Technology and the future of jobs in Africa

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/global_kenya_electronics_manufacturing_manager.jpg?w=259 Rapid tech­no­log­i­cal advances are bring­ing major changes to work­places around the world. In the U.S., this has been a source of both joy—for those able to work from home thanks to advanced video tech­nol­o­gy and the inter­net of things (IoT)—and sor­row for those who lost their job due to advanced robot­ics. Pre­dict­ing the impact…

U.S. Allows Hunters to Import Some Elephant Trophies From African Countries

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/04/01/science/01trophies/01trophies-moth.jpg After set­tling a law­suit filed dur­ing the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, the Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice grant­ed six per­mits to bring ele­phant parts into the coun­try. It may approve more in the com­ing months. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice informed some hunters last month that it would allow the import of six ele­phant tro­phies into…

African refugees see racial bias as US welcomes Ukrainians — WXYZ

(AP) — African refugees say the recent deci­sion to grant refugee sta­tus and oth­er human­i­tar­i­an pro­tec­tions to Ukraini­ans flee­ing war under­scores the racial bias inher­ent in Amer­i­can immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy. Wil­fred Tebah says he and oth­er immi­grants from Cameroon have long been deserv­ing of sim­i­lar human­i­tar­i­an con­sid­er­a­tions. They also argue that Con­go and Ethiopia should qual­i­fy because of their ongo­ing con­flicts, as should Mau­ri­ta­nia. The Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty said it con­tin­ues “mon­i­tor­ing con­di­tions in var­i­ous coun­tries.” Pres­i­dent Joe Biden recent­ly announced the U.S. would take in 100,000 Ukrain­ian refugees and grant Tem­po­rary Pro­tect­ed Sta­tus to anoth­er 30,000 already in the country.

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How the Swahili Language Can Lift Up the African Continent

After so many years of talk about its poten­tial, the African con­ti­nent is wak­ing up to under­stand and appre­ci­ate the pow­er of uni­ty rep­re­sent­ed by a lan­guage.  The African Union (AU) offi­cial­ly adopt­ed Kiswahili or Swahili as one of the offi­cial work­ing lan­guages of the African con­ti­nent, the Assem­bly of Heads of State and Government…

Africa mostly quiet amid widespread condemnation of Russia — The Columbian

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.

Erdogan seeks to boost ties with Africa in four-day visit | News | Al Jazeera

The Turk­ish pres­i­dent wants to boost busi­ness ties with African countries.Turkey’s pres­i­dent has promised to boost rela­tions with African coun­tries as he vis­it­ed the Sene­galese cap­i­tal Dakar dur­ing a four-day tour of Cen­tral and West Africa.
“We will con­tin­ue to enhance our rela­tions with African coun­tries on the basis of sin­cer­i­ty and sol­i­dar­i­ty,” Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan said on Tues­day dur­ing a joint press con­fer­ence with his Sene­galese coun­ter­part Macky Sall.
“We exchanged ideas on how we can fur­ther advance our rela­tions in every area,” he said. “We once again glad­ly observed that we share the same deter­mi­na­tion to deep­en our cooperation.”
In 2021, the vol­ume of bilat­er­al trade between Turkey and Sene­gal reached $540m. Erdo­gan has said the goal is to bring the fig­ure to $1bn.
The Turk­ish Coop­er­a­tion and Coor­di­na­tion Agency (TIKA), which “has since 2007 com­plet­ed 186 projects in Sene­gal with a total val­ue of $12m, is deter­mined to main­tain its activ­i­ties,” he said.
Sall praised Turk­ish com­pa­nies that have ini­ti­at­ed var­i­ous invest­ment projects in the coun­try and said invest­ments between the two coun­tries should increase even more.
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The Turk­ish pres­i­dent is set to attend Wednesday’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Dakar Olympic Sta­di­um, which was con­struct­ed by a Turk­ish company.
Erdo­gan, who set out on Sun­day for the tour, will also vis­it the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of the Con­go and Guinea-Bissau.
In Dakar, the Turk­ish pres­i­dent not­ed that the 3rd Turkey-Africa Part­ner­ship Sum­mit, held in Istan­bul in Decem­ber, set out a roadmap in Turk­ish rela­tions with Africa for 2022 to 2026.
Lead­ers from more than a dozen African coun­tries attend­ed the sum­mit, high­light­ing Turkey’s expand­ing influ­ence on the continent.
Since its 2019 inter­ven­tion in the Libyan civ­il war, Istan­bul has steadi­ly expand­ed its African foot­print as it seeks to replace West­ern influ­ence on the continent.
The Euro­pean Union has sought to counter both Turk­ish and Chi­nese influ­ence, posi­tion­ing itself as “Africa’s part­ner of choice” dur­ing a sum­mit with the African Union ear­li­er this month.
“The Euro­pean Union is the first trad­ing part­ner and the first investor in Africa,” Ursu­la von der Leyen, pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, said after the two-day sum­mit, which drew to a close on Feb­ru­ary 18. “Indeed, we need a stronger part­ner­ship between us.”
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We will continue to enhance our relations with African countries: Erdoğan — Turkey News

DAKAR

Turkey is an impor­tant mem­ber of the G‑20 plat­form and the 13th largest coun­try in the world by pur­chas­ing par­i­ty, Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Feb. 21, under­lin­ing the strength of the Turk­ish econ­o­my despite glob­al difficulties.
“Our econ­o­my is resilient to glob­al shocks. We grew our econ­o­my by five per­cent every year despite the insta­bil­i­ty in the region,” Erdoğan said, speak­ing at a busi­ness forum dur­ing his vis­it to the Sene­galese cap­i­tal Dakar as part of his four-day trip to Cen­tral and West Africa.
Turkey will see a more suc­cess­ful year in growth in 2022 as its growth rates approach dou­ble dig­its, Erdoğan stated.
Sene­gal is an export gate­way to West Africa, Erdoğan said, not­ing coop­er­a­tion in the fields of agri­cul­ture, tourism, food and health will be ben­e­fi­cial for the entire region.
Turkey’s pol­i­cy for “open­ing” to Africa was suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed and turned into a part­ner­ship pol­i­cy with Africa in 2013, he said, empha­siz­ing that ongo­ing projects with African part­ner­ships are based on equal part­ner­ship and mutu­al benefit.
Ankara will con­tin­ue to enhance its rela­tions with African coun­tries based on sin­cer­i­ty and sol­i­dar­i­ty, Erdoğan said dur­ing a joint press con­fer­ence with his Sene­galese coun­ter­part, Macky Sall.
The bilat­er­al trade vol­ume between Turkey and Sene­gal reached $540 mil­lion in 2021, the pres­i­dent said, not­ing that Turkey’s aim is to increase this fig­ure to some $1 bil­lion soon.
He added that Turk­ish firms in Sene­gal car­ry out oper­a­tions in the fields of ener­gy, steel pro­duc­tion, health care, food indus­try, ready-mixed con­crete pro­duc­tion and gold processing.
The Turk­ish Coop­er­a­tion and Coor­di­na­tion Agency (TİKA) has final­ized 186 projects in Sene­gal with a total val­ue of $12 mil­lion since 2007, Erdoğan said. The Turk­ish Maarif Foun­da­tion pro­vides edu­ca­tion for 287 stu­dents at 13 schools in the coun­try, he noted.
He thanked Sene­galese author­i­ties for their sup­port in Turkey’s fight against FETÖ. “We have no doubt that this sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty will con­tin­ue,” he said.

Erdo­gan, Diplomacy,

US removes three African states from trade pact — World News

WASHINGTON DC

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s admin­is­tra­tion announced on Jan. 1 that it had exclud­ed Ethiopia, Mali and Guinea from a U.S.-Africa trade agree­ment, say­ing the actions of the three gov­ern­ments vio­lat­ed its principles.“The Unit­ed States today ter­mi­nat­ed Ethiopia, Mali and Guinea from the AGOA trade pref­er­ence pro­gram due to actions tak­en by each of their gov­ern­ments in vio­la­tion of the AGOA Statute,” the U.S. Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive (USTR) said in a statement.The African Growth and Oppor­tu­ni­ty Act (AGOA) was put in place in 2000 under the admin­is­tra­tion of for­mer pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton to facil­i­tate and reg­u­late trade between the Unit­ed States and Africa.But the Unit­ed States is “deeply con­cerned by the uncon­sti­tu­tion­al change in gov­ern­ments in both Guinea and Mali,” the state­ment said.It also voiced con­cern about “gross vio­la­tions of inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized human rights being per­pe­trat­ed by the gov­ern­ment of Ethiopia and oth­er par­ties amid the widen­ing con­flict in north­ern Ethiopia.”“Each coun­try has clear bench­marks for a path­way toward rein­state­ment and the admin­is­tra­tion will work with their gov­ern­ments to achieve that objec­tive,” the USTR said.Under the AGOA agree­ment, thou­sands of African prod­ucts can ben­e­fit from reduced import tax­es, sub­ject to con­di­tions being met regard­ing human rights, good gov­er­nance and work­er pro­tec­tion, as well as not apply­ing a cus­toms ban on Amer­i­can prod­ucts on their territory.By 2020, 38 coun­tries were eli­gi­ble for AGOA.

Djibouti’s Green Energy Revolution Not Getting Attention It Deserves

Uncov­er­ing the News — 04/05/21 – 04/13/21 What’s At Stake: This world­wide silence about such a big accom­plish­ment for the small East African coun­try shows once again that for many news orga­ni­za­tions, Africa only makes the news in neg­a­tive instances.   Dji­bouti, an East African nation is mak­ing it big with green ener­gy. On April 13, The…

With Omicron the Stigmatization of Africa Grows

Just as the Omi­cron vari­ant of COVID-19 or coro­n­avirus began spread­ing, the Unit­ed States and oth­er West­ern gov­ern­ments imposed a trav­el ban on 8 South­ern African nations: South Africa, Botswana, Zim­bab­we, Namib­ia, Lesotho, Eswa­ti­ni, Mozam­bique, and Malawi. South Africa, the region’s largest econ­o­my, and where the vari­ant orig­i­nat­ed, suf­fered the most from the ban.  On Nov.…