With the clock ticking on climate negotiations in Belém, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, speaking separately, delivered a united message: the world is watching, and compromise cannot wait. Amid reports of deadlocks on fossil fuels, climate finance and other key issues, both leaders urged negotiators to act decisively…
South African electrotech startup Plentify has raised an undisclosed Series A round to expand into the U.K., Australia, and Brazil, markets facing growing renewable-energy constraints such as grid congestion and intermittency. The round, which brings Plentify’s total funding to nearly $15 million, includes backing from Secha Capital, Buffet Investments, E3 Capital, Fireball Capital, Endeavor SA’s…
More than 19 per cent of children worldwide live in extreme poverty, surviving on under $3 a day, according to a new UNICEF report. Nearly 90 per cent of those children are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, but even in high-income countries, 23 per cent live with far less income than their peers. “It…
Standard Bank has become the first African bank to directly integrate with China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), providing African companies with a faster route to pay Chinese suppliers in Renminbi, rather than routing transactions through the US dollar. The integration removes an extra step long embedded in Africa-China trade flows, where companies typically settled…
Stuttgart, Germany — Gen. Dagvin Anderson, commander, U.S. Africa Command, visited Morocco Oct. 20-21, highlighting the longstanding and deep partnership between the United States and the Kingdom of Morocco. This visit, which underscored the strategic importance of Morocco and shared interests on the continent, followed Anderson’s recent assumption of command and provided an opportunity to…
Kampala, Uganda — Uganda has set its sights on securing orders for at least 1,000 electric coaches during the Made in Uganda Grand Trans-Africa Electric Expedition, a milestone 30-day journey covering more than 13,000 kilometres across Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Eswatini, and South Africa, government officials said in Kampala today. The mission is designed not…
World Toilet Day reminds us that safe sanitation is fundamental to human health and dignity. In every community, a toilet protects people from disease, safeguards our environment, and underpins social and economic development. Yet today, 3.4 billion people still live without a safe toilet. Each year, 1.4 million people die due to inadequate access to…
Port-Louis, Mauritius — The Mauritius Commercial Bank Limited (MCB) has issued a structured financing package to Invictus Investment Company PLC to support the firm’s expansion across Africa and the Middle East. The facility combines acquisition finance with a revolving credit line, providing Invictus with additional working capital as it scales its agro-food operations. The arrangement…
Nairobi — The African Union and its partners have endorsed the creation of a continent-wide regulatory network to strengthen oversight of veterinary medicines, following a three-day consultative meeting in Nairobi. The initiative, led by the AU Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) and the AU Pan African Veterinary Vaccine Centre (AU-PANVAC) with support from GALVmed,…
He said Africa cannot achieve universal health coverage or pandemic preparedness without the ability to finance, produce, and govern its own health systems and countermeasures. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has warned of a surge in outbreaks of cholera, Mpox, and Marburg virus disease across the continent, raising concerns about…
