UphivaBETAR
Africa PE Exit Crisis 2026: $10B in Private Equity, Nowhere to Go
Africa’s 2016–2019 PE vintage holds an estimated $10B in unrealised value. IPOs, strategic sales, and secondaries cannot absorb the backlog. BETAR maps the crisis.
MTN Spent Its War Chest on Towers. Now What?
MTN’s $2.2B IHS Towers acquisition consumes 60% of its fintech war chest. BETAR analyses what it means for MoMo’s product ambitions.
The CESA 2016-2025 Audit: 75 Million More Children in School, 100 Million Still Left Out
The African Union’s Continental Education Strategy for Africa has closed. A data-driven audit finds an access paradox, a widening STEM gap, and structural blockers that the successor framework has not yet resolved.
Africa’s First Carbon-Financed Clean Cooking Programme: How AfDB Is Using Carbon Credits to Replace Charcoal
The AfDB’s SEFA has backed a $10M blended vehicle to deploy 115,000 electric induction cookers in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia — the AfDB’s first-ever carbon finance transaction for electric cooking.
COMESA Probes Meta Over WhatsApp AI Lockout Across 21 African Markets
Africa’s largest trade bloc has launched a formal antitrust investigation into Meta after October 2025 WhatsApp Business API changes barred third-party AI providers while preserving Meta AI’s privileged access.
Nigeria DARES: The $750M World Bank Programme Targeting 750,000 Solar Connections in 18 Months
The Nigeria Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up programme is the largest single solar mini-grid deployment commitment in Africa’s history. Here is what it is trying to do and the operational risks that will determine if it delivers.
Microsoft Elevate Africa: Three Million AI Training Certificates and a Challenge to DeepSeek
When Microsoft announced it would train three million Africans in AI this year, it was careful to frame the initiative in social impact language. What received less attention was the name sitting in the backdrop: DeepSeek.
Morocco Gotion: Africa’s First Battery Gigafactory Breaks Ground in Kenitra
The Gotion High-Tech gigafactory in Kenitra, Morocco broke ground as Africa’s first utility-scale battery manufacturing plant. Beyond the milestone, the questions are about supply chain control, EU trade advantage, and mineral-rich nation lessons.
TVET in Africa: Can Technical Training Scale to Meet the Digital Economy Demand?
Africa adds 18 million young workers annually but TVET enrolment covers barely 1.8% of secondary students. An investigation into whether reform is moving fast enough.
Why Africa’s Smallholder Farmers Are AI’s Hardest Localisation Problem
Africa’s 33 million smallholder farmers represent the most demanding AI localisation challenge on the continent — fragmented land, 2,000+ languages, low literacy, and market access gaps that no generic model can bridge.
