Absa Bank, South Africa's third-largest bank by assets, will obtain a $50 million risk-sharing financial facility to provide loans to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, and households. The loans will be in local currency with medium to long-term repayment terms. The capital raised by Absa from the British agency CDC Group will be deployed to Covid-19 affected companies seeking...

The Economic Community of West African States ECOWAS has taken steps to ease its relations with Mali’s President of the Transition Assimi Goïta (pictured). The regional body sent a delegation led by the former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to the country and concluded it was "reassured" by the commitments of Colonel Goïta. "Regarding the key points, we have been reassured by the...

Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), a pan-African multilateral development financial institution established in 2007, announced that it has now reached 31 member states constituting more than half the continent. In the first quarter of this year, membership by Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Morocco added up the number to 31 member states.    “This is a landmark...

Technology investor Prosus, which is secondarily listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, co-led a $40 million investment in 99minutos with Kaszek, a venture capital firm focused on Latin America. The Mexican delivery platform that serves major online retailers and small brands will strengthen its footprint in its current markets (Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Peru), and continue to expand...

The National Bank of Egypt, the tenth-largest bank in Africa and the Middle East by assets ($125 billion as of June 30, 2020), will benefit from a $100 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The facility, which will be on-lent in the form of credits to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), aims to support the Egyptian economy. The loan will be...

Trading reports from the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics show that the country spent N258.3 billion (about $625 million) during the first quarter of this year to import wheat to meet up with the country’s food security. Wheat, which falls among the most imported goods for the period, accounted for 3.77 percent of total imports (mainly imported from Lithuania and Latvia). According...

The Port Authority of Dakar ended 2020 on a positive note, achieving a net benefit of €16 million over the period. "The financial statements closed on December 31, 2020 and reviewed by the auditors show a net profit of more than CFA10.56 billion (€16 million) after payment of more than CFA3 billion in corporate taxes," CEO Ababacar Sédikh Bèye (pictured) said yesterday during the...

The African Union will benefit from $1.3 billion provided by the Mastercard Foundation to finance the acquisition of Covid-19 vaccines. The information was reported in a joint statement issued last June 8 with the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). The resources will be deployed over three months under the “saving lives and livelihoods” initiative carried out...

Mali appointed yesterday a new PM of the Transition in the person of Choguel Kokalla Maïga (pictured), a few hours after Colonel Assimi Goïta was sworn in as Head of State. Choguel Kokalla Maïga is one of the leaders of the June 5 Movement - Rally of Patriotic Forces (M5-RFP)- and had been tipped for the position for several days. A true veteran of Malian national politics, this former close...

Africa has lagged in the development and commissioning of data centers to meet the needs of both the business sector and general population whose reliance on edge computing is expected to increase exponentially compared to generations before. With the youngest population in the world, Africa will need to accelerate the deployment of data centers to meet the computing demand near the population...