Africa, Continent Of Opportunities Says UBA Chief On Africa Day - AllAfrica.com

The wide range of opportunities which abound on the African continent was again brought to the fore on Friday in Lagos as the Deputy Managing Director, Ag. of the United Bank for Africa Plc, Mr Kennedy Uzoka stated that the future belongs to Africans, considering the business opportunities that thrive in the continent.

Mr. Uzoka said this in Lagos at a ceremony in which for the third year in a row, the pan African banking group, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc joined the rest of the world to commemorate Africa Day - a day set aside to celebrate African diversity and success as well as highlight the cultural and economic potential that exists in the African continent.  On the bedrock of the experience garnered by UBA plc, one of the largest financial services providers on the continent, Uzoka noted that Africa remains the only continent that would guarantee above average returns on investments, coupled with availability of rare minerals and human resources. He said that UBA in the last two years had deemed it appropriate to observe Africa Day and was committed to making May 25 every year an annual celebration. He noted that the day was a celebration of the pride in 'who we are' as Africans, and enjoined staff to continue to push for excellence as a leading institution.

"The continent has huge growth potentials as business opportunities abound for us to harness by effectively leveraging our Pan-African network in areas of service excellence, product innovation and operational efficiencies. This year's theme for the celebration is 'We are Africa'; validating our positioning and spread across the continent as one of the largest financial services providers," he said.

Highlights of the day include breaking of Kola Nut, a cultural display troupe performance from various African cultural settings amongst other things.

Africa Day, held on the 25th of May every year, is the annual commemoration of the 1963 founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), presently recognized as the Africa Union (AU). The objective of this celebration is to celebrate the achievements of African people and businesses that have brought pride to the continent, globally and inspire Africans globally to strive daily for distinction through ethics and diligence.

In line with its vision to become a leading financial institution in Africa, UBA have expanded its reach into 19 African countries, namely Nigeria, Ghana, Cote D'Ivore and Sierra Leone. The rest are Uganda, Liberia, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Benin, Senegal, Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania, Chad, Gabon, Guinea, Mozambique, Congo DRC and Congo Brazzaville. The list keeps growing as we aspire to become the dominant Pan-African financial service institution, the bank stressed.

Recently, during the Annual General Meeting of the Bank held in Lagos,  the Group Managing Director, UBA Plc, Mr. Phillips Oduoza informed the shareholders that the Bank's operations on the continent has contributed to the Bank's impressive Q1 results, contributing over 20 percent to the Group's bottom line. He further promised that as its African operations is consolidated, their contributions to the Group's profit will equal to its Nigerian operations by 2015.

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Africa: Progress in Regulatory Reform Expands Business Opportunities Across Ohada Member States - AllAfrica.com

World Bank (Washington, DC)

25 January 2012

press release

Mali — A new report from IFC and the World Bank finds that member states of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) have increased the pace of reform in making it easier for local firms to do business.

The report, Doing Business in the OHADA Member States 2012, draws on data from the annual global Doing Business study and takes a detailed look at business regulations in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Comoros, Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. The report states that the 16 OHADA member states could benefit from sharing good practices in business regulation as measured by Doing Business.

Founded in Mauritius in 1993, OHADA is a system of business laws and implementing institutions adopted by 16 West and Central African nations. OHADA is the French acronym for "Organisation pour l'Harmonisation en Afrique du Droit des Affaires."

The average ranking of the OHADA member states is 166 out of the 183 economies measured in the global Doing Business 2012 report. Mali, with a global rank of 146, is the easiest place among OHADA member states for an entrepreneur to do business, followed by Burkina Faso (150) and Senegal (154). In the past six years, all 16 OHADA member states made it easier to do business. Across the region, the average cost of starting a business decreased from 338 percent to 110 percent of the average per capita income. The average time required to register property also decreased by 28 percent.

No single economy outperformed the others across the board. But in some of the categories that were measured, the region's economies are comparable to the world's best performers. Senegal, for example, has reduced the time needed to set up a business to only five days through its "one-stop shop" system - the same amount of time as in Canada. After four years of successive reforms, dealing with construction permits in Burkina Faso takes only 98 days - three months faster than the European Union average.

"Competitive economies cannot ignore what their neighbors are doing", said Dorothé Sossa, Permanent Secretary of OHADA. "Pooling, as is the case with OHADA, and sharing reform experiences is an opportunity to improve national and regional competitiveness."

One of OHADA's priorities is to establish a uniform legal framework to govern business activities in the region's economies. This year, the first revision of the body of commercial laws in the region simplified business entry in eight member states and strengthened secured transaction laws in all 16 member states.

"The overhaul of the common business legislation addressed two of the top constraints to enterprise development and investment in Africa: access to finance and the quality of the legal framework," said Pierre Guislain, Director of Investment Climate Advisory Services of the World Bank Group.

Doing Business in OHADA Member States 2012 was prepared as part of the OHADA Business Law Reform Program of the Investment Climate Advisory Services of the World Bank Group. The program includes support to the OHADA member states and the OHADA Permanent Secretariat in reforming and implementing the common set of laws.

About the World Bank Group

The World Bank Group is one of the world's largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. It comprises five closely associated institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), which together form the World Bank; the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Each institution plays a distinct role in the mission to fight poverty and improve living standards for people in the developing world. For more information, please visit www.worldbank.org, www.miga.org, and www.ifc.org.

About the Doing Business report series

Doing Business analyzes regulations that apply to an economy's businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and resolving insolvency. The aggregate ease of doing business rankings are based on 10 indicators and cover 183 economies. Previous year's rankings are back-calculated to account for the addition of new indicator(s), data corrections, and methodology changes in existing indicators so as to provide a meaningful comparison with the new rankings. Doing Business does not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors. For example, it does not measure security, macroeconomic stability, corruption, the level of skills, or the strength of financial systems. Its findings have stimulated policy debates in more than 80 economies and enabled a growing body of research on how firm-level regulation relates to economic outcomes across economies. For more information about the Doing Business report series, please visit www.doingbusiness.org. Join us on Facebook.

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Africa: U.S. Senator - Continent of Tremendous Opportunity - AllAfrica.com

United States Department of State (Washington, DC)

Charlene Porter

19 January 2012

press release

Washington — Calling Africa a "continent of tremendous opportunity," Senator Chris Coons (Democrat), who chairs the African Affairs Subcommittee in the U.S. Senate, joined with U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah to recruit more American business investment for Africa.

Coons, who was just back from traveling to Africa with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, made his comments at a business conference he hosted in Wilmington, Delaware, January 18. He told participants that some countries on the continent are already booming and that others offer great potential for future economic growth.

"In trade, health and security, Africa is rapidly becoming one of the most important parts of the world," Coons said. As he has traveled through Delaware, the senator said, he has also seen a variety of businesses that are "extraordinarily interested in engaging in Africa."

Coons has a special interest in Africa, as a former exchange student in Kenya and as the current chairman of the African Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He traveled with Secretary Clinton January 16-17 on a trip to the continent with stops in Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Togo and Cape Verde, attending the inauguration of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in her second term as president of Liberia.

USAID's Shah spoke to Delaware business people about new opportunities and emerging industries in Africa. "Trade between Africa and the rest of the world has increased by 200 percent over the last decade," Shah said. "And in 2010, foreign direct investment was more than $55 billion -- five times what it was a decade earlier."

Helping poor nations develop long-term, self-sustaining business and industry is the new focus of international aid efforts, Shah said. Dubbed "USAID Forward," the aid reform campaign relies more on partnership, innovation and results rather than a continuous stream of subsistence aid.

"A cornerstone of this effort is forming new, high-impact public-private partnerships -- working and investing together to build new markets, unlock opportunity and improve global economic potential," Shah said. The USAID administrator cited several projects developing in that fashion in Africa:

Agricultural researchers at the Delaware-based chemical giant DuPont are working with a seed company to reach small farmers with the means to produce crops with greater yields and less fertilizer.The consumer product company Procter & Gamble is working with USAID and African-based organizations to better distribute low-cost treatments to produce safe water and increase its availability.USAID has teamed up with local organizations in Ethiopia to support a community health program that addresses nutrition, water, sanitation and health training, improving lives and empowering communities to build a better future.

While these efforts can lead to greater prosperity in the future, the humanitarian emergency in East Africa is a reminder that the continent is repeatedly beset with drought, hunger and famine. In the face of dire circumstances, with almost 13 million people in need of humanitarian aid, Shah said USAID's assistance reform effort has subdued some of the ferocity of this emergency. The agency worked with a Swiss insurer to provide livestock insurance for herders in Kenya, protecting them from the loss of their animals in drought. A collaboration with the Ethiopian government created a social safety net program that protected more than 7 million from falling into hunger or starvation.

The United States remains the largest donor to international humanitarian programs to address the East African humanitarian crisis, and Shah said the effort is producing results, with diminishing numbers of children needing therapeutic feeding programs, and increased survival rates for those receiving treatment for starvation.

Shah said the humanitarian programs in East Africa are providing the full range of response to hunger. At the same time, the Obama administration's Feed the Future program is "driving the kind of investments in agricultural development that will ensure countries escape [the] devastating cycle of famine and food aid."

About 400 Delawareans from business and industry, and from civic, nongovernmental and religious organizations, attended the meeting to connect with representatives from Africa, also present. Coons said, "It is my hope that we can strengthen and sustain these connections across our state with this most important of continents and raise our voices together about issues in Africa, including health, food security, human rights, development and business opportunities."

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Mozambique: Turkish Businesses Seek Partners - AllAfrica.com

20 January 2012

Maputo — A delegation of 11 businessmen from the Turkish province of Esparta have been in Mozambique since Wednesday seeking business opportunities.

The mission consists of representatives of Turkish companies in the areas of construction, textiles, precious stones and furniture, among others. On Thursday the mission participated in a business meeting organised by the Mozambique-Turkey Chamber of Commerce which has the Confederation of Mozambican Business Associations (CTA) as a strategic partner.

At the meeting's opening session, the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Kenneth Marizane, said that Mozambique has attempted to establish a legal framework that improves the business environment and gives the country an attractive investment climate.

"The Mozambican government has approved instruments that seek to guarantee the promotion of investments in strategic sectors such as agriculture, trade, industry, services, tourism, fisheries, mineral resources, construction and energy which have a significant impact on the development of the national economy", he said.

He hoped that "through dialogue with our business people, we can celebrate partnerships, negotiation and projects that increase the business cooperation between Mozambique and Turkey".

CTA representative Leticia Klemens, stressed the role of the CTA as a channel for dialogue between the government and the Mozambican private sector, and as a lobbyist for the interests of private business.

"The environment for the generation of new businesses is based on the profound political and legislative reforms under way, which provides an excellent business environment, resulting from the dynamic of our partnership with the government", she said.

For his part, Ahmet Tiras, the chairperson of the Mozambique-Turkey Chamber of Commerce, said that the meeting will allow the two groups of business people to seal business partnerships.

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Rwanda: Sustainability - Moving From Compliance to Leadership - AllAfrica.com

Government Supporting Daily

Samuel Kariuki

5 January 2012

opinion

You can think of sustainability as a feelood issue that you can support when it's convenient to do so.

Or you can think of it as the emerging context in which businesses must operate.

Sustainability, as a management concept, has different meanings to different people. From a business perspective, sustainability may generally be defined as the processes by which enterprises manage their economic, environmental, and social obligations and the opportunities to create long term competitive advantage and growth. These are also often referred to as people, planet, and profit in popular media.

As a business manager, one can think of sustainability as a feel-good issue to be supported when it's convenient to do so. Alternatively, one can think of it as the emerging context in which businesses must operate. Evidence from leading companies shows that sustainability can reward both the top line and the bottom line when it is embedded into day to day business management and operational execution.

In PwC's 2011 Annual Global CEO Survey that included business leaders here in Rwanda, CEOs indicated that they saw big opportunities in making their enterprises responsive to social expectations. Whether they primarily sell to businesses, government or consumers, most of the CEOs interviewed by PwC anticipated changes to their business strategies because customers are factoring environmental and social responsibility practices into purchasing decisions. Here in Rwanda, our business are interacting more and more with the outside world, either through seeking to attract strategic international investors, seeking overseas sources of finance or exports. Sustainability, as a management concept, is therefore very relevant to us.

How then do businesses make sustainability part and parcel of how they operate? Few people would argue against protecting the environment or responsible citizenship. But few businesses make decisions with environmental and social impact as a routine concern. To achieve an operations orientation, companies will move through a sustainability maturity path along a continuum from compliance to obligation to efficiency and finally to leadership. In the process, they will embed sustainability in operations. We will look at the first two stages in this article.

The first stage in the maturity path is compliance with regulations. Enterprises at this stage are concerned with embedding compliance mechanisms in their processes because they must do it. Compliance with government regulations is a key external driver and the legally required must-do task. Regulations, whether large and small or direct and indirect will constrain decisions and options. It can be difficult to assess the direct value for complying with regulations beyond avoiding civil penalties. But the economic and other impacts used to justify the regulations can be helpful in setting a common valuation for various sustainability activities, which then can create direct enterprise value. While compliance alone has been an adequate corporate response in the past, social attitudes toward sustainable practices will have more impact in the future. Just being compliant will not be enough, because regulations will be slow to catch up to market expectations and competitive reality.

Dealing with stakeholders' perceptions of corporate obligation to act is the second stage of maturity. It is typically associated with the large-scale impacts of industry and what to do about them. Larger enterprises attract the highest expectations, or obligations, to act. Even if their practices are not much different from others or not under their direct control, industry leaders are expected to "do the right thing" or risk reputational damage and lost business if they don't. Enterprises that have taken appropriate actions have benefited from bolstering their reputations. Meeting the obligation by promoting sustainable methods becomes a source of differentiation from competitors.

In meeting the obligations, companies can turn environmental and social challenges into new business opportunities. By seizing these opportunities, they shape the world and advance toward leadership.

Samuel Kariuki is a manager with PwC Rwanda

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