On January 2, 2019, Isaac Munyakazi, Rwanda’s state minister of primary and secondary education announced the opening of the first programming school in the country. During an interview with the local media The New Times, the minister indicated that the first group of sixty young tech passionates selected in the whole country would attend classes this year. These future students are those who...

The market capitalization of Casablanca stock exchange has decreased by MAD 50 billion ($5.21 billion), according to figures published on January 2, 2019, by the Moroccan specialized website Le Boursier.  This drop is mainly due to the decline of the price of the stock of many important listed companies like the real estate company Alliance (-58%) Addoha (- 48%) and Dar Saada (-35%), the...

This year, Mauritius was the best African country for doing business, according to a ranking published by the American magazine Forbes. This island of the Indian ocean is the 39th  best country for business in the world in the ranking that compared 161 countries based on fifteen criteria. These criteria are notably, property rights, innovation, taxes, corruption, freedom (personal, economic...

Nigerian telecommunications operators announce great realizations that will thoroughly transform the local market this year. These ambitions were revealed by the president of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Olusola Teniola, and his peer of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, during an interview with the...

Egyptian Exchange, the main Egyptian financial market based in Cairo, recorded a loss estimated at EGP 75.2 billion ($4.12 billion) in 2018. On December 31, 2018, its market capitalization was EGP749.7 billion while a year earlier, it was EGP824.9 billion. This negative performance was also observed for the three main indexes of the exchange. The EGX 30, the index of the thirty most important...

In Q3, 2018, Kenya’s economy recorded a 6% growth against 4.7% during the same period in 2017, according to figures published by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) on December 31, 2018. Indeed, between July 1 2018, and September 30, 2018, the agriculture sector grew by 5.2% against 3.1% a year earlier, thanks to favorable climate conditions. The manufacturing sector grew by...

In an evaluation grid produced by an independent investor based in Côte d’Ivoire, it appears that NSIA Bank could soon become the second largest bank in the country behind the local subsidiary of Société Générale. NSIA Bank, which is managed by Jean Kacou Diagou and was recently listed on the BRVM, is already the largest commercial bank in terms of network with 82 agencies (according to a...

On December 26, 2018, Ahmed Zidane, the deputy spokesperson of Egypt’s communication and IT committee, revealed that by 2020, the government would replace 95% of its copper telecom network, which is now 60% replaced, with fibre optics cable. By modernising its internet network, Egypt wants to improve its broadband internet penetration rate that was 43.3% in 2015. In 2019, the government plans...

The African Development Bank Civil Society and Social Innovation Division organized a one- day “Civil Society Awareness Brown Bag Lunch” on 19 December 2018 at the Bank’s headquarters. The Bank, under the leadership of President Akinwumi Adesina, has gradually placed African citizens at the centre of its intervention strategy, making civil society a key partner to achieve greater results...

In a release published December 24, 2018, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) announced that it provided $15 million to Securiport Sénégal SUARL, subsidiary of Securiport group, the world leader in the design and realisation of biometric identification technology, in Senegal. This fund is to help the group elaborate a system for the security of the civil aviation and for...