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Why 2021 MasterCard Index of Women Entrepreneurs holds promise for Africa — President, Harvest Foundation

Published

3 years ago

April 14, 2022

The MasterCard Index of Women Entrepreneurs (MIWE)2021 report, released at the end of March, 2022, has continued to attract reviews from key institutions within the African continent.

The latest of such reactions emerged Tuesday, as the President, Harvest Foundation, Mrs Adaoha Ugo-Ngadi, spoke against the backdrop of MIWE 2021 report which highlighted 13 best African countries for women entrepreneurs.

In the 118-page report, Botswana, South Africa, Ghana, Madagascar, Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Angola, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Malawi and Egypt were named as top destinations for people seeking a safe haven for women entrepreneurs in Africa.

MIWE 2021 involved a survey of 65 countries, and Botswana at 35 was Africa’s best performing country. The top positions, expectedly, were occupied by entities from North America, West and Eastern Europe, and Asia.

According to MasterCard, its sample size of 65 economies represents 82.4% of the world’s female labour force.

Speaking to the report on Tuesday, Mrs Ugo-Ngadi said that though the revelations showed a comparatively weak performance by African economies, they should be regarded as a challenge to managers of the continent’s economies.

“The MIWE report is, no doubt, an incisive and compelling read. Africa’s best performance standing at 35 out of 65 indicates that a lot more work needs to be done to redress the narrative.

“The reason for this weak performance is not far-fetched. African governments are more guilty of United Nations findings which note that only 10% of all policy measures put in place globally are gender sensitive and are geared towards addressing women’s needs,”Ugo-Ngadi noted in a statement.

The release added: “Reworking the African narrative must be deliberate and well thought out. African leaders, from Cape to Cairo, must open up themselves to fresh understanding of where the global economy is headed. The reality is that across the entrepreneurial landscape, women have become one of the essential elements defining the global economy’s most valuable assets.

“African leaders must come to a realization that African women entrepreneurs hold the key to a regeneration of the continent’s economy, and this is why the Harvest Foundation has committed to piloting the first-ever African Woman International Trade Fair.

Ugo-Ngadi also called for the urgent removal of the barriers stopping African women from reaching their full potential saying, “Women have the numbers. There is an immediate need to factor that into policy making if African female entrepreneurs hope to increasingly occupy an improved place in the 37% accounting for global GDP.”

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Kenya seeks $750m from World Bank, obtains $200m from AfDB— Official

Published

2 days ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The head of debt management for the finance ministry told Reuters that Kenya had obtained a $200 million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) and was negotiating a fresh $750 million loan with the World Bank.

After being forced to abandon proposed tax rises costing more than 346 billion shillings ($2.68 billion) in June due to fatal demonstrations, the East African nation’s administration, which has been grappling with significant debt, has been frantically seeking fresh funding.

The Finance Ministry’s public debt management office director general, Raphael Owino, told Reuters that the IMF’s October clearance of the seventh and eighth reviews, which opened the door for a $606 million loan tranche, had aided the ministry’s talks for more loans.

“The World Bank is coming on board, riding on the back of IMF receipts,” Owino said. “The AfDB is already on board.”

The discussions for more assistance, which came under the World Bank’s “Development Policy Operations” (DPO) with the government, were confirmed by a representative at the organization’s Kenya office.

“The amount of the current (loan) is yet to be determined. The amount will also depend on the implementation of the policy reforms agreed upon,” the spokesperson told Reuters, adding that past DPO loans averaged about $750 million.

In May, the World Bank approved the latest round of DPO loans, totalling $1.2 billion.

According to a statement made last month by Finance Minister John Mbadi, Kenya has set a foreign borrowing goal of 168 billion shillings for the fiscal year ending in June 2025.

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Dangote refinery begins petroleum sales to West Africa

Published

2 days ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

In an indication to traders that the activities of its mega-refinery might soon disrupt regional fuel markets, Nigeria’s private Dangote Petroleum Refinery has started exporting refined petroleum products to neighbouring West African nations.

According to a Bloomberg story on Tuesday, a tanker had transported a consignment of petrol from the Dangote Petroleum Refinery to seas off the coast of Togo, a nearby West African nation. The article cited data from Vortexa, Kpler, Precise Intelligence, a port report, and a ship-tracking tool.

According to the source, a CL Jane Austen recently departed west after loading over 300,000 barrels from Dangote.

Recall that Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, the chairman of the Ghana National Petroleum Authority, stated last month that the nation is thinking of purchasing petroleum products from the Dangote refinery in order to reduce the approximately $400 million it spends each month on more costly exports from Europe.

Speaking at the OTL Africa Downstream Oil Conference in Lagos, the chairman of NPA, Ghana, said that by eliminating freight expenses, buying from Nigeria instead of Europe will lower the cost of other products and services.

“If the refinery reaches 650,000bpd a day capacity, all that volume cannot be consumed by Nigeria alone, so instead of us importing as we do right now from Rotterdam, it will be much easier for us to import from Nigeria and I believe that will bring down our prices,” Hamid said.

Two weeks ago, it was announced that the refinery would start exporting fuel to Namibia, Angola, and South Africa. Four more African nations—Niger Republic, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Central Africa Republic—had also begun talks with the refinery, it was said.

According to a very reliable source who spoke directly to one of our reporters, the management of the refinery with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day was in the advanced stages of negotiations with the nations to begin lifting petroleum.

“I can confirm to you that talks are actually at the advanced stage with Ghana, Angola, Namibia, and South Africa, while the initial discussion is coming up with Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, and the Central African Republic,” the source said.

The petroleum product shipment is currently floating off the coast of Lome, which is a well-liked location for ship-to-ship transfers, according to the source.

Furthermore, the final destination of the cargo of the CL Jane Austen is uncertain.

Despite being off Togo, the region is frequently utilised for ship-to-ship transfers, thus the gasoline may eventually be transported elsewhere.

“While the shipment is tiny in the context of the global gasoline market, it signals the ramp-up of Dangote’s production and the potential to export significant volumes of gasoline beyond Nigeria, which could upend regional markets.”

Last month, the refinery sent its first shipment of petrol by sea to Lagos, a neighbouring commercial centre.

Under the regulatory statute, the Federal Government last month terminated the state-owned oil company’s monopoly on purchasing gasoline from the plant for domestic use, but it has permitted the ongoing importation of fuel from the US and Europe.