In line with Standard Chartered’s vision to be the most sustainable and responsible bank in the world, the Bank has announced its partnership with Ghana’s Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology & Innovation (MESTI), and the UK-funded financial sector development agency FSD Africa as founding members of the African Natural Capital Alliance (ANCA).

The Alliance, in partnership with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), will act as an African-led collaborative forum for mobilizing the financial community’s response to nature-related risks and opportunities across...

To support local manufacturing and infrastructure development in Liberia, IFC announced a partnership with Fouta Cement, Liberia's second-largest cement supplier, to increase production and reduce Liberia's reliance on imported construction material.

A financing package arranged by IFC, will help Fouta Cement build and operate a cement grinding plant in Monrovia with an annual production capacity of 350,000 tons, creating 250 jobs during operations. The financing package of up to $21.2...

The Board of National Bank of Kenya (NBK) announced the appointment of Peter Kioko as the Acting Managing Director. The position became vacant following the appointment of Paul Russo as the KCB Group Chief Executive Officer in May. NBK is a subsidiary of KCB Group.

Announcing the appointment, Russo said, “KCB Group is delighted to have Peter steer National Bank to greater heights. Peter has played a pivotal role in driving the transformation of National Bank. Hence his appointment reflects our commitment to continue strengthening the business...

To increase the availability of trade finance in Guinea and Burkina Faso and support imports of essential goods into the countries, IFC, through its Global Trade Finance Program (GTFP), announced a partnership with Vista Bank, which serves clients across West Africa with a wide range of financial services. 

IFC's trade facilities of up to $24 million to Vista Bank's subsidiaries in Guinea and Burkina Faso ($12 million each) will help the banks to finance imports of foodstuffs, raw materials, refined oil products, equipment, consumer goods, and other...

Entersekt, a global player in device identity and payment authentication, announced a new investment from PAPE Fund 3 (PAPE), a mid-market South African private equity fund. Entersekt ’s software currently secures over 1 billion transactions every month, protecting millions of financial services customers across the globe.

Entersekt is recognized as an innovator in the global authentication market, known for delivering market and industry firsts. With this investment, PAPE joins Entersekt’s impressive shareholder base that includes Nedbank Private...

ZainTech, the digital and ICT solutions powerhouse of Zain Group, has announced a partnership with data analytics specialist, LigaData to support its vison to deliver cutting-edge, data-driven digital services to enterprise and government customers across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

ZainTech is a centralized service provider focused on advancing the use of digital technologies such as cloud, cybersecurity, big data, IoT, AI, smart cities, drones, robotics, and emerging technologies. The strategic partnership...

MFS Africa, Africa’s digital payments network, announced it has secured an additional $100 million in equity and debt funding led by Admaius Capital Partners, taking the total amount raised in the series to $200 million.

New investors, Vitruvian Partners and AXA IM Alts joined the extension, alongside existing investors, AfricInvest FIVE and CommerzVentures, who re-invested in the extension. Previous other investors include LUN Partners Group, Goodwell Investments, Allan Gray Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst and...

WhatsApp has announced the launch of the WhatsAppreneurs campaign, profiling small entrepreneurs from Africa who are using the WhatsApp Business app to grow their business and reach more customers.

The campaign will highlight the stories of Small and Medium Business owners in Africa, and help them and others like them learn more about business growth opportunities available with the WhatsApp Business app through a virtual educational webinar. “Across Africa, small and medium business owners...

Sankofa Capital, a Philadelphia-based Real Estate Development Company and Jobomax Global, West Africa's most trusted homebuilder, announced a joint venture pilot housing project in Ghana.

The homes can be either owner-occupied residences or income generating investment properties, appealing to buyers in the historical and recent diaspora as well as those currently living in Ghana. Keith Williams, Founder and CEO, Sankofa: "As an African-American owned real estate developer I have always...

Africa’s first project financing facility for mini-grids, CrossBoundary Energy Access (CBEA), announced $25 million in new funding commitments from ARCH Emerging Markets Partners Limited, Bank of America, and Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund.

This investment will leverage an additional $25 million in senior debt to deploy $50 million of capital into CBEA’s near-term pipeline of solar powered mini-grids. CBEA will deploy a total of $150 million over the next two years to bring clean...

Microsoft has reaffirmed its commitment to working with both the private and public sectors to accelerate digital transformation in African agriculture in order to increase food security for the continent.

Speaking during a virtual roundtable panel discussion on the topic, Microsoft Kenya Acting Country Manager Kunle Awosika said the organisation is committed to continue investing in agritech on the continent, with the goal of developing agritech that enables data-driven, precise and connected farming...

Flutterwave, Africa's leading payments technology company has announced the appointment of Oneal Bhambani as its new Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Bhambani joins the Nigerian fintech startup from American Express and Kabbage where he managed fintech products. Kabbage is a subsidiary of American Express that offers a broader set of cash flow management tools to millions of businesses. He was the CFO and Head of Capital Markets at Kabbage. Among other functions, Kabbage provides credit...

Online education has become a prominent industry during the past decade. According to the numbers presented by StockApps.com, the online education industry is set to make $148.57 billion in 2022. Furthermore, the industry is headed in the right direction and is expected to grow by 10.8% year on year in 2022.

According to the data available on Statista, the online education sector is expected to grow at an annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.68% between 2022 and 2026. The industry was worth only $65.61b in 2017. As stated above, the annual...

Global wealth shot up to new levels of $530 trillion in 2021. A MoneyTransfers data presentation revealed a 10.6% increase from 2020 when it was $479 trillion. The value represents the most significant yearly rate in the past decade.

MoneyTransfers’s CEO Jonathan Merry said this about the report: “We can attribute the rise to robust equities markets and a surge in consumer interest in purchasing real assets such as wine, art, and property. A lot is ongoing around the globe currently. From inflation to Russia’s invasion of...

Unicaf is an online and blended learning higher education platform that is dedicated to making higher education of international standard accessible, by offering scholarship opportunities to professionals and young school leavers.

What are scholarship opportunities?

A scholarship could be defined as financial aid that relieves the burden of tuition fees and living costs that students and families have to pay to secure a place in secondary and tertiary education. Considering the rising costs of student expenses and debts, we could nowadays describe education...

The Africa Trade Expo (TATE) presents direct access to African buyers whose main aim is to source the latest products, establish partnerships, and conclude import/export deals. TATE is an ongoing virtual trade show for African businesses to network, collaborate, and enter into partnerships with international manufacturers and exporters. Present your new opportunities, network, build relationships and grow your business in African markets...

Future Foods is a virtual meeting place for importers, F&B managers, retail category buyers, owner-operators, agents, and distributors from across Africa’s diverse and booming market to come to conferences, to network, meet exhibitors, source products, new ingredients, retail shelf-ready products, and the latest processing, packaging, and logistics solutions. Future Foods connects attendees exhibitors across the...

Africa Business Communities has spoken with several founders, CEOs and startups in diverse industries in Nigeria about how the global pandemic has affected their business operations. For some, it was a game changer, for others it had little to no effect. And then there were those who saw a positive impact and even improvement in their work...

An estimated 45% of young people aged 34 years in South Africa were not in employment, education or training last year according to data released by Statistics South Africa in Q4 of 2021. In 2022, predictions for the South African youth unemployment rate are projected to be as high as 64%.

Following the rising levels of unemployment among young South Africans, the UK-South Africa Tech Hub Launch League initiative undertook a research project dubbed ‘Skills and Training offered by South Africa’s Hub Network: How can...

Kate Woolley is the IBM Ecosystem General Manager. In this interview, she talks about her priorities and her big plans for growing the IBM Ecosystem.

What prompted you to take the IBM Ecosystem leadership role?

When I look at the future of IBM the chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna has defined and that we’re executing towards, there are three big priorities – Hybrid Cloud and AI, Innovation and technical expertise, and the ecosystem. In looking at these priorities and where I wanted to go next, I saw the IBM...

A few years ago, East Africa was primarily viewed as a venue for offshore exploration, and before its independence in 2011, South Sudan was more likely to be seen as a North African producer, as part of Sudan. But motivated governments and explorers have changed the picture.

Today, Kenya is a small-scale oil producer and Uganda has approved a massive oil development in its Lake Albert region and a refinery and export pipeline. Tanzania will export Uganda’s oil and will build its own LNG facilities to monetize...

The ongoing damaging impact of the pandemic combined with a growing number of climate-related emergencies is bringing into stark relief government’s ability to provide essential public services to vulnerable communities.

I recently visited the province of my birth, KwaZulu-Natal following the devastating floods. The desperation of the people and scale of the disaster has seen tens of thousands of displaced citizens turning to government to provide a broad range of relief measures, while damage to critical...

One of the biggest challenges facing entrepreneurial startups in sub-Saharan Africa is funding – particularly early-stage financial support – even though the landscape across the region has evolved over the past few years with more funders and capital deployed in this space.

This has been driven primarily by a growing appetite for alternative investments, successful recent exits, e.g., Paystack in Nigeria, and the fact that startup investments have become more accessible. However, this capital increase is not evenly...

While many governments in Africa have made welcome progress toward digital transformation in the last year, more work needs to be done towards offering transparency, digital inclusion, and the protection of digital rights to citizens across the continent.

This was the main finding of the Londa report, launched recently at the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF) 2022. Held between April and May this year, DRIF brought together over 1000 delegates and participants for 39 days...

If you speak to most migrant workers, you will hear of the extended financial support they provide to their families back home, as well as the large development projects they are funding. This they achieve by hiving off a portion of their income and sending it to their respective countries using different remittance services.

Currently, about one billion people in the world are involved with remittances, either by sending or receiving them – one in nine people are recipients of these flows of money sent by their family members who have migrated for work...

With plunging profits in its prized sector, oil and gas, and an ever-climbing inflation, Nigeria is increasingly turning to what most of the world has been blind to – the potential of women in business.

In the past several weeks, we have seen powerful industries refocus their resources toward empowering women in both rural and urban Nigeria. The Federal Government this week made a deal with a trade bank to welcome more women into the oil and gas sector and Wema Bank is in partnerships to...

Owing to its strategic position at the heart of a wider Nile Basin-East Africa hydrocarbons-rich area, South Sudan is emerging as the hub for petroleum industry services and exploration in the region. As a result, investors have been pitching tent at the East African nation in droves, a move that is having ripple effects across the region.

In East Africa’s education matters, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) ha partnered with Old Mutual in developing a financial literacy online orientation course for junior and senior secondary teachers. The course is...