Africa

1. Get connected
2. Falling investment
3. Crying foul
4. WHO chief
5. TikTok experts

Also, how Guinness gained a foothold on the continent.

Hello! Welcome to Semafor Africa, where we’re obsessed with connectivity in Africa. Today we’re in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly discussing with government leaders and captains of business, how we can connect the Next 3 Billion people. Naturally, we don’t just mean the internet but really how we bring more citizens, particularly in the low- and low-middle income economies that dominate Africa, into the modern global economy.

Everything from financial inclusion and trade to health and agriculture is being transformed by access to connectivity in the 21st century and we will have important conversations with our guests about the opportunities they see. That economic advantage is clear. Google estimates that a 1% increase in connectivity is associated with a 5.7% increase in GDP.

South Africa’s minister for communications, Solly Malatsi, told me this week that his country is focused on overcoming the limitations of broadband infrastructure in reaching all citizens as part of a broader ambition to turn around Africa’s most advanced economy. His government is also focused on making digital access and smart devices more affordable by removing associated taxes. We’ve reported on South Africa’s interest in working with Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service to reach South Africans in rural areas: “We will then be able to steer South Africa towards 100% connectivity,” said Malatsi.

🟡 Follow along today at our Next 3 Billion summit as we speak with business leaders including Standard Bank CEO Sim Tshabalala, Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Organization among other distinguished guests. You can watch it live here.

🟡 🟡 You can also follow us on social media to see clips from the event and much more or follow us on WhatsApp. And if this email was forwarded to you, sign up here to get it in your inbox too.

Airtel lands connectivity infrastructure loan

The size of a sustainability-linked loan that Airtel Africa has secured from the International Finance Corporation to bring high-speed mobile connectivity to more than 37 million subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa. The funds will be invested in three subsidiaries: DR Congo, Kenya, and Rwanda. The IFC said the loan would also support expansion and modernization of networks and the upgrade of distribution infrastructure, with a special focus on rural areas.

Venture deal making activity cools

The number of Africa startup investors making at least one investment in the first half of a year has dropped for a second consecutive year. Nearly 700 investors participated in one or more startup investment deals in 2022 but the number for the first six months of this year was about 286, data from fundraising tracking platform Africa: The Big Deal shows. Launch Africa, a venture capital firm with partners across the continent, has been the most active startup investor this year by deal count with 12 investments, followed by American early-stage investment firm Techstars with 9. Investors like Norrsken, and Nigeria-based Ventures Platform are notable for their relative low profile this year having averaged more than a deal a month in 2023, the Big Deal notes.

Starlink shakes up internet competition

Starlink’s satellite internet rollout across Africa is sparking complaints of unfair competition from local telecommunications companies and internet service providers.

Kenya’s largest telco Safaricom, in a leaked memo to Kenya’s communications regulator, called for stricter regulations on satellite internet providers like Elon Musk-owned Starlink. Safaricom argued that satellite internet providers should be required to partner with local mobile network operators, rather than being granted independent licenses. 

The telco, which is partly government owned, noted that these providers often operate without a physical presence in the country. They rely on third parties and resellers to distribute their hardware, making it difficult for regulators to ensure accountability and compliance.

Telcos and ISPs in Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Cameroon have also raised concerns about their ability to compete fairly with its services and pricing. These companies have thousands of employees across the region while Starlink has next to no local presence on the continent.

But the upside for consumers is that some of these companies have improved their existing offering to compete. Safaricom has doubled the speed of its fiber internet packages. ISPs in Zimbabwe have made similar changes.

WHO chief urges action on mpox vacccines

Pharmaceutical giants and rich nations need to collaborate with African countries to improve access to mpox vaccines, the head of the World Health Organization told Semafor Africa.

An outbreak of the infectious disease struck DR Congo before spreading to neighboring nations such as Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda.

Affected countries have struggled to contain the spread of the disease, which is typically contracted through physical contact and whose symptoms include fever and painful rashes that spread around the body.

“Access to vaccines is a major challenge for African countries, in part due to the available supply and high price,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“To increase the number of vaccines in African countries, a multi-pronged approach is needed that involves strong collaboration with vaccine manufacturing countries, reduced pricing and in-country preparation to make communities ready for the arrival of vaccines”.

The WHO chief also called for donor nations that stockpiled vaccines to make them available to vulnerable nations ahead of a planned legally binding international agreement that is set to be introduced at the next World Health Assembly on the promotion of health equity “and to protect communities against the risks posed by pathogens”.

— Samuel Getachew in Addis Ababa

TikTok turns to experts amid government scrutiny

TikTok is looking to calm governments’ nerves across the continent as it rolls out new measures to improve its ability to moderate content in Africa. The company set up an advisory council last month to inform its policies on the continent. It also updated community guidelines to take into account cultural norms in the countries it operates in and to be clearer to creators.

Fortune Sibanda, the company’s head of public policy and government relations in Africa, told Semafor Africa that the company had in recent months been working to “demystify misconceptions” about its work. The push comes amid mounting scrutiny into the ByteDance owned-app from governments around the continent as its popularity skyrockets.

The eight-person council is composed of African experts drawn from different sectors who will advise the company on its approach on various issues in different African countries.

They include Ethiopian academic Prof Medhane Tadesse, Nigeria’s Dr Akinola Olojo — an expert on countering violent extremism, and Kenya’s Lilian Kariuki, founder of child online safety organization Watoto Watch Network. Others are Ghanaian content creator Dennis Coffie and Aisha Dabo, co-founder of Senegalese pro-democracy organization AfricTivistes

A survey conducted by Geopoll in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa last year found that TikTok was the second most popular social media platform by active user engagement, ahead of Instagram and X. It only trailed Facebook.

— Martin K.N Siele in Nairobi

Karim Beguir is the co-founder/CEO of InstaDeep, a pioneering AI company with offices in London, Tunis, Lagos, Cape Town, Paris, and San Francisco. The company was bought for $549 million by biotechnology company BioNTech in August 2023.

Geopolitics

🇰🇪 Kenya’s President William Ruto, during a visit to Haiti over the weekend, said he was open to the possibility of converting the Kenyan mission to a full U.N. peacekeeping operation. He also promised to deploy an additional 600 officers.

Governance

🇹🇳 Protesters in Tunisia’s capital Tunis on Sunday protested against President Kais Saied, whom they accuse of deepening authoritarian rule by stripping the administrative court of its authority ahead of the Oct. 6 election.

🇹🇿 Tanzanian police on Monday cracked down on a planned protest against the government organized by the main opposition party Chadema in the capital Dar-es-Salaam, and arrested the party’s chairman Freeman Mbowe and his deputy Tundu Lissu.

🇺🇬 Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the son of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, on Saturday announced he would not run for the presidency in the 2026 elections. He urged his supporters to back his father, who has ruled the East African nation for 38 years.

🌍 The African Union last week allocated $7 million to support peace efforts in Sudan, South Sudan, and the Sahel region impacted by conflict and instability.

🇬🇳 Guinea has issued a decree banning the manufacturing, import, sale, and use of single-use plastic packaging and products across the country to help tackle pollution.

Economics

🇪🇹 Global credit ratings agency S&P raised Ethiopia’s long-term local currency rating to “CCC+” on Friday, but kept the foreign currency rating at “selective default.” The Horn of Africa nation defaulted on a $33 million coupon payment on its $1 billion Eurobond last December.

🇸🇱 Sierra Leone and the International Monetary Fund reached an agreement for a 38-month $253 million credit facility.

Elections

🇬🇭 Ghana’s electoral commission on Friday published the approved list of 13 candidates for the Dec. 7 presidential election. The contenders include Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, and main opposition candidate, former president John Dramani Mahama.

Tech

🇰🇪 Kenya’s labor court on Friday ruled that Facebook’s parent company Meta could be sued in the country over the mass sacking of content moderators. Some 185 content moderators from different African countries are seeking $1.6 billion in compensation.

Deals

🇪🇬 Egypt’s central bank on Sunday said the country would sell a stake in state-owned United Bank through an initial public offering before the end of the first quarter of 2025.

Alcohol brand Guinness might have its origins in Ireland, but today its biggest market is in Africa. Academic Jordanna Matlon has just released a paper studying how that came to be and, in particular, examined the role of advertising campaigns going back to late colonial times to understand how the brand was focused on shaping African masculinity. Matlon explains in The Conversation that by the era of African independence from the mid 1950s to the 1970s, Guinness was already a well-known brand with ad campaigns targeting an African audience. “Like colonialism generally, Guinness linked the consumption of foreign goods to the “civilizing mission,” Matlon said. “To be a civilized, modern man, the argument went, was to drink what the colonisers drank.”

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Happy 50th Independence Day to the people of Guinea Bissau!!! 🇬🇼

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— Yinka, Alexis, Alexander Onukwue, Martin Siele, and Muchira Gachenge