Western Travel Warnings May Contribute to Terrorist Acts on Kenya Coast

The New York Times published on 23 February 2015 an article titled "A Catch-22 in Kenya: Western Terrorism Alerts May Fuel Terrorism" by Jeffrey Gettleman. 

The argument goes that as Western countries issue travel warnings to avoid the coast of Kenya, it decimates the tourist industry, resulting in increased unemployment and joblessness.  Youth unemployment is said to be a major driver of radicalization.  This leads to even more terrorism.  Read the article and judge for yourself.

Chinese Tourism in Zambia

The South China Morning Post published on 10 January 2015 an article titled "The Town that China Built: Tourism Boom at Zambia's Victoria Falls Thanks to Chinese Makeover" by Jenni Marsh.  The article describes the growth of Chinese tourism in Zambia and Africa where it increased 56 percent from 2011 to 2012. 

China-Morocco Relations

Relatively little has been written about China-Morocco relations.  A scheduled visit to China by Moroccan King Mohammed VI in late November, postponed for health reasons, resulted in some useful reporting on this subject from the Chinese perspective.  Global Times published on 30 November 2014 an article titled "China, Morocco Discuss Travel Ties, Investments to African Country" by Zhang Yiqian. 

Radicalization in Kenya

The Institute for Security Studies published in September 2014 a paper titled "Radicalisation in Kenya: Recruitment to al-Shabaab and the Mombasa Republican Council" by Anneli Botha.

The goal of the paper is to determine why and how individuals join al-Shabaab and the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC).  It is based on interviews with Kenyan and Somali-Kenyan individuals associated with al-Shabaab and the MRC.  The author emphasizes that the organizations have different goals.  Al-Shabaab pursues an Islamist terrorist agenda while the MRC pursues a secessionist agenda.  He concludes that as long as Kenyans exclusively identify on an ethnic/religious basis that is perceived to be under threat, radicalization will increase. 

Kenyan Domestic Politics Heat Up

Foreign Policy published on 3 September 2014 an article titled "Back to the Trenches" by Ken Opalo and Ngala Chome.  It argues that Kenya has returned to bare-knuckle politics complete with open discussion of ethnic exclusion in government and emotionally charged mass rallies.  As a result, the political temperature has been raised to a level not seen since 2007, which ended up with ethnic clashes.  

Kenya, Corruption, and Counterterrorism

Good Governance Africa published on 1 September 2014 an article titled "Blowing the Whistle" by Jessica Hatcher.  It is based on a discussion with John Githongo, Kenya's former anti-corruption czar who has established a non-governmental organization that advocates for good governance in Kenya.  Githongo argues that Kenya's inability to protect itself from terrorism is directly related to corruption. 

2014 African Transformation Report

The Accra-based African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) just published its 2014 African Transformation Report: Growth with Depth. 

Economic transformation is the consensus paradigm for Africa's development.  The impressive economic growth of many African countries since the mid-1990s--as well as the progress in governance and the turnaround in investor confidence--provides a solid foundation for transforming African economies for better jobs and shared prosperity.

By 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa will have a larger and younger workforce than China or India.  With the continent's abundant land and natural resources, that workforce can be a global competitive advantage and a great asset in driving economic transformation.

The report's main premise is that African economies need more than growth.  They also need to diversify their production, make their exports competitive, increase the productivity of farms, firms and government offices, and upgrade the technology they use throughout the economy.  All of this should be aimed at  improving human well-being.

This massive study contains the following chapters:

1:  Tracking Economic Transformation
2:  The State and the Private Sector--Partners in Transformation
3:  Promoting Exports--Essential for Transformation
4:  Building Technical Knowledge and Skills
5:  Leveraging Abundant Labor for Manufacturing
6:  Kickstarting Agroprocessing Value Chains
7:  Managing Oil, Gas, and Minerals
8:  Boosting Tourism

Kenya Economic Report 2013

The Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis has just released its wide ranging 262 page "Kenya Economic Report 2013."

Russia-Africa Relations

The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) recently published three studies on Russia's relations with Africa, South Africa and Angola. They are:

• Russia's Africa Policy in September 2013 by Alexandra Arkhangelskaya and Vladimir Shubin.
• Russia and Angola: The Rebirth of a Strategic Partnership?  in October 2013 by Ana Christina Alves, Alexandra Arkhangelskaya, and Vladimer Shubin.
• Russia-South Africa Relations: Beyond Revival in October 2013 by Alexandra Arkhangelskaya and Vladimir Shubin.

Ethiopia's Investment Prospects

The June 2013 issue of African Review of Economics and Finance contains a study titled "Ethiopia's Investment Prospects: A Sectoral Overview" by Henok Assefa, Derk Bienen and Dan Ciuriak.  The three authors are affiliated with consulting companies in Ethiopia, Germany and Canada respectively.

Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. Flickr/UK Dept. for Int'l Dev.

The authors note that Ethiopia is in the midst of a sustained surge that is becoming increasingly broad-based, building on major improvements in educational attainment, improved health outcomes, and infrastructure capacity in terms of access to power, transportation and telecommunications. The study reviews overall economic management and performance indicators and provides a hortizontal overview of the investment framework. It summarizes the investment prospects in several major sectors of the economy in light of Ethiopia's emerging capacities and global developments: agriculture, mining, oil and gas, economic infrastructure, manufacturing, health and tourism.

The study identifies a number of positive features in Ethiopia's macroeconomic performance. These include strong growth based on an increasingly diversified economy, stable non-food price inflation, increasing exports to a diversified range of markets, an improved trade balance, and generally stable economic policies and a solid investor protection framework. The study argues that the two key challenges to sustained economic performance are high and volatile inflation rates and negative real interest rates, which generate diverse macroeconomic management challenges and constrain savings growth needed to fuel investment. The study also expresses concern over Ethiopia's rising exchange rate.

China, Africa and Social Media

Veteran journalist Eric Olander moderated a one hour twelve minute radio program on 14 April 2013 titled "China-Africa Relations in the Age of Social Media."  The participants were Cobus van Staden, postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Johannesburg, Yu-Shan Wu, researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs, and Jinghao Lu, analyst on the China-Africa desk of Frontier Advisory.

While the focus of the discussion was on the impact of social media on China-Africa relations, the wide ranging discussion covered a variety of other issues including Chinese investment in Africa, Zambia as a food source for China, the importance to Chinese of business trust, Chinese tourism in Africa, role of the press, African attitudes towards Chinese, racism and neo-colonialism.

Somali Piracy on the Decline

The World Bank has just published a massive study titled "The Pirates of Somalia: Ending the Threat, Rebuilding a Nation."

Source: World Bank

The study notes there has been a sharp decrease in the number of Somali attempted and successful pirate attacks. It attributes this decrease to heavily-armed naval patrols and better security on-board commercial shipping. It emphasizes, however, that a sustained solution to ending piracy will only come with the recreation of a viable Somali state that can deliver essential services throughout the entire country to reduce poverty and create opportunity.

The study estimates that piracy costs the global economy about $18 billion annually in increased trade costs -- an amount that dwarfs the estimated $53 million annual ransom paid since 2005.  Piracy has significantly harmed tourism and exports of fish products from the region.

The fact that pirates can anchor their hijacked vessels along the Somali shoreline reflects their ability to win support from government officials, business people, clan elders, militias, and local communities. The pirate bosses split an estimated 70 to 86 percent of piracy proceeds with these stakeholders, without whose support anchoring hijacked ships would not be possible.

On-shore interventions such as local economic development or law enforcement will help discourage young Somalis from becoming pirates by increasing the attractiveness of alternative jobs or by promising long prison terms in the case of capture. At the same time, pirate bosses may simply offer higher pay to poor, unemployed Somali young men to take the risk of capture or death at sea.