Although appetite for energy infrastructure remains high in East Africa, financiers are wary about the region's political, economic and environmental risk factors. These issues were highlighted at the recently held East Africa Energy and Infrastructure Summit held in Kampala, Uganda. Lungile Mashele, energy specialist at the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), told the EastAfrican that development banks also consider the perceived risks in the region when looking at projects to finance. Mashele revealed that after having successfully funded 21 projects, contributing a total of 2,512MW to South Africa's national grid, the bank is now looking at projects in Rwanda and Ethiopia. Read more... The two countries are said to be “politically stable,” and have also been posting impressive growth figures for the past 10 years. "As a bank we have the mandate to go where no one wants to go, but there is a risk to that. We may pay the price for political risk if elections are not held on time. Then there is economic risk, like unstable currencies, which means there is the possibility that we may not get our money out," Mashele said. Also speaking at the event, Attilio Pacifici, head of the European Union Delegation to Uganda, announced that the union has financing instruments under its External Investment Plan (EIP) which targets Africa, with sustainable energy being one of its five priority sectors. "Despite the rapidly rising cost-competitiveness of renewable energy technologies, financing of projects is still difficult in many parts of the world. Transformation of...

The International Trade Centre (ITC), a joint agency of the United Nations and World Trade Organization (WTO), will open a centre in Dubai on Tuesday to foster female entrepreneurship across the Middle East and North Africa (Mena), in partnership with Dubai Exports, a unit of the Department for Economic Development. “Our main aim globally is to connect more women to the economy because we know there is a specific market failure there: women are having more difficulty in business than men,” said Arancha Gonzalez, executive director of the ITC. “In the world there are 1 billion women disconnected from the economy [according to McKinsey & Company], which is an economy the size of the US and China. This tells us we have a big source of growth countries are not tapping,” said Ms Gonzalez in an interview with The National at the World Government Summit in Dubai. Despite impressive higher education rates among women, the region has lower rates of female labour force participation than the rest of the world. Women make up 49 per cent of the Mena population and, in some countries, up to 63 per cent of university students. Yet they represent 28 per cent of the labour force compared to over 50 per cent in the US, according to the World Bank. A 2017 study by UN Women and Promundo, a Brazilian lobby group to promote gender equality among boys, claimed more than two-thirds of Mena men support the notion that a woman’s most important role...

Visitor arrivals into Kenya from East Africa has grown substantially in the past three years, official data shows, partly signalling the benefits of an open visa scheme for the region. Kenya last year recorded a combined arrival of 95,845 visitors from Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, up from 80,841 in 2016. In 2015, some 58,032 visitors arrived from these countries. “Uganda topped the list of Kenya’s top source markets in Africa, growing by 20.6 per cent to 61,542 arrivals,” Kenya’s Tourism ministry said in its sector performance report for 2017. Arrivals from Tanzania also grew by an impressive 21.8 per cent in last year to 21,110 compared to 2016. Visitors from Rwanda increased to 12,193 in 2017 from 11,658 the previous year. Uganda saw its share in Kenya tourism arrivals nearly double in the past three years. Data by the Kenya’s Tourism ministry showed that Uganda was Kenya’s third largest source market for tourism with an overall share of 6.4 per cent last year compared to 3.9 per cent in 2015 and 5.8 per cent in 2016. East Africa has implemented multi-entry single tourist visa since February 2014. This visa enables visitors travelling in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda to travel across all the three regions using a single permit that can be obtained in any of these countries. The move is a way of encouraging integration of citizens and cross-border trade. East Africa contribution The contribution of visitor arrivals from East Africa helped grow Kenya’s overall tourism arrivals to 1.47 million...

Climate change is pushing governments and players in the energy sector to innovate and diversify their sources of power. Power producers are now lighting homes, businesses and public buildings using off-grid innovations. For farmers who rely on rain-fed agriculture, off-grid solar solutions have enabled irrigation, a breakthrough that will help beat the effects of harsh weather conditions ravaging the continent. The Uganda Solar Energy Association (Usea), the apex body for solar companies, last week hosted the Africa Energy Forum, an exhibition in Kampala, with support from USAid through its Power Africa initiative. More than 40 local and international solar companies gathered to showcase off-grid solutions, which, according to Usea chairman Emmy Kimbowa, will catalyse economic growth. Uganda’s electricity generation capacity is 870MW, with peak demand at 550MW. Demand is increasing by 10 per cent every year so electricity shortfalls are expected until more power generation facilities are brought onto the grid. With the bulk of grid electricity generated through large hydro sources (about 85 per cent), Uganda’s power supply is susceptible to drought, intermittent rainfall, and reduced river flows — factors that are expected to become more acute with climate change. In addition to the 600MW Karuma and 183MW Isimba hydropower projects set to come onstream later this year, Uganda is also pursuing a more diversified energy mix in order to meet its target of increasing installed capacity to 2,500MW by 2020. The country is making greater use of other renewable sources including medium and small-scale hydropower, biomass, solar, and...

Small and individual investors of cross-listed companies in East Africa have been handed a lifeline after the Council of Ministers agreed on rules that give them powers to prevent hostile takeovers engineered by majority shareholders. The EAC member states have up to October this year to pass and ratify laws to cement the regulation that will see shareholders with less than 50 per cent of the total shares of companies challenge decisions on mergers and acquisitions taken by majority shareholders. The directive, which has been gazetted, will clip the wings of domineering majority shareholders and encourage cross-border investments in the region. “The objective of this directive is to establish minimum guidelines for the conduct of takeover bids and mergers and ensure an adequate level of protection for holders of securities throughout the Community,” said Dr Haji Ali Kirunda Kivejinja, chairperson of the Council of ministers and Uganda’s Minister for East African Affairs. Equal treatment According to the directive, all shareholders holding the same class of shares in a company will be treated equally and the boards of these companies will be required to give all shareholders an equal chance to decide on the merits of a takeover. “The board of an offeree company (company selling the shares) shall act in the interests of the company as a whole and shall not deny the holders of securities the opportunity to decide on the merits of the bid,” said Kivejinja. According to the EAC gazette notice, the partner states are required to...

A newly proposed  law on immigration and emigration in Rwanda would make it easier for people in border communities to cross borders without difficulty, Members of Parliament in the Lower House heard yesterday. The MPs on Thursday approved the basis of a draft law that seeks to amend the current law on immigration and emigration matters, which has to be reviewed to incorporate penalties on immigration and emigration related offences among other changes. While presenting the draft law in Parliament yesterday, the Minister in the Office of the President, Judith Uwizeye, said that provisions have been added in the draft law to make it easy for people living in border communities to travel to neighbouring countries. Under Article 57 of the draft law, the government has proposed that the Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration be allowed to work in consultation with local leaders and other relevant authorities to establish more crossing points to strictly facilitate movements of border communities. The draft law directs the directorate to put in place instructions governing the management of the crossing points. “It’s important that we make it easy for Rwandans to travel to neighbouring countries, especially those who live near the borders. Some of them would travel long distances to reach a gazetted border post,” Uwizeye told MPs. Immigration officials told The New Times that the move aims to close a gap in the law whereby people in some border communities were not explicitly allowed by the law to cross the nearby borders without...

Kampala. Intra-regional trade in quality cereals and pulses is expected to increase following the launch of the gazetted East African standards of staple foods. Speaking in an interview on the sidelines of the launch of the nine standards for staple foods on Wednesday by East Africa Grain Council (EAGC) in Kampala, Mr Gerald Masila, executive director EAGC, said the lack of harmonised regional standards has for a long time barred trade as each East African country has been using its standards. “We have lost out on a market position. I do not have a number right now. But Uganda could easily double its sales to the region by more than 100 per cent if the quality standards of the grains produced here meet the specifications. This means there would be fewer rejections and much more access to markets. Uganda’s commodities would be able to fetch a better price and sign up continuous supply agreements,” he said. According to EAGC RATIN, a system that gives farmers, traders and processors a gateway to regional market information, Uganda has exported about 10.1m metric tonnes of cereals and pulses within EAC and The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) countries in the last seven years. On average, the country has for the last seven years been earning Shs1.9m per metric tonne of cereals and pulses exported. Cereals The standards will affect cereals such as maize, millet, wheat, sorghum, rice and pulses such as beans and peas. The revised standards are expected to...

Resurgence in agriculture, infrastructure and manufacturing is expected to lift East Africa’s economic performance in 2018, an outlook by the African Development Bank (AfDB) shows. East Africa remains the fastest-growing sub region in Africa, with estimated growth of 5.6 per cent in 2017, up from 4.9 per cent in 2016. Growth is expected to remain buoyant, reaching 5.9 per cent in 2018 and firming further to 6.1 per cent in 2019. “Strong growth is widespread in the sub region, with many countries including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda growing five per cent or more” the bank says in its Africa Economic Outlook 2018. Agriculture will rebound after poor harvests last year on improved rainfall, the bank said noting that inflation spiked to nearly 10 per cent in the region, fuelled by a rise in food prices especially in Kenya, where the effects of the early 2017 drought reduced the maize harvest, causing chronic shortages of the staple. Median inflation “Median inflation is projected to fall sharply in East Africa, partly as a result of an improved harvest” the report notes. Consumerism and mega infrastructure projects are s also expected to bolster growth this year. “Private consumption is the most important driver of growth in Comoros and Kenya while public investment in infrastructure has been instrumental in Djibouti and Ethiopia. Construction will remain strong. In a few countries, continued expansion of services, including information and communications technology, will be key,” the report says. “Manufacturing may increase the share of...

‘America first does not mean America alone,” President Trump declared last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This sudden burst of pragmatism from an avowed nationalist showed what a difference a year can make. Denouncing the “false song of globalism” during his presidential campaign, Trump, on his third full day in office, canceled the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional trade deal with Japan and 10 other countries. He then denounced Canada, Germany and South Korea for exporting more to the United States than they import. He promised to renegotiate trade pacts with Europe, Canada and Mexico and get a better deal for American workers. In Davos, however, he reached out with conciliatory words to the very free-trading and globalizing elites he has consistently maligned. Clearly, Trump’s views on trade and globalization have evolved since his insurgent campaign. This may well be because of the rapid gains in the past year of a country he did not mention by name. In fact, Trump chose in Davos to affirm that “America is open for business” because it was in these same Alpine heights, three days before Trump was inaugurated as president, that China seized the opportunity to claim leadership of the global economy. With the United States seemingly in a protectionist crouch, China had become, despite all its problems, indispensable. “In a world marked by great uncertainty and volatility, the international community is looking to China,” Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, said last year while introducing...

East Africa remains the fastest-growing sub-region in Africa, with estimated growth of 5.6 percent in 2017, up from 4.9 percent in 2016. This is according to the recently launched 2018 African Economic Outlook. The report notes that Africa’s growth is expected to remain buoyant, reaching 5.9 percent in 2018 and 6.1 percent in 2019. Strong growth is widespread in East Africa, with many countries including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda growing 5% or more. The report also attributes the accelerated growth particularly in Kenya and Comoros toprivate consumption while also pointing out that public investment in infrastructure has been instrumental in Djibouti and Ethiopia. It also indicates that construction activity will remain strong. In a few countries, continued expansion of services, including information and communications technology, will be imperative. Manufacturing activity may increase the share of industry, particularly in Kenya and Tanzania. From here at Optiven, we believe that this positive outlook, especially on construction activity in Africa, and in Kenya by extension, is a positive thing for the real estate industry. “We are extremely excited to be part of the key drivers who will help accelerate Kenya and Africa towards more economic prosperity. We envisage an Africa that will have addressed housing conditions for the millions of Africans who still have no place to call home,” says Mr. George Wachiuri, CEO, Optiven Group. African economies have been resilient and gaining momentum. Real output growth is estimated to have increased 3.6 percent in 2017 and to accelerate to...