IEA News

Intra-African Trade Fair 2025 (IATF2025), Africa's premier trade and investment platform, is pleased to welcome Tropical General Investment Group (TGI) as an Official Premier Partner.

As a leading multinational conglomerate, TGI is driving value addition and promoting inclusivity through manufacturing and strategic investments across emerging markets. TGI will play a pivotal role in advancing the mission of IATF2025 which aims to boost trade and investment in Africa. The event is scheduled to take place in Algiers, Algeria from 4-10 September 2025.

The fourth edition of IATF2025 organised by Afreximbank in partnership with African Union Commission and African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat is being hosted by the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria. It promises to connect more than 2,000 exhibitors, including businesses from the continent and globally, who will be showcasing their goods and services to the visitors and buyers while exploring opportunities and exchanging information.

This is projected to translate into over US$44 billion in trade and investment deals. Since its inception in 2018, the Fair has brought together an average of over 4,500 exhibitors, attracted more than 140,000 participants from across 130 countries, and facilitated trade and investment deals exceeding US$118billion.

TGI Group began as a small chemical importing company in Lagos, Nigeria, in the early 1980s and has since grown into a formidable multinational conglomerate with operations spanning over 13 countries across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. With a diversified portfolio that includes fast moving consumer goods, agricultural inputs, industrial chemicals, homecare products, and pharmaceuticals.

Mrs. Kanayo Awani, Executive Vice President, Intra-African Trade and Export Development, Afreximbank, said: "We are delighted to welcome TGI Group as an Official Premier Partner for IATF2025. Industrial manufacturing and agribusiness are focal areas of the event, and with TGI being an important player within the investment ecosystem Africa in, they are uniquely positioned to help us achieve our shared goal of driving intra-African trade and promoting sustainable economic growth across the continent."

Vice Chairman of TGI Group, Farouk Gumel noted: "TGI's ethos is all about creating value and enhancing wellbeing. To achieve this, we consistently seek new opportunities and partnerships from within and outside the continent. The opportunities within Africa are limitless. IATF gives us the platform to identify and pursue these new ideas, resources and partnerships. We commend Afreximbank's vision for creating and sustaining the IATF and are indeed very excited to collaborate with them as a premier partner for IATF2025."
Tropical General Investments (TGI) Group is a global conglomerate with majority of its investments based in emerging markets across Africa, Middle East and Asia. TGI's investments focus on driving inclusivity and value addition using locally sourced raw materials, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and a highly skilled workforce to produce world class products that are consumed both locally and exported to global markets.

Across markets including Nigeria, Ghana, Benin and the UAE, TGI Group owns over a hundred leading brands in Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Agricultural Inputs, Industrial Chemicals, Homecare Products and Pharmaceuticals.

They argue that overlapping mandates from CBK, the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK), and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) create operational challenges, forcing lenders to allocate significant resources to comply with conflicting regulatory requirements.

DFSAK Chairperson Kevin Mutiso said on Thursday, members are concerned about some regulators, including CBK, overreaching their mandate. 

“We worry about regulatory overreach by CBK. They also seem to want to regulate the data aspect of our business,” he was speaking in Nairobi during a stakeholder meeting also graced by the Data Commissioner Immaculate Kassait. 

Even as Mutiso noted a re-emergence of rogue players, he said there is a need for a framework to guide how and to whom complaints should be channelled for proper redress.

“The challenge the consumer has is to whom they go if they have a complaint. The process is not clear. How do you manage those elements?” he posed. 

“You will find more often than not, there is an intersection of data protection complaints that would be channelled to CAK. Again, CBK, being the primary regulator, is also limited. That multiplicity creates operational challenges,” added Kennedy Osore, head of public affairs at Tala.

According to the Data Commissioner, Kassait, her office has received 5,284 complaints since 2021.

These complaints revolve around unlawful access to contacts and personal data on customers’ phones, processing of third-party personal data, lack of transparency on how the data is collected and stored, and the lack of consent before data is collected.

There have been 39 determinations, 22 enforcement notices, 27 compensations and eight penalty notices. Kassait said the ODPC works closely with other regulators, such as CBK. She confirmed that her office has been forced, in some cases, to write to CBK seeking deregistration of some lenders not willing to address the issues raised. By Graham Kajilwa | The Standard

Nyong’o warned that the unilateral decision risks triggering chaos in the sector, undermining the government’s sugar industry revival agenda/FILE

Nyong’o, who has previously backtracked on some sugar sector reforms, criticized the approval as insensitive and unconstitutional. Nyong’o, who has previously backtracked on some sugar sector reforms, criticized the approval as insensitive and unconstitutional. 

Kisumu Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o has urged the Ministry of Agriculture’s Principal Secretary, Kipronoh Ronoh, to immediately revoke the approval of redundancies in the four state-owned sugar mills leased to private investors.

The charity Save the Children warned Thursday that millions of children in South Sudan are at risk of acute malnutrition and being cut off from essential services as aid organizations are forced to scale back operations due to significant funding cuts.

The alert followed a visit by a delegation of the group’s leaders to the areas of Bor and Maban, where they assessed the dire humanitarian situation exacerbated by an influx of refugees from the war in Sudan and internal displacement.

Danny Glenwright, CEO of Save the Children Canada, described a “multifaceted crisis” driven by conflict, climate change and a soaring cost of living. He said the effects of funding cuts were visible in health, nutrition, education and child protection programs.

“In a city like Bor, we’ve gone from having 21 or 22 nutrition centers to 15,” Glenwright said. “This means women… often can’t take time to travel to those fewer nutrition centers to get treatment for their children. So many children will go untreated.”

He said 2.3 million children under the age of five are at risk of acute malnutrition. Existing centers, now with fewer staff, are overwhelmed and may have to turn people away.

The delegation also visited education programs, where teachers are going unpaid and working voluntarily, leading to larger class sizes. School meal programs and other supplies have been cut.

Adrian Foster, CEO of Save the Children Switzerland, said the crisis is overwhelming a system already stretched to its limit. He noted that 70% of South Sudan’s population requires humanitarian assistance.

“This massive influx of refugees from Sudan, and at the same time internal displacement due to conflict and climate change, overloads the humanitarian system,” Foster said. “Food rations have been cut… and there is not enough food.”

The conflict in neighboring Sudan has sent over 1.2 million refugees into South Sudan, joining 2 million people already internally displaced.

Christopher Nyamandi, Save the Children’s country director in South Sudan, raised concerns that violence against children remains widespread.

“We were told by the government about child abductions… recruitment of children into armed groups, sexual violence against children as well as early child marriages,” Nyamandi said. “The children of South Sudan just want to be children. They want to play with their friends. They want to be in school.”

The charity called for urgent international funding to prevent a further deterioration of the humanitarian situation. Radio Tamazuj