Browsing: African Development Bank

The Stalled Saglemi Housing project in Ghana Pinterest
  • The World Bank data shows remittances by Africans in the diaspora hit over $95.6 billion in 2021 with Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya among the highest recipients of the inflows.
  • Africa has a housing deficit of about 56 million units driven largely by urbanization and population growth, which has left governments struggling to meet the demand for affordable units.
  • Many of the 40,000 people moving to African cities every day cannot afford basic formal housing or access loans to acquire homes.

Pan African housing development financier, Shelter Afrique, is targeting Africans living and working abroad to enhance the delivery of affordable housing agenda across the continent.

Shelter Afrique managing director Thierno-Habib Hann said over 170 million people of African descent that live and work in various countries across the world present a formidable resource pool for the continent’s infrastructure development, including housing.

“African diaspora populations are growing, as are their savings …

martin.mwita Transforming agriculture Africa
  • The continent spends over USD60 billion yearly on food imports that it could generate domestically.
  • African countries have allocated large sums to agriculture, but according to experts, this is insufficient.
  • As a result, countries are experiencing deficits even as governments continue to spend billions of dollars bolstering their military defenses, which fuels conflict, displacement, and hunger.
In a study utilizing satellite data from NASA's Landsat, researchers from the universities of Maryland and Texas in the United States cast doubt on the rapid development of cultivated land in Africa.

It was previously recorded that Africa's agricultural area has expanded by more than a third during thepast two decades (2000-2019), accounting for 52 percent of the global increase, or 102 million hectares.

The continent is said to contain around one-fourth of the world's agricultural land but millions of people continue to face malnutrition as dry and semi-arid regions are devastated by drought.

AfDB
  • African Hidden Champions (AHC) is an initiative that seeks to showcase exceptional growth stories of unique African startups.
  • The AHC initiative has led to several breakthroughs for various African startups.
  • AfDB and AHC partnership is a stepping stone that would provide financial inclusion and regional industrialization.

AfDB has announced a new partnership with the African Hidden Champions to promote and empower local startups.

African Hidden Champions (AHC) is an initiative that seeks to showcase exceptional growth stories of unique African startups. Essentially AHC seeks potentially revolutionary companies that are building Africa’s startups to scale on a global scale.

Africa Foresight Group and German Investment Cooperation co-founded this initiative to shed light on Africa’s potential as a continent. They created AHC for the primary purpose of helping firms on their growth journey by telling their stories, exposing them to new markets and providing funding and technical assistance if need be.

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Young farmers in Uganda, DRC and Nigeria to receive support from AfDB
  • Uganda, Nigeria and DRC are the latest beneficiaries of a multinational project initiated by the African Development Bank
  • The Creating Sustainable Youth MSMEs Through Urban Farming (SYMUF) project is intended to create jobs and improve livelihoods for the youth in the three African countries 
  • The initiative will support young farmers who are attracted to urban farming

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has launched a multinational project to create jobs and improve livelihoods for youth in three African countries.

The Creating Sustainable Youth MSMEs Through Urban Farming (SYMUF) initiative will support young farmers in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda who are attracted to urban farming.

AfDB is partnering with a consortium of incubation centres in participating countries to implement the project.

They are the Africa Projects Development Centre (APDC) in Nigeria, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA-Bukavu) in the DRC, and the African Agribusiness Incubation …

A new assessment carried out by the World Bank has forecast that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) stands to boost Africa's income by US$450 billion by 2035, representing a gain of 7 per cent to the continent's revenue while adding US$76 billion to the income of the rest of the world. www.theexchange.africa

If fully implemented, AfCFTA could speed up wage growth for women and lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty by 2035, the World Bank report has found.

An article by Namibia Economist, dated July 29, 2022, suggests that achieving these gains will be particularly important given the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which is expected to cause up to US$79 billion in output losses in Africa from 2020.

  • Real income gains from full implementation of the AfCFTA agreement could increase by 7 per cent, or nearly US$450 billion by 2035.
  • AfCFTA would significantly boost African trade, particularly intra-regional trade in manufacturing.
  • Manufacturing exports would gain the most, 62 per cent overall, with intra-Africa trade increasing by 110 per cent and exports to the rest of the world rising by 46 per cent.

COVID-19 has caused major disruptions to trade across the continent, including critical goods such as…

East Africa trade
  • AfCFTA testing new tool to measure ease of trade among African countries
  • Early test results indicate major gender parity issues
  • AfCFTA secretariat to seek national policy change to ease cross border trade

 

So you wish to invest in Africa, with 51 countries to choose from, what factors are going to guide your decision? Once you have overcome that huddle, comes another matter to address and that is ‘how easy is it to do businesses between said African countries?’

The second part of the question is what we will focus on here, how easy is it to do business between and among various African countries.’ There already exist several trading blocs and free trade zones etc and finally the largest of them all the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has finally been passed and is in action.

So what does this mean for investors, for businesses seeking to trade between …

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Zimbabwe’s Central Bank said the increase in its policy rate to 200 per cent from 80 per cent will take effect from July 1 after annual inflation hit almost 192 per cent this month.

The benchmark interest rate was last raised to 80 per cent in April from a previous 60 per cent.

“The committee noted that the increase in inflation was undermining consumer demand and confidence and that, if not controlled, it would reverse the significant economic gains achieved over the past two years,” central bank governor Dr. John Mangudya said.

The latest figures from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTATS) showed Saturday that the country’s annual inflation rate reached 191 per cent in June. A new blow to the purchasing power of Zimbabweans, stoking fears of a return to the 2008 hyperinflation period where savings were wiped out.…

samia road e1654617803853

Last year, the Board of Directors of the African Development Fund (AfDB) approved another loan of around $116 million to Tanzania for the upgrade of a 160-km road corridor in the southern part of the country.

This enormous funding by the Bank actually served to cover 98.71% of the project cost; while the remaining 1.29% was met by the government of Tanzania. It is expected that the AfDB will continue funding Tanzania’s road works and other transport infrastructure especially given the country’s strategic geographical location.

Tanzania is the gateway into Africa’s interior and it is also the way out to the rest of the world via the Indian Ocean.

In Tanzania, it is the Tanzania National Roads Agency (TANROADS) is responsible for the improvement of road maintenance and development. The Agency is responsible for the management of 35,000 Km of roads made up of 12,786 Km of trunk roads and …