Connecting Africa’s Skilled Professionals
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The majority of UK workers, 78 per cent, want more access to flexible working as a benefit in the absence of pay rises, a survey has found. The poll of 1,000 office workers, by software provider TeamViewer, showed that 68 per cent of employees would like to be able to work from home. Half the respondents said they would like to travel less for work, while nearly a quarter of 25-34-year old staff said they were “happy to work in bed”. However, the survey results suggest that a large number of UK businesses are yet to implement a clear flexible working strategy. A quarter of respondents said they “never” work from home, while a further 18 per cent “rarely” work from home. Only 26 per cent were able to choose when they want to work from home, while a further 22 per cent said home-working arrangements were flexible as long as they got prior agreement from their manager. Interestingly, while UK workers do like the flexibility of working from home, many stick to their typical office routine. More than a third take tea and coffee breaks at the same time each day, 35 per cent start work at the same time, 33 per cent always shower before they start work and 29 per cent always finish work at the same time every day.
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group has launched a new three-year funding programme which will focus on young people, women and social entrepreneurs in the UK. RBS will provide a funding pot of £1.5 million over the next three years for the Youth Enterprise programme, which is the first programme to open for applications. Non-profit organisations in the UK can apply now for grants of up to £50,000 for projects that provide enterprise support to young people between the ages of 13 and 30 years. Applications can be for both new and existing programmes that are helping young people on their enterprise journey. This might be helping them to set up in business, delivering enterprise education, innovative networking events, developing entrepreneurial knowledge and skills, and more. Organisations have five more chances to apply for there will be two funding rounds per year for the next three years. Each year some £500,000 will be available. By the time the Inspiring Youth Enterprise programme ends in 2015, RBS expects to have helped 100,000 young people to explore enterprise, develop their enterprising skills and start up in business. RBS is also running a series of workshops with the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) to bring young people together with enterprise support organisations. Information on the Women in Enterprise and Social Enterprises programmes is expected to be made available soon. Full details can be found on the RBS Group Inspiring Enterprise Programme website
We are a small UK based Charity (& registered NGO in Kenya) providing support to the street children and youths of Mombasa. Please visit our web site http://www.GladsHouse.com or perhaps watch a short video about our work Glad's House. Currently all of our fundraising for our various projects is raised in the UK. To help expand this we are going to produce a monthly newsletter. We have a fantastic team in Mombasa, social workers, teachers and sports coaches but none of them are good story writers. We are looking for someone to come to our project in Magongo (the township sandwiched between Moi International airport and the oil refinery) perhaps one or twice a month and interview staff, street kids and local people and write up their stories. We will then insert these stories into our newsletter.
Pension pessimism is soaring, with nearly half (47%) of British workers now anticipating that they will retire later than they previously thought. This is according to a survey by global professional services firm Towers Watson. Part 3 of the Global Workforce Study (GWS), a survey of 32,000 employees worldwide including over 2,600 UK workers, suggests that six out of ten British workers believe that retirement security has become a higher priority for them over the past three years. Levels of pessimism were higher in the UK than the US, at 42%, and France and Germany at just 36% and 38% respectively. The survey also revealed worrying statistics on how organisations are communicating their retirement benefits. Over a quarter (26%) of workers claimed that their employers' retirement benefits do not meet their needs and a fifth (20%) said employers do not do a good job of explaining their benefits programmes.The Government’s pensions auto-enrolment initiative, which began in October, is expected to get more people saving for their retirement plans.
The charity African Peoples Advocacy (www.apadvocacy.org ) is raising funds through sales of the book Bala in the Mali Kingdom by Chantal Aboa. Bala in the Mali Kingdom is a gripping children's novel narrating the thrilling adventures of Bala, a modern-day British boy of African descent who, as in the series Dr Who, is able to travel back in time to 13th-century Mali Kingdom. Bala in the Mali Kingdom, the first book in a series -Bala is set to travel to other ancient African places- will enable both young people and adults to discover African history and culture in an entertaining way. Why not avoid the usual gloves or jumpers and give copies of Bala in the Mali Kingdom as Christmas gifts this year?
You may purchase advance copies of Bala in the Mali Kingdom on Amazon for £9.99 (+ £2.80 for post and packaging) on the link http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bala-Mali-Kingdom-Chantal-Aboa/dp/8888934340/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352810207&sr=8-1
You may purchase advance copies of Bala in the Mali Kingdom on Amazon for £9.99 (+ £2.80 for post and packaging) on the link http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bala-Mali-Kingdom-Chantal-Aboa/dp/8888934340/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352810207&sr=8-1
Special Offer to Reconnect Africa Readers: There is a 10% discount for the readers of our magazine. E-mail African Peoples Advocacy now at info@apadvocacy.org and they will e-mail you a cover of Bala in the Mali Kingdom and tell you how to obtain your copy with a 10% discount!
The number of people taking up apprenticeships has continued to increase, according to new UK Government statistics. From August 2011 to July this year, 502,500 people started an apprenticeship in the UK. This is an increase from 457,200 in the previous year. This number includes apprenticeships at all levels, but the growth was particularly strong at advanced and higher levels.
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group has opened its new three-year funding programme to organisations across the UK that encourage and support women in enterprise. The Inspiring Women in Enterprise programme launch follows on the heels of the Inspiring Youth Enterprise programme. Both programmes offer a funding pot of £1.5 million over the next three years. By the time the Inspiring Women in Enterprise programme ends in 2015, RBS expects to have “inspired and enabled 20,000 women to explore and unlock their enterprise potential”. The RBS Group is offering grants to help build the capacity of organisations that encourage and support women, who are not yet in business, to explore enterprise. Non-profit organisations in the UK can apply now for grants of up to £50,000 for projects that provide enterprise support to women in the UK. Applications can be for both new and existing programmes that are helping women on their enterprise journey. This might be helping them to set up in business, delivering enterprise education, innovative networking events, developing entrepreneurial knowledge and skills, and more. There will be two funding rounds per year for the next three years. Each year £500,000 will be available. The RBS Group has also published “Women in Enterprise: A New Perspective” a report based on new research “to try to understand the landscape for women entrepreneurs”. Visit the RBS Group website for full details on how to apply for funding and to read the report.
The Government’s welfare-to-self-employment initiative is to help more people than originally planned, with up to £2,274 on offer to help unemployed people start their own business. The New Enterprise Allowance scheme helps people who have been on Jobseekers Allowance for more than six months to develop and start their own business, offering mentoring assistance, a weekly allowance, and capital start-up loan of up to £1,000 to help new businesses get off the ground. The scheme has now been expanded and aims to create 70,000 new businesses by 2013. This follows a strong uptake in the first year that has seen more than 8,000 businesses set up by jobseekers across the country. Jobcentre advisers have reported that the scheme is extremely popular. Now people will be able to start working with a business mentor from their first day on JobSeekers Allowance (JSA), instead of having to wait for three months, and those who produce a viable business plan will be able to get funding straight away. Currently jobseekers must wait six months for the financial support, which is worth more than £1,000, to help with start-up costs.
The average UK female executive suffers a lifetime earnings gap of £423,390 when compared to a male worker with an identical career path. This is according to research from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), which analyses salary and labour turnover data for 38,843 people in executive roles in the UK. With the current gap between male and female average pay at management level standing at £10,060 a year, a woman and a man entering executive roles aged 25 and working their way up the career ladder until retiring aged 60 would take home pre-tax totals of £1,092,940 and £1,516,330 respectively. The research reveals that the average male in an executive role earned a basic salary of £40,325 over the 12 months to August 2012, compared to £30,265 for a female in the same type of role. This year’s survey also reveals that the gender pay gap extends to annual rewards. At the 91 participating employers providing data on the payment of bonuses, women receive less than half what men are awarded in monetary terms – the average bonus for a male executive was £7,496, compared to £3,726 for a female executive. This picture gets worse as women and men progress in their careers with 50% of males at director level receiving bonuses compared to 36% of females. At £65,000, the average bonus paid to a male director was £7,000 more than that awarded to a female director.
Senior executives in the UK’s largest companies have seen their average earnings increase by more than a quarter in the past year, according to new research. The Incomes Data Services (IDS) report reveals that the leaders of some of the largest companies made an average of £4million a year - an average increase of 27%. The study looked at the earnings of directors of the FTSE 100 in the 12 months to June. Figures suggest that the increase is due to a rise in value of long-term incentive plans, which have replaced cash bonuses. Increases in basic pay and bonuses have slowed almost to a halt with pay rising in line with inflation. Share incentive plans are now used by 90% of top companies.
The Commonwealth Foundation has made the call for entries for the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize and Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Part of Commonwealth Writers, the prizes unearth, develop and promote the best new writing from across the Commonwealth. Expanding the breadth of the Prizes to translated and self-published books opens up more opportunities for people in countries with little or no publishing infrastructure and to those who are writing in a language other than English. Awarded for best first book, the Commonwealth Book Prize is open to writers who have had their first novel (full length work of fiction) published between 1 January and 31 December 2012. Regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £10,000. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2000-5000 words). Regional winners receive £1,000 and the overall winner receives £5,000. The winners of both prizes will be announced at the end of May 2013. Commonwealth Writers is a cultural programme from the Commonwealth Foundation that inspires and enables people, through dialogue, to engage in the decision-making processes which affect their lives. With a focus on emerging new voices, the prizes create spaces for the free expression and exchange of ideas, helping people to share stories, access opportunities and develop their craft. Full rules and entry and eligibility information is available at www.commonwealthwriters.org Closing date for entries: Commonwealth Book Prize is Tuesday 18 December 2012 (12noon GMT) Commonwealth Short Story Prize is Tuesday 4 December 2012 (12noon GMT)
Coca-Cola has retained its post at the top of InterBrand’s 13th annual Best Global Brands report, in a list that is otherwise dominated by technology companies. While Coca-Cola retained its leading position, Apple jumped to second place with significant sales in both developed and emerging markets over the last year. Social media giant, Facebook, enters the report in 69th place after making headlines as the third largest IPO in US history, and Google (4th) experienced a 26% increase in brand value over the last year, exceeding rival Microsoft’s (5th) brand value for the first time in the history of InterBrand’s report. Brands are analysed on the ways in which they ‘touch and benefit’ an organisation from business performance, influencing customer choice and the strength the brand has to command a premium price. New entrants to the 2012 list included Procter & Gamble-owned Pampers, Facebook, Prada, Kia, Ralph Lauren and MasterCard. Amazon has enjoyed a boost in brand value, with a score of 46%, thanks to the launch of new Kindle models.
South Africa and Zimbabwe have signed a statement of intent to identify ways of supporting and developing small enterprises and cooperatives in both countries. According to the agreement, a team responsible for cooperative development in South Africa will visit Zimbabwe by February to study the setting up of a cooperative training academy in that country, explore areas of commodity exchanges, and facilitate trade among cooperatives from both countries.The group will also study the 1st Choice Wholesalers concept, a franchise that facilitates relationships between small manufacturers, suppliers and cooperatives, especially in rural areas, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said. The two countries also agreed that South Africa will look into the possibility of sending its small enterprises or recently qualified graduates to be trained at the Indo-Zimbabwe Technology Centres by 2014, while officials responsible for enterprise and cooperatives development in Zimbabwe, and chamber representatives will study the incubation models in South Africa. Zimbabwean small enterprises will also have an opportunity to be incubated in South Africa by the end of 2013. South Africa's Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda) and the Small Enterprises Development Corporation of Zimbabwe will soon meet to discuss areas of cooperation and the possible signing of a memorandum of understanding by the end of this year.
Bharti Airtel, a leading telecommunications service provider with operations in 20 countries across South Asia and Africa moved up one notch in the world wide ranking to be the fourth largest mobile operator in the world in terms of subscribers. At the end of the quarter ended June 2012, the Company had over 250 million mobile subscribers across its operations, representing 13% year on year growth. Bharti Airtel had become the fifth largest mobile operator in the world following its acquisition of Zain Group’s mobile operations across 15 African nations in June 2010.
South Africa has held onto fifth spot in the 2012 Ibrahim Index of African Governance, despite a one-point decline in its overall score, from 72 to 71 out of a possible 100, since the index was first launched in 2006. The top 10 African countries for governance, according to the index, are (scores in brackets): Mauritius (83), Cape Verde (78), Botswana (77), Seychelles (73), South Africa (71), Namibia (70), Ghana (66), Tunisia (63), Lesotho (61), and Tanzania (59). The 2012 version of the index was released by the London-based Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which makes information on governance quality in Africa freely accessible in the interests of good governance on the continent. The index uses a methodology specially developed by a team from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in the US, with the help of an advisory council of African academics. It measures country and regional performance across four main categories - safety and rule of law; participation and human rights; sustainable economic opportunity; and human development - breaking down into 14 sub-categories and 88 component indicators.
Tourist arrivals to South Africa grew by 10.5% for the first six months of 2012, more than double the global average of 5% for the same period. Stats SA's tourism figures indicate that South Africa experienced an excellent first half of the year, attracting 4,416,373 tourists to the country between January and June 2012, compared to 3,996,760 tourist arrivals for the same period in 2011, according to the country’s Department of Tourism. The industry experienced particularly strong growth in overseas tourist arrivals, recording 17.1% growth in arrivals from outside the African continent. A total of 1,163,477 overseas tourist arrivals were recorded for the first six months of 2012, compared to 993,364 tourist arrivals for the corresponding period in 2011. For South African tourism, regional Africa as a whole has been one of the strongest performers so far this year, with tourist arrivals from the region growing by 8.3% over the first six months of 2012. Growth in tourist arrivals for the first six months of 2012 has been strong in all regions, with particularly strong growth from emerging markets, with Asia growing by 40.7% and Central and South America by 54.4%. For the first time, China is one of South Africa's top five source markets of overseas tourists, overtaking France as the country's fourth-largest overseas source market. A total of 60 272 Chinese visitors came to South Africa in the first half of 2012, which represents a massive 68.4% growth compared to the first half of 2011, when South Africa received only 35,796 Chinese arrivals. South Africa recorded 21.1% growth in arrivals from India for the first six months of this year, and a phenomenal 68.4% growth in arrivals from Brazil
Angola, Africa’s second-biggest oil producer, has announced the launch of a sovereign wealth fund with $5 billion in assets to ease the impact of commodity price volatility. The Fundo Soberano de Angola, or FSDEA, will be managed by a three-member board led by Armando Manuel, an adviser on economic issues to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos. The fund will make an annual report to Parliament and will appoint internationally recognized independent auditors. The creation of the fund was prompted by the IMF, which loaned Angola $1.3 billion after crude prices fell in 2008. The government passed a law to create the fund last year, it said. Investments will include financial securities and stakes in infrastructure and hospitality projects and other industries that may exhibit strong growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Projected to grow from sales of oil and through the performance of its investments, the FSDEA’s strategy is to create attractive long term risk-adjusted returns by investing in a wide range of asset classes – both in Angola and internationally. The fund will also target domestic agriculture, water, power generation and transportation to attract foreign investment to Angolan infrastructure projects. Hotel projects including a hospitality school in Angola are planned.
Diamond Bank, a Nigerian lender, plans to raise $300 million as it seeks to expand credit to customers. The target is for the loan to be raised by the end of this year, which will bring to $500 million what it has borrowed in the year, according to the bank. The Lagos-based lender revised its loan-growth target for this year to 40 percent from 20 percent, following increased profitability. On July 11 the Lagos-based bank announced first-half profit through June of 9.99 billion naira ($63.5 million), from 1.71 billion naira ($11 million) a year earlier. Net interest income gained 71 per cent to 42 billion naira ($267 million). Diamond Bank has seen a consistent rise in profits since 2009, when it was bailed out along with other Nigerian lenders by the Nigerian Central Bank.
According to the IMF, the European crisis has affected Africa, but will not derail growth. Speaking to Reuters, Antoinette Sayeh, IMF Director for Africa, said the crisis in Europe has had an adverse impact on Sub-Saharan Africa, but not yet on a scale that would derail growth in the region. The October 2012 IMF Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa, released today, projects 5 per cent growth in the region for the current and following year. In an accompanying statement, the bank said that economic conditions in sub-Saharan Africa have remained generally robust against the backdrop of a sluggish global economy. The IMF found that most economies in Africa have remained resilient. Inflation has fallen in 2012, as pressures on food and fuel prices ease, and structural transformation has continued in the economies of most countries. However, South Africa, which has strong financial ties with the eurozone, has suffered. The IMF recently cut its growth forecast for South Africa to about 2.6 per cent for 2012 and 3 per cent next year.
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. Government’s development finance institution, will dedicate a senior staff member for South Africa in 2013, aiming to leverage the country’s position as a business hub and strategic U.S. partner into new investment opportunities for American and African companies. In the past two years OPIC has made significant efforts to expand its work in Africa, resulting in an extraordinary 300 percent increase in the agency’s commitments to the region last year. Whereas Africa comprised only four percent of OPIC’s global portfolio of loans, guarantees and political risk insurance in 2001, today it stands at a full 22 percent. The OPIC staff member, along with other U.S. Government personnel, will also help OPIC implement the U.S.-Africa Clean Energy Finance Initiative (US-ACEF), a new program which aligns the resources of OPIC, the State Department, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency and the U.S. Agency for International Development to catalyze private sector investment in clean energy projects throughout Africa. US-ACEF is expected to catalyze hundreds of millions of dollars of new OPIC financing, as well as additional private sector investment, in clean energy projects. OPIC is currently providing $629 million financing and political risk insurance to projects in South Africa, in the financial services, construction and power sectors. Over its 40-year history, OPIC has committed more than $7.6 billion in financing and political risk insurance to 460 projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. Those projects have delivered nearly 2700 megawatts of new electrical power across the continent; hundreds of thousands of new housing units; thousands of loans and microloans for African entrepreneurs; and the construction of railways and port facilities, miles of new roads and other physical infrastructure critical to the continent’s economic growth.
While the overall amount of money remitted to Africa is on the rise, the average value of remittance transactions between the UK and Africa is falling, according to online money transfer specialist WorldRemit, which has seen the average amount sent per transaction drop by over 60 per cent in the last year. The online international money transfer service which processes tens of thousands of remittance transactions to Africa each year, has witnessed the average transaction value fall from £270 to £96 over the past year. According to company founder and former advisor to the UN Development Programme, Dr Ismail Ahmed, this demonstrates that, given the choice, immigrants remitting money opt to send smaller amounts of money more frequently. Previously, making small money transfers to Africa was not possible because of the high fees associated with this remittance corridor. However, new online companies such as WorldRemit, which have been able to charge lower minimum fees by embracing disruptive technologies like mobile wallets and airtime top-up, are driving a large-scale change in remittance behaviour. The decrease in transaction size is particularly marked in countries such as Ghana and Kenya, where nearly half of all transactions through WorldRemit are small transfers to mobile phones.
Niger has announced a $110 million project to fight desertification. The five-year project, funded by loans and donations, aims to counter the effects of drought and desert growth by improving community use of water resources and altering herding and wood harvesting patterns to protect vegetation. The programme aims to test strategies that will help the country integrate climate risk and adapt climate change into its national planning, the government said. In recent years Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries, has seen the desert sands that cover three quarters of the country advancing south at a rate of 10km a year. Niger has already announced a separate $620 million plan to boost agriculture this season, following a failed harvest last year.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has revived plans to build the 4,000 megawatt Inga III hydropower plant. Construction, which is hoped to begin by 2016, is expected to cost $6 billion, with another $3 billion required to build the power lines stretching from Inga to Kolwezi in Congo’s southeastern Katanga province to South Africa. Namibia and Botswana would also receive power from the facility. The government will meet to consider three bids to build the facility, which could provide 2,500 megawatts of power to Southern Africa, and 1,500 megawatts to mining infrastructure in Katanga. The project could be funded with help from the World Bank and the African Development Bank, and power-purchasing agreements from metal companies, said Vika di Panzu, a member of Congo’s Inga III Steering Committee. Two previous plans to finance Inga III failed in the past decade, delaying its construction. In February BHP Billiton abandoned a plan to build an aluminium smelter in Congo to be powered by the plant. One bid to construct the facility comes from China Three Gorges Corp. and Sinohydro. A second will be made by a partnership of two Korean companies, Posco and Daewoo Corp, and Canada’s SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. A third bid has been submitted by Actividades de Construccion y Servicios SA, based in Madrid, and Spain’s Eurofinsa Group.
South Africa’s overall global reputation has remained steady for the second consecutive year, maintaining its 36th position out of 50 nations under review in the latest Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index (NBI), an annual survey which measures global opinions of various developing and developed countries across the world. This is a significant achievement for South Africa as the findings come at a time when two-thirds of the surveyed countries, some which are considered the world’s most highly regarded nations, suffered declines in their reputation over the past year. South Africa’s stable position as a nation brand is important because the way a country is perceived can make a major difference to the success of its business, trade and tourism efforts, as well as its diplomatic and cultural relations with other nations. The Anholt survey is conducted annually - approximately 20 000 people are interviewed in 20 core panel countries, one of which is South Africa. They consist of major developed and developing nations that play a key role in international relations, trade, the flow of business, cultural and tourism activities. The respondents rate 50 countries on questions in six categories, namely exports, governance, culture, people, tourism and immigration/investment. The index measures the power and appeal of each country’s 'brand image' by examining its competence in these categories. The US retained the top spot for the fourth year in a row, as the nation with the best overall reputation, followed by Germany (2nd), UK (3rd), France (4th), Canada (5th), Japan (6th), Italy (7th), Switzerland (8th), Australia (9th) and Sweden in 10th position. The report notes that South Africa faces the greatest difficulty in the area of governance, with South Africans being more critical of their government in 2012. South Africa moved ahead of Russia, South Korea and China in the people category, which measures people’s friendliness by whether respondents would feel welcome when visiting the country. The list of 50 nations is based on their political and economic importance in global geopolitics and the flow of trade, businesses, people and tourism activities. Regional representation and the diversity of political and economic systems are also taken into consideration.
South Africans are becoming increasingly better educated, according to the country's latest census, with the proportion of children at school showing a marked increase, as well as the percentage of people who have completed their secondary schooling. There has been a general increase in the percentage of South Africans from the ages of five up to 15 attending school, the census 2011 results show. Enrolment for the five-year-old age group increased from 22.5% in 1996 to 45.6% in 2001 to 81.2% in 2011. For the six-year-old age group, these figures were at 49.1% in 1996, 70.3% in 2001 and 92.7% in 2011, while for the seven-year-old group they were at 73.1% in 1996, 88.4% in 2001 and 96.1% in 2011. There was a general increase in private school attendance across all the provinces, with the highest in Gauteng at 16.7%, followed by the Western Cape at 7.5% and the Free State at 6.4%. An increase in black Africans aged between 5 and 24 years attending educational institutions was also recorded. Figures for this population group increased steadily from 70.7% in 1996 to 72.1% in 2001, to 73.9% in 2011. The results also showed that the proportion of individuals aged 20 who have no schooling, halved from 19.1% in 1996 to 8.6% in 2011. "There is a significant decrease in persons with no schooling over the 10 years," the report states. In addition, the percentage of South Africans aged 20 years and older that have received no formal education has decreased steadily between 1996 and 2011.
South Africa's Energy Department says it is expecting R47-billion to be invested in the country through the first window of its renewable energy programme for independent power producers. The department received bids for the first window, which seeks 1 400 megawatts of renewable energy, in November 2011 and announced the first 28 preferred bidders in December. According to Energy Minister Dipuo Peters, the country will receive about R47-billion of investment in renewable power generation through window 1 preferred bidders. The investment will provide job opportunities, especially for those in rural areas where renewable power plants are located. According to the government's Integrated Resource Plan, a 20-year projection on electricity supply and demand, about 42% of electricity generated in South Africa will be required to come from renewable resources. The plan places specific emphasis on broadening electricity supply technologies to include gas, imports, nuclear, biomass, and renewables (wind, solar and hydro) both to meet the country's future electricity needs and to reduce its carbon emissions.
The International Monetary Fund has relaxed its restrictions on Zimbabwe, meaning the country will now be able to receive technical assistance on tax policy and administration, public financial management and bank reform. Zimbabwe is still not able access funding from the IMF, but the move could help to normalise relations and could pave the way for funding in the future. Any lending program would depend on the progress of the unity government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. An IMF statement said: “The executive board has decided to resume IMF technical assistance in certain new areas to support Zimbabwe’s formulation and implementation of a comprehensive adjustment and structural reform program that can be monitored by the staff.” The IMF would also offer advice on expenditure policy, monetary and exchange policies and economic statistics. Zimbabwe’s debts to the IMF and the policies of Mugabe’s government led to its IMF voting rights being suspended between 2003 and 2007, and the country still faces a huge debt burden with external debt estimated to be 113.5 per cent of GDP, around $10.7 billion, at the end of 2011. The unity government is optimistic about the country’s recovery from the hyperinflation of the last decade, projecting growth of 8.9 per cent in 2013. According to its statement, the IMF’s board of member countries agreed there had been “significant improvement in Zimbabwe’s cooperation on economic policies and renewed commitment to address its arrears problems.”
South Africa's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have signed a memorandum of understanding to promote the establishment of business incubators in the country. The DTI said the parties had also agreed to cooperate in women's economic empowerment by promoting inclusive financing for women, a supplier development programme focusing on the promotion of cooperatives, special economic zones and other economic infrastructure. The department's deputy director-general, Sipho Zikode, said the vast experience and knowledge that the UNDP brought in these areas would significantly assist South Africa. He added that South Africa has been in the process of strengthening its small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) sector. In September this year, the country launched the DTI's Incubation Support Programme which aims to develop enterprises that will absorb and upgrade the vast unskilled labour force, develop new technologies and strengthen the country's economy. This initiative is intended to encourage private sector partnerships and government to foster collaboration between small and big businesses, where big businesses assist SMMEs with skills and technology transfer, supplier development, and creating marketing opportunities for SMMEs.
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