Investors update: June 7 2023 - World Bank raises global growth forecasts

World Bank raises global growth forecasts for 2023

Highlights

• The World Bank has raised its 2023 global growth forecast as the U.S. and other major economies have proven more resilient than forecast but said higher interest rates would cause a larger-than-expected drag next year.
• Real global GDP is set to climb 2.1% this year, up from a 1.7% forecast issued in January but well below the 2022 growth rate of 3.1%.
• The development lender cut its 2024 global growth forecast to 2.4% from 2.7% in January, citing the continuing effects of tighter monetary policy, particularly in reducing business and residential investment.

Source: World Bank (PDF)

Our Takeaway

In January, the World Bank had warned that global GDP was slowing to the brink of recession, but since then, strength in the labor market and consumption in the U.S. had exceeded expectations as has China’s recovery from Covid-19 lockdowns. The bank now expects inflation to gradually edge down as growth decelerates and labor demand in many economies softens and commodity prices remain stable. But it added that core inflation is expected to remain above central bank targets in many countries throughout 2024.

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Egypt’s Rology acquires Saudi Arabia-based Arkan United

Highlights

• Egypt-based healthtech Rology has acquired Saudi Arabian counterpart Arkan United for an undisclosed. The acquisition will help Rology make inroads into the Saudi healthcare sector.
• Founded in 2017, Rology offers an on-demand teleradiology platform that uses AI and cloud computing to deliver reports within 12 hours or in 60 minutes for emergency cases. Arkan was founded in 2020 and offers a teleradiology platform that caters to medical centers, local hospitals, and polyclinics.
• The startup raised a couple of rounds over the past three years. Last year it raised a pre-Series A round used for ramping up its presence in the Middle East and a number of African markets, notably Kenya.

Source: Wamda

Our Takeaway

The demand for healthcare in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East broadly is rising, driven by population growth and aging as well as rising incidence of noncommunicable diseases. The large size of the country and the dispersed nature of its population has made it more challenging to deliver care to all segments; an estimated 10 out of the 20 regions have no radiology consultants in private sector hospitals and where they do exist, they are severely understaffed with shortages occurring at a time when radiology volume generally is increasing. That’s where the Egyptian startup comes in, looking to capitalize on these inadequacies as healthcare innovation expands in Africa.

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Less than 10% of African tech startups are led by female CEO

Highlights

• Fewer than 10% of African tech startups are led by a female CEO, while less than 15% even have a female co-founder, according to a study on gender diversity released by Disrupt Africa.
• One key finding is that African tech certainly does have a gender problem when it comes to women within leadership positions at startups. Of the 2,395 startups tracked, only 350 – or 14.6% – have at least one female co-founder, while just 230 (9.6%) have a woman CEO.
• More so, gender diversity clearly varies from country to country, but no one market has more than 23% of its startups counting a female co-founder or CEO amongst its founding team.

Source: Disrupt Africa

Our Takeaway

Generally, in markets with enough tracked startups to discern any trends, the report further finds that the smaller ecosystems outperform the larger ones from a diversity perspective, with greater ratios of female leaders in markets such as Zambia, Rwanda, Tunisia, and Senegal than in traditional hotspots such as South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, and Kenya. While there are increasingly more opportunities to make the sector more welcoming and attractive to females, it is clear from the data that African tech remains a male-dominated landscape and that there is serious work to be done to get women anywhere near parity from a leadership perspective within the space.