UAE operator e& struck a deal with Uber to sell 12.5% of its stake in digital platform provider Careem Technologies for $100 million, leaving it with a 37.5% shareholding which the taxi app giant has an option to acquire the rest of.
Careem Technologies builds and operates its namesake app and related services. The app is used for various consumer services including food and grocery delivery, payment and other lifestyle services.
The deal is subject to regulatory approval and includes options which can be exercised by either side for Uber to buy e& out of Careem completely. The options can be activated between December 2031 or January 2032.
In a stock market statement, e& noted from the deal Careem would benefit from Uber’s experience and synergies with its global platforms.
For e& the sale reflects an “increased strategic focus on its core businesses and disciplined capital allocation priorities”, while allowing it to maintaining some exposure to the app business.
Uber already owns the other 50% of Careem Technologies and the entirety of the ride sharing business it was originally spun-off from.
Careem Technologies was separated from the taxi business in 2023, with e& taking a 50.03 per cent stake in that business in exchange for an investment of $400 million in it.
A newly released report alleges that well-placed elites in Cameroon’s government are enabling a cluster of timber and agribusiness companies to log primary forest in the country. These companies include Sextransbois, which was awarded a controversial 68,000-hectare (168,000-acre) logging concession in the Ebo Forest in 2023. The report by Swiss-based advocacy group Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) also named SCIEB, which controls another concession in the Ebo Forest covering 65,000 hectares (161,000 acres). The report used corporate registry documents, trade records, and sources in Cameroon’s forestry sector to link both companies, along with Boiscam and Camvert, to prominent businessman Aboubakar Al Fatih. According to an “informal broker” who has worked to connect logging companies with forestry officials and was interviewed by GI-TOC, Al Fatih’s companies have benefitted from his ties to the minister of economy, Alamine Ousmane Mey. Mey is considered an ally of Cameroonian President Paul Biya’s eldest son Franck, who reportedly recommended him for a cabinet post in 2011. Sextransbois was incorporated by relatives of Franck Biya’s in 2014, before being transferred to then-20-year-old Mahmoud Mourtada, Al Fatih’s half-brother. The report implies that Al Fatih’s connections to figures in Franck Biya’s circle helped Sextransbois and SCIEB obtain their concessions in the Ebo Forest. Those concessions were awarded despite a global campaign to protect the forest, which is a biodiversity-rich habitat for threatened gorillas and chimpanzees. After initially walking back its decision to reclassify the forest as government land in 2020, the government quietly reissued the two…This article was originally published on Mongabay
Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa (pictured) believes Africa is no longer playing catch-up in global technologies, telling attendees of a key business conference in Kenya the continent is now holding its own in developing fresh business models and tapping emerging digitalisation trends.
In a string of posts on a popular micro-blogging site, the operator reported Ndegwa told the Academy of International Business (AIB) Conference nations are increasingly looking to Africa for fresh approaches to delivering growth and innovation.
Africa is now “co-creating new models” and its views are ever-more sought after, Ndegwa said.
The Safaricom boss noted Africa was not immune to global challenges, but argued “turbulence can also drive transformation”.
He pointed to the Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic as an example, explaining the operator group “had to navigate regulatory changes, currency pressure”, greater competition and cybersecurity challenges.
The challenges fuelled a shift from “telco to techco” as Safaricom recognised “adaptability is now a competitive advantage”.
He noted global uncertainties continue today due to “geopolitical tension, economic volatility” and various disruptive technology developments including AI, meaning the ability to swiftly adjust is still essential.
Ndegwa said the m-Pesa mobile money platform “remains the clearest example of African innovation” being used to address a local problem by looking to the bigger picture of what the system is for rather than focusing solely on technology.
He argued the platform shows what can be achieved in driving digital transformation when initiatives are backed by the right regulations and laws, along with “strong public-private collaborations”.
Artificial political independence, when it remains devoid of economic sovereignty, constitutes only an illusion of freedom, a facade of autonomy deprived of any real capacity for self-determination. Russia, Africa and dedollarization It is in this context that the dedollarization promoted by Russia – and the growing interest of several African nations in payment systems alternative […]
To effectively combat disease outbreaks like Ebola, it is necessary to strengthen and expand local health systems, rather than rely on temporary and often ineffective measures from foreign organizations. The Associated Press (AP) reported on May 26 that the ongoing outbreak had infected around 1000 people in both the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) […]
Trump administration cuts to grants disbursed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) likely resulted in a delayed response to the current Ebola outbreak in parts of central Africa, former federal health officials have said.
Though the virus was officially uncovered just last week, it’s believed that it had been spreading undetected for at least several weeks prior.
The Trump White House dismantled USAID last year, with the State Department absorbing its remaining necessary programs. The cuts affected billions of dollars in grant money for thousands of programs and nonprofit organizations around the world.
If left intact, some of that funding could have resulted in faster detection times for the current outbreak, former federal officials within USAID, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) told NBC News,
“What we’ve lost is speed, which is the most important thing in an outbreak like this,” said Nicholas Enrich, former acting assistant administrator for global health at USAID.
People who were once employed in programs funded by the U.S. have had to find new jobs, former CDC medical officer Daniel Bausch pointed out.
“Now they’re driving a taxi in Kinshasa or selling fruit somewhere. So this cadre of reasonably trained people that you can employ just isn’t around,” Bausch explained.
Heather Reoch Kerr, country director for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in the DRC, also said the lack of funding is disrupting the response to the Ebola outbreak.
“Many facilities in affected areas are operating without basic protective supplies” because of cuts to USAID, Reoch Kerr said.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently addressed the outbreak, saying that health officials within the organization are prepared to tackle the situation head-on. However, “we are facing an extremely serious and difficult outbreak,” Tedros added. “It will get worse before it gets better.”
The cuts to USAID, as well as the Trump administration’s decision to exit WHO (a choice that was finalized earlier this year), will undoubtedly disrupt global health responses, like what’s being seen in central Africa right now, health experts predicted.
The cuts have “disrupted the ability for contact tracing to happen, for those preventive activities to be mounted very well,” Abraham Leno, director of government relations for the humanitarian organization Alight, told The Hill.
Other experts predicted this outcome several months ago.
“Because of these two decisions and the long-lasting consequences, lives will be lost,” said Lindsey Locks, an assistant professor of Global Health at Boston University, in an op-ed last year.
Beyond disease outbreaks, the Trump administration’s decisions will “reverse decades of progress in reducing malnutrition and hunger worldwide,” Locks said.
The administration’s moves to dismantle international health infrastructure will “weaken the shared governance architecture for outbreak preparedness and response,” Chatham House fellow Ebere Okereke wrote in January.
“The WHO’s authority has been diminished,” Okereke added, noting, “Disease surveillance depends on trust.”
The Washington Consensus vs. African Lives: 50 Years of Robbery Under the Guise of Loans. “Forgiven” Debts vs. “Dead” Economies: The Anatomy of Western Deception For many decades, the West, led by the United States, has been putting on a farce for Africa called “humanitarian aid and development.” Official Washington, London, and Paris have been […]
US-Israeli disruption of global energy flows by bombing Iran and precipitating the closure of the Strait of Hormuz (SoH) is shaking US allies first, and exposes Washington’s long-term policy of constricting global petroleum supply. Washington’s Ill-Conceived War and the Resulting High Fuel Prices Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, was brought to a standstill on May 18 and […]
Africa is the richest continent in the world, yet it is inhabited by some of the poorest people. This paradox is not inevitable. It is a two-pronged form of organized crime, the second pillar of which is addressed by the single economic zone. There is a form of violence so normalized that it has become […]
The Institute for Economics and Peace has released its latest Global Terrorism Index 2026—an annual report that assesses the level of terrorist threat in 163 countries around the world. The 13th edition of the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), released by the Institute for Economics & Peace in March 2026, paints a picture of cautious optimism […]
France cannot decide the image it wants to present in Africa; after burning down West Africa, it is pretending to champion the autonomy, sovereignty, and prosperity of East Africa. A New Scramble for Africa As the race to secure or increase control over Africa’s resources and population accelerates, former colonial masters, including France, are having […]
Africa is the richest continent in the world, yet inhabited by some of the poorest people. This paradox is not inevitable. It is a two-pronged form of organized crime, the first pillar of which is addressed by the unique geographical area. There is a cruel irony in African geography. The largest inhabited continent in the […]
Paris loves to play the knight in shining armor — the defender of democracy, the fighter against terrorism, the guardian of humanitarianism. But in the Sahel, that armor has long since tarnished. After ten years of the so-called “counterterrorism” Operation Barkhane, France not only failed to defeat the jihadists but actually drove its former colonies […]
A cantora Carisa Dias vem conquistando espaço no cenário musical internacional com seu álbum de estreia, "CARISA". O trabalho, que mistura sonoridades como morna, afrobeats, bossa nova, pop e soul, reflecte a diversidade de influências que moldaram a trajetória da artista. Com origem cabo-verdiana, Carisa nasceu em Portugal e cresceu no Luxemburgo, país que descreve como um ambiente multicultural que a ajudou a desenvolver a sua identidade artística.
"Eu me defino como uma fusão completa:...
No Fala África VOA deste domingo, Dani Stescki conversa com a cantora Carisa Dias sobre a criação do álbum "CARISA", a mistura de estilos que define a sua identidade musical e o impacto social das suas canções.
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