African countries respond to global inflation [Business Africa] | Africanews

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In Africa, gov­ern­ments are step­ping up their efforts to mit­i­gate the impact of the Rus­sia-Ukraine cri­sis on their cit­i­zens’ wal­lets. Accord­ing to UNCTAD data, no less than 25 African coun­tries import more than a third of their wheat from Rus­sia and Ukraine; 15 import more than half and two coun­tries, Benin and Soma­lia, import 100%. So how is Africa try­ing to lim­it the impacts of this crisis?
Ghana presents robust dig­i­tal econ­o­myGhana has recent­ly embarked on the trans­for­ma­tion of sev­er­al pub­lic ser­vices. An iden­ti­ty card serves as a bio­met­ric pass­port and tax iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber. In this way, the coun­try intends to mobilise domes­tic rev­enue and pros­e­cute all those who evade tax­es before the end of the year. This dig­i­tal pol­i­cy, which affects all sec­tors, should be a response to finan­cial exclu­sion and the pre­dom­i­nance of the infor­mal sector.
Burun­di cof­fee sec­tor strug­gles to rebound­In Burun­di, cof­fee accounts for near­ly 40% of export resources, and sup­ports 8 mil­lion Burun­di­ans. With the fail­ure of the pri­vati­sa­tion of the sec­tor, the state has been run­ning the sec­tor since 2019, but pro­duc­tion fig­ures remain low, drop­ping from 34,000 to 6,000 tonnes for the 2021–2022 grow­ing sea­son. Cof­fee grow­ers’ dis­con­tent is grow­ing, as well as the lack of trace­abil­i­ty of all actors involved in the sector.

Kenya’s Supreme Court Rejects President’s Plan to Amend Constitution

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Civ­il soci­ety groups had crit­i­cized the pro­pos­al as an attempt to expand pres­i­den­tial pow­er and strength­en the elite’s grip on nation­al pol­i­tics. NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s top court on Thurs­day quashed an ini­tia­tive by the pres­i­dent to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion, deal­ing a major blow to a plan that could have cement­ed his abil­i­ty to shape the…

Africa’s five teams going to the Qatar World Cup confirmed — Futbol on FanNation — Sports Illustrated

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The five African nations head­ing to Qatar for the 2022 FIFA World Cup were con­firmed on Tues­day night. Cameroon, Moroc­co, Tunisia, Ghana and Sene­gal will rep­re­sent CAF in the first ever November/December World Cup. All five qual­i­fiers booked their places at Qatar 2022 by win­ning two-legged play­offs. Those play­offs turned out to be large­ly close affairs as…

Africa mostly quiet amid widespread condemnation of Russia — The Columbian

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KAMPALA, Ugan­da — Ugan­dan Pres­i­dent Yow­eri Musev­eni recent­ly remarked that Russia’s war on Ukraine should be seen in the con­text of Moscow being the “cen­ter of grav­i­ty” for East­ern Europe.
His son, Lt. Gen. Muhoozi Kaineru­ga­ba, was more force­ful, declar­ing that most Africans “sup­port Russia’s stand in Ukraine” and “Putin is absolute­ly right!”
Amid a world­wide cho­rus of con­dem­na­tion, much of Africa has either pushed back or remained notice­ably qui­et. Twen­ty-five of Africa’s 54 nations abstained or didn’t record a vote in the U.N. Gen­er­al Assem­bly res­o­lu­tion ear­li­er this month con­demn­ing Russia.
The rea­son? Many nations on the con­ti­nent of 1.3 bil­lion peo­ple have long-stand­ing ties and sup­port from Moscow, dat­ing back to the Cold War when the Sovi­et Union sup­port­ed anti-colo­nial struggles.
Those rela­tions have tight­ened in recent years: As U.S. inter­est in Africa appeared to wane under Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion, Rus­sia — along with Chi­na — expand­ed its influ­ence, enlarg­ing its eco­nom­ic foot­print to include every­thing from agri­cul­tur­al pro­grams to ener­gy plants. In 2019, dig­ni­taries from 43 African nations attend­ed a sum­mit with Rus­sia, which also has become the dom­i­nant exporter of weapons into sub-Saha­ran Africa, accord­ing to the Stock­holm Inter­na­tion­al Peace Research Institute.

Google internet cable lands in Africa, promising fast connection | Reuters

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DAKAR, March 18 (Reuters) — A sub­sea cable owned by Google (GOOGL.O) that promis­es to dou­ble inter­net speeds for mil­lions in Africa arrived in Togo on Fri­day, the com­pa­ny said, the lat­est step in a mul­ti-year project to pro­vide cheap­er access to users across the continent.The Equiano cable, the first of its kind to reach Africa, has wound its way from Por­tu­gal and will dou­ble inter­net speed for Togo’s 8 mil­lion res­i­dents, Google said in a statement.That may be a taste of things to come for oth­er coun­tries set to ben­e­fit in a region where inter­net use is ris­ing fast but where net­works are often crip­pling­ly slow and are a drag on eco­nom­ic development.Register now for FREE unlim­it­ed access to Reuters.comRegisterThe new line will also make land in Nige­ria, Namib­ia and South Africa, with pos­si­ble branch­es offer­ing con­nec­tions to near­by coun­tries. It is expect­ed to start oper­at­ing by the end of the year.Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s least-con­nect­ed region, with around a quar­ter of the pop­u­la­tion still lack­ing mobile broad­band cov­er­age com­pared to 7% glob­al­ly, accord­ing to a 2020 report by GSMA Intelligence.Most coun­tries in West Africa are at the bot­tom of a World Bank glob­al rank­ing on inter­net pen­e­tra­tion. read more Togo will be the first to ben­e­fit. The cable is expect­ed to reduce inter­net prices by 14% by 2025, accord­ing to an Africa Prac­tice and Gen­e­sis Ana­lyt­ics assess­ment com­mis­sioned by Google.Google said the cable will indi­rect­ly cre­ate 37,000 jobs in Togo by 2025 and boost GDP by $193 million.Register now for FREE unlim­it­ed access to Reuters.comRegisterReporting by Sofia Chris­tensen; Edit­ing by Edward McAl­lis­ter­Our Stan­dards: The Thom­son Reuters Trust Principles.