The African Development Bank and UN Women held their fourth steering committee meeting on 8 February 2019 in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. The two institutions have signed a memorandum of understanding in March 2016 and have since then implemented a joint roadmap to advance gender equality on the African continent. This steering committee meeting aimed to review progress and define next steps in the...

Lacina Koné (right) is the new executive director of Smart Africa, the alliance founded in 2013 in Rwanda, to connect Africa and help member countries reach sustainable development goals by capitalizing on the IT sector. He replaces Hamadoun Touré who has held that position since October 2015. Lacina Koné was elected on February 11, 2019, at the end of a vote cast during the meeting of the...

On February 11, 2019, Mauritania’s telecom regulator (Autorité de régulation de Mauritanie-ARE) relaunched the public tender for 2G/3G/4G network development and exploitation licence.   This public tender follows the failure of the first tender, launched in October 2018, and ignored by operators. Once again, two types of licences are offered. The first (4G) is for operators...

The Nigerian diaspora plans to set a $3 billion investment fund, Abike Dabiri-Erewa (photo), Senior Special Assistant on Foreign Relations & Diaspora, indicated this week. In an interview with Bloomberg, the official indicated that the major part of this fund would be provided by the Nigerian diaspora in the USA. In addition, the agriculture, energy, mining and transport sector should...

In 2018, the performance of Société Générale slowed down in Africa, Ecofin Agency deduced from the financial report published on February 7, 2019, by the French investment bank. The cumulated net banking product of the group’s thirteen subsidiaries in the region reached €1.39 billion, representing a 7.12% rise on a year-to-year basis. Though the cumulated net banking product is a...

Bank of Tanzania (BoT) expects Tanzania’s economy to grow to 7.3% in 2019, a 0.1% rise compared to the growth recorded in 2018. According to the bank, this growth will be spurred by commissioning of large infrastructures, favorable meteorological conditions and the solid implementation of an industrialization strategy. Inflation is expected to be around 5% in the middle-term due to the...

Atlas Mara could soon dynamize merger-acquisition activities in the African financial sector with its new strategic repositioning plan. The Dubai-based bank holding listed on the London Stock Exchange, with the major part of its operations located in Africa, plans to reduce some of its assets and buy new ones. Atlas Mara wants to reduce the proportion of its assets except in countries where it...

One of the key resolutions adopted during the 33rd meeting of the ministerial council of the Central African Economic Union (UEAC) held on February 8, 2019, in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, was the yearly budget of the institution.   At the end of the meeting, the budget was set at FCFA83,096,804,000. Following the adoption, compliments were addressed to the commission for the adoption of...

The telecom services provider VIPNET is currently successfully implementing the Japanese project for innovative secured access in Côte d'Ivoire. This was revealed by the inspection visit conducted by Kaneko Kenji, director of policy coordination at Japan’s ministry of telecommunications, and Hata Takeshi, representative of the Japanese tech firm NEC, from February 6 to February 8, 2019,...

The African Union Commission, the African Development Bank and global partners today launched the Continental Nutrition Accountability Scorecard to raise awareness and reinforce commitments by African governments to help end malnutrition. His Majesty King Letsie III (photo) of the Kingdom of Lesotho and African Union Champion for Nutrition, and Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, President of the African...