Over the past five months, Kenya lost about 2.5 million jobs in the tourism sector due to the coronavirus and its impact on the economy. Najib Balala (pictured), the tourism minister, said this drastic loss in jobs is the result of the restriction measures deployed by governments around the world to control the propagation of the pandemic. These have led to a decline in both tourist numbers and...

Representatives of the African Development Bank, governments, Development Finance Institutions, the private sector and professional associations joined a September 8 workshop to discuss how the Bank can strengthen support for Public Private Partnerships and channel greater investment toward economic and social infrastructure. The event, titled Designing the African Development Bank’s PPP...

African Risk Capacity Group (ARC), a pan-African mutual risk management organization, announced during a conference in Dakar, Senegal, on September 9, 2020, that it plans to launch a new product to help its member countries fight floods. “This product is already in a pilot phase in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Gambia, and Togo and will be available to all member states,” the institution said in a...

Huawei Technologies will help develop ICT skills and improve technological infrastructure in higher education institutions in Angola. An agreement was signed in that regard on September 9 between Angola’s Minister of Higher Education, Maria do Rosária Bragança Sambo, and Eric Xu, the rotating chairman of the multinational. The agreement focuses on training teachers and staff of the Ministry...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will revise upwards its 2020 growth outlook for Kenya. This was announced on September 9 by Tobias Rasmussen, IMF Country Director for Kenya. While the institution predicted a negative growth of -0.3% for Kenya this year due to Covid-19, it has however seen a resilience of the country’s economy to the pandemic. According to the National Statistics Agency,...

The African Development Bank’s Board of Directors on Wednesday approved $27.33 million in grants to boost the African Union’s (AU) efforts to mobilize a continental response to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. The approval follows a meeting of the extended Bureau of the Conference of Heads of State and Government with Africa’s private sector on 22 April 2020, chaired by H.E. Cyril...

As part of its youth support programme, Owendo Container Terminal (OCT) is covering the healthcare costs of some 100 Gabonese children aged 7 to 18 under the care of the Arc en Ciel organisation. OCT and Arc en Ciel signed a partnership agreement on 20 September 2019. Under the agreement, OCT provides the NGO with a doctor responsible for the daily healthcare of the children at the Arc en Ciel...

The World Bank announced on September 8 it has granted new financing worth $750 million to Kenya. The financing is part of the Horn of Africa Gateway Development Project (HoAGDP) which seeks to boost integration in East Africa through the development of regional transport corridors. The resources will finance the modernization of 365 km of the regional Isiolo-Mandera road corridor (which...

Algerian Minister of Post and Telecommunications Brahim Boumzar (pictured) announced on September 7 the country will soon be connected to a fourth submarine optical fiber cable. This was on the sidelines of the signing ceremony of an agreement between Algérie Poste and the Tourism sector, on the generalization of the interbank payment card and the deployment of electronic payment terminals (EPT)...

A panel of some of Africa’s most promising small and medium-enterprise (SME) agripreneurs gathered online to call for more selective investment, accelerated business acquisitions and increased cooperation to help Africa feed itself and the world. The African Development Bank organized the virtual session, Integrating African Food Systems through the Lens of SME Champions, as a side-event ahead...