Commencement of the AfCFTA. The landmark African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is slated to go into force on July 1, 2020. When fully implemented, the trade agreement will eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers, and substantially increase intra-regional trade to volumes worth over $3.3 trillion. Twenty-nine countries have deposited their instruments of ratification, and Eritrea … Continue Reading
Shift to a services era While Africa’s trajectory remains full of daunting challenges, there is reason to be optimistic. Ratification of the Continental Free Trade Agreement demonstrates critical collaboration between African leaders, and promises to unlock the region’s potential. Equally important, growing investments in broadband ensure that affordable access to leading technology will accelerate the … Continue Reading
Africa’s Growth Prospects. Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow at 3.8 percent in 2019, which is a significant improvement over last year’s regional growth rate of 2.6 percent. Excluding the continent’s largest economies (Angola, Nigeria and South Africa), which are growing collectively at an average of 2.5 percent, the aggregate growth rate … Continue Reading
In its final deliverable of the 2016–2018 term, the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (“Council”), issued a call to the U.S. Government and the American business community to make a deliberate effort towards nurturing greater U.S. commercial engagement with Africa. The final report was prepared by the private-sector members of the council … Continue Reading
As a startup founder, there are a number of issues vying for your attention on a daily basis, most of which are essential to the success of your business. Issues such as differentiating your product from competitors, developing stellar code, creating effective advertising, hiring the right staff and of course securing enough capital to fund … Continue Reading
Artificial intelligence and big data are some of the new technologies dominating discourse in 2018. These technologies are expected to change the way that we travel, learn, and transact. However, this forecast is less clear for the least developed countries (LDCs). According to a United Nations study, science and technology and resource and development remain … Continue Reading
When bitcoin entered the public’s eye for the first time in 2013, it was touted as one of the greatest inventions for the unbanked in Africa. The World Bank estimates that of the 2 billion people without access to the modern financial system, a third live in Sub-Saharan Africa. In recent months, bitcoin and cryptocurrency … Continue Reading
Covington’s Africa Practice is looking forward to being a sponsor of the first-ever Africa House at South By Southwest (SXSW) this year. Launched in 1987, with a mission to foster discussion and collaboration in the music and art scene, SXSW has morphed into the ultimate gathering place for creatives, innovators, and technologists. Held in Austin, … Continue Reading
Earlier this month, more than 1,000 leaders from business, government, and civil society participated in the World Economic Forum on Africa in Durban in early May with the theme, “Achieving Inclusive Growth through Responsive and Responsible Leadership.” This note highlights several conversations relevant to the forum’s theme. The Leadership Challenge The challenge of responsible leadership … Continue Reading
Crowdfunding—or the use of online platforms to raise money for business ventures from a large base of investors—has been steadily gaining traction in Africa over the past decade. Still, crowdfunding in Africa remains limited compared to other regions: In 2015, the African crowdfunding market amounted to about $70 million, accounting for less than one percent … Continue Reading
The explosion of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket yesterday was bad news for SpaceX, certainly, but the loss of the rocket’s payload is particularly troubling in light of the need to further expand internet access within Sub-Saharan Africa. That payload was the Amos-6 communications satellite, which Facebook, as part of its Internet.org initiative, intended to use … Continue Reading
In a recent interview, Executive Director of the Nairobi-based United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) Dr. Joan Clos stated that “urbanization will be a big opportunity for Africa in the coming years.” It comes as no surprise that harnessing the potential of Africa’s urbanization will be a top agenda item at Habitat III, the major … Continue Reading
Social media is one of the most powerful tools available to Africans — especially the sizeable youth population — who previously have felt disenfranchised, neglected, and powerless. Across the continent, this tool has been wielded to demand accountability, strengthen democracy, and increase transparency. Unfortunately, there are increasing efforts to attack this power. The African Charter … Continue Reading
The past few years have been replete with media stories of an unfolding “African digital renaissance” and the wonders of the “Silicon Savannah” and other Sub-Saharan African tech hubs, with coverage reaching a fever pitch in the wake of the recent Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi. Yet francophone Africa has been noticeably absent from tech reporting … Continue Reading
This week, numerous companies from emerging economies will gather in India to participate in the third annual Growth Net conference, a unique platform focused on promoting business, trade and financial partnerships amongst the countries represented. South-South cooperation will be the focus of much of Growth Net’s agenda, and a principal topic of interest will be … Continue Reading
In yet another example of how mobile technology is revolutionizing service delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa, application developers, data mining companies and financial institutions are using mobile usage data and social media activity to determine the credit risk of potential borrowers. These efforts are helping to surmount one of the most significant obstacles to extending credit … Continue Reading
For the past few years, the explosive growth of mobile financial services (which includes mobile banking, mobile payments and mobile money transfers) in Kenya and other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa has indicated that the future of banking on the continent will be through mobile phone accounts rather than brick and mortar locations. New analysis by … Continue Reading
On 4 January 2015, India’s Acting High Commissioner in Nigeria, Kaisar Alam, announced that the Indian commission is facilitating a partnership between Nollywood (Nigeria’s movie industry) and Bollywood (India’s movie industry). Mr Alam noted that the two industries contribute greatly to their respective countries’ gross domestic product and stated that “India can use its more … Continue Reading
Today, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights issued its judgment on the landmark freedom of speech case, Lohé Issa Konaté v. Burkina Faso. In a major victory for media and human rights organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Court “has ruled that imprisonment for defamation violates the right to freedom of expression while criminal … Continue Reading
Although it groups the African region within its “Rest of World” operating segment, Facebook’s attention to — and resulting successes on — the continent indicate that Africa has the potential to play a significant role in the company’s future. This month, Facebook reached 100 million active users in Africa, a figure that represents half of … Continue Reading
As various African countries seek to engage their sizeable youth populations, this human capital investment will prove as important as the other types of investments being made on the continent. The e-Curriculum portal in Nigeria demonstrates how the public and private sector can work together to ensuring that these youth have the skills needed to … Continue Reading
Similar to the growing U.S. interest in exploring civilian uses of unmanned aircraft systems (“UAS”), efforts are underway across the African continent to deploy UAS in innovative ways such as protecting wildlife, expanding internet connectivity to isolated communities, and delivering humanitarian aid. In Kenya, Dickens Olewe and his African SkyCAM project is helping journalists to … Continue Reading
One of the most effective and innovative uses of mobile technology in recent years has been in the delivery of government services. Yesterday, during the Corporate Council on Africa’s “Leading the Way in U.S.-Africa Investment” program, the Nigerian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Dr. Akinwumi Adesina detailed how mobile technology has been used to … Continue Reading
In the past two decades, the spread of democracy has been one of the most important advances across the African continent. Since the 2008 launch of the website Ushahidi (the Swahili word for “testimony” or “witness”) which crowd-sourced and mapped user-generated reports of post-election violence in Kenya, technology has been playing an increasingly critical role … Continue Reading
