The African Development Bank Group has signed an agreement to make a $25 million equity investment in the Currency Exchange Fund (TCX), marking the Bank Group’s return as a shareholder in the global fund founded by development finance institutions to manage currency risk in emerging and frontier markets.

The signing took place in the offices of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Hague.   

The investment, to be deployed in two tranches, will reinforce TCX’s capital base, enhance its risk-bearing capacity, and expand its ability to offer hedging instruments in illiquid and underserved African currencies, for which conventional hedging solutions are unavailable or prohibitively costly.

The equity participation is expected to help crowd in additional development finance institutions and private investors, reduce currency mismatches for borrowers, and support sustainable growth across key sectors including infrastructure, energy, microfinance, small and medium-sized enterprises, and the public sector. The African Development Bank Group’s Board approved the investment on 17 September 2025.

A three-day technical workshop aimed at strengthening Africa’s Civil Aviation Authorities concluded in Nairobi, focused on enhancing the capacity of national aviation specialists to develop and implement corrective action plans based on the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) Key Performance Indicator (KPI) audits. 

The workshop was aimed at equipping audited States to finalize, execute, and monitor these plans, while facilitating knowledge-sharing and lessons learned from the implementation of the Banjul Accord Group Multilateral Air Service Agreement (BAG/MASA).

Robert Lisinge, ECA Director for Technology and Infrastructure, emphasized in his opening address: “Effective monitoring of the Yamoussoukro Decision is the cornerstone of a transparent and unified aviation market. Realizing the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) is not just an aviation goal, but a vital catalyst for the African Continental Free Trade Area.”

Lisinge emphasized the need to leverage digitalization to enhance the efficiency of monitoring mechanisms. To this end, ECA is collaborating with the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC) to digitize the monitoring system, ensuring it is accessible online for all member States.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has launched a new emergency health project in South West Ethiopia Region, marking the beginning of a stable operational Emergency presence in the Southwest Region. The project started in 2025 following assessments that identified unmet medical needs in a region home to more than three million people and highly vulnerable to recurrent outbreaks of malaria, measles, cholera, and other infectious diseases.

The new MSF project aims at establishing an agile response capacity in a region with remote communities, particularly vulnerable during recurrent outbreaks and health emergencies. Through this intervention, MSF aims to strengthen the capacity of the local health system to prevent, detect, and respond to outbreaks while improving access to quality, free healthcare. (Press release)

Ethiopia’s foreign minister has called for a stronger and more cohesive Africa to shield the continent from what he described as “predatory moves” by external actors, as ministers convened in Addis Ababa ahead of this week’s African Union (AU) leaders’ summit.

“Unfortunately, a mentality of domination, extraction, and exploitation still colours the prism through which many external actors view our continent,” Gedion Timothewos said on Wednesday during the 48th Ordinary Session of the AU Executive Council in the Ethiopian capital.

Addressing delegates, he stressed African unity must be “real” if the continent is to safeguard its interests in an increasingly calculated global environment, where trade and economic cooperation are being eclipsed by political and security considerations.

Gedion added that Africa requires “not mere charity or goodwill of others but true partnership,” arguing that meaningful cooperation rests on the strength that “emanates from unity.”

He further cited internal pressures, noting that unconstitutional changes of government in several African countries continue to erode the foundations of the AU and weaken peace and security across the continent. (TRT)