• Africa needs to be ambitious. Striving towards SDG7, African leaders and international partners have set out to connect 300 million people by 2030.
• Renewable costs are falling fast. Solar prices are down nearly 80% over the past decade, enabling faster, cheaper deployment of mini-grids and home systems in remote areas.
• More than 50% of new connections will come from decentralised renewables. These are essential for rural ‘last mile’ areas where grid extension is slow and expensive.
• Funding needs are high. While almost $50 billion has been pledged, total needs exceed $90 billion by 2030 to achieve universal energy access.
• Government reforms are key. Policies like utility and tariff reforms, streamlined regulation, and stronger institutions are needed to attract investment and scale efforts.

While global ‘energy poverty’ has dropped by around 80 per cent since 2010, 600 million people in Africa – approximately 83 per cent of the global total – …

• Malawi’s Lazarus Chakwera: “It is only right that I concede defeat out of respect for your will as citizens and out of respect for the constitution.”
• Mutharika has managed to secure an estimated 66 per cent the votes cast compared to the incumbent’s just over 24 per cent.
• Chakwere: “It was clear that my rival Peter Mutharika has an insurmountable lead over me. In the days that remain, I want you to know that I am committed to a peaceful transfer of power.”

President Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi has accepted that former President Peter Mutharika defeated him during the election done last week. In a speech made on Wednesday to a nation on edge since the polls were done last week, Chakwera, 70, told the nation that he has already reached out to President elect Mutharika.

“It is only right that I concede defeat out of respect for your will …

• Thousands of Japanese are faulting the proposed “Africa hometowns” status of their cities, terming the deal a recipe for creating “flood of immigrants” into the Asian nation.
• Last week, JICA announced the designation of Imabari, Kisarazu, Sanjo and Nagai cities as “Africa hometowns” targeting people from Nigeria, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Ghana for cultural exchanges.
• On account of media reports, this designation of cities has been misconstrued in Africa to mean that locals can now relocate to live in those urban centres in Japan.

A move that was originally aimed at uniquely cementing the relations between select African countries and Japan is fast evolving into a xenophobic row as residents of four Japanese cities fault the initiative as a recipe of creating “flood of immigrants.”

The dispute stems from an expression of cooperation under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which announced the qualification of Imabari, Kisarazu, Sanjo and Nagai …

• For years, besieged Kilmar Abrego Garcia worked as a construction worker in U.S. state of Maryland, where he lived with his wife and children.
• The Salvadorian national was, however, arrested in March and wrongly deported to a jail in his homeland: El Salvador.
• The Trump administration says Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, an accusation that he denies even as the push to dump him in Uganda intensifies.

From the streets of Kampala to the corridors of power in U.S. Donald Trump’s administration, one name, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, keeps popping up in the evolving illegal immigrants’ deportation global debate.

According to various media reports, detainee Kilmar Abrego Garcia continues to attract attention as the 30-year-old construction worker and Salvadorian national puts up a spirited fight to avoid a potential 20-hour flight from the U.S. to Kampala, Uganda, in the heart of Africa.

Before he surrendered to the police …

• Interpol’s June to August operation in Angola, Zambia and Ivory Coast leads to the recovery of over $97.4 million.
• Sleuths from 18 countries in Africa worked with UK investigators to tackle scams cutting across inheritance scams, ransomware and compromise emails tailored to swindle businesses.
• In Angola, 20 Chinese, who were allegedly mining cryptocurrency among those arrested.

Interpol has arrested 1,209 suspected cybercriminals between June and August this year barely a year after bursting another 1000 individuals over the same criminal activity, unravelling the growing footprint of the evolving crime in African cities.

According to an update by Interpol last week, the latest swoop across cities in Angola, Zambia, and Ivory Coast led to the recovery of an estimated $97.4 million, underscoring the need for cross-border collaboration in neutering scams promising quick money, and therefore success to unsuspecting victims.

Coming barely a year after another swoop that led to the arrest …

• By recalibrating supply chains, countries grappling with U.S. tariffs hit can transition beyond exporting raw materials to manufacturing value-added goods, potentially giving rise to new jobs and triggering an industrial revolution.
• With increasing population, Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supplies CEO Ben Farrell says adaptive procurement and supply chain systems could see African economies better harness the continent’s vast wealth of natural resources.
• Ben Farrell: “There needs to be an industrial strategy, trade strategy, a procurement strategy, to help develop a new approach because, frankly, the tectonic plates of trade have shifted and the world as we knew it has gone.”

Globally, multinationals and markets are on edge, constantly calibrating afresh on how to navigate global trade networks in response to the negative impact of U.S. tariffs. With President Donald Trump’s tariff directives tearing up the old trade order, the call for economies in Africa to restructure trade supply chains …