African champions Senegal were handed a regulation draw for the Africa Cup of Nations group qualifiers that kick off in June.
They were paired with Benin, Mozambique and Rwanda in Group L in the draw conducted, with the top two finishers qualifying for next year’s finals in the Ivory Coast.
Egypt, runners-up at the last edition in February, also looks to have a comfortable path to a record 26th finals appearance in Group D, where they are up against Ethiopia, Guinea and Malawi.
Guinea, the best-ranked team among Egypt’s opponents, are likely to be their biggest challengers for top spot.
They reached the Nations Cup round of 16 in the last two editions and last met Egypt in a friendly in June 2019, which they lost 3-1 in a warm-up for the biennial tournament.
Malawi also improved of late, having booked a last-16 berth at the Nations Cup in Cameroon earlier this year before narrowly losing 2-1 to pre-tournament favorites Morocco.
Kenya and Zimbabwe were included in yesterday’s draw despite Fifa suspensions but will be kicked out of the qualifiers if their respective football association officials are not restored to their posts before the matches start in two months’ time
However those FAs are unlikely to be reinstated by world soccer’s governing body as their governments have taken strong action against officials they accuse of corruption.
The groups in which Kenya and Zimbabwe were drawn are therefore set to be left with only three teams.
Egypt drawn with Ethiopia in Cup of Nations qualifiers
Passing on the charm of Chinese language continuing the splendid chapter of China and Africa
By Chen Xufeng
The April 20th 2022, is the solar term “Grain Rain”, and also the 13th Chinese Language Day. “Grain Rain” is the 6th of the 24 solar terms, and the last solar term of spring. It embodies the beauty when spring turns to summer, and represents the growth of all things. It is said that the Inventor of Chinese Characters, Cang Jie, created Chinese characters on this day. At that time, the people were suffering from famine. Heaven poured rain of grain to appreciate Cang Jie’s contribution, as a result, the people were saved. The United Nations selects “Grain Rain” as Chinese Language Day, to commemorate the contribution of Cang Jie.
Chinese language and characters, rooted in traditional Chinese culture, are important carriers of Chinese culture. From Oracle to Regular script, from Confucius and Mencius to Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming Dynasties, from the Four Great Inventions to PI, from the Great Wall to the Terracotta Warriors, the Chinese civilization, which has undergone over 5,000 years of historical changes, embodies the deepest spiritual aspirations of the Chinese nation and is the source of its endless growth. Chinese culture has a long history, which contains the cosmological view of harmony between man and nature, the international view of harmony among nations, the social view of harmony without uniformity, and the moral view of goodwill among people. The concepts of peace, amity and harmony are in the DNA of the Chinese nation, and have shaped the unique style of Major Country Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics.
Since the reform and opening-up, China has become increasingly connected with the world and there is an ever-growing demand for the world and China to understand each other. The Chinese language, written in Chinese characters, embodies the wisdom of the Chinese civilization. It is the common wealth of all mankind and is playing an increasingly important role in promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations and enhancing friendship between the Chinese people and people of other countries. According to statistics, by the end of 2021, more than 25 million people were learning Chinese outside China, and the total number of foreign Chinese learners have reached nearly 200 million. In Africa, 16 countries included Chinese language in their education system, over 600 thousand African people are learning and using Chinese. Through learning Chinese, more and more international friends have gradually learned about the customs, etiquette, social structure, ethics and philosophical thinking of the Chinese nation over thousands of years, and experienced China’s rapid development and changes. China is also actively engaged in cooperation with other countries in this regard. More than 1,500 Confucius Institutes and Classrooms and more than 60 overseas cultural and tourism institutions have been set up in 159 countries. 61 Confucius Institutes and 11 Classrooms as well as 6 China Culture Centers have been established in 46 African countries. These act as a platform to further promote exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign civilizations. On April 20th, Mission of China to the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa jointly hosted the Chinese Language Day celebration. The Mission also exhibited on its social media Chinese cultural symbols, traditional moral concepts, policies and propositions with their writing, pronunciation and interpretation, which showed the charm of Chinese to African friends, and also provided a platform for exchanges and learning of Chinese culture.
Africa is one of the cradles of human civilization. The ancient Egyptian civilization, the Kingdom of Axum, the Songhai Empire and the Swahili civilization are all treasures of human civilization and have created colorful African cultures. The traditional Chinese and African civilizations both embody the values of collectivism, harmonious coexistence between people and between man and nature. This not only brings the Chinese and African peoples closer, but also embodies the common aspiration of both sides to respect cultural diversity and overcome cultural misunderstanding through exchanges. The Chinese Government is always committed to promoting people-to-people exchange between China and Africa to further enhance mutual understanding and friendship. Over the past years, the two sides have carried out signature culture programs such as the Year of Culture, Happy Spring Festival, Chinese and African Cultures in Focus. We also encouraged joint development and production of more works that tell stories about Africa and China-Africa friendship. Last year, under AU’s theme of “Arts, Culture and Heritage”, China and African countries overcame the difficulties caused by COVID-19 pandemic and made full use of online and offline platforms to carry out a series of cultural & tourism, art & heritage workshops and seminars with rich contents and distinctive themes. We also further promoted Confucius Institutes and Luban Workshops to bring benefits to Africa. Last year during the Eighth Ministerial Conference of FOCAC, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward “Nine Programs” to further China-Africa cooperation, of which “the cultural and people-to-people exchange program” is an important part. China and Africa will host film festivals in each other’s countries, hold China-Africa women and youth forums, support making more and more African countries become destinations for Chinese tourist groups, in order to further exchanges in education, culture, tourism, media, science and technology, and facilitate dialogues among think tanks, youth and women.
Diversity of civilizations is an inexhaustible driving force for human progress, and exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations are the common aspiration of people of all countries. Only by promoting exchanges, dialogue and harmonious coexistence between different civilizations can we overcome the trap of clash of civilizations and achieve significant progress and development. We will continue to advocate the vision on civilization of equality, mutual learning, dialogue and inclusiveness. Led by Global Development Initiative, Belt & Road Initiative and FOCAC, we will promote the spirit of China-Africa friendship and cooperation, as well as our exchange and mutual learning, so as to lay solid foundations for Community with a Shared Future for China and Africa and for the mankind, and to inject lasting impetus into the enduring friendship, common development and progress of the Chinese and African peoples.
Chen Xufeng is Chargé d’Affaires of Mission of China to the AU for the Celebration of the UN Chinese Language Day.
$400M worth of petroleum smuggled out of the country
Around 400 million dollars’ worth of petroleum has been illegally smuggled from Ethiopia in 2020/21 according to reports. The contrasting prices with markets in neighboring countries have offered a lucrative prospect for profit through cross-border contraband trade, causing irregularities and disruptions in domestic fuel distribution.
“Even if there is no figure set by the government’s side, the issue is a huge problem the country is facing,” said Ahmed Tusa, Director of Ethiopian Petroleum and Supply Enterprise (EPSE) whilst commenting on the issue.
Ethiopia’s annual oil consumption has reached 3.8 million metric tons. Which 65 percent of this is gasoline. Over 250 million dollars is currently spent every month on fuel purchases.
As Ahmed elaborates, to cope with the challenge, the enterprise is applying different mechanisms both short-term and medium action plans. Applying quota and strengthening the control is noted as the short-term mechanism whilst removing the government subsidy from oil products are viewed as the sustainable solution.
Recently, the central government has announced that it has designed to apply a quota on oil distribution for stations in Somali and Oromia regions mainly for the towns that are highly attached to the contraband activity.
As the enterprise’s director highlights, the quota allows the government to limit the amount it delivers to those border areas. The decision will impose a burden on regional administrations to tighten their regulation to curb the contraband with the aim to keep the public from petroleum shortage.
Likewise, removing subsidies will be applied with different mechanisms where it will be removed within one to five years based on assessments. As Ahmed indicates the government is working closely with different stakeholders on the issue. “This will help us to minimize the price gap with neighboring countries,” Ahmed added.
Ethiopia allocates an almost similar proportion of foreign currency income secured from export earnings to oil imports.
Compared to the previous year, the annual petroleum import bill of the Government has increased by close to 19 percent during the last budget year 2020/21 reaching an all-time high of 72.60 billion birr. In the previous budget year (2019/20) ended July 7, 2020; Ethiopia spent a total of 62.05 billion birr to purchase close to 3.87 billion metric tons of petroleum.
With regards to pointing out the thorn in this space, oil company executives, transport companies, and gas stations are said to be part of the problem as opposed to the solution.
NBE knits new directive to place IT at banks’ core operations
National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) puts in place a directive that will see core banking services receiving mandatory IT support.
The directive that is set to take full effect in 2-years’ time as of April 1, sees the regulator setting the standard so as to strengthen the core operations of banks.
Similarly, bankers have openly welcomed the new directive citing that it will boost the banking industry as it preps for stiff competition when it opens its doors to other international banks.
Experts explained that thus far, the banking industry was in part through its due diligence pushing for excellence to modernize its operations and business, though it was not a requirement by NBE.
Bank presidents like Asfaw Alemu, President of Dashen Bank, which is one of the strongest when it comes to technology investment in the financial sector activity, said that the new directive of the regulatory body is beyond core banking implementations that the financial sectors conducted in the past.
He said that it is pivotal for banks to invest in IT, “banks have different investments on information technology to which the new directive will give the required framework for their investments and brings them to the standard on the sector.”
Asfaw reminded that at its core the directive requires banks to have policies and strategies for the implementation and administration of modern technology.
The ‘requirements for information technologies (IT) management of banks directive no. SBB/83/2022’ in its preamble said that the business process supported by IT improves the efficiency, effectiveness and competitiveness of a bank and added that some banks are running their operations manually or their operations are inadequately supported with IT.
The directive argued that it has become important to require banks to automate at least their core business processes and their management information system.
“Risk related to the usage of IT should be adequately and periodically identified and managed to ensure the safety and soundness of individual banks and the banking sector as a whole,” it further adds explaining why the directive was issued.
The directive said that banks are supposed to allocate finance and human resource for the effective implementation of IT strategy and IT risk management programs.
Article four sub-article, one and two of the directive stated the requirement that a bank shall describe and include the role of IT in its business strategy, and develop and implement an IT strategy.
Sub article three of article four stated that an IT strategy shall be aligned with the bank’s business strategy and shall cover likes of assessment of IT opportunities, threats and internal strengths and weaknesses to manage information technologies, assessment of stock of existing IT and planned ones to be introduced in the future, strategies to ensure security in the usage of IT, and identification of IT initiatives to achieve indicated objectives.
The directive included that the bank shall develop and implement IT governance, including duties and responsibilities of the board, senior management IT department, risk management and internal audit functions and other relevant organs of the bank.
Formation of IT department, policies and procedures, and annual IT plan with an allocation of duties and responsibilities among all responsible organs of the bank are also expected to be developed and implemented.
Article five stated that a bank shall fully automate at a minimum its core business processes, “so as to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its operation, customer service delivery and risk management, among others.”
It imposed that the automated core business of a bank shall be interoperable with one another to ensure automated data sharing and communication among the IT systems.
The automated system is required to support the generation of periodic operational and financial performance reports of the various businesses of the bank, proper exercise of shareholders’ rights including getting the necessary and relevant information, and generation of periodic supervisory returns or reports as required by NBE.
