United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon warned on Wednesday that failure was not an option in addressing the global food price crisis, and said an extra -billion to -billion per year would be needed to help avoid disaster.
Mozambique’s power utility Cahora Bassa Hydro Electric (HCB) plans to boost power output from the Cahora Bassa Dam by up to 1 000 megawatts in order to meet local and regional power demands. A new study will seek to evaluate the dam’s potential to increase output, said HCB CEO Paulo Muxanga on Saturday.
The African Development Bank (ADB) has lent -million to fund Eskom’s multibillion-dollar expansion project, and to help the power-starved country achieve 6% economic growth from 2010, the bank said on Wednesday. Eskom is battling to shore up electricity supplies due an economic boom that has boosted demand.
Africa’s economy will grow by 6% this year and next, an acceleration from 2007, owing to high oil prices and demand for commodities, research from the African Development Bank (ADB) showed on Monday. The joint research was released ahead of the ADB’s annual meeting, which starts in Maputo, Mozambique, on Wednesday.
Zimbabwe has paid back 000 in arrears to the African Development Bank (ADB), despite vast economic problems at home, as part of efforts to meet commitments to donors, the bank said on Monday. ”Zimbabwe has in all paid 000 to the bank group despite numerous economic challenges,” the bank said.
The African Development Bank (AfDB), the only multilateral development body specifically devoted to Africa, will add -billion to its portfolio of agricultural loans to help address the food crisis in African countries, the bank said on Saturday.
The Asian Development Bank called on Saturday for immediate action from global governments to combat soaring food prices and pledged fresh financial aid to help feed the Asia Pacific region’s poorest nations. ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda told a news conference in Madrid, where the bank is holding its four-day annual meeting, that total lending ”could be sizeable, but not enormous”.
African Development Bank pledged -billion more for food aid on Friday as soaring commodity prices raise fears of famine, and it urged grain-exporting countries not to restrict shipments. The bank said that its agriculture portfolio will grow to ,8-billion, and it was restructuring a portion of that to free up -million to be used more quickly.
Police battled demonstrators in Istanbul as tens of thousands of workers rallied on World Labour Day on Thursday while soaring food prices brought large crowds on to the streets of some Asian capitals. In Istanbul, police used pepper gas and water cannon to disperse workers outside Turkey’s main left-wing labour confederation.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is taking large risks by investing more in private equity firms than it is allowed to and internal controls of such investments show ”serious weaknesses”, a media report said on Monday. The bank ”breached its capital allocation limit for private equity funds of 5%”, said the Financial Times, adding that it needed new risk management standards.
The provinces of Mpumalanga in South Africa and Maputo in Mozambique provinces signed a cooperation agreement on Thursday relating to economy, health and agriculture, the office of Premier Thabang Makwetla said. This forms part of continued efforts to strengthen bilateral relationships.
A ”silent tsunami” unleashed by costlier food threatens 100-million people, the United Nations said on Tuesday, but views differed as to how to stop it. The Asian Development Bank said there was enough food to go round, and the key was to help the poor afford it. It said Asian governments that have curbed food exports were overreacting.
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave a gloomy report on Saturday on prospects for the world economy to a dozen leaders debating how to respond to global financial turmoil. Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a high-powered forum that most of the downside risks to the world economy feared six months ago had now become reality.
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/ 7 February 2008
United States President George Bush will spend most of his time during a five-nation tour of Africa later this month in Tanzania, to spotlight development gains in the East African nation. "This is a success story," said US embassy public affairs officer Jeffery Salaiz of Tanzania, during a press conference held in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday.
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/ 24 January 2008
Africa could attract more than -billion in investment to plug big infrastructure gaps provided individual states cede more sovereignty to strengthen regional economies, an African Development Bank (ADB) expert said on Wednesday. ”The money is there,” ADB development economist Samuel Onwona said.
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/ 24 January 2008
Kenya’s opposition on Wednesday called off mass rallies scheduled for Thursday to protest disputed presidential polls. This was at the request of former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, who is in Kenya to mediate the crisis. Annan was in Nairobi in the latest attempt to mediate the turmoil sparked by the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki last month.
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/ 22 January 2008
The World Bank and African Development Bank, acting over the turmoil in Kenya, said on Tuesday they may have to adjust lending programmes if unrest persists following a disputed poll. ”We wish to continue working with the people of Kenya … but it is difficult to do so effectively in an environment of instability,” they said.
Cambodia suffered its worst-ever outbreak of dengue fever last year and it killed 407 people, most of them children, the highest toll in nearly a decade. Dengue, which causes fever had infected nearly 40 000 people since the first outbreaks last May, Ngan Chantha, director of the Health Ministry’s anti-dengue programme, said on Friday.
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/ 18 December 2007
Microcredit, tiny loans to the world’s poorest, is booming and now benefits more than half a billion people but Africa and Latin America lag behind Asia and unscrupulous lenders are cashing in. The Microcredit Summit Campaign surveyed more than 3 000 microcredit bodies around the world and found they reported reaching 133-million people by the end of 2006.
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/ 27 November 2007
International lenders have signed up a -million loan for the construction of a pan-African submarine cable to slash communication costs in the region. Five lenders, including World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and the African Development Bank, will deliver the money for the 23-nation East Africa Submarine System (EASSy) cable that will run from South Africa to Sudan.
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/ 17 November 2007
There was an urgent need for greater co-operation between Africa and its compatriots in foreign countries, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. ”This is particularly so with all of us on the continent so that we respond successfully to such challenges as the attainment of peace and stability,” he told the opening of the African Diaspora Ministerial Conference in Midrand.
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/ 1 November 2007
Four years on, a Mozambique-South African gas pipeline is fuelling economic growth and regional cooperation in Southern Africa. It challenges Western assumptions of a natural-resources "curse" in Africa and offers evidence that the New Partnership for Africa’s Development is beginning to deliver on its promises.
Zimbabwe set out Wednesday to demonstrate that Western economic sanctions were hurting ordinary people, the poor and even the unborn. In its first detailed policy statement on sanctions, the central bank disputed claims from Britain and the United States that their ”targeted sanctions” — like travel bans on top officials — did not hurt most Zimbabweans.
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/ 5 September 2007
Seven developing countries in Africa and Asia will be the first to take part in a new global health campaign aimed at directing aid more effectively at the basic needs of poor countries. Health ministers from Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Cambodia and Nepal will take part in the launch of the initiative at British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office later on Wednesday.