East African Business Notifier

The Uganda Development Bank (UDB) is convening the inaugural Uganda Development Finance Summit. UDB is the country’s national Development Finance Institution (DFI). The highly anticipated Summit, scheduled for 1-2 September 2025 at the Speke Resort Convention Centre, Kampala, Uganda, will proceed under the theme,  "Transforming Africa through National Development Finance Architecture.” This flagship event will bring together over 400 high-level participants drawn from government, national financial institutions, the private sector, academia and global finance practitioners to address the need to explore new financing options and approaches to unlock Africa’s economic potential. Through inclusive dialogue and strategic collaboration, the event aims to accelerate sustainable growth, address urgent development priorities, and chart a bold and pragmatic, forward-looking path for African economies. This has become imperative, the conveners say, in the face of shrinking traditional fund...

  Africa’s lithium industry is gaining strong momentum in 2025, marked by new project launches, significant discoveries, increased capital inflows and progress in local value addition. In a major milestone for downstream development, Zimbabwe’s Verify Engineering announced in July the successful production of the country’s first locally manufactured lithium-ion battery. The development aligns with Zimbabwe’s national strategy to ban unprocessed lithium exports by 2027 – a move aimed at driving beneficiation, enhancing domestic industrial capacity and positioning the country as a competitive player in the global battery value chain. New Discoveries As the official platform for advancing Africa’s mining prospects, AMW 2025 will provide global stakeholders with key updates on the continent’s latest lithium discoveries and project developments. Among these, UK-based Aterian and global major Rio Tinto announced Rwanda’s first lithium find at the HCK Lithium Project in July 2025 – markin...

Absa and Visa have renewed their strategic partnership to accelerate the development of innovative, inclusive, secure, and digitally enabled financial payment ecosystems across Absa’s Regional Operations (ARO) which incorporates Absa’s presence outside South Africa.  The agreement, formalised at a signing ceremony in Johannesburg, marks a significant milestone in a relationship that has driven innovation and financial inclusion across the continent for many years. Anchored   in   a   shared   vision   to   transform   how   individuals   and   businesses   engage   with   financial  services, the renewed partnership will deepen collaboration across digital infrastructure expansion, small business enablement, and customer-centric innovation in the Cards and Payments domain. “This regional expansion marks an exciting new chapter in our partnership with Absa — one that continues to challenge conventions and redefine...

Howard Davies EDINBURGH – At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26), back in 2021, Mark Carney bestrode the financial world like a colossus. Now Canada’s prime minister, thanks in large part to US President Donald Trump’s call to make the country America’s 51st state, in 2021 he was the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. At COP26, Carney announced the creation of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), the parent of three precocious children, the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), and the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative. All that amounted to a whole lot of zeros, in the view of some sceptics, but Carney  assured  an expectant world that “It’s not blah blah blah,” and that net zero would form the “critical infrastructure of the new financial system.” So, how well has the Glasgow initiative aged? At which end of the critical infrastructure-blah blah blah spectrum do we find ourse...

Jozef Síkela BRUSSELS – “Poverty,” Aristotle famously observed, “is the parent of revolution and crime.” History has repeatedly proven the point: inequality often fuels political and social instability, giving rise to conflict and despair. Today, in the face of widening economic disparities and climate disruption, international cooperation on sustainable development is no longer just an expression of solidarity – it is a strategic imperative.  Yet just as development challenges grow increasingly urgent, the resources to confront them are steadily declining. In 2015, world leaders adopted the United Nations  Sustainable Development Goals  (SDGs), outlining a shared vision for a more equitable, low-carbon future. Since then, however, overlapping global crises – from the COVID-19 pandemic to rising geopolitical tensions and escalating climate change – have reversed much of the progress made over the past 25 years. The realities of our increasingly multipolar world call for a...

Jacinda Ardern, Carlos Lopes, Laurence Tubiana CAPE TOWN – In 2015, the landmark  Paris climate agreement  set the ambitious but necessary goal of limiting global warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and ensuring that the increase stays “well below” 2°C. With the average global surface temperature having  already reached  1.1°C (1.98°F) above the twentieth-century baseline, time is running out to reach this goal. Yet governments have so far failed to agree on a strategy for doing so. At last month’s 62nd session of the United Nations Climate Change Subsidiary Bodies (SB62) in Bonn – the mid-year negotiations intended to lay the groundwork for November’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém – countries got so  hung up  on the details of the agenda that little progress was made.  Such delays have long characterized the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, but they are at odds with scientific reality, which demands rapid and...

Jean Pisani-Ferry, Beatrice Weder di Mauro, Jeromin Zettelmeyer BRUSSELS/GENEVA/PARIS – Scientists have repeatedly warned us – with ever-growing intensity – that the planet is hurtling toward climate tipping points.  Despite numerous international pledges, the evidence suggests that limiting global warming to 1.5° Celsius is increasingly unlikely. If current trends persist, that threshold could be breached  as early as 2028 . At the same time, biodiversity loss is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, with dire consequences for vulnerable communities and humanity at large. A stable climate and healthy ecosystems are inextricably linked, implying the risk of cascading catastrophes. To be sure, there has been some progress on both fronts. The 2015 Paris agreement was the most ambitious and politically viable climate deal of its time.  Based on a “pledge and review” model, it set an ambitious yet attainable target and introduced mechanisms to ensure broad participation, whi...