Author: Caroline Muriuki

The African Development Bank signed a senior loan of $400 million to co-finance the construction of Mozambique’s integrated Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). The Mozambique LNG Area 1 Project is ranked Africa’s single largest foreign direct investment to date estimated to cost over $20 billion. The project comprises of a global team of energy operators and developers led by ONGC Videsh Limited, Total alongside Mitsui, Bharat Petroleum, PTT Exploration, Oil India and ENH, Mozambique’s national oil and gas company. The project includes both offshore and onshore components which will be covered by a combination of over $14 billion in senior debt…

Partners of the  Africa Investment Forum said the increased and decisive investment will be the channel for Africa’s economic recovery post-COVID-19. The partners expressed their confidence in Africa’s potential to recover from the ongoing crises in the economy and health. “Africa will come out of this pandemic, tough as it is, and will build better and stronger economies. As partners of the Africa Investment Forum, the premier investment platform for Africa, our gaze must be clear; help Africa reboot its economy,” said African Development Bank President Dr Akinwumi Adesina, during a two-day virtual meeting for Africa Investment Forum founding, institutional…

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is launching a new advisory program to improve women’s employment opportunities in Egypt. IFC which is a member of the World Bank Group aims at highlighting how Egypt’s private sector companies can invest in the county’s large, underutilized female talent and spur economic growth. In a statement by the corporation, IFC said the program will run for three years and will help create family-friendly, flexible workplaces to make Egyptian businesses more resilient, agile and inclusive, especially in times of crises. In 2019, only 24 per cent of working-age women participated in Egypt’s labour market in…

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a disbursement under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) of about $69.49 million to Chad to address urgent balance of payment needs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the second funding in three months under RCF to address financing needs arising from the pandemic, which brings the country’s total IMF support since COVID -19 pandemic outbreak to $183.60 million. The board also confirmed the cancellation of the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement which was to expire end of September this year. The IMF’s second RCF will provide timely support for…

Since the Common Market Protocol was launched in 2010, trade between East African Community member states has increased by 60.75 per cent from $3.72 billion to $5.98 billion in 2018, the latest trade data show. Despite non-tariff barriers (NTBs) continuously holding back the region’s potential, the Common Market Protocol has boosted trade in the region by easing the cross-border movement of goods and people. The East Africa Community Trade and Investment Report shows that the value of intra-regional trade increased by 9.4 per cent to $5.98 billion in 2018 from $5.46 billion in 2017. The growth was partly caused by…

Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) in East Africa declined by 9 per cent to $7.8 billion in 2019, from $9 billion in 2018 shows the latest World Investment Report 2020 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad). This year there could be a sharp decline in FDIs as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect economies across the globe. In 2019, Uganda’s foreign direct investments increased by 20 per cent to $1.3 billion due to the continued development of oil fields and an international pipeline. Also projects in agriculture, construction and manufacturing contributed to the increased in FDI. Also…

The World Bank approved an additional $15.2 to support Uganda’s effort to detect, prevent and respond to COVID-19 pandemic. The funds will also go towards strengthening Uganda’s national systems for public health emergency preparedness under a new operation called the Uganda COVID19 Response and Emergency Preparedness Project. The project is financed by an  International Development Association (IDA) credit of $12.5 million and a grant of $2.7 million from the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility. The project aims at reducing the financial gap under the country’s COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan by boosting COVID prevention, detection, case management and the overall health…

The pandemic has hit the agriculture sector hard with East Africa economies slowly shift from agriculture to services as the main GDP contributor. Early this month, the African Development Bank highlighted the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa in its African Economic Outlook 2020 Supplement Amid Covid-19 report. According to the bank’s report, agriculture’s contribution to the African region went down from an average of 33.4 per cent at the turn of the millennium to 28.3 per cent in 2018. This was against an increase in the service sector whose contribution to GDP rose from 44.6 per cent in…

North Africa will face an economic contraction forecast between 0.8 and 2.3 per cent in 2020 according to the African Development Bank Economic Outlook 2020 report. The report noted that the prerequisites for resilience and emerging from the crisis are social inclusion, Socioeconomic stability and human capital development. According to the report, the services, tourism and industrial sectors which are the main economic contributors in North Africa are likely to be hardest hit by the pandemic. Due to the pandemic, countries in the region implemented health and budget measures to curb the spread of the virus and protect their populations.…

Digital technologies could quicken economy recovery that has been affected by COVID-19 pandemic, according to the World Bank’s latest Economic Update for Uganda. The world bank focused on the digital economy this time around with their report titled ‘digital solutions in a time of crisis’. The report noted that during this COVID -19 period there has been an increase of digital technologies such as mobile, digital disease surveillance and monitoring, on-line education, on-line shopping and dissemination of public health messages which showed great potential to support faster economic recovery and strengthen resilience against future crisis. The World Bank country manager…