Friday, November 22African Digital Business Magazine

Tag: Kenya

How Local Tribes Can Benefit from Tourism
Africa Travel

How Local Tribes Can Benefit from Tourism

A visit to the tribal people and indigenous communities in Africa has seen a significant rise in itinerary inclusions over the years. Rightly so! Not only will you enjoy a nice variety to your time with mother nature, but also benefit from an educational experience that helps break down barriers, overcome stereotypes, and create an environment for mind-blowing perspective building. The tribes themselves can benefit from the economic boost that tourists provide. Today this type of visit is referred to as tribal tourism. There’s a myriad of reasons to be interested in this kind of tourism. Many travelers view it as a unique educational opportunity, a practical way to learn more about the world and its ancient traditions. For some, being around indigenous cultures ensures a more memorable, au...
Main, South Africa News

Seven Things to Consider When Transacting in Africa

By Morne van der Merwe, Managing Partner, and Wildu du Plessis, Head of Africa at global law firm Baker McKenzie in Johannesburg  Ahead of the Baker McKenzie African Transactional Summit taking place in Johannesburg in May 2019, Baker McKenzie lawyers based in Africa, alongside the Firm’s global Africa specialists, as well as lawyers from our African Relationship Firms from across the continent, share their knowledge about what investors should consider when transacting in Africa. Accept the uncertainty and gather knowledge Investors in Africa must consider geo-political and economic uncertainty on the continent as well as a plethora of country and region-specific governance, compliance and regulatory challenges when investing in the region. They must also contend with a critical lac...
Smart housing prototype shows promise in rapidly urbanizing Africa
Real Estate

Smart housing prototype shows promise in rapidly urbanizing Africa

Africa is urbanizing fast, as its population grows and many flocks to cities in search of jobs, education and healthcare. Studies show that hundreds of millions more Africans will live in cities over the next three decades. Many of these new urban Africans, however, are likely to end up in informal settlements. Already an estimated 200 million Africans live in informal settlements—often without access to energy and sanitation. The growing class of urban poor need access to decent housing. But the challenge is that the global housing sector already emits almost a third of global greenhouse gas emissions and uses up to 40 per cent of the planet’s total resources. New approaches are clearly needed. As the housing sector grows—and it must grow if we want an equitable world—we need to reduce ...
A Future Option for African Fast Intercity Coastal Transportation
Kenya News, Main, Tanzania News

A Future Option for African Fast Intercity Coastal Transportation

The recent redevelopment and upgrading of Kenya’s Mombasa – Nairobi railway line has revealed a market for faster, affordable intercity passenger transportation services between African cities. Following the recent tragedy of Ethiopian Airlines, the African passenger transportation market might be ready to consider an alternative technology capable of providing affordable, fast travel between several pairs of African coastal cities. Introduction: A transportation technology that is currently being developed in locations such as South Korea, West Germany and Singapore offers the promise of competitively-priced, fast passenger travel between such pairs of African cities such as Mombasa – Dar es Salaam, Lobito – Luanda, Maputo – Beira and Lüderitz – Walvis Bay. Unlike fast trains and airline ...
Friday@Noon on Manufacturing in Africa: 2018
Business, Ethiopia News, Kenya News, Main, Rwanda News, South Africa News, Uganda News

Friday@Noon on Manufacturing in Africa: 2018

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. Manufacturing in Africa Manufacturing and industrialisation are the current buzzwords for transforming Africa’s economies. In order to reduce any dependence on the extraction and sale of raw commodities, it does make sense to diversify Africa’s economies. African economies do seem to struggle with growing and developing their manufacturing sectors and to increase this sector’s contribution to their GDP’s. In addition to the challenges stated below, we do find that cheap imports from abroad complicate the process even more. These cheap imports range from cheap steel products from China (upsetting steel manufacturing in ...
Business, Egypt News, Ghana News, Main, Nigeria News, Rwanda News, Tech, Uganda News

Friday@Noon on Financial Services in Africa: 2018

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. The financial services industry in Africa has seen a lot of development throughout the past few years, as was the case in 2018. Mobile telephony has driven the US$300 million monthly transactions in Africa from 7.2 million new people (up 250% from 2012) using digital financial services and 45,000 new banking agents due to a financial inclusion project. Financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa has increased from 23% in 2011 to 43% in 2017. Mobile money solutions and agent banking now offer affordable, instant, and reliable transactions, savings, credit, and even insurance opportunities in rural villages and urban neigh...
Energy, Kenya News, Main, Namibia News, Rwanda News, Zambia News

Friday@Noon on Infrastructure in Africa: 2018

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. General Africa has vast infrastructure needs. According to the AfDB, Africa's infrastructure requirements are estimated to be between US$130 billion and US$170 billion, far higher than the previous estimation of US$93 billion a year. The AfDB’s 2018 Annual Report said the new estimates left a financing gap of US$108 billion. Given this, and urgent needs in health, education, administrative capacity, and security, Africa has to attract private capital to accelerate the building of critical infrastructure needed to unleash its potential. African countries do not need to wait until all financing gaps are filled before the...
Botswana News, Ethiopia News, Kenya News, Main, Mozambique News, Nigeria News, South Africa News

Friday@Noon on Regional Integration in Africa: 2018

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. Regional integration has become a high profile intervention and is seen as the route to economic integration and increasing intra-African trade. Some commentators are of the opinion that Africa must secure its own share of global economic growth and sustain the economic growth of Africa itself. The greatest opportunity for doing this, is Africa’s ability to trade and do business with itself. Improvements to fiscal policies, governance and regulatory frameworks, along with a move to diversify economies away from Africa’s traditional commodities-biased economies, present great opportunities to foreign investors. Africa’s...
Friday@Noon on E-commerce in Africa: 2018
Business, Egypt News, Kenya News, Nigeria News, Tech

Friday@Noon on E-commerce in Africa: 2018

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. The growth and continuation of e-commerce in Africa has received various boosts during 2018. Africa’s leading online shopping platform, Jumia, reported in 2018 it wanted to make Egypt its biggest market on the continent, and it’s turning to Egypt’s vast network of unlicensed vendors for help. Jumia wants a 10-fold growth in revenue from Egypt and a 6-fold growth in the number of products offered on its platform by 2021. To achieve that, Jumia is urging the government to regulate informal retailers by offering them tax incentives and cheap loans that would allow them to market their goods online. The informal economy ac...
Kenya News, Main, Real Estate

OpEd: Affordable housing requires a new shape for the mortgage industry

By Johnstone Oltetia, Interim CEO Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company (KMRC) There are two essential parts to achieving affordable housing: building decent, low-cost homes, and developing a housing finance market that enables low-income earners to buy those homes. For, without finance, almost no home price is low enough to be affordable on an average salary. For this reason, the mortgage market has been growing. Housing loans have risen more than ten-fold since 2006, from 1,278 loans valued at Sh19m 12 years ago to 24,458 loans valued at Sh203.3bn by 2015, according to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). But the market still remains tiny when compared with other nations. In Tanzania and Uganda, the mortgage loan value is under 2.5 per cent GDP while in Kenya stands at 3.15 per cent of GDP by 201...