NELLY MURUNGI Issued on: 27 MARCH 2020 Brigitha Faustin Brigitha Faustin is the managing director of OBRI Tanzania, a company that manufactures edible oils. “As I am operating in the agri-food space, empty shelves can be frightening but empty fields would be devastating. The pandemic has brought fear to most of us. We depend on
NELLY MURUNGI Issued on: 27 MARCH 2020 Manuel Koser Manuel Koser is the co-founder and managing director of Silvertree Holdings, a South African-based investment firm that focuses on growing early and mid-stage companies. “This has been a crazy week in the world. To many of us it felt like a whole year in just a week.
NELLY MURUNGI Issued on: 27 MARCH 2020 Jonas Schwarz Lausten Jonas Schwarz Lausten is the co-owner of Nordic Hotels, a collection of boutique hotels in Nigeria. “It’s clear that Covid-19 has an impact on the hospitality and travel industry, both locally in Nigeria and internationally. The financial impact can easily be characterised as devastating. “With
NELLY MURUNGI Issued on: 27 MARCH 2020 Feleg Tsegaye Feleg Tsegaye is the founder and president of Deliver Addis, an Ethiopian company that offers online food delivery services in partnership with restaurants. “A number of the restaurants we work with have almost completely stopped receiving walk-in customers, which majorly impacted their businesses. We’ve already seen
NELLY MURUNGI Issued on: 27 MARCH 2020 Hasnain Noorani Hasnain Noorani is the founder and group CEO of PrideGROUP, a Kenyan-based group invested in diverse sectors, including hospitality, transport and energy. “The hospitality sector in Kenya generally has been deeply shaken by Covid-19 which continues to spread across the globe. This has severely affected our
NELLY MURUNGI Issued on: 27 MARCH 2020 Yacoub Sidya Yacoub Sidya is the CEO of MSS Security, a private security company operating in Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea. “Most of our customers are international companies. All of them shut down operations and sent everyone home. Therefore, we had scaled down by 85%. “The impact
NELLY MURUNGI Issued on: 27 MARCH 2020 George Gachara George Gachara is the managing partner of HEVA Fund, which provides financing to early-stage businesses in the creative industry in East Africa. “In light of recent developments concerning the coronavirus disease, we are taking necessary precautionary and safety measures to ensure that the wellbeing of our team,
NELLY MURUNGI Issued on: 27 MARCH 2020 Wandia Gichuru Wandia Gichuru is the co-founder and CEO of Vivo Woman, a Kenyan-owned clothing brand operating stores in shopping malls across the country, and Shop Zetu, an online store stocking African fashion brands. “We started feeling the impact of the Coronavirus in early February, when a container of fabric
Zeenat Hansrod with RFI Issued on: 28/03/2020 United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres says he fears “millions and millions” of coronavirus cases in Africa, where the youth will not be spared. He called on wealthy countries to help the developing world, for their own sake.ADVERTISING Guterres told RFI that Africa should be the priority of the international community as
ADDIS ABABA, GOMA, JOHANNESBURG AND KAMPALA Mar 26th 2020 “In the township people are not worried at all,” says Lesedi Kgasago, a student from Soweto, Johannesburg. Among his friends “corona” is seen either as something that afflicts white people or a fiction. When life is a struggle it is hard to worry about a threat you