“The world has the resources to end hunger,” African Development Bank president Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina said in a message on the first day of the United Nations Food Systems Summit. Convened by UN Secretary General António Guterres, the event is billed by its organisers as “a historic opportunity to empower all people to leverage the power of food systems to drive our recovery from...

The African Development Bank Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, Beth Dunford, led a mission to Cote d’Ivoire’s capital Yamoussoukro, on 16 September to assess progress on a Bank-supported agro-industrial cluster in Bélier. The mission, that included Marie-Laure Akin Olugbade, Director General for West Africa and Bank Directors for Agriculture and Agroindustry as...

Alitheia IDF, a private equity fund dedicated to African SMEs, has led a $3 million Series A investment in ReelFruit, a Nigerian high-end dried fruit company. The agribusiness company will use the money to acquire a new factory, boost its dried fruit production and exports, and develop new products. “Alitheia IDF is proud to support ReelFruit's ongoing efforts to boost food production in...

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group have approved a new policy framework for the Independent Recourse Mechanism (IRM) aimed at strengthening accountability and providing more effective recourse to people affected by Bank-financed operations. The policy framework is the result of a series of internal and public stakeholder consultations that began in December 2019. This...

The Ivorian government plans to increase the share of investment in GDP to 27.1% by 2025. Although this approach is expected to bolster solid growth for the next few years, significant social challenges remain. Côte d'Ivoire aims for average economic growth of 7.65% over 2021-2025, up from 5.9% for 2016-2020. The figure was reported in the official statement of the Council of Ministers held on...

Six years after being declared bankrupt by the government, the incumbent operator and its mobile branch are back to business. They return to a market where MTN and Orange have had enough time to establish themselves. The incumbent telecom operator Guinea Telecom S.A. will soon make its return to the Guinea-Bissau telecom market. On September 21, the company received from the Communication...

Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed suspended the Parliament last July 25. With full control over the executive and legislative branches, he is now preparing a constitutional change that is not welcomed by the opposition.   In a September 22 statement, the Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed (pictured) unveiled the new measures he has set to run the country. “President Kaïs Saïed issued a...

African leaders on Wednesday lauded the African Legal Support Facility for helping governments avert billions of dollars in losses from business deals, and urged it to extend support to tackling illicit financial flows. At a high-level conference to review the Facility’s achievements over the last decade, speakers, including experts and business leaders, expressed confidence that the African...

As part of its Southern and East African expansion, Finclusion Group recently raised $20 million from Lendable, which supports fintech lenders in pre-frontier, frontier, and emerging markets. Financial technology company Finclusion Group has acquired for an undisclosed amount a minority stake in HelloHR, a South African payroll software startup. HelloHR provides a cloud-based payroll...

Artificial Intelligence is increasingly emerging as an attractive option for improving performance in various sectors. While tax revenues have been declining in recent years, this technology may help reverse the trend. Tax authorities around the world, including Africa, can use artificial intelligence (AI) to improve tax revenue collection, Dennis Lupambo, CEO of Mint Group, a South African...