Dear Friends,

In your inbox this Thursday is a rundown of the week’s events. A Closer Look out tomorrow with a special on Sudan.

Have a great one.

• African Medicines Agency. The need for a single regulatory structure to govern vaccines and pharmaceutical products on a continent of 54 states is dire. Country-level regulatory hurdles are the most daunting challenge that big pharma faces. The African Union is in the process of creating the African Medicines Agency, which will be a central regulatory agency that will harmonize regulation - its establishment, however, has been sluggish (Devex). 

• African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa). The US terminated Uganda’s preferential trade status under Agoa following Uganda’s enactment of draconian anti-LGBTQ laws (BBC). Niger, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Gabon have also seen their trade benefits revoked. South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, will meet with US President Joe Biden on Friday - they will discuss the role Agoa will play in deepening trade and investment on the African continent.

• Angola. Angola’s central bank is stepping up restrictions on foreign-exchange trading to stop the country’s currency, the Kwanza, from weakening further. The currency is down nearly 40% against the greenback this year (Bloomberg). 

• Botswana. Botswana’s central bank has kept its benchmark rate at 2.65% for a seventh straight time (Bloomberg). 

• Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Chemaf Resources, a mining company in the DRC backed by commodity trader Trafigura, has put itself up for sale after a slump in commodity prices. This comes after an expansion drive ran into financial realities. Meanwhile, a long-running dispute over one of the world’s largest hard-rock lithium deposits in Congo took a new turn with China’s Zijin Mining Group, announcing a venture to develop part of the site (Bloomberg). 

• European Union (EU). The EU and the US signed an agreement to develop a corridor to connect resource-rich DRC and Zambia with the Atlantic Ocean through Angola as the allies compete with China to access critical minerals. The pact was concluded at a recent Brussels summit to roll out the Global Gateway, the EU’s €300 billion infrastructure plan aimed to compete with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (Bloomberg). 

• Eskom’s Woes. South Africa’s state power utility posted another mammoth loss of US$1.2bn coupled with a chronic failure to provide stable electricity to the national grid. Meanwhile, The World Bank announced a US$1bn loan to support the restructuring of the power sector through the unbundling of Eskom, the opening of the power market, and the redirecting of Eskom’s resources towards investments in transmission and maintenance of existing power plants (BusinessDay). The government has pledged to split the ailing utility into three subsidiaries to make it more efficient. 

• Kenya. Kenya will end all visa requirements for Africans by the end of year. The country’s president, William Ruto, said that current visa restrictions were “working against us”. The African Union has long aspired to visa-free travel around the continent. The Seychelles, the Gambia and Benin all offer entry without a visa to African citizens; other countries are simplifying visa rules or reducing fees.

• Kenya. Staying with the East African giant, the country’s Chief Justice sent a proposal to Parliament that calls for the removal of the death penalty for the crimes of murder, violent theft and treason, saying the proposed changes aim to put the country’s laws more in line with international human rights standards (VoA). 

• Manufacturing. The Center for Global Development predicts that there will be fewer manufacturing workers in 2050 than there are today. Even in low-income countries, manufacturing job growth will stagnate. Service-sector jobs will proliferate, including in low-income countries like Bangladesh and Ethiopia (CDG). 

• Namibia. Namibia’s central bank left its key interest rate at 7.75%, even though it expects inflation for the year to be higher than previously thought (Bloomberg).

• Nigeria. Nigeria’s first lithium-processing plant (a US$250 million investment) launched in October with the backing of three companies. These firms behind the plant — Ganfeng Lithium Industry, Tianqi Lithium Industrial and Ningde Era Industrial — have nothing to do with three nearly identically-named behemoths listed on the Shenzhen and Hong Kong stock exchanges. The West African country’s corporate register shows they are local ventures controlled by Chinese nationals and founded last year at an address in a medium-sized southwestern Nigerian town (Bloomberg). 

• Senegal. Senegal is borrowing almost US$1 billion more in 2023 to help it service debt in the first four months of next year, to avoid potentially higher rates in 2024 — an election year (Bloomberg). 

• Sudan. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took control of an airport in the state of West Kordofan and an army base in Central Darfur. These developments come as cease-fire talks with the Sudanese military resumed last weekend in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Experts don’t see an end to fighting through the talks. Last week, the RSF seized control of Sudan’s second-largest city, Nyala, after months of fighting with the army. The power struggle has killed up to 9,000 people and displaced some 5.4 million more (Foreign Policy).

In Context: In a fascinating story on the continent, the New York Times writes that as richer countries reckon with their aging populations, African nations are experiencing a “youthquake.” The median age on the continent is 19, a full 20 years younger than in China and the US By the 2040s, two out of every five children globally will be born in Africa. “The world is changing,” Edward Paice, the author of “Youthquake: Why African Demography Should Matter to the World,” told the New York Times. “And we need to start reimagining Africa’s place in it” (New York Times).

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In context: Half of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies continue to be located in Africa. Three years ago, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya ranked among the top performers. The same countries, excluding Egypt, dominated again in 2021 and 2022. Rwanda’s gross domestic product expanded 11.1% and 8.2%, while the global average was 6.3% and 3.5%, Bloomberg data shows (Bloomberg).