ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Ethiopia’s central bank will allow locally-owned non-financial institutions to start offering mobile money services as it seeks to boost non-cash payments in the country, it said. The Horn-of-Africa nation is in the midst of massive economic reforms led by reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, including the privatization of state-owned telecommunications monopoly Ethio Telecom. The new directive would allow Ethio Telecom, as an Ethiopian-owned company, to move into mobile money. Any foreign-owned…

Desert locusts are eating their way through East Africa on a scale not seen in decades. These migratory pests travel from field to field destroying either crops meant for human consumption or grasslands on which herders graze their livestock. It is estimated that a swarm the size of one square kilometer can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 people. Right now, Ethiopia and Somalia are experiencing its worst locust situation in 25 years. For…

Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) will not defend any teacher arrested for conducting private tuition for students against the governments’ directives to close schools to curb the spread of the coronavirus. KNUT Siaya County Executive secretary Gilbert Ndolo told teachers and parents who have organised for private tuitions in their homes following closure of schools that they are on their own and will face the consequences of their actions when the law catches up…

More than 3.9 billion people, or half of the world’s population, are now being called on to remain in their homes to combat COVID-19, according to an AFP tally on Thursday. The measures — which include compulsory or recommended confinement, curfews and quarantines — are in place in more than 90 countries and territories. The introduction of a curfew in Thailand, which takes effect on Friday, pushed the number past half of the global population of 7.8…