The International Finance Corporation (IFC) announces a $500,000 investment in Gebeya, a software engineering school in Ethiopia. Thanks to this investment, 250 women will be trained and about twenty will also be provided an undisclosed volume of seed funding. IFC and Gebeya will also provide consulting and coaching services to these twenty women. “African women constitute 50 percent of...

Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) renewed for five years, the revenue insurance contract it signed since 2010, with Subex Limited, the Indian analytic service provider.   In the framework of that agreement, Subex will let Botswana Telecommunications use its platform for fraud management and revenue insurance.  According to Vinod Kumar, Subex’s CEO, the integrated...

MTN Group signed a framework agreement with Huawei for innovation during the MWC 2019 in Barcelona. According to Li Dafeng, a member of Huawei’s supervisory board, this agreement will strengthen the two parties’ strategic partnership and let MTN offer state-of-the-art digital services to individuals and firms in Africa. "Previously, we focused on building high-quality network serving...

The UK and South Africa disclosed their agreement to co-lead the Commonwealth Digital Connectivity Agenda. This agreement was reached during the Africa Tech week hosted in Cape Town on March 4-5, 2019. According to Liam Fox (photo), secretary for international trade, the agenda “will help more people join the digital economy as part of our commitment to reduce poverty through trade. We are...

In 2018, Air France KLM’s revenues from African operations recorded a slight drop, Ecofin Agency noticed from the financial record published by the airline group. During the period under review, ticket sales reached €1.12 billion against €1.17 billion in 2017, representing a little more than a €50 million decrease. The passenger transport segment for African destinations...

In Sao Tome & Principe, 90% of the 2019 budget will be funded thanks to foreign aid, Jorge Bom Jesus (photo), the country’s prime minister informed yesterday.   According to information published by the country, its 2019 budget is $150 million but only 10% should be funded by public revenues. 76% of the needed funds should be provided as bilateral grants while 24% should be...

Kenya has initiated discussions with the IMF for a new loan agreement, Jan Mikkelsen (photo), IMF’s resident representative announced yesterday. In September 2018, the country decided not to renew a $989.8 million loan agreement with the Bretton Woods institution because of disagreements over an interest rate cap law for commercial loans.   These discussions could be all about...

At the end of the financial year ending on June 30, 2018, the 13 microfinance institutions operating in Kenya declared -935.1 million shilling (-9.1 million US dollar) of net earnings before tax representing a 447% rise in its year on year loss compared with the -171.4 million recorded in 2017.   In a recent report, Central Bank of Kenya explained that this is due to a 5% rise of credit...

South Sudan has achieved its highest ever receipt of US$14.2 million in non-oil tax revenues for the first time in the nation’s history, through the efforts of a revamped state revenue authority. The impressive result - recorded at the end of January 2019 - is evidence that the Non-Oil Revenue Mobilization and Accountability (NORMA) project in South Sudan, set up with a US$14.8 million...

"I can attest that migration enriches our lives while allowing us to learn and contribute." On Monday 4 March, the Bank’s Senior Vice-President Charles Boamah opened the third annual Africa Resilience Forum (ARF), by detailing the benefits that safe, controlled migration bring to countries of origin, transit and destination. In the presence of the Ivorian Minister of African Integration and...