East African Cassava Farmers Benefit From Value Addition Project

Over 54,000 small scale cassava farmers in East Africa has benefitted from value addition project by a NGO.

Brought under 36 Cassava Village Processing Project (CVPP) in Kenya’s Busia and Makueni districts, Arusha in Tanzania and Uganda’s Jinja and Buyende town, the farmers were given over 16 million cassava cuttings of different varieties within a year.

The Farm Concern International (FCI) which funded the project said it has increased income for women and young people by increasing the potential of cassava as source of carbohydrate for animal feed, human and starch for industrial food processing companies.

“During the intervention a total of 10,642 metric tonnes of cassava was processed into chips and chunks for both local and industrial markets, 23,400 metric tonnes were sold to the fresh market, with 45,806 metric tonnes utilised for food security,” FCI said.

The project which partnered with private sector has helped farmers to commercialize farming to improve food security and incomes through small scale industries by mobile motorized and manual chippers for micro-processing which allows farmers to supply to key starch, human and animal feed manufacturers across the region.

“Cassava Villages have been transformed into commercial hubs where small scale farmers collectively produce, process and market their produce accruing benefits as a result of economies of scale and lower transactional costs,” the NGO said.

Farm Concern has also facilitated market linkages between the commercial villages and key cassava industrial players through village based business forums (VBFs).

Under the project cassava farming has been transformed from subsistence crop into a reputable commercialised commodity valued after streamlined marketing systems and favourable market prices.

To cut off brokers the project also created saving schemes in 43 villages whose collective savings of Sh18.2 million has promoted lending for individual and group investments.

The project has created over Sh320million in a year of crop produced in the project which was also carried out.

Manuel Odeny © 2013

Cell phones revolutionizing Kenya’s livestock sector

A goat herd in Somaliland by NatGeo

A new mobile technology has revolutionised live stock farming by pastrolist communities in Kenya.

The technology, which sends alerts for livestock diseases between farmers and veterinarians, will also issues alerts quickly about possible animal disease outbreaks and track wide-scale vaccination campaigns.

Using Global Positioning System (GPS) the technology helps to pinpoint with accuracy and speed early warning signs for animal disease outbreaks in a matter of seconds instead of weeks.

The application, EpiCollect, will help detect animal diseases quickly and these early warning can prevent death of tens of thousands of animals, thus safeguarding livelihoods and food security, and preventing diseases that can sometimes be passed to humans.

 “The mobile phone technology aid in reporting animal disease outbreaks, tracking vaccination campaigns and delivery of veterinary treatments, such as de-worming animals,” said Robert Allport, FAO Kenya’s Assistant Representative for Programme Implementation.

“Cellular phones eliminate delays in receiving field data, since all the information is relayed via the mobile network, after the information is assigned a geographic location to be extremely accurate and available in real-time,” Allport said.

The mobile application is funded by FAO, the Royal Veterinary College and local NGO Vetaid to also track animals’ medical history via the mobile Web

In a press statement FAO says the project has been successful in Kenya where three out of four people now have a mobile phone and more Kenyans are upgrading to Internet-enabled phones and prices for the technology inevitably come down.

Although only a third of Kenyans have access to the Internet at present, 99 percent of those Internet subscriptions are for access from a mobile phone which made the project viable.

EpiCollect is set to do away with what has been happening some five years ago when veterinarians would have to travel to remote locations, record data, and then travel back to district-level offices to process the paperwork.

“Now data is transmitted real time and includes total number of livestock in a herd, number of animals vaccinated and herd movement during search of pasture and water which is regularly update and stored online,” FAO said.

The EpiCollect database is not searchable in online search engines which keeps sensitive information safe and can only be accessed by national vertinary officers and field vets who are assigned unique location code for each project.

“Presently EpiCollect is only being used by field veterinarians with phones provided by Google Kenya for the testing phase but it will be available to village elders and well-established networks of community animal health workers,” it said.

FAO is also set to use the same technology for better link to livestock producers with markets and livestock traders.

“Traders and sellers can relay information to central point about how many animals they have to make markets function efficiently with transparent pricing and collective bargains,” FAO Kenya’s Allport said.

The same technology has been used by FAO’s, Oxfam and Nokia using Nokia Data Gathering (NDG) to monitor water points in pastoralist areas as an early warning indicator for drought in Kenya and Ethiopia where communities monitor water levels regularly via Internet-enabled phones.

In the Karamoja area of neighbouring Uganda, the same NDG system is being used by local chiefs to monitor drought indicators to allow for early response.

Manuel Odeny © 2013

Business: AfDB boasts East African Development Bank (EADB) with equity funds

The East African Development Bank (EADB) headquaters in Kampala, Uganda. PHOTO: Courtesy

The East African Development Bank (EADB) has benefited from a US$24million direct equity investment from African Development Bank (AfDB).

The amount which was approved by the AfDB Board of Directors will go a long way to strengthen its balance sheet and contribute to improve its international credit rating with US $10 million to be placed directly with the balance in the form of callable capital.

According to an online press release by AfDB the investment will help mobilize significant financial resources in the East African Community (EAC) to stimulate economic development and employment opportunities in the region.

EADB is set to benefit in its support in capital market development, government revenue generation and foreign exchange.

“This project will help EADB consolidate the gains of its successful restructuring program, assist the current business strategy of the bank by strengthening its capital base and will be crucial to mobilize financial resources from capital markets at more affordable terms and meeting the growing demand for investment in the EAC,” the statement said.

The funding is expected to contribute in driving the bank’s credit rating by improving the quality of the callable capital of the bank.

“A technical assistance package, financed by the Fund for African Private Sector Assistance (FAPA), will reinforce institutional capacity at EADB to complement the proposed equity investment,” AfDB said.

The partnering of the two banks will help to exploit synergies stemming from complementary sources of comparative advantage with EADB’s field presence and local knowledge of the EAC market will provide a logical conduit for AfDB to reach out to end-customers, including SMEs, by efficiently leveraging its scale.

The project is aligned with AfDB’s East African Integration Strategy, with its focus on sub-regional development finance institutions, as well as with the key pillars of AfDB’s forthcoming Long-Term Strategy, particularly private sector development and regional integration.

EADBwhich was established in 1967 under the terms of the Treaty for East African Cooperation is a sub-regional multilateral lender based in Kampala, Uganda offering interventions mainly in form of loans, leases and equity participations to Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania.

Manuel Odeny, Copyright: 2013

Protected areas in East Africa not conserving Acacia- Study

Protected areas in East Africa are not doing enough to conserve the iconic Acacia trees in the savannah, a new study have found.

The study found that majority of Acacia biodiversity in protected areas like national parks, nature and forest reserves receive little protection, a situation which may be exacerbated by climate change.

The researchers found that two thirds of Acacia diversity hotspots had less than 10 per cent coverage by protected areas. They also conclude that due to climate change, high-elevation, moisture-dependent species of Acacia may contract their ranges towards mountain peaks, where protected areas are dominated by forest reserves.

“The Acacia is one of Africa’s most iconic groups of trees, but our data suggest protected areas such as national parks do not really conserve them. This is most likely because most protected areas were originally established to protect big game rather than to protect biodiversity and plants.” Dr Andy Marshall on of the researchers from US said.

Acacia includes a number of species that dominate extensive areas of East African woodland, wooded grassland and bushland. It occurs across a wide range of ecosystems, from arid deserts to mountain forests, and ranges from small shrubs to large trees.

The study ‘The genus Acacia (Fabaceae) in East Africa: distribution, diversity and the protected area network’ is published at Plant Ecology and Evolution and included research in 771 protected areas in 65 world-renowned national parks and game reserves in five East African countries of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

“Data suggest that if we were to take the existing protected areas and place them completely at random across the area, we would get a better coverage of Acacia diversity than the current distribution,” says the study.

The study says governments should seek how best to deal with the potential mismatch between biodiversity and the current protected area network by effective means of biodiversity conservation by closely involving local people to protect both animals and plants.

“Acacia like other plants have been ignored in conservation in protected areas even though they harness Sun’s energy and providing nutrients for the entire food chain. Information on plant distributions and the ways in which ecosystems will respond to future climatic and economic developments is crucial,” Dr Marshall says.

The study which has been carried out by University of York, Flamingo Land Theme Park and Zoo among others will be fully published next year.

© Manuel Odeny, 2012

Ugandan researcher wins the AfDB 2012 Young African Economic award

Ugandan national economist has won this year’s award in the just concluded African Development Bank (AfDB) African Economic Conference in Kigali, Rwanda. 

Dick Nuwamanya Kamuganga an economist from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, won the award for his paper Does Intra-Africa Regional Trade Cooperation Enhance Export Survival.

Excerpts of the paper which was selected from among 500 submissions, which were narrowed down to 43 papers was presented during the conference at the  Regional Trade and Integration session.

Kamuganga’s paper explores long term African export relationship internationally and in intra‐African regional trade cooperation increase, It also examines the effects of intra‐regional trade cooperation on sustainability of Africa’s exports within Africa and to the rest of the world.

He argues that sustainable export expansion is a key priority for all African countries to achieve sustainable economic growth. Kamuganga’s findings suggest that regional trade cooperation, or integration, initiatives in Africa have non‐negligible effects on enhancing Africa’s export survival.

“He also shows that the depth of regional integration matters when it comes to lowering Africa’s export hazard rates relative to countries that are not in any regional cooperation,” AfDB says in an online statement.

“The research explains that actors such costs to export, transit delays (time to export), institutional and policies bureaucracy in  procedures to export and financial depth provide a natural framework for explaining the observable high hazard rates for African exports,” AfDB says.

His paper argues that financial underdevelopment in Africa could have a crucial role in restricting Africa’s export relationship survival.

The researcher argued that regional trade cooperation in Africa would greatly reduce export duration, and would result in a reduction in infrastructure-related trade frictional costs. Benefits of regional trade cooperation would include a reduction in border procedures, harmonization of documentation, product standards and elimination of border tariffs.

The award sought to recognize and encourage research among young Africans and only four research papers were shortlisted and given to a panel of judges to decide which one warranted the award for best conference paper by a young African scholar.

The basic criteria for the prize included that the paper should have been written a single author; the researcher should be under 40 years of age and from an African country; the paper should demonstrate innovation and relevancy in the area of economic policy, and should not have been presented anywhere prior to its presentation at the AEC in Kigali.

“The award which will be apart of the annual conference to boost young African researchers to be recognized by encouraging and inspiring research contribution among young Africans,” the United Nations Development Programme’s Sebastian Levine said.

The conference and the prize was funded by the UNDP, AfDB and the Economic Commission for Africa.

Review: The Rwizi Arch Hotel in Kampala, Uganda.

The Rwizi Arch pub at the underground in the backyard of the hotel

I was privileged to share abode at Rwizi Arch Hotel at Kansanga area, Kampala together with seven journalists from six African countries from 24-29 June this year.

Together with an equal number of local Ugandan journalists we were attending Financial and Economic reporting course from Reuters Foundation.

During the stay we loved staying at the pub in the back of the hotel taking up the backyard space and the underground floor with a capacity to seat close to thirty patrons.

The pub’s atmosphere though set with a outdoor gardens have the ambience of an extension of the hotel’s dining room with the chairs set at a distance on a soft lighting shades for a quite conversation and dating scene but not for the rowdy football watching crowd as experience in Kenya.

To compound the atmosphere further there is no pool table, ballroom lights or the longer counter bar stools making watching a game to be akin to twiddling with a remote control in your sitting room with the children reading in the background and your wife trying to get her sleep, a quite no shouting affair.

But the huge board which projects games and music is a plus for football watching, though the music is pre mixed and not engaging as there is no dance floor without any DJs.

Though the food is sumptuous as the bar shares the kitchen with the hotel, their drinks are expensive. Kenyan Tusker Lager and Tusker Malt, brands at the bar, go for USh4,500 and USh4,000 respectively while Ugandan special Nile Special goes for Ush3,500. Being a teetotaler, for the two games I watched from the pub i settle for Norvida pineapple and a 300ml Stoney which went for Ush3,500 and Ush2,000 respectively.

The bar counter

I realized the prices were high as which forced me to watch German being bundled out of Euro2012 finals by two Mario Balotelli’s first half goals on pubs along the Kabalagala Street wher drinks are Ush500-1,000 cheaper.

Critique:

With the quite atmosphere for conversation the pub is best for a business meeting and dating and you can easily reach the hotel,6Km from the CBD along Kabalagala Street in a 30 min drive.

On the down side, for foreign revelers seeking the feeling of Kampala’s night life the pub isn’t ideal with setting and would recommend the numerous pubs along Kabalagala streets which has several East African universities.

                              ©Manuel Odeny 29 June 2012, Kampala-Uganda

World Bank: Sub-Saharan Africa growth tied to Euro zone crisis

Ahmadou Moustapha Ndiaye, the Uganda WB country manager.

The World Bank’s forecast of 5% growth for Sub-Saharan Africa in 2012 risks being affected by the Euro zone, a senior bank official has said.

WB projections place the developing world, with Sub-Sahara Africa being the main player, at the centre of recovery from the world economic recession.

Last year, 2011, Sub-Saharan Africa had one of the world’s fastest growth rates at 4.7% average, almost back to the region’s performance before the economic crisis time.

Next year the growth is still projected to increase to 5.3%.

This forecast is placed at the risk of persistent risk of financial recession for developed countries especially after Cyprus asked for help from EU which “brings a lot of uncertainty in the air since developing countries are not isolated from the world” Ahmadou Moustapha Ndiaye, the Uganda WB country manager said.

He added that the Euro zone crisis will constrain growth in the developing countries as Euro governments will need to increase taxes and level on public investment to streamline their budget. This will affect the trade infrastructure and reduce foreign aid.

Ndiaye who was speaking to journalists at WB offices in Kampala said the effect will be felt through low remittance by African immigrants back home due to contracting job market and a reduced number of tourists visiting Africa as high income earners will be faced with new taxes.

But the forecast is set to hold steady if the prices of African commodities in the world market grow and investment flows into in new resources and infrastructure like oil drilling, refineries, roads, and ICT.  

Ndiaye points out that Africa can get finance from bilateral development partners to borrow and invest in infrastructure which will set to increase sub-regional trade which reduces their dependency on Euro zone countries and should place more importance on regional integration like EAC.

According to government’s record Kenya is projecting her growth at 5.0% in the 2012/13 financial year on the back of a SH1.459 trillion budget which highly relies on infrastructure development to spur growth.

“The energy, infrastructure and ICT sector leads on government’s expenditure at 24% allocation on account of on-going road and energy projects as the sector is able to sustain development” a PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC, analysis points out.

But PwC says this can be challenged by a road maintenance backlog, lack of adequate local construction capacity and delayed uptake of donor funds.

Equally, the country’s budget which relies on 15.4% foreign funding (Sh225.5 billion) from external grants and loan for revenues will be constrained by the Euro zone crisis.

This reliance of sub-Sahara to external grants is what Ndiaye says can be rectified by regional integration and trade.

“Sub regional trade away from Euro-zone can be increased with EAC investing in infrastructure especially in oil exploration and speed up convergence in fiscal policies and the monitory union” he says.

©Manuel Odeny, 29 June 2012 from Reuters Training in Kampala, Uganda