Month: December 2019

The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) released its monthly economic report for the November edition, which encompasses the export and import sector performance, of which the report indicates a decent growth and a substantial fall in cashew nuts exports.

Export

Per the report, the value of goods and services exports grew by 10.3 per cent which is over $9.4 billion in the year ending October 2019, this is higher compared to the previous report which showed a 5.2 per cent rise.

The rise is attributed to the performance of the services receipts and non-traditional goods exports. The exports of the non-traditional goods amounted to over $4.1 billion from $3 billion in the corresponding period of 2018.

Just like in the performance of the year ending September 2019, the report argues that all major categories of non-traditional goods exports grew except re-exports and fish products,

Following that period, the value of gold …

Smile Train Vice President and Regional Director for Africa Dr. Esther Njoroge-Muriithi has been selected to serve as an Advisory Group Member for the Civil Society Engagement Mechanism (CSEM) for UHC2030.

Dr. Njoroge-Muriithi has represented Smile Train on several Civil Society Organization (CSO) platforms and events including the G4 Alliance, CORE Group and UNGA73 side events advocating for Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

The CSEM is a growing global civil society movement with over 1000 members from more than 850 organizations in 100+ countries. Membership in the CSEM is open to all civil society representatives advancing health, financing and governance agendas that relate to achieving UHC.

As a member of the Advisory Group, she will help strengthen a broad and inclusive UHC movement, which aims to influence policy design and implementation and facilitate citizen-led accountability. Her voice will join other strong CSO voices to contribute significantly to UHC2030, ensuring systematic attention …

By 2030, nearly half of Kenyans will be living in cities as many young people keep moving to urban areas in search of jobs and other opportunities…

The African Academy of Sciences (AAS) is announcing the second round of calls for a multi-million-dollar research programme led and implemented by African scientists, working collaboratively to address challenges faced by people in African countries.

A total $72M has been invested into the second phase of the Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science in Africa (DELTAS Africa) programme, a flagship programme of the AAS.

A similar investment was made in the first phase of the programme was implemented with the support of Wellcome and the Department for International Development (DFID). AAS is announcing a second call with support from Wellcome with additional funding to be announced in the future. This second phase will run from 2021 to 2025.

This follows a successful first five-year programme with the second round extending its remit to new priority research areas including non-communicable diseases, public health research, social sciences and humanities, implementation science …

Climate change is affecting Africa greatly and it is only contributing 4 per cent of the greenhouses emissions, hence United Nations Economic Commission Agency for Africa (UNECA) highlights that just by early 2030 Africa will start experiencing macroeconomics losses.

On the same mark, the African Development Bank (AfDB) is in assisting the continent’s efforts towards mitigating and adapting climate risks, particularly extreme weather events, and gaining resilience on drought via mobilization of crucial funding for such adaptation and mitigation projects.

AfDB (which is accredited by the international implementing agency since March 2016 by Green Climate Fund- GCF) together with GCF have successfully mobilized over $12 billion of climate finance to support climate resilience and low-carbon emission in the continent.

Despite the efforts are taken by Africa in that manner have not yielded significant results compared to other regions, still—AfDB eyes another opportunity to fuel more resources to African countries via …

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Awash Bank announced a new partnership of $6.4 million to finance microfinance institutions and small- and medium-sized agricultural businesses in Ethiopia.

Under a USAID Development Credit Authority (DCA) agreement, the program will expand commercial bank lending into underserved areas in Ethiopia. It will also provide private finance needed to help farmers and businesses increase production, as well as support Ethiopia’s efforts to modernize the agricultural sector.

Through private capital sources, local microfinance institutions are able to expand lending to individuals and small businesses, mostly smallholder farmers and Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) clients. This partnership will also support Awash Bank’s direct lending to SMEs in the agriculture sector, where access to credit remains low despite contributing 34 per cent of Ethiopia’s GDP and employing about 70 per cent of the total labour workforce.

Also Read: Mastercard foundation to help create 10

Smallholder farmers currently make up 70 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population, contributing some 90 per cent of food production…

Remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa are set to increase by over 5.6 per cent between 2019 and 2020…

THE EXCHANGE sat down with the CEO of Johari Rotana Hotel, Mr. Joerg Potreck to discuss about the hospitality industry in Tanzania and what the future holds for Johari Rotana.

 Briefly tell us about the history of Rotana Hotels?

We are a hotel management company from the United Arab Emirates  founded in 1992 by Nasser Al Nowais and Selim El Zyr. Operating as Rotana, we opened our first property, the Beach Rotana Abu Dhabi in 1993 and today we are one of the leading hotel management company within the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and Turkey with a portfolio of over 100 properties in 26 cities.

Rotana combines a unique understanding of the culture and communities of the Middle East with the collective expertise of an executive team contributing to years of international experience in the service industry.

 What sets apart Johari Rotana from other world class hotels in Tanzania?…

Chubb, the world’s largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company has made a $10 million equity investment in the Kenyan based African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI). Chubb is the first global property and casualty insurance company to become a shareholder in Africa’s leading multilateral political risk and credit insurer.

Chubb has operations in 54 countries and territories. The company, which is AA rated by Standard & Poor’s, is a leading underwriter of political risk insurance and reinsurance through two of its businesses, Sovereign Risk, a specialty underwriter based in Bermuda, and Chubb Global Markets, its London market division.

ATI supports trade and investment in African member states by providing comprehensive risk solutions, such as political risk and credit insurance products. Headquartered in Nairobi, ATI is Africa’s leading multilateral political risk and credit insurer (rated A/Stable S&P and A3/Stable Moody’s).

ATI currently counts 16 African nations and 10 …