During the interview, she stressed the need for Africans and African governments to devise unique solutions to the continent’s problems. She cited the African Unions’ African Risk Capacity, a unique multilateral solution to mitigating the risk of environmental disasters on African economies as an example of how African governments are implementing innovative, home grown solutions. Typically, African countries are put under international spotlight during climate disaster situations depicting Africans as hungry and destitute.

The African Risk Capacity acts as an insurance agency by African nations for their fellow African countries that will ensure that African countries can fund African climate and environmental disasters instead on depending on aid from the international community.

Just like insurance companies work in the corporate world, member African countries pay a premium to the African Risk Capacity, such that when participating countries get a flood or drought, they are able to get insurance payments. For instance, if a country pays a premium of $3 million, during a disaster event, the country can get up to $30 million in insurance payments. The program provides weather based insurance mitigation for African countries. At present, 22 countries have signed up for the program.
Also, speaking on her long-term strategy for her country, Nigeria’s future economic success, the Minister emphasized the need for Nigeria to ensure that the country benefits from its demographic dividend by providing jobs for young people in sectors such as agriculture, a sector from which the administration aims to produce over 20 million metric tonnes of food by 2015. Nigeria is notably one of the largest importers of rice in the world despite the country’s capacity to produce all the rice it needs.

Watch the video below and share it with your network.

The post Okonjo Iweala on CNN – “Africans must find African solutions to African problems” appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

Read and share your thoughts

African Outtake

From Diary of a Very Bad Year

n+1: Did you travel to Africa a lot?

HFM: I did. Quite a few times.

And the countries are all different. You go to South Africa and it has many aspects of a developed market. You go to Nigeria and it’s weird. Lagos looked to me like a city where aliens had come and built the city and then left, and then just sort of let it decay. People kind of wandered in from the outskirts, squatted in the city. So you had this strange juxtaposition of what was clearly modern infrastructure that had just been kind of abandoned to decay—and then total squalor. You’d go one block off a main thoroughfare and the road is dirt. You go to a nice neighborhood, all the houses are behind walls and outside the walls there’s somebody cooking on a garbage fire, right outside the walls of some big house. It’s like nothing I’ve seen anywhere else.

n+1 And yet they had a lively banking sector?

HFM: If you went there it would be clear to you that there’s no way that those banks could deploy the kinds of capital that was being pushed in.

On the other hand, there’s something very attractive from an investment standpoint of going to a place like Lagos. You’d go to an office building or a hotel and in the course of the day the power goes out six times and the generator kicks on to power the building, and that generator is powered by diesel, and you see all these fuel trucks all over the place that have to bring diesel to fuel the generator, and the generators are noisy and loud. You’re like, “Wow, there’s an obvious opportunity here. Somebody should build a reliable power plant! It would just be tremendous, a tremendous economic efficiency, because you wouldn’t need all these diesel trucks zooming around, you wouldn’t need all these generators, and by the way Nigeria has all this natural gas that’s just being flared so if you burn that in a power plant you’re using a resource that’s just being flared!”

Or you drive in the city and there’s one bridge from the mainland to Victoria Island; everyday it’s backed up for hours. It’s like, “You know what? I could build another bridge next to this bridge, I could charge a huge toll!” This is a country that needs everything. There’s so many obvious opportunities to invest and really increase efficiency. Physically invest. I’m not talking about the ability for a country to absorb capital institutionally, but like physically.

n+1: But?

HFM: But then you realize that it’s not like they can’t figure this out. It’s not like they don’t get the fact that it’s pretty annoying that the power goes out six times a day and it’s pretty annoying to have six fuel generators humming all the time. The reason investment doesn’t happen is because it’s in some powerful person’s interest that it not happen. There’s some guy who controls the diesel trucks who makes tons of money from being a diesel distributor, and there’s a guy with all these generators who would be out of business if power plants were built, and he stands in the way. There are people there, there are corrupt government officials who know how much value can be created by a power plant, but they want to extract it for themselves. That’s why the country needs everything.

n+1: What were the difficulties, when you say there were difficulties in getting involved in the market—

HFM: It was just like mechanical difficulties. This wasn’t like going on Fidelity and saying, “Enter the six-month T-bill auction in Gabon.” There were times where to participate in an auction you’d have to get a whole like packet of documents together, signatures and everything and fax them to the central bank of the country. Sounds simple, right? Well the phone lines don’t work there half the time. So you have to fax between this hour and this hour to be eligible, but you just couldn’t even get the fax machine to pick up, or your fax transmission would be halfway through and you’d get cut off. Sometimes you have to get special approval as a foreigner to invest in these markets, and we’re navigating a big bureaucracy. So we would do all that, but once we do that, then we’d have permission to participate in the market, and it was worth it.

n+1: What would you do when there was a fax crisis?

HFM: A fax crisis wasn’t an option, because you know you couldn’t not get a fax. You’d call and try and find somebody, you know, “Could you see if the fax is working? Give me another fax number.” And it was kind of silly. But then that’s why the returns are there. How many people are going to put up with that nonsense?

When they finally improved their systems and you could email things or do things electronically or there were investments banks that would alleviate those trades for you, the opportunity disappeared.

n+1: Couldn’t you just fly there and delivery the papers?

HFM: Well you wouldn’t know, you wouldn’t know until you tried if the fax machine was going to work or not.

n+1: That’s true.

HFM: These are the kinds of trades I love. Where the success or failure is determined by whether the fax machine works, not whether the guy you just hired’s a crook.

n+1: Is this Nigeria you’re mostly talking about?

HFM: No, that’s some other countries we had this issue with, smaller countries.

n+1: What other places did you go that were interesting?

HFM: You name the country in sub-Saharan African, we either did some small trades there or looked into doing some small trade there. We were pretty promiscuous. By the time the bull market came around, we only had some small investment in Nigeria and Ghana.

n+1: How was Ghana?

HFM: That particular investment did not work out so well. As an economy overall it’s hard to say. It was less corrupt than Nigeria, more democratic than a lot of places we operated, but it was still Africa, right? The economy was still a little bit chaotic, statistics were poorly kept, transparency was poor and the economy’s subject to a lot of volatility. There was a thing at the end of last year where there was a devaluation of the currency. There was an election and the campaign spending went out of control, the incumbent tried to buy victory for his party’s candidate. He was unable to. So I mean, it’s Africa.

n+1: Of all the places you’ve dealt with, Africa was just the least developed, is that the main thing?

HFM: It’s the most chaotic. People talk about corruption, but like really effective corruption requires something like organization. Like Argentina. It’s organized, it’s very organized corruption. Even a lot of Russia, to a certain extent. Very organized corruption. Africa is certainly corrupt. But it’s more that it was chaotic. The infrastructure is poor, volatility is high. Whereas in Argentina you can predict that you will be screwed. You just know it. In Africa, anything can happen.

Like one day you’re trying to transfer funds out of out of the country and suddenly they say, “Oh, sorry there are no dollars available.” And you know if somebody said that to you in Argentina, it would be like, “Because I want you to buy the permission or whatever.” In Africa they are just, “No, there are no dollars today,” and the next day they’ll call you up, “Oh yeah there are dollars now.” There are things that happen there that in other places I would chalk up to an attempt to shake me down. There, it was often just chaos and disorganization.

n+1: You were the only ones willing to sit on the fax?

HFM: No, in Angola we had to get literally a presidential decree.

n+1: [Laughs.] How did you get that?

HFM: It took us lobbying for like two years.

n+1: You would, how would you—

HFM: When they would come to the UN or World Bank meetings, you’d meet with them, we met the ambassador, we were like, “Look, we want to invest in your country, but we want to get started with something simple so we want to be able to buy T-bills. Don’t worry, we’re not hot money, we’ll keep the money in for a long time.” Which we did. They let us in, they gave us a very small capacity, but we were involved in their T-bill market for like two years.

n+1: And that’s considered a considered a long time?

HFM: Yeah, that’s a pretty long time.

n+1: And they love you? They love you in Angola?

HFM: I don’t think they remember us anymore. It was a long time ago. Actually the ambassador that we—was it the ambassador or the finance minister?—one time we went to the ambassador or the finance minister and then the finance minister at that time was later arrested.

n+1: Why wouldn’t they let you in?

HFM: That’s the thing, it was just chaos. They’re just like “What’s the upside?” They’re just kind of suspicious. And like, “What’s a hedge fund? And if something goes wrong I’m going to get in trouble.”

n+1: Uh huh.

HFM: “Yeah, it could be good for the country to have foreign capital involved but there’s nothing in it for me, so why should I exert myself?”

n+1: Couldn’t you have bribed them?

HFM: It’s illegal!

n+1: Where?

HFM: It’s illegal under U.S. law for a U.S. citizen to pay bribes to a foreign officials.

n+1: [Scoffing chuckle.] Even if you’re over there?

HFM: Wherever you are. The government is very strict about that and we are very strict about that.

n+1: Are there places that aren’t?

HFM:

n+1: Does that put you at a disadvantage?

HFM: Theoretically. But if my business were based on paying bribes I wouldn’t want to be in it.

n+1: Did you sense that they were expecting bribes—

HFM:

n+1: They’d be like, “You should contribute to my charity fund,” or how?

HFM: It’s kind of like, “Well what’s in it for me?” “Do you mean, ‘What’s in it for your country?’” “No, what’s in it for me?”

n+1: How do you ignore that?

HFM: You say, “It’s a very good thing for your country if this investment goes forward.”

The post A foreign investor’s view on investing in “Africa” – Thoughts? appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

Lagos’ economy is significant to that of Ghana and is the heart of Nigeria’s $284 billion GDP economy.

“We base our analysis on states’ internally generated revenue, which make up 15 per cent of state government revenue, and consumption data, as proxies for state income.

“Lagos State produces about 12 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP, which is equivalent to $32 billion by 2013 ending. Post rebasing, which we now expect in early 2014, we estimate a 40 per cent upward revision in the country’s national income.

“By our estimates, the Lagos State economy will become Africa’s 13th biggest economy in 2014 at approximately $45 billion – equivalent to that of Ghana,” said RenCap.

“Lagos is among the states with the smallest household sizes – (4.9 people). Given that Lagos State is the most densely populated state in Nigeria, and its average household size is relatively small, the implication is that property prices (per square metre) must be expensive compared with those in other states,” RenCap further stated.

RenCap also further revealed that Lagos has the highest net primary school completion ratio in Nigeria at 70.6 per cent.

“The most educated workforce in coming years will also be apparent in the south and south-west, where at least 60 per cent of the children complete secondary school.

“We think education levels in the south and south west are likely to spur even faster growth, as we have seen in emerging markets globally,” the company said.

The post Lagos to be Africa’s 13th biggest economy by 2014, similar to the size of Ghana says Renaissance Capital appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

The call for projects has received more than 1,000 applications over the past two years, a figure that reflects a true entrepreneurial spirit and the potential for telecommunications on the African continent.

Encouraging the use of ICTs for development

This year, the Orange African Social Venture Prize will once again reward three entrepreneurs or start-ups offering products or services that make innovative use of ICTs to meet the needs of people on the African continent in fields as varied as healthcare, agriculture, education, energy, industry and trade.

For example, the prizewinning projects in 2012 involved mobile technology used to assist traders in food products in Ivory Coast (Vivuus Limited), a system launched in Kenya to improve the treatment of waste (Takachar) and the creation of an e-commerce site to allow people in the Senegalese diaspora to shop online for their families in Dakar.

This year, internet users will once again be able to vote online for their favourite project using the Orange portal in Africa www.StarAfrica.com. The project voted “online favourite” will be submitted directly to the jury along with the other finalists’ projects preselected by the experts and will therefore have the maximum possible chance of being among the three winners of the 2013 Awards. In 2012, the Egyptian start-up “Innovative Electronic Employment Platform” won the prize with more than 50,000 votes.

Supporting social entrepreneurs

Orange has committed to providing financial support and placing its expertise at the service of the entrepreneurs who win the competition. In addition to prize money ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 Euros, the three winners will also receive support from professional entrepreneurs and ICT experts for a period of six months. In another new initiative this year, the project submitted by the winner of the first prize will be patented by Orange in the country where it is deployed.

Who can take part?

Any entrepreneur aged 21 or over, or company that has existed for less than three years at the time of the competition, regardless of nationality, can enter the awards free of charge. The projects submitted must have plans to deploy their service in at least one of the African countries where Orange is present and make innovative use of information and communication technologies to contribute to improving the living conditions of people in those countries.

Applications may be submitted between 14 May and 20 September 2013 using the Orange portal in Africa: http://www.starafrica.com.

Discover the details of the competition on http://www.starafrica.com, and the presentation of the Orange African Social Venture Prize via video here.

The post Announcing the Orange African Social Venture Prize 2013 appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

Africa attractiveness survey 2013; Getting down to business

Despite some ongoing skepticism, the past decade has been one of robust and sustained growth in Africa.

Africa’s rise is real

Africa’s rise over the past decade has been very real. While skeptics still abound, and there are people who still seek to debate the point, the evidence of the continent’s clear progress over the past decade is irrefutable.

Over this period, a critical mass of African economies have grown at high and sustained rates; so much so that, despite the impact of the ongoing global economic situation, the size of the African economy has more than tripled since 2000. The outlook also appears positive, with many parts of the region forecast to continue experiencing relatively high growth rates and a number of African economies predicted to remain among the fastest growing in the world for the foreseeable future.

However, FDI numbers do not fully reflect the broader growth story

Despite the ongoing growth and progress, greenfield FDI projects1 into Africa dropped year-on-year in 2012. Although this is obviously disappointing, it should be noted that the decline occurred in a context in which there were substantial declines in FDI projects globally.

In fact, the global situation was such that Africa actually grew its overall share of FDI project flows from 5.4 to 5.6%.

The perception gap remains a barrier for new investors

Our 2013 Africa attractiveness survey shows some progress in terms of investor perceptions since our inaugural survey in 2011. The majority of respondents are positive about the progress made in and the outlook for Africa. Africa has also gained ground relative to other global regions: whereas in 2011 it was only ranked ahead of two other regions, this year it was ranked ahead of five other regions, (the former Soviet states, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, the Middle East and Central America).

Focus on enabling those already doing business in Africa

The fact that there are a number of companies with an already established presence in Africa that are very positive about the continent’s growth prospects and are getting down to business is crucial. These are believers in the Africa growth story, who do not need convincing; they are growing their investments, creating new jobs and focusing on long term, sustainable growth opportunities across the continent.

A framework for business and government for supporting the productive and mutually beneficial expansion of private investment in and across Africa:

• Perspective. The eye of the beholder: African business ventures can be risky, but no more so than those in much hyped emerging markets in other regions.
• Planning. Patience and persistence = results: while it is often said that rewards go to the bold, in African investing it is also true that patience is a virtue (and pays).
• Places. Seek platforms and hubs: Africa’s hallmark is diversity; the barriers to creating bigger and deeper common markets and trade areas are considerable, but are arguably receding.
• Partnerships. Relationships matter: perhaps more than in any other continent – fostering good, proper relations with all levels of government will continue to be vital to realizing strategic aims.
• People. No strategy is self-executing: sustainable success in Africa will increasingly turn on identifying, nurturing and retaining talented and committed local staff.

The post Africa’s rise is real says Ernst & Young appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

(Reuters) – After years of headlines about Africa‘s poverty, its emerging middle class is now grabbing attention as a driver of growth and democracy and an expanding pool of consumers for market-hungry retailers.

Consumer demand is a motor of Africa’s economic and investment surge, and analysts see middle class buyers with swelling disposable income as fuelling this boom from South Africa to Nigeria andKenya.

In its Africa Pulse report last month, the World Bank said consumer spending accounted for more than 60 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s buoyant economic growth, which it forecast would accelerate to more than 5 percent over the next three years, far outpacing the global average.

“It’s probably the fastest growing consumer class in the world, as a region,” said Michael Lalor, director of Ernst & Young’s Africa Business Center in Johannesburg.

From mobile phones, cars, food, and clothes to financial services and entertainment, multinational companies are homing in on lucrative new markets as millions of Africans aspire to claw their way out of still widespread poverty.

“The poor don’t drive demand in an economy, it’s the middle class that drive demand in an economy,” African Development Bank Chief Economist Mthuli Ncube told Reuters.

“Reducing poverty means creating a middle class. Sometimes people think pushing the middle class means forgetting about poverty, but it’s the other side of the coin,” he added.

Global demand for African commodities, driven by China, has also boosted economic growth along with strong investment in productive industries and infrastructure. The World Bank forecast foreign direct investment in Sub-Saharan Africa will reach $54 billion by 2015, up from $37.7 billion in 2012.

At the same time, a greater number of African countries are achieving relative stability in politics and economic policy, allowing the middle class to emerge.

Accurately quantifying this African middle class has become an obsession for institutions such as the African Development Bank (AfDB) and World Bank, as well as consultancies advising corporate clients seeking an edge in this booming continent.

But this is a challenging task in a very diverse region – still the least developed on the planet – where reliable data is patchy and whose more than 50 economies range from regional powerhouses South Africa and Nigeria to U.N. Development Index laggards such as Niger and Mozambique.

A CONSUMING CLASS

“There are elastic definitions … The middle class is very different in Kenya, for example, where you need far less disposable income than you might need in the United States,” said Ernst & Young’s Lalor.

One of the most frequently quoted – and debated – studies is a 2011 report by the African Development Bank. This said that, based on a daily per capita consumption definition of $2-20, Africa’s middle class had risen by 2010 to 34 percent of its population – or nearly 350 million people – from about 126 million or 27 percent in 1980.

Given that $2 a day or below is widely accepted globally as a poverty indicator, many economists see the AfDB’s middle class range, as cited in its 2011 report, as too broad and optimistic.

Standard Bank economist Simon Freemantle says other studies indicate a more “African-appropriate” measure of middle class level income of between $15 and $20 a day. “There, Africa’s middle class would be closer to 120 million, out of a population of just over a billion, so roughly 10 percent,” he said.

Citigroup’s Africa Economist David Cowan preferred not to use the term “middle class” at all in relation to Africa. “I don’t believe there’s an African middle class,” he said, when compared with Europe or Asia.

Cowan would rather speak of a rapidly expanding “huge consuming class”, with ideally $5,000-7,000 of disposable income a year ($14-19 a day).

“That’s a level at which people can really make consumer purchases … middle class in my mind should able to afford a washing machine and go out and buy a motorbike,” he said.

“DRIVERS OF DEMOCRACY”

Few doubted that the emerging middle class was an important group for defining Africa’s economic and political course.

As keen users of mobile phones and the Internet, including social media networks, they were plugged into the digital world and international news and therefore had a role as opinion makers and agents of reform and change.

“The mobile phone in Africa is creating a politically conscious class,” said Cowan, citing Kenya’s election in March.

Many analysts believe digital media played a part there in keeping tribal tensions in check during the vote and allowing a generally peaceful poll which averted a repeat of post-election violence that killed more than 1,200 people in 2007/2008.

Middle class voters are seen more likely to vote according to policies and issues rather than automatic or traditional allegiances to any party or ethnic group.

AfDB’s Ncube believes the better-educated are supporting a perceived and widening trend towards more democratic maturity and better governance on the continent.

“They are your enlightened voters, they will support policies, and not just an affiliation emotionally,” he said. “They are drivers of democracy.”

Reflecting change in post-apartheid South Africa, recent research by the University of Cape Town Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing shows the black middle class there has more than doubled in eight years to 4.2 million in 2012, and its annual spending has overtaken its white counterpart group.

“The growth in this country, both economically and certainly in terms of spending power, comes from the black middle class,” Unilever Institute Director John Simpson told Reuters.

He said the ANC government, which had long focused on the poor masses as its core voting base, was now being forced to pay more attention to the black middle class – which it has also helped create through affirmative action policies.

But even if one accepts the AfDB’s broadly inclusive figure of around 300 million in the African middle class, chief economist Ncube says at least half these people do not enjoy real economic security.

“That 150 million between $2-4 a day, it’s very vulnerable, it could slip back any time into poverty,” he said.

Political and economic shocks, such as conflict, unrest or upheaval, could also have a heavy impact on the livelihoods of lower-earning middle class members, Ncube added.

“Naturally, the closer you are to $4 (a day) … even just a small lift in food prices, and that group immediately becomes vulnerable,” said Freemantle.

The post Africa’s emerging middle class is the world’s fastest growing appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

The Impact of Robotic Surgery on Nigerian Healthcare

Robotic surgery is currently more precise the nearer the surgeon is to their patient, but technology is advancing daily in this ground breaking new field of medicine, meaning that very soon remote surgery will be a viable option for even the most exacting of procedures. This will allow the best surgeons in any specialty to operate on a patient from wherever they are. At present, if the most experienced and recommended brain surgeon lives in London or New York, a costly trip to the UK or the US is necessary for any operation, putting life-saving surgeries out of the reach of anyone but the wealthiest Nigerians.

Imagine now that surgery can be performed remotely, taking the costly overseas trip out of the equation. Currently, robotic surgeries are most frequently used to allow surgeons to perform complex and detailed operations in a less invasive manner. Open-heart surgery typically involves several centimetre long incisions into the chest, allowing the surgeon ample room to work, but robotic tools are much smaller, requiring only a few well-placed cuts, making the same surgery significantly less invasive and traumatic.

The Nigerian Healthcare Revolution

You may think that healthcare in Nigeria is not advanced enough to have access to such high technology, but equipment such as MRI, CT and Ultrasound scanners, along with many more, are all currently available and working to save lives in Nigerian hospitals today. These machines create precise images of the desired section of the body, allowing for exact diagnoses to be made. This makes various treatments infinitely more accessible to all Nigerians, as well as allowing experts from around the world to consult on complex cases.

The latest technologies are being installed and maintained to the highest standards in Nigerian hospitals by companies like Deux Projects Limited, under the management of Dr. Tunji Olowolafe has used his extensive experience and training to guide Deux Projects in bringing the most advanced medical equipment to Nigerian hospitals where it saves lives with daily diagnoses and treatments.

Healthcare in Nigeria has been revolutionised by this modern equipment. Deux Projects Limited not only brings the most modern medical equipment to Nigeria, but they also provide the knowledge and expertise to help with Nigeria’s power crisis, building electrical infrastructure to meet the ever-growing demand for power, and decreasing power outages which limit hospitals’ access to life-saving equipment.

Thanks to companies like Deux Project Limited and its CEO, Nigeria is better placed to meet the demands of the future, today.

The post How telecommuting can improve Nigeria’s healthcare sector appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

As part of the program, in its first phase, Nigerians 16 years and older, and all residents in the country for more than two years, will get the new multipurpose identity card which has 13 applications including MasterCard’s prepaid payment technology that will provide cardholders with the safety, convenience and reliability of electronic payments. This will have a significant and positive impact on the lives of these Nigerians who have not previously had access to financial services.

The Project will have Access Bank Plc as the pilot issuer bank for the cards and Unified Payment Services Limited (Unified Payments) as the payment processor. Other issuing banks will include United Bank for Africa, Union Bank, Zenith, Skye Bank, Unity Bank, Stanbic, and First Bank.

The announcement was witnessed by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy in Nigeria, who stressed the importance of the National Identity Smart Card Scheme in moving Nigeria to an electronic platform. This program is good practice for us to bring all the citizens on a common platform for interacting with the various government agencies and for transacting electronically. We will implement this initiative in a collaborative manner between the public and private sectors, to achieve its full potential of inclusive citizenship and more effective governance,” she said.

“Today’s announcement is the first phase of an unprecedented project in terms of scale and scope for Nigeria,” said Michael Miebach, President, Middle East and Africa, MasterCard. “MasterCard has been a firm supporter of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Cashless Policy as we share a vision of a world beyond cash.  From the program’s inception, we have provided the Federal Government of Nigeria with global insights and best practices on how electronic payments can enable economic growth and create a more financially inclusive economy”.

Chris ‘E Onyemenam, the Director General and Chief Executive of the National Identity Management Commission, said “We have chosen MasterCard to be the payment technology provider for the initial rollout of the National Identity Smart Card project because the Company has shown a commitment to furthering financial inclusion through the reduction of cash in the Nigerian economy.” He added “MasterCard has pioneered large scale card schemes that combine biometric functionality with electronic payments and we want to capitalize on their experience in this field to make our program rollout a sustainable success for the country and for the continent.”

“Access Bank’s involvement in this project is testament to our ongoing efforts to expand financial inclusion in Nigeria,” said Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, CEO of Access Bank. “The new identity card will revolutionize the Nigerian economic landscape, breaking down one of the most significant barriers to financial inclusion – proof of identity, while simultaneously providing Nigerians with a world class payment solution”.

“Unified Payments is the foremost transaction processor and pioneer of EMV processing and acquiring in Nigeria, owned by leading Nigerian banks. We will use our expertise and experience to guarantee the success of the project and ensure that the data of Nigerians are protected. We look forward to working with other partners in delivering value to all stakeholders’’, said Agada Apochi, Managing Director and CEO, Unified Payments.

The new National Identity Smart Card will incorporate the unique National Identification Numbers (NIN) of duly registered persons in the country. The enrollment process involves the recording of an individual’s demographic data and biometric data (capture of 10 fingerprints, facial picture and digital signature) that are used to authenticate the cardholder and eliminate fraud and embezzlement. The resultant National Identity Database will provide the platform for several other value propositions of the NIMC including identity authentication and verification.

Thanks to the unique and unambiguous identification of individuals under the NIMS, other identification card schemes like the Driver’s License, Voters Registration, Health Insurance, Tax, SIM and the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) will benefit and can all be integrated, using the NIN, into the multi-function Card Scheme of the NIMS. When fully utilizing the card as a prepaid payment tool, the cardholder can deposit funds on the card, receive social benefits, pay for goods and services at any of the 35 million MasterCard acceptance locations globally, withdraw cash from all ATMs that accept MasterCard, or engage in many other financial transactions that are facilitated by electronic payments. All in a secure and convenient environment enabled by the EMV Chip and Pin standard.

Upon completion of the National ID registration process, NIMC aims to introduce more than 100 million cards to Nigeria’s 167 million citizens.

About MasterCard

MasterCard(NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com, is a technology company in the global payments industry. We operate the world’s fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. MasterCard’s products and solutions make everyday commerce activities – such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances – easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MasterCardNews, join the discussion on the Cashless Conversations Blog and subscribe for the latest news.

About NIMC

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) was established by the NIMC Act No.23, 2007 as the primary legal, regulatory and institutional mechanism for implementing a reliable and sustainable national identity management system that will enable Nigerian citizens and legal residents assert their identity. The Act mandates the NIMC to create, own, operate and manage a national identity database, issue national identification numbers to registered individuals, provide identity authentication and verification services, issue multipurpose smartcards, integrate identity databases across government agencies and foster the orderly development of the identity sector in Nigeria. The Act also empowered the NIMC to collaborate with any public and or private sector organization to realize its objectives.

About Unified Payments

Unified Payments is owned by a consortium of Nigerian Banks. Our core businesses comprise Processing, Merchant Acquiring, Switching, Payment Terminal Services and provision of Value Added Services & Solutions. Unified Payments pioneered the issuance and acceptance of EMV Chip + PIN cards in Nigeria, leading to reduction of ATM fraud in Nigeria by over 95%. The company enabled Nigerian banks and merchants for the first time ever to accept foreign cards at ATMs and Points of Sale Terminals, and also pioneered the issuance of Naira cards that are globally accepted.

About Access Bank

Access Bank Plc is a full service commercial Bank operating through a network of over 300 branches and service outlets located in major centres across Nigeria, Sub Saharan Africa and the United Kingdom. Listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the Bank has over 800,000 shareholders and has enjoyed what is arguably Africa’s most successful banking growth trajectory in the last ten years ranking amongst Africa’s top 20 banks by total assets and capital in 2011. As part of its continued growth strategy, Access Bank has made sustainable business core to all its operations. The Bank strives to deliver sustainable economic growth that is profitable, environmentally responsible and socially relevant.

The post Mastercard to power Nigeria’s Identity card program; 13 Million Cards to be issued first, in largest card rollout of its kind in Africa appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

For the next 20 years we are going to have our hands full with opportunity.
Patrick Fitzgibbon, Hilton

(CNN) – Major international hotel chains are increasingly rolling out thousands of new rooms in Africa’s business hotspots, keen to expand their footprint on the continent’s burgeoning economies.

From Lagos and Kigali to Nairobi and Johannesburg, the world’s best known hoteliers are targeting Africa’s growing urban centers to benefit from a rising number of business travelers and a huge undersupply in available rooms.

“There’s a growing demand in those capital cities because they are the centers of business, of government and of commerce — all of which have hospitality needs,” says Patrick Fitzgibbon, senior vice president of development for Hilton Worldwide, Europe and Africa.

“We have a very bullish feel for these markets and we are very excited about the opportunity Africa presents,” he adds. “I think that for the next 20 years we are going to have our hands full with opportunity.”

‘World woken up to Africa’

Last month, the International Monetary Fund said that sub-Saharan Africa’s economy is expected to expand by 5.6% in 2013 and 6.1% next year, outpacing the global average of 3.3% and 4% in accordance.

Andrew McLachlan, Carlson Rezidor Vice President for Africa and Indian Ocean Islands, says it is Africa’s potential to offset the sluggishness in more developed markets that’s appealing to global players.

“What has really happened is that post the economic crash in 2008/2009, the rest of the world has really woken up to Africa,” says McLachlan.

“There’s been such good news coming out of Africa from a GDP growth point of view; better telecommunications; improved security; political stability; and improved airlift,” he adds. “It’s really become a sort of new scramble back into Africa.”

Meanwhile, international tourism arrivals in the continent grew by 6% last year to reach a record 52 million,according to data by the World Tourism Organization.

And whilst both international and intra-regional travel are on the up, partly thanks to Africa’s natural resources boom, a shortage of rooms is prompting hoteliers to turn their attention to a continent ignored for decades.

Business travel

According to a recent survey by Lagos-based consultancy W Hospitality Group, some 40,000 new rooms in 207 hotels are planned in the continent’s under-served cities, up almost one third compared to 2011.

Hilton, which operates nearly 11,000 rooms in 37 properties in Africa, says it has some 5,200 rooms and 17 hotels in the pipeline across the continent. Carlson Rezidor, which recently opened a Radisson Blu in Port Harcourt, its eighth hotel in Nigeria and 49th in the continent, is targeting 12 new hotel deals this year. French group Accor, owner of the Novotel and Ibis brands, has some 5,000 rooms in the pipeline, according to the W Hospitality survey.

“The vast majority of those hotels are business-oriented,” explains Trevor Ward, managing director of W Hospitality. “If you look at where those hotel chains are primarily going, it’s the capital cities or the major commercial cities of Africa where the business traveler is going,” he adds.

Yet, it’s not only the brands at the higher ends of the market that are keen to tap Africa’s promise. In late March, pan-African conglomerate Lonrho teamed up with Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s easyGroup to open their first Africa-based low budget hotel in Johannesburg’s central business district.

Read this: Low-cost airline in Africa by easyJet founder

Ewan Cameron, chief executive of Lonrho Hotels, says the company plans to roll out 50 easyHotel units by 2016 in the continent’s high-growth destinations to cater to the needs of African business travelers.

“What’s driving us is genuine trade and business in the continent,” explains Cameron. “If you’re going to a city center like Nairobi, we want to be where the taxi rank is; where the market is — unlike the competition who want to be, if you like, in the beautiful parts of the city,” he adds. “We will sacrifice this for economic drivers — we want the trade and we want to be where you want to do business.”

‘Real challenges‘

Still, international hoteliers have to overcome several infrastructure and logistics obstacles in their bid to plant their flags across the continent.

Cameron says hotels often have to be self-sustained, depending on satellite connectivity for fast wi-fi and generators for back up power, as well as having to provide their own clean water. “These are real challenges for us today,” he says.

Analysts also say that companies can face big delays during the construction process due to poor workmanship and a shortage of professional skills. Bureaucracy and corruption can often be a problem too, especially when it comes to importing materials that are not available locally.

Quick returns

Yet, despite these hurdles, hotel groups remain very positive about their future in Africa as the continued rise in demand and undersupply in hotel rooms offer strong occupancy rates and high profitability margins in short periods of time.

“These challenges we face, we quickly forget about them the day the hotel opens,” says McLachlan. “Normally, we would say the hotel takes 1,000 days from the day it opens to stabilize but in a lot of these African markets it can take a couple of months to stabilize because of the high demand for hotels.”

Fitzgibbon agrees. “It’s fascinating when you look at the change and opportunity on the continent and just what it represents,” he says.

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Sending money back home beats foreign aid

By Adams Bodomo, published in Africa in Fact 

The African diaspora is a major source of foreign income—so large that it now outstrips foreign aid sent by Western donors. Nearly 140m Africans live abroad. The money they send back home, remittances, is worth far more—in value and usefulness— than the development donations sent by Western financial institutions.

The exact amount of these remittances is unknown because not all of it is sent through official banking channels. But the official volume to the continent has gradually increased over the years, from $11 billion in 2000 to $60 billion in 2012, according to the World Bank. As a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP), remittances in Africa range from next-to-nothing to almost 5%.

Worldwide remittances to developing countries were $351 billion in 2011, far exceeding the $129 billion in official development assistance (ODA), according to the World Bank.

The remittances paid by Africans living abroad also rival official aid to the continent. Total diaspora contributions to Africa in 2010 stood at $51.8 billion compared to the roughly $43 billion in ODA, according to the latest figures from the World Bank.

The payments are bound to grow even higher because new diasporas are emerging in economically fast-developing areas of the world. Currently, more than 70% of the remittances that flow to sub-Saharan Africa are from the West. But this pattern may change because of the economic downturn in many of these countries. Instead, a growing percentage of remittances will come from new African diasporas in places like Brazil, China, India and Russia.

Figures obtained from interviewing about 1,000 African diaspora members in China indicate that Africans send home anywhere from $1,600 to $16,000 per person annually. About half a million Africans live in China. If all were to send money back home, it could add up to anywhere between $800m and $8 billion a year. (This does not include the value of the merchandise bought in China and sold in Africa, which is not considered a remittance but nonetheless is a large contribution to trade from diaspora Africans.)

Africans living abroad send money back home through wire transfers that can be tracked. But they also send money unofficially through parcels in the mail or deliver it personally on visits to the family. Up to 75% of remittances sent to Africa arrive through informal channels, according to African Development Bank estimates, suggesting the total amount is up to four times higher than official sums.

Not only are diaspora remittances more substantial than recorded, but they are also more beneficial than foreign aid. Africans living abroad send money home on a regular basis directly to family or friends, who can judge their needs better than the government. These monies go directly towards paying school fees, building houses and growing businesses.

Of course, sometimes families mis-spend their remittances, but this waste is nothing compared to the misappropriations and legendary inefficiencies in the foreign aid industry.

In her book “Dead Aid”, Dambisa Moyo lists myriad inefficiencies related to foreign aid and exposes the magnitude of official corruption involved in its management. In 2004 experts argued before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that roughly $100 billion of World Bank funds spent on development had been lost to corruption, she reported.

Remittances are more efficient than foreign aid because they come without conditions, for the most part. They are gifts of love to family members meant to bring about the development of the family—and hence the nation.

Foreign aid funds, on the other hand, are not free gifts. As with most bank loans, strings are attached. Donor institutions, especially, impose conditions such as structural adjustment programmes, public sector deregulation and privatisation. Sometimes they even demand the overhaul of the country’s political system before providing funds. A case in point is British Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent threat to withhold aid from Uganda and other countries in which homosexuality is illegal.

Some recipient governments and their citizens view these demands as a neo-colonial tool to influence or control their nation’s socio-economic and political development. In many cases there is little evidence that conditions on aid have led to marked improvements in recipient countries’ economies, mostly because of corruption and inefficiency.

But remittances reaching Africa could be even greater. Exorbitant transaction costs, compounded by the nature of remittances (mostly small amounts sent frequently) gobble up a large part of the money sent to Africa. On average almost 9% of global remittances are lost to banking fees. Africa is the worst hit, losing about 12%, according to the World Bank. So, in 2012, of the $60 billion sent by exiled Africans about $7 billion never made it into their relatives’ accounts.

Given the clear advantages of remittances over foreign aid funds and the large amounts they represent, it is disappointing that African governments have not implemented more robust policies to attract remittances.

One way would be to involve diaspora Africans in their country’s political systems by allowing them to vote from abroad. Another idea, already implemented very successfully by Israel, India and most recently Ethiopia, are diaspora bonds, a debt security issued by a country to its own diaspora to tap into their assets.

Giving African migrants a greater say in the economic and political governance of their countries could foster greater investor confidence.

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Morten Jerven asks: What do we know about income and growth in sub-Saharan Africa? The answer is: much less than we like to think. The data are unreliable and potentially seriously misleading. The question is of great importance. Economic growth rates or per capita income estimates are commonly used in statements about development in Africa.

By Morten Jerven, Africa at LSE

Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It

In my book Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It, I have studied the measurement problems in African economies, and specifically analysed the methods and sources underlying the different GDP estimates that have been made since independence.

The measurement of African economies has long been an overlooked issue, but recently there have been some well publicised statistical events that warn data users that the African growth and income evidence does not tell us as much as we would like to think.

On 5 November 2010, Ghana Statistical Services announced that it was revising the GDP estimates upwards by over 60 percent, suggesting that in previous GDP estimates economic activities worth about US$13 billion had been missed. After the revision a range of new activities were accounted for, and as a result Ghana was suddenly upgraded from a low-income country to a lower-middle-income country. In the autumn of 2011 Nigeria also announced a forthcoming upward revision of its GDP. This revision is not yet complete, but it has been suggested that the GDP revision in Nigeria will cause a similarly large jump in GDP. If GDP doubles in Nigeria following the revision it will mean that the GDP for the whole region increases by more than 15%. The value of the increase amounts to as much as 40 economies roughly the size of Malawi’s.

The revisions have caused confusion and disbelief in the development community. As I have explained in African Arguments, the cause for these large upward revisions is that the base year, the foundation of the system that generates GDP numbers had not been updated in Nigeria and Ghana for over two decades. As I report in my book, there are many countries that are currently in a similar position.

The conclusion is that any evaluation of whether Africa’s rise is real or not must begin and end with a careful evaluation of the growth and income evidence. Without such analysis one runs the risk of reporting statistical fiction.

Thus, we may want to take the recent growth statistics from African economies with a pinch or two of salt, but is the recent rapid growth entirely statistical fiction? The answer is that some of it is, but that it is hard to tell exactly by how much – to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld – there are many known unknowns in African growth statistics.

Quite a bit of the recent economic growth is not based on observed or recorded economic change, but is rather a result of what can be called statistical growth.  Part of this growth is simply occurring by assumption – there is some growth in the formally recorded sector, and accountants adjust the GDP estimates to capture growth in the unrecorded sectors. This “informal economy” is by definition unrecorded, so the data added to the national accounts are very malleable. Nevertheless, this kind of growth by proxy is at least to some extent believable and defensible fiction.

What to do about it? For data users the policy implication is to question your evidence carefully. Although the time series data are readily downloadable from international databases, it is important to remember that these data are supplied from the national statistical offices, and to use the evidence correctly the same rules of source criticism of an historian applies. One needs to ask: under what conditions were these observations made? Is there other collaborating evidence that contradicts or confirms the observations?

The main burden lies with the disseminators and producers of statistics. The current system causes more confusion than enlightenment, yet governments, international organisations and independent analysts do need development statistics to track and monitor efforts at improving living conditions on the continent. One of the most urgent challenges in African economic development is thus to devise a strategy for improving statistical capacity.

The Millennium Development Goals put the measurement of development at the top of the agenda. The aim of the development community was summed up in 8 goals, 18 targets and 48 indicators. It is hard not to agree with the desirability of meeting these goals, yet it was somehow forgotten that the task of filling the information gap fell to the statistical offices in Africa and other poor economies around the world. The problem is that the map of statistical capacity on the African continent is very uneven today, and as a result any ranking of countries in Africa according to GDP and economic growth is going to be misleading. The first step towards a solution is to acknowledge the problem.

Morten Jerven is Assistant Professor at the Simon Fraser University, School for International Studies. His book Poor Numbers: how we are misled by African development statistics and what to do about it is published by Cornell University Press.

Morten Jerven will be present to launch the the book on Wednesday 22nd May 6 pm – 7 pm at the Waterstone’s Economists’ Bookshop at LSE Campus – Clare Market, London WC2A 2AB

The post Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

In the last months, foodpanda and hellofood expanded into 15 more countries and launched a mobile app for iOS and Android, which is already the leading food delivery app in most countries. foodpanda cooperates with more than 15,000 restaurants and is already market leader in the majority of the countries the company operates in. foodpanda recently also took over the competitor Ételvitel KFT in Hungary.

Ralf Wenzel, global managing director: “Winning the trust from these well-known and experienced investors is a great achievement for such a young company and emphasizes the position of foodpanda as the most global food delivery service. With the new capital we will make another huge step forward to further accelerated growth and optimized customer service. It’s our goal that foodpanda comes into everyone’s mind, when thinking about ordering food.”

About hellofood

foodpanda together with its affiliated brand hellofood is the leading group of online food ordering platforms active in 27 countries. It helps restaurants to increase sales through online and mobile platforms and provides them with constantly evolving technology and analytics.

For consumers, foodpanda offers an online marketplace with widest gastronomic range, including e.g. salads, pizza, burger and sushi. Consumers choose their favorite meal on the platform or via app; foodpanda processes the order to the restaurant that delivers to the doorstep.

foodpanda and hellofood are offering their services in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria, Russia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Hungary, Venezuela, Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Saudi Arabia.

The post Rocket Internet’s hellofood receives over $20 million in funding from Kinnevik, Phenomen Ventures appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

BRCK is the easiest, most reliable way to connect to the internet, anywhere in the world, even when you don’t have electricity

www.brck.com | Twitter: @brcknet

Check out the BRCK’s project description below.

To fund BRCK, visit the project’s Kickstarter page here

Our Story

Anyone who has worked in the field — or anyplace far from the world’s most wired urban areas — knows how hard it can be to get connected and stay online. And yet the equipment used to connect in Kenya, or India, or the rest of the developing world is the same as that used in New York and London, even though the conditions are completely different.

At Ushahidi, we face this problem all the time. We realized that what we really needed was a smart, rugged device that could connect to the internet any way it could, hop from one network to another, create a hotspot for multiple devices, while plugged in or running on battery power.

The idea behind BRCK is that all kinds of jobs require steady connectivity, even when infrastructure is spotty due to wireless connections that come and go, intermittent power, or devices that can’t share connections. Seeing this, we set out to redesign connectivity for the world we live in – Africa. As we laid out what such a device would look like — physically robust, able to connect to multiple networks, a hub for all local devices, enough backup power to survive a blackout — we realized that the way the entire world is connecting to the web is changing. We no longer only get online via desktops in our office, we have multiple devices, and we are all constantly on the move. So we designed the BRCK for the changing way we connect to the web around the world, from cafe-hoppers in San Francisco to struggling coders in Nairobi .

The BRCK is like a backup generator for the internet.

It works when the electricity goes out and it works when the internet goes down. It is portable and easy to set up. It supports up to 20 devices, with WiFi powerful enough to cover multiple rooms. Our motto has always been “if it works in Africa, it will work anywhere.”

Our aim is to move the BRCK from its current prototype phase into a field-ready product. We need your help to achieve this goal of taking the prototype to production.

Who are we?

Ushahidi, is a non-profit technology company that builds open source software, tools that democratize information for ordinary people.  The word “Ushahidi” means “testimony” in Swahili, and came out of the crowdsourced mapping platform we built during the Kenyan post-election violence in 2008. Founders David Kobia, Juliana Rotich, and Erik Hersman have focused on building tools that improve the way information flows in the world, and the BRCK is a natural extension of this.

As a company of engineers working in places with poor infrastructure, we simply cannot get connected as reliably as our peers in the developed world. Since our software came out of a crisis situation, the tools we build are aimed at helping people communicate in the toughest of situations, and helping collect information in the most difficult places. Our software has been used for blizzards in Washington DC, hurricanes in the US, earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, and election monitoring around the world. BRCK is our answer to a fundamental problem that arises during these situations and during the daily life of much of the world: the need for reliable connections in unpredictable environments.

Innovation comes from the edges, from solving real problems with constrained resources. Change happens at the frontier.

The Technology Behind The BRCK

The BRCK works much the way your cell phone does, by intelligently and seamlessly switching between Ethernet, Wifi, and 3G or 4G mobile phone networks. By plugging in a SIM card or connecting to a wired or wireless ethernet connection the BRCK will automatically get online. Power is also redundant; if your AC power fails, BRCK falls back on its 8-hour battery without needing to be told.

The BRCK is a software infused device, operating seamlessly with the BRCK Cloud, our website that you can access from anywhere to check how network connections and electricity are performing on your device. You can also manage alerts and applications remotely from your phone or computer, as well as gather data reported from attached sensors or computers.

There’s a darn smart backend to the BRCK as well, a cloud-based system that syncs your BRCK with current data from cellular providers in your country. This backend provides a dashboard of metrics to monitor your connectivity and devices over time, and a way to install new services like VPN, Dropbox or any other app that you might create.

The Rewards

Stretch Goals

Our goal of $125K is enough for us to get manufacturing started on the basic BRCK, but there are some other cool things we would like to do.  The more we raise, the more fun stuff we’ll be able to offer!

• We will release the BRCK in three different lid colors, red, blue, yellow. Purchasers of all BRCKs will be able to choose their color! ($250,000)
• Earlier release of scripting “SDK” documentation. An SDK is the documentation and example code for interfacing with the BRCK from your own software applications. ($300,000)
• GPIO Port Breakout/Dev Board for all BRCKs. GPIO break out lets you easily connect external hardware projects to the BRCK. ($400,000)
• Pre-installed cloud-service apps such as VPN and Dropbox on all $300+ reward packages ($500,000)
• All BRCKS get a smart AC power supply, ($600,000)
• Raspberry Pi integration model option for all $300+ reward packages. We will build out a version of the BRCK that fits the Pi, with a style and design that brings the two together. When connected to the BRCK with 16Gb of storage space, this gives you a highly portable mini-server that’s always connected. ($750,000)

How do I set it up?

Out of the box, the only thing that needs to be done with the BRCK hardware itself is to secure an internet connection. Once connected, the BRCK is registered and secured ensuring that only you and any other users you authorize have access to its information and capabilities.

After registering, you can configure your BRCK to serve a variety of critical functions.

How does the BRCK Cloud Work?

We wanted BRCK to be more than a hardware hack, we wanted it to be a useful device with ever-evolving functionality. To make that happen, BRCK’s software has a documented API so anyone can develop apps for it. It can also hold 16 GB of memory and you can sync your data directly to your Dropbox, other connected devices, or other applications.

How does the BRCK work anywhere?

If a BRCK can survive in the Kenyan bush it can certainly survive in the urban jungle of New York or the colorful chaos of New Delhi. As part of the BRCK Cloud we have incorporated a global database of cellular data providers that is automatically synced to the BRCK. This ensures that maintaining connectivity anywhere in the world is accomplished with nothing more than a change of SIM card. Further, with the power of a cloud-based hardware platform, a BRCK device that is deployed in rural Indonesia can be fully managed from an office in Paris – or vice versa.

Configuration Capabilities of the BRCK Cloud

• WiFi connectivity including bridged, access point, and router capabilities
• Ethernet monitoring of both connectivity and bandwidth
• Failover paths for data connectivity (e.g. Ethernet->3G->Ethernet, WiFi->3G->Ethernet)
• Access control security
• Network routing configuration
• Port forwarding and NAT
• DHCP settings
• Bandwidth throttling and load balancing
• Notification settings
• Mobile topup
• Serial outputs
• GPIO state

How is the BRCK a data collection tool?

The flexibility of the BRCK isn’t limited to just network connectivity and software. We developed the BRCK to also provide hardware expansion capabilities that allow it to be used to connect with field hardware from sensors to robots. Through different data port connections the BRCK can be used to monitor security sensors or communicate with other electronic devices – including other BRCKs. Securely managed entirely from the BRCK Cloud, the expansion ports can be programmed to periodically relay values from analog sensors or to provide an immediate notification when a monitored switch is activated. With the ability to manage an unlimited number of BRCK devices from the same Cloud interface, the BRCK can serve to enable enterprises both big and small with remote connectivity and field data collection from a single, unified portal.

We’ve pinned out 8 GPIO pins from the processor to an easily accessible breakout along with 5 volts out and Serial pins, so you can program your BRCK to act as a bridge between your web-based project and an external hardware project. In short, you can add sensors to your BRCK and send live data up to a server. Or you could connect a BRCK to a RasberryPi to make a portable mini-server. The BRCK can keep a sensor operating and plugged into the internet.

Monitoring that can be performed from the BRCK Cloud

• Mobile balance and usage
• Battery status and usage
• Broadband uptime statistics
• Power uptime statistics
• Connected users
• BRCK heartbeat
• Analog inputs
• GPIO status
• Serial inputs

What makes the BRCK so much better?

In these vast expanses of the real world we demand a ruggedness, reliability, and usefulness from our equipment – because our lives and livelihoods depend on it. When we buy new equipment we value simplicity of usage and resourceful flexibility over slick packaging and gimmicky features. It is why we will chose an old Land Rover over a new Lexus. Practical beats pretty everyday when you live beyond the edge of the concrete jungle.

Crowdmap Plus

We build software tools ools like the Ushahidi platform itself, Crowdmap, SwiftRiverand SMSsync.  So we’re excited to bring you the newest version of Crowdmap (public beta available on May 6th), and offer the premium service “Crowdmap Plus” for our supporters.

One of the rewards you’ll get as part of the BRCK is premium level access to our newly rebuilt Crowdmap platform, called Crowdmap Plus.

Crowdmap is the easiest way to map anything.

• Publish text, photos and multimedia to any map, from any web-browsing device
• Create immersive maps. Quickly pin new or existing posts, then dive into your interactive, full-screen map.
• Follow maps you like. Keep up with the latest posts from maps and people you’re interested in.
• Search the crowd. Find real-time information from anywhere in the world, about any topic.

The Team

Juliana Rotich – Executive Director

Juliana Rotich is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Ushahidi, Inc, a non-profit tech company, born in Africa, which specializes in developing free and open source software for information collection, interactive mapping and data curation. Ushahidi builds tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories. Through Crowdmap.com, Swiftapp.comand accompanying mobile applications, Ushahidi is expanding its global footprint and making crowdsourcing tools available and useful, and catalyzing entrepreneurial initiatives like iHub in Kenya.

Juliana has worked in the telecommunications and data warehousing industry for over ten years. She has a Computer Science degree from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. She is a Technologist, MIT Fellow, TED Senior Fellow and currently serves as Vice Chair of World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Data Driven Development.

She also blogs at ‘Afromusing‘ blog, typically with a focus on African tech and renewable energy. She is a budding African Futurist and a TED Senior Fellow. She often speaks at international conferences about tech and Africa.

Jon Shuler – R&D Manager

Jonathan is self described polymath with a background in multimedia journalist and a penchant for taking things apart to make new things.  Like all hardware hackers, Jonathan’s experience has come out of necessity and frustrations.   His improvised creations have ranged from a remote trigger systems to sync sound and multiple cameras for multi-cam interviews, to hot-wiring a hard drive to a car battery in order to file a story from the DRC .

Jonathan has been collaborating with Ushahidi since the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, creating videos which highlighted the impact of Ushahidi Platform has on real people’s lives.  As R&D Manager for Ushahidi, Jonathan leads a team of engineers and designers developing hardware that we hope will change the way we experience internet connectivity.

Erik Hersman – Director of Ops and Strategy

Erik Hersman is an international technology influencer with a keen eye on the impact of web and mobile technology innovation across Africa. Raised in Sudan and Kenya, Erik brings unique energy and insight to the world of technology and innovation – bridging the gap between Africa and the West.  As part of the Ushahidi strategy he built the iHub (Nairobi’s innovation hub) in 2010, a place that has grown to 10,000+ Kenyan developers, designers, and entrepreneurs with connections in the corporate, academic and investor sectors.

An avid blogger, Erik writes two different technology-related blogs - AfriGadget andWhiteAfrican. He is frequently a speaker at meetings and conferences dealing with technology in Africa, including; TED, PopTech, DEMO, Picnic, SXSW and re:publica(this week).  He is a TED Senior Fellow, a PopTech Faculty Fellow, and is a founding organizer of Maker Faire Africa.

David Kobia – Director of Technology Development

David is a co-founder and technology lead at Ushahidi and brings more than 10 years of product development experience and a multidisciplinary background to his work, with a focus on social and emerging technologies. He works in a variety of roles, from designer and coder to strategist. After pursuing a BS in Computer Science at the University of Alabama, he has been a professional software developer and has worked with almost every web technology in use today. In 2010, he was a recipient of MIT Technology Review’s TR35 award (35 top innovators under 35) and the Humanitarian of the Year award.

Nathaniel Manning – Director of Business

Nathaniel’s work orbits around the theme of developing technology that makes the world a better place. As a former Presidential Innovation Fellow and the Chief Data Coordinator at USAID he was responsible for developing strategies for liberating data to fuel innovation for development. As an alumnus of Singularity University he co-founded 9th Sense Robotics, a telepresence robotics platform that allows for customization with sensors and software. He is a TEDed speaker and holds a BA and MA from Brown University.

He is currently attempting to build a 3D printer and scanner in his basement.

Reg Orton – Director of Hardware

Reg is product designer engineer, originally from Auckland, New Zealand, and currently based in Nairobi, Kenya. Reg has worked his way across the globe over the last 10 years designing high tech solutions for a range of problems ranging from single photon counting microscopes to field ready emergency medicine tools. In particular Reg’s background in life saving medical devices has given him a real appreciation of the importance of getting products right the first time around and the real negative impact that poorly engineered devices can have in peoples lives. Reg has extensive experience bringing highly technical products all the way from concept and design, through to full blown mass production.

Philip Walton – Director of Software

Raised in Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa, Philip has a unique perspective on global culture and business that has allowed him to seamlessly engage with companies and governments in countries throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

Philip is a systems architect and technology innovator with a diverse portfolio of experience in designing and building both software and hardware systems for industries ranging from supply chain to biometrics.  As a serial, international entrepreneur, he has worked on 6 different continents using his mix of business strategy skills combined with a deep technical knowledge to successfully bridge the gap between the needs of business stakeholders and the constraints of their technology resources.    Currently involved in multiple entrepreneurial projects from his home base in Nairobi, Kenya, Philip’s long term focus is to assemble a diverse team of African technologists and business resources who can focus on building innovative systems and solutions that are uniquely suited to the broad needs of the African continent.

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They offer a wide range of retail products and are proudly Nigerian. Backed by funds from J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Jumia aims to take over the online retail space within a few years. Ndani TV spoke to co-founders Tunde and Raphael on retail marketing, sales and sustaining an online business.

The post Ndani TV interviews the co-founders of Jumia – Raphael Afaedor and Tunde Kehinde appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

We’ve all heard of the idea that entrepreneurs are people who see a ‘gap’ in the market and then create a product or service to address that gap. The implication is that there’s a ready market there that will snap up your product if you can address that need. However, this can be a challenge in many African countries in particular where the entrepreneur intends to introduce an Internet-based service even when it would appear that this is the ‘best’ way to solve the problem at hand.

The difficulty of doing Internet business in many African markets is that one may likely find that they have significant challenges with market development in addition to product development. In fact, it may well be that product development is the easiest piece of the puzzle relative to the task of market development. For example, for a startup creating an e-commerce business, the main challenge may lie not in creating the technical platform to run the store, or securing supply for the goods on the store, but more so in figuring out how to get people to be aware of the store, access it and use it with ease, then actually delivering goods to the consumer – in this case actually delivering the product in circumstances where there may not even be a reliable addressing system.

Why is this? And what can Internet startups do about it? Let’s look at two key issues and possible solutions.

Limited Addressable Market

The most apparent reason has to do with the reach of Internet services.

According to InternetWorldStats, Africa as a whole has an Internet penetration rate of about 15% or roughly 167M users out of a total population in excess of a billion. There are countries which have significantly higher rates that the continental average, and others that have dismal rates, however in some cases high Internet penetration rates are coupled with low overall population. For example, Mauritius boasts an Internet penetration rate of 35%, more than twice the continental average, but against a population of about 1.3M, leaving a local addressable market of only about 460,000.

Disparity in Internet Penetration Rates versus Population

In addition, looking at the top 10 nations by number of Internet users, only 4 out of the 10 have a user base of more than 10 million.

Top 10 Countries in Africa by Internet Penetration (InternetWorldStats)

Possible Solutions: One way around this problem is to cast the net wider – go for regional or Pan-African markets in a bid to increase your footprint. However, this comes with it’s own challenges. It has been rightly stated time and again that ‘Africa is not a country’ and so building something to target the entire continent implies the overhead of understanding different markets, jurisdictions, cultures etc – a daunting task. Perhaps it’s better to pick groupings of countries that are fairly similar, for example, working in Anglophone countries only means there’s no need to worry about language barriers as much or the East Africa Community countries which are moving towards common market protocols.

On the other hand, one can opt to go for niche markets and local excellence, small segments that can be understood in great detail and served exceptionally well e.g. a service targeted just at urban university students who are more likely to be ‘with it’ already Internet-wise.

Cultural Challenge

The fact of the matter is many Africans are only just coming online. The number of Internet users has really grown within the last decade or so as Africa got connected to the world via submarine cables and has been really driven by the mobile internet.

See: Africa – Mobile Broadband, Data and Mobile Media Market Report

Check out the graphs below, there is a correlation between mobile penetration and internet penetration:

Mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people) in Sub-Saharan Africa

Internet users as a percentage of the population (People with access to the Internet per 100 inhabitants.) in Sub-Saharan Africa

‘Internet Culture’ is not yet mainstream. Using the previous example of an e-commerce site, the culture of purchasing things online has not been there before. One can point out mobile money and claim that, the success of mobile money means that Africans are ready to take up online payments but that would be generalizing too much – for one, mobile money has really only taken off in a few countries and really with the greatest success in one major market – Kenya (of course others are coming up). Even then, in the poster child market for mobile money (Kenya) mobile payments and mobile commerce really are in their infancy. Yes, people are pretty comfortable with making mobile money transfers, but payments/commerce are just coming up (and will of course proliferate more with time and as more companies bring the concept to market such as PesaPal and KopoKopowho recently partnered with Safaricom and Eat Out Kenya to introduce mobile payments for meals at restaurants).

See: Africa – Fixed and Wireless Broadband and Internet Markets and Forecasts Report

Possible Solutions: Be prepared to do a lot of product education as you build your market. This means taking a lot of time and going to a lot of effort to really understand your target market and how to best communicate with them your value proposition. For example, TV ads only may not do it, you may need to get out on the street to educate your customers. As an example, Google recently launched a prepaid bus card with Equity Bank in Kenya. They recruited a lot of young people to sell the cards in buses but in the process these young salespeople were also tasked with educating people about the card, its benefits and how to use it by literally standing up at the front of the bus and explaining about the card.

Build it and they will come… or not

As you can see, scaling Internet-based business in Africa is not a matter of simply ‘build it and they will come‘ to some extent, you have to be prepared to go out and get them. A few final tips:

1. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you can copy and paste a service that works elsewhere and replicate its success
2. Know what you are getting into – especially, take lots of time to study, observe and understand local culture
3. Related to the previous point make sure you understand how to communicate with your market and what channels are best suited
4. Mobile internet is the default means of accessing internet for most, build for it intentionally from the beginning

Will Mutua is Founder of Afrinnovator.com

The post Scaling Internet-Based Startups in African Markets appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.

Earlier this year, Kenyans went to the polls to elect their fourth president. Many considered this year’s election as one of the most crucial in the nation’s 50-year history as it was the first election under the new constitution that called for a devolved form of government. While the presidential election was hotly contested, it is instructive to look into the country’s best kept secret for economic growth under the leadership of former President Mwai Kibaki – non-interventionist policies.

Up until the election of Mr. Kibaki in 2002, most sectors of the economy were under direct control of the government. State-owned corporations such as the Kenya Power and Lighting Company had failed to cater to a majority of the population. Economic growth was stifled with resources allocated to government cronies. Corruption was rife and bureaucracy was suffocating. The result was a stagnant economy that regressed in real terms through the 1990’s as other economies around the world were capitalizing on positive global trends of technology and globalization.

Figure 1: GDP data visualized using thinknum (http://www.thinknum.com)

Figure 2:[1] Data visualized using thinknum (http://www.thinknum.com)

In my opinion, Kibaki’s genius was to limit government interference in the private sector. He embarked on an ambitious program to privatize non-performing state corporations including Telkom Kenya and Kenya Railways. What were the results? Kenya’s average GDP growth in his ten years in power has doubled from the lackluster growth from a decade earlier.

Kenya’s hobbled road infrastructure has been improved with new superhighways in service and other in construction, regional trade has vastly improved, and corruption has been reduced. Perhaps one of the more prominent success stories has been Safaricom which was minority-owned by Telkom Kenya. Safaricom’s M-Pesa mobile money network is now the most successful implementation of mobile money in the world.

On a recent trip to Kenya, I got a chance to catch up with Dr. Bitange Ndemo, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communications. He talked about how he has leveraged public-private partnerships to build out Kenya’s tech infrastructure. The results are evident for all to see – Kenya, along with Nigeria and South Africa, is now considered Africa’s leading hub for innovation and information technology.

What does the future hold for Kenya? I think the answer lies more in the government’s ability to implement policies that are less invasive and that foster free enterprise and the growth of businesses. With the devolution of the government and the creation of new county governments that are in charge of local budgets for infrastructure, education, etc, whoever is in State House matters less and less to the common Kenyan.

Eric Omwega is co-Founder of Thinknum

The post Opinion – A few thoughts on Kenya’s economic progress appeared first on Celebrating Progress Africa.