Africa

1. US cuts HIV funding…
2. … and Africa power plan
3. Rwanda’s tourism risk
4. Nigeria expects new loan
5. Weekend Reads

An animated superhero series inspired by Nigeria prepares to debut.

US cuts AIDS funding

The US government is ending its support for a United Nations program funding HIV/AIDS relief around the world, dealing a blow to African nations that have depended on it for decades.

The Trump administration said the move, in line with a wider US withdrawal from the global aid landscape, aligns with the country’s “national interest.”

About two-thirds of global AIDS relief comes from the US, most of it through the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, which was set up in 2003 by then-President George W. Bush. South Africa is among the countries likely to be the worst hit: Up to 8 million people in the country are estimated to be living with HIV and the head of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation warned that more than 500,000 could die over the next decade due to the US funding cuts.

Africa power plan canceled

The Trump administration will shutter Power Africa, a flagship development program to support renewable energy projects on the continent that also led to billions of dollars in deals for US companies. Nearly half the population of sub-Saharan Africa still lacks access to electricity, one of the region’s biggest barriers to economic development. Power Africa wasn’t designed to completely solve that problem, but instead to use a relatively tiny volume of US funding — just over $1 billion since the project’s inception in 2013 — to de-risk power generation and grid projects, as well as to support economic development adjacent to the Lobito Corridor rail line and other strategically important infrastructure.

Power Africa, an Obama-era program designed by USAID, raised at least $29 billion in its lifetime, according to the Center for Global Development — a 24-fold leveraging ratio. Most of the program’s staff have now been fired, Bloomberg reported.

Risks for Rwanda tourism

Rwanda’s booming $640-million tourism industry is threatened by its backing of M23 rebels in neighboring DR Congo, experts told Semafor, as Kigali comes under growing international pressure over its role in the conflict.

This week the UK joined Belgium in suspending aid to Rwanda over what they say is its support for M23 — an allegation Kigali has repeatedly denied — while the US last week sanctioned a government minister who is a key ally of Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Kigali’s ability to strike deals with global sports federations and brands — which have helped drive tourism revenue — is at risk, multiple sports marketing executives told Semafor. They said Rwanda’s high-profile bid to host a Formula 1 grand prix was in particular jeopardy. “Rwanda’s momentum could be slowed or worse yet, cease altogether,” said Chris Miles, founder of Indianapolis-based Starting Grid, which works to increase diversity in motorsports. For global brands like F1, he argued, “the risk far outweighs the reward.”

Nigeria readies for World Bank loan

The reported size of a loan set to be approved by the World Bank for Nigeria this year. The loan will help plug the gap in the country’s recently approved $37 billion federal budget and will be spent on six development projects, including in education, health care, and digital infrastructure, BusinessDay said. Nigeria’s outstanding debt to multilateral lenders, including the World Bank and the African Development Bank, reached $21.8 billion last September, according to Nigeria’s debt office — a three-fold increase since December 2014. That made up just over half of Nigeria’s external debt stock, with the remainder consisting of eurobonds, along with loans from both state-owned and private banks.

Weekend Reads

• An Indian pharmaceutical company is manufacturing unlicensed opioids and exporting them illegally to West Africa, a BBC investigation revealed, fueling an addiction crisis in countries including Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria. The team used undercover filming and publicly available data to expose how Aveo Pharmaceuticals is shipping millions of these drugs to the region. Other Indian pharma companies are manufacturing similar products, the BBC reported, damaging the country’s burgeoning reputation for making “high-quality generic medicines upon which millions of people worldwide depend.”

• Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person, wants to leave behind a continent-wide legacy in the way American magnates have done, he told The Wall Street Journal. The 67-year-old Nigerian, who has built his wealth on cement, sugar, salt, and now oil, said: “It’s not only about making money… It’s about leaving a legacy by creating jobs and wealth for other people.” He pointed to the example of the “men that made America: Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller… that’s the kind of thing that I am dreaming of doing, not only in Nigeria. In Africa.”

• Corneille Nangaa, the leader of the M23 rebel group trying to seize swaths of DR Congo, told a Swiss newspaper the violence sweeping the country was the “price of peace.” The 54-year-old, a former UN employee and one-time confidant of longtime former President Joseph Kabila, “wants to be seen as a politician and a potential negotiating partner,” observed NZZ. But having fallen out with Kabila’s successor, current President Felix Tshisekedi, he now describes the rebellion as his “duty in order to prevent a dictatorship.”

• Independent publishers and tech innovators are working to make African literature more affordable, The Guardian reported. Many people on the continent struggle to find either new works or classics, with few countries producing books locally and many lacking public library systems. “We want to see a book written by an African author becoming a hit in Africa before it becomes a global bestseller,” said the manager of a Kenyan publishing startup that launched last year.

Business & Macro

🇰🇪 Kenya raised $1.5 billion in a new eurobond sale issued to buy back a $900 million bond sold in 2019. The new issue will mature in 2036.

🇳🇬 Nigeria is changing its procedure for short-stay visa approvals to an online process that will take no more than 48 hours to complete, the country’s interior minister said.

🇰🇪 CFAO Group Kenya, a subsidiary of Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corporation, is acquiring an additional 69.9% stake in Kenyan chain Goodlife Pharmacy. CFAO bought 30% of the chain in 2022.

Climate & Energy

🇳🇬 The Dangote Refinery cut its petrol sale price to distributors by 7% on Thursday, triggering a nationwide pump price reduction to support Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s “economic recovery policy,” the company said.

🌍 The European Investment Bank will invest $52.5 million in a $750 million Infrastructure Climate Resilient Fund to be managed by the Africa Finance Corporation.

Geopolitics & Policy

🇪🇹 🇸🇴 Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed visited Somalia on Thursday for talks after tensions rose last year when Addis Ababa announced plans to lease a stretch of coastline in Somalia’s breakaway Somaliland region.

🇬🇼 Guinea Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embalo was hosted in the Kremlin by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a meeting also attended by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska who owns the world’s largest bauxite deposit in neighboring Guinea.

Tech & Deals

🇧🇯 Gozem, a taxi and food delivery app in Benin and Togo, raised $30 million in an equity and debt round from SAS Shipping Agencies Services and Al Mada Ventures.

🇿🇦 Telecom operator Vodacom South Africa fired 113 employees, including senior management, in a restructuring drive the company said it needed to remain “fit-for-purpose.”

The animated series Iyanu, inspired by Nigerian culture and mythology, is set to debut in April. It follows Iyanu, a girl with divine powers who lives in the kingdom of Yorubaland, as she embarks on a quest to save her society from evil forces. The show is based on a graphic novel series by Nigeria-born Roye Okupe, who also adapted the story for the screen. It’s the latest in a string of animation features set on the continent. “The trailer of Iyanu reveals that she is the chosen one, but we’re yet to discover what kind of task she is appointed to do,” writes Collider, noting that the character’s “unique connection with nature… will be fundamental for her journey.”

The European Union is drastically curbing its climate ambitions with a wide-ranging policy reset that aims to halt the region’s upward spiral of energy prices without scrapping its decarbonization plans, Semafor’s Tim McDonnell reported.

“There’s a new urgency to make sure that our decarbonization agenda is also unleashing industrial competitiveness,” said one Brussels-based think tanker, reflecting the growing unpopularity of Europe’s legacy of climate regulation. “Otherwise, politically, this will simply not work.”

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— Alexis Akwagyiram, Preeti Jha, Alexander Onukwue, and Yinka Adegoke.