The Vice President of Nigeria, Kashim Shettima, has called on African capital markets to embrace digital transformation and deepen regional integration to establish a financial system that is more efficient, accessible and resilient. Shettima made this call on Thursday at the 2025 Conference of the Africa and Middle East Depositories Association, held in Lagos. AMEDA is the umbrella body for the Central Securities Depositories and Clearing Houses collectively referred to as Financial Market Infrastructures operating across Africa and the Middle East. It was established in 2005. Shettima, represented by the Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters, Tope Fasua, said in a recorded message, “We are witnessing tectonic shifts in how we engage with one another and the wider world. These shifts, driven by innovation, favourable demographics, digital disruption and economic realignments, compel us to rethink the very architecture of our financial ecosystems and economic management models. “At the heart of this transformation lies the indispensable role of financial market infrastructures, depositories, clearing houses, payment systems and digital platforms that sustain trust, enable transparency, and provide the liquidity our markets require. “In His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu, you have not only found an ally in market reform, but also a steward of economic stability. Our administration is committed to strengthening Nigeria’s financial market infrastructures through a deliberate blend of regulation, reform, capital market development strategies, and robust public-private collaboration from broadening participation in our capital markets to increasing access to finance for MSMEs and start-ups, and financing infrastructure through green bonds, social bonds and sukuk. “Our agenda is anchored in inclusive finance principles and designed to deliver tangible public value. We are also harnessing innovation across sectors from fintechs and mobile platforms to payment service providers to make our financial system more efficient, more accessible and more inclusive. But for innovation to be meaningful, it must be responsible, secure and equitable. No citizen must be left behind.” He added that to shape the future of finance, Nigeria must move beyond domestic thinking and embrace a shared regional vision. “This is particularly urgent and promising in Africa and the Middle East, where the convergence of demographic strength, digital ambition, and bold policy reform is laying the foundation for transformative growth. The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement marks a defining moment, with the potential to unite 54 countries into a single market of over 1.4 billion people. “The momentum to harmonise capital markets and expand cross-border investment is gaining traction in Nigeria. We have introduced a regulatory framework for digital assets and enhanced legal instruments to support capital market development. These moves are not isolated. In Nigeria, we’re on an ambitious journey to grow our economy to $1tn within the next decade. Achieving this vision requires not only sound policies but also enduring partnerships and the insights of brilliant minds like yours gathered here today. Let this gathering inspire us to build financial systems that are efficient, inclusive and future-proof,” he asserted. Also speaking at the event, the Chairman of Access Holdings, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, called for collaborative efforts to drive the financial market infrastructures needed in both regions. Aig-Imoukhuede noted that, based on past investment trends, the Middle East has shown a willingness to invest in Africa. He stated, “As AMEDA members, you must pool resources, share best practices, and leverage each member’s unique strengths. I understand the transformative power of your umbrella, and you can drive innovation to transform Africa not just for Africans but also for members of the region. This collaborative approach will not only empower individual member states but also create a new world where the Middle East and Africa represent a strong bloc for economic development.” In his welcome address, the Chairman of AMEDA, Abdulla Abdin, said the theme of the conference: Shaping the Future: Financial Markets Infrastructures as Catalysts for Transforming Economies “reflects our deepest awareness of the rapid transformation taking place in the global economy and the role played by the financial market infrastructures in enabling economies to adopt innovation and achieve inclusive growth. “AMEDA holds the view that financial infrastructure is not solely a technical tool; it constitutes an essential mechanism for development and a sound basis for incentivising investment, improving transparency, optimising market efficiency, and realising economic integration within the region.” The Vice Chairman of AMEDA, Haruna Jalo-Waziri, who is also the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Central Securities Clearing Systems, highlighted some key issues for participants to reflect upon during the conference. “As we embark on this two-day journey of dialogue and discovery, allow me to highlight a few key issues that I believe merit our collective reflection: How do we expand access to financial markets sustainably and inclusively, particularly for the unserved and underserved? “How can we effectively position our Market Infrastructures to serve their real purpose and catalyse rapid growth and development of our economies, sustainably? How can we build interoperable and integrated capital markets across our regions to facilitate efficient capital flows and attract global investment?” Jalo-Waziri stated. He maintained that the answers are important for Nigeria, saying, “Our country is on a bold journey to grow its economy to a $1tn economy. This ambition is underpinned by a capital market that must evolve in scale, sophistication and inclusiveness. At CSCS, we are proud to support this journey by investing in future-ready infrastructure, enabling investor confidence, building systemic resilience, and partnering with innovators across the financial services value chain.” At the conference jointly organised by AMEDA and CSCS, the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, was represented by the Commissioner for Economic Planning, Opeyemi George. The Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Dr Emomotimi Agama, was represented by the Executive Commissioner, Operations, SEC, Bola Ajomale.

European nations are working on security guarantees for Ukraine against Russia with, Trump making clear that the US won’t. But can they? Huddling in London over the weekend, European leaders declared that they would work to pull together a plan to end the war in Ukraine, but with security guarantees for the country that has been the victim of a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022. The meeting in the United Kingdom followed close on the heels of a disastrous visit to the White House by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which he was publicly berated by United States President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance for resisting their plans for an unconditional peace plan with Russia. Trump has made it clear that the US will not provide security guarantees for Ukraine, urging Europe’s military forces to take charge instead. In meetings with Trump in Washington, DC last week, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer both indicated a willingness to send troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers if a deal to end Russia’s war is reached. But can Europe meaningfully provide a security cover to Ukraine, without the US backing it? What are Europe’s true security capabilities? How dependent is the region on US support? And what threat does Russia pose? The US has been central to European security since the end of World War II, when it helped create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and deployed hundreds of thousands of soldiers to Europe to challenge Soviet influence. It has maintained this security leadership ever since, while also expanding its global superpower status. As of July 2024, the US had about 65,000 active-duty soldiers permanently stationed across Europe, along with extensive weaponry, defence systems and other assets vital to NATO, according to the US government’s Defense Manpower Data Center. This includes six pre-positioned weapons stockpiles in Europe, equipped with tanks and armoured vehicles, eight air squadrons, four navy destroyers and an estimated 100 nuclear bombs. Additionally, the US has some 10,000 soldiers on rotational deployment in Poland – a key part of NATO’s eastern flank with Russia. To fund its military muscle, the US relies on a mammoth defence budget, which stood at $860bn in 2024. That is more than double that of all other combined members of NATO, who are bound to defend each other in the event of an attack. At the same time, the US has provided the majority of direct military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded it in 2022, sending approximately $65bn, according to the US Department of State. When accounting for other types of assistance, the US had allocated approximately $183bn to the Ukraine response as of September 30, 2024, according to Ukraine Oversight, a website created by the US government to record aid sent to Ukraine. The European Union, for its part, has sent a total of $141bn in aid to Ukraine, including $51bn in military assistance, according to the European Commission. However, Trump has said it is now time for the US to step back militarily from Europe and wants its allies in the continent to do more heavy lifting. “Stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe,” declared Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a meeting of NATO allies on February 12. “European allies must lead from the front.” NATO’s European members have a combined two million active-duty soldiers, a small section of whom are assigned directly to serve under the alliance’s command. Turkiye and Poland have the most soldiers, with 481,000 and 216,000 respectively, according to NATO’s latest estimates. France and Germany follow, with 205,000 and 186,000 soldiers. The UK, which has offered to send peacekeeping forces to Ukraine under a potential peace deal, has 138,000 soldiers. NATO itself has a force of about 40,000 throughout its eastern flank – spanning Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Together, NATO’s European allies have some 7,000 aircraft, 6,800 tanks, 2,170 military ships and six aircraft carriers, according to the Global Firepower defence index. Despite its significant military assets, NATO still heavily depends on the US to deter threats in Europe. In the event of a major attack on one of their own, such as by Russia, NATO would likely expect the US to rush hundreds of thousands of additional troops to Europe, according to economic think tank Bruegel. If Europe can no longer rely on this support, enhanced by Washington’s advanced military technology and infrastructure, Bruegel estimates the continent would need to create 50 new brigades, each consisting of thousands of soldiers, to fill the gap. Concerned, European states are feeling the pressure to increase their defence spending. Last week, the UK announced it would increase defence spending to 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2027. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this would add some $16bn every year to the defence budget, which currently stands at $68bn. “This government will begin the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War,” Starmer told Parliament. Germany had announced a special fund of more than $100bn to upgrade and strengthen its military in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, adding to its annual defence budget of some $52bn. Last year, the country’s defence budget hit 2 percent of GDP for the first time since the end of the Cold War as part of a NATO target set in 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. Germany’s presumptive next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, in a December speech, stressed that the military would need “at least $84bn a year” in the future. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, NATO allies across Europe and Canada increased their spending by an unprecedented 18 percent. Currently, 22 of 30 European NATO members spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defence, as per their 2023 pledge. However, Trump has argued that is not nearly enough, calling for the states to boost defence spending to at least 5 percent of GDP. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has acknowledged Europe’s need to invest more. “We have not paid enough over the last 40 years, particularly since the Berlin Wall came down,” Rutte told Politico on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 15. “The US is rightly asking for a rebalancing of that. It’s totally logical.” Russia has cited NATO’s expansion as one of its justifications for invading Ukraine. Since its founding in 1949, NATO has grown from 12 to 32 members, steadily moving eastward towards Russia’s borders. Currently, six NATO members – four of which joined since the turn of the millennium – border Russia, including Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. To keep the Western military alliance at bay, Moscow has demanded that Ukraine, which has long sought NATO membership, be kept out of the grouping. “Otherwise, this problem will continue to poison the atmosphere on the European continent,” said Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on February 18. Trump’s administration, pushing for a quick end to the war, has said NATO membership is not “realistic” for Ukraine. But Western European states view Russia’s aggression as a reason to strengthen the bloc. Since the end of the Cold War, Russia, the world’s largest nuclear power, has invaded or occupied parts of several nearby countries – Moldova, Georgia, and most recently Ukraine. Russia’s direct military intervention in Moldova in the early 1990s helped Russian-aligned separatists gain de facto control of the breakaway region of Transnistria. Russia’s blistering invasion of Georgia in 2008 dealt a heavy blow to Tbilisi and complicated its ties with the West. Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, NATO has grown. Previously neutral Finland and Sweden have joined the alliance over the past two years. Currently, Russia has at least 1.32 million active-duty soldiers, hundreds of thousands of whom are fighting in Ukraine. Moscow had previously stationed about 12,000 soldiers in Kaliningrad, its westernmost enclave, sandwiched between NATO members Poland and Lithuania. However, most of these forces were reportedly redeployed to Ukraine earlier in the conflict. Russia also operates dozens of overseas military facilities, most located in former Soviet states. As of 2024, this includes at least two major bases in Belarus, two in Kazakhstan, two in Armenia, two in the disputed Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and one base each in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria, according to the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. The largest of these facilities is the 201st military base in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, which, as of 2022, had an estimated 7,000 Russian soldiers. In terms of military assets, Russia has 4,292 aircraft, 5,750 tanks, 449 ships and one aircraft carrier, according to Global Firepower. While this capacity does not match NATO’s combined strength, it would present a tougher test if the US were to step back, as Trump has called for. “Europeans need to wake up,” said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas at a conference of the European Defence Agency on January 22. The continent’s “failure to invest in military capabilities”, she said, “sends a dangerous signal to the aggressor. Weakness invites them in.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...

For European national teams, the journey to the Women's World Cup 2027 starts here. Here's your guide to the 2025 Women's Nations League tournament, which starts on Friday, 21 February. The league was launched in 2023, with the first edition offering qualification spots for the 2025 Women's European Championship. Countries have been placed into groups of three or four teams, across three different leagues, with promotion and relegation between the leagues depending on the match results. And there's a lot at stake. Teams are not only competing for the Nations League title, but their finishing position will also determine where they start in the league system for the European qualifiers for the 2027 Women's World Cup. The 53 teams have been split into three leagues - League A, B or C. Each league has between four and six groups. Teams in each group will play each other home and away, with three points for a win and one for a draw. Leagues A and B have four groups of four teams. League C has six groups of either three or four teams. League A Group A1: Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Scotland Group A2: France, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland Group A3: Spain, England, Belgium, Portugal Group A4: Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Wales League B Group B1: Poland, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania Group B2: Republic of Ireland, Turkey, Slovenia, Greece Group B3: Finland, Serbia, Hungary, Belarus Group B4: Czech Republic, Ukraine, Croatia, Albania League C Group C1: Slovakia, Faroe Islands, Moldova, Gibraltar Group C2: Malta, Georgia, Cyprus, Andorra Group C3: Luxembourg, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein Group C4: Azerbaijan, Montenegro, Lithuania Group C5: Israel, Bulgaria, Estonia Group C6: Kosovo, Latvia, North Macedonia Teams were placed in each league based on their rankings at the end of the 2024 women's European qualifying league stage. The four League A group winners will meet in the semi-finals, followed by a third-place play-off and a final which crowns the Nations League winner. These will be played over two legs. The teams who finish fourth in each League A group will be relegated to League B, and the League B group winners will be promoted. Each group winner of League C will be promoted to League B, with the teams finishing at the bottom of League B, as well as two of the lowest ranked third-placed teams, dropping to League C. Spain won the inaugural Women's Nations League title in 2024, claiming their second major trophy in six months. The group standings at the end of the Nations League determine which teams are placed in each league for the European qualifiers for the 2027 Women's World Cup. There will be another draw in November 2025 to decide the groups within the three leagues. The teams who finish in the top two in each League A group stay in the top league for the World Cup qualifiers. The top four teams in League B will be promoted. The third-placed teams from League A will have to play the second-placed teams from League B to decide which four teams claim the final League A spots. At the end of the World Cup qualifiers, the four League A winners will qualify directly for the Women's World Cup. Other teams will be entered into the play-offs to claim the remaining spots. Gibraltar and Liechtenstein will make their Women's Nations League debut in 2025. This will also be the first time the countries are involved in senior women's competition. Both teams will play in League C. The group stage fixtures all take place before the 2025 Women's Euros, which starts on 2 July. League phases Match days 1-2: 21-26 February Match days 3-4: 4-8 April Match days 5-6: 30 May-3 June Finals Semi-finals (two legs): 22-28 October 2025 Final/third-place play off (two legs): 26 November - 2 December 2025 How do WSL clubs make money? How does the Six Nations point system work? How does Premier League darts work?