Category Archives: African News

African Business News

Retailers Can Drive Commerce Experiences Via Mobile Messaging, New Clickatell Research Shows

Clickatell (www.Clickatell.com), the Chat Commerce and business messaging leader, announced the results of its latest Chat Commerce Trends Report: Retail Edition, which reveals new findings about how today’s consumers prefer to communicate and make purchases with retail companies through mobile and chat messaging conversations. The report, which fielded responses from over 1,000 participants, found that 95% of […]

Spring Impact Launches Programme to Help Empower Women in Southern Africa

The Scale Accelerator: Women’s Empowerment Programme is now open for applications from local NGOs in Malawi, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe addressing issues related to women’s empowerment. This is a fully-funded scaling consultancy program that will provide support to selected organizations as they work to increase their impact. The Scale Accelerator: Women’s Empowerment Programme provides […]

The Africa-Europe Foundation launches its 2022 High-Level Group of Personalities’ annual report assessing the state of play of the commitments of the Africa-Europe partnership

October 28, 2022, Brussels – The Africa-Europe Foundation (AEF) has launched its annual in-depth assessment of the state of relations between our two neighbouring continents. The Report’s launch comes eight months after February’s long-awaited summit between the African Union and European Union leaders, closely followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine one week later.  The report has […]

Africa’s Untapped Export Potential Worth $31 Billion

United National Conference on Trade and Development says Africa’s untapped export of $31 billion[1] can be achieved if Africa implements partial tariff liberalisation under the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) Agreement over the next five years. Currently, trade between African countries comprises 61% of processed and semi-processed goods. Infrastructure and the harmonisation of logistics will make the […]

Challenges Of Access To Finance For MSMEs In Somalia

Access to finance for MSMEs in Somalia has become an issue since the state lacked an effective government to cater for the financial services. Therefore, the willingness to offer such exceptional services became paramount, leading to the emergence of private financial institutions in Somalia. A decade ago, a group of Somali businesspeople started financial institutions in Somalia to provide commercial financial services […]

World Trade Organization waives intellectual property rights to support vaccine production in Africa

By Virusha Subban, Partner and Head of Indirect Tax, Baker McKenzie Johannesburg The World Trade Organisation (WTO) announced in June an agreement to waive the intellectual property rights that usually apply in the manufacturing of vaccines, to assist the production of COVID-19 vaccines in developing countries. The measures were proposed to the WTO by the South African and […]

Kenya: Shared prosperity – the United States and Kenya sign Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership

By Virusha Subban, Partner specialising in Customs and Trade, Head of Tax, Baker McKenzie Johannesburg  The United States-Kenya Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership (STIP) was signed on 14 July 2022. The agreement outlines the enhanced engagement and high standard of commitment between the two countries, and focuses on increased investment and sustainable and inclusive growth that will […]

Smart minds look to smart solutions at Africa’s only dedicated Smart Cities Summit

Big industry players join forces to tackle urban decarbonization challenge   The world’s population is on a fast-track from rural to city living. With around 55% already residing in urban areas, this figure is expected to rise to 70% by mid-century. Cities may be the engines of growth and account for more than 80% of global […]

Public Private Collaboration is Key to a Sustainable Mining Sector in Africa

Leading event in Accra shines a spotlight on responsible change The town of Obuasi in the Ashanti region of Ghana, West Africa, has a long and rich mining history. In 1897, large scale commercial and industrial mining began at the Obuasi Gold Mine and continued for over a century until its closure in 2014 for […]

The road to recovery for Africa: The potential of DFIs to halt the spiraling unemployment rate

DFIs directly or indirectly support over 6 million African jobs in the private sector New report published today by the ONE Campaign and the African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET) reveals that the 10 largest global bilateral development finance institutions (DFIs) could substantially reduce Africa’s spiraling unemployment rate by 2025. The report titled Shifting and Accelerating DFI […]