Author: Editorial Staff

FINANCING Africa’s public and private sector projects has always been an expensive business. The outbreak of Covid-19 has put a tremendous strain on access to finance in an already stretched environment. As leaders explore solutions for Africa’s recovery, the importance of new thinking, creativity, particularly in sustainable financing for Africa’s businesses, should be a priority for all stakeholders, writes Agnes Gitau. Covid-19 has challenged international co-operation and globalisation. Africa’s development partners also challenged by the pandemic, have little choice but to prioritise their resources to their economies equally faced with disruptions. Already scarce and conditional development finance will therefore be hard to come by.…

EXPLORING strategies to deepen private sector participation in the implementation the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was the highlight of a panel session during the 2021 WTO Aid-for-Trade Stocktaking meeting. The African Development Bank, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and International Trade Centre (ITC) organised the session held on  March 24. ‘The success of the AfCFTA hinges on the ability of African firms to understand and capitalise on the trade related opportunities offered by the AfCFTA,’ said Pamela Coke-Hamilton, International Trade Centre (ITC) Executive Director. The Aid-for-Trade initiative – which promotes the role of trade in development and…

JOHNSON & Johnson (J&J) will supply up to 220 million doses of its single-shot Covid-19 vaccine to African Union’s 55 member states from the third quarter of 2021, the drugmaker said on Monday. J&J, through its Janssen Pharmaceutica unit, entered into a deal with the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (Avat), which could order an additional 180-million doses, for a combined total of up to 400 million doses through 2022. ‘We need to immunise at least 60 percent of our population in order to get rid of the virus from our continent. The J&J agreement enables us to move towards achieving…

THE International Criminal Court (ICC) will rule on Wednesday whether to uphold the acquittal of Cote d‘Ivoire’s former president Laurent Gbagbo, the first head of state to stand trial at the tribunal. Gbagbo, 75, and his former youth leader Charles Ble Goude were cleared of crimes against humanity in 2019 over a wave of post-electoral violence in the west African nation more than a decade ago. The prosecution has appealed against the acquittal and wants a retrial over the bloodshed, when more than 3,000 people were killed after Gbagbo disputed the results of the 2010 vote. Gbagbo refused to hand…

ETHIOPIA’S unilateral actions over the filling and operation of the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) will have ‘massive negative repercussions,’ Egypt’s Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Mohamed Abdel-Ati warned on Sunday. Abdel-Ati made the remarks during his meeting in Cairo with the US Special Envoy for Sudan Donald Booth and Marina Vraila, head of the political, press and information section of the European Union (EU) delegation to Cairo, Egypt’s Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources said in a statement. The minister and the US and EU diplomats tackled the current position of the GERD negotiations and ways to…

A UK-based conglomerate and a plantation owner in Malawi which supplies some of Britain’s biggest tea brands are being sued in London over allegations of rampant sexual violence against female workers. British legal firm Leigh Day said on Sunday that it wanted financial redress for the women from their Malawi employer, Lujeri Tea Estates, and its British parent company PGI Group Ltd. The complaint filed in London’s High Court says women harvesting tea and macadamia nuts for Lujeri in southern Malawi were subject to at least 10 instances of rape and other violence at the hands of male supervisors. One…

SARAH Obama, the matriarch of former US President Barack Obama’s Kenyan family has died, relatives and officials confirmed Monday. She was at least 99 years old. Mama Sarah, as the step-grandmother of the former US president was fondly called, promoted education for girls and orphans in her rural Kogelo village. She passed away around 4 a.m. local time while being treated at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral hospital in Kisumu, Kenya’s third-largest city in the country’s west, according to her daughter Marsat Onyango. ‘She died this morning. We are devastated,’ Onyango told The Associated Press (AP) on a…

COTE D’IVOIRE on Friday confirmed Patrick Achi, a veteran government figure, as prime minister after a period of political turmoil and bloody division. Achi, 65 (pictured), had been named acting prime minister on March 8 to stand in for Hamed Bakayoko, 56, who was flown to Germany with cancer and died two days later. The West African country is still struggling with the violence-torn presidential elections last October that claimed nearly 100 lives. Legislative elections took place on March 6 without major incident and without a boycott by any of the main parties, strengthening hopes of reconciliation. President Alassane Ouattara…

TANZANIA’S late president John Magufuli was laid to rest Friday in his ancestral village in the country’s northwest after his sudden death last week from an illness shrouded in mystery. Nicknamed the ‘Bulldozer’ for his leadership style, Magufuli was buried in Chato after nearly a week being mourned by crowds in various cities as his casket was moved around the country. Magufuli died aged 61 from what authorities say was a heart condition, after a mysterious absence of almost three weeks, and questions remain over the true cause of his death which the opposition says was from Covid-19. Tens of…

LAWYER for a commission investigating corruption in South Africa have asked the country’s highest court to jail former president Jacob Zuma (pictured) for two years for failing to co-operate with its probe. The commission of inquiry into high-level graft, chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, is probing wide-ranging allegations of corruption during Zuma’s tenure as head of state from 2009 to 2018. Zuma, who has been implicated by several witnesses, has refused to testify and has accused Zondo of bias. Zuma has publicly said he will not appear before the commission despite an order for him to do so…