Business
Unemployment: NGO Advocates Waste-To-Wealth Ventures As Panacea
African Community Bridge Foundation (ACBF), an NGO, has called for the initiation of practical waste-to-wealth initiatives to generate employment opportunities for the populace.
The Business Development Officer of ACBF, Miss Ebireri Yota, gave the advice in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, yesterday.
“Talking about waste management, specifically transforming trash to cash, we are very interested in it because we understand that we have environmental issues in this country where we do not properly manage our waste.
“We are not just looking for a solution where we can find a better way to manage our waste but we also want to see how we can use that to create employment, especially for the younger generation, and improve the nation’s economy,’’ she said.
Yota said that a major goal of her foundation was the training of “young people on the economic chain by transforming all sorts of garbage into cash.
”Our organisation is focused on the economic chain, on what people called waste materials.
”We are driven by the desire to see our youths, women and the lives of people generally transformed to a stage whereby they can comfortably take care of themselves, while contributing to their immediate environment and the economic well-being of others in the society,’’ she said.
Yota said that ACBF was interested in waste management in the country because of the fact that Nigeria had been facing serious environmental challenges, particularly as most citizens dumped their garbage indiscriminately without knowing its economic values.
Also speaking, the Environmental and Conservation Manager of ACBF, Mrs Nawal Fakhry, re-emphasised the need to recycle waste into other useful materials so as to free the environment from the menace of filth.
Fakhry, a Lebanese, identified indiscriminate dumping of refuse in Nigeria as one of the major environmental challenges facing the country.
She said that the launch of waste recycling establishments would go a long way in making the environment safe and healthy for the citizenry.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
