Remote CodeLn, an online platform that helps companies to manage their freelancers and track their tasks throughout the product development process has launched a remote management tool for companies in Nigeria. CodeLn was established three years ago as a fallout from the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) where four participants; Philisiah Mwaluma, Dennis Nduta, Dexter Ouattara and Elohor Thomas met and arrived at the idea of CodeLn to automate the entire tech recruitment process end-to-end. The startup then bagged US$100,000 in funding from MEST upon completion of the programme and followed it up by launching an automated tech recruitment platform that makes it easy for companies to hire African software engineers in 2019, and has seen an increase in requests for remote freelancers since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This comes with peculiar challenges, however, and CodeLn identified an opportunity to make the adoption of the gig workforce seamless for companies.
Its new platform, Remote CodeLn, helps companies or individuals to post their tech project, receive bids from freelancers, pick from verified bidders, draft a product development contract, assign and manage product development tasks, and pay freelancers in tranches based on milestones completed, all without leaving the platform.
Both the company and the programmer set tasks and timelines for each milestone, which is documented in a contract. The platform stands as an intermediary between both parties, guaranteeing milestones are completed before payment is made as the funds are kept in escrow.
“We saw the need to enlighten companies on how to manage programmers working remotely as it was not the norm in Africa before COVID-19 hit. But we soon realised the additional need for a tool to help them manage this process seamlessly. That is why we built Remote CodeLn. This platform ensures a smooth process for both the company and the programmer,” said Elohor Thomas, the startup’s chief executive officer (CEO).
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Kenya has announced it joined The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business as a full member of the 27-year-old organization, committed to accelerating Canada-Africa trade and investment. A move observers say would open opportunities towards realizing Canadian trade and investment in Kenya. The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business is an independent, not-for-profit organization with strong working links with both Canadian and African businesses and governments. Leading CEOs and Heads of State – alongside investors, entrepreneurs and policy-makers – are among the hundreds of speakers and tens of thousands of delegates to in-person and virtual events.
‘We are excited by this new partnership with the Canada-Africa Chamber of Business. We look forward to benefiting from the expertise and knowledge of over a quarter a century promoting trade and investment between Canada and Africa,’ underscored Mr. Stephen Lorete, the Charge d’Affaires at the Kenya High Commission in Ottawa.
‘Kenya is a leading and one of the fastest growing economies in Africa with many attractive trade and investment opportunities, across many sectors, and we invite the Chamber’s membership and the general Canadian business community to take advantage.’
A packed program of action immediately accompanies the Republic of Kenya’s accession to The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business. Over the next two months three (3) major events are scheduled to take place. These are: The Second Session of the Binational Commission meeting between Kenya and Canada with a strong trade and investment component taking place in Nairobi, Kenya between 13th-15th April 2021.
An upcoming mid-April announcement on a historic MoU with The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business and representatives of Kenya’s private sector – following a seminar held last year in Nairobi with Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng and companies from both countries. A Virtual Trade Mission from Canada to Kenya in the second half of May 2021.
‘Apart from my country of birth, there is no other nation on the continent in which I have spent more time than in the incredible country of Kenya,’ says Garreth Bloor, President of The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business.
‘Today we are honoured to welcome a leading economy, composed of some of the world’s top business leaders. The opportunities are immense and work toward realizing Canadian trade and investment in Kenya is already well-underway.’
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
The GSM Association (GSMA) has released a report on the state of mobile money industry. Tagged “State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money”, the report unveiled a major piece of information: for the first time, more than a billion dollars were sent and received internationally around the world every month via mobile money.
Mobile money
The report indicates that mobile transactions accelerated during lockdowns induced by Covid-19 around the world. This is because all the restrictions limited access to cash and financial institutions. In addition, the number of registered accounts increased by 13% in 2020 to reach more than 1.2 billion, double the forecast.
They were not very optimistic because the consequences of the pandemic (job losses, income cuts, etc.) suggested that transactions were going to decline. This was without counting on the diasporas who have instead redoubled their efforts to support their loved ones. As a result, the total value of transactions increased 65% to an annual total of $ 12.7 billion in 2020.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions. He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance. He is also an award-winning writer
Kenya Airways has announced what market watchers described as its worst results in memorable history as the airline continues to take stock of the full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its operations and businesses. This has triggered new talks of nationalization as the management rues the historic loss of over $330 million for the fiscal year of 2020 due to passenger numbers dropping by close to two-thirds, and the share loss jumped by as much. Meanwhile, a secret $91 million government bailout is waiting in the wings.
Kenya Airways
Apart from the rare exception, air operator financial results coming in for the full fiscal year of 2020 are severely in the red. Many account for historical losses. Forty-four-year-old Kenya Airways announced today that its pretax losses for 2020 amounted to 36.57 billion shillings ($333.2 million) – close to triple the sum from the previous year.
According to The Star Kenya, the airline’s Chief Executive Officer Allan Kilavuka said that passenger numbers dropped from 5.2 million in 2019 to 1.8 million during the year currently under review. Kenya Airways’ Chairman, Michael Joseph, was quoted as saying that things are bound to remain dire for the near future. “The COVID-19 global outbreak in 2020 was beyond anyone’s prediction, and its impact on the industry is expected to continue affecting air travel demand for the next two to three years,” Mr Joseph said.
Kenya Airways’ passenger numbers dropped from 5.2 to 1.8 million year-on-year. In December, KQ and Air France-KLM announced that they would be terminating their joint venture. Already suspended due to the ongoing crisis, the agreement will now officially end on September 1st this year. The Group still owns 7.8% of Kenya Airways. The remainder of the airline is divided, with 48.9% belonging to the Kenyan government, 38.1% to the KQ Lenders Company, and the rest to private shareholders.
Several voices have long called for the airline’s privatization, which the country’s Treasurer has also said it would favor as a long-term plan. However, in February, it was revealed that Kenya’s Treasury had approved a further Sh10 billion (approx. $91 million) in what Business Daily referred to as a ‘secret bailout’. The airline first sought state-aid (as a result of the COVID-19 crisis) in March last year, having halted all flights on March 22nd after orders from the government.
Even before COVID, the airline was struggling severely. With a loss of $258 million in 2106, the carrier came to the brink of bankruptcy due to a tremendous amount of debt, and lessors were threatening to repossess their aircraft. According to data from Planespotters.net, KQ only owns a few of its 39 aircraft outright – four Boeing 737s and seven of its nine 787 Dreamliners.
The SkyTeam alliance member also saw cargo volumes drop due to canceled flights leading to reduced belly space. Hoping to profit more from the airfreight demand growing due to such conditions, the airline, a little late on the ball compared to other ‘preighter’ operators, has converted one of its Boeing 787 Dreamliners to a temporary cargo-carrier.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Africa is set to recover from its worst recession in half a century. Real GDP is projected to grow by 3.4% in 2021 after contracting by an estimated 2.1% in 2020, mainly due to COVID-19 related disruptions, according to the African Development Bank’s (www.AfDB.org) recently released African Economic Outlook (AEO) (https://bit.ly/3lMe67I). The pandemic also caused deep scars in the financing and debt landscape of the continent that may linger on if not quickly addressed.
African Development Bank
At the launch of the AEO, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz rightly explained how the COVID-19 pandemic caused both demand- and supply-side shocks in the continent. “It affected the demand for exports of African countries…but it also affected the willingness of people to work in some of the more exposed sectors and its effects were very disparate across different sectors.”
Following Stiglitz’s train of thought, Africa’s projected recovery will be subject to an unusually high level of uncertainty and risks, as is also pointed out in the analyses of the AEO.
Recovery prospects and risks
The most obvious risk to the recovery is the disease itself. The emergence of more contagious strains of the COVID-19 virus could derail the recovery process. Furthermore, if progress in deploying safe and effective treatment is slower than expected, governments would have to reinstate restrictions. On the upside, if COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines become accessible in the continent earlier than anticipated, the growth projection for 2021 could be exceeded, leading to a more robust recovery.
Another risk factor relates to the financial inflows to the continent. Although commodity prices have recovered somewhat from the low levels seen in mid-2020, they remain subdued compared to their pre-pandemic levels. Remittances are estimated to have dropped by nearly 10% in 2020, while tourism, foreign direct investments, and portfolio investments were halted in many countries. If these sources of inflows do not rebound, public finances in many African economies will remain suppressed, jeopardizing the projected recovery.
Social and geopolitical tensions in the region are also a major source of risk. The number of conflict-related events in the continent, including political violence, rose in 43 countries in 2020. If these tensions are not properly defused, they could result in policy uncertainty, dampening investor confidence, and could ultimately derail growth prospects.
Policies to sustain the recovery
In the end, government policies could make or break the recovery. For example, governments’ containment measures have helped accelerate digitalization in Africa, with more people adopting digital transactions, virtual meetings, e-medicine, e-commerce and other electronic platforms. If digitalization is sustained in the post-pandemic era, it would accelerate productivity and foster rapid and quality growth.
Furthermore, policymakers must not prematurely withdraw the current fiscal and monetary stimulus packages that have supported recovery. Support for the health sector should continue to consolidate gains in the fight against the virus. Effective policies to retool Africa’s labour force for the future of work must also be aggressively pursued. The African Continental Free Trade Area agreement should be used to strengthen regional and multinational trade and cooperation to stimulate shared prosperity. New public investment projects should focus on pandemic- and climate-proof infrastructure to help build economic resilience.
The impact of school closures on human capital development and the inequalities it creates between the rich and the poor, and between girls and boys, must be mitigated through targeted policies. Whenever in-person learning is possible, schools should open with the appropriate safety protocols in place. Otherwise, learning should continue using traditional media – print, radio, TV – and digital technologies such as smartphones and computers. Social safety nets, including cash transfers and in-kind support, should be expanded to include previously neglected groups in slums and informal businesses, taking advantage of the accelerated digital penetration.
Policies to strengthen good governance and structural reforms should be aggressively implemented as part of efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis and avoid a looming debt crisis. African countries must eradicate all forms of “leakages” in public finances and pursue an all-out effort to harness digital technologies to propel the continent into the fourth industrial revolution and into a future that is far more resilient to economic shocks.
By Chuku, Adamon Mukasa and Yaye Betty Camara are of the Debt Sustainability and Forecasting Division, African Development Bank.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization around the world, but as life has shifted increasingly online, cybercriminals have exploited the opportunity to attack vital digital infrastructure. States across Africa, where digital capacity continues to lag behind the rest of the world, have emerged as a favorite target of cybercriminals, with costly consequences. In early October 2020, Uganda’s telecoms and banking sectors were plunged into crisis due to a major hack that compromised the country’s mobile money network, usage of which has significantly increased during the pandemic. At least $3.2 million is estimated to have been stolen in that incident, in which hackers used around 2,000 mobile SIM cards to gain access to the mobile money payment system. In June, the second-largest hospital operator in South Africa was hit by a cyber-attack in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, paralyzing the 6,500-bed private healthcare provider, forcing them to switch manual back-up systems.
Cybersecurity
In light of increased attacks, institutions such as the Central Bank of Nigeria and national cyber-response organizations in Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Morocco, and Kenya have sounded the alarm to businesses and citizens, urging them to improve security measures. But states across Africa still lack a dedicated public cybersecurity strategy. As a result, cybersecurity initiatives related to COVID-19 have been mostly led by the private sector, especially professional and sectoral federations. These are rarely enough, as it’s a long, hard grind for most companies just to cope with the business impact of the pandemic on their day-to-day activities.
Addressing these vulnerabilities in the context of heightened cyberattacks requires a coordinated and dedicated commitment to cybersecurity at a time when governments and organizations are already be strained by the health and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. African states and regional bodies have taken initial steps toward implementing a continent-wide strategy to improving cyber-resiliency, but the vulnerabilities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic requires these efforts to be accelerated by building the institutional and coordinating mechanisms to better mitigate cybersecurity threats.
Policy tools for African governments
In order to strengthen cybersecurity, African governments can take a number of steps to improve their capacity to prevent and respond to cybersecurity vulnerabilities. First, it is essential that policymakers define a medium and long-term cybersecurity policy and strategy to integrate cybersecurity into government initiatives and to specify the resources needed to achieve them. This requires setting up national authorities or agencies with sufficient financial resources to implement the strategy and strengthen the country’s cyber-resilience. Additionally, governments must promote a responsible societal cybersecurity culture in order to strengthen the confidence of citizens and organizations in the cyber economy, digital services, and the broader internet. States must set up awareness-raising and training programs in cybersecurity for the public, private, academic, and civil society sectors in order to equip them with the skills and knowledge necessary to respond to cybersecurity risks. Governments must also establish the legal frameworks that are key to regulate the use of cyberspace and to sanction cybercrimes.
Fortunately, governments in the region have made some promising steps on these issues. The African Union, as part of its “Agenda 2063” for transforming Africa, has identified cybersecurity as a key priority to ensure that emerging technologies are used for the benefit of African individuals, institutions, and nation-states and to guarantee data protection and safety online. This project is guided by the African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection (Malabo Convention), which was drafted in 2011 but only adopted in June 2014. The convention’s purpose is to establish a “credible framework for cybersecurity in Africa through organization of electronic transactions, protection of personal data, promotion of cyber security, e-governance and combating cybercrime.” But as of June 2020, the convention has only been ratified by 8 out of 55 AU members (Angola, Ghana, Guinea, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda and Senegal), while 14 countries have signed but not ratified it. The AU Cybersecurity Expert Group, formed in 2018, must provide leadership and momentum for the convention’s ratification and deployment. The need for progress on this issue is urgent: The International Telecommunication Union’s Global Cybersecurity Index assess in its 2018 report that African countries are the world’s least committed to cybersecurity.
To improve resiliency, African states must urgently define response plans to be deployed in the event of a major attack on their critical infrastructure. These plans should describe what immediate nation-wide actions would be taken, as well as digital fall-back alternatives, to ensure that government and organizations would still be able to operate even with a sudden loss of digital tools and networks. National and regional stake holders should be involved in the response plan, and the nation’s cybersecurity maturity and capability levels should be taken into account, in order to adapt the response to the local context and to available financial, human, and technology resources. This context-dependent response is particularly important, as Africa is home to many low-income countries and lacks cybersecurity specialists with the required skills to help carry out timely and adequate responses to cyber-attacks. Given that cybercrime has no borders, international and cross-stakeholder collaboration and coordination, as well as cooperation between public and private sector leaders, will be of great importance here.
National cyber-response plans can be strengthened through the establishment of well-resourced and fully functional regional and national Cyber Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) throughout Africa. As of early 2019 only thirteen African countries had stood up such organizations. Regular drills should be performed to assess plans and improve them, for example by participating in the national or regional cyber-drills carried out by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Cybersecurity capacity building (CCB) provides the basis for countries to both improve their digital economies and boost their resilience against cyber threats. Many global CCB initiatives are already underway in African institutions and states. These include the Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre (GCSCC) with its Cybersecurity Capacity Maturity Model (CMM) as part of the Commonwealth Cyber Program, the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE), and the International Telecommunication Union with the GCI (Global Cybersecurity Index), just to name a few.These initiatives promote international cooperation, which is key to global and national cybersecurity. They also provide a benchmark and reference for governments building their national cybersecurity policies and strategies. There are several frameworks available for capacity building initiatives, with the Cybersecurity Capacity Maturity Model (CMM) from the GCSCC being the most comprehensive one. This model suggests that the five following dimensions are crucial to building a country’s cybersecurity capacity: policy and strategy, culture and society, education and training, legal and cooperation, standards and technologies. Capacity building is a long-term objective that needs to be well planned, adequately resourced, and regularly monitored in order to be achieved with efficiency. Greater state capacity enables better policy and cybersecurity implementation.
Good progress has been made to improve African countries cybersecurity posture. Mauritius is often cited as a reference on the continent in terms of cyber capacity, because of its legal and technical infrastructure, its national cybersecurity agency (CERT-MU), its national training and awareness initiatives, and the involvement of public and private actors in these efforts. Mauritius ranks first among African countries and 14th globally, in the most recent ITU Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) report from 2018. It has set up a National Disaster Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Committee that includes both public and private sectors and facilitates the monitoring, control, and transmission of decisions during cyber crisis situations. Mauritius is one of the eight African countries to have ratified the Malabo, with which their Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act is aligned, along with the Budapest convention on cybercrime. Mauritius has built a centralized portal to report cyber incidents and a security operations center to detect and monitor malicious traffic in real-time to enhance the country’s cyber threat preparedness.
African states, institutions, and civil society must not only demonstrate their commitment to cybersecurity, but also work in close collaboration and partnership toward the shared objective of protecting citizens, businesses, and organizations in the digital era. This will be imperative to prevent more damaging cyber-attacks, which on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic could have devastating impacts.
Landry Signé is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a distinguished fellow at Stanford Universit while Kevin Signé is an information security senior fellow at the Global Network for Africa’s Prosperity.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Today, Facebook has announced the launch of Instagram Lite to Sub-Saharan Africa, a new, lightweight version of the Instagram app for Android that uses less data and works well across all network conditions. The new version of Instagram Lite for Android is less than 2MB in size, making it fast to install and quick to load. It also has improved speed, performance, and responsiveness. Instagram Lite not only works similarly to the Instagram app for Android, but it allows the Instagram experience to remain fast and reliable for more people, no matter what device, platform and network they use.
Instagram Lite
Commenting on the rationale for introducing the app to Sub-Saharan Africa, Engineering Manager for Instagram Lite, Peter Shin said, “Connectivity in the region can be unstable, slow and expensive, making it challenging for people to have a high-quality Instagram experience. Many people were already familiar with the concept of a Lite app after the successful roll-out of Facebook Lite some years ago. We started testing the new version of Instagram Lite when people across the continent started asking for a Lite app for Android. The feedback was very positive and we are excited to launch it across the continent today”.
“Our team aims to leave no one behind, so today we are very excited to bring Instagram Lite to people in over 170 countries, including the entire Sub-Saharan Africa region,” he added.
Instagram Lite is similar to the core Instagram app experience, though some features are not currently supported, such as Reels creation, Shopping, and IGTV. Instagram Lite is likely to gain appeal to users in locations with limited bandwidth or high data costs, especially in the developing world.
Instagram Lite is currently rolling out in over 170 countries, and Facebook remains committed to building and improving the app to help everyone in the world connect to the people and things they love.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Africa’s COVID-19 vaccination has gained traction with nearly seven million people already vaccinated across the 38 African countries that have received more than 25 million COVID-19 vaccines and 30 have started vaccination campaigns after months of waiting on the side-lines for vaccines, many of the first wave of countries to start campaigns are rapidly vaccinating high-risk groups.
COVID-19 Lab
Countries have accessed vaccines through the COVAX Facility, bilateral deals and donations. Altogether 38 African countries have received more than 25 million COVID-19 vaccines and 30 have started vaccination campaigns. Through the COVAX initiative – which is co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with UNICEF – more than 16 million vaccine doses have so far been shipped to 27 countries.
“Although Africa received vaccines late and in limited quantities, a lot of ground has been covered in a short space of time. This is due to the continent’s vast experience in mass vaccination campaigns and the determination of its leaders and people to effectively curb COVID-19,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “Compared with countries in other regions that accessed vaccines much earlier, the initial rollout phase in some African countries has reached a far higher number of people.”
Just two weeks after receiving COVAX-funded AstraZeneca vaccines, Ghana has administered more than 420 000 doses and covered over 60% of the targeted population in the first phase in the Greater Accra region – the hardest hit by the pandemic. In the first nine days, it is estimated the country delivered doses to around 90% of health workers. In Morocco, more than 5.6 million vaccinations have taken place in the past seven weeks, while in Angola, vaccines have reached over 49 000 people, including more than 28 000 health workers in the past week.
To ensure the most impact, initial vaccine doses are being limited to priority population groups including health workers, older people and people with health conditions placing them at higher risk of severe COVID-19 illness. While the rollout is going well, there is an urgent need for more doses as Ghana, Rwanda and other countries are on the brink of running dry.
“Countries are clocking an impressive vaccination pace, but we must ensure this speed doesn’t slow down to a crawl,” said Dr Moeti. “Additional supplies are urgently required to narrow the gap between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.”
A few countries in Africa have halted or postponed their use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, following the suspension of the vaccine by some countries in Europe. This precautionary measure is based on reports of rare blood coagulation disorders in people who had received the vaccine. The suspension is regarding one specific batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has not been distributed to Africa.
WHO’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety is carefully assessing the reports on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to gain full understanding and will communicate its findings. Based on what is currently known, WHO considers that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh its risks and recommends that vaccinations continue.
Vaccinations are occurring as more than 4 million COVID-19 cases have now been reported on the African continent, with 43 000 new cases in the past week, and 108 000 lives lost. In the past month, new cases have decreased by 41% compared with the previous month, but there is an upward trend in 12 countries including Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya and Guinea (where an outbreak of Ebola is also ongoing).
Dr Moeti spoke during a virtual press conference today facilitated by APO Group. She was joined by Hon Dr Silvia Lutucuta, Minister of Health of Angola, Professor William Kwabena Ampofo, Chairperson of African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative and Dr Salam Gueye, Director, Regional Emergency Preparedness and Response, WHO Regional Office for Africa. Also on hand to answer questions was Dr Richard Mihigo, Immunization and Vaccine Development Programme Coordinator, WHO Regional Office for Africa.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
With the renewed interest in remittances by the Nigerian government through the Central Bank of Nigeria, remittance platforms are gearing up to improve operations in view of expected rise in activities. This probably informed the decision by Stellar Development Foundation to invest $750K in Cowrie, a Nigeria-based fintech platform facilitating crypto remittance transfers. The investment, made through SDF’s Enterprise Fund, will provide Cowrie with resources to continue expanding its operations in emerging markets, including Africa.
Gbubemi Agbeyegbe, technical director at Cowrie
SDF said the investment, made through its Enterprise Fund, will provide Cowrie with resources to continue expanding its operations in emerging markets and further develop payment corridors between Africa and the world, with an initial focus on Nigeria. Cowrie, powered by Stellar, allows Nigerians in other countries to send money to their families by converting their funds to NGNT, a token backed by Nigeria’s native naira currency. The funds are transferred directly to the local bank accounts of recipients. Around $27 million has been traded on the platform since NGNT’s launch in 2018.
In Nigeria, people are increasingly turning to crypto as a store of value and a vehicle for cross-border payments. But the SDF investment comes after Nigerian authorities recently banned local banks from servicing crypto firms and ordered financial institutions to close bank accounts tied to crypto platforms. Crypto platforms operating in the country, including Binance and Luno, had to shut down naira deposits and withdrawals. Cowrie halted naira transactions as well. (Luno is a sister company of CoinDesk.)
“Due to the ban, we decided to suspend deposits and withdrawals of NGNT for the time being. We have taken these measures to be prudent and wait for further guidance as we engage with regulators,” Gbubemi Agbeyegbe, technical director at Cowrie was quoted as saying.
According to Denelle Dixon, chief executive officer at SDF, Cowrie impressed her team by continuing to engage with Nigeria’s regulators in responding to the uncertain regulatory environment for crypto in the country.
“We are here to support them not only through this investment but also through our shared commitment to creating the right policy and regulatory frameworks for blockchain technology by fostering close collaboration and partnership between the public and private sectors,” Dixon said.
Nigeria is typically one of the world’s largest recipients of remittances. But due to the COVID-19 outbreak, remittances to Nigeria in 2020 plunged to the lowest level since 2008, prompting the government to launch a promotion to attract diaspora remittances. The naira4dollar scheme promised to give away 5 naira per U.S. dollar transferred into the country from March through May 2021.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Uber is facing a new battle that may affect its business model globally. Just after its recent taw in a long drawn battle with British authorities, Uber is facing another challenge as its use of facial recognition technology for a driver identity system is being challenged in the United Kingdom where unions are calling on Microsoft to suspend Uber’s use of B2B facial recognition.
Uber
The British App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) and Worker Info Exchange (WIE) are up in arms against the app after finding multiple cases where drivers were mis-identified and went on to have their licence to operate revoked by Transport for London (TfL). The union said it has identified seven cases of “failed facial recognition and other identity checks” leading to drivers losing their jobs and licence revocation action by TfL.
When Uber launched the “Real Time ID Check” system in the U.K. in April 2020, it said it would “verify that driver accounts aren’t being used by anyone other than the licensed individuals who have undergone an Enhanced DBS check”. It said then that drivers could “choose whether their selfie is verified by photo-comparison software or by our human reviewers”.
In one misidentification case the ADCU said the driver was dismissed from employment by Uber and his licence was revoked by TfL. The union adds that it was able to assist the member to establish his identity correctly, forcing Uber and TfL to reverse their decisions. But it highlights concerns over the accuracy of the Microsoft facial recognition technology — pointing out that the company suspended the sale of the system to U.S. police forces in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests of last summer.
Research has shown that facial recognition systems can have an especially high error rate when used to identify people of color — and the ADCU cites a 2018 MIT study that found Microsoft’s system can have an error rate as high as 20% (accuracy was lowest for dark-skinned women).
The union said it’s written to the mayor of London to demand that all TfL private-hire driver licence revocations based on Uber reports using evidence from its Hybrid Real Time Identification systems are immediately reviewed. The ADCU said Uber rushed to implement a workforce electronic surveillance and identification system as part of a package of measures implemented to regain its license to operate in the U.K. capital.
Back in 2017, TfL made the shocking decision not to grant Uber a licence renewal — ratcheting up regulatory pressure on its processes and maintaining this hold in 2019 when it again deemed Uber “not fit and proper” to hold a private hire vehicle licence. Safety and security failures were a key reason cited by TfL for withholding Uber’s licence renewal.
Uber has challenged TfL’s decision in court and it won another appeal against the licence suspension last year — but the renewal granted was for only 18 months (not the full five years). It also came with a laundry list of conditions — so Uber remains under acute pressure to meet TfL’s quality bar.
Now, though, Labor activists are piling pressure on Uber from the other direction too — pointing out that no regulatory standard has been set around the workplace surveillance technology that the ADCU says TfL encouraged Uber to implement. No equalities impact assessment has even been carried out by TfL, it adds. WIE confirmed that it’s filing a discrimination claim in the case of one driver, called Imran Raja, who was dismissed after Uber’s Real ID check — and had his licence revoked by TfL.
His licence was subsequently restored — but only after the union challenged the action. A number of other Uber drivers who were also misidentified by Uber’s facial recognition checks will be appealing TfL’s revocation of their licences via the U.K. courts, per WIE. A spokeswoman for TfL told us it is not a condition of Uber’s licence renewal that it must implement facial recognition technology — only that Uber must have adequate safety systems in place.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
