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Chaipa said on average, the cooperative produces 220 liters of milk daily

Dairy Farmers Cry Foul Over Lack of Markets

Chairperson for Chitekesa Milk Bulking Group, Doreen Chaipa, says lack of markets is forcing dairy farmers to sell milk at a cheaper price of K200 per liter since they are failing to sell the product as a cooperative.

Siula taking a lead in the tree planting event

NB Takes Go Green Campaign to Chiradzulu CDSS

National Bank of Malawi Customs Road Branch in Blantyre has planted 3, 000 trees at Chiradzulu Community Day Secondary School in advancing their Go Green Campaign.

Safety: Vehicle imports facing security threats

Malawi Cargo Center Limited Enhancing Security, Fires 30

Malawi Cargo Center Limited has fired thirty operational drivers who collect vehicles from the port to their yard-offices in Dar el Salaam in Tanzania.

Bakuwa says electronic top up is more efficient

TNM Promotes Electronic Top Up

Mobile network service provider, TNM, has embarked on a promotion aiming at driving its customers from airtime scratch cards to electronic top up.

Sale of Airtel Shares Closing January 31st

The 20 per cent share market for prospective Airtel Malawi shareholders comes to an end Friday, 31^st January 2020.

All the news from the UK-Africa Investment Summit

LONDON — The U.K.-Africa Investment Summit saw £2 billion ($2.6 billion) worth of investments committed to African businesses over the next two years from the United Kingdom government's development finance institution.

Mutharika: Representing Malawi at the summit

Prime Minister, African Leaders Urge UK Investors to Accelerate Economic Role in Africa

The UK-Africa Investment Summit, the first of its kind hosted by the UK Government, was attended by the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, the international development secretary, Alok Sharma, and Prince Harry.

London, United Kingdom, January 21, 2020/ -- At an oversubscribed opening ceremony for the 2020 UK-Africa Investment Summit, Monday, attended by dignitaries and delegates from 16 African countries, including President Peter Mutharika and El Sisi of Egypt, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the case for bigger investments in Africa and called for increased and renewed partnership between the UK and Africa.

UK companies must leap at the chance to deepen economic ties with Africa, a continent with unmatched investment opportunities, several African leaders said at a high-level panel.

Referring to Africa as a booming continent with “staggering levels of growth,” Prime Minister Johnson said: “Look around the world today and you will swiftly see that the UK is not only the obvious partner of choice, we’re also very much the partner of today, of tomorrow and decades to come,” he said in his opening address.

The UK-Africa Investment Summit, the first of its kind hosted by the UK Government, was attended by the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, the international development secretary, Alok Sharma, and Prince Harry.

The President of Ghana, Nana Akufo Addo, of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, of Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Cheikh el Ghazouani, African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina, and Secretary of State for International Development, MP Alok Sharma, addressed a plenary panel discussion on ‘Sustainable Finance and Infrastructure – Unlocking the City of London and UK financial services for growth in Africa.’

President Kenyatta who rang the opening bell at the London Stock Exchange (LSE) marking the launch of Kenya’s first green bond at the LSE, made the case for innovative and sustainable investments in energy infrastructure. “We all must think out of the box in terms of energy…to ensure we produce more green energy. This first-ever sovereign green bond of $41.45 million will be used to build environmentally-friendly student accommodation in Kenya.”

Responding to a question about UK-Ghana partnerships, President Nana Akufo-Addo said in a world where Africa’s wealth is undisputed, “the City of London can play a significant role in bridging Africa’s huge infrastructure gap… and LSE can be a pivot in the new relationship with the continent. Indeed, 1 in 4 consumers will live in Africa by 2030,” President Akufo-Addo said.

African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina announced a new $80 million Bank-DFID infrastructure financing partnership.

According to Adesina, the continent’s $68-$108 billion infrastructure investment gap per year is massive, but it depends on how you look at it. “Either the cup is half full or half empty. To us, that is a $68-$108 billion opportunity.”

Adesina added, “The issue of risk in Africa is exaggerated. The risk of loss is lower than Latin America. Yet, funds are not being channeled into Africa. There are $8 trillion of assets under management in London, but only 1 percent is invested in Africa.”

The Bank president urged investors to look to Africa and recalled the achievements of the Africa Investment Forum - a game-changing initiative led by the African Development Bank and key partners, to accelerate investment in the continent. The unique multi-sector platform is designed to advance bankable deals to financial closure. At the 2019 Forum, which took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, deals valued at $40.1 billion secured investment interest.

President Mohamed Ould Cheikh el Ghazouani of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, shared opportunities offered by the blue ocean economy and substantial reforms currently under way to attract foreign investors.

“We have reinforced security along our coasts. Other measures include the establishment of a Council on Investment. These huge efforts are showing tremendous results and it is giving comfort to investors,” he noted.

The African continent is home to eight of the 15 fastest-growing economies in the world. By 2030, 42% of the world’s youth will be African and will constitute an incredible workforce and potential consumers.

In his concluding remarks, UK Secretary of State for International Development, MP Alok Sharma expressed confidence in the continent. “Africa has a fabulous future.” Sharma announced five partnerships to mobilise private sector investment in quality infrastructure on the continent. “The City of London can play a role in mobilizing resources for Africa,” Sharma said.

Speaking earlier, Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a major announcement on the UK’s policy on climate change.

“From today, the British government will no longer provide any new direct development assistance for thermal coal mining or coal power plants overseas,” Johnson said.

The declaration aligns with the African Development Bank’s green agenda aimed at increasing investment in renewable energy. President Adesina announced last year at the UN General Assembly that the Bank was moving away from investing in coal.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB)

Proliferation of Hybrid Computing Models Among 2020 Data Center Trends Identified by Vertiv Experts

OHIO, United States of America, January 15, 2020/ -- As the world charges into 2020, organizations increasingly will forego the enterprise-or-cloud debate that dominated C-level conversations in recent years in favor of hybrid architectures that incorporate public and private cloud models and edge assets around a reconfigured core. This evolving approach to managing data and computing resources is one of five emerging 2020 data center trends identified by experts from Vertiv (www.Vertiv.com), a global provider of IT infrastructure (https://bit.ly/385iDtQ) and continuity solutions.

The trending hybrid architectures will allow organizations to maintain control of sensitive data while still meeting soaring demands for more capacity and increased computing capabilities closer to the consumer. As connectivity and availability become conjoined concepts in this new data ecosystem, an increasing premium will be placed on seamless communication from core to cloud to edge.

“A new equilibrium is emerging in the data center space as the industry wrestles with capacity challenges and advanced applications that are forcing significant changes to data centers of all shapes and sizes,” said Vertiv CEO Rob Johnson (https://bit.ly/36XOUmC). “At the same time, speed of deployment is increasingly becoming a tipping point in technology decisions and will likely shape investment and innovation in the space as we head into 2020. This will manifest itself in many ways, but the message to data center equipment providers is clear: The status quo is not acceptable.”

Additional information on hybrid computing and other trends identified by Vertiv experts is included below.

Hybrid architectures go mainstream: While cloud computing will continue to be an important part of most organizations’ IT strategy, we are seeing a subtle change in strategy as organizations seek to tailor their IT mix and spending to the needs of their applications. As we see more of these hybrid architectures, it becomes increasingly clear that the enterprise data center is alive and well, even if its role is changing to reflect a mix that best serves modern organizations.

Speed of deployment as the new arms race: As capabilities across technologies and systems flatten out, data center and IT managers will increasingly turn to other criteria for selecting equipment. Cost is always a separator, but more and more the decision will depend on how quickly assets can be deployed. When all other factors are close, any advantage in speed of deployment and activation can be the determining factor. This is especially true as computing continues to migrate to the edge in today’s distributed networks, where delivery delays mean lack of service – and revenue.

Average rack density remains static … but: Although average rack density is likely to reflect marginal increases at best, the surge in advanced applications and workloads related to artificial intelligence (AI), such as machine learning and deep learning, will make pockets of high-performance computing necessary and more common. Vertiv experts anticipate early activity in this space in the areas of defense, advanced analytics and manufacturing in 2020, laying the foundation for more widespread adoption in 2021 and beyond. These racks so far represent a miniscule percentage of total racks, but they nevertheless can present unfamiliar power and cooling challenges that must be addressed. The increasing interest in direct liquid cooling is a response to high-performance computing demands.

Batteries pay it forward. In 2016, Vertiv experts (https://bit.ly/2FRU9YU) predicted lithium-ion batteries would begin to find a home in the data center, and that has proven to be true as lithium-ion today holds a significant share of the UPS battery market. That share is growing and starting to extend to edge sites, where the smaller footprint and reduced maintenance requirements are a natural fit. The next step is leveraging the flexibility of lithium-ion (https://bit.ly/3agaftB) and other emerging battery alternatives, such as thin plate pure lead (TPPL), to offset their costs. As we move into 2020, more organizations will start to sell the stored energy in these batteries back to the utility to help with grid stabilization and peak shaving. Expect this to be an important part of larger conversations around sustainability in the data center industry.

Global cross-pollination: The U.S., particularly Silicon Valley, has been the epicenter of the digital universe and this generation of data center development (https://bit.ly/2u2hAvS), but innovation happens everywhere. A parallel digital ecosystem with notable differences is emerging in China. Data centers across Europe and in other Asian and South Pacific markets, such as Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, are evolving and diverging from traditional practices based on specific regional issues related to data privacy and controls and sustainability. For example, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance is driving hard decisions around data management around the world. Those issues, and more vigorous attention to environmental impacts, are leading to new thinking about hybrid architectures and the value of on-premise computing and data storage. In China, some data centers have been running 240V DC power into manufacturer-modified servers to improve efficiency and reduce costs. DC power has long been a theoretical goal for U.S. data centers, and it’s not hard to envision other parts of the world adopting the model being embraced today in China.

Vertiv last month announced it will become a publicly traded company (https://bit.ly/2TrEJma) through a merger with GS Acquisition Holdings Corp (NYSE: GSAH, GSAH.U, GSAH WS). The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of this year, at which point Vertiv’s stock will trade under the ticker symbol NYSE: VRT. For more information on that transaction, the 2020 data center trends or any data center solutions from Vertiv, visit www.Vertiv.com.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Vertiv.

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Media Contact:
Vince McMorrow
Tel: +614 383 1622
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About Vertiv:
Vertiv (www.Vertiv.com) brings together hardware, software, analytics and ongoing services to ensure its customers’ vital applications run continuously, perform optimally and grow with their business needs. Vertiv solves the most important challenges facing today’s data centers, communication networks and commercial and industrial facilities with a portfolio of power, cooling and IT infrastructure solutions and services that extends from the cloud to the edge of the network. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, USA, Vertiv employs around 20,000 people and does business in more than 130 countries. For more information, and for the latest news and content from Vertiv, visit www.Vertiv.com.

SOURCE
Vertiv

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