Africa is not a country, it is a continent. Comparing it to India or China (whose economies haven't really paid off for foreign investors as much as you'd think) is a major flaw. China and India have an incredibly consistent society from corner to corner and well organized governments. Africa on the other hand is a few dozen sovereign countries, without a common culture or language between them. They are constantly at war with each other and within each other.
I think in order to extract the full economic potential of Africa you'll need to see unification at levels that put the EU to shame and at least a decade of trusted, non-corrupt, forward looking governance.
I think it'll happen, but not for a very, very long time. Until then, follow the Chinese govt investments in Africa and try to tag along.
That is literally the first time I have ever heard anyone, Indian or not, describe India that way.
The latter tends to spur economic activity with much less friction than the strings attached version.
You don't hear these things through the media. Population numbers are consistently surprising to me at least.
I don't see that they'd need to worry about international markets. At least not initially.
Checkout Nigeria, Namibia, South Africa.
These are powerhouses.
Not too far off as a description of the EU either.
There's definitely a lot to fix regarding the political climate, and I agree with your sentiment that it'll take a lon time. But I do believe growth would be exponential given the common markets (EU with a diverse, culture, India, China) to learn from.
I know. I’m ethnically Indian. I’ve been to India multiple times. If I were to invest in an Indian startup it would probably be in Bangalore or Chandigarh.
Just as it is highly unlikely that I invest in a startup in Wyoming, it is unlikely that I invest in startups in large parts of Africa.
Calling it “Africa” is just short hand for segments, categories, and locales in that space.
And boy is India far from consistent and organized. I speak Punjabi and don’t speak Hindi. There are 50 other states and 50 other languages that are spoken.
I am on the ground in West Africa right now. I have been to 15 countries from Morocco to Gabon in 12 months, and will visit another ~22 in the next 12-18 months.
Your statement makes it clear you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Maybe what you said was correct in 1980, but things are changing faster than you can imagine.
There are 54 countries (not a few dozen), over 1.2 billion people in "Africa".
Your statement about war is so far from the truth it's laughable and absurd.
If you get your information from CNN and Fox, you need to stop. It is not giving you an accurate picture of how the world functions
> There are 54 countries (not a few dozen)
I’d say 54 is a “few dozen” as much as any number can be described as such.
Sorry if bikeshedding.
I agree with the basic idea, but Africa is way too over the place for that statement to apply at the level of the continent. Some countries will still be down and out due to their economical and political instability (there is really nothing in the cards today indicating that Nigeria or Congo, for example, will be significantly better 20 years from now), and on the other hand I would not be surprised if some countries would outdo the "China" metric and be considered developed first-world economies by then (in fact I would be surprised if it did NOT happen for a handful of them).
I am a Nigerian and I think you are wrong. There is a lot of agitation in Nigeria especially from the young people and an imminent collapse of the old order. An Arab Spring like revolution is imminent. There is a bubbling spring of young and hungry talent on the continent there is a definite acknowledgement that things need to change fast.
That aside, despite the upbeat tone of the article, investment is still very hard to source in Africa despite the fact that the amounts required by the continents entrepreneurs are really small. Most founders require seed funding in the 10 -20k range. I am trying to solve this problem. Anyone interested in joining forces can pm me.
Nigeria seems like it could be a giant if it can only get out of its political woes. Isn't separatism/terrorism still a major issue? Does that impact daily life for the average person? My Nigerian friend never spoke of life being unsafe but that the government was corrupt wasn't really a question.
"It's Difficult to Make Predictions, Especially About the Future" and more relevant: "Peace for our time".
(Quick aside: I am realizing I am implicitly using China as a reference for economical improvement, but not India as also mentioned by GP post, simply because some segments of the population in India still live in a horrendous level of poverty, and I think true improvement necessarily implies the elimination of extreme poverty.)
To keep the Arab Spring as a point of comparison: it did succeed in Tunisia because the population (1) is educated and connected, and (2) had an homogeneous view of where it wanted to go (politically speaking). This meant that even if not all "pro-regime" forces were cleaned out they still had to take a back seat in the new regime (example: their police forces), and alternative political movements such as the islamists literally abandoned islamism after a few years. In contrast in Egypt it failed IMO because (1) 25 % of the population is illiterate, so is not educated/connected/informed all that much, (2) had differing views, with a major islamist movement in place (that historically had basically grandfather islamist terrorism), and (3) some major "pro-regime" forces (in this case the military) were not reformed/removed and still had all the resources and levers they needed to depose the new government whenever they felt like it. So in the end Egypt returned to military dictature as quickly as it had left it.
Again, I would really be happy to be wrong, but right now if a revolution happens, Nigeria is more on the "Egypt" end of the balance than on the "Tunisia" one. If we look at all the revolutions or major reforms that have happened since the 1980s, the successful ones have always happened where civil society was past some education threshold and had a good cohesion regarding its ideological worldview (basically nation-wide support for secular democracy and the rule of law). That was the case from South Korea to Taiwan to South America, so I don't see why it wouldn't apply to Nigeria as well. Note that I'm NOT saying that there are no people educated/informed enough, what I am saying is that because your country is so big and the disparity so large, there are A LOT of people who right now are not informed enough and way too removed from any political discourse to be enrolled in a cohesive reformist movement.
That being said my point was specifically for the short time-frame being discussed (within 20 years). I don't think such a huge country can navigate through such deep changes that quickly, but it's very possible that much of the preliminary work (such as getting the majority of the population on the same political page) can be accomplished by then. For example it's possible that because your educated youth is fed up, an anti-corruption advocate or national-level politician will gain significant prominence and start pushing the country in the right direction.
https://www.startupgrind.com/blog/why-lagos-in-nigeria-is-af...
https://www.quora.com/Which-Nigerian-tech-startup-will-be-wo...
https://techcrunch.com/tag/nigeria/
I didn't even know till I searched just now that Lagos already has online grocery delivery! It's been quite a few years since I was living there and incredibly hard for me to imagine. :)
The excitement of Africa is the chance at something new - why not something local, sustainable, and not prey to the walled gardens and greed of the West? The idea of something uniquely African is far more exciting than SV Tech: A Foreign Adventure.
Africans have ingenuity and local knowledge. The developed world has cash and business know-how. So long as corrupt government officials can be avoided, there's a chance that there can be a symbiotic relationship.
And I agree, Africa is hot hot hot ;)
I'd like to know the answer to this too.
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Like all good investors, I know people. :)
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