CDC, the UK’s development finance institution, recently announced a EUR50m equity investment in Africa Internet Group (AIG). AIG is the parent company of Jumia, Africa’s leading e-commerce firm, as well as nine other online consumer businesses operating in 23 countries across the continent.

AIG currently connects more than 50,000 local and international companies with millions of African consumers. CDC’s capital will help AIG improve its existing operations and expand into new countries.

The companies in the group have a significant job-creation potential, particularly those businesses that involve the delivery of a physical products. Jumia Group already has over 4,000 employees and it is expected that Jumia Services (formerly AIG-Express), the logistics business within the group (and already one of Africa’s largest logistics firms, delivering over 4 million orders in 2015) will generate thousands of new delivery jobs by 2020.

In addition to direct employment, AIG operates a network of 30,000 sales agents, the “J-Force”. Currently largely Nigeria-based, the J-Force is expanding into other countries, with numbers of agents expected to grow to over 100,000 by the end of 2017.

Online marketplace businesses can also play an important role in providing access to new customers for local vendors. Kaymu, an online marketplace focused on smaller sellers, enables these vendors to develop their businesses by providing them with access to a nationwide market for the first time. Most sellers on the Kaymu platform are micro and small businesses – often people who had previously been market traders. Several thousand of these small firms actively trade on the platform every month and as they grow so do the number of jobs they provide.

Other services offered by Africa Internet Group include websites offering food delivery (Hellofood) and hotel booking (Jovago), as well as online classified ads for general merchandise (Vendito), real estate (Lamudi), jobs (EverJobs) and vehicles (Carmudi).

This is fascinating –  Nigerian Communications Commission(NCC) is replacing NNPC as Nigeria’s cash cow.

The Nigerian Communications Commission noted that it remitted N70 billon into the Federation Account in the last one year.

“This is in addition to the N30 billion paid by MTN Nigeria as a part payment of the N330billion fine slammed on it by the commission.

Yakubu Musa, Special Assistant on Media to the chief executive of the commission, made this known in a statement released in Abuja on Monday

Last month, I visited my village of Ovim in Southeastern Nigeria. I met a painter who also manufactures the paint he uses for his work. According to him, his business nearly collapsed early in the year when he could not access the foreign exchange market to import the raw materials required for his paint production. At that time, the Nigerian central bank was running a currency control regime which stifled the importation of goods for small businesses.

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Nigeria’s Online Mall Konga.com has announced the celebration of its fourth year of leading trade and commerce innovation in Africa as it clocks four.

The ecommerce giant was founded in 2012 and started purely as an online retailer selling just baby and beauty products. Its growth was rapid as it rose 11X in its first year of operations and 4.5X in the second year. In 2014, Konga opened its Seller HQ – Konga’s Marketplace Platform, which allows business owners to display and sell their items on Konga.com. Seller HQ’s growth has been rapid with “marketplace” derived orders now accounting for over 70% of sales. Over 30,000 sellers are registered and trading on the site today.

True to its vision to utilize internet and mobile technologies to create a pan African platform that enables trade and commerce for millions of sellers and buyers, Konga led several innovations like the Konga Mobile App, Seller HQ platform, online payment solution KongaPay App which allows for payment online and offline anytime with its unique me-commerce feature and the recently launched Konga EZ Web Progressive App.

In recognition of its outstanding performance through the years, Konga has received several awards like “Online retailer of the year” and ”Most Emerging brand” Marketing World awards (2013), “Best company in Tech businesses category” Creative Entrepreneurs of Nigeria awards (2013), “West African entrepreneur of the year” CNBC Africa (2013), “Most Innovative and Impactful retail brand” by Lagos Chamber of Commerce Industry awards (2014),  “Online Retailer of the Year” and for “Marketing Campaign of the Year” for the Found on Konga Campaign by the Marketing World Awards (2015), “Best Ecommerce Logistics Company” (2016) by CBN, “Best Place to Work for Millennials” (2016) by Great Place to Work to mention a few.

Speaking on the journey and achievements through its four years on business, the Director of Marketing and Customer Experience Mayowa Adebayo had this to say “Regardless of the achievements and milestones we have reached in our four years of innovation, we will not stop innovating because we are yet to reach the climax of the Konga story” She said.

In commemoration of its fourth anniversary, Konga has launched a unique sale around the number “4”. The sale will be for four hours, for four days, featuring four discounted items on each day of the sale.

The African Risk Capacity Insurance Company Limited (ARC Ltd)  has announced the appointment of former IFC Director Ms Dolika Banda as Chief Executive Officer, effective from 7 September 2016.

She will take the reins from Dr Simon Young, who was appointed CEO in 2014 after playing a leading role in the development of the ARC programme. He will continue to serve in an advisory capacity.

ARC Ltd is an insurance mutual and financial affiliate of the ARC Agency, a Specialised Agency of the African Union.  As Africa’s first catastrophe risk pool, ARC Ltd provides parametric natural disaster insurance to African governments.

A Zambian economist and advisor, Ms Banda has more than 25 years of international banking and financial management experience with a focus on economic development in sub-Saharan Africa.

Most recently, Ms Banda was Regional Director for Africa at the UK’s Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) since 2013.

Ms Banda worked at the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation for 16 years within its financial markets, credit, accounting and treasury departments. As Director of Financial Markets, she managed the IFC’s financial markets activities across sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Ms Banda has also held senior corporate and merchant banking positions at Barclays and Citibank in Zambia.

She currently sits as a non-executive director on a number of boards including Ecobank Transnational Incorporated.