Key Development Updates
Nigerian start-up founder wins $250,000 Africa Netpreneur Prize
Temie Giwa-Tubosun, founder of LifeBank, a Nigerian medical distribution startup, last month, won the $250,000 first prize for the maiden Africa Netpreneur Prize.
LifeBank, founded in 2015, uses medical distribution technologies including drones to provide health workers with critical medical products such as blood and vaccines. According to information on its website, LifeBank had moved 18,087 products, served 897 hospitals, had 5,682 donors, and had saved 5,978 lives as at November 30th.
The Africa Netpreneur Prize Initiative (ANPI) is a flagship initiative of the Jack Ma Foundation. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba and China's second-richest man with $37.2 billion net worth, according to Forbes, created the ANPI following his first trip to Africa in 2017.
Speaking at the award programme in Ghana, Ma urged respective African economies to “create the needed environment for startups to thrive."
EIB Report: Uncertainty weighing on EU firm investment
The economic climate in the European Union (EU) is worsening and investment by EU firms is likely to slow down in 2020; EU climate mitigation investment is stagnating and behind US and China; and Europe needs to accelerate adoption of digital technologies to stay competitive. These, and others, are the findings in the European Investment Bank (EIB) Investment Report 2019/2020.
According to the report, European firms are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the economic outlook. The report also finds that infrastructure investment is stuck at 1.6% of EU GDP, the lowest in 15 years and Europe is failing to reap the benefits of digital transformation.
The report, which reflects the results of the annual EIB Investment Survey (EIBIS) of 12,500 European businesses, recommends that the EU take advantage of historically low interest rates, increase public investment, catalyse private investment and promote efficient financial intermediation to tackle the slowdown.
South Africa launches first blockchain-based property register
The Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHF), the research consultancy 71point4 and Seso Global have partnered to develop South Africa’s first blockchain-based property register. The pilot study area consists of almost 1,000 properties located in four sites in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, in Western Cape. All the properties are Government subsidised properties that have not yet been registered on Deeds Registry.
Aside from creating an immutable record of who owns which house, the platform facilitates and records transactions such as sales and transfers out of deceased estates and integrates with third parties who facilitate transactions, including mortgage lenders.
The benefit of the blockchain solution is that it allows the data to be stored in a decentralised, secure database that can be updated without any loss of historic data. This means there is a secure, backto-back record of all transactions that are completely tamper-poof.
South Africa has a serious titling problem. According to Kecia Rust, the CEO of CAHF, the government has built over three million RDP houses since democracy. But CAHF’s analysis of deeds office data indicates that only 1.9 million of these properties have been registered.
Developing economies less prepared for deep downturn than before 2009
Anew study by the World Bank Group on the 2009 global recession and its aftermath finds that emerging and developing economies are less well positioned today to withstand a deeper global downturn, should it occur, than they were before the 2009 global recession. This is in spite of the fact that the countries now have more resilient policy frameworks to respond.
Since the 2009 global recession, emerging and developing economies have become more vulnerable to external shocks in an environment of mounting debt and weakening longterm growth prospects, the study finds.
However, at the same time, many emerging market and developing economies now have stronger policy frameworks, such as fiscal rules and inflation targeting monetary policy regimes, than during earlier financial crises and global recessions. Also, international financial sector regulation has strengthened.
Africa to double natural gas production by 2040 as global consumption to double by 2050
The 2nd International Gas Seminar of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), which held last month in Malabo, Equitorial Guinea, projected that global natural gas use will double by 2050; replacing more traditional fossil fuels and facilitating an energy transition towards sustainable development.
Africa is expected to double its gas production by 2024 and projected to contribute 9.2 per cent to global natural gas production by 2040.
According to the GECF’s Global Gas Outlook Model, natural gas will be the only hydrocarbon source to increase its share in the global energy mix, remaining the fastest-growing fossil fuel. GECF member countries currently hold 71% of natural gas reserves, 44% of marketed gas production, 55% of pipeline gas trade, and 53% of LNG trade globally.