News Africa

Director-General Pascal Lamy, in a speech to the Inter-Parliamentary Union
and the European Parliament on 12 December 2005 in Hong Kong, China, said
that members "must strengthen the Draft Declaration, build on it, and take
it forward," warning that "there is little time to spare".
Speech on WTO site :  http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/sppl_e/sppl14_e.htm

Source : Daily monitor - The European Union has set aside Shs2.7 billion to give as grant to approved private sector entrepreneurs to bolster their business investments. Daily Monitor has learnt that the money will be channelled to the beneficiaries through the Business Uganda Development Scheme - Enterprise Development Foundation (BUDS-EDF), which is under the Private Sector Development Foundation.

FREETOWN, December 6 2005 -- The World Bank Board of Directors today approved an International Development Association (IDA) grant of US$44 million for the Infrastructure Development Project in Sierra Leone, which will rehabilitate selected priority roads, port and airport facilities and support regulatory and institutional reforms associated with the enhanced management of the country's road, port, and airport sectors.  

The tourism boards of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania have agreed on a joint strategy to market East Africa as a single tourist destination.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s share of world trade has declined from about five per cent in the 1970s to less than two per cent today.
This was the grim message heard early this week at a ministerial conference of Africa's trade ministers in Arusha.

With more than two million children in Uganda engaged in child labour, the government has called for the formulation of policies and programmes to eliminate the practice.

Source : Daily Monitor. A senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has revealed floating plans to make the three East African countries of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania reapply to join the Common Markets for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) as a single East African state.
This means Uganda and Kenya will have to first disengage their current subscription to COMESA while Tanzania also disengages from SADCA.

Tanzania has in four years, received nearly $2 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
However, the shortage of skilled labour still limits its ability to lure Transnational corporations (TNCs), which currently dictate global FDI flows.

SWEDISH multinational corporations have set strategies to expand their investments into the East African countries of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

The private sector group for the WSIS is holding 5 workshops in the framework of the ICT4ALL event. Some important personalities from both the private and pulic sectors will moderate the debates.