General News
Ebola Fight Needs $430m to End Record Outbreak-WHO
More than $430 million will be needed to bring the worst Ebola outbreak on record under control, according to a draft document laying out the World Health Organization’s (WHO) battle strategy.
The plan sets a goal of reversing the trend in new cases within two months, and stopping all transmission in six to nine months.
It requires funding by governments, development banks, the private sector and in-kind contributions, according to the document obtained by Bloomberg News.
The current outbreak, which has killed 1,427 people in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, may soon exceed all previous Ebola outbreaks combined.
The sum now being sought is six times more than the $71 million the WHO suggested was needed in a plan published less than a month ago.
“There is reason to be concerned about whether the proposed resources would be adequate,” said Barry Bloom, a public health professor at Harvard University who also questioned whether the funds would be made available face enough, and whether the organization’s latest plan would ensure the expertise from WHO that is needed.
“The WHO plans to publish the plan by the end of this week at the earliest and details may change,” said Fadela Chaib, a spokeswoman for the Geneva-based agency. United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon this month appointed health crisis expert David Nabarro to coordinate the UN response.
WHO criticized The European Commission and aid groups including Doctors Without Borders have criticized the WHO for a lack of leadership in coordinating the fight against the outbreak.
Clearly WHO didn’t foresee this outbreak and while the Ebola crisis was clear in March, it didn’t act until August to declare an emergency, Bloom said in an e-mail. J. Stephen Morrison, director of the global health policy center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, had a different view.
The scale of the disease’s devastation goes far beyond what health officials had seen previously, he said in a telephone interview.
“It’s not a question of incompetence or complacency,” according to Morrison, who said the WHO should be able to raise the money needed. It’s the fact we’re catching up with the unknown, and it’s way ahead of us. Treatment centers More than half the cost will be needed for the treatment, isolation and referral centers that are bearing the brunt of the epidemic, according to the WHO plan. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are among the world’s poorest countries, and weak health systems combined with a lack of experienced health-care workers has contributed to the epidemic, the WHO has said.
“The response at the beginning wasn’t robust enough,” David Heymann, a professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who worked on the first recorded Ebola outbreak in 1976.
It’s a step forward that they’ve made the plans and I’m glad they’re emphasizing rapid containment as a start.
The WHO this month declared Ebola in West Africa a public health emergency of international concern. A separate outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed as many as 13 people, the government in that country said on Monday.
In West Africa, more than 240 health care workers have been infected and 120 have died, the agency said in a statement yesterday. Among them is Abraham Borbor, the deputy chief medical officer of Liberia’s John F. Kennedy Medical Center, who died despite being treated with Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.’s experimental ZMapp medicine, the nation’s information minister said. Experimental drug Borbor was one of three Liberian health-care workers being treated with ZMapp, the same drug that was used on two American aid workers who were evacuated to the US after being infected in Liberia.
Closely held Mapp, based in San Diego, has said its supply of the drug is exhausted. A British health worker, William Pooley, was flown home for treatment at London’s Royal Free hospital after being infected in Sierra Leone, Public Health England said in a statement on Monday.
Pooley is receiving excellent care, his family said in a statement on the hospital’s website, as it asked everyone to remember those in other parts of the world suffering with Ebola who do not have access to the same health-care facilities as Will.
A Senegalese disease-tracker working with the WHO in Sierra Leone also became infected, making him the first of the agency’s 400 workers in the affected countries to fall ill with the deadly virus, the WHO said. Evolving epidemic The epidemic continues to evolve in alarming ways, with the severely affected countries, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, struggling to control the escalating outbreak against a backdrop of severely compromised health systems, significant deficits in capacity and rampant fear, according to the draft of the WHO’s so-called road map.
Clearly a massively scaled and coordinated international response is needed to support affected and at-risk countries. The document has been shared with the WHO’s partners for comment and will be published once their feedback has been received, Chaib said.
The final document will include a country- by-country plan for dealing with the outbreak, she said. Bloomberg
Nigeria is experiencing a complex cybersecurity landscape where reported fraud incidents have decreased by nearly 46 percent over the past four years, yet financial losses from cybercrime are on the rise, according to Check Point Software.
This trend is attributed to sophisticated schemes developed by cybercriminals who are increasingly targeting the nation’s rapidly digitizing economy, with further coverage provided by Dark Reading.
Nigeria’s digital transformation has made it a prime target for cybercriminals.
In June 2026, organizations in the country faced an average of 4,361 attempted attacks weekly, ranking it second in Africa for cyber threats.
While the volume of detected threats fluctuates, it consistently remains elevated, often double the global average.
The Nigerian government is developing a new cybersecurity framework, expected later this year, which will mandate incident reporting, set minimum cybersecurity investment levels, and foster public-private collaboration.
Despite a decrease in the number of reported fraud incidents, financial losses have escalated, with digital payment fraud reaching ₦25.85 billion (US$18.7 million) in 2025.
Insider threats, including SIM swap fraud and account compromise, are significant contributors to these losses. Many organizations, particularly smaller businesses, lack adequate training and resources, making them more vulnerable.
The country’s cybersecurity maturity is ranked at a moderate level, and effective enforcement of existing regulations, such as the Data Protection Act, will be crucial to combatting the growing financial impact of cyberattacks.
TotalEnergies, together with its partners Hydra Storage Holding and Reatile Renewables, inaugurates Hydra project, the largest hybrid renewable energy project in Africa, located in South Africa’s Northern Cape province.
The project combines a 216 MW solar photovoltaic plant with a 500 MWh battery energy storage system, marking a significant contribution to the country’s Just Energy Transition program that aims to decarbonise the economy thanks to renewable energy sources.
The facility will supply 75 MW of dispatchable renewable electricity to the national grid continuously between 5:00 a.m. and 9:30 p.m., under a 20-year power purchase agreement signed with Eskom. This represents more than 400 GWh of electricity per year, equivalent to the consumption of approximately 200,000 South African households.
“We are delighted, together with our partners Reatile Renewables and Hydra Storage Holding, to bring the Hydra project into operation. It enables us to supply dispatchable renewable power to the South African grid, thereby strengthening the country’s energy security while decarbonising its electricity generation.
This project reinforces our renewable production capacity in South Africa, the continent’s largest power market in terms of electricity consumption”, said Magali Pailhé, Managing Director of TotalEnergies Southern Africa.
Hydra project has been developed by a consortium composed of TotalEnergies (35%), Hydra Storage Holding (35%) and Reatile Renewables (30%). It is part of the South Africa’s Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme launched by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy.
General News
BOI Pledges to Drive Nigeria’s Cocoa and Dairy Sectors with 70% of its €85m EIB Facility
Bank of Industry (BOI) has secured a €60 million credit facility from the European Investment Bank to fund Nigeria’s cocoa and dairy value addition drive, with a focus on processing, ingredients and chocolate manufacturing.
Dr. Olasupo Olusi, Managing Director/CEO of BOI, disclosed this on Tuesday, during the Africa Cocoa Summit convened in Abuja by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment with the aim of transitioning Africa from exporting raw beans to local processing and branding.
Also known as the Cocoa Value Addition Summit with the theme: ‘From Bean to Brand,’ it was attended by leaders and stakeholders from Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon who signed the Abuja Declaration to establish the Cocoa Value Addition Alliance (CVAA).
According to Olusi, the €60 million forms part of the €85 million EIB–BOI facility, backed by the European Union under the Global Gateway initiative, and designed specifically to strengthen these critical sectors in Nigeria.
“This agreement reinforces the Bank of Industry’s commitment to unlocking long-term, affordable finance for priority sectors that drive inclusive growth. Approximately 70% of the €85 million financing facility will be channeled to Nigeria’s cocoa and dairy sectors, which BOI considers among the industries with the greatest potential to create jobs and retain foreign exchange earnings.”
“We are particularly focused on cocoa value chains, which provide livelihoods for thousands of Nigerians. Through this initiative, we aim to enhance productivity, value addition, and market linkages that will directly improve the incomes of farmers and processors,” he said.
The BOI MD said that the bank would prioritise lending to processors, cooperatives, and MSMEs that add value locally, rather than only to traders exporting raw beans, adding that the era of celebrating volume of raw exports must end, as Nigeria loses billions by shipping beans and importing finished chocolate. According to him, the goal is to create factories around cocoa communities so that value, jobs, and taxes remain in Nigeria.
However, Olusi noted that financing alone is not enough, and as such, BOI will complement the loans with technical assistance on compliance, climate standards, and access to the EU market. BOI, he said, will also support farmers and processors to meet the EU Deforestation Regulation and other international environmental and social standards.
Citing BOI’s track record, Olusi said the bank disbursed over ₦164 billion in 2025 to more than 3,500 agro and food-processing businesses. The support financed factories, mills, packhouses, and cold chains, and linked nearly 48,000 smallholder farmers into industrial value chains.
He said the new financing would target the entire ecosystem, from nurseries and farmer cooperatives to grinding plants, ingredient factories, packaging lines, and chocolate manufacturers.
Speaking also at the summit, President Bola Tinubu called for a decisive shift from Africa’s long-standing dependence on exporting raw cocoa beans, urging producing countries to prioritise value addition and capture a larger share of the global chocolate industry’s wealth.
The President who was represented by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, noted that although Africa accounts for about 70 per cent of global cocoa production, the continent retains only six cents of every dollar generated by the global chocolate industry.
He stressed that Nigeria was committed to processing more of its cocoa locally, expanding chocolate manufacturing, building indigenous brands and competing more effectively in international markets, rather than continuing to export raw cocoa beans.
According to the President, cocoa value addition remains a key component of the Renewed Hope Agenda and the country’s broader industrialisation strategy, and disclosed that investors are developing a 70,000-tonne cocoa processing facility in Shagamu, Ogun State, while Nigeria’s cocoa grinding capacity has already surpassed 120,000 tonnes annually.
Earlier, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, said the summit aligns with the Federal Government’s ambition of building a one-trillion-dollar economy by 2030.
She observed that despite Nigeria’s significant contribution to global cocoa production, the country continues to earn only a small fraction of the value created across the cocoa value chain.
According to Oduwole, the Federal Government is promoting greater value addition through manufacturing incentives, investment promotion and stronger collaboration among relevant institutions.
She added that the government would also deepen market access by leveraging existing trade partnerships and opportunities under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), while encouraging investors to take advantage of regional and global value chains to unlock the sector’s full economic potential.
Also speaking, the Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Owan Enoh, described the summit as another milestone in implementing Nigeria’s Industrial Policy, and announced plans for the establishment of the Cocoa Value Addition Alliance, bringing together Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon, countries that collectively account for about 75 percent of global cocoa production.
According to Enoh, the alliance is designed to strengthen regional cooperation, promote local processing, and enable producing countries to capture greater value from the global cocoa market.
“We are not here to disrupt existing partnerships but to expand them,” he said.
Enoh urged African cocoa-producing nations to move beyond exporting raw beans and instead focus on developing branded cocoa products capable of competing successfully in global markets.
On his part, the Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr. Ransford Abbey, urged African cocoa-producing countries to deepen domestic processing.
“I am here to support the effort and commit to a joint effort towards increasing value for our hardworking cocoa farmers and our respective economies,” Abbey said.
He said Africa produced about 75 per cent of the world’s cocoa but earned less than 10 per cent of the global chocolate industry’s wealth.
“This system cannot continue. We must shift the paradigm from exporting raw poverty to creating refined wealth right here on the African continent,” he said, adding that stronger regional collaboration, investment and technology transfer will help African countries capture greater value from the global cocoa economy.
The Head of Cooperation of the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr. Massimo De Luca, reiterated the importance of value addition in the cocoa value chain. While expressing the support of the EU, he called on governments of the various countries to ensure they play their part in ensuring that proper framework necessary for the success of the initiative was established and clarified.
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