Saturday, November 23African Digital Business Magazine

Tag: IT

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...
African News

Evaluating enterprise policy interventions in Africa: a critical review of Ghanaian small business support services

Obeng, Bernard and Blundel, Richard (2012). Evaluating enterprise policy interventions in Africa: a critical review of Ghanaian small business support services. Journal of Small Business Management (in press). Abstract Enterprise policies play a central role in economic development across Africa, but more effective, evidence-based policy evaluation is required to inform future interventions. The paper aims to: (i) contribute to filling this gap; (ii) develop more rigorous and appropriate evaluation methodologies. It examines the issues through an empirical study into non-use of small business support services in Ghana. Survey evidence from 253 owner-managers was complemented by interviews with owner-managers and service providers. It concludes that policy evaluation in Sub-Saharan Africa...
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...
African News, Malawi News

African Short-term Insurance Industry Trends

  The Africa Insurance & Reinsurance Conference Presentations   African Short-term Insurance Industry Trends   by Brian Kapito, Projects Manager, NICO Holdings Limited Malawi Please download Presentation - Brian Kapito.pdf   AIRC 2012 again proved that it is the event of choice for regional insurance players as more that 70 delegates attended the first day. The conference continues tomorrow. Sessions like Bancassurance, Insurance Investment , Reinsurance and Technology in the insurance sector among others will be covered tomorrow 27th of June.
African News

The Africa Insurance & Reinsurance Conference Presentations: Fighting Insurance Fraud In Africa & What insurers can do to avoid leaving money on the table Subrogation and dispute resolution (Acrobat Reader)

The 2nd Annual Africa Insurance & Reinsurance Conference kick started today with a compelling opening speech on Charting new structures to ensure a stable and thriving regional insurance market by Ibrahim Kaddunabbi Lubega, The CEO, Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda.  Photo number from left to right the moderator - Sam Ncheeri, MD, Eagle Africa Insurance Brokers and by Ibrahim Kaddunabbi Lubega, The CEO, Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda. Photo number Brian Kapito, Projects Manager, NICO Holdings Limited Malawi, David Ronoh, Managing Director, CIC Life Assurance. The two gave insights into the regional insurance market . AIRC 2012 again proved that it is the event of choice for regional insurance players as more that 70 delegates attended the first day. The conf...
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...
Tanzania News, Zambia News

Africa Loses Billions in Potential Trade Earnings, Falls Short of Vast Promise in Cross-Border Business―New World Bank Report

Washington, February 7, 2012 – With African leaders now calling for a continental free trade area by 2017 to boost trade within the continent, a new World Bank report shows how African countries are losing out on billions of dollars in potential trade earnings every year because of high trade barriers with neighboring countries, and that it is easier for Africa to trade with the rest of the world than with itself. According to the new report―De-Fragmenting Africa: Deepening Regional Trade Integration in Goods and Services―regional fragmentation could become even more costly for the continent with new World Bank forecasts suggesting that economic slowdown in the Eurozone could shave Africa’s growth by up to 1.3 percentage points this year. As the authors write, “while uncertainty surrounds ...