However, this is not what makes this story so fascinating. But, perhaps something which is fascinating is that the bloggers have done something which the academic and professional communities have not been able to do: expand the discussion outside of academic circles and into real world settings.

So with that said, let's move to the actual bloggers who are discussing informal economies in Africa.

Let's start with the grandmaster of Africa's economic development blogosphere, Emeka Okafor who talks about the “go ahead” spirit of the informal markets:

“The Made in Africa Exhibition stated that:

In Mali and Senegal, those who have work in what we call the formal sector of the economy are almost wholly limited to the urban elite…The informal economy includes much of the trade that takes place in the markets and that offers possibilities for those who are inventive and possess sufficient “go-ahead” spirit”

From there we move on to IBM, via their Global Innovation Outlook blog, as they discuss the roadblocks that Africa's informal entrepreneurs face:

“The existence of informal economies is not inherently a bad thing. In fact, many in the room saw these businesses as emblematic of Africa’s burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit. And it serves as a means to put food on the table for millions of Africans.

The problem is that these businesses have trouble growing, employing more people, and creating more wealth, because they have to continue to operate under the radar of regulatory bodies. They also have no access to financing, or the basic business training and skills that could help them improve the business.”

 

 

Loomnie, who blogs from Germany and originally hails from Lagos, Nigeria makes the connection between rural and informal economies in Africa:

“Think about this: most of Africans are rural dwellers… then wonder about how much government and the formal economy ever penetrated into rural Africa. People have been, and still are, involved in economic activities that are not captured by the official economic figures of the government. Even researchers into the informal economy in African countries, who have devoted much time to studying the informal sector in urban areas, have not paid sufficient attention to the livelihood of rural dwellers.”

Next we go back to Nigeria again with Imnakoya, who writes an insightful piece about the bottom of Nigeria's economic pyramid:

“As I mulled over the Robert’s documentary, the question that kept popping in my mind was what can be done to assist the several micro businesses operating in the slum? This is the “true bottom of the Nigerian pyramid” - and believe me you, none of the government economic policies have much meanings here, in fact majority of those not been designed to empower the folks here at all. What can be done beyond the mere “policy statements of micro-financing or micro-lending”

Here is someone who is taking a brilliant idea regarding informal economies and putting it to work in Africa, Nii Simmonds who lives in the United States but has his family ties in Ghana tells us how to grow Africa's informal sector:

Most workers who work in the informal sector have close ties to agriculture; picking fruit, tilting land, tending cattle, milking cows, and etc. Also, there are the craft industries; making mask, beads, bracelets, clothing, and etc. What if we instituted cooperatives (co-ops) for different industries in Africa that would act as a corporation on behalf of the workers in the informal sector?

Now here is a post that I have been mentally revisiting since my first read. It is about a term, which Ethan Zuckerman wrote about recently “incremental infrastructure.” It reminds me of something that I learned about during Carol Pineau's documentary, whereby an entrepreneur community becomes involved in building infrastructure for their benefit but as a byproduct others benefit from that infrastructure as well. Here is what Ethan had to say:

My friend and colleague Mike Best has challenged me on the idea of whether the examples I’m offering are really “micro” enough. By that definition, he’s most interested in “picoinfrastructure”, ways that small communities can build data infrastructure for a few thousands of dollars, not the single-digit millions I’ve pointed to in my examples from the mobile phone business. The examples Mike is offering mostly outline a model of “self-provisioning”, one where you’re building a network to meet your own needs because no one else has built that infrastructure. Where self-provisioning meets incremental infrastructure, I think, is where you overbuild for your personal needs with the goal of selling that capacity to your neighbors. Mining and oil companies self-provision infrastructure all over the African continent. Visit a gold mining center in Ghana and you’ll find infrastructure that outpaces that in many secondary cities. But that infrastructure isn’t shared and resold - it might be vastly more cost-effective if it were, and would likely address some community concerns about the impact of extractive industries. That said, I can imagine incremental infrastructure being built at mini, micro and pico-levels. A farmer investing in water pumping equipment that could irrigate both his fields and neighboring fields might be builting pico-level incremental infrastructure, while a mobile phone company that built power plants to provide energy to mobile phone base stations, and used excess capacity to run irrigation pumps might be working on a micro or mini scale.

So far you have heard from bloggers who are either entrepreneurs or at one time were full time business persons, but now let's hear from someone who writes on a similar topic but from a very unique perspective: Sokwanele. Sokwanele is a Zimbabwean civic action support group that aims to address the needs of the everyday Zimbabwean. This post looks at the rise of Zimbabwe's informal gold mining sector:

“The then Mines Minister, Chris Anderson, said it was high time the panners were recognised as part of the informal sector. Instead of hunting them down, he said they should be encouraged to sell their gold to the reserve bank. He even suggested that small-scale miners should be paid a higher price than the market rate to prevent them from selling to the black market. Prospective panners were able to apply for permits to exploit the gold deposits from their respective councils.

The gap in production left by the near collapse of formal mining was replaced by the precious metal being brought in from the informal sector, with the Reserve Bank buying much of its gold from illegal panners.

However, the panners today sell their gold on the black market as the Reserve Bank pay well under the true market value.”

Next we visit another blog from Zimbabwe, this time we visit a timeless piece that the Zimbabwe Pundit did explaining why Zimbabwe will never get rid of the informal economy that its current government tries to forbid:

Enter Hernando De Soto the Peruvian economist whose lifelong research and work chronicle this strange phenomenon. His research substantiates the case against developing countries shunning the informal market to their own undoing as the informal market has solutions for many of the problems where the formal market is failing. Check out his two books, The Other Path and The Mystery of Capital.

The root of the problem is in the laws of the land. It's not enough to clamor for the protection of property rights; we need to hold our governments responsible for crafting laws that are accomodative of everyone and laws that make the formal market place easily accessible to all people. How do informals do that? They operate in their own market (which formals and the governmnent call “black) which has laws that are reasonable and negotiable by the informals. Don't worry Zimbabwe, the “black” market will be back. You can't destroy it by demoliting infrustructure, it is precipitated in the mind that's where it resides.

Finally, here is the post that started it all. It is from South Africa's Gavin Chait or Whythawk, as he is also known. This post echoes what was written by the Zimbabwe Pundit, but it goes into deeper detail into not only the causes behind the informal markets but it also goes into what Gavin describes as the only cure too. It's a very good read. Here is an excerpt:

A centralised state exists largely to protect contract and the enforcement of property rights. Individual rights and the welfare state are a relatively recent development. And you can't have these without taxes. And taxes don't exist without businesses and incomes to tax. And those incomes and businesses require contract protection and the enforcement of their property rights.

When individuals believe that the cost of supporting the state is less than the benefits they derive from that state then a central government is stable. When the state starts intervening in the economy and property rights are under threat then investors and business owners withdraw their support.

If they are capable of flight they will travel to other nations where they feel safer. If they are not they remove their investments to the informal market.

Informal vs Formal is subjective; technically we're discussing third-party property rights. An informal market is really a fragmented localised market where only people who trust one another directly are prepared to trade with each other.

• Diverse
• Analytical
• Funny
• Engaging

And the list could go on and on. But one thing that it is not generally known for is uniformity. During the historic week of June 4 - 8, 2007, however, this was all to change - if only for a moment. That's because this was the week that TED Global 2007 convened in Arusha, Tanzania. This was the week that the African blogosphere and its friends made their voices known to the world. Bloggers whose writings normally cover a cornucopia of topics, ranging from social and cultural issues to technology and economic concerns, were suddenly focused on TED.

One of the blogs I knew'd be visiting often during TED Global was Hash's. Hash blogs from the States, but actually grew up in Kenya and Sudan and blogs about technology in Africa at White African. Here is an excerpt from his post about a Ghanaian technology entrepreneur that he met at the TED event named Herman Chinery-Hesse:

Yesterday’s talk by Herman Chinery-Hesse was one of the highlights of TEDGlobal for me. He is the owner of SoftTribe, the leading computer technology company in West Africa, and a dynamic speaker and visionary. He’s been a trailblazer in what he called, “tropically tolerant software.”

He stated the reasons for what he believes Africa has been left behind. His theory is that there are “hunted” and “hunter” nations. Some countries are positioned as places to go and grow businesses, others are positioned as the places to go and take resources from.

Herman Chinery-Hesse at TED Global. Photo by whiteafrican.

Next is Dave McQueen from the UK. now Dave normally blogs about culture and current events, but lately and prior to his trip to Arusha, I have noticed him blogging about economic conditions and perceptions in Africa at Dave Speaks. Here is a excerpt from his post summarizing his TED 2007 experience:

As I sit here a number of fellows have already emailed me, energized and ready to continue the dialogue and the plans of action from where we left off. I have added all my contacts to my addressbook and will spend the best part of this weekend replying and doing the same.

On the agenda for the next year are possible trips to Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. (I will definitely be back in Tanzania soon as well). The vibrancy and expectations of so many contacts I have met show me that many African countries are on the tipping point of something great, and it is an honour and privilege to know that I will be part of this magnificent journey of change, teaching and learning with new formed partnerships.

I will be highlighting a number of the initiatives and people I have met on this conference on my blog (yeah I know I have a few) Simphani which focuses on stories of life, health and wealth from across the Diaspora.

A group of TED Global attendees poses for a photo. Photo by whiteafrican.

Next I came to Jen Brea's site, Africabeat, and of course, as a Global Voices author and a very prolific writer, Ms. Brea is no stranger to you. I enjoyed reading this post where she describes an overall feeling that she found emanating from attendees at TED 2007 — that the time has come for the continent to write her own story. Here's the excerpt:

They took the West's gaze, and killed it, stomped on it, mocked it, burned its effigy (Joseph Conrad to be precise) so that we could start an entirely new conversation using an entirely different vocabulary. We killed famine, death, hopelessness, hunger, tragedy, poverty and started using words like potential, opportunity, wealth, entrepreneurship, ingenuity, art, imagination, creativity, success, investment, growth, choice.

These are words the media use liberally when writing about emerging nations like India, China or Brazil, but not to describe some of the fastest-growing economies in the world when they happen to be in Africa.

Global Voices' Sub-Saharan Africa editor Ndesanjo Macha and blogger Afromusing. Photo by whiteafrican.

And speaking of Global Voices writers, the next blogger is a writer and editor at Global Voices — actually he's my editor! He is the prolific multi-lingual blogger Ndesanjo Macha, who hails from the same country that hosted this years TED Global conference: Tanzania. He is also an activist, attorney, and a journalist. Here he directs readers of his blog to another influential blogger who is one of the founders of Global Voices:

For english speakers, read Ethan Zuckerman, the god/budha of liveblogging.

Next is a brief post by one of the continent's most powerful online activists and legal minds. Ms. Ory Okolloh, who makes up one half of the ground-breaking online project called Mzalendo, which “Keeps an eye on the Kenyan parliment.” Ory wrote a piece on her blog Kenyan Pundit celebrating the arrival of her and her daugther at TED. Here is the excerpt:

Made it in one piece.

Baby KP was perfect…she already has the makings of a sophisticated traveller :-) , which is a good thing seeing that mama has a bit of wanderlust in her.

Then there's the post from Mental Acrobatics, who also represents the Kenyan bloggosphere. Here he highlights some heavy statements revolving around various aspects of economics on the African continent that were made by some of the TED speakers. Here is the excerpt:

No place in the world has ever grown a market sector on the type of risk that Africa’s farmers face.
Eleni Gabre-Madhin creator of Ethiopia’s first commodities market

Forget making poverty history. I want to make Africans rich.
Idris Mohammed believes that we should be talking about increasing wealth not reducing poverty.

I call it the African shuffle.
Idris Mohammed describes yet another graph that shows stagnant economic growth in parts of Africa where instead of rising the graph remains a flat line.

Dignity is more important that wealth.
Jacqueline Novogratz

Understand the power of patient capital.
Jacqueline Novogratz explains that taking time to engage with the communities you invest in helps the money do more.

Mental Acrobatics (centre), Harinjaka (R) and a Nigerian colleague at TED Global. Photo by whiteafrican.

Rafiq Philips of South Africa is a South African blogger that you should keep an eye out for, as his posts typically revolve around technology in Africa, as the one I'm going to cite below. But he also echoes the call to help the continent through providing tools that help the continent empower itself. This an excerpt from that post:

Screw the handouts to Africa, give us the tools that allow us to solve our own problems.

The “Mac or PC?” question was asked to all the fellows during the last breakfast at TEDglobal2007. Looks like they’ve been listening as Google and AMD have decided to give each of the 100 TED Fellows a bradnspanking new notebook. The only thing we have to decide is Mac or PC.

I have to wonder though, will it not be easier to source local Laptop suppliers in the TED Fellows countries with vaious keyboard, language and power requirements? Not to mention technical support? Unless… the noteboks will be those supplied by a manufacturer that already offer support in the countries the TED fellows are making a difference in?

And speaking of technology no post containing the words technology and Africa would be complete without the name Ethan Zuckerman. Here is an excerpt from him summarizing his after thoughts of the event:

Conferences like TED Global are only a couple of days long, but I find I can get surprisingly used to them - wake up, absorb a mass of new and provocative ideas, have a few dozen conversations, stagger back to the hotel, rinse and repeat. And then, all of a sudden, they’re over. It was almost humorous how quickly TED ended - Minister Okonjo-Iweala left the stage at 1pm, and half an hour later, many of the participants were on buses heading to basecamp to climb Kilimnanjaro.

Bankelele is one of the foremost bloggers in Kenya, and one of the things that makes him such a force to reckon with is the fact that he's a banker in real life and does not mince words. He dispenses industry-specific knowledge on banking in Kenya, as well as on the state of Kenya's economy. In this post, he compares his experience at TED to the excitement he felt during some of the world's most memorable sporting moments.

Mentioned earlier about being blessed/fortunate in life to see people like Michael Jordan (destroy Washington in their last game as the Bullets, though Scottie Pippen provided the winning dunk), Michael Schumacher (win the first US grand prix) and Tiger Woods (not enjoying his first US open). That all compares with being at TED Global in Arusha at which Kenya is well represented.

Afromusing blogs from Kenya too, I believe, and her posts are always thought-provoking. Here she writes about a speaker at the event who is from Nigeria who holds the distinction of having started computer manufacturing on the African continent. Below is the excerpt:

Florence Seriki: An African woman in computing. Omatek is the first African computing company.

She switched from Chemical engineering to computing where she started by selling hardware and training professionals in Nigeria. Keep doing what you are doing she says. In 1988 Omatek was incorporated and soon her company became a premier partner with Compaq and IBM [>$7mil in sales]. In 1991, she visited Asia she saw the supply chain and noticed the Chinese tech was developed in house.

While surfing the blogosphere for TED posts, I was very fortunate to have stumbled upon the blog of the world reknowned hip hop group called Soul Fege. They are a seven member group with a heavy Ghanaian influence. They are based out of California and their message is one of hope and empowerment for the youth across America. Here is their post about the event:

Wassup y’all. I’m BACK! Here on my first overseas trip of 2007. Yes, I’ve been keeping a low profile plotting ye’ ole’ renaissance, from my new digs in N. Hollywood CA! Loads of stuff has happened since I flipped to the West Side. Honestly I’m not even sure where to begin breaking it all down for y’all. But suffice it to say it’s been off the hook.

But to bring it back to the present, today is my first day at the TED Global Conference being held here in Arusha, Tanzania. ‘Tis the first time TED has come to Africa and I am straight up meeting the most AMAZING people every few minutes. It’s almost like a brain overload kid. I already have a bunch of folks to followup w/ and some potential collaborators and I haven’t been here 24hrs yet.

Next I came across a computer scientist who blogs from Malawi, named Soyapi Mumba. This was actually my first visit to his blog and I like his style of writing, which it is very to the point. Soyapi blogs about technology in Malawi, and here he writes about the impression that TED had on him and expresses a heightened sense of connectedness to the continent's emerging young minds:

Before going to TED Global, I kept hearing voices blaming governments for not doing this and that plus several other reasons why African countries cannot prosper unless some one from outside Africa does something.

At TED however, everyone I met was determined to solve Africa's problems without waiting for governments or donors. So I've come back energised and connected to the right community that will hopefully keep me motivated.

Next I bumped into a blog that seems to be mainly written in French and Malagasy. And the blogger is from — you guessed it — Madagascar. It is interesting to note that Madagascar is an island off the coast of East Africa and for some reason it is one of the continent's least mentioned countries. But the people of Madagascar have a great deal to tell the world. In fact this blogger, whose name is Harinjaka, was actually asked to speak to the audience and share with them a slice of Madagascar. Here is a snippet of what he had to say:

Please Help us to educate our people

• provide facilities
• Spread ideas
• Infrastructures
• Increase awareness

Help us to provide an exposure of the Madagascar situation.

Madagascar is an island located off the eastern coast of southern Africa in the Indian Ocean. As the world’s fourth largest island.

Madagascar has been isolated from Africa for over 150 million years. For this reason, most of the plants and animals found on the island exist nowhere else on Earth.
Because of its remoteness, Madagascar was not settled by humans until
around 2.000 years ago.

Malagasy is the name for the people of the island and the national language is the Malagasy language.

Next back to South Africa with Ramon Thomas who I hear is quite a coach - like the one portrayed in the movie Hitch! He has two blogs that I am aware of: one is a blog that coaches singles in online dating and etiquette; and he maintains a separate blog/ podcast about internet trends in South Africa at NETucation. Here he authors a very informative post about former Finance Minister of Nigeria, Dr Okonjo-Iweala, who was one of the speakers at the event. Here is an excerpt:

The US and UK could not have been built without Africa’s Aid. When you situation is dire, and personal, you don’t care if it’s aid money or where the money comes from. Spain received $10 million in aid from the European Union. Ireland received $3 million in aid, and is now one of the fastest growing economies in Europe. Neither of these countries felt guilty or bad in any way receiving this money.

A new set of aid entrepreneurs are emerging in the individuals who founded very wealthy foundations. They may take over from the aid received from governments one day. The question is open as to how interested they really are in helping Africa. Are they listening? Are invited to serve on their boards to help with making decisions? The answer is no!

The next blogger on the list is based in Zambia, which is bordered in all directions by eight other countries in or near the southern part of Africa. Mweshi is his name, and he is an entrepreneur who does graphic design. Here he quotes the maestro of the event, Mr. Emeka Okafor, who is also an Africa blogger. This section of his post reads:

Planted seeds

Emeka put it well when he summarized the conference and said “what we have done at this event is plant seeds.” Indeed the seeds of change, progress, and a new African renaissance have been planted!

Finally, we come to the end of this post. And who more appropriate to end with than the organizer of the event — that's right, Mr. Emeka Okafor, entrepreneur and blogger extrordinaire. Here he sends out a warm thanks to the participants:

I must thank all those that made this possible. Chris Anderson the curator of TED sincerely believed that there was something ticking below the surface of this continent of ours and provided the tools and immense resources to bring its story to fruition,Bravo Chris!The TED team. The Bloggers, and their de facto leader —Ethan Zuckerman — . The inspirational thought leaders–Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, George Ayittey– and many others too numerous to mention…

Well, as much as I wanted to continue with this post, it had to come to an end. It took me quite a while to locate some of these posts (roughly four days) not to mention that I don't want to lose anyone's attention. Hopefully this piece does enough to convey the sense of “something really major” coming out of Africa, that oozed from the keyboards of everyone I've come across who attended the event. Also, please note that although I wanted to include all of the Africa bloggers who attended and blogged about TED Global 07′, I was not able to, and therefore apologize to anyone who was not included. Please feel free to expound on any omissions in the comments section below.

Otherwise, this post has been great fun to write! And one final note, in case anyone one is wondering how this relates to the theme that I usually write about, which is enterprise in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is in fact a tremendous tie-in. To me, this event represents something that many of Africa's Sub-Saharan countries have been working tirelessly on for a long time: rebranding Africa's image. This essentially boils down to public relations and marketing. If people can connect with your story, or if they like the message. they are more likely to buy or invest in your products. And TED 2007, as well as the bloggers in attendance, helped convey the message of hope and achievement on the continent.

Amazingly, the event seems to have accomplished something that even US$100 million of public relations consulting would not have done for the continent. In a nutshell, this accomplishment has been the weaving together of a consistant, genuine, and believable story about the possibilty of Africa becoming the “next big thing”. That in a few short years, instead of the Asian Tiger economies, we might all be talking about Africa's roaring “lion economies”. And that is big.

The first that we shall look at is Emmanuel Oluwatosin. I first learnt about Emmanuel through the African Path. In his recent post, he urges readers to pay careful attention to the tenets of Mr. John D. Rockerfeller.

Emmanuel Oluwatosin of Nigeria writes:

…According to Nelson Rockerfeller, the one time Vice President of the United States, his father John D. Rockerfeller, Jr, gave each of his five sons an allowance “We got 25 cents a week, and had to earn the rest of the money we got.” To earn part of that extra money he raised vegetables and rabbits…” We always worked.

All the boys were required to keep personal daily account books. They were required to give 10 percent of their income to charity, to save 10 percent, and to account for all the rest.” They had to balance their account books every month and to be able to tell what happened to every penny they earned. The Rockerfeller kids were taught a specific pattern for dealing with their money. These are the Rockerfeller rules.

* Work for all you get
* Give away the first 10%.
* Pay yourself the next 10%.
* Live on the rest.
* Account for every penny…”

Africaincorp is a blog that I have been following for a few months now. This blog is written by an Ivorian blogger, Frederic Tape. He chronicles the story of an African entrepreneur who has recently launched an investment portal website:

…Africanselect was “Launched in 2006 with the goal to go beyond just creating an awareness of African Stock Markets but also offer a technologically advanced platform that allows African and international retail and corporate investors to take part in investment opportunities across the continent.”
This business could be added to the likes of LiquidAfrica,and Africanlion.com.
The one question that has been raised during our team meeting was the following: how can such company leverage the aggregating power of social networks such as Facebook, MyspaceAfrica, Afriville, Myafricasite, Edumela and Hi5 among others to reach out to the huge number of young African professionals and entice them to find interest in the Real estate, securities markets of Africa.
The reality is that many young individuals with disposal income, stay oblivious to the opportunities laying in the open in Africa. The incomes they generate in the western world is sufficient to make them potent players on these markets more so than in the American or European markets…

The Entrepreneur News Online is a group blog that is edited and published by a Cameroonian newspaper, The Entrepreneur. Snowsel Ano-Ebie discusses the style that many African managers find productive as it pertains to getting results in the corporate world:

…How can management be defined? Management is the process of administering and coordinating resources effectively and efficiently in an effort to achieve the goals of an organization. And a manager is anybody who plans an organization’s resources such as time, money and people in a bid to achieve the organization’s objectives, drawing from the contributions of Henri Fayol and those of Henry Mintzberg to management thinking. Thus any African who heads an organization or a part of it, and performs the four management functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling can be called an African manager.

PROFILE OF THE AFRICAN MANAGER
What then are the distinguishing characteristics of the African manager? African managers for the most part represent the old view of managers. It should however be noted that the profile, which I am presenting of the typical African manager, could also be true of some managers in other parts of the world. But we can confidently draw a profile of African managers because we know them better than we know other managers. After all we live in the same community, we share the same public utilities and we can be contented with being only “ear-witnesses” of who they are, what they do, and what they stand for. The African manager thinks of himself as manager or boss. Others must relate to him only in that capacity. If you go to an organisation where the manager’s office is situated in a storey building, chances are that his office will be somewhere upstairs, maybe on the last floor so that he can seat on top of every other person and is physically seen to be doing so. Thus the African manager is happy to be referred to, as “Up”, not to say “God”…

Next we move on to Ghana to meet the Nigerian-born Global Voices Author, David Ajao, teaches us how to make money online:

…It is indeed very true that you can earn a steady income from working over the Internet. It is also true that there is no single magic wand to making money online. Some of the “offline” rules apply online too. Hardwork, entrepreneurship spirit, perseverance, and of course, Knowledge. You need to know what you are doing. Excellence they say, is never by accident.

In gathering useful knowledge, you need to consult experienced folks, who are already making money on the Internet. One of such folks is Emmanuel Oluwatosin. He is not only making money online, but also teaching people how to make it. Little wonder his blog’s tagline is: “Inspiring Excellence, Realising Ambitions”. His blog is rich with useful tips and ideas that can inspire and direct you. One such useful post is the one titled: “Carnival of Entrepreneurs: 12th edition Hits the Road Big Time.” Comes highly recommended…

The final business blogger from West Africa that we are going to take a look at is Mr. Omodudu. He is a fellow blogger after my own heart. He is a trained economist and a mortgage lender. Omodudu tackles the issue of foreign economists, “Onyibo economists,” attempting to dispatch policy advice to African countries that many of them have never even visited:

This article in WSJ caught my attention because the topic is close to my dissertation. Mr Wessel's ideas are cutting edge and definitely goes against the grain, he is essentially suggesting, though in a subtle way, that economists in developed countries do not get ‘it'. Which from my experience is absolutely true. A high school student from any developing economy can pick holes in the theories put forward by most of the best papers in developmental economics.
We are forced to live through these, day in day out, due to the imbalance of power. The stronger dude is right even when he is glaringly wrong. Academics of African descent ought to forge together in order to bring forth a formidable voice. A voice worth reckoning with. This guys do not know half of the things they claim to know. Developmental economics is unique as it can not be put in any neo-, post-, pre- box. It's case dependent.

Well, as you have seen the West African environment has spawned some wonderful business blogging talent. And guess what? This was only a few of them. Just start searching for business blogs about Africa and you will see for yourself. I will not finish this post without mentioning of of the key figures in African business blogs Emeka Okafor.

Please let us know what you think and we hope to see you again here very soon.

Apart writing about fashion and entertainment, J Kofi Annan explores such general business topics as corporate exectutives and business founders in Africa in his blog, Annansi Chronicles.

One of his recent post is “African billionaires on Forbes' 2006 list.” This post is about Africa's business persons who made the Forbes 2006 list of billionaires (entry onto the list required assets of at least $1 billion). Before reading his post, I only knew of about three African billionaires who got there through business- Aliko Dangote of Nigeria and Kase Lawal also of Nigeria and Al Almoudi of Saudi Arabia ( the world's richest black person est. at $ 8 bil.), by way of Ethiopia.

Kofi's post shows that although business people in Africa often face some very unique and daunting challenges, it is still quite possible to achieve business success beyond measure as an entrepreneur in Africa. Here's what Mr. Annan writes:

…Forbes Magazine has released their annual ranking of the world's richest people. The listings include rank, name, home country or state, age where known, wealth in billions of dollars and source of the money. The research that went into compiling the rankings began in early 2006 and ended on Feb. 9, 2007. The list shows how the U.S. is slipping, the Russians are rising, and keeping business within the family is great way to maintain wealth. I've listed the rank, name, country of citizenship, age, net worth ($bil), and industry of the Africans who made the list below. If anyone has anyone of these people in their Rolodex hook me up. I hope to see some of you on the list in the future.

African's who made the list:
#62, Naguib Sawiris, Egypt, 52, $10.0, Egypt, Communications (Telecom)
#158 Onsi Sawiris, Egypt, 77, $5.0, Construction
#158 Nicky Oppenheimer & family, South Africa, 61, $5.0, Mining/Lumber (DeBeers)
#194 Johann Rupert & family, South Africa, 56, $4.3, Retailing (Luxury goods)
#226 Nassef Sawiris, Egypt, NA, $3.9, Engineering/Construction
#432 Donald Gordon, South Africa, 76, $2.2, Insurance
#664 Samih Sawiris, Egypt, 50 , $1.5, Service (Hotels)…”

His other recent post “Minding my business” is equally interesting as it shows the growing spirit of entrepreneurship among Africans. The title immediately reminded me of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. Kiyosaki advocates business ownership as a necessary step towards financial freedom.

Kofi writes about his own clothing and fashion business, Annansi Clothing. What makes this particular post interesting is that Mr. Annan actually goes into what it takes to be a successful fashion designer and then he ends the discussion by pointing out the relevance of African entrepreneurs:

“…I tell you, running your own clothing company is not as easy as it seems, and doing it all myself is definitely not the best way to proceed, that's why I've resolved to get a team of interns. Over the years I've seen many designers get eaten up by the grind of running a clothing label by themselves, and I certainly don't want to be a statistic. I think more than creating designs, and connecting with the many people who “get” the direction I'm trying to go in, many creative people neglect the business aspect. We are usually drawn to the fashion industry because of the “lights, camera, action” image of it, but the industry is highly complex and it takes a lot more than talent to grow in it. So while I love reading and writing about the goings on in the progressive African community, I think it is equally important to play an active role, and to do so my business must be intact. I never want to be that person who complains and criticizes others' decisions without going through the process myself. And nothing shapes your perception more than walking in someone's shoe's to understand the reason they make certain decisions. Of course this speaks directly to outsiders' criticism of Africans and African business as well…”

Another blog that I would like to introduce to you comes from Uganda, by way of Denmark. This is a group blog called the Millenium Development Goals.

I wrote about C4-World recently:

C4-world is building an online platform; MyC4, which will allow companies across Africa to source loans and equity investments from the global community…
The platform will allow people from around the world who create online funded investment accounts to participate in auctions (they will bid an amount and the interest rate they wish to earn) to fund the loan requests posted by the entrepreneurs and SMEs.

In his post, A day to celebrate!, Tim Vang describes the reactions coming from various companies and company spokespersons in Denmark, who attended a C4-World African investment workshop for the dual purposes of earnings and helping to end poverty in Africa.

He writes:

“…Around 150-200 people attended the workshop and I was lucky to be one of the speakers. At the end of my introduction to MyC4 the organizer, Karina Hviid handed over the VERY FIRST MyC4-builder downpayment worth 15 x DKK 1,000 (approximately USD 2,500) - each of the 15 companies will have their own MyC4 account from May.None of the companies are doing any business with Africa, TODAY. Yet they are open to learn and also agree that poverty should have an END…”

We will finish this week's roundup with a South African business blog, Viva Startups. Viva Startups has a post about the rise of franchises in South Africa:

It seems that more people are choosing the franchise option when starting out in business than ever before. With statistics showing a 49% rise in the number of franchises available over the last two years, it is evident that the promise of a proven low cost model for creating the business of your dreams is an attractive one.

Correction: In my first post I said that Money Talk was authored by Tosin. Money Talk is a group blog and Tosin is the administrator of the blog.

Otherwise, I hope that you enjoyed this week's roundup and we are anxious to know your thoughts. The world is listening.

One of the business bloggers that I follow is Harry Karanja. He is a business blogger from Kenya whose posts I have really grown to enjoy over the past few weeks. His blog Startups in Kenya focuses on the topic of entrepreneurship in Kenya, East Africa. Now, Kenya has quite a number of strong business blogs and several of them specifically address entrepreneurship. However, what I find so unique about Mr. Karanja's blog is that the majority of his posts all seem to be inspired by his own personal experiences as an entrepreneur in Kenya.

For example, take his post titled “Internet In the Village.” This post actually seems to be part of a larger installment series. In this post, he writes about his triumphs and defeats while helping Kenya's rural areas become “wired” via his internet start-up company. But don't take my word for it, you've really got to read this one for yourself!

He writes:

…When launching the cyber cafe, I took it as my task to ensure that I was setting up a viable business and not a white elephant. The main fixed recurrent costs for a cyber were going to be rent and wages, while variable recurrent costs would be internet, electricity, and stationery. It was imperative that the cyber comfortably break even from the first month.

After doing the arithmetics with the proprietor we decided to initially price browsing at K.Shs. 3 per minute although our calculations showed we could do K.Shs. 1.50 if we had enough clients. Once we decided on the price, it was easy to calculate how many minutes of browsing we would need to sell in the first month to break even. With the calculations I was able to draw up the first objective of the business, to sell “X” number of minutes of browsing per month.

With the objective drawn out clearly, the business gained perspective. The interesting part was how to sell the required number of minutes. One advantage of an entrepreneur is the ability to adapt quickly, and in order to fully maximize this advantage the entrepreneur must always listen to what her client's are saying. When we opened the cyber cafe, it took the standard setup of other cyber cafes, but then we started listening…

Let me give you a brief overview of African business blogs that I will be writing about:

Timbuktu Chronicles is written by Nigerian-born entrepreneur Emeka Okafor, not to be confused with the NBA basketball player named Emeka Okafor. His posts are about entrepreneurship in Africa with a practical and self sustaining theme.

Money Talk is a blog by Tosin. She is a Nigerian-born graduate student studying engineering at the California Institute of Technology. It's a good place to share ideas and on matters such as money, career, business, and economic development. Besides that this blog also has some useful ideas about investing in African businesses.

Kenyan Entrepreneur is a great blog which focuses on entrepreneurial pursuits, in general, as they pertain to Kenya. Although the blogger here does not disclose his or her identity, I find myself addicted to the blogger's strong sense of humor.

Annansi Chronicles is a blog written by Mr. Annan from Ghana. That would be Mr. J. Kofi Annan, who bears no relation to the former UN Secretary-General, Koffi Annan. His blog focuses on business in Africa, but with a unique twist. He covers African business from the fashion, glamour, and entertainment angles.

Odegle Nyang Investments written by a Kenyan entrepreneur named Odegle, who is very knowledgeable about the Kenyan Stock Market. The bulk of his posts talk about Kenya's banking or stock market news, but sometimes he writes about more general business topics in Kenya, as well as other African countries.

Investing In Africa is maintained by two bloggers, Ryan Shen-Hoover and Coldtusker. I like this blog because of the contrasts between the two contributors. Ryan Shen-Hoover's posts sound like an article that you might read in your everyday business newspaper across the globe, his stories span nearly all of Africa's stock markets. Contrast that style and delivery with Coldtusker's who blogs about financial news in Kenya and writes with a more “take it or leave it” and “in your face” approach.

The Entrepreneur is published by the Cameroonian newspaper called The Entrepreneur. Its mission is to inform and educate its readers and the public with truthful, credible, inspiring and motivating non-partisan information that equips and empowers them to a fulfilling destiny.

Bankele is the leading business blogger from Kenya. He writes about financial and investment matters in Kenya and also posts local job vacancies.

Cherryflava is a South African blog, which covers business and marketing trends in South Africa and elsewhere.

Dave Duarte is also from South Africa. He writes about marketing and considers himself a marketing geek. Dave is one of the two bloggers behind Amplitude, a South African marketing podcast.

The list above is definitely incomplete. In the coming weeks you can expect to read more detailed roundups on some of these African business blogs.