Browsing: Africa

On International Youth Day, the African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org) announces the enrolment of 130,000 users in its Coding for Employment digital skills program.

The milestone comes as Coding for Employment works to equip African youth with information and communication technology, entrepreneurship and soft-skills training to compete in a digital economy. The program’s online platforms offer in-demand technical courses such as web development, design, data science and digital marketing – for free.

With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in lockdowns and school closures across the continent, the Coding for Employment platforms experienced dramatic increases in the number of users. During a one-week period in September 2020, registrations skyrocketed by 38.5%. Through the Bank’s partnership with the Government of Nigeria to launch the Digital Nigeria eLearning platform (https://bit.ly/3xKrJsd) during the pandemic, Coding for Employment has hit a combined total of 130,000 students. Registered students are achieving …

Qatar Airways made its inaugural flight into Harare this week on sixth opening Zimbabwe to a major airline hub and showcasing its confidence in the Second Republic’s efforts to transform the economy.

Zimbabwe is now connected to the massive hub airport at Doha with all its connections around the world. The new routes were the airline’s fifth and sixth destinations in Africa since the outbreak of the Covid-19 in December 2019.

This agreement will see Qatar Airways fly to Harare three times a week from Doha using a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

In lauding this great infrastructural development project, through his representative, and the Principal Director in the Ministry Mr. Allowance Sango at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Felix Mhona said that Zimbabwe and Qatar have had good relations and given that the Middle East country has expressed interest in cooperating in critical sectors for the …

In a country with a population of 32.2 million, its Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the South Africa Nation has been in decline since 2013 due to political uncertainty and falling commodity prices. However, the fact that inward investment has remained steady throughout the Covid-19 Crisis, coupled with the country’s abundance of liquefied natural gas (LNG), demonstrates potential for increased inflows going forward.

Mozambique Offshore Finds

Mozambique’s offshore natural gas discoveries in the Rovuma basin since 2009 have been nothing short of prolific. It has changed the fortunes of one of the world’s least-developed countries

They are now valued at approximately 50 times the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

While these gas fields are still under development, data from fDIMarkets– a branch of the Financial Times Group that collects and tracks FDI projects around the world – suggest that foreign companies moved in right after the first discovery in …

The working-age population of sub-Saharan Africa is set to increase more than twofold by 2050 to become the largest in the world, offering unprecedented opportunity for economic growth, according to S&P Global Ratings.

This burgeoning youth population is both an opportunity and a challenge for the continent. On the positive side, the population provides an opportunity for the continent to address Africa’s sustainable development challenges. While the continent’s natural resources are vital, the creativity and innovation of its youthful population can play a key role in the continent’s economic transformation.

In a report published on Wednesday, the ratings agency estimated that growth in the working-age population would add up to three percentage points to the average annual GDP growth for the next 10 years across key economies in the subcontinent.

According to the Senior economist of the S&P Global ratings,countries in sub-Saharan Africa are now experiencing the “most significant demographic …

Unlike years gone by, women who tend to be the biggest consumers of cosmetics now have more spending power. In trying to keep up with societal demands and the pressure to look and feel good, women remain the key drivers of the cosmetics market on the continent. 

For Africa and those interested in investing in the continent’s beauty sector, hair products and extensions, skincare and make-up products take up the largest proportion of the cosmetics industry. These also happen to be the most lucrative segments of the global cosmetics market. …

The Serengeti, home to the largest annual migration of over 1.5 million wildebeest and zebras making it your never-miss animal show on Discovery Channel, is in peril. For more than a decade now, human activity has interfered with the ‘cradle of mankind.’

This ‘Eden’ so to speak, is home to Olduvai Gorge where the oldest human fossil nicknamed ‘Lucy’ was found. The site remains an invaluable asset in furthering understanding of early human evolution and is believed to have been traversed by our upright walking ancestors, the Homo Erectus.

What our two million years old ancestors must have seen every year starting early May, is the migration of millions of wildebeest and with them a host of predators—a spectacle known affectionately as ‘The greatest Show On Earth’ that we awe at to date. It is for this reason that we owe it to our children and future generations …

The GSMA estimates that smartphone connections will rise to an estimated 700 million by 2025. With this growth, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa continue to dominate e-commerce sales. 

Knight Frank notes that formal retail space across the continent is continually undergoing rapid transformation. This transformation is happening as “the entry and exit of various brands in the sector across the continent, retail outlets have had to adopt omnichannel offerings in order to ensure a measure of sustainability”.…

A Fair trade research study has revealed that over the past four years cocoa farmers household increased income in Ivory Coast has received a boosted earnings and lower incidences of extreme poverty as reported by Neill Barston.

This latest research comes amid key ongoing challenges within the region’s communities, which are facing significant downward pressures on crop prices impacting on communities earning capability.

Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s largest producer and exporter of cocoa beans. The Ivorian economy is largely dependent on the agricultural sector and about two-thirds of the population is engaged in this area. However, this dependency causes the Ivorian economy to be highly sensitive to changes in the international prices of these products.

According to the Fairtrade’s research key analysis, the average annual Ivorian cocoa farmer household income grew from $2,670 in 2016/17 to $4,937 in 2020/21, an increase of 85% driven, in part, by an upturn …

Covid-19 has hit small businesses hardest and around the world, many are either still struggling or they have already shut down almost two years after the pandemic started.

The pandemic has caused large-scale loss of life and severe human suffering globally and as the largest public health crisis in our time, the pandemic has also generated a major economic crisis. 2020 saw a halt in production in affected countries, a collapse in consumption and confidence, and stock exchanges responding negatively to heightened uncertainties.

In Africa, things are no different and despite the hit by the pandemic, a June 2021 African Development Bank (AfDB) White Paper, Entrepreneurship and Free Trade: Africa’s Catalysts for a New Era of Economic Prosperity, states that entrepreneurship must be at the heart of efforts to transform Africa’s economic prospects.

Read: Why Kenya’s small businesses are choking

The Covid-19 crisis has triggered shifts that open up …

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Ministry of Devolution and the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) have signed the Anticipatory Action and Response Plan for Pastoral and Agropastoral Communities in ASAL Counties of Samburu, Isiolo, Turkana, Garissa, Marsabit, Mandera, Wajir and Tana River in Kenya.

In a statement, FAO says this is in response to drought alert sent in June 2021 where 12 of the 23 ASAL counties were in the alert drought phase, while 16 reported a declining trend. This is an abnormal occurrence at the immediate end of the season.

‘Livelihood conditions have declined as a result of reduced access to pasture even as 56 percent of the ASAL counties reported increased trekking distances to water sources for livestock and domestic use. This is expected to get worse in the coming months hence the need for urgent anticipatory action,’ said Carla Mucavi …