Zimbabwe has agreed a staff-monitored programme with the International Monetary Fund, a senior official said on Friday, a tentative first step on the way to a closer engagement with the Fund and an eventual loan programme, Reuters reported. A staff-monitored programme is an informal agreement between a country and the IMF that can open the door to financial support from the Fund, help restart one that has gone off track, or enable repeat access to emergency assistance.

KOKO Networks, one of Kenya’s most visible clean-cooking startups, has shut down its operations and laid off its entire workforce following a dispute with the Kenyan government over carbon credit approvals, bringing a sudden halt to a business model that had become central to the country’s clean energy transition for low-income households, AfricaSustainabilityMatters.com reported.

Nigeria is set to pass a law that would place it among the first African countries to regulate artificial intelligence, tightening oversight of one of the continent’s fastest-growing digital markets after years of largely unchecked expansion by global technology firms, Bloomberg News reported. The National Digital Economy and E-Governance Bill would give regulators new powers over data, algorithms and digital platforms, filling a vacuum that has existed since Nigeria published its draft AI strategy in 2024.

Gabon's President Brice Oligui Nguema has replaced his finance minister, Henri-Claude Oyima, according to a decree, as the oil-producing Central African country grapples with a liquidity squeeze and rising arrears, Reuters reported. Gabon has become increasingly reliant on regional capital markets to meet its financing needs, though appetite for its debt "has weakened substantially", ratings agency Fitch said last month, when it downgraded the country's long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating.

The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) will take losses on a $750 million loan to Ghana following the resolution of a dispute over the facility, Bloomberg News reported. On Thursday, Afreximbank announced that it had resolved the dispute with Ghana over the loan, but did not disclose whether it would formally absorb the losses on the debt. The Cairo-based lender said issues surrounding the 2022 facility had been settled “to the satisfaction of both parties,” without providing details of the agreement.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revoked the operating licences of Aso Savings and Loans Plc and Union Homes Savings and Loans Plc, citing persistent regulatory infractions and deepening financial distress, Guardian.ng reported. The revocation, which took effect on December 15, 2025, was carried out under Section 12 of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2020 and Section 7.3 of the Revised Guidelines for Mortgage Banks in Nigeria, the CBN stated in a press release yesterday.

A new report from the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime has issued a warning about the Central African Republic’s experiment with cryptocurrency, concluding that initiatives have been poorly designed, opaque and vulnerable to abuse, while offering little tangible benefit to the population, Decrypt.com reported. “These initiatives, launched under President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, were presented by the government as tools for economic growth, modernization and national development,” said Global Initiative on its website.

The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it had made "significant progress" with Senegal toward a new loan programme while the Fund continued an internal investigation into how it failed to detect billions of dollars in unreported debt, Reuters reported. Senegal is trying to tame debts that the Fund said hit 132% of GDP at the end of 2024 after the current leadership uncovered billions in debts that were not reported by the previous administration.

The International Monetary Fund said it is assessing the viability of Senegal's financing strategy as it looks to finalize an agreement on reforms to underpin a new program, an IMF official said on Thursday, Reuters reported. A team of officials from the IMF completed a mission to Dakar without outlining a new support package after the previous one was suspended following findings of debt misreporting. Political infighting and disagreements with the Fund over a possible debt restructuring have weighed on the country's bonds.

Senegalese bonds plunged to fresh record lows, placing the West African nation into debt-distress territory, according to a measure widely considered to be the threshold that locks countries out of global capital markets, Bloomberg News reported. The sovereign risk premium on Senegal’s bonds over US Treasuries widened to 1 077 basis points on Wednesday — the highest on record, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. data. That places the country among other African issuers whose debt is trading at or near 1 000 — seen as a marker of distress.