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Biden Administration Launches Initiative to Build US-Africa Trade

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has kicked off the Prosper Africa Build Together initiative by requesting $80 million from Congress to build trade and investment between the U.S. and Africa.

Dana Banks, U.S. senior director for Africa at the National Security Council, said Wednesday in an online news briefing that the U.S. was ready to do business with the continent.

“The campaign is a targeted effort to elevate and energize the United States commitment to trade and investment with countries across the African continent under the Biden and Harris administration,” Banks said. “And our goal is to substantially increase two-way trade and investment between the United States and Africa by connecting U.S. and African businesses and investors with tangible deal opportunities.”

It’s not the first time the U.S. government has engaged Africa on trade.

— In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), the deal that provided African countries with unilateral, duty-free exports for 6,500 products to the U.S. AGOA still exists and is extended until 2025.

— According to the Brookings Institution, South Africa got $917 million in 2019 by exporting automobile and agricultural products to the U.S.

— A separate study done by the University of South Africa in 2017 found that the U.S. imported 10 percent of its wine from South Africa, worth $59 million.

— And the U.S. government is now negotiating a free trade agreement with Kenya.

More growth, jobs

Banks said America wants to participate in Africa’s growth.

“Africa’s increasing integration into the global markets, demographic boom and the thriving culture of entrepreneurship present a remarkable opportunity for us to strengthen those economic ties and promote new opportunities for both U.S. and African businesses to fuel economic growth and job creation and greater U.S. participation in Africa’s future,” she said.

Gerrishon Ikiara, an international economic affairs lecturer at the University of Nairobi, said the initiative would help strengthen the relations between the U.S. and Africa.

“The U.S. wants to tap that both for economic reasons, political and international relations reasons, because it is known all over the world that trade links also help to build political and diplomatic links. … This is key for both the U.S. and Africa as of now,” Ikiara said. “The U.S. is also knowing more about African products, African culture, with many migrant workers from Africa working in the U.S.”

However, some critics say the trade and investment plan could undermine the African Continental Free Trade Area, which was established in 2019. That agreement promotes the free movement of goods and people across the continent.

Source: Voice of America

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Somalia Green Energy Association Touts Clean Power Potential

Somalia lacks a national power grid and relies on imported fuel, wood and charcoal to address its energy needs. But energy experts say with the longest coastline in mainland Africa and an average of 10 hours of sunshine per day, Somalia has great potential for onshore wind and solar power.

Somalia’s private power companies rely on imported diesel to meet demand, making Mogadishu power cost more than three times the price of the global average.

But they hope to transition to renewable energy.

Abdiaziz Ileyka, an electrical engineer with Blue Sky Power, a private energy company based in Somalia, says that lack of investment hinders many from developing this sector.

Illeyka says the challenge for the sector is that solar power is relatively new and there is lack of investment, despite the human skills and the technology being readily available, especially to tap into onshore and hydro power to make use of these abundant resources. But he remains optimistic.

To help jump-start renewables, a group of private companies this year formed the Somalia Green Energy Association, or SOGEA.

Bashiir Soofe, the founder of clean energy company Dalsan Power and SOGEA’s chairman, says the group faces various obstacles such as lack of incentives and investments from both the government and international community. But he says if the necessary investment and funding is obtained, particularly if banks can open their doors to support the renewable energy sector, then Somalia can become a hub for renewable energy and rise economically.

Somalia’s Ministry of Planning, Investment and Economic Development says it is pushing renewable energy. Mohamed Dubo, the director of the Somalia Investment Promotion Office, the office tasked with efforts to implement renewable energy, says Somalia is endowed with vast natural resources. Among the renewable energy sources are wind and solar energy. Dubo says Somalia’s wind speeds are quite high, even the fastest in the world, and these can generate substantial amounts of electricity. Similarly, he says, the country has extended periods of sunshine, and, therefore, the potential to even sell power to its neighbors.

A 2018 African Development Bank study found that Somalia has the highest potential of any African nation for onshore wind power — if it can harness it.

Samatar Mohamed, an economics lecturer at Mogadishu University, agrees. He thinks the country just hasn’t been able to unleash its full potential.

He says if Somalia is able to take advantage of the its abundant renewable energy potential, the price of a kilowatt-hour would not be as expensive as it is. The utility rate would be cheap, and everyone would be able to afford electricity, he added.

As the world moves to clean energy, Somalia’s energy industry hopes to move with it and find its place under the sun.

Source: Voice of America

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UN Says Armed Groups Threaten Thousands of Eritrean Refugees in Tigray

GENEVA – The UN refugee agency warns about 24,000 Eritrean refugees trapped in two camps in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray province are in great danger as fighting among armed groups escalates.

Concerns are growing for the safety and wellbeing of thousands of Eritrean refugees in Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps as fighting intensifies in Tigray’s Mai Tsebri area.

The UN refugee agency reports aid agencies have been unable to access the camps since July 14. It says conditions for the refugees have become increasingly dire and worrisome since then.

UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch says members of armed groups have infiltrated the camps. He says the Eritreans are living in constant fear. He says they are facing intimidation and harassment and are cut off from humanitarian assistance.

“We have received disturbing and credible reports in recent days from Mai Aini camp that at least one refugee was killed by armed elements operating inside the camp,” Baloch said. “The latest death is in addition to the killing of another refugee on 14 July.”

Baloch says he does not know which of the armed groups is responsible for the killings. However, his agency, he says, has received credible reports that people with guns are operating inside the two refugee camps.

He says the UNHCR has been appealing to the local authorities and the Ethiopian refugee agency to provide safety for the refugees and to grant aid agencies access to the camps. He notes the Eritrean refugees have been without humanitarian assistance for the last two weeks.

“Trapped refugees need urgent life-saving assistance,” Baloch said. “Clean drinking water is running out, no healthcare services are available, and hunger is a real danger. The last food distribution to both refugee camps was done in late June, which provided them rations for just one month.

Baloch says recent armed clashes in Afar region to the east of Tigray have displaced thousands of people, among them about 55,000 Eritrean refugees. He says concerns for their safety also are growing as armed confrontations are taking place near where the refugees live.

Source: Voice of America

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Tunisian Democracy Seen as Vulnerable After President Fires PM and Suspends Parliament

NAIROBI, KENYA – Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, was accused of staging a coup this week, when he dismissed the prime minister and suspended parliament after violent protests. Clashes between Saied’s supporters, protesters, and police have raised fears that Tunisia’s fragile democracy is under threat.

A nationwide, dusk-to-dawn curfew began in Tunisia Tuesday and no more than three people are allowed to gather in public places.

The move comes two days after Tunisian President Kais Saied fired Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspended parliament for 30 days.

To justify the prime minister’s firing and shutting the parliament, Saied cited Article 80 of the constitution, which he said gave him the power to carry out such a decision.

Opponents are calling that decision a coup.

Marc Owen Jones, a professor at Qatar’s Hamad bin Khalifa University, told VOA the president planned this moment for months.

“This policy or what he is doing reflects the content of a document that was leaked back in May that basically suggested that the president should consolidate his own power by issuing the measures we have seen in the past two days. And this policy is certainly supported by certain countries in the Middle East, which includes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates governments in particular,” he said.

Jones said the Tunisian leader is following the footsteps of other rulers who ruled with an iron fist.

“The president is consolidating power in his hands and is threatening anyone who engages in violence will get bullets. He has not learnt the lessons of Arab uprising, which is that most people in the region don’t want authoritarian leaders who basically concentrate violent powers in their hands and threaten the population with violence. This is a huge significant moment in the middle east that represents an infringement of authoritarian rule once again,” he said.

President Saied was elected in 2019. The election that year was the second free presidential vote in the north African nation. The electorate hoped he would improve their lives and move the country forward.

The developments Sunday came after months of wrangling between the president and Prime Minister Mechichi. A parliamentary coalition led by the biggest political party, Ennahdha, supported the prime minister.

On Monday, the military sealed off the parliament building and supporters of the president and Ennahdha clashed outside.

On Tuesday, Ennahdha called for dialogue to end the political crisis. The party said there is a need to preserve democratic gains and return the country to constitutional order.

Mohamed-Dhia Hammami is a political science researcher based in Tunis. He said Tunisia can solve its problem.

“We still have what we call a national organization, mostly a strong and powerful labor union UGTT, that can play the role of a mediator for Kais Saied and the others. Yesterday, [there were] calls from one of the quartet members of the 2013 mediation calling for national dialogue, and calling for similar mediation between Kais Saied, the president and Rached Ghannouchi, the head of the Ennahdha and the head of the parliament. So that might be an option,” he said.

In 2013, Tunisia’s National Dialogue Quartet helped resolve the political crisis, their effort won them the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize.

However, some experts fear the current political crisis may end in an impasse and a standoff, leading to a conflict.

Hammami said the president cannot hold power that long.

“I don’t think it will be dark as Syria or Egypt or Yemen but I think that we are facing a risk of the authoritarian term. But at the same time, we should keep in mind that the current president Kais Saied is an outsider to the system, his understanding of the complexity of things is limited. He doesn’t have the political party that allows him to govern the country like Bin Ali did, the former dictator. And a significant part of the establishment and political elite are opposing or at least skeptical of his recent moves,” he said.

Tunisia has achieved democracy in recent years, but the country has struggled with high unemployment, corruption and slow economic growth.

Source: Voice of America

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Biden Revives Trump’s Africa Business Initiative

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

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Nigerian Companies Use Charcoal Substitutes to Reduce Deforestation

KUJE, NIGERIA – Some Nigerian companies are using coconut and palm shells to make charcoal briquettes in an effort to slow ongoing deforestation. Nigeria banned charcoal exports after a World Bank report showed the country lost nearly half its forest cover in just a decade.

Nothing goes to waste at the coconut processing facility started by Emeka Ugwueje 10 years ago outside Abuja.

“We began thinking inward to say, ‘OK, let our waste become the necessary energy to make fire’ and this is where we have come,” Ugwueje said.

The shells burn for about an hour before turning from brown to a carbon-rich black derivative.

They are cooled, ground and later manually molded into briquettes.

But Ugwueje said there’s a plan to scale up mechanically.

“We intend to introduce several types of machines. Among them is the molder, the cutter, and the drying system – a dehydrator that will bring these briquettes into a more solid form,” Ugweuje said.

Major environmental repercussions

Ugwueje’s company, SFK Coconut, which makes products made from coconut, is one of many in Nigeria using coconut briquettes as fuel in place of wood charcoal.

Experts said Nigeria’s huge charcoal market causes major environmental repercussions. Charcoal from here is mostly exported to Europe and the United States.

A 2017 World Bank Report showed Nigeria lost nearly half of its forest cover between 2007 and 2017 as a result of the charcoal trade. The report also predicted Nigeria’s forests could be completely gone by 2047.

Political will is missing

Conservationist David Michael Terungwa, executive director of the Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation, said a lack of compliance with Nigeria’s charcoal export ban is to blame for continued deforestation. He also cites a lack of political will to address the problem.

“I think the issue is compliance and compliance monitoring, and enforcement by the regulatory agency,” Terungwa said.

He was referring to Nigeria’s National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency.

For years, Nigerian authorities have been encouraging tree planting to replace decimated forests.

But experts say in the absence of adequate monitoring systems, Nigerians must make a conscious effort to use other alternatives to tree-derived charcoal for fuel.

Source: Voice of America

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Dozens of Shipwrecked Migrants Drown off Libya’s Coast

GENEVA – The International Organization for Migration says at least 57 migrants, most from West Africa, drowned Monday, when their boat capsized off the Libyan Coast.

About 70 people were on board the doomed vessel when it left the Libyan port of Khums late Sunday evening. Reports say the boat, which had embarked for Europe, ran into trouble soon after, took on water and sank.

U.N. migration agency spokesman Paul Dillion says no additional bodies have been found. He told VOA at least 20 women and two toddlers were among the missing and are presumed dead. He said survivors have been taken to the offices of the Libyan investigation’s unit in Khums, where they are being assisted.

“Libyan fishermen and the Libyan coast guard rescued 18 people and brought them to shore.… Our staff, who are providing regional assistance, medical, food and water to the survivors, described them as shocked, deeply traumatized, and exhausted from their ordeal,” he said.

Dillon said the survivors are natives of Nigeria, Ghana, and Gambia. He said he does not know what will happen to the migrants once they’ve recovered from their ordeal.

However, he said the IOM believes Libya is not a safe port of return and migrants who are picked up at sea should not be returned to Libya because of the instability in the country.

“Of particular concern are the conditions, well documented, in detention centers in the country where migrants are warehoused and routinely subject to a wide variety of well documented human rights abuses, be they extortions, sexual violence and other things,” Dillon said.

Every year, thousands of people, fleeing conflict and poverty, embark on dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa to Europe in pursuit of a better life. Every year many hundreds lose their lives.

The IOM says this latest tragedy off the Libyan coast pushes the 2021 death toll on the central Mediterranean route to 970 men, women, and children. As the weather improves, the agency warns the death toll will rise as an increasing number of flimsy smuggler boats depart from Libya and Tunisia for Europe.

Source: Voice of America