Africa UN Knowledge Hub for COVID-19

Yashmita Bhana is no stranger to adversity. In 2007, she was unemployed and even struggled to put food on the table for her family. Almost 14 years later, Bhana is now a respected South African entrepreneur and mother of three children. When the pandemic started straining small businesses, she didn’t panic.

Bhana is the founder of the Nihka Technology Group, an information, communication and technology company based in Johannesburg. When she needed money to expand operations, she turned to Lulalend, an online lending platform providing fast, affordable financing to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa. The company extended her a loan in 21 hours.

BRUSSELS — France’s private sector development arm, Proparco, announced €1 billion ($1.2 billion) to support African entrepreneurs this week, expanding the Choose Africa initiative launched by President Emmanuel Macron three years ago.

The money, partly backed by guarantees from the French government and the European Commission, is part of the $4 billion that the Association of European Development Finance Institutions — of which Proparco is a member — announced at last month’s “Finance in Common Summit.”

Sustainable startups are an integral part of adopting and creating innovative and sustainable solutions to pressing issues faced in local and global communities. 

Sustainable startups that focus on environmental challenges faced in communities are encouraged to look into the following funding opportunities. 

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, December 15, 2020 (ECA) - The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) on Tuesday launched its flagship Economic Report on Africa, titled: “Innovative Finance for Private Sector Development in Africa”, which looks at innovate financing as a way of providing solutions to the challenges of private sector financing, hence enabling Africa’s private sector to thrive and drive the continent’s economic growth and recovery; and, importantly, to increase the private sector’s resilience to the effects of the global coronavirus pandemic.

To address the myriad challenges facing Africa in the areas of food security, education, health and energy, as well as bridge the digital divide, it is essential for African policy makers to harness innovation and the potential brought by digital technologies. This will be crucial for the continent’s recovery from the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The for-profit private sector is an important provider of health services in most countries, and the sub-Saharan African region is no exception. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the private health sector in this region has experienced a range of financial and operational challenges…

In years to come, we will look back at 2020 as the moment that changed everything. Nowhere else has unprecedented and unforeseen growth occurred as in the digital and e-commerce sectors, which have boomed amid the COVID-19 crisis.

African countries are yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel of the COVID-19 crisis, but they must quickly initiate deep economic reforms to prepare for their future as returning to their pre-pandemic model is no longer impossible.

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa recently announced the scaling up of the country’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout. At the beginning of September 2021, the entire adult population – people over 18 – will be eligible to get vaccinated.

Participants of a G20 Compact with Africa meeting this week assessed Africa’s progress in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. “We are meeting at a pivotal time in the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world,” said Italian prime minister Mario Draghi.