Trending
- Wärtsilä Energy offers tips on how Africa can navigate energy transition and grid reliability
- Powering Africa: Africa’s Path to Universal Electricity Access
- Global investment trends at AIM Congress 2024: a spotlight on the keynote speakers
- South Africa’s deepening investment ties in South Sudan oil industry
- Agribusiness could drive Africa’s economic prosperity
- Dawood Al Shezawi: Why AIM Congress 2024 is the epicenter of global economic and cultural dialogues
- d.light’s 600,000 cookstoves project verified as top source of quality carbon credits
- Artificial intelligence (AI) could create a turning point for financial inclusion in Africa
Opinion
- Artificial intelligence in Africa can potentially propel the fintech industry into a new era of financial inclusion.
- AI tools can analyse data from client discussions, producing legal documents in simple language and at a fraction of what it would typically take to draft a contract.
- Banks, for example, can make their services more affordable to their customers by rolling out AI-powered chatbots to handle routine queries while sparing them from having to travel to a bank branch.
It’s difficult to imagine a time before the widespread adoption of mobile technology in Africa – particularly where financial services are concerned. For millions of unbanked people, transactions were limited to cash, postal services or even the barter system.
Now, in much the same way as mobile payments completely disrupted the status quo, AI has the potential to propel the fintech industry into a new era of financial inclusion. And perhaps most exciting …
- One of the most important ways a fintech can listen to its customers is to gauge how they engage with its products.
- Having a deep understanding of customer needs results in innovative solutions.
All around the world businesses are pulling out the stops to achieve growth in what can best be described as challenging economic conditions. Africa is no exception. The continent has long been recognised for its immense potential, and as such businesses across sectors are investing heavily into the continent.
Advancements in technology make serving the unbanked and underserved populations in Africa more viable than ever before. However, that does not mean growth comes easily. It is a hyper competitive and complex environment where genuinely understanding your customer is key to growth.
Even with this textbook understanding, there is a strong urge to take the “build it and they will come” approach because we can get caught up …
- Namibia is fortunate to benefit from the experiences of other oil- and gas-producing states.
- The country’s oil and gas sector is still looking forward to reaching the production phase, but S&P Global analysts don’t anticipate Namibia’s first oil production will come until 2029.
- Further, the country’s first gas-to-power project is scheduled to begin in 2027.
Namibia’s energy sector is still looking forward to reaching the production phase — S&P Global analysts don’t anticipate Namibia’s first oil to come until 2029, and the country’s first gas-to-power project is scheduled to begin in 2027.
Before Namibia achieves these hotly anticipated milestones, Namibian lawmakers can implement thoughtful, …
- The 2009 Copenhagen Accord was not a binding promise but set up a durable framework for future talks.
- One of these solutions is for African countries to use crude oil, natural gas, and other hydrocarbons to develop their resources and use the revenues to finance energy transition.
- In the process, they should also seek to meet several other complementary goals, such as building gas-fired plants that can provide cleaner power than existing coal.
From an African perspective, one of the most important things to come out of COP15, the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, was the formal recognition of the fact that lower-income countries were not in a position to bear as much of the cost of the energy transition as their higher-income counterparts.
That recognition was spelt out in the section of the Copenhagen Accord that included a pledge from the world’s highly developed states to …
- The Russian invasion of Ukraine has proved highly disruptive to world energy markets.
- There is still a distance between Africa and the rest of the world in terms of what the continent can do to establish closer ties to energy markets in Europe and elsewhere.
- Now is the time to offer tax incentives, fast-track projects, show more transparency in processes, and do everything possible to minimize investor risk.
It’s undeniable that the Russian invasion of Ukraine proved highly disruptive to world energy markets. This geopolitical clash led to the imposition of Western sanctions on the export of Russian oil and fuel and the imposition of a price cap on Russian crude by the G7 group.
It also led to the redirection of world oil trade flows. Asian countries such as China and India, for example, began absorbing considerably more Russian oil and fuel than they had done previously, and many …
- The promises made to uplift Africa and its people have failed to provide equitable justice. The trend continues.
- While Africa can play a pivotal role in the global fight against climate change, it should not come at the cost of its own economic development.
- Every climate finance dollar flowing into the continent must find its way into sustainable measures of mitigation and adaptation.
At Africa Climate Week, the resounding call of a child echoed through the packed hall, stating, “We will hold you to your promises.” This declaration not only reflected the sentiment of the child but also resonated with the aspirations of the entire continent.
As civilisation thrived, the continent went from being the cradle of civilization to the dump yard of urbanization. The promises made to uplift Africa and its people have failed to provide equitable justice. The trend continues.
Africa Climate Summit 2023
The promises made to …
Africa’s oil and gas industry looks flat in the final quarter of 2023. That is, as AEC details in its newly released 2024 African Energy Outlook, capital expenditure (CAPEX) on upstream projects is still rising, but it is on a relatively slow upward trajectory — and it is moving up more slowly than we had predicted last year because of changes in the timeline of certain African upstream projects.…
The Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) represents an important international forum for countries to discuss and address global climate change issues. However, these conferences have tended to be high-level and process-based, and COP 27 was no exception. – negotiations took place, and some of the highlights included the historic establishment of the loss and damage fund, which was seen as setting a precedent for climate justice.
However, agreements on other matters, such as phasing out fossil fuels and setting emission peak periods, were not achieved. For African countries, COP 28 marks an important pivot point around funding, just transition, and the Nairobi Declaration. There will be a push for realisations on commitments made and innovative funding mechanisms to drive accelerated climate action now and beyond.…
There are formidable challenges faced by the oil and gas industry across Africa, the Middle East and Asia (AMEA) regions, but perhaps the most pressing is the need for environmentally sustainable power solutions.
Currently, flaring poses a significant threat to the sector across its environmental impact and the cost to the company. Around 139 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas are flared annually, releasing carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and black soot that affect climate change and human health. It also directly influences the sector’s ability to achieve Net Zero and the transformative target of eliminating non-emergency flaring by 2030.…
