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This week: The US rolls out the red carpet for African leaders, Ghana takes a step towards debt restructuring, and (more) allegations against Facebook for inciting political violence. This is the last Aftershocks of the year. Thank you to all our readers for sticking with us through the roller-coaster of 2022. |
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Top NewsRed carpet ride: The US rolled out the red carpet this week, hosting delegations from 49 African countries and 45 leaders at the 2nd US-Africa Leaders Summit. US leader-level engagement with African countries has been tepid for much of the past decade. President Joe Biden’s only visit to an African country so far was a brief stopover at COP27 in Egypt in November. His predecessor, Donald Trump, made 0 visits to African countries, which he infamously disparaged as “sh*thole countries.” The US has quietly continued to make major investments in Africa via development and projects. Yet its engagement with Africa has been less consistent, collaborative, and Africa-first than, say, China’s. While US-Africa trade since 2002 has tripled from US$21 billion to US$64 billion, China-Africa trade has skyrocketed from US$12 billion to US$254 billion. US foreign direct investment to Africa has plummeted by 36% since the first US-Africa Leaders Summit in 2014. In more positive news, President Biden announced support for African Union membership at the G20 and a new partnership on Food Security. 🥳 Some things old, some things new: At the summit, President Biden said that the US is “all in on Africa's future.” The US announced plans to invest as much as US$55 billion in Africa over the next three years. That includes investing US$1.33 billion per year from 2022 to 2024 to help African countries improve their health workforces. US$15 billion in two-way trade and investment commitments, deals, and partnerships was also announced. The US committed to partner with African countries on their climate and energy transitions, including electrifying 10,000 health facilities across sub-Saharan Africa, investing more than US$180 million in renewable energy, and supporting energy transition projects in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Nigeria. While there’s a lot to like in the broad package of new programs the US revealed, there was considerable repackaging of existing projects, an all-too-familiar occurrence at high-level events {waves at the EU’s Global Gateway Initiative}.  A capital idea: ONE’s newest data dive unpacks how multilateral development banks could lend up to an additional US$1 trillion to help countries finance their development objectives. Development banks could do so without getting new money from the shareholders that fund them. Instead, they can (and we argue, should) implement measures to use their capital more efficiently. This includes better leveraging their existing assets – like “callable capital,” a guarantee that shareholders will step in if the banks have trouble servicing their debt – to increase the size of their lending capacity. Those funds could better enable countries to tackle some of the world’s most pressing – and costly – challenges, including climate change. It’s a win-win at a time when we could all use some wins. But here’s the rub: the World Bank itself is likely to low ball the potential of this game-changing proposal. Read the Data Dive to find out what needs to change, who has the power to change things, and where the world’s leading governments sit on the issue.  Let’s make a deal: Ghana secured a preliminary US$3 billion debt restructuring agreement from the IMF. The country is on the brink of default and had the world’s worst-performing currency this year. The agreement is a critical step toward making Ghana’s ballooning debt more sustainable, but IMF senior officials still need to sign off. They will expect Ghana to strike restructuring deals with private sector and foreign government creditors (no easy task). Meanwhile, lower income countries’ debt more than doubled over the past decade. If only there was a globally agreed mechanism that – if implemented by all stakeholders – could help address the burgeoning debt crisis {whispers The G20’s “Common Framework isn't working” 👀}. Do as I say, not as I do: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has cried foul at Europe’s “brazen double standards” in its climate and energy policy. His outcry comes after the European Union announced new fossil fuel investments, two months after its parliament halted progress on Uganda’s contentious East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project. Recent decisions by the UK to establish a new coal mine and by the US to increase exports of liquified natural gas have drawn similar criticism from African civil society and climate researchers. Pyrrhic victory: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has avoided impeachment proceedings following the theft of undisclosed foreign currency from his game farm. He benefited from his party’s majority in parliament, which closed ranks and voted against the proceedings. Ramaphosa may have averted impeachment but will remain under intense scrutiny as the country’s constitutional court, public protector, and reserve bank continue their own investigations. Having been saved from accountability by party members, many of whom face their own corruption scandals, Ramaphosa won’t find it easy to retain the moral high ground from which he has so far tackled government corruption. A woman’s place: Women make up just 4 in every 100 members of Nigeria’s parliament, despite national legislation that calls for gender parity.👀 Such legislation is merely symbolic without high-level accountability and meaningful efforts to address the misogynistic biases that underlie women’s exclusion. Senegal is a case in point: despite female representation of 43.6% in its national parliament, the country has recently witnessed the participation of high-profile figures in a misogynistic Facebook group and the assault of a female parliamentarian by two male parliamentarians. Meta-violence: Meta (née Facebook) faces a class-action lawsuit in Kenya over accusations that its algorithm helped spread hate and incite violence during Ethiopia’s civil war. Plaintiffs in the suit are calling for Facebook to improve its content moderation and establish a US$2 billion fund for Ethiopian victims of violence enabled by posts on the platform. An estimated 500,000 people died in the Ethiopia-Tigray conflict before parties reached a peace deal last month. Millions more people have been displaced and forced to flee the country, with fatal consequences for some migrants. From the ONE Team
The Numbers
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK
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What you should read, watch & listen to
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A look ahead16-19 December: The national elective conference of the African National Congress, South Africa’s ruling party. 18 December: International Migrants Day recognizes the contributions of migrants and highlights the challenges they face. |
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The ONE Campaign’s data.one.org provides cutting edge data and analysis on the economic, political, and social changes impacting Africa. Check it out HERE. |
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