East African Business Notifier

Of recent, more than  280 Nigerian students  have been kidnapped from their schools like in Kuriga, a town in the northern state of Kaduna – the  second mass abduction  of young Nigerians in the span of a week.  The international community must urgently act to secure the release of these children, some of whom are as young as eight years old. But equally important is creating safer schools for students throughout Nigeria’s 36 states, so that all children can pursue an education without fear of abduction or violence. The kidnapping in Kuriga was even larger than Boko Haram’s infamous raid on a girls’ secondary school in Chibok, a town in northeastern Borno State, in 2014. The Islamic militants kidnapped 276 girls; a decade later,  nearly 100  of them are still missing.  Armed groups have targeted many schools in the intervening years, although not on the scale seen in the Kuriga attack, which took place only days after militants seized dozens of displaced people, reportedly including ma

On March 8, the United Nations Security Council   passed a resolution   calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Sudan during the holy month of Ramadan.  It also urged all parties to the conflict to ensure the rapid and safe delivery of humanitarian assistance and to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law, including to protect civilians. The violent conflict, which erupted last April following a  standoff  between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary group, has since  engulfed  more than half the country.  Nearly a year later, the Security Council’s push for a ceasefire and the free flow of aid is an essential step forward, following increasingly  urgent   calls  for an immediate halt to the fighting from the African Union and UN Secretary-General  António Guterres . Now, policymakers must translate words into action. The situation in Sudan is catastrophic. Half the population –  25 million people  – ar

In the wake of the announcement of the Final Investment Decision  (FID)  in February 2022, the Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU) has sanctioned contracts valued at approximately USD 7.16 billion. Of this sum, nearly USD 1.8 billion (equivalent to UGX 7 trillion) worth of contracts ha s  been allocated to Ugandan companies. These contracts are currently in at various stages of execution. Ms. Gloria Sebikari, the Manager of Corporate Affairs at PAU, anticipates a surge in contract numbers once construction begins on the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). She stated, “Most of the contracts awarded thus far are in the upstream sector, but we expect an increase in both the number and value of contracts for Ugandan firms once EACOP enters full scale construction ." To maximi s e the benefits from ongoing oil and gas activities, the PAU is updating its National Suppliers Database (NSD), urging entities and individuals interested in supplying  goods and services to  the sector to

Ecobank, the pan-African financial services group, announces the appointment of key senior executives to strengthen the Group’s leadership team and to drive delivery of its new Growth, Transformation and Returns (GTR) strategy.  Abena Osei-Poku joins as Regional Executive Anglophone West Africa and Managing Director Ecobank Ghana; Martin Miruka as Group Executive for Transformation, Enablement and Customer Experience; Anup Suri as Group Executive, Commercial and Consumer Banking; Michael Larbie as Group Executive, Corporate and Investment Banking; and Thierry Mbimi as Group Executive, Internal Audit & Management Services. These top-level appointments are strategically important as Ecobank enters its next phase of growth and transformation, aiming to become the bank of choice and a leader in delivering responsive, innovative and affordable financial services’ products and solutions for Africa.  Ecobank Group has decided to combine the commercial and the consumer businesses, under th

  The race is on to realise the most fundamental of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – ensuring that everyone has access to water, sanitation and hygiene services – by the 2030 deadline, says ForAfrika disaster response director Charles Wentzel. There are six years to go, and ForAfrika, the largest African humanitarian development organisation, is doing its best to bring water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to as many people as it can in the countries in which it works: Angola, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan and Uganda.  The SDGs are a set of 17 global objectives established by the United Nations to address social, economic and environmental challenges and promote sustainable development worldwide by 2030. “Everywhere we work, we collaborate with other development organisations so that resources are effectively allocated, and there is no doubling up. Most important of all, however, is that we work with communities

The African Export – Import Bank (Afreximbank) has officially unveiled its Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA) office in Kigali, Rwanda. FEDA was established to tackle Africa’s US$110 billion financing gap for intra-African trade, value-added export development, and industrialisation value chains, with Rwanda being the first among fifteen African nations to ratify its establishment agreement. The event was graced by Dr. Edouard Ngirente, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Rwanda who was accompanied by the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank, Prof. Benedict Oramah, Executive Vice Presidents of Afreximbank, members of the Board of Directors of FEDA and Marlene Ngoyi, Chief Executive Officer of FEDA. Speaking at the inauguration, the Prime Minister said: “The establishment of FEDA in Rwanda reflects our commitment to not only fostering economic development within our borders but also to playing a pivotal role in the economic transformation of our co

While the technical details of international agreements may seem arcane or even trivial, they often commit governments to policies that have major economic consequences.  This is especially true for low- and middle-income countries, which have long been on the receiving end of unfair treaties. International tax agreements are a case in point. Bilateral tax treaties are rife with inequalities. They tend to be  more advantageous  for the home countries of multinational companies (MNCs), diverting much-needed resources from developing to developed countries. Multilateral agreements are not much better. The OECD’s  Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) , for example, was supposed to ensure that MNCs could be taxed in countries where they operate (as opposed to shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions).  After nearly eight years of tedious negotiations, however, the process has yielded only modest results: a global minimum corporate tax rate of  15% , well below th

Boeing’s mounting crises are beginning to resemble an aviation thriller cooked up in Hollywood.  In addition to a piece of fuselage   falling off   midair during a recent commercial passenger flight, there was the nail-biting discovery of   mis-drilled holes   in undelivered planes, and revelations that an inspector had   found   an “excessive amount of defects” in a supplier’s operations. If those problems weren’t bad enough, in late February the Federal Aviation Administration delivered a scathing  review  of Boeing’s corporate culture and called on the company to implement more than 50 safety-related changes. Boeing was given  90 days  to devise a plan to overcome its deep-seated quality-control issues. Boeing has acknowledged responsibility, committed to slow down its breakneck manufacturing pace, and promised to do better. Its CEO, Dave Calhoun, has  met with US senators ;  Boeing factories have held day-long “ stand down ” events to halt production and focus on quality control; a