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Three Questions for Five African Businesses: Insights from Sankalp Africa Summit’s ‘Enterprise Showcase’
The recent Sankalp Africa Summit featured an “Enterprise Showcase” where up-and-coming African businesses shared information about their work and missions. NextBillion interviewed five of these entrepreneurs and company representatives, asking each of them three questions: What are the main challenges you’re facing in running your business? What kind of support would help you overcome these challenges? And what’s one thing you wish funders understood about your business needs? Their responses reveal some of the innovative approaches and key issues that are emerging in Africa’s vibrant ecosystem of small and medium-sized enterprises.
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- Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Social Enterprise, Transportation, WASH
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Accelerating Climate-Health: How the Sector Can Become Africa’s Next Strategic Investment Frontier
Africa faces a growing dual challenge at the critical nexus of climate and healthcare, as countries and health systems that are already strained by chronic underinvestment must now also deal with climate-related shocks and disease burdens. As Rajat Chabba at the William Davidson Institute and Martin Slawek at Open Capital Advisors explain, without targeted investment in integrated climate-health solutions, these health systems risk becoming overwhelmed, undermining public health and climate resilience across the region. But they also argue that these pressures create a clear opportunity for investors, businesses, and public and development-sector players. They explore why climate-health presents a compelling investment case in Africa.
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- Energy, Environment, Health Care, Investing
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The Trade-offs in African Energy Access are Real: Why Electrification Efforts Must Prioritise Industrial Use over Household Connections
In the face of stagnating progress, a debate has emerged about whether energy access efforts in Africa should prioritize household or industrial and commercial electrification. Taiwo Odugbemi, a power sector regulation specialist and economist, pushes back on the argument that household access should take precedence over industrial uses — and the assertion that Africa can pursue both goals simultaneously. He explains why maintaining a dual focus may not be realistic, given the continent’s grid limitations and constrained public resources, and argues that African electricity policies must evolve to prioritize productive use, particularly in industrial and agro-processing hubs.
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- Energy
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The Hidden Role of ‘E-Boiling’ in Clean Cooking: How Nairobi’s Informal Settlements are Quietly Powering an Electric Transition
As policymakers and funders look for ways to bring clean cooking to Africa’s urban poor, one key reality often goes unnoticed: Electric cooking is already happening in the continent’s informal settlements, just not in the way most people think. June Lukuyu, Nathan Williams, Vongaishe Mutatu, Austine Owuor Otieno, Paul Kyoma Asiimwe and Vijay Modi share findings from their research in Nairobi, which reveal a growing use of electricity for boiling water to cook, make tea, bathe, and sterilize food and drinking water. They argue that this adoption of “e-boiling” offers an entry point for expanding electricity usage in these communities, and explore the implications for clean cooking programs.
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- Energy, Environment
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The False Choice in African Energy Access: Why the Sector Must Balance the Needs of Households and Businesses — And How it Can Electrify Both
Energy access is essential to Africa’s development. But as Alba Topulli at CLASP and Todd Moss at the Energy for Growth Hub argue, progress has stalled over a false choice: Should the continent prioritize solar home systems that bring basic access to households — or should it invest in making electricity cheaper and more reliable for businesses, to power job creation and economic growth? They explain why the energy access sector must resist this perceived trade-off, and propose four key principles that can allow Africa to accomplish both of these goals.
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- Energy
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Productive Use Has Challenges: What’s Holding the Sector Back — And How Companies and Investors Should Respond
Productive use of renewable energy (PURE) technologies such as solar irrigation, cold storage and agro-processing can have a transformative impact in Africa and other emerging markets. But though the potential of these technologies is undeniable, the scale isn’t. As Daniel Waldron, Chris Emmott and Kristi Chon at Acumen, and Duda Slawek at Open Capital explain, few agricultural companies are delivering PURE solutions, and fewer still are growing fast enough to meet the scope of the problems they are trying to solve. They share new research and analysis that illuminate the challenges that are holding the sector back, and propose three ways forward.
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- Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Investing, Technology
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Interoperability is the Answer to Scaling Up E-mobility in Africa: What the Continent Can Learn from the EU and India’s Divergent Approaches
Electric mobility in Africa is an emerging but highly fragmented market, defined by uneven policies, diverse vehicle types and limited scale. As a result, according to Ashay Abbhi at Intellecap and Nyaga Kebuchi at Sustainable Transport Africa, interoperability has become a critical enabler for the sector. They explore how interoperability — the ability of battery or charging systems to work seamlessly with multiple fleets of vehicles — can turn distributed hardware systems into a usable network, and discuss how the EU and India’s different routes toward interoperability can inform Africa's e-mobility transition.
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- Energy, Technology, Transportation
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NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles of 2025: Announcing the Winners of Our Annual Contest
We've counted the votes in NextBillion’s “Most Influential Articles of the Year” contest, an annual tradition since 2012. The three winners are listed in this article. Congratulations to these guest writers, and to the other contestants in the contest, whose insights have clearly resonated with our readers this past year. And thank you to everyone who voted — and everyone who read and wrote for NextBillion in 2025. Best wishes for the new year!
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing, Technology, Telecommunications
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