Non-life insurance accounted for 55.95% of total premiums—slightly down from 58.14% the previous year Kampala, Uganda | JULIUS BUSINGE | Uganda’s insurance sector capped off 2024 with an impressive 10% growth in gross written premiums (GWP), rising from UShs 1.60 trillion in 2023 to UShs 1.76 trillion in 2024. This strong …

The downgrade has also attracted criticism from the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an arrangement established in 2003 by African Union states to monitor governance performance ANALYSIS | JOHN BASQUILL | The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has joined a pan-African governance unit in criticising Fitch Ratings’ downgrade to the multilateral development …

Industry analysts say platforms like the FMCG Digital Suite are timely, especially with Africa projected to have over 500 million e-commerce users by 2025 Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | MTN Uganda’s mobile-based supply chain platform for Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies has registered strong uptake, with more than 860 businesses …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | MTN Uganda plans to spin off its mobile money arm, MTN MoMo, into a separate entity, a move that could alter the structure of its business in one of its largest African markets. In a regulatory filing last week, the company said it “intends to …

New drivers continue to join platforms even as fares were slashed starting in 2016 COMMENT | JULIE ZOLLMANN | Many argue that gig work involves exploitation, as research and media coverage have highlighted. But that doesn’t seem to deter ride hailing drivers on platforms like Uber and Bolt. In Kenya, in …

Ukraine has just demonstrated, in spectacular fashion, that a small but determined and innovative country can deploy cheap, scalable, and decentralized technology to challenge a much larger, conventionally superior foe. COMMENT | IAN BREMMER | On June 1, Ukraine conducted one of the most extraordinary asymmetric operations in modern military history. …

INTERVIEW | Big tech sharing economy platforms like Airbnb and Uber are marketed as trustworthy, but a new book by a South African media scholar argues that they are highly vulnerable to scammers who spread delusive speech (a form of disinformation, designed to deceive by criminal intent). Julie Reid draws from …

How  deadly jihadists get themoney they need to survive COMMENT | EGODI UCHENDU & MUHAMMED SANI DANGUSAU | The West Africa–Sahel region has seen a proliferation of militant Islamist groups since the 1990s. One of the most vicious groups operating in the region is Jama ’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (Support Group …

Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent some $300 million on Donald Trump’s campaign, gaining unprecedented access to the Republican president’s administration. What does their public row mean for Musk’s empire? ANALYSIS | NIK MARTIN | How did Musk and Trump get so close? Once a vocal critic of Donald Trump during his …

African leaders must treat plastic pollution as an urgent public health crisis ANALYSIS | SOPHIE MASIKA & LORRAINE MUGAMBI-NYABOGA | Microplastics are all around us. In the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink. Those tiny fragments of broken-down plastic waste, are now part of our everyday …