Understanding what is happening in Africa is essential for anyone interested in business.
Africa is the world’s second-largest population.
It has one of the largest workforces from the ages of 18 to 30 slated for 2030.
While many other continents are reporting declining populations, Africa still has a high growth rate. Given the current demographic trends, it could well be that over the next 30 years, 25% to 40% of children in the world will be born in Africa.
Young people are native to digital innovation, like elsewhere in the world. The implications of this for the future are immense. With a digitally savvy population and growing digital infrastructure, Africa presents very attractive opportunities.
Leapfrog technologies like Mpesa (mobile money) have come out of the continent and inspired the fintech world. Africa continues to make bigger leaps, unconstrained by apparently low starting points.
Technologies that come from the continent show radical change is just a small step away from where it appears today.
Over the past decade, Africa’s growth has continued to accelerate.
Emerging markets are grabbing a larger share of global GDP. The developed economies’ middle market which many companies have historically targeted is stagnating. Growth-hungry businesses must therefore learn how to understand and capitalize on the needs of these new markets.
There’s power in Africa’s untapped digital tech labor force.
While Africa’s growth has been strong, the employment challenge is perhaps the greatest.
The population is overwhelmingly young. Still, the continent is poised to reap a demographic dividend over the coming decades as its labor force grows to be the largest in the world by 2030 and its dependency ratio declines.
But to capture this potential, Africa must accelerate the creation of wage-paying employment.
The continent does have the potential to significantly increase the number of stable jobs by 2028.
For a decade now, I’ve been focused on how we can get momentum around not just building infrastructure for the digital economy, but developing talent.
How do you get more people trained and workforce ready?
To get ahead of that curve, we need both top-down government-led initiatives and a bottom-up approach from businesses in terms of training.
We also need to get resourceful in harnessing our existing capabilities and creating real business opportunities.
Our new world demands, not rote memorization or workplace tenure, but meaningful learning and people who apply creativity, and critical thinking to solve complex, ever-evolving problems. Africans have those capabilities in spades.
When you look at Africa from a simple consumer lens, the continent presents a large market with just over a billion people, mostly under 35. They’re underserved in many areas – education, health, financial services, etc. Yet from an enterprise point of view, the continent still appears to have low capacity. People have limited spending power, most businesses are small, and the markets are quite fragmented.
However, when viewed through a technology lens, Africa offers many appealing opportunities.
Here’s why:
1. Tech-enabled business models typically aggregate fragmented markets in order to scale distribution.
2. Technology brings access, efficiency, and affordability to large underserved markets.
3. The population explosion shows a large potential to scale products and services.
Hence, there’s an immense potential tech market.
Given the increase in broadband penetration and the fact that the population is much more digitally demanding and digitally savvy, the contribution that Africa could make to the world’s economy over the next 20 to 30 years is enormous.
Well-being, security, balance, climate change, pollution, violence, hunger, education, healthcare, inequality, corruption, substance abuse… We can’t solve those types of global problems without Africa. Africa has to play an enormous role in those in those efforts.
Africa has thrived in technology development and adaption in spite of the fact the continent received no marshall plan or policies that extend protection coverage to mitigate the risks associated with disruptions to labor markets.
For too long, the digital tech narrative in Africa has focused on creating opportunities for lower-skilled workers or addressing the needs of those “left behind”. This imperial narrative ignores the existing talent and solutions available today.
Instead, the focus should be on making productive investments, creating a clear, equitable value exchange, and developing meaningful, material win-win solutions in our world, which is constantly being disrupted.
We can work together to tap into diverse perspectives and accelerate growth.
When we provide brilliant talent with important digital work at meaningful pay, we transform not just people but global communities. The result? New transformative ideas that add tremendous value to the evolving world.
Learn more about how we are building a world that works.
