Essential The Africa the Media Doesn't Tell You About

[Budda]

424B4

The Nigerian government is issuing a $300MM Diaspora bond

What does this mean

 

[phcitywarrior]

What does this mean

A diaspora bond is a bond issued by a nation to it’s diasporan population to raise capital for various projects (infrastructure especially)

This is usually done when there’s a large, wealthy diasporan population that still feels a connection to their motherland and other means of financing aren’t as attractive.

The yields on the bond usually are lower than other bonds of a similar risk profile as part of the “sell” is that the bond is helping rebuild a the diaspora’s nation.

I think Israel had/has employed something similar in the past.

So in this case, the Nigerian government will issue a bond of $300 MM which it hopes its citizens in the US, UK, Canada etc will purchase as a means of raising capital.

Personally, I think it’s a half-baked idea. The Nigerian government isn’t showing enough at the moment to make me believe my investment will be worthwile. Government expenditure is bloated at the moment and I fear a sizeable portion of the money would be lost to “government administration”

 

[loyola llothta]

What yall boys think about the Russia-Africa Summit that's coming up

 

[phcitywarrior]

What yall boys think about the Russia-Africa Summit that's coming up

Trump's presidency is actually the best thing to have happened to the African continent in that the US isn't as overtly involved in the continent hence you have players like Japan and Russia looking to make inroads.

However, I don't think the African leaders have seized the opportunity like they should have.

When you have two parties making deals, then you should be getting a better offer than when you are negotiating with just one party.

Russia, China, Japan etc offer a different flavour than the UK, US and France - the incumbents if you will.

Russia is definitely looking to make military inroads, however, INDUSTRIALIZATION must be the top priority when it comes to negotiations for the African countries.

The goal for the 2020s should be an industrialized Africa. Of course that'll be tough because if Africa is industrialized, then there's more competition for mineral resources.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

What yall boys think about the Russia-Africa Summit that's coming up

What's it about? Economics/development, military partnership or both?

 

[Red Shield]

Trump's presidency is actually the best thing to have happened to the African continent in that the US isn't as overtly involved in the continent hence you have players like Japan and Russia looking to make inroads.

However, I don't think the African leaders have seized the opportunity like they should have.

When you have two parties making deals, then you should be getting a better offer than when you are negotiating with just one party.

Russia, China, Japan etc offer a different flavour than the UK, US and France - the incumbents if you will.

Russia is definitely looking to make military inroads, however, INDUSTRIALIZATION must be the top priority when it comes to negotiations for the African countries.

The goal for the 2020s should be an industrialized Africa. Of course that'll be tough because if Africa is industrialized, then there's more competition for mineral resources.

Yeah, hell the 2020s might be the last decade where industrialization for Africa would be "relatively" easy.

Competition wise.. The west would be the problem. Because I don't see the Russians/Chinese/Non-westerns causing any coups/colored revolutions.
But you already know the west is gonna pull some shyt..

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Trump's presidency is actually the best thing to have happened to the African continent in that the US isn't as overtly involved in the continent hence you have players like Japan and Russia looking to make inroads.

However, I don't think the African leaders have seized the opportunity like they should have.

When you have two parties making deals, then you should be getting a better offer than when you are negotiating with just one party.

Russia, China, Japan etc offer a different flavour than the UK, US and France - the incumbents if you will.

Russia is definitely looking to make military inroads, however, INDUSTRIALIZATION must be the top priority when it comes to negotiations for the African countries.

The goal for the 2020s should be an industrialized Africa. Of course that'll be tough because if Africa is industrialized, then there's more competition for mineral resources.

The fact that much of Africa has never industrialized is a damn shame.

John Magufuli seems to be one of the few who are ambitious about it.

 

[reasonable_doubter]

 

[loyola llothta]

3 October 2019

What Happened in Sudan?
By Prof. Vijay Prashad

On 19 December 2018, an uprising began in Sudan. This uprising would culminate in the removal of Sudan’s president – Omar al-Bashir – from power on 11 April 2019. The army staged a conservative military coup to abort the revolutionary tide and keep the same old policies. It dissolved the parliament and established a two-year military regime led by the Transitional Military Council. The revolutionary forces – galvanized into the Alliance of Freedom and Change, with the Sudanese Communist Party and the Sudanese Professionals Association at the front – continued their march forward, determined to make a full revolution.

The clash between the Transitional Military Council and the Alliance of Freedom and Change continues. It could either result in an Egypt-like solution, where the military regime masquerades as a democratic party, or it could move forward with a revolutionary democracy.

Why Did the Sudanese People Rise?

In 2018, the range of negative social pressures rose as a result of the stagnation of Sudan’s economy. The growth rate fell to -2.3% that year. This was a result of at least four reasons:

1. Wars. Omar al-Bashir had been in power since 1989. He oversaw two deadly wars in this period. The first war was between the north and south of the country, a war that in its second phase lasted from 1983 to 2005. This war resulted in the death of two million people, the displacement of four million people, and the partition of the country into Sudan and South Sudan in 2011. The second war was in the province of Darfur, which resulted in the death of millions and the destruction of that vast, marginalized region that has been deeply impacted by the desiccation of the Sahara Desert. Both conflicts weakened Sudan.
2. Oil. Sudan’s economy is dependent on oil exports, with most of the oil in the southern part of the country. With the partition of Sudan, the country of Sudan lost 75% of its oil reserves to South Sudan. Nonetheless, in 2008, 21.5% of Sudan’s GDP came from oil exports (and drove a growth rate of 11.5%). When global oil prices collapsed in 2014, Sudan’s economy went into rapid decline.
3. IMF. By 2017, Sudan had an external debt of over $50-billion – 61% of its GDP – with about 84% of it in arrears. Sudan owed 89% of this debt to countries and to commercial banks (the rest to international financial institutions). In November 2017, the IMF recommended that Sudan’s government cut bread and fuel subsidies and devalue the Sudanese Pound.
   
   
   The government followed the IMF advice. Already, 50% of the Sudanese population lived in poverty. The situation went out of control after the subsidy cuts and the devaluation.
4. Since 1976, Sudan has drifted into the worldview of political Islam. The US-backed dictator Jaafar al-Nimeiri allied himself with the Muslim Brotherhood that year. A mass uprising erupted in April 1985, resulting in the overthrow of the al-Nimeiri regime and opening the way for the restoration of a democratic process. Attempts were made between 1985-89 to reach a peaceful solution to the civil war in the South and to abolish the Sharia law that was introduced by al-Nimeiri and the Muslim Brotherhood alliance. However, the democratic process was shortlived. In June 1989 the Muslim Brotherhood staged a coup, toppled the democratically elected government, and dissolved parliament, political parties, trade unions, and all civil society organizations. It imposed the most reactionary regime resulting in the continuation of the war in the South, the dismissal of over 250,000 workers and civil servants from work, and the establishment of ‘ghost houses’ where leaders of the democratic forces were tortured (and some killed). Omar al-Bashir, who inherited this regime, continued the Muslim Brotherhood agenda. Rather than tackle the serious political, economic, and social problems in Sudan, the governments of al-Nimeiri and al-Bashir hid behind a harsh cultural agenda (which included blasphemy laws, laws against women’s rights, and policies against the diversity of Sudan’s peoples and culture). Both al-Nimeiri and al-Bashir fell because they had no answer to economic crises; their only response was repression against IMF riots.

How Did the Sudanese People Rise?

The uprising began in Atbara, a workers’ city which had witnessed the birth of the Sudanese trade union movement in the 1940s. The residue of that struggle, and of the victorious fight to overthrow the British-backed dictator Ibrahim Abboud (in October 1964) and al-Nimeiri (April 1985), remains.

A range of older political formations (the Sudanese Communist Party and the Sudanese Women’s Union) and newer formations (the Sudanese Professionals Association, formed in 2016 by 17 trade unions) joined in this current struggle with civil society groups and political parties alongside a new group whose name defines the temperature, Girifna – ‘We Are Disgusted’. These groups gathered around a Declaration of Freedom and Change, which called for full democracy over the politics and the economics of the country, and for a commitment to health, education, housing, and the protection of the environment, as well as the immediate formation of a National Committee for the Constitution. This Declaration binds the various political actors into a tight unity.

What is Possible in Sudan?

For the moment, the military seems to have the upper hand. Faced with the determination and heroic continuation of the mass protest movement under the leadership of the Freedom and Change Alliance, and the support of junior officers, the military junta accepted the compromise proposals of the African Union to share power with the alliance for the coming three years. The military is not prepared to fully crush the movement because many junior, non-commissioned officers are sympathetic to its goals. This does not mean that the military – like al-Bashir before it – has not used violence. It has. But the alliance, rooted in the Declaration, has been resilient. For them, the revolutionary process has not ended.

What Happened in Sudan? - The Bullet

 

[loyola llothta]

The Modern Day Scramble for Africa

Published on Sep 23, 2019
From the US to China to Israel to Russia, governments are positioning resources - both civilian and military - in various African nations for various reasons. Jacqueline Luqman talks to Maurice Carney about who are the players on the continent, what do they want, what does this mean for the future of Africa and Africans, and why should we here in the US be concerned.

 

[Secure Da Bag]

African who started an empire in India

 

[loyola llothta]

 

[Premeditated]

Africa must follow Senegal’s lead and ensure rural communities are not forgotten
Last week the Senegalese government announced a $93.3 million project to promote entrepreneurship in rural communities. Called the Rural Youth Agripreneur Support Project, the initiative is backed by a $51.9 million loan from the International Fund for Rural Development (IFAD) and will provide training and financial support to young people in the agriculture, fisheries and pastoral sectors. Around 150,000 people, half of them women, are expected to benefit.

The project is just the latest pillar in Senegalese President Macky Sall’s quest to create a high-tech economy. But by specifically targeting the rural community, Sall is addressing an issue of pivotal importance across Africa: how to curb chronic levels of poverty and unemployment among the two-thirds of people who live outside the continent’s big cities, and dissuade young job-seekers from risking their lives by migrating both domestically and overseas in search of a better life.

Senegal is very familiar with such migration. Years of crippling poverty and high unemployment forced people to abandon their childhood villages in droves. Sall, who was first elected in March 2012, has made it his mission to reverse these trends through innovation and entrepreneurship, fostering a galaxy of new tech-savvy startups which he hopes will create up to 100,000 jobs.

To this end the president has pushed reforms allowing companies to be set up in 48 hours, promised better treatment for foreign firms and persuaded international investors to provide crucial capital. Initiatives such as the Rapid Entrepreneurship Delegation fund, launched last year with total funding of $50 million, aim to provide financial backing for budding entrepreneurs — particularly young women, who the government considers key to achieving its goals.

The results have certainly been impressive so far. Senegal boasts one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies, with GDP shooting skywards at a rate of around 7% a year. Dakar’s burgeoning tech hub has been likened to Silicon Valley. What’s more, in keeping with the government’s emphasis on female entrepreneurship, many of the most innovative ICT businesses are run by women. In fact, women’s incomes across Senegal have grown by up to 400% in recent years.

Immense pressure
As impressive as Senegal’s economic growth has been, however, much of its success has so far been concentrated in urban areas. The Sall administration’s new initiative is designed to tackle this imbalance. Beyond Dakar and Senegal’s other conurbations, young people still find it difficult to find a job. In rural communities, the underemployment rate is an estimated 31%. Years of rapid population growth have put the job market under intolerable pressure, and many of the most important agricultural regions have been depleted by climate change. The government’s latest project is designed to address the chronic lack of tools, land and information which blights villagers across the country.

The challenges Senegal’s rural population is facing is similar to that other rural communities are coping with across Sub-Saharan Africa. The region currently has the highest population growth rate in the world, yet hasn’t developed the infrastructure to keep pace. In West and Central Africa, over 75% of the population is under the age of 35 and they are afflicted by a chronically high poverty rate. Droughts and floods have eaten away at the region’s agricultural belts—a problem compounded by lack of land tenure, as well as ethnic and gender repression.

With around one in two people in the region subsisting on less than US $1.25 per day, it’s unsurprising that many African millennials seek to emigrate, either to their country’s bright lights or to Europe. However, both options present huge challenges. If they choose the first option, many young Africans find that the job market is already swamped when they arrive in urban areas and their only option is a life of poverty or crime. The litany of horror stories about migrant deaths in the Mediterranean shows, in chilling detail, what can happen if they take the latter route.

Third option
Many believe, however, that there’s a third way: that rural Africans can build a better future for themselves in their own communities through better education and employment programs. As delegates at the recent G7 conference concluded, such programs can also help Africa work towards sustainable food systems and achieve genuine food security.

To this end, organizations such as IFAD are backing a number of projects across Africa. In Ghana, for example, the fund has invested over $300 million to help small-scale farmers adopt modern agricultural projects. Its flagship initiative focuses on the north of the country and strives to bring small farmers together with financiers and transporters to realise their economic potential. IFAD suggests that, thanks to the program, smallholders have been able to access 400% more credit in five years.

In Madagascar, meanwhile, a training program for rural youth has been providing crucial vocational training for nearly a decade, helping rural youth gain relevant skills to find jobs in their local communities rather than having to take their chances in the city. This and other programs are helping Madagascar’s women gain crucial education in a range of fields, from handicrafts to accountancy.

Work to be done
In other countries, however, the gap between rural and urban prosperity has yet to be adequately bridged. Nowhere is the problem more prevalent than South Africa, the continent’s second-biggest economy, where more than 30 million people still live in poverty and a huge number of young people in farming communities have been left behind by mechanisation and technology. Local NGOs have strived to plug the gaps, creating a network of young ambassadors who can spread skills to rural areas, but they complain that the South African government is not doing enough to support them.

So while Senegal’s latest entrepreneurship initiative is very much welcome, it needs to be followed by similar action in its neighbouring countries. Africa’s cities may be developing rapidly, fostering their own mini technological boom, but the continent’s potential will only be realized if rural communities receive a helping hand, too.

I kind of see why a huge chunk of their growth last year was from investment, startups and manufacturing sector.

 

[loyola llothta]

What's it about? Economics/development, military partnership or both?

This what i got

Russia Expands Its Game Plan in Africa

Sep 25, 2019

• The upcoming Africa summit in Sochi, Russia, will provide Moscow with a platform to formally establish its diplomatic efforts on a pan-African scale for the first time.
• Because of its financial constraints, Moscow is less likely to lure African states with large investments.
• Instead, Moscow will focus on providing mutually beneficial cooperation in the fields of security, resource extraction and nuclear power.
• This cross-continent effort will build on the bilateral African relationships Russia developed in the Soviet era, and has since maintained through military support and information campaigns.

Russia’s strategy to exert influence in Africa has been underway for two years, though it's so far largely consisted of more covert, bilateral activities. But that's slated to change come Oct. 22, when Moscow hosts its first-ever pan-African summit in the city of Sochi. The inaugural meeting will provide a platform for Russia to present a more positive view of its intentions in Africa, where it can act as an enabler in economic and political affairs.

More than 40 African leaders are scheduled so far to attend the two-day event — many of whom hail from countries Russia has never had exceptionally close relationships with. But Moscow's ability to make inroads with these new nations will be limited by its lack of the massive budget that its Eastern and Western rivals have long leveraged to stake their claim on the continent. Thus, Russia's expanded new diplomatic efforts in Africa will likely focus less on offering purely financial support, and more on fostering more pragmatic security and infrastructure partnerships

What Russia Has to Offer
Moscow has been a notable provider of low cost, low sophistication weapons to Africa for roughly 60 years. Its charm offensive at the upcoming summit — just as it has been in its relations with individual countries — will likely consist of attractive acquisitions in the military domain. Russia has also always been keen on helping African states construct energy installations. And there's a chance Moscow will showcase its existing nuclear power agreements with countries — or sign new ones — during next month's Sochi meeting.



Such military deals or infrastructure developments could also be backed by Russian loans, though the scope would almost certainly be more restrained than those offered by Africa's many other, less cash-strapped suitors. China, for example, has long wooed African leaders with large infrastructure investments. Japan, Europe and the United States, meanwhile, have typically focused on more sustainable investment programs. And in more recent years, money from Qatar and other Gulf states has increasingly made its way into Africa as well. But such a strategy is not viable for Russia, which faces its own budgetary constraints. Moscow will thus likely remain focused on pursuing more profitable opportunities that are less likely to leave it out of pocket.

In doing so, Moscow may find ways to provide services and sell equipment to African states using Russian financing. Russia has many ongoing natural resource extraction projects in Africa, for example, that are mutually profitable for both Russia and its African partners such as Mozambique. Moscow frequently leverages these beneficial resource contracts to provide backing for credit or as a quid pro quo for discounts on extraction services or equipment. Under the right conditions, Russia's expanded strategy could yield similar contracts with more African countries that avoid the risk of not being paid back.


Leveraging Legacy for New Ties
But Russia will lean on more than just pragmatic offerings of military and infrastructure support in its new cross-continent pursuit. One of the primary pillars of Russia’s venture into Africa has been — and will continue to be — leveraging its remaining Soviet legacy. During the Cold War, Russia supported various rebel groups and regimes across Africa in an attempt to compete with Western influence. This strategy also included directly supporting local actors in proxy wars against U.S. and European-supported forces in Angola and Mozambique, in particular.

Today, Russia's direct involvement in Africa is nowhere near where it was during the post-Cold War era. But its political and economic relationships have nonetheless survived thanks, in large part, to the limited overturn of governance in many African countries. The leaders or future leaders that the Soviet Union educated and trained all still hold significant influence in many of these countries. And some, such as Angolan President Joao Lourenco, even remain in powerful positions to this day — offering Russia a foot in the door.


Russia's tight budget will limit its ability to make inroads with new African countries with money alone.


Russia’s charm offensive in Africa will continue to lean heavily on its existing ties with former Soviet allies like Egypt. And indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin will co-host the Sochi summit with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, who also now heads the 55-member African Union. Unlike the Soviet days, however, Moscow can no longer rely on the wave of local Marxism and pan-Africanism that fueled local support behind its Africa policy nearly 40 years ago. In the era of independence wars and postcolonial struggles, these political movements saw partnering with the Soviets as key to freeing their countries from Western colonial oppression. Such outspoken movements have since died out, though that hasn't kept Russia from continuing to peddle the narrative of opposing Western imperialism in its pitches to African countries.

Many African leaders don’t appreciate Western meddling in their affairs, which provides some space for this angle to be successful. But it doesn't account for the growing number of other, non-Western suitors vying for influence in Africa. Thus, at the upcoming summit, Russia will likely also try to warn African leaders of the broader risks of becoming deeply indebted to its other competitors (namely China), while also weaving in messages of Russia’s alleged benevolent mission across the continent. Whether this combination of scare tactics, anti-U.S. rhetoric and pragmatic offerings can successfully distract from Russia's inability to funnel the kind of cash into Africa that so many other countries can remains to be seen.

Link:
Russia Expands Its Game Plan in Africa

 

[Bawon Samedi]

This sounds a BIT optimistic..
Could Africa Be the Next Financial Frontier?
Could Africa Be the Next Financial Frontier?

@Frangala @loyola llothta I personally feel that the DRC should partner up with Russia to clear out the Eastern Congo once and for all. A stable DRC is very good. Very good and for everyone(minus Kagame). @loyola llothta didn't read the Russia summit article you just posted yet.

Edit:

The DRC should sign with China's belt and road initiative.