Browsing: World Bank

Maize flour is a live wire for the Kenyan authorities so this may be an issue the government treads cautiously on.…

The giant hydropower dam on the Blue Nile (Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam-GERD) agreement is set to be finalized later this month in Washington-USA by ministers from Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, who came to an agreement on Wednesday, Reuters reveals.

The hydropower project caused a rather serious diplomatic crisis between Cairo (of which relies on the river for its freshwater supply) and Addis Ababa.

According to Reuters, the ministers agreed to fill the $4 billion project in stages during the wet season, taking into account the impact on downstream reservoirs, the U.S. Treasury Department, which hosted the meeting, said in a joint statement with the countries and the World Bank.

Further, the statement highlighted that the initial filling of the dam set to commence in July will aim for a level of 595 meters above sea level and early electricity generation while providing appropriate mitigation measures for Egypt and Sudan during …

The fourteenth edition of the 2019 African Economic Conference (AEC) has commenced in Sharm El Sheikh—Egypt, raising serious ideas towards sending a crucial call to African policymakers to gain a rather strong hold in addressing unemployment among youth in Africa.

According to a statement from African Development Bank (AfDB), African governments are expected to eradicate setbacks and high startup costs that African youth face, in order to create decent well-paying jobs.

The AEC is jointly organized every year by the African Development Bank, the Economic Commission for Africa and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to discuss pertinent issues affecting the continent.

This year’s event is running on the theme: “Jobs, entrepreneurship, and capacity development for African youth”.

Egypt’s Minister of Investment and International Cooperation, Sahar Nasr, gave out a rather vital aspect on the matter during his opening plenary, highlighting that, the conference provided a critical platform to …

a section of African countries unveiled the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) in March last year.

The agreement, which came into force in May 2019, can revitalize the African economic landscape over time and space, especially with the existing in many African countries.

The AfCTA comprises of 55 countries (with a combination of $2.5 trillion GDP) in Africa to a unified-single market. Despite African countries’ economies variation, still the free trade agreement comes at a greater moment when various regions in the continent, including Southern African Development Community (SADC ) and East Africa Community (EAC) are working to harmonize their economic affairs to boost trade, security, and industrialization.

The current economic and trading landscape

According to the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) African Outlook report of 2019, it showed the continents overall economic performance is gaining decent improvement, as as the GDP reached at an estimate of 3.5 per cent …

The Global Gender Summit which kicked off on November 25 in Kigali-Rwanda, and first summit of-its-kind to be held in Africa, emerged with rather vital issues in the second-day, whereby top-notch financial leaders rallied their desire to see support to women business across the African business landscape.

The summit is running on a theme “Unpacking constraints to gender equality” has drawn in presidents, high government officials, multilateral development banks, private sector, civil society and top business and finance leaders from across the continent, who have mainstreamed their ideas on how gender issues influence African finance.

READ:Promoting women will boost African economic growth, World Bank says

According to the African Development Bank (AfDB) press release, Dr. Jennifer Blanke the bank’s Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, aligned her ideas along side other Leaders from multilateral development banks, financial institutions and the private sector called on peers to dispel …

Women mean business in Africa, and available data shows that they tend to execute business operations or manage, compared to their male counterparts, thus—supporting women business with credit, business skills, and conducive operating environment might be the break that Africa has been eyeing.

According to the World Bank Report (Profit from Parity, Unlocking the potential of women business in Africa-2019), there are three factors that are found to limit women potentials in the business sphere, which are social norms, legal discrimination and the risk of gender-based violence ( for instance, the report shows, 14 per cent of women entrepreneurs in Malawi have been subjected to physical or emotional violence from their male counterparts).

All three factors are also buried under various segments such as endowment, which carry: education/skills, confidence or risks, finance and assets, networks and information. Another segment, that is an underlying constraint is the household level environment, which …

IFC and IFHA-II Coöperatief U.A., a private equity fund focused on health care in Sub-Saharan Africa, have launched a $115 million holding company to acquire and integrate targeted health care service businesses in East and Southern Africa.

The project will boost access to quality health care services to help improve lives and achieve universal health coverage across the region.  IFC is investing $22 million in the Hospital Holdings Investment (HHI) holding company, an investment platform set up by IFHA-II, which is also supported by the European development finance organizations Swedfund, Proparco, Finnfund and IFU, Danish Investment Fund for Developing countries. HHI will be IFC’s largest equity investment in health care in Sub-Saharan Africa, outside of South Africa. IFC also mobilized $43.2 million from other investors.

“HHI is filling a critical gap in the health care sector by providing secondary and out-of-hospital care for middle to lower middle income patients in …

Lusaka as one of the fastest developing cities in southern Africa has acquired a rather vital sanitation fund to bring to life the $243 million Lusaka Sanitation Program (LSP), jointly funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the European Investment Bank, German Development Bank and the World Bank.

Read:Lusaka emerald auction generates US$18.6 million revenue

AfDB places Zambia’s economy growth (Real GDP) at an estimated at 4.0 per cent in 2018, compared to 4.1 per cent in 2017, whereas—the bank argues that, construction has also attributed to the growth, citing public infrastructure projects which increased at 10 per cent in 2018.

However, United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) poor sanitation results in a 1.3 per cent loss to Zambia’s national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually, which also contributed to Zambia’s high rate of child stunting (40 per cent), hence—research argues that, addressing the latter downplays the risk of stunting.…

The Tanzanian informal sector is one of the leading employers’ spheres and a rather pool for mushrooming local or indigenous knowledge and creativity, which eventually remains dormant, and not analyzed keenly.

Available data of the past shows how the informal sector bears merit to the convectional economy if utilized effectively. The International Labor Organization data points out that, non-agriculture jobs in the informal economy represent 66 per cent of all employment in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Further, about 74 per cent of women are within informal employment boundaries, compared to 61 of the males. Data published by Statista, show that agriculture sector—which has been attracting a multitude of the Tanzanian un-employed population, has been the leading employment sector since 2008, where it scored 73 per cent, today it stands at 66.35 per cent.

In August this year, Tanzanian’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and Ministry of Finance and Planning, did a …

Pending bills by county governments, lack of harmony in policies and the multiplicity of taxes are among the issues facing the private sector in the counties…