Promising efforts to restore degraded land are now in the spotlight at a time when 40 per cent of the world’s land currently faces degradation and drought, threatening the livelihoods of over three billion people, the head of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) said Wednesday, announcing three winners of its World Restoration Flagships…
She said Africa needs to move land restoration from the aid column into the investment column by developing bankable landscape programmes, strengthening land tenure, deploying risk-sharing instruments and ensuring that farmers and pastoralists benefit from carbon and other emerging environmental markets. As negotiations continue at the 17th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat…
Walmart says it has received nearly $3 billion in tariff refunds — and used some of that windfall to cut prices for consumers strained by inflation. The refunds helped boost Walmart’s profit, according to the company’s quarterly earnings report Thursday. “Customers tell us they’re still feeling some pressure,” Walmart CEO John Furner said. “Having the…
When governments unveil annual budgets, headlines focus on the big numbers: spending, growth and tax collection. But sometimes the real story sits quietly in the technical annexes. Tanzania’s 2026/27 budget, due to take effect from July, includes plans for 6.3%GDP growth and the biggest spending plan in the country’s history while narrowing the deficit. Yet…
Optasia CEO Salvador Anglada Optasia will distribute more than US$6-billion in credit across its markets in 2026 – and it carries every cent of the default risk itself. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, CEO Salvador Anglada unpacks how the JSE’s biggest recent fintech listing actually works. Formerly known as Channel VAS, Optasia was…
Prakriti Singh, regional executive vice president for core payments at Mastercard Mastercard will not disclose what it earns when a transaction settles in stablecoins rather than over its card rails, and it will not predict whether AI shopping agents will grow or shrink the volumes moving across its network. What it will say – repeatedly…
With fewer than five years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a new UN report says sustained investment and international cooperation have improved billions of lives, but warns that governments must urgently accelerate action if the goals are to be met by their 2030 deadline. The findings come from the 2026 SDG Progress…
African leaders have warned that poor access to clean water and sanitation is costing the continent billions of dollars annually while deepening poverty, disease, and inequality. Speaking at a conference in Kigali on Sunday, May 24, to mark the 62nd African Liberation Day, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Gertrude Kazarwa said millions of Africans…
Organised labour under the African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa) has raised concern over what it describes as worsening inequality and economic hardship across the continent. Marking this year’s International Workers’ Day, ITUC-Africa warned that Africa is facing a growing imbalance in wealth distribution, where economic gains are increasingly concentrated among…
The comments follow a high-profile spat with US President Donald Trump, who called the Pope weak on crime.
