Africa

1. Thiam to run for president
2. Moniepoint expands
3. OPEC funding
4. Investing in clean cooking
5. Mahama’s first 100 days
6. Weekend Reads

Homegrown music production.

Côte d’Ivoire presidential candidate

Tidjane Thiam, the former CEO of Credit Suisse, will run for president of Côte d’Ivoire in October’s election. The country’s main opposition Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) overwhelmingly endorsed the 62-year-old after his only rival, the country’s former trade minister, pulled out of the race. It’s not yet clear who he will face from the ruling party but President Alassane Ouattara, 83, is expected to seek a fourth term at the helm of Francophone West Africa’s largest economy.

Thiam served as a planning and development minister in Côte d’Ivoire until a 1999 military coup. He then worked overseas for around two decades for firms including McKinsey, Aviva, Prudential, and Credit Suisse, eventually resigning from the Swiss bank over a spying scandal. In February, Thiam gave up his French citizenship in order to stand in the election.

Moniepoint pushes into remittances

African fintech Moniepoint plans to use a money transfer platform launched this week as the first step toward building a larger financial services company serving Nigerians in the UK, an executive told Semafor.

The MonieWorld service enables money transfers from the UK to Nigeria and is the latest in a growing number of remittance products from Africa targeting the $100 billion that flows annually from immigrants in the diaspora to the continent. The move by the Lagos-headquartered payments and digital bank provider comes months after it received investment from the US payments giant Visa. Moniepoint was valued at more than a billion dollars following a $110 million fundraising round last October, in which Google’s Africa Investment Fund participated.

While Moniepoint does not intend to become a regulated banking entity in the UK, providing remittances will help the company create a platform that gives users “the ability to send, spend and save money,” Ravi Jakhodia, CEO of the company’s UK business, told Semafor.

OPEC financing for new projects in Africa

African countries are set to receive $225 million in new development financing. The loans, announced this month, come from an OPEC fund that invests in parts of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The largest share will go to Tanzania, with a $75 million loan designated for a railway project aimed at enhancing trade in eastern Africa, covering Burundi and DR Congo. Other beneficiaries include Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda, and Senegal. A separate $40 million package will be included in a $240 million trade finance facility to fund the import and export of agricultural commodities across multiple African countries.

Brandon Daniels, CEO, Exiger; Dr. Albert Bourla, CEO and Executive Chairman, Pfizer; Tom Hale, CEO, ŌURA; Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder, Manas AI; Partner, Greylock; Stephen Ubl, President & CEO, PhRMA; John Zutter, CEO, Lantern, and more will join the Healthcare and a Healthy Economy session at the 2025 World Economy Summit. As global demographics shift and people take a more expansive view of their health, this session focuses on how public and private sectors can expand access and increase affordability.

April 25, 2025 | Washington, DC | Learn More

Africa’s clean cooking push

The value of a new fund led by the World Bank and African Development Bank to provide 300 million Africans with clean energy by 2030. Alongside a broader electrification push, the investment is a boost to clean cooking technologies, “one of the most critical yet underfunded sectors in the energy transition,” said the African Energy Chamber, a South Africa-based advocacy group. More than 900 million people on the continent lack access to clean cooking fuels, research suggests, particularly in Uganda, Madagascar, Niger, DR Congo, Mozambique, and Ethiopia.

Regional population growth has increased demand for fuel, driving up charcoal use which has exacerbated air pollution, health issues, and deforestation. The fund is part of a broader “shift toward holistic, inclusive electrification efforts” across Africa, Dymphna van der Lans, CEO of the Clean Cooking Alliance, told Semafor.

— Madeleine Wright

Person of Interest: John Dramani Mahama

Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, who completed a historic comeback by returning to office eight years after the end of his first term, this week marked 100 days since his second inauguration.

The most high-profile policies of Mahama 2.0 include scrapping unpopular taxes on electronic transactions, betting, and emissions that he said hit the poorest Ghanaians hardest. His administration has also created a new gold regulator to better control supply chains connected to one of the country’s main exports, and set up the Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) anti-corruption task force.

Easing Ghana’s recovery after its worst economic crisis in a generation is the biggest challenge ahead. “So far, President Mahama has carefully managed a balance between reducing short-term borrowing pressures and controlling inflation,” Dennis Asare, an analyst at the Imani think tank in Accra, told Semafor. He said Mahama’s administration hoped to create more fiscal space “to deliver more social protection and address the high cost of living by cutting unpopular taxes.”

— Alexis Akwagyiram

Weekend Reads

• It is important to understand the role of Middle Eastern monarchies in Sudan’s civil war, argues political scientist Federico Donelli in The Conversation. The influence of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Sudanese politics grew out of both countries seeking to counter Iran’s power in the Red Sea region. Riyadh has aligned itself with the Sudanese army while the UAE has backed the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary. For both monarchies, Sudan is “a testing ground for their ability to influence and shape future political settlements,” writes Donelli.

• Europe’s efforts to reduce plastic waste have fueled a surge in demand for cellulose, the material used to produce paper, “intensifying pressures on global forests and rural communities,” a Mongabay investigation found. The reporters zoom in on Mozambique, which emerged as a new frontier for large-scale eucalyptus tree plantations to help the transition from single-use plastics to single-use paper products. But, more than a decade later, many local residents “feel betrayed” by the environmental impact on their land, the outlet finds.

• The conflict in eastern DR Congo is testing China’s diplomatic efforts in Africa, writes Jack Lau for the BBC. Beijing has long maintained a policy of “neutrality” on the continent to avoid any conflict with its sprawling commercial interests. But this approach has come under pressure in recent weeks with China joining in the growing global criticism of Rwanda over fighting in the mineral-rich region. “The critical importance to China of DR Congo’s renowned mineral wealth may have been a factor,” Lau notes.

• A two-night rail trip from Cape Town to Pretoria on South Africa’s legendary Blue Train evokes a “whiplash between excess and destitution,” writes The New York Times’ Johannesburg bureau chief. He notices early on that he and his wife account for two of only four Black passengers, calling the trip “a firsthand view of the staggering inequality and racial divide that continue to bedevil South Africa.” Guests travel in carriages adorned with marble tiles. And the views from huge windows take in sweeping vistas, such as rolling hills, but also shantytowns without running water or electricity.

Business & Macro

🇳🇬 🇿🇦 Nigeria and South Africa signed a pact to cooperate on growing their mining sectors, Nigeria’s mines minister said. 

🇰🇪 Kenya received $600 million in short-term financing from commercial banks to fund urgent road construction projects amid revenue shortfalls connected to tax collection deficits and high debt repayments.

Climate & Energy

🇳🇬 Nigeria reduced the electricity subsidies it pays by 35% following an increase in electricity tariffs last year that removed subsidies for 15% of customers.

🇿🇦 South African electric vehicle-charging stations startup Zimi secured a $320,000 grant from the Energy and Environment Partnership, a clean energy investor, to test a technology that allows EVs to return electricity to the grid.

Geopolitics & Policy

🇿🇼 A group of 4,000 white Zimbabwean farmers rejected the government’s compensation deal for land seized in the early 2000s, calling for renegotiations.

🇺🇬 Uganda is planning to create a law that allows for civilians to be prosecuted in military tribunals, despite a January Supreme Court ruling that barred one such case from proceeding.

Tech & Deals

🇰🇪 Kenyan logistics startup Twiga Foods acquired stakes in three local consumer goods companies Jumra, Sojpar, and Raisons to diversify its operations away from fresh produce.

🇿🇦 South African payments startup Stitch raised $55 million from firms including QED Investors, Norrsken22, Flourish Ventures, and a range of angel investors including the comedian Trevor Noah.

A growing number of African musicians are trying to produce music on the continent rather than relying on overseas studios. A new generation is “working to shift this [earlier] dynamic” of recording, producing, and touring abroad in the hope of developing a sustainable music industry within Africa, reported RFI. Cameroonian singer-songwriter Blick Bassy, for instance, started a festival for African musicians last year called Africa Prod Fest, billed as the first to offer training in production. Jambulance Movement Records, a free recording studio and label based in Guinea, also spoke to the outlet about cultivating a vibrant music ecosystem.

It’s been 10 years since Publicis, the French advertising giant, shook the industry with its $3.7 billion acquisition of digital consultancy Sapient, and six years since it appointed Nigel Vaz to run the combined Publicis Sapient. The division now generates 15% of the group’s revenues and employs one in five of its 100,000 people, Semafor’s Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson wrote.

If you’re enjoying the Semafor Africa newsletter and finding it useful, please share with your family and friends. We’d love to have them aboard too.

Let’s make sure this email doesn’t end up in your junk folder by adding africa@semafor.com to your contacts. In Gmail you should drag this newsletter over to your ‘Primary’ tab.

You can reply to this email and send us your news tips, gossip, and good vibes.

— Alexis Akwagyiram, Preeti Jha, Alexander Onukwue, and Yinka Adegoke.