Browsing: World Bank

West Africa region received $465 million in funding from the World Bank for regional electricity access which will see countries in the region expand electricity to over a million people.

The World group approved the funds to the new Regional Electricity Access and Battery-Energy  Storage Technologies (BEST) Project which will increase grid connections to fragile areas, strengthen WAPP’s network operation with battery energy storage technologies infrastructure and build the capacity of the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERERA).

Through the project, countries in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will enhance power system stability for 3.5 million people and increase renewable energy integration in the West Africa Power Pool (WAPP).

The project will pave way for increased renewable energy generation, investment and transmission across the West Africa region.

“West Africa is on the cusp of a regional power market that promises significant development benefits and potential for private …

The Sub-Saharan Africa economic growth is forecast to resume to 2.8 percent in 2021 and further rise to 3.3 percent in 2022 according to World Bank.

The growth is due to higher commodity prices, containment of the pandemic, and stronger external demand mostly from the United States and China.

According to the recently updated report from World Bank, despite the provision of vaccines by COVAX, procurements, and logistics challenges are expected to continue to affect the rollout of the vaccination. In the Central African Republic, Kenya, Niger, and Equatorial Guinea delays in major investments in extractives and infrastructure due to policy uncertainty and the existing effects of the pandemic will affect the recovery of the economies.

“Per capita income levels in 2022 are expected to be 4% lower on average than in 2019. Conditions in the region’s fragile and conflict-affected countries are expected to be particularly challenging; their average output …

Egypt’s economy is expected to grow by 2.3 percent in the 2020/2021 fiscal year from the previous project of 3.7 percent in January 2021 according to the World Bank’s Economic Prospects report June 2021.

According to the report, In the 2021/2022 fiscal year Egypt is expected to see further growth rise to 4.5 per cent down from 5.8 percent in the January report, which is a decrease of 1.3percent. In the Fiscal year 2022/2023, the report projects a growth rise of 5.5 percent.

According to the World Bank, in the first half of 2021 Egypt’s economy remained sluggish despite the relaxation of lockdown restrictions. Following unprecedented support in 2020, fiscal policy is expected to be less accommodative in 2021 while the average primary fiscal deficit is expected to be about 4 percent of GDP which is about two thirds its level in 2020.

“The scope for further financial support is …

Consider everything you have heard about Africa is wrong and start on a quest to know and understand the continent better when it comes to the opportunities it has to offer. 

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For starters, Africa is not only the fastest-growing continent on the planet but it is also fuelled by a young and rapidly urbanizing population which will drive demand for a long time to come.…

Remittance to Kenya increased by 10 percent to $3,095 million in 2020 from $2,796 million in 2019 while in Uganda they dropped to $1.1 billion in 2020 from $1.4 billion in 2019.

According to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), the increase accounted for three percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The remittance was projected to decrease in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Financial innovations such as mobile money which have opened more convenient transactions highly contributed to the increase in remittance flow to Kenya.

With the restriction measures which were put in place to curb the spread of the virus, mobile money made it easy for people to send and receive money.

“The rapid acceleration of digitalization has been the ‘silver lining narrative’ of the pandemic. Remittances have been one of the key beneficiaries of digital transformation as members of the diaspora sent funds to their loved …

The World Bank Group has charged Nigeria and other African countries to embrace lower-carbon sources of energy in a bid to increase electricity access and also reduce subsidies being applied on fossil fuels.

According to the Bretton Wood institution, regions affiliated to the World bank ought to evaluate themselves on avenues to electricity access, in a economical way.

In a virtual press briefing the President of the World Bank Group, David Malpass, noted that the Bank intends to work with countries on their long-term strategy, by addressing questions as to where they will get the growth in electricity access that they need, and what are the lower-carbon sources of energy that are available.

“This might be hydro; it might be natural gas; it might be improvements in the transmission grid that save electricity and allow more renewables to be brought on stream.

“We have solar projects in many of the …

CRDB is enjoying a remarkable dash for its shares having sold an impressive 5.0 million shares this week alone. The sudden increased appetite for CRB shares is not without cause, the bank strategically announced a possible 6.52per cent increase in dividend payout.

Now, even though the percentage increase is only a proposal (subject to approval by the Annual General Meeting) the public is gabbling up the shares in lure of the possible increased payout.

The new amount was first proposed in the bank’s annual report for 2020, the 6.52 percent raises the initiatial USD 0.0073 (17/-) that was the payable dividend in 2019 to a lucrative USD 0.0025 (22/-) per share.

In its weekly Market Synopsis, Orbit Securities said that CRDB shares closed the week at usd 0.11 (245/). The impressive increase set CRDB ahead of the park in a week that had only three gainers on the Dar …

Remittance flows to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region increased by 2.3 per cent to record about $5.6 billion in 2020 according to a report by World Bank.

The press release from World Bank noted that strong remittance flows to Morocco and Egypt strongly contributed to the growth.

In 2020, flows to Morocco rose to 6.5 per cent while flows to Egypt rose by 11 percent to record a high of nearly $20 billion. Tunisia also recorded an increase of 2.5 per cent.

According to the statement, other economies in the region experienced losses in the same period such as Iraq, Lebanon, Djibouti and Jordan which led to a double-digit decline.

With weak outflows from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and moderate growth in the Euro area, remittances are likely to grow in 2021 by 2.6 percent.

In the fourth quarter of 2020 the cost of sending …

Tanzania has earned a record $3 billion from gold sales as price for the precious metal soars in the world market.

Publicized by the Bank of Tanzania, the value of gold exports clocked $3.025 billion in the year ending March 31, 2021, a considerable jump from $2.324 billion that was earned last year.

In fact, gold is doing so well that it has become the country’s top foreign exchange earner, and even overtaken tourism.

Gold prices have been edging up since the corona outbreak last year owing to jittery investors fearing a collapse of other currencies (including the dollar) and opting to store their value in gold.

“As financial markets were hit by the pandemic, investors rushed for gold which they consider as one of the safe haven assets,” report local media.

Consider this, gold represented more than half (55.9 percent) of the value brought home from sell of …

In what has been christened her first official state visit, Tanzania President Samia Suluhu Hassan has today begun her two day visit to neighbouring Kenya.

The visit is considered her first state visit and not her recent trip to Uganda, which was more of a ‘business trip’, meant to but sign the multi-billion-dollar oil pipeline deal and not a diplomatic visit to discuss diplomatic relations and economics.

The highly anticipated visit is expected to strengthen diplomatic ties as well as iron out economic creases that the two countries had wrangled themselves in over the course of the past few years.

The trip comes as a fulfillment of President Samia’s pledge to parliament that her administration will without fail ‘restore and improve economic diplomacy with partners in the region and across the world.’

The visit is also seen as part of the president’s move to attract investors, a goal that needs …