The United States of America’s decision to postpone the increase of its prime rate was poorly broadcasted by African media yet two African countries are directly affected by this decision. They are namely South Africa and Egypt that are among the relatively important investors in the US bonds. Data compiled by Ecofin Agency indicate that the two countries invested differently in 2018. During...

The public sector cannot provide enough finance to make African countries resilient to climate change impacts, and funding from the private sector is hard to come by. At the same time, many grassroot adaptation initiatives are being developed and some of these are making a big difference. The Adaptation Benefits Mechanism (ABM) is an innovative mechanism for mobilising new and additional public...

Energy industry stakeholders attending the 5th Energy Access Investment Forum have called for a restructuring of the financing mechanisms enabling the development of off-grid and mini-grid connectivity in Africa. “Meeting the universal electricity access objective within the next decade will require the roll-out of off-grid and mini-grid solutions at scale,” said Daniel Schroth (photo),...

The IMF will provide the last $185.2 million tranche of the $925.9 million extended credit facility signed with Ghana in 2015. This was announced in a release published on the IMF’s website this week.   The said extended credit facility was aimed at restoring Ghana's debt sustainability and macroeconomic stability in order to favor higher growth and job creation. “The...

At end 2018, 33% of the financial managers in firms operating in Nigeria were pessimistic about the outlooks of the local economy against 14% at end 2017. This was revealed by a survey conducted by the local subsidiary of audit firm KPMG. "We found three things driving that. One was the uncertainty surrounding the 2019 election. Secondly, there was the consistency of government policy and three...

South Sudan has this month realised a record $27.62 million in commercial risk insurance cover through the efforts of the South Sudan government, the African Development Bank and the Africa Trade Insurance Agency (ATI). ATI has, to date, provided gross risk cover to facilitate investments in the electricity, gas, water supply and financial and insurance sectors. South Sudan is also expected...

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has called for the improvement of tax policies and an enlargement of the tax base for effective financing of African countries’ development. The call was issued by Vera Songwe (photo), executive secretary of the UNECA during the 38th meeting of the expert panel of the ministers of finance and development planning which started in...

Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo (photo), launched the E-justice project on March 20, 2019. According to the president, E-justice is a platform developed to digitalize legal services like the payment of fines. The platform will also automatically attribute legal cases to judges and courts to reduce corruption and conflicts of interest. Nana Akufo-Addo explained that thanks to this system,...

Nigeria will sell some of its equities in oil joint-ventures to bridge its revenue gap, Udoma Udo Udoma (photo), the minister of budget, indicated according to a release relayed by Reuters. The country will only keep 40% of its equities in oil joint-ventures. Although the name of the joint-venture concerned is not revealed yet, the official indicated that the operation should be realised...

Nigerian IT and finance actors are asking the government to adopt appropriate measures to end the enormous expenses incurred in acquiring foreign software while local ones offer the same functions. During a round table meeting organized in Lagos, on March 18-19, 2019 on the use of Nigerian fintech software, Dan-Azumi Mohammed, managing director of the National Office for Technology Acquisition...