Africa

1. DFC’s big spend
2. World Bank forecast
3. Buying Dangote fuel
4. Adani power deal
5. Exec’s fraud charge

Also, a cultural exchange between Brazil and Angola.

Hello! Welcome to Semafor Africa, where we never stop reciting the mantra about the importance of education in Africa’s development. The World Bank joined us in emphasizing the same point this week by highlighting the “growing urgency to jumpstart” economic expansion in the African sub-Saharan region, where GDP per capita is expected to grow by a measly 0.5% this year. There’s little chance of reducing extreme poverty and boosting prosperity with that kind of output.

Education and training are the most obvious areas to transform the continent’s demographic transition into a dividend, write the authors. But even though free primary education has been a good step in boosting enrolment rates across the continent, “the task is not complete.” Millions of African children are still out of school. And around a third of children in the region drop out before finishing.

The World Bank sees lifelong learning as transformational: “African countries must keep a relentless focus on foundational learning, and this will require delivering quality, fit-for-purpose teaching.”

🟡 Congratulations to University of Chicago’s Professor James Robinson on winning the Nobel Prize for Economics along with MIT economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. Robinson, who before now was perhaps best known as a co-author of Why Nations Fail (along with Acemoglu), was on a panel with me in Chicago almost exactly a year ago discussing the role of democracy in development. We hope to have him in this newsletter soon.

🟡 🟡 Follow us on social media here and WhatsApp. And if this email was forwarded to you, sign up here to get it in your inbox too.

US DFC’s Africa portfolio up 60%

The amount of funding that the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) provided to projects in Africa in the 12 months to Sept. 30 — a 60% rise from $2 billion in 2023. Africa remains DFC’s largest regional portfolio, accounting for more than a quarter of the $12 billion it invested in 180 projects around the world. The Africa funding was dominated by infrastructure and energy projects, said a US official, though there has also been priority given to various areas, from critical minerals and health to supporting small businesses.

Africa’s growth dragged by large economies

The World Bank has cut its 2024 economic forecasts for sub-Saharan Africa due to slow growth in the region’s largest economies, including significant impact from the devastating war in Sudan.

The bank now estimates that the sub-Saharan region will end the year with an average of 3% growth, down from an April forecast of 3.4%, according to its latest Africa’s Pulse biannual report published this week.

Most of the growth in the region is led by small to mid-sized economies including Rwanda and Côte d’Ivoire. But even fast-growing economies, including Senegal and Niger, have been revised downwards significantly from previous optimistic forecasts.

Sudan, which has seen 11 million people displaced from their homes and thousands killed, will see its economy shrink some 15% this year. Africa’s largest economy, South Africa, will only grow by 1.1% this year and barely improve in 2025.

Economists at the bank said African economic growth this year has been driven by private consumption and investment, particularly in countries where inflation has started to cool off.

Nigeria permits fuel refinery purchases

Nigeria’s government on Friday said fuel retailers could now buy gasoline directly from the Dangote Refinery.

Finance minister Wale Edun said state oil company NNPC will stop being the exclusive buyer of Dangote’s refined petrol. The new deal will allow independent retailers to buy directly from the refinery, which began rolling out petrol locally in September.

Fuel prices had begun to rise again in Lagos in the past week before the minister’s confirmation. Prices are now up to four times higher than they were before President Bola Tinubu took office in May 2023. Tinubu, at his inauguration, vowed to remove the country’s fuel subsidy, effectively allowing the price of petrol to be market driven.

Analysts say a form of subsidy had remained in place but petrol prices are now rising.

A longstanding fear in Nigeria is that fuel price hikes could trigger price increases in the real economy, especially for food and transportation.

— Alexander Onukwue in Lagos

India’s Adani signs Kenya power deal

Indian conglomerate Adani Group signed a $738 million deal to build and operate power lines in Kenya for 30 years. It will transfer the infrastructure to Kenya’s government after that period.

Kenya’s government has argued that the deal is a solution to address the country’s aging power transmission infrastructure. Capacity constraints, due to increased energy consumption by businesses and individuals, have been blamed for power outages in recent years.

The agreement between Adani Energy Solutions and state-owned Kenya Electricity Transmission Company comes despite mounting criticism of public-private partnerships being negotiated with the Indian conglomerate. Adani’s proposal to operate Kenya’s largest airport — Jomo Kenyatta International Airport — under a 30-year concession has been particularly controversial. That proposed deal was suspended last month by a Kenyan court.

— Martin K.N Siele in Nairobi

Nigerian airline boss faces new US fraud charge

US authorities charged the owner of Nigeria’s largest airline with obstruction of justice in a $20 million fraud case.

The US Department of Justice said Allen Onyema, founder and chief executive of Air Peace, faces the new charge of obstruction “for submitting false documents” to the US government. Onyema, 61, allegedly submitted the documents in a bid to end an investigation that led to bank fraud and money laundering charges leveled in 2019, the DOJ announced on Friday.

Onyema is charged alongside Air Peace’s finance chief, Ejiroghene Eghagha.

The DOJ, in its 2019 bank fraud and money laundering indictment, alleged that both officials moved “more than $20 million” from Nigeria through US bank accounts using false documents based on the purchase of airplanes from a company allegedly based in the US.

Neither of the accused have been arrested since the first indictment. Air Peace said both “remain innocent,” adding that it was confident they will be “exonerated.”

— Alexander

Governance

🇬🇭 Hundreds of protesters marched in Ghana’s capital Accra on Friday against unlicensed gold mining, urging authorities to act against the environmentally damaging practice. Illegal small-scale gold mining in Ghana has increased this year following an almost 30% rise in global gold prices.

🇰🇪 Kenya’s central bank has given the greenlight to JPMorgan Chase, the largest US bank, to establish a representative office in the country. The decision comes ahead of a planned visit by the bank’s chief executive Jamie Dimon to four African countries, including Kenya, in mid-October.

🇿🇦 South Africa’s prosecuting authority said it would not pursue a complaint of money laundering and corruption against President Cyril Ramaphosa related to the 2020 break-in at his Phala Phala game farm in which $4 million in cash was stolen.

🇨🇲 Cameroon banned discussions about the health of 91-year-old President Paul Biya in the country’s media on the grounds that it was “a matter of national security.” He has not been seen in public for more than a month.

🇿🇦 South Africa’s tax service said it had paid out $1.2 billion to pensioners after a policy reform that allowed savers to make partial withdrawals from their pension funds before retirement came into effect last month.

Geopolitics

🇰🇪 Kenya will send 600 additional police officers to Haiti in November to fight gangs that control much of the Caribbean nation’s capital, President William Ruto said on Friday. He said they would join the 400 officers already deployed in the multinational security mission.

🌍 The presidents of Somalia, Eritrea, and Egypt last week agreed to bolster ties and improve regional stability to support Somalia in its fight against militant group al-Shabab.

🇰🇪 Italy said the Luigi Broglio space center in Kenya’s northern coastal Malindi town would be used for the launch of low-orbit micro satellites for Earth observation, “particularly for climate change phenomena such as desertification.”

Justice

🇳🇬 A Nigerian court denied bail for a second time to Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, as the US citizen’s money laundering trial began.

Tech

🇰🇪 Kenya’s Communications Authority said cyber attacks in the country increased 16.5% between April and June of this year. The 1.1 billion events included denial-of-service and malware attacks.

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe is testing an electronic gates system that will remove interactions between immigration officials and passengers at the main international airport in the capital, Harare.

🌍 African asset financing company M-Kopa appointed Rajeev Suri, former chief executive of phone manufacturer Nokia, as the new chair of its board with effect from Dec. 1.

Deals

🇳🇬 Guaranty Trust Bank has raised $770 million to meet new capital requirements set by Nigeria’s central bank. It is one of five banks to have met the revised terms, the regulator said.

🇨🇩 DR Congo called off a licensing round for 27 oil blocks due to “inappropriate or irregular bids,” among other reasons.

Energy

🇳🇬 Nigeria’s petroleum ministry announced a deal with joint venture partners including Shell, TotalEnergies and Eni, to deliver gas to a planned $3.5 billion plant in Nigeria’s coastal Bayelsa state. It is expected to generate at least $1.5 billion annually from gas exports.

The 35th São Paulo Biennial is for the first time being hosted on the African continent, with its traveling exhibitions being showcased in Angola’s capital Luanda from Sept. 20 - Dec. 8. The event curators said the decision to cross the Atlantic for the first time since the show was founded in 1951 was largely informed by the need to highlight long-standing correspondences between Angola and Brazil. Angola and Brazil were colonies of Portugal. The traveling exhibition has brought together nine artists from four different continents: from Asia to Africa, the Americas to Europe, to showcase their works. The Biennial is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennale.

• Inside Condé Nast’s Gaza war.
• Analysis: A path to a Gulf-Lebanon rapprochement.
• Climate disasters bring a new dimension to the US presidential race.

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