NewAfricaPride

After having already made a $32 billion pledge to Africa over a five-year period at the last Tokyo International Conference on African Development, Japan’s decision to invest $30 billion in Africa over the coming years, could not have come at a better time. With dwindling oil revenues, other badly affected commodity prices, and several new conflicts, Japan’s contribution to African states may serve to provide greater balance to their economic climates. For African states to meet their economic potentials, infrastructure development is imperative. $10 billion of the investment will be used for the development of the continent’s electrical power, urban transport systems, roads and ports. The African Development Bank will play a key role in the execution of the investments. The remaining $20 billion will be utilised in Africa through Japan’s private sector. Japanese Prime Minister, Abe is confident that in Africa, “Japan can grow vigorously”.  It is clear that Japan has e...

The infamous mobile money service, M-Pesa made another mark in the history books with its partnership with Western Union. The partnership will allow M-Pesa to scale its operations to a global stage. With just over a decade in the game, M-Pesa's recent move should come as no surprise. M-Pesa has been able to acquire subscribers in 10 nations in Africa. In Kenya alone, M-Pesa has over 100,000 agents, this is remarkably higher than the number of ATMs in the country. As M-Pesa expands, it will of course, have to consider regulatory challenges that come with such daring expansions in different geographical regions. On a global level, its competition is likely to vary, with technologies like blockchain looking to carry out similar exercises for scalability. Indeed, the future appears bright for M-Pesa. Their previous attempts at expansion were met with challenges but also learning opportunities which could be considered as preparation for a time such as this.