In a fabric stall off Kingston’s Coronation Market, a trader who has spent a decade importing kente and adinkra cloth from Accra watched President John Dramani Mahama’s motorcade roll past on the evening news. She has no direct way to pay her Ghanaian supplier without routing through three separate services and losing money at every … Read more
Street Food Businesses You Can Start in West Africa By 7 PM on any given weekday, the junctions across Lagos mainland are cloaked in the distinct, spicy smoke of the suya spot. A vendor stands over a long metal grill, rotating skewered beef over hot coals and dusting it with yaji (suya spice) for customers … Read more
5 Street Food Businesses You Can Start in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania By 6pm on any weekday, the corner outside Nairobi’s Kencom bus stage fills with a queue that has nothing to do with matatus. It is the smokie pasua vendor, a metal display box glowing under a bare bulb, splitting open smoked sausages and … Read more
How to Schedule Meetings Across Time Zones It is 8am in Toronto, which sounded perfectly reasonable when you sent the invite. Then the replies start. Your operations lead in Nairobi is asking why the call is at 3pm on a Saturday. Your supplier contact in Lagos never opened the invite at all, because in his … Read more
A Johannesburg e-hailing driver checked his fuel budget on 30 June the way he does every month end. He had read that government was fully reinstating the fuel levy from 1 July, so he braced for a higher bill at the pump. Instead, when he filled up on 2 July, 95 unleaded cost him less … Read more
At Balogun Market in Lagos, a trader restocks her stall every Friday. She buys a carton of soap, sells every bar by Sunday, and hands her supplier roughly the same amount of cash the following week. On paper she is busy. In her pocket, she often cannot say whether she made money or simply moved … Read more
At Owino Market in Kampala, a secondhand clothes trader sends her supplier in Jinja UGX 100,000 for a fresh bale of stock. She dials *165#, confirms the transfer, and pays a UGX 1,000 fee. An hour later she needs cash for the day’s running costs and withdraws UGX 50,000 from an agent two stalls down. … Read more
At Makola Market in Accra, a fabric trader closes out a Friday afternoon by sending her supplier in Kumasi GH₵1,200 for the next batch of prints. She dials *170#, confirms the transfer, and only notices the GH₵7.50 fee once the SMS lands. Minutes later a regular customer asks to be paid back GH₵40 in cash. … Read more
On May 24, 2026, a Boeing 777 carrying 284 passengers left Lagos and landed in Bridgetown, Barbados. It was the first scheduled commercial flight ever to connect West Africa directly to the Caribbean. Air Peace, Nigeria’s largest carrier, now operates the route twice monthly, continuing on to Antigua before returning. The airline has also acquired … Read more
Importing From China to Kenya: 6 Business Ideas for 2026 A trader on River Road in Nairobi CBD unpacks a fresh carton of phone chargers and earphones fresh off the SGR from Mombasa. She paid a supplier in Guangzhou in dollars, paid Kenya Revenue Authority in shillings, and now she is about to find out … Read more