• An estimated $5.7 trillion is required to close the infrastructure investment gap in South Africa by 2050.
• Of the energy sector projects, 25 are under construction under Bid Window 5 of REIPPP.
• Access to clean water and sanitation is a basic human right, yet many communities in South Africa lack reliable access to these essential services.

South Africa needs an estimated $5.7 trillion To bridge the shortfall in infrastructure investment by 2050. This deficit spans several sectors, including underdeveloped transportation systems, inadequate energy provisions, scarce access to potable water and sanitation services, and a shortage of affordable housing. These issues are particularly pronounced in rural locales and informal settlements.

This is according to statements made by Mameetse Masemola, Acting Head of Infrastructure South Africa (ISA), during the Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium South Africa (SIDSSA).

In a media briefing, Masemola gave an update on the initiatives led by ISA since its …

• Cash transfer service M-PESA is eyeing a chunk of the remittances to Ethiopia which are estimated at $5 billion annually.
• Last year, the World Bank stated that the remittances flow to countries in sub-Saharan Africa reached $54 billion.
• Through a new M-PESA-Onafriq agreement, friends and relatives from 40 countries will now be able to send money directly to Safaricom Ethiopia M-PESA subscribers.

Safaricom Ethiopia is betting on remittances to grow cash transfer service M-PESA uptake in Ethiopia following an agreement with one of Africa’s largest digital payments network Onafriq. Through the deal, friends and relatives from 40 countries where Onafriq has a presence will now be able to send money directly to M-PESA subscribers in Africa’s second most populous country.

Through the agreement, individuals within Ethiopia will receive remittances from different parts of the world through M-PESA, based on the authorisation received from the National Bank of Ethiopia to start …

• Climate emergency has been a new concern in businesses across the markets 
• From those polled 87 per cent of respondents agreed to some extent that they were concerned about physical climate risks
• 72 per cent of corporates surveyed had experienced an extreme weather event in the last five years

Nearly four out of every five businesses in many of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of the climate emergency are already suffering the consequences of a rapidly changing environment.

The startling finding is contained in British International Investment’s third annual Emerging Economies Climate Report – a survey of its investee businesses in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. The report is a joint effort between Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and ODI, the global think tank.

BII, Managing Director and Head of Climate, Diversity and Advisory Amal-Lee Amin says that that 79 per cent of companies …

• Eight Kenyan universities have been selected as part of the World Bank’s $55.8 million SME formalisation project.
• In the World Bank plan, 267 young innovators’ students, 10 incubators, 10 accelerators, and 4 tech boot camp providers will be funded.
• The SKIES initiative started with a call for applications that attracted a total of 142 incubators.

Eight Kenyan universities have been selected as part of the World Bank’s $55.8 million (KES7.5 billion) SME formalisation project to provide business development services to micro, small and medium enterprises. Kenya Industrial Entrepreneurship Project will implement the program through the Strengthening Kenya’s Innovation Ecosystem (SKIES).

The government, through SKIES, a subcomponent of the Sh7.5 billion (KIEP) project, seeks to streamline the delivery of professional business development services, thereby enabling innovators of small and medium enterprises to get the proper business training when required.

The absence of a uniform platform to oversee the start-up ecosystem in …

• Kenya has already enlisted over 107,831 community health workers through the Ministry of Health.
• The target cohort of 25,000 will be trained in the first phase, according to the Resilient and Empowered African Community Health (REACH) initiative.
• REACH will be implemented in phases, aiming to boost skills of the 107,831 community health workers employed by the Government.

Kenya has launched a community health initiative supported by the African Union geared to boosting primary health care at the grassroots, targeting under-served populations.

The programme, under the auspices of the African Union (AU) Member States, is known as Resilient and Empowered African Community Health (REACH) and is geared towards increasing Community Health Workers (CHWs) to over two million in the continent by  2029.

Under the first phase of the initiative, over 25,000 CHWs newly recruited in Kenya will be trained on community health and on the use of Community Health Promotion (CHP) …

• Agriculture is one of the leading causes of climate change.
• Without action, emissions from food systems will rise even further, with increasing food production.
• Climate-smart agriculture offers a holistic approach to end food security.

It may surprise many that agriculture and its activities are, in fact, one of the leading causes of climate change. Agriculture is reported to be responsible for some of the highest emissions of greenhouse gases, making the sector one of the main contributors to global warming.

It strikes the environment with a double-edged sword, emitting greenhouse gases on one hand and destroying forests and marine ecosystems on the other.

According to the World Bank, agriculture is the primary cause of deforestation, threatening pristine ecosystems such as the Amazon and the Congo Basin. With the global population exploding, there is an inevitable need to increase food production, which can only be achieved by expanding agricultural activities.

This …