Ssabe sub sahara africa built environment

Whatever went wrong at Loango, Mr White remains optimistic about the eco-tourism potential of Gabon. He says things are beginning to look up. For one, the country has a new President, Ali Bongo Ondimba, who has given some signs he wants to root out the corruption that plagued this country under the former president, his father, who held office for 42 years. The new government is negotiating with tourism companies to build as many as nine new national park lodges in the next few years.

If tourist cash doesn't flow into the economy here, pressure could mount to open Loango and the other national parks to other forms of revenue. And the land that was set aside for the hippos in the surf, and the buffalos on the beach, could be handed over to people who value this place for other reasons - to extract its timber, minerals and oil.

For the Gabonese authorities, this has been a unique opportunity to show to the world that they can organise events like this and that they are open to foreign visitors. I have been lucky enough to have visited Gabon twice recently: A year and a half ago as a tourist, and in the last few days as a journalist covering CAN 2012. Both times getting a visa has been easy and I have not had a single problem travelling overland on my own. People are extremely friendly and hospitable. And in contrast to its neighbours - Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo - I have never been asked for money at its frequent checkpoints. However, it is still a difficult destination for all but the most hardened travellers. Although most of its roads are in very good condition, it is not easy to get to the main tourist attractions, including Loango National Park.

And, this being a country used to oil money, accommodation at hotels and lodges can be prohibitively expensive for many individual travellers. But, as a businessman told me a couple of days ago in Libreville, the government knows that its oil reserves are drying up quickly and it will have to get its act together and seriously encourage alternative sources of revenue, including tourism.

Nigeria: Second Niger Bridge to Gulp N100 Billion - Works Minister Leadership (Abuja) By Omotola Oloruntobi, 10 February 2012 - The Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Ononelemen has said that the Second Niger bridge is to gulp N100 billion, out of which the federal government will contribute 30 per cent while a yet to be selected concessionaire will contribute 70 per cent of the total cost, Minister of Works.

Nigeria: Exxon, NNPC to Seal U.S.$1.5 Billion Loan Deal THIS DAY 10 February 2012 - Quoting unnamed international bankers, Bloomberg reported yesterday that Standard Chartered Plc and South African lenders Standard Bank Group Ltd and Nedbank Group Ltd. are among the banks involved in the deal.

Nigeria: FG to Invest N4.46 Billion in Transport Sector By 2015 - The Federal Government is to invest N4.46 billion on the development of the transportation sector between 2011 and 2015.

Nigeria: Dangote to Crash Cement Prices With New N160 Billion Plant –The Chairman of Dangote Group of Companies, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, said yesterday that he intended to crash cement prices in the country with the commissioning of his $1 billion (N160 billion) cement plant in Ibese, Ogun State. Dangote made the commitment yesterday at the commissioning of the latest cement facility which has the capacity to produce 6 million metric tonnes of cement per annum (mtpa).

Sao Tome and Principe: Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program launched in Sao Tome and Principe February 9th, 2012 – The launch of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) in Sao Tome and Principe is intended to prepare an agricultural investment plan for the archipelago, a programme representative said in Sao Tome Wednesday. Joel Beassen, a representative of the CAADP noted that the launch would “bring together all the players in this sector (agriculture), namely members of parliament, the government and cooperatives,” so that the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) can prepare an agricultural investment plan for Sao Tome and Principe”.

The CAADP, which was approved by the African Union and adopted by consensus in 2003 in Maputo by the African nations, is implemented in the ECCAS countries and funded by the World Bank. Sao Tome and Principe is the sixth country in the Central Africa sub-region where the programme has been implemented, following Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and Burundi. “The aim is to allow agriculture to become a bigger driver of national development in each of the States of the Central Africa sub-region,” said Beassen, cited by Portuguese news agency Lusa. (macauhub)

By Helmo Preuss

A new World Bank report shows how African countries are losing out on billions of dollars in potential trade earnings every year because of high trade barriers with neighboring countries, and that it is easier for Africa to trade with the rest of the world than with itself.

According to the new report, "De-Fragmenting Africa: Deepening Regional Trade Integration in Goods and Services", regional fragmentation could become even more costly for the continent with new World Bank forecasts suggesting that the economic slowdown in the eurozone could shave Africa's growth by up to 1.3 percentage points this year. The authors said: "while uncertainty surrounds the global economy and stagnation is likely to continue in traditional markets in Europe and North America, enormous opportunities for cross-border trade within Africa in food products, basic manufactures and services remain unexploited."

The report said this situation deprives the continent of new sources of economic growth, new jobs, and sharply falling poverty, factors which accompanied significant trade integration in East Asia and other regions. The cross-border production networks that have spurred economic dynamism in other regions, especially East Asia, have yet to materialise in Africa. African leaders have called for a continental free trade area by 2017 to boost trade within the continent.

Regional integration in Africa has long been recognised as essential to address the issues of the small economic size of many countries and the often arbitrarily drawn borders that pay little heed to the distribution of natural endowments. But, as is often noted, Africa trades little with itself, at least to the extent that is recorded in official customs statistics. "It is clear that Africa is not reaching its potential for regional trade, despite the fact that its benefits are enormous - they create larger markets, help countries diversify their economies, reduce costs, improve productivity and help reduce poverty." said Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili, The World Bank's Vice President for Africa, and a former Nigerian Minister of Extractive Industries.

"Yet trade and non-trade barriers remain significant and fall most heavily and disproportionately on poor traders, most of whom are women. African leaders must now back aspiration with action and work together to align the policies, institutions and investments needed to unblock these barriers and to create a dynamic regional market on a scale worthy of Africa's one billion people and its roughly US$2-trillion economy."

The report noted that until the onset of the financial crisis, most sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries grew rapidly and often at much higher rates than the world average. Economic growth in these countries was robust and driven by the boom in commodity prices, which led to very high growth in export values, especially for minerals, to new fast-growing markets such as India and China.

While exports have grown strongly over the last decade, and the region's trade has recovered well from the global crisis, the impact on unemployment and poverty has been disappointing in many countries. Unemployment remains around 24% in SA. In Tanzania, extreme income-poverty appears to have remained broadly constant at around 35% of the population. This shows that export growth has typically been fueled by a small number of mineral and primary products with limited impacts on the wider economy and that formal sectors remain small in many countries.

As a result, the report suggests that Africa will have to diversify its exports from depending solely on precious metals and other commodities and encourage more people to trade goods and professional services in accounting, law, education and healthcare, among others. The region's large number of young people also calls for significant numbers of new jobs, intensive trade, and growth.

"Imagine the benefits of allowing African doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers and lawyers to practice anywhere on the continent, but responsibility for making this happen lies with countries first and foremost," said Marcelo Giugale, the World Bank's Africa Director for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management.

"The final prize is clear: helping Africans trade goods and services with each other. Few contributions carry more development power than that," he said.

To escape the current straightjacket of trade fragmentation, the report says that African leaders, most of whom will attend this week's regional integration summit in Ethiopia hosted by the African Union, need to pursue changes in three key areas.

1. Improving cross-border trade, especially by small poor traders, many of whom are women, by simplifying border procedures, limiting the number of agencies at the border and increasing the professionalism of officials, supporting traders associations, improving the flow of information on market opportunities, and assisting in the spread of new technologies such as cross-border mobile banking that improve access to finance.

2. Removing a range of non-tariff barriers to trade, such as restrictive rules of origin, import and export bans, and onerous and costly import and export licensing procedures

3. Reforming regulations and immigration rules that limit the substantial potential for cross-border trade and investment in services.

Trade and regional integration are core elements of the bank's new Africa strategy, launched in March 2011, to help countries create opportunities for their transformation and sustained growth. The bank has doubled its investment in regional integration from US$2.1 billion in 2008 to US$4.2 billion in July 2011, and it will rise to $5.7 billion by July 2012. Barriers include trade permits, export taxes, import licenses, and bans, all of which are persistent.

While there has been some success in removing import duties within regional communities, a range of non-tariff and regulatory barriers still raise transaction costs and limit the movement of goods, services, people and capital across borders. The end-result is that Africa has integrated with the rest of the world faster than with itself. Effective regional integration is of particular pertinence now. While uncertainty surrounds the global economy and stagnation is likely to continue in traditional markets in Europe and North America, enormous opportunities for cross-border trade within Africa in food products, basic manufactures and services remain unexploited.

Such trade is essential for welfare and poverty reduction, since poor people, and especially women, are intensively engaged in the informal production and trading of the goods and services that are actually crossing African borders. Allowing these traders to flourish and gradually integrate into the formal economy would boost trade and the private sector base for future growth and development.

There are enormous opportunities from trade in services in Africa that are not dependent on a common external tariff being in place.

Countries can work to improve trade facilitation at the border and to remove non-tariff barriers with neighbors while free trade agreements are being designed and implemented. Countries that are not members of the same free trade agreements can work to disseminate information on market prices to producers and traders.

The UAE is also set to be one of the most active energy producers in the region with developments such as Abu Dhabi's $20bn nuclear power plant, under construction since last year, and the recently announced Dubai solar park. The seven emirates are spending a total of 34.2bn on 20 projects.

"According to the World Energy Council, the GCC will require 100 GW of additional power over the next 10 years to meet growing demand. The power sector will require $50 billion worth of investments in new power generating capacity and $20 billion in desalination," said exhibition director Anita Mathews.

Qatar recently announced plans to build at least nine power and water facilities worth $4.8bn over three years, including the $3bn Qatar Facility D power project, commencing this year.

Bahrain has four ongoing projects worth $4.2bn; Kuwait has 17 projects valued at $4bn, while Oman has put aside $2.9bn for 13 new power, water and energy projects to begin at various points in the year ahead.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, Jordan has nine projects predominantly in the water sector worth $6.1bn starting this year, with Morocco looking to make the most of its wind resources, earmarking $3.8bn for renewable energy projects over the next two years.

Across North Africa, the Arab Spring uprisings have empowered millions: activists, politicians, voters - and, it turns out, the region's militants. Revolts that brought down dictators also threw security services off balance, while weapons poured out of Libya in the chaos that followed Muammar Qaddafi's downfall, analysts said. "We're very concerned," said William Lawrence, head of the North Africa Project for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based NGO. "As many as 12 countries could be significantly affected by the flow of arms and fighters." Al Qaeda's North African franchise and Nigeria's Boko Haram group have increased attacks over the past year, while Tuareg insurgents in Mali launched new offensives last month.

Through history the region was populated by nomads, driving their livestock and raiding caravans that transported goods between sub-Saharan kingdoms and Mediterranean ports. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the troops of colonial France sweated their way across the Sahara in a continuous effort to impose order.

A new threat arose in the late 1990s: Algeria's Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), which has attacked mainly Algerian security forces in a messy coda to the country's civil war. While the group's northern wing has carried out bombings and ambushes, its Saharan bands based in northern Mali have gained millions of dollars by kidnapping westerners for ransom.

Saharan countries have increasingly worked together on security, and the United States has pumped funding into counter-terrorism training for the region's armies. In 2007 the GSPC officially renamed itself Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), linking its quest to build an Islamic state in Algeria with the global jihad of Osama Bin Laden.

Last year North Africa saw a different kind of uprising, as pro-democracy protests led to the fall of dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. However, political upheaval also weakened security forces in Tunisia and Libya, and the collapse of Mr Qaddafi's regime exposed his arsenal to weapons traffickers while depriving some African governments of a former benefactor. "That's going to create problems for established rulers across Africa," said Jon Marks, chairman of Cross-Border Information, a British risk-assessment firm. "Even a small number of armed militants can still make trouble in the nebulous security situation."

AQIM stepped up attacks last year, including a double suicide bombing that killed 18 at Algeria's top military academy in August, and claimed credit for brazen kidnappings in Mali. "AQIM's capabilities in the Sahara are steadily expanding," said Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, a North Africa expert for Control Risks, a risk-assessment firm in London. "The group has shown that it is capable of handling several hostage situations at once." In separate kidnappings last November in Mali, gunmen abducted two Frenchmen from their hotel in Hombori, and grabbed three European tourists and shot dead a fourth in a Timbuctoo restaurant. AQIM said later that it held the five hostages, and last month threatened to execute them if their governments attempted a rescue. The group also holds four Frenchmen kidnapped in 2010 in Niger.

Libya's interim government has struggled to secure weapons stocks and control borders. The discovery last September that surface-to-air missiles had gone missing set off international panic. So far, there is no evidence that the Libyan missiles have found their way to militant groups, analysts said. Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a senior AQIM commander in the Sahara, told Mauritania's state news agency last December that the group had acquired Libyan weapons.

CHINA: Asylum rumours sparked off by Chinese top official's disappearance after visit to US consulate

Big News Network.com 9th February, 2012 - BEIJING - Speculation was rife, especially in the Chinese social media, that a well-known crime-fighting former police chief may have tried to and failed in getting political asylum in the United States. Wang Lijun, one of China's former top police chiefs and the vice-mayor of Chongqing, is reported to have visited the US consulate in Chengdu on Tuesday night and sought meetings with officials there. He left the consulate after some time and there is no knowledge of his whereabouts.

Wang's tough crackdown on organised crime in the western megacity of Chongqing fetched him national recognition. Last year he got the city's most powerful mob boss tried and executed. He also hired local writers to produce an official history of the campaign against organized crime syndicates in the city of 29 million. He stepped down from his job as vice-mayor last week, triggering speculation of a quarrel with the city's Communist Party secretary, Bo Xilai, who is reported to be seeking national office. According to speculation, the former police chief could have fallen out of favour with Bo over his brutal crackdown on criminal gangs.

Cote d'Ivoire: Leprosy Fight Still Flagging 8 February 2012 Dimbokro/Toumodi — Côte d'Ivoire's leprosy programme was consistently under-funded during the civil war (2002-2007) and last year's political turmoil, say health practitioners, leading to a loss of expertise in terms of detecting or treating the disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers a disease to be a public health emergency if the prevalence is greater than one case per 10,000 inhabitants (a 0.01 prevalence rate). In 2009, the leprosy prevalence rate was 0.36 in Côte d'Ivoire.

ETHIOPIA: Tens of thousands flee northern Kenya violence - Aid workers say they estimated that around 20 000 people had fled across the border and needed support after a recent upsurge in deadly clashes. Clashes in northern Kenya between rival ethnic groups in recent weeks have forced tens of thousands of people to flee into neighbouring Ethiopia, the UN has said. "Conflict between the Borena and Gabra clans in northern Kenya has displaced tens of thousands of people," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report released Tuesday. OR SCAMMING FREE FOOD PROVISIONS?

Gambia: Detained GPA Officials Released On Bail The Daily Observer (Banjul) By Omar Wally, 10 Feb

Officials of the Gambia Ports Authority (GPA) who were detained by the National Drug Enforcement Agency (NDEA) in connection with the "missing" fully loaded container(s) at the Port of Banjul have been released on bail and asked to report back to work, a reliable source has informed the Daily Observer.