Tag Archives: Entrepreneurship in Africa

Harnessing the Brain Drain: Potential for Development

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By Isaiah Schulze

In discussions of African development issues, the subject of “brain drain” is often brought up. The basic thesis is that by immigrating to developed countries, highly talented Africans are depriving their home nations of the intellectual assets needed for development. Rich countries gain unfairly from this phenomenon as they retain the academic, political, and economic contributions of these skilled individuals, while African countries languish from a shortage of good ideas. Continue reading →

“A Call to Action:” Remarks on AGOA by Rosa Whitaker

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“Leaders Forum: AGOA and the Way Forward on U.S.-Africa Economic Policy”
April 26th, 2010
The Willard InterContinental Hotel, Washington DC

 Remarks by Rosa Whitaker

Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, Honored Guests.  I would like to begin by welcoming you all and by thanking my co-hosts for their support of this event: The AGOA Action Committee, the Africa Coalition for Trade, the African-American Unity Caucus, the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa, the Constituency for Africa, the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation, Manchester Trade, and the Corporate Council on Africa.  Continue reading →

Create Jobs in Africa, and All Else Will Follow

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Published at allAfrica.com – Trade Talk with Rosa Whitaker
by Rosa Whitaker

Bill Gates’ commitment at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to give $10 billion over the next decade to develop and distribute vaccines to children in the world’s poorest countries has stimulated an interesting discussion on what would be the best use for such a large charitable gift. It’s an important discussion too, as more very wealthy entrepreneurs use their charitable giving to change the whole paradigm of aid to the “bottom billion.” Continue reading →

The West Has to Deal With the New Africa

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howthewestAfrica is a place where many things have been changing and continue to change for the better, write Rosa Whitaker, Hassan Ba, David Applefield, Tumi Makgabo, Mugo Kibati, Kola Karim, Euvin Naidoo, and Ali Belhaj in Corporate Africa 2009.

For all the enthusiastic response to President Obama’s July address in Ghana and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first Africa visit in August, there is another Africa in which the Obama message of African accountability resonates differently.

Continue reading →

Building Blocks for Business in Somalia

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by Daniel Morris

A stable Somali business environment continues to be an elusive proposition. Last week the president of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government gave a talk in Washington, DC, notable for the large number of prominent members of the Somali diaspora community in the audience. With his government still struggling due to an Islamist-backed insurgency, the president was understandably vague on many specifics concerning his political and economic policies. Continue reading →

Empowering African Youth Through Technology

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by Adanma Osakwe

Technology has become a major driving force for change and opportunity throughout the world. It has transformed many lives, and the unprecedented access to technology that today’s youth in Africa have allows them to compete with their peers in the global digital economy.

Young people gain a major advantage in terms of education, economic, and social opportunities when they have access to computers.  Strategic use of technology can boost wealth creation and alleviate unemployment– providing marginalized individuals in rural communities with technological tools for training can help them to realize their economic potential. Continue reading →

Manual Distribution Centers: Market Access and Job Creation

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As a strategy for development, “manual distribution centers” are becoming as popular in development sectors as micro-finance was in 2005.  A concept pioneered by Coca-Cola, MDCs are independently owned, low-cost operations created to service retail markets where classic distribution models are ineffective and inefficient because of distance or lack of infrastructure.  For example, Coca-Cola hires local distributors in Africa to ship their beverages out to less accessible areas, creating jobs and increasing the markets they can reach.  In addition to giving people in hard-to-reach parts of the world access to more products, the MDC system integrates local businesspeople into global supply chains, which is a crucial part of turning the opportunities of trade into broad-based prosperity.  Continue reading →

President Obama’s Emerging Africa Policy

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Published at allAfrica.com – Trade Talk with Rosa Whitaker

by Rosa Whitaker

Slowly but surely, President Obama’s Africa policy is beginning to take shape.  In my twenty-five years of work on African economic issues, I’ve seen consecutive US Administrations become increasingly more committed to Africa’s development. I don’t believe President Obama will be an exception.  The fact that his overall foreign policy is driven by experienced-hands with Africa expertise gives reason to believe that Africa will be well-integrated and supported within the broader US foreign and economic policy construct.  Continue reading →

Diaspora Development

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The other night I attended the launch of the Liberian Professional Network, the latest in a series of new organizations with the potential to revolutionize the way African expatriates can help develop their home countries.  LPN brings together professionals in the Liberian diaspora to network, socialize, and support social causes and investment ventures back in Liberia.  Diasporas have historically given significant financial support to their home countries – Liberia received $300 million in remittances in 2007 – but what sets groups like LPN apart is that they can coordinate all those resources to get a greater return. Continue reading →

Multimodal Technologies for Africa

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As new social phenomena, like Twitter, combine one technogical platform (SMS – short message service) with another (the internet), the feasibility of communicating has increased. This has particular relevance for Africa, which has the world’s most dense cell phone usage.  (With three out of every four people using cellular numbers as their primary number, cellular numbers in Africa are the closest thing to national ID numbers in most countries). And, as the highly anticipated fiber optic cable in East Africa comes online, Africa will be well-equipped to advance these multimodal technologies. Continue reading →

Africa Health News March-April 2009

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ahn-april-09-thumbHeadlines: Africa on track to malaria milestone, Novartis releases child friendly antimalarial, global community redoubles efforts to eradicate polio, African initiative launched to fund local health research in Kenya and Malawi, delegation visits East Africa to explore partnerships, Coca-Cola commits $30 million for clean water in Africa, promising results for women’s microbicide gel, African entrepreneurs promote sustainable sanitation solutions. Continue reading →

Intellectual Property Rights For Africa

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In Africa, ingenuity abounds. But the intellectual property rights designed to protect that ingenuity often don’t. Less than one percent of patent applications globally are from Africa.

If Africa is a well-spring of innovation, why doesn’t it protect its inventions? The answer is complex, and largely the result of a number of factors: under funded research institutions, cultural practices, lack of legal services and clogged governmental IP structures. Continue reading →

African Entrepreneurs Promote Sustainable Sanitation Solutions

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Three social entrepreneurs from Africa were in Washington, DC, in February to promote their creative – and lucrative – solutions to some of Africa’s most intractable sanitation problems.

The three – Kenyan David Kuria, Nigerian Joseph Adelegan and South African Trevor Mulaudzi – have each identified a problem in their communities and set about finding a solution based on a business model rather than turning to aid or public funding. Their innovations are successfully changing social behavior and improving public health, the environment and the economy. Continue reading →

Markets: the Missing Link

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The World Bank’s recent study, “Moving out of Poverty: Successes from the Bottom Up,” concludes that development interventions should be market-focused and outlines several key steps that are instrumental in helping people move out of poverty.  The study, which was conducted in a number of African countries, says that in order for people to move out of poverty, they should be surrounded by improved infrastructure, their livelihood activities should be linked to markets, and they need greater access to business loans and information and education on how to connect to mainstream markets. Continue reading →

Remittances With Ring Tones

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By Meg Dallett

Only ten percent of people who receive remittances have bank accounts, but 86 percent of them have cell phones. That’s one of the reasons why companies like MTN and Zain are introducing mobile banking services, where people can use their phones to pay bills, make withdrawals, or send money. Continue reading →

Bottom of the Pyramid Builds the Bottom Line

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Bottom of the pyramid strategies (BOP), where companies reach huge markets by selling inexpensive products designed for living conditions in developing countries, are helping companies like Coca Cola and Standard Chartered Bank better weather the global recession.  And true to the BOP model, success in emerging markets is transforming into innovation in developed markets as consumers face constrained cash flows and demand more value per unit purchased.  Continue reading →

Training for Growth

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By Meg Dallett

“Entrepreneurship” is a hot topic in development – in much of Africa, where the private sector was marginalized for so long, small business owners are a key part of driving growth.  But running a successful business takes more than a good idea, and many entrepreneurs struggle because they lack training in business management.  Continue reading →

Good vs. Bad Middlemen

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People always ask me what I think is the key to economic development in Africa. Usually I focus on two challenges: getting capital in the hands of African entrepreneursand building infrastructure to reduce the cost of doing business on the continent. Lately, I have added a third: the lack of middlemen in the right sectors and the proliferation of them in the wrong sectors of African business. Continue reading →

TWG Hosts 2008 AGOA Forum with Senior Government Officials and Private Sector Leaders

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On the occasion of 7th Annual Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Private Sector Forum, The Whitaker Group (TWG), as Secretariat of the AGOA Action Committee, hosted the lunch discussion, “Public-Private Partnerships: New Resources Driving Growth in Africa,” attended by over 400 U.S. and African senior government officials and private sector and foundation leaders.   The distinguished audience included 18 Ministers from 15 African nations. Continue reading →