World
30 million People in Sub-Saharan Africa in Extreme Poverty—Report
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
About 30 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have been pushed into extreme poverty by the COVID-19 pandemic, wiping out more than five years of progress, a report released on Wednesday at the ongoing Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore has revealed.
Whilst some ground will be made up as economies across the continent recover, this will still not be enough to meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating poverty by 2030 – a target that was already a stretch before the pandemic hit.
The Bloomberg Economics Special Report titled Long COVID: Jobs, Prices and Growth in the Enduring Pandemic highlighted the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic poses for growth, inflation and development globally.
A piece titled Half a Billion in Poverty and Counting: How Covid Derailed Africa’s Development Goals models how a lost year of growth has affected poverty reduction goals in Africa.
The turn of the century saw Africa’s economy on an upward trajectory due to reduced conflict, allowing for better economic policies and increased macroeconomic stability.
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative in the early 2000s led to a substantial reduction in debt levels, freeing up domestic resources and improving donor relations. Increased trade and buoyant commodity prices also played a role, with GDP per capita in resource-rich countries growing twice as fast.
This resulted in better living standards for the populations — people became healthier, access to basic services such as water and sanitation improved, school enrolment increased, and the share of people living below the World Bank’s extreme poverty line of $1.90 per day fell from 58% in 2000 to 42% by 2015.
Since 2016, growth has faltered. The slowdown started a year after the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals — the universal call to eradicate poverty by 2030 through progress on 17 integrated goals that range from health, education, inequality and climate change. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to lag behind on most of the goals. Most notable is the lag in poverty reduction; before the pandemic in 2019, Africa had more than 60% of the world’s 700 million poor.
The COVID-19 pandemic threatens to throw the region further behind. In 2020, sub-Saharan Africa plunged into its first recession in more than 25 years, erasing at least five years of progress in fighting poverty.
Economists forecast that lost ground won’t be recovered until 2024, when we expect per capita output to return to pre-pandemic levels. Sluggish vaccine rollout means many countries will continue to deal with virus outbreaks that delay the safe reopening of their economies. Rising debt service costs will continue to squeeze out much-needed development spending even when the virus effects fade.
The persistent impact of the pandemic on incomes means the poverty rate would translate into almost 25 million more people living in poverty, compared with pre-COVID estimates.
To make notable progress on poverty eradication, Africa will require immense support from the international community given the region’s limited resources. To address this gap, funding from official creditors including the IMF, the largest providers of external debt, remain crucial for sub-Saharan Africa.
Over the past 20 years, China has become one of the largest creditors on the continent and has seen its share of debt owed rise from about 40% in 2010 to more than 63% at the end of 2019. The West’s share, meanwhile, has halved from around 30%.
Beijing is now looking to deepen its ties with the region through the Belt and Road Initiative, a plan to advance development priorities by investing in infrastructure projects around the world. More than half of the 60-plus recipient countries are in Africa, increasing incentives for China to play a bigger role in the sub-Saharan area’s fight against poverty.
Done right, increased engagement with China promises to build needed infrastructure and open new routes to trade, helping deliver on Africa’s poverty reduction goals. Done wrong, it threatens to add to the debt and stymie the development of native manufacturing industry, adding to the region’s many other challenges.
The Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore is convening over 495 participants in-person and virtually including public and private sector leaders from around the world, including representatives from Africa to contribute to new thinking on pathways toward a global recovery as the world reels from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Joining from the Forum’s new, innovative group of Bloomberg New Economy Catalysts are Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr OBE (Mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone), Shamim Nabuuma Kaliisa (Founder and Executive Director of Chil Artificial Intelligence Lab, Uganda), Alloysius Attah (Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Farmerline, Ghana), Nthabiseng Mosia (Co-Founder, Easy Solar, Sierra Leone) and others.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria regained its position as Africa’s leading destination for equity startup investment in the first half of 2026, raising $214 million in equity financing and a total of $254 million across equity and debt, according to the latest Africa: The Big Deal report.
The report, titled H1 2026: Mapping the Money, showed that Nigeria ranked second on the continent in total funding, behind Egypt, which attracted $327 million, while Kenya and South Africa followed with $126 million and $83 million, respectively.
However, the report noted that Egypt’s top position was largely driven by a single fundraising by electric mobility company Spiro, which secured $327 million, including $270 million in equity and $57 million in debt. Excluding debt financing, Nigeria emerged as Africa’s largest equity funding market in the first six months of the year.
According to the breakdown by Africa: The Big Deal, Nigeria’s equity funding of $214 million was higher than Egypt’s $183 million, while South Africa and Kenya attracted $66 million and $46 million, respectively.
Beyond funding value, Nigeria also led the continent in the number of startups that raised at least $100,000 during the review period, reclaiming the top spot after what the report described as an “underwhelming” second half of 2025.
The publication observed that Nigeria’s fundraising performance has remained relatively stable over the past few years and exceeded the $250 million mark for the first time since 2022, pointing to renewed investor confidence in the country’s startup ecosystem.
It also found that while the Big Four startup markets—Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa—continued to dominate Africa’s investment landscape, their combined share of total funding stood at 58 per cent in the first half of 2026.
“Zooming back on the Big Four (110 out of 190 $100k+ deals, i.e. 58%), Nigeria is head and shoulders above its peers, with Egypt and Kenya almost tying, and South Africa in fourth position again,” the report noted.
The report highlighted contrasting performances among the continent’s largest startup ecosystems. While Nigeria and Egypt maintained strong funding momentum, Kenya recorded its weakest funding performance since early 2021 after a strong second half of 2025, and South Africa failed to attract $100 million in funding during the period despite leading the continent a year earlier.
Africa: The Big Deal also noted a broader shift in investor behaviour, with funding increasingly concentrated in larger transactions while early-stage investments continued to decline. According to the publication, the drop in smaller funding rounds reflects growing concerns about limited capital available for early-stage startups across Africa.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Accessing the US Dollar in the East Africa region has now been made easier with the expansion of the stablecoin settlement infrastructure of SCRYPT.
This development enables banks, payment providers and corporate treasury teams to move value into and out of the continent in real time.
Businesses paying international suppliers frequently have to convert local currency into USD before purchasing stablecoins for settlement, incurring FX conversions and spreads before any payment is made.
But SCRYPT is eliminating this intermediate conversion by enabling direct settlement corridors for local African currencies into stablecoins.
This development allows businesses to move from local currency to stablecoin settlement in a single licensed transaction, without first sourcing rationed bank dollars, as stablecoins are increasingly becoming settlement infrastructure rather than an investment product.
The expansion adds settlement support across four African currencies: the Kenyan shilling (KES), Tanzanian shilling (TZS), Rwandan franc (RWF) and Ugandan shilling (UGX). Each corridor is delivered through the same full-stack infrastructure our clients already use for trading, custody and treasury operations.
Speaking on this, the chief executive of SCRYPT, Norman Wooding, said, “Across Africa, stablecoin adoption is driven by economic need, not speculation.
“Businesses here are not chasing yield; they are trying to pay suppliers and manage treasury without losing margin to a banking system that rations dollars. Licensed, fair-rate dollar access is the clearest proof of what this infrastructure is for.”
Also commenting, the Managing Director of Markets & Trading at SCRYPT, Mr Gabriel Titopoulos, said, “Until now, reaching stablecoins from local African currencies meant buying scarce dollars and incurring several layers of conversion costs.
“SCRYPT removes this friction. Firms and payment providers can now settle straight from local currencies through live corridors, with local partners.”
World
African Graduates Association Promoting Multifaceted Initiatives With Russian Educational Institutions
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
In preparations for the third Russia-Africa Summit, scheduled for late October 2026, Dr Francois Ngan, deputy chairman of the Union of Associations of African Graduates of Soviet and Russian Universities, during an official working visit, has held a consultative meeting with Professor Vladimir Filippov, the President of the Russian University of Peoples’ Friendship (RUDN), and former Minister of Higher Education of Russia, Chairman of the National Commission for Accreditation of Higher Education.
RUDN is an educational institution established in 1960, primarily to provide higher education to Third World students. It has now become a popular multidisciplinary spot for many students, especially from developing countries. The university offers various academic programmes and has research infrastructure that comprises laboratories and interdisciplinary centres. The university is named after the former Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba.
Dr Francois Ngan and Professor Filippov discussed the importance of the Graduates Association as a continental platform dedicated to strengthening unity, cooperation, and promoting shared progress among African graduates who studied in the former Soviet Union and in the Russian Federation. They also reviewed multifaceted initiatives that could bring together alumni associations from across Africa, whose members obtained education and professional training, and cultural experiences in Soviet and Russian institutions of higher learning.
Professor Filippov expressed optimism in addressing emerging challenges as a result of shifting geopolitical changes, emphasised strategic cooperation in the educational sphere with Africa, in general, and with the Republic of Cameroon, in particular, and further about the integration of African students during their studies in the Russian Federation.
The meeting also touched on academic and scientific work, the possibility of rewriting a scientific thesis, and the official organisation of transferring versions translated into six languages for the library of RUDN. Significant questions relating to Russia’s educational opportunities, collaborations and partnerships involving African countries were thoroughly discussed.
The Union of Associations of African Graduates of Soviet and Russian Universities was created under one continental umbrella to promote friendship, for professional networking, to engage in cultural exchange, and with particular emphasis on forging strategic cooperation between Africa and Russia.
