Africa

1. Battery minerals boost
2. Women at work
3. Adani controversy
4. Faye’s gambit
5. Jamie’s journey

Also, Benin opens a new path to citizenship.

Hello! Welcome to Semafor Africa, where news of our imminent trips across the continent are never leaked to the press. Last week news broke that US President Joe Biden will visit Angola later this year. It comes nearly two years after Biden had promised, during the US-Africa Leaders Summit in December 2022, to visit the continent in 2023. This week we learned Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, will visit Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa next month seeking new hubs for growth in America’s largest bank.

There’s a tendency by some to dismiss these visits as merely symbolic or some sort of global PR mission. Well, yes. They might be exactly that, but given the choice between being forgotten altogether and getting the world’s most powerful man and the world’s most influential banker to visit or not, the former is definitely better. And it’s not necessarily because of their roles in themselves. As one African ambassador put it to me privately, a visit by a US president “rallies the machinery” of various government agencies and corporate partners to turn their focus to Africa. The same happens with Dimon: if JPMorgan is making this effort, his peers are also forced to pay more attention. These high-level visits often enable conversations to start in corners and sectors that don’t normally consider the investable opportunities on the continent.

🟡 We are incredibly proud with the line-up for our inaugural Next 3 Billion summit, taking place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York to discuss connecting the unconnected. We’re honored to have speakers including President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone, President Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Aliko Dangote, founder of Dangote Group.

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Tanzania’s mining supply chain gets a boost

The amount Tanzania-based Black Rock Mining secured from three financial institutions to develop its Mahenge Graphite Project. Tanzania’s CRDB Bank, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, and the Industrial Development Corporation inked the deal in Johannesburg. The collaboration aims to support a vital supply chain for battery minerals and foster local community development through job creation, infrastructure, and business opportunities, said CRDB Bank’s CEO.

Pulling women into the formal economy

Increasing women’s participation in Africa’s formal labor force will raise the continent’s gross domestic product by 5% in 2030 and add 23 million jobs, a report by Mastercard Foundation and McKinsey said. Women’s contribution to Africa’s economy dropped from 18% in 2000 to 11% in 2022, as the number of young women not in employment, education and training rose. Enabling women to manage care responsibilities is a principal way to increase access to the formal labor market, the report argues. Solutions include government-funded initiatives to expand childcare centers as well as employer-provided childcare. But ensuring that more girls enroll in, and complete, higher education is also crucial. The fact that only 26% of African girls complete secondary school and 8% are in tertiary education “significantly impacts their access to higher-paid work and, thus, their overall contribution to GDP,” the report said.

Adani’s Kenya proposals mired in controversy

NAIROBI — Kenya’s President William Ruto faces mounting pressure over a series of controversial proposals by an Indian conglomerate to upgrade aging infrastructure in the country.

The Adani Group, founded by billionaire Gautam Adani, is seeking to manage and operate the country’s largest airport — the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) — in a 30-year lease. Adani also pitched a proposal to construct hundreds of kilometers of power transmission lines as part of a deal with the Ketraco, the national electricity company.

The proposals have been publicly endorsed by senior officials and allies of Ruto. The administration has generally argued that with Kenya currently burdened by expensive debt repayments and citizens opposed to tax hikes, public private partnerships such as the ones proposed by Adani offer a useful alternative. Ruto himself has endorsed PPPs as a way to ensure JKIA remains competitive in the region. But experts question whether taxpayers would get value for money, and criticize a perceived lack of transparency.

The airport proposal was first disclosed by a whistleblower on X, sparking widespread uproar. It also emerged that Adani’s privately initiated proposal ran contrary to a recommendation by experts for the government to undertake an open bidding process for the airport upgrade project.

September 24, 2024 | New York City | Request Invitation

President Lazarus Chakwera, Malawi and Dr. Monique Nsanzabaganwa, Deputy Chairperson, African Union Commission will join the stage at The Next 3 Billion summit — the premiere U.S. convening dedicated to unlocking one of the biggest social and economic opportunities of our time: connecting the unconnected.

Senegal’s Faye faces election challenge

Senegal’s president hoped calling a legislative election would shore up his power in Parliament. But a new opposition movement and uncertainty about the strength of his alliances means the outcome of his move is unclear.

President Bassirou Diomaye Faye announced the dissolution of Parliament late last Thursday and called for a parliamentary election on Nov. 17. Opposition politicians, most of whom were in the party of Faye’s immediate predecessor Macky Sall, had made up the majority of the legislature. Faye hopes to secure more seats in the election to ease the path of his legislative agenda through Parliament, say analysts.

But, despite Faye having been swept to power in a presidential election in March, his PASTEF party is not assured of securing a majority. Senegal’s National Assembly was made up of a 51%-49% balance, with Sall’s BBY coalition making up the slim majority. But each political party has few reliable allies.

Former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, who was defeated by Faye in the presidential election, launched a political movement in recent days that could also change the electoral map. His movement pledged to “build solid alliances” and “usher in a new era of institutional dialogue and shared progress.”

Political essayist Souleymane Gassama, also known as Elgas, told Semafor Africa that Faye’s gamble could backfire. “Discontent is not general, yet, but the state of grace is running out of steam,” he told Semafor Africa.

— Joël Té-Léssia Assoko

JPMorgan’s CEO heads to Africa

Jamie Dimon, chief executive of the largest US bank, JPMorgan Chase, is set to make his first Africa visit in seven years next month, according to a person familiar with the plans.

Dimon will visit Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa around mid-October. Reuters previously reported on Tuesday that he would also visit Côte d’Ivoire, but that has not been confirmed, according to Semafor Africa’s source.

While on the continent, Dimon will meet with clients, government officials, and bank executives on the ground. The gap since his last visit in 2017 was blamed on disruption caused by the global pandemic. The bank, which manages more than $4 trillion in assets, is unlikely to pursue a mergers and acquisitions strategy to expand on the continent and will more than likely continue its approach of building a client base organically, said the person who described the sub-region as an “amazing growth opportunity.”

JP Morgan currently has sub-Saharan Africa offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Lagos.

Dimon had previously highlighted Kenya and Ghana as potential markets for expansion on the continent back in 2018, but those ambitions have yet to be fulfilled as the bank has faced regulatory hurdles.

— Yinka

Governance

🇬🇭 Ghana’s opposition National Democratic Congress party held nationwide protests on Tuesday demanding an audit of the voter roll for the general election set for December. The electoral commission last week said the opposition party’s call for a forensic audit was “misguided.”

🇲🇱 Malian troops quelled an attack by Islamist militants who tried to infiltrate a military police school in the capital Bamako, the army’s chief of staff said.

Geopolitics

🌍 The US Congress is pushing a foreign aid bill to support failing states, especially in the restive Sahel region.

Global finance

🇷🇼 Rwanda’s government announced €40 million ($44.5 million) financing in grants by the European Union to increase local manufacturing and access to affordable health products.

Economics

🇬🇭 Ghana’s economy grew 6.9% in the three months up to June, according to the government’s statistics office. It is the economy’s largest increase in a quarter in five years.

Energy

🇸🇸 South Sudan said it had made progress in its attempt to restart pumping crude oil through a pipeline running to a port in Sudan. The main pipeline was halted in February due to damage stemming from Sudan’s civil war.

Tech

🌍 Google said its products and services contributed $16 billion in economic activity across sub-Saharan Africa in 2023, in an impact report published on Wednesday.

🇰🇪 Kenya has reached the halfway mark of a $388 million project to lay 2,500km of fiber optic cables, its Competition Authority said.

🇨🇳 Transsion, the top smartphone vendor in Africa, saw a 4% increase in its share value on Wednesday after the Shenzhen, China-based company said its finance chief had been released by authorities after an undisclosed investigation.

Deals

🇿🇦 South African data analytics company Syft will be acquired by Xero, an analytics company in New Zealand for about $70 million.

🇿🇦 Investment firm African Rainbow Capital said it recorded a 1.2 billion rand ($68.3 million) net increase in investments in its portfolio of telecoms, financial services, agriculture and mining holdings, in the year ended June 30.

Benin passed a law that allows individuals of African descent, whose ancestors were enslaved, to apply for citizenship. Under the law, which came into force earlier this month, eligible applicants should be aged 18 or older and have a parent born before 1944. They will also be required to provide proof they are of African descent through “authenticated testimonies, civil status documents or DNA tests carried out in a laboratory approved by Benin.” The West African country joins Ghana in offering citizenship to people of African descent.

• Black teenagers are twice as likely to be falsely accused of using AI tools in homework.
• Political infighting is holding back Ukraine’s energy reconstruction.
• Saudi Arabia is betting big on Egypt.

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— Yinka, Alexis, Alexander Onukwue, Martin Siele, and Muchira Gachenge