Africa

1. Gates aghast but optimistic
2. Thiam ban fallout
3. KoBold metals deal
4. Mineral mining abuses
5. A $1B film fund
6. Mali’s opposition crackdown
7. Weekend Reads

The world’s first fossil pangolin track found in South Africa.

Hello! Much of the talk in African capitals in recent months has been to question why, in the wake of Washington’s foreign aid cuts, so many countries were still so reliant on international aid to prop up their health systems. Bill Gates — whom I spoke to this week as he marked the 25th anniversary of the Gates Foundation — pointed to countries like India and Vietnam that had “largely graduated” from such support and subsequently seen their economies benefit.

He suggested this was how aid should work, ideally, and how he thinks it can in Africa too, pointing to Rwanda and Tanzania as examples of countries that “manage their primary health care very well.”

But Gates stressed that the sudden cutbacks in government aid programs will have serious consequences. “We have a lot of great partners, so we’re going to have to prioritize. But anyone who says that this aid thing isn’t going to hurt, sadly, that’s not the case.”

🟡 Alexis and I will be in Abidjan for the Africa CEO Forum next week and look forward to seeing some of you there. Reach out by replying to this email.

Bill Gates ‘horrified’ at aid cuts

Bill Gates said he was “horrified” by the Trump administration’s cuts to global humanitarian aid programs and will be lobbying the White House and Congress to help restore some of the axed services. In an interview with Semafor to mark the Gates Foundation’s 25th anniversary, the billionaire philanthropist warned that the cuts will likely cost lives in some of the most vulnerable regions of the world.

“I’m still quite optimistic about what we can do in the next 20 years, even though I’m horrified about where we find ourselves with these aid reductions,” Gates told Semafor, referring to both the tens of billions of dollars in US foreign aid cuts and budget tightening by wealthy European nations. “The cuts in USAID are larger than what the Gates Foundation is able to provide. I look forward to a day that we get those USAID numbers back up again,” he said.

Gates also announced on Thursday that he now plans to give away “virtually” all his wealth over the next 20 years and sunset the foundation in 2045.

Thiam saga could hit confidence

The disqualification of Côte d’Ivoire’s main opposition candidate from upcoming presidential elections could undermine the nation’s reputation as a stable investment hub, his lawyer told Semafor. A court ruling in April barred former Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam from running in October’s vote, saying he didn’t revoke his previous French citizenship early enough to qualify for this year’s race.

The move “sends a devastating signal,” said Thiam’s lawyer, arguing that the political and legal uncertainty the decision created may deter investors: Thiam is the fourth major political figure to be barred from running for president.

Analysts have also warned that the disqualification, amid a lack of clarity over whether 83-year-old President Alassane Ouattara will seek an unprecedented fourth term, could destabilize Francophone West Africa’s biggest economy. The International Monetary Fund in April called Côte d’Ivoire an “engine of growth and stability” in the eight-country West African Economic and Monetary Union.

KoBold eyes DRC lithium

KoBold Metals, a mining startup backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, reached a preliminary agreement to buy into the Manono lithium deposit in DR Congo. The agreement to acquire AVZ Mineral’s stake in the project in the southeast of the country would give KoBold access to one of the world’s largest deposits of hard rock lithium, a crucial component in batteries used in electric vehicles and renewable energy sources. KoBold said it would deploy more than $1 billion to bring Manono lithium to Western markets.

The agreement ties in with the White House’s push to secure critical mineral supplies to reduce its reliance on China’s stockpile. Washington’s top Africa envoy last month laid the groundwork for a minerals deal in DR Congo. But any deal between Washington and Kinshasa would depend on the US helping to negotiate peace in the African country’s eastern region where a longstanding conflict has killed around 3,000 people since escalating in January.

— Alexis Akwagyiram

DRC, Zambia top mining abuse cases

DR Congo and Zambia were the African countries with the most cases of mineral mining abuses between 2010 and 2024, according to a new global report by the London-headquartered Business & Human Rights Resource Center. The mining of copper — both countries are among the world’s biggest copper producers — spurred the highest number of cases. Types of abuse ranged from intimidation and threats, to beatings and arbitrary detention. According to the report, 40% of all recorded mining deaths in 2024 were in DR Congo, Guinea, and Zambia. Amid the growing need for minerals to advance clean energy goals, “unchecked extraction” from vulnerable communities can fuel human rights abuses, aggravate environmental harms, and deepen inequalities, the center warned.

A new film fund

The size of an African Film Fund that Afreximbank plans to launch. The fund will be a private equity vehicle promoting the production and global distribution of films and television series. African film has “witnessed rapid growth but continues to face significant challenges including funding, scaling and accessing global markets,” said Afreximbank President Benedict Oramah.

Person of Interest: Mamadou Traoré

The upcoming trial of Mamadou Traoré, a rising figure in the Malian opposition, highlights growing repression in the junta-ruled state. Traoré — known as “the King” among his supporters — is charged with “undermining” the state and “spreading knowingly false news likely to disturb public order,” RFI reported. His trial, set for June 12, comes after rare protests last weekend demanding a return to constitutional order in the west African country ruled by the military since coups in 2020 and 2021. The junta responded on Wednesday by suspending political parties’ activities until “further notice.”

Traoré heads the Alternatives for Mali party, which is part of the opposition coalition Jigiya Koura. He was arrested last month after an interview in which he accused military-appointed leaders of corruption and criticized the junta for reneging on its earlier promises to restore multi-party rule. “Not keeping your word is an insult to the honour of Malians,” he said.

Weekend Reads

• Burkina Faso’s charismatic young leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré has become something of a social media celebrity around the world thanks to “Russia-linked troll armies in Ouagadougou,” which “churn out pro-regime messaging and attack critics,” reported Africa Confidential. But his junta barely controls a third of the country, according to analysts, and is losing key military battles in the north with Islamist groups, which hold large swaths of territory.

• Zambia’s foreign policy is changing due to pressure from Western donors, Chinese investors, and its own ambitions, argues photojournalist Kang-Chung Chen in Africa Is a Country. Lusaka has long been viewed as a “quiet, attentive mediator” without a history of war, notes the writer, and Zambian peacekeepers are routinely requested throughout Africa. But the country’s “non-confrontational” approach in situations such as the conflict in neighboring DR Congo is “highly strategic,” she writes, allowing Zambia “to benefit from largely uninterrupted business flows.”

• Two of the four men who hijacked a Nigeria Airways flight as teenagers in 1993 to protest against an election annulment spoke to the BBC about how the decision shaped their lives. Their interview came after ex-military ruler Gen. Ibrahim Babangida expressed regret for the annulment, finally admitting his rival Moshood Abiola had won. “What he is saying now should have been said 30 years ago,” said one of the hijackers, who held 149 passengers on board the flight from Lagos to Abuja hostage for three days — including the then-Vice President of China Rong Yiren and other Nigerian government officials. “We wanted to expose the issue to the world,” he said.

• Spoken word poets in Cameroon are using their art form to call out deadly violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, where a civil war between separatists and government forces has killed around 6,500 people since 2016. Poets such as Boris Taleabong Alemnge, who performs under the stage name Penboy, tap into the “everyday dangers of war zones that many people avoid talking about,” reports The Associated Press, finding empathetic audiences in the country’s majority Francophone areas.

The AfricArena London Summit and AfricArena Berlin Summit are coming to London on May 20, 2025 and in Berlin on May 22, 2025 as part of the AfricArena Europe Scale Tour. Join us in London or Berlin for an epic day of networking with like-minded investors, venture capitalists, founders, and ecosystem builders as we celebrate the best of Africa’s tech innovators. For London, register here and for Berlin, register here.

Business & Macro

🇰🇪 Investors in Kenyan treasury bonds earned about $446 million from the sales of their holdings on the Nairobi Stock Exchange between January and March this year.

🇿🇦 South African financial services group Old Mutual appointed Jurie Strydom as its new chief executive, to replace Iain Williamson who is set to retire at the end of August this year.

🇳🇬 Nigeria has repaid a $3.4 billion loan borrowed from the IMF during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the lender said.

Climate & Energy

🇦🇴 Moroccan businessman Karim Bouhout is negotiating with Angola’s oil company Sonangol to buy a stake in the Lobito refinery, a 200,000-barrel-a-day plant.

Geopolitics & Policy

🇬🇳 Guinea has moved to revoke the license of Dubai-based miner Emirates Global Aluminium over the company’s failure to build an alumina refinery.

Tech & Deals

🌍 African e-commerce company Jumia reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of $15.7 million in the first quarter of this year, compared to $4.3 million last year.

🇰🇪 Kenyan telecom group Safaricom said its full-year profit grew 11% year-on-year in 2024 to $540 million.

The world’s first fossil pangolin tracks were discovered on South Africa’s southern coast. The findings, confirmed by tracking experts from Namibia, showed that the scaly mammals were once distributed across a larger range than they are now. “There is something really special about a fossil trackway, compared with fossil bones,” wrote researchers in The Conversation: “It seems alive, as if the animal could have registered the tracks yesterday, rather than so long ago.” The tracks are estimated to have been made between 90,000 and 140,000 years ago.

“It’s like living in hell,” one Virginia resident said recently of living in a data center development area, Semafor’s Rachyl Jones reported.

Tech companies are moving mountains to procure elusive GPUs required to calculate the largest math equations humanity has ever seen, and straining their balance sheets to pay for them. But the biggest hurdle, Jones wrote, may be the same obstacle that has long stymied builders: the neighbors.

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