Africa

African Development Bank Group Chief Garners Strong Global Support for Africa

Published

1 year ago

April 26, 2022

African Development Bank Group (w ww.AfDB.org) President Dr Akinwumi Adesina concluded a three-day official visit to Washington DC on Saturday. Alongside the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the visit included several bilateral engagements with stakeholders on African development.

Adesina garnered broad strong support for a robust 16th replenishment of the African Development Fund, the Bank Group’s concessionary lending arm that supports Africa’s low-income economies. Replenishment efforts continue through October, when partners are expected to make their pledges.

During bilateral meetings, United States Assistant Treasury Secretary Alexia Latortue said the African Development Fund was critical to Africa’s the development landscape. She assured the Bank President that the US remains a strong and proud supporter of the Fund, which has strategic focus and delivers impact. Latortue applauded the leadership of Dr. Adesina in developing the Bank’s bold African emergency food production plan to avert the looming food crisis due to the Russian war in Ukraine and assured of the strong partnership of the US Treasury Department on the plan.

Dr. Adesina received similar strong support for the African Development Fund replenishment from other partners, including Sweden’s Minister for International Development Cooperation Matilda Ernkrans, Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, Norway’s Minister for International Development, Vicky Ford, Minister for Africa of the United Kingdom, and Paul Ryan, Director of International Finance and Climate of Ireland. They gave their strong support for the African Development Fund to be allowed to go to the market to leverage its equity and raise more financing for low-income and fragile states.

Adesina affirmed to the shareholders that the African Development Fund’s impact on Africa, through their support, was massive and far reaching. According to the Swedish Minister Ernkrans “the African Development Bank is doing an incredible work and we strongly support the Bank. Sweden supports the African Development Fund to leverage its resources from the market to put more resources for countries. You are doing an excellent job.”

Meeting with the African Union’s Group of 15 Finance Ministers, Adesina outlined the continent’s immediate challenges and the solutions that were being applied to tackle them successfully. Top of Adesina’s list was a plan for massive food production in the face of a looming global food crisis caused by the Russia war in Ukraine, and the need for a more flexible and substantial replenishment of the African Development Fund. The ministers agreed to a joint communique on financing Africa’s economic resilience in turbulent times (https://bit.ly/3rS6pkK). They called for a substantial replenishment of the African Development Fund and for the Fund to be allowed to use its equity to leverage more resources from international capital markets to meet the rapidly growing needs of countries in Africa.

Adesina highlighted the Bank’s innovative Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), a program operating across nine food commodities in more than 30 African countries. He said the Bank will mitigate the effects of the food crisis through an African Food Crisis Response and Emergency Facility – a dedicated facility that will provide African countries with resources needed to raise local food production and procure fertilizer.

According to Adesina, a fertilizer crisis borne out of the Russian war in Ukraine could put more than $10 billion of food production at risk. He said a Bank-initiated meeting of key global development, finance, public and private sector leaders is scheduled for mid-May to tackle the access to fertilizers for Africa.

Adesina was received at the White House by Dana Banks, Special Assistant to US President Joseph Biden and Senior Director for Africa at the White House. Banks said it is important to mitigate the spill-over of the Russian war in Ukraine on food security Africa and strongly welcomed the leadership of the African Development Bank on its emergency food production plan for Africa.

Adesina also met with Melinda French Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. French Gates said it is important for Africa to feed itself and focus on nutrition. French Gates expressed strong support for the bold African emergency food production plan developed by the African Development Bank; and she called for a strong replenishment of the African Development Fund. “I will be your strong advocate for G7 countries to do more for the African Development Fund and to put in more resources for Africa”, she said.

A meeting of heads of regional multilateral development banks was held to discuss, among others, the impact the Russian war in Ukraine was having on development across the world. Adesina spoke about its direct impact on food and fertilizer supplies in Africa. He also emphasized the Bank’s climate change collaboration with the Global Center on Adaptation, as well as the Bank’s record-breaking 83% investment portfolio in renewable energy.

Adesina and several multilateral development bank heads agreed there was a need for a common voice on the re-channeling of the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights.

The Bank President also spoke about the importance of indigenous vaccine production in Africa, and progress being made on the proposed establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation.

During an engagement at the Atlantic Council (https://bit.ly/36J0QgW) earlier in the week, Adesina fielded questions from the Council’s Africa Center Chair, Ambassador Rama Yade and others, giving a broad perspective of Africa’s challenges and the steps being taken to address them by African countries, with the support of the African Development Bank Group. He called for greater resource mobilization in Africa. In his words “I do not believe in begging. Africa should develop more using its own resources”.

The Bank Group chief invited his various interlocutors to the African Development Bank Group Annual Meetings taking place from May 23 to 27 in Accra, Ghana.

Related Topics:African Development Bank News

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Africa

Kenyans stranded as diplomatic mission in Sudan closes

Published

4 days ago

June 5, 2023

KSN Reporter

By Wanja Waweru

The Kenyan diplomatic office was closed on Sunday, leaving Kenyan residents left in the civil war-torn Sudan with an unknown future.

The return of warfare in Sudan, which has been specifically targeting diplomatic posts, was blamed for the closure, which was announced by Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Sing’Oei.

“The safety of our diplomatic officials is paramount, and we have been receiving disturbing reports of armed groups targeting diplomatic personnel in Khartoum, Sudan. As a result, the Kenya Mission in Khartoum, which had previously remained open to facilitate the evacuation of Kenyans, is now closed,” stated Sing’Oei

Alfred Mutua, the cabinet secretary for foreign affairs, had already told the country in April that plans were in place to evacuate Kenyans if the situation in Sudan worsened. At the time, it was thought that there were around 3,000 Kenyans living in Sudan.

Over 900 Kenyans were flown out of Sudan by the government in coordination with national airlines.

But now that the diplomatic post has been shut down, it’s unclear what will happen to the remaining Kenyans who are still in Sudan. The number of Kenyans still living in the war-torn nation and the arrangements for their departure have not yet been disclosed by the government in a statement.

There are no indicators that the violence in Sudan will end. Only a few days earlier, rockets in Khartoum struck a market, killing 18 people and injuring hundreds more leaving more than 100 injured.

The continued fighting between military troops has prevented the US and Saudi Arabia from mediating peace talks and humanitarian assistance.

Africa

I did not raise him – Facebook Rapist’s mother speaks

Published

2 months ago

April 12, 2023

KSN Reporter

Thabo Bester’s mother, Maria Mabaso, recently admitted that she didn’t spend much time with her son while he was growing up. Thabo Bester is also referred to as the “Facebook rapist” and is the most sought criminal in South Africa.

Mabaso claimed in an interview with South Africa’s Eye Witness News that she had to leave her son in the care of his grandmother when he was just a year old since she was a single parent who worked nonstop.

Over time, this caused the bond between Mabaso and her mother to deteriorate.

“He was entrusted into the care of his grandmother at the age of one due to her being a single parent and having to constantly work,” Ms Mabaso told South Africa’s Eye Witness News.

She said this resulted in the relationship between her and her mother worsening over the years.

“At the end of the day, my mother shouted at me every day. She pushed me away. When she pushed me away, I said ‘No, I will sit by my place and I am not going there ever again,” she was quoted as saying.

Ms. Mabaso disclosed that the mother’s illness and subsequent death occurred when the son was in his teen years, at which point she made fruitless attempts to move and establish contact with her son.

Speaking to reporters about the arrest of the couple, who have been on the run since it was discovered that Mr. Bester had escaped from a privately run prison in Bloemfontein in March 2023, Mr. Cele said they had also been detained along with a Mozambican man named Mr. Zakaria Alberto.

“They were arrested with multiple passports in their possession. None of the passports were stamped,” he said in the press conference.

Mr Bester was found with documents that identified him as Mr Tommy William Kelly, an American citizen while Dr Magudumana had documentation that identified her as Martha Patience Mmerika Nitshini.

The passports, according to the South African government, which had received details from Tanzania, where the trio was nabbed, also showed that Mr Bester had more pseudonyms, further adding to the case’s complexity.

Africa

Kenya’s Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua loses Twitter’s Blue tick

Published

2 months ago

April 9, 2023

KSN Reporter

United States (US) social networking giant, Twitter, has removed the blue verification badge from Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s account.

Gachagua who has over 500,000 followers on Twitter lost his blue tick on Sunday.

The blue verification badge is notably found on senior government officials, journalists or public figures.

He is the first high-ranking government official in Kenya to lose his verification badge in the wake of changes on the Social media platform.

The badge usually indicates that an account holder is a notable person in society, for instance, a senior government official, a journalist or a public figure. It was immediately established why the second in command lost the badge, but it is suspected due to the ongoing policy update, which among others, requires a monthly subscription.

Twitter announced that it will start facing out its legacy blue badges on April 1, 2023.

This follows the platform’s announcement last year, that users will now pay a monthly fee under Twitter Blue to have the badge (blue checkmark).

“On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks,” Twitter said on Friday.

Going forward, Twitter users who want the verification mark will now have to reapply under Twitter Blue.

The changes came about after Elon Musk bought the company.

Under Twitter Blue, subscribers will enjoy priorities in replies, mentions and searches, which Musk said was essential to defeat spam/scams.

They will also be able to post long videos and audio and get half as many adverts.

“There will also be a secondary tag below the name for someone who is a public figure, which is already the case for politicians,” Musk said.

Twitter’s verification which is denoted by a blue check next to the name of the user’s handle, was launched in 2009. This was three years after the launch of the site.

According to the Independent, it was first introduced after baseball legend Tony La Russa filed a lawsuit against Twitter in 2009 over an impersonator.

The idea of verification was that it could prove the identity of a user.

Musk announced a subscription fee of Sh972 ($8) per month for one to get the verification.

The announcement came after the world’s second wealthiest man took sole control of the social media giant in a contentious $44 billion deal (KSh 5.8 trillion). Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,” he tweeted, in reference to the platform’s famous blue checkmark that signals a verified, authentic account.

The new plan’s pricing would be adjusted by country “proportionate to purchasing power parity,” Musk added in the replies to his original tweet, and would also include “priority” in replying to and searching posts, which he called “essential to defeat spam/scam.”