First Independent Mena Newspaper
A boat was thrown by the current in Brazil’s coasts with nine dead migrants from Mauritania and Mali on board, an incident that highlights the hazardous journey facing migrants bound to the Canary Islands. The Brazilian police could identify the identities of the decomposed bodies thanks to documents they had carried. The boat crossed the […]
Higher cocoa prices, due to catastrophic harvest in West Africa, triggered a surge of chocolate prices. About 60% of Cocoa, a key chocolate ingredient, is produced in West African powerhouses Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire, which both reported a sharp drop in output due to a devastating heatwave. Experts expect that chocolate prices would further rise […]
A study by the World Weather Attribution group of scientists found that the heat wave that damaged crops in West Africa was triggered by human-caused global heating. The heatwave, with temperatures averaging 40C, damaged the cocoa harvest in West Africa, sending prices of the key chocolate ingredient higher. Farmers in Ghana and Côte D’Ivoire, which […]
Morocco is matching words with actions as far as making the Sahara territory a bridge to the rest of Africa through win-win partnerships. The Atlantic initiative, spurred by King Mohammed VI, aims to benefit landlocked Sahel countries from the future 1bln Dakhla port and other logistics and infrastructure to help them access global trade and […]
Canada’s development financial institution, Findev Canada, has approved recently a €20mln loan to the West African Development Bank destined to boost agri-food and renewable energy in West Africa. The loan is the very first agreement between the Canadian financial institution and the West African Development Bank. It will increase financing for agri-food businesses and the […]
The Economic Community of West African states (ECOWAS) and its regional partners have launched a strategic regional committee for fertilizer control to address West Africa’s fertilizer quality challenges. ECOWAS, in cooperation with the West African Economic and Monetary Community (UEMOA) and the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), has officially launched […]
China is making inroads into the West African arms market and is also looking to make new allies and build influence in the region amid waning French influence there. Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali are all French-speaking and, as former colonies, historically fell under France’s sphere of influence. And although France is still the largest […]
Despite setbacks from military coups in Mali and Niger, the European Union is planning to launch a new military-civilian mission in Africa in the fall, whose aim is to prevent instability triggered by jihadi groups, a German newspaper has reported. EU member states have agreed to launch the mission in the Gulf of Guinea in […]
American and European navies are teaming up with their counterparts from eight West African countries to conduct joint training operations off the coast of Senegal this week that are mainly aimed at combating illegal fishing off the West African coast. As unreported and unregulated fishing has spread along West Africa’s coasts, scooping up an estimate […]
The Economic Commission for West African States (ECOWAS) leaders have agreed to establish a regional peacekeeping force to intervene in member states to help restore security and constitutional order in a region that has witnessed several coups in the past two years. West and Central Africa have made strides in the past decade to shed […]