TechCabal Daily – A Chinese plot twist

If you’ve been studying TC Daily for some time, you’d know {that a} cat-and-mouse recreation has been taking part in out in Kenya. The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) needs to get the economic system shifting by slicing rates of interest to encourage industrial banks to make loans cheaper. The banks have responded, however not fairly as a lot because the regulator would love.

What’s new? Kenya’s Treasury Cabinet Secretary, John Mbadi, has joined the dialog, urging banks to decrease their lending charges and lengthen extra credit score to companies, farmers, and producers.

Explain like I’m new right here. Since June 2024, the CBK has reduced its benchmark rate of interest from 13% to eight.75% to make loans cheaper, encouraging companies to borrow, increase operations, and create jobs. But whereas banks have decreased their charges, the common lending fee remained at 14.4% in September 2026; debtors haven’t loved the total advantage of the central financial institution’s cuts.

There’s some progress, although. Private sector lending has recovered, growing 10.6% in September, in contrast with a 2.9% contraction in January 2025. The authorities additionally stated it’s borrowing much less from banks, leaving lenders with more cash to finance companies.

Zoom out: Kenya is making an attempt to revive financial exercise from each ends. Beyond encouraging cheaper loans, the federal government has approved payments for verified excellent payments of KES 50 million ($385,000) or much less owed to suppliers, a few of whom have waited years to receives a commission.

The banks have been given room to lend, and the federal government is promising to pay what it owes. Whether Kenyan companies lastly get some respiration room relies on how shortly each guarantees flip into money in hand for enterprise house owners who urgently want it.

When you apply for a mortgage, a lender needs to know whether or not you possibly can repay. Governments face the identical scrutiny once they borrow billions from traders. The distinction is that as a substitute of checking payslips and financial institution statements, traders depend on credit standing businesses to evaluate a rustic’s capability to repay its money owed. Africa needs one other company doing the grading.

What occurred? The Africa Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA) is in discussions with 15 African nations and expects to publish its first sovereign credit score scores by March 2027. The company is backed by an African Union initiative and led by interim CEO Sifiso Falala. At launch, the AfCRA stated its researchers have been getting ready to evaluate 5 nations first, together with Togo, Kenya, Seychelles, Burundi, and Mauritius. 

Explain like I’m new right here: The company formally launched in Mauritius on October 7. When nations need to increase cash via worldwide bonds, traders have to understand how dangerous the funding is. Three businesses have dominated this enterprise, together with S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s, each headquartered within the US, and Fitch Ratings, headquartered in New York and London. 

They assess a rustic’s economic system, authorities funds, debt ranges, and talent to repay, and their scores affect how a lot curiosity traders demand. These businesses have been criticised for relying closely on exterior knowledge that don’t at all times mirror native realities. The African Union (AU) endorsed the thought of making AfCRA in 2018, and the African Peer Review Mechanism developed its institutional framework. It is lastly shifting in direction of operations. 

Why Africa needs one other scorecard: According to the AU, 23 of its 55 member states don’t have any sovereign score from the three main worldwide businesses. Countries reminiscent of Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Sierra Leone have been amongst these with out scores in current assessments—making it tougher to draw traders in worldwide capital markets. 

Africa’s exterior debt-service funds additionally climbed from $61 billion in 2010 to $163 billion in 2024. AfCRA hopes better-informed assessments may also help traders perceive the continent’s dangers and doubtlessly enhance entry to financing.

There are different gamers, together with Nigeria’s Agusto & Co, Côte d’Ivoire’s Bloomfield and South Africa’s Sovereign Africa Ratings, that already function on this house. The distinction is AfCRA’s proposed continent-wide sovereign score mandate.

AfCRA needs to boost $15 million from African traders in alternate for a two-thirds stake. However, there’s a credibility query. AfCRA plans to make use of an issuer-pays mannequin, the place governments pay to be rated, but it surely questions whether or not paying shoppers can affect authorities grades. 

It stated impartial committees and separation between industrial operations and score selections will defend its assessments. Its first scores are anticipated by March 2027, in all probability drawn from the nations that comply with be assessed.

Helium Health, a Nigerian healthtech, needs to deal with an issue plaguing Nigerian girls: maternal mortality.

The startup has secured a $2.5 million grant from Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, to deploy AI-powered instruments that determine being pregnant dangers and assist join girls to applicable care. It hopes to achieve 1.9 million pregnant girls over three years, beginning in Lagos earlier than increasing to Delta, Kano, and Oyo.

Explain like I’m new right here: Nigeria already has a number of initiatives tackling maternal deaths. In November 2024, the Federal Government launched the Maternal Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative (MAMII), focusing on 172 high-burden native authorities areas throughout 33 states. 

It combines neighborhood identification of pregnant girls, referrals, free maternal providers, emergency transport, and better-equipped well being services. By October 2026, greater than 32,000 girls and 1,700 newborns had benefited from emergency obstetric and neonatal care, whereas the nationwide emergency medical service had transported almost 79,000 beneficiaries to applicable care.

What is AI anticipated to do? AI might assist Helium’s neighborhood well being employees course of affected person info, flag potential problems and prioritise girls who want pressing consideration. It has been examined outdoors Nigeria. 

Kenya’s Jacaranda Health runs PROMPTS, an SMS-based maternal well being service that makes use of AI to evaluate messages from pregnant girls, flag hazard indicators, and prioritise pressing circumstances for human follow-up. By mid-2025, the platform had reached greater than 3.3 million moms, and its AI triage system, TRIM-AI, was about 17% extra correct at figuring out high-risk messages in preliminary exams.

Why this issues: The grant arrives as Nigerian healthtech funding has grow to be tougher to safe. Funding into the sector fell from almost $55 million in 2023 to $18 million in 2024 and simply $3 million in 2025, according to TechCabal Insights. In addition to the grant, Google’s $2.5 million comes with entry to Google engineers and AI product consultants. 

Yet, AI can’t substitute a functioning well being centre, skilled medical workers, ambulances, or emergency obstetric care. An algorithm can flag a harmful being pregnant, but it surely can’t ship a child or carry out an emergency C-section. Resources nonetheless must be in place for Helium Health’s expertise to translate into higher outcomes for moms.

The World Wide Web3

Source:

Coin Name	Current Value	Day	Month
Bitcoin	$80,344	+ 3.46%	– 6.05%
Ether	$2,418	+ 5.57%	– 10.43%
XRP	$1.30	+ 2.29%	– 12.99%
Solana	$95.69	+ 3.17%	– 20.12%

* Data as of 06.59 AM WAT, November 5, 2026.

Written by: Yemi Kareem and Emmanuel Nwosu

Edited by: Emmanuel Nwosu & Ganiu Oloruntade