Browsing: Africa

The African Development Fund (ADF) which is a concessional arm of the African Development Bank Group (AFDB) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) signed a loan agreement worth $668.1 million (73.6 billion Japanese yen) which will help finance Africa’s low-income countries affected by the pandemic.

The loan will help support the 15th replenishment of the African Development Fund (ADF-15) which was approved in December 2019 by ADF donor countries. JICA is extending the loan – the largest to ADF-15 on behalf of the Government of Japan. Japan has been the fifth-largest contributor to the ADF in cumulative terms.

African Development Bank Group President Dr Akinwumi A. Adesina and Kuramitsu Hideaki, Japanese Ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire signed an Exchange of Notes, while the loan agreement was signed by Fujino Kojiro, the JICA Chief Representative in Côte d’Ivoire and Swazi Tshabalala, Acting African Development Bank Group Senior Vice President, in her …

The Central Bank of Nigeria has banned all cryptocurrency transactions as of February 5^th 2021 citing terrorism concerns. The central bank is of the view that cryptocurrency transactions are been used to fund terror groups.

As a result, it has ordered all banks as well as non-bank financial institutions and all other financial institutions that deal in cryptocurrencies or facilitate payment for cryptocurrencies to stop with immediate effect.

The development comes after the Central Bank issued a warning back in January cautioning against the use of cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrencies are volatile and risky since unlike in regular banking transactions, these are transactions that are irreversible. Further still, transactions are anonymous so you do not know who you are dealing with and also, there are no regulators for cryptocurrency dealings, it is all just you and a host of other people that you do not know trading online, to call it …

In its fight against Covid-19 Rwanda has opted to have robots replace humans when coming into contact with infected persons.

With the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Rwanda is to deploy its second set of three ‘THOR UVC’ robots.

What are these avenger bots all about? As its name suggests, the THOR ultra-violet (UVC) uses UVC to disinfect. Using room mapping technology, THOR UVC is able to go around a given cleaning space and disinfect it efficiently.

It uses UVC energy to kill germs and pathogens that way, the robots minimize contact of persons with the pathogens.  So the deployment of the THOR UVC robots will help clean and disinfect Covid-19 risk areas like hospitals.

The robots will also serve to disinfect areas of mass gathering like border areas and market places as well as office spaces.

This second dispatch of robots was handed over on …

The Paris Club (Club de Paris), a group of officials from major creditor countries has approved Kenya’s request for more debt relief to help it ease Covid-19 related financial weight.

Formed in 1956, the Paris Club, which works to find sustainable solutions to payment difficulties experienced by debtor countries, announced earlier this month that it had accepted Kenya’s request for debt-servicing suspension and gave the East African country a six-month leeway (January to June) before it resumes to pay its national debt.

“Kenya is committed to devoting the resources freed by this initiative to increase spending in order to mitigate the health, economic and social impact of the COVID19-crisis,” said the Paris Club.

Maybe the rest of East Africa can learn from Kenya and take advantage of the G20 bilateral creditors that offer what is called the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI). Launched last year, the DSSI serves to suspend …

Africa making huge moves to advance rapidly within the realms of social impact entrepreneurship and innovation.

From smart environmental solution based in Dar es Salaam Tanzania to e-learning innovations in Cape Town, South Africa are filled with rather interesting operations that will levitate the region in the coming decades.

The continent has rather made some great strides over the past years, having platforms such as The Next African Start-Ups program launched in 2018, connecting entrepreneurs with potential investors, financial institutions and policymakers—catering all necessary items for their growth and introduction of fresh services and technologies that will improve lives of people across the region.

Despite the year 2020 being a record market for investment into the African tech startup ecosystem. Whereby more money was raised from a large pool of investors compared to other years before, 2021 came with a dark cloud.

According to information from Bloomberg News which cited …

Africa’s top economy and oil exporter, Nigeria is battling yet another economic hurdle, as the government disagrees with the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF)recommendations of lowering its currency that’s more than 18 per cent overvalued to ease external imbalances, according to Bloomberg News.

According to IMF February 8, 2021, press release, Nigeria has been hit quite hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, following a sharp decrease in oil prices and capital outflows, real GDP is estimated to have contracted by 3.2 per cent I 2020 amidst the pandemic-related lockdown.

Bloomberg News reported on February 8, 2021, that, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari administration sees currency pressures stemming from global outflows caused by the coronavirus pandemic and believes another depreciation would add to double-digit inflation.

The devaluation pressure from IMF is not new to Nigeria. In 2014 the Nigerian central bank devalued the naira by nearly 8 per cent and then fixed the official …

The World Bank (WB)—one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for the developing sphere published its Global Economic Prospect report in January 2021.  

The report zoomed in on the prospects of the global economy and Africa, displaying how the region remains pinned by the shocks of COVID-19 unless sound policy changes and strategic investment-enhancing reforms are made.  

On the bright side, the global economy is expected to expand by 4 per cent in 2021—this is dependent on the progression of COVID-19 vaccine provision throughout the year. …

The super spreading virus that triggered a pandemic of global proportions has entered a second wave. Most African countries are struggling to cope. Their already fractured health systems are at pains and facing challenges in handling the ballooning cases. Lockdowns and travel restrictions are still in place for some countries, greatly impacting economic activity. 

For example, Zimbabwe is currently in the middle of a month-long lockdown with only essential services operating. The restrictions have shut down all informal sector activity, which forms the bulk of economic activity. In South Africa, level 4 restrictions induced the closure of the busiest land borders. …

Africa’s private equity landscape continues to attract investment. The operating environment, albeit still turbulent, continues to improve. Granted, the pace of improvement is higher in some countries than others, but overall there is promise of a conducive climate for business. 

The enabling environment, coupled with the accelerated digital infrastructure growth, inspires momentum in the private sector contributing to the growing middle class. This will, in turn, lead to improved employment opportunities.…

Education is the lifeline of development in Africa.  At present, things are changing rapidly within the African education domain. Modern technology is now transforming learning in classrooms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda to mention a few. 
African states, just as other nations across the globe, are experiencing economic shocks from the coronavirus (COVID-19), which forced 250 million African children to stay home.  

Across the region, children were out of school for various periods. In Kenya, children remained home for the entire course of 2020 since March, while Tanzania’s school shutdown lasted for three months. …