Author: The Exchange

- We provide economic news and analysis on the investment arena in Africa, with a particular interest in doing business. Our key areas of focus include banking, capital markets, energy, mining, manufacturing and industrial development.

  • Importance of Green Finance in Africa
  • The role of Green Bonds to drive infrastructure development in Africa
  • Why Green Bonds are good for countries such as Kenya and Nigeria

Africa’s renewables sector is now beginning to take off, as green bonds are creating an opportunity for Africa to generate more of the finance it needs for renewable energy projects itself. Despite this, Africa is still dependent on non-African investors to purchase a significant portion of the bonds that are currently available.

In recent weeks, we have heard about the emergence of Green Bonds in Africa. Kenya has issued its first Green Bond in 2019 and Nigeria has also recently gotten on board. We will take a look at these new green finance instruments and their potential impact on African countries. In the meantime, we’ll also discuss the importance of green finance in Africa and the role that Green Bonds …

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The epidemic has solidified long-term paradigm adjustments. Second, the desire for online transactions is on the rise, which is a powerful demand driver for both consumers and businesses. As new, non-traditional insurance providers enter the market, insurers must offer digital engagement at all touchpoints.

Insurance businesses in Africa have reason to be optimistic, though, given the region’s strong economic growth. Unfortunately, the recovery has not yet been reflected in their general trajectory due to a variety of reasons.

The entry of more insurance companies into the market and the resulting decrease in premium rates are at the top of the list of those considerations. In addition to the drop in investment returns, insurers have seen a decline in their financial standing.

Furthermore, traditional insurers have been slow to adopt new technologies in the current era of digitization, which has been to their detriment. With the use of digital technology, insurers …

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The most important trait of great investors is the ability to set out and stick to a clear strategy. www.theexchange.africa

For any of the strategies you have chosen, you need to stick to it and ignore any other noise telling you otherwise. This is because, investing can get emotional, and it does not help that you can see how you are doing by constantly checking a stock ticker throughout the day.

No one can be certain which way the financial markets are going to move.

In an interview with CNBC in 2016, investor par excellence Warren Buffett said, “I don’t pay any attention to what economists say, frankly. If you look at the whole history of [economists], they don’t make a lot of money buying and selling stocks, but people who buy and sell stocks listen to them. I have a little trouble with that.”…

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Farmers in Mozambique. The purpose of agricultural value chain analysis (AVCA) is to increase efficiency, productivity and competitiveness of an agricultural sub-sector or industry. www.theexchange.africa

Agriculture value chain analysis, also commonly referred to as mapping the agriculture value chain, is the assessment of the value chain participants and factors influencing the performance of the agricultural commodity industry and evaluating the relationships between these participants to identify the main constraints.

The purpose of agricultural value chain analysis (AVCA) is to increase the efficiency, productivity and competitiveness of an agricultural sub-sector or industry and develop solutions for how the identified constraints can be overcome.

AVCA assists in developing an understanding of how value chain actors/participants deal with powers and who governs or influences the chain.…

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Worth noting here is that Africa, including Ethiopia and most of its East African neighbours, are squirming in shipments of second-hand clothing, interestingly, imported from Europe, North America and other western countries.

What better defines neo-colonialism than Africa producing clothes to be exported to Europe and North America only for these very clothes to be sold back to Africa after they have been used! This sounds worse than the renowned exploitative colonial and post-colonial trade agreements (that still hold true and strong) where Africa, using cheap labour, produces raw material, which is cheaply exported to Europe, processed, packaged and sold back to Africa!

Several East African countries have attempted to honour up and ban the import of second-hand clothes. As you can imagine, the attempt failed.…

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Old fort building in Zanzibar. www.theexchange.africa

There is global demand for spices attributed by dietary needs which keep growing and fuelled by communities leaning towards a health-conscious lifestyle.

However, these markets are tilted in Zanzibar’s favour, as most markets rely on organic spices which are classified as basil, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, pepper, clove, and cardamom. Most of these are farmed by locals in Zanzibar.

According to Market Research Future, North America is expected to dominate the industry especially the US, but also—Asia-Pacific (which also has a substantial production sphere of organic spices in the region) has a significant portion of the global market.

Hence—Zanzibar can learn about: market research, organic spice farming (which aligns with the current environmental and nutritional global standards) and storage, packaging and market segmentation from the two regions to capture the African market and eventually, the entire global market.…

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Margaret Nyamumbo. She is helping spread Kenya's coffee aroma in the US. www.theexchange.africa
  • Kenya exported coffee worth 26.1 billion shillings (about 229 million U.S. dollars) in 2021
  • Kenya’s coffee farmers have over the years complained about the poor prices and mismanagement

Kenya’s coffee farmers have over the years complained about the poor prices and mismanagement that bedevil the commodity.

While coffee was for a long time known as the main forex earner for the country, other sectors like tourism and ICT have overtaken its earnings. So rich was coffee earnings in a newly independent Kenya in the 1960s that it was nicknamed ‘black gold’.

Last year, Kenya exported coffee worth 26.1 billion shillings (about 229 million U.S. dollars) in 2021, up from 195 million dollars in 2020. This was almost a hundred per cent improvement of the US$102 million (KShs10.2bn) at the end of the 2018/2019 crop year which was a 20 per cent drop from the previous year.

Read: Uganda leaves international

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Pregnant girl. www.theexchange.africa

Studies indicate that girls marrying or dropping out of school early are more likely to have poor health, bear more children over their lifetime and earn less in adulthood. Ending early child marriage according to a report (The cost of not investing in girls: Child marriage, early childbearing, low educational attainment for girls, and their impacts in Uganda), could generate up to US$2.7 billion in annual benefits (in purchasing power parity terms)which includes lower population, among others.

Moreover, it would contribute to increased earnings for women today had they been able to avoid early marriage, say, in 2015.

Instead, up to US$500 million is lost. The loss according to the report is due to risks associated with early marriage and childbirth such as under-five mortality and stunting for young children. Moreover, with a lower population, governments could invest resources to improve the quality of the services provided, instead of squeezing …

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Floods. www.theexchange.africa

A careful study of the 2011 flood’s socio-economic impacts on Dar es Salaam indicated that the flood events damaged properties worth millions and the government was forced to spend a total amount of US$796,968 in rescuing and relocating vulnerable communities who lived in the low-lying areas of Dar es Salaam’s districts.

Per World Bank research, which offers clear insight into the matter, exposure to floods is a widespread phenomenon affecting at least 39 per cent of the population, or two million people, having been impacted either directly or indirectly by floods.

The April 2018 floods alone affected between 900,000 and 1.7 million people, and among the affected households, 47 per cent (18 per cent of the city’s population) reported health impacts.…

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The Aga Khan Hospital Dar es Salaam (AKH,D) performed its first Cochlear Implant Surgery on 24th January 2022. Young Danial, a 3-year-old boy has not heard sound all of his life. This procedure is a life-changing opportunity for the young boy and his parents.

A cochlear implant is an electronic device that enables individuals with profound hearing loss to hear through direct stimulation of the hearing nerve. As of now, hearing is the only sense that can be ‘restored’ in this way. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 430 million people worldwide have disabling hearing loss, a number that is predicted to grow exponentially over time.

Hearing loss has a variety of causes, some can be prevented, and others can be treated. The severity of hearing loss also differs from one person to another.

Hearing loss in children results in delayed development of speech and language. …

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