Crypto News: Next Africa: Negotiating as equals

Welcome to Next Africa, a twice-weekly newsletter on where the continent stands now — and where it's headed. Sign up here to have it delivered to your email.

In the fight against climate change and the reform of the world's financial system, things are starting to turn Africa's way.

So maintained Kenyan President William Ruto when he sat down for an interview in Rome after attending a summit involving 25 African leaders to discuss Italian and European plans to spend more than €150 billion on infrastructure in the world's poorest continent.

A road damaged by flash floods near Garissa, Kenya, on Nov. 22. Photographer: Luis Tato/AFP/Getty Images

The West is finally getting the idea that better roads, schools and workplaces are vital to keeping migrants from flooding into Europe: "No wall, however thick, will stop anybody, anywhere from looking for opportunities. It's a waste of time," he said.

Ruto is also pushing for more foreign investment in renewable energy and for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to lend more for projects to make infrastructure more resilient to violent storms and floods.

At home, his economy is in shambles, with $3.5 billion in external debt having to be paid or refinanced and the shilling one of Africa's worst-performing currencies — alongside those of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Nigeria — over the past year (despite gains this week).

And there are grave problems bedeviling the wider region, from the civil war in Sudan and instability in South Sudan to increasing tensions in the Horn of Africa. "We have been in a slippery neighborhood for a while," he conceded.

Yet the new-found willingness of rich nations to negotiate as equals on a bigger voice for the Global South and what Ruto lauded as a "clear-cut decision" at the COP28 climate summit to invest in green energy, means more financial resources for Africa, which has much of the world's best solar and wind power potential.

We'll see if his robust belief in progress will last. — Karl Maier

Key stories and opinion:
Ruto May Tap Market to Fund Kenya's $2 Billion Eurobond Payment
Italy Seeks to Boost Africa Ties With €5.5 Billion Funding Plan
Kenya Gets $685 Million From IMF Ahead of Eurobond Maturity
Africa's Self-Appointed Climate Champion Makes the Hard Sell
Wealthy Countries Can't Fault Africa for More Oil: Ken Opalo

Click here to watch the latest edition of Africa Amplified, Bloomberg TV's monthly show focused exclusively on the continent.

Even by the standards of Nigeria's byzantine foreign-exchange market, it's been a crazy week for the naira. But as the dust settles after its 36% decline against the dollar, new measures are in place that could prove decisive for the fortunes of one of the world's worst-performing currencies. The central bank allowed a change in the method for setting its rate, cracked down on misleading price reporting by traders and speculation against the currency by banks and eased rules on international money transfers to net billions of dollars sent home by Nigerians living abroad.

A customer exchanges naira banknotes for US dollars in Lagos. Photographer: Benson Ibeabuchi/Bloomberg

Vivendi's Canal+ offered to buy the shares that it doesn't already own in South African pay-TV company MultiChoice in a deal that values the business at $2.5 billion. Vivendi aims to combine its local Canal+ operations with MultiChoice, which operates across the continent, creating a group with nearly 50 million subscribers and the resources to invest more in local content and sports.

Landlocked Ethiopia requested a summit of East African leaders to "explain itself on current regional matters," after it announced that it would consider recognizing Somaliland as a sovereign state in return for access to the Red Sea. Somalia, which claims the breakaway region as part of its territory, has threatened retaliation should the deal go ahead. The authorities in Mogadishu have drawn support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Eritrea. Separately, Addis Ababa extended a state of emergency in Ethiopia's northern Amhara region.

The worst outbreak of cholera in three years is linked to climate change, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The continent's chief health advisory body says adverse weather is raising the risk of the disease faster than in the rest of the world. That's as floods in much of southern Africa stretch already fragile health systems and limit access to safe water and sanitation. Outbreaks of cholera have swept across more than a dozen countries in the region over the past year.

Mozambique plans to end half a century of hydropower supply to South Africa's electricity utility, raising risks for the continent's most industrialized economy and threatening the viability of Africa's second-biggest aluminum smelter. In its yet-to-be published energy transition strategy, Mozambique details a proposal to secure the 1,150 megawatts of power it sells to Eskom from its Cahora Bassa plant for its own use.

The Cahora Bassa dam. Photographer: Patrick Durand/Sygma/Getty Images

Zimbabwe's currency plunged to a new low this week, reawakening bitter memories of the past and bringing into focus the poor state of the economy. The local unit weakened past 10,000 per US dollar in the spot market for the first time since it was reintroduced in 2019, meaning that $100 is now worth about 1 million Zimbabwe dollars. In 2008, hyperinflation prompted the central bank to issue a 100 trillion dollar note, pensions were wiped out and many people resorted to barter.

Next Africa Quiz — What is the name of the French billionaire whose company is seeking to buy pay-TV firm MultiChoice? Send your answers to gbell16@bloomberg.net.

Data Watch

The new 650,000-barrels-a-day Dangote refinery bought 2 million barrels of US oil, the first time it has purchased non-Nigerian crude. The facility is targeting an initial processing rate of 350,000 barrels a day before ramping up to full production.
A gauge measuring South African manufacturer sentiment slumped to the lowest level since the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020. Meanwhile, Bloomberg's monthly barbeque index showed food inflation may have peaked.

Coming Up

Feb. 5 Monthly PMI reports for Kenya, Ghana, Mozambique, Zambia, Uganda and South Africa
Feb. 6 Kenya and Uganda interest-rate decisions
Feb. 7 South Africa and Mauritius reserves data for January
Feb. 8 Mauritius and Namibia inflation data for January, South Africa manufacturing production for December, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers his state-of-the-nation speech

"We didn't take the matter to a kangaroo court," South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said this week, referring its case against Israel's actions in the war against Hamas at the International Court of Justice. "We went to the very court that they themselves set up in terms of the rules that they set up and we should not be blamed for doing so."

Ramaphosa in Johannesburg on Nov. 3. Photographer: Leon Sadiki/Bloomberg

A rebel leader who emerged from Sudan's notorious janjaweed militia, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo pitched himself as the president-in-waiting on a recent tour of African countries. And, he was being treated like one, something that would have been unthinkable when the nation's civil war began 10 months ago. In Kenya, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces also known as Hemedti was greeted by traditional Masai dancers. In Ethiopia he was whisked off to a luxurious lodge for talks. And in Rwanda, he was taken to a memorial, where he gazed solemnly at the faded photographs of victims of the 1994 genocide — even as the US and European Union accuse his paramilitary group of committing ethnically-driven massacres in Sudan's Darfur region. The war turned in Dagalo's favor just before the trip when his forces routed General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan's army from most of Darfur, and consolidated control over major cities, including large parts of the capital Khartoum.