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African Entrepreneurship
- Female-led and female-founded ventures attracted even less funding in 2022 than they had in 2021.
- Female-led start-ups in Africa have raised $188m (4%) in 2022, while male-led ventures raised $4.6bn (96%).
- The number of $100k+ deals announced by female-led start-ups has also seen a YoY decrease, (128 in 2022 vs. 141 in 2021) and relatively (13% vs. 16%).
Female-led and female-founded ventures attracted even less funding in 2022 than they had in 2021, latest data from Africa’s The Big Deal shows.
According to the report, female-led start-ups in Africa have raised $188m (4%) in 2022, while male-led ventures raised $4.6bn (96%). In other words, 25x times less funding has been invested in female-led start-ups in 2022, compared to their male-led counterparts.
“Year-on-year, the amount of funding raised by female CEOs has decreased between 2021 and 2022, both in absolute ($188m in 2022 vs. $290m in 2021) and relative numbers (3.9 …
The recent leaked Pandora papers have shown how African leaders have directed their investments towards other countries and kept the investments a secret to avoid taxation and hide their wealth.
Leaders exposed by the papers include Presidents Denis Sassou-Nguesso of DRC, Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, and Patrick Achi of Cote d’Ivoire, among 46 other politicians.
The papers showed that Sassou owned a company that controlled diamond mines. Seven members of the Kenyatta family were linked to at least seven offshore companies and foundations. Through Union Banque Privée (UBP), the Kenyatta’s set up three foundations to avoid inheritance tax and hide their extensive wealth.
The foundations were suspended after failing to pay annual taxes, law firm Algocal says.…
African Development Bank Group has approved two grants worth $83.6 million to boost cross-border trade in electricity between Ethiopia and Djibouti and to deepen integration in the Horn of Africa sub-region.
In a statement, the bank’s board said the funds comprise a $69.65 million grant to Ethiopia and a second grant of $13.93 million to Djibouti.
Both have been sourced from the African Development Fund, which is the African Development Bank’s concessional financing window.
The Ethiopia–Djibouti Second Power Interconnection project will entail the construction of nearly 300 km of interconnector line, 170 km of transmission lines, and new construction or renovation of substations in the two countries.
Commenting on the approval, Bank’s Director of Power Systems Development Batchi Baldeh said the first interconnection line is reaching its power transfer capacity limit due to several developments in both countries, such as the industrial development in the eastern part of Ethiopia, the …
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) is billed to transform the face of trade on the African continent. If its implementation becomes a success, AfCTA will bring a new lease of life for African economies. Its implementation initially delayed by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic is set for the beginning of 2021. Given that small business enterprises play key roles in most economies across the continent, what does the advent of the trade agreement mean for SMEs in Africa?
READ ALSO: Why the African free trade area could be the game-changer for the continent& economies
Why Are Micro And Small Business A Subject Of Concern?
According to the World Bank, SMEs make up 90% of businesses in the world and cover more than 50% of the world’s employment. Formal small businesses contribute significantly to GDP. This contribution to GDP is significantly amplified when the informal sector is taken …
When Covid-19 came flooding, small businesses were especially hard-hit with 31% stopping operations as a result of the crisis, according to Facebook’s State of Small Business report. But even in these unprecedented times, business must go on. Here are some strategies some businesses have successfully used to address the challenges you may also be facing.
Leveraging on strategic relationships
This has especially been seen in the food industry where restaurants and eateries are suffering from reduced foot traffic. Enter cloud kitchens. The lockdown period enabled restaurants, home cooks and chefs to offer food directly to customers via websites, apps, social media and mobile contacts. This new development has it that the global cloud kitchen market will grow to $236 trillion by 2026. For instance, Moh Wingz and Bwibo blew up during the lockdown period.
Also Read: Promoting Intra-Africa Trade: Pathway To Unlocking Africa’s Economic Potential
Digital …
Financial exclusion remains a major issue especially in the informal sector. Expansion of services in this area by banks will not be very easy because of the special situation and needs. This article suggests that while structural solutions are expensive and nevertheless must be pursued, banks should think of designing a process response to the problem, drawing on the experiences and practices of the traditional lenders.
Much progress has been credited to money transfer services that were introduced by mobile network operators (MNOs) in 2008. These services are also supported by a network of agents across the country offering a range of services and products, whereas the traditional bank-dominated financial system remains mostly urban-based and is still unaffordable for the vast majority of Tanzanians and their businesses.
Where ordinary citizens once had to enter into risky arrangements to send money urgently to their families, mobile money services have almost eliminated …
With the effects of Covid-19 taking a toll on businesses across the globe, those operating in low income countries and specifically those in Africa have sought for more than finance to pull through.
Invest in Africa (IIA), a private sector-led initiative focused on growing local businesses and local content in Sub-Saharan Africa, has created a Covid-19 SME survival toolkit programme that helps SMEs overcome the potential damage to businesses caused by lockdowns and the ensuing economic shock.
The survival toolkit includes practical guides, solutions and recommendations to help African SMEs get through the many challenges the pandemic represents. It is also organizing a series of webinars under which SMEs can benefit from several industry advisors.
The entity has a curated list of online resources relevant to your business during this pandemic.
“Because the vast majority of businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa are SMEs, they also provide nearly all …
It is not ordinary for a 20-year-old school graduate to have achieved so much in a short period. However, for Ziyaan Virji, he not only leads in philanthropic endeavours but also is developing a social enterprise that looks at the menstrual health of women.
For the last two years, Ziyan, a graduate of the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, has been working closely with communities both in Kenya and Tanzania as well as using proceeds of the Princess Diana Award to push for the welfare of the less privileged while still maintaining a social enterprise.
At just 17, he founded the non-profit Affordable and Accessible Sanitation for Women (AASW). This came about as a personal project for his Middle Years Program (MYP), where his research led him to find out that barely 2% of school girls in urban areas in Tanzania could …
The British Chamber of Commerce Kenya (BCCK) has unveiled its inaugural Integrity Index showcasing local companies and how they fair on the integrity test. It features a selection of companies based in Kenya, that have a track record in working with integrity with organizations in Kenya and British Chamber of Commerce Kenya (BCCK) members.
These companies which cut across various sectors including horticulture, ICT, real estate, recycling and water and showcases a new trend in Kenya where Integrated has been prioritized. In the past, Kenyan private sector has been labeled as the hub for corrupt under dealings and this list shines a new light Into Kenyan private sector.
The Index is part of the Business Integrity Initiative (BII) pilot programme, which is run by BCCK in partnership with the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the UK Department for International Trade (DIT) and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) …
