Month: May 2023

Improving financial information has become a prerequisite to enhancing the competitiveness of the national economy and the financial market amid the new challenges facing economies all over the world. This is what emerged from a debate with the financial centre on the theme "Quality of Information: Challenges for Companies, Necessity for Investors" held by the Financial Market Council (French: CMF) on Wednesday in Tunis. During this debate held within the framework of the 21st Annual Session of the Francophone Institute of Financial Regulation (IFREFI) which takes place from May 31 to June 2, in Tunis, Governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia Marouane El Abassi said "today, regulators are facing three major challenges which impact investors' behavior." 'They are economic and geopolitical challenges related to the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict which exposed financial players to the exacerbation of economic uncertainty, the increase in the price of foodstuffs and fuel jeopardizing food security and energy, higher inflation and rising interest rates. There are also technological challenges related to the revolution triggered by Artificial Intelligence. Finally, there are climate challenges which directly impact financial players who must take them into account without further delay, while trying to overcome the gaps in terms of reliable, comparable and prospective data on the issue of climate risk.' These challenges highlight the increased importance of the availability, quality and authenticity of information, which is key to risk coverage and consolidating trust between companies and investors in the markets and regulatory authorities.' Faced with these challenges, the BCT chose as the slogan for its new strategic plan 2023-2025 "To be a Credible, Resilient and Innovative Central Bank, at the Forefront of Financial, Inclusive and Sustainable Transformations." It has also set itself the target of being fully compliant with Basel Standards and IFRS by 2023. Chairman of the Financial Market Council Salah Essayel pointed out that "financial markets are currently facing major challenges such as the energy transition, the digitisation of financial services, the fight against money laundering and funding of terrorism". Amid these challenges, 'transparency becomes crucial for the company, whatever its size. Yet, a balance should be maintained between confidentiality and transparency.'

Source: EN - Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

Tunisia's country partnership strategy which will cover the years from 2023 to 2027 will go up for approval by the World Bank's board of directors on June 15. The World Bank paused discussions around this strategy, following a controversy that was sparked by the case of sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia. Better known as the 'country partnership framework' (CPF), this strategy outlines 'strategic directions for operational engagements' in the next five years. Vice-President of the World Bank (WB) for the Middle East and North Africa Region Ferid Belhaj had announced last April that the country partnership strategy with Tunisia should be presented by mid- June to the WB board of directors.

Source: EN - Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has welcomed Tunisia's proposal to host the next Ministerial retreat of the Council of Ministers of the AfCFTA The proposal was presented by Minister of Trade and Export Development, Kalthoum Ben Rejab, during a meeting with Secretary-General of AfCFTA, Wamkele Mene, who said Tunisia is a leading country in supporting African economic integration, according to the Ministry of Trade. Tunisia is participating in second Ministerial retreat of the Council of Ministers of the AfCFTA, held from May 29 to 31 in Nairobi, Kenya. This second retreat made it possible to draw up an executive programme setting out the priorities needed to accelerate the entry into force of the AfCFTA in 2023 and to extend the list of member countries to 29 by October 2023. Tunisia is one of the first 8 African countries to prepare for the launch of AfCFTA. The ministerial meeting provided an opportunity to discuss trade facilitation and transit trade. Participants agreed to set up a committee to study trade facilitation issues in order to accelerate the implementation of the agreement and assess progress in its application, as well as to create a platform to link the national committees specialised in trade facilitation in the 54 member countries of the agreement. The meeting also focused on the role of the African private sector in the implementation and entry into force of the Agreement in order to benefit from its advantages and its mechanisms for strengthening bilateral trade. Participants also discussed the role that Member States' parliaments can play in promoting the implementation of the Agreement by monitoring and applying legislation related to national trade policies. In this context, they agreed to develop a vision for the organisation of a Parliamentary Forum in September 2023 that will allow sharing experiences and best practices in the field of ratification of the Agreement and its Protocols.

Source: EN - Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

Juvenile sharks escape from some of the fastest and fiercest fish in the sea by going to shallow waters where the predators cannot go, according to a project done in collaboration with the Save Our Seas Foundation (SOSF) in Seychelles.

In a press release last week, SOSF said that after falling deep into the field of shark research at Bimini Biological Field Station in The Bahamas during her master's research, Dr Ornella Weideli, a former leader of the SOSF Research Centre on D'Arros Island, developed an interest in the dietary behaviour of sharks.

Weideli wanted to not only understand what juvenile sharks eat but also how their behaviour may change if they are sharing their nursery ground with another, ecologically similar juvenile shark species.

The project that she completed with the team at the Research Centre on D'Arros, was conducted in the shallow lagoon of St. Joseph, an atoll of the Amirantes group in Seychelles.

An aerial view of St Joseph Atoll. (Ryan Daly/Save Our Seas Foundation) Photo License: All Rights Reserved

"The lagoons here are home to a large population of not just one, but two juvenile shark species: the blacktip reef shark and the sicklefin lemon shark and so it really is the perfect location to study how these two species are sharing space and food," explained Weideli.

Theory suggests that the key to a peaceful co-existence seems to be to reduce competition, and therefore conflict, between the species. The slightly smaller blacktips seem to be subordinate to the larger lemon sharks, which Weideli and her team investigated in captive experiments at the Centre of Island Research and Environmental Observatory (CRIOBE), which has research centres in Perpignan, France, and French Polynesia.

To find out how this hierarchy affects juvenile shark behaviour, the team actively tracked individual sharks' movements and behaviour in the lagoon. On foot or by kayak, they tracked the sharks, recording where they spent their time and where they searched for food.

By flushing the sharks' stomachs, without harming the young animals, Weideli was also able to analyse the stomach contents of 115 blacktips and 188 lemon sharks to find out what the juveniles had been eating.

Dr Ornella Weideli was also able to analyse the stomach contents of 115 blacktips and 188 lemon sharks. Photo License: All Rights Reserved

Her findings were that 84.6 percent of the stomach contents of blacktip reef sharks were fish compared to 94.2 percent in lemon sharks.

The difference came in the fish species they ate – blacktips showed broader diets, eating 32 different species, compared to 17 different fish species found in the stomachs of lemon sharks.

It seems as though this may be because the juvenile blacktips spent more time in deeper, riskier habitats, as a result of being the subordinate species.

"The results support the initial hypothesis – to avoid competition, subordinate sharks eat the food of poorer quality when there's a dominant competitor around! To me it's incredibly fascinating that different species of shark already show diverging diets at this young age," said a delighted Weideli.

She added that "we've assessed for the first time the competitive ability in two co-existing shark species, enabling us to provide evidence that niche partitioning, basically, how sharks share, is at least partially driven by competition between species."

Source: Seychelles News Agency

Children from the President's Village Orphanage in Seychelles received numerous items as part of a donation from the Chinese Embassy on Tuesday.

The items, which included furniture, toys, food, and stationary, among others, come from an initiative by the First Lady of China, Peng Liyuan, as part of the China-Africa joint initiative "Warm Children's Heart" and the Organisation of African First Ladies for Development.

The donation was made to the President's Village through Seychelles' First Lady Linda Ramkalawan, patron of local orphanages.

In her address, Ramkalawan shared that "It is said that the best way to make children good, is to make them happy. So, I hope the children will be happy with all these beautiful gifts given to them today." .

The donation was made to the First Lady Linda Ramkalawan by Mu Jianfeng, the Chinese chargé d'affaires. (Ministry of Youth, Sports & Family) Photo License: CC-BY

Ramkalawan received the donation on behalf of the children, from Mu Jianfeng, the Chinese chargé d'affaires in the presence of the Minister for Family Affairs, Youth and Sports, Marie-Celine Zialor, along with staff and children from the orphanage

"Children are the future of our nations. Their health and happiness are the concerns of all societies across the world," said Jianfeng in his address.

He added that the aim of the "Warm Children's Heart" project is to prioritise the agenda of children's welfare and pull resources from all concerned to create a better environment for children's growth.

The President's Village located in the western Mahe district of Port Glaud, was opened in 1987 by the late former First Lady Geva Rene, the patron of the National Council for Children (NCC) at that time. The state-run facility houses 30 residents, which include 10 boys and 20 girls.

Chinese doctors fave free health consultations. (Ministry of Youth, Sports & Family) Photo License: CC-BY

As part of the donation, a group of Chinese doctors was also present to give the children free health consultations and tests.

Mirenda Hollanda, the senior child support officer at the Village, said the visit of the Chinese doctors was opportune as "it is very difficult for us to take the children to the hospital all the time for specialised care and so to have these doctors here will help the children as various tests will be done to check for diabetes, heart health, and other. It is a benefit for our staff as well."

Hollanda expressed her gratitude to the Chinese Embassy for the donation. She said that most of the donation will be used to furnish a toddler's room, where kids play among themselves.

"The Village is a beautiful home where children are living in a big family. We hope the donation will make everyone's stay more comfortable and cosier," said the Chinese chargé d'affaires.

Source: Seychelles News Agency

The overall status of highly migratory and straddling fish stocks still remains a concern for attendees of the Resumed Review Conference on the United Nations Fish Stock Agreement (UNFSA).

Held from May 22 to May 26 at the UN Headquarters in New York, the conference saw the attendance of over 100 delegates, including Seychelles. Attendees were representing governments, regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs), specialised agencies of the UN, and non-governmental organisations.

Seychelles, an archipelago in the western Indian Ocean, was represented by the director general for fisheries, Sheriffa Morel, and the senior policy analyst, Stephanie Radegonde.

"The sustainability of tuna and tuna like-species remains a concern. There are countries that aren't making any effort to ensure the sustainability of stocks. There are other concerns such as climate change and IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated) fishing," Morel told SNA on Tuesday.

Efforts of the conference were directed at addressing fishing-related challenges to ensure the long-term health and sustainability of marine living resources and ecosystems in an evolving ocean policy environment.

As part of the measures to ensure sustainable fishing, the Seychelles' Ministry of Fisheries and the Blue Economy has put in place a fisheries co-management plan of the Mahé plateau line and trap fishery.

The plan is expected to effectively manage the fish resource to sustain the industry, the economic value, and ecological and social benefits.

Fisheries is the second top contributor to the Seychelles' economy.

There was a proposal to strengthen the implementation of the provisions of the agreement to better address any ongoing issues in conservation and management.

The UNFSA commits its parties to make progress in four areas of fisheries management. This includes conservation and management of stocks, mechanisms for international cooperation through RFMOs, monitoring, control and surveillance, and compliance and enforcement, and effective participation of developing states and non-parties.

The 2023 conference ended with recommendations to integrate ecosystem considerations in fisheries management, reduce urgently the world's fishing capacity to levels commensurate with the sustainability of fish stocks and strengthen RFMOs' mandates to implement modern approaches to fisheries.

Other proposals included the conduction of RFMO performance reviews, the development of a legally-binding instrument on minimum standards for port state measures and a comprehensive global register of fishing vessels, the expansion of assistance to developing countries, and the establishment of a continuing dialogue to address concerns raised by non-parties.

The meeting provided an opportunity for the conference to resume at a later date due to the fact that it was suspended rather than formally closed.

Source: Seychelles News Agency

The city of Gayéri in the province of Komondjari was supplied by land on the night of Monday May 29 to Tuesday May 30, 2023.

After April 8, 2023, the city of Gayéri was supplied for the second time.

It was on the night of May 29-30, 2023 by land.

During the convoy, mines were defused by the army, without causing any incidents.

As a reminder, the blockade imposed since the beginning of the year by terrorists, causes enormous concern to the populations of Gayéri, in particular to farmers and breeders.

While waiting for the total liberation of the city, the army regularly carries out operations which have already made it possible to neutralize several assailants and to recover equipment.

Source: Burkina Information Agency