Author: Kimani Chege

Never in the history of the East African community has there been more funding than now, with the current funding for various social and infrastructural projects reaching US$3 Billion. Most of these funds have gone into inter-states projects as well as projects within a state having a regional impact. The community has been able to achieve a tenfold increase in grants while still reducing internal expenses and costs by over 40 percent in the last four years. Documents at our hands show that the EAC has been able to sign projects with different development agencies including Africa Development Bank, USAID,…

The government of Chile was given the right to preside over the United Nations Framework on Climate Change  Convention (UNFCCC) COP25 but along the way, it struck a deal for the event to be held in Madrid, still under its presidency. The annual event normally held on the first week of December provides the world with a time to reflect, negotiate and strike deals to provide a soft landing for a world suffering from harsh effects of climate change. Of course there are countries who don’t see the need for such a conference, what has come to be labeled as…

Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH is supporting African small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups to gain access to long-term financing more easily. It has committed EUR30mn to the AfricaGrow fund of funds, managed by Allianz Global Investors. KfW Development Bank, on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), together with Allianz Global Investors, has set up this fund of funds that will invest into African private equity and venture capital funds. The AfricaGrow Fund is designed as a fund of funds for promoting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups primarily in countries associated with…

Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) is set to host the 5th annual Pearl of Africa Tourism Expo (POATE 2020); a tourism and travel trade exhibition which brings together regional and international tour operators, travel agents, destination agencies and various players in the tourism trade to network and facilitate tourism business. Uganda, famous for its green and equatorial national parks. These include Queen Elizabeth National Park -Uganda’s most-visited National Park, Murchison Falls National Park -Uganda’s largest national park, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park famous for its mountain gorillas and Rwenzori Mountain, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The three-day expo will run from 4-6…

Shelf Life, the revolutionary pharmaceutical inventory management subscription service, has been licensed in Kenya by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board. The service, provided by Field Intelligence, is active in 50 retail locations in Kenya, with over 500 life-saving medicines and essential products being supplied on a pay-as-you-sell basis. In Kenya there are about 5,840 privately-owned community pharmacies licensed by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board, compared to approximately 4,700 government health facilities. According to the company’s research, 60% of community pharmacies frequently stock out of essential medicines and 55% are without access to stable supply and finance. With Shelf Life pharmacies…

The Aga Khan University has become the first higher education institution in South Asia and East Africa to be recognised by Advance HE, a global body that strives to promote excellence in teaching and learning in higher education. AKU President Firoz Rasul announced the University’s three-year reaccreditation with Advance HE while addressing the inaugural session of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference in Karachi. Advance HE, based in the United Kingdom, works with higher education institutions across the globe to benchmark teaching quality against the rigorous UK Professional Standards Framework, UKPSF. The Aga Khan University is a pioneering institution…

IFC and IFHA-II Coöperatief U.A., a private equity fund focused on health care in Sub-Saharan Africa, have launched a $115 million holding company to acquire and integrate targeted health care service businesses in East and Southern Africa. The project will boost access to quality health care services to help improve lives and achieve universal health coverage across the region.  IFC is investing $22 million in the Hospital Holdings Investment (HHI) holding company, an investment platform set up by IFHA-II, which is also supported by the European development finance organizations Swedfund, Proparco, Finnfund and IFU, Danish Investment Fund for Developing countries.…

As part of the EU-UNCTAD joint Programme for Angola (Train for Trade II), and in support of Angola’s efforts to strengthen and diversify its economy towards more sustainable economic sectors, UNCTAD is organizing a training workshop for stakeholders from the coffee and tropical fruits value chains. This will be the third training activity under UNCTAD’s National Green Export Review (NGER) process in Angola, and the second to be held outside the capital city. The workshop is targeting government officials, producers, sector associations and academics from the northwestern provinces of Bengo, Cabinda, Kwanza-Norte, Malanje, Uíge and Zaire, which are among the…

A high-level meeting of policymakers, regulators and industry experts in the field of pharmaceuticals and trade has discussed a bold path towards affordable pharmaceuticals through leveraging the African Continental Free Trade Area.  The Continent is home to 11% of the world’s population yet it carries 25% of the world’s burden of disease. If implemented, pooling procurement of essential drugs and products and expanding local pharmaceutical production on the continent is seen as a critical pathway to the prosperity of African citizens, thereby achieving universal healthcare in Africa. Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa Vera Songwe told the meeting…

OPay, one of the fastest scaling growth companies in Africa, has announced that it raised $120 million of series B funding, less than 6 months after it announced its last funding round of $50 million in June. The company, which was incubated by Norwegian based, global consumer Internet company Opera, is already Nigeria’s leading mobile wallet and motorbike ridesharing provider, and is rapidly expanding. Series B investors included Meituan-Dianping, DragonBall Capital (The Investment fund backed by Meituan-Dianping), GaoRong Capital, Source Code Capital, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Bertelsmann Asia Investments (BAI), Redpoint China, IDG Capital, Sequoia Capital China and GSR Ventures. OPay…