The Africa You Haven’t Heard About
Why Africa is no longer the disaster zone many Americans think it is.
By Josh Kron
New York Times Upfront Magazine
December 10 & December 17, 2012
Africa gets a bad rap. The images that come to mind for most Americans are of famine, genocide,
corrupt governments, and bloody wars.
So it may come as a surprise to hear that a number of experts are suggesting a new way to think of
the continent: as an economic dynamo.
While Europe and the United States struggle to get their economies growing again after the global
recession, the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) expects Africa to have the fastest-growing
economy of any continent over the next five years.
Six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies from 2001 to 2010 were in Africa, according to
The Economist magazine. And looking forward, the I.M.F. says that from 2011 to 2015, African
countries will fill 7 of the top 10 spots.*
What's driving Africa's growth? Two major factors are a burst of international investment and the
rise of entrepreneurs, many of them women. International companies, especially from China, are
investing heavily in Africa. Vast deposits of oil, gas, and minerals are being discovered. Goldman
Sachs, a U.S. investment banking firm, recently compared business opportunities in Africa to those
in China in the early 1990s.
Consider Lesotho in southern Africa, the continent's biggest apparel exporter to the U.S. The Nien
Hsing Textile Company of Taiwan has opened three factories and a denim mill in Lesotho,
employing more than 8,000 people. Workers make jeans for Levi's and other American companies.
"While America may largely misperceive Africa as a disaster zone, China sees the continent's
promise," says New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. "Everywhere you turn in Africa these
days there are Chinese businesspeople seeking to invest in raw materials and agriculture. But
American businesses seem to be only beginning to wake up to the economic potential."
That potential is enormous. This year, according to the World Bank, a third of the economies of the
49 sub-Saharan African countries will grow 6 percent or more. (The U.S. economy is on track to
grow about 2 percent this year.) And the number of Africans living in poverty has fallen roughly
10 percentage points--from 58 percent to 48 percent--over the past decade.
Another factor in Africa's new growth is the surge in female entrepreneurs. According to the
World Bank, the rate of female entrepreneurship is higher in Africa than in any other region of the
world. "Women in the private sector represent a powerful source of economic growth and
opportunity," says Marcelo Giugale, the Bank's director for poverty reduction and economic
management for Africa.
In Uganda, 29-year-old Lovin Kobusingye started Kati Fish Farms, which now sells about 1,100
pounds of fish sausages every day. "I always knew I was a businesswoman," says Kobusingye.
In Kenya, Ory Okolloh, 23, helped found Ushahidi, a Web platform that allows people worldwide to
report news from their cellphones or computers. Their reports are immediately uploaded to an
online interactive map so people can get instant updates.
Ushahidi, which means "testimony" in Swahili, has changed the game in real-time tracking of
emergency events via cyberspace. It was started to track political violence after Kenya's
presidential election in 2008. It's since been used to track the 2009 outbreak of swine flu, the 2010
earthquake in Haiti, and the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
Bethlehem Tilahun, 33, founded her shoe company, SoleRebels, in 2004 in Addis Ababa, the capital
of Ethiopia. The business began with a handful of artisans making sandals in her grandmother's
house and has grown into a multimillion dollar company that sells fashionable footwear
internationally.
SoleRebels now employs about 100 workers, and it recently opened a flagship store in central
Addis Ababa. With each pair of shoes, Tilahun says, she seeks to change people's minds about
Africa. SoleRebels has become one of Africa's best-known shoe companies, with its products
advertised in hip Western magazines. In 2012, Tilahun was named by Forbes magazine as one of
100 women to watch.
There's an "urgent need," she says, to create more African-owned brands delivering world-class
products to the global market, to drown out the longtime image of Africa as a place of poverty and
despair. "Let's face it," Tilahun says, "it's pretty hard to convince someone to buy what you are
selling when someone else has convinced them you are solely occupied with swatting away flies
from your face."
Where the Growth Is
Projections for the world's fastest-growing economies 2011-15
1. CHINA
2. INDIA
3. ETHIOPIA
4. MOZAMBIQUE
5. TANZANIA
6. VIETNAM
7. CONGO (Dem. Rep.)
8. GHANA
9. ZAMBIA
10. NIGERIA
9.5%
8.2%
8.1%
7.7%
7.2%
7.2%
7%
7%
6.9%
6.8%
SOURCE: INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (I.M.F.)
Global Studies
Name _____________________________________
The Africa You Haven’t Heard About
1. What comes to mind for most Americans when they think of Africa?
2. What new way are experts suggesting to think about Africa?
3. What two statistics support this new way of thinking?
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4. What two factors are driving Africa’s growth?
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5. Companies from what country are investing heavily in Africa?
6. What resources are being discovered?
7. What has happened to Africa’s poverty rate over the past decade?
8. How does economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa compare with that of the U.S.?
9. Describe one female owned business profiled in the article.
10. Why do you think women own so many of the new successful African businesses?
11. Why do you think economic growth is so high in sub-Saharan Africa?