Author: Admin

Analysis in brief: The importance of the informal economic sector in job creation has long been known. This reality has not led to concrete measures to assist this off-grid portion of national economies. This may change as economists predict that the expansion of regional trade can not only boost the informal sector but prompt improvements.

African governments acknowledge the importance of their informal economies but do so grudgingly. Informal economies exist because formal economies do not offer enough jobs required by a population. Governments laud the informal sector for giving livelihoods to most of their working-class demographic but seem embarrassed that this reality is so. When heads of government show off symbols of their country’s economic progress to the press and visiting dignitaries, they host tours of new shopping malls, industrial parks and commercial transportation infrastructures. They do not go to the markets where most of their citizens buy their food, clothing and personal items.

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Analysis in brief: Africa can only develop through economic growth, which is impossible without the movement of goods within countries and across borders. Africa’s logistics industries are undergoing innovative changes to expedite the shipping that fuels businesses.

Difficulties faced by Africa’s logistics sector

Africa’s logistics sector is moving beyond the paradigm it has followed for a century, spurred by e-commerce and consumer demands for ecologically benign business practices. Since modern shipping began on the continent, goods have been moved in and out of seaports by road or rail, though air freight has never played a large role in the shipment of African goods because of its expense. The 21st century has brought online purchases, and while some African companies provide their own fleet of delivery vehicles, like Nigeria’s Jumia, most rely on the established shipping firms and logistics companies that have run Africa’s shipping for years. The logistics industry is confident that it can meet additional needs that require the movement of goods in greater volumes and more swiftly than ever before.

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Analysis in brief: As a leading indicator of the health of national economies, the retail sector has been doing well throughout Africa. Stores and now online businesses increase in numbers in proportion to the growing urbanisation of the continent.

Each African country’s retail sector reports its own accumulative annual revenues and possesses its own particular share of its nation’s GDP. However, every African nation is reporting rising sales, signalling that retail is a well-performing economic sector on a continental scale. By definition, the retail sector is made of all businesses that sell goods through stores and virtually through the internet. In other words, every company that sells goods to the public, through outlets ranging from vending machines to luxury car showrooms, is retail (as opposed to wholesale, which is businesses selling to other businesses).

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Analysis in brief: Dedicating 2024 as the Year of African Education, the African Union has drawn attention to the continent’s primary developmental need: to increase access to quality education for its children. Demonstrable progress has been made towards this end in the 21st century, but there is much work yet to be done.

Africa needs an educated population for economic growth and sustainability, political stability and to create a brain trust to compete globally. Education is also the only way for the continent to find solutions to crises like climate change. Towards this end, earlier this year, the African Union declared 2024 ‘The Year of African Education.’ To ensure that this goes beyond a slogan, the World Bank, UN agencies and public-private partnerships are focusing on education reform. These endeavours will also support concrete and obtainable means to expand the education system and improve the quality of existing schooling. On 16 June – the Day of the African Child, with its motto of ‘Education for All Children in Africa: The Time is Now’ – the NGO Human Rights Watch noted that legal, policy and practical barriers must be removed to make education available to millions of African children, especially girls, who are denied schooling at present.

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Analysis in brief: As Africa’s hospitality industry welcomes foreign visitors in record numbers, contemporary trends are directing future tourism growth. Egypt and South Africa remain top tourist destinations, staying at the forefront of holiday innovations.

Most major African economies host annual tourism conventions. These can be government sponsored like Africa’s Travel Indaba held each May in ocean-side holiday-destination Durban, South Africa, or they are presented by the private hospitality industry itself, such as the African Hospitality Investment Forum that concluded in Windhoek, Namibia, on 27 June 2024. The common factor that has threaded through all the tourism conventions in 2024 has been optimism from rising tourism numbers, including overseas visitors, attendance of attractions and overall tourism revenue. At these conferences, trends are noted, and the means to exploit these trends are presented. With few exceptions, the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic are history, and companies that did not survive the tourism industry’s long closure are reportedly regrouping to form new enterprises.

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Analysis in brief: Insurgencies are the primary cause of food shortages throughout Africa in 2024, with the Sahel region particularly affected. Harsh weather wrought by climate change worsen the food production outlook. Sustainable solutions are available, but all rely on the establishment of peace and security.

Identifying the challenges

Conflict has negatively affected food production throughout Africa’s history. In 2024, the perpetual plague of conflict in various African locations has put millions of people in danger of starvation, outstripping available international aid. The 21st century has brought a new perennial plague: global warming, causing severe weather like flooding and drought that disrupts food production. Both conflict and climate change are human-caused maladies that can be ended through human actions. For the foreseeable future, however, humanitarian groups can only track areas of the highest danger and prepare mitigation measures.

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Analysis in brief: The discussion about the exploitation of Africa’s mineral resources, particularly rare earth minerals, is being conducted from a Western point of view. In this context, African countries have legitimate reasons for seeking the best deal for themselves for commodities whose deposits are vast but, nonetheless, finite.

The term ‘resource management’ carries the benign suggestion of simply managing natural resources for maximum benefit for the country on whose lands they originate. However, the term is often used interchangeably with the more sinister ‘resource nationalism’, with its implications of nationalising foreign investments and thus making investment riskier. To African nations, resource management is the preventative function against what was robbed of their immense but finite mineral wealth during the colonial era. To foreign investors, the term is synonymous with stifling state protectionism. Two often-competing factors are essential to the economic prosperity of African nations. The first is the need to keep African nations as senior partners in the exploitation of their minerals. The second is need to maintain foreign investment. The optimal way to achieve both goals is through negotiations with multinational firms who have business sense to honour national sovereignties.

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Analysis in brief: African countries are consistently targeted by terrorist organisations, but nearly two-dozen governments are failing to follow international guidelines to stop the financing of these groups. Harm to national economies results, while an unintended failing of governments, is a beneficial outcome for terrorists seeking to destabilise Africa.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the international community’s answer to terrorist financing. FATF sets guidelines for governments to stem the flow of money to terror groups and steers countries towards meeting those goals. However, achieving regulatory reform can be one cost too many for poor African countries. Consequently, half (12 of 21) of the countries ‘greylisted’ by FATF are African. Blacklisted countries like Iran and North Korea are actual sponsors of terrorism: These are sovereign states where funding originates, which is then distributed across Africa through a system of corrupt politicians, crooked accountants, underhanded lawyers and lackadaisical banks with money transfer oversight. Countries that allow this to happen become facilitators of terrorism and are greylisted for this authorisation. To return to legitimacy, they need to clean up their acts by enacting financial reform measures. In addition, to demonstrate their serious intentions, governments need to prosecute money launderers.

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Analysis in brief: The varying degrees of economic growth between Africa’s five regions illustrates how fundamentals like electricity supply determine economic performance. Continentally, Africa is achieving good – if delayed – post-Covid epidemic growth.

Overall, Sub-Saharan Africa will record positive economic growth in 2024, according to the African Development Bank and the World Bank, although the forecast degrees vary. However, for some countries, even positive growth is insufficient if it falls below population growth, leading to new jobs being created for an unmatched number of job seekers. True economic growth must raise the standard of living for all the citizens of a country. This cannot be achieved when economic inequity results from a country’s elite controlling a large percentage of a country’s wealth, leaving the large majority of the population mired in poverty. While economic inequity must be addressed as an ongoing concern, this paper’s focus is on the rising countries’ economic performances.

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Analysis in brief: 2024 sees an unusually substantial number of elections throughout Africa. Whenever African people may vote in free and fair elections, they choose their own interests. However, depending on the African country’s leadership, many Africans are not given a genuine opportunity to achieve change.

Determining real from stage-managed elections

National elections have the potential to change governments and usher in new policies that allow national, economic and social growth. The significant elections of 2024 are all national in scope:

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By Chipo Maziva

Analysis in brief: Africa holds the greatest potential for solar energy, yet this enormous potential remains largely untapped. Solar energy represents a unique transformational opportunity that can provide reliable, affordable and sustainable electricity supply and improve economic prospects and the quality of life for all Africans. To this end, Africa needs to reconsider its approach through credible action and accountability in the use of its abundant indigenous energy resources.

Africa’s crippling electricity problem

As Africa’s economy continues to expand, access to sustainable and affordable energy is becoming increasingly essential for supporting robust economic growth and improving the livelihoods of all Africans. In 2021, an estimated 600 million Africans did not have access to electricity. Compared to the rest of the world, Africa generates only 4% of the global energy. Despite the tremendous potential that Africa’s energy sector holds, private sector investment in energy infrastructure and service delivery remains minimal.

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