has Archives - Page 18 of 18 - AfricaBusiness.com

5Jul

By AfricaBusiness.comNo Comments

African News

IBM Supports Accelerated Adoption of Technology in Tanzania

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, July, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today (July 4) signed a collaboration agreement with the Tanzanian Ministry of Communication, Science and Technology to help accelerate the adoption of technology as part of Tanzania's ongoing development and strategy to increase its competitiveness in East Africa. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO ) IBM will work with the Tanzanian Government to help achieve its vision of becoming a hub for trade in the wider East Africa region and to enhance sustainable economic development as outlined in the Tanzania National ICT Policy. "This agreement supports the goals of the National ICT Commission to use innovative technologies and approaches to transform our infrastructures, build national data...

4Jul

By AfricaBusiness.comNo Comments

African News, Angola News

Video: Footage shows African ‘ghost town’

A giant new Chinese-built city has sprung up on the outskirts of Angola's capital Luanda. Nova Cidade de Kilamba is a brand-new mixed residential development of 750 eight-storey apartment buildings, a dozen schools and more than 100 retail units. Designed to house up to half a million people when complete, Kilamba has been built by the state-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) in under three years at a reported cost of $3.5bn (£2.2bn). But on a recent trip back to Luanda, the BBC's former Angola correspondent Louise Redvers discovered that most of the buildings currently lie empty, as this footage she recorded shows. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18680217

4Jul

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Energy, Green Energy, South Africa News

Energy Trends in Africa: Will Africa be the Global Green Energy Leader?

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, July 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- With the latest supply of power grids, power generation efficiency and movement toward energy-efficient buildings, Africa is at the brink of a green energy revolution – or is it really? The Frost & Sullivan Energy and Power Systems business unit will be hosting a complimentary web conference that will be contextualising the direction and scale of energy investment in Africa. The web conference will take place on 10 July 2012, at 15:00 CAT (14:00 BST). Various countries have introduced feed-in tariffs and, in addition, the need for supplementary power in remote locations is on the increase. At the same time, the costs of RE technologies have been decreasing, becoming ever more competitive. Many companies are bracing themselves for gr...

4Jul

By AfricaBusiness.comNo Comments

African News, Ghana News, Kenya News, South Africa News, Zimbabwe News

Africa provides vast potential for micro-insurance

Micro-insurance coverage has expanded dramatically globally from the 78 million low-income people identified in 2007 to the current estimates suggesting the sector is approaching 500 million lives covered today. This growth has been largely driven by both the active involvement of governments to better help citizens protect themselves against risks and the availability of payment systems, which has made it easier to collect premiums from low-income households and enabled a host of new players to get involved in micro-insurance. However, despite global growth in micro-insurance and its increasing prominence on the international agenda, micro-insurance on the African continent continues to lag behind, with only 25 million low-income people covered. Africa nevertheless provides vast potenti...

1Jul

By AfricaBusiness.comNo Comments

African News

Can Africa Industrialise?

by John Page Abstract Africa needs structural change to sustain growth. Industry with and without smoke stacks is key, but Africa has deindustrialised since the 1970s. Can Africa industrialise? Rising costs and domestic demand in Asia offer an opportunity. However, trade in tasks, firm capabilities and agglomeration will drive industrial location choices. Strategies to deal with these drivers of change are needed. Investment climate reforms should focus less on regulation and more on the gaps in infrastructure and skills. Policies to push exports, build firm capabilities and support agglomerations are also needed. Success will depend crucially on new donor attitudes and how policy is implemented. Please read here: http://jae.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/suppl_2/ii86.short

27Jun

By AfricaBusiness.comNo Comments

African News

Only 0.27% of the world’s top 1 million sites are hosted in Africa

Africa, with its over 1 billion people, has reached a 13.5% Internet penetration rate, and there are plenty of big websites about the continent. But where are those sites hosted? It would be safe to assume that there are big sites about Africa hosted outside the continent, but what would be the top 100 sites actually hosted in Africa? That’s the question we set out to answer in our latest study. Read on to find out what we discovered. 34 countries in Africa host sites in top 1 M When it comes to webhosting, arguably the US is the go-to place. The different reasons for selecting a particular hosting provider are many, including price, functionality, reliability, and, of course, geographic location. For example, it might be awkward for a local city council somewhere to host its website outs...

11Jun

By The African Press OrganizationNo Comments

Energy, Green Energy

IFC and Norway’s Scatec Solar to Develop Solar Power in West and Central Africa

WASHINGTON, June 11, 2012/African Press Organization (APO)/ — IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and Scatec Solar, a Norwegian company specializing in photovoltaic solar systems, have signed an agreement to develop solar power projects that will supply renewable energy to address electricity needs in parts of West and Central Africa. IFC InfraVentures, the Global Infrastructure Project Development Fund, and Scatec Solar will develop, design, finance, construct and operate solar photovoltaic plants generating at least 10 megawatts of power. They plan to build a portfolio of projects in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Niger, and Togo. This is the first time a multilateral financial institution is partnering with a private company to develop solar power energy in Sub-Saharan Africa. The ag...