November 19, 2007 by bipin.

Edris Kisambira

 Kampala

 The Industrial Promotion Services (IPS) has joined SEACOM to back the construction of a US$650 million undersea optic fibre cable that will link Mozambique, Madagascar, Kenya and Tanzania with international broadband cables in South Africa, India and Europe (France). SEACOM wants to build the 15,000km long state-of-art cable with other African investors. IPS is part of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED). SEACOM’s venture, which will be ready for service in 2009, will provide faster, cheaper, broadband capacity for Africa. SEACOM will be one of four submarine cables that are being planned for the eastern seaboard of Africa. Others are the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), The East African Marine System (TEAMS) and the NEPAD-backed BAHARICOM. High bandwidth at low costs will be a catalyst for productivity and the growth of service industries such as call-centres, back offices and research institutions in Africa. The additional bandwidth offered by the new cable will also contribute significantly to bringing the cost of connectivity down. “The agreements signed today (November 15) make the SEACOM broadband cable a reality for Africa, and with it access to much cheaper, much faster fibre optic links between countries in the south and east of the continent to the rest of the world,” said Mr. Lutaf Kassam, IPS (Kenya) group managing director. “The project will in turn spur economic growth and social development in the region through employment and connecting business opportunities,” Kassam said in a press statement AKFED issued last week. “Ten years ago, very few believed African markets were capable of the tremendous growth experienced in the mobile industry. Today, we see the dawn of a similar revolution in the growth of data communications,” said SEACOM president Mr. Brian Herlihy. East Africa is the only part of the world without access to international cables and is desperate for low cost, high quality, international bandwidth. The estimated cost of satellite bandwidth on a monthly lease ranges from $1,700 to $6,000 per megabit/second per month. The same bandwidth on the SEACOM cable will be approximately 20% of current costs. The investors in SEACOM are IPS (25%), Venfin Limited (25%); Herakles Telecom LLC (25%); Convergence Partners (12.5%) and the Shanduka Group (12.5%). Nedbank Capital, the investment banking arm of Nedbank Limited, was appointed as the Mandated Lead Arranger for all debt funding requirements of the project and the funding will be provided by Nedbank Capital and Investec Bank. Industrial Promotion Services (IPS) is the infrastructure and industrial development of AKFED. IPS has operations in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and DR Congo and is also actively pursuing investment opportunities in Rwanda, Mozambique and Madagascar. Outside the East and Central Africa region, IPS also operates in Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Canada. “This is a tremendous opportunity for our continent, because the cable gives us the technical capacity for much closer integration into the world economy where Africa will significantly share in the new opportunities and efficiency gains arising from this project,” said Shanduka Chairman, Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa. “We are extremely happy that the investors from South and East Africa have partnered with an international counterpart around our shared vision of linking Africa to the world in the spirit of NEPAD.” SEACOM has already invested more than $10million in the marine survey and engineering of the cable. This advance work has allowed SEACOM to maintain its ready-for-service-date of June 2009. Actual production of the high-tech cable and undersea repeaters starts next week. The statement said SEACOM’s 1.28-terrabytes-per-second broadband capacity would bring prices for businesses, institutions, communities, and individuals down significantly. It will provide sufficient bandwidth to accommodate high definition TV, peer to peer networks, IPTV, and surging Internet demand. SEACOM will also make a direct contribution to meeting the New Partnership for Africa’s Development’s (NEPAD’s) goals of development for Africa’s renewal and its full and beneficial integration into the global economy.

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November 14, 2007 by bipin.

Speech by His Highness the Aga Khan
at the Conference on Central Asia and Europe :
A New Economic Partnership for the 21st Century
Berlin - November 13, 2007

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Your Excellencies Foreign Minister Steinmeier, Dr. Belka
and Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner,
State Secretary Erler,
Your Excellencies Ministers from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me, first, acknowledge and thank for their kind words those who have spoken before me this morning — the Foreign Minister, Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Dr. Marek Belka — as well as Benita Ferrero Waldner, the EC Commissioner for External Relations.

It has always been special pleasure to return to Berlin — a city that continues to be synonymous with the word “cosmopolitan”. Berlin is truly a global connecting point — a fact which has been instrumental in our decision to open an office of the Aga Khan Development Network here.

How appropriate that we should be discussing, in this historic crossroads city, one of the great, inter-cultural projects of our time — the effort to build a partnership between Central Asia and Europe. I commend the German Government for its leading role in this effort, and the European Union for carrying it forward — with its endorsement of a “Regional Strategy” for Central Asia a few months ago. Others have also played welcome contributing roles, including The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

As I offer my own comments today, I will draw on the experience of our Aga Khan Development Network in Central Asia. We have come to know much of this region well, particularly Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan; not only has it long been home to significant numbers of Ismaili Muslims, but we have also developed a widening range of programs across the region over the past fifteen years.

It is appropriate that the word “Regional” is at the center of our deliberations on Central Asia. The countries are diverse in many ways — and the development approaches there must be sensitive to divergent requirements. But these countries also have a common historical experience, including several centuries of shared Islamic heritage. Each of them has faced the need to build new political and economic institutions following the breakup of the Soviet Union. And, as the EU Strategy document emphasizes, each of them can only optimise their development through a regional approach.

In this respect, the Central Asian experience parallels the European experience. In Europe, too, the end of the Cold War demanded new political and economic structures and it is striking how quickly Europe is now reaching out to Central Asia — offering, among other things, the great gift of a powerful regional example.

Among other things, the European example demonstrates that a healthy sense of national identity need not be a barrier to constructive regional engagement. So my first objective today is to tell you how warmly I endorse regional diagnosis for Central Asia. And because that diagnosis begins in the right place, it also extends into a series of wise prescriptions for the future. These prescriptions are validated in large measure by the experiences of the Aga Khan Development Network institutions in Central Asia. We have learned a great deal from those experiences — both successes and setbacks, but we can learn a great deal more by sharing our lessons.

The problems of Central Asia are remarkably complex — their causes are multiple and defiantly inter-tangled. Progress requires a multi-faceted and multi-input approach — a proper “policy mix”– to cite the language of the EU Report. The learning curve is steep and there should be a sense of urgency — for all of us — and all the more so, because solutions can be elusive.

In many ways, the greatest obstacle in the struggle for progress in Central Asia is simple human frustration. In this region the sense is that its development partners talk about progress, and then act, and then talk some more — but too often, for the people of the region, progress is just “not happening”. When it does happen, it too often is incomplete, or exceptional, or fleeting. This situation is of course by far the most acute in Afghanistan.

What we face in Central Asia is a race against frustration — which means a race against time and mediocrity. Alternative scenarios, often utopian and extremist, beckon on every hand — and people will not be patient with pragmatic scenarios unless the work in practice is effective. The EU rightly emphasizes the need for greater “continuity” in these efforts — so that each experience, successful or unsuccessful, becomes a building block for the future.

It is a daunting challenge indeed to move in a coordinated way on multiple fronts. But as we do, success can become self-generating. Progress on one, or two, or three fronts can often make progress easier on other fronts — a sense of possibility can also be contagious. I acknowledge the considerable advances that each of the Central Asian countries is making, including recognising the needs of their rural populations.

In a spirit of shared learning and with diffidence — let me highlight a few of our own experiences.

I would begin with the University of Central Asia, founded in the year 2000 by the Ismaili Imamat — and the governments of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.

I remember the signing ceremonies well. They were the culmination of six years of planning — an experience which itself illustrated the importance not only of regional cooperation, but also of cooperation among disciplines and among social sectors. Our goal was to address a massive regional problem: how to improve the quality of life of nearly 25 million people who live in the high mountain areas of the region and beyond?

We often talk about Public Private Partnerships — as the EU Strategy does. But such relationships need not be limited to cooperation between

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November 1, 2007 by bipin.

Aga Khan Trust revives the Middle Ages

The Khayrbek and Umm Al-Sultan Shaaban monumental complexes, two of the finest examples of Islamic mediaeval architecture in the Darb Al-Ahmar district of Cairo, have been restored. Nevine El-Aref was at the opening ceremony

Click to view caption

The mosque in Umm Al-Sultan Shaaban monument after restoration

Traffic was barred from Bab Al-Wazir Street in the Darb Al-Ahmar district last Friday night as journalists and TV crews joined government officials at the Khayrbek complex to await the arrival of Prince Karim Aga Khan and Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, who would announce the inauguration of the Khayrbek and Umm Al-Sultan Shaaban complexes after five years of restoration.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/869/eg3.htm

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