The French Development Agency (AFD) is giving Tunisia €27.3 million (TND85.04 million) to reshape its health sector with digital tools. The loan deal was approved on 15 January 2020 by the House of People's Representatives. According to Tunisia’s Minister of Health, Sonia Besheikh (pictured), the project targets 15 hospitals and activities include the update of ICT systems in the...

Installation of trunk and branch units has commenced; marine operations are scheduled for completion in March 2020 Djibouti Telecom, Somtel, Telkom Kenya and SubCom today announced that Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 (DARE1) submarine cable system has landed in La Siesta Beach (Djibouti) and the marine installation is underway. In addition to the installation of the trunk, the...

The Central bank of Kenya has approved the acquisition of 100% of Kenyan bank Transnational Bank Plc by Access Bank, Nigeria’s biggest bank in terms of assets. The operation will be effective as from 1 February 2020. The main shareholders of Transnational Bank, Archers and Wilcock Limited (23.75% of shares), Sovereign Trust Limited (23.03%), Duggan Limited (15.53%), Pyramid Trustees Limited...

Old Mutual Alternative Investments, the investment arm of South African financial and insurance group, Old Mutual, has acquired a 20% stake in Seven Uquo Gas, a Nigerian-based oil and gas company. The 20% interest was acquired from LSE-listed Savannah Petroleum and the transaction was carried out through Old Mutual’s African Infrastructure Investment Fund 3. The investment targets in terms of...

The UK-Africa Investment Summit opens today in London with the aim of establishing and strengthening ties between the UK and African countries, as the kingdom leaves the EU on 31 January. British PM Boris Johnson (pictured) says he wants to make sure Brexit will not harm the relations his country has with the Black continent. Several billion dollars worth of deals are expected to be signed...

France, Turkey, the United States, Italy, China, and Russia say they will no longer grant support to the warring parties in Libya. This was during the conference on Libya held on January 19 in Berlin. At the end of this meeting, which was attended by Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Abdel Fattah al-Sissi alongside Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, the participating countries called for...

Yesterday, in Abuja, the ministers of finance and central banks’ governors of the ECOWAS’ five English-speaking countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and The Gambia), together with Guinea, rejected the ECO - which is supposed to become the single currency used by all ECOWAS member states.  The six members of the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) strongly oppose the...

During a press conference on Jan 16, the British mobile virtual network operator Lycamobile announced it is officially starting operations in Uganda. The company wants to improve access to quality voice and data services at best rates for Ugandan citizens. Lycamobile is expected to sign an equipment deal with Tangerine, one of the first Internet service providers, to launch LTE in the...

Last year, 239 companies obtained the green light to invest in Côte d'Ivoire under the provisions of the Investment Code in Côte d'Ivoire. Investments approved in 2019 amounted to about CFA729.7 billion, up 3.7% compared to the CFA702.9 billion ($ 1.1 billion) in 2018. As a reminder, in 2017, the volume of approved investments was CFA466.2 billion ($791.3 million) according to data from the...

The Netherlands-based commodity trader Trafigura has just acquired majority stake in the Kita solar power plant in Mali. The operation was made through PASH Global, a renewable energy investor and developer backed by Trafigura. With this acquisition, the Dutch company seeks to reduce its carbon footprint by investing in clean energy and has already created a division dedicated to renewable...