Chimamanda’s Opinion Challenged
For more than a decade, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has coached and mentored African writers through her annual creative writing workshop. The workshops, with just 20 students out of thousands of applicants, are intimate and for some graduates, career-defining, leading to book deals, prizes and residencies. In a lengthy essay published on her website […]
A New Approach to Spotting and Investing in Africa’s Most Promising Early Stage Ventures
Maya Horgan Famodu appeared on the Forbes Africa 30 Under 30 list in 2018 in the technology category. She has been photographed shepherding Silicon Valley tech moguls across Africa. She has invested, through her venture capital firm Ingressive Capital, in leading African startups including the genomics company 54gene and Paystack, the Nigerian fintech leader now […]
An Upward Swing in the Economy is on the Cards for Zimbabwe
A World Bank report says Zimbabweans living in rural areas are doing better than their counterparts in the urban areas thanks to subsistence farming. The report says a record 7.9 million Zimbabweans are “extremely” poor, earning less than 30 U.S. dollars a month. Mukami Kariuki, who heads the World Bank in Zimbabwe, says the economy […]
Ballots are Still being Counted in Ethiopia’s Parliamentary Poll
Africa’s second-most populous country went to the polls on Monday but an opposition boycott, a months-long war in the northern region of Tigray, ethnic violence elsewhere and logistical challenges overshadowed the vote in some regions. Abiy’s newly formed Prosperity Party (PP) is seen as the frontrunner in a crowded field of candidates, mostly from smaller, […]
How Soon can We Expect ‘Made in Africa’ Vaccines?
The COVID-19 crisis has revived discussions on localising vaccine manufacturing to the African region to reduce the dependence on imports. Several companies have announced their intention to produce COVID-19 vaccines in Africa. These include Aspen in South Africa and Saidal in Algeria. Expertise related to other types of vaccines also exists, for example, in the […]
The First African Country to Receive Payment for Reducing Carbon Emissions
Gabon has become the first African country to receive payment for reducing carbon emissions by protecting its rainforest. The UN-backed Central African Forest Initiative (Cafi) has handed over $17m – the first tranche of a $150m deal struck in 2019. Nearly 90% of Gabon is covered by forest, which captures more carbon than the country […]
Ivory Coast Transport Start-Up Moja Ride Partners With O-CITY by BPC
For Its Next Phase Of Growth In Mobility Innovation Moja Ride, an Ivorian startup providing a reservation and cashless payment system for transport services in Abidjan, today announced it has partnered with O-CITY for its next phase of digital innovation and future expansion. Founded in 2020, Moja Ride is an application that allows commuters to […]
Winner Of Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship 2020
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela Summary of Research This project, provisionally titled “Aesthetics of Trauma, Poetics of Repair,” brings together many threads from my interests as a writer and as a scholar. I will return to the archive of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as a memorial space of bearing witness to collective pain, and use select […]
The Wait Is Over! The King Of Afrobeats, D’Banj, Is Back With Fantastic New Single – “BANGA”
Nigerian superstar, D’Banj, is back on the music scene with a phenomenal new single, “BANGA”, showing once again why he is the king of Afrobeats. Together with a music video which is cinematic in scale, “BANGA” has the makings of a summer hit. “BANGA” begins with D’Banj declaring, “Allow me to reintroduce myself”, over a […]
Trademark East Africa (TMEA) And The Eastern And Southern African Trade & Development Bank (TDB)
Sign An MOU To Collaborate On Supporting Trade In Eastern And Southern Africa. • TDB and TMEA will work together towards developing trade supportive infrastructure in the region; • Institutions will collaborate on supporting information technology innovations in trade, logistics and transportation; • Via trade, institutions will contribute to combatting the effects of the COVID […]
