Dzvinka Kachur and Mark Swilling

More than 40 African heads of state return from Sochi after a fervent courting by Russia and with the ink drying on some substantial deals. Ethiopia and Rwanda have sealed nuclear co-operation agreements to bring the number of African countries keen on nuclear development to 18. South Africa is not among them.

The Black Sea retreat that is said to have been years in the making aimed to offer African leaders a renewed sense of partnership with Russia, who played the decolonial card with a firm hand.

African sovereignty, independence and a disdain for bullish western politics was the charm Russian President Vladimir Putin laid on thick. Analysts say the Kremlin claims that it has racked up $12.5-billion in deals over the two-day Russia-Africa summit. But it remains to be seen whether they actually materialise as real investments. The symbolically laden event to bolster co-operation and trade comes as sanctions against Russia persist. Firming up a Russia-Africa trading bloc is clearly a way to escape these constraints by structuring more deals in Russian roubles to improve economic stability.

Russian economic presence on the African continent is quite small. The $20-billion trade with all African countries is almost two times smaller than African deals with France and pales in comparison with China’s almost $200-billion worth of investments in Africa. So, what is Russia’s plan for saving African countries from the West?

To start, Putin has announced the forgiveness of the Soviet Union-era debts to several countries, including Ethiopia, Mozambique and Madagascar. Wiping out debts for Mozambique comes with new agreements that allow Russia’s Rosneft access to the natural gas resources in Mozambique (that could create tensions with China) and co-operation in the military area. Many of the agreements also assume state loans from Russia. The structure of agreements hardly takes a “no strings attached” approach.

Russia is believed to have a long history of using state loans for the political benefit which has often facilitated an opportunity for corruption with its neighbouring countries. South Africa is one country that was on the brink of inking a state loan from Russia to construct a nuclear fleet. Had the almost R1-trillion deal gone through it might have collapsed the South African economy over the long run because of the way energy prices would have been driven relentlessly upwards.

Nuclear energy now costs globally between R1.70 and R2.80/kWh, compared to coal which is R1.30/kWh and renewables which are between 50c and 60c/kWh. Despite the potentially disastrous consequences of the nuclear deal, former South African president Jacob Zuma remained loyal to Russia:

“They would not come for us. They would understand, we would have an agreement to work out another arrangement. We know they [Russia] are trusted people. We know they will never sink us; they will lift us.”

In Putin, Zuma found an ally who shared contempt for western colonisation and hostile western businesses.

Russia has sought a way to take the sting out of finance agreements with business partners, setting out what it calls more favourable conditions for financing, instead of the punitive measures of western institutions. The International Agency of Sovereign Development RBK (IASD) launched earlier this year was promoted at the summit. The agency has already facilitated $2.5-billion worth of deals with Niger, Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The non-state agency was positioned as a general partner of the summit and constitutes a collective of “consultants” with headquarters in Moscow. It is headed by Konstantin Malofeev, who was closely connected to the mercenary activities in Eastern Ukraine. Malofeev says:

“We have a network of direct contacts at the highest level with governments, institutions, corporations and investors around the world. We are supporting economic reforms in the countries which are trying to get out of economic and financial dependency of the western countries… Our goal is decolonisation, identifying infrastructural projects for investments.” Transparency is not part of this decolonial project as Malofeev has refused to disclose funding sources.

Military co-operation appears to be another central pivot for Russia which has pursued security contracts with more than 40 African countries to the tune of $3-billion in 2018.

“We will continue our course towards expanding contacts between the special services and law enforcement agencies of Russia and Africa in the field of combating terrorism, organised crime, drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal migration and piracy,” explained Putin.

The contracts foresee supplying military equipment, training military personnel, establishing service centres for Russian military equipment and more. Some deals are more than just an exchange of money for hardware and expertise though. Russia has received access to decision-making circles in Sudan’s Ministry of Defence, while Russian citizen Valeriy Zakharov was appointed national security adviser to the President of the Central African Republic (CAR).

Russia’s other leverage for earning state credit is the energy sector. Russia’s national nuclear corporation, Rosatom, is at different stages of negotiating nuclear power plant construction with more than 15 countries in Africa. The closest to implementation is the nuclear power plant on the Mediterranean coast in El Daaba, Egypt, where four third-generation VVER 1200 reactors are planned by 2028-2029.

Russia provides most of the funding, 85%, of the $21-billion nuclear power plant. In addition, Rosatom gets a 60-year servicing contract to maintain the reactors. Among other countries negotiating for nuclear plants are Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana and more. Most of these countries lack the capacity to distribute the amount of energy that these nuclear plants will produce.

It may still be a bit early for citizens of African countries to worry — out of the 26 reactors that were planned for the end of 2014, only five came online in 2018. However, those who do bow to pressure and agree to the construction of a nuclear power plant will soon discover that a Russian nuclear power plant is more than just an energy generator: it is more akin to a hybrid combination of a powerful embassy and a military base, complete with a sovereign guarantee to cover the loan finance.

In the months leading up to the summit, Russian officials met with almost all of their African counterparts. Each meeting would start with the story of the common history of the struggle for political and economic independence against the West. The ideological push from Russia is that western countries are out to exploit African nations, while Russia is a partner for development and an ally at the international level.

It would do well for African states to remember that Russia is a country where racism and homophobia in public discourse are rife. In September 2019, the CEO of Russian VTB bank Andrey Kostin addressed the Mozambican government saying:

“I hope our black friends in Mozambique are listening to this”. It begs the question: how will Putin’s revival of European fascist ideas associated with the fascist writer Ivan Ilyin and propagated by the highly influential Izborsk Club be reconciled with what it will take to build trust-based relationships with African leaders?

The Izborsk Club includes Putin confidantes like Alexander Dugin, Sergei Glazyev, Tikhon Shevkunov and founder Alexander Prokhanov. Prokhanov blames the Jews for the Holocaust and when he heard that a delegation of Russians had met President Barack Obama he moaned that it was “as if they had all been given a black teat, and they all suck at it with lust and mammalian smacking… In the end, I was humiliated by this.”

In Prokhanov’s eyes Europe is dying:

“The white race is perishing: gay marriages, pederasts rule the cities, women can’t find men.” This is the man who has accompanied Putin on radio shows and whose ideas shape Putin’s Eurasian expansionism.

What may bind Russians and Africans together would be strident nationalism and anti-West sentiment (especially with the likes of Trump and Johnson in power); but tensions may arise when Africans become aware of the white supremacist ideas that are core to the ideology that the Putin power elite likes to propagate within the Russian cultural-polity. Ironically, there is very little to distinguish between the ideologies propagated by Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Putin thought leader Alexander Prokhanov.

Russia is an active international player that was part of the G8 prior to its illegal annexation of Ukrainian Crimea. It has veto power in the UN Security Council and is a member of BRICS. The opportunity to strengthen its sphere of influence by courting 55 African countries’ allegiance is worth the effort of the mammoth undertaking of organising this summit. After all, those African nations hold 25% of votes in the UN.

In 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and UN Resolution 68/262 was adopted on March 27 2014 (“Territorial integrity of Ukraine”), 18 African countries voted in support of the resolution. Only two countries, Sudan and Zimbabwe, supported the Russian position in 2014. On a similar vote in 2018, the total number rose to eight countries: Burundi, Chad, Comoro, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uganda and South Africa.

As Russia sets out to reshape global geopolitics, African leaders should not forget that the Russian economy is struggling, with GDP growth that is predicted to be a mere 1.3% in 2019, averaging 0.32% over the period 2015 to 2019. The levels of poverty in some areas in Russia are comparable to those in many African countries. Racism, homophobia, a constricted civil society and curtailed human rights are all hallmarks of the Russian Federation under Putin. Africans should be under no illusion about who their suitor really is, especially those who value their democratic institutions and practices.

Dzvinka Kachur and Mark Swilling write for the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition Stellenbosch University.

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By Dickens Kamugisha

On October 21, 23 and 25 2019, over 15 civil society partners from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) participated in the public hearings on the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) report for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project.

The CSO partners included Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), Dynamique pour la Protection de l’environnement en Ituri, World Voices Uganda (WVU), Centre for Constitutional Governance (CCG), Guild Presidents’ Forum on Oil Governance (GPFOG), Green Organisation Africa (GOA), Citizens Concern Africa (CICOA), Oil Refinery Residents Association (ORRA) and others.

The three public hearings were organised by the Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU) in consultation with Uganda’s National Environment Management Authority (NEMA). They took place in the districts of Kakumiro, Mubende and Rakai respectively.

The public hearings were organised to enable citizens submit their views as required under the 1998 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Regulations to guide NEMA as it makes a decision on whether to issue an environmental certificate of approval or not to the EACOP project developers. Over 6,000 people participated in the three public hearings.

CSO partners observed a number of gaps and failures in the conduct of the public hearings as follows:

First, as CSOs, we appreciate that in accordance with Regulation 21 of the 1998 EIA Regulations, PAU in consultation with NEMA fulfilled its mandate by conducting public hearings in Kakumiro, Mubende and Rakai districts. It should be noted that regulation 21(2) requires NEMA to call for a mandatory public hearing where a project is controversial or may have transboundary impacts. The 1,443 km-EACOP, which will be the longest heated pipeline in the world, is transboundary in nature. The pipeline will be constructed from Uganda to Tanzania and its impacts will be felt by communities in neighbouring states such as the DRC, Tanzania, Kenya and others.

 In addition, the EACOP and its sister projects of Kingfisher and Tilenga are some of the most expensive projects to be ever implemented in Uganda. It is estimated that the above three projects will cost the country over $15 billion. This means that Uganda will accumulate a huge debt before commencing oil production. Huge debts will have far reaching consequences on citizens and the country at large. The EACOP project’s cost and location in ecosenstive areas including wetlands, forests, rivers and lakes some of which are shared with countries such as the DRC makes it controversial and of national in addition to regional importance. It is therefore good that NEMA requested PAU to organise public hearings on the EACOP ESIA report.

While we appreciate NEMA and PAU, we note with concern that PAU failed to organise all the three public hearings in ways that would allow citizens to effectively participate to influence decision making on the EACOP project. Each of the three public hearings brought together people from three or more districts. The people had to walk long distances and incur high costs to participate in the public hearings. This undermined public participation in the public hearings and could undermine good decision making by NEMA.

The above is evidenced by the fact that despite the fact that the EACOP project will affect more districts (ten in total) than the Tilenga and Kingfisher projects, fewer people participated in the EACOP project’s public hearings. While over 9,000 and over 12,000 people participated in the Tilenga and Kingfisher projects’ ESIA public hearings respectively, only over 6,000 people participated in the EACOP ESIA public hearings! This is unfortunate.

Moreover, it should be noted that in organising only three public hearings at which stakeholders from many affected districts were combined, PAU and NEMA shifted from the norm of organising a public hearing in each of the affected districts as happened in the Tilenga and Kingfisher projects. PAU failed to understand that that affected people from the different districts were impacted differently by the same project. As such, the affected people had different views and concerns to present during the public hearings. They also required specific responses from the developer and government.

Further, the undersigned CSOs observed that while regulation 22(5) of the 1998 EIA Regulations provides that the scope of any public hearing shall be commensurate with the nature and size of the project, the EACOP public hearings were more of public gatherings 3 than public hearings where people would be given appropriate time to present their views. This was especially observed during the public hearing in Kakumiro on October 21, 2019.

At this public hearing, the presiding officer denied the people who wanted to present their views ample time. Each person was given only one minute to speak yet the people were submitting views on a 3,000-page ESIA report! To make matters worse, the public hearing started late yet the people participated in their thousands. PAU and NEMA failed to consider that because of the scope and nature of the EACOP project, the EACOP ESIA public hearings would attract thousands of people. These people were denied adequate time to submit their views because they were many and they came from various districts. PAU should have organised public hearings in each affected sub-county or at least at each district like it did for the Tilenga and Kingfisher ESIA reports.

We also observed that while the 1998 EIA Regulations provide that any public hearing shall be conducted at a venue which shall be convenient and accessible to persons who are likely to be specifically affected by the project, all the three public hearings in Kakumiro, Mubende and Rakai were not at accessible venues. People from different districts had to move long distances to participate in the public hearings. For instance, people from Hoima had to cover a distance of approximately 80km to participate in the public hearing in Kakumiro. Those from Lwengo had to move distances of over 41km to participate in the public hearing in Rakai. This violated regulation 22(6) of the 1998 EIA Regulations.

It was also sad to note that the public hearings took place at a time when the developer and the lead agency are already implementing the Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) reports for the EACOP project including placing a cut-off date on the Project Affected Persons’ (PAPs) property such as land. This is contrary to regulations 19 and 20 of the 1998 EIA Regulations which require NEMA to call for public comments and work with PAU to conduct public hearings based on a complete ESIA report. Implementing the RAP reports outside of the ESIA process and/or placing a cut-off date on people’s property before NEMA issues an environmental and social impact assessment certificate of approval or payment of fair and adequate compensation is a violation of the laws of Uganda, especially Article 26 of the Constitution.

The CSOs also observed that the EACOP ESIA public hearings were organised based on an ESIA report that does not have even one complete mitigation plan to avoid or at least mitigate the dangers of oil on the environment and livelihoods. They called on NEMA to reject the EACOP ESIA report in order to avoid acting on insufficient information.

The CSOs further observed that like it happened in the previous public hearings on the Tilenga and Kingfisher projects, PAU failed to consult affected local communities from the neighboring countries of DRC and Tanzania. This is despite the fact that the water 4 abstraction activities and oil exploitation efforts on Lake Albert will affect fisheries and water access for communities in the DRC. The carbon emissions from the EACOP project will also affect communities in the DRC. Failure to consult communities in Tanzania and the DRC affects promotion of good governance of natural resources in the Great Lakes region.

In general, the EACOP ESIA public hearings were all organised in disregard of national environmental laws and regional accords such as the Uganda-DRC Ngurdoto Agreement that lays out procedures to enable harmonious exploitation of oil and gas resources in Uganda and the DRC. In addition, fundamental procedures such as respect for interested parties who apply to make presentations at the public hearings, failure to give affected people sufficient time to present their views and other failures were seen.

Recommendations

The Uganda and DRC CSO partners who participated in the EACOP ESIA public hearings make the following recommendations:

(i) NEMA should use its powers to ensure that PAU complies with the 1998 EIA Regulations especially regulations 21 and 22 that require lead agencies to ensure that every public hearing is commensurate with the scope and nature of the project. The EACOP is a transboundary project. As such, it affects people across borders and across districts.

(ii) NEMA should therefore direct PAU to organise public hearings in all the ten districts affected by the EACOP to enable the affected people to effectively participate and submit their views. This will enable NEMA to make the right decisions to safeguard our environment and livelihoods amidst oil risks.

(iii) Further, through PAU and NEMA, government should implement and comply with bilateral and international instruments that were put in place to govern the utilisation of cross-border resources. These instruments include the 2007 Ngurdoto agreement between Uganda and the DRC on sharing transboundary extractive resources. PAU and NEMA should consult cross-border communities that are affected by transboundary projects.

(iv) In addition, NEMA should use its regulatory powers to stop PAU and the developer from implementing RAPs before approval of the ESIA report. RAPs should and must always be approved as part of ESIA reports.

(v) PAU should also explain to Ugandans how the lead EACOP developer, Total E&P, suspended the EACOP activities and yet the public hearings are on-going. Who is the lead developer in absence of Total? Did Total resume work?

(vi) Finally, NEMA and the Ministry of Water and Environment should urgently consult citizens, finalise and operationalise the 2019 ESIA draft regulations with specific provisions on how public hearings should be conducted in a manner that gives every participant sufficient time to submit to his or her views. The new law should ensure that public hearings are not conducted and managed as public rallies.

The writer is Chief Executive Officer, AFIEGO

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By Martin Zwilling

A perfect storm is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances aggravates an environment drastically. In the entrepreneur world, I feel we are in such a situation now for new startups, with the confluence of business transformations, the explosion of new digital technologies, and the political turmoil around the world.

It’s easier and cheaper to start a company than ever before, yet it’s tougher than ever to survive. It takes a “well-oiled” multi-disciplined and motivated team to win, and yet I see and hear all too often about teams that are well-funded and smart, but don’t work well together, or are downright dysfunctional.

The challenge they face is not unlike that described in the classic sailing book “Into the Storm,” by Dennis N. T. Perkins, where a team of amateurs applied some key lessons in teamwork while surviving and winning a treacherous Sydney to Hobart Ocean Race. Here are ten principles from the book that I’ve easily extrapolated to the business startup environment:

Team unity: Make the team, not an individual, the rock star. Flat management is the business term to describe an environment where all members of the team feel they are part of the whole, that each has a key role to play, and each can express their views without jeopardy. There are no individual superstars or bosses with special perks.

Prepare, prepare, prepare: Remove all excuses for failure. Winning teams set out to ensure that every element of the system is known to all and is functioning to the best of their combined ability. Make sure no one has an excuse for failure. That means preparing for things that could go wrong, as well as driving things efficiently that go right.

Balanced optimism: Find and focus on the winning scenario. In business, startups will inevitably encounter setbacks, and need to pivot. The first step is to define “winning.” Is it more customers, more revenue, more profit, or killing competitors? Of course, all of these are important, but everyone needs to prioritize the same way during a crisis.

Relentless learning: Build a gung-ho culture of learning and innovation. The very best teams learn the most quickly from experience. That means they take action, reflect on outcomes, and gain insights that help them continuously improve. Innovation and new ideas are the norm, rather than maintain status quo, or charge straight ahead.

Calculated risk: Be willing to sail into the storm. Great business teams accept that every startup is “a big risk,” and there is no quick path to safety. Winning requires situational awareness, which means always understanding the critical success factors, and working to stay aware of current business realities around you.

Stay connected: Cut through the noise of the wind and the waves. The information blizzard in business is just as noisy as on the stormy ocean. Don’t let it be further clouded by political concerns and turf battles. Everyone needs to personalize communication, warn others of big waves, and even break protocol to help others when required.

Step into the breach: Find ways to share the helm. In adversity, any given team member can be faced with a burden too heavy for one person to carry. A good team draws on each other’s strengths, and shares the load. At the top, this is called distributive leadership, which lessens the burden on the formal leader.

Eliminate friction: Step up to the conflict, and deal with the things that slow you down. Fix the problem, not the blame. Confront differences in ability without blame, and add training, coaching, or education, and eliminate excess weight, before the storm. Humor can help alleviate anxiety and mitigate conflict, providing time to solve the crisis.

Practiced resilience: Master the art of rapid recovery. Startups need people who thrive under pressure, meaning they are resilient and have a high stress hardiness. They enjoy change and look at problems as a challenge, rather than a burden. They measure success in terms of recovery time, and strive to make it shorter.

Tenacious creativity: Never give up – there is always another move. Determination and creativity under pressure make a team unstoppable – on the ocean or in business. The “proud moments” of successful teams are the times when they come together in the face of adversity and win.

Some startup founders try to dodge the team-building challenge by single-handedly doing all the work, or establishing a monarchy where only one voice counts. Neither of these strategies can succeed, since even a small business will soon scale too big for one person to manage everything.

If you are a new entrepreneur, you need to realize that you can’t win by sailing around the edges of the perfect storm ahead. You have to hit it with an innovative plan, and you need a confident and disciplined team to get you through it. Are you ready to rock and roll?

The writer is a veteran startup mentor, executive, blogger, author, tech professional, professor, and investor. Published on Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc, Huffington Post, etc.

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