covid-19 Archives - AfricaBusiness.com

2Nov

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Africa Travel, Mauritius News, South Africa News

Strong recovery and acceleration for global hospitality brand, Club Med

While still affected by the Covid-19 crisis, trends in business volume for pioneers of all-inclusive holidays, Club Med, has evolved differently in various geographical areas. In the 1st half of 2022 (H1 22) Club Med saw its business volume increase by more than 300% compared to the 1st half of 2021 (H1 21) when ski resorts were closed in France, and international travel was largely restricted. In total, Club Med recorded a turnover of €811 million in H1 22, only 10% lower than in H1 19. In Europe and the Americas (North and South), the 5th wave of Covid-19 impacted activity until February. From March, Club Med experienced a very strong rebound taking advantage of the "Revenge Travel" phenomenon: Europe returned to the level of H1 19 (-1%), despite concerns stemming from the wa...

21Oct

By Angelo TzarevskiNo Comments

Main

Increasing competition policy enforcement across Africa

By Angelo Tzarevski, Associate Director, and Zareenah Rasool, Candidate Attorney, Competition & Antitrust Practice, Baker McKenzie Johannesburg Competition policy continues to be viewed by regulators as a key driver of economic growth globally. Across Africa, competition policy enforcement is increasingly being employed as a tool to boost economic performance and promote the revitalization of trade and industry following the devastating impact of COVID-19. The effects of the pandemic have led to negative economic growth in a number of African jurisdictions, and have given rise to opportunistic, anticompetitive behaviours such as unreasonable price increases and price gouging, coordination amongst competitors, and other unsavoury business practices that erode competition. Over the pas...

17Sep

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Medicine, South Africa News

Vaccine production in Africa key to pandemic-proofing the Continent

The unprecedented speed of development of the Covid-19 vaccines can be attributed to multiple factors including record levels of international collaboration and swift action on the part of many governments and regulatory bodies to provide a conducive framework. As every nation across the globe faced impending economic doom, massive cross-sector funding materialised, allowing large-scale phased trials to be performed in parallel (multiple phases run simultaneously). The accumulation of knowledge from decades of study on related viruses, including research which started after the SARS outbreaks of 2002 -2004, and the advent of mRNA-based vaccine technology further assisted in ensuring a swift response to halting the spread of the deadly virus. The potential for factors that ena...

4Sep

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Main

Connecting in a time of Covid: Redefining the human experience

Three YPO leaders share their learnings from a time of no-contact - and what other organisations need to know about retaining human connection It can be argued that the success of any organisation is based on the strength of its connection to its stakeholders, and the extent to which it can sustain that connection. Yet even before the Covid-19 pandemic, consumers were becoming increasingly jaded, with research from PwC revealing that almost 60% of global respondents felt that organisations had lost touch with the human element in its relationships with its customers. And while the digital transformation, accelerated by Covid, has brought with it many benefits in the form of increasing access to a multitude of services - from education (e-learning) to healthcare (telemedicine) - the fli...

9Aug

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

African News, Main

Will the office make a comeback post-Covid-19?

JLL Survey results from Tétris glimpse into the future of the workplace The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns worldwide have challenged conventional ideas on how we work and what a workplace should look like. Will the traditional 9-5 workday and five-day work week at the office come to an end as new, more flexible work patterns emerge? International research conducted by JLL and released by Tétris Design & Build (owned by JLL, a Fortune 500 company) titled Worker Preferences Barometer reveals that this may be the case, although offices will still play a leading role in the way we do business. The study, which surveyed 3,300 office workers across ten countries, showed that 79 percent of the workforce aspire to be back in the office at least once a week, up from 74 percent ...

18Jun

By Dr. Ehud GachuguNo Comments

Kenya News, Main

Growth in changing times, not really the utopia for thousands of youth

The new world order is in existence. A lot of young people are held back from greatness by limitations and ceilings that they have set for themselves. Thus, they are constrained from reaching their full potential. They believe that there is no space for being value-driven leaders and entrepreneurs in the modern world. Accordingly, they rely on shortcuts to make them ‘successful leaders’ and ‘rich entrepreneurs’ in the shortest time possible. For them, “the end justifies the means”. Failure to recognize the need for personal growth and development in the changing times could be the leading cause of their frustrations. The Covid-19 pandemic hasn’t made it easier either. Various changes have occurred over the last years, and technology has been critical to these changes. The changing times i...

31May

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Kenya News, Main, Nigeria News, Republic of Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

Women Can Add $14.57 Billion to E-Commerce in Africa: IFC Research

Africa’s e-commerce market could grow by more than $14.5 billion between 2025-2030 according to an IFC report published today. The report finds this can be achieved by increasing the number of women selling on online platforms and by providing them with better training and financial support to help them match sales made by men. The report, Women and e-commerce in Africa, found that COVID-19 has accelerated the growth of e-commerce and digital entrepreneurship in Africa and that more women have embraced digital business. However, it also noted that more can be done to promote women’s entrepreneurship and help women overcome e-commerce challenges. For example, e-commerce marketplace platforms are well-positioned to target women-owned businesses with training, and to encourage women’s partici...

14May

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Medicine

AHF: Ten Ways WHO Catastrophically Failed the World

With the upcoming World Health Assembly at the end of May, and indications that the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general plans to seek a second term in office, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the world’s largest provider of HIV/AIDS care globally, calls on the United Nations Member States to consider and address the many ways in which the WHO did not measure up to the task of protecting the world from COVID-19. “It is now fourteen months since the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, and the world was thrown into chaos. Vaccinations are ramping up, but much too slowly in many parts of the world – and countries like India are on ‘fire’,” said AHF President Michael Weinstein. “Coordinated international efforts to control COVID-19 have been virtually non-existent, raising the quest...

How the global pandemic impacts us and our future: Be prepared

10May

By Conrad KullmanNo Comments

Main, Medicine

How the global pandemic impacts us and our future: Be prepared

by Conrad Kullman, MD at FAR UVC AFRICA Cue post-pandemic where business is back on its feet, we’re meeting new people and shaking hands with the regulars once again. Rewind to a year ago and It felt like a distant dream. People have spent the last year trying to understand what the novel COVID virus is and what will happen today and in the future. However, one year later and after much concern for the COVID vaccines that are currently underway, we’ve still got some way to go. As human beings, we usually only know how to solve a problem once it’s hit us without warning. This is the opportunity that we have to take in order to be prepared for the next big thing. Big Impact We’re all in agreement that we’re dealing with something bigger than we’ve anticipated. Looking back at the time when T...

6Mar

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Business, South Africa News

Resilience – the antidote to a recurring crisis

The Covid-19 pandemic has provided the ideal opportunity for leaders to step up and move people forward to a preferred future despite global crises. However, according to the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer, trust levels are hovering at all-time lows, with only the business community regarded as both ethical and competent. Consequently, whether they like it or not, employers are now regarded as the mainstay of trust. This is a huge responsibility because leaders themselves are struggling with working between children requiring homeschooling, navigating almost paper-thin or non-existent boundaries between work and home, and still having to deliver on the bottom line. Working virtually does not necessarily lend itself to trust-building the way we are naturally wired to in terms of social dyna...