Depending on who you ask, the U.K.’s possible exit from the European Union could mean more direct trade for Africans, better incentives for African farmers, renegotiated economic agreements for African trading blocs.
South Africans living in Britain could be the swing vote.
The U.K. should be able to secure its own trade deals with African countries, says James Cleverly, a pro-Brexit Tory MP who says European Union policy in Africa is “morally repugnant,” HuffingtonPost reported.
“The E.U.’s tariff regime disincentivizes exactly the kind of investment that Africa needs to lift itself out of poverty and aid dependency,” said Cleverly, whose mother is from Sierra Leone. “I cannot understand how anyone who is African, or of African heritage, or who cares about Africa and her people, or cares about anyone trapped in poverty in the developing world, can, with a clear conscience, allow this situation to persist.”
Remain campaign MPs Chuka Umunna and Sam Gyimah disagreed with Cleverly and dropped names to bolster their argument.
“Trying to hijack the fight against poverty to push an anti-E.U. agenda really is a new low for the chaotic and desperate leave campaign,” they said, according to HuffingtonPost. “Inside the E.U., Britain is a more powerful force in spreading equality and justice in the world. It magnifies our spending power and increases British influence. That’s the opinion of the former U.N. head of humanitarian relief, the chair of World Wildlife Fund … and many more.”
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SA loses foreign language learners to Australia, New Zealand
Despite overseas arrivals to South Africa showing a 16% increase year on year for the first quarter of this year, there was a 10% drop in students coming to study English in South African language schools in the first few months of 2016. At least two schools in Cape Town are alleged to have closed down due to declining student numbers. Meanwhile, countries including Australia and New Zealand are seeing an increase in arrivals from English language learners.
The decline is being attributed to the implementation of the new immigration laws that consider current accreditations held by schools teaching English as foreign language (EFL) as insufficient to obtain study visas for students.
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What Brexit Means For Africans, And How South Africans Living In UK Could Swing The Vote
Depending on who you ask, the U.K.’s possible exit from the European Union could mean more direct trade for Africans, better incentives for African farmers, renegotiated economic agreements for African trading blocs.
South Africans living in Britain could be the swing vote.
The U.K. should be able to secure its own trade deals with African countries, says James Cleverly, a pro-Brexit Tory MP who says European Union policy in Africa is “morally repugnant,” HuffingtonPost reported.
“The E.U.’s tariff regime disincentivizes exactly the kind of investment that Africa needs to lift itself out of poverty and aid dependency,” said Cleverly, whose mother is from Sierra Leone. “I cannot understand how anyone who is African, or of African heritage, or who cares about Africa and her people, or cares about anyone trapped in poverty in the developing world, can, with a clear conscience, allow this situation to persist.”
Remain campaign MPs Chuka Umunna and Sam Gyimah disagreed with Cleverly and dropped names to bolster their argument.
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Zuckerberg Funds African Startup Andela $25M To Connect African Coders With U.S. Firms
There’s a shortage of software developers in the U.S. Demand for coders is huge and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is investing in training African engineers who don’t always get the opportunity to become programmers, BusinessInsider reported.
That shortage has created a boom in coding bootcamps, which charge tens of thousands of dollars for a few months of training, and it has increased outsourcing to developers all over the world, especially Eastern Europe and India.
Andela, a Lagos and Nairobi-based company that trains and outsources software coders, plans to open a third office in Africa this year with the help of $24 million in funding from Zuckerberg.
After two years in business, Andela has trained close to 200 engineers from a pool of 40,000 applicants, Quartz reported. They get six months of intensive training, followed by three-and-a-half years of full-time remote apprenticeship with American tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and IBM. Andela developers work for those companies from Andela campuses in Lagos and Nairobi.
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Makro, Game owner looking to Africa for growth
Cape Town – Makro and Game’s owner Wal-Mart is looking for business opportunities in the rest of Africa, CEO Doug McMillon said this week in Cape Town.
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer which owns a controlling stake in South Africa’s Massmart Holdings, is set on expanding into Africa, McMillon said in an address to the Consumer Goods Forum’s global summit in Cape Town.
“South Africa is a terrific market and it gives you something to work with but our aspirations are for the sub-Saharan African region,” McMillon told the summit. “I get really excited about it. You can put me into that optimistic group.”
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