Africa
Dhaka renews efforts to explore opportunities in Africa
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has renewed its efforts to explore business opportunities in Africa by addressing the challenges.
As part of its renewed initiative, the ministry hosted an inter-ministerial meeting on January 15 chaired by Foreign Secretary Md Jashim Uddin.
The meeting, the first of its kind, underscored the ministry's commitment to facilitating constructive dialogue and supporting the efforts of Bangladeshi businesses in Africa.
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The discussion centered on addressing challenges faced by Bangladeshi entrepreneurs operating in Africa and exploring actionable solutions.
The meeting also focused on how Bangladesh Missions in Africa, in coordination with the relevant ministries and agencies of Bangladesh, can facilitate the import of agro-products, including cotton, from Africa, while also encouraging Bangladeshi entrepreneurs to expand their presence on the continent.
Key proposals included the establishment of free zones for importing agro products, simplification of the Letter of Credit (LC) process, and exploring fund support options through Bangladesh Bank, said the MoFA on Thursday.
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Representatives from the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Textiles and Jute, National Board of Revenue (NBR), Bangladesh Bank, Bangladesh Cotton Association, Cotton Development Board, and Bangladesh Textile Mills Association took part in the discussions.
Entrepreneurs engaged in agricultural production in African countries, including cotton and lentils, shared their insights and highlighted the challenges they face.
1 month ago
A butterfly collector in Africa with more than 4.2m seeks to share them for future
What began as a childhood hobby more than six decades ago has led to what might be Africa's largest butterfly collection in a suburb of Kenya's capital.
Steve Collins, 74, was born and raised in western Kenya. By the age of 5, he was fascinated by butterflies and started building a collection that has grown to more than 4.2 million, representing hundreds of species.
“My parents encouraged us to look for butterflies after visiting the Congo and were gifted a trapping net by some friends," Collins said. “By the time I was 15 years old, I was already visiting other countries like Nigeria to study more about butterflies.”
During his 20-year career as an agronomist, Collins dedicated his free time to research. He established the African Butterfly Research Institute in 1997.
Now, running out of space and time, he hopes to hand it over to the next generation.
On his 1.5 acres (0.6 hectare) of land, hundreds of indigenous trees and flowering bushes form a well-knit forest. Hundreds of butterflies dance from one flower to another, at times landing on Collins' hand.
His collection is private, although it was initially open to the public when he ran it as an education center between 1998 and 2003.
Collins has 1.2 million butterflies from across Africa delicately pinned in frames and stored in rows of shelves, with another 3 million in envelopes.
“They need to be kept in dark spaces," he said. “The form of storage also ensures the dried butterflies are not eaten by other insects, parasites and predators. We also ensure we apply insecticides once a year to keep them safe.”
Julian Bayliss, an ecologist specializing in Africa and a visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University, said he has collected butterflies for Collins over two decades.
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“There is a large part of that collection that is completely irreplaceable because a large part of Africa’s habitat is being destroyed,” Bayliss said.
Africa is vulnerable to climate change, with periods of prolonged drought and serious flooding destroying forests and other butterfly habitats.
Bayliss suggested digitizing the collection to make it accessible worldwide.
Whoever takes it over "needs to be an institution that is well-founded, well-funded and secure,” he said.
Scott Miller, an entomologist at the Smithsonian Institution, met Collins almost 30 years ago. He said such collections provide critical information that could show environmental changes over 60 years.
“These physical specimens, you can actually keep going back to them to get new layers of information as you learn more or you get a different technology or you get different questions," he said.
Collins is concerned that soon he will no longer be able to sustain his research. He said his most prized butterfly costs $8,000 — which he keeps from sight, concerned about possible theft — and hopes to sell the collection to an individual or research institution.
The costs of running his institute are high. An annual budget posted in 2009 on the Lepidopterists' Society of Africa website was $200,000.
Collins estimates that the specimens and other assets are worth $8 million.
“This has been my hobby for decades, and I can’t put a price on what I have done so far. I’m currently seeking to ensure the species are in safe hands when I’m out of this world,” he said.
1 month ago
FM Momen for strengthening trade, investment ties with African nations
Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen has highlighted the imperative of tapping into unexplored trade opportunities between Bangladesh and African countries.
He attended at an interaction session held on Thursday at the Commonwealth Trade and Investment Forum Bangladesh 2023 in Dhaka.
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Momen underscored the critical need to establish robust trade and investment relations with African countries, particularly in key sectors such as pharmaceuticals, textiles, energy, blue economy and information and communication technology (ICT).
The session also shed light on Bangladesh's visionary 'Look Africa' policy, which represents a strategic commitment to bolster relations with African nations.
This outlines various areas of cooperation, including trade and the economy, education, IT and ICT, air and maritime connectivity, healthcare, contract farming, people-to-people contact and visa waivers for diplomatic and official passport holders. This multifaceted approach demonstrates Bangladesh's dedication to fostering deeper connections with the African continent.
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The foreign minister also stated that Bangladesh is one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
The country's focus on enhancing engagement with African nations aligns with its ambitious economic and social development trajectory, aimed at achieving Vision 2041 and creating a Smart Bangladesh.
He also highlighted that new African markets have opened doors for Bangladeshi enterprises, leading to diversification in export destinations.
Despite challenges, the potential for economic cooperation between Bangladesh and African nations remains promising, Momen said.
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He also stated that Bangladesh will welcome any election observers from African countries in our upcoming National Parliament Election scheduled to be held in early January 2024.
Ministers from several African countries, High level government delegates and business entities attended this event.
1 year ago
The African Union is joining the G20, a powerful acknowledgement of a continent of 1 billion people
The group of the world's 20 leading economies is welcoming the African Union as a permanent member, a powerful acknowledgement of Africa as its more than 50 countries seek a more important role on the global stage.
U.S. President Joe Biden called last year for the AU’s permanent membership in the G20, saying it’s been “a long time in coming.” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the bloc was invited to join during the G20 summit his country is hosting this week.
The African Union has advocated for full membership for seven years, spokesperson Ebba Kalondo said. Until now, South Africa was the bloc's only G20 member.
Here’s a look at the AU and what its membership represents in a world where Africa is central to discussions about climate change, food security, migration and other issues.
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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR AFRICA?Permanent G20 membership signals the rise of a continent whose young population of 1.3 billion is set to double by 2050 and make up a quarter of the planet's people.
The AU's 55 member states, which include the disputed Western Sahara, have pressed for meaningful roles in the global bodies that long represented a now faded post-World War II order, including the United Nations Security Council. They also want reforms to a global financial system - including the World Bank and other entities - that forces African countries to pay more than others to borrow money, deepening their debt.
Africa is increasingly courting investment and political interest from a new generation of global powers beyond the U.S. and the continent's former European colonizers. China is Africa’s largest trading partner and one of its largest lenders. Russia is its leading arms provider. Gulf nations have become some of the continent’s biggest investors. Turkey ’s largest overseas military base and embassy are in Somalia. Israel and Iran are increasing their outreach in search of partners.
African leaders have impatiently challenged the framing of the continent as a passive victim of war, extremism, hunger and disaster that's pressured to take one side or another among global powers. Some would prefer to be brokers, as shown by African peace efforts following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Granting the African Union membership in the G20 is a step that recognizes the continent as a global power in itself.
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WHAT DOES THE AFRICAN UNION BRING TO THE G20?With full G20 membership, the AU can represent a continent that's home to the world's largest free trade area. It's also enormously rich in the resources the world needs to combat climate change, which Africa contributes to the least but is affected by the most.
The African continent has 60% of the world’s renewable energy assets and more than 30% of the minerals key to renewable and low-carbon technologies. Congo alone has almost half of the world’s cobalt, a metal essential for lithium-ion batteries, according to a United Nations report on Africa's economic development released last month.
African leaders are tired of watching outsiders take the continent’s resources for processing and profits elsewhere and want more industrial development closer to home to benefit their economies.
Take Africa’s natural assets into account and the continent is immensely wealthy, Kenyan President William Ruto said at the first Africa Climate Summit this week. The gathering in Nairobi ended with a call for fairer treatment by financial institutions, the delivery of rich countries’ long-promised $100 billion a year in climate financing for developing nations and a global tax on fossil fuels.
Finding a common position among the AU's member states, from the economic powers of Nigeria and Ethiopia to some of the world’s poorest nations, can be a challenge. And the AU itself has long been urged by some Africans to be more forceful in its responses to coups and other crises.
The body's rotating chairmanship, which changes annually, also gets in the way of consistency, but Africa “will need to speak with one voice if it hopes to influence G20 decision-making,” Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, a former prime minister of Niger, and Daouda Sembene, a former executive director of the International Monetary Fund, wrote in Project Syndicate this year.
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African leaders have shown their willingness to take such collective action. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they united in loudly criticizing the hoarding of vaccines by rich countries and teamed up to pursue bulk purchases of supplies for the continent.
Now, as a high-profile G20 member, Africa’s demands will be harder to ignore.
1 year ago
Soldiers in Gabon say they’re seizing power days after presidential election
Mutinous soldiers in Gabon said Wednesday they were overturning the results of a presidential election that was to extend the Bongo family’s 55-year hold on power.
The central African country’s election committee announced that President Ali Bongo Ondimba, 64, had won the election with 64% of the vote early Wednesday morning. Within minutes, gunfire was heard in the center of the capital, Libreville.
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A dozen uniformed soldiers appeared on state television later the same morning and announced that they had seized power.
The soldiers intended to “dissolve all institutions of the republic,” said a spokesman for the group, whose members were drawn from the gendarme, the republican guard and other elements of the security forces.
The coup attempt came about one month after mutinous soldiers in Niger seized power from the democratically elected government, and is the latest in a series of coups that have challenged governments with ties to France, the region’s former colonizer.
Unlike Niger and two other West African countries run by military juntas, Gabon hasn’t been wracked by jihadi violence and had been seen as relatively stable.
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In his annual Independence Day speech Aug. 17, Bongo said “While our continent has been shaken in recent weeks by violent crises, rest assured that I will never allow you and our country Gabon to be hostages to attempts at destabilization. Never.”
At a time when anti-France sentiment is spreading in many former colonies, the French-educated Bongo met President Emmanuel Macron in Paris in late June and shared photos of them shaking hands.
The coup’s leaders vowed to respect “Gabon’s commitments to the national and international community.”
Bongo was seeking a third term in elections this weekend. He served two terms since coming to power in 2009 after the death of his father, Omar Bongo, who ruled the country for 41 years. Another group of mutinous soldiers attempted a coup in January 2019, while Bongo was in Morocco recovering from a stroke, but they were quickly overpowered.
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In the election, Bongo faced an opposition coalition led by economics professor and former education minister Albert Ondo Ossa, whose surprise nomination came a week before the vote.
There were concerns about post-election violence, due to deep-seated grievances among the population of some 2.5 million. Nearly 40% of Gabonese ages 15-24 were out of work in 2020, according to the World Bank.
After last week’s vote, the Central African nation’s Communications Minister, Rodrigue Mboumba Bissawou, announced a nightly curfew from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., and said internet access was being restricted indefinitely to quell disinformation and calls for violence.
Every vote held in Gabon since the country’s return to a multi-party system in 1990 has ended in violence. Clashes between government forces and protesters following the 2016 election killed four people, according to official figures. The opposition said the death toll was far higher.
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Fearing violence, many people in the capital went to visit family in other parts of the country before the election or left Gabon altogether. Others stockpiled food or bolstered security in their homes.
1 year ago
Chad replaces Bangladesh as country with most polluted air in 2022
Chad replaced Bangladesh as the country with the most polluted air in 2022.With the only real-time, publicly available source of air quality data for the entire country of Chad being provided by a single air quality monitor in the city of N’Djamena, the spotlight on global air quality data coverage disparities shines bright on the continent of Africa, according to the 2022 World Air Quality Report.N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, ranked number one as the most polluted regional city with an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 89.7 µg/m3, a 12 percent increase from 2021, the report said.In 2022, Bangladesh ranked fifth in the overall rankings with 65.8 points.
Read More: River pollution: Artists take to unique protest in Habiganj In some of the capital cities in the region (Dhaka, Bangladesh; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; Islamabad, Pakistan; Colombo, Sri Lanka) the percentage of low-cost sensor stations is more than 80 percent.Iraq, Pakistan and Bahrain held the second, third, and fourth positions in the AQI ranking for 2022 respectively with 80.1, 70.9 and 66.6 points.The top five most polluted cities in the world in 2022 were: N’Djamena, Chad (89.7); New Delhi, India (89.1); Baghdad, Iraq (86.7); Manama, Bahrain (66.6); and Dhaka, Bangladesh (65.8).The 2022 World Air Quality Report reviewed the state of global air quality in the year. The study contains statistics on PM2.5 air quality from 7,323 cities in 131 nations, regions, and territories.
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Governing authorities, research institutes, non-profit non-governmental groups, universities and educational facilities, commercial corporations, and citizen scientists run these monitoring stations and sensors all around the world, said the report.The PM2.5 data in this report is measured in micrograms per cubic meter (g/m3) and uses the World Health Organization (WHO) air quality recommendations and interim objectives from 2021 as a basis for data visualization and risk communication.
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1 year ago
Senegal star Sadio Mané out of World Cup after operation
Senegal star Sadio Mané has been ruled out of the World Cup after undergoing surgery for his leg injury, Bayern Munich and the Senegalese soccer federation said Thursday.
Bayern said the 30-year-old Mané had an operation in Innsbruck, Austria late Thursday to reattach a tendon to the head of his right fibula bone, treating an injury he sustained playing for Bayern in a German league game against Werder Bremen on Nov. 8.
“The FC Bayern forward will therefore no longer be available to play for Senegal at the World Cup and will begin his rehab in Munich in the next few days,” Bayern said.
Senegal team doctor Manuel Afonso earlier announced the end of Mané's lingering hopes of playing at least some part in the World Cup.
“Unfortunately, today’s MRI shows us that the progress was not as favorable as we had hoped,” Afonso said. “The result is unfortunately us withdrawing Sadio from the World Cup.”
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Senegal, the reigning African champion, had hoped that Mané, a two-time African player of the year, could return at some point during the tournament.
Most of Senegal’s squad arrived in Qatar for the World Cup on Sunday. The team’s first game in Qatar is against the Netherlands on Monday.
Senegal plays host Qatar four days after it faces the Netherlands. Its final game in Group A is against Ecuador on Nov. 29.
Senegal won its first major title at the African Cup in February, when Mané scored the winning penalty in a shootout to beat Egypt in the final. Mané also scored the winning penalty in a playoff that sealed a place for Senegal in Qatar.
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Senegal — with Mané — was rated by many as the best African team to ever go to a World Cup.
2 years ago
Bangladesh can benefit immensely from economic partnerships with Africa
Speakers at a hybrid seminar on Sunday laid emphasis on greater efforts to strengthen Bangladesh’s relations with the African countries by forging strong and diverse economic partnerships.
They said many countries of the world including India and China are giving much focus on Africa, and being another Asian country with similar economic appetite, Bangladesh sees huge potential to strengthen and widen its relations with Africa, which has immense economic potential.
Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen spoke at the seminar as the chief guest organised by Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) at its auditorium.
Secretary (East), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mashfee Binte Shams delivered the keynote speech at the seminar chaired by BIISS Chairman Kazi Imtiaz Hossain.
BIISS Director General Major General Sheikh Pasha Habib Uddin delivered welcome remarks.
The Foreign Secretary urged the business community to come forward and play their role in exploring the opportunities while the government will facilitate them. “We have goodwill on our side.”
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Secretary Mashfee said Bangladesh needs to connect with the African countries in the sectors where economic complementarities exist to sustain the momentum of the country’s development.
She said the current food, energy, health and commodity insecurities and the disruption in the supply chain are affecting all countries.
Secretary Mashfee said challenges emanating from climate change and natural calamities also demand special attention.
“Therefore, Bangladesh looks to engage more with the African countries to harness the synergies for mutual benefit,” she said, adding that the African market can be the next potential destination for export.
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Apart from trade and investment, Bangladesh wants to enhance its cooperation with the African countries in a number of areas including agriculture, contract-farming, research and education, IT and ICT and SME.
2 years ago
Gunmen storm hotel in Somali capital, leave 20 dead
Islamic militants have stormed a hotel in Somalia's capital, engaging in an hours-long exchange of fire with the security forces that left at least 20 people dead, according to police and witnesses.
In addition, at least 40 people were wounded in the late Friday night attack and security forces rescued many others, including children, from the scene at Mogadishu's popular Hayat Hotel, they said Saturday.
The attack started with explosions outside the hotel before the gunmen entered the building.
Somali forces were still trying to end the siege of the hotel almost 24 hours after the attack started. Gunfire could still be heard Saturday evening as security forces tried to contain the last gunmen thought to be holed up on the hotel’s top floor.
The Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which has ties with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest of its frequent attempts to strike places visited by government officials. The attack on the hotel is the first major terror incident in Mogadishu since Somalia's new leader, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, took over in May.
In a Twitter post, the U.S. Embassy in Somalia said it “strongly condemns” the attack on the Hayat.
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“We extend condolences to the families of loved ones killed, wish a full recovery to the injured, & pledge continued support for #Somalia to hold murderers accountable & build when others destroy,” it said.
There was no immediate word on the identities of the victims, but many are believed to be civilians.
Mohamed Abdirahman, director of Mogadishu’s Madina Hospital, told the AP that 40 people were admitted there with wounds or injuries from the attack. While nine were sent home after getting treatment, five are in critical condition in the ICU, he said.
“We were having tea near the hotel lobby when we heard the first blast, followed by gunfire. I immediately rushed toward hotel rooms on the ground floor and I locked the door,” witness Abdullahi Hussein said by phone. “The militants went straight upstairs and started shooting. I was inside the room until the security forces arrived and rescued me.”
He said on his way to safety he saw “several bodies lying on the ground outside hotel reception.”
Al-Shabab remains the most lethal Islamic extremist group in Africa.
The group has seized even more territory in recent years, taking advantage of rifts among Somali security personnel as well as disagreements between the government seat in Mogadishu and regional states. It remains the biggest threat to political stability in the volatile Horn of Africa nation.
Forced to retreat from Mogadishu in 2011, al-Shabab is slowly making a comeback from the rural areas to which it retreated, defying the presence of African Union peacekeepers as well as U.S. drone strikes targeting its fighters.
The militants in early May attacked a military base for AU peacekeepers outside Mogadishu, killing many Burundian troops. The attack came just days before the presidential vote that returned Mohamud to power five years after he had been voted out.
2 years ago
Africa lays out goals ahead of UN climate summit
African officials outlined their priorities for the upcoming U.N. climate summit, including a push to make heavily polluting rich nations compensate poor countries for the environmental damage done to them.
The continent will also focus on how countries can adapt to global warming and how the continent can best halt further climate-related disasters. Africa has seen debilitating droughts in the east and Horn of Africa and deadly cyclones in the south.
Other key areas for discussion include moving from high-carbon energy sources like oil and gas to renewables, and “carbon credit” schemes, where foreign governments and companies pay for tree planting in exchange for producing greenhouse gases.
The U.N. climate conference, known as COP27, will be held in Egypt in November.
How much funding Africa gets is the biggest factor for how prepared it will be for a hotter future, said Harsen Nyambe, the director of sustainable environment at the African Union Commission.
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“We recall the $100 billion that was promised has never been fulfilled and current assessments show that even that amount is not enough,” Nyambe said, referring to a 12-year-old pledge by rich nations to provide climate funding for poorer nations.
“Africa must be given adequate time to transition and transform its energy infrastructure. We cannot transform abruptly. We need resources, capacity, technology transfer and finance to power our development,” he added.
A commitment made in the previous international summit in Glasgow to spend half of climate funds on helping developing nations adapt to the effects of a warming world by having infrastructure and agriculture that's resilient to more volatile weather systems, must be followed through, said Jean-Paul Adam, director of climate change for the U.N.'s Economic Commission for Africa.
He added the continent only received about 7.5% of its promised $70 billion in climate funding between 2014 and 2018.
Africa needs around $3 trillion to fulfill its self-determined emissions targets, known as nationally determined contributions, that each country is required to submit as part of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate, according to U.N. and Africa Development Bank estimates.
More meetings between the continent's climate leaders are set to follow ahead of COP27.
2 years ago