My Ghana Electronic Desk

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Michael Lalor, Ernst & Young’s Director of Strategy and Innovation-Africa Business Center and Dinesh Kumar, Ph.D., Country Leader for Supply Chain and Procurement Services at KPMG South Africa, will lead several other industry experts to analyse breakbulk, project cargo and heavy-lift logistics challenges in Africa from April 15 to April 18, 2013. Set for Cape Town, South Africa, Michael Lalor will outline sub-Saharan Africa’s development, investment trends and proposed capital projects as he delivers the first day’s keynote speech at the Breakbulk Africa Congress 2013.    Mr. Lalor’s responsibilities include the firm’s thought leadership initiatives on Africa as well as assisting a wide variety of companies in developing, stress-testing and executing their Africa growth strategies.  

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, has stated that the year 2012 was a record year for its engagement with Ghana, having provided a total of US $211.6 million in grants and loans to support the country’s development during the year. AfDB further discloses that the total 2012 grant and loan approval amount represents the highest level of support the country has ever received from the Bank within a one-year period since the Bank Group began operations in Ghana in 1973. To date, the Bank Group has financed 105 loans and grants in Ghana valued at approximately US $3.755 billion, while projects funded by the Bank primarily fall within the areas of transport, energy, agriculture, water and sanitation, education, health and multi-sector.

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Rice production in Ghana still largely manually done Africa’s farmers and agribusinesses could create a trillion-dollar food market by 2030, says a  new World Bank report launched Monday, March 4, 2013 in Washington. This can however only become possible if Africa’s farmers are able to expand their access to more capital, electricity, better technology and irrigated land to grow high-value nutritious foods, and if African governments can work more closely with agribusinesses to feed the region’s fast-growing urban population. According to the “Growing Africa: Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness” report, Africa’s food systems, currently valued at US$313 billion a year from agriculture, could triple if governments and business leaders radically rethink their policies and support to agriculture, farmers, and agribusinesses, which together account for nearly 50 percent of Africa s economic activity. The report, which highlights the strong opportuniti