Africa

1. Mpox delivery
2. Healthtech’s bubble bursts
3. Taiwan’s African ally
4. Sudan rejects UN plan
5. Extending US sanctions

Also, parsing Steve Biko’s anti-apartheid martyrdom.

Hello! Welcome to Semafor Africa. In this edition, we’ve focused on the absence of one of Africa’s smallest countries, Eswatini, from last week’s China-Africa summit in Beijing. But less talked about was the absence of Angola’s president, João Lourenço, from the gathering. It’s notable because Angola has had long and close ties with China — so much so, that it is the Asian giant’s biggest debtor on the continent. That’s thanks to a string of oil-for-infrastructure agreements which were racked up during a period when the deals were subjected to less scrutiny.

It’s not to suggest Angola was absent altogether. Finance minister Vera Daves de Sousa was there in force and made a strong case for a resetting of the China-Angola relationship.“We need to think outside the box, because the plain vanilla solutions of ‘you give me money, I’ll give you collateral’ is done,” she told Reuters. She also noted that China would have to consider competition for partnerships from Europe.

Lourenço, who was in Beijing in March and perhaps struck enough China deals pre-FOCAC, looks like a case study of how African leaders balance their relationships with Beijing and the West. Remember, Angola is also the home base for the Lobito Corridor, the multi-part infrastructure, trade, and communications undertaking backed by the US. All sides accept it’s not an either/or; let’s operate that way.

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DRC receives mpox supplies

The size of a consignment of medical supplies shipped to DR Congo by the World Health Organization on Saturday to help stop the mpox outbreak. The supplies, which include personal protective equipment and tents, are intended to boost efforts to prevent infection and manage cases. A team of vaccine experts is also being deployed to accelerate the rollout of vaccines in the country. The consignment is the first of several to be shipped to the country in coming weeks.

Healthtech funding falls post-pandemic

African companies digitizing health supply chains have raised $2.6 billion, according to consultancy firm Salient Advisory which tracks the data. Most of the money has been raised by companies in three categories: those enabling the direct distribution of health products to consumers, companies in the transportation, warehousing and logistics business, and inventory management startups. The sector saw a surge in new companies being founded in 2020, when the world was gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, but there has been a steady decline since then, accompanied by slower fundraising activity as well, says Salient.

China deepens business interests in Eswatini

MBABANE, Eswatini — China is building up its business and economic interests in Eswatini in a sign that Taiwan’s last African ally is gradually pivoting towards Beijing.

The southern African country was the only one of Africa’s 54 countries that declined to attend last week’s triennial China-Africa summit in Beijing. The Kingdom of Eswatini has long refused to cut ties with Taiwan — even when Beijing has explicitly threatened to cut all trade with the African country because of it.

But, despite that official snub last week, members of the Eswatini’s business community told Semafor Africa that authorities are quietly warming to China. It is forcing Taipei to face up to the reality that Chinese enterprises, business people, and even state players are digging deep roots in the kingdom’s economy.

Taiwan’s ambassador to Eswatini, Jeremy Liang, told Semafor Africa that “a significant number of Chinese nationals” were pouring into the small landlocked country of 1.2 million people which would, in time, “undermine” his country’s special relationship with the kingdom.

In another sign of thawing relations with Beijing, a delegation led by the head of Eswatini’s mines authority Guduza Dlamini traveled to China with a high-profile local businessman in late 2023, reportedly to engage Chinese investors and to chart a way for the establishment of diplomatic relations.

Government spokesman Alpheous Nxumalo denied that the delegation’s mission had been to begin the process of establishing diplomatic relations.

Sudan rejects UN’s impartial force plan

Sudan’s government has rejected a United Nations recommendation for the creation of an “independent and impartial” force to protect civilians caught up in the country’s civil war.

UN experts said on Friday that both sides in the war — the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — were responsible for human rights abuses “which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.” They called for the deployment of the independent force “without delay” as well as the expansion of an existing arms embargo in Darfur to all of Sudan.

Sudan’s foreign ministry said the government rejected the recommendations “in their entirety.”

More than 8 million people have been internally displaced since fighting broke out in April 2023, the experts said. Another 2 million people have fled to neighboring countries, and more than 25 million people face acute food shortages.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, during a visit to Sudan on Sunday, said the war had killed at least 20,000 people.

“The scale of the emergency is shocking,” he said, “as is the insufficient action being taken to curtail the conflict and respond to the suffering it is causing.”

— Martin K.N Siele

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US renews sanctions on Ethiopia

The United States’ decision to renew sanctions against Ethiopia is a blow to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s attempt to repair the relationship between the countries.

The sanctions were first rolled out due to the two-year war in the northern Tigray region. The measures targeted individuals involved in the war, which officially ended in November 2022. Washington announced the renewal late last week.

Abiy has sought to improve his government’s image overseas since the end of the conflict, though fighting has spilled over to the Amhara and Oromia regions.

The decision to extend the sanctions, first introduced in 2021, will hurt Abiy’s standing internationally, says Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at the Center for the Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. “The real impact of these sanctions is the reputational harm it does,” he said. “It’s a strong counter-narrative to the vision that Abiy is trying to project to the world, and in particular the investment community.”

The Biden administration in 2022 also suspended Ethiopia from the Africa Growth & Opportunities Act. The program offers favorable trade terms with the US, which previously helped Ethiopia lure foreign investment to its once burgeoning industrial parks.

The renewal comes just weeks after Ethiopia’s government floated its birr currency in order to secure loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

— Samuel Getachew in Addis Ababa

Governance

🇹🇿 Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan ordered a probe into abductions of political figures ahead of next year’s elections, following the kidnap and murder of a senior member of the main opposition Chadema party.

🇬🇭 A group of Ghana’s commercial creditors including BlackRock and Abrdn said last week that they had agreed to the government’s offer to exchange about $13 billion of eurobonds for restructured notes.

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe’s state-owned railway operator has opened its network to private companies, including a unit of South Africa’s Grindrod, to boost freight volumes after decades of underinvestment.

Energy

🇳🇬 Nigeria’s oil regulator on Friday granted UTM Offshore the country’s first license to operate a floating liquefied natural gas plant.

Geopolitics

🇷🇼 A German official said the European Union could use Rwanda’s existing asylum facilities in a plan to send refugees and migrants crossing the EU’s eastern borders to the East African nation.

Tech

🇿🇼 Internet provider Starlink launched in Zimbabwe, the 11th African country in which the Elon Musk-owned operator is available.

🇿🇦 South Africa’s telecom operators’ investments in 5G has led to a 30% increase in download speeds this year, according to research firm Opensignal.

🇳🇬 Nigerian fintech startup Thepeer completed a shutdown process by returning 17% of the $2.1 million it had raised from investors in 2022.

Deals

🇰🇪 A Nairobi court temporarily suspended a proposal by Indian conglomerate Adani Enterprises to take control of Kenya’s largest airport in a 30-year lease. Those challenging the bid described it as “irrational”.

🇳🇦 The Namibia Power Corporation signed a contract with China Jiangxi International and Chint New Energy to build a 100 megawatt solar power plant within the next 18 months.

🇿🇦 South Africa’s Land Bank, which lends to farmers, reached a “comprehensive agreement” with its members to resume paying off its debt of about 16 billion rand ($895 million).

🇿🇦 South African gold miner AngloGold Ashanti will acquire Centamin, owner of Egypt’s largest gold mine, in a $2.5 billion stock and cash deal.

How are martyrs made? That seems to be the subtext of a book which is being published to coincide with the 47th anniversary of the death of legendary anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. He died on Sept. 12, 1977 from injuries at the hands of South Africa’s security forces. Dying for Freedom: Political Martyrdom in South Africa by Jacob Dlamini, an associate professor at Princeton, tries to explain “what happens when death becomes the ultimate marker of one’s commitment to one’s freedom.” Dlamini makes the link between Biko’s religious faith and the “correctness” of his cause: “This faith, coupled with a fierce intelligence, gave Biko a sense of confidence that unnerved the apartheid security police. They saw him as a man out of place, a native who did not know his place.”

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Happy New Year (2017) to the people of Ethiopia!!! 🇪🇹

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— Yinka, Alexis, Alexander Onukwue, Martin Siele, and Muchira Gachenge