As the world focuses its attention on preventing irregular migration and protecting refugees coming out of Africa, the displacement that happens behind its own borders persists at an alarming rate. A new report by the IDMC and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reveals that since the beginning of 2017, 2.7 million people have been displaced by conflict, violence or disasters, and have not crossed an international border. In the first half of the year, 997,000 new internal displacements due to conflict were reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), more than in the whole of 2016, and 206,000 in the Central…
Author: NBM CORRESPONDENT
By C. M. Rubin “New and more innovative knowledge maps are now needed to help us navigate the complexities of our expanding landscape of knowledge.” — Charles Fadel The Trivium and Quadrivium, medieval revival of classical Greek education theories, defined the seven liberal arts necessary as preparation for entering higher education: grammar, logic, rhetoric, astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and music. Even today, the education disciplines identified since Greek times are still reflected in many education systems. Numerous disciplines and branches have since emerged, ranging from history to computer science… Now comes the Information Age, bringing with it Big Data, cloud computing, artificial…
MediaTek Inc. has announced a System-on-Chip (SoC) partner for providing Google’s AndroidTM Oreo (Go edition) software to Smartphone makers. After a deep collaboration with Google, MediaTek’s MT6739, MT6737, and MT6580 SoCs, among others, now have board support packages available to run Android Oreo (Go edition). Google collaborated with MediaTek to ensure that Android Oreo (Go edition) works well on its line of processors, enabling a faster time-to-market mechanism for device manufacturers, and ensuring a quality Android Smartphone experience that is both secure and affordable for devices with 512MB to 1GB of memory. This marks one of the first times that entry-level SoCs…
BY ALASTAIR PATERSON The holiday season is in full swing and once again we can expect to see a surge in cyber attacks targeting retailers and consumers. Research from the National Retail Federation shows that spending during the winter holidays outstrips retail sales during all other holidays throughout the year – combined! From Black Friday to sales in January, this is the most wonderful time of the year for retailers, and this trend will likely continue. A survey by RetailMeNot shows that consumers are expected to spend an average of $743 holiday shopping between Black Friday and Cyber Monday this…
BY MARIAM ABDULLAHI Although Africa’s largest telco operators are generally showing growth in their customer bases, it is public knowledge that revenue growth has somewhat stalled to as little as 1% year on year. This means that despite attracting an increased number of customers, the amount each of these customers spends is decreasing. In the wake of digitally transforming economies, it is safe to assume that the traditional revenue models of voice, SMS and data revenues are eroding and may soon become irrelevant. Thanks to a combination of maturing technology, regulatory interventions, increasing levels of sophistication and discernment among consumers,…
BY VICTOR ADAR While Heineken East Africa honored winners of the African Inspired Design Challenge at a ceremony at the Village Creative – Lavington Nairobi, something else stood out that day. In Kenya, although fashion and design scene is fantastic and craving is in the air, it is still being taken up as a part time job. It is at the back of this that Heineken saw an opportunity to give a chance to talented emerging designers, challenging them to explore the creation of contemporary prints and redefine hospitality fashion garments. Just when a three-day knowledge exchange workshop held in…
The Kenyan retail property market has been facing an oversupply of malls and general commercial property and this likely to hurt investor’s returns, says Gerhard Zeelie, head of real estate finance, African region at Standard Bank. “Given the cost, long investment tenors and slowed rate of retail stock utilization, investors should not be looking for stellar returns overnight,” he said in an interview. While the Kenyan commercial property sector has seen a slight increase of 1.48% in rental yield between 2016 and 2017, this doesn’t spell good news for developers. The Data Fintech’s Real Estate Market Report for December 2017…
From 2000 to 2008, Nairobi added 72 000 square meters of retail real estate to East Africa’s largest commercial hub. This build was spread across three shopping precincts. In the nine years from 2009 to 2017 the city added another 351 900 square meters of retail real estate across 17 developments. This expansion represents nearly five times the retail real estate build of the previous decade. Kenya’s strong economic growth of the last decade presented a favourable retail real estate investment proposition. The country’s relatively sophisticated domestic retail and real estate investment sectors were not slow to leverage this opportunity. The country’s…
NBM Writer A new Bank Outlook report by credit rating agency Moody’s shows that although banks will maintain solid capital and liquidity buffers, macro conditions will remain difficult in the majority of African countries. According to the report which was released on 12th December 2017 , despite showing improvement, economic growth will remain below historical levels, while political uncertainty will dampen confidence and governments’ capacity for fiscal stimulus will be limited. The report identifies several high risk contagion channels for banks such as large holdings of government securities, which link their credit profiles to that of their respective sovereign authorities’ reduced…
Kenya is emerging from a protracted presidential election process and seeing a return to political stability. Nonetheless, challenges will persist in 2018 for organisations operating in the country and East Africa more widely. High debt levels in Kenya and unpredictable policymaking in Tanzania are among the key risks for businesses operating in the region in the year ahead, says specialist global risk consultancy, Control Risks, in its annual political and security risk forecast – RiskMap. Management of high debt levels and regulatory uncertainty in some markets will pose key risks for business in 2018. “2018 is set to be a…