Author: NLM Correspondent

One unintended outcome of the “sub-Saharan Africa” classification of African countries is that North Africa is typically excluded from conversations about Africa’s tech start-up landscape. This often means we’re sharing an incomplete picture of progress being made in tech ecosystems on the continent especially given landmark events recorded in North Africa in recent years. Bus-hailing firm Swvl raised $42 million in the largest funding round for an Egyptian start-up while Careem, the Dubai-headquartered ride-hailing start-up with vast operations in North Africa was acquired by Uber for $3.1 billion. MaxAB, an Egyptian e-commerce marketplace raised $6.2 million in what’s regarded as…

BY NJ Ayuk I f you follow news about Africa, it’s easy to find disheartening headlines about the continent’s struggles. But those stories do not paint a complete picture. Every day, I read encouraging news about African entrepreneurs and business leaders who are making a positive impact. Exciting things are taking place in Africa. When I wrote Billions at Play: The Future of African Energy and Doing Deals, my goal was to help readers envision a new future for Africa, a future they could help shape. I want people to see that Africa doesn’t have to be subject to a…

NLM Writer The ICA’s Infrastructure Financing Trends in Africa 2018 report shows that financing of infrastructure in Africa reached a new high of $100.8 billion in 2018, a jump of about a quarter on 2017 and 38 percent up on the 2015-2017 average. Over the years the Infrastructure Financing Trends in Africa report has become an important document for presenting, in a consistent manner, how funding is being mobilised to develop the continent’s infrastructure. “The report’s publication during the Africa Investment Forum is extremely timely. While the increase in financial commitments in 2018 is very welcome, the report also serves to highlight…

By RYAN TROST A s the 2020 budget meetings come and go, teams are forced to assess their current defenses by analysing their historical attacks in order to anticipate/predict future attack trends. It is a difficult but worthwhile exercise for security leadership as they attempt to assess the adversaries’ trajectory and work to remain several moves ahead. More often than not, adversaries stay true to their methods but only make slight variations to their attacks – why change what historically works?! Which leads me to my first 2020 premonition. A sharper concentration of cloud attacks. Companies continue to flock to…

On November 5, 2019, Kenya’s National Assembly passed an amendment to the Finance Bill, removing a cap on commercial lending rates that has been in place since September 2016. The removal of the rate cap will no longer constrain bank lending, a credit positive. Because banks are able to better price their risks without a rate cap, Moody’s Financial Services projects the country can expect higher overall loan growth over the next 12-18 months and increased lending to segments of the economy that have had subdued growth and access to credit, primarily small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) in sectors like…

By Yomi Kazeem A new data protection law in Kenya is setting a high standard for the rest of the continent. As the country looks to engender more safeguards in the collection, handling and sharing of data, Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta has approved legislation which complies with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. The new law outlines restrictions on data handling and sharing by government and corporations. Any infringements of the new law will be investigated by an independent office with violators facing two-year prison sentences or fines of up to $29,000. Stringent data protection rules could also be a boon for…

By Luis Francheschi We often forget that colour is irrelevant below the skin, a name is something we don’t choose for ourselves, and economic status can be fleeting. We frequently think that law can resolve societal problems, the problems we have created for ourselves, and which we do not really want to or don’t know how to resolve. Thus, we hide behind the law, and blame the law as a bad manager hides behind company policies to avoid facing a bad, absurd decision. We also fail to recall that law without the spirit and the will to enforce it is…

By Walter Khobe ochieng Kenyans chose to depart from a past of authoritarian rule and unjust societal set up by enacting a new constitution in 2010. The post-2010 dispensation is founded on a bold normative constitutional document that not only aims at regulating and disciplining the distribution of power, the ushering in of a new era of democratic governance and representation, and the definition of human rights, but which also aspires to establish a new political and moral foundation for the Kenyan society. The Constitution vests in Kenyan courts the challenge of implementing these ambitious and transformative constitutional promises. This…

By Yash Pal and Jill-Cottrell Ghai The Kenya judiciary has a heavier responsibility than judiciaries in almost any other country. The public generally associates the judiciary with deciding cases in disputes among the people or between the people and the state. But the judiciary (judges and staff) has other important roles, such as ensuring justice is available to all and, most importantly, that the constitution is observed by all, most critically the other institutions of the state — with whom it is liable to come in conflict periodically. As with other parts of the constitution, we can only understand the…

By Dr Justice Willy Mutunga In 2010 Kenya created a new modern transformative Constitution which replaced both the 1969 Constitution and the former colonial Constitution of 1963. This was the culmination of almost five decades of struggles that sought to fundamentally transform the backward economic, social, political, and cultural developments in the country. The making of the Kenyan 2010 Constitution is a story of ordinary citizens striving and succeeding to reject or overthrow the existing social order and to define a new social, economic, cultural, and political order for themselves. Some have spoken of the new Constitution as representing a…