ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire, September 29, 2026/APO Group/ –The Republic of Benin has secured €500 million (approximately CFAF 328 billion) in international bank financing, supported by the African Development Fund, for priority investments in education, health, water access, infrastructure, renewable energy, agriculture, and job creation for young people and women.

 




  

This landmark transaction, completed on 18 September 2026, follows the 17th replenishment of the African Development Fund (ADF-17), agreed in December 2025 as the largest in the Fund’s history. It builds on the first financing concluded in 2023 with support from the Fund, the concessional window of the African Development Bank Group. The transaction demonstrates the pan-African institution’s capacity to support countries across the continent in developing innovative, highly leveraged financing solutions that deliver tangible benefits for communities.

The 12-year financing benefits from an innovative credit enhancement mechanism, including a partial credit guarantee issued by the African Development Fund and second-loss insurance provided by the insurance subsidiary of the Islamic Development Bank Group.

“This transaction is fully aligned with the Bank’s new strategic vision for supporting our clients, particularly Cardinal Point 1, which seeks to mobilise capital-market resources at scale, as well as with the New African Financial Architecture for the continent’s development,” said Robert Masumbuko, Country Manager for the African Development Bank Group in Benin.

“This second operation (https://apo-opa.co/4yqZZJw) demonstrates the potential of guarantees to mobilise private capital more effectively. By combining the African Development Fund guarantee with complementary risk-sharing mechanisms, it enables Benin to secure substantial long-term financing on competitive terms,” said Ahmed Attout, Director of the Financial Sector Development Department at the African Development Bank Group.

CARACAS, Venezuela, September 29, 2026/APO Group/ –bp will join Venezuela Energy Week (VEW) 2027 as a Gold Sponsor, highlighting the company’s renewed engagement in Venezuela as the country advances a series of international partnerships across its oil and gas sector.

Taking place in Caracas from 22–25 February 2027, VEW comes at a significant point for bp’s activities in the country. In April 2026, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with the Venezuelan Government covering the development of the Cocuina-Manakin gas field, which straddles the maritime border between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, while also opening discussions around opportunities in the offshore Loran gas field and other exploration areas.

 




  

The agreement marked bp’s renewed entry into Venezuela and builds on the company’s long-standing presence in neighboring Trinidad and Tobago. bp operates the Manakin portion of the cross-border field, while the Venezuelan Cocuina section forms part of the country’s undeveloped Deltana Platform. The company has said it is pursuing development of the field with the potential to bring more than 1 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas into Trinidad for LNG production.

Momentum around the project continued through 2026. In August, Trinidad and Tobago’s National Gas Company (NGC) agreed to acquire a 20% participating interest in the Manakin portion of the field from bp, strengthening the cross-border commercial structure around the development. bp and NGC have also agreed to market 70% of the project’s gas to Atlantic LNG, where bp holds a 45% stake alongside Shell, with the remaining gas intended for petrochemical use. A final investment decision is expected by the end of 2026.

The developments place bp at the intersection of Venezuela’s emerging offshore gas opportunity and Trinidad and Tobago’s efforts to strengthen gas supply for its LNG and petrochemical industries. They also demonstrate how Venezuela’s offshore resources could increasingly connect into established regional energy infrastructure and markets.

bp’s interest extends beyond Cocuina-Manakin. Its April 2026 agreement also covered exploration opportunities in the Loran gas field, estimated at around 7 tcf, alongside potential collaboration on gas commercialization. In June, Venezuela signed agreements with Shell to advance Phase I of Loran, while bp was identified as a prospective participant in both Loran and the neighboring Cocuina-Manakin project.

For Venezuela, the activity comes amid a broader reopening of the sector to international energy companies and renewed efforts to develop offshore gas resources, attract capital and technical expertise, and establish new routes to market. VEW 2027 will bring together government representatives, PDVSA, international operators, investors, service companies and technology providers to examine these opportunities across the value chain.

As a Gold Sponsor, bp will have a platform at the event to engage with stakeholders shaping Venezuela’s next phase of energy development and share its perspective on offshore gas, cross-border projects, gas commercialization and regional energy security.

With Cocuina-Manakin progressing and Loran emerging as another major offshore opportunity, bp’s participation will bring its experience in developing cross-border gas resources and connecting them to regional markets into discussions at VEW 2027.

VEW is Organized by Energy Capital & Power and taking place under the patronage of Acting President Delcy Rodriguez, PDVSA and the Ministry of Hydrocarbons.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, September 29, 2026/APO Group/ –With a little over two months to go, anticipation is building for the 29^th edition of Africa Tech Festival (https://AfricaTechFestival.com), the continent’s longest running and most influential technology event. As the countdown continues, the programme is taking shape around some of the most pressing questions facing Africa’s digital economy, from AI and the infrastructure needed to support it, to cybersecurity, connectivity and the changing investment environment for African technology businesses.

 




  

Africa Tech Festival returns to the Cape Town International Convention Centre from 16 to 19 November 2026, bringing together government, technology companies, telecoms operators, infrastructure providers, enterprise leaders, startups and investors from across the continent and beyond.

“The questions facing Africa’s digital economy are becoming more interlinked, more complex and more urgent. It’s no longer simply about whether businesses will adopt AI, move to the cloud or invest in new infrastructure, but about how those decisions are made, who benefits from them and what needs to be in place for them to deliver sustainable growth,” said David Monaghan, VP, Africa Tech Festival. “This year’s programme is designed to provide a platform for those conversations and give stakeholders a clearer view of the decisions, partnerships and investment priorities that will shape the next phase of Africa’s digital development.”

Artificial intelligence runs through much of the 2026 programme. A panel titled Beyond Adoption: What Will Make Africa an AI Producer, Not Just a Consumer? will examine what is required to build globally competitive AI capabilities in Africa. Sessions will explore the emergence of agentic AI in enterprise decision-making and how companies should prioritise investment across AI, cloud, data platforms and core systems as they modernise for growth.

That focus on capability extends to the infrastructure underpinning it. AI growth is inseparable from questions about data centres, cloud infrastructure and local compute capacity. The Next Wave of AI Infrastructure Growth panel will consider where new capacity should be built, the role of hyperscaler partnerships and the need for localised compute to meet data sovereignty requirements. Dedicated discussions will examine which African markets are attracting investment interest, how power availability and hyperscaler presence are shaping that interest, and how sovereignty, performance and cost are reshaping cloud architecture decisions.

Africa’s next phase of digital growth also depends on extending reliable connectivity while keeping digital businesses and services secure. The Telecoms & Connectivity programme will examine fibre investment, 4G and 5G deployment and the growing role of satellite technology in reaching underserved communities.

All of these conversations point to a maturing digital economy, where competitiveness depends as much on enabling environments as on ambition, and where practical groundwork, compute, capital, skills and partnerships will determine who benefits from Africa’s growth. This is what makes Africa Tech Festival such a highly anticipated fixture on the calendar: it is where these decisions are debated, tested and made, bringing together the people setting policy, developing infrastructure and allocating capital across the sector.

With just months to go, the excitement is building for three days of conversation, connection and insight into where Africa’s digital future is heading. Registration for Africa Tech Festival 2026 is now open.