Author: Opinion

2020 US Elections

With bated breath, the world awaits the verdict of the winner of the U.S presidential elections. Will it be the incumbent President Donald Trump or his running mate former vice president Joe Biden? As the clock ticks, the hour of the announcement of the results draws nigh and the suspense continues to mount, for both Americans and the world at large. The anticipated results will have a global ripple effect, not only dictating the future of America but of the international political landscape as well.

2020 US Elections

Kenya has enjoyed cordial diplomatic relations with the United States, in tandem maintaining a solid partnership, that has endured since the country’s independence. Both countries have worked closely together, over the years on many initiatives, such as counterterrorism, boosting healthcare, strengthening the agricultural sector and supporting education. Kenya is recognized as an economic powerhouse, in the continent and is …

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus governance on the African continent. The response from one country to another has differed and those that have fared well are those with strong discipline and efficient systems of governance. They are also countries where governments enjoy a high degree of trust from their citizens.

Here are six key lessons that need to be highlighted that might serve as a blueprint on how to govern better in Africa.

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments”.

The first lesson to be drawn is that you need leaders who are disciplined and can run government business with a certain degree of strictness. There are many on the continent who want to do the right thing but who lack discipline and are pulled in different directions. Just like the rest of the world, Rwanda imposed a lockdown in March 2020. It was among the …

On the 5^th of November 2020, the 8^th Angel Fair Africa will be virtual instead of in Dakar, Senegal due to the global pandemic[1]. $23M of deals have happened over the last seven events which brought selected entrepreneurs to pitch to a room of angel investors whose primary intent was to DO DEALS[2]. In April last year, Connected Med who was in our 2016 cohort was bought by the pharmaceutical giant Merck – the first exit by any company that has participated in our event.[3] The events have also resulted in numerous joint ventures, trade, sales, mentorship, relationships and other deals that we not have even recorded.

In September 2013 when we launched the event in South Africa my friend Russell Southwood, editor of Balancing Act Africa wrote the most amazing headline – “Angels Over Johannesburg – South Africa hosts the first …

For a while now, tech companies and workers have been eyeing smaller cities to escape the exorbitant real estate costs, manic lifestyles, and endless traffic jams in traditional tech hubs. The time is ripe for this trend to pick up as COVID-19 has induced massive reverse migration with employees moving back to their homes, closer to their families.

Another trend that the pandemic brought forth is expatriates returning to their respective countries due to job loss or other reasons. This reverse-globalisation goes hand-in-hand with the sudden rise in the demand for local goods and services. Soon, delivering local solutions for local problems will become essential. At Zoho, we call this transnational localism – crafting localised solutions with a global mindset to create small, self-reliant communities.

There are businesses that are bound to a geographical location because their customers are in the same area. However, if you are a cloud service …

  
The Marine Insurance Act Cap 390 of the Laws of Kenya defines a contract of marine cargo insurance as a document whereby the insurer undertakes to indemnify the assured, in a manner and to the extent thereby agreed, against the losses incident to any movable property other than ship including money and other valuable securities.   

Marine insurance however, does not offer any coverage in cases like loss or damage due to willful acts of negligence and misconduct, loss or damage due to delay, or loss or damage due to improper packing. Other incidents excluded from the cover are , financial default or insolvency of owners, charterers, managers, or operators of the vessel, loss or damage due to wire, strike, riot, and civil commotion, loss or damage arising from the use of nuclear fission, weapon, or any other radioactive force, one quarter of cargo in case of collision damage, damage caused …

The hospitality and tourism industry

The hospitality and tourism industry in sub-Saharan Africa must adopt a new “adapt and innovate” modus operandi to meet the challenges produced by the COVID-19 pandemic if it is to help prevent further contraction of severely impacted economies in the region, says Mark Havercroft, Regional Director Africa for the International hotel group Minor Hotels.

While the opening of international borders by several African countries is extremely positive news for ailing travel and hospital sectors in sub-Saharan Africa – and for economies as a whole, this may not, in and of itself, be sufficient to resuscitate the industry in the wake of the havoc wreaked by the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Not only are many of the international tourists who operators are relying on to return quickly still locked down in their own countries, but even if they’re not, there are still very high levels of insecurity around …

On the 1^st of October 2020, the Global System Mobile Association (GSMA) released their “Mobile Economy Sub-Saharan Africa” report which forecasted the mobile economy in Africa into 2025.[1] A positive outlook to start the month of October and the last quarter of 2020.

The highlight of this forecast is that by 2025, even with 1.05 billion sim connections and 614  million unique mobile subscribers and smartphone adoption reaching 65% of the total population, only 39% of Africans would be experiencing their mobile web on those smartphones. This seems to suggest that even though there would be exponential smartphone growth over the period the cost of connectivity may be a showstopper. That’s not necessarily the case because there’s more happening than meets the eye.

The Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) are going to spend collectively about $52 billion on infrastructure between now and 2025 and this would grow their revenues …

Environmental, Social and Governance – three words that we now hear all the time when analysing and discussing investment. And three words that need to be an integral part of the due diligence for every investment decision. If you want to attract substantial investment into your business then you now need to make sure that your “ESG” story, policy and monitoring is solid and coherent.  

There was a time when “ethical” investment was its own niche. Those who aspired to be ethical, or had deluded themselves into believing that their ethics were central to their business practice, charged into ethical investing. “Ethical investment” was plastered all over investment products and people who thought ethical investment reflected their beliefs, morals and personalities bought into products that were not really intelligent, profitable or ethical! That seems a very long time ago. 

The next stages in the development of investment with …

Kenyan equities market reversed the negative trend in the first two weeks of September, with the indices NSE All Share Index (NASI) and NSE-20 Share Index ticking up 9.0% and 8.2%, respectively, on a month-on-month comparison. This could be attributed to the improving business prospects issuing from the second quarter’s deep economic and business strain arising from the containment measures for the Covid-19 pandemic. On a year-to-date (YTD) basis, the NSE-20 and NASI have posted negative returns of 29.3% and 15.4%, respectively.  

Across the market, there have been outstanding performers that bucked the general trend. Absa NewGold ETF (a security whose price is derived from gold commodity price) is up 38.3%. Kenya Airways, currently suspended, edged up 86.8% on a buy-out fueled rally while Eaagads Ltd is up 23.8%. The key index counters are all in negative territory with the key banks – KCB, Equity and Co-operative – sharply lower, …