Three Lessons From Nairobi and Kigali
When I returned week before last from a trip to Nairobi and Kigali, my brain felt like it had eaten a huge meal and needed to digest. I've had a chance over the past two weeks to review the many conversations I had with business owners and public and private sector leaders. (I think I doubled the weekly revenues of a few coffee shops in Nairobi and Kigali.) After some reflection, three themes have bubbled to the surface:
Compelling Incentives to Invest - Is a Tipping Point Near?
As Western investors slowly begin seeing potential in Africa, we'll probably begin seeing more article like Ethiopian Farms Lure Investor Funds as Workers Live in Poverty coming from main-stream investment publications like Bloomberg. As African leaders shift their focus from aid to investments, they hope that market drivers will help take their economies up the World Bank rankings, and flood their markets with foreign direct investment.
Building a Global Company During a Tough Time
To be sure, a recession poses plenty of challenges to a young company like RENEW. Many investors will hunker down and focus on businesses and business models with which they are comfortably familiar. But, as Daniel Roth of Wired writes (Back to the Garage: How Economic Turmoil Breeds Innovation), the instinct to turn insular during economic difficulty leaves the playing field wide open for up-and-comers: