Jay Ireland, President & CEO of GE Africa was named as chair of the second President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA) by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. PAC-DBIA members – representing small, medium, and large companies from a variety of industry sectors – advise the President, through the Secretary of Commerce, on ways to strengthen commercial engagement between the United States and Africa.

The appointments are announced in conjunction with the second U.S.-Africa Business Forum. This historic event connects hundreds of American and African chief executive officers and business leaders, along with African heads of state, to discuss overall economic growth and to stimulate additional trade and investment between the United States and Africa.

The varied, diverse, and accomplished appointees of the 2016-2018 President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa include:

•          Jay Ireland, President and CEO, GE Africa* (Chair)
•          Laura Lane, President of Global Public Affairs, UPS (Vice Chair)
•          Walé Adeosun, Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Kuramo Capital Management*
•          Mimi Alemayehou, Managing Director, Black Rhino Group; and Executive Advisor and Chair, Blackstone Africa Infrastructure LP
•          Kimberly Brown, CEO, Amethyst Technologies
•          Takreem El-Tohamy, General Manager of Middle East and Africa, IBM
•          Peter Grauer, Chairman, Bloomberg LP*
•          Diane Hoskins, Co-CEO, Gensler
•          Denise Johnson, President, Caterpillar Resource Industries
•          Kusum Kavia, President, Combustion Associates, Inc.
•          Barbara Keating, President, Computer Frontiers, Inc.
•          Bill Killeen, President and CEO, Acrow Bridge
•          Tom Klein, President and CEO, Sabre
•          Jack Leslie, Chairman, Weber Shandwick
•          Edward Mathias, Managing Director, Carlyle Group*
•          Ross McLean, President of Sub-Saharan Africa, Dow Chemical Company
•          Jehiel Oliver, Founder and CEO, Hello Tractor
•          Andrew Patterson, President for Africa, Bechtel
•          Martin Richenhagen, Chairman, President, and CEO, AGCO*
•          Fred Sisson, CEO, Synnove Energy
•          Andrew Torre, President of Sub-Saharan Africa, Visa
•          Dow Wilson, President and CEO, Varian Medical Systems*
•          Rahama Wright, Founder and Chief Executive Director, Shea Yeleen*

*Denotes reappointed PAC-DBIA member

As part of his commitment to deepen engagement between the United States and Africa, President Obama signed an Executive Order (E.O.) at the 2014 U.S.-Africa Business Forum to establish PAC-DBIA. The PAC-DBIA has provided information, analysis, and recommendations on U.S.-Africa trade and investment priorities. Such priorities include job creation in both the United States and Africa, developing sustainable commercial partnerships, building entrepreneur capacity, and keeping the private sector engaged in developing policies and strategies on investment in Africa. Highlights of the previous PAC-DBIA’s recommendations include launching the institutional investor roadshow with several African countries and convening an East Africa cold chain symposium.

U.S. merchandise exports to sub-Saharan Africa increased 19 percent from 2009 to 2015, reaching more than $18 billion last year. Total U.S. exports of goods and services to the continent of Africa reached $42 billion in 2015, representing total growth of 17 percent in the same period. In addition, between 2009 and 2015, U.S. goods exports to five sub-Saharan African countries – Ethiopia, Togo, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and South Sudan – and U.S. goods exports to an additional five countries have increased more than 50 percent – Mali, Swaziland, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Benin.

In New York, the legend from Nigeria keeps winning. He is Africa Investor “Person of the Year”. Thank you TOE for your service to Nigeria and Africa in general. We love you.

This is from Vanguard:

He first acknowledged the staff and management of Transcorp Power, the biggest producer of thermal energy in Nigeria, providing about 18 per cent of national output: “In accepting this award, I want to dedicate it to Transcorp Power staff who remain committed to realizing our dream of improving access to electricity in Nigeria and making our vision of a well-lit, fully powered Nigeria come true,” he said.

Transcorp Power has supported U.S. President Obama’s Power Africa initiative with a $2.5billion commitment. He thanked the broader coalition of investors in the African power sector, as he urged other institutional investors to consider long-term opportunities on the continent. “I also dedicate this to all stakeholders working hard to improve access to power in Africa. I call on others to please join us in this journey to powering Africa out of poverty,” he added.

As the economies of African regional powerhouses like Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Uganda, Nigeria and Angola struggle due to excessive exposure to commodities’ prices caused by limited diversification, Elumelu proffered a sustainable solution to reduce Africa’s historical external vulnerability.

“Africa has been faced with this same challenge, in my view, for far too long. I choose to look at the recent episodes of economic contraction across the continent as opportunities to diversify our economies and invest in building critical infrastructure, especially in power, to reduce our susceptibility to commodity shocks and break out of the perpetual boom-bust cycles,” he advised.

He emphasized that to ensure a different type of growth trajectory for Africa – one that does not rely exclusively on the export of primary commodities – there must be reliable, accessible, affordable power to support industrialization. “Industrialization must occur on a massive scale for our countries to be powered out of chronic dependency on commodities. We must power Africa’s next phase of development, by targeting and prioritizing growth of our manufacturing, industries and services.
And power is the fulcrum that will make this happen,” he said.

Elumelu revealed that while there is an abundance of private capital available to be deployed to develop the African power sector, government must play its part in attracting these investments. He explained, “While there is huge private capital – local and global – seeking investment destinations, as we know, global private capital goes to where it is most welcome.
Therefore, the challenge before African governments should be how to ensure they create the environment that will attract and retain these investments in our continent.” To the foreign investors gathered at the forum, he advised, “Though there are challenges in investing in Africa, these challenges can be overcome by investing in Africa through partnerships with qualified local partners who possess the right knowledge, requisite capital and technical know how.”

Speaking further, Elumelu urged private and public sector stakeholders to work together in what he describes as “Shared Purpose”. “It is critical for the public and private sectors to work together in “SHARED PURPOSE”, which is a key tenet of Africapitalism – the economic philosophy I espouse which calls for the private sector to play a key role in Africa’s social and economic development by investing in strategic sectors for both economic profit and social prosperity.”

Elumelu, who is also co-chair of the African Energy Leaders Group (AELG), a community of African energy leaders including Presidents and leading corporates, concluded his remarks by examining the role of power in creating opportunities for Africa’s jobless youth. “In the 21st century, the level of poverty we have in Africa and the dire youth unemployment, to a large extent, can be solved by improving access to power, and by extension other infrastructure deficiencies and deficits. Even though we are making progress, there is still a lot to be done. We need faster progress.”

Frontier Digital Ventures, a venture capital firm with interests in African companies has just invested $1.2 million in ToLet.com.ng according to Techpoint.

ToLet.com.ng is a leading property portal in oil-rich Nigeria, Africa’s largest population, standing at a staggering 175 million property-hungry Nigerians. Launched in 2013 by four Nigerians, Fikayo Ogundipe, Dapo Eludire, Sulaiman Balogun and Oluwaseyi Ayeni, coming from diverse backgrounds ranging from start-ups to law. In a market that is seeing rapid urbanisation, ToLet.com.ng has successfully pivoted to capture the ever growing property rentals market through enhancing their marketplace with curated agents and listings, effectively acting as an online rentals agency portal. In a country where there is an abundance of unlocalised foreign classifieds platforms, online scams and a lack of trust, ToLet.com.ng generates immense value through providing high-quality, trusted, and vetted content for the millions of Nigerians looking to move to the big city!

Tolet.com.ng was seeded by Spark capital.

US regulators issue new guidelines on self-driving cars. The rules will require automakers to meet 15 benchmarks before their autonomous vehicles can hit the road, and to make public their vehicle performance assessments so regulators and others can evaluate them. Some rules will take effect immediately, others will await public comment.

A new study from theUnited Nations-based Better Than Cash Alliance provides findings about the large potential gains for governments, businesses and citizens when digitizing payments.

Many emerging economies are grappling with how to modernize their economies, improve transparency, drive sustainable growth and advance financial inclusion. This study on Tanzania’s digital payment initiatives reveals the very strong results achieved by the government so far.

By digitizing the payments businesses and people make to the government, Tanzania has already:

• Empowered its tourism sector by reducing economic leakage from cash payments, such as conservation park entry fees, by over 40 percent, supporting investment and employment.
• Cut bureaucratic inefficiencies, including reducing import customs clearance times from nine days to less than one day.
• Increased transparency between citizens and governments, by digitizing tax payments which hasprovided electronic proof of payments and protects people against fraud.

The study also provides important insights on how further expanding digitization of payments in Tanzania can fast-track the country’s economic modernization. Digitizing Value Added Tax payments and supporting formalization of businesses could increase tax revenue in Tanzania by at least US$477 million per year, a significant increase for a country with a total GDP of around $US47 billion and a low tax/GDP ratio of around 12 percent.

The new report reveals how Tanzania overcame obstacles of adopting digital Person-to-Government (P2G) and Business-To-Government (B2G) payments. For example, when small traders were reluctant to digitize their point-of-sale payment capabilities because they were required to bear the full costs of purchasing electronic billing machines, the government partnered with the Tanzania Trader’s Association to subsidize the costs.

Furthermore, these digitization efforts contribute to benefits beyond just the economy. They have wide-ranging positive impacts across society, such as driving social inclusion within Tanzania. For example, Sheru Hadha, a Tanzanian customer noted how digital financial inclusion has empowered her in her daily life.

Other countries in the region have initiatives to digitize payments and, while many are in the early stages of their transition, the benefits are quickly being realized and becoming evident. For example:

• Kenya is targeting to double tax collections over the next three years through its tax filing electronic system, iTax.
• In Uganda, the Kampala Capital City Authority’s automated tax collection system boosted revenue by 167 percent in a single year.
• Rwanda drove nearly 80 percent adoption of electronic VAT payments made by Small and Medium Sized Enterprises.