Key Development Updates
Financial Nigeria forms editorial pact with Christensen Institute to promote market innovation
The Editorial Board of Financial Nigeria magazine, Africa’s premier development and finance journal, has said it is collaborating with the Clayton Christensen Institute, a nonprofit and nonpartisan think tank based in Boston and Silicon Valley in the United States, to promote a new column on market innovation.
The editorial partnership with the renowned Institute was conceived to educate readers of Financial Nigeria about the power of market-creating innovations to help create shared prosperity across the globe.
The Institute, which is dedicated to improving the world through Disruptive Innovation, was co-founded by Harvard Business School (HBS) professor, Clayton Christensen, who passed away on January 23, 2020 at the age of 67. Professor Christensen was the architect of Disruptive Innovation, and one of the world's foremost authorities on innovation management. In 2011 and 2013, he was named the World's Most Influential Business Management Thinker by the London-based Thinkers50.
World Bank appoints Carmen Reinhart as Chief Economist
The World Bank Group has appointed Harvard Professor, Carmen Reinhart, as its new Vice President and Chief Economist.
An American economist with a Ph.D. from Columbia University, Reinhart is currently the Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. Her areas of expertise are international capital flows, finance, and macroeconomics, and she has published extensively on economies in Asia and Latin America, banking and sovereign debt crises, currency crashes, and contagion.
“I am very pleased to welcome Carmen to the World Bank Group as we boost our efforts to restore growth and meet the urgent debt and recession crises facing many of our client countries,” said World Bank President David Malpass. “Carmen has dedicated her career to understanding and surmounting financial crises in both advanced and developing economies in order to achieve growth and higher living standards. Her thought leadership during this unprecedented period will be invaluable to the Bank Group and our clients.”
Reinhart’s appointment is effective on June 15, 2020.
MainOne to deliver connectivity services in landlocked Burkina Faso
MainOne, a major connectivity and data centre solution provide in West Africa, has been chosen by the government of Burkina Faso, backed by the World Bank, to provide bulk connectivity services to a consortium of operators through the PAV-Burkina Cooperative, for the next three years. MainOne was chosen, following an international bid to select a preferred operator.
As a landlocked country, Burkina Faso has faced difficulties in accessing worldclass connectivity and maintaining ubiquitous broadband internet access due to the lack of infrastructure. The major network operators in the country were also reportedly reluctant to explore operational broadband service delivery models favourable for socio-economic development of the country. One of the poorest African countries, Burkina Faso had a GDP per capita of US$715.12 in 2018, according to data by the World Bank.
MainOne has been able to provide its services in Burkina Faso through a diverse terrestrial optical fibres link connecting its landing point in Accra to the Burkinabe border town of Paga, where the organization has made significant investments by establishing a physical point of presence to serve the country with its world-class service quality that maintains 99.95 per cent availability.
IRENA says competitive power generation costs favour investment in renewables
Renewable power is increasingly cheaper than any new electricity capacity based on fossil fuels, a new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has found.
Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2019, shows that more than half of the renewable capacity added in 2019 achieved lower power costs than the cheapest new coal plants. The report highlights that new renewable power generation projects now increasingly undercut existing coal-fired plants.
On average, new solar photovoltaic (PV) and onshore wind power cost less than keeping many existing coal plants in operation, and auction results show this trend accelerating – reinforcing the case to phase-out coal entirely. Next year, up to 1,200 gigawatts (GW) of existing coal capacity could cost more to operate than the cost of new utility-scale solar PV, the report shows.
Renewable electricity costs have fallen sharply over the past decade, driven by improving technologies, economies of scale, increasingly competitive supply chains and growing developer experience. Since 2010, utility-scale solar PV power has shown the sharpest cost decline at 82%, followed by concentrating solar power (CSP) at 47%, onshore wind at 39% and offshore wind at 29%.
BUA Foundation donates N200 million, five ambulances to Lagos as Covid-19 response
BUA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of BUA Group – one of Africa’s leading foods and infrastructure conglomerate, has donated five ambulances and a cash sum of N200 million to the Lagos State government to boost the state’s Covid-19 response.
BUA Group’s Chief Operating Officer, Chimaobi Madukwe, presented the donations to the First Lady of Lagos State, Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu. He said the company will continue to support the various efforts across Nigeria to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.