Government leaders, global CEOs and other investment stakeholders will step up efforts to promote investment for sustainable development at the 7th biennial UNCTAD World Investment Forum (WIF) and the first-ever Asian E-Commerce Week to be held in Abu Dhabi from 6 to 10 December this year.
The WIF is the largest global platform for high-level dialogue and action on investment and development. This year’s edition will seek to accelerate actions to align international investment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi and the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Economy for Foreign Trade Affairs of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah Bin Ahmed Al Saleh, signed on 13 February an agreement to host the forum.
“At the onset of what UN Secretary-General António Guterres has declared the decade of action on Agenda 2030, more investment must be mobilized into areas of greatest need to ensure inclusive prosperity. I thank the United Arab Emirates for offering to host this important forum,” Dr. Kituyi said at the signing.
Al Saleh said: “The forum is a unique platform to facilitate policymaking and joint action that is necessary to stimulate investments in development areas.”
A close link will be sought with the underlying theme of the World Expo 2020, “Connecting Minds. Creating the Future.”

BASF’s digital farming product xarvio™ FIELD MANAGER saw a robust 2019, supporting the crop production of over two million hectares of farmed fields of more than 16,000 farmers globally. Based on extensive customer feedback, xarvio is now introducing new features for 2020. These include field-zone specific nutrient management including timing and dosing, application maps with automatically integrated buffer zones as well as wireless machine connectivity. Furthermore, new functions were launched to allow farmers and their advisors to better collaborate directly in xarvio FIELD MANAGER. All new features are available on mobile devices for farmers worldwide.
The new features of xarvio FIELD MANAGER complement an already robust service, which includes field-zone-specific real-time information, such as detailed growth stages of crops and mobile alerts on field-specific risk status for diseases and pests based on risk models market tested for 25 years.
The latest features of xarvio FIELD MANAGER will become available to users in East Africa when the application is rolled out in the region at a later date. In 2019, BASF introduced xarvio™ SCOUTING in Ethiopia. xarvio™ SCOUTING is a mobile application that determines weeds, classifies and counts insects in the yellow trap, recognizes diseases, analyses leaf damage, crop emergence analysis and shows the nitrogen uptake. The solution will be available in Kenya later this year.
In 2019, xarvio FIELD MANAGER helped farmers to achieve higher returns on investments on their fields. For example, in 2017/2018, European farmers who protected their wheat fields against diseases based on xarvio FIELD MANAGER recommendations, achieved on average €32 per hectare more than farmers using the standard protection regimen with three fungicide applications. “It was amazing to see how many farmers embraced digital farming for the first time in 2019 and were convinced by the results after the season. Seeing the higher profitability and time savings for our customers encourages us to continue developing our digital crop production optimization algorithms,” explained Joseph Allendorf, Product Manager for xarvio FIELD MANAGER.
Andree-Georg Girg, Global Head Commercial Operations Digital Farming at BASF, added: “Together with xarvio’s growing number of products and services, we aim to transform the landscape of digital farming even further in 2020 and continue to bring profitability and a more sustainable farming environment to farmers.”
With xarvio HEALTHY FIELDS, the company will bring its newest product into the market starting in Germany in 2020 with more countries to follow. Using xarvio HEALTHY FIELDS, customers get a full-service field-zone specific disease management with a health guarantee for crops. “The recommended crop protection strategy of xarvio FIELD MANAGER will be carried out by an experienced contractor. The farmer is relieved of complex work and can follow every single step transparently. If the disease-related leaf damages on a field at the end of a season are greater than agreed in advance, the farmer will receive compensation,” said Girg.

Fertilizers, petroleum products, and other commodities are at the heart of a massive loan scheme that allegedly reaped fortunes for figures connected to deposed Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, according to a new investigative report released today by The Sentry, an investigative and policy team co-founded by George Clooney and John Prendergast.
The Sentry’s report, “Loan Wolves: Debt Scams Threaten Sudan’s Democratic Transition and Fragile Economy,” reveals how Badr Overseas Group, an import-export company established by Bashir’s adopted son and his business partner, secured multiple contracts to trade in essential consumer commodities at inflated prices. The Badr deals were financed using lines of credit extended to the country by the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB), a multilateral, treaty-based development financial institution with assets of over $5.6 billion.
Suliman Baldo, Senior Advisor at The Sentry, said: “Under the regime of deposed President Bashir, multiple forms of institutional corruption were allowed to thrive, ultimately devastating Sudan’s economy. The regime granted monopolies to parasitic companies linked to powerful officials and security sector corporations, enabling them to import strategic commodities at inflated prices and with generous tax breaks and customs advantages. Unless there is major institutional reform, the capture of state business for private profit will likely continue, hampering economic reform efforts by the civilian-led government. Governments and banks around the world must press for transparency and accountability in the management of Sudan’s natural resources and revenues.”

State Minister of Trade and Industry, Teka Grebeyesus, accompanied by the Ambassador of Italy to Ethiopia, Arturo Luzzi, visited the Italian stand at ITME Africa, held in Addis Ababa from 14 to 16 of February 2020, and met the representatives of the Italian textile machinery companies. Thanks to its textile vocation and to government programs supporting the growth and strengthening of the textile sector, Ethiopia represents the most important market in Sub Saharian Africa for the Italian textile industry.
ITME featured a delegation of 22 Italian textile machinery manufacturers at the Italian pavilion, organized by ICE-Agency and ACIMIT (Association of Italian Manufacturers of Machinery for the Textile Industry).
ACIMIT represents an industrial sector comprising around 300 manufacturers (employing close to 12,000 people) and producing machinery for an overall value of about 2.6 billion euros, with exports amounting to 86% of total sales. Creativity, sustainable technology, reliability and quality are the characteristics that have made Italy a global leader in the manufacturing of textile machinery.
ACIMIT President Alex Zucchi, extremely confident in the Ethiopian market, stated that Italian export has grown significantly over the past five years (on average of 17% per year), although their overall value remains quite modest (2.8 million euros in 2018). Indeed, over the first seven months of 2019, the Italian exports of the textile machineries reached a value of 3.3 million euros. In terms of sales of textile machineries, spinning machines (90% of the total exports towards Ethiopia), followed by accessories (6%) and finishing machines (4%), are the most requested by the Ethiopian market.