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4 African Business October 2024 Business Intelligence News Pan-African value chains could gain $24bn in mineral revenue Floods destroy more than 300,000 homes in West and Central Africa Google has collaborated with Nigeria’s National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics to provide a 100m naira ($62,000) Artificial Intelligence Fund in support of Nigerian startups. It says the Fund will focus on innovative AI development. Selected startups will receive up to 10m naira in funding, along with access to Google’s resources, including AI tools, mentorship, and a global network designed to help them scale their innovations. It follows the release of Nigeria’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy earlier this year. Africa could gain $24bn in revenues and 2.3m jobs if it introduces manufacturing and trade policies to extract more value from its transition minerals, according to a civil society network. Africa is home to vast resources of copper, lithium, nickel, and other minerals used in the production of renewable energy technologies. The report from Publish What You Pay emphasises the need for African countries to specialise in the parts of the value chain where they are most competitive. Rather than retain the entire value chain of minerals within their own nation, African countries should pursue collaborative strategies to build value chains, it suggests. Countries across West and Central Africa, especially Chad, Nigeria, Mali, and Niger, have been hit by “the most severe flooding in decades,” according to USAid. The flooding has killed more than one thousand people, damaged or destroyed more than 300,000 homes and rendered health facilities and schools unusable across the region since the start of an unusually intense rainy season. Nearly 940,000 acres of agricultural land and over 36,000 cattle have been lost. The US says it has delivered $1.4bn in aid but says 4m people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid, a more than threefold increase from the total number of people affected by flooding in the region last year. Google offers $62,000 for artificial intelligence in Nigeria Boosting young women at work can add $287bn to Africa’s economy Tackling systemic barriers to the participation of young women in Africa’s workforce will drive an estimated $287bn to its economy by 2030, boosting GDP by 5%, according to a report by the Mastercard Foundation in collaboration with McKinsey & Company. The report outlines solutions to reverse the steep decline of young women’s contribution to Africa’s GDP – from 18% in 2000 to just 11% in 2022. Pivotal areas include care burdens that restrict women’s access to the labour market, poor education completion rates, the need to bolster competitive skills in key sectors and adopt genderinclusive employment policies, and lack of access to financial ser vices. Private sector and government efforts to expand childcare could create over 11m jobs b y 2030.
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4 African Business October 2024

Business Intelligence News

Pan-African value chains could gain $24bn in mineral revenue

Floods destroy more than 300,000 homes in West and Central Africa

Google has collaborated with Nigeria’s National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics to provide a 100m naira ($62,000) Artificial Intelligence Fund in support of Nigerian startups. It says the Fund will focus on innovative AI development. Selected startups will receive up to 10m naira in funding, along with access to Google’s resources, including AI tools, mentorship, and a global network designed to help them scale their innovations. It follows the release of Nigeria’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy earlier this year.

Africa could gain $24bn in revenues and 2.3m jobs if it introduces manufacturing and trade policies to extract more value from its transition minerals, according to a civil society network. Africa is home to vast resources of copper, lithium, nickel, and other minerals used in the production of renewable energy technologies. The report from Publish What You Pay emphasises the need for African countries to specialise in the parts of the value chain where they are most competitive. Rather than retain the entire value chain of minerals within their own nation, African countries should pursue collaborative strategies to build value chains, it suggests.

Countries across West and Central Africa, especially Chad, Nigeria, Mali, and Niger, have been hit by “the most severe flooding in decades,” according to USAid. The flooding has killed more than one thousand people, damaged or destroyed more than 300,000 homes and rendered health facilities and schools unusable across the region since the start of an unusually intense rainy season. Nearly 940,000 acres of agricultural land and over 36,000 cattle have been lost. The US says it has delivered $1.4bn in aid but says 4m people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid, a more than threefold increase from the total number of people affected by flooding in the region last year.

Google offers $62,000 for artificial intelligence in Nigeria

Boosting young women at work can add $287bn to Africa’s economy

Tackling systemic barriers to the participation of young women in Africa’s workforce will drive an estimated $287bn to its economy by 2030, boosting GDP by 5%, according to a report by the Mastercard Foundation in collaboration with McKinsey & Company. The report outlines solutions to reverse the steep decline of young women’s contribution to Africa’s GDP – from 18% in 2000 to just 11% in 2022. Pivotal areas include care burdens that restrict women’s access to the labour market, poor education completion rates, the need to bolster competitive skills in key sectors and adopt genderinclusive employment policies, and lack of access to financial ser vices. Private sector and government efforts to expand childcare could create over 11m jobs b y 2030.

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