New African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina chose last week’s World Economic Forum at Davos for the official launch of the Bank’s New Deal on Energy for Africa, along with a Transformative Partnership for Energy in Africa (TPEA).  While a candidate for the AfDB president position a year ago, Adesina placed energy at the top…

President Obama, on January 11, suspended the application of duty-free treatment to South Africa’s agricultural exports that come into the U.S. under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The suspension will take effect on March 15 if South Africa does not lower tariffs on American poultry products before then.

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The outcome of the 21st Conference of Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC, which came to a close just over a week ago in Paris, was generally a positive one for Africa. While, of course, the continent represents a wide range of interests when it comes to climate change, African countries have developed an increasingly unified…

Much no doubt will be written about how 195 nations came together in Paris to make a global commitment to tackle climate change and what changes in regulation and the investment landscape might result. From my vantage point in Paris during the negotiations, a few key impressions stand out.

First, the agreement overcomes those past…

Over the past two days, members of the private sector, government and civil society have gathered in Nairobi to discuss the role of the private sector in fighting corruption and implementing the Sustainable Development Goals.  The scourge of corruption has long been one of the main obstacles to realizing the incredible potential of the people…

As the UNFCCC’s twenty-first Conference of Parties (COP) gets underway in Paris today to negotiate a post-2020 international climate treaty, it is time to recognize that African countries have come a long way in the global climate negotiations process. In the earlier days, climate change was portrayed as a scientific problem for so-called “developed” countries…

The Kenyan government has suspended a controversial local ownership requirement in the new Companies Act 2015.  The confusion regarding how the provision made its way into the law is unsettling for foreign companies that are interested in one of the region’s top investment destinations.

Regarded as an overdue modernization of Kenya’s company and insolvency laws,…