HARARE, Dec 3 (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwe&#8217;s former leader Robert Mugabe, who died in September, left $10 million and some properties in the capital, but no will naming his beneficiaries, details of his estate published by state-owned newspaper the Herald showed on Tuesday.



Zimbabweans have speculated for years about the extent of Mugabe&#8217;s wealth, with many assuming that he and his family amassed a vast fortune during his 37 years in power.



Mugabe&#8217;s daughter Bona Chikowore wrote in October to the Master of the High Court seeking to register her father&#8217;s estate, the Herald reported. It listed assets including $10 million held in a local bank, four houses in Harare, 10 cars, one farm, his rural home and an orchard.



One of the properties is the palatial home known as Blue Roof in an upmarket suburb of the capital where Mugabe lived.



The list does not include several farms that he reportedly owned or a dairy business he ran with wife Grace, or any properties outside Zimbabwe.



The Herald said Mugabe&#8217;s lawyer Terrence Hussein had also asked the court to register the estate, saying he and the family had not found any will left by Zimbabwe&#8217;s founding leader.



Under Zimbabwean laws, the estate of a person who dies without a will is distributed between their spouse and children.



&#8220;Thus far, we have not been able to locate a will, but have sent out enquiries to other law firms, although the family members are not aware of any,&#8221; Hussein wrote in a letter to the High Court that was quoted by the Herald.



Hussein did not respond to calls and questions from Reuters for comment. Chikowore did not answer calls to her mobile phone.



A diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in Harare in 2001 that was published by Wikileaks said Mugabe was rumoured to have more than $1 billion of assets in Zimbabwe and overseas but that it had no reliable information.



Social media posts showing his sons Robert Jr and Bellarmine Chatunga with bottles of expensive champagne at a Johannesburg nightclub and reports of Grace&#8217;s shopping sprees have offered tantalising glimpses of the family&#8217;s lavish spending.



A legal dispute in 2014 over a $5 million villa in Hong Kong suggested the family had been buying overseas property. The government said it owned the house.



Towards the end of his life, Mugabe complained about the size of his retirement package and said he did not have enough money to pay for the upkeep of the Blue Roof.



Mnangagwa hinted last week that the Mugabe family owned a number of farms in Zimbabwe and that the government would leave them with just one, in line with rules limiting farm ownership. 



(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Alison Williams and Catherine Evans)

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How much money did Zimbabwe’s Mugabe leave behind?

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/victor-odundo-owuor-460341">Victor Odundo Owuor</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-colorado-boulder-733">University of Colorado Boulder</a>

When one talks about young Africans using smartphones, the dominant narrative is that these gadgets serve mostly as platforms for connection so that users can communicate and share greetings and information via text and images. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp and Signal take pride of place in that description, despite their <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2019/11/13/can-social-media-targetcasting-and-democracy-coexist/?utm_campaign=Brookings%20Brief&amp;utm_source=hs_email&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=79382557">murkier side</a>. What has perhaps been overlooked is how smartphones are also affecting other facets of young people’s lives. One area is the ever-growing community of sports betting in Africa. 

The phenomenon of sports betting among African youths has taken the region by storm. Recent polls and anecdotal reports point to a grim scenario, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. A 2017 <a href="https://www.geopoll.com/blog/the-spending-habits-of-youth-consumers-in-sub-sahara-africa/">GeoPoll</a> survey found that up to 54% of sub-Saharan African youth between 17 and 35 years have engaged in sports gambling. Kenya, with 74% participation in sports betting, had by far the largest percentage of youth involvement in this activity. The survey of some 2,726 African millennials was conducted in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. 

A core driver of this trend has been the growing ubiquity of mobile telephony around the continent combined with the availability of smartphones. Added to this has been greater connectivity – including satellite access to sport matches – and a ballooning population of young people with high levels of unemployment.

In <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5811642/">research</a> on the subject we see that sports betting has brought many <a href="https://theconversation.com/ugandas-ban-on-sports-betting-was-the-right-thing-to-do-110728">ills</a> to young people in sub-Saharan Africa. These include severe gambling addiction and money laundering. Some of these concerns are also experienced in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563216302126?via%3Dihub">other</a> parts of the world. These include <a href="https://akademiai.com/doi/10.1556/2006.7.2018.49">smartphone addiction</a> and a closely related phenomenon: internet addiction. These ills in turn lead to heightened levels of social anxiety and loneliness among the affected population.

<h2>The drivers?</h2>

<a href="https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/assa/2018/01/22/the-boom-of-smartphones-and-social-media-in-cameroon-by-patrick-awondo/">Smartphone penetration</a> around the continent has exhibited a remarkable growth rate. Cameroon, for instance, had 72% registered users of social networks among those aged 15 to 24 in 2016. This grew to that level from 43% in the first half of that year. The most popular social networks for that community was Facebook, Google+, Instagram and Twitter. This development has come at a time when there is growing interest in sports betting &#8211; the most popular gambling option for African youth. Mobile phones are the preferred avenue for sports betting.

Of course the increasing availability of smartphones is unleashing the innovative potential of many sub-Saharan African youth. The plethora of social media platforms have the potential to change lives around the continent. Many social media adaptions are the result of the ingenuity of sub-Saharan youth, like M-Pesa, Ensbuuko and WorldRemit (financial services); ButterflyiQ, Momconnect, Usalama (health and security); Cityaps, Musanga and Twiga Foods (supply chain platforms); and Ushahidi, tajirat al-Facebook and Kano’s WhatsApp entrepreneurs (to strengthen social cohesion).

<figure class="align-center zoomable">
 <a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302894/original/file-20191121-491-1f0dnv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img decoding="async" alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302894/original/file-20191121-491-1f0dnv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302894/original/file-20191121-491-1f0dnv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302894/original/file-20191121-491-1f0dnv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302894/original/file-20191121-491-1f0dnv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=400&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302894/original/file-20191121-491-1f0dnv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302894/original/file-20191121-491-1f0dnv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302894/original/file-20191121-491-1f0dnv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=503&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
 <figcaption>
 A Kenyan man checks out the Football World Cup fixtures. Matches are often screened in small viewing centres.
 Daniel Irungu/EPA
 </figcaption>
 </figure>

Another driver is clever marketing and advances in technology &#8211; the digital satellite television space across the continent broadcasts sports events of African clubs and popular European soccer leagues. In Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and across much of sub-Saharan Africa, the advent of <a href="https://www.dstvafrica.com/en-ng/browse-compare-packages">DStv</a> (Digital Satellite Television) and other broadcast platforms have brought foreign league matches to viewing centres and hence to the doorstep of individuals who on their own who be hard-pressed to afford watching prized league games in their respective homes.

These viewing centres are in the nooks and crannies of urban centres in all these countries. In turn self-acclaimed fans of some of the biggest clubs in the world like Real Madrid, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Barcelona, Manchester City, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Dortmund, Juventus and Paris Germain can keep up with the performance of their teams without ever visiting the homes of these clubs.

A third driver is the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/youngest-populations-africa/">youth bulge</a> in Africa. The continent has the <a href="https://population.un.org/wpp/">youngest population in the world</a>, with an estimated 60% of people under the age of 25. Of the 420 million youth in Africa today, the majority are unemployed, have insecure jobs or are in casual employment. For many on the continent, the slick advertising of sports betting firms provides an irresistible proposition.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127251/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important" />

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/victor-odundo-owuor-460341">Victor Odundo Owuor</a>, Senior Research Associate, One Earth Future Foundation, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-colorado-boulder-733">University of Colorado Boulder</a>

This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-smartphone-gambling-is-on-the-up-among-african-millennials-127251">original article</a>.

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Here’s why smartphone gambling is on the rise among African millennials

WINDHOEK (Reuters) &#8211; Namibians voted on Wednesday in what was expected to be the toughest contest yet for the party that has ruled for three decades of independence, an election it was still expected to win despite a brutal economic crisis. 



President Hage Geingob, Namibia’s third leader since the sparsely populated and mostly arid country freed itself from the shackles of apartheid South Africa in 1990, is seeking a second and final term from 1.3 million registered voters.



He faces nine challengers including Panduleni Itula, a dentist-turned-politician who is a member of the ruling SWAPO party but is running as an independent. Itula is popular with young people, nearly half of whom are unemployed.



Concurrent legislative polls will elect 96 members of parliament, testing SWAPO’s 77-seat majority. Polls opened at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) and close at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT).



Results are expected within 48 hours.



Namibia’s ruling party has successfully tackled problems left over from decades of neglectful rule by a German colonial and later white minority South African administrations. The proportion of Namibians living below the poverty line fell by three quarters, from nearly 70 percent in 1993 to 17 percent in 2016, according to World Bank figures.



But now SWAPO is contending with an economy that has been in recession for nearly three years, one of Namibia’s worst-ever droughts and the biggest corruption scandal in its history — all of which have conspired to make this election unexpectedly tough for Geingob, who won by 87% last time.



“I campaigned like hell but if I lose I will accept that. I am a democrat,” Geingob told reporters shortly after voting.



The economy has been marred by a drought that ravaged agricultural export crops, as well as by unprofitably low prices for Namibia’s main hard commodities, uranium and diamonds.



The Bank of Namibia expects the domestic economy to contract for a third year in 2019, by 1.7%.



A scandal in which two ministers were alleged to have conspired to dole out fishing licences to Iceland’s biggest fishing firm, Samherji, in return for kickbacks has also taken the shine off the ruling party.



Yet loyalty to the former guerrilla movement remains high.



“Namibia has gone through a very terrible time,” Leevylee Abrahams said, after casting his vote. “But I’m voting for continuity because I believe that this government can really improve the lives of people, given a chance again.”



Whether the result is close or not, a SWAPO win is likely to be controversial, especially since the court threw out a case mounted by the opposition against the use of electronic voting machines it fears will be used to cheat.



The military said in a statement it was on high alert for violence, which Namibia has avoided in previous polls.



Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Paul Tait

Namibia

Namibians vote in tight contest clouded by economic crisis, what you need to know

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa faces a prolonged period of weak economic growth marked by rising unemployment, inequality and greater credit-rating risk if the government does not act fast to implement reforms, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Monday.



“The FY20/21 budget to be presented in February should articulate measures to address fiscal and SOE challenges and stabilize government debt,” the global lender said in statement at the conclusion of a 2-week, Article IV visit to the country.



“Failure to implement the needed adjustment in government and SOE (state-owned entities) spending and efficiency will worsen debt dynamics, erode financial stability, and further raise the country risk premium.”



Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by Mark Heinrich

IMF says South Africa at risk if economic reforms don’t materialise fast

“What a man can do, a woman can do just as well,” Jeannette Kagame, First Lady of Rwanda



“History will judge us if we don’t work together to take action now,” Chief Executive Officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu



Kigali, Rwanda, 26 November, 2019 – “Investments in gender equality are critical to realizing demographic dividend, but we need to ensure that women have the tools to overcome the barriers they face,” First Lady of Rwanda, Jeannette Kagame told participants at a panel at the Global Gender Summit in Kigali on Monday.



The panel, made up of First Ladies Kagame, Margaret Kenyatta, ministers and development experts, observed that too many women and girls still face barriers to basic rights, particularly access to labour market opportunities.



Rwanda’s First Lady recalled the role women played following the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, where a number of families were wiped out, with women in many cases being the ones catering for families.



“What a man can do, a woman can do just as well,” she added.



She described the Summit as an important platform to highlight issues of women equality. 



Rwanda has implemented gender several inclusive programs, which has enhanced economic equality in a country where women political participation has grown to 61% percent.



First Lady Kenyatta called for the removal of institutional barriers to accelerate women’s economic empowerment, “It has become urgent for Africa to translate its demographic dividend into viable potential.” 



“This is the spirit of Africa’s vision to accelerate its path to sustainable socio-economic development. Our collective commitment to ‘leave no one behind’ is a new chapter in our struggle towards achieving gender equality.”



The panel heard that impediments to gender equality include lack of access to credit, low representation in decision making positions, lack of control over productive land and lack of financial control to make spending decisions on education and health.



Minister of Solidarity, Social Development, Equality and Family Jamila El Moussali of Morocco, shared experiences from Morocco where policies have been introduced to increase women&#8217;s political and economic participation.



The Chief Executive Officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, called on stakeholders to come together to leverage each other’s strengths “translate women dreams into reality. History will judge us if we don’t work together to take action now.”



The African Development Bank and the government of Rwanda are hosting the Global Gender Summit from 25 to 27 November in Kigali. The Summit is being organised by the Multilateral Development Banks’ (MDBs) Working Group on gender for the first time in Africa.



Content provided by the African Development Bank

VW_GlobalGenderSummit_2019

First ladies’ panel seeks urgent policies to translate Africa’s demographic dividend into viable potential

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1110" height="601" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Java-Foods-1110x601.png" alt="" class="wp-image-350844" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Java-Foods-1110x601.png 1110w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Java-Foods-300x162.png 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Java-Foods-820x444.png 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Java-Foods-768x416.png 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Java-Foods-696x377.png 696w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Java-Foods-1068x578.png 1068w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Java-Foods-776x420.png 776w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Java-Foods.png 1290w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px" /></figure>



By Mariam Yinusa and Edward Mabaya, Principal Economist and Manager, respectively, in the Agribusiness Development Division of the African Development Bank.



Monica Musonda, CEO of Zambian food processing company <a href="https://java-foods.com/">Java Foods</a>, certainly faced hurdles in her rise
to the top, but she overcame them. 



“Although the barriers to entry for
women can be frustrating, they are often basic and relatively easy to resolve,”
she said, playing down her struggles. “My
climb up the agribusiness ladder has been challenging but definitely
worthwhile.” 



Musonda, whose company produces
affordable and nutritious food snacks made from local ingredients, is one of just
a handful of female agripreneurs who have <a href="http://www.lionessesofafrica.com/blog/2017/5/14/monica-musonda-founder-of-java-foods-zambia-wins-the-african-agribusiness-entrepreneur-of-the-year-award-2017">successfully broken through the
proverbial glass ceiling in Africa’s agribusiness</a> industry. 



Women are
the backbone of Africa’s agricultural sector. From farm to fork, African women
are players along the entire agricultural value chain, be it as farmers,
livestock breeders, processors, traders, workers, entrepreneurs or consumers. While
their influence on the continent’s growing agribusiness industry is undeniable,
more solutions are needed to address the gender-specific challenges they face to
boost their participation. 



The average
African woman is a budding entrepreneur either by choice or by circumstance.
According to the &nbsp;<a href="https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/gem-20162017-womens-entrepreneurship-report">Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor Women’s Report 2016/17</a>,
the continent has the highest percentage of female entrepreneurs in the world,
with one in four women starting or managing a business. The agribusiness
industry is often the natural focus of this entrepreneurial drive. 



Across the
continent, women dominate as primary processors post-harvest, as traders with
bustling market stalls, as owners of fast food restaurants and with
increasingly frequency as manufacturers of packaged ready-to-eat food products.
Yet despite this dynamism, female-led agribusinesses tend to remain small,
fragmented and informal in nature. They struggle to sustain and scale-up their
agribusinesses into well-organized profitable enterprises.



Admittedly,
the challenging business environment in many African countries including poor
infrastructure and unreliable legal and regulatory systems affects all business
activities of both men and women. However, in addition women-led businesses must
also grapple with a number of gender-specific constraints, inhibiting their
expansion into more lucrative market segments.



Firstly, African women often lack the
technical know-how. &nbsp;Despite the gains in
female education on the continent, highly productive agribusinesses require
specialized vocational and technical skills in fields such as food safety, food
conservation, packaging and product certification which many African women do
not readily possess.



Access to
finance is the most frequently cited obstacle by African SMEs. Women
entrepreneurs face multiple difficulties in securing funding mainly due to lack
of collateral in the form of land and other tangible assets and a high-risk
perception. According to the African Development Bank, an estimated $42 billion
financing gap exists for African women across business value chains, including
$15.6 billion in agriculture alone. Women are forced to rely on personal
savings and family loans which are rarely enough to fund their businesses to
scale.



Thirdly, socio-cultural barriers and
stereotypes persist. African women remain the primary caregivers in families
meaning that managing those responsibilities while growing a thriving business
can become a difficult balancing act.



Over the last two decades, many
governments and development institutions have rolled out programs to promote
access to finance, agricultural inputs and provide technical support and
business training to female agripreneurs. The African Development Bank recently
set up the <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/topics-and-sectors/initiatives-partnerships/afawa-affirmative-finance-action-for-women-in-africa">Affirmative Finance Action for Women
in Africa (AFAWA)</a>, a bold pan-African initiative to bridge the financing gap
facing women. It adopts a three-pronged approach centered on improving access
to finance, providing technical assistance and strengthening the enabling
environment.



It often
takes very little to make a difference. The capital injection required by the
majority of female led SME agribusinesses on the continent is typically less
than $50,000. And women have consistently proven to be more credit-worthy than
men, usually paying back loans within agreed timeframes. Successful solutions
by women for women such as microfinance and saving groups, peer-to-peer
training and information sharing should also be reinforced and taken to scale.



More of such initiatives are urgently
needed across the continent. Solutions must be based on in-depth engagement
with the women business owners themselves to properly understand their
frustrations and needs. Tailored programs designed to specifically address
these pain points are critical. The <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/events/global-gender-summit-global-gender-summit">Global Gender Summit</a> is a timely opportunity to
drive this forward.



Women are central for Africa’s agricultural transformation to be successful, sustainable and inclusive. More African female agripreneurs must be supported to grow and progressively transition into the business segments of agricultural value chains which are most profitable. It has been proven time and time again that when African women thrive the entire society shares in those dividends.

Java Foods

Op-Ed: Getting women in the driver’s seat of Africa’s agribusiness revolution

By Chris Bishop, Head of Programming at CNBC Africa



So, one of the largest unions in Africa says it is not so sure about new Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter.  It believes his appointment is against transformation and will only work with him if he abandons the unbundling of the national power generator that appears as vital to the operation as an elixir to a sick man.



READ: <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/zdnl-mc/2019/11/19/why-the-new-man-at-eskom-needs-a-backbone-of-steel-and-the-eye-of-a-hawk/">Why the new man at Eskom needs a backbone of steel and the eye of a hawk</a>



There was no surprise when the National Union of Mineworkers
(NUM) kicked up a fuss in the wake of de Ruyter’s appointment. The union is
fighting the good fight very hard these days as it struggles to regain its
former strength. Once it was a powerhouse in the richest mining industry in
Africa with 300,000 members – redundancies have put paid to many members and
down the years many have drifted over to the Association of Mineworkers and
Construction Union (AMCU). A decade ago, AMCU was a fringe union now it is the
king of platinum and growing in numbers in the gold mines.



Therefore it is no surprise that the NUM is all over the
media saying it does not approve of de Ruyter and will not work with him at all
if he carries on with the unbundling of Eskom into three entities: generation;
distribution and transmission.



“We think this is the prelude to privatisation,” says
Livhuwani Mammburu, the spokesman for the NUM.



It is unlikely that Eskom will abandon the unbundling under
its new leader. The national power generator has struggled on for more than a
decade to provide half of Africa’s electricity. Maybe private money could help
the organisation shape up with the help of the discipline of the balance sheet.



As for transformation, I think most people in business,
right now, would support almost anyone from any background on earth if they
could secure a supply of affordable electricity in the long term.



It is also far too early to judge the new man, yet his
reputation looks promising. He was well thought of in his 20-year tenure at Sasol
where he had a reputation for walking the factory floors to learn the processes
of the business. De Ruyter was also seen as an expert on coal quality, which
will help him in his job at Eskom.



Although union muscle flexing appears in vogue in the
difficult South African economy; maybe it is time for the NUM to keep mum on
this appointment. For now at least. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Eskom’s largest union’s ultimatum to  Andre de Ruyter. If you want our support this is what you need to do…

By Tinashe L. Chimedza<a href="#_edn1">[i]</a> 



Tinashe L. Chimedza penned this piece in response to <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/zdnl-mc/2019/11/17/op-ed-this-is-how-zimbabwe-has-changed-since-i-became-president-emmerson-mnangagwa/">Op-Ed:
This is how Zimbabwe has changed since I became president: Emmerson Mnangagwa</a>



Two years ago Zimbabwe’s National Army carried out a putsch that removed President Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Once the coup was carried out Zimbabwe’s parliament began a process of ‘impeaching’ a President who was already under ‘house arrest’. The global spin on that putsch was that this was a ‘military assisted transition’ and there was a global silence to accept this narrative because a lot of people, especially Zimbabweans, were just desperate because of the collapsing economy. South Africa too proved to be a key decision broker and the presence of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans in South Africa swayed the political class there to say ‘anything but Mugabe’ and this was shared by global power especially the British. &nbsp;It is reported that the British embassy to Zimbabwe played a critical role to ‘package’ the putsch as a ‘military assisted transition’ and the propaganda worked for while. 



 Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/zdnl-mc/2019/11/17/op-ed-two-years-on-since-mugabe-was-zimbabwes-president-whats-changed/">Op-Ed: Two years on since Mugabe was Zimbabwe’s president, what’s changed?</a> 



The world was made to gulp a narrative that there was a ‘democratic’ and ‘legal’ process under way in Zimbabwe. But since then, by any measure, Zimbabwe’s politics and economics have worsened.. The reason is very simple. The men (and few women) who now rule Zimbabwe had stayed so much in the shadow of Mugabe yet they were the real crude power that kept the old man in power and when tried to purge them by firing the Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, they had to strike back to defend their interests. 



What happened in
the November 2017 was a repeat episode of what happened in the 2008 election
when Morgan Tsvangirai won. The military is now firmly in charge of the
politics and the economics in Zimbabwe. &nbsp;The mess that this has created has now
cascaded into every facet of Zimbabwe’s political economy and this is happening
with disastrous challenges in health, in the economy and the country has
descended into almost a military state. 



Recently the government
announced they were firing hundreds of striking doctors. There has been an
impasse for almost two months and the hospitals have become almost death traps
with the absence of doctors. For almost two months the medical doctors, the few
that are there, have had a long dispute with the government over salaries and
conditions in the public hospitals. The crisis became so acute that women are
having to go to ‘backyard’ untrained ‘midwives’ to give birth. 



Zimbabwe’s
referral hospitals, largely built many decades ago, have become almost ghost
like places. Whole wards lie abandoned, sometimes citizens have to bring in
clean water and some hospitals have said they are closing mortuaries. In
Masvingo, 300 km to the south of Harare, women have been giving birth by candle
light and sometimes using phone torches as light.&nbsp; Missionary hospitals can not cope and some
have issued statements begging patients not to come and camp outside, sometimes
for weeks. &nbsp;One doctor broke down when
interviewed and citizens have to resort to forming independently funded
initiatives to support the major hospitals. 



Recently the Minister
of Finance tabled a proposed budget before the National Assembly. The proposed budget
bill shows declining revenue, a contacting economy, foreign aid continues to be
significant in the budget and the government has retained an intermediate money
transfer tax as a source of revenue. But there is more of the mess. The Parliamentary
Public Accounts committee unearthed billions of unexplained expenditure and the
response of the Ministry of Finance was to issue a ‘law’ pardoning irregular
expenditure, without accounting, over ‘Us$10billion’.&nbsp; This is an equivalent of almost 3 national
budgets.&nbsp; The public finance system is in
shambles and this is deliberate because the central bank then uses a
‘preference’ system to allocate subsidies worth billions to businesses linked
to the political elites. 



Elsewhere the
country’s pension system has almost collapsed and at the centre of that are
managers and elites linked to the ruling party with estimates that up to US$5billion
has been wiped off from pensions. With the chaos in agriculture and mining
Zimbabwe also faces a draught which could have been made manageable by proper
policies to boost productivity. State and party elites want to superintend over
the latest so called ‘smart agriculture’ input scheme, worth billions, so they
can subsidise themselves and find a platform to create patronage. All these
schemes, of literally looting the state, has serious consequences on the
capacity of the state to transform the economy and set Zimbabwe on a path to
prosperity. Inflation has been so bad that the state agency tasked to measure
year on year inflation has been banned from publishing that number.&nbsp; One just has to track the rate of price
increases and see how income has collapsed.



While the
President has had a great public relations team what is emerging is that the
transition in 2017 was a false change. &nbsp;Zimbabwe actually under military rule and the
descent cannot be stopped by <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/zdnl-mc/2019/11/17/op-ed-this-is-how-zimbabwe-has-changed-since-i-became-president-emmerson-mnangagwa/">opinion
pieces</a> but by comprehensive reform.&nbsp; 



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<a href="#_ednref1">[i]</a> Tinashe L. Chimedza is a Zimbabwean. He has written for The Elephant, for The East African, for Zimbabwe
Briefing and published book chapters and journal papers on Zimbabwe and
Southern Africa.

Op-Ed: Zimbabwe Under Emmerson Mnangagwa

.By Chris Bishop, Head of Programming at CNBC Africa 



The new man charged with the devilish job of turning around South
Africa’s state owned power generator Eskom may enjoy a merry Christmas next
month, but can’t be sure of a happy new year.



Outsider Andre de Ruyter will take up his post on January 15
in a rudderless organisation, without a permanent CEO for eight months, struggling
to keep the lights on and wallowing in debt ahead of what threatens to be a
complex unbundling of Eskom this year.



“He will need a backbone of steel,” says James-Brent Styan,
a journalist and author of a book on Eskom’s woes called Blackout. Many have
questioned the appointment of a CEO from the struggling packaging outfit
Nampak, but energy analysts agreed the new man could make a fair fist of the job
in difficult circumstances.



“He will need the full support of cabinet and the full
support of the ANC,”Styan adds.



In many ways de Ruyter has credentials for the job: at 50,
he has youth on his side for a CEO job; he has 20 years international
experience with coal-to-liquid giants and recent experience of cutting down
debt at Nampak where he was CEO for five years. Yet, Eskom, with around 46,000
workers, may prove a very different package to Nampak with 5,600.



“He will have to deal with the faceless, nameless,
politicians who will want to tell him what to do. In many ways his hands will
be tied. He will be charged with the difficult job of running Eskom as a
business while dealing with the politicians,” says Chris Yelland, an Eskom
expert with EE Publishers.



“He has to find a way of providing sustainable electricity
at a cost that the economy can afford.” 



The new CEO’s biggest task will be to cut down Eskom’s debt
estimated at about R450 billion and proving a hazard to the power generator
securing new credit lines in the world money markets. Yelland says the power
generator is servicing a mere 47% of this debt. Any attempts to cut jobs at
Eskom are likely to be opposed by powerful unions.



“The problems are going to be massive and immediate,” says
Yelland.



“Ït is going to take de Ruyter at least six months to come
to terms with the bureaucracy at Eskom and the very complex paperwork that goes
with the procurement system,” says Styan.



Styan also says the cutting of coal, staff and interest
costs will loom large on de Ruyter’s desk when he starts work in January, but
all of this will be dwarfed by the difficult task of unbundling Eskom into
transmission, generation and distribution units. This has been promised by the
politicians as the first step towards curing lumbering Eskom’s ills, but is
long overdue.



“Ï think it is going to take the new man at least six to eight
months to get to grips with this,”says Yelland.



All agree de Ruyter needs the eye of a hawk for his new job.
Eskom has seen a dozen CEOs in the last decade – all have struggled to deal
with Eskom’s complex issues. It is unlikely to be a happy new year for anyone
at the national power generator.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Why the new man at Eskom needs a backbone of steel and the eye of a hawk

Economic State of the Nation



By: Lungisa Fuzile, Chief Executive
of Standard Bank South Africa



National Treasury’s latest
projections of economic growth and government debt show that South Africa is on
an unsustainable path, and that urgent, meaningful interventions are needed to
lift the country out of the low-growth trap it currently finds itself in.



In his medium-term budget policy
statement, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni acknowledged as much as he delivered a
sobering set of forecasts. Tepid economic growth and increased spending on
overindebted state-owned enterprises (SOEs), mainly Eskom, means the budget
deficit is expected to remain at over 6% for several years. This will push
South Africa’s debt-to-GDP ratio to above 80% by 2028 – that is, if reforms are
not implemented.



Against this backdrop, Treasury
recently gave the country an opportunity that should not be squandered when it
published a discussion paper aimed at facilitating a national dialogue on a
broad range of economic reforms. 



If implemented with speed and care,
these interventions would lay the foundations for faster, more inclusive
growth. The open invitation to comment on the document is commendable, as is
the pursuit of growing the economy while transforming it at the same time. 



Measures that can be implemented in
the short term – such as rolling out e-visas to boost tourism, importing
much-needed skills and auctioning spectrum – should be taken immediately so as
to provide a solid platform for longer-term interventions. The time for action
– underpinned by a clearly defined roadmap – is now.



In its formal response
to Treasury, Standard Bank stated that it is firmly in support of the
underlying theme of the paper – that South Africa needs faster economic growth.
The country cannot resolve its social and economic challenges unless GDP growth
rises to at least 5% over the medium to long term. 



As the paper and the
National Development Plan note, such high rates of growth require much higher
rates of investment – a prerequisite of which is the restoration of policy
certainty and confidence.



Importantly, Treasury’s
paper paves the way for the resolution of a range of policy issues in key
sectors of the economy. The document brings all these outstanding debates into
one process and calls for focused and deliberate conversation – an important
proposal considering that policy paralysis has hampered South Africa’s efforts
to attract investment.



To bolster policy
stability, we proposed that the requirement for social and economic impact
assessments which inform policies must be rigorously enforced, and that the
findings of these assessments should be publicised. Adherence to these rules
has been somewhat weak, and this can give rise to policies that have unintended
negative consequences.



And to avoid constant
amendments to legislation, we suggested that the impact of new policies be
evaluated at predetermined intervals. 



We also highlighted the
fact that changes in ministers need not give rise to changes in policy.
Amendments should be based on empirical analyses, which could be driven by a
strengthened Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Department. At the same
time, clear policy targets should be set wherever possible so that responsible
government departments can be held to account.



In general, we welcome
the proposed approach to policymaking, which aims to ensure that legislation
benefits the nation, rather than individuals or select groups. The policymaking
process must aim to identify unintended consequences, while also ensuring
timely execution.



Third, the broad theme
of enhancing competition to raise South Africa’s global competitiveness is
worth applauding, and this should inform policy decisions. But gains will be
muted for as long as the country’s firms have to contend with electricity supply
and transport and logistics issues. 



Reliable and affordable
energy is crucial for South Africa to achieve its growth ambitions. The current
structure is untenable, as our recent growth statistics show. For this reason,
we support calls to separate Eskom’s generation, transmission and distribution
functions to enhance competition, and we welcome proposals aimed at allowing
more private-sector participation in the industry. 



All impediments to
competition in the energy sector should be removed, and progression towards a
more competitive, efficient and cost-effective market structure should be
promoted.



Meanwhile, we agree with
Treasury’s emphasis on growing the small-business economy – a meaningful tool
in the country’s job-creation arsenal. Aiding small businesses through grants
and cheap finance, and by buying their goods and services, is the right move.



However, we should be
cognisant that shifting the buying power of the state from big business to
smaller enterprises will probably not expand the economy, since aggregate
demand remains unchanged.



Other measures to grow
demand should be prioritised, including a renewed focus on exports. The African
Free Trade Agreement is one step in the right direction.



The private sector too
can play its part to support small businesses. For instance, Standard Bank has
successfully piloted a funding instrument that allows entrepreneurs to have
flexible repayment terms aligned to the seasonality of their cash flows.



Finally, the emphasis on
collaboration between the public and private sectors is another welcome theme
of the paper. To rebuild lost trust, open dialogue is more important than ever.




To achieve our common
goals, the state and the private sector must each play to their strengths. For
example, with government’s fiscal position now severely constrained,
financially healthier private sector players may be able to find ways to bridge
funding gaps. It is encouraging then to hear that government’s Infrastructure
Fund, which will draw on public- and private-sector funding and will be housed
under the Development Bank of Southern Africa, is making progress.



We look forward to
engaging with the government and other stakeholders in robust debate, with the
goal of implementing the measures highlighted in the paper. Our discussions on
the way forward should be comprehensive but swift – implementation, backed by
accountability, is the order of the day.

Op-Ed: SA’s is on an unsustainable economic path, these are the urgent interventions  needed

Talking Books Ep 71: In conversation with SA novelist Deon Meyer

Talking Books Ep 71: In conversation with award-winning SA novelist Deon Meyer

By Emmerson Mnangagwa, President of Zimbabwe 



Two years ago, on November 18th, 2017,
hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans took to the streets in the spirit of
peace, unity and hope, calling for a new start. For a new Zimbabwe.



Coming into office a few days later, we committed to saying goodbye to the ways of the past, and to doing things differently. 



Read: <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/zdnl-mc/2019/11/17/op-ed-two-years-on-since-mugabe-was-zimbabwes-president-whats-changed/">Op-Ed: Two years on since Mugabe was Zimbabwe’s president, what’s changed? </a>



I immediately moved to give the people their voices
back, opening new channels of communication between the people and their representatives.



Criticism of the government and the presidency would
no longer be taboo, but welcomed, even encouraged. I answered tough questions
on my Facebook page, as I promised to be a listening president.



We immediately went into an election, in which
opposition parties were free to campaign wherever, whenever and however they
liked. Even when I narrowly survived the Bulawayo bombing attack weeks before the
election, nothing changed. The campaign continued unimpeded.



On July 30th 2018, eight months after
coming to office, we held the freest and fairest elections in the country’s
history. While no electoral process is perfect, all international monitors
noted the new and free environment of the campaigns, and the vast improvement
in the electoral process. 



And we will continue to work closely with our partners
in the international community to improve and refine our democracy. To build a
resolute and open society, a free and fair country for all its citizens. 



Part of this is reforming antiquated
legislation and opening up the political space. We are repealing AIPPA,
replacing it with three new laws, consistent with the ethos of the new Zimbabwe: The
Freedom of Information bill, the Protection of Personal Information bill and
the Zimbabwe Media Commission bill.



Developed in consultation
with a diverse range of stakeholders, these laws meet international media
freedom standards and ensure the right to freedom of expression and freedom of
media. 



Just last week we removed the much maligned POSA, a remnant
of the old Zimbabwe that limited the right to protest, and replaced it with a new
Maintenance of Peace and Order Bill, devised with input from civil society and
our friends around the world. 



These have been key demands of the international community,
and should be interpreted as a sign of our commitment to reform. Yet the
impetus for change and reform comes from within. We are not reforming to
appease the nations of the world, but because reform is necessary to build the
future our people desire. Of course, there is still much work to do, but we are
heading in the right direction.



In November 2017, we also found ourselves mired in an
economic mess. A dark and dangerous fiscal tunnel, with no apparent light at
the end of it.



Today, we have a balanced budget for the first time in
living memory, and we have restored our own currency, enabling us to take
control of both our fiscal and monetary policy.&nbsp;




Of course, too many Zimbabweans still suffer, but
austerity is a painful but necessary part of the recovery process. Led by our
internationally recognised Minister of Finance, Professor Mthuli Ncube, we will
continue to restructure, revamp and rebuild our economy. We cannot and will not
hold up our hands.&nbsp; We must reform or perish.



The people of Zimbabwe know perseverance. Just because
the process is tough, we will never take our eyes off the prize. We must never give
up until we have achieved our goals: A middle income economy by 2030.



We are investing in this process like never
before.&nbsp; A process of wholesale economic,
political and social reforms.



I call on the nations of the
world to help us speed up this process, to support the people of Zimbabwe as we
undertake these painful but necessary reforms.



If the goal of sanctions is
to stimulate the reform process, their effect is the opposite. They slow down
our progress, inhibit our economic recovery and empower those who do not wish
to see Zimbabwe change. 



Their removal will therefore
be an important step on the road to a better future for all the people of this
country.



We as leaders have a duty to set a new course for our
people. &nbsp;A course where not only is our
fate in our own hands, but where no one is left behind. A course with a
balanced budget, an open political space, and a thriving economy providing the
jobs and opportunities our people deserve. 



I shall never stop working towards these goals and
will never waver in my determination to realise the dreams of all those who
took to the streets two years ago. I am confident that with patience,
perseverance and our unbending commitment to reform, we will get there.

Op-Ed: This is how Zimbabwe has changed since I became president: Emmerson Mnangagwa

By Chris Bishop, Head of Programming, CNBC Africa 



 It is two years this week since President Robert Gabriel Mugabe stepped down as leader of Zimbabwe. Surely the only question was why it took so long for him the retreat from the ashes of a political career, once so full of promise that left him as arguably one of the most loathed leaders in Africa.



Read: <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/zdnl-mc/2019/11/17/op-ed-this-is-how-zimbabwe-has-changed-since-i-became-president-emmerson-mnangagwa/">Op-Ed: This is how Zimbabwe has changed since I became president: Emmerson Mnangagwa</a>



On November 21, the day of reckoning, tens of thousands were
out on the streets calling for Mugabe to go; in Parliament, many politicians
who had spent their careers on bended knee before the man himself, punched the
air in celebration. Business too had high hopes; the new man President Emmerson
Mnangagwa was more business minded and pragmatic people said &#8211; wasn’t he? Even
though he had been in cabinet, overseeing the steady fall of Zimbabwe, for the
best part of 40 years. Old wine in new bottles, said the cynics.



It didn’t start well. I recall reading Zimbabwe’s first post
Mugabe investment prospectus that the new President Mnangagwa was going to
present to us at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2018. It was a <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/zdnl-mc/2018/01/22/zimbabwes-offering/">thrown
together document</a> talking about how the government was going to compensate
farmers who lost their land – the loss that triggered the country’s rapid
decline – with scarce hard currency. It all seemed a little far -fetched at a
crucial time for the economy when investors were looking for certainty and bold
strokes to usher in revival.



Two years on, most of the Zimbabwe business people I speak
to as the Head of Programming of CNBC Africa appear more pessimistic than they
have been since the dark days of the early 2000s when hyperinflation signalled
the end for the Zimbabwe dollar and any vestige of credibility for the economy.
Inflation is about 300 % and on its way to Weimar Republic proportions, for the
second time in two decades. Even the well-heeled business types I know in
Harare have to struggle &nbsp;through power cuts, shortages and a dearth of
hard currency.



The finance minister economist Mthuli Ncube, bless him, has
been one appointment that stood out, in the Mnangagwa years, like a beacon. He
is a technocrat, with international experience, unsullied by the thuggish
politics of the last desperate years of Mugabe. He was also not a party man and
clearly is more at home looking over the books than standing with fist clenched
at political rallies.



Yet, how much power he is going to be allowed remains to be
seen. He is a man who needs to make painful cuts to help revive the economy,
yet, when he did so in the last budget, in the form of reducing MP allowances,
he was soon sent back to the drawing board.



<a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/videos/2019/01/23/zimbabwes-plan-to-woo-investors-in-davos/">Ncube
has told CNBC Africa a number of times</a> that he is prepared to reintroduce
the Zimbabwe dollar as if it were as easy as flicking a switch. But the
reintroduction of the small denomination notes in Harare this week, supposedly
to ease the cash crisis, smacks of tinkering. It is unlikely that the flimsy
notes will make much except for a few headlines. Many Zimbabweans have told me
they won’t trust the new notes and a black market has already sprung up. One
wonders whether it was an economic or a political decision.



All in all, a week may be a long time in politics, but the
last two years have been another grinding time of torpor for the Zimbabwe
economy. Investors appear to be fighting shy, the infrastructure is crumbling
and more and more skilled Zimbabweans are leaving the country in despair.



No more politics, give us business, most in Harare say to
me. That was what the end of the Mugabe era was supposed to mean.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Op-Ed: Two years on since Mugabe was Zimbabwe’s president, what’s changed?

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; State airline South African Airways (SAA) has cancelled “nearly all” flights scheduled for Friday because of a strike over wage increases planned by a majority of employees, television news channel eNCA said.



Unions representing about 3,000 of its 5,000-strong workforce said on Wednesday that cabin crew and other workers at SAA would strike over the airline’s refusal of salary hikes and a plan to cut more than 900 jobs.



According to the report, only flights directly operated by SAA would be affected. Flights by subsidiaries Mango, SA Express and SA Air Link, as well as those of private operators, would not be affected.



An SAA spokesperson did not immediately responded to telephone calls and emailed questions from Reuters seeking details about the cancellations and how long they would last.



Unions say the strike will begin at 4 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Friday. They are calling on SAA’s check-in, ticket sales, head office, technical staff and ground staff to take part.



The state-owned airline flies around 6.8 million passengers annually to six continents with dedicated routes to New York, London and Hong Kong among its eight international offerings.



But it has struggled in recent years, failing to turn a profit since 2011 while relying on state bailouts to fund a growing financing gap.



The airline is also without a permanent chief executive and has yet to file annual results for the two most recent financial years because of concerns about its viability as a business.



Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Christopher Cushing

South Africa’s SAA cancels flights, here’s why

By Morsy Hanan



In many ways, Africa needs trade and investment even more
than it needs development aid. This is reflected by the African Development
Bank’s commitment to explore all the possible options of mobilising domestic
resources. 



Africa’s financing needs will remain very
large over the next few decades. Both public and private capital formation will
be necessary to pursue the necessary structural transformation of African
economies into industrial and post-industrial societies. 



Governments, of course, remain critical in
sustaining investment in Africa in the coming decades, and external debt
financing is key to supporting basic infrastructure construction and the
provision of standard public services.



Domestic resource mobilization allows Africa to move
towards financial autonomy. In 2015 African tax revenues had more than doubled
in ten years to over $500 billion, almost 3 times higher than the total value
of foreign direct investment, overseas development aid, and remittances. 



However Africa can do even better. Much can be done by
improving tax administration. For instance the Republic of Togo’s tax reforms
increased its tax revenues to GDP ratio from 16% in 2010 to 20% in 2015 thanks
to the technical and financial advice of the African Development Bank. 



The composition of total financial flows to Africa
reflects the dynamism of its domestic markets. In 2017, total financial inflows
are projected were around $180 billion. Remittances were $66.2 billion, foreign
direct investment inflows were $57.5 billion, supported mainly by greenfield
investments from emerging economies. Tax revenue remains the most important
source of domestic financing in African countries but has slowed down with the
decline in commodity prices. 



There is a clear need to continue with the
policy of developing innovative tools to finance development, concentrating on
deepening domestic capital markets and on crowding in private capital through
risk mitigation instruments to unlock resources that can replace debt. 



Developing more risk-sharing instruments
with the private sector through pre-financing of future tax revenues,
establishing sovereign insurance contracts, and leveraging government and
multilateral guarantees, will contribute to significant de-risking of private
investments in capital intensive projects. 



Private sector participation in infrastructure
development must be increased by putting in place the required regulatory
frameworks and scaling up public–private partnerships. The Bank and other
international financial institutions can help to increase risk-sharing with the
private sector and reduce public borrowing needs. Contingent debt, where
repayment is conditional on the achievement of certain project milestones, can
improve incentives for government officials and private corporations to
complete major projects without delays or quality control problems.
Multilateral lenders can provide benchmarks and guidelines, as well as low-risk
financing tranches for long-term projects. 



The Bank can help develop guidelines and
international best practice principles for the design and implementation of
such new instruments to strengthen transparency, protect borrowers against
commodity price downturns, and ensure competitive tender processes across
infrastructure suppliers to optimize the cost of project development. 



It can also exploit mutually advantageous
exchanges, such as “natural resources for infrastructure” bargains with
traditional or new bilateral lenders. Resources for infrastructure swaps, where
natural resources revenues are used as collateral or direct repayment
instruments in the financing of large infrastructure projects, can be useful in
fostering economic diversification and in reducing the need for direct foreign
borrowing. 



The Bank is also exploring the use of
diaspora bonds to crowd in private sector funds and mobilise domestic and
national resources. Such bonds have already been issued by several African
countries, such as Ethiopia and Nigeria, to tap the increasing flow of
remittances from migrants in advanced economies, and to channel these funds
toward infrastructure investments. The Bank could, for example, provide
guarantees or co-finance part of the return on these bonds to make them
attractive to emigrants and to ensure that they finance efficient investment
projects.



This
is the key to economic transformation – innovation in resource mobilisation and
international investments, presenting a legacy of growth coupled with the
confidence of a new generation of young African entrepreneurs and leaders with
new vision and ambition, incentivised and encouraged to invest and engage in
enterprise and innovation. 



A
transformed Africa cannot be dependent upon commodities, or upon foreign aid,
or on handouts of any kind. Africa is quite simply a great investment, a
collective deal with better numbers and potential than a lot of other
investment packages in developed countries. 



It
no longer takes an act of imagination to grasp this. It can be seen in the
growing diversification and industrialisation of African economies and the
accelerating progress made towards the achievement of the High 5s. 



It
can be seen in the inspirational Africa Investment Forum, where these and many
other ideas and innovations can be appreciated at close hand in the
negotiations and bargaining that characterise good deal making on behalf of
Africa.

Op-Ed: Raising capital to finance development – the AfDB as innovator and catalyst

Africa Oil Week: The Africa Oil Week Leaders Debate

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<script src="https://players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.min.js"></script>
Africa is still to find cohesion around a diamond mining strategy even as its political leaders drive continental integration. CNBC Africa’s Godfrey Mutizwa spoke to Mzee Fula Ngenge, President of the African Diamond Council at the 2019 Diamond Conference in Gaborone.

Southern Africa

How much money did Zimbabwe’s Mugabe leave behind?

Here’s why smartphone gambling is on the rise among African millennials

Namibians vote in tight contest clouded by economic crisis, what you need to know

IMF says South Africa at risk if economic reforms don’t materialise fast

First ladies’ panel seeks urgent policies to translate Africa’s demographic dividend into viable potential

Op-Ed: Getting women in the driver’s seat of Africa’s agribusiness revolution

Eskom’s largest union’s ultimatum to Andre de Ruyter. If you want our support this is what you need to do…

Op-Ed: Zimbabwe Under Emmerson Mnangagwa

Why the new man at Eskom needs a backbone of steel and the eye of a hawk

Op-Ed: SA’s is on an unsustainable economic path, these are the urgent interventions needed

Talking Books Ep 71: In conversation with award-winning SA novelist Deon Meyer

Op-Ed: This is how Zimbabwe has changed since I became president: Emmerson Mnangagwa

Op-Ed: Two years on since Mugabe was Zimbabwe’s president, what’s changed?

South Africa’s SAA cancels flights, here’s why

Op-Ed: Raising capital to finance development – the AfDB as innovator and catalyst

Africa Oil Week: The Africa Oil Week Leaders Debate

Africa in a bid to find cohesion in the diamond industry

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Advertise With Us

Southern Africa

How much money did Zimbabwe’s Mugabe leave behind?

Here’s why smartphone gambling is on the rise among African millennials

Namibians vote in tight contest clouded by economic crisis, what you need to know

IMF says South Africa at risk if economic reforms don’t materialise fast

First ladies’ panel seeks urgent policies to translate Africa’s demographic dividend into viable potential

Op-Ed: Getting women in the driver’s seat of Africa’s agribusiness revolution

Eskom’s largest union’s ultimatum to Andre de Ruyter. If you want our support this is what you need to do…

Op-Ed: Zimbabwe Under Emmerson Mnangagwa

Why the new man at Eskom needs a backbone of steel and the eye of a hawk

Op-Ed: SA’s is on an unsustainable economic path, these are the urgent interventions needed

Talking Books Ep 71: In conversation with award-winning SA novelist Deon Meyer

Op-Ed: This is how Zimbabwe has changed since I became president: Emmerson Mnangagwa

Op-Ed: Two years on since Mugabe was Zimbabwe’s president, what’s changed?

South Africa’s SAA cancels flights, here’s why

Op-Ed: Raising capital to finance development – the AfDB as innovator and catalyst

Africa Oil Week: The Africa Oil Week Leaders Debate

Africa in a bid to find cohesion in the diamond industry

News Tips

Advertise With Us

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