General News
Partnerships in Times of Crisis
By Amrote Abdella, Regional Director, Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative,
The current global crisis has highlighted a number of areas, from the need of efficient information management to the need of accurate data gathering for faster medical response. In looking at the role of technology during this period, one area that has stood apart in driving meaningful change is the role of partnerships.Today, more than before, Microsoft 4Afrika is steadfast in supporting healthcare partners across the continent as they adapt their platforms and services to meet current needs.
Microsoft, through its 4Afrika initiative, has formed strategic partnerships with healthcare providers throughout Africa and beyond, providing them with technical support and business consultancy to help them achieve their goals. Each of these healthcare providers has had a significant impact in their sphere of influence, but with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve seen how our partners have used their existing platforms and programmes to pivot and adapt existing technologies to rapidly provide the much-needed response to address the challenges of the pandemic.
Healthcare powered by big data
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are already used in healthcare, but in a rapidly evolving situation, these tools can significantly help boost response times and preparedness.
When Microsoft 4Afrika firstpartnered with BroadReach,they were striving to create and implement data-driven solutions to improve the management and delivery of health programmes in underserved regions around the world. Vantage, an integrated cloud platform powered by Microsoft solutions, delivers powerful analytics that helps development, health and human services organisations quickly identify risks and opportunities.
Using machine learning, AI, big data and cloud computing, the company has enabled significant health outcomes in supported districts, integrating data immediately from a wide range of sources, and delivering real-time data, actionable insights and step-by-step implementation guidelines to boost effectiveness. Their digital HIV Portfolio on Management Solution has helped an estimated 340,000 people access HIV treatment in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, while their proactive predictive tool helps keep patients on treatment by predicting which patients are at risk of stopping medicines and empowering healthcare teams to reach out to them before they stop. Other types of predictive analysis help develop an understanding of how particular clinics and staff members are performing, medical stock levels and predicting what may happen and intervening before that happens.
During the Covid-19 crisis, BroadReach has moved quickly to repurpose its existing platforms. The company has used its cloud services, built on Azure, to rapidly gather data from thousands of health workers in the field and instantly upload it into Vantage, where advanced analytics are giving leaders key guidance to manage and prepare for the impact of the pandemic.
In healthcare, quick response times save lives.BroadReach has produced a facility readiness survey that allows government to redirect resources to prioritised hospitals and facilities, so that they have the right equipment and medical supplies on hand. Predictive analysis can be used to help forecast and track outbreak hotspots.
Partnerships like the one with BroadReach demonstrate the significant value that technology can deliver in situations that are rapidly changing and require high volumes of data from disparate sources to be quickly analysed for use in prediction and preventative measures.
Keeping healthcare facilities safe
Our partner Raphta has worked with Microsoft to develop software and hardware solutions that allow contactless biometrics which can be used for access control to facilities, among other things. Of course, during a pandemic where the virus can be transmitted on surfaces, contactless access assumes a far greater importance. Raphta is now offering its Shuri Face Contactless Biometrics solution to hospitals, clinics and buildings for thermal screening and containment, limiting contact and virus spread. Using current AI facial recognition software and hardware technology developed by Raphta and having quickly added the necessary thermal imaging technology, the company is now running pilot projects at the Netcare Gardens Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africaand at Kenyatta Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.
Using technology to reach out
Telemedicine is another area where technology is enabling safer diagnosis and limiting unnecessary contact between patients and healthcare providers. Globally, the use of telemedicine has been surgingduring the current pandemic.
In Pakistan, we’ve seen first-hand the benefits of telemedicine in reaching patients who have limited access tohealthcare and healthcare workers.Sehat Kahani, an e-health start-up supported by 4Afrika usesMicrosoft platforms to provide patients who are far from healthcare centres with access to qualified doctors via a telemedicine platform, while cloud computing services mean that their patient records are immediately available anywhere using a mobile device.
Telemedicine can perform a vital role in enabling people to access healthcare services, remote diagnoses, and treatment plans. During the Covid-19 crisis, Sehat Kahani is using its smartphone app to provide virtual consultationsto patients across Pakistan, delivering educational content about the pandemic, and helping to direct them to the correct healthcare facilities if necessary. Using its telemedicine platform, it has educated more than a million users about the virus, andprovided more than 6,000 online consultations with patients.The company currently has more than 160 female doctors working non-stop to support citizens through this health crisis.
Bringing positive change in difficult circumstances
It’s encouraging to see how technology can support the humanitarian healthcare goals of countries across the globe, and how leading technology companies can support and enable healthcare partners to provide better, faster and more accurate treatment.Seeing how technologies can be adapted to work best in an emerging crisis shows the value of investing in these partnerships to help develop these platforms and services.
The clear challenge in Africa is bridging the gap in healthcare and providing equal access for all. By working with our partners across the African continent and beyond, we can see how technology is having a powerful impact on providing healthcare to the communities and countries who need it the most. Partners working together always provides more muscle through collaborationand we’ve seen technology allow our partners to scale, broadening their reach and subsequently have greater positive impact even in the current challenging, uncharted times.
About Amrote Abdella
As the Regional Director of Microsoft’s 4Afrika Initiative, Amrote Abdella spearheads Microsoft’s investments in Africa across 54 countries. She works closely with the internal teams in the Middle East and Africa – and globally – to enable and accelerate digital transformation opportunities across the continent.
Before becoming Regional Director, Amrote was 4Afrika’s Director for VC & Startups, where she worked closely with startups supporting the innovation ecosystem in Africa.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Amrote worked with the World Economic Forum in Geneva, as an Associate Director for Africa. She also served as a Financial Analyst at the World Bank in Washington, and worked in micro-finance with the Global Hunger Project, an NGO based out of New York. Here, she oversaw projects across eight countries in Africa and worked with African women farmers, driving financial inclusion.
In 2017, Amrote was named one of Africa’s Top 100 Young Business Leaders, ranking 12th out of 100 leaders under 40 who are playing a major role in driving the continent’s economic development. In 2019, she appeared on the same list, this time ranking 10th. In 2018 and 2019, she was also recognized by Jeune Afriqueas one of the top 50 influential leaders shaping digital evolution and supporting start-ups in the African continent.
Amrote constantly strives to learn new skills and believes in the values of passion, ambition and hard work. She also encourages all young women to have a grounding in STEM subjects.
Amrote holds a Masters degree in International Economic Development from the Heller School at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, and a Bachelor of Arts from Davidson College in North Carolina.
Dangote Petroleum Refinery is reportedly nearing completion of a $2.5 billion private placement that values the company at about $40 billion ahead of its planned public listing.
Private placement is the direct sale of company shares or bonds to pre-selected investors instead of the general public and it is used to raise money quickly while avoiding strict public reporting rules.
People familiar with the transaction said investors acquired as much as 6 per cent of the refinery, according to a BusinessDay report.
The reported terms would value the business at approximately $40 billion.
Neither Dangote Group nor the refinery has publicly announced the final amount raised, the identities of most subscribers or the precise percentage sold.
The figures should therefore be treated as transaction details supplied by unnamed sources rather than confirmed company disclosures.
The reported $2.5 billion total is nevertheless significant as it indicates strong demand for exposure to a privately controlled refinery that has rapidly become central to Nigeria’s fuel supply and an increasingly important exporter of petroleum products.
The placement was said to have attracted more demand than the available shares, allowing the company to secure substantially more than the amount initially associated with the fundraising exercise.
Femi Otedola, chairman, First HoldCo, is the only major participant publicly identified in the report.
He reportedly committed $100 million to the transaction and sold his investment in Geregu Power Plc to finance the acquisition.
Nigeria’s pension industry was also reportedly cleared to participate.
Access to more than $17 billion in retirement assets would broaden the refinery’s potential investor base beyond wealthy individuals and conventional institutional buyers.
Participation by Pension Fund Administrators would, however, require careful attention to valuation, liquidity and portfolio-concentration limits.
Retirement funds must balance the attraction of a large Nigerian industrial asset against their responsibility to protect contributors’ savings.
The implied $40 billion valuation represents investor expectations about the refinery’s future earnings rather than only the physical cost of constructing the facility.
Its ability to process 650,000 barrels of crude daily gives it a central role in supplying Nigeria and other markets, but its commercial performance remains connected to crude availability, product prices, exchange rates and regulation.
The refinery has struggled to obtain all the Nigerian crude it requires under the government’s naira-for-crude arrangement.
It has consequently purchased some feedstock internationally and recently moved local petroleum-product pricing into dollars to align sales revenue more closely with its foreign-currency expenses.
Those constraints will be important during any public offering.
Prospective shareholders will want greater clarity on crude-supply contracts, debt, operating margins, export revenue and the company’s relationship with Nigerian regulators.
It is also unclear whether the private placement involved newly issued shares, a sale by existing owners or a combination of both.
That distinction determines whether the reported $2.5 billion becomes fresh capital for the refinery or proceeds received by selling shareholders.
The transaction could provide a useful price reference for the planned initial public offering.
Federal government will next month launch Nigeria’s first national organized crime strategy to strengthen the country’s response to terrorism, cybercrime, human and drug trafficking, kidnapping, illicit financial flows, and other forms of organized crime.
Major General Adamu Laka, national coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Centre under the Office of the National Security Adviser, disclosed this in Abuja during the validation of the strategy document.
He said the strategy provides a coordinated national framework for tackling organized crime through improved intelligence sharing, stronger collaboration among security agencies, and closer cooperation with the criminal justice system, civil society organizations, and international partners.
Major General Laka explained that the document was developed through a partnership involving the Federal Government, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the United States Government, and other stakeholders.
Speaking at the event, Cheikh Toure, UNODC representative, said the strategy would strengthen Nigeria’s capacity to combat transnational crimes, including drug trafficking, cybercrime, human trafficking, kidnapping, and illicit financial flows.
Also speaking, Douglas Grane, acting director of the United States Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, reaffirmed the U.S. government’s support for Nigeria’s efforts to tackle organized crime through stronger inter-agency and international cooperation.
Representatives of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit, and the National Cyber Security Centre also endorsed the initiative, describing it as a major step towards improving Nigeria’s fight against organized crime.
FATE Foundation, with funding from the Citi Foundation, has launched the Youth Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme to equip young people in Nigeria with financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills.
Delivered through free, safe, and accessible platforms, the programme supports the incubation and scaling of youth-led enterprises, enabling income generation and job creation.
In October 2025, FATE Foundation was selected as a recipient of Citi Foundation’s 2025 Global Innovation Challenge to Accelerate Youth Employability. Joining the cohort of 50 organisations globally, the Foundation will receive $500,000 over two years to advance its youth employability initiative.
“We are excited to be selected for Citi Foundation’s 2025 Global Innovation Challenge,” said Ayomide Akindolie-Igwe, Executive Director of FATE Foundation.
“This support enables us to equip young entrepreneurs in Nigeria with the financial literacy and skills needed to build and scale sustainable businesses.”
The programme addresses youth employability by tackling Africa’s growing jobs crisis. By 2030, the African continent will be home to 40% of the world’s youth, and with one in three under 35 already unemployed, this initiative will support Nigerian youth with a two-phase approach. It begins with financial literacy training before progressing to entrepreneurship development, incubation support, and access to tools needed to build viable, job-creating businesses.
“Through this innovative initiative, FATE Foundation is supporting low-income Nigerian youth to develop essential financial and entrepreneurial skills using accessible platforms.
“This support is not just helping individuals to succeed; it is building a solid foundation for sustainable enterprises that will drive job creation and contribute significantly to our nation’s economic vitality. This initiative is empowering and investing in the future of Nigeria, one youth at a time,” said Nneka Enwereji, MD/CEO Citibank Nigeria Limited.
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