Author: AMA

AN independent UN human rights expert on Monday hailed a decision by the African Court on Human and People’s Rights, to award reparations to the Ogiek indigenous peoples, for harm that they suffered due to ‘injustices and discrimination.’ The historic ruling follows a landmark judgment delivered by the Court on  May 26 2017, finding that the Kenya government had violated the right to life, property, natural resources, development, religion and culture of the Ogiek, under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. ‘Important step’ ‘This judgment and award of reparations marks another important step in the struggle of the Ogiek…

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   TODAY in Freetown, Sierra Leone, President Julius Maada Bio announced his support for the Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Act. The act, which was drafted and approved by the cabinet, will now go to Parliament for approval. Crucially, this law will overturn a strict ban on abortions that dates back to colonial times and will help reduce Sierra Leone’s maternal mortality rate, which is currently the highest in the world. In response to this exceptional moment, which marks another victory for feminist movements for reproductive rights across the Global South, leaders from Fòs Feminista, a global feminist alliance of…

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ASI Insight is Africa’s leading decision intelligence company empowering business leaders and entrepreneurs to make crucial decisions with confidence. The company conducts over 10,000 monthly interviews across 20 countries in Africa and aggregate all consumer data into a data portal called Kasi Hub.  Today, Kasi is pleased to announce the launch of dataset, an innovative way to source, explore and visualize consumer data. Each time Kasi surveys consumers across the continent, the responses are analyzed, processed using the latest technology and transform to fit into the company data portal. Dataset is a digitally friendly representation of the survey data accessible…

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HE Africa Publishing Innovation Fund (APIF) – a grant-giving programme co-led by Dubai Cares, a UAE-based global philanthropic organization and the International Publishers Association (IPA) – has selected five new projects across Africa to receive part of  $200,000 in funding in 2022 aimed at fostering a love of recreational reading among visually impaired and print disabled children and young people.  This is the third iteration of the APIF programme, which is funded by a multiyear, $800,000 donation from Dubai Cares. The APIF Committee, chaired by IPA President Bodour Al Qasimi and comprising renowned publishers from Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tunisia, and…

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F you speak to most migrant workers, you will hear of the extended financial support they provide to their families back home, as well as the large development projects they are funding. This they achieve by hiving off a portion of their income and sending it to their respective countries using different remittance services. Currently, about one billion people in the world are involved with remittances, either by sending or receiving them – one in nine people are recipients of these flows of money sent by their family members who have migrated for work. Indeed, every year, about $82.7bn in…

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  d6, a company that provides management and communication solutions for schools, has found that in the best-performing schools, teaching and learning are prioritised, and teaching time is more effectively employed. ‘Typically, high-performing schools do nothing out of the ordinary – they do the basics well and allow their teaching staff to fully focus on learning while ensuring the managerial foundation is well looked after,’ says Willem Kitshoff, CEO of d6. d6 currently helps more than 2,500 schools across Africa to operate more effectively and it has a core strategic focus to expand its school management system to the East…

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ASTERCARD and Ecobank Group have partnered to connect millions of smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa to Mastercard’s Farm Pass – a digital platform that makes it safer and easier for farmers to sell their produce at a fair price. Under the partnership, Ecobank will extend the reach and impact of the Mastercard Farm Pass platform leveraging its Pan-African network of 33 countries. Many smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa face several challenges. These include limited access to markets, working capital to finance activities or secure quality inputs, and relevant financial tools to pay and get paid efficiently. This has led to…

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AST-GROWING businesses need to be supported by technology platforms that support their growth and expansion while keeping tight controls over financial and other core business processes. Siginon Group, a leading Pan-African transport and logistics company with headquarters in Nairobi-Kenya, has a service offering that includes clearing and forwarding, transportation, warehousing, contract logistics, container freight stations and a diversified portfolio in; property management, vehicle and equipment leasing and tech logistics. The Group’s rapid business growth and market dynamics sparked a business transformation project that boosted adoption of cloud services while bringing greater efficiency and transparency to key business processes. Robin Chumari,…

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THE Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) has officially launched the 2022 US – Africa Business Summit website which is now open for registration. The Summit, themed ‘Building Forward Together,’ will be held in Marrakech, Morocco on July 19 – 22, 2022 in partnership with the Kingdom of Morocco and Africa50 (the pan-African infrastructure investment platform). The Summit will explore a renewed commitment by both public and private sector stakeholders to building stronger US and Africa trade, investment, and commercial ties as we emerge from unprecedented health and economic challenges. The U.S.-Africa Business Summit is the first major in-person US-Africa conference…

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WAS invited to dine with Bill Gates last week during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The terms of the invitation, which was extended to six others besides myself, were that the discussion would be off-the-record. Therefore, I can’t write about anything discussed that evening. What I can tell you is what we ate, and what I thought about after the dinner. The menu, prepared by chefs at Microsoft House – the temporary headquarters of all things Microsoft at the Davos conference – was superb. The first course was an Asian beef salad, followed by a main course of…

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