Africa

1. Welcoming Trump
2. Debt servicing
3. Cancelation deal
4. Mozambique tension
5. Safaricom’s Ethiopia woes

Also, the entrepreneurs recognized for green innovation.

Hello! Welcome to Semafor Africa, where we’re not pretending to know the answer to the question on everyone’s mind. Some 36 hours after it became clear Donald Trump was set to make a return to the White House, here’s what we do know. Trump’s America First philosophy manifested itself last time around with streamlining and cutbacks at the US State Department, and threats to shrink spending on some development programs, many of which are focused on Africa. It would be wise to expect the same, except he has a stronger mandate and a potentially pliant Congress to push through that agenda.

Trump’s Africa policy will often be viewed through a China lens, which isn’t always a bad thing in itself. It was China hawks under Trump, concerned about its dominance in Africa, who supported the creation of the Development Finance Corporation with a budget twice the size of its predecessor.

And, as we said last week, the next administration will be more transactional. “For African countries it presents the opportunity to double down on stronger commercial relations, building off of the foundation laid in Biden’s term,” said Ken Opalo, a professor at Georgetown University.

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Kenyans celebrate Trump’s win

NAIROBI — Seven months after Kenya’s President William Ruto was hosted by President Joe Biden at the White House in a historic state visit, Donald Trump’s election victory sparked celebrations among opposition activists.

They’re calling for the removal of the Biden-appointed US ambassador to Kenya, former HP and eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who played a central role in the elevation of Kenya’s relationship with the US to non-NATO ally status in May. She has also led a push to attract investment by US tech firms to Kenya, East Africa’s largest economy.

Whitman has been targeted for criticism by Kenyans angered by US backing for their government’s unpopular economic policies, including planned tax rises that prompted protests earlier this year. Calls for her removal were widely shared across social media. Many of her critics are hoping for a re-evaluation of US support under Trump.

Africa’s debt service costs soar

Debt service obligations in Africa shot up in the last decade. In Mozambique, debt service as a share of export revenues rose from 6.6% in 2012 to 64.2% in 2022 — the highest in Africa. Nine African countries are among the 25 developing countries worldwide with the highest proportion of export revenue spent on servicing debt, according to the United Nations Trade and Development agency. About 81% of developing countries experienced “a median annual increase in debt service costs of 16.3%” between 2017 and 2023 the agency said, far outstripping growth in exports plus remittances.

US cancels Somalia’s debt

The size of Somalia’s debt to the US that was canceled in a deal between the countries. The debt cancellation is the latest step in an International Monetary Fund and the World Bank program that began in 2018 to relieve the East African nation of unsustainable debt levels. The US had been Somalia’s largest bilateral lender, holding around a fifth of its total debt. Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said the country was suffering under unsustainable debt.

Mozambique unrest threatens economy

South Africa shut its main border crossing with Mozambique indefinitely this week in the interest of public safety, underlining the threat to the latter’s economy from protracted post-election unrest.

Violence erupted after the opposition rejected the declaration that Daniel Chapo, whose ruling Frelimo party has held power in Mozambique for five decades, won the Oct. 24 presidential election. The specter of fresh protests has led the government to consider military intervention.

The tensions could delay major gas projects lined up by multinationals, Florence Schmit, a London-based analyst at Dutch bank Rabobank, told Bloomberg. She said the restarting of a planned $20 billion liquefied natural gas export plant by TotalEnergies “hinges on a smooth presidential transition.”

— Alexander Onukwue

Ethiopia currency drop hits Safaricom

The depreciation of Ethiopia’s currency in July led to a sharp decline in profits for Safaricom, Kenya’s leading telecommunications company.

Ethiopia rolled out financial sector changes, including introducing a floating exchange rate regime in July, to unlock a new IMF program. The overhaul prompted to a rapid depreciation of the birr currency. Safaricom launched in Ethiopia in October 2022 and initially struggled to find its footing due to stiff competition from the incumbent former monopoly, Ethio Telecom.

Safaricom’s net income dropped nearly 18% in the six months from April to September this year, compared to the same period a year ago. It led the company to cut its full-year earning forecast and push out its projection for profitability in Ethiopia to 2027, a year later than previously promised. The company said it now has 6.1 million active customers in Ethiopia.

— Martin

Tech

🇳🇬 Funke Opeke, the founding chief executive of Nigerian fiber optic cable company MainOne, has stepped down. It follows the integration process post-April 2022’s $320 million acquisition by US parent Equinix.

🇳🇬 Nigerian fintech startup Moniepoint has hired a new chief financial officer, a week after announcing a $110 million funding round. Bayo Olujobi joins the company from Stanbic IBTC Bank.

🇳🇪 Niger’s authorities have agreed to allow Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider Starlink to operate in the landlocked country. It will offer high speed connections of 200 Mb/s for 25,000 CFA (~$40) a month.

Energy

🇦🇴 Angola’s $300 million Sanha Lean Gas Connection Project is set to begin production in December, oil multinational Chevron said.

🇳🇬 Nigerian authorities said the national grid partially collapsed on Tuesday, marking the ninth nationwide power outage this year. Aging power infrastructure and vandalism are among factors behind the blackouts.

Deals

🇪🇹 Ethiopian Airlines announced the delivery of its first of four A-350/1000 planes from Airbus to service key destinations including Washington DC, London, Paris and Frankfurt.

🌍 Infrastructure developer Arise IIP is collaborating on a $5 billion project with Afreximbank and Swiss textile manufacturer Rieter to establish capacity for producing 500,000 metric tons of African cotton over the next three to five years.

🇰🇪 The UK unveiled a $5.2 million fund to support micro, small to medium enterprises in Kenya, as part of a broader $300 million ‘Limited SME Debt Fund’.

🇲🇦 Morocco’s Tanger Med Port secured two loans totaling €400 million ($430.7 million) from the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, and a pool of international banks led by JP Morgan.

Earnings

🌍 E-commerce company Jumia reported a 13% drop in revenue to $36.4 million for the third quarter of this year. But loss before income tax from continuing operations for the period also fell — by 17% to $17.8 million.

Infrastructure

🇪🇹 Ethiopia’s parliament approved a $738.2 million loan to South Sudan for the construction of a 220-kilometer highway along the border between the two countries.

Kenyan and Ghanaian entrepreneurs were among the five winners of the 2024 Earthshot Prize, which recognizes solutions to environmental challenges. Kenya’s Francis Nderitu was recognized for Keep IT Cool, a company he founded that supplies sustainable refrigeration systems to small-scale farmers. Ghana’s Desmond Alugnoa won in the “Clean Our Air” category for his initiative to drive behavioral change in waste management practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It was the fourth ceremony of the Earthshot Prize, founded by Britain’s Prince William. Each winner received a £1 million ($1.2 million) prize to help scale their solutions.

General Atlantic and its partner could begin construction of their first green hydrogen project in Oman within 18 months and have products to ship by 2030, Semafor’s Mohammed Sergie reported. The country has ambitions to become one of the world’s largest green hydrogen exporters, and expects its sales to exceed those of liquefied natural gas by 2050.

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