<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="492" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Farmers_farmingJimma_Ethiopia-820x492.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-376497" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Farmers_farmingJimma_Ethiopia-820x492.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Farmers_farmingJimma_Ethiopia-300x180.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Farmers_farmingJimma_Ethiopia-768x461.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Farmers_farmingJimma_Ethiopia-1110x666.jpg 1110w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Farmers_farmingJimma_Ethiopia-696x418.jpg 696w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Farmers_farmingJimma_Ethiopia-1068x641.jpg 1068w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Farmers_farmingJimma_Ethiopia-600x360.jpg 600w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Farmers_farmingJimma_Ethiopia.jpg 1280w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /></figure>



In 2021, global hunger surpassed all previous records, with close to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.fightfoodcrises.net/fileadmin/user_upload/fightfoodcrises/doc/resources/GRFC_2022_IN_BRIEF.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">193 million people</a>&nbsp;acutely food insecure. This crisis is worsening, and African countries are at its epicenter. Eight of 12 countries forecast to have more than 3 million people in food crisis in 2022 are in Africa.&nbsp;



While immediate aid is needed, the long-term solution in Africa is to boost domestic production.&nbsp;Indeed, the continent could be food sufficient through times of war and peace, boom and bust but today its huge agricultural potential is being overlooked. This is not for lack of urgency but for lack of patience – patience on the part of investors who may still shy from making long-term investments in African agriculture.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Let’s take mechanization as an example: African farming today remains the least mechanized in the world. Globally there are roughly 200 tractors per 100 square kilometers of agriculture lands, but in sub-Saharan Africa, there are only about 27. Changing that would go a long way in closing the deep productivity gap between African farms and farms in rich countries. Closing that gap could increase the global supply of cereals, grains, and vegetable crops by a stunning&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights/winning-in-africas-agricultural-market" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">20 percent</a>.&nbsp;



But doing so is a multi-billion-dollar quest that cannot be solved with Silicon-valley type infusions of fast cash at high costs. A new tractor can cost anywhere from US$10,000 to $200,000—an unheard of amount of money for most farmers in Africa. What is needed is patient capital—invested for the long-term with low interest rates, using innovative new financial models.



Patient capital could fund the mechanization of African agriculture, just as it is already transforming other sectors. For example, it’s already infusing clean energy enterprises through green bonds, with&nbsp;Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mfw4a.org/blog/long-term-finance-critical-attracting-patient-capital-developing-sustainable-african-economies" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">taking the lead</a>. The&nbsp;$2 billion&nbsp;<a href="https://www.breakthroughenergy.org/investing-in-innovation/investing-in-innovation" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Breakthrough Energy Ventures</a>&nbsp;fund, launched by a coalition of investors led by Bill Gates, invests in 20-year cycles.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.engine.xyz/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Engine</a>&nbsp;incubates &#8220;tough tech&#8221; to solve global problems—without eyeing a return on investment for at least 12 years.&nbsp;



Patient capital will also transform health in Africa, not least through building its vaccine and medicines manufacturing capacity—a mission supported by the African Development Bank with a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00335-9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">US$3 billion investment over 10 years</a>.&nbsp;



Why isn’t this happening for agriculture? Although agriculture contributes 40% of GDP and accounts for 60% of the continent’s labor force, it receives on&nbsp;<a href="https://altf.afdb.org/en/charts" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">average 4%</a>&nbsp;of long-term financial investments.&nbsp; That should be 40-50%.&nbsp;



There are signs of change. Hello Tractor, recently benefited from a round of patient capital—in the form of long-term, zero-interest loans—provided by Heifer International. Hello Tractor connects tractor owners to smallholder farmers using a smart app and booking agents with strong farmer networks.&nbsp;The US$1 million&nbsp;capital enabled Hello Tractor to finance the purchase of 17 tractors in Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda.&nbsp;



Building on the success of its partnership with Hello Tractor, Heifer International has now committed an additional US$3.5 million&nbsp;in tractor financing for Africa&nbsp;under its&nbsp;Tractors 4 Africa project. Heifer International’s&nbsp;total investment of US$4.5&nbsp;million is&nbsp;set to provide affordable access to tractor services to 872,250 smallholder farmers at an affordable rate, boosting farm productivity, employment, food security and farmer livelihoods over the next ten years.



This funding will be catalytic.&nbsp;



So far, Hello Tractor has facilitated tractor services for more than 500,000 farmers in 17 countries. We are now growing our capital base to finance more tractors. Patient capital for African agriculture cannot only be the purview of philanthropists. We need to excite capital markets, showing investors that they will get back their principal plus interest, albeit with a longer time horizon.&nbsp;



There are other positive developments for mechanization and long-term financing. In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342329834_Agricultural_mechanization_in_Africa_Myths_realities_and_an_emerging_research_agenda" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">some districts of Ghana</a>&nbsp;up to 80 percent of farmers use machinery. These pockets of mechanization owe a lot to support of the government, which has imported and distributed tractors at subsidized rates to farmers and private entrepreneurs, who operate nearly 90 Agricultural Mechanization Service Centers.



Finally, there’s another less obvious benefit to patient capital. A recent study&nbsp;<a href="https://www.die-gdi.de/uploads/media/DP_18.2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in Kenya shows that it can grow jobs</a>, and jobs that are high quality.&nbsp; This is in part because firms that benefit from patient capital can pursue longer-term growth strategies, which include hiring more workers and investing in skills that generate profits over the longer term. In addition, investors tend to care more about a firm’s social performance as they look beyond short-term profitability.&nbsp; They care more.



Africa needs this. Every year, 10-12 million new workers enter African labor markets, while only three million jobs are created. Economic growth and social stability in Africa demand the creation of millions of high-quality jobs, especially in food systems that provide a bedrock of African economies. Heifer International’s investment alone will create nearly 7,000 new jobs as booking agents, tractor operators, technicians and tractor owners over the 10 years.



Because patient capital demands a return on investment, it demands accountability and rigor. So does agriculture, and so does a tractor. When investors bet on patient capital, they are looking for a return that’s reasonable and meaningful—for the investor, the company, and ultimately the people who are employed and who benefit from new products and services. The mechanization of African agriculture may not be the goose that lays the golden egg, but with patience, it will give back far more than it receives.&nbsp;



Adesuwa Ifedi is Africa Senior Vice President for Heifer International. Jehiel Oliver is Chief Executive Officer for Hello Tractor

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Patient capital for African agriculture gives back far more than it receives

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“Africa can no longer outsource its healthcare security to the benevolence of others” – Akinwumi Adesina



Abidjan, 27 June 2022—The African Development Bank’s Board of Directors has approved the establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, a new groundbreaking institution that will significantly enhance Africa’s access to the technologies that underpin the manufacture of medicines, vaccines, and other pharmaceutical products.



African Development Bank Group President, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina said: “This is a great development for Africa. Africa must have a health defense system, which must include three major areas: revamping Africa’s pharmaceutical industry, building Africa’s vaccine manufacturing capacity, and building Africa’s quality healthcare infrastructure.”



During the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa in February 2022, the continent’s leaders called on the African Development Bank to facilitate the establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation. Adesina, who presented the case for the institution to the African Union said: “Africa can no longer outsource the healthcare security of its 1.3 billion citizens to the benevolence of others.” With this bold initiative, the African Development Bank has made good on that commitment.



The decision is a major boost to the health prospects of a continent that has been battered for decades by the burden of several diseases and pandemics such as Covid19, but with very limited capacity to produce its own medicines and vaccines. Africa imports more than 70% of all the medicines it needs, gulping $14 billion per year.



Global efforts to rapidly expand the manufacturing of essential pharmaceutical products including vaccines in developing countries, particularly in Africa, to assure greater access, have been hampered by intellectual property rights protection and patents on technologies, know-how, manufacturing processes and trade secrets.



African pharmaceutical companies do not have the scouting and negotiation capacity, and bandwidth to engage with global pharmaceutical companies. They have been marginalized and left behind in complex global pharmaceutical innovations. Recently, 35 companies signed a license with America’s Merck to produce Nirmatrevir, a Covid-19 drug. None of them was African.



No institution exists on the ground in Africa to support the practical implementation of Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) on non-exclusive or exclusive licensing of proprietary technologies, know-how and processes.



The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation will fill this important and glaring gap. When fully established, it will be staffed with world-class experts on pharmaceutical innovation and development, intellectual property rights, and health policy; acting as a transparent intermediator advancing and brokering the interests of the African pharmaceutical sector with global and other Southern pharmaceutical companies to share IP-protected technologies, know-how and patented processes.



Adesina said “Even with the decision of the TRIPS Waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO), millions are dying -and will most likely continue to die &#8211; from lack of vaccines and effective protection. The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation provides a practical solution and will help to tilt the access to proprietary technologies, knowledge, know-how and processes in favor of Africa”.



The World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization, respectively, welcomed and lauded the African Development Bank’s decision to establish the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation.



The Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said “The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation is innovative thinking and action by the African Development Bank. It provides part of the infrastructure needed to assure an emergent pharmaceutical industry in Africa”.



The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, said “Establishing the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, by the African Development Bank, is a game changer on accelerating the access of African pharmaceutical companies to IP-protected technologies and know-how in Africa”.



The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation will prioritize technologies, products and processes focused primarily on diseases that are widely prevalent in Africa, including current and future pandemics. It will also build human and professional skills, the research and development ecosystem, and support upgrading of manufacturing plant capacities and regulatory quality to meet World Health Organization standards.



While the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation is being established under the auspices of the African Development Bank, it will operate independently and raise funds from various stakeholders including governments, development finance institutions, philanthropic organizations among others.



The Foundation will boost the African Development Bank’s commitment to spend at least $3 billion over the next 10 years to support the pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing sector under its Vision 2030 Pharmaceutical Action Plan. The Foundation’s areas of work will also be an asset to all other current investments into pharmaceutical production in Africa.



Rwanda will host the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation. A common benefits entity, the Foundation will have its own governance and operational structures. It will promote and broker alliances between foreign and African pharmaceutical companies.



The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation will strengthen local pharmaceutical companies to engage in local production initiatives with systematic technology learning and technology upgrading at the plant level.



The Foundation will work with African governments, research and development centers of excellence to strengthen the regional pharmaceutical and vaccine innovation ecosystem for Africa and build skills of the kind needed for the pharmaceutical sector to flourish.



It will also promote closer coordination of the various ongoing medicines and vaccines’ manufacturing initiatives at the regional level to increase collaborative linkages, leverage synergies and partnerships in a pan-African context.



The African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation will work closely with the African Union Commission, European Union Commission, the World Health Organization, the Medicines Patent Pool, the World Trade Organization, philanthropic organizations, bilateral and multilateral agencies and institutions, and will foster collaboration between the public and private sectors in developed countries and developing countries. 



Contact: Communication and External Relations Department, media@afdb.org

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African Development Bank’s Board approves landmark institution: Establishment of African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation to transform Africa’s pharmaceutical industry

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Desai_Sonal_hi_res_RGB-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-417924" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Desai_Sonal_hi_res_RGB-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Desai_Sonal_hi_res_RGB-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Desai_Sonal_hi_res_RGB-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Desai_Sonal_hi_res_RGB-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Desai_Sonal_hi_res_RGB-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Desai_Sonal_hi_res_RGB-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>Sonal Desai, CIO at Franklin Templeton Fixed Income</figcaption></figure>



The Fed raised interest rates by 75 basis points in its June policy meeting, acknowledging continued upside surprises on inflation, inflation expectations and wage growth. It also de facto abandoned forward guidance. It was a reminder that economic data eventually rule the day, says Franklin Templeton Fixed Income CIO Sonal Desai. She argues this is a welcome but only partial move to a more realistic stance and discusses why further hawkish surprises likely lie ahead.



The US Federal Reserve (Fed) has capitulated to the data and in my view, has opened the door to a slightly more realistic assessment of the inflation and policy outlook.



Fed Chair Jerome Powell this week took the podium in a very weak position. The Fed had badly mismanaged communication ahead of this week’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting: it had telegraphed a 50 basis point (bp) hike but at the last minute signaled the larger 75 bp hike it then delivered—and which had therefore been largely priced in by markets. Upside surprises on headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) and inflation expectations had badly shaken the credibility of FOMC forecasts and of the moderate policy tightening that had been foreshadowed in last month’s meeting.



The FOMC outcome was a timely reminder that economic data eventually rule the day. In my view, the post-meeting press conference delivered a clear warning that investors should be prepared for further hawkish surprises. Powell acknowledged that the recent rise in inflation expectations had played a key role in swinging the decision to a larger hike. He acknowledged that the very tight labor market adds to inflation pressures via robust wage growth. He noted that the Fed is ultimately responsible for headline CPI inflation, and that headline inflation drives inflation expectations. The clear message is that the Fed is now—belatedly—aware that both inflation expectations and wages are adding to inflation pressures and sees inflation risks as skewed to the upside.



The FOMC’s median expectations of the policy rate have shifted up sharply, to 3.4% by the end of this year and 3.8% by the end of 2023. The end-2022 expected rate is now 150 basis points higher than at the March meeting.



Powell repeatedly emphasized the high level of economic uncertainty, in particular the important role that supply shocks outside of the Fed’s control can continue to exert on prices, and stressed that the Fed’s policy response will be data-dependent.



In a reversal of Mark Antony’s famous line “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him,” Powell praised forward guidance while de facto burying it. The Fed wants to be transparent to investors in order not to add further volatility to markets, but in this case being transparent means that future policy moves will depend on data on which the Fed has very little visibility. This is a quite a momentous change. For over 10 years, major central banks have held markets by the hand with stone-clad forward guidance while claiming policy would be data-dependent. The inherent inconsistency and unsustainability of this combination has now come to the fore. Markets will need to adjust to this new reality.



While it will respond to data, the Fed recognizes it is still quite far from a neutral policy stance, and will need several months of declining inflation to be reassured that price pressures are coming back under control.



It’s a much more sober and realistic Fed than we have seen in previous meetings. Some of the criticisms and misgivings I expressed in previous writings still apply: inflation could easily end the year at 6%-7%, so that a 3.4% fed funds rate would still be deeply negative in real terms. At face value, the Fed’s forecasts still assume that inflation will come down on its own even as monetary policy remains expansionary. But this press conference has now signaled that the Fed could tighten more if inflation remains stubbornly high. I still find the Fed’s neutral rate estimate of the “mid-2s” to be way too low, but Powell to me this week sounded somewhat less confident of how reliable that estimate is.



Powell felt the need to reassure markets that he does not expect a 75 bp hike to become the norm. That sounded out of step with much of the rest of his comments. Consensus seems to be moving toward expectations of another 75 bps in July followed by hikes of 50 bps, 25 bps and 25 bps in the remaining policy meetings of this year. But I would caution that if inflation, wage growth and inflation expectations remain robust, the Fed’s “dot plot” could shift higher yet again and the actual policy tightening be more severe. I, in fact, see a significant chance that this could indeed be the case.



Overall, I think the Fed has taken an important step in the right direction. Acknowledging that policy will be driven by a very uncertain data flow gives a clear warning that policy tightening might get significantly more pronounced.  I expect that data over the coming months will indeed point to the need for a greater degree of tightening, and market prices will need to adjust. But the Fed’s new stance should buy it greater credibility and help limit market volatility along a very challenging disinflation path.

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On my mind: The Fed capitulates

Inflation hits the poorest most, economists often say as they welcome interest rate hikes which hit the poorest too. This seemingly sociopathic bunch tend to be in favour of short-term pain to improve the long-term. Which is why the Bank of England governor could say workers should not seek pay rises even as prices soared. Most economists are likely to endorse the biggest US interest rate in nearly 30 years and the interest rate rises in the UK.



But globally, it is those interest rate rises which hit the poorest countries most. There should have been a collective groan from Ghana to Pakistan on Wednesday night, 15th June, as the Federal Reserve in the US released its forecasts that US interest rates in 2023 will be over 3% instead of closer to 2% &#8211; its forecast from just a month ago.



Already global markets have taken fright and dumped the bonds they bought from low income countries in recent years. It was just last year, when US long-term borrowing costs were around 1-2%, that Rwanda (hitting the headlines for different reasons in the UK this month) could borrow at 5-6%. Today, when the US will pay you nearly 3.5%, investors will demand a far higher interest rate from riskier countries.



Long-term bonds for many now have a price that is around 50-60 cents on the dollar – compared to over 100 cents just a year ago. This is like your bank assuming they will only get repaid on the 50-60% of the mortgage they lent you. Investors do not expect to get repaid in full by Pakistan, Ghana or Tunisia, nor Sri Lanka and Zambia that have already defaulted. More countries will follow. Debt default often leads to currency collapse, more inflation (again worse for the poor) and a dramatic rise in poverty, as Lebanon, Venezuela and most recently Sri Lanka have all demonstrated in recent years.



Who’s to blame is a very natural question. Was it foolish fund managers who lent too much, or China who, often behind the scenes, lent a great deal too? Should corrupt local leaders be blamed for borrowing too much? Or do we simply blame Russia for global inflation and say this is just an unfortunate, unpredictable set of circumstances.



The problem is that the coming debt crisis has been predictable, but not for the reasons that many assume. As I argue in the forthcoming book, The Time Travelling Economist, debt default is normal among high fertility countries and most of the countries threatened by default in the coming years have a fertility rate above 3 children per woman.



What we show in the book is that high-fertility countries have very few savings. If you have 5-6 children per woman on average in a country, the children are your savings. After feeding and clothing them, you have nothing left to put in a bank on a Friday when you get paid. Local banks have few deposits to lend out, and what little they have, they lend out at very high rates, even as high as 20-25%. So governments welcomed the chance to borrow at 5-6% in US dollars as Rwanda did last year, and global investors jumped at the opportunity to lend to countries which wanted to accelerate infrastructure investment which can lift countries out of poverty. Rwanda boomed after issuing its first ever international bond in 2013, allowing it to dramatically increase annual spending on health, by far more than the interest costs of that bond.



The problem comes – as high fertility Latin America found out in the 1980s – when US interest rates drive up global borrowing costs. Low income governments can no longer borrow cheaply to repay maturing bonds (Rwanda was smart to refinance in 2021). They have to hike taxes locally or cut spending.



But not everyone suffers the same. Countries like Bangladesh with a fertility rate of 2.0 children per woman, doesn’t have the foreign debt pile that Pakistan with 3.4 children per woman has. They have never issued a Eurobond, because local banks had local savings accrued by parents who had to invest in their children. Bangladesh should thrive in the 2020s. Pakistan will struggle.



The coming debt crisis is a high fertility crisis, and one that politicians from Islamabad to Abuja will needs years to address. In the short-term, only concerted action by the G20, the IMF and the World Bank, can help ameliorate the economic pain that is coming. During the Global Financial Crisis and COVID, such support took over a year to arrive. For the West, 2022 and 2023 will be tough. For indebted high fertility countries, it will be worse.



Charlie Robertson is author of the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Travelling-Economist-Education-Electricity-Fertility/dp/3030975967/ref=sr_1_1?crid=133KRWYH0Z7JI&amp;keywords=the+time+travelling+economist&amp;qid=1655361657&amp;sprefix=the+time+travelling+econom%2Caps%2C73&amp;sr=8-1">Time-Travelling Economist</a>, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in the next few weeks.  He has over 25 years experience as a London-based emerging market and frontier market economist, and has a niche following on Twitter @RenCapMan +44 7747 118 756

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Sociopathic economists and the coming high fertility debt crisis

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="546" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/8779634081_c64793f31f_o-820x546.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-413015" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/8779634081_c64793f31f_o-820x546.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/8779634081_c64793f31f_o-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/8779634081_c64793f31f_o-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/8779634081_c64793f31f_o-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/8779634081_c64793f31f_o-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/8779634081_c64793f31f_o.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>CCAFS East African regional program selects six sites to test interventions that address risks related to climate change and variability. Featured here is the Lower Nyando
Photo: via Flickr</figcaption></figure>



Ghana, like many developing countries in the tropical zone of West Africa, is already experiencing climate change impacts that include unpredictable rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, and the greater frequency of extreme weather events including floods. Climate change also affects agricultural production in Ghana, especially in northern Ghana. According to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/covid-19-wake-call-ghana-develop-national-plan-climate-adaptation#:~:text=Climate%20change%20in%20Ghana%20is,contributes%2054%25%20of%20Ghana's%20GDP." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">UNEP</a>, Climate change is expected to:&nbsp;render rainfall patterns increasingly unpredictable and erratic; increase mean temperature by 1.5 – 5.2°C by 2090; and increase sea level by 34.5cm by 2090. This is likely to have serious implications for the agricultural sector, which contributes 54% of Ghana&#8217;s GDP.



Agriculture also accounts for more than half of Ghana’s labor force, which has itself been severely affected by changing climate. Crop production has proven to be one of the most climate-sensitive sectors of the country as a whole. It is estimated that Ghana has experienced a 1.0°C raise in temperature over the last 60 years. This has significantly weakened crop production in northern Ghana, an area that is historically marginalized and characterized by high poverty and malnutrition. Due to their over-dependence on rainfall, farmers in northern Ghana are challenged by changing and increasingly unpredictable rainy seasons.&nbsp;



Ghana, like most sub-Saharan African countries, is predominantly agrarian, with crop production being the main driver of the agriculture sector. More than 80% of growers are smallholder farmers, and their practices are characterized by low labor input and low technology use, high rain-dependence and a low adoption of irrigation. Less than 2% of arable lands in Ghana is under any form of irrigation. Thus, the over-dependence on quantity and pattern of rainfall for crop production in Ghana exposes the economy and livelihood of citizens to fluctuation in production. This has been exacerbated by growing unpredictability of weather caused by climate change. For example, the drought of 1983 cut cereal production by some 15% leading to widespread poverty, hunger and deaths.



A World Bank&nbsp;<a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/ghana/climate-risk-country-profile-ghana#:~:text=Ghana%20will%20continue%20to%20get,and%20drought%20across%20the%20country." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">report</a>&nbsp;just last year revealed that temperatures in Ghana have risen by almost 1°C since the 1960s, with Ghana projected to increase mean temperatures by 1.0°C to 3.0°C, by 2050 and upwards of 2.3°C to 5.3°C by the year 2100. The alarming data also showed that climate change is expected to raise the risk and intensity of water scarcity and drought across Ghana. Water, agriculture, forestry, and human health are the main sectors affected across the country. Ghana’s rainfall itself is highly inconsistent and should remain variable over the next 75 to 80 years with heavy rainfall events looking to increase over time.



In recent years, effects of climate change on food production has been especially felt in the dry Guinea Savannah spanning the five northern regions of Ghana, which has only 1 rainy season compared to the 2 rainy seasons of southern Ghana. Farmers in the north continuously adapt their practices with the pursuit of weather and climate information for informed decision-making. However, the widespread changes in weather patterns, has not only reduced agricultural productivity, but also caused flood events &#8211; recent one in August 2021 that destroyed about 6,880 acres of farmland in the Upper West Region, affecting a total of 6,623 farmers – that have significantly impacted livelihoods of inhabitants. A lot needs to be done to address the impact on climate change on crop production in these regions. The government, in an attempt to reduce famers’ over-reliance on rainfall,&nbsp;has initiated the&nbsp;construction of the 1 billion USD&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vra.com/pwalugu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pwalugu Multi-Purpose dam</a>&nbsp;for the irrigation of 25,000 hectares of hectares of agricultural lands, as well as the&nbsp;rehabilitating existing irrigation facilities with the capacity to irrigate 7,817 hectares of farmlands.&nbsp;The government also&nbsp;began their “One Village, One Dam” policy in 2017, where every village in northern Ghana is to be provided with an earth dam to facilitate year-round crop production. Though helpful, these initiatives will only barely move the needle, and thus more integrative approaches should be adopted to&nbsp;markedly slow down the impact of climate change and improve agricultural output in northern Ghana



<a>Significantly, the interplay between crop production and climate change is bi-directional:&nbsp; sustainable crop production can contribute to mitigating climate change by sequestering carbon, reducing the use of inorganic fertilizers and hence climate-warming nitrous oxide emissions, reducing flooding-related methane emissions.</a>&nbsp;New innovations and technologies will have to be introduced so that Ghanaian farmers can have more effective crop management systems, which will increase food production, lower overall costs, while slowing down climate change by reducing greenhouse emissions and sequestering more carbon.&nbsp;<a>Very critical to this is the i</a>ntroduction of climate smart agriculture (CSA) interventions which the FAO defines as farming techniques that transform agri-food systems towards green and climate resilient practices, and include on-farm actions such as:&nbsp; planting varieties that are high-yielding and tolerant to biotic and abiotic cues; using innovative Ag technologies that improve crop growth and physiology;&nbsp; encouraging farming practice such as– intercropping, crop rotation, mixed cropping, increased use of organic fertilizers and manures, effective irrigation.



At the national level, two significant programs have been formulated with the long-term goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. First, the <a href="https://greenghana.mlnr.gov.gh/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Green Ghana Project</a>, launched in June 2021 to restore Ghana’s depleted forest cover through tree planting, has resulted in the planting of some 25 million trees across the country. Secondly, under Ghana’s Integrated Power Sector Master Plan 2019, the government is committed to scaling up the penetration of renewable energy by 10% by 2030; thus, gradually moving away from fossil-based energy production. These policies would ultimately reduce greenhouse emissions, slow down the devastating effect of climate change, and improve agriculture output and food security.



Kwame Acheampong, PhD was born in Ghana and is Director of R&amp;D and Field Operations at Opti-Harvest

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Ghana’s Crop Production Continues to be Devastated by Climate Change

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GettyImages-930104554-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-417764" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GettyImages-930104554-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GettyImages-930104554-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GettyImages-930104554-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GettyImages-930104554-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GettyImages-930104554-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GettyImages-930104554-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>Children working in Kasulu, Tanzania. (Photo by: BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure>



“We shouldn’t wait for development to end child labour. On the contrary, ending child labour is key to sustainable development.” says ILO Assistant Director-General and Regional Director for Africa, Cynthia Samuel Olonjuwon.



With 92 million girls and boys in child labour — one in five children — Africa is the most-affected region in the world. Eliminating child labour worldwide will not be achieved without a breakthrough here.



This is not justifiable. Children have the right not to work. Children trapped in child labour today are the unskilled labour force of tomorrow. Ending child labour is key to sustainable development. Urgent measures to end child labour should be viewed as an investment for the future.



Is there hope to end this situation? Absolutely Yes! As the ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said “Optimism relies on political will. You don’t have to be a dreamer to be optimistic. You need to have good reasons to be optimistic”. In Africa, we have 92 million reasons to be optimistic about ending child labour.



So, what should be done? The recently concluded 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour that took place in South Africa reiterated the need to focus on prevention. This is particularly true for Africa &#8211; a young continent with a fast-growing population. If we don’t act now, we should expect 105 million children will be in child labour in Africa in 2025, which will worsen in the following years.



It is critical to tackle the root causes of child labour in our continent. These include: the lack of access to free quality education; high levels of poverty and vulnerability of households; limited decent work opportunities for parents and young people as well as very high levels of informality and inequalities. In Africa, four out of five children in child labour live in rural areas and work in agriculture, a sector where workers are often functionally dependent on the unpaid work of children. In addition, Africa is one of the regions most affected by crisis linked to conflict and disasters as well as climate change. The Durban Call to Action demands for scaled-up action in six key areas to address these root causes, among which are: the need to ensure free quality education, to promote decent jobs for young people and adults and to the need to invest in social protection as a means to reduce poverty and vulnerability. This year on the World Day on the Elimination of Child Labour, I would like to focus on the critical importance of social protection to end child labour in Africa.



Exposure to shocks (sudden job loss or illness or injury to family members) increases the chances that a child will work. Social protection reduces vulnerabilities and empowers communities by ensuring that children attend and remain in school, and that parents have the income to sustain their development and education. A newly published ILO-UNICEF report shows that social protection reduces child labour and facilitates schooling.



There are regions in the World where child labour has been reduced over time. Some countries have been more successful in lowering child poverty and in raising levels of social protection for children and their families. However, Africa faces a double challenge in comparison to other continents. It is the continent with the highest prevalence and the largest numbers of children in child labour and the lowest social protection coverage. In Africa, 83% of the population has no social protection at all. Similarly, within Africa: Western, Central and Eastern Africa are the three sub-regions with the largest proportion of children in child labour and also have the lowest social protection coverage.



Universal social protection and the elimination of child labour are both priorities in the regional agenda of the African Union, governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations, the ILO and other development partners. In Africa, anchored in the 2019 Abidjan Declaration, the ILO aims to accelerate social protection coverage to reach 40% by 2025, especially for informal and rural populations.



We see emerging models of interventions designed to simultaneously contribute to improving social protection coverage and ending child labour. In Côte d’Ivoire, for instance, the ILO supports the National Health Insurance Fund to extend universal health coverage to smallholder farmers working in cocoa. Through a supply chain approach, the existing sourcing and operational structure of the value chain is used as an alternative distribution channel, thereby increasing access to services and improving client experience.



Cooperatives and their commercial partners have supported the National Health Insurance Fund in organizing awareness raising and enrollment campaigns as well as exploring financing strategies to cover the payment of contributions. The model also focuses on the delivery of quality services by health service providers at the community level, building trust and reducing reluctance.



As a result 1,815 smallholder cocoa farmers have been enrolled in the universal health coverage scheme and have received a social security number. This is just the beginning. The model is now being replicated in other districts of Côte d’Ivoire with the support of several private sector companies. Moreover, this African good practice is being adapted and replicated in two other African countries, Ghana and Nigeria. Working closely with other development partners, models like this are being scaled up as a crucial part of the implementation of the Africa Regional Social Protection Strategy 2021-2025.



By demonstrating high-level political will and African home-grown, innovative models of interventions, our continent sends a strong message to the world: we are aware of the challenge, we are working on it as a matter of priority and as a region, we are driving the change.



By Cynthia Samuel-Olonjuwon, ILO Assistant Director-General, Regional Director for Africa

Child Labor

We can end child labour in Africa. Here’s how.

“Mama” Joyce Katushabe lives in the Buliisa region of Western Uganda. For most of her life she lived in a one-room grass-thatched hut without electricity or running water. Every day, she would trek miles under the scorching sun to chop down wood and fetch water. Exhausted, she would then begin the process of preparing her family’s meal.



Today, Mama lives in a new neighbourhood in a modern house fitted with electricity, running water and all other basic amenities that previously seemed like unattainable luxuries. Her home is the result of the new buzz of economic activity following the discovery of oil in her previously quiet and impoverished district. Schools, roads and health centres have sprung up to serve her community where previously there were none. Even a new airport is being constructed.



The hubbub surrounds the new oil project currently being developed by the Ugandan government in partnership with France’s Total Energies and China’s CNOOC. It will include a pipeline that runs from Uganda to Tanzania, known as EACOP (East African Crude Oil Pipeline).&nbsp;



Millions like Mama Katushabe stand to benefit. The project is integral to Ugandan ambitions become a middle-income economy that can sustain the increasing demands of its population for health services, education, transport infrastructure, employment and basic social services. Such economic growth is critical as Uganda seeks to industrialise in the wake of the pandemic. With EAPOC delivering the project across East Africa, the project is a tremendous opportunity for the rest of the region too.



Unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way.



Ever since Uganda found oil, environmental activists have sought to hamper the project, without any consideration for what it means for Ugandans or East Africans more broadly.



Nor is it the first time they have sought to block Uganda’s development.&nbsp; Foreign activists hampered the building of our hydro-electric dam in Bujagali. In the 1990s, they said it would damage our environment, destroy local cultures and displace communities. As a result of their disruptive activities, the project took a decade to complete. Of course, our local cultures and communities were unaffected. And now those same activists who then flew in from Europe to oppose a hydro-electric project are back again to oppose EACOP and calling for renewables. It seems Africans aren’t allowed to use any kind of energy at all.



These activists demonstrate no understanding of the daily reality for Africans, especially the crippling energy poverty. Perhaps most galling they presume to speak for us, denying us our own agency when it comes to defining our interests. Meanwhile they beam neon lights against the side of banks, intimidating and campaigning against those who would finance our energy supply.



While we are accustomed to bearing the brunt of the activists’ actions, we are tired of hearing the lies. So here are the facts:



First: The world will need fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. This is particularly true of Africa, the combined population of which is set to double by 2050, and which simply cannot switch to costly and unreliable renewables overnight. Mama Katushabe and millions like her still need affordable, available and reliable energy to live – and they need it now. Africa contributes so little to global emissions in the first place; we should be able to use what we have at our disposal.



Second: Few countries are more committed than Uganda to protecting biodiversity, agriculture and the environment – our economic mainstay long before the discovery of our oil and long after all the oil is gone. Our ambitious reforestation programme, which aims to replenish forest back to 24% of Uganda’s landmass by 2040 has already grown cover from 9% to 12.5% in just five years.



Third: Uganda’s commitment to protecting its environment is reflected in the partners it chose for its oil project. Total Energies has committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and only engages in new hydrocarbon projects with a low breakeven point and low greenhouse gas emissions. By reducing its footprint in our National Park from the 10% land area approved in the project’s extensive Environment and Social Impact Assessment reports to less than 0.05%, Total Energies is walking the walk.



Finally, the project itself is one of the most environmentally friendly that has ever existed. It will use no routine flaring, but instead renewable power supplied by the national grid. &nbsp;Excess gas from the project will be used to produce Liquified Petroleum Gas, which will supplement the Ugandan market and reduce national energy costs while contributing to the reduction of deforestation by removing the need for charcoal and firewood.&nbsp;Greenhouse gas emissions intensity of the Ugandan projects stands at 13 kg of CO2 per barrel – significantly lower than the industry average of 20kg per barrel.



All this while providing a critical, post-pandemic opportunity for economic advancement to one of the poorest regions in the world. 16 business sectors around the project have been ring-fenced for local communities and businesses, ensuring they will reap the rewards.



Small wonder the actions of the activists are leaving an unpleasant taste in African mouths. At best, they are tone deaf.



Mama Katushabe’s daughter will live a better life than she did. She can bathe in her home with water from a tap. She can do her homework at night, studying for her future, by electric light. Her neighbourhood already now has a paved road. Soon it will have a playground too. But her future is only bright if those agitating in her name against her economic advancement lose. Environmental activism need not come at the cost of our development.



 The Writer is a Senior Partner in Kampala Associated Advocates, Trustee of the Uganda Chamber of Mines and Petroleum and Chairman of the Private Sector Foundation&nbsp;of Uganda.

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Environmental activism need not come at the expense of Africa’s development

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="429" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Gerrit-Schmidt-III-MSc-is-Chief-Commercial-Officer-at-SFO-and-Head-of-Affinity-Research-at-Stellenbosch-Institute-for-Family-Governance.-820x429.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-417587" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Gerrit-Schmidt-III-MSc-is-Chief-Commercial-Officer-at-SFO-and-Head-of-Affinity-Research-at-Stellenbosch-Institute-for-Family-Governance.-820x429.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Gerrit-Schmidt-III-MSc-is-Chief-Commercial-Officer-at-SFO-and-Head-of-Affinity-Research-at-Stellenbosch-Institute-for-Family-Governance.-300x157.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Gerrit-Schmidt-III-MSc-is-Chief-Commercial-Officer-at-SFO-and-Head-of-Affinity-Research-at-Stellenbosch-Institute-for-Family-Governance.-160x84.jpg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Gerrit-Schmidt-III-MSc-is-Chief-Commercial-Officer-at-SFO-and-Head-of-Affinity-Research-at-Stellenbosch-Institute-for-Family-Governance.-768x402.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Gerrit-Schmidt-III-MSc-is-Chief-Commercial-Officer-at-SFO-and-Head-of-Affinity-Research-at-Stellenbosch-Institute-for-Family-Governance..jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /></figure>



Family Governance is not a buzzword. It has global economic relevance.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Stellenbosch Institute for Family Governance, by SFO, partners with Stellenbosch Business School to pilot AffinityLab; a family focused research incubator to nurture and stimulate familial cooperation in Ultra-High-Net-Worth (UHNW) families.



Featured in June/July 2022 issue of Forbes Africa 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="429" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/30-under-30-820x429.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-417651" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/30-under-30-820x429.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/30-under-30-300x157.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/30-under-30-160x84.jpg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/30-under-30-768x402.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/30-under-30-1536x804.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/30-under-30-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /></figure>



Data from research providers in financial services and academia support the relevance of thinking in familial terms. Forbes projects the greatest wealth transfer in history from baby-boomers to next generation custodians, estimated at over 30 trillion dollars over the next 20 years, with significant inherent risk of failure.&nbsp; According to the Oxford Ownership Project, an estimated 70% of global businesses are owned by families.&nbsp;



Everyday interactions with family enterprises are closer to home for people buying products from big brands such as Louis Vuitton, Samsung and LEGO. Family governance is relevant, and it is in the interest of the world economy for family enterprises to grow, whereas the families which own them are likely to grow apart.



Family governance, especially familial cooperation, remains a challenging topic due to the complexity of relations in these organisations, compounded by the newly realised knowledge gap. Industry-wide, financial services professionals understand the need for sound governance but run the risk of putting the cart in front of the horse by relying on so-called best practices of what worked elsewhere. Rather, we as financial services professionals, should be working with families to develop the best familial cooperation practices that are relevant for them and their context.



A deeper understanding of cooperation within families is key to gain traction with family governance. But, if a family is unable to work together as a family of affinity foremost, one cannot reasonably expect wealth transfers to be sustainably successful.



AffinityLab intends to address latent familial cooperation needs. UHNW families typically consist of multi-generational branches with members located in various jurisdictions, pushing global families to rethink wealth management strategies beyond investment performance. In times of geopolitical crises questions around goal-based investing are extending to goal-based living, reaffirming the need for a consolidated strategic approach to family governance. Starting with the need to establish Affinity as a primary goal of family and puts familial cooperation squarely in the research focus of AffinityLab.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Cooperation needs to be at the heart of family strategy for families to realise goal-based living together. Family Governance starts with Affinity.” – Gerrit Schmidt III (Chief Commercial Officer at SFO). </blockquote>



Entitlement and perceived inequitability frame familiar problems in UHNW families. These problems negatively influence family organisations and do not typically allow for cooperation or a sense of interrelated affinity. Furthermore, these problems intensify alienation and place unique strain on family branches, driving at best, superficial cooperation for short-term gains. Once this occurs, it is a question of time before the family implodes, dividing their assets at the cost of cooperating as a family.



The family is stronger by design if able to meaningfully engage members, at varying levels of involvement, in their enterprise. The purpose of an enterprising family should not be limited to a specific industry or specialism. Family purpose should, however, be specific to the ideals of working together as a purpose-led organisation with established collaboration from members who share the common vision and lived purpose. Stellenbosch Institute for Family Governance by SFO specialises in family-management consulting by helping businesses and business families to realise these ideals. We design family structures conducive to nurturing inclusivity and developing proficient Ultimate Beneficial Owners.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Coming back to the idea of putting the cart in front of the horse, financial services providers should primarily be thinking in terms of succession development and designing purposeful family structures conducive to more than tax efficiency and return maximisation.&nbsp;



The qualitative aspects of wealth management matter and the disruptive work of Africa’s first Institute for Family Governance has the potential to shift family enterprise futures, stimulating the global economy.



Family Governance starts with Affinity. Started by SFO. A family focused financial services group.

Gerrit Schmidt III (MSc) is Chief Commercial Officer at SFO and Head of Affinity Research at Stellenbosch Institute for Family Governance.

Family Governance Starts with Affinity

As Africa’s leading entertainment company, MultiChoice delivers Direct To Home (DTH), Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and online video entertainment services through its entertainment platforms – DStv, GOtv, Showmax and DStv Now – to approximately 20 million subscribers across 50 countries in Africa.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="806" height="600" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Multichoice-logo-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-417481" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Multichoice-logo-1.png 806w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Multichoice-logo-1-300x223.png 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Multichoice-logo-1-121x90.png 121w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Multichoice-logo-1-768x572.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 806px) 100vw, 806px" /><figcaption>MultiChoice</figcaption></figure>



The depth and breadth of this offering is why the company needs its data and analytics to be agile, future-proof and scalable. For MultiChoice, this meant one thing: a benchmark project to deploy Microsoft’s Azure <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/synapse-analytics/#overview">Synapse</a> technology – bringing together data integration, enterprise data warehousing, and big data analytics – to give the Group deeper insights, faster, to better serve millions of viewers.



Aspiring to extraordinary analytics capabilities &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



The initiative – codenamed ‘Vibranium’ after the fictional Wakanda metal with extraordinary abilities to absorb, store, manipulate and release large amounts of kinetic energy – sought to achieve the same power from data across the MultiChoice Group. The Group, already mature in its data analytics strategy, was challenged in that it had numerous data and analytics teams working throughout the company’s &nbsp;businesses across Africa.&nbsp;



These teams had been relying on disparate data environments, many of them on-premise. “We needed an agile and scalable, cloud-based single source of truth, with full governance and compliance that would not limit or slow the work of our autonomous analytics teams,” says Jeandre Du Toit, Lead for Modern Data Architecture at MultiChoice Group.&nbsp;



The company partnered with Microsoft to implement aspects of its enterprise data strategy across the Group, including data management, modern data architecture, BI and advanced analytics, and more modern ways of working. 



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MultiChoice introduced DataOps with continuous integration and delivery, as well as a more agile approach in which solutions were delivered in slivers for immediate value, then expanded for incremental value.&nbsp;



“We also wanted to adopt cloud in order to take advantage of new features and new technologies being made available, while also ensuring that we could easily scale, consume and adopt. Because we already had a trusted relationship with Microsoft and in-house Microsoft skills sets that the Group could leverage, we turned to Microsoft,” says du Toit.



Getting deeper insights, faster



The ideal solution for MultiChoice’s needs was Azure Synapse Analytics. Delivering insights up to 14 times faster than other cloud providers, the solution addressed the MultiChoice Group’s top priorities: getting deeper insights, faster.



Adoption was accelerated by using Microsoft Consulting Services, and MultiChoice had direct access to international Microsoft engineers for guidance and collaboration to ensure a well-architected design and framework. The new principles and systems required some upskilling in partnership with Microsoft, but the Group’s data analysts report that they are excited about the new tools at their disposal to deliver on MultiChoice’s requirements.&nbsp;



Vibranium is also among the first projects in the world to be privy to information about new Synapse features still in development, and is therefore able to develop its architecture with a view to utilising those features in future as technologies and demands change.&nbsp;&nbsp;



A single version of the truth



Teams can now also tap into additional information they previously did not have access to, or didn’t know was available, through integrated data stored in a single place and acting as a single version of the truth.



“We are becoming an analytics-driven organisation that understands why treating our data as an asset in a digital world is critical and considers insights an imperative to continuously adapt in a world where change has become a constant,” says Debra Goosen, Analytics Innovation Lead at MultiChoice. “As a large-scale transformation programme, Vibranium is the vehicle that has been set up to achieve these objectives and enables us to continuously evolve.”



The project is also building synergies in the company, with data and analytics teams building on each-other’s work and developing far richer solutions for the organisation. In addition, standardised principles and governance are now applied across the group to ensure data is managed appropriately.&nbsp;



The MultiChoice Group views the large-scale project as transformative in nature, delivering both a modern data platform and a more modern way of work, which will enable it to be more competitive and deliver more personal, relevant engagement and services for its viewers.



“The deeper insights we’re gaining allows us to push our strategy to the next level. We’re a lot more agile and we are starting to see an increase in the cadence of our deliveries,” says du Toit.



To find out what benefits Azure Synapse Analytics can bring to your business, visit <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/synapse-analytics/">Azure Synapse Analytics | Microsoft Azure</a>

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Making Africa’s leading entertainment company’s data and analytics agile, scalable and future-proof

Africa’s largest financial institution, Standard Bank, is on a mission: to find ways to set itself apart so that the bank can meet its customer needs in today’s complex, ever-changing world. Operating in more than 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and globally, the Bank aims to show customers that It Can Be.



This means that it needs the right tools, resources and platforms to enable the innovation, resilience and efficiencies required to empower its customers. For Standard Bank, that means using <a href="https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/">Microsoft’s Power BI</a> platform to harness data insights and predictive and prescriptive analytics through AI and machine learning. This allows the bank to better serve customers through more accurate targeting and service delivery.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="389" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Standard-Bank_30-Baker-Street_Interior_2-1-820x389.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-417477" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Standard-Bank_30-Baker-Street_Interior_2-1-820x389.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Standard-Bank_30-Baker-Street_Interior_2-1-300x142.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Standard-Bank_30-Baker-Street_Interior_2-1-160x76.jpg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Standard-Bank_30-Baker-Street_Interior_2-1-768x364.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Standard-Bank_30-Baker-Street_Interior_2-1-1536x728.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Standard-Bank_30-Baker-Street_Interior_2-1.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>Standard Bank Baker Street</figcaption></figure>



In 2017, the organisation moved from a traditional centralised business intelligence team to a self-service BI model because its value-added capabilities allowed more accurate and effective targeting and serving of customers. “Power BI helps make citizen data scientists out of anyone who wishes to be one,” says Ziyaad Valli, Lead Analytics Engineer on the BI Data Visualization team at Standard Bank.



By 2020, adoption of the company’s self-service BI was such a success that Standard Bank’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software">Microsoft Teams</a>&nbsp;channel for Power BI included more than 3,000 members.



The bank’s data visualization team was using a descriptive analytics model to evaluate what had already happened. But Valli wanted to explore the predictive (what might happen) and prescriptive (what are the possibilities) paths to add to the toolsets for internal teams. As a result, the data visualization team collaborated with the bank’s Insurance Business group to use AI and automated machine learning to predict and accurately target customers.



Using data to tell a more accurate story



In July 2020, Standard Bank Insurance launched a funeral cover product – insurance to cover funeral expenses – that sold well: customers were queuing at branches and phoning the bank’s call centres. Mohammed Tootla, Manager of Data Visualization for the Insurance Business group at Standard Bank, decided they needed more from their data. 



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“We started looking at alternatives to tell a better story with our data,” says Tootla. “We wanted to explore machine learning, but we had no data scientists on our team.”



Tootla then contacted Valli, explaining that his team wanted to move forward with predictive and prescriptive analytics. Valli’s and Tootla’s teams began collaborating in Power BI. They aggregated and analysed sales for the funeral cover across multiple dimensions, discovering a surprising insight that aligned with feedback from business leads: millennial customers were creating higher demand than any other generation.



The other key learning was that sales were happening on a particular day of the week. According to marketing and industry standards, most sales are expected to happen on Wednesdays and Thursdays. However, data showed that funeral cover sales were happening on Fridays.



“We were able to uncover these patterns and key insights solely because of the AI analytics capabilities within Power BI,” says Tootla.



Understanding these trends in the data allowed Standard Bank to make proactive adjustments to target the right audience and prepare for sales accordingly.&nbsp;



Better serving customers and mitigating customer cancellations



Next, Valli and Tootla delved into the forecasting models to compare what sales might look like if factors remained unchanged, with “what-if” parameters – adjusted policies forecast – such as: what happens if South Africa returns to a hard lockdown because of COVID-19 and movement is restricted?



They created hindcast data models for four time periods to compare predictions to actual results and presented them to business leads, who determined the hindcasts accurately stayed within the upper and lower thresholds of the actual numbers.



Because of the forecasting model, the leads now use predictive and prescriptive insights to more properly staff employees in branches and call centres to better serve customers.



Tootla’s team also had another objective: to analyse the high churn rate in his group’s short-term insurance book. The previous report already utilised descriptive analytics models, but these only offered insights as to why a customer had cancelled insurance in the past. They didn’t indicate what might happen in the future.



Valli and Tootla built a binary classification model using the automated machine learning (AutoML) feature in Power BI, which quickly yielded value in affecting the bank’s bottom line.



Using the churn model, 88,000 customers were evaluated—40,000 active and 48,000 previously cancelled. The churn model predicted the risk of losing approximately 8,000 active customers and broke down the 8,000 customers by segment, policy persistency, age, province, and income, so the insurance group could target them when running retention campaigns.



“We were highly impressed with the fast turnaround time with which the Power BI AutoML led to outputs,” says Tootla. “A data scientist would come in and might not produce a report for months. We produced the first binary classification model within three weeks.”



Uniting datasets and adding value



Valli and Tootla agree that the project is still in its infancy. Tootla envisions expanding the forecasting and churn models to the full Standard Bank insurance product line. Beyond that, he foresees uniting the sales, cancellations, and retentions datasets.



“We’d like to bring in customer demographic information and build an all-in-one dataset model we can use as an input into our customer lifetime value model,” he says.



The collaboration and outcomes have altered how Valli contemplates data by assessing any new features broadly and contemplating how they can add value to any business unit his team supports. He says AI analytics is about helping the bank extract value and demonstrating the robust capabilities of the Power BI tools.



“This is only the start. We&#8217;re going to be doing a lot more going forward and we’re all really excited about that,” says Valli.



To find out what value Power BI can add to your business, visit <a href="https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/">https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/</a>.

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Standard Bank shows ‘it can be’ by using AI and analytics to improve customer service

The world’s second-largest brewer is using sports and entertainment to connect with young African consumers as investment and volume growth skyrocket.&nbsp; 



Tiger, the leading international premium brand in Asia, has become the fastest-growing beer brand in Africa’s largest economy, almost doubling sales volume last year. Tiger is one of the brands helping Heineken, the world’s second-largest beer maker, penetrate the most populous country on the African continent, which has about 200 million people, most of whom are under 30 years of age.



‘‘Tiger continued its successful roll-out in Nigeria, making it the third biggest Tiger market globally and the biggest outside the Asia Pacific region,&#8221; Roland Pirmez, President Africa, Middle East, and Europe, said. Driven by the increasing adoption of Tiger, the volume of the company’s premium brands jumped 30% in Nigeria, supported by strong growth in Heineken and the successful launch of the Desperados brand in the country.&nbsp;



An increase in digital penetration in Nigeria due to faster internet speeds and smartphone usage is helping boost the sales of Tiger and other Heineken brands in the West African nation. Heineken’s digital business drive accounted for 75% of net revenues in 2021.&nbsp;



Sales on the company’s digital platform worldwide grew by 130% in 2021 to 2.8 billion euros and are on track to hit 10 billion euros in 2025, it said in a statement. The platform is now operational in 30 markets including Brazil, Italy, France, Cambodia, and Egypt as well as in Nigeria where it helped drive sales.&nbsp;



While Nigeria and other African countries may have lower disposable income relative to others, they represent a sizable population that is growing fast, making them a big opportunity for beer in the long term.



‘’The Nigerian beer market remains attractive given its high growth potential and an improving macroeconomic environment,’’ Pirmez said.&nbsp;



It is not only in Nigeria that the Heineken brand is seeing a surge in sales. Across the continent, sales have rebounded strongly from the pandemic induced slowdown in 2020 “stronger and faster than predicted.” Nigeria recovered strongly from its worst recession in four decades, with the economy growing by 4% driven by a rebound in consumer demand and the non-oil sector in Africa’s largest economy just like many African economies did after the 2020 slowdown.&nbsp;



“Overall 2021 saw total volume exceeding 2019 levels driven by the performance in many markets across the region, especially Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo’’, Pirmez said. International and local premium brands witnessed strong performances in Nigeria, South Africa, Russia, Ivory Coast, and Rwanda, Heineken said.&nbsp;



This is why Heineken is pouring more investment into the continent, an indication of its growing confidence that Africa represents the next growth frontier. The average age on the continent is below 25 years, and the average beer per capita consumption is just around 22 litres, compared with an average of around 78 litres in developing markets. That gives a lot of headroom for expansion capacity, which Heineken is already doing.&nbsp;



Nigeria benefited from the 1.8 billion euros spent on expanding capacity in five countries in 2021, including Brazil, Vietnam, Italy, and Australia. Heineken commissioned the first solar photovoltaic plant to power the Ibadan Brewery plant in Nigeria, which will supply about 800 MWh to the brewery annually, reducing its carbon footprint on the continent by 10,000 tonnes.&nbsp;



The beer maker is also investing in other parts of the continent to take advantage of the growing population, investing over $250 million into the continent in 2021. It unveiled a $100 million brewery in Mozambique, an $11 million brewery in Congo, and a $119.5 million factory near Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. And the Dutch brewer is using pop culture, driven by music, film, social media and sports, to enlist a generation not afraid to be authentic.



Other global players are also seeing potential on the continent as it rebounds from the pandemic. Google, which opened its first artificial intelligence center in Ghana in 2019, has pledged to invest at least $1 billion over the next few years. Microsoft is also investing in Africa with the Microsoft Africa Development Center (ADC) and the Microsoft Africa Research Institute (MARI) in Nairobi, Kenya. The ADC is planning to invest $100 million in new tech within the first five years, while MARI uses AI cloud tech to improve productivity.



Facebook is investing heavily in infrastructure to help more people connect to the internet and is seeking to do this by investing in 2Africa, an undersea cable system set to be the largest in the world.



‘‘There’s never been a better time for brands to align their interests with those of young Africans’, says Tunji Adegbite, whose company, Naspire, provides business research for brands on the continent. ‘‘Yes, they want to drink beer and have fun, but they’re also passionate about sports, music, and fashion as well as film and arts. Only the brands who demonstrate they care about these things will win today and in the future”. And that’s what Heineken has done with Tiger, Radler, and Desperados.



Uniquely, sports has been one of the most successful strategies that Heineken has adopted to drive sales and market penetration in Africa by connecting with lovers of football on the continent. Almost 20 years since it began by sponsoring the popular European soccer tournament, the Champions League, Heineken executed, this year, the most elaborate Champions League trophy tour on the continent, with visits to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Nigeria. Fans from Rwanda and Congo Brazzaville also attended the tour in Nigeria and DRC respectively.



The tour was headlined by Clarence Seedorf, the first and only player to have won the UCL with three different clubs — Ajax, Real Madrid and AC Milan; who was joined by African legends Austin ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, Taribo West, Davido, Daniel Amokachi, and others.



With an estimated 60% of Africa’s population under 25 and the youth population expected to be twice the population of Europe by 2100, sports and entertainment have become a great platform to connect on the continent. Burna Boy, the Grammy winner and multiple nominee is an ambassador for Heineken’s brand Star Lager Beer, while football legends like Okocha and Amokachi are regular advocates. The company sponsors fashion shows and festivals and holds the record for the longest-running music concerts on the continent.&nbsp;



‘‘When you look at the history of brands like Heineken in Africa, the reason they connect so well locally is because they understand and speak the language. They know what the people want and they meet that need; in the process, they build cultural significance and have an impact beyond their actual business. It’s a concept all African entrants need to understand if they want to win here.’’



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-1-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-417457" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-1-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-1-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-1-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /></figure>



Meanwhile, the African continent is known for its passion and drive for the game of football. An estimated 400 million Africans tune in to watch European football matches weekly, especially those featuring the most followed teams on the continent – Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Barcelona. The growth and success of football professionals from the continent such as Senegal’s Sadio Mane, Egypt’s Mo Salah and Algeria’s Riyad Mahrez have further fuelled this interest and passion for European football. On Champions league football game nights, streets and bars are filled with cheers at every strike of a goal.



It was, therefore, no surprise that UEFA and Heineken embarked on the biggest tour of the UCL trophy in Africa &#8211; The first tour of the trophy since the global COVID-19 pandemic. Getting close to and experiencing the much-coveted UCL trophy is indeed an exciting opportunity for many African football fans.&nbsp;



With the presence of Dutch and AC Milan football legend, the UEFA Champions League trophy toured the cities of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Maputo in Mozambique, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and Lagos and Abuja in Nigeria. Fans from Congo Brazaville and Rwanda were also taken on an experience of the tour in DRC and Nigeria respectively. Clarence Seedorf. With the tour coinciding with the quarter-finals stage of the 2021/2022 Champions League season, football matches featuring the likes of Chelsea, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Liverpool, and Bayern Munich further heightened the trophy tour excitement.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-2-820x547.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-417458" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-2-820x547.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-2-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-2-135x90.jpeg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-2-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-2-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMAGE-2.jpeg 1620w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /></figure>



Heineken is the world’s most international beer, sold in up to 192 countries. The brand has been a sponsor of the UEFA Champions League since 2005, providing an opportunity for soccer fans to enjoy exceptional football and merry with the best beer brand.



Seating with a bottle of Heineken beer while watching a champion league match is a common sight in various football viewing centres across Africa, so much so that the brand is called the Champions league beer. It is also a warm feeling to see football fans involved in debates after a champions league match has ended over some bottles of Heineken beer.



For UEFA, wooing fans across the world has become even more important given the threat of losing relevance as portrayed in the case of the ‘Super League’. In 2021, 12 top European clubs &#8212; including Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Inter Milan &#8212; attempted a breakaway European &#8220;Super League&#8221; to court their loyal fans with the promise of top quality football. The move caused a massive outrage from fans, players, club managers and influential personalities like British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and ex-footballer David Beckham criticizing the idea. Heineken offered its support for UEFA and the UEFA Champions League with a witty social post – “Don’t Drink and Start A League”, which went viral and further sent fans into a frenzy.&nbsp;



The African continent is one of the most populous regions in the world, with over 1.3 billion people as of 2018, which accounts for about 16% of the world’s human population. The African continent is seen as a potential market for the competition to grow and for the beer brand.



Football is the most popular sport in Africa with an estimated 400 million Africans regularly tuning in to watch the UEFA Champions League every season.



Considering the population of the continent, drive, and passion for sport, UEFA and Heineken hence, partnered to take the prestigious UEFA Champions League trophy on a tour of Africa with the objective of inspiring a new generation of African football fans and an appreciation of their love for UEFA Champions League and Heineken.



The tour also sought to build a stronger affinity for Heineken with consumers across Africa, bringing the UEFA experience closer to the African community.



Above all, Heineken has used this tour as a medium to celebrate the passion of African football fans.

TIGER BEER IMAGE

Heineken’s Leading Beer Brand in Asia Now Fastest-Selling in Nigeria

Sub-Saharan Africa has the potential to generate inclusive growth and eradicate poverty, according to the latest World Bank overview of the continent’s economic prospects.1



“Sub-Saharan Africa, home to more than&nbsp;1 billion people, half of whom will be under 25 years old by 2050, is a diverse continent offering human and natural resources that have the potential to yield inclusive growth and eradicate poverty in the region. With the world’s largest free trade area and a market of 1.2 billion consumers, the continent is creating an entirely new development path, harnessing the potential of its resources and people,” the World Bank says.



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However, between the recognition of this potential and its realisation – the day when all Africans are freed from poverty – an enormous amount of work remains to be done. As the continent marks Africa Day today, it is useful to consider what is required.



A 2021 Economic Development in Africa Report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) states that one condition for achieving inclusive growth in Africa is that workers must acquire better skills to respond to evolving labour market demands.2



It says inclusive development relies on the capacity of social, economic and political systems to provide the circumstances for well-being on a sustainable, long-term basis.



“Therefore, inclusive development should be measured along the interconnected dimensions of human, social and economic development and environmental considerations,” the report says.



In addition, inclusive growth requires higher rates of female participation, yet women remain marginalised in the labour market in Africa.



The private sector has a major role to play in enabling inclusive growth. It is both the engine of economic development and dependent on a flourishing continent for its own success.



At Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA), our aim is to create greater shared opportunity for the business and the communities we serve across the value-chain, and our social and community ambitions address some of the most immediate needs in Africa.



We believe in creating inclusive growth opportunities for communities, with our focus on women and youth. More relevant in Africa than any other continent, women are integral to our continent’s shared success and are often the decision drivers behind consumer spending trends.



We seek to empower women both in the workplace and through community programmes throughout our markets on the continent.



We support female entrepreneurs to thrive through the provision of financial support, mentoring and training.



An example is the Entoto women empowerment programme in Ethiopia, which was launched in 2020. It has enabled more than 260 women to earn higher incomes by collecting and selling used plastic bottles and distributing The Coca-Cola Company’s products – and in turn also aided our environmental initiatives in relation to recycling.



As we see significant growth potential in Ethiopia, we established nine new intensive training centres to increase the amount of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) collected, resulting in more than 400 women having received intensive training on PET reuse and recycling.



In addition, we also embarked on a market development programme which empowered over 800 women business owners through the provision of coolers to sell more products and expand their businesses.



On the youth front, empowering young people and enabling their inclusion in the economy is critical if we are to achieve our vision of making Africa a better place for all.



We empowered over 15&nbsp;000 youth in 2021 across various of our markets to help make them active participants in the economy.



In South Africa, as an example, we established an enterprise development initiative in 2015, known as Bizniz-in-a-Box, to make a sustainable impact on youth unemployment by creating an ecosystem of viable micro-businesses offering complementary products and services in township communities.



Using the spaza shop as the anchor, each business operates out of a custom-designed container, covering various core needs of the local community. The programme offers young entrepreneurs an opportunity to learn business skills to enable them to grow and run their own business.



We have trained over 720 young entrepreneurs and rolled out over 220 Bizniz-in-a-Box outlets since the inception of the programme, of which 47% are female owned businesses.



Communities where we operate benefit by gaining access to more and/or better resources, which over time enable them to become more self-sufficient and sustainable.



Many members of these communities get employment opportunities they would otherwise not have, and some go on to start their own sustainable businesses through our enterprise development initiatives.



We understand the importance of nurturing from the grass roots level up and in Ethiopia, near one of our factories, we built a fully operational public school that accommodates up to 1,000 students. We built a similar school facility in Bahrdar community in 2019, and we are on track to complete our third school, which is located near our Ambo plant, for the local community.



Creating shared value is mutually beneficial to CCBA, as these individuals ultimately become CCBA consumers, with a real sense of Coca-Cola brand loyalty given the impact CCBA has had on their personal lives.



We continue to work with our supply chain to improve sustainable and ethical local sourcing practices, including a continued commitment to protect human rights.



As at the end of 2020, our local sourcing was at 83%, exceeding the global Coca-Cola target to source locally, 80% of the raw materials usually imported by 2022. This translates into increased opportunity for African suppliers, entrepreneurs and industrialists, helping to develop local economies, diversify goods made in Africa and support inclusive growth.



We continue to support our suppliers to upskill and improve the quality of materials to meet our high standards.



An example is in Ghana, where we sourced 100% of raw materials locally by 2020. Initially local suppliers didn’t have the necessary technical equipment and expertise to produce preforms, closures and labels according to our specifications and high standards.



We proactively supported local suppliers with technical skills and contractual off-take agreements which enabled them to purchase the required machinery to improve their standards.



With increased local sourcing, we saved costs on shipping, customs, clearing and inventory management, driving bottom line profitability – illustrating how economic inclusion can be beneficial to both businesses and local economies.



Another example is in South Africa, where we sourced 98% locally, including sugar.



Increasingly as the African Continental Free Trade Area takes effect, opportunities will open up for local manufacturers to produce higher-value goods and the development of intra-continental value chains that spur inclusive growth.



Companies like CCBA will play a significant part in empowering entrepreneurs, workers and communities to take full advantage of these opportunities.



<ol class="wp-block-list" type="1"><li><a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/overview#1">https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/overview#1</a></li><li><a href="https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/aldcafrica2021_en.pdf">https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/aldcafrica2021_en.pdf</a></li></ol>

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Africa Day should spur action to end poverty and empower the continent to reach its full potential

The food price crisis of 2007-2008, Covid-19, the Russia – Ukraine War, and climate change have exposed the fragility of food systems. The greatest risk lies in refusing to learn from lessons of the past.&nbsp;



At the start of 2022, we were already facing the prospect of a food crisis. Even before the first Russian tank rolled across Ukraine’s borders on 24 February, food prices had tipped record highs as the world struggled to recover from Covid-19 to repair disrupted supply chains and soaring fuel and gas prices. But a conflict involving two of the world’s largest wheat exporters, and major producers of fertilizer, maize and vegetable oil, have inevitably driven prices even higher and, once again, pushed the issue of global food security into sharp focus.



Russia and Ukraine together account for roughly 30 per cent of the world’s wheat and barley exports, a fifth of its corn trade and almost 80 per cent of sunflower oil exports. Most of their wheat production is imported by countries in the Middle East and Africa, with some 50 countries depending on Russia and Ukraine. Warfare, port blockades and international sanctions have reduced these exports, and supply uncertainties have already pushed wheat prices to around $11 per bushel, a level last seen in 2008. The FAO food price index soared last week to a record high.



The situation is further compounded by rising energy prices, and disruptions to the supply of fertilisers, the prices of which are already fluctuating at levels unseen since the global financial crisis because of higher gas prices. &nbsp;Russia and Belarus produce more than a third of global potash. Russia is also the world’s biggest exporter of fertilizers and the war with Ukraine has disrupted the export of fertilizers and driven up prices for natural gas, which is an important ingredient of nitrogen-based fertilizers. Fertilizer prices (DAP) are surging towards 1000 USD per ton, with a significant increase in the last 6 months, and a 40% jump since the invasion. This will hurt rich and poor farmers alike, due to the clear link between rising costs and reduced production.&nbsp;



The US-based Center for Global Development estimates that higher food and fuel prices will push 40 million more people into extreme poverty.&nbsp; Lower income households, who were already spending between 60 and 80 per cent of their earnings on food, face stark choices, including how many meals to eat in a day. In Tunisia, the fear of food shortages combined with the imminent arrival of Ramadan, caused panic buying and emptied supermarket shelves. Kenyans are protesting rising food prices on social media with the hashtag #lowerfoodprices. Thousands of maize farmers in Ethiopia have been protesting soaring fertilizer prices. And let’s not forget that it was rising food prices that led to the 2019 Sudan coup and the Arab Spring rebellion of 2008.



The food crisis of 2007-8 suggests important lessons for us to mitigate a food crisis this year.



First, remember that cooperation between countries matters, sending important signals to markets that governments and the private sector take the problem seriously.&nbsp;



Second, take concerted action to trade more, easier, faster.&nbsp; Allow food to be traded and attack non-tariff barriers that are the most serious limitations to trade.&nbsp;&nbsp; Africa has shown leadership in the creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area – these principles must be fast tracked to allow as friction-free trading system as possible.&nbsp;



Third, governments and development partners should urgently plan for the social and humanitarian consequences of a food crisis.&nbsp; Social safety nets should be strengthened at least temporarily, and humanitarian aid planned for the most vulnerable.&nbsp;



Last and perhaps most importantly, governments and partners must go back to basics: that African economies and livelihoods are built on agriculture. More than 70 per cent of the population is involved in farming, but the vast majority of these are smallholdings with significant exposure to environmental and economic shocks. These farmers and their contributions can be transformed by shorter value chains that share some of the value with farmers, a digital revolution that puts farmers, and strong government agenda and support.&nbsp;



African farmers, if given the opportunities that their European, Asian and North American counterparts have, can increase massively their productivity and grow their businesses.&nbsp; An emergency plan to build support for farmers now can send important signals to markets and increase production this year.&nbsp; Give farmers access to productive, climate smart seeds, the knowledge they need to become more productive, and innovative financial tools to invest.&nbsp; Then help them get their products to market. Proven models are already used by many partners – millions of farmers can be lifted quickly in this way.



At the same time, soaring fertilizer prices must be addressed with urgent action to increase efficiency.&nbsp; AGRA has promoted technologies that can reduce cost to the farmer including the use of blended fertilizers, as we already see in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. The same is true in the use of micro-dosing.&nbsp; Both give much more ‘bang for the buck’ and can be much more environmentally friendly. This is also an opportunity to promote greater use of farmers’ traditional practices of regeneration and organic fertilization.



This is the time for African governments to give a strong signal of support to the agriculture sector.&nbsp; Start by reducing redundant regulation, and support SMEs and farmers’ cooperatives with credit guarantee programmes.&nbsp;



We learned from the last food crisis that we should not be afraid of a food crisis.  What we should be worried about is lack of action once we understand the problem. Governments should lead and coordinate, private sector should target investment on proven solutions, and unlock African farmers’ potential. 



The writer is the President of AGRA (the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa).

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Inadequacy and fragility of food systems becomes more apparent with every food crisis. The question we must answer is “Where do we go from here?”

LAGOS, NIGERIA – MAY 5, 2022: Access Holdings Plc; trading as Access Corporation (&#8220;the Corporation&#8221;) announced today its start of operations, with initial portfolio companies and its future strategy. The Corporation, which builds on Access Bank&#8217;s scale and ethical standards, will have portfolio companies with significant complementarities, allowing the ecosystem to walk with customers across their life cycle while delivering value to stakeholders.



Herbert Wigwe the Group CEO of Access Corporation, speaking on its debut said: &#8220;Many of you would have heard us talk about Access Corporation earlier this year. This natural evolution of our company will ensure that we continue to use digital tools and our partnership with Fintechs to support our customers&#8217; lifestyles outside of the banking system. We have set our sights on and delivered ambitious plans to transform the African financial services sector over the last 20 years. Until now, we have concentrated on banking, with the goal of becoming the World&#8217;s Most Respected African Bank. Our banking subsidiary is now Nigeria&#8217;s largest bank by assets and Africa&#8217;s largest in terms of customer base. It is now time for us to take the next transformative step, where we provide our customers with beyond banking services delivering new interconnected financial services across customers’ needs.&#8221;



The Corporation will comprise verticals cutting across banking, payments, consumer lending, insurance brokerage and asset management. Access Bank Group will continue to operate in Nigeria and through its subsidiaries and business offices in Africa, Europe, and Asia. These businesses, when combined, will position Access Corporation to provide banking services, including intra-and inter-Africa trade, consumer lending, payments services, and insurance services to our customers, thereby improving wealth diversification and preservation.



Looking ahead five years, Access Corporation will be a leading financial and ecosystem player, with services spanning B2B and B2C marketplaces, B2B services, health, housing, digital, mobility content, mobility, core banking offerings, and other financial services such as insurance and wealth management.



Wigwe concludes, &#8220;We recognize and embrace the change that is currently happening and, as we have previously demonstrated, we will lead. Access Corporation will be a driving force in the ongoing digital revolution to the benefit of our stakeholders. This transition will allow us to offer more career development opportunities across portfolio companies for our employees, allowing us to attract and retain the best talent in an increasingly global marketplace. We will unlock more value for our customers by focusing on distinct business opportunities with high growth rates globally, such as payments and consumer lending, <s></s>

Herbert-Wigwe-Group-CEO-Access-Bank-Plc1

ACCESS CORPORATION UNLOCKING NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTRA- AND INTER- AFRICA TRADE – HERBERT WIGWE

The COVID-19 pandemic and the current shock to the system from the war in Ukraine have left African economies hanging by a thread.



National debt <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2022/04/30/debt-repayment-costs-are-rising-fast-for-many-african-countries">has reached distressed levels</a> across the continent, with even formerly high-performing economies such as Ghana, Egypt, and Tunisia on the verge of defaults, bailouts, or both. &nbsp;



Next week’s <a href="https://africities.org/about-the-summit/">9th Africities Summit</a>, in Kisumu, Kenya, will therefore be taking place against a particularly gloomy macroeconomic backdrop.



Yet Kisumu itself – a vibrant, upcoming city which has become a hub for international trade – should give delegates real cause for optimism.



Indeed, Kenya has benefited from being an <a href="https://www.kara.or.ke/Kenya%27s%20Popular%20Version%20on%20New%20Urban%20Agenda.pdf">early adherent</a> of the <a href="https://unhabitat.org/the-new-urban-agenda-illustrated#:~:text=The%20New%20Urban%20Agenda%20highlights,or%20renewal%20policy%20and%20strategy.">New Urban Agenda</a>: UN-Habitat’s armoury of solutions for helping states, city planners and communities to manage urban challenges and needs, whether that’s planning, financing, waste management and housing.



These solutions have evidently been of value to Kisumu, and I believe the Agenda could not be more relevant for African policymakers navigating such perilous economic headwinds.



Why? Because while urban areas <a href="https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2020/10/wcr_2020_report.pdf">constitute 55% of the global population</a>, they account for more than 80% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).



In other words, our cities are an engine of economic growth – growth that Africa needs badly and needs now.



However, while the most must be made of the undeniable dynamism of our urban areas, choosing to live in a city cannot be a zero-sum game. No African should ever have to expose themselves to environmental and social strife to climb the economic ladder.



Put simply, our mission must be the resilience and the sustainable economic growth of our cities: the key that can unlock a more prosperous, equal and secure future for all Africans.



Our team at UN-Habitat have never underestimated the challenge at hand.



The world’s urban centres are veritable hotspots of vulnerability, with <a href="https://unhabitat.org/programme/rise-up-resilient-settlements-for-the-urban-poor">more than 1 billion people</a> now living in informal settlements, placing themselves at the mercy of extreme weather events.



While new cities are emerging in Africa, we need to learn to ensure challenges are well anticipated with proper planning and provision of basic services. The best approach might be by finding a balance between big city and secondary cities. Secondary cities are under less pressure and can develop sustainable urban solutions faster.



Quick fix and often exclusionary solutions like slum clearance and community relocation have proven redundant in the face of such a challenge.



UN-Habitat’s advocates an inclusive and participatory approach, with our staff getting out into the field to assist stakeholders with anything from building the climate resilience of city centres to setting up employment schemes and vocational training.



<a href="https://unhabitat.org/programme/rise-up-resilient-settlements-for-the-urban-poor#:~:text=The%20UN%2DHabitat%20flagship%20programme,spatial%20inequality%20and%20resilient%20settlements.">RISE-UP: Resilient Settlements for the Urban Poor</a> – one of UN-Habitat’s flagship programmes – exemplifies this research-driven, holistic approach to generating sustainable socio-economic progress in African cities.



Since 2019, the RISE-UP team have built up a database of locations under severe threat from extreme weather events, whether that be an informal settlement in West Africa or a coastal city in South-East Asia.



With this data in hand, UN-Habitat has lobbied for and then leveraged large scale investments to build, augment, and reinforce the climate resilience of each vulnerable community. This is an essential step in the cementing their economic viability.



As an example of RISE-UP at its best, UN-Habitatflagged the grave threat of flash floods and strong winds to schools in Mozambique in 2020. Our field operatives then worked day and night to ensure that classrooms from Maputo to Beira could withstand them.



Given the global political and economic upheavals, it is important that we stay firmly on the course of sustainable urban development and ensure support is available for the development of secondary cities in Africa. And this is what I will be focusing on in Kisumu next week.



&#8216;With these communities in mind, it is imperative that organisations operating at the supranational level like UN-Habitat stay the course. While the focus of governments on sustainable economic growth might waver, ours will not and we have the expertise to keep them moving forward, despite the undeniable obstacles they face.

TOPSHOT-NIGERIA-ECONOMY-PLANNING-LAGOS

OP-Ed Africa’s Secondary Cities Can be the Engine of Sustainable Economic Growth

* Asia stocks drop to near 2yr low, U.S. equity futures struggle



* Dollar hits 2yr highs on AUD, NZD



* Bitcoin tumbling, hits new 16-month low



By Tom Westbrook



SINGAPORE, May 12 (Reuters) – Asian stocks fell to an almost two-year low and the dollar rose to multi-year highs on Thursday as data showed U.S. inflation persistently hot, deepening investor worries about the economic toll of aggressive interest rate hikes to tame it.



U.S. markets whipsawed after the news, then closed sharply lower. S&amp;P 500 futures gave up early gains to fall 0.2% in the Asia session. European futures also fell, with EuroSTOXX 50 futures down 2% and FTSE futures down 1.6%.



Bitcoin, leading a fire-sale of risky assets as rate hikes gather steam, fell 7% to $26,970. It was near $40,000 a week ago and is 60% beneath its peak six months ago.



The growth-sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars fell about 0.8% to almost two-year lows. The Chinese yuan slid to a 19-month trough.



Headline U.S. consumer prices rose 8.3% for the 12 months to April, slower than the 8.5% pace of a month earlier, but higher than market forecasts for 8.1%. Traders said it underscored concern that rates will rise quickly in response.



“We’re now very much embedded with at least two further (U.S.) hikes of 50 basis points on the agenda. For equity markets that really is the end of free money,” said Damian Rooney, director of institutional sales at Argonaut in Perth.



“I think we probably were delusional six months ago with the rise of U.S. equities on hopes and prayers and the madness of the meme stocks, and suddenly were going a little bit back to what is reality,” he said.



MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 2% to a 22-month low. Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.7%.



Treasuries were steady in Asia, but selling at the short end and a rally at the longer end has flattened the yield curve as investors brace for near-term hikes to hurt long-run growth.



The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield fell six basis points (bps) overnight and dropped a further 2.6 bps in Tokyo trade to 2.8967%. The gap between two-year and 10-year yields narrowed 3.5 bps.



“There should be a tipping point in how far the Fed can be pressed before odds clearly point towards a hard landing,” said NatWest Markets’ U.S. rates strategist Jan Nevruzi.



SELL IN MAY



The rates outlook is driving up the U.S. dollar and taking the heaviest toll on riskier assets that shot up through two years of stimulus and low-rate lending.



The Nasdaq is down nearly 8% in May so far and more than 25% this year. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech index slid 1.5% on Thursday and is off more than 30% this year.



Cryptocurrency markets are also melting down, with the collapse of the so-called stablecoin TerraUSD highlighting the turmoil as well as the selling in bitcoin and next-biggest-crypto, ether.



A weakening growth picture outside the United States is battering investor confidence, too, as war in Ukraine threatens an energy crisis in Europe and lengthening COVID-19 lockdowns in China throw another spanner into supply chain chaos.



Nomura estimated this week that 41 Chinese cities are in full or partial lockdowns, making up 30% of the country’s GDP.



Property developer Sunac China said it missed a bond interest payment and will miss more as China’s real estate sector remains in the grip of a credit crunch.



The yuan fell to a 19-month low of 6.7631 and has dropped almost 6% in under a month.



The Australian dollar fell 0.8% to a near two-year low of $0.6879. The kiwi slid by a similar margin to $0.6240, though the euro and yen held steady to keep the dollar index just shy of a two-decade peak.



Sterling was at a two-year low of $1.2204.



In commodity trade, oil wound back a bit of Wednesday’s surge as growth worries dampened fear of gas supply disruptions in Europe.



Brent crude futures fell 1.3% to $106.90 a barrel.



British activity and growth data is due later in the day.



(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Kim Coghill)

(Photo: Flickr/QuoteInspector.com)

SHARES TUMBLE AS STUBBORN U.S. INFLATION STOKES WORRIES ON RATES, ECONOMY

Anglo American&nbsp;plc (“Anglo American”) today unveils a prototype of the world’s largest hydrogen-powered mine haul truck designed to operate in everyday mining conditions at its Mogalakwena PGMs mine in Limpopo, South Africa.



The 2MW hydrogen-battery hybrid truck, generating more power than its diesel predecessor and capable of carrying a 290-tonne payload, is part of Anglo American’s nuGen™ Zero Emission Haulage Solution (ZEHS). nuGen™ provides an end-to-end integrated green hydrogen production, fuelling and haulage system, with green hydrogen to be produced at the mine site.



nuGen™ is part of Anglo American’s&nbsp;innovation-led approach to sustainable mining – FutureSmart Mining™ – which brings together technology and digitalisation to drive targeted sustainability outcomes, including our commitment to carbon-neutrality across our operations by 2040.



Duncan Wanblad, Chief Executive of Anglo American, said: “nuGen™ is a tangible demonstration of our FutureSmart Mining™ programme changing the future of our industry. With diesel emissions from our haul truck fleet accounting for c.10-15% of our total Scope 1 emissions, this is a vital step on our pathway to carbon neutral operations by 2040. The mining industry is playing a considerable role in helping the world decarbonise, both through our own emissions footprint and the metals and minerals that we produce that are critical to low carbon energy and transport systems.



“Over the next several years, we envisage hundreds of our diesel-powered trucks being converted or replaced with this zero-emission haulage system, fuelled with green hydrogen. If this pilot is successful, we could remove up to 80% of diesel emissions at our open pit mines by rolling this technology across our global fleet.”&nbsp;



Tony O’Neill,&nbsp;Technical Director&nbsp;of Anglo American,&nbsp;commented: “We&nbsp;are incredibly proud of what our entire team, working with expert partners, has achieved in under three years.&nbsp;This is truly a world-class innovation and bears testament to our technical vision and determination to deliver a cleaner and smarter future for mining.



“It is these game-changing innovations that are exactly why we began our FutureSmart Mining™ journey in 2014, knowing how much of a difference we can make, including in the energy transition and across our societal footprint. Innovative, clean and independent power systems, such as our nuGen™ ZEHS project, offer a significant part of the emissions solution.”

Anglo American hydrogen-powered mine haul truck

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ACCESS CORPORATION UNLOCKING NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTRA- AND INTER- AFRICA TRADE – HERBERT WIGWE

OP-Ed Africa’s Secondary Cities Can be the Engine of Sustainable Economic Growth

SHARES TUMBLE AS STUBBORN U.S. INFLATION STOKES WORRIES ON RATES, ECONOMY

Anglo American unveils a prototype of the world’s largest hydrogen-powered mine haul truck – a vital step towards reducing carbon emissions over time

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Contributor

Patient capital for African agriculture gives back far more than it receives

African Development Bank’s Board approves landmark institution: Establishment of African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation to transform Africa’s pharmaceutical industry

On my mind: The Fed capitulates

Sociopathic economists and the coming high fertility debt crisis

Ghana’s Crop Production Continues to be Devastated by Climate Change

We can end child labour in Africa. Here’s how.

Environmental activism need not come at the expense of Africa’s development

Family Governance Starts with Affinity

Making Africa’s leading entertainment company’s data and analytics agile, scalable and future-proof

Standard Bank shows ‘it can be’ by using AI and analytics to improve customer service

Heineken’s Leading Beer Brand in Asia Now Fastest-Selling in Nigeria

Africa Day should spur action to end poverty and empower the continent to reach its full potential

Inadequacy and fragility of food systems becomes more apparent with every food crisis. The question we must answer is “Where do we go from here?”

ACCESS CORPORATION UNLOCKING NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTRA- AND INTER- AFRICA TRADE – HERBERT WIGWE

OP-Ed Africa’s Secondary Cities Can be the Engine of Sustainable Economic Growth

SHARES TUMBLE AS STUBBORN U.S. INFLATION STOKES WORRIES ON RATES, ECONOMY

Anglo American unveils a prototype of the world’s largest hydrogen-powered mine haul truck – a vital step towards reducing carbon emissions over time

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