Browsing: World Bank

At a time when physical contact is discouraged due to spread of coronavirus, Tanzania’s little town of Kilimanjaro, has set up Automated Teller Machines (ATM) for the sale of milk. There is little human contact involved apart from the exchange of money making the machines a vital game changer in curbing spread of the virus.

The move has set a global precedence in the use of digital telecommunication for commercial purposes.  What stands out is the fact that the technology has not been set up in the bustling urban town of Dar es Salaam but rather on the outskirts in the small town.

“This is what technology is for…it not only for the urban centers, it should be used to make life easier in rural areas as well, and the set up of automated milk dispensers in rural Kilimanjaro is a good example,” says milk producer Ivan Mangesi.

Ivan is …

Tanzania has eventually allowed teenage mothers to return to school after the World Bank approved a USD500 million loan as support for the improvement of Tanzania’s education system.

Tanzania had until now denied pregnant girls to return to school after delivery and to push it to change its mind, for over the last two years, the World Bank withheld the requested loan in a bid to push Tanzania to ease the law.

Tanzania’s President John Magufuli is known to hold a hard stance against pregnant teenagers returning to school after delivery. As a result, activists in the country and abroad signed petitions against the World Bank funding the country’s education programs.

Now two years down the road, the World Bank’s board has reversed its stance and approved the loan. While the International Development Association is in support of the loan approval, other international donors like the US cautioned strongly against …

Tanzania has released reprinted versions of several denominations of the country’s banknotes. The new banknotes are meant to be more secure against duplication and forgery.

The new security features include the removal of the classic thin stripe in the old banknote, called the motion thread and replacing it with a rolling star.

The former security feature (the motion thread) used a motion image that had special colour effects when the note is moved side to side.

The new feature now, the rolling star, also has a movement and color change trait, but makes wavy motions when the note is tilted.

The central bank, the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) announced early April that the change affects denominations of TZS 2000, 5000 and 10000.

The last time the BoT changed the country’s banknotes was in 2010. The central bank’s Governor Professor Florens Luoga explained in a press statement that the re-printed banknotes …

Sub-Saharan Africa governments funding needs may rise by almost $75 billion due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) downplaying their economies, according to information from Goldman Sachs Group.

This particular insight comes into the play as last month, African finance ministers called for a $100 billion stimulus package, including suspension of debt to help the youngest continent combat the coronavirus pandemic, which has already registered a $29 billion dent to the economy so far and still counting.

According to the global investment bank, economists in London, Dylan Smith and Andrew Matheny, the pandemic could have a serious toll on the continent’s fragile fiscal pillars.

“Possibly the most severe impact of the crisis will be on already stretched fiscal balances. Budget deficits would likely rise from an average of around 3.5 per cent to high single digits, even before any loosening to soften the economic effects of the corona-crisis,” said Smith and …

Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to face its first recession in 25 years as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is cutting life from the continent’s economies, disrupts world trade, according to information from the World Bank.

According to information from Bloomberg, the lender said, the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP) will probably contract 2.1 per cent to 5.1 per cent in 2020, compared with 2.4 per cent growth a year earlier.

World Bank Vice President for Africa, Hafez Ghanem said in a statement following the Africa Pulse report, that “The COVID-19 pandemic is testing the limits of societies and economies across the world, and African countries are likely to be hit particularly hard,”

The global investment bank, Goldman Sachs Group gave their prediction on African governments funding needs, saying that sub-Saharan Africa funding may rise by $75 billion due to COVID-19 hammering their economies.

Further, the growth downgrade is based on …

The World Bank gave $379 million to help balance and strengthen statistical systems in seven West African countries.

The seven countries include Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Cabo Verde, Togo and Liberia.

The project “Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West Africa (HISWA)’ is funded by the International Development Association (IDA) credits and grants.

The project key objective is to strengthen the statistical systems of the participating countries, regional and sub-regional bodies, in order to help them balance, produce, distribute and enhance the use of core social and economic statistics.

With World Bank’s efforts to deepen regional integration in Africa, the funding will also support the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU).

Also Read: Africa asks World Bank, EU and IMF for debt relief support

“High-quality and harmonised statistics are essential to support economic activity and regional integration as a way to address …

Nigeria, Africa’s populous and largest economy is planning to raise about $6.9 billion from various multilateral lenders to assist their efforts towards curbing the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

According to information from Bloomberg, the nation’s Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed told reporters Monday in the capital, Abuja that, the government will seek $3.4 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), $2.5 billion from the World Bank and a further $1 billion.

The highly contagious pandemic has hit the region’s largest economy hard as plummeting oil prices and capital flight threaten to push the economy into recession. Nigeria has reported over 230 cases of the coronavirus and 5 deaths so far.

Bloomberg reported that Fitch Ratings earlier on Monday followed S&P’s March 26 decision to downgrade Nigeria’s credit rating further into junk territory, citing its dependence on oil, which represent about half of the government revenue.

However, Nonso Obikili, head …

African nations (via their ministers) have agreed to call a debt relief support from bilateral, multilateral and commercial partners with the support of the multilateral and bilateral financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank Group, and European Union (EU), amid coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) revealed in a statement.

The agreement was germinated from the second virtual meeting on Tuesday, hosted by Vera Songwe, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, and co-chaired by Ministers Tito Mboweni of South Africa and Ken Ofori-Atta of Ghana.

The meeting stressed the need to take possible actions to downplay and bring the spread of COVID-19 under control in the short term.

“The call for debt relief, it was emphasized, should be for all of Africa and should be undertaken in a coordinated and collaborative way. They called for a special purpose vehicle …

The construction industry in Tanzania contributed an average of 13.6% to Tanzania’s GDP over the last two years representing a whopping USD6billion.

The government of Tanzania has dedicated more than a quarter (25.4%) of its annual national budget to infrastructure development projects. With such high stakes, the construction sector now offers new investment and employment opportunities for Tanzanian youth.

Meet Michael Kimei, the 33 year old young entrepreneur and born again Christian. Mr. Kimei is Owner and Manager of Aggregate Crushing Ltd, a construction company in Tanzania, the epitome of youth self employment.

“I have had passion for business ever since I was a child, and as a God fearing man and a firm believer of the gospel of Jesus Christ, my work is centered around living a God ordained life and putting hard work towards setting up my own business and taking it to golden heights for the glory …

After three decades of austerity measures on Somalia, the otherwise economically embattled East African nation is now, 30 years later, in good standing with the World Bank.

Well, before we start tipping our hats, let’s put ‘good standing’ in perspective, Somalia is now in good enough standing to receive grants but it is yet to get to economic stability that would warrant it WB loans.

To put it in the words of the World Bank, the international lender is now ready to ‘normalize relations’ with Somalia. The bank credited turning the new leaf with Somalia on its reasonably strong record of fiscal and political reforms over the last few years.

As World Bank’s Country Manager for Somalia, Mr. Hugh Riddell was quoted mid this month, good relations means that “…going forward, Somalia will be able to access grants to finance poverty reduction.”

In his media brief, the WB country executive …