The situation in Mali is beginning to worry its military partners. The presence of Russian soldiers in the country makes Europeans uncomfortable, as they consider them to be mercenaries, even though Malian authorities say otherwise. Sweden will withdraw from Task Force Takuba. The announcement was made today by Ann Linde (pictured), Swedish Foreign Minister. "We have already decided that we...

Elections in some African countries are known to be somewhat tumultuous. Between political unrest, political meddling, or intra-party clashes, many events can shake a nation. Examples are what happened in Chad with Idriss Déby Itno's death, the pre-election violence in Benin, or Edgar Lungu's defeat in Zambia. The year 2021 came with a series of events that further changed the political...

Satellite connectivity provides some of the best reach and coverage available. However, historically it has often been out of reach for organisations and private users due to the cost involved. This is soon changing with the satellite-as-a-service model. This blog post will explain what satellite-as-a-service is, what benefits it offers, and how it can future-proof the connectivity industry for...

After a first digital banking experience in Azerbaijan last November, the British company Fintech Farm plans to launch such an initiative in Nigeria over the next two years. “Our next market is going to be Nigeria, we have visited Nigeria a couple of times already and it is one of our favorite countries,” Dmytro Dubilet, co-founder of Fintech Farm, said. To fund its plans, Fintech Farm...

The leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) agreed to extend the timeframe of the SADC mission in Mozambique. They released a statement on Wednesday to announce the information. The statement did not specify the extra mission time. However, SADC said it would continue to monitor the situation in the country and that the extended mandate would have "associated budgetary...

With the ongoing ECOWAS pressure on Mali, the country is denied access to the regional financial market. The information was relayed by Reuters, which cited a note from the WAEMU Commission. On January 12, Mali requested CFA30 billion (about $52.4 million) on the market in a bond issue. The results of this operation are still pending. Denying Mali access to the financial market is not only...

Nearly a year after its last round of funding, Nigerian HR and payroll platform SeamlessHR announced it has raised an additional $10 million in Series A funding to pursue its expansion strategy.  The company, which enables medium and large companies to automate their HR and payroll processes on a single platform, raised the resources from previous investors, including Lateral Capital,...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Rwanda's real gross domestic product to grow by 10.2% in 2021, according to its recent consultation report with the country's authorities and review of ongoing economic programs. This forecast differs from the 5.9% projected by the global economic outlook. IMF justifies its view by " a recently accelerated vaccination campaign targeting...

The Ivorian government announced this week it has opened a minibus assembly plant in Abidjan, the first in the country. This initiative, which aligns with the state industrialization strategy, will be piloted by the Abidjan Transport Company SOTRA with vehicle manufacturer Iveco as a technical partner. The -Daily Ivoire- unit will produce 1,000 minibusses per year, including vehicles that can be...

With the Covid-19 crisis in 2020, the Kenyan government waived fees on mobile money transactions over a certain amount. Now, although these incentives have been lifted, people have kept their MoMo habits. Mobile money transactions reached KSh6,246 billion ($55.1 billion) between January and November 2021. The Central Bank reported 1.9 trillion transactions on 67.15 million active accounts. The...