On the eve of World Environment Day, the topic of climate change has become a major subject matter for the developed world and the developing world. Africa is by far one of the lushest continents being ripe for vegetation and the key enabler to save the planet. The UN Sustainable Development Goals seeks to promote sustainability via a global collective. In light of that,  the Billion Tree Initiative is a new commitment by Synergetic Trees and one that is headed by its founder Dr. Bahadur Bahadur to drive global sustainability. 

“Twenty-five years ago, people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse.”  – Desmond Tutu

Accordingly to Dr. Bahadur, CEO of Synergetic Trees (ST) is a global network of teams focused on carbon sequestration by planting and caring for trees in the long term. Carbon sequestration is any process …

I ended my May 2021 essay with the hypothesis “…leading fintechs might turn around and start acquiring the banks” and, sure enough, on the 12^th of May 2021, the Competition Authority of Kenya in a gazette notice approved the acquisition of 84.89% stake in Century Microfinance Bank by Branch International Limited – a leading global fintech with operations in Kenya[1]. One of the signs of a maturing ecosystem is home grown ventures mature into unicorns[2], gazelles and zebras[3], increased mergers and acquisitions[4] and the entry of global tech giants hungry for a piece of the action – the subject of this essay. So, whilst the Branch acquisition was unexpected, it was unsurprising when Twitter announced on 14^th April 2021 that they are setting up their Africa HQ in Ghana[5]. On the very same day Amazon announced an investment of …

By Emmanuel Macron, Paul Kagame, Cyril Ramaphosa, and Macky Sall

PARIS – The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that we can no longer treat seemingly faraway crises as distant problems. What happens anywhere can affect people everywhere. That is why addressing the impact and legacy of the pandemic in Africa is so important.

Although Africa has suffered fewer COVID-19 cases and deaths than other areas of the world, the pandemic’s impact on the continent could be more sustained, deep-rooted, and destabilizing for the entire planet. In one year, the pandemic has halted a quarter-century of steady economic growth, disrupted value chains, and caused an unprecedented increase in inequality and poverty.

But it is not only Africa that is at risk of losing its opportunity to emerge fully from COVID-19. The global economy could lose one of its future drivers of growth.

Africa has everything required to overcome the pandemic crisis …

In the months surrounding the birth of our own republic, from 1961 to 1963, a crucial, international organisation was also being born, to assure food safety across the globe. 

As a partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and the World Health Organisation, the Codex Alimentarius Commission produces the Codex Alimentarius, which is Latin for the ‘Book of Food’. It contains internationally recognised guidelines, standards, codes of practice and recommendations on food safety, with just two goals: to ensure the health of consumers and fair trade in food. 

Yet, today, both are under threat. 

Over the 60 years since the Codex was launched, the commission has been led by the world’s top scientists, drawing on every global study to set food safety standards that include assessing pesticides for their impact on human health. To do that, Codex sets Maximum…

The review period has been salient with fresh 52-week low levels hit by some of the listed counters. Centum’s profit–warning announcement (expecting a dip in profit in its earnings by more than 25% on a yearly comparison) at the tail end of 1Q21 triggered a negative momentum on the counter in the subsequent two–month period.

This resulted in the counter touching a fresh low of KES14.40. Standard Group touched a new low of KES15.55 in early May, attributed to the negative knock from its FY20 earnings release. The media company had reported a KES301.6Mn loss during the last calendar year. Limuru Tea also fell to a new low of KES340. That said, activity on this agriculture stock has been thin with only 100 shares (minimum) trading in the review period.  

Bamburi Cement recorded a higher-than-expected FY20 EPS (Earnings per Share) of KES2.89. This partly enabled …

According to Wikipedia, regulation means the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. Industry regulations aim at bringing order by laying down a set of rules to be followed by all, rules aimed at harmonizing all the players together without favoring one over the other. 

There has been a lot of concern why the insurance industry in Kenya is not growing, and in fact has been declining over the years—a situation that has led the government to come up with a National Draft Policy aimed at filling in the gaps and strengthening the sector. A situational analysis in the draft policy identifies various gaps and challenges the industry faces. These include limited access to insurance, low levels of insurance awareness and financial literacy, poor public perception and lack of trust in the industry, poor management of policies and claims processes, limited products, fraud, low usage …