Africa's Business Revolution

Africa's Business Revolution
Author: Acha Leke
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2018-10-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1633694410

The Definitive Guide to Doing Business in Africa For global and Africa-based companies looking to access new growth markets, Africa offers exciting opportunities to build large, profitable businesses. Its population is young, fast-growing, and increasingly urbanized--while rapid technology adoption makes the continent a fertile arena for innovation. But Africa's business environment remains poorly understood; it's known to many executives in the West only by its reputation for complexity, conflict, and corruption. Africa's Business Revolution provides the inside story on business in Africa and its future growth prospects and helps executives understand and seize the opportunities for building profitable, sustainable enterprises. From senior leaders in McKinsey's African offices and a leading executive on the continent, this book draws on in-depth proprietary research by the McKinsey Global Institute as well as McKinsey's extensive experience advising corporate and government leaders across Africa. Brimming with company case studies and exclusive interviews with some of Africa's most prominent executives, this book comes to life with the vibrant stories of those who have navigated the many twists and turns on the road to building successful businesses on the continent. Combining an unrivalled fact base with expert advice on shaping and executing an Africa growth strategy, this book is required reading for global business executives looking to expand their existing operations in Africa--and for those seeking a road map to access this vast, untapped market for the first time.

Unlocking Africa's Business Potential

Unlocking Africa's Business Potential
Author: Landry Signe
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2020-04-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0815737394

Africa welcomes business investment and offers some of the world's highest returns and impacts Africa has tremendous economic potential and offers rewarding opportunities for global businesses looking for new markets and long-term investments with favorable returns. Africa has been one of the world's fastest-growing regions over the past decade, and by 2030 will be home to nearly 1.7 billion people and an estimated $6.7 trillion worth of consumer and business spending. Increased political stability in recent years and improving regional integration are making market access easier, and business expansion will generate jobs for women and youth, who represent the vast majority of the population. Current economic growth and poverty-alleviation efforts mean that more than 43 percent of the continent's people will reach middle- or upper-class status by 2030. Unlocking Africa's Business Potential examines business opportunities in the eight sectors with the highest potential returns on private investment—the same sectors that will foster economic growth and diversification, job creation, and improved general welfare. These sectors include: consumer markets, agriculture and agriprocessing, information and communication technology, manufacturing, oil and gas, tourism, banking, and infrastructure and construction. The book's analysis of these sectors is based on case studies that identify specific opportunities for investment and growth, along with long-term market projections to inform decision-making. The book identifies potential risks to business and offers mitigation strategies. It also provides policymakers with solutions to attract new business investments, including how to remove barriers to business and accelerate development of the private sector.

Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Author: Everisto Benyera
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2021-11-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030875245

This book examines the epistemological, political, and socio-economic consequences of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) for Africa. Presenting various case studies on epistemic freedom, theology, race and robotics, tertiary education, political and economic transformation, human capital, and governance, it debates whether the 4IR will be part of the solution to the African problem, namely that of coloniality in its various forms. Solving the African problem using the 4IR requires ethical, just and epistemologically independent leadership. However, the lack of ICT infrastructure militates against Africa’s endeavours to make the 4IR a problem-solving moment. To its credit, Africa possesses some of the major capital needed (human, mineral, and social), and it constitutes a huge market comprising a young population eager to participate in the 4IR as problem-solvers and not as a problem to be solved—as equal citizens and not as the marginalized other.

Digital Entrepreneurship in Africa

Digital Entrepreneurship in Africa
Author: Nicolas Friederici
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2020-07-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 026236283X

The hope and hype about African digital entrepreneurship, contrasted with the reality on the ground in local ecosystems. In recent years, Africa has seen a digital entrepreneurship boom, with hundreds of millions of dollars poured into tech cities, entrepreneurship trainings, coworking spaces, innovation prizes, and investment funds. Politicians and technologists have offered Silicon Valley-influenced narratives of boundless opportunity and exponential growth, in which internet-enabled entrepreneurship allows Africa to "leapfrog" developmental stages to take a leading role in the digital revolution. This book contrasts these aspirations with empirical research about what is actually happening on the ground. The authors find that although the digital revolution has empowered local entrepreneurs, it does not untether local economies from the continent's structural legacies.

KasiNomic Revolution

KasiNomic Revolution
Author: GG Alcock
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2018-10-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0639926487

The informal business sector is the next great frontier of Africa and it is undergoing an economic revolution, a new world of small people doing big things, transforming the continent. Prepare for this new generation, prepare for the Afripolitan Generation. A revolution is taking place in the great marketplaces of the informal sector and it contains an unquantified scale and power as an economic engine and a way of life for the majority of our low income populations. The KasiNomic Revolution may still be a murmur in the streets, a grassroots economic groundswell, but it is the future of African economic activity. Kasi is the South African term for the township, a teeming conurbation of homes and businesses, entertainment venues and social meeting places. GG Alcock uses the term KasiNomics to describe the informal sectors of Africa, whether they are in the township, a rural marketplace, at a taxi rank or on a pavement in the shadow of skyscrapers. Brought up in a rural Zulu community, GG has learnt and shares the lessons of African culture, language, stick fighting, lifestyle and tribal politics, along with shared poverty and community, which have prepared him for accessing the great informal marketplaces of Africa. He is uniquely placed to uncover the extraordinary stories of kasi businesses which not only survive but excel, revealing a revolutionary entrepreneurship which is mostly invisible to the formal sector. KasiNomic Revolution is a story of kasi entrepreneurs on one side and, on the other, of great corporate successes and failures in the informal community. KasiNomic Revolution is at once a business book, and at the same time a deeply human book about the people and lives of rural and urban informal societies. KasiNomic Revolution is about the lessons of marketing, distribution, culture and modernity in an informal African world. Prepare for a KasiNomic Revolution.

Chinese Aid and African Development

Chinese Aid and African Development
Author: D. Bräutigam
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 282
Release: 1998-06-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0230374301

Since 1957, more than 45 African countries have received aid from China, yet until recently little has been known about the effectiveness or impact of this assistance. Bräutigam provides the first authoritative account of China's experience as an aid donor in rural Africa. In a detailed and highly readable analysis, the author draws on anthropology, economics, organization theory and political science to explain how China's domestic agenda shaped the design of its aid, and how domestic politics in African countries influenced its outcome.

Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England

Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England
Author: J. E. Inikori
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 597
Release: 2002-06-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521811937

Detailed study of the role of overseas trade and Africans in the Industrial Revolution.

The New Scramble for Africa

The New Scramble for Africa
Author: Pádraig Carmody
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2013-04-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0745672949

Once marginalized in the world economy, the past decade has seen Africa emerge as a major global supplier of crucial raw materials like oil, uranium and coltan. With its share of world trade and investment now rising and the availability of natural resources falling, the continent finds itself at the centre of a battle to gain access to and control of its valuable natural assets. China's role in Africa has loomed particularly large in recent years, but there is now a new scramble taking place involving a wider range of established and emerging economic powers from the EU and US to Japan, Brazil and Russia. This book explores the nature of resource and market competition in Africa and the strategies adopted by the different actors involved - be they world powers or small companies. Focusing on key commodities, the book examines the dynamics of the new scramble and the impact of current investment and competition on people, the environment, and political and economic development on the continent. New theories, particularly the idea of Chinese "flexigemony" are developed to explain how resources and markets are accessed. While resource access is often the primary motive for increased engagement, the continent also offers a growing market for low-priced goods from Asia and Asian-owned companies. Individual chapters explore old and new economic power interests in Africa; oil, minerals, timber, biofuels, food and fisheries; and the nature and impacts of Asian investment in manufacturing and other sectors. The New Scramble for Africa will be essential reading for students of African studies, international relations, and resource politics as well as anyone interested in current affairs.

Africa’s Green Revolution

Africa’s Green Revolution
Author: William G. Moseley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2017-10-02
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1317288068

This volume examines the dominant neoliberal agenda for agricultural development and hunger alleviation in Africa. The text reviews the history of African agricultural and food security policy in the post-colonial period, across a range of geographical contexts, in order to contextualise the productionist approach embedded in the much heralded New Green Revolution for Africa. This strategy, supported by a range of international agencies, promotes the use of hybrid seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides to boost crop production. This approach is underpinned by a new and unprecedented level of public–private partnerships as donors actively work to promote the private sector and build links between African farmers, input suppliers, agro-dealers, agro-processors, and retailers. On the consumer end, increased supermarket penetration into poorer neighbourhoods is proffered as a solution to urban food insecurity. The chapters in this volume complicate understandings of this new approach and raise serious questions about its effectiveness as a strategy for increasing food production and alleviating poverty across the continent. This book is based on a special issue of African Geographical Review.

An African Green Revolution

An African Green Revolution
Author: Keijiro Otsuka
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2012-12-22
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9400757603

This volume explores the usefulness of the Asian model of agricultural development for Africa, where, even before the recent world food crisis, half the population lived on less than on dollar a day, and a staggering one in three people and one third of all children were undernourished. Africa has abundant natural resources; agriculture provides most of its jobs, a third of national income and a larger portion of total export earnings. However the levels of land and labor productivity rank among the worst in the world. The book explains Africa’s productivity gap and proposes ways to close it, by examining recent experience in Africa and by drawing on lessons from Asia.