African markets and business updates

This year's powerful El Nino and the record global heat it's driving, along with severe droughts, wildfires and shrinking water supplies, could lead to nearly half a million more deaths worldwide by the end of February, according to a research report released om Wednesday.

Yaoundé has pushed back the launch of its planned Bus Rapid Transit network by three years, with construction of the Transyaoundé system now scheduled to start in 2029 and commercial service expected in 2031. The city will dedicate 2027 to the detailed preliminary design, with construction set to follow two years later and take another two years. Authorities unveiled the revised timetable on September 23, 2026, during the official launch of the project’s preparatory phase in Yaoundé. The new schedule represents a significant shift from the timeline presented on April 12, 2024, during a meeting at the Yaoundé City Council on efforts to professionalize transport in Cameroon’s capital.…

The partnership will give the programme, DarE, access to Plug and Play’s global network of startups, investors and corporate partners. Dar Ventures, the venture capital arm of design and engineering firm Dar, has partnered with Plug and Play , a global open innovation and early-stage venture platform, to expand its startup programme for technology companies working across architecture, engineering, construction and the wider built environment across Africa and other markets. The partnership will give the programme, DarE, access to Plug and Play’s global network of startups, investors and corporate partners.…

Ethiopia’s army says its forces have killed 272 Tigrayan fighters and wounded 260 during a counter-offensive in Amhara. The press says the figures could not be independently verified.

GRZ Bonds Market Trade Summary Report 23.09.2026 Download PDF

GRZ Bonds Market Trade Summary Report 23.09.2026 Download PDF GRZ Bonds Market Trade Summary Report 23 . 09.2026 Download PDF

Africa has built the networks. The bigger challenge now is getting affordable smartphones into people’s hands. As component prices rise, the push for a $30 smartphone is getting harder—and so is closing the continent’s mobile internet gap. Africa’s mobile internet problem is no longer only whether a network reaches people. Increasingly, it is whether they can afford the phone needed to use it. Across the continent, operators have spent years building towers, laying fibre and expanding 3G and 4G coverage. The networks are there. In Senegal, 4G reaches about 97% of the population ; in Uganda, 98% ; and in Nigeria, more than 80% .…

The sixth edition of the event, titled “Being Here”, brought together artists at seven venues along Liberty Street, including the abandoned Liberty Hotel, built in the early twentieth century and closed since the 1940s.

In Ceuta, Spanish police discovered 28 undocumented migrants hiding in flats that did not meet adequate hygiene and habitability standards. Ceuta is facing a humanitarian crisis, weeks after more than 70,000 people reached the enclave from Morocco.

A meeting of regional intergovernmental organisation the East African Community (EAC), along with East African trade bloc the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and Eastern African countries implementing World Bank-supported digital transformation programmes has convened in Nairobi.