While the third wave of covid-19 fueled by the delta variant has been officially declared in Africa, vaccination campaigns are still struggling to get underway. With over 2.22 million cases recorded to date, South Africa remains the most affected country on the continent. Africa has just exceeded six million cases of coronavirus, according to the latest report from the African Centers for...

The UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) launched yesterday a Private Sector Financing Program (PSFP) as part of its broader efforts to address rising hunger and poverty levels in the world’s poorest countries. The PSFP is a financing facility designed to promote increased investment in small-scale agriculture. As part of the launch, the PSFP announced its first...

Since Jacob Zuma got arrested last July 7, South Africa has been going through waves of violence that have resulted in 72 deaths so far. Several observers believe that the country's economic difficulties are contributing to the crisis and the police seem powerless to deal with the situation. The African Union (AU) has condemned the violence that has been going on for nearly a week in South...

After a first offensive last June 28, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) announced its rebels have taken over the region’s Capital, Mekele. In the aftermath, the central Ethiopian government announced a unilateral ceasefire agreement, which the TPLF made subject to certain conditions. In Ethiopia, the Tigray region has become the scene of a new offensive by rebel forces since...

Elmenus, a venture-backed food delivery startup based in Egypt, that serves over 1 million monthly users, has raised $10 million in a pre-series C investment. The funding round was led by Fawry Group with participation from Property developer Marakez, and Luxor Capital. The fund will be used to expand the platform across Egypt while investing in customizing the app’s user experience and...

Following a bilateral meeting held last Friday at the Pentagon, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly signed a Franco-American roadmap for increased cooperation in the field of special operations. This cooperation is aimed at fighting "non-state threats," such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. The agreement also appears to herald new...

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the Ghanaian president, commissioned on July 9, Ghana’s four-tier interchange. The infrastructure, a first of its kind in West Africa and second in Africa, opened in Accra with the hopes to reduce road fatalities, ease mobility, and boost trade within Ghana as well as extend to other regional countries. The interchange was jointly funded by the African...

The government of Burkina Faso unveiled a plan to make ICT a tool for the security of its population. To handle the growing criminality in the country, it has called on China to help in this task. “SMART Burkina” - launched last July 8 by Prime Minister Christophe Joseph Marie Dabiré- is the name of the project designed to interconnect all Burkinabe cities via an 800 km optical fiber...

The flow of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in Mali dropped by more than 50% to $308 million (CFA170 billion) in 2020. These figures were unveiled in a recent report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). According to the document, this decline took place in a gloomy global environment, marked by the Covid-19 pandemic which led to a 35% drop in global foreign investment,...

Mobile operator Hormuud Telecom plans to increase its 4G telecom coverage to 100% by 2023. Ahmed Mohamud Yuusuf, the company's chief executive officer, announced the program last July 8. According to the manager, the company's ambition is to further improve people's access to broadband, which offers more opportunities than the 2G that many Somalis are still connected to. "Increasing access to 4G...