Freelance Journalist
In-depth reporting on African economic and geopolitical stories.
Features from across the continent, supported by vivid frontline photography.
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Freelance Journalist
Freelance Journalist
Freelance Journalist
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I’ve had a few heated debates in the past few days about how I appear to care more about the economic fallout of Covid-19 than the mounting death toll from the virus itself.
Of course I care, and especially about the looming global health system crises too. But looking to the bigger picture, I also know that in the long-run, for better or for worse, this virus will be under control in a about a year’s time. Whereas the economic fallout, and by extension the social and political fallout could last decades.
An edited version of this article appeared in the Opinions and Analysis section of Business Day (South Africa) on 23/12/2021: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2021-12-23-george-philipas-infrastructure-spending-in-africa-is-at-a-crossroads/
The pandemic has certainly not been kind to investment prospects in Africa. Lead by a slowdown in infrastructure investment from China, foreign direct investment (FDI), already heading south before the onset of the pandemic, fell by 18% in 2020. More ominously, greenfield investment, investment in new projects, fell precipitously by 63% according to the Global Investment Trends Monitor released by UNCTAD in Jan 2021, the largest regional fall on the globe last year. The proverbial onslaught culminated with the announcement earlier this month at the recent Forum of China-Africa Cooperation conference (FOCAC) in Dakar, Senegal that plots Sino-African relations for the next three years, of a vertical drop in investment from China from US$ 60 billion to US$40 billion.
Congo drops demand for immediate Rwandan troop pullout, sources say https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/congo-drops-demand-for-immediate-rwandan-troop-pullout-5096624
The devil is in the details.
The forthcoming U.S.-brokered peace agreement to be signed by Rwanda and DRC contains a last minute clause that allows the suspected 7000 or so RDF
July 1 reckoning: Somalia mission faces funding cliff
The African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission (AUSSOM) in Somalia is facing a financial cliff edge this coming Monday.
With no funding being found after 6 months of desperate attempts to
US wants Rwandan troops out of Congo before peace deal signed, sources say
