Category: Industry

A report by a non-profit group says Africa needs to increase internet access to boost its economies, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The advocacy group found that while Africa’s locally routed online traffic has increased, only one in five Africans has internet access. High taxes and frequent internet shutdowns by some African governments have also discouraged online trade.

The Internet Society group says in a report this month Africa’s internet exchange points, or IXP’s, have increased from 19 to 46 in under eight years. Six countries have more than one IXP.

An IXP is where multiple networks and service providers exchange internet traffic. The increase is significant because a decade ago, most African countries routed their online traffic outside the continent.

Dawit Bekele is the Africa regional vice president for the Internet Society, a global nonprofit organization that promotes the development and use of the internet. He said Africa having its own IXP’s improves internet performance for users on the continent.

“By developing internet exchange points within Africa, we have limited this kind of unnecessary travels of internet traffic outside of Africa to come back to Africa, which has a considerable advantage to improving the user experience, be it the speed, connectivity or even the cost of connectivity,” he said.

The Washington-based group says its goal is to eventually have 80% of internet traffic in Africa be exchanged locally.

Michael Niyitegeka, an information technology expert, said public demand has forced African governments to improve internet access.

“We can’t run away from the youth population. There are quite a number of young people and therefore their affinity or drive for technology and use of the Internet is way higher than our parents and they are more comfortable using technology than anything else. Finally, the other aspect I think is quite critical is the access to mobile technology devices is a big driver. We see quite a number of relatively cheap smart or internet-enabled phones in our markets and that has a massive effect on how many people can access the internet,” said Niyitegeka.

In a 2020 study, the International Foundation Corporation said internet use could add $180 billion to Africa’s economies.

However, some governments have taken steps to control digital communication by shutting down social media platforms and imposing a high tax on internet use.

Omoniyi Kolade is the CEO of SeerBit, a Nigerian company that offers payment processing services to businesses. He said that government control of the internet will drive businesses backward.

“It’s a way we are driven backward instead of moving forward. We are supposed to encourage access, we are supposed to encourage free access point for interaction for solutions, because if businesses had to put their product on platforms, as long as those platforms are put down or disconnected there is loss of revenue at that point and for payment gateway. We are already losing revenue as those businesses do not exist to achieve the purpose of what they should achieve,” he said.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa notes that only 20% of the continent’s population has access to the Internet.

The Internet Society Group is urging African governments to expand internet infrastructure to rural areas, where most of the population lives, so that they can benefit from it.

Source: Voice of America

While people in South Sudan have enjoyed independence for the past 10 years, one longstanding problem – food insecurity – still hangs over the world’s newest nation despite vast areas of arable land.

A World Food Program report published in June said 60% of South Sudan’s population – 7.2 million people – faced food insecurity in the second quarter of 2021. And the nation remains dependent on other countries for 80% of its food supply, according to South Sudan Chamber of Commerce Chairperson Laku Lukang.

“Most of the food items such as tomatoes and cabbage come from Uganda. Since independence we don’t have factories and industries for producing cooking oil, sugar,” Lukang told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus. He added, Many people think oil is the only source of money but instead we need to use the oil money to buy tractors and produce enough food and also export (farm products).

Diverting oil profits to support agriculture is also a priority of James Boboya, a policy analyst with the Juba-based Institute for Policy and Research.

“The way to go,” he said, “is for the government of South Sudan to tarmac the road to agriculture producing areas such as Yei, Yambio, and Eastern Equatoria so that farmers can bring produce to market.”

However, inter-communal clashes, competition among different groups over farmland and water, and floods make it difficult for South Sudan to produce enough food to meet its needs.

That point is underscored by 43-year-old subsistence farmer and widow Rose Nyoka. “When we go to the bush to farm, we are arrested and chased out,” she told South Sudan in Focus. “What we want is let the government open its eyes on us, the farmers, because we are depending on our farming for our livelihoods and now if we don’t cultivate, we are forced to buy food items from outside the country.”

Another significant factor in South Sudan’s food insecurity is the 2013 to 2018 conflict between South Sudanese political forces and its continued fallout.

“We have virgin land with productive soil and the products brought from Uganda can be produced here at a cheaper cost but the war stopped this,” said Faustine Amba, Yei-based NGO Mugwo Development Organization program manager.

Amba said the lack of agricultural production denies the government much-needed internal tax revenue. “The government needs money through taxes from the people but if the common men are poor and hungry, the government can also be poor and hungry in terms of resources,” he said.

A farmer in South Sudan’s Yei River County, Felix Dara, said the food insecurity problem and the agricultural sector are not getting enough attention and help from the government.

He said officials need to prioritize the building of roads and storage facilities, and also help farmers obtain modern equipment and machinery.

“Our farmers are not supported and that is a reality,” he said. “We cannot talk about food security when we are using ordinary hoes. How can we do massive production when the government has not set funds to stimulate food production?”

A local NGO, the Mission to Alleviate Suffering in South Sudan, said it distributed tools and seeds to more than 100,000 small farmers in the nation’s Central Equatoria and Northern Bahr el Ghazal states.

But, the NGO’s executive director, Dara Elisa, said despite those efforts, food insecurity still looms over many in the nation.

South Sudan’s minister of agriculture and food security, Josephine Lagu, said the key to improving food security is the full implementation of South Sudan’s revitalized peace agreement. Easing conflict, she says, will enable more money to be diverted from security to agriculture.

She said more funding is needed to spur production in areas such as Aweil of Northern Bah eel Ghazal state, Nzara of Western Equatoria state, and Terekeka of Central Equatoria state – areas which traditionally supplied rice, maize, and sugarcane.

Lagu notes that the government in Juba is working with the World Bank and other international financial institutions to expand the nation’s agricultural production, which she says should be a focus of a wide range of society.

“It’s indeed important as a country,” she said, “to invest in agriculture – we want farmers, families, organized forces, and churches to get involved in food production so we can stop importing food.”

Ten years into independence, South Sudan remains hungry. Now, many observers say, the nation must focus on agricultural development so its people can build other sectors of its economy. But first comes food, and for now, that’s not always certain.

Source: Voice of America

In a report this month, the World Bank predicts Zimbabwe’s economy will grow 3.9% this year even as the country sees an alarming rise in poverty levels, especially in urban areas. The report says a record 7.9 million Zimbabweans are “extremely” poor, earning less than 30 U.S. dollars a month.

Forty-one-year-old Richard Luzani is one of many unemployed Zimbabweans hoping the economy will recover and that the coronavirus pandemic will end soon.

Each day he pushes a cart full of water buckets while selling the scarce precious liquid in Hatcliffe — one of the poorest suburbs of Harare. He works with his 58-year-old father, Weluzani.

“I wish I could a get any formal job,” Luzani said. “I am just barely making a living from this hustle of selling water so that my family can survive. But so far everything is down.”

He said on a good day they go home with $5 each — but other days, nothing.

That is not case with 40-year-old Tafadzwa Gamanya in Goromonzi, a rural area about 50 kilometers east of Harare.

A World Bank report says Zimbabweans living in rural areas are doing better than their counterparts in the urban areas thanks to subsistence farming. So is Gamanya.

“This year is much better for us here. We had good rains. We have enough water to irrigate our crops until the next rain season,” Gamanya said. “I have maize and sweet potatoes; my peas are at flowering stage. I sell my vegetables to get money for sugar, for tea which we have with sweet potatoes. Our maize is enough for this year. We have nothing more to ask or cry for.”

Last week, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government said the number of food insecure Zimbabweans has drastically fallen because of the good rains the country has enjoyed during the 2020/2021 agriculture season.

Mukami Kariuki, who heads the World Bank in Zimbabwe, says the economy could recover faster depending on how the pandemic and regional economy perform.

“Zimbabwe’s economy is expected to grow faster than its neighbors, rising from 3.9% in 2021 to 5.1% in 2022,” Kariuki said. “By comparison, the average growth rate for sub-Saharan Africa in 2021 is 2.8%. So overall, we note that the recovery of the country is on a positive trend and if sustained, this momentum will impact positively on the lives and livelihoods of people of Zimbabwe.”

An upward swing would be welcome news for Richard Luzani and millions of Zimbabweans like him. The World Bank reports 49% of the country’s population now live in poverty due to both the pandemic and ailing economy.

Source: Voice of America

Hundreds of displaced families trampled down the stairs carrying stained mattresses, logs and kindling for cooking and sacks of clothing and food.

The families, more than 5,000 people in all, had fled battles in the northern Tigray region to Shire, a historical commercial center. Now they were being forced to move again.

When they arrived in Shire after the war broke out last November, schools and universities were closed because of the coronavirus pandemic so it made sense to use the buildings as temporary shelters. But now, the government wants students back in school, and one week ago, Axum University was evacuated.

“Authorities told us a month ago we had to leave,” said Kidan Weldemariam, a 47-year-old mother of eight on the day of the evacuation. “Since then, they have come every few days. The only difference is — now they are using force.”

As families packed, officials from the United Nations also briefly visited the camp. Scores of people crowded around as one official spoke to a soldier in uniform. She said that the new camp is not ready and the move is unjust. But when reminded her office helped coordinate this move, the official quickly conceded and told people to follow the soldiers’ orders.

Outside the building, three-wheeled vehicles known as “Bejajes” in Ethiopia lined up to transport the families to a location where the new camp was being set up. It is the cheapest way to travel in this part of Tigray and young men tied mattresses to the roofs of the blue cabs.

As droves of people continued to hustle up and down the stairs, Haben Tariq, 12, watched the action. “What do I do?” he asked.

Families were leaving as units, but he was alone. Like thousands of other children, he and his parents were separated as they fled the war last year.

“How can I find my mother?” he said. “Maybe if I tell my story she will find me?”

Refugee day

Worldwide, more than 80 million people are living outside their homes, forced to flee war or persecution, according to United Nations statistics. Nearly 60% remain in their home countries, sometimes forced to flee the same conflict over and over.

On June 20, the U.N. recognizes World Refugee Day, but there is not much to celebrate. In the past 10 years, the global population of forcibly displaced people has more than doubled.

In Tigray, many displaced families were split up in the chaos, with about 2 million people fleeing within Ethiopia and more than 60,000 others crossing the border to take refuge in Sudan.

At another camp in Shire, families crowd into tents propped up in the dirt surrounding classrooms, where as many as 35 people sleep in a room. With a newborn baby strapped to her back, Alem Belay, 26, said she hadn’t spoken to many of her family members since the war began last November.

Her family fled to Sudan, but she was pregnant at the time, so she couldn’t go with them. Alem fled to the nearest “safe” town, where her farm animals were confiscated and her husband was arrested.

“They said to him, ‘We know you are a fighter; where is your gun?’” Alem said. “He didn’t have a gun, but they took him, and our cattle.”

Long crisis

War in Tigray first broke out last November after months of heightened tensions.

Then, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front attacked northern federal bases and the Ethiopian National Defense Force swept through the region. Eritrean forces are now fighting alongside the federal government and both the Eritrean and Ethiopian sides have associated militias.

Civilians in Tigray have reported widespread looting, beatings and mass killings. Hundreds of women and girls have reported being raped by soldiers and many more assaults are believed to have gone unreported. The U.N. warns famine is occurring in some places.

And on top of these horrors, the economy has been crushed. Cities are packed with displaced families, while farms go untended and food is not grown.

“I was a farmer with good lands and I grew sorghum,” said Belay Abera, 67, as he packed his few things to move out of an Axum University dorm room. “But I was displaced just before the harvest and arrived here with nothing.”

Source: Voice of America

The World Bank said on Friday it had temporarily paused payments to operations in Mali following a military coup, while the man expected to become the new prime minister warned sanctions would only complicate the country’s crisis.

The World Bank’s actions added to pressure on Mali’s military leadership after chief security ally France announced on Thursday it was suspending joint operations with Malian troops in order to press for a return to civilian rule.

The military’s overthrow of Mali’s transitional president last week, its second coup in nine months, has drawn international condemnation and raised fears the political crisis will weaken regional efforts to fight Islamist militants.

‘Temporarily paused’

The World Bank, whose International Development Association (IDA) is financing projects to the tune of $1.5 billion in Mali, confirmed the suspension of payments in a statement to Reuters.

“In accordance with the World Bank policy applicable to similar situations, it has temporarily paused disbursements on its operations in Mali, as it closely monitors and assesses the situation,” it said.

Assimi Goita, the colonel who led both coups, was declared president last Friday after having served as vice president under Bah Ndaw, who had been leading the transition since September. Ndaw and his prime minister resigned while in military custody last week.

Goita is widely expected in the coming days to name as prime minister Choguel Maiga, the leader of the M5-RFP opposition coalition that spearheaded protests against former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita before his overthrow last August.

At a rally in the capital, Bamako, on Friday to mark the one-year anniversary of the start of the protests against Keita, Maiga was alternately firm and conciliatory toward foreign partners.

“We will respect international engagements that aren’t contrary to the fundamental interests of the Malian people,” he said to thousands of supporters in the city’s Independence Square.

“Sanctions and threats will only complicate the situation,” he said.

French troops

France, the former colonial power, has more than 5,000 troops waging counterinsurgency operations against Islamist militants in Mali and the wider Sahel, an arid region of West Africa just south of the Sahara.

It hopes to use its leverage to press Goita to respect the 18-month timetable agreed to at the start of the transition by organizing a presidential election next February.

The African Union and a West African regional bloc responded to the coup by suspending Mali’s membership but did not impose further sanctions.

Source: Voice of America