Day: April 6, 2022

In response to the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa, the United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing nearly $114 million in additional humanitarian aid to meet the needs of people in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, affected by the unprecedented drought. The region has faced two straight years of inadequate rainfall to support basic water, agriculture and livestock needs, the impact of which is devastating for a population heavily dependent on crops and livestock for food and livelihoods. In total, more than 20 million people across the region are projected to need emergency food assistance this year, a 70 percent increase from the devastating drought in 2016-2017.

In Ethiopia, this support will provide lifesaving food assistance and improved access to safe water, as well as medical supplies, support for mobile health units, and training for community health workers. In Kenya, this additional assistance for drought-affected people in the north and east will provide families with food and specialized nutrition assistance for malnourished children and mothers. It will also provide water, sanitation, and hygiene support, including provision and protection of safe water sources for people and livestock, as well as livelihood assistance including support to keep livestock alive and healthy. In Somalia, this support will provide life-saving emergency food assistance to over two million people a month. It will also be used to provide preventative and curative nutrition assistance for children under six years old.

While this historic drought is already leaving people facing severe food insecurity and destroying livelihoods, Russia’s war on Ukraine only threatens to further compound the drastic needs, as food prices rise and the region can no longer import critical wheat from Russia and Ukraine. The United States is the single largest donor of humanitarian assistance in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, providing nearly $161 million across the Horn of Africa since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2022. We call on other donors to join us in scaling up their assistance to respond to humanitarian needs triggered by the worsening drought.

Source: US Agency for International Development

ABUJA, Over 9,000 medical doctors of Nigerian origin left the shores of the country in search of greener pastures in the United Kingdom, United States of America and Canada in two years, the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, said.

The emigration of the medical experts which the NMA said happened between 2016 and 2018, negatively impacted the nation’s health care system that only 4.7% of specialists were left to take care of Nigerians’ health issues.

NMA President, Professor Innocent Ujah, speaking in Abuja, lamented the high emigration rate of doctors of Nigerian extraction to foreign nations.

Ujah who spoke at the NMA’s maiden annual lecture with a theme: “Brain Drain and Medical Tourism: The Twin Evil in Nigeria’s Health System”, also said over $1 billion was being spent yearly by Nigerians on medical tourism.

Regretting that the development was negatively impacting the nation’s health system, Prof. Ujah, who is also the Vice-Chancellor of Federal University of Medical Science, Otukpo, said Africa, including Nigeria, was encountering a health workforce crisis.

Noting that human resources for health, which according to him, represented “one of the six pillars of a strong and efficient health system”, was critical to the improvement the health system, the professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said a huge amount Nigerians were injecting into medical tourism was weakening Nigeria’s economy.

The impact of the development on the economy, he said was a reduction of funding and investment in the health sector, widening infrastructural deficits and the growing distrust in the Nigerian health system by the Nigerian public.

“According to the World Health Organization (WHO), sub-Saharan Africa has about 3 per cent of the world’s health workers while it accounts for 24 per cent of the global burden of disease. Nigeria has a doctor-to-population ratio of about 1: 4000-5000 which falls far short of the WHO recommended doctor-to-population ratio of 1:600. Nigeria is still grappling with disturbingly poor health indices,” he said.

According to him, “The Nigerian health sector today groans under the devastating impact of huge human capital flight which now manifests as brain drain.”

Source: Nam News Network

To address growing food insecurity that is already affecting tens of millions of people across West Africa, the United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is providing more than $311 million in additional humanitarian assistance to support vulnerable people in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin regions.

The additional funding announced today will enable USAID partners to provide emergency food and nutrition assistance for more than 3.8 million people. This latest USAID contribution will include in-kind food assistance such as rice, grains, vegetable oil, and specialized food for the treatment of acute malnutrition, in addition to vouchers and cash for purchasing food from local markets, thereby supporting the local economy. This funding also supports protection activities – including safe spaces and psychosocial support – for conflict-affected communities, as well as emergency shelter, water, sanitation, and hygiene assistance.

This newly announced assistance comes at a critical time, as the United Nations estimates that more than 35 million people will face food shortages during the upcoming lean season in West Africa, which is the period between planting and harvest from May to August when food typically runs out across agricultural communities. In the Sahel, this is exacerbated by an existing poor harvest and the effects of conflict that continue to deplete household food stocks and resources, resulting in more than 20 million people needing food assistance. In the Lake Chad Basin, the ongoing conflict continues to generate widespread food insecurity, which has been exacerbated by displacement, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The United States remains committed to helping the people of West Africa during this time of need, with USAID contributing more than $944 million in assistance to the Lake Chad Basin and Sahel regions combined since October 2020. This funding, announced at the European-Union organized 2022 High-Level Pledging event on the Food and Nutrition Crises in the Sahel and Lake Chad regions, continues America’s enduring support for the most vulnerable people of West Africa.

To underscore the Biden Administration’s commitment to increase collaboration and engagement with Africa, USAID recently attended the third annual General Assembly of the Sahel Alliance, hosted in Madrid; the first since the US became a full member. This full membership status will offer opportunities to partner in new ways with donors, the private sector, and the host government to help strengthen development and reform efforts in the Sahel. The United States will also leverage this partnership to address growing insecurity in West Africa.

Source: US Agency for International Development

CAIRO, Gulf Arab states pledged up to 22 billion U.S. dollars, to help Egypt make a balance in global foreign exchange markets, and compensate foreign investments fleeing from the Egyptian treasury markets, on the heels of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

“This is a difficult time for Egypt, as it’s suffering reduced tourism inflows, higher food prices, and greater financing challenges, as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis,” said Hoda Al-Malah, chairwoman of the Cairo-based International Centre for Economic Consulting and Feasibility Studies.

The flurry of Gulf investments into Egypt will help in overcoming a currency crisis and shield the economy against imminent shocks, the economic expert told Xinhua.

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) allowed the local currency to drop by 14 percent on Mar 21, after being stable against the U.S. dollar since Nov, 2020, stressing “the importance of foreign exchange (FX) flexibility to act as a shock absorber.”

Al-Malah added, CBE’s move and the Gulf’s inflows will encourage foreign investors to return to Egypt’s high-interest and short-term treasuries, after many investors had withdrawn billions of dollars in Mar.

Last week, Saudi said, it had deposited five billion dollars with the CBE, in light of the kingdom’s efforts to boost Egypt’s economy. Meanwhile, Cairo and Riyadh have signed a deal, aiming to attract ten billion dollars in investments in cooperation with the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

Qatar has also pledged investment deals worth five billion dollars in Egypt, the first of its kind, since the two countries restored bilateral ties in Jan, 2021.

Local media reported that, Abu Dhabi sovereign fund AD, agreed to purchase two billion dollars’ worth of stakes in some Egypt’s state-owned businesses, including large listed banks.

The Gulf Arab states’ bolstering gestures come, as Egypt’s economic challenges were worsened by external factors, the economic expert said, referring to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision of raising interest rates by a quarter percentage point, for the first time since 2018, which has caused outflux of billions of dollars of hot money from Cairo to Washington.

“The Gulf help is a very good move for increasing the dollars influxes, preventing a deficit in the balance of payments and promoting economic stability in Egypt, while an inflation wave is hitting the world, sending commodities prices soaring,” Al-Malah added.

Waleed Gaballah, professor of financial and economic jurisdictions at Cairo University, noted that, Egypt and the Gulf states enjoy strong ties amid the existed strategic partnership between the two sides, terming it as a “win-win partnership.”

“Pumping the Gulf deposits; low-cost loans, with the CBE, will boost the reserve and bridge the financial gap confronting the Egyptian economy,” Gaballah said.

The timing of the Gulf support is important for Egypt, as it was seeking a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he said, adding that, the Gulf investments and loans will boost Egypt in meeting the IMF’s requirements for increasing the activities of the private sector.

On Mar 23, the Egyptian government requested the IMF’s support to implement their comprehensive economic programme, amid the rapidly changing global environment and spillovers related to the conflict in Ukraine.

Credit rating agency, Fitch Ratings, said in early Mar that, the Russia-Ukraine crisis was likely to raise the cost of external financing for emerging markets, such as Egypt, considering outflows of risk aversion investors.

Gaballah highlighted, Egypt’s economy faces big pressures, saying, “Its imports are nearly double of exports and the revenues of the Suez Canal, tourism, and remittances of expatriates are still not sufficient to cover the financial gap.”

Non-residential investment in Egypt’s local bond market stood at 28.8 billion dollars by the end of 2021, according to official statistics.

Source: Nam News Network