Covid-19

March 22, 2021

I am thankful to the organisers of this Forum for the invitation to speak on African sovereign debt ahead of the African Finance, Development and Planning Ministers Meeting from March 17th to 21st, 2021. As Civil Society Organizations, we are meeting at a crucial time, as African leaders devise strategies to support the continent’s recovery from COVID-19 induced economic devastation.

I am angry but Hopeful.

The ongoing pandemic has not only changed our social relationships, it has brought a giant change in the University teaching pedagogy too. Face-to-face classroom teaching has been replaced by virtual mode of teaching. These online class-rooms have become the closest equivalent to the physical class-rooms now. Though, many popular online learning platforms existed even prior to the pandemic, the widespread use of virtual platforms have started only since the lockdown. The following is a combined account of our experiences while dealing with online classes.

A focus on the ongoing Kenya-U.S trade negotiations is pertinent as a lens to rethink the trade and investment treaty making reform at the continental level in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (“AfCFTA”) (section 3). The authors conclude with concrete suggestions aiming to improve the drafting of the prospective Kenya-U.S FTA provisions.

To mark the 2021 International Women’s Day themed #Choose to Challenge, Afronomicslaw.org celebrates women’s achievements through a Conversation Series with selected distinguished international (economic) law scholars from across the globe. We discuss inter alia their research interests, career highlights, achievements, challenges, lessons learned and advice to younger academics. As we gradually recover from the COVID-19 crisis following the approval and dissemination of vaccines, we discuss the changes to the world that they would like to see. Words that aptly describe our featured scholars include “Ambitious”, “Courageous”, “Curious”, “Friendly” “Organised” and “Positive.”

A Flurry of African Sovereign Debt News brings to you regular updates on events and happenings in Africa that reveal how sovereign debt issues are engaged by the various stakeholders.

Although the Regulations commendably exempt ninety-two countries, their restrictions still apply to many upper-middle income countries, such as South Africa, which is not only relatively poor but is battling with one of the most contagious variants of the virus. The Regulations also do not exempt a country like Canada, which despite its relatively ample resources, does not yet manufacture its own vaccines and is home to particularly vulnerable indigenous peoples, especially in its Northern and polar regions.

The volume's contribution do well in facilitating the reader's understanding of the broad range of legal and practical intricacies of land reform and land rights, including chapters that examine commercial incentives for land vis-a-vis the security of rural land rights (Chapter 4 by Lorenzo Cotula), shifting policy paradigm (Chapter 7 by Howard Stein) property transfer taxes (Chapter 8 by Riel Franzsen), and the role of women in land reform (Chapter 11 by Eugene Chigbu) among other topics.

Without doubt, once in force, RCEP could stimulate COVID-19 recovery in the region by fostering greater investment among the fifteen Asia-Pacific countries. However, as the Agreement will be co-existing with other IIAs among the countries, it adds another noodle to the already growing spaghetti bowl of IIAs among the Asia-Pacific States.

The disclosures on Kenya's sovereign debt indebtedness so far indicate that there could very well be examples of hidden debt - particularly sovereign debt that may not be publicly or dully disclosed particularly to Parliament.  This together with Kenya's increasing indebtedness means that Kenya's Parliament and civil society groups like the African Sovereign Debt Justice Network and OKOA Uchumi must carefully scrutinize as well as the 2021 National Debt Management Strategy Paper and all the accompanying disclosures. Kenya's Parliamentary Budget Office has recently noted that increased interest payments on debt have reduced spending on development and recommended rescheduling of domestic debt.

The contributions to the symposium on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) feature essays from across the world. The topics are diverse too: some dwell on the geopolitical implications of the RCEP, some dwell on its dispute settlement chapter, while some others on issues which the text of the Agreement either ignores or deals with only perfunctorily. Despite the divergence of the views of the contributors, on some points, they broadly tend to agree. They clearly perceive the RCEP as the beginning of a growing trend where economies in the Asia-Pacific region could play a much more pivotal rule in global trade rulemaking.