Africa

‘Uganda will develop with or without World Bank loans’ – pre...

Africa /

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has said that his country will develop, with or without World Bank loans. The president’s defiance follows a decision by the World Bank to stop making fresh loans to Uganda due to the nation’s contentious anti-LGBTQI+. The Washington, DC-based lender announced that it would halt project financing while it reviewed the steps it took to safeguard sexual and gender minorities from prejudice and exclusion in its initiatives. “Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act fundamentally contradicts the World Bank’s values,” the lender said in a statement. As a result of the anti-homosexuality legislation, the U.S. placed travel restrictions on Ugandan officials in June 2023. President Museveni, who described homosexuality as a psychological condition, dismissed criticism from other countries, saying that the law was “necessary” to prevent members of the LGBTQI+ community from trying to “recruit” people. Uganda’s legislation provides for a mandatory death sentence for a person convicted of “aggravated homosexuality”. President Museveni has insisted that Uganda will do with, or without, the support of the World Bank.

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Nigeria’s president appoints new cabinet

Africa /

Nigeria’s president announced a cabinet of close advisers and political loyalists as he seeks to rejuvenate a faltering economy and respond to a crisis in neighbouring Niger that has dominated the first few months of his term in office. Bola Tinubu, who took over in May, appointed investment banker Wale Edun as finance and co-ordinating minister of the economy in a sweeping role responsible for rebooting the battered finances of Africa’s most populous nation. Edun, a former chair of the Lagos-based investment bank Chapel Hill Denham, was previously Tinubu’s special adviser on monetary policy. Many had expected Edun to be appointed finance minister eight years ago under former president Muhammadu Buhari but he was overlooked. One of Tinubu’s closest allies, he served as commissioner of finance in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, from 1999 to 2007 when Tinubu was governor of the state. Edun, 62, played a key role in crafting Tinubu’s economic manifesto during the campaign for February’s elections and is regarded as the architect of market-pleasing attempts to return to economic orthodoxy in Africa’s biggest economy.

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