For several weeks now, Bolloré Ports has been conducting a large-scale vaccination campaign against Covid-19. Of the 6,497 people employed by Bolloré Ports, 4,529 have now been fully vaccinated and protected against the disease, which represents more than 70% of the workforce. Carried out in consultation with the health authorities of the various countries concerned, the vaccination is...

Cabo Verde President José Maria Neves on Thursday joined the development community in calling for urgent universal vaccine access as a way to mitigate the impact of Omicron and other variants of the Covid-19 virus. The World Health Organization on Friday categorized Omicron as a Covid-19 “variant of concern”, signifying that it could be more contagious than other known mutations. Neves...

South Africa's unemployment rate has been on an upward trend since 2008. It was 34.4% in Q2 2021, up 1.8% points from the previous quarter. Between July and August, the country recorded its highest unemployment rate in 13 years. The information was reported in a document released by the national statistics institution, Statistics South Africa (StatsSA), last Wednesday, December...

Moroccan furniture and bedding company Dolidol has bought out Mouka, a Nigerian company which manufactures polyurethane foam products and mattresses. Dolidol spent $60 million for this transaction. The deal, reported December 1 by Moroccan media, marks Dolidol’s second African expansion. "The acquisition of Mouka presents a real opportunity to evolve in a structured market, with a growth...

The Ghanaian Parliament says it will downwardly revise the levy it has recently imposed on e-transactions. Speaking on the local TV channel Joy News on November 30, deputy majority leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin (pictured) said the tax should eventually be cut to at least 1.5% from 1.75%. “We have agreed on the policy. Now the government will come with a bill, in that bill, we will go clause...

The International Monetary Fund has hailed the "strong macroeconomic fundamentals" that have helped Benin to be resilient to covid-19. Since 2016, the country has been implementing a debt management strategy that has already earned it praise from international organizations. Benin has paid off $375.9 million in public debt ahead of schedule on the Abidjan-based regional security market...

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank on 19 November 2021 approved a $35 million unfunded risk-sharing facility to support the trade finance activities in Africa of Ecobank International affiliates, EBI SA. Stefan Nalletamby, Director for Financial Sector Development at the African Development Bank, said the renewal of the partnership with Ecobank comes at a time when most...

African heads of state and government together with senior policymakers will share their perspectives on how to reshape Africa’s development financing models at the 2021 African Economic Conference, which takes place on Thursday, 2 December. Cabo Verde Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Olavo Correia said the conference offered “an extraordinarily important moment” to chart...

The African Development Bank and IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, on Wednesday signed a partnership agreement admitting IFC as the first institutional partner to the Development Finance Compact for Portuguese-Speaking Countries of Africa, or the Lusophone Compact. The agreement was signed by African Development Bank Vice President for Corporate Services and Human Resources and Chair of the...

The media industry in many African countries has long suffered from a lack of support from authorities. To break this trend, the Ivorian government has invested more than CFA10 billion ($17.3 million) over the past decade to support private media. Amadou Coulibaly, Ivorian Minister of Communication, Media and Francophonie, announced last November 29 the introduction of a parafiscal tax on...