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He co-founded the African Heritage Gallery with Kenya’s first vice-president Joseph Murumbi
Announcement of the death of former President Rawlings pic.twitter.com/7ext0fp4sd
— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) November 12, 2020
Watch our report:
The recently launched Bajefit programme has been receiving great response with a large number of individuals from several communities across Barbados taking part, says coordinator of the event Adrian Donovan.Under the theme Keeping the Community Alive, Donovan said the programme which is organised by the National Sports Council (NSC) and the Youth Development Programme commenced Monday, June 7, and has so far covered every parish.“We have been receiving some high turn outs especially in the parishes of St. Phillip and St. George. As expected, some venues started with low numbers and are expected to pick up in the coming weeks,” Donovan told Barbados TODAY.
Thousands of Burundians clad in white gathered on Friday in the capital Gitega to say a final goodbye to former president Pierre Nkurunziza at a state funeral after his sudden death earlier this month.
The ceremonies began early in the morning with a \"homage by his wife, Denise Bucumi Nkurunziza, his children and those close to him\" in an intimate gathering at the hospital where he passed away, a government source told AFP.
\"Nowhere in Africa, or the world, has a leader been as close to God as president Nkurunziza was,\" Ndayishimiye said in a tear-filled speech, adding he was also \"the closest to the people\".
Nkurunziza, a devout evangelical who believed he was chosen by God to lead Burundi, leaves behind a deeply isolated country in political and economic turmoil.
Burundi has taken few measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus, with Nkurunziza claiming God had spared the country from its ravages.
After a slight dip in cases last week, Covid-19 cases are surging again, says the World Health Organisation. More than half of African countries are experiencing a third wave, while four are in the grip of a fourth one.
South Africa’s seasonally adjusted Absa Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) expanded in June as an easing of coronavirus restrictions lifted business activity and sales.
The index, which gauges manufacturing activity in the economy, rose to 53.9 points in June from 50.2 points in May.
“The further rise in June merely means that a solid month-on-month increase was likely recorded,” analysts at Absa said of the survey.
South Africa imposed a strict lockdown in late March to curb the spread of the coronavirus but has since eased some of the restrictions.
From 1 June, much of the economy was allowed to return to full capacity.
But averting what some experts believe could be a food crisis of immense proportions requires paying close attention to an often overlooked feature of food security in the region: African women play a large and growing role in all aspects of the region's food systems--whether it's growing crops and raising livestock, selling and purchasing food in local markets, or dealing with the nutritional needs of their households.
African women often assume this burden while laboring with key disadvantages due to long-standing gender roles that can limit their access to economic resources--both within their households and communities.
Most of the food consumed in sub-Saharan Africa is produced on small-scale family farms where, in many countries, 40 to 60 percent of farmers are women.
Yet these women often lack equal access to quality seeds, fertilizers, good land, credit, technical advice and new technologies
Most of the food consumed in SSA is produced on small-scale family farms where, in many countries, 40 to 60 percent of farmers are women.
Long before COVID-19, it was challenging for African women farmers to carve out time to get their goods to market, where the money they earn is often used to purchase additional food for their families.
Mohammed has spent several weeks sleeping in his cramped trading booth in one of Guangzhou's export centres after being kicked out of his apartment and forced into quarantine in April, but the Tanzanian trader says he is content to be in China.
Guangzhou is the hub for Africans engaged in trade in China, often small-scale business owners dealing in garments and other consumer goods, and is also a centre for students from the continent.
While black Africans living in China say they have long experienced discrimination, several said the targeting of their community during the pandemic was deeply unsettling.
When five Nigerians tested positive for coronavirus in April, after China had shut its borders to foreigners, local government units in Guangzhou singled out Africans for mandatory tests and quarantines, the US consulate in the city said.
All the 20 Africans Reuters spoke with in Guangzhou said they were strongly supportive of the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and elsewhere.
[VOA] Geneva -- The World Health Organization reports Africa will fail to reach the global target of vaccinating 10% of vulnerable populations against COVID-19 in every country by the end of September.
200 Years Before Nicki Minaj And Strippers Exploited Themselves, There Lived Sarah Baartman.
Her Story Is Neither Sexy Or Funny
Sarah Baartman was a black house servant who became popular became popular in the 19th Century because of the size of her behind that would cause total mayhem when she was forcefully made to appear in private shows, which were the equivalent of modern day “strip clubs”
“Saartjie” which was her nickname, was an indigenous Khoisan from the rural areas of Southern Africa.
Born around 1790, Baartman’s home area was then being ravaged by a series of frontier wars and skirmishes, sometimes within the local African tribes, on other occasions involving white adventurers pushing out from Cape Town.
When Sarah Baartman was in her early 20s, she was sold to London by a Scottish doctor named Alexander Dunlop, accompanied by a showman named Hendrik Cesars.
Although just 4ft 7in tall, Baartman’s bottom was particularly well-developed, something that led to her being taken to London in 1810 as ‘property’ part-owned by a British military doctor, Alexander Dunlop, to be shown-off on stage as a freak.
Jun 15, 2020 (GIN) – Some of the largest anti-racism protests in Europe have taken place in Belgium, the birthplace of King Léopold II, whose brutal rule of Congo from 1885 to 1908 caused an estimated 10 million Congolese deaths through murder, starvation and disease.
Many of these statues were built in the 1930s when the Belgian government created a mythology around Leopold II, erasing the public memory of the Congo atrocities and replacing it with a narrative of a benevolent king who brought glory to Belgium.
“There were many people that worked for Leopold II, and they were really abusive — but that does not mean that Leopold II was abusive.”
In 2010, former Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel, the father of future prime minister and present EU Council president Charles Michel, called Leopold “a hero with ambitions for a small country like Belgium” and described the Congo stories as “exaggerations”.
“Slavery is still very real history for black people – we are still living with the consequences of it, with a racial hierarchy that puts black people at the bottom,” said Mary Ononokpono, who is doing a PhD at the University of Cambridge on the British-Biafran slave trade.
Barbara Oteng-Gyasi, Ghana memorial for George Floyd (Sceenshot)
Ghana’s Minister of Tourism Barbara Oteng-Gyasi capitalized on America’s poor race relations, specifically the treatment of Black people, to recruit and nationalize African Americans.
READ MORE: ‘Year of Return’ movement beckons Blacks back to Africa prompting powerful cultural and economic exchange
Because of the current season of civil unrest, the deaths of Ahmed Arbery, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and Breonna Taylor, Ghana is seizing the opportunity to persuade people of the African diaspora living in America, to move.
“On the behalf of the Africa diaspora, and more specifically, the Ghana African diaspora, please accept our deepest condolences.”
Ghana has a history of strongly inviting Black Americans to move the West African country.
READ MORE: Why Ghana is fast becoming a hub for African-Americans
In commemoration of settlers who landed in Jamestown, Virginia, who carried enslaved Africans 400 years ago, the country had named 2019 the “Year of Return,” theGrio previously reported.
This is the last week of African-American Music Appreciation Month.
I am honored to offer one more playlist for this final week of June.
I hope you enjoy this freewheeling and eclectic collection of Black woman vocalists.
We’ve been keeping it American musicians here in June, though next week I plan to sling some reggae music.
Sistas and brothas from Jamaica, UK, and Africa have had a thing or two to say about protest and conscious music as well.
Has Nigeria developed a vaccine against Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus?
\"Breakthrough As Nigerian Scientists Unveil Covid-19 Vaccine,\" said the headline of Nigeria's Leadership newspaper.
The leader of the research team, Dr Oladipo Kolawole of Adeleke University in Osun state, reportedly said the vaccine, while developed in Africa for Africa, would work anywhere.
Nigeria's centre for disease control told Africa Check it had not received an official notice of a locally produced vaccine.
Conclusion: Still long way for Nigeria in search for Covid-19 vaccine
Several media publications reported in late June 2020 that Nigerian scientists had unveiled a vaccine for the new coronavirus.
Brand experts say using technology and building digital skills to connect marketers to customers and new markets is a key driver to building the stature of African brands, in the process unlocking the untapped potential of the region’s products and services.
The use of real-time targeted marketing, he notes, has the potential to spur growth in Africa as brands reach their intended consumers.
Vikas Mehta, chief executive of Ogilvy Africa told Digital Business that brands and marketers need to be innovative to connect with the ever shifting needs of customers.
As a key player in marketing and building profile of brands, Ogilvy has come up with an innovation dubbed Feed that it says offers social intelligence, data analytics, community management and content innovations “in a unified offering”.
The biggest value that the software brings to brands, Mr Mehta says is the ability to become a part of contemporary culture and shape the narrative with consumers.
Africa's projected gross domestic product growth of 3.2 per cent for 2020 is now expected to fall further to -0.8 per cent due to prolonged partial and total lockdown of countries brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Kenya’s projected GDP growth in 2020 will fall to one per cent from 5.7 per cent, due to a decline in tourism, export revenues and disruption in the supply chain.
Disruption in the supply chain for key inputs in machinery and chemicals is about 30 per cent, decline in imports from affected countries is down to an estimated 3.1 per cent, and the tourism sector has recorded a 20 per cent decline as a result of a standstill in the global aviation industry in the past three months.
In Tanzania, the economic growth projection has been revised downwards, mostly because of a waning demand for mineral exports due to global supply chain interruptions.
However, following the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the country’s economic growth is expected to decline to two per cent this year.
Snares like this one set in southern India’s dense forest have become increasingly common amid the coronavirus pandemic, as people left jobless turn to wildlife to make money and feed their families.
In many parts of the developing world, coronavirus lockdowns have sparked concern about increased illegal hunting that’s fueled by food shortages and a decline in law enforcement in some wildlife protection areas.
In April, the Wildlife Justice Commission reported traders were stockpiling pangolin scales in several Southeast Asia countries awaiting an end to the pandemic.
Emma Stokes, director of the Central Africa Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said patrolling national parks in several African countries has been designated essential work.
Heartened by closure of wildlife markets in China over concerns about a possible link between the trade and the coronavirus, several conservation groups are calling for governments to put measures in place to avoid future pandemics.
When that time comes you can travel and support black businesses at the same time!
Check out some of the best black-owned hotels around the world.
9 Black Owned Hotels To Visit When The Pandemic Is Over
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Yesterday, member States of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) from across Africa, shared their priorities for tourism against the backdrop of COVID-19.
This builds on the UNWTO Agenda for Africa – Tourism for Inclusive Growth, the roadmap for African tourism that was adopted at the UNWTO General Assembly in 2019, and is based on the responses to a survey sent out by the Regional Department for Africa.
At the continental level, the survey revealed that the five key areas of the UNWTO Agenda for Africa that Member States would like to see prioritized in order to better support them as they recover from the impact of COVID-19 are:
UNWTO is committed to helping Africa grow back stronger and better and for tourism to emerge from this crisis as an important pillar of economies, jobs and sustainability.
Alongside this, Member States across Africa also expressed a wish for UNWTO to focus future capacity building and training sessions on the topics of crisis management and communications, marketing, developing domestic tourism and promoting innovation and entrepreneurship.
Furthermore, the survey also found that Member States from across the continent would like to see UNWTO add a new section to the Agenda for Africa, focusing on the promotion of regional and domestic tourism.
“All’s well that ends well,” Hans Massaquoi wrote in his memoir in which he described his childhood in Nazi Germany. “I’m quite satisfied with the way my life has turned out to be. I survived to tell the piece of history I was a witness of. At the same time, I wish everyone could have...
The post Growing up Black in Nazi Germany, the remarkable story of Hans Massaquoi appeared first on Face2Face Africa.
Governments can take the opportunity of COVID-19 to change Africa's place in global economic structures, but it will take pan-African coordination.
Since the 16th century, Africa has been a place of both resource extraction - in the form of enslaved people, gold and minerals - and of external financing as European traders provided credit to their African counterparts to help finance the expansion of the Atlantic trade.
The structural adjustment policies promoted by the IMF and World Bank following the 1970s oil crisis may have further entrenched African economies' dependency on the export of raw materials.
Rather than trying to return to normal - albeit with even greater debt and mass unemployment - African governments should take this rare chance to rebalance Africa's relationship to global capital.
Although they would be just a start, these twin policies of a debt cancellation campaign and increased credit - financed through the diaspora and pan-African banks - would bring money into African economies and significantly ameliorate the current crisis.
FILE PHOTO | NMG
Sugar imports in the first five months of the year rose 21 percent compared to a similar period in 2019 even as local production slightly increased in the past two months.
According to the Sugar Directorate, imports between January and May stood at 207,814 tonnes against 172,213 tonnes last year.
“Sugar imported in January–May 2020 amounted to184,677 tonnes against 150,302 tonnes in the same period last year, a 21 percent increase, attributed to high table sugar imports in the review period to bridge the local deficit,” said the directorate.
In the review period, table sugar imports stood at 157,593 tonnes while industrial /refined sweetener was at 100,815 tonnes.
Total sugar sales in the review period were 243,083 tonnes compared with 210,015 tonnes last year.
Ahead of the launch later on Tuesday by MTN South Africa of its 5G network, the mobile operator has updated its coverage maps, showing where the superfast technology is available.
MTN will take the wraps off its plans for its 5G network in an online event on YouTube later on Tuesday
MTN will take the wraps off its plans for its 5G network in an online event later on Tuesday, becoming the first of the telecommunications group’s 22 operations to launch the next-generation broadband technology.
Rival Vodacom South Africa launched a commercial 5G network in May, though also with limited coverage for now.
Rain was the first operator in South Africa to deploy 5G commercially, though it uses the technology for fixed-wireless applications rather than mobile.
Source: MTN South Africa
According to its website, MTN will offer three 5G-enabled smartphones at launch: the Huawei P40 Pro, the Huawei P40 and the LG Velvet 5G.
The Africa-wide free-trade agreement is unlikely to face any further delays even if a second wave of coronavirus infections hits the region, according to the deal’s top official.
“If the pandemic continues into 2021, we will develop the necessary public-health protocols to continue and to push on with the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area,” Wamkele Mene said in an interview at the Bloomberg Invest Global virtual conference on Tuesday.
While the agreement entered into force legally last year, commerce due to have started on July 1 has been delayed as the pandemic set back negotiations to lay the foundation for trade in goods, including tariff concessions.
Fifty-four of the 55 nations recognised by the African Union have signed up to join the area, with Eritrea being the exception, while 28 countries have ratified the agreement.
Nigeria, the continent’s biggest oil producer, has yet to ratify the deal because of concerns about trans-shipments, where goods could enter the free-trade zone from countries that are not party to the agreement, Mene said.
Helpline Foundation for the Needy, Abuja, one of the co-conveners of Africa Women Conference (AWC) which held in Abuja at the weekend, has said the conference had identified Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a tool for economic growth in view of the ravaging COVID-19.
President and founder of the foundation, Dr. Jumai Ahmadu, who made this revelation in a chat with journalists in Abuja, also revealed that panelists at the conference agreed that certain steps should be taken to address issues affecting women on the continent.
Speaking on the 2020 AWC theme: \"Deploying the Use of ICT in Repositioning Women in Media and Entertainment Industry for Growth\", Dr. Ahmadu maintained that women must take advantage of information dissemination through the media and ICT as they were imperative to advance any cause related or tailored towards women and girl child development.
\"African women must take advantage of various online media platforms in getting information and also making extra monetary gains.\"
The conference was organised by the Abuja Helpline Foundation for the Needy, in collaboration with other women group to provide a platform for African women from the formal and non-formal sectors of the economy to deliberate on and adopt action plans that will deliver rapid growth and development in Africa.
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) was formally launched just over a year ago in a blaze of optimism.
It aims to phase out all tariffs on commerce on the continent of 1.2 billion people, a goal that backers say could give trade a mega-jolt as only 15 percent of trade by African nations is with continental neighbours compared to 70 percent with Europe.
\"Everybody can see, objectively, nothing can be done on the 1st of July,\" AfCFTA's brand-new secretary general, Wamkele Mene of South Africa, told AFP.
Then there is the task of figuring out how AfCFTA should dovetail with eight existing regional organisations in Africa, such as ECOWAS and the six-nation East African Community (EAC).
\"The regional economic communities remain, including the customs unions in Africa such as the EAC, ECOWAS and so on,\" said Mene.
As market women breathe a collective sigh of relief in Ghana, the first country to ease COVID 19–related movement restrictions, evidence of the new normal is everywhere: in mask-wearing, social distancing, and varying days for the sale of different products.
Sectors in which women are twice as likely to work, such as health, social work, hospitality, and food, are the ones most impacted by new protocols on social distancing.
Even if women in eastern, central, and western Africa are mostly employed in the agricultural sector, the vulnerabilities associated with their employment mean that they are in fact the working poor.
For those women in the formal sector, typically in northern and southern Africa, support requires special attention to protection of jobs in manufacturing, tourism, accommodation, and hospitality.
With trade across the African Continental Free Trade Area now imminent, a renewed commitment to \"Made in Africa\" will bring opportunity and hope to millions of women across the continent.
EDITORIAL: Involve public in free trade deal talks with US
Tuesday, June 23, 2020 0:01
By EDITORIAL
President Uhuru Kenyatta meets his US counterpart, Donald Trump, at the White House in February.
Almost six months since Kenya announced its intention to negotiate a free trade agreement (FTA) with the US, the government continues to hold its cards close to its chest.
Last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta came out strongly in defence of the FTA, saying Kenya’s team will seize every opportunity to protect sensitive industries at home while safeguarding Africa’s economic integration.
In the case of FTA, a set of negotiation objectives that the US published in May make no secret about Washington’s desire to access nearly all segments of the local economy, including protected ones.
Granted, Kenya has over the years traded with US under preferential terms, and the last of pacts under the African Growth Opportunity Act (Agoa) is set to expire in 2025.
Musicians from East Africa can apply for the 2020 Radio France International Discoveries (RFI) Discovery Music Award (Prix Découverte).
The prestigious competition is open to musicians and genres from Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean.
Submissions are open through an online application form or on the RFI website.
The winner will also tour Africa, perform at a concert in Paris, benefit from media exposure from RFI and its partners, and get airplay on the station, which could lead to time on other radios worldwide.
The prize is organised in partnership with the Institut Français, l’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, the Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music and Ubiznews.
Toyin Umesiri, the founder and CEO of Nazaru, shares strategies on how Africa is reshaping the global economic landscape through trading.
