African News
An African Union mediation delegation on Monday, October 5, met the leadership of the AFC/M23 movement in Goma amid continued efforts to find a political solution to the conflict in eastern DR Congo. ALSO READ: DR Congo crisis: What’s the main challenge facing AU mediators? The delegation, comprising former Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde, former Kenyan…
Should the world move away sharply from fossil fuels, or manage a slower, more careful retreat? That question underpinned many of the speeches from global leaders at this year’s High-level Week General Debate in New York, as climate change emerged as one of the defining fault lines dividing Member States. UN News reviewed some of…
Getting aid to people in the world’s most neglected emergencies takes more than money. It takes open roads, open borders and leaders willing to help it reach those in dire need. That was the message from UN relief chief Tom Fletcher on Friday, as the aid coordination office he runs, OCHA, released $160 million to…
In June 2024, a ransomware attack on South Africa’s National Health Laboratory Service rendered patient records inaccessible, disrupted diagnostics and forced hospitals to cancel surgeries. The incident was a stark reminder that when essential services become digital, attacks on their underlying systems can quickly become disruptions to everyday life. It was not simply a cybersecurity…
African tech startups collectively secured $582,808,000 in funding during the third quarter of 2026. This significant capital injection was distributed among 58 different startups across the continent. The period from July to September 2026 emerged as the most successful quarter of the year so far for the African tech ecosystem, indicating a potential strengthening of…
Five35 Ventures has completed its first portfolio exit, generating a 3.5x multiple on its investment in Ghanaian agritech company Complete Farmer. The Africa-focused venture firm invested in Complete Farmer in April 2022 and exited in March 2026, producing an internal rate of return of 38% over about 4 years. Complete Farmer’s valuation increased from $6…
Wave Côte d’Ivoire has joined the PI-SPI instant payment network, developed by the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO). The mobile money operator is now listed among the authorized participants as of September 30, 2026, after having been absent from the list on July 31, 2026. This integration marks a significant expansion of the…
When one Black South African journalist decided to leave the profession after only four years, she did not walk away because she had stopped believing in journalism: ‘I mourned because I knew I could have done so much in that space.’ Her experience is documented in a 2025 Reuters Institute fellowship paper by South African…
Thousands of years ago, farmers in West Africa took a wild ancestor of rice and turned it into a crop of their own. But it was difficult to harvest and, over time, globally dominant Asian rice pushed it aside. Yet African rice survived in some of the region’s harshest growing conditions, coping with drought, deep…
Jani Ibrahim’s career has followed an unusual arc: engineer first, industrialist second, institution builder last, each stage quietly funding the next. In September, that arc reached West Africa, when he was elected President of the Federation of West African Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FEWACCI). The election happened in Abidjan, at FEWACCI’s 11th Annual General…
