How Some African Couples are Tying the Knot during the Pandemic
Marriage. In these socially distanced times, even the ceremony itself can’t always bring couples — and their families — together. In Africa, some digitally savvy couples are finding virtual workarounds to get them to the altar, including weddings where the bride and groom are thousands of kilometers apart. Fifi and Emmanuel Egbebu got married last […]
Only a Quarter of Africa’s Trade Finance Needs are Being Met
Absa, recent winners at Global Finance’s 2020 World’s Best Corporate/Institutional Digital Banks Awards in Africa, is transforming trade on the continent. The group is broadening access to trade finance by digitising its trade finance offering, ensuring increased trade opportunities that boost economic growth in Africa. The group launched its online trade finance portal, Trade Management […]
Will this be the Midas Touch for Ghana?
Ghana plans to use part of the proceeds from an initial public offering in a gold royalty fund to invest in similar entities. Africa’s biggest gold producer wants to use about 20% of the $500 million it seeks to raise through the IPO later this year to buy stakes in other royalty companies, Finance Minister […]
Oil Spill Highlights Inequality in Mauritius
Over the years Mauritius has transitioned into a middle-income country, growing its financial, industrial, tourism and IT industries. But the ocean continues to be hugely important to many poorer Mauritians who rely on it for subsistence, culture and leisure. It’s particularly important for vulnerable communities that live in villages along the coastline, most of whom […]
Thanks to the Pandemic the Horn of Africa’s Recreational Drug Faces Mixed Fortunes
For centuries, the khat, a leafy shrub native to the Horn of Africa and parts of the Middle East, has been a part of daily life for millions of people: It’s used to induce excitement and euphoria and, some speculate, to boost sexual performance. Bus drivers waiting in traffic, friends socializing on weekends and workers […]
The Floods are Coming for Sudan’s Pyramids
Rising Nile floodwaters are threatening to swamp an ancient archaeological site in Sudan after rivers in the country reached some of the highest ever recorded levels, archaeologists said. Teams have set up sandbag walls and are pumping out water to prevent damage at the ruins of Al-Bajrawiya, once a royal city of the two-millennia-old Meroitic […]
Update on the Great Green Wall of Africa
The world’s most ambitious reforestation project has covered only 4% of its target area but is more than halfway towards its 2030 completion date, according to a status report. More funds, greater technical support and tighter oversight will be needed if the plan to plant 100m hectares of trees and other vegetation is to be […]
Cairo’s New Strategy to Battle Coronavirus
Egypt, like the United States and a handful of other countries, is trying to fight the pandemic in part by using convalescent plasma, the watery fluid in the blood of recovered patients that is teeming with antibodies. The idea is to harvest the plasma and inject it into other patients to give them an immunological […]
A Quiet Bitcoin Boom in Africa
Monthly cryptocurrency transfers to and from Africa of under $10,000 – typically made by individuals and small businesses – jumped more than 55% in a year to reach $316 million in June, the data from U.S. blockchain research firm Chainalysis shows. The number of monthly transfers also rose by almost half, surpassing 600,700, according to […]
Meet the Only African at Nasa Right Now
Fadji Maina has become the first scientist from Niger to work for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa). The 29-year-old hydrologist earned her PhD in 2016, and joined the world-famous space agency in the US at the end of last month. She told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme she will use her new […]
