Africa
AfDB Launches Model for Deploying Green Financing across Africa
The African Development Bank (AfDB) is encouraging the promotion of resilient, green and sustainable growth, with the launch of the African Green Bank Initiative, a model for deploying green financing across Africa. The initiative presented at COP27 in Egypt, will support the implementation of African countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Part of the African Financial Alliance on Climate Change (AFAC), the African Green Finance Facility Fund (AG3F) will support the Green Bank Initiative. The AG3F will provide technical assistance to governments and financial institutions in creating and capitalising green facilities, co-invest alongside those in green projects and provide de-risking instruments to increase private sector mobilisation. Launching the initiative, AfDB vice president for Energy, Power, Climate and Green Growth, Kevin Kariuki, said the African Green Bank model would help increase the continent’s access to global climate finance. “The Green Bank Initiative is a powerful tool for reducing financing costs and mobilising private sector investments in climate action in Africa,” Kariuki said.
Source: AfDB
Africa
Biden Administration has Pledged USD 55 Billion to Africa Over Next 3 Years
At the recent US-Africa Leaders Summit held in Washington, President Joe Biden has declared that the USA is “all in on Africa’s future.” The US president commented recently while addressing a conference of 49 African leaders, saying, “When Africa succeeds, the United States succeeds. Quite frankly, the whole world succeeds as well.” In addition to his comments, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the United States aims to help African countries achieve their own goals. According to Sullivan, the White House is pledging USD 55 billion in economic, health and security support for Africa over the next three years. Sullivan declined to give details, saying the White House would reveal them during the coming three days of bilateral and multilateral talks and a dinner hosted by Biden at the White House for his African counterparts.
Source: Business Insider
Africa
US, Africa Firms Seal USD 15 Billion of Deals at Washington Summit
Since 2021, the US government said that it has helped close more than 800 two-way trade and investment deals across 47 African countries for a total estimated value of over USD 18 billion, and the US private sector has closed investment deals in Africa valued at USD 8.6 billion. President Joe Biden said the US has “known for a long time that Africa’s success and prosperity is essential to ensuring a better future for all of us, not just for Africa.” Citing the challenges pertaining to the pandemic, food prices and climate change, Biden said, “We can’t solve any of these challenges without African leadership at the table — African ideas and innovation helping to shape the solutions and Africa population contributing to every step.” During the summit US Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed a memorandum of understanding with representatives from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on developing their nations’ electric vehicle battery value chains and advancing multilateral goals on critical mineral supply.
Source: Bloomberg
Egypt
Egypt Concludes USD 14 Billion Concessional Development Financing Agreements in 2022
Concessional development financing agreements that were concluded during 2022 with multilateral and bilateral development partners for the state’s development sectors and the private sector amounted to about USD 14 billion, said Minister of International Cooperation, Rania Al-Mashat. Al-Mashat explained that the agreements are distributed at USD 11 billion in soft development funds that were signed with multilateral and bilateral development partners to benefit of the country’s various development sectors. “Among the agreements are USD 2.4 billion in funds to support the state’s general budget and promote economic reforms such as enhancing food security, energy subsidy reforms, social protection programs and comprehensive health insurance, which will be made available until next June,” she stated, adding that soft development funds for the private sector amounted to about USD 3 billion from many development partners, among them are France and the European Union.
Source: Egypt Today
Kenya
Kenya Eyes Duty-Free Deal with Three Countries
The cabinet says negotiations with the US, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates on the Free Trade Area are ongoing as Kenya seeks to expand access to its products beyond the regional and traditional markets. The cabinet recently noted that negotiations with these countries have started with the view to enhancing duty-free and quota-free access of Kenyan goods to these lucrative markets. The government also revealed that trade talks between Europe and the US are back on track as the country ramps up market access for its goods with the expected coming to an end of duty-free access of Kenyan products to America under the African Growth and Opportunity Act which is set to expire in 2025. “There are ongoing trade negotiations that are seeking to enhance duty-free and quota-free access of Kenyan products under FTA with USA, UAE, South Korea and the EU,” stated State House. The cabinet noted that it is also working to strengthen the existing partnerships under the East African Community, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, African Continental Free Trade Area and the United Kingdom.
Source: Business Daily Africa
Nigeria/ Rwanda
Nigeria and Rwanda Among First African Nations To Sign the Artemis Accords
At the first-ever U.S.-Africa Space Forum, Nigeria and Rwanda became the first African nations to sign the Artemis Accords. Participants in the Forum, which was part of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, discussed how to further shared goals through the peaceful exploration and use of outer space. The Accords were signed by Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Isa Ali Ibrahim on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and by Rwanda Space Agency CEO Francis Ngabo on behalf of the Republic of Rwanda. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Monica Medina, and U.S. National Space Council Executive Secretary Chirag Parikh gave remarks at the event. The Artemis Accords represent a bold, multilateral vision for the future of space exploration. Launched by the State Department and NASA together with eight nations in 2020, the Artemis Accords advance bilateral and multilateral space cooperation between signatories, expanding our knowledge of the universe and benefiting the whole world. Signatories commit to principles to guide their civil space activities, including the public release of scientific data, responsible debris mitigation, registration of space objects, and the establishment and implementation of interoperability standards.
Source: Africa News
Nigeria
Federal Government Eyes USD 100 Billion Export through Special Economic Zones
The Federal Government recently said Nigeria’s Special Economic Zones were critical to achieving the country’s annual export target of USD 100 billion by 2035 under Africa’s single market. Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, who doubles as chairman, of the National Action Committee on African Continental Free Trade Area, Adeniyi Adebayo, disclosed this in Abuja during a panel session at the 30th anniversary of the Free Zones Scheme in Nigeria. Adebayo, who was represented by the Senior International Trade Policy/Trade Law Expert at the NAC-AfCFTA Secretariat, Olusegun Olutayo, said, “For a country well-endowed in agricultural and mineral resources, an efficient Special Economic Zones scheme in Nigeria is a critical success requirement for competition in the AfCFTA.” “Nigeria will leverage existing potentials in the agriculture, industry and services sectors to improve competitiveness and drive non-oil export expansion, with a vision to grow the value of the country’s export to USD 100 billion by 2035 in the AfCFTA market.”
Source: The Punch
South Africa
Nine New Mega-Projects to be Introduced in South Africa
Minister of public works and infrastructure Patricia de Lille has gazetted the registration of nine infrastructure projects in the country with Infrastructure South Africa. The gazette served to amend the country’s Strategic Integrate Projects (SIPs), specifically those affecting the energy sector. According to De Lille, under the SIPs, the Just Energy Transition, Green Hyrdorgen National Plan and the Oil & Gas National Program will be fast-tracked. With these projects being designated as strategic integration projects, the procurement process and administration of the projects is sped up by the government. In a previous media statement, De Lille said: “this means that all processes relating to the implementation of SIPs, including processes relating to any application for any approval, authorisation, licence, permission or exemption and processes relating to any consultation and participation now run concurrently instead of the usual process which is sequential.”
Source: Business Tech
Reports
Global Banking Annual Review
First, the pandemic, and now inflation, war, rising interest rates, supply chain disruption, and more, for banks globally, the combination of macroeconomic volatility and geopolitical disruption in 2022 overturned many assumptions and ended more than a decade of relative stability. One thing didn’t change, however, the valuations. Banks continue to trade at a steep discount to other sectors, a reflection of the fact, confirmed once again in 2022, that more than half of the world’s banks earn less than their cost of equity. In this year’s Global Banking Annual Review, McKinsey takes a closer look at the roller-coaster ride banks have been on over the past months, the growing divergence between banks with different profiles in different countries, and the factors that make the best performers stand out. At a time of growing corporate and government commitments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, the report also highlights sustainable finance, a much-discussed theme in banking.
Click here to download and read the report.
The Energy Transition: A Region-By-Region Agenda for Near-Term Action
As 2022 ends, the energy transition seems more disorderly than ever. The world economy is shaken by a global pandemic and the surging inflation that has accompanied the subsequent recovery has had to contend with a tragic conflict in Ukraine and its aftermath of human suffering, rising energy costs, and declining energy security. The immediate response has meant more short-term reliance on fossil fuels and fewer available resources for the transition, not to mention additional challenges to regional and global coordination. As the world looks forward to 2023 and COP28, the dual imperatives of ensuring energy resilience and affordability and reducing emissions appear equally inescapable. Instead of delaying action, it is believed these imperatives emphasise the importance of accelerating coordinated long-term action while taking short-term measures.
Click here to download and read the report.
International Energy Agency | World Energy Outlook 2022
Today, the world is in the midst of the first truly global energy crisis, with impacts that will be felt for years to come. Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February has had far‐ reaching impacts on the global energy system, disrupting supply and demand patterns and they are fracturing long‐standing trading relationships. The crisis is affecting all countries, but at the International Energy Agency (IEA), there is a focus on the effect it is having on the people who can least afford it. One of the striking findings in this year’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) is that the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and the current energy crisis means that 70 million people who recently gained access to electricity will likely lose the ability to afford that access – and 100 million people may no longer be able to cook with clean fuels, returning to unhealthy and unsafe means of cooking. That is a global tragedy. It is not only an energy crisis with which we are dealing: many countries also face a food security crisis and increasingly visible impacts of climate change.
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Knight Frank | The Africa Report 2022/2023
In this biennial Africa Report, Knight Frank is optimistic about the fortunes of the continent’s real estate markets. However, lingering COVID-19 related legacy challenges remain and are in some cases being exacerbated by global geopolitical events. With oil prices being sustained at well over USD 100 per barrel, oil-exporting nations in Africa will undoubtedly experience an economic boost. In contrast, others that need to import oil may face additional headwinds this year. The industrial market has proved to be extremely resilient, with a seemingly permanent pivot by consumers to online shopping turbocharging warehousing requirements. Elsewhere, international demand for homes to lease or purchase is improving as expats return following the easing of global COVID-19 travel restrictions. However, rising inflation and a sharp increase in the cost of borrowing is expected to curb demand amongst domestic house hunters.
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