(DAVOS) The rocket man is the talk of snowy Davos this morning as he blasted himself into the debate over what the world is doing about its growing number of poor people.
This year the debate at Davos has not only been about foreign investment and policy &#8211; also there have been growing calls for action against poverty. <a href="http://cnbc.africa/insights/world-economic-forum/wef-davos-2018/2018/01/22/inequality/">Oxfam hit the nail on the head</a> during this conference when it claimed that a bus load of the world&#8217;s richest 42 people own more than a continent-load of 3.7 billion of the world&#8217;s poorest.
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Elton John &#8211; worth an estimated $300 million &#8211; added his golden voice to the mix at Davos last night, along with actress Cate Blanchett, as he picked up the conference&#8217;s Crystal Award for commitment for improving the state of the world. Past winners include, Leonardo DiCaprio, singer Shakira and Black Eyed Peas signer <a href="http://will.i.am">will.i.am</a>; John won it for his fight against HIV-Aids and Blanchett for her work with refugees.
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&#8220;The world needs to be changed. The inequality of the world is, to be honest, disgraceful,&#8221; says Elton John at the glittering awards ceremony in the Alpine ski village.
Now, I am all for people using their image or celebrity, or any power at their disposal, to ease the suffering of others.
But it seems to catch the attention of these awards it helps to have a sprinkle of stardust as well &#8211; plus millions of references on Google.
What I am looking forward to is the day the Crystal Award recognises one of the many tireless and selfless workers who slog away saving lives at the many dusty and overcrowded refugee camps I have reported from in Africa. Hollow-eyed they stand in the African dusk absolutely exhausted. They do a thankless job for a pittance for no other reward than saving the lives of their fellow human beings with a smile.
I am sure their harrowing first hand stories could raise awareness about the plight of the forgotten suffering millions like little else. The only problem is you will find few of these brave workers on Google.

WEF Davos 2018: The rocket man goes off over poverty

(DAVOS) If there is pessimism about investing in Africa no one has told the head of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Akinwumi Adesina about it as he is dreaming of double digit growth for the continent..
&#8220;Everyone knows Africa is the place to invest,&#8221; he smiled as he breezed into the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday.
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Adesina &#8211; the former Nigerian agriculture minister &#8211; is at the forefront of selling Africa to foreign investors at this gathering in the famous Swiss ski resort. The AfDB believes the continent will grow by around 4.2% next year, compared to a dismal 2.2 % in 2016, but even this is not fast enough for Adesina.
&#8220;We really need double digit growth in Africa. People can&#8217;t eat GDP figures and we really need a lot of growth to free people from poverty,&#8221; says Adesina.
Investment must come from within Africa, as well as without, if this dream of double digit growth is to become reality, he says. Sovereign wealth funds and pension funds in Africa are worth an estimated $670 billion and more than a trillion with the next decade. Adesina believes this money should be ploughed into creating jobs for the growing number of Africans leaving college and school.
On November 7 and 8 Adesina will to hold an investor conference in Johannesburg, South Africa..
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&#8220;We do not want just talk. We want to get global investors together at this conference in November to make sure that things happen,&#8221; he says.
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AfDB’s Adesina is dreaming of double digit growth for Africa

(DAVOS) Leaden skies sent forth a blizzard over the 48th gathering of the World Economic Forum in the ski-resort of Davos in Switzerland, the highest and surely the coldest spot in Europe, where South African delegates hope to shed light on the future of their national power generator Eskom.
Delegates arriving at the gathering of thousands of top world business names plus heads of state and ministers from 70 countries said it was the worst weather they had seen for years and snowdrifts saw traffic into Davos held up for hours.
A large and strong South African delegation will be at Davos &#8211; at least seven ministers including Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba. They will be led by President-elect Cyril Ramaphosa who is on a mission to clean up and beef up the country&#8217;s wavering economy. Other South African names including billionaire Patrice Motsepe and Bonang Mohale the head of Business Leadership South Africa are also there.
&#8220;Eskom is teetering on the brink.The delegation wants to talk to its investors in Davos to try to persuade them not to pull their money out so the government has time to fix it,&#8221; says one South African insider on the road to Davos.
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Ramaphosa will also be looking to convince investors, amid the snowflakes, that South Africa is open for business and that he is serious about cleaning up corruption. In a pre-Davos breakfast in Johannesburg on Thursday he said he wanted the National Prosecuting Authority to move faster in tackling cases. He applauded the freezing of assets of people under question, like the Gupta family, but wanted more.
&#8220;We want people doing wrong things to be dealt with,&#8221; Ramaphosa said.
One of the highlights of the week will be the visit of Donald Trump who is expected to fly in on Friday. It is likely to add spice to the gathering as Trump has long dismissed the well meaning economic globalists of Davos.
<a href="http://cnbc.africa/category/insights/world-economic-forum/">FOR MORE STORIES ON WEF DAVOS CLICK HERE</a>
African delegates could also ponder giving Trump a cold welcome to a cold Swiss mountain side in response to the <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/political/2018/01/13/africa-response-to-shithole/">US president&#8217;s recent disparaging remarks about Africa</a>.
&#8220;Many of us will be boycotting your address to delegates at Davos in protest against your divisive comments and continued failure to unequivocally apologise,&#8221;wrote Mohale angrily in the South African newspapers.
Many other members of the African delegations are likely to agree, but are equally unlikely to prise an apology out of Trump. .

Tough talk expected over Eskom in dark Davos winterland

(DAVOS) It appears International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde and South African president elect Cyril Ramaphosa have more in common than merely both being lawyers turned politicians &#8211; they both want to crack down on corruption and tax evasion.
On the first day of the World Economic Forum gathering in driving snow of the ski-resort in Switzerland Lagarde also showed she shared Ramaphosa&#8217;s penchant for the homespun turn of phrase as she launched a brighter than expected IMF Global Report on a worse than expected grey-sky day of heavy snow in Davos. It predicts global growth of 3.9% this year and next; growth of 0.2% higher than it expected thanks to tax cuts in the United States and improved performance from emerging economies like Russia and Brazil.
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&#8220;When the sun is shining it is time to fix the roof,&#8221; Lagarde told journalists at the first press briefing of Davos 2018 on Monday.
&#8220;Or when the snow stops it is time to clear the roads. That is how it seems to work here in Davos.&#8221;
Lagarde said the IMF was encouraged by the growth forecasts it was still worried about low interest rates hitting the viability of the financial sector and the increase in debt around the world.
&#8220;We will also be tackling corruption and tax evasion to come up with long lasting solutions,&#8221; Lagarde said.
Lagarde said economies should guard against complacency and provide training for women, the young and older workers whose jobs have been taken over by technology.
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IMF’s Christine Lagarde and South African president-elect Cyril Ramaphosa have more in common than you think

(DAVOS) This year, as ever, the well-meaning chatter about prosperity for all will flutter down as thickly as the snowflakes that are steadily burying the buildings that house the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
Delegates will pay up to $60,000 just to be here and thousands more on flights and expensive accommodation, not to mention expensive food, in this ski-resort.
<a href="http://cnbc.africa/category/insights/world-economic-forum/">FOR MORE STORIES ON WEF DAVOS CLICK HERE</a>
WEF has been going on year-in, year-out since 1971 in this snowy corner of the Alps &#8211; at more than 5,000 feet above sea level one of the highest spots in Europe and one of the coldest places on earth &#8211; but only now is the embarrassment about the world&#8217;s growing army poor and dispossessed starting to bite.
Arguably the anger and despair of the world&#8217;s poor majority is a major factor behind the populism, extremism, lack of trust in leadership and disillusionment with capitalism that has led to this economic think-tank to theme this year&#8217;s gathering : &#8220;A shared future in a fractured world&#8221; a paradox if ever there was one.
Oxfam has been banging on about the inequalities of the world for decades. This year it released damning evidence ahead of Davos claiming a mere 42 people &#8211; enough to fill one bus &#8211; own more than 3.7 billion of the poorest people; compared with 61 last year and 380 in 2009.
Other highlights from its &#8216;Reward Work, Not Wealth’ report include:
<ul>
<li>Billionaire wealth has risen by an annual average of 13 percent since 2010 – six times faster than the wages of ordinary workers, which have risen by a yearly average of just 2 percent. The number of billionaires rose at an unprecedented rate of one every two days between March 2016 and March 2017.</li>
<li>It takes just four days for a CEO from one of the top five global fashion brands to earn what a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in her lifetime. In the US, it takes slightly over one working day for a CEO to earn what an ordinary worker makes in a year.</li>
<li>It would cost $2.2 billion a year to increase the wages of all 2.5 million Vietnamese garment workers to a living wage. This is about a third of the amount paid out to wealthy shareholders by the top 5 companies in the garment sector in 2016.</li>
</ul>
Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International reckons: “The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system. The people who make our clothes, assemble our phones and grow our food are being exploited to ensure a steady supply of cheap goods, and swell the profits of corporations and billionaire investors.”
IMF head Christine Lagarde put her two pennyworth in when she announced much better than expected growth forecasts on the first day of the gathering on Monday.
&#8220;In one fifth of the world&#8217;s emerging economies &#8211; that is countries like Brazil Russia and South Africa &#8211; per capita income fell at a time when the rest of the world was growing.
Maybe Davos needs to up the action rather than more words if it is to avoid more of that most dangerous kind of person &#8211; man with nothing to lose.
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The rich are getting rich, this is by how much…

What a contrast; just two months after Emmerson Mnangagwa was in hiding in South Africa, in fear of his life while battle tanks rumbled through his capital, he is going to walk, chin-up, into the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,  on  Monday  with a new investment brochure under his arm in the hope of persuading the world to pour hard currency into what is left of his economy. The document, in the possession of CNBC Africa, promises much, but bears little close scrutiny.
Zimbabwe has suffered an economic meltdown over the last 15 years and struggles on with crumbling infrastructure and no currency to call its own. Confidence fell during the dwindling economic fortunes  in the painful last years of President Robert Mugabe’s 37-year rule hastened by a military takeover.
The canny crocodile – his nom de guerre from the liberation war– was being forced out by Mugabe. Now he has a new lease on life and knows that his survival <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/2018/01/18/zimbabwes-mnangagwa-says-hold-elections-four-five-months/">past the elections this year</a> hinges upon reviving the economy and putting money back into the pockets of an increasingly restive population.
The investment document is well intentioned and gets off on the right foot. It promises reform to become more attractive to foreign investors with the streamlining of legal frameworks, respect for bilateral trade agreements. There is also a promise of good governance and compensation when it all goes wrong.
It falls down a bit with an ambiguous line dealing with the protection of property.
“The government commits to the protection of all investments from expropriation, or from measures taken that will have a similar effect, except for a public purpose…”
What exactly a “public purpose” means in this document is open to debate. Does it mean that when the public – or the government on their behalf – needs property, it can take it? Wasn’t that the justification for the disastrous land seizures from commercial farmers that began in 2000? The investment document also promises investors: “adequate and effective compensation”.  Unlikely, to say the least, from a cash-strapped Treasury in a country where foreign currency is rationed.
Yet the document persists with a promise to compensate farmers in Zimbabwe who lost their land and is considering setting up a tribunal to determine how much should be paid. The farmers, a number of whom were chased off their land by armed mobs, are likely to be sceptical. Many voters who supported the land seizures are likely to be flummoxed.
The document for Davos also promises to drop the infamous indigenisation requirement, that is 51% ownership by Zimbabweans, that has discouraged many investors. Yet, it says this unpopular requirement will remain for diamonds and platinum two of the big earning minerals. It says the ministry will be charged with drawing up a new bill and regulations to govern diamonds and platinum. How long that takes is not written in the document, but the longer it takes to create certainty the more likely investors are likely to look elsewhere.
Mnangagwa maybe needs to be a little bolder and clearer if he is to win back foreign investors. His predecessor and former mentor Mugabe will be remembered for ushering a once robust economy into steep economic decline. Maybe Mnangagwa needs to work fast to stand a chance of being celebrated for doing the opposite by showing the world that when it comes to business the crocodile has teeth.

What Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa is offering investors at WEF Davos  

You have to hand it to the South African delegation that will head to the freezing slopes of the Alps in Davos, Switzerland, this week for the World Economic Forum. Their optimism in the face of a difficult task as steep as a Davos ski slope, verges on bravery. 
Even the theme of this year’s WEF “A shared future in a fractured world” sounds more like a conundrum than a rallying call. Africa, where South Africa shares the bugbear of low growth with a score of fellow nations, will have to labour to impose itself on the agenda at Davos 2018.
To make matters worse, Europe is more concerned about the fall-out from Brexit, income inequality, the crumbling of public services, fading leadership and the rise of extremism plus the question of refugees from Africa fleeing poverty and hunger. Television reports say African refugees are even limbing the Alps, not too far from Davos, in their desperation to escape penury.
Investors at WEF are likely to be sceptical about the meagre growth of a South Africa that just over a decade ago was cooking along at 5%. It is worth pointing out that many economists agree that 5% is merely enough to absorb the annual flood of school leavers and graduates onto the job market.
At the very least South Africa’s president elect Cyril Ramaphosa, who will lead his country’s delegation to Davos, has made bold promises aimed at putting the country’s house in order before taking the plane to Switzerland. He has taken a big stick to corruption and the sloppy state owned enterprises – from Eskom to Denel – who cost state coffers millions every year. 
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Ramaphosa , as a statesman waiting, is trying to put down his marker as a future leader of the country and at a pre-Davos breakfast in a Johannesburg hotel pledged to bring more and more people to justice – a process that has begun in recent days with the launch of investigations and the freezing of assets. It’s a move that would cheer up the taxpayer as much as foreign investors, who fear corruption for its uncertainty and power to inflate the costs of running a business. 
“The NPA (National Prosecuting Authority) is beginning to move. We want it to increase the tempo. The freezing is good but we need to see much more,” says Ramaphosa.
Fine words, but until there are high-profile convictions and billions returned to state coffers, these words are not going to cut much ice among investors. It could be a cold Davos for the South African delegation, but with one of the continent’s most robust economies at stake you would be very hard hearted indeed not to wish them the best of luck.

Will Africa cut much ice in Davos this year?

The first three months of 2018 will be crucial to the flickering fortunes of Africa’s most advanced mining industry. They are likely to be months littered with litigation argument and acrimony.
The resource rich industry of South Africa – once a world leader in mining employing a million people and producing more than half of the world’s gold –has seen more than two decades of decline. Corruption, falling productivity, rising costs and dithering over regulation have taken a heavy toll.
In 2016, according to Statistics South Africa the South African mining industry’s real GDP was 2.6% smaller than it was in 1994.The financial services sector grew by 168% over the same period. On top of this, the South African mining sector has slid, according to Fraser Institute Investment Attractiveness Index that measures best practice in policy, legislation, regulation and operating environment.
Hanging above all of this is a court result and a judicial hearing regarding a controversial rewrite of the <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/southern-africa/2017/06/15/chamber-mines-seek-legal-opinion-mining-charter/">Mining Charter</a> that has taken more than five years to get nowhere. It was released in April, after minimal consultation, to outrage from the Chamber of Mines. The mining companies objected to the increase of black ownership from 26% to 30% to be maintained at all times.
This is the issue that the Chamber of Mines took to the <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/southern-africa/2017/11/27/court-challenge-south-africa-mining-charter-postponed-february/">Gauteng High Court in November</a>. The mining companies argue that a “once empowered always empowered” principle should apply; in that once a mining company has borne the cost of transferring shares into black ownership it is deemed to have done its job regardless of any dilution of the stake. The Chamber of Mines hopes for a judgement in the first quarter of 2018-victory in court could send the Mining Charter back to the drawing board.
&#8220;A full bench of three judges heard this case. This is one reason why the decision is going to take a while. The three judges have to arrive at a majority decision and that takes time, but we are hoping to have a decision by the end of March. I think it was a difficult case and not easy to argue from a legal perspective. I am optimistic, but it will be a tough one,&#8221; says Elize Strydom, the head of legal for the Chamber of Mines.
The mining employers pin higher hopes on the judicial review of the amended Mining Charter, set for February 19 20 and 21, again at the Gauteng High Court, again before a full bench of three judges led by senior High Court Judge Dunstan Mlambo.
Observers believe this case, in particular, is likely to bring a lot of pressure down on Mining Minister Mosebenzi Zwane. In this judicial review, it will not merely be the mining employers against the Mining Charter, there will be seven organisations that number the unions, including the National Union of Mineworkers and Solidarity, plus Lawyers for Human Rights representing communities who live near the mines.
&#8220;I think the review is a lot easier for us because there are so many flaws and measures in the Mining Charter that are beyond the powers of the minister. For instance, the minister indicated that 2% of the proposed 5% skills levy is to go to an empowerment agency that he has yet to create. This is not in his power to do this &#8211; that is within the power of the minister of finance. What we hope is that the minister will have to start again from scratch. Then we can sit down with the unions and interested parties to come up with something that we can all work with,&#8221; Strydom said.
Whether minister Zwane will be there to negotiate is another question amid the uncertainty. Moves are growing apace to encourage President Zuma to resign early in a dignified exit that will mean the dissolving of cabinet.
A new broom could mean renewed confidence among foreign investors with president-elect Cyril Ramaphosa being painted as the mining-savvy, business-friendly, leader.
Whoever takes over, at least one political analyst believes the damage has been done more than a decade ago with the advent of the Minerals Resources and Petroleum Development Act. The legislation ushered in black empowerment and virtually nationalised the country&#8217;s mineral rights overnight.
&#8220;I think foreign investors have been fighting shy of South African since the mineral resources were taken over by the government in the early 2000s. I don&#8217;t think the removal of one man is going to suddenly make the mining investors in Toronto and London think we are a great place to invest. I think the country has to improve its economic fundamentals first. The country has massive unemployment, too much spending on welfare and this lingering political chaos,&#8221; says Moeletsi Mbeki, a political analyst.
If the Chamber of Mines carries the day at the judicial review it is likely judges will instruct that the Mining Charter be torn up.  That could trigger a rewrite process that could take even more years and with it bring even more uncertainty.

2018 will be crucial to the flickering fortunes of Africa’s most advanced mining industry

Closed door meetings in the coming days are likely to decide how South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma’s chequered political career will come to an end – a process that could lead to either a dignified resignation or less dignified exit in Parliament on live TV. Next week members of the ruling National African National Congress (ANC) will gather in East London, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, to celebrate its 106th birthday; a meeting of the all-powerful National Executive Committee will be part of the gathering.
READ: <a href="http://cnbc.africa/zdnl-mc/2017/12/22/zuma-scenarios/">The three scenarios facing Zuma&#8217;s presidency </a>
Sources told CNBC Africa that officials of the ruling African National Congress are meeting with President Zuma to try to negotiate a swift and dignified exit.  President Zuma could stay until the next elections in 2019, but a growing number of his party colleagues see his prolonged tainted leadership as a quick way to lose power against a resurgent opposition.
“My sources tell me that meetings are being held to decide the future. President Zuma will be given a chance to resign with dignity or face being removed by a vote of no confidence,” says Aubrey Matshiqi, a political analyst with the Helen Suzman Foundation.
“I can see he is being backed into a corner.”
If no deal can be brokered that corner could be yet another motion of no confidence in Parliament at its opening on February 8. He has survived four such calls, since 2015, but the last one was by the skin of his teeth – by a mere 21 votes, on August 8.
This time, analysts believe, many more loyalists could jump the Zuma ship as former mining magnate <a href="http://cnbc.africa/category/insights/anc-elective-conference/'">Cyril Ramaphosa took over the mantle of president-elect </a>by winning the presidency of the ANC on December 18. In the slender defeat of the no confidence vote, in August, at least 30 ANC MPs voted to remove their own president.
The opposition Democratic Alliance said on December 29 that it planned to table an impeachment in Parliament after the <a href="http://cnbc.africa/uncategorized/2017/12/29/concourt-zuma-ruling/">Constitutional Court</a> ruled President Zuma failed to uphold and defend the Constitution of South Africa in the spending of taxpayers’ money on his private Nkandla residence in KwaZulu-Natal.
Political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki believes President Zuma is yet likely to survive another call In Parliament to step down.
“You have to understand most of the MPs are still his loyalists,” says Mbeki.
“If Zuma loses the no confidence vote there could be even more chaos. Cabinet will have to dissolve and there could be a tussle over who Parliament will appoint as interim president. There is no guarantee that Cyril will end up as the interim head of state.”
It could all hinge on words spoken behind closed doors in East London next week.

Resignation or the threat of ousting live on TV for embattled SA’s President Zuma

So what happens to embattled South African President Jacob Zuma now? Can he survive his last year in office?  Will it be a hard exit or a soft one? Tongues are already wagging about an early exit no matter how it is done.
As the days go by since <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/2017/12/18/south-africas-ramaphosa-wins-election-anc-president/">Cyril Ramaphosa was named as his successor</a> amid the cheers and chaos of <a href="http://cnbc.africa/category/insights/anc-elective-conference/">the African National Congress elective conference</a> on the sweaty night of December 18. The rand and the markets surged in step with the pulse rate on that night of victory for the so called “business” candidate. The <a href="http://cnbc.africa/insights/anc-elective-conference/2017/12/19/new-anc-leader-ramaphosa-makes-south-africans-richer-1-month-zuma-managed-8-years/">rand hit a nine month high on that night</a>; one wonders what could have happened if the vote had gone the other way.
I was there that night, a stone’s throw from the stage, at the climax of days of horse trading. If anything, those crazy days were a masterclass in the brutal maelstrom of ANC politics.
Now we prepare for the next act of one of Africa’s oldest liberation movements.  In January there will the 106th anniversary celebrations and a meeting of the new 80-member National Executive Committee.
At the NEC the departure of President Zuma is highly likely to be on the agenda. This shindig in East London is the right place for Ramaphosa to put down his markers of authority. For him, first prize would be a swift exit for Zuma at the behest of the all-powerful NEC.  Ramaphosa managed to get a number of his heavyweight supporters elected to the NEC (see full list of members below), like former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and former Reserve Bank Head Tito Mboweni, but not enough of them. His majority in the NEC could be as slender as 41-39, according to <a href="http://cnbc.africa/videos/2017/12/12/friedman-anc-elective-conference-could-be-postponed/">Steven Friedman</a>, a Political Analyst.
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&#8220;I think Ramaphosa can forget getting rid of President Zuma early. This small majority puts handcuffs on his wrists and ankles. He has a lot of expectations on his shoulders to end corruption and change the direction of the economy, but he will have very little room to move,&#8221; <a href="http://cnbc.africa/videos/2017/12/16/prospects-of-54th-anc-conference-delivering-unity/">Aubrey Matshiqi</a>, a Political Analyst with the Helen Suzman Foundation, said.
Ramaphosa could sit it out, until the elections in mid-2019, most analysts agree, unless the ANC looks likely to lose that election in the face of rising opposition. That could persuade NEC members to ditch the unpopular Zuma name with all of its baggage and corruption allegations.
&#8220;This could happen with an act of self-preservation by Zuma supporters. If they think they are going to lose their jobs after the 2019 elections they will certainly look to dump Zuma later in the year, Matshiqi said.
If Zuma is recalled he will be the second South African president in-a-row to suffer the indignity; a move likely to be seen with unease by foreign investors. Thabo Mbeki, the second president of a democratic South Africa, was recalled by the ANC in 2008 after losing the 2007 elective conference to President Zuma. Staunch Zuma supporters said at the elective conference this week, in Johannesburg that they would fight to stop the incumbent suffering the same humiliating fate of a lame duck president.
There is a third way. The NEC could negotiate a soft exit for President Zuma by agreeing to use the State of the Nation address in February as a farewell speech. This way he would be praised and lauded by his faithful followers on his way to retirement with all the dignity.
Maybe not the most fitting exit for President Zuma, after years of corruption allegations and poor management of the economy, but at least it would leave the new man free to take over the control of the economy. Let’s hope he does a better job.

The three scenarios facing Zuma’s presidency

(Abidjan) French Premier Emmanuel Macron arrives here in Abidjan today (November 29) at the end of his first major tour to the continent where he will lay out France’s Africa policy for the next five years.
Cote D’Ivoire is a prime place for this keynote speech as it is the biggest economy in French-speaking Africa with maybe the reputation for one of the swiftest recoveries from the ashes of a bitter civil war. It is a mere seven years since Cote D’ Ivoire  &#8211; once  called the Paris of Africa – threw off  the rule of the gun with the ousting of Laurent Gbagbo with the help of French troops.
READ: <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/west-africa/2017/11/28/africa-entrepreneurs/">Billions to be spent unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit of Africa</a>
Since those dark days the world’s leading cocoa exporter has quickly shifted its economy into top year. At a time when many economies around the world, from north to south, are struggling to record one per cent annual growth – Cote D’Ivoire achieved 8.8 %, albeit off a very low base. There are concerns in Abidjan that this growth appears to be failing to trickle down to the poor majority of the country’s 25 million people.
When Macron arrives one of his presidential duties will be to lay the foundation stone for a metro-style railway in Abidjan. It is one of the building blocks of robust transport infrastructure in the capital that would have been a mere pipe dream, back in 2011, as the soldiers filed back into their barracks. Within a few short years of the end of military rule, commuter ferries ply their trade delivering workers to the offices in the skyscrapers of Abidjan across the lagoon in the heart of the city. A new bridge over the lagoon channels cross town traffic away from the congested city centre. The country is also building a second shipping container terminal and beefing up logistics at the airport.
The fact that all of this foreign investment comes from Korea, Morocco, Turkey, Tunisia and Singapore, as well as France, is a sign of changing times in Cote D’ Ivoire. President Alassane Ouattara, who won his second term in October, has thrown open the doors to investors around the world – gone are the days when France had first pick.
This is what President Macron has to deal with in his policy speech in Abidjan: how to build a bridge between France and Cote D’Ivoire as sturdy as the new one over the lagoon. France likes to keep its former colonies close – there is a garrison of French troops near Abidjan airport – in business, closer still.
President Macron has a head start in that his counterpart President Ouattara, who is married to a French woman, is pragmatic and a lot more pro-French than his anti-imperialist predecessor.
The cynics in the financial world, in Abidjan, may shrug their shoulders and say, as French President, Macron will merely look after French interests. But in reality the French Premier has a unique opportunity in Abidjan, on Wednesday, not only to lay the foundation stone for the metro, but also to lay the foundation for a new era of confidence for foreign investment in the go-ahead economies of Africa.

French Premier Emmanuel Macron’s Africa tour, what he needs to address

(Abidjan) An effort that hopes to draw billions in investment in Africa from Europe wrapped up at the Palace of Culture in Abidjan this week. In many ways, there couldn’t have been a better place for talk of a free market drive to revive the economies of Africa.
For Cote D’Ivoire, for all its economic difficulties, scarce capital and heavy taxes, has a claim to being an economic phoenix rising from the ashes of a violent civil war. Ever since the Ivorian army marched back to its barracks, in 2011, the country has seen signs of an economic revival akin to that of post-Genocide Rwanda and post-war Singapore. In fewer than seven years of peace, Cote D’Ívoire has thrown its doors open to foreign investors on its way to a growth rate of more than 8%, albeit from a very low base. 
The European Union-Africa Forum, in Abidjan this week, was here to discuss an ambitious plan to help unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of Africa to create jobs and wealth. The EU is pushing a plan to prise investment out of a tight European financial market – especially from the big pension funds – to plough into entrepreneurs with emphasis on women and the youth.
The plan revolves around a fund of around $4 billion. The EU hopes to leverage this money up to around $44 billion by encouraging powerful financial institutions and pension funds in Europe to get behind it in the hope of high returns. In achieving this, around $1.5 billion of this money will be used as investment guarantees to take the risk out for foreign investors.
“It is done. We passed everything through our legislators in September and you will see the first projects taking shape next year,” says Roberto Ridolfi, in Abidjan, one of the technocrats at the EU who helped guide the plan.
At the conference, young entrepreneurs were given the chance to pitch their ideas to earn the chance of a sliver of the seed capital.
Academic and director general of DEVCO at the European Commission, Stefano Manservisi, is an expert on international and economic integration. He says the EC is in discussions with African nations in a bid to ease the flow of goods and services across borders to encourage investment.
One of the areas that the EU scheme is targeting is technology. I put it to Manservisi that these kinds of investments do not create many jobs in a content that needs about 20 million in the next 20 years.
“You have to remember that Facebook was created in a garage. There are many garages in Africa and people can create wealth and jobs in them if they are given the support and capital,” says Manservisi.
There are also reservations among African leaders about a lack of consultation over plans in this effort to create jobs. People on the ground in Abidjan question whether the benefits will trickle down to the millions living in poverty.
In a year when thousands of Africans died trying to flee this poverty – heading for Europe on leaky boats across the Mediterranean &#8211; the EU admits this investment effort may not be a quick fix, but at the very least it is a start.

Billions to be spent unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit of Africa

If you have a sense of humour and any experience of African politics over the last 30 years surely you can’t have missed the irony of former Zambian Premier <a href="http://cnbc.africa/news/southern-africa/2017/11/20/ex-zambian-leader-arrives-zimbabwe-convince-mugabe-go-source/">Kenneth Kaunda being sent to persuade Robert Mugabe to step down</a>.
In a nutshell, two 93-year-olds, who both long overstayed their welcome and were old enough to know better; actually having to debate doing the right thing.
The day leaders in Africa realise that clinging onto power merely ends in tears, court cases and the ignominy of being despised by you own people – the better.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I think Kaunda is a lovely old soul. I sat in his lounge 20-odd years ago interviewing him about his political comeback and spent months covering his treason trial in Lusaka. We were threatened and abused by the military and police in a trial that looked more like an army camp than a High Court.  In prison, Kaunda grew a massive, bushy, white beard in protest and when he was acquitted I asked him – on camera – why he had ended up looking like Father Christmas.
“Chris, is that not a noble person to be?” chuckled Kaunda. We had that kind of relationship.
True Kaunda has a claim to being a statesman and is probably one of the more benign leaders of Africa.   But I still don’t understand why Kaunda stayed in power for 27 years. It took the burning of Lusaka by angry voters to make it happen – at least, he tried to do the decent thing by going to the polls in 1991 where he lost and was unceremoniously kicked out. I was told by a daughter of a minister in Lusaka that on the night of the election defeat the families of the new ministers knocked on the doors of the old to throw them and their furniture onto the street.
Instead of peaceful retirement on a cattle post – like the revered Ketumile Masire of Botswana – Kaunda was vilified on the streets and pushed about by the authorities. They tried to deport him claiming he wasn’t a Zambian because he was born in neighbouring Malawi; all in all, the wrath of the people who remembered the food shortages and indifference of their leader’s era.
As for Mugabe, should a man of his intellect really be told at the age of 93 that enough is enough? Surely a divine right to rule for life should be a relic of the past like the royal families of the world who cling onto it. For the last few decades Mugabe’s occupation of the top spot has stifled new ideas and stagnated the natural race for succession among the young and bright who grew up in a free Zimbabwe. Woe betide those who stood in his way.
Worried about prosecution? Mugabe should be and I am sure he is negotiating for immunity from being dragged through the courts.  If he gets it will be a sad day for governance in Africa, it will send out a message that you can ill-treat your people with impunity.
Just imagine how Mugabe could have been regarded if he had stepped down in 1990 after two terms. He would have been revered as the scholarly gentleman who led Zimbabwe out of colonialism to freedom. The man who left one of the jewels of Africa, prosperous educated and free. The world would have beaten a path to his door to receive counsel. He would have been invited to conferences all over the world. There would have been lectures and universities in his name.
Instead Mugabe will face the indignity of being dragged from power before a jeering mob. His legacy as soiled as baby’s nappy:  wasn’t it Mark Twain who said that “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason”?

Chris Bishop

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Chris Bishop

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Africa’s politicians and nappies should be changed for the same reason

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