2024 Annual Impact Report reveals how M-KOPA is deepening digital and financial inclusion across Africa

NEW YORK, United States of America, September 24, 2024/APO Group/ — 

M-KOPA (https://M-KOPA.com/), a leading emerging market fintech, announced that it has surpassed 5 million customers across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa. Two million of these customers have come onboard in the past 15 months.

M-KOPA’s innovative model makes affordable smartphones embedded with financial services available to ‘Every Day Earners’: the wide majority of African adults who earn their income daily but struggle to afford smartphones and typically fail to qualify for conventional financial services. According to the World Bank, 75% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa remain financially excluded. To date, M-KOPA has supported its customer base with more than US $1.5 billion in financing.

Starting with smartphone access, customers gain entry to the digital economy with an affordable daily repayment model, which fits their daily income and cash flow and makes it easier to manage. By leveraging rich payments data and proprietary AI-driven analytics, M-KOPA builds a credit record for each customer which forms the foundation for a long-term financial relationship for lower cost digital loans, affordable data subscriptions and medical insurance.

According to M-KOPA co-founder and CEO, Jesse Moore: “We are thrilled to welcome our 5 millionth customer to M-KOPA this month. The scale of our operations and our positive impact on customers is what keeps us working hard to go even further. We’re just getting started; the opportunity for much larger impact and scale is right in front of us.”

M-KOPA also published its 2024 Impact Report this week, in which the company annually releases its progress against key social and environmental impact metrics.  As with prior reports, the 2024 survey of M-KOPA customers was undertaken by a third-party company – Dalberg Research.

Our impact extends beyond our customers, reaching their families and communities, and contributing to building a more sustainable world

Key impact highlights from the 2024 report include:

• 92% confirm that M-KOPA’s financing has made technology more affordable.
• 80% of customers report an improved quality of life thanks to M-KOPA’s products.
• 70% credit M-KOPA with helping them achieve their financial goals, demonstrating the company’s contribution to financial empowerment.
• 62% use their M-KOPA product to generate income

The company is having a major impact in improving digital access in Africa. Nearly 2 million customers are first-time mobile internet users and 40% are women. M-KOPA also built the first and largest smartphone assembly factory in Kenya – which has produced more than 1m phones locally and further reduced the cost of access.

As with prior reports, M-KOPA’s board and management use the annual impact report to help shape forward company strategy. Based on this year’s findings, M-KOPA is working to further increase its percentage of female customers to 50%, to reduce its carbon footprint by making circularity central to its smartphone supply chain, and to continue pioneering green products like electric motorbikes that contribute to the health and sustainability of the communities where it operates.

M-KOPA’s Chief Product Officer Nena Sanderson, notes: “Our product and services build pathways to prosperity for our customers and agents, enabling them to overcome financial setbacks, generate income and progress towards the futures they aspire to. Our impact extends beyond our customers, reaching their families and communities, and contributing to building a more sustainable world.”

Headquartered in London, UK, M-KOPA now creates employment for more than 3,000 staff and 30,000 commission-based sales agents across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.  The company has been recognised by the Financial Times as one of Africa’s Fastest Growing Companies for the past 3 years, and by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Companies globally for the past 2 years.

To read the full report, download it here: M-KOPA Impact Report 2024_Pathways To Progress  (http://apo-opa.co/3Xv5PZ6).

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of M-KOPA.

Digital technologies, including satellite technology and artificial intelligence, will be utilized to improve agricultural productivity and decision-making processes for young farmer cooperatives

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, September 24, 2024/APO Group/ — 

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group (www.AfDB.org) on 20 September 2024 approved a $129.71 million loan to Tanzania for the implementation of a youth-focused agribusiness program.

The loan will fund the first phase of the “Building a Better Tomorrow: Youth Initiatives for Agribusiness” program, which aims to create business opportunities and jobs for young people in key agricultural sectors.

The total cost of the project is estimated at $241.27 million. In addition to the Bank’s loan, which covers 53,76 percent of the cost, the funding package includes grants of $1.15 million from the Korea-Africa Economic Cooperation (KOAFEC) Trust Fund and $210,000 from tropical vegetable seed firm East-West Seed. The Tanzanian government will provide $110.41 million, representing 45.76 percent of the total.

This project is expected to incubate and empower approximately 11,000 ‘agripreneurs,’ including at least 6,000 young agribusiness owners

Patricia Laverley, the Bank’s Country Manager for Tanzania, said: “This project is expected to incubate and empower approximately 11,000 ‘agripreneurs,’ including at least 6,000 young agribusiness owners.” She added that the program will facilitate access to finance for an additional 2,500 young people already involved in agribusiness but lacking access to commercial loans. We expect each agribusiness run by a young person will employ an average of five workers.”

The project will implement strategies to raise awareness and manage knowledge using youth-oriented information and communication technologies. It will also provide training and support for agrifood business incubation and acceleration, with a particular focus on the recruitment of female applicants.

Digital technologies, including satellite technology and artificial intelligence, will be utilized to improve agricultural productivity and decision-making processes for young farmer cooperatives.

As of 30 June 2024, the African Development Bank approved 25 projects in Tanzania, with a total commitment of $3.48 billion.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

Peace is achievable with the right blend of dialogue and peace positive investments

NEW YORK, United States of America, September 24, 2024/APO Group/ — 

The African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org) has urged Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and other development partners to scale up innovative partnerships and initiatives to build peace and security in Africa, home to eleven of the world’s most conflict-affected states.

Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade, African Development Bank Vice-President for Regional Development, Integration and Business Delivery Complex led the charge during a session held September 21, on the sidelines of the 79^th Assembly of the United Nations titled: Investing in Prevention: Scaling up Peace – A Call to Action for DFIs.

Over the last 20 years, the level of global conflict has escalated, with one-fifth of Africa’s population residing in conflict affected areas, affecting the future of the world’s fastest-growing continent.

“Our goal today is very clear. We would like to mobilise institutions to prioritise peace building and through innovative partnerships and new financial mechanisms.  This is a call for action.” Akin-Olugbade said in opening remarks.

The New Agenda for Peace, which is at center stage of the UN’s Summit of the Future, highlights how different actors, including DFIs can serve as peace agents, and emphasises the role of partnerships, especially in the context of fragile and conflict affected countries, urging increased political and financial mobilisation to prevent conflicts.

The effect of three decades of a devastating civil war in Mozambique are still evident, Amilcar Tivane, Mozambique’s Vice-Minister of Economy and Finance told participants, stressing the need for prevention.

The  Mozambique government has learned innovative solutions to deal with the root causes of conflict and to address lingering security challenges in northern Mozambique such as terrorism and insurgency.  What has worked is a resilience building strategy together with partnerships, Tivane said. The country is also launching a new initiative for peace for the reconstruction of affected tourism areas

« We have learned that prevention is critical, » he said. « Sometimes its difficult (for governments) to acknowledge that the social dimensions could have a significant impact.»

Issa Faye, Director General of the Islamic Development Bank ( IsDB) said his institution’s blend of ordinary and concessional financing has been key to the successful  financial support for 32 fragile African countries out of the 52 they support. 

The IsDB have aided thousands of refugees through programmes to address skills gap, training and education, combining economic empowerment and food security.

Faye underlined Islamic financing as a concept framing a lot of the institution’s programmes and stressed the need to find alternative financing which is dedicated, responsive and resilient.

We would like to mobilise institutions to prioritise peace building and through innovative partnerships and new financial mechanisms

Risk perception, another major constraint to financing peace initiatives in Africa, was the subject of Pradeep Kurukulasuriya, the Executive Secretary of the UN Capital Development Fund (UN CDF), submission. He offered a concrete example of successful de-risking of a peace initiative in Burundi.

« UN DCRF works to de-risk so that larger streams of finance can flow from the larger and more established institutions, » he said.

Since 2021, UNCDF has been working in collaboration with the UN Peacebuilding Fund and the Government of Burundi to address interconnected and transnational root-causes of instability and nature loss in the Kibara National Park and surrounding buffer zones. The joint initiative with several partners including UNESCO, uses a unique blended finance approach.

Peace finance needs new a lens

Itonde Kakoma, President of Interpeace said a new paradigm approach, which moved away from the donor focus and instead sees development partners investing in peace investment hubs and creating a pipeline of peace positive projects, is much needed.

He said the need to connect development finance and peace building while leveraging the private sector to build peace, safety and social cohesion between communities living in complex environments, was more imperative than ever.

« We have a conviction that the Sustainable Development Goals can be unlocked by peace finance, » Kakoma said.

Other participants such as Elizabeth Spehar, Assistant Secretary General, United Nations Peacebuilding Support stressed the importance of inclusion and the role of DFI’s such as the African Development Bank.

“We need the economic might of the DFI’s. We have to work on this together,” she said.

Spehar paid tribute to the African Development Bank which emphasizes peace and security as public goods in its new Ten-year strategy (2024-2033). The Bank’s joint pilot project in Central African Republic with UNHCR has the UN “working with communities on the  peace part and the African Development Bank working on the employment part,” Spehar said.

The Bank has been on the forefront of systematically addressing issues of fragility in Africa and has built up over 20 years of experience in building Africa’s resilience by providing intellectual leadership and dedicated financial instruments, such as the Transition Support Facility, which mobilizes additional resources for affected countries. The Bank’s Private Sector Credit Enhancement Facility allows it to do more private investments in these riskier markets.

The audience also heard from the g7+, Asian Development Bank, Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS), the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Aswan Forum, UNHCR, and the African Union Peace Fund whose Director Dagmawit Moges spoke of the institution’s reforms and the importance of governance.

“We’ve gone beyond theory and talk. We at the African Development Bank are interested in strengthening partnerships. We are not going to work in silos. We are looking forward to continuing this discussion at COP 29 and at the Africa Resilience Forum next year,” Akin-Olugbade said.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).