News (1494)
In Kenya, transactions at the Mombasa tea auction house are now exclusively performed online through the electronic portal iTTS (Integrated Tea Trading System). With the US$2.12 million portal, the Mombasa Tea Auction House officially ends its physical interactions with tea traders.
For Arthur Sawe, chairperson of the East African Tea Trade Association (EATTA), the portal funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), will boost tea traders' and farmers’ benefits by reducing operating costs.
“The digitization seeks to fill gaps in the current procedures, which are done manually including membership and cataloging,” he added
According to Morgens Strunge Lursen, Councilor at the Danish embassy in Kenya, "the launch of the iTTS is particularly exciting because it helps position such a critical sector for future growth and success by driving efficiency and supporting both increased traceability and information exchange."
The Mombasa Tea Auction House serves Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi, Burundi, Ethiopia, DRC, Rwanda, Madagascar, and Uganda. Its digitization, which led to the creation of the iTTS portal, began in May 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It helped the industry respect social distancing requirements by allowing buyers to place their tea bids online. After a two-year pilot phase, the iTTS portal was launched on March 31, 2022.
According to a release announcing the launch, “in time, iTTS is expected to shorten the pre-auction, auction and post-auction stages; create the potential for increased frequency in trading volumes; reduce the tea trading cycle by about 65 percent from the current 45 to 60 days to less than a month; and, fast track payments to farmers and reduce the need to take loans to finance farming operation.”
Users will only need connected devices (phones for instance) to track the tea they bought through auctions from factories to shipping companies. The portal also includes features allowing resellers to analyze global market trends. According to Kenya's Permanent Secretary for the East African Community, Kevit Desai, “the manual procedure involves middlemen, producers, warehouses, brokers, buyers. (...) The trickle-down effect was that farmers had little say in the prices of their tea but the new system is inclusive, and farmers will benefit immensely.”
The iTTS “will ensure that stakeholders of the tea auction, including farmers, buyers, and sellers receive real-time information on what is happening on the auction bourse, which will boost confidence in the Process,” concludes EATTA Managing Director, Edward Mudibo.
Ruben Tchounyabe
ICTs have many goals, including the reduction of time needed to collect and process data. The project, in this form, gives the State more flexibility in how it uses collected data.
Seychelles will start its first nationwide digital census on April 22, 2022. It will collect data on its population, households, and voters, said on April 5 the deputy director-general of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Helena Butler-Payette. Unlike previous years where the census was done using forms to be filled, this year it will be fully digital.
“One of the biggest changes in the way we do things resides in the digitalization of census,” said Butler-Payette while adding that training sessions, for about 500 door-to-door surveying agents, have already started.
Since it became independent, Seychelles has carried out six census operations; the first two in 1977 and 1987. The following censuses (1994, 1997, 2002, and 2010) focused on meeting national needs, especially the delineation of administrative borders. According to the NBS, Seychelles had 99,728 residents in 2021, 0.8% more than the figure recorded in 2020. This year’s census should have taken place in 2020 (it takes place every 10 years) but it was postponed to 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition to data on the population and households, agents deployed will also gather voters’ data. Commenting on the operation, Helena Butler-Payette said it is better to use the same resources now to carry out the two surveys instead of wasting money doing both separately. Overall, the government plans to spend 904,000$ on the operation.
The NBS believes that conducting the survey digitally would allow results to be obtained more rapidly. “Before, it took us nearly a year to draw reports from the data we collected during the census, but this time, it will take us only weeks or months,” the NBS official declared.
Ruben Tchounyabe
Presented as the first venture builder in Morocco and Africa, "Moroccan Retail Tech Builder" aims to help entrepreneurs develop innovative digital solutions tailored to the e-commerce industry.
Morocco officially launched Moroccan Retail Tech Builder (MRTB), a platform for the digitalization of the retail sector, on Thursday, April 7. The platform aims to support project leaders in the development of innovative, simple, and accessible digital solutions to help retailers upgrade their operations and create more value.
For Ryad Mezzour, the Minister of Industry and Trade who chaired the ceremony, the MRTB “initiates the digital shift of a vital sector, which played a crucial role during the pandemic and is also one of the strong segments of our economy.”
According to Hicham El Habti, President of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), qualitative changes are already observed in the operating methods of the retail sector, which is one of the backbones of African economies.
“The flow of ideas and the potential of that sector call for solutions to incubate, support, and accelerate startups and promising projects in that area,” stressed Hicham El Habti.
MRTB is part of the authorities’ plan for the recovery of the retail sector. One of the key points of that plan is to digitize the sector for enhanced competitiveness. The plan includes acceleration of the digital transformation, generalization of digital services as well as simplification of administrative formalities and procedures in line with the country’s economic and institutional reforms.
Ryad Mezzour believes MRTB will allow retailers to enhance their contribution to economic growth in Morocco by modernizing their operations, boosting turnover, and enhancing competitiveness while tailoring their offers to clients’ needs and requirements.
As far as Hicham El Habti is concerned, with MRTB, the UM6P will improve the support it provides through its startup campus, StartGate, for improved socio-economic development.
The venture builder will transform the national entrepreneurial ecosystem into a collaborative space that exposes startups to various knowledge sources. That way, it can help them implement creative processes for the development of innovative solutions useful for Africa, as a whole, indicates Abdelhadi Sohib, Secretary-General of the OCP Foundation.
For its initial operations, the MRTB has launched the recruitment of 100 startups that will benefit from its services till 2024.
Ruben Tchounyabe
The first phase of Ethiopia’s blockchain-based national student and teacher ID and attainment recording system will be launched in “the next two months,” announces IOHK, the U.S. firm that developed the blockchain platform Cardano.
The said system will allow the government to remotely monitor academic performance in secondary schools as well as verify students’ identities and grades. Ultimately, it will give authorities an idea of the impact of the national education policies on employment nationwide and allow employers to easily validate applicants’ credentials.
In its first phase, the system based on IOHK’s blockchain solution Atala Prism will target 800,000 students. Eventually, the recording system will include 3,500 schools, five million students, and 750,000 teachers, per the agreement between the Ethiopian government and IOHK.
“We have completed the first pilot and are beginning to train users at the Ministry of Education on functionality and usage,” indicates John O'Connor, IOHK Director of African Operation.
Launched in April 2014, the project is part of Digital Ethiopia 2025, the national strategy validated by the government in 2020 to transform several strategic sectors like public administration, health, agriculture, and education.
“We truly believe that this project could light the touchpaper for a wave of third-generation blockchain innovation across Africa and the developing world, bringing vital services to those who have previously been unable to access them,” John O’Connor commented.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Cameroon is currently moving to dematerialize and streamline civil service procedures. On Wednesday, during a press briefing in Yaoundé, Minister of Public Service and Administrative Reform Joseph Le (photo) announced a set of measures in that regard. According to the government official, the 2022 finance law includes a budget line dedicated to the acquisition of tech equipment specifically dedicated to the authentication of various diplomas.
The equipment will be a collaborative platform allowing collaboration between the Ministry of Public Service, the Ministry of Public Health, and the Ministries of Primary, Secondary, and Higher Education.
“With just one click, I can find all the information I need right from my office,” explains Joseph Le. He also announces the digitization of the documents that make up the integration files of graduates of teacher training colleges from the first week after the end of their training.
Few years ago, Cameroon acquired an IT system for integrated management of state personnel (SIGIPES). However, some civil servants usually spend the first years of their careers without some salaries and bonuses. For instance, from January to March 2022, a strike organized by secondary school teachers disrupted classes. The teachers were denouncing delays in the payment of their salaries and bonuses.
In response to this protest movement, the President of the Republic, Paul Biya, instructed the optimization of the civil servants’ management system. For the Minister of the Public Service, the challenge causing delays in the payment of the salaries and bonuses demanded by the teachers is the authentication of various diplomas as well as recognition and equivalence of educational qualifications. Also, the procedure for the integration of teachers who graduated from teacher training colleges is not streamlined, he adds.
According to the government, the reforms announced will reduce the time it takes for civil servants’ files to be effectively processed to reach the central administration. Currently, it takes 25 to 30 months. However, with the announced digitization, all the involved administration will receive the files at the same time and the processing and matriculation processes will start at the same time.
Once the procedures are dematerialized and streamlined, graduates from teachers’ training colleges will no longer have to wait for two to three years to be matriculated into the civil service. Instead, they will just have to wait for “45 to 90, maybe less than that,” assures Minister Joseph Le.
Ruben Tchounyabe
In Africa, governments have been on the move, since 2019, to accelerate digital transformation. For that purpose, they are putting appropriate frameworks in place to facilitate the shift.
Congo plans to create a digital development agency. The draft project was presented during the March 6, 2022, Ministerial council. The aim is to use the agency as a tool to accelerate the country’s digital transition. The agency will be created by transforming the Directorate-General for the Development of the Digital Economy into a public administrative institution.
For Léon Juste Ibombo (photo), Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, "digital transition (...) requires significant investments, particularly in infrastructure, networks, equipment, content…”
In that regard, the planned agency (which will be an autonomous agency) will support digital projects, optimize the digital transition models chosen by institutions and implement new technologies in the national territory. The bill consecrating the creation of Congo’s agency for the development of the digital agency will soon be submitted to parliament for review and adoption.
The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation in the world. The pandemic prompted Congo, like many African countries, to take action for the development of its digital economy. Examples include the creation of an African Center for Artificial Intelligence Research (Caria) in February and the establishment of a legal framework governing startups’ operations.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Credit card network VISA inaugurated its first African innovation hub in Kenya yesterday April 6. Based in Nairobi, the facility will serve as a framework for accelerating payment technology research in the sub-Saharan African region. It will be a mentorship hub for developers creating solutions that can revolutionize payments and e-commerce.
The studio will also help Visa clients and partners operating in Africa expand their services and access technological tools that will help them overcome some of the key challenges in their business environment.
VISA’s Nairobi innovation hub will now join the global network of innovation hubs operated by the credit card network since 2016. Currently, that global network is made up of hubs in Dubai, Singapore, San Fransico, and now Nairobi.
“Sub-Saharan Africa is a fast-growing region with a tech-savvy population. As we continue to grow digital payments adoption in the region, our aspiration is to deepen our collaboration with clients and partners in developing solutions that are designed around the unique needs of Africa,” says Aida Diarra (photo), Senior Vice President & Head of Visa in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In the past five years, the African fintech segment has recorded strong growth. Startups operating in that segment attracted the highest volume of investments, reflecting local populations’ interest in practical, customized, and affordable financial solutions.
For VISA, investing in that segment is a strategic move to consolidate its presence and market share. According to the credit card network, the Nairobi innovation hub will explore ideas that can support the growth of emerging payment systems such as contactless payment and cash on delivery. The hub will also explore the development of smart payment solutions that leverage blockchain, the Internet of Things, virtual reality, and biometrics.
Muriel Edjo
This year, Kenya’s National Council for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD) will roll out its new member identification system. Developed by the Ministry of Health, the new system is intended to correct the flaws of the old system. It will specifically curb fraud, improve reporting structure for accountability and generate adequate socio-economic data.
“Many people have discovered the support given to PWDs and they have registered as members of NCPWD, even those with no disability record, to enjoy the privileges like receiving tax exemption for life,” explained NCPWD Executive Director, Harun Hassan. The official was in Kisumu during the training of County disability medical assessment teams on how to use the new system.
The old system will become obsolete by 2023, indicated Daniel Njuguna, an NCPWD ICT expert, during the same training session. He added that it had no guidelines standardizing the medical disability assessment process, sometimes resulting in information discrepancy and inaccurate records.
According to Douglas Kitut, a representative of the Ministry of Health, there are approximately 600,000 people with disabilities in Kenya. The majority have physical, visual, hearing, learning, mental, and chronic progressive disabilities. In 2021, the country raised US$15.5 million to help them deal with the impacts of the coronavirus crisis.
Since 2009, the NCPWD has been implementing identification reforms to improve its services. The new system appears thus as a new milestone in the process. To migrate its members to the new system, the council is currently carrying out a mass identification campaign across the country. After the campaign, persons with disabilities will receive smart cards. To verify the authenticity of the cards, they will also have QR Codes.
The identification process will bring the services offered by the NCPWD closer to the population, explained Harun Hassan. According to the latter, it will allow stakeholders to generate real-time demographic data on different types of disabilities in Kenya. Then, county medical officers will be allowed to sign on behalf of the Director of Medical Services.
“This means that persons with disabilities will not have to travel to Nairobi to get their assessment reports signed before acquiring the card thus bringing this crucial service closer to the people,” he stressed.
The digitized system is also expected to streamline operations and ensure that only those who meet the required registration threshold are considered.
By digitizing its registration process, NCPWD plans to get integrated with other government agencies so that its members can access its services through Huduma centers or by visiting E-government and E-citizen portals.
Ruben Tchounyabe
In 2020, Ethiopia launched Digital Ethiopia 2025, its national development strategy. One of the focuses of that strategy is digital transformation to improve the efficiency of public services and facilitate access to online payment means.
On Monday, April 4, Ethiopia, through the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MINT), signed a partnership agreement to integrate Mastercard’s payment service gateway into its e-services portal. Therefore, users can pay for public services using bank cards for the first time while Commercial Bank of Ethiopia will collect the payments on behalf of the government.
For Minister of Technology Belete Molla (photo), the partnership with Mastercard enables the country to “provide a versatile digital payments solution – customers with any bank card can use it. That means people can pay conveniently and safely wherever they are and at any time. It also enables us to improve revenue collection and achieve efficiencies—in turn, freeing up resources to improve service delivery.”
The partnership agreement follows a memorandum of understanding signed, in 2020, by the MINT and Mastercard. That memorandum aimed to support the government in digitizing payments and improving public services in line with Digital Ethiopia 2025, the national development strategy.
In the first phase of the project, only civil society organizations will be able to pay for operating licenses using any branded payment card.
“By supporting the Ethiopian government in the implementation of a world-class and innovative digital payments platform, we are collaborating to save resources, increase efficiencies, and deliver improved services to citizens. Soon, members of the Civil Society Organization will no longer need to carry cash, travel long distances, and stand in long queues at banks to pay for their licenses. Rather, they will be able to do it safely and conveniently online,” said Mark Elliott, Division President, Mastercard, Sub-Saharan Africa.
Muriel Edjo
In Africa, medical density is currently below the World Health Organization’s recommendations. In recent years, startups have sprung up using technology to fill health offers.
E-health platform Altibbi will introduce drug delivery and virtual consultation services in Egypt. The move follows the announcement, on March 28, 2022, of a successful US$44 million series B round led by investors like Foundation Holdings and Hikma Ventures.
The health tech founded in 2008, in Jordan, aims to digitalize the whole medical procedure allowing users to get checked by physicians, receive prescriptions, and lab test interpretations online. It wants to capitalize on the low competition in the market due to tough regulations.
“The regulatory system is an ally of ours as, after so many years, we have managed to crack it. We are actually today the most licensed digital health company in the Arab world (...)We’re licensed in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. We’re working with the government as part of a round table to regulate telehealth and digital health platforms,” says Jalil Allabadi (Photo, left), founder and CEO of Altibbi.
In addition to its web platform, Altibbi has a mobile app, available on App Store, Play Store, and AppGallery. To access the over 10,000 doctors available daily on the platform, users must register on the platform, then log in using their phone numbers and a verification code. In 2013, Altibbi received the top prize in the health category during the Arab E-Content Award in Bahrain.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
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Nairobi residents can now report illegal dumping, unsafe waste disposal, and water shortages. It is possible thanks to Hatua, a mobile app launched last March 21, on the sidelines of the celebration of World Water Day at Kariokor Social Hall in the Kamukunji constituency. Hatua will also allow residents to report littered areas in residential districts.
Created by the sustainable development consultancy firm Niko Green, Hatua was developed with the support of the Kenya Alliance of Residents Association (Kara), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the European Union (EU).
When reporting a problem, users describe the issue, select the appropriate category and submit their contact information. The complaint will then be assigned a reference ID through which they can track the status of their report. According to Nickson Otieno, CEO of Niko Green, if the complaint is not processed within five days, the system will automatically forward it to another agency. “There is no chance for your report not to be processed,” he said.
“Our current system of reporting environmental pollution is long, tedious, and ridden with corruption. With the new platform, users can track the status of their complaints in real-time,” explained Henry Ochieng, CEO of KARA.
“The app will help NECC [National Environmental Complaints Committee] officials work even faster because they will be able to get reports of environmental pollution as they happen,” he concluded.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Launched 10 years ago, the single window for foreign trade is one of the flagship projects in Kenya’s development program, Vision 2030. It has already helped secure millions of dollars in license/permit fees and correct the flaws of the manual system.
In August 2021, Kenya started upgrading the Kenya TradeNet System, its trade facilitation platform. According to Ukur Kanacho Yatani, the country’s Treasury Cabinet Secretary, the upgrade will be completed by the end of April 2022.
The government official made the revelation last March 31, during the first East African Trade Facilitation Summit, held in Nairobi under the theme “Re-imagining Trade Facilitation in an era of Technology.”
For Ukur Kanacho Yatani, with the upgrade, “some of the limitations” will be addressed, and “features that were lacking in the Kenya TradeNet system” will be added. They will then “promote the betterment of intra-regional trade as well as significantly make it easy to carry out trade,” he explained.
“As we launch the upgrade of the Kenya TradeNet System, which is also known as the Trade Facilitation Platform, the next 10 years are indeed promising to the trading community,” he added.
The Kenya TradeNet System is a single online platform through which actors involved in international trade and logistics can carry out various trade-related procedures like submitting documents to clear goods and pay taxes and duties.
Launched in January 2011, the system already includes 23 government agencies out of 38 targeted, 38 active insurance companies, 36 banks, nearly 1,529 clearing agents, 46 shipping agents and shipping companies, 29 container freight terminals, and five freight handling companies.
KenTrade, the agency in charge of the platform, reveals that since 2014, more than 3.3 million permits have been issued through the system while over 2.8 million unique consignment references (UCRs) have been processed. As of December 2021, the system had over 16,000 registered users. Partner government agencies were able to collect a little over Ksh3.5 billion (US$30.3 million) in license/permit fees from traders. Also, from May 1, 2018, to June 30, 2021, a total of 445,146 import declarations with values estimated at Ksh2.9 trillion were registered in the system.
Muriel Edjo
Egyptian fantasy soccer platform Eskab announced last Monday the successful completion of a US$3 million funding round. Led by 4DX Ventures, the funding round saw the participation of several financial institutions and angel investors. Thanks to the funds secured, Eskab wants to make soccer more exciting and interactive for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) fans by developing new products. In that regard, it intends to recruit engineering talents and product teams as well as partner with soccer clubs.
Fantasy soccer is a simulation game where users predict the outcome of soccer matches between virtual teams they create using virtual representations of real-life players. With their virtual teams, users can take part in free or premium competitions and win prizes.
“During my time [in Canada], I got exposed to the rise of DraftKings and FanDuel. My friends were playing these two games and while I didn’t know much about Canadian sports, specifically hockey, I found that playing these games was the easiest way for me to kind of get to know the sports and kind of develop that sense of camaraderie with my friends. (...)I enjoyed the games and realized, ‘Why is no one doing this for the hundreds of millions of football fans in the Middle East and Africa?’ So we did some research and realized there was a massive market gap for this kind of game [fantasy football] in the Middle East and Africa, ” explains Aly Mahmoud, Eskab founder.
Launched in 2018, the platform claims more than 700,000 users in Egypt. Its userbase has been growing steadily since the launch of premium contests in 2021. The platform plans to enter other sports but, with the coming soccer World Cup, Eskab to first explore the soccer world before venturing into other virtual sports.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Kenyan telecom operator Safaricom and Islamic bank Gulf African Bank recently launched a Sharia-compliant mobile loan called Halal Pesa.
Thanks to the solution, users can receive up to Ksh20,000 loans fully repayable within 30 days with a 5% “commodity Murabaha margin.”
For Safaricom, Halal Pesa is “the first Sharia-compliant mobile and digital financial solution” in Kenya.
“Kenya is now a highly innovative, interconnected, and fast-paced community that requires solutions on the go. All our digital offerings, including Halal Pesa, seek to directly address this aspect. Our current strategy is focused on digitization for financial inclusion,” said Abdalla Abdulkhalik, Managing director of Gulf African Bank.