Author: NLM Correspondent

Over the next six years, Africa and the Middle East are expected to have the highest growth rate in 5G availability in the world. SITA, the leading IT provider for the air transport industry, has made six predictions about how ultra-fast 5G networks will bring major change for airports, airlines, and passengers. With download speeds of up to 400MB per second, 5G will be a game-changer. The potential for innovation is huge and airports, airlines, and passengers will feel the force of 5G in very different ways. SITA’s predictions are based on unique IT insights and emerging air transport industry technology trends. They follow…

China’s tech giant Huawei announced in February it had secured a total of 91 5G commercial contracts worldwide, putting it ahead of all other major vendors despite tightening restrictions from the United States. Over half of the contracts, 47, come from Europe, while 27 are in Asia, thanks to increased customer recognition, said Ryan Ding, executive director of the Board and president of Huawei’s Carrier BG, during a 5G Products and Solutions Launch in London. The company has also shipped over 600,000 5G Massive MIMO AAU (Active Antenna Unit) modules, a type of key modem used in 5G base stations,…

As renewable energy represents a greater proportion of total energy production, ensuring safety, reliability, and cost-effectiveness, assets will become a priority. Over the next five to 10 years, renewable energy will assume a more prominent role as a main power source for power grids. Solar power, in particular, as the most noteworthy form of renewable energy, has a particularly bright future. However, as renewable energy represents a greater proportion of total energy production, ensuring safety, reliability, and cost-effectiveness across power generation assets will become the upmost priority. With the rapid development of emerging ICT technologies, such as AI, cloud, big…

Vital takeaways as contagion compresses world economy takeaways By Antony Mutunga It has been over three months since COVID-19 started its war on humanity in Wuhan, China. At the time of press, more than 350,000 people worldwide had contracted the virus and more than 16,000 people lost their lives. Even though China has contained it, it continues to spread all over the rest of the world, affecting individual and national economies alike. And as global bodies, such as UNCTAD have noted, apart from the threat COVID-19 has on human life, the contagion carries serious risks for the global economy. Despite…

The largest disruption to trade will be for commodity-sensitive economies. By Brahima Sangafowa Coulibaly The World Health Organization (WHO)’s March 11 recognition of COVID-19 as a global pandemic removed any doubt about the threat that the virus poses to every country in the world. The virus has, at the time of press, been detected in 154 countries, with more than 380,000 infected and more than 16,000 killed. Though Africa remains one of the regions with the fewest cases, the number of countries affected increased over March. As of this writing, nearly 450 cases had been reported in 30 countries, concentrated…

BY SHADRACK MUYESU You may recall the devastating floods and mudslides that the North Rift suffered late in 2019. 49 Kenyans perished in less than 48 hours with entire families being wiped out. The story barely featured in the local press before it was eclipsed by more “important news items”, when it was the splash item on Al Jazeera for the entire period of the catastrophe. As a friend once noted, Kenyans love politics and that’s the kind of content they prefer.” It made sense at the time, understanding our politics-crazy country, until a few weeks later when I finished…

Those under the Young Dealer programme and established financial dealers speak of exploitation that tends towards slavery, harassment and an oil marketer operating on impunity By NLM Writer It is a Thursday mid-morning and at a Total petrol station in the outskirts of Nairobi, Peter Waruru* (not his real name) watches as his staff serve customers who are already lining at the forecourt. It is a busy time and all its all hands on the deck. By any estimation, the station is in business proper. Yet the same cannot be said of Peter. He runs a station that has a…

By David Himbara Kenya is an economic success story by any measure. The country is the fourth-largest economy by GDP in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) after Nigeria, South Africa, and Angola. With a GDP of $109bn, Kenya is the largest economy in eastern Africa, having overtaken Ethiopia in 2017. The economy is larger than the combined economies of Tanzania and Uganda, its two East African Community (EAC) partners. And Kenya is the only country in eastern Africa to have significantly reduced poverty, having graduated from low-income to middle-income level. Yet the country faces an internal challenge that persistently undermines its development potential — the country’s…

Drivers, destinations, and policy options By Landry Signé, Mariama Sow, and Payce Madden Since 1980, an estimated $1.3 trillion has left sub-Saharan Africa in the form of illicit financial flows (per Global Financial Integrity methodology), posing a central challenge to development financing. While the international development community often focuses on the amount of aid and investment that enters the African continent, the other part of the balance sheet—the funds exiting the continent—has often been overlooked. Between 1980 and 2018, sub-Saharan Africa received nearly $2 trillion in foreign direct investment (FDI) and official development assistance (ODA), but emitted over $1 trillion…

BBI may succeed in creating a recalibration of our democracy, but not – never – a realignment By Kevin Motaroki The last time democracy almost died in Kenya, when Daniel Moi was President, heroes of the Second Liberation did not argue about it or call political rallies to tell the masses what, in their view, was wrong. They set about fixing it – with blood and sweat, with cerebral politics and ideology, with grit and determination not witnessed before then – or since. In Parliament, legislators with balls of steel defied the deity that was Moi. In the streets, and…