakeholders together, trying to encourage the government and the opposition to actually resolve [these crises] peacefully.”

Seif Sharif Hamad, the secretary general of Zanzibar’s main opposition party, the Civic United Front, rejects this view.

Hamad was a candidate in Zanzibar’s presidential election, the results of which were abruptly annulled while they were being counted last year. He says the EAC failed to defend the integrity of those elections, which it described as “peaceful and transparent”.

Hamad says the poor democratic record of many of the bloc’s presidents has made him sceptical of its integrity: “I don’t think that leaders like [Yoweri] Museveni or [Paul] Kagame or [Pierre] Nkurunziza are ready to mediate or to see that the will of the people is respected,” he says. “And you find always they will cling together. So I don’t think that there is a possibility for the EAC to intervene and find a solution.” ● Mark Anderson in Zanzibar

interview

Libérat Mfumukeko

Secretary general, East African Community

Goods are moving freely TAR: What are the most positive signs that barriers to trade are being removed in the East African Community (EAC)?

We can see the integration in our customs union. Goods are moving freely all throughout the EAC. If you look at the latest reports, you can see that now goods are even moving faster. And now we’re going towards a single customs territory, which means that in the very near future goods will be cleared only once: when they enter the community. If they are coming in from Tanzania, they will be cleared only in Tanzania and will be able to move all through the community without going through any customs clearings again. So we are very satisfied of the achievements of the community on that particular issue.

Manufacturing is definitely one promising sector because most of the manufactured goods being sold in East Africa are not made in East Africa [...].

So we have been encouraging, and actually we have policies encouraging, investment in manufacturing so that some of these consumer goods can be made in East Africa and can provide employment to many of our youth who are unemployed.

In the European Union a lot of people say Germany is the dominant power and reaps the most benefits. Do you think Kenya might be the East African equivalent?

No, actually we recognise that some economies in East Africa are advanced in comparison with others. But again, the treaty of establishment of East Africa is really based on the principle of solidarity and equality. So the countries which are better off have as an ultimate mission to help the other

Which sectors stand to benefit the most from closer integration?

Consumer goods […] but we are really thinking much deeper.

We are not only thinking about the region.

“We are thinking of how the We are thinking of how region can compete with other the region can really regions and worldwide” compete with other regions in Africa and how it can compete worldwide. countries develop. That’s why some of these road networks and all this Which companies are EAC success infrastructure and money is also stories? benefiting some of the least developed We have banks such as the Kenya economies in East Africa.

Commercial Bank. We have CRDB Bank. So many companies have settled If you look 15 years ahead, what all through East Africa coming from is your vision for the EAC? East African countries. I was the We are redefining the EAC’s priorities. head of investment promotion authority We have many of them, but I want this in Burundi. And in 2010, I had exactly community to be more people-centred.

101 new companies settled in We are talking here about agriculture.

Burundi. And out of the international We are also talking about employment companies, which actually were – meaning attracting investors so that about 60% of the companies, most they can develop industries or invest of them came from East Africa. in existing industries and create employment. We are talking about Do you think the EAC’s education. We are really strategising manufacturing sector will take so that we can position East Africa on the Interview by M.A. off any time soon? world map […]. ● the africa report

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RMT, a proudly Rwandan investor committed to socio economic change Rwanda Mountain Tea Ltd (RMT), established in 2006, is the leading private investor in tea plantations, processing facilities and blending and packaging in Rwanda. RMT acquired majority shares in various tea estates across the country, with the purpose of increasing productivity through expanding tea plantations, renovating and building tea factories and adding value to the final products in order to meet global market demand. RMT has standardized manufacturing and handling procedures to international norms, and has obtained

international certifications of compliance with hygiene, sustainable farming and organic production.

RMT has also set a strong foot print in Rwanda energy sector.

With the new energy policy, the Government of Rwanda presents a number of attractive incentives to private sector to invest in the generation of electricity so as to contribute to reducing the power deficit. The Giciye Power Plants I, II and III along Giciye River in Nyabihu district, Western Province, are properties of RMT that

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focus | East african communit y

Oil & gas

Kenya’s quick fix to win the race

Kenya is set to become the region’s first oil exporter in 2017 despite Uganda’s U-turn on a crucial pipeline deal that will now benefit Tanzania

I

f everything goes according to plan, March 2017 will see Kenya join the oil export club. Each day, trucks will carry 2,000 barrels of crude oil from Turkana in north-western Kenya, take the new Leseru-Lokichar road and head for the town of Eldoret. The oil will then be moved to heated containers on a cargo train for the 800km journey to the refinery in the coastal city of Mombasa. After more than 1,000km, the first of Kenya’s estimated 750m barrels of oil will be refined and stored, ready for export. If this pilot scheme works, Kenya will send out East Africa’s first oil exports in June 2017.

The fast-tracking of Kenya’s pilot scheme appears to be a rash decision to savefaceaheadoftheAugust2017general elections. If this seems overly complicated,itisnothowthegovernmentwanted oil to be exported. Kenya’s original plan was to build a pipeline serving Uganda, JUBA

SOUTH SUDAN White Nile

UGANDA

Lodwar

Lake Albert oil fields Hoima Future oil refinery

Ethiopia and South Sudan.

Uganda’s pipeline deal TheUgandansectionwasto with Tanzania, asserting run from the oilfields in the that it was in the works north of the country all the from “as early as NovemwaytoKenya’sLamu,where ber 2015”. The government says it will break ground on a new port is being built. an 865km pipeline linking But that plan ground to a halt in April after Uganda the country’s oilfields to decided to send its oil via Lamu port in 2018.

Tanzania,sayingtherewere Kenya and Uganda securityconcernsaboutthe were locked in a race to Kenyan route. become the region’s first Kenya's pipeline The government insists oil exporter. On 24 August, will start in 2018 that it has been working Kenya’s President Uhuru SOURCE: WORLD BANK (2014) on this alternative scheme Kenyatta explained: “We for a long time. “[This have started [towards oil scheme] will help us test the route, hone production], and we are not moving production and refining skills, and solve back. We want to be at the top of the pile.”

Uganda’s production plans shifted in local-community issues on the small scale,” Andrew Kamau, Kenya’s principal October. It said it would delay launch secretary for energy, tells The Africa of its crude-oil refinery to 2020. It said Report. Kamau says the plan predates in November that it will select a lead investor for the project by February 2017, with China’s state-run oil company Sinopec in the running. Uganda East Africa’s oil race failed to reach an agreement with two ETHIOPIA separate consortiums that had shown an Lake interest. A refinery launch date of 2020 Turkana would coincide with the planned completion of the Hoima-Tanga pipeline, Lokichar allowing Uganda to ramp up producBasin oil fields tion and exportation in the new decade.

865km

Future oil pipeline Eldoret

Isiolo

Nakuru Lake Victoria

400 km

Garissa

KENYA

NAIROBI

Existing products pipeline

Lamu

Oil refinery and tanker terminal

Future oil pipeline TANZANIA

SOMALIA

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Singida

Indian Ocean

Mombasa

Tanker terminal Tanga

diversified economies

East African countries are economic bright spots on the continent largely because they have avoided a dependency on natural resources. Instead, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have developed diversified economies with growing financial services, agribusiness and manufacturing sectors spreading their wings. It remains to be seen how these sectors will fare with the strengthening in local currency that oil exports traditionally bring and how governments will manage new revenue flows.

Oil companies have their own challenges. “Other oil- and gas-producing regions have had decades to get it right. We have to catch up as fast as we can,” said

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East african communit y | focus

make it one of the biggest oil producers on the continent when oil starts flowing, which is expected to be in 2020.

With major finds of natural gas mainly in the Rovuma Basin, Tanzania is aiming to export gas not just to its neighbours but to the entire region. Mozambique has gas reserves three times the size of Tanzania’s on its side of the Rovuma basin, but Tanzania is moving faster.

In anticipation of its oil and gas future, Tanzania passed three laws on oil and natural gas in August last year.

Reuters Staff/Reuters

tanzania’s gas plans

Brian Muriuki, Shell’s country manager for Kenya, at the East Africa Oil and Gas Summit held in Nairobi in November.

Mark Dingley, the head of operations at Africa Oil, said at the same conference that “stable governments, improving infrastructure and an increasingly attractive business environment” are some of the factors that will keep international players interested in developing the region’s oil and gas reserves.

In East Africa’s nascent oil sector, Britain-based Tullow Oil is the principal player. The company has political access and support in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. In late 2016, Tullow, the Kenyan government and several partners – including Africa Oil and Maersk the africa report

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Tullow first struck oil in Kenya’s Lokichar Basin in 2012; exporting will start in March 2017

Oil – will restart exploration with four new wells: Etete, Erut, Ngamia South and Amosing Updip.

Uganda’s oil sector is more crowded.

The country has three foreign firms exploring its Lake Albert oil fields: Tullow, France’s Total and China’s National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). It granted eight production licences to Tullow Oil and Total in August. The government also recently reached agreement with several companies on field development plans, although the process is still on­ going.Ugandaexpectstoproduce230,000 barrels of crude oil per day, which will

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Tanzania, which commercialised its first gas reserves in 2004, has also been mulling over building a liquefied natural gas plant by 2025. President John Magufuli directed his government to speed up the process, but investors said in November 2016 that they are unlikely to make a final investment decision within the next five years. Tanzania’s partners in the Lindi-based project are ExxonMobil, BG Group, Ophir Energy and Statoil. A key problem is that global production has been on the rise, with most projections estimating no less than 7.6% annual growth for the next decade. At the moment, Tanzania uses about 33bn cubic feet of natural gas per year to generate electricity for its national grid.

Earlier this year, Dubai-based Dodsal Group discovered 2.7trn cubic feet of natural gas in the Ruvu Basin, bringing total estimated reserves to more than 55trn cubic feet. Dodsal had invested $200m in exploration and plans to invest $300m more by the end of 2017. Ruvu is near the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, which allows for easier routes to market.

The picture emerging from the EAC’s oil and gas sector is one of shifting alliances. Rather than developing a cohesive regional strategy to export oil and gas for the benefit of all member states, Kenya and Uganda are pushing their own projects in an effort to advance their own agendas. “Petroleum development in East Africa will be driven by national not regional interests,” says Peter Bofin, an oil and gas analyst based in Dar es Salaam. “Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have been attracted to deal with Tanzania. This is not surprising, as it remains the region’s only producer. Ironically, this may in the long term strengthen regional cooperation if oil can cement shared interests.” ● Morris Kiruga in Nairobi

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focus | East african communit y

Bidco, which produces Elianto cooking oil, is one of Kenya’s fastest-growing companies

Mwangi/Bidco Africa Ltd

Strong companies in the sector include Kenyan dairy producer Brookside, which boasts a network of 200,000 small-scale producers who help it sustain an empire that brings in about €130m ($137.8m) per year in revenue.

But competitors in the dairy sector are emerging. “I am seeing insurgent brands like [Kenyan dairy producer] Bio carving out an interesting, more high-end niche,” says Satchu. weather and warehousing

Other key agribusiness companies include Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Limited (MeTL), which produces sisal, tea and cotton and is involved in food production and processing. Another big player is Kenyan company Bidco Africa, which produces edible oils, cooking fats, margarine and baking products.

“Bidco has the scale and geographical reach”, according to Satchu.

The agribusiness sector in the East African Community However, a number of factors are concerning for agribusiness compan(EAC) is growing by leaps and bounds, but northern ies in the region. Firstly, the El Niño neighbour Ethiopia is vying for investment weather pattern is threatening to hit agricultural production in Kenya and utside a busy milk cooperatthing is for sure: food demand is solid Uganda. But even more troubling for the region’s agribusiness companies is and growing,” says Nairobi-based anaive in Kitale, western Kenya, a lack of effective financing, poor warelyst Aly-Khan Satchu. “We continue to dairy farmer Barnabas Omae tells The Africa Report that East Africa’s see growing domestic demand, [alhousing infrastructure and intrusive milk business is booming. “We have though it is] off a low base.” state actors, Satchu says. milk brokers here from Bungoma or Companies producing tea, coffee, Agribusiness companies in the EAC are competing with Ethiopian firms for flowers, vegetables and dairy are playing Kakamega,” says Omae, 43, referring foreign investment to build to two large cities nearby. “But our an important role in East Agriculture dream is to sell to other EAC countries.”

Africa’s economy. Agritheir operations. Kenya’s as % of GDP With smoother transport links and less culture represents around horticulture industry has been losing out to Ethiopian 30% of the gross domestic barriers to trade, Omae’s dream may Burundi 35% companies. In 2014, foreign soon be a reality. product of each country Kenya’s agribusiness sector has atin the EAC. Kenya’s agriinvestors spent $1.2bn on horticultural operations in tracted more investment than any other culture sector contributed Rwanda 30% country in the region. “[Kenyan] comabout $17bn to the ecoEthiopia, compared with nomy in 2015; in Tanzania, panies are actually going upstream $945m in Kenya’s sector.

Kenya 27% Some foreign companies and vertically integrating a lot more, it added about $8bn, achad actually been discussincluding purchasing more from smallcording to EAC figures.

Tanzania 25% holders,” says Kartik Jayaram, a senior For about 80% of the ing the prospect of reloEast African population, partner at McKinsey & Company. cating their operations to Experts are bullish on the sector’s agricultural production Ethiopia, where the govUganda 25% ernment offers tax holidays performance in the coming years. is the main source of inand duty-free imports in a This is mainly because of the strong come, according to data from the EAC. These are mainly smalleconomic performance in the region, bid to attract more investment. But if which is expected to contribute to rising holder farmers who produce maize, Ethiopia suffers further unrest – like spending on food and drinks. Kenya’s rice, potatoes, bananas and cassava. the protests in August that targeted growing consumer class devoted an esSmall gains in productivity in the secforeign flower farms and other businesses – then Kenya and Tanzania will timated 40% of its household spending tor can mean big shifts in economic to food and drinks last year, according growth as more people are able to buy look more appealing to investors. ● to the McKinsey Global Institute. “One goods and services.

Mark Anderson in Kitale

Agribusiness Stacking profits

O

source: EAC

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Companies

Nairobi brings the noise

Kenyan corporates loom large in East Africa: brewers, bankers and mobile-phone operators are all growing their businesses across the region

B

usiness is booming in East Africa.

The region has an easy linguistic advantage, as both Swahili and English are understood in all six countries. It follows the precedent-based common law legal system, which is often preferred by businesses. And the East African Community (EAC) continues its drive to harmonise tariffs and lower trade barriers.

That has pulled larger Kenyan companies into East Africa’s private sector.

The country’s three largest companies had a combined turnover of $3.9bn in 2014 – nearly twice that of neighbouring Tanzania, which has the second-largest private sector in the region (see map).

Kenyan company Safaricom is the second-largest company in the region based on 2014 turnover gathered for our Top 500 Companies ranking (TAR 77, February 2016). The telecoms giant is counting on stronger growth in the coming years as it turns its focus to data services. Loss-making airline Kenya Airways – the region’s third-biggest company by turnover – is searching for a new chief executive to turn the company around. Frontrunner for the position is former Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph.

Top three companies per country, ranked by turnover

Total Kenya

Safaricom

$1,850m

$1,770m

Airtel Uganda

Umeme

$230

$352m

Kenya Airways

$1,190m

Uganda

MTN Uganda

$455m

Kenya Rwanda Burundi

Bralirwa

$0.11m

RwandAir

$0.05m MTN Rwanda

$0.05m

Brarudi

$0.04m

North Mara Gold

Tanzania

Regideso

$365m

$0.04m Socabu

$0.01m

Tanzania Breweries

tanzanian gains

Despite its slow switch to private enterprise, Tanzania is catching up fast. The private sector is still dominated by big conglomerates like Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Limited (MeTL), which is in the midst of a massive regional expansion campaign. It has targeted revenues of $5bn per year by 2023, mainly through new businesses within the EAC. At the other end of the scale, Rwanda and Burundi are fighting hard to get traction among their bigger peers. While Rwanda’s private sector has been spearheaded by Crystal Ventures, a conglomerate that has a stake in MTN Rwanda and has close ties to the regime, Burundi’s private sector remains fragmented. Its biggest company is Brarudi, a beer and soft drinks producer 40% owned by the government. Rwanda’s national carrier

sources: THe AFrIcA rePorT; ToP 500 coMPANIes (souTH sudAN NoT sHowN)

80

$601m

MeTL

$1,280m

RwandAir is building its customer base up from its current level of 600,000 to more than one million over the next five years. The airline said it will introduce its first European route, from Kigali to London Gatwick, next year.

East African companies remain desperate to gain a foothold in neighbouring Ethiopia, a market of 95 million people. While the Ethiopian government is notoriously unreceptive to foreign investors, a few companies are making

progress there. Kenyan banks, including Kenya Commercial Bank and Standard Bank, are poised to enter Ethiopia’s commercial banking sector after the country’s parliament relaxed restrictions on foreign lenders earlier this year.

In South Sudan, not shown on this map for lack of data, companies are wary of expansion because of a prolonged civil war that has brought the economy to the brink of collapse. ●

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business

In search of

etty

imag

es

growth

AKIN DO/G

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companies & markets

The commodity downturn has knocked the stuffing out of African treasuries and investors alike, but could this signal an opportunity to diversify? As long as governments work to remove structural obstacles there is huge productivity to be unleashed in sectors such as agribusiness, manufacturing and tech

By Nicholas Norbrook

T

he United States investor Carl Icahn left president-elect D onald Tr ump’s election-night party early to go invest $1bn. Icahn told reporters: “[Election] night was amazing. The world was going into a panic with no reason.”

Fortune favours the brave.

It is the age-old dilemma: when to call the bottom of the market. Get it right, as Icahn thinks he has, and you win big. Call it wrong, like the majority of investors during the 1929 Wall Street crash, and you can lose more than your shirt.

Investors looking at Africa are learning to differentiate. Unlike Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, who recently referred to Africa as a country, they are noticing the multitude of national, subnational and sectoral narratives. That means both the bright spots – where reformers are fixing market failure and administrat-

ive missteps – and likelihood of tougher moments ahead.

And it would be hard to deny times are difficult across Africa.

Huge investments in commodity projects came to fruition just as Chinese demand slackened.

The governments of resourceexporting countries across the continent – often the biggest spenders in their economies – have seen their income drastically reduced. Sadly, their bills still remain outstanding, pushing major economies like Angola and Nigeria perilously close to the edge.

That has not stopped institutional investors struggling to find yield after the expansionary policies of central banks worldwide. Money poured into Africa, with portfolio manager at Allan Gray, Nick Ndiritu, noting 17% returns for African sovereign bonds in 2016, with $32bn issued by 19 countries (excluding South Africa) – compared to just $3.5bn in 2005.

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Commodity prices certainly have yet to pick up – even if copper, tin and iron ore have surged recently. Consultancy Wood Mackenzie says capital investment in sub-Saharan African oil exploration has been cut by $100bn over the next five years, with Nigerian and Angolan offshore facing the worst of the cuts.

Experts say that the sector’s long-term prospects are still good. Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, writes: “We see a solid place for oil and gas in energy supply for many years to come […] and some recovery of fortunes by the next decade.” The 168trn cubic feet of gas found in East Africa in recent years should still present strong opportunities, both for export and for power generation. going the last mile

Beyond the immediate outlook, those who still see a large secular shift towards African investment over the next few decades remain galvanised. There are obvious demographic dividends and vast productivity increases yet to be realised on the continent.

Most of the rest of the world is already connected by roads, rail,

Côte d’Ivoire DRC Tanzania Rwanda Senegal Mozambique Ethiopia Kenya Malawi Uganda Ghana Mauritius Zambia Angola South Africa Nigeria

runs the 16,000km-long West Africa Cable System.

John Ashbourne of research company Capital Economics cautions: “Yes, the potential is there.

But all the structural obstacles are there too.” Slowly, these are being whittled away: from the railway which cuts the time of travel from 72 to 12 hours between Addis Ababa and Djibouti, to the new power plants and small roads springing up in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.

These projects should have a steadying effect on investment volatility. A Deloitte report shows the uptick, with continental construction projects rising year on year, jumping from $223bn in 2013 to $375bn in 2015. These include big-ticket items like the $22.8bn Durban Harbour project, the $13bn Kenya standard gauge railway, and the $4.7bn Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which will continue to involve large African companies in its roll-out, bolstering corporates like Dangote Cement and South Africa’s Group Five.

Beyond large infrastructure projects, however, the construction boom has yet to truly ignite.

While there was a great hope for a middle-class push into mortgaged-backed home construction, for example, this has yet to materialise, outside a few outliers like Morocco. Ghana’s grand home-building plans have fizzled, delivering only 1,500 homes despite demand nearing a million housing units.

GDP growth 2016 (predictions, %) 0

2

4

6

8

10

fibre-optic and power networks; African economies are not.

For example, not even 4% of arable land in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated. There are as many modern tractors in Thailand as there are in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, with most of those in South Africa.

And while dozens of undersea cables bringing high-speed web connectivity have arrived along the continent’s shores these past few years, there is still a huge distance to go with ‘last mile’ connectivity. “Today a connection from South Africa to London is cheaper than a connection from that same landing station on the South African coast to central Johannesburg,” says AntÓnio Nunes of Angola Cables, which

Companies to watch Ivanhoe Mines Demand for copper will skyrocket when production of electric cars takes off.

Ivanhoe has discovered what may be Africa’s biggest copper reserve in the DRC.

struggling consumers

Somaca

South Africa’s middle class appears to have tapped out its credit, and households are focusing on paying off bills rather than buying new homes. There are other priorities too: one in four children go to bed hungry, according to South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council. With South Africa’s credit rating hit by President Jacob Zuma’s wide-ranging governance issues, making ends meet will be a struggle for the average South African consumer.

Indeed, general levels of indebtedness – running the ● ● ●

This Moroccan company has won contracts with French carmaker Renault to assemble cars in two plants in the country.

Safaricom Kenya’s biggest telecoms company is planning to switch its focus to data services by launching more 4G sites and offering affordable smart devices.

Fan Milk Pumped with private-equity money after Abraaj took a shine, the dairy and juice company operating in seven West African countries has big expansion plans.

Kwesé TV Zimbabwean media magnate Strive Masiyiwa, who is the founder of Econet Wireless, launched this new sports-focused streaming service in August.

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business | companies & markets

● ● ● gamut from sovereigns through corporates to households – could well hit both the attractiveness of banks to foreign investors and consumer goods companies’ interest. While the over-jammed car park at Carrefour’s Abidjan supermarket may make it seem like the good times will last forever, others are struggling: Unilever Nigeria for example – a bellwether for the country’s consumer and manufacturing sectors – paid out a much smaller than usual total dividend payment to investors in 2015 and 2016. At N378m and N189m ($600,000), respectively, these payments were a far cry from 2014’s bumper N4.7bn dividend, recalling concerns by Nestlé Africa executives that growth projects focused on the middle class were off the mark.

It helps investors, too, if they do not buy at the top of the market, as newcomer banking chain Atlas Mara can testify. The group’s share price has tumbled 68% since it went public in December 2013 and embarked on an acquisitions spree. And banks are struggling with a little-known problem of their own: the increasing lack of correspondent banks – foreign banks that help complete payments for customers – due to new global regulations driven by the Basel III accords.

Kenya’s Brookside is lapping it up in the African milk race

SIMON MAINA/afp

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Agriculture Any udder business?

After grazing in the lush green hills of western Kenya, a herd of cattle makes its way to a shed at the back of Alice Kimetto’s property. Each cow will yield as much as 3kg of milk a day, netting the 35 year old and her family a total of KSh1,200 ($12) for the cows’ daily production at the local cooperative. These profits have helped the family pay for solar panels and a bicycle to help to bring their goods to market.

With an estimated 750 million people across the continent dependent on subsistence farming, improving agricultural production would immediately boost livelihoods and, in turn, economies. Africa is home to an estimated 70% of the world’s unused arable land, according to the think tank Gro Intelligence.

With the world’s population expected to surge to nine billion by the middle of the century, Africa has a clear opportunity.

Africa’s agriculture and agri-processing sector spent $584bn last year – on everything excluding salaries – which is more than any other industry, according to consultants McKinsey. “This is a hugely important sector for Africa overall,” Kartik Jayaram, a senior partner, tells The Africa Report. “There’s going to be a lot more investment in this sector.” McKinsey projects a $204bn rise in spending by agricultural companies over the next decade. Kenya, Ethiopia, Morocco, Nigeria and Ghana are pursuing strategies to increase agricultural production that could benefit local and foreign companies, according to Jayaram.

Kenya’s Brookside Dairy is one of the continent’s most successful homegrown agribusiness companies, earning an estimated $140m in revenue every year. “We have a lot of organic growth, and we also have a lot of growth by acquisition,” says Brookside’s CEO, Muhoho Kenyatta. “Per capita [dairy consumption] compared to other countries, there is still a lot of room for growth [in African countries],” he says.

But African companies will need to get their acts together if they are to compete with the foreign companies that are raising their profiles. French dairy giant Danone, which owns a 40% stake in Brookside, has poured €1bn ($1.1bn) into the continent’s agriculture sector in the past two years alone. The company earned €1.4bn in revenue from its operations on the continent last year. Danone’s managing director for Africa, Pierre-André Térisse, says Danone made €200m in revenue from South Africa, €200m from Kenya and €50m from Nigeria, where it has a smaller operation. The group is prioritising expansion in Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Kenya and Nigeria. “Not only is [Africa’s] dairy industry gaining traction, but there’s a need to structure supply from fresh milk to processed products such as [fermented milk] and [Indian clarified butter]” because of rising Mark Anderson in Sikhendu demand, Térisse tells The Africa Report. ● the africa report

crisis or opportunity?

Duarte Pedreira of Crown Agents Bank says the impact of such decisions will be big. African countries need “banks which can support their foreign exchange requirements, that can support risk intermediation, that can provide trade finance liquidity lines so that local banks can onward supply that support to their own clients,” he says.

But perhaps these days of sagging commodity prices are exactly the moment when Africa can reach beyond the traditional ‘BBC’ investment sectors of banks, breweries and construction, and finally seize the opportunity to diversify its economies.

Long proposed as a quick fix, the manufacturing sector ● ● ● •

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business | companies & markets

Manufacturing Building blocks South Africa remains the continental leader for manufacturers, thanks to its auto sector. It received a shot in the arm from the August announcement that China’s state-run Beijing Auto International Corporation will spend $759m on a plant in Port Elizabeth – the largest investment in the sector in decades. But while it has performed quite well during the past two years, according to John Ashbourne of Capital Economics, the wider manufacturing sector has not. This is despite a weak rand, which traditionally helps exporters. Ashbourne says: “Partly this is down to a lack of skills, but also because it is so expensive to move goods around inside South Africa.”

Other African countries are trying to crack the auto nut.

Chinese companies are assembling cars and trucks in Zambia. French car-maker Peugeot launched a new facility in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia in July and has a new factory in Morocco. Nigeria has several factories assembling car kits, too. The government is also attempting to revive the steel industry in a bid to manufacture cars from scratch – something that brings much greater cash into an economy.

But while some governments talk about nurturing new local industrial players, there is often an over-emphasis on getting foreign investors on board rather than building up local industrial capacity. “I think what has been very instrumental in China, for example, was this eagerness of dealing with the technological and innovation part, as much as the investment side of things,” says the outgoing head of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Carlos Lopes.

That is echoed by David Wolpert of the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters of South Africa, who told the country’s poultry processors in an open letter to stop whinging about cheap imports and “produce a workable and coherent business model, which N.N. would include an export drive”. ●

● ● ● continues to hold out the promise of employment and industrial development. But the reality on the ground, according to the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa (UNECA), is that manufacturing has stagnated at 11% of the continent’s economy on aggregate, and many countries – such as South Africa – are in fact de-industrialising.

agribusiness first

For US-based academic Vijay Mahajan, author of a recent book on the rise of an estimated three billion rural consumers in developing countries, African countries need to look to agribusiness first. “Finding com-

BMW is pumping another R6bn into its Rosslyn car plant

mercial off-takers for agricultural products is important and a quick way to transfer skills and technology,”, he says, citing an Indian company that uses Bollywood-style films to teach new techniques to farmers.

But the companies able to structure those kinds of opportunities are few. “In Africa we are nations of importers and traders, and we need to convert that into companies that create more employment,” says Kenyan entrepreneur Manu Chandaria.

“Today, for example, the banking sector is all geared towards helping the traders because it’s the fastest cycle, whereas if you are in industry and you borrow locally the africa report

you are looking at between 15% and 22% interest rates and one devaluation can wipe you out.”

That is not bluster. Nigeria, for example, is operating a foreignexchange policy that is hurting manufacturers. While the previous government may have been one of the most corrupt in recent history, it attempted to push through agro-processing incentives. President Muhammadu Buhari’s insistence on a strong naira has already claimed victims, including the Erisco tomato-paste plant that just opened in February 2016. In a letter published

by Nigerian newspapers, chief executive Eric Umeofia said the central bank had “refused ● ● ● •

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business | companies & markets

● ● ● to give us forex to import machineries, machine spare parts and raw materials to be used for processing of Nigerian fresh tomatoes into tomato paste in our Lagos factory”.

Kenya’s Chandaria suggests that a development bank could help insulate job-creating manufacturers, but that would certainly call for state-led financing. There remains a debate about whether Africa needs more or less government. Perhaps more important is whether a country can capture and harness investment both foreign and domestic. As China’s pragmatic former leader Deng Xiaoping said: “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice.”

Outgoing UNECA boss Carlos Lopes points to the integrated way in which Ethiopia’s various ministries work to deliver

link with the port at Djibouti.

The government is also buildng new hydroelectric dams to ive manufacturers cheap power.

And those new parks are now at apacity,” says Lopes, pointing o Asian investors queuing up to scape fast-rising wages at home.

15

Unemployment in Nigeria (%) 12.5

10

hands off tech

7.5

5 Q2 2015

Q3 2015

Q4 2015

Q1 2016

Big corporates certainly appreciate an effective state. Randgold Resources, one of Africa’s most successful gold companies, works in Mali and Côte d’Ivoire.

The contrast between the two is striking, remarks chief executive Mark Bristow. While in Mali the company often deals with a minister because of a lack of middle-tier administrative capacity, “in Côte d’Ivoire we rarely deal with the politicians. We see the civil servants, who are all high quality,” Bristow says.

Q2 2016

support to the textile industry – from the ministries of agriculture, industry and commerce up through the ministries of finance and infrastructure right through to the prime minister’s office. Ethiopia has delivered a set of industrial parks for new textiles manufacturers, placing them along the new railway to

Digital skills Coders to the rescue Digital skills training is no silver bullet for high levels of youth unemployment.

In Nigeria alone, according to former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, nearly two million young Nigerians start looking for jobs each year.

Nevertheless, Africa’s most developed markets – Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa – are creating 41,000 digital jobs annually according to research by the Rockefeller Foundation and Dalberg.

And with better skills, more jobs could be filled. According to software training company codeX, there are tens of thousands of unfilled software jobs in South Africa, while youth unemployment stagnates at around 53%. South Africa is an ideal location for business process outsourcing, which employs more than 210,000 people in the country, according to McKinsey.

Nurha Leite, 26, is one of codeX’s success stories. Having completed its programme between 2015 and 2016, Leite found employment as a junior software developer at South African

AEROSHuttER

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Modern cities like Accra, Ghana, will become digital hubs

financial services company DirectAxis.

“Without codeX, I would still be out there floating around looking for something worthwhile to do,” she says.

Other digital skills incubators have popped up. Nigeria’s Andela runs a four-year training programme that places students with companies during

the course. In Kenya, Moringa School has a 95% placement rate for its graduating software developers.

In a bid to capitalise on this potential, governments are starting to prioritise digital education. Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa have all introduced initiatives to provide primary schools

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For Nigeria’s trade minister, Okechukwu Enelamah, there are sectors where government should hold back. For example, the digital economy, which now represents 10% of gross domestic product, and has flourishing clusters like Yaba. “When it comes to broad-based infrastructure, we should help them all we can, but when it comes to innovation, with their nimbleness, certainly government should stick to its role as catalyst and not get involved,” Enelamah says.

A middle way is no doubt the solution. South Africa is putting together what finance minister Pravin Gordhan calls a “brains trust of the private sector and public sector” to get funding into small companies. These can then be part of the supply chains of larger companies, as well as training young people in practical skills. ●

with tablets to encourage engagement with digital tools from a young age.

Egypt’s government is targeting higher education through an initiative that aims to train university graduates in digital skills ranging from software engineering, mobile app development and cyber security to digital marketing and even artificial intelligence. “The end goal of the NTL initiative […] is to maintain the country’s edge, namely the abundant talent pool, to meet demand, whether locally, regionally or even internationally,” says Asmaa Hosni, head of Egypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency. “It’s all about reducing the skills deficit against the high demand for digital skills, and the deficit isn’t only in the emerging markets,” Hosni says.

However, on the issue of attracting investment and job creation, a former permanent secretary of Kenya’s ministry of information and communication, Bitange Ndemo, says African governments are not doing enough.

“With Africa’s youthful population and a good education, Africa can become a digital-skills exporter and play a leading role in the global arena,” he explains.

“The problem is that African countries do not market themselves […]. When we did this, we had a wonderful reception, and we got IBM and Philips to set up their labs here in Kenya.” ● Gabriella Mulligan the africa report

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profile

Akinwumi Adesina President, African Development Bank

Africa isn’t suddenly falling apart

Stiff international headwinds are no cause for panic, says Adesina, who believes most African economies will return to robust growth next year and plans a more activist role for the Bank

I

nequality is up, and internationalism is down. The world’s richest economies, at best, are moving sideways. Rising populism and nationalism in Western countries presages a wave of political discord and protectionism. Some developing countries see those waves lapping at their shores.

Last year’s cheerleaders are changing their tune. Low commodity prices, policy uncertainties and weak investor confidence are hitting production and jobs. So what does this mean after a decade of economic progress in Africa?

Faced with this grimrecitation of falling economic indices, African Development Bank (AfDB) president Akinwumi Adesina puts his instinctive geniality on pause, then assumes a determined gaze: “It’s not as if Africa is suddenly falling apart. Our projections this year show that 21 countries are still growing at above 5%, and 19 countries are growing at 3%-5%.”

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It is lucky that Adesina is generally the sunny, optimistic type.

Dapper – sporting his trademark bow tie – and flashing a ready grin towards the sceptics, Adesina has taken on the job of revivalist preacher for Africa’s economies, trying to persuade the dour beancounters that the numbers are on his continent’s side.

Adesina was elected AfDB president some 18 months ago, just at the end of the continent’s bull run. African states had enjoyed a decade of growth averaging more than 5% a year, buoyed by far better economicmanagement,lowglobal interest rates and a commodity boom fuelled by Chinese demand.

DEMOGRAPHICS

That was then. Today, the talk is of stalled growth. Many developing countries are struggling with rising debt and fiscal constraints that are cutting investment in power, roads and ports just as their populations and the need for jobs are grow-

ing faster than ever. Yet Adesina is sure that Africa’s demographics will help. By 2050, he says, Africa will have the combined population of China and India today. Its middle class will have tripled to more than a billion people, unleashing a spending boom and a market that the world cannot ignore. Quoting the latest report from the McKinsey consultants, Adesina says consumer spending could hit $2.1bn by 2025.

It does not take much to switch Adesina into upbeat mode as he reels out statistics debunking the claim that the ‘Africa rising’ phenomenon is over. The AfDB reckons most African economies will return to robust growth next year, with East Africa growing at around 6.5% and the rest of the continent seeing average growth levels of at least 3.5% for the year.

That is better than other regions of the world, points out Adesina: “The global economy itself has slowed down to 3.2%. [… There

optimist in charge 6 February 1960 Born in Nigeria 1988 PhD in agricultural economics from Purdue University, US 1999 Rockefeller Foundation’s representative for Southern Africa 2011 Appointed as agriculture minister, Nigeria 1 September 2015 President of the AfDB

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“Labour costs are changing rapidly in China […]. [Companies] are looking at Africa” everything to be self sufficient in everything,” says Adesina. “Today, you have global value chains and changing landscapes in terms of procurement systems. Labour costs are changing rapidly in China and in parts of the world like Bangladesh, where textile and garments have been the big thing.”

Now, international companies areseekingnewterritories,saysAdesina.“TheyarelookingatAfrica:at Morocco,Egypt,Ethiopiaandsoon.

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textile factories

As long as protectionism does not spin out of control, Africa should benefit from trends in the international division of labour. “In the 1960s, just after independence, everybody was trying to do

More than just tracking

Most countries taking on new loans, Adesina insists, have shown far greater prudence than in the past, making sure that what has been borrowed is at affordable rates. And most of the loans have been used for power projects and roads rather than just plugging a hole in state finances.

Investment trends support the view that most of the money is being put to productive use, says Adesina.Africaremainstheworld’s second-fastest-growing destination for foreign direct investment: this year new investment is forecast to reach $55bn-$60bn. Of the more than $70bn invested in Africa in 2015, more than half went into power and transport projects. Just less than$20bn wentintofoodprocessing and light manufacturing.

There are caveats, however, partly due to how some governments are using borrowed funds but also some concerns about market conditions. “I would be worried about taking the wrong kind of debt, taking very expensive debt to fund consumption.

There’s nothing wrong in taking debt if you invest it in your critical sectors. But you can’t be taking debt to pay salaries. That wouldn’t make sense, right?”

Adesina sounds alarm bells about the risks of countries going to the eurobond market, particularly if interest rates start rising and currencies fall against the US dollar. With the advent of Trumponomics in the United States, such contingencies are morphing

Winning fleet management solutions

sensible borrowing

into certainties. President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly argued on the campaign trail that US interest rates were too low and that he would pressure Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve, to raise them. That prospect has already made countries such as Kenya and Nigeria reconsider their borrowing plans.

It will also give a fillip to advocates of economic diversification, especially the growing numbers pressing governments to get serious about industrial policy.

On this, Adesina says the AfDB wants to help countries develop industrial zones such as Ethiopia’s Hawassa industrial park, where 22 companieshaveinvested.Hawassa alone could generate some $1bn of production each year.

The bank will also be collaborating with the United Nations on sharpening policy and strategy.

But most importantly it is taking a different tack on finance. “We’re not just going to be picking single transactions, as we’ve been doing before […]. We’re going to be providing financing up and down the value chain,” explains Adesina.

Global leader, local partner

is] slowing growth in China. You have slower growth and recovery in Europe. These are challenges not just for Africa.”

Somehow, Adesina sounds less convincing when he applies the ‘don’t panic’ rule to Africa’s growing indebtedness: “I don’t think we have a debt crisis in Africa at all. You take a look at the ratio of external debt to gross domestic product today and Africa is [an average of ] 21%.” He is far too diplomatic to mention that countries such as Ghana and Zambia have racked up debt that is almost four times that level.

business | companies & markets

● ● ● ities for Africa to participate competitively in these global value chains.” To spur this on, the AfDB is spearheading the development of a High Industrial Readiness Index to point to “the countries in which there is the optimal mix of infrastructure, power, roads, rail and so on that will make it easier to shift your stuff to the market.”

This more activist role for the AfDB in trying to drive industrial development raises bigger questionsaboutthepointofmultilateral development banks some five decades after they started their mis-

support green growth and driving down inequalities and also poverty in many countries.”

The market failures that prompted the launching of multilateral development banks are still there, according to Adesina, albeit in a different guise. “We’re not commercial banks. Our role is to be able to mobilise financing and direct it towards developmental objectives.” He believes that backing enterprises that create jobs will keep the bank in business for some decades yet: “[In] Africa you have 480 million youth today, and that’s going to grow to 850 million youth by 2050; […] 10-13 million of those enter the labour market every year. Only three million of them get wage employment.”

sion. Financial heft and technical knowledge is no longer the banks’ exclusive preserve: most developing economies rely primarily on domestic resources, most countries can go to the international markets when necessary and the multilateral banks no longer have a monopoly on advisory services.

Adesina remains a believer in the banks’ mission: “I think the multilateral banks are even more relevant today than they were before. We’re talking about the Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved, about the need to

importS to exportS

A MUAC tape is a quick, cheap way to chart malnutrition

Such numbers are daunting. The day after The Africa Report met Adesina, he was flying to South Korea. That country’s transformation over the past 50 years, he argues,should bebothaninspiration and a practical policy guide for Africa’s economies. It will also be a source of investment for Adesina’s agro-industrial and staple-cropprocessing zones across Africa.

Adesina’s goal is clear and ambitious. Africa’s own food production must replace the $35bn that the continent spends on buying rice, wheat and meat from other regions. He says the continent should use its vast expanse of uncultivated land to become the world’s leading food exporter.

What is the chance of that happening? That is the question they asked of South Korea in 1967, when its per capita gross domestic product (GDP) was less than $150 – lower than many African states, replies Adesina. Today, its GDP is $1.4trn and it’s the sixth-biggest economy in the world.

As populism and protectionism gather momentum elsewhere, it is not hard to see why Adesina has taken to enunciating the principles of Saemaul Undong which underpinnedSouthKorea’sdevelopment campaign: diligence, self-help and cooperation. ●

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The stunting scandal The appalling reality that a quarter of children in the world are physically and mentally stunted mainly due to chronic malnutrition has prompted Akinwumi Adesina and the African Development Bank to join forces with World Bank president Jim Yong Kim to fight the scourge. Both Adesina and Jim want to find ways to pressure governments. “We’re going to the African Union [summit] in January, where we are going to develop an African Nutrition Accountability Index which will begin to assess what countries are doing with regard to malnutrition and stunting.”

Adesina is also backing a campaign with top business people such as Aliko Dangote and other figures such as former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan and former president of Ghana John Kufuor to raise funds and awareness.

“Today, you have roughly 54 million kids in Africa that are stunted. You’ve got another 14 million kids that are just wasting away in terms of body mass,” says Adesina.

The World Bank’s Jim says he will use meetings such as the World Economic Forum in Davos to point out those governments that are failing to tackle the nutrition crisis.

Adesina and Jim aim to halve the rate of stunting within seven years and end it absolutely by 2030. Stunting affects around 160 million children under five. A lack of nutrition and the recurrent infections that cause stunting hold back mental development; the affected children are well below average height and weight for their age.

The worst-hit regions are South Asia and Africa. Some 43% of children in the Democratic Republic of Congo are stunted, their lives blighted by perennial economic crises and periodic conflicts. In Pakistan, the figure is even worse, at 45%. And in India, despite its fast-growing economy, more than 38% of children are stunted. ● P.S. the africa report

Interview by Nicholas Norbrook and Patrick Smith

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Innovation

Hacking Africa’s infrastructure

African countries are adopting innovative technologies and solutions from around the world to address the bottlenecks holding back the continent

Transport Aerial transit

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riginally developed for mining, cable cars became synonymous with snowcovered ski slopes and lofty tourist attractions in the 20th century. Increasingly, however, this century-old technology is being deployed as a low-impact, economical public transport option, especially in congested developing-world cities. Urban planners were sceptical at first, says Ekkehard Assmann, head of marketing at Doppelmayr, one of the largest cable-car manufacturers, but they are quickly adopting the idea. Cable-car lines now operate in cities including La Paz (Bolivia), Medellín (Colombia), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Tlemcem, Constantine and Algiers (Algeria).

The advantage of cable cars over more conventional modes of transport are numerous: they have a low footprint – both physical and in terms of carbon dioxide emissions; unlike bridges and tunnels, they make light work of natural obstacles such as rivers and mountains; they are quick to build, at about 24 months for a line; they have an impeccable safety record; and they compare favourably in terms of capital expenditure and operational costs.

One concern is that cable cars usually run off electricity, a potential issue in energy-deficient African cities. Diesel is an option however, as is, potentially, renewable energy. Doppelmayr recently completed a line equipped with photovoltaic panels in Austria that can generate 40% of its energy use in winter. “We know the technology. We have proved that it works,” says Assmann. “But there are quite a lot of variables [from one project to the next]”.

More cable systems are in the works: a second phase is now underway in La Paz, while the $275m Lagos Ropeways, which will connect the Nigerian city’s mainland with Lagos Island and Victoria Island, has suffered delays.

Doppelmayr is prospecting further on the continent but won’t say where for now.

However, Assmann confirms that “there is a growing understanding of the potential of cable cars in Africa”. ● Emilie Filou

gonz ferolino photography 2012

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The Constantine Aerial Tramway links east and west in the Algerian city that was built on a gorge the africa report

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business

Villagers far from the grid are electrified thanks to M-Kopa

Power Off-grid energy

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hen, in 2010, Kenya-based M-Kopa Solar launched its off-grid solar energy systems – consisting of solar panels, an 8W battery, three lights, mobile-phone chargers and a solar-powered radio – the biggest challenge it faced was doubt that people would keep up their payments for the service. “We are basically giving people solar power systems on credit,” says co-founder and chief executive Jesse Moore. “But what we have

proved 400,000 times over is that they will [pay],” he says. M-Kopa’s collection rate is 90-95%, which puts it on a par with top-tier microfinance institutions.

Nearly half a million homes in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ghana are now equipped with M-Kopa systems. Customers pay a $30-35 deposit upfront followed by 365 daily payments of $0.50.

After the initial year, based on their credit history, customers have the opportunity to get further financing for

services such as a solar-powered TV, more lighting, energy-efficient cooking stoves or smartphones. The company has even provided 150,000 credit ratings to credit reference bureaux, 96% of which were positive. “We’ve gone from a concept of energy-lending to low-income people to a point where banks are willing to lend against this account,” says Moore.

The revolution therefore is as much financial as it is energy-related. But M-Kopa’s long-term legacy will be in how it is facilitating access to energy.

“There will be swathes of homes that will decide not to go onto the grid because wireless energy is cheaper and more reliable,” says Moore. “And I say this with full respect for what the grid does. But it’s going to be decades to get reliable power into cities and industry through the grid. In the meantime, people in villages can get TVs, tablets and light.”

M-Kopa plans to continue to extend its operations in East Africa. It is also going to grow the range of solar-powered appliances it offers. Next in its sights is a solar-powered refrigerator. ● E.F.

Sanitation Non-sewer solutions

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In Kenya, Kasarani Academy built tiny toilets exclusively for child use

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n the developing world, the vast majority of people rely on non-sewer sanitation, including septic tanks and cesspits. This has been almost completely overlooked by sanitation experts, who see sewerage as the gold standard.

Faced with this reality, the authorities in Dakar, Senegal, decided to tackle non-sewer sanitation in 2012. With the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, they set about restructuring the sector in the low-income districts of Pikine and Guédiawaye, where 96% of the population uses non-sewer sanitation.

The goals of the project were to encourage a greater uptake of mechanical emptying – instead of the illegal and dangerous manual service – by lowering costs and improving standards. All truck operators are registered and given access to a fund from which they can borrow to upgrade their equipment. The register also became the basis of a new call centre that handles requests for emptying. The government also granted a private operator a seven-year concession to treat faecal sludge, which cannot be treated in standard wastewater treatment plants.

The new arrangement has been so successful that the Gates Foundation and the African Water Association (AfWA)decided that the Dakar model could inspire other African cities to address non-sewer sanitation. Under the RASOP programme of peer-to-peer learning partnerships, representatives from

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Bamako, Yamoussoukro and Yaoundé are receiving mentoring from the Office National de l’Assainissement, Dakar’s wastewater utility. The programme’s objective is to have at least three bankable non-sewer sanitation projects in each city and at least one with confirmed donor funding.

Mbaye Mbéguéré, RASOP coordinator at the AfWA, says that raising awareness of non-sewer sanitation amongst donors is an achievement in its own right. “Ten years ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone interested,” he says.

Now the African Development Bank, the World Bank and the Agence Française de Développement are all actively developing non-sewer sanitation portfolios. “We still can’t expect the same level of support as [sewers], but we’re making the case every day,” Mbéguéré concludes. ● E.F.

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business | companies & markets

Gold-processing in Zamfara State, in Nigeria’s north

Nigeria

Mining for diversity

Nigeria’s new minerals tsar is trying to broaden the economy by attracting investment in the country’s once strong mining sector

I

n the face of mounting pressure to add new revenue streams that can generate foreign currency, thegovernmentisnowaggressively promoting the minerals sector.

The Nigerian government is getting serious about diversifying its economy away from oil, as plummeting crude prices and attacks by militants on pipelines in the Niger Delta have highlighted the country’s unhealthy dependency. The oil and gas sector is projected to contribute 32.4% to Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) this year – far more than any other industry.

In2015, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Kayode Fayemi – who played an instrumental role in his successful campaign last year – as the country’s minister of mines and steel development.

Fayemi is looking for $5bn over the next decade to get the mining

sector off the ground. He wants to see more production of iron ore, lead, zinc, bitumen, nickel, coal and gold within five years in an effort to reach the government’s lofty goal of boosting the mining sector’s contribution to GDP to 10% within a decade.

contributed 4% to the country’s GDP. That has fallen considerably over the past five decades.

Minerals accounted for just 0.1% of the country’s GDP last year, earning $1.4bn, mainly through artisanal mining. Although Fayemi expects mineral exports to make up at least 1% of Nigeria’s GDP in 2017, this might be optimistic.

AdewaleAjayi,ananalystatKPMG, tells The Africa Report the sector will take much longer to take off.

“I don’t think 2017 will be much different from what we have seen in 2016,” he says.

Previous attempts to improve the performance of the sector have failedbecausegovernmentpolicies have changed rapidly, which has deterred investment. Analysts say the Buhari government’s attempt to strengthen the policy framework is an important step ● ● ●

decades of neglect

But the industry will take longer than that to get going. “The reality is that you cannot neglect the sector for 40 years and want to automatically overhaul [the system] and see the results in a few months, eveninthefour-yearelectoralcycle of government,” Fayemi tells The Africa Report in his Abuja office, where files and newspapers cover the table and a huge TV screen dominates one wall.

Thetaskathandishuge.Atindependence in 1960, mineral exports

Nigeria has

600 m tonnes

of coal reserves

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Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters

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Plot 1415 Adetokunbo Ademola Street, PMB 12724 Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria, Tel: +23412772700-5 (ext,6124) +23414606100 -29 Fax +234 1 2704071 sales@ekohotels.com, reservation@ekohotels.com banquet@ekohotels, www.ekohotels.com

100 business | companies & markets

exploration licences

The production of key minerals such as gold and iron ore are being prioritised. The Dangote Group, one of the country’s biggest conglomerates, bought a licence to explore for gold last year after concentrating on limestone production for its cement plants for three decades. Six foreign firms also received gold exploration licences last year.

Major foreign mining companies have been hesitant to get involved in the sector. This is largely because of a severe lack of infrastructure, which makes running mining operations and transporting minerals difficult. “The

has exploration licences in Enugu and Kogi states, and is exploring for iron ore, gold and coal.

Another active producer is Multiverse Mining and Exploration, which is the only local mining company listed on the Lagos bourse. It operates granite mines in Ogun State and the Federal Capital Territory and is exploring in Niger State. use it or lose it

Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters

● ● ● forward. Pabina Yinkere, head of research at Lagos-based Vetiva Capital Management, explains: “[Fayemi] has so far shown a great deal of focus to get the sector going by trying to formulate policies that will define the operating environment.”

Certainly, the country does not lack mineral deposits. According to Nigeria’s Investment Promotion Commissionthecountry’sreserves include 42bn tonnes of bitumen, 10m tonnes of lead and zinc, 7.5m tonnes of barite, 600m tonnes of coal, 568m tonnes of limestone and 1bn tonnes of gypsum.

Fayemi’s plan includes a focus on local demand. Nigeria must reduce its imports of steel products if the mining sector is to get off the ground, he says. The country could be producing steel instead of importing 6.8m tonnes every year. Fayemi aims to attract $2bn to revive a steel plant in Ajaokuta, which could produce up to 5m tonnes a year.

“Our approach is to give it to those who can fund it, make money from it and pay us our own profits,” Fayemi says. “We are going to put it out in an open bid […] and a lot of people have expressed interest in that.” Among the companies that are interested in the project are Russia-based Technopromexport and Chinese miner Ansteel Group. However, in a period of low iron ore prices, several West African iron ore projects have recently been frozen.

biggest challenge [to Nigeria’s mining industry] is that there is no infrastructure to support the sector,” says KPMG’s Ajayi. “That’s why the foreign multinationals aren’t coming in. There are no trains, so how do you want to transport cargo?”

Also of concern to companies is Nigeria’s uncertain regulatory environment. In an effort to address these concerns, Fayemi has proposed the formation of an independent body to regulate the sector. He also says the government will allow foreign firms to own 100% of their mining projects.

In the absence of foreign miners, local companies are picking up the slack. Eta-Zuma, a group of eight companies, is one of the few groups that are producing minerals in Nigeria.

“We already have a coal mine in Kogi State and we supply over 3,000tn per month to the Dangote Group,” Joseph Ayalogu, a spokesman for the company, tells The Africa Report. “This is just the beginning,” he says. Eta-Zuma

Mines minister Kayode Fayemi is setting up a $95m development fund for the minerals sector

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Over the years, many of the active foreign and local players have quietly exited the scene due to unfavourable business conditions, leaving room for artisanal mining toflourish.UnderformerPresident Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, the Nigerian Mining Cadastre Office(NMCO)andminesministry threatenedtorevokedormantmining licences, a warning that Fayemi has also sounded.

Some of the companies active in the sector include Australianowned KCM Mining, which is currently exploring for iron ore in Kogi State, and local company Segilola Nigeria, which is prospecting for gold in Osun State. Other active companies include West African Polaris Investment, Northern Numero Resources and Tongyi Allied and Mineral Services.

What the sector needs is more political will and greater help attracting investment, says EtaZuma’s Ayalogu. “The sector will come alive. There is likely to be a boomanda lotmore peoplewillbe encouraged to enter the industry.”

Bamidele Osanyin, general manager of Multiverse, says a lack of long-term funding together with exchange-rate volatility are crippling his company’s operations. “Banks have access mostly to short-term funding, and that’s a problem for us. That long-term funding is not available. Merchant banks [used to] have those facilities, and so they could offer that.”

In the absence of local funding, Multiverse is turning to foreign investors. “We’re looking for foreign partners to come in,” Osanyin says. “We’ve done some aerial surveys and reports with the Chinese before the elections last year, but the exchange ● ● ●

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endless possibility

While Nigeria’s mining companies are excited by the prospect of more funding, $95m remains a small sum. That is not dampening local enthusiasm, however. “If we can access that fund, there’s endless possibility in the sector,” says Multiverse’s Osanyin.

KPMG’s Ajayi says the intervention fund will take up to five years to impact the sector.

Nigeria’s lack of transport and power infrastructure poses major problems for the sector,

Estimate of mining sector’s contribution to GDP (2015-2025, US$ billions) Indirect impact Direct GDP

20

10

0

11

2015

12

2016

13

2017

14

2018

which requires a steady electricity supply and smooth rail and road networks. Although the government has unveiled its ambitious National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan, which seeks to attract investment of $10bn this year in key infrastructure, this will take many years to bear fruit.

Nigeria’s rail infrastructure is mostly obsolete, with some of the tracks dating as far back as 1914 or earlier. As a result, companies have to spend extra on logistics and security personnel to accompany shipments for fear of theft or diversions by hoodlums.

Overhead costs on diesel generators have also skyrocketed after attacks on oil installations by mil-

15

2019

17

23

20

19

25

27

Total represents 3% of 2025 GDP

2020

2021

Transport and power infrastructure urgently need to be improved to attract investors in the mining sector

2022

2023

2024

source: ministry of mines, nigeria

30

2025

itants in the Niger Delta this year.

The 3,050MW Mambilla hydropower project in Taraba State will improve Nigeria’s energy capacity as will the 700MW Zungeru Dam in Niger State. To complement these, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has this year awarded licences to several operators to build independent power projects. Coal production is also being targeted by the government.

Major deposits in Enugu, a former mining hub, could be developed, and Fayemi has set a target for producing 1,000MW from coalfired plants by 2020. ● Eromo Egbejule in Abuja Additional reporting by Mark Anderson

Mohammed Elshamy/Anadolu Agency/AFP

rate volatility and uncertainty about the naira has made them not return yet.”

Fayemi is trying to stimulate the sector with the help of a $95m development fund. “We’re setting up an investment fund, working with development finance institutions like the Bank of Industry, NEXIM Bank and even the Central Bank of Nigeria’s new development bank that’s coming on stream,” says Fayemi. “We’re also looking at extending this to the stock exchange to actually develop corporate mining bonds so that we can partner with the private sector to raise funds,” he adds. ●●●

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LETTER

GABON HORIZON 2025

Infrastructure projects boost growth  Interconnect economic centres  Electricity to support development

© D. IGNASZEWSKI

 Double investments by 2020

With the aim of opening up landlocked regions, building links with neighbouring countries, improving airport and maritime logistics, promoting industrialisation and installing digital broadband throughout the country, the infrastructure projects completed and underway participate in the growth of non-oil activities, which have increased by 8.7% per year on average. The foundations of an emerging and competitive Gabon are being put into place. ■

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Libbrevv ille

POPULATION:

1.69

million people

AREA:

267,667

km2

GDP:

$18.18

billion (2014)

DATA: IMF AND GABON

In six years, Gabon’s public investment has exceeded the cumulative investments of the past thirty years by $1.5 billion. As these investments are the drivers of this phase of the country’s economic development – which began in 2009 and is one of the busiest in its history – they affect all areas of the modern economy.

GABON

LETTER

HORIZON 2025

Roads, ports and airports, hydroelectric dams, energy corridors, telecommunications networks, housing, hospitals and schools – there is a huge surge in the building of infrastructure. Here’s just one indicator to back this up: the building sector grew by 25.4% between 2009 and 2014. After deep restructuring, the building materials industry is contributing to this progress. By the end of this year, cement production will have tripled since © D. MINKOH

the launch of the Strategic Plan for an Emerging Gabon (PSGE) in 2009 while steel production will have gone from 0 to 20,000 tonnes per month.

Transport: linking up the entire country by 2020

Yes we CAN 2017!

Gabon has been chosen by the African football authorities to host the 31st Africa Cup of Nations in 2017 (CAN 2017). The country previously co-hosted this football tournament with Equatorial Guinea in 2012. The quality of infrastructure built for that year’s tournament certainly played in Gabon’s favour in terms of being selected.

These facilities include the Angondjé Stadium (40,000 seats), also called the Sino-Gabon Friendship Stadium, located in a suburb of Libreville, and the Franceville Stadium (22,000 seats). The tournament is sure to be even more impressive next year.

Hundreds of workers are already hard at work on the site of the Omar Bongo Multisport Stadium in Libreville, where the capacity is being increased from 20,000 to 46,000 seats. Matches will also be played in Port-Gentil and Oyem (north-central part of the country), and both cities will be equipped with a 20,000-seat stadium.

G

abon's ambition is to connect all towns and villages to each other and interconnect the economic centres via large corridors. The tarred road network increased from 900 km to 1,432 km between 2009 and 2015 (+60%). New sections were completed in the provinces of Ngounié, Ogooué Lolo, Woleu-Ntem, Ogooué Ivindo, Haut Ogooué, Moyen Ogooué and Estuaire.

All these achievements enable previously isolated regions to exploit their industrial, agricultural, mining and tourism potential.

One of the more spectacular achievements is the construction of the road from Port-Gentil to Omboué, 93 km further south. Crossing several marshland areas, it will include three bridges, two of which will be nearly 5 km long and the third, the Ozouri Bridge on the Ogooué River, will be the third longest cable-stayed bridge on the continent when it comes into service.

Ports and airports complete the network © D. IGNASZEWSKI

At the beginning of this year, Gabon signed a funding agreement with the Development

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Bank of Central African States (BDEAC) to finance the construction of an ore port in Owendo, on the outskirts of Libreville. Built in partnership with Singaporean company Olam, the project includes the building of a rail-sea multimodal platform to facilitate mining industry exports. As Libreville’s sea port, Owendo already handles most of the country’s manganese exports. In 2014 alone, loading and unloading productivity increased by 75% through the acquisition of new mobile cranes and construction of new hangars.

Further south, in June, President Ali Bongo Ondimba officially opened the new international airport in Port-Gentil, which is named after him.The work, costing 73.7 billion CFA francs, was funded by oil revenues through a partnership with Total Gabon. With an annual capacity of a million passengers, it allows international travellers to land directly in Gabon's economic capital without having to go via Libreville as was the case before.

As a result of this transport network development and vitality of the economy, transport services of all modes (air, sea,

GABON

LETTER

HORIZON 2025

will take pride of place in the heart of a 130 million consumer market in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), which groups 10 countries and stretches from Angola to Chad. ■

land) have increased by 120% in five years, creating nearly 5,200 jobs. By 2020, there will be 2,154 km of tarred roads in service across the entire country. Linked more effectively to its neighbours, Gabon

Doubling electricity production

E

ssential to the country’s industrial development, electricity production capacity has risen sharply since 2009 to reach 663 megawatts (MW). It will have almost doubled by 2020 (1,138 MW). The most symbolic project is undoubtedly the Grand Poubara hydro-electric dam in the south-east of the country, which supplies the Moanda metallurgical complex, which came into service in June 2015.

Located on the site of a world-class manganese deposit, it has two plants that process 85,000 tonnes of ore per year. After the opening of its second phase, Grand Poubara will reach 280 MW and will ensure the industrial development of the entire Haut-Ogooué region, of which Franceville is the administrative capital.

100 million m3 of drinking water a year The development of electricity generation,which grew by 31% between 2009 and 2014, and the extension of the distribution network also had a social impact: the number of electricity customers increased by 30% over the period, to reach 280,639 units. The trend is similar in water access and supply; drinking water production increased by 22% and the number of customers grew by 26%, to reach 164,567.

The strengthening of water production, distribution and storage capacity has particularly concerned Estuaire province and the capital, Libreville, with the construction of a water tower and reservoirs with a total storage capacity of 20,000 m3. Overall, the country’s drinking water production capacity increased from 81 to 99 million cubic metres per year (+22%) between 2009 and 2014. ■

Another one, at FE2 Falls on the Okano river (42 MW), is run-of-river and will serve the communities of Woleu-Ntem Province.

As hydroelectric production increases, the country will shut down thermal power plants, gradually increasing the ratio of renewable energies in its energy mix.

Since the African Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable reached its coast in 2011, Gabon has been acquiring world-class digital infrastructure to become a regional hub in information and communication technologies (ICT). The national broadband infrastructure is being implemented and already reaches 60% of the population (forecast at 77% by the end of the current year). In 2014, ICT directly or indirectly employed more than 12,000 people for a turnover of 293 billion CFA francs. Gabon is one of the African ICT champions, with an Internet penetration rate of 72.56% (ARCEP data March 2016) and a mobile phone penetration rate of 188.31%!

77

%

of Gabonese will have high speed internet access by the end of 2016

© D. IGNASZEWSKI

One of the other hydroelectric power stations under construction is the Empress Eugenie Falls Hydroelectric Power Plant (84 MW), on the Ngounié River, which has to supply towns and industrial zones located on the Fougamou-Lambaréné-Libreville route.

African digital champion

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GABON

LETTER

HORIZON 2025

Mobilise $750 million per year by 2020

Health and education: investing in human capital

© D. IGNASZEWSKI

Education and health systems also benefit from the infrastructure investment

Developed in partnership with Singaporean multinational Olam, this industrial park has already drawn 80 companies in five years, including a cement plant and several wood processing plants. It brought about more than $500 million in investment and represents a potential of 7,500 jobs. Along with the Moanda Metallurgical Complex, the Nkok ZERP is one of the achievements that have resulted in a rise in the industrial sector share of Gabon’s GDP from 9% to 16% over the past five years. ■

programme. Nearly 900 classrooms were built or rehabilitated between 2009 and 2015 in primary and high schools and two 1,200-capacity university amphitheatres built. With the recruitment of 6,000 teachers

and the improvement of the scholarship system, these construction works have already improved the learning conditions of 34,000 pupils.

In addition, many Schools of Excellence (vocational training schools) have been built, such as the Port-Gentil Oil and Gas Institute, the Booué School of Crafts, the Libreville Military School of Medicine, the Central Africa Campus which focuses on electricity and water professions and the Moanda School of Mining and Metallurgy.

45

%

of the 8 trillion CFA francs invested since 2009 comes from private sources

At the same time, more than 1,000 additional beds have improved hospital care. The University Hospital (CHU) in Angondjé, near Libreville, has been renovated and equipped with state-of-theart facilities. Its capacity has almost tripled (696 beds).

The Jeanne Ebori Mother and Child Care CHU, undergoing renovation, will resume service at the end of 2016 and the new CHU of Owendo, specialising in orthopaedic and trauma surgery, was officially opened in July this year.

www.gaboninvest.org ADVERTORIAL l IV

PHOTOS - DIFCOM: UNLESS OTHERWISE MENTIONED.

Among the PPPs that can be cited as a model example is the creation of the Nkok SEZ called the Preferred Regime Economic Zone (ZERP), not far from Libreville.

© D. MINKOH

B

etween 2009 and 2015, the government of Gabon invested a little over 220 billion CFA francs ($370 million) each year in new infrastructure.

Over the next five years, Libreville intends to mobilise nearly 500 billion CFA francs per year in order to shift into a higher gear.

For this, the government will prioritise the projects it must support and make greater use of private investment within the framework of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). The landscape is unquestionably favourable as the country’s new economic dynamics have made it the preferred destination for private investment in Africa: between 2009 and 2014, a total of 8,000 billion CFA francs were invested in the country (excluding oil), of which 45% was private.

Art & life

A guide to

2017

By Oris Aigbokhaevbolo in Lagos; Jacqueline Nsiah in Accra; Shingai Darangwa in Johannesburg; Billie Adwoa McTernan in Accra and Lagos; Henry Brefo for Afrikult. literary platform; and Tameshia Rudd-Ridge in Accra for Jurnee Travel Design + Concierge

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108 art & life

cinema

Genevieve

Nnaji

“We should change the way we tell our stories” Once the highest-paid female actor in Nollywood, Genevieve Nnaji has a love-hate relationship with the Nigerian film industry, but is now doing things her way as a writer and producer

By Oris Aigbokhaevbolo in Lagos

G

enevieve Nnaji sweeps into her office in the Lekki Phase 1 development on Lagos Island, offers a diffident hello to the folks in the lobby, and skips up the stairs. After greeting her disappearing form, the occupants of the reception area return their gaze to a Nollywood film in Yoruba playing on a screen hanging on the wall. It is the type of melodrama that made Nnaji’s name in Nigeria and around the continent. But

over the past few years, Nollywood’s lead actress has avoided this kind of script.

“When I was very prominent in the film industry, I played all sort of characters,” Nnaji says, seated with her manager in the small but comfy office. “Mum, daughter, deaf, dumb, blind, young, in school, wicked, kind – [I’ve] done it all.

Even a mad woman. But how do you make things more interesting?” She pauses, then answers her own question: “It’s really by the twists and turns. People

are going to tell the same Romeo and Juliet story but what angle do you tell it from? I think that is what Nollywood needs. We have to be more creative in the way we tell our stories.”

After a good five years in which she was frequently absent from Nollywood screens, the actress has moved into production in order to make the kinds of film she wants to see. Her first film as a producer – in which she also stars opposite Oris Erhuero, with Chioma Omeruah and Majid Michel in supporting roles – was Road to Yesterday.

Released in November 2015, it follows a couple as they try to mend their marriage on a road trip to a relative’s funeral.

It is a generic story about matrimony, but the film tells it differently and acquires a psychological edge by the denouement. Reactions were mixed, but critics picked out the cinematography – including sweeping drone-shots of Lagos – and an original twist in the plot as worthy of praise, commending Nnaji for daring to break out of the familiar Nollywood formula.

Road To Yesterday was directed by Ishaya Bako, a graduate of the London Film School who acquired some notoriety for his 2012 political documentary Fuelling Poverty, which ● ● ●

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Kola oshalusi/insigna

Road to Yesterday (2015)

Dir. Ishaya Bako

To save a troubled marriage, a couple embarks on a road trip. Nnaji receives executive producer, story and acting credits.

Tango with Me (2011) Dir. Mahmood Ali-Balogun

An act of violence strains the marriage of a new couple. Marked a new turn in Nigerian filmmaking as one of the first Nollywood films to show in cinemas.

Ijé (2010)

Dir. Chineze Anyaene A Nigerian (played

by Nnaji) travels to the US where her sister is threatened with prison. Also stars Omotola Jalade ekeinde.

Keeping Faith (2002)

Dir. Steve Gukas Friends persuade a young woman to use a love potion on her man. Features well regarded Nollywood actors Joke Silva, richard Mofe damijo, Bimbo Akintola and Funlola Aofiyebi.

Most Wanted (1998) Dir. Tunji Bamishigbin

disguised as men, four unemployed female university graduates stage a robbery.

Most Wanted gave Genevieve Nnaji her first Nollywood role, a cameo as a newscaster.

● ● ● was banned by the censorship board in Nigeria. Bako belongs to a newer set of filmmakers – mostly young and film-school-educated – who have caused some turbulence in the film industry, fuelling talk of New Nollywood and Old Nollywood. Nnaji says this is meaningless: “People come in, and we should expect to grow younger artists.

Every industry should transcend to the next level. There is nothing like New Nollywood or Old Nollywood. There is only continuation.”

Nnaji’s decision to produce her own films comes after a career where she has been both the darling of Nollywood and a pariah.

“I have always been selective,” she says. “The reason it seems like I did more back then is because there were a lot more choices. That seems to have died in the past few years. We are changing the kind of stories we tell when we should be changing the way we tell them.”

It is hard not to see this as criticism of a section of newer filmmakers who have been raised on Hollywood flicks and now seek to recreate them in Nigeria. “I saw quite a lot of stories with James Bond wannabes,” she responds. “They were not authentic to who we are as Nigerians and Africans. I am not buying it, so I doubt [other] people will. And for me it gets to a point when it’s no longer about the money. It’s about craft. I would not be part of a production I don’t believe in my heart.”

perplexed

Recently, eschewing Nollywood was her choice, but back in 2004 the Actors Guild of Nigeria banned her and several of her peers from working, claiming they were asking exorbitant fees. “When a group says ‘You are done for’ and pretty much pulls the rug from under your feet … it was at that point I knew I could survive without the industry for a bit,” she says.

She has made forays into music, a clothing line and product endorsement, earning a reported N20m ($63,000) as the face of Lux. These days she’s into real estate – “that’s my nine to five” – but beneath her graciousness, she seems perplexed by the banning experience. It was a long time ago but it wounded her.

Nevertheless, she has now moved on.

Nnaji was a child actor, starring in the popular television soap Ripples, but her middle-class family expected her to study to become a lawyer. She was

All rights reserved

Filmography

All rights reserved

110 art & life

drawn back into acting when she ran into an old, now famous, friend who was part of Ripples and who recognised her almost a decade after she left the show. He invited her for an audition.

“I lied about where I was going,” she says. “I think I did very well because I got the biggest cameo role.” She laughs a short, self-deprecatory laugh.

Her days of cameos were over shortly after getting that role in Most Wanted, a 1998 Nollywood action flick

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art & life 111

pooh-poohed by the Nigerian public.

What did she think of the response?

She sighs, and, for the first time during our talk, appears ruffled. “Yeah, I heard,” she says, subdued. “I took the role in Half of a Yellow Sun for a lot of personal reasons,” she explains. “The Biafra war involved my tribe. Plus, I am an actor: I don’t believe in small roles. It was a big movie, but most importantly I think I owed it to myself, my tribe and my industry to bring the story home. I took on the role and I had no regrets at the time. And I did my best as an actor which is what you do: you accept, you access and you move on. I completely understood people’s reservations. I probably shared the same. But it was a deeper agenda for me.” not a competition

Above: Lola (Genevieve Nnaji) is comforted by her mum (Joke Silva) in 2011’s Tango with Me, one of the first Nollywood films to show in cinemas.

Left: With Oris Erhuero in Road to Yesterday: “I would not be part of a production I don’t believe in my heart,” Nnaji says of her film choices

with female heroines, modelled on the US’s Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith vehicle Set It Off. Fifteen years later, however, after starring in numerous films, Nnaji accepted to play a cameo role again – in the 2013, Biyi Bandele-directed adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun. While the film was in production, reports that British actress Thandie Newton and American Anika Noni Rose would be playing the twin sisthe africa report

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ters central to the story were met with a negative reaction in Nigeria. A Nigerian ought to play the lead role, Nnaji’s fans said, and who else but the queen of Nigerian cinema, who is Igbo to boot?

Upon release, foreign reviews ranged from harsh to middling while local critics were either forgiving or hostile. The Nigerian actor OC Ukeje complained that a film he had a bigger role in was ignored for his brief showing in Half of a Yellow Sun. Nnaji’s performance was

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Part of the disappointment at Nnaji’s casting in Half of a Yellow Sun was that many Nollywood fans credited Nnaji as the one Nollywood star who would make it into Hollywood. Has the actress herself considered Tinseltown?

“Even African-Americans are still struggling to be accepted into the Hollywood circle, so what are the chances that Africans will be welcomed in?” she says. “This is not a competition with Hollywood. I hope that we take from Hollywood the necessary things that we need to be progressive. But it is not the benchmark for me, Genevieve Nnaji. The only place I’ve ever envisioned performing has been Nigeria.

What Nnaji has always wanted is to be is the best in her field, in her industry.

“I want to be better than yesterday and I want to improve as the industry improves,” she says. “And the only way we’ll get there is to tell our stories in a quality format. There’s a reason we are successful – we can’t overlook that element that makes us unique. We are enough. We have the numbers. Not just in Nigeria but the whole of Africa.”

She continues: “I have done exactly what I wanted to do, which is perform and act and that is exactly what I will continue to do. Except now I’ve gone behind the scenes, and for me that’s a transition to the next level. There are other productions in the future where I wouldn’t even be in front of the camera. Being behind the scenes of Road to Yesterday was quite an experience, and I am looking forward to it again.”

How soon?

“Pretty soon,” she replies. ●

112 art & life

art Depth and meaning in collage and photography

I

n 2016 Zimbabwean artist Gareth Nyandoro wowed with his three- and two-dimensional collages at exhibitions across the globe, culminating in his winning the FT/OppenheimerFunds Emerging Voices Award for art. In February 2017 he will have a solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

In March, Ghana’s renowned photographer James Barnor will be a guest of honour at the Heritage and Cultural Society of Africa conference in Accra, as the country celebrates its 60th year of independence.

During the event, Barnor’s work will be exhibited for the first time in his country of birth.

South African photographer and “visual activist” Zanele Muholi had a retrospective at Stevenson Gallery, Johannesburg, celebrating 10 years documenting LGBTQ lives and loves in South Africa, and

received an Infinity Award from the International Center for Photography. In 2017 her exhibition runs will continue at the North Carolina Museum of Art (until 8 January) and the FotoFocus Biennial in Cincinnati (until 23 January).

A photography extravaganza is back on the cards for West Africa in October 2017, as Lagos Photo and the biennial Rencontres de Bamako open in the same month. A couple of months later, in December, the East Africa Art Biennale will return to Dar es Salaam.

Meanwhile, in the diaspora, the toast of many towns, Nigerian-born painter Njideka Akunyili Crosby (above: her painting Nantinti), will show her series Predecessors at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati from 14 July to 1 October 2017, and at the Tang Museum in New York from 14 October to 31 December. ● the africa report

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bookS For CCA [Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos] it’s going to be our tenth anniversary and we are going to be organising some special events and programmes throughout the year, culminating in December, which is when we opened 10 years ago.

I’m trying to organise a curators’ meeting in Ghana during the triennial [conference] of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, which will take place for the first time in Accra [August 2017].

With the Àsìkò curators’ programme [an itinerant programme that started at Àsìkò Art School in Lagos], over the past six years we’ve had 13 curators from eight African countries participate and they are all doing extremely exciting stuff.

Whether it’s Dana Whabira in Zimbabwe or Violet Nantume in Kampala, and Moses Serubiri who’s also from Uganda, there are a lot of extremely dynamic curators across the continent.

Jud

e an

oGw

ih

marc bernier/courtesy the artist and Victoria miro Gallery, london

Curator

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Crossing the continents with African stories

S

ince the 2012 release of Chibundu Onuzo’s wildly successful debut novel, The Spider King’s Daughter, fans have been sitting on the edges of their seats for her next work. They will finally be able to sit back with the publication of her second book, Welcome to Lagos, in January 2017. An intricate portrayal of contemporary Lagos, it involves an idealistic bunch of runaways who get embroiled in a political scandal.

Abuja-based Cassava Republic Press expanded its reach in 2016 with the launch of its UK operations. In 2017 the publishers release a historical novel by Harmattan R ain author Ayesha Harruna Attah. Entitled One Hundred Wells, it is a tale of two women in late 19th-century Ghana and gives a remarkable view of slavery within Africa.

Translation, publishing and media house Phoneme Media will release another two titles

by African authors, following Burundian Roland Rugero’s novel Baho!

Richard Ali A Mutu’s Mr. Fix It, translated from Lingala, will be out by the start of 2017, while the graphic novel An Eternity to Tangiers by Ivorian Titi Faustin and Cameroonian Eyoum Nganguè will be out in March.

Kenyan publishers Kwani? will also be putting together a poetry anthology in 2017. ●

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Victor dlamini

Bisi Silva

Yewande Omotoso Author

My second novel, The Woman Next Door, is out in the UK and South Africa.

The Dutch, German and American editions will come out in February, as well as the audio book, which is being recorded by [British actress] Adjoa Andoh – she’s really incredible and has done a great job. The rights were also bought by the South Koreans. I would like the book to be available on the continent – there are some conversations underway around that. I’ve been working on a new book. I hope to finish by next year.

I’m excited about young new voices: Kopano Matlwa has a book coming out called Period Pain – she’s a South African author and medical doctor. A poet called Koleka Putuma will be releasing her first collection of poetry. I’m excited to read Panashe Chigumadzi’s collection of essays, Beautiful Hair for a Landless People – her commentary, particularly on South Africa, is quite relevant and interesting. Abantu Book Festival [in Soweto, South Africa], a festival about decolonisation, created by black people in celebration of black literature and promoting black businesses, will be in its second year next year.

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Dance on stage and sand

music all rights reserved

theatre

T

he Cape Town-based Isango Ensemble will bring its stage adaptation of the Jonny Steinberg novel A Man of Good Hope to the Brooklyn Academy of MusicinNewYorkinFebruary 2017, after openingand seeing the new year in with the play at the Young Vic in London.

L’Ecole des Sables, the beachside school established by the dancing darling of Dakar, Germaine Acogny, will be hosting a month-long training programme with the theme ‘Building Bridges’ for dancers interested in experimental, urban, contemporary and traditional African dance, in February and March 2017; another workshop themed ‘Memory and Evolution’ runs in July. La Compagnie du Théâtre National du Sénégal Daniel Sorano plans a season full of activities across the country, in a bid to decentralise. A programme focused on young audiences will run from January to April.

The Tanzanian contemporary dance festival Visa 2 Dance will celebrate its tenth anniversary in October. Elsewhere in the region, the Bayimba International Festival of the Arts in Kampala will also be commemorating 10 years of production.

Following a five-year noshow, the Cairo International Festival for Contemporary and Experimental Theatre returned in 2016 with its new ‘contemporary’ element added to the name. After a successful comeback that included presenting Nigerian playwright Femi Osofisan with the International Association of Theatre Critics’ Thalia Prize, the festival promises more discoveries for theatregoers in 2017. ●

Collaboration, not vexation, leads to musical elation

T

here’s a wave of positive energy sweeping across the African musical landscape. 2016 was a momentous year that saw Wizkid feature on Drake’s hugely popular album single ‘One Dance’ – now the most streamed song ever on Spotify – and Black Coffee win the BET award for Best International Act: Africa. Ghanaian reggae/dancehall star Stonebwoy continued on his stellar trajectory and will look to maintain his status as one of the genre’s leading artists. Ghanaian rapper Blitz the Ambassador will be back with a new album, as will Congolese rapper Baloji in early 2017. Baloji’s countryman Tresor earned his second #1 spot on the Italian iTunes dance chart for his hit single ‘Never Let Me Go’ (Spada Remix), highlighting the increasing global appeal of African pop music. East Africa’s leading music festival, Sauti za Busara, makes a welcome return to the music calendar from 12 to 15 February in Zanzibar. The Cape Town International Jazz Festival will follow soon after. By and large, the music scene in 2016 escaped its propensity for scandal and replaced it with good quality music and cross-border collaboration. More of the same, please. ●

Feasts and festivals

J

urnee Travel Design + Concierge’s travel-planning expert Tameshia Rudd-Ridge gives The Africa Report her tips for where to go in 2017.

Buea Cameroon No need to choose between mountain or beach holiday in Cameroon’s Southwest Region: Mount Cameroon seems to rise straight out of the sea, ascending to the giddy height of 4,070m. After a four-day hike to the summit, re-

lax on the black-sand beaches of Limbe. Buea, the region’s capital, hasalsohitthetravelblogsbecause ofIYA,achic,fine-diningrestaurant that pays homage to Cameroon’s rich culinary and cultural heritage. iyabuea.com

Lamu Kenya The Lamu Food Festival (pictured) returns for a third year this April, providing a compelling reason to visit the island. Lamu Old Town is classed by UNESCO as the

art & life 115

My working title for my album is ‘Everyone is just winging it and other tales’.

It’s an imaginative, heavy beats, future, electronic, hip-hop, funky African sound.

It’s like a mix of Outkast, Bonobo and Hiatus Kaiyote.

I don’t feel like in Africa there’s a lot of people doing the sound I’m doing. On one hand I’m getting a lot of attention from Europe and the States, [but] Africa is such a confusing market for me right now because there is a pop sound, and there is not room for people like us who are producing quality and is also very left-field. I get DJs from London, Paris, Australia hitting me up asking for the tracks, even in Japan, but in Nairobi I can’t get the guys over here to push the music. Looking forward to new [music from] Blitz, Petite Noir and Aero Manyelo.

Travel best-preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa, and the strength of the culture is also found on the plate. The festival serves up a tantalisingprogrammeofSwahilicooking classes (learn to make coconut fishcurry),astreetfoodbazaar,and a cook-off in which local women compete for the most unique dish.

It also celebrates food in each stage of its journey from farm to plate. lamutourism.org

film

Mike Marsland/WireiMage

Musician

Reggae roadtrip with a message

T

he biggest African film festival on the continent, the biennial FESPACO, is back in 2017 and will be celebrating its 25th edition. The festival will take place at the end of February in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Rumour has it that the long-anticipated fourth feature film from acclaimed Senegalese-French director Alain Gomis, Felicité, is to premiere at the 67th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, also in February.

Director and activist Rama Thiaw from Senegal is set to release her documentary on reggae artists on the continent who use their music as a weapon for change. Legends such as Alpha Blondy feature, and the film is something of a road-movie as Thiaw travelled to several African countries, getting into precarious situations at so-called border-checks. This film comes after her critically acclaimed documentary The Revolution Won’t Be Televised, which is currently making the festival rounds.

At the 2016 Durban International Film Festival, Steven Markovitz and Khanyo Mjamba launched the continent’s first pan-African film distribution company for African films.

Named African Screen Network (ASN) it is a move to push the continent to consume more local content. ASN is to start distribution with six strong titles in the new year. ●

Ama Ampadu Film producer

I’m currently working on my second production with Yared Zeleke as director [after Lamb]. It’s about youth in Ethiopia, their dreams and aspirations and what the future has in store for them – a question that affects all African societies and needs to be addressed.

It’s semi-autobiographical and the working title is 1991. The release should be in 2017.

I am also producing a film with first-time director Beru Tessema, a first-generation Ethiopian living in the UK. His film also touches on youth and immigration.

I would love to do something in Ghana. The Ghanaian film industry is picking up and some interesting films have emerged. Financing is our biggest obstacle, but the talents and stories are there. For 2017 I am really looking forward to watching Akosua Adoma Owusu’s adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story The Thing Around Your Neck.

Praia Cabo Verde Also in April, on the other side of the continent, music lovers will be flocking to Praia, Cabo Verde, where the Kriol Jazz Festival brings artists from across the African diaspora. In between sets, experience the island’s unique Creole culture, historic architecture and dreamy beaches. Foodies, too, will not be disappointed: feast on the catch of the day or try Cabo Verde’s national dish, cachupa, a Sunday Best stew of corn, beans, cassava, sweet potato, onions and spices. krioljazzfestival.com

kaluhiskitchen.coM

Blinky Bill

116 art & life

What we loved in 2016

books Season of Crimson Blossoms

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim Cassava Republic Press

Homegoing Yaa Gyasi Knopf

Gyasi’s debut novel, Homegoing, presents a harrowing saga of a family severed and displaced by slavery. Two halfsisters, Effia and Esi, find their fate cut across different paths: one a bride to a slave trader; the other a captured slave.

Through their scattered bloodlines – Ghana to America – spanning eight generations, the painful drama of the legacy of slavery unfolds. Bursting with dramatic twist and tension, the narrative is effortlessly suspended in time and space. The author’s earthy tone and stiff prose at times compromises the dynamism of her characters, leaving us with stereotypes.

Nonetheless, her sensitive and imaginative instinct radiates through the warmth of the narrator’s voice.

Margareta SvenSSon

Against a backdrop of violent upheaval in religiously divided Jos, Ibrahim weaves together an affair between a 55-year-old widow and a 25-year-old man. Reza, a local weed dealer, finds himself entangled in Binta’s life after robbing her place. At the scene of the robbery, she feels aroused by the closeness of his body.

Binta draws comparisons between Reza and her murdered son, while Reza reminisces about his estranged mother. Caught up in the whirlpool of guilt and lust, Binta stops attending madrasa, fearing that others will smell her sin. A master of storytelling, Ibrahim recounts the narrative in a measured tone and reminds the reader that love can arrive in the most unlikely places.

Behold the Dreamers

Whitefly

Abdelilah Hamdouchi

Imbolo Mbue

Hoopoe

When a fourth body washes up on the shores of Tangier, Detective Laafrit suspects this to be more than just another dead harraga (clandestine migrant trying to get to Europe). Following this hunch, he scours through an underground network of human traffickers, pimps and prostitutes. Finally, his search for the murderer’s gun brings him to the source of an international conspiracy involving one of Spain’s agricultural oligarchs. Quirky and fast-paced, Whitefly beautifully captures the complexity of life in a modern Islamic country. The English translation fails to fully capture the lively and colourful Arabic wit of the original, but it’s an enjoyable read all the same.

Random House Jende Jonga leaves his home country, Cameroon, with his wife, Neni, and son in search of the American dream. With luck in his stride, he finally finds a job as a chauffeur for a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. But all that glitters is not gold. As the crumbling economy of 2007-9 rocks the secret world of the elites, Jende and Neni’s life slowly drifts into the cracks. As Neni puts it, America is “a magnificent land of uninhibited dreamers”. Touching on themes such as love, citizenship and belonging, Mbue steadily balances the narrative, not losing her grip on her characters, though they fail to come into their own completely. An ambitious project that doesn’t quite hit the mark.

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Dir. Amma

Asante

Released for Botswana’s 50th anniversary of independence, Asante’s adaptation of Colour Bar

by Susan Williams recounts the true love story between the country’s first president, Sir Seretse Khama, and his British wife, Ruth Williams. Their marriage, in 1948, caused a furore in apartheid South Africa and caused Seretse to renounce his tribal throne.

LUCKY NXUMALO/SUNDAY SUN/GALLO IMAGES/GEttY IMAGES

A United Kingdom

Born Free Lira

Foreign Body Dir.

Raja Amari

Since Lira was catapulted onto the national scene with her 2003 debut album, All My Love, her career has been defined by the purity of her singing voice. Her sixth studio album, Born Free, traverses themes of healing, love and freedom – an empowering message at a time when South Africa has been embroiled in turbulent protests over tertiary education. It’s a slow, mellow album with the odd a capella that plays its part in separating her voice from the noise; leaving it bare and beautiful.

With her brother in prison after an attempted terrorist plot, Samia, an illegal immigrant in France, must figure out how to make a living. When she gets a job with a middle-class widow, she becomes entangled in a ménage-a-trois. The acting is superb, the suspense is gripping and the sensitivity is felt throughout the film.

Hissène Habré – A Chadian Tragedy Dir.

Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

Known for his feature films, Haroun unlocks a deeply personal story in this documentary, which presents the accounts of some of the victims of Hissène Habré’s regime. The director himself often appears on screen or narrates, relating events from his own childhood. Habré was finally tried and received a life sentence from an African Union court in May 2016.

Kati Kati Dir.

Mbithi Masya

Masya’s highly imaginative debut film takes us into the afterlife as it slowly unravels the events leading up to the death of its main protagonist.

Kenya’s dark past informs some of the narratives. The musical score is fresh and timely – Masya is a member of the funky Kenyan house music group Just a Band. the africa report

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Bad Hair Nasty C The 19-year-old rapper has enjoyed an incredible run over the past 12 months, collaborating with African music heavyweights Cassper Nyovest, Davido, AKA and K.O along the way. His debut album, Bad Hair, continues on this trajectory and reveals a maturing artist seemingly unbothered by the weight of expectation, or the speculation about a deal with Jay Z’s label Roc Nation (he signed to Mabala Noise).

Mama Africa Yemi Alade Following a lukewarm reception for her debut, King of Queens, Nigerian singer and songwriter Yemi Alade has re-emerged as one of the leading female artists on the continent. With a consistently upbeat Afro-pop sound scaling the album from track one to 15, Mama Africa has the feel of a high-energy live show. ‘Africa’, featuring Sauti Sol, offers a refreshingly sensual track on an altogether compelling album.

God Over Everything Patoranking Patoranking’s debut album, God Over Everything, begins with a prayer from his mother on a song that carries his name. It’s a show of faith and braggadocio, both hallmarks of his still-budding career. On ‘This Kind Luv’, where Patoranking lyrically spars with Wizkid, there’s a chemistry between the dancehall star and his compatriot that suggests the two will be jostling for the continental music throne for years to come.

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IN CLOSING POEM BY NANA NYARKO BOATENG

poet, writer and editor at the Gird Center in Accra

ILLUSTRATION BY KEYMOTIV

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Ž & Š 2016 Cable News Network, Inc. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.

Shining a spotlight on the most dazzling trendsetters who create their own subcultures in areas such as travel, fashion, art, music, technology and architecture.

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