Great news! . This is according to a perspective paper by Ralf Krüger and Ilan Strauss published by the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investments. So it looks like African development is finally beginning to come from within the continent. Over 400 Africa-to-Africa projects (which I like to call intra-African development projects) were carried out between January 2003 and January […]
The strength of Nigeria is its people
I once heard a Nigerian saying proudly that the strength of Nigeria is its people. That statement stuck in my mind: in fact, its 170 million (or so) people makes Nigeria the most populous African country – but what did he mean exactly? A number of things come to mind: the most immediate and obvious, […]
A new era of indigenous entrepreneurship
I came across a short article by Ronald Coase (1991 Nobel laureate in economics) published at the Harvard Business Review a few months before he died, aged 103, in 2013. The article is a delicious call for economists to re-engage with the (real life) economy. I want to focus on just one sentence in the […]
Job creation: an engaging business purpose
In my interviews with managers from sub-Saharan African countries, I was surprised that – without my bringing up the topic – a large majority of them made a comment of this sort: “You know, what drives this company is job creation… Of course, we want to make money, and we do make money, but what […]
Changing for the better
This evening we’ll welcome a New Year. There are many local traditions related to New Year’s Eve. The custom in Hillbrow, South Africa used to be throwing furniture out of the window. This became really dangerous – you might even see a fridge flying out – and many people got hurt, so this custom has […]
