Angola seeks agro-industrial cooperation with UAE

Angola is willing to cooperate with the United Arab Emirates in the development of agro-industrial projects

This was said Tuesday in Luanda by the minister of Industry and Commerce, Victor Fernandes, during a meeting with the Sheik Ahmed Al Maktooum, meant to review the UAE’s investment plans for Angola.

On the occasion the parties discussed the avenues towards strengthening the relations, and the need to boost industrial production in Angola and increase UAE’s food production as a country situated in the desert.

The parties also set as priority the sectors of food production, technologies and equipment manufacture.

During the meeting, the two sides decided that a technical teams of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of Angola and UAE should work together to develop priority projects that have been identified.

On Monday, Sheik Ahmed Al Maktooum signed with Banco de Desenvolvimento de Angola a cooperation agreement to facilitate the purchase of tractors assembled in the Luanda-Bengo Special Economic Zone.

The memo makes provisions for BDA to fund the purchase by Angolan farmers of tractors manufactured in the Luanda-Bengo ZEE by the UAE.

The investment on the Luanda-Bengo ZEE tractors assembly plant with a capacity to produce 3,000 machines a year, is designed to boost the country’s ongoing economy diversification process.

With this memo, Angola and UAE bring into effect a 16-year old partnership set up in 2004, when the Arab nation opened in Luanda a general consulate that became an embassy four years later.

The two countries enjoy an active economic cooperation that reached Usd 1.9 million worth of exports and imports in June this year alone.

Trade between both countries since 2004 involves an assortment of materials and raw materials like ornamental rocks, diamonds, oil and other minerals.

Diamonds account for 90 percent of the Angolan goods exported to the UAE.

Other areas of cooperation between the two countries include oil, gas, trade and investment, energy, defence, transports, mining, agriculture, fisheries, banking, telecommunications, finance and others.

Covid-19: Angola with 130 new infections

 Angola has reached 3.469 positive cases of covid-19 on Tuesday after recording 130 new infections, the highest number reported in 24 hours in the country.

The information was released Tuesday evening in Luanda by the secretary of State for Public Health, Franco Mufinda, who said the country has also recorded three deaths and eight  recoveries in the last 24 hours.

Delivering the usual covid-19 update, the official said with the new data, the figures have come to 139 deaths, 1,344 recoveries and 1,986 active patients

Africa Educates Her Campaign with Sofonie Dala. Don't miss this episode. Day 9

Invest in girls’ education for a better post-COVID-19 world

COVID-19 has disrupted education for 1.2 billion students - and up to 10 million secondary-school aged girls may never return to the classroom.

In some countries, the poorest girls could lose half their total years of education. Out of school, girls are vulnerable to child marriage, early pregnancy and pressure to take on more unpaid and paid work. When schools eventually re-open, millions of girls may not reenroll due to harmful gender norms and strains on household and government spending.

Our today's special guest is Chelsea dos Anjos an University student. She shared with us her challenges during lock-down. She says that covid-19 affected her student life very negatively. She can no longer go to school, can't visit libraries or institutions related to her area of study and also her academic performance has been failing. 

She recommends that entities responsible for solving the problem of schools, create biosafety conditions and social distance to ensure that all girls return to school safely. 

We need action now to respond to and recover from a looming education crisis. While girls are at home, we must provide them with low-tech, universally accessible distance learning and protect them from harm. We must plan for a quick, comprehensive return to school by setting up systems to monitor reenrollment, gather gender-disaggregated data and incentivize at-risk girls to go back to the classroom.

Second, we have to do more to help education systems recover. In the face of a financial crisis, national governments should not divert funding, continuing to aim to spend 20% of domestic budgets or 6% of gross national income on education. The international community can help relieve pressure on budgets, through coordinated actions like debt relief and special drawing rights.

Don't miss this opportunity, join us! 

Share your experiences learning/teaching during the school closures & the projects or initiatives you've launched to get girls back to school post #COVID19 in your local communities. Your submission can be in the form of a video, blog article, poetry, photograph/s or a song. To check out instructions on how to submit click this link: http://cieffa.org/

#AfricaEducatesHer

Aucieffa

Call for Submissions: AU/CIEFFA Africa Educates Her Campaign for creative content

 Don't miss this opportunity! Apply now

AU/CIEFFA invites African girls and women: students, human rights’ activists and teachers/educators to submit creative content showcasing their experiences learning/teaching girls during the COVID-19 related school closures and initiatives being taken by individuals, organisations and nations to ensure girls return back to school once schools start reopening.

Application Deadline: 30th November 2020

About the Award: COVID -19 has affected over 133 million female learners across the continent and through the Africa Educates Her campaign, the AU/CIEFFA seeks to highlight the experiences of learners at primary, secondary and tertiary education levels during the COVID 19 related school lockdown and further give voice to what young African girls, young women, youth and educators think should be done to promote, encourage and protect girls’ right to education especially during times of crisis.

Type: Contest

Eligible Countries: All African countries

Eligibility: Submissions can be in the form of videos, blogs articles, poetry, art, photography or music.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Selected submissions will be shared on the AU/CIEFFA Africa Educates Her blog and will form part of the Africa Educates Her documentary to be released at the end of 2020.

How to Apply: See Application Guidelines here

Do not forget to include your name, country, age and what you do (student,
teacher, activist etc.) in the email when you send your submission.

Click here to apply: https://cieffa.org/

Vulnerable families sustain industry with plastic waste

 Around 70 tonnes of plastic waste is acquired monthly by the Marplastico factory of the Marivel group, from individuals and companies in the municipality of Lubango, Huila and Namibe province, who two years ago found a livelihood for their families in the business.

Marplastico is the first plastic products factory in the southern region of the country and is located in the industrial area of Figueira, which initially had its raw material source abroad but now lives on recycling, thanks to this project involving vulnerable families.

In statements to ANGOP, the owner of the company, Floriano Vieira Dias, said that they have a recycling area in the factory that uses all plastic polypropylene material, bringing to them several customers and suppliers, mostly people who collect the product from the streets.

He said they had several suppliers in Lubango, which are not fixed, and they also have a group of women from Namibe, who gather and bring in to sell plastic waste, between 30 and 40 tons.

Vieira Dias stressed that with this base, many families are already able to feed themselves and ensure their livelihoods.

"We are currently receiving 12 to 13 people a day providing plastic waste. We pay 180 to 185 kwanzas per kilogram if it is very good material and if it is what people call rubbish we pay around 120 kz, for doing more work on separation, as it has more costs for the recycling process," he explained.

He detailed that the plastic recycling process, after the purchase of the product, starts with the unloading, goes through a sorting, then goes to the crushing, melting and then the manufacturing machines, a process that takes four to five hours, involving 64 workers, out of a total of 110 employees.

Covid-19: Angola reports 51 new infections, 23 recoveries

  At least fifty one new infections, two deaths and 23 patients recovered is the national epidemiological balance of the last 24 hours presented Monday by the health authorities.

FRANCO MUFINDA, STATE SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC HEALTH

Angola needs highly qualified staff

Secretary advocates increase in postgraduate staff

Angola needs highly qualified staff in the areas of agriculture and fisheries, health, engineering and technologies linked to civil construction, telecommunications and renewable energy to cope with its technological and scientific development.

That statement came from the secretary of state for higher education, Eugénio Silva, when he was speaking at a seminar on postgraduate studies, held this Thursday at a joint initiative of the Ministry for Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, the European Union and Expertise France.

According to him, the postgraduate rate is still low for the needs of the country and such courses are expensive, inhibiting many graduates from opting for such a degree.

In order to address this issue, the supervising ministry provides 1,000 post-graduate scholarships per year to support candidates and increase demand.

This measure aims to increase the supply in the area of science and technology and to increase the access of women, fewer in postgraduate staff, promoting gender equality.

The Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation controls 4,000 students, an insufficient number for the country's needs in terms of highly qualified staff.

This seminar aims mainly to present preliminary results of a diagnosis on the situation of postgraduates