Africa

1. Trump’s S. Africa pick
2. Abuja’s property fund
3. Nigeria pipeline restored
4. US firm eyes DRC lithium
5. Metals giants visit Dar port
6. S. Africa universities ranked
7. New funds for Lesotho

Using song to relay findings from Guinea-Bissau’s archeological dig.

Trump names Israel supporter for SA job

US President Donald Trump nominated L. Brent Bozell III, a conservative media critic and staunch supporter of the Israeli government, as ambassador to South Africa.

The move comes amid worsening ties between the two countries: Washington expelled Pretoria’s ambassador to the US this month for criticizing Trump during a webinar, days after Semafor first reported that he had been shut out of meetings with White House officials in part over South Africa’s stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Pretoria has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Washington froze all aid to South Africa in February, with Trump citing Pretoria’s Israel position as well as a law that the US president wrongly claimed had been used to forcibly remove land from white farmers.

Bozell, whose nomination must now be confirmed by the US Senate, is the founder of the Media Research Center, a watchdog whose mission is “to expose and counter the leftist bias of the national news media.” His son, Leo Brent Bozell IV, was among those convicted for storming the US Capitol in 2021 before being pardoned by Trump this year.

Nigeria plans $650M home loans fund

Nigeria is creating a 1 trillion naira ($650 million) fund to provide low-interest mortgages and spark a “construction boom” in Africa’s most populous country, its finance minister said.

Wale Edun told reporters that for the first phase of fundraising, the government had taken out a 40-year loan from the World Bank’s International Development Association at an interest rate of 1%, matched by private sector funding from pension funds and banks to raise 250 billion naira. The mortgages, which will be available within weeks, will be of “single-digit or low double-digit interest rates” for around 25 years, he said.

Mortgage lending is a small portion of the country’s property market, as in other parts of the continent, and loans typically require hefty deposits with interest rates of about 20% for a 10-year period. As a result, most property is bought in cash. Research suggests most Nigerians live in rented accommodation.

— Alexis Akwagyiram

Nigeria pipeline fallout persists

A Nigerian oil pipeline damaged by a blast last week has been restored, its owner said, though the political fallout from the explosion persists. Oil accounts for more than 90% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings, and the Trans-Niger Pipeline has a capacity of 450,000 barrels per day — about a third of the output in Africa’s biggest crude-producing nation. A rupture at the pipeline in Rivers state triggered a domestic political crisis, with President Bola Tinubu declaring a state of emergency, and suspending both the governor and local legislature. Tinubu’s move “looks like decisive action… but it isn’t,” a Bloomberg columnist warned. Nigeria’s leader “has chosen a quasi-military solution for a political problem.”

US explorer moves for Congolese lithium

US mineral explorer KoBold Metals has proposed developing a lithium-rich site in DR Congo, as the country seeks a strategic partnership with Donald Trump’s administration.

KoBold, which uses artificial intelligence to drive discovery, aims to invest in the Roche Dure site that is regarded as holding a large deposit of lithium, a key mineral in the energy transition. The company, backed by a venture affiliated to Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and valued at nearly $3 billion, wrote earlier this year to Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi’s office that it “would welcome the opportunity to develop the asset,” Bloomberg reported.

KoBold, which operates across 70 projects in five continents, invested $150 million in Zambia in 2023 to explore the Copperbelt region, and has drilled 50,000 meters at the Mingomba mine, which is projected to become the country’s biggest copper mine upon completion.

Metals giants eye Dar es Salaam port

Three global metals giants expressed interest in using Tanzania’s main port as a transit hub to expand their Africa presence, The Citizen Tanzania reported. Delegates from China Metal Storage and Transport Company, the Geneva-headquartered Mercuria, and their jointly owned subsidiary Henry Bath & Son, visited the Port of Dar es Salaam over the weekend.

Their interest is part of a broader push by China to encourage public-private partnerships in Africa, Elena Kiryakova, a research fellow at the think tank ODI, told Semafor. This offers a “more sustainable” approach to African investment than state-backed lending, she said.

Dar es Salaam is an important transit point for cobalt and copper mined from DR Congo and Zambia. Logistics bottlenecks in South Africa have slowed exports in recent months, Reuters noted, prompting China to invest $1.4 billion in upgrading the 50-year-old Tanzania-Zambia railway. The line is a competitor to the US-backed Lobito Corridor, which aims to refurbish train lines in Angola, DR Congo, and Zambia to improve mineral supply chains.

— Paige Bruton

S. Africa tops continent uni ranks

South African universities were the continent’s highest ranked in the latest edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject. The survey assessed more than 1,700 universities across the globe in 55 subjects. Elite US and British universities topped the lists in the five broad subject categories.

Among African institutions, South Africa’s stood out: 12 of the country’s universities featured 176 subjects in the rankings, the most of any African nation. The University of the Witwatersrand was ranked 11th in the mineral and mining engineering category, the highest ranking of any African university in any subject, University World News noted, while the University of Cape Town was Africa’s highest ranked institution. Egypt came second on the continent, with 15 universities securing 162 entries, and Nigeria third.

New funds for Lesotho

The amount the African Development Bank plans to invest in Lesotho over the next five years. The funding announcement comes as the country’s king said the nation — already reeling from the impact of the Trump administration’s aid cuts — fears heavy economic losses if the US also terminates the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which offers around 30 sub-Saharan African countries duty-free access to the US market.

The AfDB’s investment strategy for Lesotho will focus on agricultural development, climate resilience, and energy infrastructure. The mountainous kingdom of Lesotho, entirely encircled by South Africa, was thrust into the global spotlight earlier this month when Trump claimed “nobody has ever heard of″ it during comments to Congress about his overseas spending cuts.

The World Economy Summit 2025 will bring together US Cabinet officials, global finance ministers, central bankers, and over 200 CEOs of the world’s largest companies. The three-day summit will take place April 23–25, 2025, in Washington, DC, and will be the first of its kind since the new US administration took office.

Featuring on-the-record conversations with top executives such as Calvin Butler, President and CEO, Exelon; Hassane El-Khoury, President and CEO, onsemi; Bob Frenzel, Chairman, President and CEO, Xcel Energy; Mario Harik, CEO, XPO; Joseph Hinrichs, President and CEO, CSX Corporation; and Scott Kirby, CEO, United Airlines; Toni Townes-Whitley, CEO, SAIC, the summit will advance dialogues that catalyze global growth and fortify resilience in an uncertain, shifting global economy.

April 23-25 | Washington, DC | Learn More

Business & Macro

🇳🇦 Namibia’s new President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah chose nine women for her first cabinet, including Lucia Witbooi as vice president and Ericah Shafudah as finance minister.

🇸🇳 The International Monetary Fund will not start a new lending program for Senegal until the government addresses the misreporting of key economic data by the previous administration, the fund’s mission chief said.

Climate & Energy

🇿🇦 Norway’s Norfund and South Africa’s Standard Bank invested $75 million in a mix of equity and debt in South African electricity trading platform Etana Energy.

Geopolitics & Policy

🇸🇩 Sudan’s army encircled the airport in Khartoum on Wednesday, according to reports, marking the military’s latest step in recapturing strongholds from the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary.

🇧🇮 Burundi alleged that Rwanda plans to attack it, based on “credible intelligence,” Burundi’s President Évariste Ndayishimiye said. Rwanda’s foreign minister responded that the claim, for which no evidence was publicly cited, was “unfortunate.”

Tech & Deals

🇰🇪 Kenyan banking group KCB will acquire a 75% stake in Riverbank, a payment company, for $15 million.

🇳🇬 Nigerian payments processing company Paystack rolled out Zap, its first-ever consumer-focused payments app, to offer quick bank transfers in a market dominated by traditional banks and Chinese startups.

Archeologists are using a song to help share the findings of the biggest-ever dig to take place in Guinea-Bissau. By borrowing from the centuries-old tradition of the region’s oral historians, the team hopes the research will reach a wider local audience. “We should pay and need to pay respect to local ways of producing and consuming history,” one team member told Voice of America. During the dig in Kansala, the former capital of the West African kingdom of Kaabu, researchers found evidence of trade links between ancient residents and Europeans including Venetian beads and Dutch gin. The research is also being presented in a report format.

There is now a price tag on the deluge of deals the United Arab Emirates plans in the US.

The UAE has committed $1.4 trillion over the next decade to “substantially increase… existing investments” in artificial-intelligence infrastructure, semiconductors, energy, and manufacturing, according to a White House statement. The agreement follows UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed’s visit to Washington, where he met with President Donald Trump and top US officials, as well as industry titans like Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Semafor’s Kelsey Warner reported.

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