Africa

1. AI fraud grows in Africa
2. US calls Rwanda over DRC
3. $50B electricity fund boost
4. How roads can help nutrition
5. Nigeria’s bumper mobile tariff

The discovery of a new giant radio galaxy.

Deepfakes raise fraud risk in Africa

Generative artificial intelligence was behind more than a third of new biometric fraud cases in Africa last year, a report found, with a surge in deepfakes threatening the data of millions of consumers whose details are held on insecure systems.

Deepfake videos used to impersonate people increased sevenfold in the second half of 2024, according to the Lagos-based digital identity verification startup Smile ID, which vets customer identities for hundreds of businesses on the continent, including Uber.

Smile ID found document forgery remains a sizable aspect of identity fraud, especially in East Africa. But generative AI has “radically” increased manipulation opportunities, posing fresh challenges for security and anti-money laundering enforcement, chief executive Mark Straub told Semafor.

US calls Rwanda over eastern DRC

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged an immediate ceasefire in eastern DR Congo during a call with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, underscoring Kigali’s role in the escalating conflict. The M23 militia — which experts believe is funded by Rwanda, despite Kigali’s denials — appeared to consolidate its control of the key city of Goma on Wednesday, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee. Rubio told Kagame that the US was “deeply troubled by the escalation” in fighting and asked “all parties to respect sovereign territorial integrity,” a State Department spokesperson said, after Rubio criticized the “assault on Goma by the Rwanda-backed M23” in a call with DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi earlier in the week. The growing humanitarian crisis in the country has prompted attacks on the Rwandan and US embassies in the capital city Kinshasa.

Funders pledge $50B to electrify Africa

The World Bank, African Development Bank, and their partners pledged more than $50 billion to bring electricity to 300 million Africans by 2030. “It’s time to put our money where our mouth is,” World Bank President Ajay Banga said at the inaugural Africa Energy Summit in Dar es Salaam that brought together 30 heads of African governments, development bank leaders, private sector financiers, and philanthropic foundations. He called for countries in the region to ramp up reform regulations and policies that have been a barrier for potential investors to help overcome a crippling electricity crisis: Some 571 million people on the continent still have no access to electricity. “It’s not just about energy transition, this is about dignity. Africa must develop with dignity and pride,” said AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina.

— Yinka Adegoke

Local market access key to nutrition

A new study suggested that access to local markets was more important to improving nutrition than individual farmers growing a diversity of crops. Researchers analyzed surveys from around 90,000 families in Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. “The notion that very diverse farming is better for nutrition is widespread among non-economists, but we show that very high diversity on very small farms rather contributes to staying poor and subsistence-oriented,” Matin Qaim from the Center for Development Research at the University of Bonn told Semafor, pointing instead to the importance of “a stronger policy focus” on making nutritious foods accessible through local markets. “This will require more investments into rural road and market infrastructure,” he said.

— Preeti Jha

Nigeria’s mobile phone hike

The increase in Nigerian mobile phone tariffs, the first hike in over a decade. The move comes as citizens are already grappling with skyrocketing inflation in Africa’s fourth-largest economy, with the minimum price of telephone calls going up from 6.40 naira ($0.004) per minute to 9.6. “The approved adjustment is aimed at addressing the significant gap between operational costs and current tariffs,” the communications regulator said. Network operators had originally called for a 100% tariff hike to cope with difficult market conditions and ensure improvements in infrastructure. GSMA Intelligence, a telecom industry body, projects the move will unlock over $150 million in additional investment and expand 4G network coverage in rural areas.

Business & Macro

🇳🇬 Consumer goods producer Unilever Nigeria reported an 88% increase in net profit to 16 billion naira ($10 million) for the 12 months ending Dec. 2024. Revenue rose 44% to 150 billion naira ($99 million) in the period.

🇰🇪 The Kenya Bureau of Standards seized products belonging to Chinese steelmaker Rongtai, accusing the company of using “substandard construction materials.”

Climate & Energy

🇹🇿 Zanzibar will buy 200 megawatts of wind power from Aseel Oilfield Services, a Tanzanian energy company, at an initial cost of $180 million.

🌍 African firms E3 Capital and Fireball Capital led a $5.7 million investment into Insight Terra, a data provider on environmental risks for energy and mining companies.

Geopolitics & Policy

🇧🇫 Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger formally left ECOWAS on Wednesday, the West African economic bloc announced, noting that citizens and businesses retained free movement benefits within member states until further notice.

🇿🇦 South African lawmaker Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, the daughter of former President Jacob Zuma, will face charges on Thursday of inciting violence in the run-up to deadly 2021 anti-government protests.

Tech & Deals

🇿🇦 Sweden’s development financier Swedfund will commit €40 million ($42 million) to the Emerging Africa & Asia Infrastructure Fund, an investment company managed by South African asset manager Ninety One, to fund new projects in both regions.

🇨🇩 The UK-based tech company MOPO received $7 million in funding from British International Investment to expand its pay-per-use battery rental business in DR Congo.

A South African telescope discovered a giant radio galaxy more than 32 times the size of the Milky Way. The plasma jets, shown glowing in red and yellow in the image above, span 3.3 million light-years from end to end, wrote a co-author of the findings in The Conversation. The starlight from other surrounding galaxies can be seen in the background. “We’ve nicknamed it Inkathazo, meaning “trouble” in South Africa’s isiXhosa and isiZulu languages,” she said. “That’s because it’s been a bit troublesome to understand the physics behind what’s going on.” There are millions of normally sized radio galaxies but a new generation of radio telescopes, including the MeerKAT in South Africa’s Karoo region, have accelerated the discovery of around 11,000 giants in the last five years.

The Biden administration held far fewer meetings with corporate executives compared with the first Trump administration, a Semafor analysis found. According to public calendars, former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin logged three times as many meetings and official conversations as his successor Janet Yellen in the first three years of their respective tenures, Rachyl Jones and Liz Hoffman reported. Such chilliness may help explain why many corporate leaders rallied to support Trump during the 2024 election.

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— Preeti Jha, Alexander Onukwue, and Yinka Adegoke.