Essential The Africa the Media Doesn't Tell You About

[TMNT4000]

Ethiopia’s Mining Industry Worth $5bn
October 22, 2014 Editor Business, Finance/Money, Mining & Construction

VENTURES AFRICA – Evolving reports on Ethiopia’s economic opportunities suggest that the country could be sitting on a $5 billion mining sector, the full value of which can be realized by tapping into geothermal sources.

Already, according to Mines Minister Tolosa Shagi, Ethiopia had already realized more than $2.3 billion from the exports of gold, tantalum, opal, marble and other minerals over the past four years, and returns should double with more investment in the sector.

In 2013, the Ethiopian government collaborating with the World Bank commissioned a report titled “Strategic Assessment of the Ethiopian Mineral Sector,” results from which, also validated by private companies and geological surveys, states clearly that the East African country had a wide range of possibilities for the exploitation of mineral deposits.

“Exploratory activities conducted to date in limited parts of the country indicate that Ethiopia is endowed with a favourable geological environment that hosts a wide range of mineral and geo-energy potential. More than 130 companies are working in solid minerals operations and oil and gas activities in Ethiopia. However, there is still a need to develop adequate transport and accountability systems to ensure that the development and management of resources is conducted effectively,” Mr Shagi opined.

A number of deals have been struck to help the country unearth more of its resources. Earlier in the year, the African Union and private developer Reykjavik Geothermal Limited provided some $8 million to support the drilling of two wells at the Corbetti Geothermal Power Project. Also, last year, Norway agreed to a $13 million deal with Ethiopia to help the carbon neutrality programme; this was facilitated through the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund.

Ethiopia’s economy, according to the World Bank, has experienced strong and broad based growth estimated at 10.9 percent over the past decade compared to the regional average of 5.3 percent. Expansion of the services and agricultural sectors account for most of this growth, while manufacturing sector performance was relatively modest. Fully harnessing the potentials of the mining sector, therefore, makes economic sense in a broader context of boosting the country’s GDP and diversifying its economy.

www.ventures-africa.com/2014/10/ethiopias-mining-industry-worth-5bn/

 

[TMNT4000]

Thank You Mods for putting it back at HL.

 

[TMNT4000]

Iran Offers Nigeria Nuclear TechnologyFeatured

• Thursday, 23 October 2014 03:47
• Written by e-Reporter
• 0 Comments

Hassan Rowhani, moderate cleric and elected Iranian President in 2013
Iranian firms specialising in nuclear technology are prepared to offer Nigeria their expertise to help boost electricity supply in the country, the Iranian ambassador to Nigeria, Saeed Koozechi, saidWednesday.

“We (Iran) are using our nuclear programme to improve the power, health and agriculture sectors in the country,’’ Mr. Koozechi said on Wednesday in Abuja.

The envoy, who invited Nigeria to participate in an international exhibition on power scheduled to hold in Tehran, in November, said Iran also had invaluable experience in constructing power plants and transmission lines for electricity supply.



“The power sector is very important and it is the blood for the economy, without electricity it is impossible to create any investment or job,’’ he said.
Mr. Koozechi lamented the impact of extensive sanctions imposed on Iran by Western countries over the country’s nuclear programme, saying the action was having a crippling effect on Iran’s economy.

The envoy said the sanctions spearheaded by the United States and the European Union was not only affecting Iran’s economy, but also international trade relations and businesses, including trade with Nigeria.

According to the envoy, as a result of the sanctions, banks in Iran and Nigeria could not effectively conduct transactions on SWIFT, a financial-messaging service for most cross- border money transfers.

Iranian businesses, he said, had resorted to companies in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey to bring in their products to Nigeria.

The ambassador, who gave annual trade figures between Nigeria and Iran at $50 million, described the volume of trade as low, considering the size of both economies, which could easily help increase the figure to about $500 million.

With Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa, and the continent’s most populous, he said this could provide Iran a huge opportunity and capacity for economic cooperation.

He condemned the “bad-face” given Iran by the Western media, saying this was another impediment to international trade with foreign nations, including Nigeria.

Mr. Koozechi said accusations that his country’s nuclear programme was about atomic bomb as alleged by the U.S. and its European allies were not true, pointing out that issue was well known as a completely peaceful programme.

“We have had more than 7,000 hour visits from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts to Iranian nuclear sites and they have not found anything that links our nuclear activities to atomic bomb,” he said. “This is a technical issue and it is within the framework of the IAEA, but some of the Western countries try to make it a political issue.”

He said the main aim of the Iranian nuclear issue was to create power (electricity), with one nuclear site in Tehran currently producing about 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity, while plans are on to establish 20 other nuclear power plants.

In 2013, the Middle East country produced 10 billion kilowatts of electricity from its nuclear power plant, saving over $1billion and equivalent of about 70 million barrels of crude oil for the country’s economy.
Source: http://www.ereporter.com.ng/index.php/national-news/item/701-iran-offers-nigeria-nuclear-technology

http://www.ereporter.com.ng/index.php/national-news/item/701-iran-offers-nigeria-nuclear-technology

 

[TMNT4000]

Ethiopian Airlines' Boeing 787 Dreamliner Makes Historic Landing In Ghana

 

[Kritic]

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29541768


Boom times for Ethiopia's coffee shops
By James JeffreyAddis Ababa, Ethiopia
As coffee plants originate from the east African nation - where they first grew wild before cultivation started in the country more than 1,000 years ago - it is perhaps unsurprising that Ethiopians take coffee drinking very seriously.

So much so that Ethiopia has a ceremonial method of making coffee at home that continues to this day.

i fuq with ethiopian coffee. and drive hundreds of miles to a farmers market to get it.

that coffee so rich when you open up the packet the whole house smell so rich and coffee ain't even made yet

coffee so raw i don't even add anything to it...

 

[newworldafro]

Iran Offers Nigeria Nuclear TechnologyFeatured

• Thursday, 23 October 2014 03:47
• Written by e-Reporter
• 0 Comments

Hassan Rowhani, moderate cleric and elected Iranian President in 2013
Iranian firms specialising in nuclear technology are prepared to offer Nigeria their expertise to help boost electricity supply in the country, the Iranian ambassador to Nigeria, Saeed Koozechi, saidWednesday.

“We (Iran) are using our nuclear programme to improve the power, health and agriculture sectors in the country,’’ Mr. Koozechi said on Wednesday in Abuja.

The envoy, who invited Nigeria to participate in an international exhibition on power scheduled to hold in Tehran, in November, said Iran also had invaluable experience in constructing power plants and transmission lines for electricity supply.



“The power sector is very important and it is the blood for the economy, without electricity it is impossible to create any investment or job,’’ he said.
Mr. Koozechi lamented the impact of extensive sanctions imposed on Iran by Western countries over the country’s nuclear programme, saying the action was having a crippling effect on Iran’s economy.

The envoy said the sanctions spearheaded by the United States and the European Union was not only affecting Iran’s economy, but also international trade relations and businesses, including trade with Nigeria.

According to the envoy, as a result of the sanctions, banks in Iran and Nigeria could not effectively conduct transactions on SWIFT, a financial-messaging service for most cross- border money transfers.

Iranian businesses, he said, had resorted to companies in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey to bring in their products to Nigeria.

The ambassador, who gave annual trade figures between Nigeria and Iran at $50 million, described the volume of trade as low, considering the size of both economies, which could easily help increase the figure to about $500 million.

With Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa, and the continent’s most populous, he said this could provide Iran a huge opportunity and capacity for economic cooperation.

He condemned the “bad-face” given Iran by the Western media, saying this was another impediment to international trade with foreign nations, including Nigeria.

Mr. Koozechi said accusations that his country’s nuclear programme was about atomic bomb as alleged by the U.S. and its European allies were not true, pointing out that issue was well known as a completely peaceful programme.

“We have had more than 7,000 hour visits from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts to Iranian nuclear sites and they have not found anything that links our nuclear activities to atomic bomb,” he said. “This is a technical issue and it is within the framework of the IAEA, but some of the Western countries try to make it a political issue.”

He said the main aim of the Iranian nuclear issue was to create power (electricity), with one nuclear site in Tehran currently producing about 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity, while plans are on to establish 20 other nuclear power plants.

In 2013, the Middle East country produced 10 billion kilowatts of electricity from its nuclear power plant, saving over $1billion and equivalent of about 70 million barrels of crude oil for the country’s economy.
Source: http://www.ereporter.com.ng/index.php/national-news/item/701-iran-offers-nigeria-nuclear-technology

http://www.ereporter.com.ng/index.php/national-news/item/701-iran-offers-nigeria-nuclear-technology

They need to leave that shiit alone........................ Its not necessary. .....

 

[BigMan]

They need to leave that shiit alone........................ Its not necessary. .....

besides the fact its coming from Iran whats wrong with it? Doesn't Nigeria have a lot of black outs?

 

[Poitier]

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Finally this thread has been moved back to its rightful place!!!!

 

[Scientific Playa]

Warri, Nigeria Billionaire, Ayiri Emami Buys Rolls Royce For Wife As Birthday Present

Warri based billionaire Ayiri Emami bought his wife Asba Emami a brand new customized Rolls Royce as she turned a year older today October 23rd.

 

[newworldafro]

I'll just leave this here.....from 2012

https://www.globalpolicy.org/the-da...pproach-oil-finds-with-caution.html?itemid=id


Liberia: Fighting for Black Gold in Africa - Liberians Approach Oil Finds With Caution

Picture Credit: elrst.com
The discovery of vast oil reserves in Liberia has sparked consternation amongst the countries citizens. Well aware of the potential benefits to Liberia’s economy, many are nonetheless concerned that if these newly found resources are poorly managed the result could be conflict and political violence -as has been seen in neighboring Nigeria - or exploitation by foreign corporations in this new Scramble for Africa. However, Robtel Neajai Pailey argues that the discovery, which will surely have a significant impact on Liberia’s future, is also an opportunity for African NGOs and civil society groups to engage fully and critically with the often corrupt politics of oil.



By Robtel Neajai Pailey
AllAfrica
March 6, 2012

News released at the end of February that Liberia was on the cusp of an unprecedented oil discovery garnered much more than just praise and adulation. Listservs and websites lit up one by one with lightening speed.

Liberians reacted like rabid bulldogs frothing at the mouth, barking at the Liberian government, oil giants Chevron, Anadarko, and the relatively unknown African Petroleum about the dangers of the 'resource curse'. These energetic reactions from an increasingly politicised population are perhaps evidence of the healthy debate that never quite got off the ground in Nigeria when that country first discovered oil.

Some commentators are likening the West African sub-region to the old 'Wild West,' with oil figuring prominently as a site of multiple contestations: political, social and economic. AllAfrica.com reported that, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, West Africa's coast, which covers Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, is home to an estimated 3,200 million barrels of oil and 23,629 cubic feet of gas.

Nigeria's oil woes, marked by often violent anti-government actions in Ogoniland and across the Niger Delta, have been a sobering lesson of what can go wrong. Sierra Leone, which discovered oil in 2009, is being accused of speeding through its Petroleum Act vetting process, which was largely guided by agreements with oil companies and lacked proper civil society engagement. Ghana has followed a slightly different, and perhaps healthier, trajectory. When oil was discovered in 2007 government made some attempt to engage with civil society at large, even enabling petroleum agreements to be posted on the Ministry of Energy's website.

As the global population expands and countries like China and the U.S. compete for dwindling energy resources, oil and gas could become a springboard for Africa to leverage its relatively untapped potential. But in all the excitement we shouldn't have selective amnesia - it isn't hard to find examples of oil resources having a negative effect in the political sphere. For example, oil revenues helped Sudan fund the government's war in the 1990s against what is now the sovereign nation-state of South Sudan. In Congo-Brazzaville in 1997, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso's private militia used money obtained from the sale of rights to Congo's future oil production to fuel a four-month war against incumbent President Pascal Lissouba. And Angola's vast oil reserves were used by the government to set up oil for arms deals with its international business partners, which enabled these stakeholders to profit directly from the civil war in that country.

The difference between then and now is that the political space seems to be shifting away from being the exclusive domain of the rich and powerful. Civil society groups across Africa are partnering with media watchdogs, and organisations such as Global Witness are producing a plethora of reports which have become a thorn in the flesh of multinational oil companies and governments. Civil society is showing that it will not take the granting of new oil concessions lightly. This is why the Publish What You Pay Campaign was launched in June 2002 - to demand that companies with the extractive industry publish all their payments to governments and public agencies in the countries where they do business, and that host governments publish all receipts of these payments. This resulted in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), to which Liberia is a signatory. The Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI) recently established a resource center to increase opportunities for government and civil society to have access to information on resource governance and the attendant benefits that can be derived.

Whilst Liberia has thus far in its history avoided the 'resource curse' (instead facing accusations of 'growth without development') there is evidence to suggest that its management of natural resource wealth could display many of the characteristics of its more dysfunctional (in this regard, at least) neighbour, Nigeria. A Feb. 22 article by Foreign Policy Magazine traced an allegedly dubious money trail linking Chevron to bribes given to the Liberian Legislature for awarding two small firms four oil concessions off the country's coast. The FP article was based on a report by former Auditor General of Liberia, John Morlu. A recent report by Global Witness also set off alarm bells, accusing the Government of Liberia of illegally awarding contracts to companies with little to no experience in the sector in exchange for bribes. The report states that Liberia is currently unprepared for the unintended consequences of oil discovery because governance structures have not been erected to curb mismanagement. Now under new management, the National Oil Company of Liberia has responded to the report by arguing that it has devised 'four guiding principles' to "use any revenue from oil to secure the maximum benefit of the Liberian people through development and investment." Those principles include safety, health and environmental care; unprecedented transparency; sustainability; and inclusiveness. These are worthy sentiments, one must agree, if the necessary structures are put in place to make them a reality.

The fact that media organisations, civil society groups, and Liberian citizens are already flagging these issues with the Liberian government is however encouraging. We may be a long way from the lofty goals of the 'derivation principle' attempted in Nigeria -- in which it was suggested that extractive industries revenues should be distributed to the country's semi-autonomous regions based on the percentage of its possession of the natural resource in question -- but we have come a long way since those 20th century ideals were subverted. In conversation two weeks ago in London with Silas Siakor, an environmental justice activist from Liberia, it became clear to me that the recent rounds of debates around the oil question are far from over. Siakor and other activists are simply not prepared to let this issue drift.

Black gold, as oil is euphemistically called, has the potential to transform a post-conflict country like Liberia, but it cannot do so in the absence of strong reporting mechanisms, an engaged populace, and the political will from the government. It seems that Liberia is now in a better place to do what is required to make good the potential boon that oil wealth provides. This is, if nothing else, an example of 'learning from experience' gleaned from observation of many decades of failure in other oil-producing African countries.

 

[PartyHeart]

What I find interesting right now is how quietly the media is keeping it that Nigeria (and Ghana) contained Ebola so expertly. They are instead opting to focus on the whole of West Africa as some hot zone where the virus is spreadably rapidly because of ignorant, unclean Africans. This is another way they spread misinformation not only about the continent as a whole, but to combat positive news that has begun to come out of certain African countries.

 

[Skooby]

70% of the world cocoa:

 

[TMNT4000]

Boost for non-oil exports as manufacturers capture Eastern, Southern African markets
October 23, 2014 | Filed under: Exclusive,main story | Author: ODINAKA ANUDU



Nigeria’s non-oil exports have received a big lift with local manufacturing exporters capturing new markets in Eastern and Southern Africa.

Already, Central and West African markets are established markets that have for some time been dominated by Nigerian manufacturers, BusinessDay findings show.

Independent findings show some of the newly captured markets in Eastern Africa as the Comoros, Seychelles, Tanzania and Ethiopia, while those in Southern Africa include Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland.

According to findings, finished products which thrive in these markets include bathroom slippers, glass wares, cosmetics and personal care products, food and beverages, steel, aluminium and chemicals.

“We have new markets in East and Southern Africa. The Central and West African markets are established markets for our manufacturers,” said the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria Export Group (MANEG), headed by Tunde Oyelola, in an e-mail to BusinessDay.

Data show Nigerian manufacturers are exploiting various markets in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Memuda Industries sold $82.3 million worth of finished leather to Italy in 2012, emerging the fourth biggest non-oil exporter, compared with $10.6 million worth of the same item sold overseas in the preceding year, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) data show.

Multitan, also a key player in the tanning sector, had an export value of $36 million, from $3 million reported in the preceding year. Its export destinations have been Europe, West and Central Africa.

Deepak Singhal, CEO, Dufil Prima Foods, producer of Indomie noodles, said the company’s exports to the West African and other markets in 2013 were worth $50 million, and about 90 percent of the company’s raw materials were sourced locally.

The acceptability of Nigerian products in markets across the globe has continued to be driven by improved competiveness of locally manufactured goods, which reflects in the deliberate improvement in product quality, design and affordability, Dom Opara, general manager, Posh International, whose firm exports plastics to Cameroon and other African markets, told BusinessDay.

The 2013 non-oil exports rose to $2.97 billion, from $2.56 billion recorded in 2012, representing a 16 percent increase. Non-oil exports to 15 other states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) by the end of 2013 moved to $375.338 million, from $312.477 million and $276.53 million recorded in 2012 and 2011, respectively.

Olusegun Awolowo, CEO, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), identified the top 10 African countries where Nigerian products were bound in 2013 as Ghana, Niger, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, Benin and Burkina Faso. Others are Guinea, Mali, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Awolowo said the country exported tobacco products, plastics and rubber footwear, noodles and biscuits, polybags, milk products, iron and steel, insecticides, beverages, tomato paste and fruit juices to these top 10 African countries.

But one key problem bedevilling Nigeria’s non-oil exports is lack of incentives to drive the sector, say analysts. The Export Expansion Grant (EEG) has been suspended for 14 months now, as the scheme is still under review.

Non-oil exporters are struggling with distribution gridlocks as well as poor business environment that ramps up production costs, say stakeholders.

Similarly, the country’s non-oil exports remain largely uncaptured, as most exporters play in the informal sector, resulting in loss of revenue that could have accrued to government as export duties.

Between 2009 and 2013, the cumulative total of these uncaptured non-oil exports reached $46.19 billion, according to data from the International Trade Centre (ITC) aggregated by the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), which was obtained by BusinessDay.

“But for the high incidence of unrecorded trade, the statistics could have passed for accurate measurement of the performance of non-oil export as 80 percent of the transactions are not recorded,” said Awolowo.



ODINAKA ANUDU

http://businessdayonline.com/2014/1...astern-southern-african-markets/#.VEwNE_nF8rU

 

[Poitier]

Investors Are Eager for African Sovereign Debt, Despite Plenty of Risks
By DANNY HAKIM OCTOBER 23, 2014 7:42 PMOctober 23, 2014 7:42 pm 12 Comments
Photo

The Kigali Convention Center in Rwanda under construction in April.Credit Ben Curtis/Associated Press

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Five men in dark business suits gathered before Maria Kiwanuka in a semicircle. They were international bankers and they had a pitch to make.

Ms. Kiwanuka, the finance minister of Uganda, was sitting up on a small riser, her bright pink and gold dress a sharp contrast to the men’s suits.

Bankers are jockeying for the next sovereign debt deal in Africa, a continent that foreign investors have long been wary of for its economic woes, rampant poverty and political instability. Now that narrative is changing, and one sub-Saharan nation after another is jumping into the debt market.

The Ebola outbreak, which is ravaging West Africa, could cost $33 billion, the World Bank estimated, prompting worries about the continent’s growth prospects. But the sovereign debt market is booming, with sub-Saharan African countries raising nearly $7 billion so far this year, more than in all of 2013, according to Dealogic, a market research firm.

The yields on many of the new bonds in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria have dipped even as the Ebola crisis has intensified. That means that the market’s outlook for those countries has improved, although that could change, particularly for West African countries, if health officials’ warnings for the region turn increasingly dire.

The pitch to Ms. Kiwanuka took place at the London office of Standard Bank, based in Johannesburg, during an African investment conference the lender hosted this summer. Only a few days before, the bank was one of three to manage Kenya’s $2 billion debut in the sovereign debt market. Now, it wanted to do the same for Uganda.

“They’re about to make the hard sell,” said an executive in the room, who was watching from a distance.

Photo

Maria Kiwanuka, Uganda’s minister of finance.Credit Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Uganda could use the money for power plants, rail lines, roads or similar projects it has planned. Countries around the continent are generally using proceeds from the bond sales to improve infrastructure, restructure debt and finance deficits.

Rwanda, for instance, is finishing a convention center and building a new hydropower plant. Senegal is fixing roads and the electric grid. Kenya is expanding its ports and railway system, as well as paying off a higher-cost loan.

After the meeting, Ms. Kiwanuka said such pitches had become routine.

“They do want us, and I am flattered that they are acknowledging our macroeconomic stability, because no one wants to get in bed with a basket case,” she said. “I don’t see the sovereign bond as the end of the story. It’s just a tool to get things sorted.”

Photo

Credit
African nations have been borrowing in a variety of ways over the years, issuing bonds on their domestic market and taking out loans directly from foreign banks, as well as relying on aid from foreign governments.

But they have also been known in the West for their inability to repay debts because of wars, political upheaval and economic tumult, leading the U2 singer Bono and the Live Aid founder Bob Geldof to campaign in years past for lenders to forgive African debts. Many sub-Saharan nations are still unrated by the major credit ratings agencies.

Sovereign bonds, which are typically denominated in dollars, can be a far cheaper way to raise money than local lending rates, though they are more expensive than direct aid or low-rate loans from government aid groups, which often come with oversight requirements. Before 2006, only South Africa had issued a sovereign bond. Now more than a dozen sub-Saharan countries have tested the market.

“It shows the opening up of Africa to private capital. It shows that private capital is replacing development aid as a source of capital flows to the continent, and that’s good,” said Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, in an interview. He participated in Nigeria’s promotional tour before it issued its first sovereign debt in 2011. “From the point of view of the young man sitting at a hedge fund in London, it’s a new frontier,” he said.

Photo

An unfinished school in suburban Kumasi, Ghana, instead serves as a clothesline. Inflation soared in Ghana this summer.Credit Nancy Borowick
But it is not without pitfalls. Because they are borrowing in a foreign currency, countries can quickly find that any cost advantage disappears if their own currency weakens. And investors can become jittery, going suddenly cold on regions, as happened with emerging markets after the Federal Reserve started pulling back on its stimulus efforts.

The appeal to investors is clear enough. Federal Reserve policies after the financial crisis pushed interest rates to record lows, making American debt less appealing and the higher yields offered by emerging market debt more enticing. The yields on sub-Saharan debt can be more than three times as high as those on United States Treasury securities.

But investors, too, face risks. Among other concerns, many sub-Saharan countries have a history of fragile institutions and corruption, and some countries have defaulted on other forms of debt. Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, restructured its debt four times from 1986 to 2000 but defaulted on the agreements nonetheless, according to its debt management office.

“My belief is always that you’re a successful participant in the international capital markets not when you’ve issued your first bond, but when you’ve repaid it, and that time is still to come for all of those large bond issuances,” said Moritz Kraemer, the chief sovereign ratings officer at Standard & Poor’s, in an interview.

Sometimes it is not always clear what the money will be used for. Mozambique’s foray into the market last year was controversial. The country set up a tuna fishing company that raised $850 million through bond offerings, but the International Monetary Fund has raised questions about whether the proceeds were being used for more than tuna boats and asked for more transparency.

For now, bond investors seem relatively unfazed by the potential economic fallout from the Ebola epidemic. While the countries hardest hit — Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — have not issued sovereign bonds, Ivory Coast, which borders both Liberia and Guinea, received a warm reception when it returned to the market in mid-July. Even now, the yields on its bonds are only modestly higher than when they came to market.

“Right now, market conditions are such that lowly rated sovereigns can get access,” said Mr. Kraemer. For a while during the eurozone crisis investors could earn a higher interest rate from Spanish bonds than from those of Zambia, he said. “From our perspective, given what our ratings are, that makes no sense at all.”

Photo

A train carries passengers from the business district of Nairobi.Credit Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Many institutions and people, including the International Monetary Fund and Joseph Stiglitz, a winner of the Nobel in economic science, have urged caution.

Mark Roland Thomas, an economist and Africa expert at the World Bank, said the trend “does say something genuine and true about the progress Africa has made in the last couple of decades.”

But he added: “Does it create more challenges and does it mean that macroeconomic management has become more complicated? Does it mean that relatively small economies are now more exposed to international economic conditions? Yes, and our clients are aware of that.”

Demand remains strong, though prices vary.

Ghana returned to the sovereign debt market last month, even as it seeks help from the I.M.F. The country, which in the past has been seen as a beacon of stability, has looked shakier of late. Protesters took to the streets of Accra, Ghana’s capital, this summer as its currency plummeted and inflation soared.

Mr. Kraemer of Standard & Poor’s called Ghana “a cautionary tale.”

Richard Segal, an analyst at Jefferies, said, “Typically, the idea is you would have discussions with the I.M.F. and have them be conclusive, have the I.M.F. make recommendations, have the loan program in place, and then go to the markets.”

But investors flocked to the bond offering anyway, showing more faith than a leading opposition politician who warned that the proceeds would be squandered. Ghana raised about $1 billion with a coupon, or interest rate, of 8.125 percent on a bond coming due in 2026; it is now trading just below 8 percent, compared to about 2.3 percent for an analogous United States Treasury bond.

Ivory Coast priced a 10-year bond more favorably this summer at 5.6 percent, despite defaulting three years ago during a civil war. Investors have become more bullish since the fighting ended and political tensions have eased. The yield on the bond is now slightly above 6 percent.

Uganda, though, is remaining on the sidelines, at least for now.

“Our debt service is still below 10 percent of our total budget,” Ms. Kiwanuka said. “We don’t want it to spiral.”

A version of this article appears in print on 10/24/2014, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: An Untapped Continent.