Day: February 24, 2020
Related Posts
The Challenge of Responding to the Zambian Crisis
Zambia’s slow creep towards an official default is raising a lot of discussion about how to avoid this kind of crisis from spreading. Not surprisingly, much of this focus is falling on China, and rightly so. China’s insistence on handling successive troubled loans on an opaque case-by-case ...
Related Posts
Russian and Chinese Propaganda Efforts in Africa
Combatting fake news, misinformation and outright propaganda is one of the foremost challenges confronting policymakers in Africa and elsewhere around the world. Some of that misleading information is distributed organically while other memes are intentionally deployed by governments to influence local ...
As Zambia Nears Default, Analysts Examine What Went Wrong
Although Zambia missed a $42.5 million bond payment on November 14th, and effectively defaulted on that portion of its debt, it's still technically not in default yet. It will probably officially cross that line within the next few days, making it the first African country this year ...
Many Kenyans Surprised and Somewhat Perturbed That the Chinese Contractor Building the Nairobi Expressway is Going to Make a LOT of Money
The China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), a Chinese state-owned construction company, is forecast to earn almost a billion dollars in profits over the 27 years that it will operate the new Nairobi Expressway that's now under construction. Details of the ...
With Chinese Loans Coming Due, Ethiopia Moves Forward With Ethio Telecom Privatization Plan
The Ethiopian government is moving forward with plans to sell off a 45% stake of the state-owned Ethio Telecom along with two more telecom licenses even though this may not be the best time to do that given the weak economy and the escalating conflict in the ...
Chinese ambassador to South Africa Wu Peng together with Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen mark the first shipment of stone fruit to China that will enter the market duty-free. Image via @SAgovnews
In a message to African heads of state gathered in Addis Ababa for the African Union's 39th summit last February, Xi Jinping announced that beginning May 1st, China would implement a “zero tariff” policy for the 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic relations. The message was clear. The African ...
African Citizens in Wuhan and the Evacuation Conundrum
The increasingly desperate pleas from African students to be evacuated from the epicenter of the Novel Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China raises broader, thornier questions about how Africa should deal with its colonial past. A past that still casts a long shadow over much of the continent. ...
Tweet of the Day: 2020 is Likely Going to be the Year When the Tiny Kingdom of eSwatini Becomes a Big International Relations Issue
eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, is not a country that often registers as an important player in major global disputes but from the looks of it that may change in 2020. The Kingdom is now the last country in Africa that formally recognizes Taiwan and that has ...
Prices for African Exports to China Fall Precipitously, While the Cost of Chinese Imports Surges
The dramatic economic slowdown underway now in China due to the COVID-19 outbreak is acutely felt now across Africa's economies in ways both large and small. Given the close economic ties between China and the overwhelming majority of African countries, the scale of the impact is expected ...
Rumors, Fear and Panic About COVID-19 Becoming Increasingly Pervasive in Some Rural Communities in Kenya
Anger and suspicions towards Chinese nationals in rural Kenya, many of who are workers on various infrastructure projects, are rising amid fears they're infected with the deadly COVID-19 virus. Last week, there were widespread reports of a Sinohydro employee who purportedly returned from China infected with Novel ...
With the Help of an Emoji, the Kenyan Government Reaffirms it Will Not Evacuate Students From Wuhan
The spokesperson for the Kenyan government took to Twitter on Friday to make it as clear as possible that the administration will not evacuate students from the epicenter of the virus in Wuhan, China. There's been a raging debate on what ...
African Health Ministers Convene Emergency AU Meeting to Coordinate Responses to COVID-19
The African Union convened an emergency meeting on Saturday to discuss a coordinated continental response to the burgeoning COVID-19 crisis. Dozens of health ministers from across Africa were joined by leaders from the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the World ...