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- EAC monetary affairs committee to discuss single currency progress in Juba talks
- Transport and food prices drive down Kenya’s inflation to 5% in April
- Payment for ransomware attacks increase by 500 per cent in one year
- History beckons as push for Kenya’s President Ruto to address US Congress gathers pace
- IMF’s Sub-Saharan Africa economic forecast shows 1.2 percent GDP growth
- The US Congress proposes extending Agoa to 2041, covering all African countries
- Millions at risk of famine as fuel tax row halts UN aid operations in South Sudan
- Empowering the Future: Humanity Protocol’s Dream Play Initiative
Author: Wanjiku Njugunah
- To ease the truck traffic snarl-up at the Busia, Malaba border, Uganda has committed to conducting free COVID-19 tests
- Uganda’s move follows a joint multi-sectoral virtual meeting of the Ministers responsible for EAC Affairs, Health and Transport convened by the EAC Secretariat
- There have been over 4,500 trucks have stalled at the border posts, because of the mandatory Covid-19 testing requirement introduced by Uganda on 20th December 2021
Uganda COVID-19 border tests
Uganda says it will conduct free COVID-19 rapid tests at the Kenya-Uganda border points of Busia and Malaba for seven days, to ease the truck traffic snarl-up that has disrupted intra-EAC trade on the Northern Transit Corridor.
According to the EAC Secretariate, the move follows a joint multi-sectoral virtual meeting of the Ministers responsible for EAC Affairs, Health and Transport convened by the EAC Secretariat.
The secretariate further revealed that there were over 4,500 trucks have stalled at …
- United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres formalized his prior announcement that Amina J. Mohammed would continue in her role during his second term
- Guterres said Mohammed’s leadership has helped advance the conceptual shift from the UN that the Member States called for in adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Prior to first assuming her role as Deputy Secretary-General in January 2017, Mohammed served as Minister of Environment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Special Adviser to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Post-2015 Development Planning
UN Secretary General retained
Nigeria’s Amina J. Mohammed retained UN Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres formalized his prior announcement that Mohammed would continue in her role during his second term.
According to Guterres, Mohammed’s leadership has helped advance the conceptual shift from the UN that the Member States called for in adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Secretary-General …
- Equity Group has been given a life insurance license through its Equity Life Assurance (Kenya) Ltd
- The group said it will use the license to provide life insurance solutions to an underserved market
- Kenya’s insurance industry has continued to witness steady growth over the years, with the insurance market premiums currently being valued at approximately KSh 235 billion
Equity Group joins insurance sector
The Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) has issued a license to Equity Group to joins the insurance sector business under Equity Life Assurance (Kenya) Limited (ELAK).
Equity Group said the license will enable it to provide life insurance solutions to the underserved market and contribute towards the vision of Equity Group to transform lives and expand opportunities for wealth creation.
IRA said the new business entity is a fully-fledged business with separate structures and commercial arrangements in line with its regulations.
The Commissioner of Insurance and …
The programme runs for the 3-6 months between secondary school completion and the beginning of university.
It also offers the Global Summer Internship Programme, which allows scholars studying at international universities to return to Africa for their summer holidays and intern with Equity Group and its partners, giving them work experience and building their professional networks on the continent.
Others include the College Counselling Programme, which supports Equity scholars to access admission and scholarships to some of the world’s leading universities, including the Ivy League universities in the US.…
e-POD is one of two recent family planning tracking apps developed with support from UNFPA.
The second is Qualipharm, created with local public health organisation HealthStrat, to track consumption of family planning commodities at county, sub-county and facility level. These are, says Charity Koronya, of UNFPA, “a game-changer, not only for health care staff but also for the citizens who rely on public health facilities to access life-saving commodities.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected women’s access to family planning information and services around the world, with some 12 million women experiencing disruptions to family planning services since it started, particularly in low-income countries and marginalised communities.…
KumKang Kind is also collaborating with developers in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Algeria outside of Kenya’s boundaries.
In his role as Business Development Director for Kumkang Kind East Africa, Sam Muhia advised the construction industry to be receptive to new ideas, such as using aluminium formwork as a construction component.
The building technology has been implemented by most western countries, according to Muihia, so that inhabitants can have affordable homes.…
The Kenyan bank said it would use the loan to help it increase working capital and trade-related lending to its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) clients in Kenya, especially those facing COVID-19 related challenges.
The loan from IFC is one of the single-largest credit facilities to a Kenyan lender.
Besides shoring up the bank’s capital base, the new loan will also be lent to customers, fitting IFC’s’ impact investing criteria.
IFC encourages the banks it funds to lend to women-owned enterprises and climate-related ventures such as renewable energy projects.…
In November 2012, Nduati sold 27 percent of his stake in the insurance company to private equity firms in a deal estimated at Sh300 million.
According to the Business Daily, the African Development Corporation (ADC), which previously held 25.1 percent in Resolution Health, was one of the companies that bought the new shares.…
- In pursuit of bringing about electrification to the continent, the energy sector was abuzz with activity in 2021
- In September 2021, for instance, Uganda launched the last-mile connectivity component to connect 87,500 rural households with affordable electricity
- In June 2021, the World Bank Board approved US$200 million in International Development Association (IDA) funding to help Benin improve its access to electricity services for households, businesses, and essential public services
Africa is the world’s least electrified continent, with nearly 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa or 53 per cent of the population still living in the dark in 2021, according to data by The Economist.
In pursuit of bringing about electrification to the continent, the energy sector was abuzz with activity in 2021. Below are some of the most significant electrification projects that have been ongoing in Africa in the past year.
- Uganda’s last-mile connectivity project
In September 2021, Uganda launched
While the world is fighting for zero-carbon neutrality, Africa’s—and Kenya’s—struggle to achieve a zero-carbon footprint is being met with foreign challenges and local corruption.
Experts have lauded the government’s plan to shift Kenya’s energy to purely clean energy by 2030.
In October 2021, President Uhuru Kenyatta told attendees of the COP26 summit that the country would achieve the milestone, seeing that it was more than half-way there already.
“Renewable energy in Kenya currently accounts for 73 per cent of the installed power generation capacity, while 90 per cent of the electricity in use is from clean sources,” he told attendees, among them US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “We are on course to achieve our target of 100 per cent use of clean energy by 2030 and to achieve 100 per cent access to clean cooking by 2028,” Kenyatta said.
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