Africa

The rate at which Zambia’s economy grew in 2023, according to the Zambia Statistical Agency. The economy outstripped the 5.2% growth recorded in 2022. The information and communications industries made the biggest contribution to GDP growth, expanding by 2.6%, while agriculture, forestry and fishing industries negatively impacted GDP growth at -0.6%. The agency added that arts, entertainment and recreation sectors had the highest growth rates, at 39.2%.

Doctors’ strike reveals unemployment crisis for Kenyan medics

NAIROBI — A doctors’ strike in Kenya has laid bare an unemployment crisis in which medical graduates are struggling to get jobs, despite staff shortages at public hospitals, due to the government’s budget shortfalls.

The walkout, now in its third week, comes as Kenya faces potential funding constraints due to a rising debt repayment burden, according to the country’s parliamentary budget office. Some 4,000 public sector doctors are on strike, said the Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists Dentists Union (KMPDU), which is nearly half of the country’s roughly 9,000 registered doctors.

The union wants the government to hire more than 3,000 medical interns who are currently unemployed. But the health ministry said it lacks the resources to recruit them and in March requested 4.9 billion Kenyan shillings ($37.7 million) from the treasury to do so. It means that despite a policy requiring the government to place medical interns within 30 days of completing their studies, graduates remain jobless long after qualifying to practice medicine.

The impact of the strike has been devastating, with most patients being turned away from public health facilities or left unattended. Many Kenyans have turned to alternatives including private hospitals and traditional medicine providers.

The strike is only a symptom of wider malaise that stems from severe budget constraints. At around 3.7% of its budget, Kenya’s spending on health falls short of the 5% recommended by the WHO for low and middle income countries to achieve universal health care, or the 15% it committed to spending on health as part of the Abuja declaration.

“It’s not just health. Because the country is spending much of its revenues on servicing debt, social spending and development spending is also squeezed,” noted Anderson Njuki, a Nairobi-based economist. “But I believe with better fiscal discipline and the right priorities it’s possible for the government to increase its health expenditure.”

The lack of jobs for qualified medics, coupled with other factors including the desire for better pay, could have a lasting impact for years to come by accelerating the migration of doctors out of the country and severely weakening Kenya’s public health system.

Resolving these issues is key to improving labor relations and strengthening the country’s health workforce. It will also be crucial for the success of President William Ruto’s flagship Universal Healthcare plan, which aims to improve healthcare access for Kenyans.

African countries need more investment in weather forecasting equipment and science careers to address the impact of climate change, new research suggests. The recommendations are contained in a paper published last week in the scientific journal Nature. Its authors found that around half of the continent’s countries lack access to early warnings for hazardous weather. And even though the African weather services market is estimated at around $60 million currently, none of the top 20 public and private sector providers are based on the continent. The paper’s authors said that lack of preparedness would change with greater investment to build up the capacity and maintenance of weather forecasting equipment for improved data accuracy.

Why Nigeria’s currency is rebounding against the dollar

→ What’s happening? Nigeria’s naira is recovering from record lows hit this year, following Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) interventions through interest rate rises and direct sales of dollars to foreign exchange bureaus. As of March 27, the naira closed at 1,300 per dollar, compared to 1,500 in February.

→ How come? Investment management firm Cardinal Stone said foreign inflows had increased by $2.1 billion so far this year, compared with $1.6 billion in 2023. It said the naira had strengthened by 11.4% in official markets since the start of March, making it one of Africa’s top-performing currencies.

→ Why did the naira weaken in the first place? Nigeria has faced dollar shortages in recent years partly due to revenue shortfalls from the oil industry. President Bola Tinubu removed a fixed currency peg when he took office last May and allowed the naira’s value to be market determined. The exchange rate was about 755 naira to the dollar in the two weeks after Tinubu took office.

→ What has the CBN done? It devalued the naira twice in the last year, most recently in January, and hiked the benchmark interest rate by 600 basis points since February to 24.75% to tackle inflation.

→ Anything else? It has sold $20,000 to each licensed bureau de change trader, at a fixed price each week, while mandating new capital requirements for their operations. And CBN is raising the capital base of banks operating internationally to 500 billion naira ($353 million).

→ What are analysts saying? Financial Derivatives, a Lagos-based consultancy, cited the CBN’s reported settlement of a $7 billion backlog in forward commitments as a reason for more confidence in Nigeria’s central bank.

Goldman Sachs analysts expect the dollar to be valued at 1,200 naira “within the next 12 months,” and Cardinal Stone sees “latitude for further improvements in FX reserves.”

— Alexander Onukwue in Lagos

Xavier Becerra, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services; Raj Shah, President, Rockefeller Foundation; Andrew Steer, President & CEO, Bezos Earth Fund; Gargee Ghosh, President, Global Policy & Advocacy, Gates Foundation; Jay Shambaugh, Undersecretary for International Affairs, Treasury Department and Ani Dasgupta, President & CEO at World Resources Institute will join the Rising Global Middle Class Session at the 2024 World Economy Summit to discuss the debt burden developing countries are facing today and how governments and private sector players can foster economic growth to create greater opportunities.

April 18 | 9 a.m.-12 p.m. ET | Washington, D.C.

Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli starts today (April 2) as President/CEO of ONE Campaign, the global advocacy organization co-founded by U2’s Bono nearly 20 years ago. Nwuneli has more than 25 years of international development experience covering food systems, social innovation, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and youth development in Africa.

🇨🇩 DR Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi named Judith Suminwa as the country’s first-ever female prime minister. The former planning minister will succeed Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, and will be tasked with establishing a coalition government in the DRC.

🇨🇮 Côte d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara is set to increase the official cocoa farmgate price from today, Reuters reported, citing sources at export companies. The new 1,500 CFA francs ($2.47) price marks a 50% increase per kilogram, and comes as cocoa prices have more than tripled over the last year following widespread crop disease and adverse weather patterns.

🇸🇴 Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland said it would no longer recognize the country’s federal system. The decision comes after the Somali parliament backed a plan for a one-person, one-vote election system.

🇪🇹 Ethiopia announced plans to repatriate about 70,000 of its citizens who have been living in poor conditions in Saudi Arabia. It said the repatriation, the third of its kind since 2018, will start this month and target “Ethiopians who are in a difficult situation.”

🇳🇬 Nigeria’s government on Thursday said it would grant new mining licenses to companies that present plans to process minerals locally. The government has said it aims to make value addition a condition for obtaining licenses to create jobs and help local communities.

🇰🇪 Kenya is planning to fund a 326 billion Kenyan shilling ($2.5 billion) budget deficit by selling bonds in China, Japan, and the Middle East. The country is seeking to diversify its external sources of debt after a successful Eurobond sale, Kenyan newspaper Business Daily reported, citing the treasury minister.

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama won the Sam Gilliam prize, an award presented by the Dia Art Foundation in New York in honor of the American artist, who died in 2022 at age 88. Mahama was recognized by the prize’s five-member inaugural jury for “the meaningful impact of his ambitious work as a community-oriented practitioner,” as well as the complexity and scale of output. The $75,000 prize’s benefits include presenting a program at Dia. Mahama is known for his use of materials like jute sacks to serve as accessories to architectural buildings and galleries. In 2022, he unveiled his sewn coal sack installation at the 22nd Biennale in Sydney, Australia (pictured). Mahama credited Gilliam as a great influence on his work.

• How stopping squatters became a hot conservative crusade.
• Japan walks tightrope away from China.
• Apple muscles in on subscription podcasts.

If you’re enjoying the Semafor Africa newsletter and finding it useful, please share with your family and friends. We’d love to have them aboard too.

Let’s make sure this email doesn’t end up in your junk folder by adding africa@semafor.com to your contacts. In Gmail you should drag this newsletter over to your ‘Primary’ tab.

You can reply to this email and send us your news tips, gossip, and good vibes.

— Yinka, Alexis, Alexander Onukwue, Martin Siele, Muchira Gachenge, and Jenna Moon.