Africa50 unveiled on Tuesday, the winners of the first edition of its Innovation Challenge, which aimed at sourcing innovative solutions, to help increase access to reliable and affordable internet connectivity in under-served areas across Africa.
The announcement was made during an interactive session dedicated to the Innovation Challenge, organized in partnership with Informa, at the ongoing Africa Tech Festival.
Poa! Internet, a Kenya-based Internet Services Provider providing wireless high-speed broadband to homes and SMEs in low income and semi-rural areas, emerged as the winner of the innovation challenge. Poa will receive $100,000 dollars as prize money and will be added to Africa50’s investment pipeline. Poa will be considered for a potential investment, subject to Africa50’s due diligence process and Poa’s fit with Africa50’s investment criteria. If an investment is approved, Africa50 will seek to launch a pilot program in Rwanda to test the solution’s business model in a rural context and demonstrate its viability to be scaled across the continent.
The project would then be rolled-out in Rwanda as the pilot country, with the intention to scale up to other African countries.
Uganda tops African countries with well-developed electricity regulatory frameworks – ERI 2020 report
Uganda has for the third time in a row emerged as the top performer in this year’s Electricity Regulatory Index Report published by the African Development Bank.
The East African country, along with Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Kenya, the other top performers, have regulators with the authority to exert the necessary oversight on the sector. However, the overall electricity regulatory frameworks of African countries is poorly developed, and most countries experience major regulatory weaknesses.
The ERI, a flagship report of the African Development Bank, is a composite index which measures the level of development of electricity sector regulatory frameworks in African countries against international standards and best practice.
€300 million loan from AFD to IFAD to support millions of small-scale farmers
In an effort to tackle the devastating impact of climate change on rural hunger and poverty, the French development agency, Agence Française de Développement (AFD), today signed a €300 million loan to the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to help small-scale farmers in high-risk countries build their resilience to shocks and increase their productivity.
“If we want a world without hunger and poverty we have to focus our attention on the most vulnerable places where the poorest people live – and this is in rural areas,” said Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of IFAD, the UN agency dedicated to eradicating rural poverty and hunger.
“This loan demonstrates France’s strong commitment to investing in rural people, as well as the role of IFAD in assembling development finance to fight climate change in line with the Paris Agreement.”
Pandemic cuts global maritime trade, transforms industry – new UNCTAD report
Global maritime trade will plunge in 2020 due to the unprecedented disruption caused by COVID-19, UNCTAD says in its Review of Maritime Transport 2020 released on 12 November.
The report warns that new waves of the pandemic that further disrupt supply chains and economies might cause a steeper decline and the short-term outlook for maritime trade is grim.
Predicting the pandemic’s longer-term impact as well as the timing and scale of the industry’s recovery is fraught with uncertainty.
The report outlines how COVID-19 has sent shockwaves through global maritime transport and laid the foundations for a transformed industry and associated supply chains.
It also provides highlights and figures on maritime transport in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean regions.
