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State agencies the Ghana Gold Board and the Ghana Geological Survey Authority have signed an agreement to co-conduct geological surveys in the Funsi, Atuna and Bensere East regions. The initiative aims to expand national gold reserves, increase output and support the formalization of artisanal mining operations. The agreement is part of a growing trend across Africa, with mineral-rich countries embarking on national geomapping programs to strengthen mineral production, de-risk exploration projects and position the continent as a key player in the global mineral supply chain.

Acceleration in geomapping exercises will be a key focus at the upcoming African Mining Week (AMW) Conference and Exhibition - The Most Influential Mining Conference in Africa, scheduled for October 14-16 in Cape Town. The event will connect global investors and geophysical technology providers with African regulators and project developers, facilitating strategic collaborations aimed at unlocking greenfield developments.

The theme for AMW 2026 - Mining the Future: Unearthing Africa's Full Mineral Value Chain - reflects a growing trend among African mining jurisdictions eager to unlock the continent's $8.5 trillion worth of untapped mineral potential. This is backed by the launch of national geomapping initiatives, aimed at identifying new exploration frontiers and supporting investments.

Recent examples include Burundi's mid-March partnership with U.S. companies Lifezone Metals and KoBold Metals to assess the Musongati Nickel project and other critical mineral prospects. The Democratic Republic of Congo has also engaged Xcalibur Smart Mapping to survey an area spanning 700,000 square kilometers as part of a strategy to unlock over $24 trillion in untapped mineral reserves, with 90% of its geology yet to be explored.

Zambia has also completed 55% of its national geomapping project, as the country seeks to identify new copper deposits to meet its 2031 target of increasing output to three million tons. Meanwhile, Nigeria is advancing its own geomapping efforts following approval of a N1 trillion budget for 2026, aimed at unlocking the country's potential in more than 44 critical minerals. Several other countries, including Tanzania, are also implementing similar initiatives, while South Africa is providing technical support to nations such as Gabon, South Sudan and Nigeria.

Liberia has plans to geomap 80% of its largely unexplored geology. In an exclusive interview ahead of AMW 2026, Matenokay Tingban, Liberia's Minister of Mines and Energy, told organizers that “we are seeking geomapping and exploration partners. With Liberia's vast but largely untapped mineral resources, access to geoscientific data will allow us to negotiate stronger investment deals and unlock downstream infrastructure development.”

The surge in geomapping initiatives highlights Africa's commitment to unlocking its mining sector growth and presents lucrative opportunities for global exploration, drilling and geophysical technology providers. AMW 2026 will showcase ongoing geomapping progress, connecting African stakeholders with global partners to foster partnerships that will drive the expansion of Africa's drilling and greenfield projects.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Energy Capital & Power.

Implementation of a WTO initiative to strengthen use of the ePing SPS & TBT Platform is now under way, helping governments, exporters and other stakeholders better track and engage in evolving product requirements affecting international trade. Funded by the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF), the three year project focuses on five African countries and aims to enhance transparency, predictability and market access.

The project is being implemented by the WTO in Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. It brings together governments, the private sector and international partners to improve how regulatory information is shared, accessed and used in sectors affected by sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and technical barriers to trade (TBT).

At its core, the initiative seeks to improve the use of the ePing SPS & TBT Platform to enhance transparency for market access, with a strong focus on raising awareness of the platform, especially in the five African countries where national workshops will take place. These in-country workshops are designed to strengthen practical use of ePing among regulators, enquiry points, exporters, trade associations and other stakeholders who rely on timely regulatory information to access markets.

"Timely access to regulatory information is essential for trade," said Deputy Director-General Jean-Marie Paugam. "As project implementation gets under way, improving how ePing is used on the ground and upgrading the platform based on user feedback will help traders - particularly small and medium-sized enterprises - avoid costly surprises at the border and make better use of market access opportunities."

Governments worldwide continue to introduce and revise regulations related to food safety, animal and plant health, product quality and technical standards. Keeping track of these changes can be challenging, especially for exporters operating in multiple markets. ePing, a tool developed by the WTO, the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), helps address this challenge. ePing is a free, global platform that allows users to follow notified draft SPS and TBT measures in real time, receive tailored email alerts, and engage with regulators before new requirements enter into force.

The urgency of strengthening ePing use is underscored by growing volumes of regulatory activity. In 2025, more than 7,000 SPS and TBT notifications were issued globally, the highest number on record, with African members accounting for an increasing share. As notifications continue to rise, missing or late information can result in rejected exports, compliance costs and lost market opportunities. Effective use of ePing can help mitigate these risks by improving transparency and facilitating early dialogue domestically and with trading partners.

National and regional workshops form a central pillar of project implementation. These workshops will combine hands-on training, peer exchange and needs-assessment sessions to better understand how different users interact with ePing. The workshops will also build on synergies with other projects and tools from international partners, such as ITC's global trade helpdesk.

The workshops will gather structured feedback from users on challenges they face in navigating large volumes of notifications and identifying information that matters most to them. This feedback, to be complemented by a survey among all WTO members, will feed directly into technological and functional enhancements of the ePing platform, aimed at making it more intuitive, responsive and user-friendly.

Project implementation builds on momentum generated at a regional launch event in Nairobi in December 2025, which highlighted the role of digital tools in supporting regulatory transparency. Activities are now moving into a national phase, starting with a workshop in Arusha, Tanzania, from 28 to 30 April 2026, to be followed by similar events across the other participating countries.

By strengthening capacity, raising awareness and incorporating user-driven improvements, the WTO aims to ensure that ePing delivers even greater value - not only in the five participating African countries, but also for WTO members as a whole, contributing to safer, more predictable and more inclusive trade.

More information on ePing is available here.  Information on the STDF project for improving the use of ePing SPS&TBT Platform to enhance transparency for market access is available here.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of World Trade Organization (WTO).

Africa Finance Corporation (www.AfricaFC.org) , the continent's leading infrastructure solutions provider, yesterday announced a commitment from the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) to its US$750 million Infrastructure Climate Resilient Fund (ICRF). The agreement, signed at AFC's ongoing The Africa We Build Summit in Nairobi, marks a significant step in scaling climate adaptation finance across Africa and underscores strengthening African institutional alignment around infrastructure as a catalyst for climate resilience, regional integration, and long-term economic transformation.

Managed by AFC Capital Partners (ACP), the Corporation's asset management subsidiary, ICRF is a pioneering infrastructure fund designed to climate-proof Africa's infrastructure by embedding resilience measures across the entire asset lifecycle—from planning and design through to construction and operation. The Fund directly addresses a critical development challenge facing the continent: ensuring infrastructure systems can withstand increasingly severe and unpredictable climate impacts.

DBSA's commitment to ICRF reinforces growing African institutional alignment and momentum around climate-resilient infrastructure as a distinct and investable asset class. The Fund has already attracted strong participation from leading global and African institutional investors, including a US$253 million commitment from the Green Climate Fund (GCF)—its largest equity investment in Africa to date—alongside the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), and a host of African pension funds. DBSA's entry further strengthens the Fund's position as a pioneering vehicle for mobilising climate finance into transformative climate-resilient infrastructure across Africa.

ICRF is structured to attract both public and private capital into infrastructure projects that integrate climate resilience from the outset. By combining concessional and commercial capital, the Fund addresses long-standing market barriers that have historically constrained investment in climate adaptation in Africa. Through blended finance and targeted de-risking mechanisms, the Fund enables the integration of resilience measures that would otherwise be difficult to finance, thereby unlocking private capital at scale.

Samaila Zubairu, President & CEO of Africa Finance Corporation commented: " ICRF is our response to a defining challenge—ensuring Africa's infrastructure is built to withstand the growing impacts of climate change. With the continent losing an estimated 2% to 5% of GDP annually to climate shocks and adaptation needs reaching up to $50 billion each year, the urgency is clear. We are therefore pleased to welcome DBSA as a key partner for the Fund. Their participation reflects strong African institutional alignment and marks a significant milestone in a partnership we look forward to deepening in the years ahead"

Boitumelo Mosako, Chief Executive Officer of the Development Bank of Southern Africa commented: “Africa does not have the luxury of waiting. Climate shocks are outpacing adaptation finance, and vulnerable communities continue to bear the greatest burden. This partnership with the Africa Finance Corporation sends a clear signal that development finance institutions are pooling their mandates, capital, and risk appetite to achieve what neither institution can accomplish alone."

The Fund brings together leading institutions including DBSA, AFC and GCF, combining their expertise, capital, and climate mandates to accelerate investment in climate-resilient infrastructure. DBSA's participation reflects its mandate to drive infrastructure-led development, support regional integration, and mobilise private sector investment, across Southern Africa, while contributing to broader continental climate adaptation and development objectives.

Explicitly designed to address the systemic risks posed by climate change to Africa's infrastructure, the Fund targets investment into renewable energy, transport and logistics, digital infrastructure, and industrial development—sectors central to enabling low-carbon economic growth across Africa while strengthening the resilience of the continent's economic systems.

AFC Capital Partners' investment strategy integrates both physical and transition climate risks, including exposure to extreme weather events, emissions pathways, and climate governance considerations. Each investment is subject to rigorous climate risk screening and assessment to ensure resilience is embedded from the outset and maintained across the full infrastructure lifecycle, setting a new benchmark for climate-resilient infrastructure delivery in Africa.

The Green Climate Fund plays a catalytic role through the provision of first-loss capital and technical assistance for climate risk assessment and monitoring, helping to de-risk investments and crowd in additional institutional capital.

Through ICRF, AFC Capital Partners is expected to mobilise up to $3.7 billion in total financing, significantly scaling investment in climate-resilient infrastructure across Africa. The Fund is building a diversified portfolio of 10 to 12 infrastructure projects across the continent, contributing to more resilient, connected, and sustainable African economies.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Africa Finance Corporation (AFC).

Media Enquiries:
Yewande Thorpe
Communications
Africa Finance Corporation
Mobile: +234 1 279 9654
Email: yewande.thorpe@africafc.org

About AFC:
AFC was established in 2007 to be the catalyst for pragmatic infrastructure and industrial investments across Africa. AFC's approach combines specialist industry expertise with a focus on financial and technical advisory, project structuring, project development, and risk capital to address Africa's infrastructure development needs and drive sustainable economic growth.

Eighteen years on, AFC has developed a track record as the partner of choice in Africa for investing and delivering on instrumental, high-quality infrastructure assets that provide essential services in the core infrastructure sectors of energy, natural resources, heavy industry, transport, and telecommunications. AFC has 48 member countries and has invested over US$19 billion in 36 African countries since its inception.

www.AfricaFC.org

About DBSA:
The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) is one of the leading development financial institutions on the continent. DBSA's primary purpose is delivering impactful development finance solutions that ignite transformative change in South Africa and in the rest of the African continent. Improving the quality of life of people in Africa is the fundamental focus of its development impact. DBSA aims to bend the arc of history towards shared prosperity through multifaceted investments in sustainable infrastructure and human capacity.

DBSA's product solutions span all phases of the infrastructure development value chain from infrastructure planning and project preparation across a range of financing and non-financing investments to infrastructure implementation and delivery. Its primary areas of focus include Energy, ICT, Transport, Water and Sanitation with secondary areas of focus including Education, Housing and Health.

By Viv Muthan Pr Eng, Head of Export Sales and Operations.

Digitalisation has brought and continues to bring sweeping advancements in how companies go to market and how customers engage with brands. Agentic AI is now poised to disrupt even these developments, creating a scramble among organisations anxious to invest in the “next big thing” for fear of being left behind. Yet history has shown that the more speed becomes associated with winning, the more companies blur the line between operational effectiveness and strategy, copying the same best practices in pursuit of advantage and compromising the very uniqueness they once stood for.

The values companies were founded on often fall away in this race to jump on the bandwagon of the newest technology trend. As digital tools proliferate, strategic differentiation collapses into imitation cycles where organisations appear different in branding but identical in execution. However, beneath the surface of today's digital revolution is an even more important structural dynamic which is often overlooked: technology accelerates competitive convergence. In hyper‑competitive markets which are characterised by rapid innovation, collapsing entry barriers, and continuous technological shifts, advantages erode quickly. As organisations adopt the same tools, platforms, and automated customer experiences, differentiation becomes increasingly difficult to sustain. Digitalisation enhances efficiency, but it also amplifies sameness.

This is the paradox of the modern competitive landscape where technology expands possibilities on the one hand but compresses uniqueness on the other. Many organisations misinterpret this environment as one where speed itself equals strategy. They invest in more automation, more digital tools, and more system integration at more pace, believing that motion is progress and more equals better. Yet these actions, while valuable, remain squarely within the domain of operational effectiveness. Porter (1996) reminds us that strategy is about what you choose to do as a company, what sets of activities support that position (fit) and, possibly most importantly, what you choose not to do. Digital transformation accelerates the impact of these strategic choices. Technologies shape what organisations prioritise and enable certain behaviours while constraining others. Over time, this subtly shifts how companies make sense of themselves, how they coordinate, and how they engage customers. By spending more on getting faster there is potential for elements of the customer journey to fade into the background, particularly the messy and less easy to control human elements.

That is where and why service, especially human service, has become even more strategically significant. In a digital ecosystem where technologies diffuse rapidly and imitation cycles shorten, the only dimension of the firm that remains difficult to replicate is its humanity. Platforms can be cloned, algorithms can be trained, and interfaces can be mimicked but human discernment, contextual understanding, empathetic listening, and relational trust cannot be reverse‑engineered at scale.

Technology delivers speed.
Humans deliver meaning.

This is why RS, despite being a forefront contender in the space of digitally led and data‑driven e-commerce businesses, continues to invest deliberately in people as a core part of its customer experience. RS recognises that digitalisation is about augmenting and enhancing human capability rather replacing it. E‑commerce platforms handle the transactions, the complicated back end that lends itself to automation, but people handle the relationships. Automation reduces friction, but humans resolve complexity. AI identifies patterns, but people interpret significance.

Human service anchors the organisational values, stabilises behaviour in moments of uncertainty, and protects the customer's experience across the system. It is the part of the firm that remains recognisably “itself” even as technology evolves. In this sense, “Service as a Service” is more than satire. It might be seen as a strategic assertion: In a transient, digitally accelerated competitive landscape, humanity becomes the last defensible frontier of differentiation. RS embraces digital transformation as an enabler of a higher quality omni-channel customer journey. In an industrial world where customers often operate under pressure, RS is looking at ways to combine speed, technology and humanity to create value that endures even as the technological environment continues to shift.

RS South Africa (https://Africa.RSDelivers.com/) is a trading brand of RS Group plc (LSE: RS1) and a leading provider of industrial product and service solutions.

References
Barney, J. (1991). Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage.
Bharadwaj, A. et al. (2013). Digital Business Strategy.
D'Aveni, R. (1995). Hypercompetition.
McGrath, R. (2013). The End of Competitive Advantage.
Porter, M. (1996). What Is Strategy?

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of RS South Africa.

PR Contact Person - RS South Africa:
Princess Tlou
Communications & Content Specialist
RS South Africa
Princess.Tlou@rsgroup.com
+27 11 691 9366

Media Contact Person – NGAGE:
Thobile Ndlovu
PR Account Executive
thobile@ngage.co.za
+27 11 867 7763

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About RS: 
RS is a global product and service solutions provider for industrial customers, enabling them to operate efficiently and sustainably.

We operate in 36 markets, stock over 800,000 industrial and specialist products and list an additional five million relevant for our industrial customers, sourced from over 2,500 suppliers. This extensive range supports our customers across the industrial lifecycle of designing, building, and maintaining equipment and operations.

We enhance their experience through a tailored service model, leveraging our efficient physical, digital and process infrastructure sustainably. We combine a technically led and digitally enabled approach with an exceptional team of experts; ultimately, it's our people that make the difference.

Our purpose, making amazing happen for a better world, reflects our focus on delivering results for people planet and profit.

RS Group plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange with stock ticker RS1 and in the year ended 31 March 2024 reported revenue of £2,942 million.

RS South Africa (https://apo-opa.co/41Q4miB)

RS Africa Exports (https://apo-opa.co/41Q4miB)

DesignSpark (https://Africa.RSDelivers.com/)

RS Group plc (https://www.RSGroup.com/)