The Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Amr Talaat, met with his counterpart from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Augustin Kibassa Maliba, on 25 November 2020. Their exchanges focused on strengthening cooperation between the two countries in the ICT sector. During the meeting, which was held on the sidelines of the 24th edition of the Cairo ICT Forum 2020 (the...

TOGOCOM has activated its commercial 5G network and now offers clients a very-high-speed mobile connection, courtesy of cutting-edge connectivity technology. The 5G network, also made possible by our partners Nokia, is now fully operational in Lome. 5G, a major tech disruptor for Togo With a much greater bandwidth availability, much higher data-transfer speeds—up to 100 times faster than...

The United Nations announced in a Nov 24 statement it wants to raise $76 million to assist people living in Tigray, Ethiopia. This is a humanitarian aid to the population affected by the conflict between the region and the central administration. The program is expected to cover the period from this month to January next year and comes as a support to the previous aid plan set up for...

The six largest-listed banks by stock value in Nigeria achieved a consolidated net profit of 601.5 billion naira ($1.58 billion) over the first nine months this year, we learned. Denominated in the local currency, this makes an increase of 5.43% compared to the same period in 2019. In the US dollar, despite the depreciation of the naira, the figure is only 0.25% down YoY. The dollar value of the...

On November 24, 2020, in Massakory, Hadjer province, the President of the Republic of Chad, Idriss Deby, launched the country's optical fiber interconnection works in Niger. The project, which will be carried out in over four years, will cross the towns of Massaguet, Massakory, Mao, Rig-Rig, Daboua, up to the border with Niger. The 503 km broadband cable is a part of the 1,510 km Trans-Saharan...

Kenya’s government announced the creation of an investment fund worth KSh2.2 billion (about $20 million) to finance youth-led agribusiness projects. This will be conducted by the Agriculture Ministry as part of a program co-funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB). Youths who are engaged in agribusiness and related value chains will be inserted in incubation centers where they will...

The British Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), managed by Ninety One, agreed to grant a 10-year loan worth $31 million to LNG BV, a joint venture between Helios Investment Partners and Gasfin Development, which develops and operates natural gas facilities for developing countries. The credit line will finance the construction of a LNG regasification unit at the port of Tema in...

The upcoming opening of Ethiopia’s telecom market to competition is a sign of an increase in business demand for new technology needs. To take advantage of this market opportunity, RedFox Web Solution, ScutiX, and Wingu have followed in the footsteps of Raxio Data Plc and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC) to implement their data centers in the...

The Tunisian government says it will pump a total of TND324 million (about $120 million) in the agriculture sector next year. This is 18% of the TND1.78 billion that will be allocated to the department of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries for the year. According to Akissa Bahri (pictured) who heads this department, the 2021 agricultural subsidy is 17% higher than that of 2020. With...

Citizens from 15 African countries will now have to pay a visa bond ranging between $5,000 to $15,000 in addition to visa fees to travel to the US, the Trump administration announced on November 23. To justify this highly criticized decision, the US Department of State says it is only imposed on countries whose outstay rate exceeds 10% of travelers. As a reminder, the US administration...