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Africa’s secret weapon for economic growth and global development
Evidence shows that family planning is essential to lower maternal and infant mortality. Although both have decreased in the past decades, still today over 300,000 women and girls die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications, including unsafe abortions.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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New Income Tax in Rwanda Causing Major Financial Strain for Many Mobile Money Agents
More than 7 million Rwandans do their banking through their cellphones, but many of the agents who facilitate the banking transactions never declared their income to the country’s tax authority. Now the tax authority has started taking a 15-percent withholding tax from these agents’ incomes with the cellphone provider, plunging some of these agents into financial turmoil.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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South Africa to start building affordable smartphones
Developed by Rwandan businessman and billionaire Ashish Thakkar, the Mara group at the Africa Investment Forum announced ambitious plans to develop manufacturing plants in Rwanda and in South Africa.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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20,000 Ethiopian smallholders targeted with climate smart technology
CTA together with Farm Africa has launched a new project to promote the resilience of smallholder farmers against climate change in Ethiopia’s Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR). The launch is the third and final of a CTA initiative that supports the scaling of proven climate smart agriculture technologies in Jamaica, Mali and now Ethiopia.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Africa’s dominant mobile money service is going global
M-Pesa’s over 23 million active subscribers in Kenya will also be able to send and receive money through their phones and be connected to WU’s 500,000 global agents.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Kenyans in diaspora now remit four times more cash
The remittances have been the country’s largest source of foreign exchange (international currencies) since 2015 when they overtook earnings from tea exports.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- remittances
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Press release: The Trade and Development Bank and USAID Sign Memorandum of Understanding to Power Africa
At the signing, the Trade and Development Bank’s President and Chief Executive, Mr. Admassu Tadesse, said, “TDB is very pleased to deepen its existing partnership with USAID in further support of the Power Africa Initiative, which resonates strongly with TDB’s strategy and mandate. We are proud to count USAID among our growing number of cooperating trade and development finance partners in the US.”
- Source
- Press release
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Zimbabwe to review mobile money tax after backlash
Using official 2017 statistics on total mobile money transaction value, the tax hike increases government takings from the service by almost ten times.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech, public policy
