East African Business Notifier

The King Baudouin Foundation has awarded the 2023-2024 Africa Prize to Her Initiative, in recognition of its work to unlock women’s economic potential, tackle the youth unemployment crisis and accelerate economic and social development in sub-Saharan Africa.   Tanzania has made significant progress on women’s empowerment and women’s rights. Yet, 60% of women still live in poverty and many don’t have access to the resources they need to shape their future and participate in economic development [1] .  As a youth-first and women-led organisation, Her Initiative offers a range of innovative and holistic programmes which equip young women with the education, skills and resources needed to enter the job market or run their own businesses.  Notably, Her Initiative aims to remove persisting barriers by leveraging the power of technology to advance digital inclusion among young women and girls. Its Panda Digital platform uses SMS technology to deliver learning courses in Swahili ...

The Africa Continent Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) secretariat has started National Consultation Forums to seek input from countries that ratified the AfCFTA treaty. Together with the  Ethiopian Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration (MoTRI) in collaboration with the Policy Studies Institute (PSI) and with the support from the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) through its African Trade Policy Center (ATPC), the AfCFTA will work together towards shaping the future of trade and regional integration. The AfCFTA, adopted in 2018, represents a historic effort to unite 55 African Union member states with a combined GDP of nearly $3 trillion. This Agreement establishes a legal framework for comprehensive economic integration, aimed at creating a unified African market that fosters the free movement of goods and services, and investment facilitation ultimately strengthening Africa's trading capacity on a global scale at the time of digital age. In 2019, Ethiopia ratified the AfCFTA, demo...

The United States Government through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) joined Roke Telkom for the official launch of a new telecommunications site in Yumbe, Uganda.  This new fixed wireless infrastructure by Roke is part of a larger partnership with USAID’s Digital Invest program. USAID is supporting Roke, a fully Ugandan-owned-and-operated internet service provider (ISP), to expand fixed broadband infrastructure at 12 sites in underserved districts across the country.  The partnership aims to support Uganda’s digital ecosystem by decreasing the costs of colocation and wholesale services for ISPs nationwide, leading to more affordable internet services for individuals and businesses. As a result of the new infrastructure, Roke will also expand their RokeSpot solution, which provides low-cost Wifi service via hotspots in Uganda.  It will also further expand its partnership with Hello World to provide connectivity to the nonprofit’s digital hubs, which o...

According to  research  released by Oxfam in 2023, seven people across Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan will die of hunger-related causes in the time it takes the average reader to complete this article.  It is imperative that all stakeholders in the food and agriculture sectors recognise that there can no longer be a “business as usual” approach. Something has to change, and quickly. SOS Sahel’s Africa Days Forum taking place on 27th and 28th June 2024 in Senegal will this year be focused on “Lost Crops, New Opportunities: Securing our Future with the Crops of the Past” and is expected to be a key forum for introducing new ideas to tackle this challenge.   Although Africa’s population has doubled in the last 30 years, food production has not kept pace with yields often below the global average. Africa has 65% of the world’s arable uncultivated land, varied agricultural environments and rich plant life that make it possible to develop sustainable food sy...

It has been a difficult few weeks for those of us committed to achieving a greener, more progressive Europe. In the European Parliament   election , far-right parties won some 20% of the vote and secured nearly one-fifth of all seats.  In my own country, France, National Rally finished in first place, and may soon be able to form a far-right government, should it manage to repeat the performance in the upcoming snap election. While far-right parties’ positions on immigration and cost-of-living issues account for most of their gains, many also are openly hostile to climate policies. Yet fatalism would be the worst possible response.  The election results were not a repudiation of ambitious green policies, and it would be a historic mistake for our leaders to interpret them that way. Opinion polls consistently show that Europeans support stronger action on climate change, with a  vast majority  (77%) regarding it as a very serious problem. Contrary to some headlin...

Information and insights company TransUnion has published its latest   Consumer Pulse Study   which shows that Kenyan households experienced a modest financial rebound in the second quarter of 2024, largely driven by new business ventures, enhanced debt management, and less impact from job losses. According to the study, 34% of consumers saw an increase in income in the last three months, led by gains among the Gen Z (18–26 years old) and Millennial (27–42 years old) groups.  While a similar number (36%) of consumers also reported a decrease in income over the last three months, optimism about future income is high with 85% of consumers expecting an increase over the next 12 months. This positive outlook is particularly prevalent among younger generations. Consumers’ ability to pay their bills in full increased significantly, with 64% saying that they would be able to do so in Q2 2024, while those unable to pay decreased by six percentage points to 36% compared to the sam...

The National Musuems of Kenya (NMK) and CityBlue Hotels (CityBlue) have announced a new partnership to co-promote tourism and culture in Kenya. This alliance marks an exciting opportunity for sponsorship, co-branding, co-marketing and other forms of collaboration.   NMK was established by an Act of Parliament, the Museums and Heritage Act 2006, as a multi-disciplinary institution whose role is to collect, preserve, study, document and present Kenya’s past and present cultural and natural heritage.  This is for the purposes of enhancing knowledge, appreciation, respect and sustainable utilization of these resources for the benefit of Kenya and the world, for now and posterity. CityBlue Hotels, Africa’s fastest-growing local hotel chain, operates in Kenya (Mombasa, Nairobi and Lamu with new properties opening soon), Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Ghana. CityBlue also has a collaboration arrangement with more than twenty hotels in South Africa and Mozambique.   Pr...

African Export-Import Bank and the Africa Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) have renewed their partnership with a new cooperation agreement announced today on the sidelines of the Global Forum for Vaccine Sovereignty and Innovation in Paris, France. Through this collaboration, Afreximbank has committed a US$ 2 billion facility to the  “Africa Health Security Investment Plan ” to support the health product manufacturing ambition of the continent. This initiative will focus on the African Pooled Procurement Mechanism (APPM) and the Platform for Harmonized African Health Products Manufacturing (PHAHM). This initiative is pivotal in addressing Africa's health investment challenges, promoting economic development, and strengthening health security across the continent. It also intends to complement GAVI's innovative financing mechanism, the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA)   which is set to provide up to USD 2 billion financing to African...

  Roke Telkom, has  hosted students from the Jesuit Refugee Service for an enriching visit to its Network Operations Center (NOC). This initiative aimed to provide the students with a unique insight into the world of telecommunications and inspire future career aspirations in technology. The students were given a guided tour of the NOC, with highlights including stops at the monitoring stations (NOC), server rooms (Data Center), and the incident response area (Call Center). This hands-on experience allowed the students to see firsthand how a modern telecommunications facility operates. "Our goal today is to demonstrate real-time network monitoring," said Nobert Alinda, Client Support Manager at Roke Telkom. "Students were shown how Roke Telkom tracks network performance, detects anomalies, and manages incidents using advanced tools and technologies. The interactive nature of the demonstrations kept the students engaged and curious.” Throughout the visit, students were en...

T he United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Development Bank (AfDB), is convening an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) in Douala, Cameroon, to review the eleventh draft edition of the flagship report on Assessing Regional Integration in Africa (ARIA-11) under the theme "Delivering on the African Economic Community: Towards a Continental Customs Union and Common Market". Since the late 1950s, regional integration has been a cornerstone of Africa's development, aimed at overcoming the fragmented markets inherited from the colonial era.  The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), adopted in 2018 as part of Agenda 2063, is a key initiative to accelerate Africa's economic integration. While the AfCFTA represents a significant departure from the roadmap outlined in the Abuja Treaty, it facilitates the realisation of its core objectives, including the establishment of a continental customs...

In February 2023, a market trader in Accra, Ghana, died from severe bleeding in a local hospital. Shortly after, her healthcare provider fell ill.  Public health officials quickly identified the cause: Lassa fever, a deadly and contagious disease spread by rats. The Ghana Health Service responded promptly, finding over two hundred people who came in contact with the trader, while also educating the public on the disease's symptoms.  Within weeks, their decisive actions identified 27 additional cases and successfully contained the outbreak, preventing its spread to neighboring countries and averting further fatalities. This is just one example of how public health specialists around the world are stopping disease outbreaks in their tracks, before they have a chance to make headlines.  Today, Resolve to Save Lives is releasing its “ Epidemics that Didn’t Happen” report , celebrating six successful outbreak responses in 2023 and demonstrating the transformative impact of sus...

Telco operators throughout Africa continue to face several challenges around SIM card registration in the wake of new regulations and shifting consumer habits. In 2022, millions of Nigerian mobile subscribers were  barred from making calls  following a government directive to disconnect their SIM cards. Telco operators were instructed to disconnect the subscribers after they failed to register and link their SIM cards to the country's new National Identity Number, a compulsory digital ID that includes biometric data. In Cameroon, a  backlog in the issuing of ID cards  has led to several issues, with telcos experiencing challenges with SIM card registration as many of their users wait for the government to provide the IDs needed for registration. Regulatory scrutiny intensifies   While telco operators are trying to grow their subscriber base, the new regulations puts their businesses at risk of fines and other sanctions. While some countries have resorted to issu...