Author: Opinion

Africa must brace for a powerful El Niño that could bring punishing heat and drought to the south, while triggering excessive rainfall and flooding in parts of the east. A severe El Niño could threaten harvests, water supplies, household budgets, public health and electricity generation across Africa. Drought does not announce itself with a single catastrophic moment. NWU climatologist Dr Henno Havenga warns that its slow progression can catch countries dangerously unprepared. For subsistence farmers, crop failure can mean losing both the food that sustains a household and the produce that provides its income. The warnings have been issued. Havenga…

Here’s a question worth sitting with: how much growth are Kenya’s lenders leaving on the table simply because they can’t see the full picture? It’s not a rhetorical exercise. Across our market, 43% of consumers remain thin-file, meaning they don’t carry enough traditional credit information to be confidently assessed. Think about what that means in practice. Nearly one in every two potential customers walks up to a lender and, through no fault of their own, appears almost invisible. Not because they’re risky. Not because they can’t repay. Simply because the data doesn’t tell their story. That’s the real cost of…

An easing of the Gulf crisis is the moment to move Africa’s fertiliser security agenda from emergency response to structural transformation: an affordable, climate-smart, regionally integrated and sovereign ecosystem. The hardest time to build resilience is in shock. When cargo traffic slowed through the Strait of Hormuz this year, the cost of feeding continents moved with it. The corridor carries roughly a third of the world’s urea and nitrogen-based fertilisers. Within a week, urea prices in the Middle East climbed 19 per cent. Across Africa, where food already absorbs about half of household spending, the arithmetic was brutal: urea prices doubled…

When governments across East Africa talk about economic diversification, tourism invariably features in the conversation. Kenya’s Vision 2030, Uganda’s National Development Plan, Tanzania’s Five Year Development Plan — all identify tourism as a priority sector for job creation and foreign exchange earnings. Yet the gap between policy ambition and infrastructure delivery remains wide. The challenge is not demand. International arrivals to East Africa have recovered beyond pre-pandemic levels in most markets. Kenya welcomed over two million visitors in 2024. Uganda’s gorilla permits sell out months in advance. Tanzania’s northern circuit operates at near-capacity during peak season. The challenge is supply…

EBC Financial Group says shortfalls in home grown food, high fuel costs and poorly matched farm loans may be keeping Kenya’s food prices high, a test for the Central Bank of Kenya ahead of the June inflation figures. Kenya’s June inflation figures, due from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) on 30 June, may indicate whether the recent rise in food and fuel prices is easing or settling in for longer. Kenya produces about four billion eggs a year but needs around nine billion, a shortfall of roughly five billion eggs filled mainly by imports, with similar yearly gaps…

The limits of storage-only thinking in balancing Africa’s renewable grids: Why a hybrid approach to flexibility will deliver better outcomes than batteries alone. Africa’s energy transition is entering a decisive phase. With some of the world’s best solar and wind resources, the continent is uniquely positioned to leapfrog into a low-cost, renewable-powered future. But as policymakers and planners accelerate deployment, a critical misconception often skews the debates: that battery energy storage systems alone can provide the flexibility needed to balance high shares of intermittent renewables. This assumption is not only incomplete, but it also risks making Africa’s energy transition more…

With roughly 80% of transactions on the continent still rely on legacy USSD technology, BCG’s Associate Director Kitso Lemo outlines how shifting to API-driven, AI-first telcos model will unlock the next wave of fintech growth. Successful AI integration isn’t just hype, it represents a projected 3% to 5% increase in revenue (via hyper-personalization) and a 15% to 20% reduction in capital expenditure through self-optimising networks. Why African telco leadership teams consistently over-index on buying technology but fail at the crucial 70%—people and process change management. For the better part of a decade, the global telecommunications sector has been viewed by investors with…

In this climate of ever shifting geopolitical sands, Africa is well positioned to take advantage of these developments by developing its natural resources and processing same, argues Dele Kuti, Global Head, Energy at Standard Bank Corporate & Investment Banking As we approach the second half of the year, it is important to reflect on the busy first half. After a hectic 2025, most observers would have expected some form of respite. Unfortunately, respite will not likely be a word associated with the half of the year2026. The Oil and gas and the broader energy sector, an industry I have worked…

Critical minerals: The world’s appetite for cobalt, copper, lithium, graphite, manganese and rare earths is growing because the technologies that promise a cleaner and more digital future still depend on physical minerals, writes Prof. Yizhou He. While the U.S. is trying to reduce dependence on Chinese-dominated supply chains. China remains deeply embedded in mining, refining and battery manufacturing. Europe is searching for “secure” and “responsible” mineral partnerships. In May 2026, another deal reminded the world why the Democratic Republic of Congo sits at the centre of the global energy transition. Congo’s state cobalt company, Entreprise Générale du Cobalt, Trafigura and…

The key to AI is not intelligence. It is safety. And safety is not a feature. It is a philosophy, writes AI advisor John Kamara.  A few weeks ago, I wrote about being in a room in Nairobi full of smart, passionate people talking about African AI. The energy was real. The intent was genuine. And something kept nagging at me like a splinter I could not locate. We were talking about AI. We were not, I realised on the drive home, talking about intelligence. This is the piece I could not write yet. Because the more I sat with…