Africa Investments are a Top Priority for MCC

The Millennium Challenge Corporation, MCC, recently announced a $70-million commitment to bring one billion dollars in public-private investments to developing countries over over the next five years.A large portion of the grant money will go to Africa and is expected to generate $750 million in investments in Africa from the private sector.

“MCC is typically going to invest in large-scale infrastructure projects,” said Kyeh Kim, Deputy Vice-President of Compact Operations for the MCC. “It’s about two-thirds of our portfolio.

“Within the infrastructure portfolio we will help prepare some of the projects for the market such that private companies would find them attractive and be interested in investing along-side some of these projects.”

The anticipated result would be public private partnerships that increase the effectiveness of the operation and the maintenance of the investments.

“An example of this would be something that we did in Jordan with the waste water treatment plant, where MCC came in with about $93-million dollars in grant financing and we were able to partner with a private sector consortium that contributed about $110 million. And so with over $200-milllion we were able to expand a waste water treatment plant providing increased water supplied to the Jordanians,” explained Kim.

Similar infrastructure projects are taking place in Africa. The MCC is investing heavily in the continent’s energy sector.

The deputy vice-president said pre-existing compacts and future compacts of $52 million will be invested in Malawi, Benin, Lesoto, Liberia, Tanzania, Ghana and Morocco. “There are other countries that we are investing as well and those countries that I just listed probably have the largest opportunities for public-private partnerships.”

The ultimate goal of these partnerships is to reduce poverty, increase economic growth and attract more investors. Kim said the partner countries are already taking steps to make their countries more attractive to meet these challenges.

“These are countries that have a good track record in terms of good governance and democracy, have made strong efforts toward anti-corruption and are investing in their social sectors and education and health, as well as creating an enabling business environment through things like good fiscal policy, trade policy,” Kim said.

“For example, as I mentioned we are invested quite heavily in the energy sector,” she said. “We are part of the U.S. Government Power Africa initiative -- committing about $2 billion to that initiative in the countries where we work. For example, in Benin, they’re working very hard to modernize their policies to allow for more private sector investment to strengthen the utility companies so that they perform better for their customers and are also financially viable.”

Kim is optimisitic that African countries can make tremendous progress over the next five years to overcome poverty if they continue to work to keep their countries attractive to investors.

“I’m a 100 percent optimist when it comes to Africa. When you hear that about six out of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world are in Africa, I think that there’s tremendous growth opportunity there. So I see in five years definitely much more interest by the private sector from countries that traditionally have not invested in Africa and what we’re trying to do is increase the visibility of U.S. companies in Africa,” said Kim.

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Proposed Ebola biobank would strengthen African science

As West Africa’s Ebola outbreak winds down, an effort is under way to make the best use of the tens of thousands of patient samples collected by public-health agencies fighting the epidemic. On 6–7 August, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened a meeting in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to discuss how to establish a biobank for up to 100,000 samples of blood, semen, and urine and breast milk from confirmed and suspected Ebola patients, as well as swabs taken from the bodies of people who died from the virus. Held by health agencies in both West Africa and the West, the samples could be valuable in understanding how the current Ebola crisis evolved, preparing for future outbreaks and developing public-health research capacity in a region that depends on outside experts.

“There are many, many ways that this resource could be precious,” says Cathy Roth, an adviser to the WHO directorate in Geneva, Switzerland, which arranged the meeting as part of a series of international discussions about the creation of an Ebola biobank. One of the difficulties is that there is no blueprint for how such a biobank would work, so countries have not yet committed to joining it.

One proposal has been to link existing collections in an online biobank with a reference laboratory in Africa that would hold certain samples — for instance, collections taken from notable groups of patients, or from people who were followed especially closely throughout the course of their disease. Such a facility would be a first for the region; there is currently no high-containment lab in the Ebola zone that is suitable for studies of live, highly dangerous viruses.

Although the samples vastly outnumber those collected in previous outbreaks, they are still a finite resource. Ongoing discussions will need to grapple with who decides what the samples can be used for and what kinds of research should be emphasized.

“We want to have defined research priorities, because these samples do represent an exhaustible resource,” says Ethan Guillen, project manager of the Ebola initiative at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Geneva, which is advocating for the biobanking project.

Assigning control over these decisions to the three countries where the majority of Ebola cases occurred — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — is a major priority for MSF. Historically, much research on viral haemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola has been done by scientists in developed countries using samples taken from developing countries. Guillen sees that as part of the reason why, 40 years after Ebola was first documented in Africa, there is not enough public-health capacity in some countries to contain the disease or effective tools to treat or prevent it.

Guillen says that affected countries need a system in which “their scientists have a say in what happens and can learn from the experiences, so there doesn’t have to be such a reliance on outside actors”.

Already, thousands of samples have been shipped out of Africa by foreign government agencies that stepped in to test patients for Ebola during the outbreak. Several, including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, the European Mobile Laboratory Project and the Pasteur Institute in Paris have expressed cautious support for the biobanking idea.

“CDC is supportive of the concept of Ebola biobanks for samples, particularly in the affected countries, which would offer organizations around the world access to samples from the largest Ebola outbreak in history,” the agency told Nature.

Only the European mobile lab provided detailed information on how many samples it has — about 3,000 in a high-containment lab in Hamburg, Germany, says virologist Stephan Günther of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, which implements the lab project. Günther says that the European mobile lab is acting as custodian of the samples, which are still owned by the countries in which they were collected. The project has signed agreements with Sierra Leone and Guinea that guarantee access for researchers from those countries, he adds.

Public Health Canada says that it has not yet shipped samples out of West Africa but would not reveal where it is holding them, citing “biosafety and biosecurity concerns”.

The CDC says that it is keeping samples both in West Africa and the United States but would not state how many it holds. In December, it shipped 7,000 from Sierra Leone to the United States (see Nature http://doi.org/6jm; 2014). However, the agency has come under fire recently for major lapses in biosecurity (see Nature http://doi.org/6jn; 2015), and raised this among a number of potential hurdles to creating a biobank.

Guillen says that he is hopeful that these issues can be worked through. “We need better research tools,” he says. “Hopefully we can move quickly to get these tools in place.”

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The Beauty of Africa's Traditional Architecture, In One Big Database

How do traditional homes in Gambia differ from those in Cameroon? What materials are popular in Sub-Saharan Africa compared to the continent’s northern regions? Those were the sorts of questions the architect Jon Sojkowski hoped to answer as he prepared to teach architectural design at Copperbelt University in Kitwe, Zambia, as part of the Peace Corps program. What he discovered was a serious dearth of available information on traditional African housing design—either in books or online. To be fair, it was 1997 and the internet was nowhere near what it is today, but Sojkowski says documentation and research on the topic can be hard to find online even now.

So he decided to fill in the gap. In 2014, Sojkowski created the first online database of African vernacular architecture, using photos he’d taken during his research trips to Zambia, Malawi, and Swaziland, as well as photos from Flickr and photographer submissions. So far, his database includes photos for 48 countries.

African cities count among some of the world’s fastest-growing urban centers, so much of the continent’s existing design research centered around urban landscapes. But Sojkowski argues that traditional architecture should be part of the conversation as well.

“Architecture is as much part of culture as music, language, and sport,” he says. Just as temples tell the history of Japan and island housing helps define Greece, Africa’s vernacular architecture is a huge part of the continent’s unique diversity.

On the southern coast of Benin in West Africa, for example, there’s an entire city built on stilts. From churches to banks to even hospitals, the tradition of building bamboo huts above the ocean dates back hundreds of years.

Mali, also in West Africa, has entire cities made of mud, some more intricate than others. Sun-dried mud has been used to build mosques, archways, and homes, a technique that’s been passed down from generation to generation since the 14th century. Sojkowski worries that these building types, made with materials that are abundant in Africa and sustainable, will soon be lost to history because of a misconception that they are inefficient, outdated and only used by the poor. At one point during his research, he met a man who told him he wanted a Western-style metal roof. “I asked him why, and he said, ‘because then I would be somebody,’” Sojkowski recalls.

Such people can end up spending too much of their savings on materials that aren’t efficient, says David Rifkind, an architectural historian at Florida International University, who isn’t involved in the project. “Traditional techniques like thatching have been developed over centuries and can keep the heat out during the day and the warmth in at night, whereas metal roofs make [the home] into the baking oven during the day.”

But he says despite such misconceptions and the fact that much of Africa’s younger population is moving into urban areas, traditional architecture won’t disappear anytime soon: “Not everybody is moving, and there will still be half a billion people living in the countryside, primarily in traditional dwellings.”

Sojkowski agrees, saying that for now, he just wants his database to create awareness about this unique part of Africa’s culture. “I think that once people see the beauty and practicality of the architecture, they will appreciate it,” he says. “And once something is appreciated there is a value placed on an object.”

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Govt to make big diplomatic push with Africa meet

NEW DELHI: India will join the US, Japan and China to engage the whole of Africa together with the third India-Africa Summit to be held in Delhi in the last week of October, for which all 54 heads of government from the continent has been invited. 

It will be India's biggest diplomatic outreach in the past three decades. For the first time, the foreign ministry will be taking over the Indira Gandhi Stadium in central Delhi for the summit with Vigyan Bhawan, which hosted the 2008 India-Africa Summit unlikely to accommodate such a huge delegation. 

The Centre had postponed the India-Africa Summit in December 2014, citing the ongoing Ebola epidemic. While many had criticized the government then, it was also taken at the request of many African leaders who were uncomfortable being at a glittering ceremony while their people battled a deadly virus at home. 

Therefore, the summit this year will attempt to put that behind with a massive display of Indian soft power and hospitality. "Innovative" is the mantra for ideas for the summit with some of India's best diplomats working overtime to make it an international talking point. 

For possibly the first time, the government has dispatched Union ministers to different African capitals to personally invite their leaders. While Modi is certain to showcase yoga during the event , many African countries have requested a Bollywood presence, which remains India's most potent soft power export. One of the more innovative designs is a Twitter Tree - based on the famous Africa Tree of Life, which will keep delegates updated on all the events during the summit. India will also show off some of its green technology with electric vehicles. The summit will deal with issues of energy, skills, health and education, areas where India wants to extend its competence for African countries to utilize.

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Air Canada bans African animal trophies as freight

Air Canada says it has a new policy, effective immediately, not to carry any shipment of lion, leopard, elephant, and rhinoceros or Cape buffalo trophies worldwide as freight.The airline made the statement today in response to a query from CBC News.

But you won't have trouble transporting some Canadian animal trophies, such as black bears or grizzly bears.

Several other airlines have banned air shipment of hunting trophies in the past few days, including Delta, United and American Airlines.

Air Canada said the ban goes over and above its long-standing policy to comply with the regulations that are in place to protect endangered wildlife in accordance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

The trophy hunting of exotic animals is in the spotlight after the shooting of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe by an American dentist.

Historically the shipment of such trophies has been extremely rare on Air Canada as the airline does not operate flights to Africa.

Air Canada told CBC News the same ban does not extend to black or grizzly bears, among the trophy animals most likely to be hunted in Canada. However it would not transport polar bears, which do have protection.

The airline said it would allow transportation of those bear trophies which are legal to hunt in Canada under CITES and Canadian rules.

WestJet points out it does not serve destinations where hunters can take Big Five animals, including lions and elephants, but says it would not carry Big Five trophies.

It will however carry elk, deer, bears or any other animal that has been legally hunted, according to spokesman Robert Palmer.

There has been a public and internet outcry about the killing of Cecil, with Zimbabwe alleging that it was illegal.

A Change.org petition sent to Delta Airlines demanded the airline, which serves South Africa, stop transporting trophies of Africa's so-called Big Five animals — lions, elephants, rhinoceroses, leopards and Cape buffalos.

That is the same Big Five animals that Air Canada has banned.

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Nedbank gets a hand from Africa

Johannesburg - Nedbank’s activities in the rest of Africa, including its strategic partnership with West Africa’s Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), came through for South Africa’s fourth largest lender, which grew headline earnings by 15.7 percent for the six months to June.

The bank said it would place bigger focus on the continent as the South African growth story wobbled on the possibility of higher interest rates, weak commodity demand and supply constraints, including the erratic supply of electricity that had dampened corporate sector appetite for credit.

Strategy

In its interim results for the half year to June, Nedbank said it was boosted by associate income of R436 million, up from R11m in the comparable period in 2014, and driven by Nedbank’s 20 percent shareholding in ETI. It purchased the stake in the second half of 2014 for R6 billion.

In a teleconference with Business Report, Nedbank executives said the bank had done well in a challenging local environment that was characterised by slow gross domestic product growth, electricity supply constraints, as well as a weak global environment.

“A lot of South African companies are already doing business in those environments, (and) part of our strategy is to support our clients… bearing in mind that economic growth in most of the African countries is a lot stronger than it is in South Africa, although coming from a low base for some of them,” chief financial officer Raisibe Morathi said.

Nedbank made inroads into Mozambique in the second half of 2014 with the acquisition of a 37 percent stake in Banco Unico, with the possibility of increasing its shareholding to more than 50 percent in the near future.

Apart from Mozambique and South Africa, the subsidiary of Old Mutual has a presence in Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Malawi.

However, chief operating officer Mfundo Nkuhlu said the strategic partnership with Ecobank had increased Nedbank’s coverage across 39 countries. While it was still early days, “the price of entry into the rest of the continent was below one times net asset value, which ensures that we are able to get returns on investment very quickly. As we are talking, the return on investment on an annualised basis is 14-and-a-half of net asset value, which means it was a prudent strategy.”

On the local economy, the officials said the interest rate hikes last week came at a time the economy was not growing, which was further affected by the exchange rate.

“Interest rates are dynamic; it is concerning but can also create small opportunities for banks in terms of increasing the endowment income. But at the same time we are concerned about the consumers who are already indebted; they can find their financial circumstances tighter,” Morathi said.

Results

For the six months to June, Nedbank reported a climb in headline earnings to R5.3bn from R4.59bn in the six months to June 2014. Meanwhile, return on equity (ROE), excluding goodwill, increased to 17.3 percent.

Nedbank’s business clusters, which have been reviewed to improve efficiency and include retail and business banking and corporate and investment banking, reported headline earnings growth of 19.9 percent to R5.5bn, and a ROE of 19.7 percent compared with 18.7 percent in the previous comparable period.

Nedbank’s shares jumped 5.08 percent on the JSE yesterday to close at R271.02. The banks index was up 3.2 percent.

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India can 'gain' from Africa's growing drug market

The Indian pharmaceutical industry sees good prospects for growth in Africa, with the sector having quintupled in size in terms of value in just over a decade, and expected to grow to upwards of $50 billion by 2020, according to an international consulting firm.

Mckinsey, which in a report has projected the continent's pharmaceutical market to grow from $40 billion to $65 billion by 2020, said the value of the industry in Africa has jumped to $20.8 billion in 2013 from just $4.7 billion a decade earlier.

"That growth is continuing at a rapid pace: we predict the market will be worth $40 billion to $65 billion by 2020," the consultancy firm said.

Mckinsey has projected that by 2025, two-fifths of Africa's economic growth will come from 30 cities of two million people or more and that 22 of these cities will have GDP in excess of $20 billion.

It said that between 2005 and 2012, Africa added 70,000 new hospital beds, 16,000 doctors, and 60,000 nurses.

"Ace healthcare provision is becoming more efficient through initiatives such as Mozambique's switch to specialist nurse anesthetists and South Africa's use of nurses to initiate antiretroviral drug therapy," the report said. In order to enjoy the benefits that Africa is offering, McKinsey has suggested that market players build strong local teams.

"Real talent is key and requires investment in big, effective local marketing and sales teams," it said.

This means hiring more pharmacy representatives, building teams' technical skills, and selecting and developing strong local managers to lead them.

"Sales teams also should be set up in a flexible way that enables them to be responsive to the needs of local markets," Mckinsey said.

In addition, it said, global pharmaceutical companies need local business partners as "manufacturers, packaging companies, and distributors" to help them navigate the continent's many markets, with their widely varying consumer preferences, price points, manufacturing, and distribution infrastructures.

Another global consultancy, Deloitte, says India's research and development and low cost of production give an advantage to its pharmaceutical companies.

"The worldwide demand for cost-effective generic drugs is leading India to rise as a hub of generic drug manufacturing," it said.

Deloitte noted that India accounts for over 10 percent of global pharmaceutical production, with over 60,000 generic brands across 60 therapeutic categories, and manufactures more than 400 different active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).

"The country is the front-runner in a wide range of specialties involving the manufacture of complex drugs," it said.

Moreover, a number of pharmaceutical companies are increasing their operations in India, which has 119 manufacturing sites approved by the US FDA, the highest in any foreign country, it added.

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