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As African nations’ economies grow, so do individual expenses in basic and often, extra necessities, such as food, clothing, rent, data, and entertainment to say the least.

In this case, there are a lot of benefits attached when people tweak their expenses strategically and hone the art of saving, especially on their consumables spending habits when living in big cities, such as Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam (Africa’s fifth-largest city).

Tanzania is one of the fastest-growing economies in sub-Saharan Africa, and Dar es Salaam (with more than six million people) is one of the 30 cities in the world growing fast, according to National Geographic.

Expatistan, a cost of living database, noted that Dar es Salaam has cheaper costs of living than in 62 per cent of cities in Africa and in 83 per cent of cities around the world.

As we accumulate savings over time, the nagging worries…

In a jammed conference room in a Nairobi hotel in early 2019, a panel of rights activists poked holes at the Kenyan oil exploration and mining activities in Turkana. Blow by blow, the team illustrated how Kenya stands to lose if radical measures are not put into place to ensure the resource benefits the country.

The Kenya Oil and Gas working group called for an audit of the contracts of oil mining to ensure they follow international standards. Charles Wanguhu, a social activist coordinator of the Kenya Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas, said in international practice, if a company prospects and fails to find oil, it meets its costs.

However, if it finds oil, the country pays for the expenses. Therefore, Wanguhunotes that in the case of Kenya, the need for audit will ensure that the costs which Kenyans will pay for do not include those wells that

Africa is now more connected, technologically savvy, and focused on enhancing its economic systems compared to 30 years ago. The narrative has changed, from civil unrest and extreme donor-dependent economies, to those with record-high tax collections such as in Tanzania, and information communications and technology (ICT) transformation ones such as Rwanda, Kenya and South Africa. The African GDP has grown to over $2 trillion from about $587 billion in 2000.

Despite the youngest continent’s nations being driven by agriculture—which has also sustained major development, in terms of technology input, funding and research and development, still the continent’s manufacturing industry holds vital potential to stimulate the economy and offer decent livelihood to its vast young human capital, who number over 226 million and who are expected to increase by 42 per cent by 2030 according to the United Nations (UN).

According to Brookings—an American think tank, the future of the manufacturing…

According to Kenya’s Tourism Sector Performance Report 2019(KTSPR 2019), Uganda and Tanzania continue to be major tourist sources for Kenya after the USA. The country received 245,437 tourists from America last year, the highest from one country, while Uganda was second with 223,010 followed by Tanzania at 193,740.

Growth in aviation sector

The increase in arrivals from Uganda was driven by the introduction of Uganda Airline’s direct flight from Entebbe to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi and Moi International Airport (MIA) in Mombasa in 2019.Arrivals from Uganda are expected to increase further this year.

Rwandan visitors to Kenya recorded the highest increase by 24.6 per cent, from 34,758 visitors in 2018 to 43,321 in 2019. That is according to international tourist arrivals data from Kenya’s department of immigration and border management. South Sudan was a close second in increase in visitors at 20.9 per cent, from 20,383 arrivals

If you are looking to get into business for the first time, or looking for a side hustle to augment your income or looking for a second or even third business to venture into, look no further.

We share some business ideas for 2020, with every business meeting the criteria of having the potential to make you a millionaire, being in demand and having potential to automate.

Gaming

In statistics released in January 2020 by statista.com, the most downloaded Apple App Store category in November 2019 was gaming at 22.37 per cent. Business apps, the second most downloaded category stood at 10.12 per cent of the 33 categories featured.

According to the website, Google play store app most downloaded category in the fourth quarter was gaming at 13.35 percent, followed by education at 8.95 per cent.

With these statistics in mind, gaming seems to be a good business to venture…

Of recent times, microfinance has demonstrably become the most coveted solution to building a robust and efficient national economy that is inclusive of the low-income segment in both urban and rural areas.

The historically nascent level of microfinance services in Tanzania has prompted various non-government organization (domestic and foreign) and financial institutions to take up active roles in providing this service. Institutions such as the Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA), SEDA, PRIDE and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) are some of the active players to have taken up this role in the microfinance subsector. Meanwhile, larger financial institutions have also ventured into carrying out microfinance operations. Banks such as NMB and CRDB which was established in 1995 as a hybrid of a commercial and microfinance bank are key examples of this.

The exciting evolution ofmicrofinance can be traced from before 2000.

Before 2000

The microfinance movement, which is a…

The idea of saving is “nice to have”, but is difficult to practice for many of us.

As we navigate the early days of the New Year, this is the perfect time to implement your long-term plan you had postponed to start saving. With accrued debts from previous year(s) and financial challenges that you could have avoided if only you saved a few coins a month, you still have the power to make the next eleven months,if not years, a success.

My relationship with finances is complex. I am still learning to work out how to manage my money in the best way possible. It has taken me several years to learn the discipline of saving when all I want to do is splurge it.

Do you wish to retire young and spend your time doing what you love, relaxing and planning for your next vacation? Is this even doable?…

The East Africa 15 (EA15) highlights on 15 of the most traded and highly capitalized stocks in the region on a monthly basis. The primary purpose of the EA15 is to give investors a description and perspective of the regional stock markets’ performance.

EAC countries’ economies had a turbulent time in 2019 characterized by rising public debt against missed revenue targets,slow private sector growth and under-par performance of traditional key sectors of the economy such as tourism, agriculture and manufacturing. Further, regional trade which was earmarked as crucial to economic development has been marred by trade spatssuch as protectionism resulting in a decline involume and value of intra-regional trade.

The region is looking to maintain a loose monetary stance to boost private sector growth and more importantly,resolve disputes in order to intensify regional trade. Despite the tough economic environment, the region’s GDP is projected to grow the fastest in sub-Saharan…

He was the world’s most eligible bachelor with tons of efforts being made to ensure his safety.  As fate would have it, Sudan, the last northern white rhino male died in March 2018 at his home in Ol Pajeta Conservatory in Kenya.

Semen was collected in 2014 when Sudan was over 40 years old.

What followed have been efforts by scientists to ensure there is a continuation of the white rhino generation. So far, two embryos have been passed on to females and a third one has just been released.

In August 2019 a team of scientists and conservationists broke new ground in saving the northern white rhinoceros from extinction when they harvested eggs from the two remaining females, artificially inseminated those using frozen sperm from deceased males and created two viable northern white rhino embryos.

With great support from the Kenyan Government and in the presence of Hon Najib…

East Africa continues to draw attention due to its high growth rate. The positive growth has been projected by both national and multilateral agencies like IMF and World Bank. The growth is expected in both agricultural and manufacturing sectors with great support from the service industry. To harness the power of all this growth is a budding bourse across the region. In this issue, we focus on how the stock markets are expected to behave this year.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) released a report at the end of 2019 which showed that East Africa’s economy is expected to continue expanding at an average of 6.3 per cent in 2020, with that of Rwanda expected to lead at eight per cent from 7.8 per cent. Kenya’s economy is expected to expand in the margins of six per cent while that of Uganda and Tanzania is