East Africa Economic Report

A new Highway  A Review of a number of reports published here gives a cause to cheer East Africa’s investment strategy. The region has focused heavily on developing transport and energy infrastructure to create an enabling environment for future economic growth.  By 2018, billions of US dollars had been sunk into infrastructure - Roads, Railways, Airports, Seaports, and electricity generation. Consequently, the stock of roads has increased to hundreds of thousands of Kilometers from tens of thousands in the 1990s; paved roads have risen from a few thousands to tens of thousands of Kilometers. We are seeing expressways, elevated roads, and interchanges. Power generation capacity has expanded as has the sources and for the first time, some countries are self-sufficient in green power capacity. Power is being generated from wind, Solar, and Geothermal sources in addition to the traditional Hydro sources. As the stock of enabling infrastructure is increasing, East Afric...

Magufuli: "RemarkablyTrumpian" These are headlines from Tanzania in the first week of February: “ Zanzibar VP Seif Hamad says in  hospital after Covid-19 diagnosis, Tanzania embarks on steam therapy to fight coronavirus, Tanzanians urged to use traditional medicine for Covid-19,” and they debunk the myth of a Corona free- Lockdown- free- mask –free Utopia . Instead, these are signals to a country deep in trouble and desperate for a false solution. The last two headlines are an inadvertent admission that Coronavirus is real in Tanzania.   It is ravaging the country, anecdotal evidence suggests. This reality is a slap in the face for President Magufuli who downplayed the virus and its control protocols. He must now confront the consequences of his miscalculation. President Magufuli, described by the US publication, The Daily Beast, as “remarkably Trumpian,” downplayed the pandemic citing economic reasons. Now he is opposing the vaccines to cover the economic consequences...

Ouarzazate Power plant Morocco: The tallest  power tower in the world Africa is ramping up its war against energy poverty, we can report. It has deployed some 10.5 GW of wind and solar power in less than 20 years. Much more is in the Pipeline and by 2030, the continent will have installed at least 100GW of green energy. Africa is easily the powerhouse in renewables. According to data from the African Deve lopment Bank, the continent has the potential to generate 10 Terra Watts(TW) from solar energy, 350 Gigawatts from hydro, 110 Gigawatts from Wind and 15 Gigawatts from Geothermal sources. Already some 10.5 GW of both Solar and Wind power, have been installed in the five leading energy markets. The five are; South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Kenya.  Available data shows that Egypt is the leader with 3.5 GW of wind power and 1.5 GW of Solar in place. Morocco is second with 1.2 GW of wind power and 700MW of solar. However, new plants launched during 2020 are expected...