Raye Nyerere 
A software developer in East Legon closes out August with three new client contracts and a waitlist. A guesthouse owner in Elmina closes out the same month wondering whether to lay off two of her four staff. Both are running real businesses in the same country, in the same quarter. The Ghana Statistical Service’s latest … Read more
Beatrice registered her import business in January. By June she had a shop in Kikuubo, three staff, and a supplier relationship in Guangzhou that took months to build. By November she had closed. Not because the products did not sell. They did. She closed because every time she checked her bank balance against what she … Read more
Two things happened to Uganda’s fish export market within weeks of each other. On 10 January 2026, the EU’s new digital CATCH system became mandatory for EU importers submitting catch certificates. On 28 January 2026, Uganda’s farmed fish sector was granted EU market access for the first time. Exporters who already had EU buyers are … Read more
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery IPO opened Nigeria’s capital market to retail investors in a way that has not happened before: a fully digital subscription process, built with diaspora and international access in mind from the start. But “digital” does not mean “frictionless.” Between BVN requirements, crypto network mismatches, and the gap between what a platform … Read more
A Lagos seller opens an Instagram page, posts a product, and takes her first order within the hour. She has an online business now. What she does not have yet is a clear answer to three questions: what did it actually cost her to get here, what does every naira collected really keep after payment … Read more
If you’re reading this from a rented apartment in a city where the rent went up again this year, you already know the arithmetic. The paycheck lands, the bills clear it out, and the gap between “working hard” and “getting ahead” doesn’t close no matter how many extra hours you put in. For a lot … Read more
Land at Kigali International Airport on any given morning and the first thing you notice isn’t the hills, though there are a thousand of them rolling toward every horizon. It’s the quiet. No horns. No litter blowing across the tarmac road into the city center. A traffic officer waves a line of motorcycle taxis through … Read more
A trader in Kitwe pays her mobile money withdrawal fee without a second thought, files VAT the way she has for years, and quotes freelance clients the same rate she’s always quoted. None of that math is current anymore. Between January and mid-2026, Zambia quietly rewrote the rules on four fronts at once: mobile money … Read more
A security firm in Nairobi budgeted May and June payroll at the old rates, waiting to see whether President Ruto’s Labour Day announcement would actually become law before changing anything. It was the right instinct and the wrong bet. The Regulation of Wages (General) (Amendment) Order 2026 was gazetted on 26 June, backdated to 1 … Read more
A payroll officer at a mid-sized logistics firm in Lagos ran January 2026 the same way she had run every month for six years: gross salary, minus the Consolidated Relief Allowance, minus pension, then the old bands from 7 to 24 percent. Every payslip that month was wrong. Nigeria’s tax law changed on 1 January … Read more