French President Emmanuel Macron is in Cameroon to start his 3-nation Africa tour, where he is expected to discuss the African food crisis sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine, the need for Cameroon to increase its agricultural production and the upsurge in insecurity in the country.
Macron is due to spend three days in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, before heading to Benin and Guinea Bissau.
The Cameroon government has given Yaounde a facelift for Macron’s visit, with bulldozers razing makeshift market stalls and shacks on the streets where Macron’s convoy will pass.
“They have destroyed my only source of livelihood,” said Solange Kemje, 28, among the several hundred stall owners affected.
Others welcome the visit of France’s leader, hoping that Macron will extend help in the face of rising insecurity from jihadi violence that has spilled over from neighbouring Nigeria.
The central African state is also battling a separatist conflict that has killed at least 3,300 people and displaced more than 750,000 in five years, according to the UN. Rebels are fighting for Cameroon’s English-speaking minority to have an independent country called Ambazonia.
Some hope that hope Macron will influence President Paul Biya to end the use of force as a solution to the separatist crisis in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions, according to Capo Daniel, deputy defence chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, one of the separatist groups.
“One of our factions in our liberation movement called for a lockdown to protest Emmanuel Macron’s visit,” said Capo. “But other movements will be watching this event with the hope that Emmanuel Macron will push Paul Biya to choose the path of peaceful resolution of the war [of separatist violence] as an alternative to the current posture of the state of Cameroon to use war to resolve the problem with Ambazonia.”
Cameroon says France supports its military to fight separatists and the jihadi violence from Nigeria’s Boko Haram rebels but has given no details on how many weapons have been received from France.
Others hope that Macron will encourage Cameroon’s 89-year-old President Paul Biya, who has been in power for close to 40 years, to retire.
“The discussion should go around a peaceful transition of power in Cameroon and also the issues of human rights and democracy in Cameroon,” said Prince Ekosso, leader of the United Socialist Democratic Party.
Biya is accused of rigging elections in order to stay in power until he dies. But he maintains he always won democratic elections fairly.
Cameroon signed a defence treaty with Russia and agreed to let China carry out mining, both of which reduced the influence of France in the country, Prince Ekosso said.
For its part, Cameroon’s Consumers League says it wants Cameroon, Benin and Guinea Bissau to ask Macron to reconsider EU trade sanctions on Russia. The consumer advocacy group blames the EU sanctions for fuel and wheat shortages and rising food prices across Africa.
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Anis Chowdhury (sydney and kuala lumpur)
Inter Press Service
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 26 (IPS) – Like so many others, Africans have long been misled. Alleged progress under imperialism has long been used to legitimize exploitation. Meanwhile, Western colonial powers have been replaced by neo-colonial governments and international institutions serving their interests.
‘Shithole’ pots of gold
US President Donald Trump’s “shitholes”, mainly in Africa, were and often still are ‘pots of gold’ for Western interests. From 1445 to 1870, Africa was the major source of slave labour, especially for Europe’s ‘New World’ in the Americas.
Anis ChowdhuryWalter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa noted “colonised Africans, like pre-colonial African chattel slaves, were pushed around into positions which suited European interests and which were damaging to the African continent and its peoples.”
The ‘scramble for Africa’ from the late nineteenth century saw European powers racing to secure raw materials monopolies through direct colonialism. Western powers all greatly benefited from Africa’s plunder and ruin.
European divide-and-conquer tactics typically also had pliant African collaborators. Colonial powers imposed taxes and forced labour to build infrastructure to enable raw material extraction.
Racist ideologies legitimized European imperialism in Africa as a “civilizing mission”. Oxford-trained, former Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson – an unabashed apologist for Western imperialism – insists colonialism laid the foundations for modern progress.
Richest, but poorest and hungriest!
A recent blog asks, “Why is the continent with 60% of the world’s arable land unable to feed itself? … And how did Africa go from a relatively self-sufficient food producer in the 1970s to an overly dependent food importer by 2022?”
Deeper analyses of such uncomfortable African realities seem to be ignored by analysts influenced by the global North, especially the Washington-based international financial institutions. UNCTAD’s 2022 Africa report is the latest to disappoint.
Jomo Kwame SundaramIt does not guide African governments on how to actually implement its long list of recommendations given their limited policy space, resources and capabilities. Worse, their proposals seem indistinguishable from an Africa-oriented version of the discredited neoliberal Washington Consensus.
With 30% of the world’s mineral resources and the most precious metal reserves on Earth, Africa has the richest concentration of natural resources – oil, copper, diamonds, bauxite, lithium, gold, tropical hardwood forests and fruits.
Yet, Africa remains the poorest continent, with the average per capita output of most countries worth less than $1,500 annually! Of 46 least developed countries, 33 are in Africa – more than half the continent’s 54 nations.
Africa remains the world’s least industrialized region, with only South Africa categorized as industrialized. Incredibly, Africa’s share of global manufacturing fell from about 3% in 1970 to less than 2% in 2013.
About 60% of the world’s arable land is in Africa. A net food exporter until the 1970s, the continent has become a net importer. Structural adjustment reform conditionalities – requiring trade liberalization – have cut tariff revenue, besides undermining import-substituting manufacturing and food security.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 24% of the world’s hungry. Africa is the only continent where the number of undernourished people has increased over the past four decades. About 27.4% of Africa’s population was ‘severely food insecure’ in 2016.
In 2020, 281.6 million Africans were undernourished, 82 million more than in 2000! Another 46 million became hungry during the pandemic. Now, Ukraine sanctions on wheat and fertilizer exports most threaten Africa’s food security, in both the short and medium-term.
Structural adjustment
Many of Africa’s recent predicaments stem from structural adjustment programs (SAPs) much of Africa and Latin America have been subjected to from the 1980s. The Washington-based international financial institutions, the African Development Bank and all donors support the SAPs.
SAP advocates promised foreign direct investment and export growth would follow, ensuring growth and prosperity. Now, many admit neoliberalism was oversold, ensuring the 1980s and 1990s were ‘lost decades’, worsened by denial of its painfully obvious consequences.
Instead, ‘extraordinarily disadvantageous geography’, ‘high ethnic diversity’, the ‘natural resource curse’, ‘bad governance’, corrupt ‘rent-seeking’ and armed conflicts have been blamed. Meanwhile, however, colonial and neo-colonial abuse, exploitation and resource plunder have been denied.
While World Bank SAPs were officially abandoned in the late 1990s following growing criticism, replacements – such as Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers – have been like “old wine in new bottles”. Although purportedly ‘home-grown’, they typically purvey bespoke versions of SAPs.
With trade liberalization and greater specialization, many African countries are now more dependent on fewer export commodities. With more growth spurts during commodity booms, African economies have become even more vulnerable to external shocks.
Can the West be trusted?
Earlier, G7 countries reneged on their 2005 Gleneagles pledge – to give $25 billion more yearly to Africa to ‘Make Poverty History’ – within the five years they gave themselves. Since then, developed countries have delivered far less than the $100 billion of climate finance annually they had promised developing nations in 2009.
The Hamburg G20’s 2017 ‘Compact with Africa’ (CwA) promised to combat poverty and climate change effects. In fact, CwA has been used to promote the business interests of donor countries, particularly Germany.
Primarily managed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, CwA has actually failed to deliver significant foreign investment, instead sowing confusion among participating countries.
Powerful Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development governments successfully blocked developing countries’ efforts at the 2015 Addis Ababa UN conference on financing for development for inclusive UN-led international tax cooperation and to stem illicit financial outflows.
Africa lost $1.2–1.4 trillion in illicit financial flows between 1980 and 2009 – about four times its external debt in 2013. This greatly surpasses total official development assistance received over the same period.
Africa must unite
Under Nelson Mandela’s leadership, Africa had led the fight for the ‘public health exception’ to international intellectual property law. Although Africa suffers most from ‘vaccine apartheid’, Western lobbyists blocked developing countries’ temporary waiver request to affordably meet pandemic needs.
African solidarity is vital to withstand pressures from powerful foreign governments and transnational corporations. African nations must also cooperate to build state capabilities to counter the neoliberal ‘good governance’ agenda.
Africa needs much more policy space and state capabilities, not economic liberalization and privatization. This is necessary to unlock critical development bottlenecks and overcome skill and technical limitations.
As of July 26, 2022, confirmed cases of Covid-19 from 55 African countries reached 12,055,243 while 353,449,054 vaccinations have been administered across the continent.
Reported deaths in Africa reached 255,673 and 10,124,392 people have recovered. South Africa has the most reported cases of 4,002,981 and 101,943 people died. Other most-affected countries are Morocco ( 1,258,018 ) , Tunisia ( 1,114,370 ), Egypt ( 515,645 ), Libya ( 503,611 ), Ethiopia ( 491,834 ), and Kenya ( 337,339 ).
For the latest totals, see the AllAfrica interactive map with per-country numbers. The numbers are compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (world map) using statistics from the World Health Organization and other international institutions as well as national and regional public health departments.
AllAfrica interactive map with per-country numbers.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is on an Africa trip this week. His itinerary includes Egypt, the Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Ethiopia.
In Egypt on Sunday, Lavrov told his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry that Russia would meet grain orders.
Many African nations are heavily dependent on imports of wheat and other grains from Russia and Ukraine, but supplies have been badly disrupted by the war in Ukraine, exacerbating the risk of hunger.
In June, African Union Chairman Macky Sall told Russian President Vladimir Putin that even though Africa was far from the theater of war, African people are “victims of this economic crisis.”
Military support for Africa
Lavrov’s visit is being seen as a push to rally the support of African nations, many of whom have strong historical ties with Russia, amid strong Western condemnation of the war in Ukraine.
In the months before his visit, Russia signed various political and military deals on the continent.
In early January, hundreds of Russian military advisors were deployed to Mali. The contractors from the controversial Wagner Group were invited to “help Mali train its security forces,” according to the Malian army.
This raised a few eyebrows: The assignment was of the European Training Mission to Mali (EUTM). After Colonel Assimi Goita overthrew late President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in the 2020 Malian coup — and was later sworn in as president following a second coup in May 2021 — he faced regional and international sanctions for extending a proposed timeline for presidential elections.
The junta regime responded by banning German military planes from Mali’s air space, expelling the ambassador of former colonial power France and calling for the immediate withdrawal of Danish forces.
Mali’s southern neighbor Burkina Faso witnessed its own coup in January. Like its counterparts in Mali, the Burkinabe military has defied calls to hand over power to a civilian government. It, too, has oriented itself toward Moscow.
A link between foreign training and coups
Sudan, Chad, Guinea Conakry and Guinea Bissau have also experienced coups in the past year. One thing they all have in common: Most of the soldiers behind the coups had received military training sponsored by Russia.
“The qualities that recommend them for foreign training are the same ones that make them effective coup leaders,” Judd Devermont, the director of the US-based think tank Africa Program for Center for Strategic and International Studies, told DW in late 2021.
The two Malians believed to be the chief architects behind the 2020 coup, Malick Diaw and Sadio Camara, each spent about a year at the Moscow Higher Military Command School. These same soldiers also took part in training missions organized by the US and the EU. Following the coup, Media Operations Branch Chief for AFRICOM, Kelly Cahalan, told DW: “The mutiny act in Mali is strongly condemned and inconsistent with US military training and education.”
Moscow reviving old Soviet ties
According to Irina Filatova from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia aims to gain a foothold on the continent as a security broker in order to “confront the collective West” and project the image of a “defender of Africa” — an objective which the West has seemingly failed to achieve.
It’s far from the first time Russia has dabbled in African affairs: In the 1950s, the Kremlin backed liberation movements across the continent. At the time, Russia’s main export was light-to-medium range arms and ammunition.
And Moscow’s influence was welcomed by many. “Without the firm stand of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and the heyday of the anti-colonial struggle, many of our countries would never have seen the light of independence,” Obadiah Mailafia, a former deputy governor of Nigeria’s central bank, told DW.
But this support waned following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Over the past two decades, current President Vladimir Putin has tried to revive these independence-era connections and act as a foil of-sorts to the West’s neocolonial policies.
“Now that Russia is in a fairly strong position, Africa can benefit from mutually beneficial investments and trade cooperation,” said Mailafia.
Russia has officially remained silent on its policies for Africa. But, as Filatova sees it, Moscow is relying on private military companies like the Wagner Group to act as “door-openers.”
“Officially [the military groups] are not incorporated in the strategy at all, but what we see is that they always come first when there’s some instability and then they help secure those in power who have built relationships with Russia,” she told DW.
The Wagner Group is also active in the Central African Republic (CAR), where it has been accused of serious human rights violations. But the paramilitary fighters most notably drew attention after they starred in a locally-produced film, acting as defenders of the nation against CAR rebels. Thousands of people flocked to the main stadium in the capital Bangui to catch a glimpse of the premiere in May 2021.
Before this episode, the Wagner fighters had kept a comparatively low profile in the theatres of war on the African continent.
Back in business
For the most part, Moscow has been able to fly under the radar for the past two decades, quietly cutting nuclear power and arms exporting deals.
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Russia is currently the biggest exporter of weapons to the African continent. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) annual 2020 report, Africa accounted for 18% of all Russian arms exports between 2016 and 2020.
The first arms deal to be made public took place in April 2020, when Russia’s only state-owned arms seller, Rosoboronexport, announced the sale of a Russian-made assault boat to an unnamed sub-Saharan African country.
A few months earlier in 2019, the first ever Russia-Africa Economic Forum was held in Sochi, with many big names in African politics in attendance. Russia used the occasion to elegantly tout its track record in Africa. By then it had made a name for itself as an ally of multiple nations as they battled against relentless insurgencies: In 2018, Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania all appealed to Moscow for help combating the so-called Islamic State and al Qaeda.
Beyond military services, Moscow has also carved a niche selling nuclear technology to developing nations. Zambia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Egypt and Nigeria are among those in the market for Russian-built nuclear power plants.
While the details of its various policies and deals remain in the dark, at least one thing is clear: Russia is back in Africa — and it means business.
President Emmanuel Macron begins a three-nation tour of western African states on Monday, in the first trip to Africa of his new term as he seeks to reboot France’s post-colonial relationship with the continent.
Macron kicks off the July 25-28 tour, also the first venture outside Europe of his new mandate, with a visit to Cameroon, before moving on to Benin and then finishing the trip in Guinea-Bissau.
It’s the first time he’s visited those three countries since becoming President in 2017.
Top of the agenda in the talks will be food supply issues, with African nations fearing shortages especially of grain due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But security will also loom large as France prepares to complete its pullout from Mali this year, with all countries in the region seeking to head off fears of Islamist insurgencies.
The trip to three countries which rarely feature on the itinerary of global leaders comes with Macron, who won a new term in April, pledging to keep up his bid for a new relationship between France and Africa.
France has also followed with concern the emergence of other powers seeking a foothold in an area Paris still considers parts of its sphere of influence, notably Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but also increasingly China and Russia.
‘Political priority’
The tour “will show the commitment of the President in the process of renewing the relationship with the African continent”, said a French presidential official, who asked not to be named.
It will signal that the African continent is a “political priority” of his presidency.
In Cameroon, which has been riven by ethnic violence and an insurgency by anglophone separatists, Macron will meet President Paul Biya, 89, who has ruled the country for almost 40 years and is the longest-serving non-royal leader in the world.
Biya has run the country with an iron fist, refusing demands for federalism and cracking down on the rebellion by separatists.
Macron will move on Wednesday to Benin, a neighbour of Africa’s most populous nation Nigeria. The north of the country has faced more deadly attacks, with the jihadist threat now spreading from the Sahel to Gulf of Guinea nations.
He is likely to be lauded for championing the return in November of 26 historic treasures which were stolen in 1892 by French colonial forces from Abomey, capital of the former Dahomey kingdom located in the south of modern-day Benin.
Benin was long praised for its thriving multi-party democracy.
But critics say its democracy has steadily eroded under President Patrice Talon over the last half decade. Opposition leader Reckya Madougou was sentenced in 2021 to 20 years in prison on terrorism charges.
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On Thursday, Macron will finish his tour in Guinea-Bissau, which has been riven by political crisis and has just taken over the helm of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Rethink strategy
The three countries countries have all been criticised by activists over their rights records.
The Elysee has insisted that governance and rights issues will be raised, albeit “without media noise but in the form of direct exchanges between the heads of states”.
Macron’s first term was marked by visits to non-francophone African countries including regional powerhouses Nigeria and South Africa as he sought to engage with the entire continent and not just former French possessions.
Benin is a former French colony, but Guinea-Bissau was once a Portuguese colony while Cameroon’s colonial heritage is a mixture of British and German as well as French.
Macron meanwhile has insisted France’s military presence in the region will adapt rather than disappear once the pullout from Mali is complete.
He announced last week that a rethink of France’s presence would be complete by autumn, saying the military should be “less exposed” in the future but their deployment still a “strategic necessity”.
The pullout from Mali follows a breakdown in relations with the country’s ruling junta, which Western states accuse of relying on Russian Wagner mercenaries rather than European allies to fight an Islamist insurgency.
“The Sacrifice” by South African choreographer Dada Masilo is a fusion of contemporary dance and a ritual dance from Botswana, known as Tswana. Inspired by the innovative rhythms of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” she has brought together twelve dancers and four musicians for the Avignon Festival, 2022.
Born and raised in the Johannesburg township of Soweto, dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo is known for merging classical techniques with African dance steps to create a unique style.
Her latest creation “The Sacrifice” was performed as part of the Avignon international theatre festival in July, 2022.
She was inspired by “The Rite of Spring”, written by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky in 1913 for Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet company.
Originally choreographed by Vaslav Nijinskyt, it depicts various primitive rituals celebrating the advent of spring, after which a young girl is chosen as a sacrifice and dances herself to death. Its première in Paris caused a stir, due to its avant-garde nature.
“I have always liked to mix dances from different cultures. These encounters between cultures sometimes oppose each other,” she told journalist Moïra Dalant for the Avignon Festival, adding that she gets inspiration from that contrast.
“I titled my work “The Sacrifice” because the piece questions the choice we must make collectively of who or what will be sacrificed.”
Masilo explains that this concept resonates with the principle of the collective in the Tswana ritual dance from Botswana which is used for many occasions – from weddings to funerals or in healing ceremonies.
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Exploring the ills of modern society
“‘The Sacrifice” recounts a certain inhumanity of our contemporary world, of its individualistic and discriminating pitfalls,” Masilo says.
“There is no balance, no fairness. We live in an era of every man for himself, in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is for me to tell a purge, a way of making a clean sweep in order to start again with a neutral and new ground.”
Stravinsky’s score for “The Rite of Spring” contains many innovative features for its time, including experiments in tonality, metre, rhythm, stress and dissonance. Masilo says this strongly impacted the way she approached the choreography.
“I wanted to combine different genres of music, because in the company, we have Tswanas, Xhosa, Zulus. It’s a whole medley of people who speak different languages,” she told RFI’s Muriel Maalouf.
It was important to her to make the work culturally inclusive so that no-one felt left out.
Performing at the Avignon Festival is above all the chance to share her art with a live audience, especially since the Covid pandemic hit the performing arts industry so hard.
“Not being able to dance was harsh. It felt like the biggest sacrifice that I’ve ever made,” she told RFI.
President Emmanuel Macron begins a three-nation tour of western African states on Monday, in the first trip to Africa of his new term as he seeks to reboot France’s post-colonial relationship with the continent.
Macron kicks off the July 25-28 tour, also the first venture outside Europe of his new mandate, with a visit to Cameroon, before moving on to Benin and then finishing the trip in Guinea-Bissau.
It’s the first time he’s visited those three countries since becoming President in 2017.
Top of the agenda in the talks will be food supply issues, with African nations fearing shortages especially of grain due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But security will also loom large as France prepares to complete its pullout from Mali this year, with all countries in the region seeking to head off fears of Islamist insurgencies.
The trip to three countries which rarely feature on the itinerary of global leaders comes with Macron, who won a new term in April, pledging to keep up his bid for a new relationship between France and Africa.
France has also followed with concern the emergence of other powers seeking a foothold in an area Paris still considers parts of its sphere of influence, notably Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but also increasingly China and Russia.
‘Political priority’
The tour “will show the commitment of the President in the process of renewing the relationship with the African continent”, said a French presidential official, who asked not to be named.
It will signal that the African continent is a “political priority” of his presidency.
In Cameroon, which has been riven by ethnic violence and an insurgency by anglophone separatists, Macron will meet President Paul Biya, 89, who has ruled the country for almost 40 years and is the longest-serving non-royal leader in the world.
Biya has run the country with an iron fist, refusing demands for federalism and cracking down on the rebellion by separatists.
Macron will move on Wednesday to Benin, a neighbour of Africa’s most populous nation Nigeria. The north of the country has faced more deadly attacks, with the jihadist threat now spreading from the Sahel to Gulf of Guinea nations.
He is likely to be lauded for championing the return in November of 26 historic treasures which were stolen in 1892 by French colonial forces from Abomey, capital of the former Dahomey kingdom located in the south of modern-day Benin.
Benin was long praised for its thriving multi-party democracy.
But critics say its democracy has steadily eroded under President Patrice Talon over the last half decade. Opposition leader Reckya Madougou was sentenced in 2021 to 20 years in prison on terrorism charges.
On Thursday, Macron will finish his tour in Guinea-Bissau, which has been riven by political crisis and has just taken over the helm of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Rethink strategy
The three countries countries have all been criticised by activists over their rights records.
The Elysee has insisted that governance and rights issues will be raised, albeit “without media noise but in the form of direct exchanges between the heads of states”.
Macron’s first term was marked by visits to non-francophone African countries including regional powerhouses Nigeria and South Africa as he sought to engage with the entire continent and not just former French possessions.
Benin is a former French colony, but Guinea-Bissau was once a Portuguese colony while Cameroon’s colonial heritage is a mixture of British and German as well as French.
Macron meanwhile has insisted France’s military presence in the region will adapt rather than disappear once the pullout from Mali is complete.
He announced last week that a rethink of France’s presence would be complete by autumn, saying the military should be “less exposed” in the future but their deployment still a “strategic necessity”.
The pullout from Mali follows a breakdown in relations with the country’s ruling junta, which Western states accuse of relying on Russian Wagner mercenaries rather than European allies to fight an Islamist insurgency.
As of July 25, 2022, confirmed cases of Covid-19 from 55 African countries reached 12,051,430 while 353,449,054 vaccinations have been administered across the continent.
Reported deaths in Africa reached 255,654 and 10,120,581 people have recovered. South Africa has the most reported cases of 4,002,133 and 101,943 people died. Other most-affected countries are Morocco ( 1,257,764 ) , Tunisia ( 1,114,370 ), Egypt ( 515,645 ), Libya ( 502,642 ), Ethiopia ( 491,759 ), and Kenya ( 337,297 ).
For the latest totals, see the AllAfrica interactive map with per-country numbers. The numbers are compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (world map) using statistics from the World Health Organization and other international institutions as well as national and regional public health departments.
AllAfrica interactive map with per-country numbers.
CAF President Dr Patrice Motsepe says tonight’s 2022 TotalEnergies Women’s Africa Cup of Nations final between Morocco and South Africa will change the face of Women’s Football forever.
Hosts Morocco and South Africa will face off in the title decider at Rabat’s Moulay Abdellah Sports Complex in a match that will produce a new African champion. The past 11 titles since the tournament’s inception in 1998 have gone to Nigeria (nine) and Equatorial Guinea (two).
The Atlas Lionesses are featuring in their first ever continental final, while 2018 finalists Banyana Banyana are eyeing what would be their first WAFCON crown in their fifth final.
“Morocco and South Africa have invested a lot in the development and growth of women’s football. When you look at the WAFCON 2022 final, African football will be the winner. We need more member associations to embrace the investment in football and this will ultimately lead to systematic growth,” Dr Motsepe said in a press briefing on the eve of the final at Moulay Abdellah.
“We want women’s football to be professional. Women must earn more money and the sponsors are starting to see this. Women footballers need to get comparative salaries. African football players need to earn well while playing on the continent,” he added of a tournament that has set new records in terms of the quality of football, crowd attendance and increased remuneration for the tournament’s participating teams.
“When we talk about development, we have to talk about empowering female coaches. We have to spend more money on training them and this starts in the academies and that way we can see more and more female coaches on the continent,” Dr Motsepe added.
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CAF organised a WAFCON 2022 Legacy Workshop from July 27-29 before the start of the tournament involving 29 Moroccan female coaches that are CAF B Licence coaches. The WAFCON 2022 edition had three female coaches, including South Africa’s Desiree Ellis, Gaoletlhoo Nkutlwisang of Botswana and Togo’s Tomety Kai.
Motsepe also emphasized that all clubs competing in the CAF Champions League starting next season must have a women’s team.
Meanwhile, Motsepe made a commitment to engage more with African Legends after their match against Moroccan Legends on Thursday in Rabat.
“There is a unique power in football. I saw how they were bonding together before, during and after the match. Some were speaking Arabic and others Portuguese, Spanish, French and English. You could see the camaraderie, the hugs and pure joy,” he explained.
“We will keep engaging them and hearing from them and asking them what can CAF do to support women’s football? It is incredible what you can learn when you hear from and listen to people.”
Among the African Legends invited were four-time African Player of the Year Perpetua Nkwocha, inaugural winner Mercy Akide, past winners Alberta Sackey (2002), Adjoa Bayor (2003), Genevevo Anonma Nze (2012), Gaelle Enganamouit (2015) as well as Ajara Nchout Njoya.
CAF’s male legends such as Samuel Eto’o, Lucas Radebe, Kalusha Bwalya, Wael Gomaa, Jay Jay Okocha, Emmanuel Adebayor and El Hadji Diouf have also been in Morocco for the CAF Awards and to support the WAFCON tournament.
The World Food Programme has warned that the global fertilizer shortage could wipe $11bn off Africa’s food production value this year and create a catastrophic decline in output. Thankfully, Morocco’s OCP Group, leader in plant nutrition and the world leader in the phosphate fertilizer market, has stepped up with a rescue package that could stem the tide. OCP Africa CEO Dr Mohamed Anouar Jamali (pictured) is in conversation with Anver Versi.
Africa’s small-scale farmers who produce the bulk of the continent’s food, battered by a double-whammy of unseasonal weather and a 30% hike in fertiliser prices, will find considerable comfort from the news that the Morocco-based OCP Group is coming to their rescue; they are rolling out perhaps the continent’s largest ever private sector fertilizer relief programme.
African farmers, whose application of fertilizer is still the lowest compared to their counterparts in any other region in the world, face a grim prospect as global shortages of this vital input have raised prices well out of reach of most of them.
The spillover affects local food production just as the grain supply bottlenecks from Ukraine and Russia begin to seriously bite. China, hoarding its own stocks of fertilizer by selective bans on exports, has been compounding the problem.
The UN World Food Programme has warned that the fertiliser shortage “could push an additional seven million people into food scarcity”. It is estimated that cereal production in 2022 will decline to about 38m tonnes from the previous year’s output of more than 45m tonnes. It is feared the continent could lose over $11bn in food production value.
Enter OCP Group with a rescue package. “Within the context of disruption in the global supply chain of fertilizers, we believe that urgent action to secure the availability and affordability of fertilizers in Africa is necessary,” Dr Mohamed Anouar Jamali, CEO of OCP Africa told New African. “We are launching our largest ever fertilizer relief programme to empower African farmers” he said.
The Moroccan company, founded over a hundred years ago, is today one of the world’s largest fertilizer manufacturers, with access to 70% of the global phosphate rock reserves and over 30% market share of the world’s phosphate product market.
Dr Jamali explained that the multi-pronged relief programme will involve making 550,000 tonnes of phosphate-based fertilizer available to smallscale African food farmers either free or at greatly reduced cost.
Of the 550,000 tonnes, Dr Jamali said, 180,000 tonnes will be given away as a donation from the company and the remaining 370,000 tonnes will be sold at greatly discounted prices.
“This represents some 16% of the continent’s phosphate fertilizer needs,” said Dr Jamali. “OCP Africa is supplying about 2m tonnes of P fertilizer annually to the African continent and this operation represents about a quarter of this volume.”
Dr Jamali said the emergency operation was in response to appeals made to the organisation from various bodies in African countries which are struggling to obtain fertilizers at affordable prices. The programme will cover 20 African countries.
“The fertilizer will be specifically targeted at smallholder farmers which account for most Africa’s food production,” Dr Jamali explained. “Over 90% will go towards the production of staple crops like maize, rice, sorghum and teff.”
The allocation of the fertilizer relief will be based on potential impact and will take into consideration the needs of farmers, seasonality and distribution logistics, he added. “We will conduct this operation hand-in-hand with local strategic partners, including governments and distributors to ensure OCP products reach local markets and farmers”.
The relief programme, which will roll out over 20 African countries, has already started. Earlier this month, OCP donated 15,000 tonnes of Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP) fertilizers to Rwanda. An additional 17,000 tonnes will be supplied at a discounted price.
Gérardine Mukeshimana, Rwanda’s Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources said the donation was of a “special importance at this period when fertilizer costs are high.” She added that 10,000 tonnes were going to be used as a strategic fertilizer reserve and 5,000 tonnes would be a starting stock for a new fertilizer blending plant under construction.
The plant a joint venture between OCP Group and the Government of Rwanda, will have the capacity to blend 100,000 tonnes of fertilizer annually when it becomes operational next year.
Dr Anouar Jamali said the emergency relief contribution as well as the company’s increasingly intimate relationships with various African countries is in line with Morocco’s vision of South-South cooperation initiated by King Mohamed V1. “His Majesty says ‘Africa should trust Africa’ and that is what we as a pan-African country believe in,” added Dr Jamali.
Training and supply chain support
He was keen to stress that providing a much needed supply of fertilizer to Africa in its time of need is only part of the company’s strategy. “We need to bring all sorts of support to farmers, including training on the best agriculture practice for sustainable fertilization and also include a supply chain support.
“Our mission is to provide the most affordable and suitable farm solution through our holistic crop value chain approach and our application of R&D and innovation.”
A subsidiary of OCP Group, OCP Africa was created in 2016 to “contribute to the sustainable development of African agriculture”. Dr Jamali said the organisation developed fertilizer solutions customised to local conditions such as soil consistency, weather patterns as well as the crop needs. “We also work with many different African governments, non-profits and private enterprises to connect farmers to the agricultural services, knowledge, and resources they need in order to prosper,” he added.
Based in Morocco, OCP Africa has a presence in 16 countries, as well as subsidiaries in 12 countries including Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia, Cote d’Ivoire and Cameroon. “We have dedicated 20% of our total fertilizer output to meet African demand,” said Dr Jamali, “but we have the capacity to increase our output several times if needed.”
The massive disruption to international supply chains caused initially by the Covid pandemic and exacerbated by the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, which have precipitated alarming levels of shortages and price hikes, has surely driven home the message that Africa can no longer depend on imports to pick up the slack in its own food production.
It must ramp up food production quickly and to do this, it needs fertilizers in plenty. The fact that it is hitherto the lowest user of fertilizer in the world and has some 65% of the world’s arable land available for cultivation indicates that it can indeed become the breadbasket of the world. OCP Group, as one of the world’s largest fertilizer manufacturers and currently engaged on a $8bn expansion plan, could well be the lynchpin around which the continent can frame its agricultural acceleration strategy.
Dr Anouar Jamali says, “Our mission is to unlock Africa’s full agricultural potential”. OCP has the key – the question is whether Africa collectively is willing to turn it and open the door.
Award-winning journalist Anver Versi is the editor of New African magazine. He was born in Kenya and is currently based in London, UK.
