Africa

🌍 Road traffic deaths rose by 17% in Africa in the past decade, the World Health Organization revealed. That was despite a 5% drop in global road traffic fatalities over the same period. The WHO’s road safety report attributed the trend in Africa to a rise in the number of vehicles on the continent’s roads. While motorization had increased, the infrastructure to facilitate more vehicles was missing, experts said. They said a big rise in the number of motorcycles was also partly to blame, especially in East African countries where motorbike taxis are increasingly popular. Road safety campaigners said many motorbike riders failed to wear effective helmets.

🇷🇼 Rwanda’s presidential and parliamentary polls will be held next July, the country’s electoral commission said. Paul Kagame, who has been the East African nation’s president since 2000, is due to run for a fourth term in office. The 66-year-old became eligible to continue in office for another decade after he presided over controversial constitutional amendments in 2015 that allowed him to run for more terms and stay in power until 2034. Opposition Green Party leader Frank Habineza, who in May announced his intention to run, is currently Kagame’s only known challenger in the vote.

🇰🇪 Kenya’s President William Ruto announced that people visiting the country will no longer need a visa from January. He said a digital platform had been developed to ensure all visitors received electronic travel authorization in advance. That would allow for background checks as a prerequisite for travel into Kenya, he said. Ruto, who has long called for visa-free travel within Africa, said removing the need to apply for a visa would support the tourism industry which plays a vital role in Kenya’s economy. He also said it would help to facilitate trade.

🇹🇿 🇺🇬 Construction began on a controversial pipeline that will transport oil produced from landlocked Uganda to Tanzania for export. The first shipment of 100 kilometers of pipes arrived at the port of Dar es Salaam this week. The East African Crude Oil Pipeline is part of a multibillion-dollar project led by French energy giant TotalEnergies and Chinese investors which is now expected to start operations by 2026. The pipeline, which will be 1,443 kilometers long, has been criticized by activists who say it will destroy the environment and livelihoods of tens of thousands of local people.

The projection for Zimbabwe’s maize harvest in 2024, according to Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, which would be 38% less than the country needs for local consumers. It would also be half of the 2.3 million ton harvest projected for this year. The shortfall is due to an El Nino-induced drought, Ncube told Reuters. El Nino events are unusual and marked by increased warming of sea surfaces. Zimbabwe’s last El Nino event was in the 2015 - 2016 season when the country experienced only 75% of its usual rainfall season, according to the UN.

BRICS influence in Africa grows with TV media deals

THE NEWS

The BRICS economic bloc of countries is aggressively expanding its media presence in Africa through its Moscow-headquartered broadcast network to counter Western narratives in the Global South.

TV BRICS — which is centered on programming from member countries Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa — has in recent weeks signed partnership agreements with media companies in Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Mozambique as it looks to grow the bloc’s influence among some of the world’s fastest-growing populations.

Ayanda Hollow, President of TV BRICS Africa, told Semafor Africa that stories from the Global South including their development, culture and human interest stories were not “well covered” by the international media establishment. He said TV BRICS was focused on bringing stories from the bloc’s countries to global audiences, and not necessarily countering the viewpoints of other media outlets. “No one can tell our own stories like we can,” Hollow said.

MARTIN’S VIEW

The media plays a big role in shaping public opinion around the world. For BRICS to succeed in its much-discussed plan to reshape the global order, it could use media outlets that can boost the images of member countries and amplify their positions on key global issues.

State-funded or state-regulated media outlets such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Voice of America, France 24, and China’s CGTN form a big part of the media landscape in Africa, and have the power to drive conversations and shape narratives. By partnering with media outlets on the continent, BRICS countries will have new outlets to presumably also grow their influence and soft power in Africa, and offer differing perspectives on global issues.

Expanding BRICS’ global reach is also especially relevant as the organization itself expands and is increasingly seen as a counterweight to Western-led multilateral institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Ethiopia, Argentina, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates are lined up to join the bloc in January 2024, and more governments in the Global South, including several from Africa, have expressed interest in joining.

Jumia pulls the plug on food delivery

African e-commerce company Jumia will shut down its food delivery business this month, the latest in a year-long series of cuts at the struggling business.

Food delivery is “not suitable to the current operating environment and macroeconomic conditions,” Jumia said of the service which it offers in Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Uganda, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria (after quitting it in Egypt, Ghana, and Senegal last year). While representing about 11% of gross sales for the nine months ended Sep. 30, food delivery “has not been profitable since inception of the business,” Jumia said. The company’s gross sales in that period was $581.4 million, 23% less than 2022.

Jumia’s move follows a similar decision last month by Estonian ride-hailing company Bolt to close its food delivery in Nigeria and South Africa. Bolt Food had been active for a little over two years in each country but wound down due to “business reasons,” including failing to gain more than a 5% share in Nigeria. “Food delivery remains a business with very challenging economics, in Africa and across the world,” said Antoine Maillet-Mezeray, Jumia’s finance and operations lead.

Exits by Jumia and Bolt cede space to local players like Chowdeck in Nigeria and Mr D (owned by the Takealot Group) in South Africa, as well as Uber Eats, and Glovo, the Spanish delivery company which has invested about $90 million in Africa since 2018. Chowdeck, which launched in 2021, said its monthly users have increased eightfold to 60,000 since January with gross sales in October at 1 billion naira ($1.2 million).

Nigerian-American artist Victor Ekpuk held his first solo exhibition titled “INTERwoven TEXTures” at Dubai’s contemporary art Efie Gallery which specializes in artists of African origin. Ekpuk’s work challenges popular representations of Africa as a continent without writing. The artist’s nine-week-long exhibition featured his exploration of Nsibidi, an indigenous ideographic writing system said to have originated in the 5th century among the Ejagham people in southeast Nigeria and southwest Cameroon. During the exhibition, Ekpuk also unveiled his public art installation commissioned as part of the inaugural Dubai Calligraphy Biennale which launched in October, making him the first African artist to display a public sculpture in the United Arab Emirates.

• Beijing makes plans to revive China’s flagging economy. The country has struggled with weak demand, a deepening housing crisis, and widespread youth unemployment.
• The COP28 summit concluded with an agreement to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. But actually “transitioning away” in the face of growing demand for oil and gas will be the hard part.
• The White House believes it is closing in on a border-Ukraine deal. But many Democrats are already outraged that Biden may accept restrictive immigration reforms in exchange for Ukraine funding.

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