How the Digital Economy can bring out the best of the AfCFTA

The eagerly awaited African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), formally under way in January 2021, sets out to boost intra-African trade for goods, services, investment, and intellectual property. At the same time, the impact of rapidly accelerating digital transformation across key sectors such as agriculture, finance and healthcare necessitates a holistic and digitally driven approach […]

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Positioning for growth: time for greater Arab-Africa trade collaboration

South-south economic, political and security ties between the Middle East and Africa are growing rapidly, bringing ever-greater opportunities for financial collaboration between banks, non-bank financial institutions and bilateral government relationships. Also improving is country risk. Africa’s country risk ratings deteriorated significantly during the pandemic, with around 80% of nations in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) placed in […]

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Mobilising private capital into Africa-focused Trade Finance funds

The need to mitigate supply chain disruption risks: The case for Trade Disruption Insurance There has been a large influx of speciality trade finance funds over recent years in an effort to mitigate the tremendous trade finance deficits across emerging markets and in particular Africa. This widening gap, in part caused by the global banking […]

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How to Procure Captive Power Solutions at Competitive Tariffs

We spoke with our members Cresco Project Finance to understand the opportunities in Captive Power Solutions across Africa. Rob Futter, Director, provides insights into energy tariff variations, which markets are seeing the most interest and a 6-step Buyers approach to procuring captive power. Orbitt: So what is ‘Captive Power’? Rob Futter: Captive Power is the […]

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AfCFTA in 2020: Challenges ahead and keys to success

The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) entered into force on 30 May 2019 after receiving approval from 54 out of the 55 African Union member states. The agreement, making Africa the largest global trading bloc since the establishment of the WTO in 1994, aims to boost intra-African trade, reduce dependency on foreign markets, and […]

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The keys to a successful fundraising for SMEs in West Africa

Several reasons explain why SMEs in Ghana and West Africa struggle to raise funding to finance their growth: many entrepreneurs have limited knowledge of fundraising options available to them and don’t know how to “sell” their investment opportunity to potential investors. Also, they are perceived as riskier than larger companies and have limited access to […]

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It’s time for Development Finance Institutions to join Africa’s technological evolution

Technological innovation has swept across Africa in the past decade. There are almost one billion cell phone subscriptions on the continent, up from 129 million ten years ago. In addition, software advances have disrupted the way people from Senegal to South Africa live their daily lives—from traffic support to remittance technology to agricultural assistance. The […]

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