Browsing: Covid-19 pandemic

Also of significance is the February 2019 deal that saw US$300 million set aside for a 10-year plan to develop Port Sudan’s facilities, while a new Chinese-built seaport for shipping livestock in Haidob, south of Port Sudan, is nearing completion.
The Chinese-built port for shipping livestock from Sudan’s Red Sea coast is a component of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and is primed to help transport camels, cattle and sheep targeted for the Asian markets.…

A survey revealed that 77 per cent of temporary workers would be willing to receive their wages digitally if this gave them access to health insurance.

Combining digital payments with health insurance benefits offers an excellent opportunity for social inclusion, formalization, and financial innovation.
Data shows that if 50 per cent of temporary workers in Senegal received payments digitally, 45 billion CFA francs would be added to GDP per year (around US$80 million). Paying workers digitally, speeds up the financial inclusion for the population, boosts business competitiveness and increases financial system liquidity. …

Africa is expected to recover from its worst recession in half a century and reach 3.4 per cent growth in 2021.
This growth which is expected to defy the effects of increasing debt burden and the Covid-19 pandemic does not however promise to wipe out poverty but instead an estimated 39 million more Africans could possibly slip into extreme poverty this year in addition to the about 30 million who were pushed into extreme poverty in 2020 as a result of the pandemic.…

The construction sector has more promise including in the retail sector despite the fact that many malls are either under-occupied or have no tenants.

With the online market space gaining popularity, what cannot be seen in the malls can instead be stored in the same buildings if adapted to become warehouses.…

African designers have to adapt and invest in technology to help grow the continent’s fashion entrepreneurship. 

With the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a notable acceleration in consumer shifts and digital trends that were in motion prior to the crisis. 

To maintain the momentum and to grow the multibillion-dollar industry further, fashion entrepreneurs must take advantage of fashion-enabling tools at their disposal. E-commerce, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and digital printing are tools that will shape the future of the fashion industry in Africa, according to Vanessa Moungar, Director of the Gender, Women and Civil Society Department at the African Development Bank (AfDB).…

African agriculture has remained resilient despite the recent health crisis occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Unlike food insecurity which has persisted on the continent for decades, the continent has been relatively successful at stemming the virus which has claimed millions worldwide. Unlike in other cases, the continent has- especially in West Africa- had particular success at stemming the rate of infection. There is no conclusive reason as to why this has been the case.

However, continent-wide, the virus that remains elusive at getting a cure is hunger.

Read: Ecosystem degradation costs Africa USD 68 billion yearly

Africa has the potential to become the breadbasket of the world yet it is spending an estimated US$ 35 billion a year importing food. With this reality, stakeholders are getting together to pull Africa out of this perennial inadequacy.

In January, more than 100 European and African actors signed a charter of commitment to …

The African continent has recorded a total of 3,682,261 confirmed cases of Covid-19, 95,591 deaths and 3,212,077 recoveries since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak.

By early January 2021, COVID-19, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), had resulted in more than 83 million confirmed cases and more than 1·8 million deaths.

The clinical spectrum of SARS-CoV-2 infection is wide, encompassing asymptomatic infection, fever, fatigue, myalgias, mild upper respiratory tract illness, severe life-threatening viral pneumonia requiring admission to hospital, and death.

At the moment, 34.4 million Covid-19 tests have been conducted in Africa.

As much as we celebrate the high number of recoveries that continue to be recorded daily from various countries, there is a need to take care of those who have recovered from the virus.

Did you know that post-COVID-19 complications could be dire and fatal?

Well, the acting Director of the Ghana Infectious Disease Centre (GIDC), …

With the start of trading under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement on January 1, 2021, the continent turned a historic page towards modernising Africa’s economy. 

With 34 African countries having created the largest free trade zone in the world by country participation, it is still too early to gauge how the AfCFTA will affect the different facets of the economy including sports and entertainment. 

The AfCFTA is the beginning of what many hope will form a workable framework for a modern African economy, at the very least. …

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage. African countries have so far recorded fewer cases than most other continents. However, a new, more infectious variant of the virus has surfaced in South Africa. This new strain is a significant threat to continental health. Given that the bulk of African countries’ health systems leave a lot to be desired, this is a heavy blow. 

That said, the effects of Covid-19 on African economies extend beyond the immediate impact on health. It goes to the effects of lockdown measures, interference with external trade as well as interruption of foreign inflows particularly, remittances from the diaspora, that have a considerable effect on most economies. 

Diaspora remittances to Africa

Driven by economic and other challenges, a sizeable number of Africans are living and working in different countries across the world. According to research by the Pew Research Center, over 25 million sub-Saharan Africans were living …

Cocoa plantations, which are the backbone of the world’s chocolate supply, are highly vulnerable to climate hazards.…