DPI debates obsess over citizens and privacy. But the bigger economic prize is firm-facing rails, registration, licensing, procurement, credit APIs. Treat the cost of formality as an index and DPI becomes SME industrial policy.
eCitizen Economics: Digital Public Infrastructure Is Industrial Policy Read More »
Kenya is structuring a $500M diaspora bond to tap $4.9bn in remittances. Why diaspora bonds are governance products, not patriotism products, and what Nigeria’s success and Ethiopia’s failure teach.
The Diaspora Bond Comeback: How Africa Prices Its Risk Read More »
Billions are mobilised for women founders, yet women-led African firms get under 7% of venture funding. Why the $42bn ‘gap’ conflates two different problems, and the honest sequencing fix.
Gender-Lens Investing: Capital First or Capability First? Read More »
Governments are committing billions to a fresh industrial-parks boom, on a model with a documented 20-year failure rate. Why zones fail when you build the fence before the firms, and what to measure instead.
East Africa’s Industrial Park Boom Is Repeating SEZ Mistakes Read More »
The EAC monetary union slipped to 2031, but real integration is sprinting ahead through PAPSS, now linking 19 countries and 160 banks. Why integration follows infrastructure, not treaties.
The Single Currency Is Dead: Long Live the Payment Rail Read More »
Uganda earned $2.4bn from coffee and plans to ban raw exports, just as the EU’s deforestation rule raises compliance costs. Why you can’t legislate a value chain from the export end.
Banning Raw Exports Won’t Build Factories: The EUDR Wall Read More »
Kenya launched a National Carbon Registry and issues ~20% of Africa’s credits. Can carbon become a real SME asset class, or stay a project-developer oligopoly? The answer is in the verification economics.
Carbon as Collateral: Kenya’s Registry and the SME Question Read More »
With first oil due in 2026 and EACOP 79% complete, $1.2bn is earmarked for local contractors. Why local content fails as a compliance quota, and the supplier-development line that makes it work.
Uganda’s First Oil: The Local-Content Window SMEs Can’t Miss Read More »
Trade not aid sounds right but the arithmetic fails: withdrawn USAID flows dwarf realistic investment in East Africa. What actually fills the gap, and who builds it.
Trade Not Aid Has a Math Problem: East Africa After USAID Read More »
European DFIs are pivoting to local-currency lending in Africa. But the shift solves the DFIs’ FX problem more than the borrowers’ problem, because the missing asset class is origination, not currency.
Lending in Shillings: The DFI Local-Currency Pivot Read More »