Category: Business

Telecommunications networks funded and built by China are taking over Africa’s cyberspace, a dependence that analysts suggest puts Beijing in a position to exert political influence in some of the continent’s countries.

Bulelani Jili, a doctoral candidate at Harvard University’s Department of African and African American Studies, told VOA Mandarin in a phone interview that “Huawei is working and partnering with many governments across the continent, and it is those governments that are using quality technology to undermine democratic values.” 

Huawei, the world’s leading seller of 5G technology and smartphones, is seen by the U.S. and other countries as “beholden to the Chinese government, which could use the company” for spying, an accusation Huawei denies, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank in Washington, reported in May that worldwide, “the majority of [Huawei’s] deals (57%) are in countries that are middle-income and partly free or not free.”

The CSIS report added that Huawei’s cloud infrastructure and e-government services are handling sensitive data, services that “could provide Chinese authorities with intelligence and even coercive leverage.”

The “intelligence and even coercive leverage” language stems from China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which stipulated that any organization and Chinese citizen should “support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work.” The law does not limit these activities to China.

Goals and needs

The African Union has set the goal of connecting every individual, business and government on the continent by 2030, an expansion that is supported by the World Bank Group.

Africa needs 1,000 megawatts (MW) of new facility capacity or about 700 new data center facilities to meet growing demand in the continent, according to the Africa Data Centers Association.

The scale of need for data centers to meet population growth “is astoundingly significant,” Guy Zibi, principal analyst at Xalam Analytics, who is tracking the African data center boom, told the website DataCenterKnowledge.

On June 22, the West African nation of Senegal opened a national data center just outside Dakar, the capital. Financed by the Export-Import Bank of China, the center was built with equipment and technical backing from Huawei. Senegal’s status declined from free to partly free in the Freedom in the World 2020  report from Freedom House.

In July 2020, Cameroon completed a government data center on the outskirts of Yaounde, the capital. It was funded by the Export-Import Bank of China, built by the Beijing-controlled China Shenyang International Economic & Technical Cooperation Corporation and equipped with Huawei gear. Freedom House in 2020 rated Cameroon as not free.

In April 2019, Kenya and Huawei signed a deal for a data center, a smart city and surveillance project, according to DataCenterDynamics. The site also reported Huawei was working with the government of Zambia on a $75 million data center. Freedom House rated Kenya as partly free in 2020.

Huawei’s e-government services include elections, document digitization, national ID systems and tax services, according to the CSIS report.

While the digitization of government records may allow greater surveillance, it can also mean more effective tax collection and less corruption, according to a March 2021 post on a tech site of the Brookings Institution a Washington think tank.

“As the continent recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, its leaders face a choice between harnessing emerging technology to improve government effectiveness, increase transparency and foster inclusion, or as a tool of repression, division and conflict,” said the TechStream post.

China’s expansion

China has a history of financing and supplying telecom and information and computer technology (ICT) throughout Africa, according to an April 2021 report from the Atlantic Council’s African Center.

Over the past two decades, Huawei has built about 50% of Africa’s 3G networks and 70% of its 4G networks, according to the report.

The expansion began in 1999, when China launched its Go Out policy, which pushed Chinese companies to invest abroad and strengthen China’s global business presence.

By 2018, China had expanded to at least 40 African nations, according to Africa Times.

Cobus van Staden, a senior China-Africa researcher at the Johannesburg-based think tank South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), outlined why Chinese firms succeed in Africa.

“First is that the continent has very high demand for digital connectivity, at all levels, from network building to consumer handset sales,” he told VOA in an email.

Second, Chinese companies have easy access to large banks closely tied to Beijing. This, according to van Staden, means Chinese companies have the funding to roll out infrastructure quickly in a variety of environments.

Iginio Gagliardone, an associate professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, has done extensive research on the rise of China’s presence in Africa and is the author of China, Africa and the Future of the Internet.

He told VOA Mandarin that the relationship Chinese companies have with state-affiliated banks means the companies can lower their prices and maintain a competitive advantage over other bidders.

“The Export-Import Bank [of China] has been able to offer large loans, as part of deals with African governments, with the condition that these loans will be used to deploy technology using a Chinese company,” he said in a phone interview with VOA Mandarin.

Chinese state banks provide such generous financing to Huawei’s customers that most commercial banks cannot match the terms, “making Huawei equipment cheaper to deploy at any price,” according to a 2020 report by the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank.

A third factor, according to van Staden, is that there has been relatively little attention paid to Africa as an emerging tech market. “There aren’t many credible competitors to Chinese companies on the scene,” he added.

Known player

Because Chinese enterprises are known players in Africa’s telecommunications infrastructure, countries transitioning to 5G often remain with the companies they know, according to analysts.

“Although the Trump administration’s policies successfully curbed Chinese expansion in Western countries, they did not address the growing presence of Chinese technology infrastructure on the African continent,” according to the Atlantic Council’s report. “In African markets, a lack of local champions and infrastructure financing and construction capacity constraints have created a dependence on Chinese-financed projects.”

Van Staden said that the dependence raises the question of possible political influence.

“Research has shown that Chinese companies are responsive to local regulations and governance. In both authoritarian and democratic countries, Chinese contractors have tended to follow local laws and to provide the systems these governments wanted, be these open and inclusive, or centrally controlled,” he said.

“There isn’t proof that China is ‘exporting’ its own domestic system or pressuring countries to emulate it,” he continued. “The issue is less that China is using data networks to influence local politics, and more that its position as a network provider is just one aspect of a much broader trade and investment presence. China’s role as a major trade, financing and development partner to many African countries naturally makes these countries less willing to cross any of Beijing’s ‘red lines.’ ”

Source: Voice of America

Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi on a visit to the troubled northern Cabo Delgado province Monday, unveiled the Southern African troops sent to fight the region’s insurgents.  The Southern African Development Community’s Standby Force includes troops from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa and Tanzania. The SADC troops are being deployed as Mozambican and Rwandan troops on Sunday say they retook a key port city that the Islamist militants held for two years.  

In a live broadcast on state radio and television Monday from Cabo Delgado’s provincial capital, Pemba, President Filipe Nyusi addressed southern African troops deployed to the region to fight insurgents.

Southern African Development Community members Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa and Tanzania are the first in the 16-member group to send troops to Mozambique.

Nyusi thanked SADC for its engagement and underscored the need to coordinate in battling the Islamist militants.

To the SADC standby forces who are here, he says, we appeal once again for greater coordination on the operational theater and rigorous observation of the benchmarks of responsibility, strategically defined. Nyusi says they demand communication, exchange of operative information on the ground, discipline and respect for human life.

The total number of soldiers the group is sending to Mozambique has not been made public. But experts from SADC, who were in Cabo Delgado, suggested that the mission should comprise around 3,000 troops.

Botswana in late July announced it was sending almost 300 troops to fight in Mozambique, and its president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, attended Monday’s unveiling.

The commander of the SADC standby force is South African Major General Xolani Mankayi. Speaking on a state broadcaster from Pemba, he said they would do everything possible to restore peace in the affected areas.

“The SADC region state as described above is (to) facilitate the creation of a secure environment, to ensure that the state authority is in full control of the Cabo Delgado affected areas, and normal lives can resume,” Mankayi said.

Nyusi had been reluctant to allow foreign troops into Mozambique’s conflict, but in July confirmed that outside help was needed to defeat the insurgents.

Rwanda, which is not a SADC member, sent 1,000 troops in early July to Cabo Delgado, where they say they are making gains fighting alongside Mozambique’s.

Spokesman for Mozambique’s Ministry of Defense, Omar Saranga, late Sunday announced they had regained control of the port town of Mocímboa da Praia.

He says it is important to highlight that the success of the operations is due to the effective collaboration of the local communities, which is why they call for the reinforcement of collective vigilance. Bear in mind, says Saranga, that due to the push of the ongoing offensive, terrorists will tend to infiltrate, with the aim of disrupting searches, as well as registration of rescued populations.

The ministry said the insurgents, who call themselves Al-Shabab but are not connected to the Somali Islamist group of the same name, had controlled the port for more than two years.

Since the insurgents began fighting in 2017 near rich oil and gas deposit projects, more than 2,500 people have been killed.

More than 800,000 people have been displaced by the fighting since April 2020, while gas projects worth billions have been put on hold.

Source: Voice of America

The National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students on 6 August conducted six months activity assessment meeting and on the implementation of charted out development programs.

According to the report presented at the meeting, short and long-term training programs have been organized for about 3 thousand youth with a view to developing their capacity. The report also included that various general knowledge contests have been organized aimed at developing the awareness of the youth on their country’s history.

The union in the past six months has also conducted various activities including supporting families of martyrs, strengthening the organizational capacity of youth workers as well as awareness-raising activities.

The participants conducted extensive discussions on the report presented and adopted various recommendations.

Pointing out that owing to the integrated efforts on the part of the union and Government and PFDJ institutions encouraging results has been registered, Mr. Saleh Ahmedin, Chairman of the union, called for reinforced participation for a better outcome.

At the meeting, Mr. Yemane Gebreab, Head of Political Affairs at the PFDJ, gave an extensive briefing on the current situation in the homeland.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

ABIDJAN— African nations need to spend about US$15.7 billion on their refineries to curb emissions and meet climate-change targets as demand for oil and gas surges, according to an industry lobby group.

Governments on the continent should focus on reducing sulfur levels in petroleum products because Africa’s consumption of fossil fuels will rise quickly in the coming decades even as the supply of clean energy expands, said Anibor Kragha, executive secretary of the African Refiners and Distributors Association, or ARDA.

The pan-African body, based in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital of Abidjan, promotes the interests of the downstream oil industry.

A “leapfrog” switch by African nations from oil and gas directly to renewables isn’t realistic, Kragha said in an emailed response to questions. “Africa needs a unique energy transition roadmap.”

Governments in wealthier nations have set ambitious targets for a rapid shift to renewable energy to slash carbon-dioxide emissions, with many countries and companies making commitments to achieving so-called net-zero by 2050.

Africa has accounted for about 2% of cumulative global emissions, according to the International Energy Agency, a figure the Paris-based organization sees rising to only as much as 4.5% by 2040.

Africa’s overall energy consumption is set to increase at twice the pace of the global average as populations and economies grow, the IEA said in a 2019 report.

Demand for oil and gas in Africa is expected to double to at least 7 million barrels per day and 317 billion cubic meters respectively by 2040, even as the contribution of renewables is forecast to soar more than tenfold from its current low base, according to IEA estimates.

Source: Voice of America

WASHINGTON – According to local press reports, Kenya has opted out of banning imported Chinese fish, a prohibition that had been considered to protect the local industry, because the African nation is facing a fish shortage.

Kenya’s Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya, quoted in the Daily Nation, said, “The challenge we have in the country is insufficient local fish to satisfy the market, and hence you cannot ban imports that fill that gap that we are facing. You only ban when you raise the capacity to produce locally.”

The AfricaNews website reported previously that Kenya’s agriculture committee had said it would ban fish imports from China, pointing to the availability of fish in local lakes and rivers and offshore.

The site also reported that local markets, facing a shortage of locally caught fish, had been selling imported Chinese fish and that the imported fish cost less.

Concern that inexpensive imported Chinese fish were undercutting the Kenyan fish industry was first raised in 2018, when President Uhuru Kenyatta said Kenyan government officials should figure out how to limit the imports, according to AfricaNews.

A report compiled by the Global Fishing Watch tracker between May and August showed some 230 fishing vessels off Kenya, many of them foreign owned, according to AfricaNews.

The site reported that most of the foreign-owned ships came from countries such as Italy and China.

China is “the world’s largest producer and consumer of seafood, and critics say its fleets engage in aggressive tactics as the nation tries to feed its 1.4 billion people,” VOA has reported. “Chinese ships have been accused of illegal and unreported fishing in many parts of the world – charges that China denies.”

Kenya has more than 600 kilometers of coastline on the Indian Ocean, and it claims 22 kilometers of territorial waters, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Beyond that, Kenya, like many other nations, claims an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 370 kilometers.

An EEZ is reserved to a coastal country under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). According to UNCLOS, the coastal country retains “special rights to exploration and use of marine resources, but the water’s surface remains international territory.”

Kenya’s “marine fisheries can be classified into two subsectors: the coastal artisanal fishery, and the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) fishery,” according to the U.N.’s FAO website. “A basic feature of the coastal fishery is the largely subsistence and artisanal nature of the fishers who operate small craft propelled by wind sails and manual paddles. The EEZ fishery, on the other hand, is characterized by distant-water fishing vessels which exploit target species mainly with purse-seines and long-lines.”

China has the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet, which it says it will cap at 3,000 vessels, according to VOA reporting. But a U.S. Coast Guard report says an additional fleet of 3,000 ships of the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia “actively carries out aggressive behavior on the high seas and in sovereign waters of other nations” in pursuit of China’s maritime interests.

A British research center estimates China’s total fleet size is nearly 17,000 vessels when Chinese ships that fly the flags of other nations are included.

The U.S. Coast Guard report, citing a U.N. statistic, says 93% of the world’s marine fish stocks are fully exploited, overexploited or significantly depleted. 

Source: Voice of America

Tunisia’s president said on Wednesday he was addressing the dire economic and COVID-19 situation and probing widespread corruption after invoking emergency powers on Sunday to seize control of government in a move his foes called a coup.

Kais Saied justified the moves, which included dismissing the prime minister and suspending parliament, by citing a surging pandemic and misgovernance, saying he had acted to save the country from corruption and plots to sow civil strife.

Public anger had been growing in Tunisia over the political paralysis that had stopped any coherent response to the pandemic and after years of economic hardship and declining public services.

France said on Wednesday it was paramount that Saied quickly name a new prime minister and Cabinet, while civil society groups, including the powerful labor union, have said he must produce a road map to exit the crisis within a month.

A decade after ending autocratic rule through a popular uprising, Tunisia faces the sternest test yet to its democratic system, and Western countries that have applauded its political transition have expressed concern.

Saied, who says his actions are constitutional but has yet to set out his next steps, has been urged by the United States to stick to democratic principles. He met security chiefs on Wednesday, the presidency said.

Backed by the army, Saied’s actions included suspending parliament for 30 days. Opponents including the Islamist Ennahdha party, parliament’s biggest, have accused him of a power grab.

On Wednesday he replaced the head of the television station after an incident in which two guests on a current affairs program said they had been denied entry to the building.

The United States on Monday pressed Tunisia to maintain “scrupulous respect for freedom of expression” after police raided a foreign news bureau, but on Wednesday a New York Times reporter said police had detained her for two hours when out working in Tunis.

Judicial probe

Late on Wednesday, the presidency published a video showing Saied telling the head of a business union that “wrong economic choices” had caused major financial problems.

Tunisia is seeking a loan agreement from the International Monetary Fund to finance its projected budget deficit and debt repayments.

Saied in the video called on traders to reduce prices of goods and warned them against speculating or hoarding. He also targeted business figures accused of corruption, saying that 460 people had stolen 13.5 billion dinars ($4.8 billion) in public money.

The judiciary had said earlier that it was investigating the two biggest parties in parliament, Ennahdha and Heart of Tunisia, on suspicion of receiving foreign funds during the 2019 election campaign.

The judiciary, widely seen in Tunisia as independent from politics, said its investigation started 10 days before the president’s moves.

Ennahdha, a moderate Islamist party that has become the focal point of opposition to Saied’s seizure of powers after its leader, parliament Speaker Rachid Ghannouchi, accused him of conducting a coup, denied committing any violations.

Heart of Tunisia could not be reached for comment.

Though Ennahdha called on Sunday for supporters to come out on the streets against Saied’s actions, it has since called for calm and sought national dialogue.

There was no sign of protests or other disturbances on Wednesday, although a heavier security presence was in place in central Tunis. The army also remains at the parliament, government and television buildings it surrounded on Sunday.

Saied reiterated a long-standing rule banning gatherings of more than three people in public, but there was no sign it was being enforced as people moved and gathered normally.

Saied has also tightened some existing COVID-19 restrictions, including a nightly curfew and ban on travel between cities.

On Wednesday, he issued orders to set up a pandemic response center to coordinate Tunisia’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, the presidency said.

Source: Voice of America

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a new push to expand business ties between U.S. companies and Africa, with a focus on clean energy, health, agribusiness and transportation infrastructure on the continent.

U.S. industry executives welcomed the interest but said dollar flows will lag until the administration wraps up its lengthy review of Trump administration trade measures and sets a clear policy on investments in liquefied natural gas.

Dana Banks, senior director for Africa at the White House National Security Council, told a conference the administration planned to “re-imagine” and revive Prosper Africa, an initiative launched by former President Donald Trump in 2018, as the “centerpiece of U.S. economic and commercial engagement with Africa.”

Travis Adkins, deputy assistant administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), added: “We’re looking at the ways in which we [can] foster two-way trade, looking at mutually beneficial partnerships that work together to mobilize investment, create jobs, and … shared opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic.”

President Joe Biden, who requested nearly $80 million for the initiative in his budget proposal in May, aims to focus it on women and equity, with an expanded role for small- and medium-sized businesses, Banks said.

The administration’s goal was to “reinvigorate Prosper Africa as the centerpiece of U.S. economic and commercial engagement with Africa,” she said.

“This is an area that is a priority both at home and abroad,” Banks told Reuters ahead of the conference, adding that African countries were eager to expand their cooperation with the United States.

China and Europe

U.S. business executives warn the United States is in danger of being overtaken by China and Europe, which are already investing and signing trade agreements across the continent.

“We can’t wait another year to devise an Africa policy; we need to be bold in our thinking,” said Scott Eisner, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s U.S.-Africa Business Center.

He said many companies had started to eye investments in Kenya given the Trump administration’s talks with Nairobi on a bilateral free trade agreement, but that those plans were on ice until the policy review was completed.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office had no immediate comment on the status of the review.

Liquefied natural gas

Another hurdle is uncertainty about the administration’s policy on LNG projects.

Nigeria and other countries are eager to secure U.S. investment in such plans, but are waiting to see whether the administration will back LNG investments even as it seeks to halve U.S. fossil-fuel emissions.

“We’ve committed as an institution to have over 50% of our investments focused on activities that combat climate change,” said Kyeh Kim, a senior official at Millennium Challenge Corporation, an independent U.S. foreign aid agency.

Source: Voice of America