🔅 YouTube: Africa's Unexpected News Sensation

Turning Your Moods into Abstract Art & South Sudan Postpones Elections

Image of the Day

Road between Bobo Dioulasso and Banfora, Burkina Faso

Photo by Jet Stouten

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Market Mondays

Year-to-Date Performance:

🟢 Johannesburg SE: 81,978.59 (+6.61%)

🟢 Nigerian SE: 97,456.62 (+30.34%)

🟢 Nairobi SE: 106.31 (+15.42%)

🟢 Ghana SE: 4,373.03 (+39.70%)

🟢 US S&P 500: 5,626.02 (+18.62%)

🔴 Shanghai Composite: 2,704.09 (-8.72%)

• 🇺🇸 The S&P 500 had its best week of the year, with investors optimistic that the Fed will be cutting interest rates next week.

• 🇨🇩 The DRC canceled a $1.2 billion biometric ID project due to cost overruns and possible funding irregularities. Meanwhile, as the first batch of 200,000 mpox vaccine doses arrives, talks are underway to secure more shots for African countries. Bavarian Nordic, the Danish company supplying the vaccines, is under pressure to lower its prices.

• 🌍 Fun fact of the day: only three African countries have never taken an IMF loan — Libya, Eritrea, and Botswana. Meanwhile, Liberia, Kenya, and others have borrowed 20+ times each. The IMF's conditions often involve cutting spending and restructuring debt - because austerity measures are the key to economic prosperity, right?

• 🇹🇿 Tanzania generated $3.5 billion in tourism revenue this year, a $500 million increase from the previous year. Visitor numbers hit a record 2 million, bouncing back hard from the downs of the pandemic. Meanwhile, starting October 1st, all tourists visiting Zanzibar must purchase a $44 travel insurance policy upon arrival. It's valid for 90 days and covers everything from medical care to lost luggage and emergency evacuations.

• 🇰🇪 Kenya's high court has temporarily blocked a proposed deal for India's Adani Group to lease the country's main airport for 30 years. The Law Society of Kenya and the Kenya Human Rights Commission argue the country can raise the $1.85 billion needed for upgrades on its own.

• 🇺🇬 The start of commercial crude oil production in Uganda is expected to propel economic growth into double digits, with the IMF projecting a mind-blowing 10.8% growth in the 2025/2026 fiscal year. Uganda plans to issue new oil and gas exploration licenses to boost investments and overall economic growth.

There you have it - a whirlwind tour of Africa's financial news. Never a dull moment in the world of African finance!

*Data accurate as of the close of markets across the continent

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Spotlight Stories

YouTube: Africa's Unexpected News Sensation

Photo by Szabo Viktor on Unsplash

Who needs satellite TV when you've got YouTube?

That's the question Malam Madior Fall asked himself back in 2012 when he decided to start putting news videos on the platform. Fast forward to today, and his Senegalese news site, Seneweb, has more than 100 employees, plans to expand across West Africa, and even has correspondents in Europe and America.

Fall isn't the only one who's realized the power of YouTube in Africa. 

According to research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, growing numbers of people in the global south—and especially in Africa—are getting their news via videos on social networks like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. In fact, more people in Kenya get their news from YouTube than those in any other country surveyed by the institute.

So, what's behind YouTube's rise as Africa's go-to news source?

Photo by Muhammad Asyfaul

For starters, it makes sense in a youthful continent with relatively low literacy rates. Plus, with the rapid spread of smartphones and cheap mobile internet access across Africa in recent years, everyone can now watch the news alone on their phones.

But it's not just about convenience. People like and trust news on YouTube in places where traditional media outlets are either unreliable or weak. In Kenya, for example, "there is a perception that things the government doesn't want you to know, you can find on YouTube."

And let's not forget about the money: In countries where most people would struggle to afford a paid subscription and where rich advertisers are scarce, YouTube offers media startups a path to financial viability.

Of course, there are snags. YouTube doesn't allow producers in many African countries to receive advertising revenue through its "partner programme," and its algorithm can be a "game with many moving parts," according to Eric Latiff, a Kenyan journalist. And even for those who do make money, revenue can be volatile.

Despite the challenges, YouTube's growth in Africa is a game-changer. So, the next time someone tells you that traditional media is the only way to go, just point them to Africa's YouTube revolution.

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Ghanaian Artist Turns Bipolar Mood Tracking into Abstract Art

Have you ever looked at a spreadsheet and thought, "Wow, this would make a great painting"? No? Well, Ghanaian visual artist Joseph Awuah-Darko did, and the results are both fascinating and beautiful.

The 28-year-old, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 16, started using a spreadsheet to track his moods hour-by-hour, assigning colors to represent his emotional state - from deep red for depressive lows to pastel blue for positive highs. Talk about putting the "art" in "chart"!

But Awuah-Darko didn't stop there. He took his meticulous mood records and transformed them into a series of abstract oil paintings for his first UK solo exhibition, "How's Your Day Going?"

Messy Emotions, Neat Paintings

The paintings range from neat, precise stripes to more chaotic blends of color. As Awuah-Darko explains, "It's beautiful to see how, even though I have given these strict schematic color assignments to my moods, emotions aren't sanitized. They are messy, and they flow into each other."

The colors Awuah-Darko uses als depend on where he is in the world, reflecting his feelings about his environment. Teal, for example, represents a whole range of emotions he feels in Brussels, where he currently lives. It's not quite the joy of light blues, but it's not the disruptive depression of red either. It's the color of being "deep in thought and lost in the void of my own imaginations," as he puts it. We can relate.

Awuah-Darko draws inspiration from color theorist Josef Albers, Ghanaian artist Atta Kwami, and textile designer Anni Albers, as well as his own heritage. Growing up in the Ashanti region of Ghana, he learned to weave the famous kente cloth, a process he finds "cathartic and meditative."

So next time you're staring at a spreadsheet and feeling blue (or red, or teal), take a page from Joseph Awuah-Darko's book and why not try to turn that data into art?

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South Sudan Says "Not So Fast" to Elections, Postpones Until 2026

Salva Kiir in 2014.

Looks like South Sudan is playing the "delay game" once again. 

The government has announced that they're pushing back the long-awaited general elections until December 2026. Their excuse? They're just not ready yet. Déjà vu, anyone?

This marks the second time the world's youngest nation, which gained independence in 2011, has hit the snooze button on elections and extended the transitional period that began in February 2020. 

Meanwhile, the country is dealing with some serious issues:

1. Oil exports have been derailed by Sudan's civil war, leaving South Sudan on the brink of collapse.

2. Renewed violence is flaring up on the border with Sudan, with dozens of people killed in the disputed region.

3. An estimated 9 million people (that's 73% of the population) are in need of humanitarian assistance this year.

President Salva Kiir and his former rival turned deputy, Riek Machar, signed a peace agreement back in 2018 to end a five-year civil war that killed an estimated 400,000 people, triggered a famine, and led to a massive refugee crisis. 

Now, they're saying they need more time to complete essential tasks like a census, drafting a permanent constitution, and registering political parties before they can even think about holding an election.

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Food for Thought

“Where there is purpose there is no failure.”

— Eritrean Proverb