East African Business Notifier

  Africa is repositioning itself in the global oil market – not merely as a supplier to international markets, but as a rising energy consumer and industrial growth hub. The newly released  OPEC World Oil Outlook 2025  underscores a continent in transition, leveraging its natural resources to meet domestic demand, expand refining capacity and strengthen regional energy security. These shifts signal a maturing energy profile, one that will be at the forefront of discussions during African Energy Week 2025 (AEW): Invest in African Energies, where policymakers, investors and industry leaders will shape the future of African energy on African terms. Crude Exports Plateau Before Gradual Decline OPEC projects that Africa’s total crude and condensate exports will remain stable at around 5.2 million barrels per day (bpd) through 2035, thanks to modest increases in production. However, this steady supply will increasingly be used at home. By 2050, exports are expected to decline t...

  SGA Security and ISUZU East Africa have signed a strategic partnership to improve operational efficiency, expand capacity, and enhance service delivery across the East African region.  Under the terms of this agreement, Isuzu East Africa will supply Isuzu NMR 85H (cab and chassis), which will be customized into Cash-in-Transit (CIT) and Courier vehicles to support SGA’s expanding need for secure and efficient transportation of valuables.   The partnership is scheduled to commence on 17th July 2025. The envisaged investments made by SGA Security related to the partnership is valued at approximately USD 3 million (Approximately UGX.10.7 billion) and will be executed in phases, starting in Uganda and Tanzania.   This collaboration is designed to improve SGA’s service efficiency, reduce fleet maintenance costs, and standardise operations using a high-performance vehicle platform. With ISUZU’s strong after-sales support and engineering expertise, SGA Security anticipate...

Michael Spence MILAN – There is little consensus around anything AI-related these days. But one expectation that does seem to have taken hold among a large share of businesses, investors, and analysts is that the technology will enhance productivity in a wide range of areas. But even if these gains materialize, will they be worth it? Many observers – including me – anticipate significant AI-enabled productivity gains. For starters, initial evidence from a growing collection of use-case studies indicates as much.  Moreover, given the rapid expansion of AI functionality, the declining costs of training and using AI models, and the embrace of open-source tools and systems, it seems likely that AI can be applied in meaningful ways in virtually every sector and job category. Of course, effective implementation of AI is not a foregone conclusion, nor will it happen overnight, owing to issues of access, diffusion, and learning curves. But even if these barriers are overcome, it is far fro...

In Nairobi on June 27, 2025, Stanbic Bank and the German development agency GIZ entered a new regional partnership “Promoting Green Businesses and Jobs for the Green Transformation project in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda,” aimed at supporting women's economic development and advancing environmental sustainability. This collaboration is set to strengthen green innovation across East Africa by supporting women-led enterprises that are creating business solutions with a positive environmental impact. The partnership builds on the efforts of the Women Entrepreneurs for the Green Transformation in Africa (WE4D) programme, which supports women-led green businesses committed to sustainable development. This initiative will foster the growth of green/greening women-led micro and small enterprises in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda through the provision of business training, business coaching and access to finance for the participating enterprises that enable them to drive meaningful change in the...

Chukwumerije Okereke, Nnimmo Bassey BRISTOL/BENIN CITY – Africa is suffering some of the worst consequences of a climate crisis that it did not create. As rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, droughts, and floods devastate communities and ecosystems across the continent, those in the West who are most responsible for global warming are  cooking up plans  to test speculative climate fixes in African countries.  This gamble with the future of the continent – and the planet – is a grave act of climate injustice and an affront to African leaders, many of whom have publicly   expressed their concerns  about the promotion and normalization of such technologies. Perhaps most unsettling is the growing effort to   study and implement  solar geoengineering (also called solar radiation modification, or SRM), a set of high-risk technologies that seek to reflect sunlight back into space to cool the planet.  This strategy does not address the underlying cause...

The Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU) has called on local suppliers to embrace joint ventures as a strategic approach to increase their competitiveness in Uganda’s fast-growing oil and gas sector.  Speaking during a supplier development workshop organised by COSL Uganda SMC Limited—a Tier One contractor for both TotalEnergies and CNOOC Uganda, in Hoima, Ms. Vivienne Nabbosa, PAU’s National Content Officer in charge of Contracts, told over 60 participating Ugandan entities that limited financial and technical capacity continues to hinder local firms from securing contracts in the highly competitive bidding processes. “Where local suppliers lack either technical or financial capacity, Regulation 9(2) of the Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) (National Content) Regulations, 2016 encourages them to form joint ventures in order to effectively participate in the sector.  "These may include joint ventures with other Ugandan suppliers who possess the required capaci...

  BY PAUL TENTENA Makerere University Senior Lecturer Professor Moses Musinguzi, the Dean of Students College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT) has urged young graduates to always focus on career, skills enhancement and development rather than money. He said emphasis on money is killing young professionals and hence injuring their career development. “Your focus is always on how much you will be paid or earning in the world of work yet you don’t have the skills which can help you to earn what you want. Putting too much emphasis on money is killing your progress,” said Musinguzi at Makerere University during the Second Edition of the Huawei Campus Recruitment 2025 seminar that was conducted under the theme, ‘The sky is the limit.’ Musinguzi advised students to consider internships, collaborative research and career development while focusing on professionalism and having a proper, and positive attitude towards work. “Short term gains cannot help your caree...