May 22, 2025 • 17 mins
The future of Africa's economic progress, security and stability has been a key topic at this year's Qatar Economic Forum , an event powered by Bloomberg. How can the continent assert itself on global stage and superchage growth against an uncertain backdrop?
On this week's episode Jennifer Zabasajja brings you the best of this year's discussions featuring a deep dive into sovereign investment, a look at some of the region's most exciting start-ups and expert commentary on the roles of sustainability and AI in Africa's growing investment landscape.
For more stories from the region, subscribe to the Next Africa newsletter here
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, Government and business leaders
from around the world met in Qatar this week, and
African economies wanted to make sure they were on the agenda.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Africa CAPITALIZI enabling the private settor to drive okay straight
and lead the growth and transformation and the content. I
believe that these are sense we need to do to
take Africa to the next steps.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
With world trade rebalancing. After the inauguration of President Trump
in the US, African leaders are looking to the Middle
East for a new source of investment.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
African institutions I building capacity, but we need to also pattern.
I will wrestle the war to have robust payment capacity
to transactions as well as facilitate trade.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
On today's podcast, we're bringing you the best of the
Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. From long term investments to
emerging markets. Is the hope for Africa's continuing growth coming
from the Middle East. I'm Jennifer's Abasaja and this is
the Next Africa podcast, bringing you one story each week
(01:15):
from the continent driving the future of global growth with
the context only Bloomberg can provide. On today's special episode,
we're bringing you some of the key moments from the
Qatar Economic Forum, where I was speaking to a number
of Africa's foremost voices from the world of business, economics
and politics. We start in Nigeria, where volatility in the
(01:38):
oil market has meant lower earnings for Africa's biggest oil producer.
I spoke to aminu Umar Sadik, the Managing director of
Nigeria's Sovereign Investment Authority, to find out where he sees
future investment coming from.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
As the old prize goes off and down, that actually
affects the amounts of influence that coming to nsiety that
actually give us the recourse to invest.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Then what does that mean for the outlook moving forward
for NSII? Do you focus on other assets potentially? Do
you look to goal? Do you look to Yeah, where
else are you focusing?
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Then?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So on the future generations fun side. At the end
of last year, actually clearly valuation levels were high and
so we pivoted to cash and that allowed us to
do a couple of things at the beginning of this year.
The first thing was we decided to pivot away from
alternatives into defensive assets, particularly growth assets as well as
(02:32):
assets investment. Great corporate bombs, the second thing that we
did was actually for our long only portfolio, a long
only developed market's portfolio. We also decided to pivot away
from the US to Japan, to Australia and to Europe.
And then finally, what we decided to do was to
rationalize our assets allocation to see how we could consolidate
(02:53):
the number of names that we had into fewer, higher
quality stocks.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Did they pivot away from the US happened prior to
this new administration coming in. What was the thinking behind that?
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Just the diversification play. It was important given where we
saw the markets, how buoyant the market was, that we
began to look elsewhere just to ensure that we had
more robots portfolio. We had no political considerations, so to speak.
And then on the infrastructure side, I think we're looking
at a number of large scale transactions. I think the
(03:24):
first thing that we're doing was around healthcare, particularly around oncology.
You may have heard the NSIA co founded a company
called METSUV that focuses on oncology, on diagnostics, and on
cat labs, and we are expanding that significantly. The second
thing that we're doing is off the back of Mission
three hundred, the proposition that both the World Bank and
(03:45):
the AfDB co founded the NSIA Africa fifty Sustainable Energy
for All are also put in together five hundred million
dollar distributory renewable energy platform.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
You were just talking about how a number of African
sovereign World fund are going to be coming together in
just a few weeks in a Bouja. You were mentioning
is there a focus then on potentially local debt markets
as opposed to looking international. Do you think African sovereign
wealth funds are positioned to find that capital on the continent,
And that's.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
An excellent question. I think when you look at the
size of local pension funds relative to our infrastructure deficits,
that is the kind of capital that we need to
be looking to mobilize towards infrastructure financing. And I think
we can do more as multilaterals within the continent, as
sovereign wealth funds within the continent, to begin to find
ways to actually enhance blankable propositions and find ways to
(04:40):
give comfort to conservative capital, particularly the pension funds, to
actually finance our infrastructure projects. On the sixteenth, alongside other
African sovereign wealth funds, we will be hosting the African
Sovereign Investment Forum in Abuja, and that will be the
main theme of discussions at that point.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
What's your target then for the end of day out
of the year in terms of financing and MOBILIZINGCAPAGA.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
We're looking at a minimum of one point five to
two billion dollars as a start, and we are hopeful
that a combination of our fifteen of US will get there.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
But Africa is not only looking to export oil, it
also wants to market the skills and talent of young
Africans to the rest of the world. Here's Hendrik Detoit,
founder and CEO of Asset Manager ninety one, on the
role AI is playing on growing emerging markets in Africa.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
I'm very excited about the solution of real world problems,
i e. Getting research time which wouldn't have been justified
in labs on the West coast or East coast of
the US because it was deemed the problem was deemed
too small or the economic outcome wasn't good enough. So
real farmers enabling weak states to operate really well. I
(05:57):
mean you could digitize and technology in a able the
weakish developed developing country states into something really special. Without
turning them into the surveillance state. I think the downside
is and I think where I'm quite bullish about Africa
in particular in emerging markets, because Africans aren't spoilt. So
(06:17):
all these reasonably unproductive, very expensive white collar jobs in
the West, we are going to lose lots and lots
of them. And everyone can't become a yoga instructor, right.
Africans are kind of not in that food chain and
therefore will adjust in a way which is faster and better.
(06:37):
But I worry about the general migration from manufacturing jobs
and you know, to which may be supplanted by robots
in the developed world, to the services jobs that would
have been exported to the developing world, the sort of
India bungal Or story that may not happen again. Look
at the think about how many software developed is Microsoft fired?
(07:01):
But think of the people behind those software developers. For
if one of them, there's probably ten of them in India.
You know other places which do it. And I don't
know the answer. So there's an up and a downside.
I think Africa, because it's used to being tough and
Africans are very flexible, can probably deal with it better
than any other part of the world and.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Stick with us. When we come back, we'll hear from
some of the African Startups to Watch in twenty twenty
five and take a look to the future at how
a changing climate could mean changing investments. Will be right back.
Welcome back today. We are coming to you from the
Qatar Economic Forum in Doha, where business and political leaders
(07:44):
from Africa have come to make the case for investment.
African startups were here in Doha to find support from
global investors, and we're showcasing some of the best of
the continent with Bloomberg's inaugural twenty five African Startups to
Watch lists.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
In it.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I spoke to Awusu Akoto, the founder of Ghanaian logistics
company Freezelink, and also Chilufia Mutale, founder of the Zambia
and fintech firm Ishanti. I started by asking them about
the opportunities and challenges for startups on the continent and
also difficulties with some of the gaps in funding.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
We have a lot of foreign influence in our ecosystems.
Even the private act companies, the local private act companies
generally you see that they're DeFi fund is so development
finance institution funded. So with the USA drawing back with
I think probably some inertia when it comes to the
(08:41):
development finance cooperation in the US, even the Brits are
drawing back. It's definitely had some ripple effects in terms
of funding. But at the same time, our pension funds
sit on so much capital and so what we're seeing
in Ghana is more momentum from the pension funds, more
focused on alternative assets, which are the ripple effect on
(09:03):
deploying capital that ends up in some of our local startups.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Has that been your experience, Luthia.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
Yes, Well, it's well known that less than two percent
of funding goes to women led businesses. It Shandy is
a women lead enterprise and globally less than two percent
of funding ghost women led startups. So you can imagine
just in Africa alone what percentage is that. And funding
has been a challenge for us. We raised back in
twenty twenty and over four years we're still trying to
raise another funding round and it's a bit of a
(09:30):
challenge and that's why we have to innovate, build a
lot of resilience, stay lean, embrace technology, so that we
can then evolve around other strategies to basically scale our businesses.
And that's the ranking of number four on Africa's Fastest
Growing Companies really is a testament to our resilience that
we've built admiss the challenges that we have around funding.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
How do you scale you're talking about scale within other markets,
within communities. How do you do that without that access
to funding? What are some of the innovative ways you
maybe finding that you can get there.
Speaker 7 (10:03):
So we have strategic partnerships that we struck with mobile
network operators that have customer base of over ten fifteen
twenty million customers. Through these strategic partnerships, we are able
to leverage off the customer base. They have their access
to marketing and their direct access to cost of acquisition,
so it's much lower because they already have that existing base.
(10:26):
It costs much less for us to reach out to
these customers through these partnerships. So revenue sharing models the
new way to go through collaborations without raising any funds,
collaborating with banks who are not able to reach the underserved,
where we provide the technology, we reach out to the
customers and the banks then provide the funding and you
have revenue sharing models and.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
You're seeing the willingness by some of these institutions.
Speaker 7 (10:48):
Yeah, yes, they are willing. They may not have the
technology and the capabilities to serve the underserved, but they
have the capital. And then we have the tech, we
have the market access, we have the strategic partners, and
then we also have peer to lending platforms that really
help us work with the communities who believe in our mission,
who then provide the investments as low as even one dollar,
and then that then is then on lend to borrow
(11:09):
us on the platform. So are connecting investors to borrow
us on the platform, and we've raised over six million
dollars just through peer to peer lending and issued over
eleven million dollars in loans for over the last three years.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
How do you.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Balance a koto the need for some of the solutions
that you both are speaking to on the ground. You
know locally what the need is there, but also you
talk about the investors and the others how you have
to appeal to. How do you balance that?
Speaker 6 (11:35):
So africase not selicond Valley, and I think that oftentimes
our startups do have a spray and prayer proach when
it comes to funding. We've been guilty of that in
the past, but what we found is that it's better
to try and find those parts of patient capital who
really understand the context. And so we are working, for example,
(11:59):
with an asset for NTS company. They already have an
asset finance fund in East Africa and we're looking to
work with them to deploy modular code storage for our
farmers so that they can pay on a page you
go basis. So really is the balance of identifying what
they need is and connecting with those who really understand
the local context.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
And finally, let's take a look to the future. With
the impacts of climate change becoming clearer on economies across
the world and especially in Africa, sustainability is going to
become a key part of investment decision making in the
years to come. I spoke to Martha Osier from the
Africa focused investment firm ADNIAM about what this means for
Africa's economies and what opportunities it could create.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
In Kenya, we have established today what is the largest
second largest retailer. When we invested, they had nine stores.
Today we have sixty one stores, and we have partnered
with another green mobility company called Rome Electric and one
they do delivery. But I think more important for the
startup is we provide them infrastructure where they can build
(13:06):
their charging stations. So in terms of financing, it's not
necessarily that or you have to do another capital race.
Can you find people in the ecosystem who you can
leverage and you reduce your capex costs because I'm sure
to set up or to go to I don't know
how many landlords or you know, property owners and say
(13:28):
I want to establish charging stations. Yet if you have
a supermarket with sixty one physical brick and mortar locations,
that's an easy way for you to plug into the system.
So we're not directly funding startups, but I think for
startups that have applications to our existing businesses, that's an
(13:51):
indirect way of financing and supporting them to grow.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Martha, what is going to be key for momentum in
innovation to continue to build over the next few years.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
I think it's has been said by all the panelists.
It's solving real problems. Yeah, if I just relate to
what Ayula was talking about. In our supermarket, at least
fifteen percent of our products are fresh that we are
sourcing from twenty thousand farmers. Yeah, if we could provide
them a way to store those products. What happens in
(14:27):
Kenya is the fresh products are transported overnight because it's cooler,
and we know, at least in Kenya over fifty percent
of farm losses are happening because of a lack of
that cold chain. Okay, So partnering with the supermarket providing
coolboxes to these farmers one, I think solves your financing challenge.
(14:52):
But two, you're solving a real problem for a customer
who ultimately could either be you know, your exit plan
or your exit plan to to other supermarkets. So I
think what is key for startups is make sure you're
solving a real problem for people who are in your ecosystem.
(15:15):
Don't only look at private equity, but also look at corporates,
especially corporates that have been sponsored by private equity, as
potential ways for you to grow your business and ensure
your sustainability.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Of course, many economies are looking for new investment opportunities,
like those at the Katar Economic Forum. After the US
under President Trump, signaled it would be stepping back its
role in the global economy, with South Africa one of
the economies hit quite hard by the US pulling back
from aid spending and imposing tariffs. President Zero Ramaposa has
(15:51):
been in Washington for talks with President Trump. The South
African president found himself though ambushed by President Trump in
the overall, if there.
Speaker 8 (16:01):
Was Afrikana farmer genocide, I can bet you these three
gentlemen would not be here.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Each one of those white things you see is across and.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
There's approximately a thousand of them.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
They're all white farmers, the family of white farmers.
Speaker 8 (16:19):
So there is criminality in our country. People who do
get killed, unfortunately through criminal activity are not only white people.
Majority of them are black people. And we are now
the farmers are the farmers are not black.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
And I'm saying that's good or bad, but the farmers.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Are not black. Next week we'll bring you the full
analysis of the fallout of those talks and what the
future looks like for US South African relations. And you
can see all of our coverage from the Qatar Economic
Forum on Bloomberg platforms now, including the Next African Newsletter.
Will put a link to that in the show notes.
This program was produced by Adrian Bradley and tiwa Adebayo
(17:02):
don't forget to follow and review the show wherever you
usually get your podcasts.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, Government and business leaders
from around the world met in Qatar this week, and
African economies wanted to make sure they were on the agenda.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Africa CAPITALIZI enabling the private settor to drive okay straight
and lead the growth and transformation and the content. I
believe that these are sense we need to do to
take Africa to the next steps.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
With world trade rebalancing. After the inauguration of President Trump
in the US, African leaders are looking to the Middle
East for a new source of investment.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
African institutions I building capacity, but we need to also pattern.
I will wrestle the war to have robust payment capacity
to transactions as well as facilitate trade.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
On today's podcast, we're bringing you the best of the
Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. From long term investments to
emerging markets. Is the hope for Africa's continuing growth coming
from the Middle East. I'm Jennifer's Abasaja and this is
the Next Africa podcast, bringing you one story each week
(01:15):
from the continent driving the future of global growth with
the context only Bloomberg can provide. On today's special episode,
we're bringing you some of the key moments from the
Qatar Economic Forum, where I was speaking to a number
of Africa's foremost voices from the world of business, economics
and politics. We start in Nigeria, where volatility in the
(01:38):
oil market has meant lower earnings for Africa's biggest oil producer.
I spoke to aminu Umar Sadik, the Managing director of
Nigeria's Sovereign Investment Authority, to find out where he sees
future investment coming from.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
As the old prize goes off and down, that actually
affects the amounts of influence that coming to nsiety that
actually give us the recourse to invest.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Then what does that mean for the outlook moving forward
for NSII? Do you focus on other assets potentially? Do
you look to goal? Do you look to Yeah, where
else are you focusing?
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Then?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So on the future generations fun side. At the end
of last year, actually clearly valuation levels were high and
so we pivoted to cash and that allowed us to
do a couple of things at the beginning of this year.
The first thing was we decided to pivot away from
alternatives into defensive assets, particularly growth assets as well as
(02:32):
assets investment. Great corporate bombs, the second thing that we
did was actually for our long only portfolio, a long
only developed market's portfolio. We also decided to pivot away
from the US to Japan, to Australia and to Europe.
And then finally, what we decided to do was to
rationalize our assets allocation to see how we could consolidate
(02:53):
the number of names that we had into fewer, higher
quality stocks.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Did they pivot away from the US happened prior to
this new administration coming in. What was the thinking behind that?
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Just the diversification play. It was important given where we
saw the markets, how buoyant the market was, that we
began to look elsewhere just to ensure that we had
more robots portfolio. We had no political considerations, so to speak.
And then on the infrastructure side, I think we're looking
at a number of large scale transactions. I think the
(03:24):
first thing that we're doing was around healthcare, particularly around oncology.
You may have heard the NSIA co founded a company
called METSUV that focuses on oncology, on diagnostics, and on
cat labs, and we are expanding that significantly. The second
thing that we're doing is off the back of Mission
three hundred, the proposition that both the World Bank and
(03:45):
the AfDB co founded the NSIA Africa fifty Sustainable Energy
for All are also put in together five hundred million
dollar distributory renewable energy platform.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
You were just talking about how a number of African
sovereign World fund are going to be coming together in
just a few weeks in a Bouja. You were mentioning
is there a focus then on potentially local debt markets
as opposed to looking international. Do you think African sovereign
wealth funds are positioned to find that capital on the continent,
And that's.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
An excellent question. I think when you look at the
size of local pension funds relative to our infrastructure deficits,
that is the kind of capital that we need to
be looking to mobilize towards infrastructure financing. And I think
we can do more as multilaterals within the continent, as
sovereign wealth funds within the continent, to begin to find
ways to actually enhance blankable propositions and find ways to
(04:40):
give comfort to conservative capital, particularly the pension funds, to
actually finance our infrastructure projects. On the sixteenth, alongside other
African sovereign wealth funds, we will be hosting the African
Sovereign Investment Forum in Abuja, and that will be the
main theme of discussions at that point.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
What's your target then for the end of day out
of the year in terms of financing and MOBILIZINGCAPAGA.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
We're looking at a minimum of one point five to
two billion dollars as a start, and we are hopeful
that a combination of our fifteen of US will get there.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
But Africa is not only looking to export oil, it
also wants to market the skills and talent of young
Africans to the rest of the world. Here's Hendrik Detoit,
founder and CEO of Asset Manager ninety one, on the
role AI is playing on growing emerging markets in Africa.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
I'm very excited about the solution of real world problems,
i e. Getting research time which wouldn't have been justified
in labs on the West coast or East coast of
the US because it was deemed the problem was deemed
too small or the economic outcome wasn't good enough. So
real farmers enabling weak states to operate really well. I
(05:57):
mean you could digitize and technology in a able the
weakish developed developing country states into something really special. Without
turning them into the surveillance state. I think the downside
is and I think where I'm quite bullish about Africa
in particular in emerging markets, because Africans aren't spoilt. So
(06:17):
all these reasonably unproductive, very expensive white collar jobs in
the West, we are going to lose lots and lots
of them. And everyone can't become a yoga instructor, right.
Africans are kind of not in that food chain and
therefore will adjust in a way which is faster and better.
(06:37):
But I worry about the general migration from manufacturing jobs
and you know, to which may be supplanted by robots
in the developed world, to the services jobs that would
have been exported to the developing world, the sort of
India bungal Or story that may not happen again. Look
at the think about how many software developed is Microsoft fired?
(07:01):
But think of the people behind those software developers. For
if one of them, there's probably ten of them in India.
You know other places which do it. And I don't
know the answer. So there's an up and a downside.
I think Africa, because it's used to being tough and
Africans are very flexible, can probably deal with it better
than any other part of the world and.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Stick with us. When we come back, we'll hear from
some of the African Startups to Watch in twenty twenty
five and take a look to the future at how
a changing climate could mean changing investments. Will be right back.
Welcome back today. We are coming to you from the
Qatar Economic Forum in Doha, where business and political leaders
(07:44):
from Africa have come to make the case for investment.
African startups were here in Doha to find support from
global investors, and we're showcasing some of the best of
the continent with Bloomberg's inaugural twenty five African Startups to
Watch lists.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
In it.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I spoke to Awusu Akoto, the founder of Ghanaian logistics
company Freezelink, and also Chilufia Mutale, founder of the Zambia
and fintech firm Ishanti. I started by asking them about
the opportunities and challenges for startups on the continent and
also difficulties with some of the gaps in funding.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
We have a lot of foreign influence in our ecosystems.
Even the private act companies, the local private act companies
generally you see that they're DeFi fund is so development
finance institution funded. So with the USA drawing back with
I think probably some inertia when it comes to the
(08:41):
development finance cooperation in the US, even the Brits are
drawing back. It's definitely had some ripple effects in terms
of funding. But at the same time, our pension funds
sit on so much capital and so what we're seeing
in Ghana is more momentum from the pension funds, more
focused on alternative assets, which are the ripple effect on
(09:03):
deploying capital that ends up in some of our local startups.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Has that been your experience, Luthia.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
Yes, Well, it's well known that less than two percent
of funding goes to women led businesses. It Shandy is
a women lead enterprise and globally less than two percent
of funding ghost women led startups. So you can imagine
just in Africa alone what percentage is that. And funding
has been a challenge for us. We raised back in
twenty twenty and over four years we're still trying to
raise another funding round and it's a bit of a
(09:30):
challenge and that's why we have to innovate, build a
lot of resilience, stay lean, embrace technology, so that we
can then evolve around other strategies to basically scale our businesses.
And that's the ranking of number four on Africa's Fastest
Growing Companies really is a testament to our resilience that
we've built admiss the challenges that we have around funding.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
How do you scale you're talking about scale within other markets,
within communities. How do you do that without that access
to funding? What are some of the innovative ways you
maybe finding that you can get there.
Speaker 7 (10:03):
So we have strategic partnerships that we struck with mobile
network operators that have customer base of over ten fifteen
twenty million customers. Through these strategic partnerships, we are able
to leverage off the customer base. They have their access
to marketing and their direct access to cost of acquisition,
so it's much lower because they already have that existing base.
(10:26):
It costs much less for us to reach out to
these customers through these partnerships. So revenue sharing models the
new way to go through collaborations without raising any funds,
collaborating with banks who are not able to reach the underserved,
where we provide the technology, we reach out to the
customers and the banks then provide the funding and you
have revenue sharing models and.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
You're seeing the willingness by some of these institutions.
Speaker 7 (10:48):
Yeah, yes, they are willing. They may not have the
technology and the capabilities to serve the underserved, but they
have the capital. And then we have the tech, we
have the market access, we have the strategic partners, and
then we also have peer to lending platforms that really
help us work with the communities who believe in our mission,
who then provide the investments as low as even one dollar,
and then that then is then on lend to borrow
(11:09):
us on the platform. So are connecting investors to borrow
us on the platform, and we've raised over six million
dollars just through peer to peer lending and issued over
eleven million dollars in loans for over the last three years.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
How do you.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Balance a koto the need for some of the solutions
that you both are speaking to on the ground. You
know locally what the need is there, but also you
talk about the investors and the others how you have
to appeal to. How do you balance that?
Speaker 6 (11:35):
So africase not selicond Valley, and I think that oftentimes
our startups do have a spray and prayer proach when
it comes to funding. We've been guilty of that in
the past, but what we found is that it's better
to try and find those parts of patient capital who
really understand the context. And so we are working, for example,
(11:59):
with an asset for NTS company. They already have an
asset finance fund in East Africa and we're looking to
work with them to deploy modular code storage for our
farmers so that they can pay on a page you
go basis. So really is the balance of identifying what
they need is and connecting with those who really understand
the local context.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
And finally, let's take a look to the future. With
the impacts of climate change becoming clearer on economies across
the world and especially in Africa, sustainability is going to
become a key part of investment decision making in the
years to come. I spoke to Martha Osier from the
Africa focused investment firm ADNIAM about what this means for
Africa's economies and what opportunities it could create.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
In Kenya, we have established today what is the largest
second largest retailer. When we invested, they had nine stores.
Today we have sixty one stores, and we have partnered
with another green mobility company called Rome Electric and one
they do delivery. But I think more important for the
startup is we provide them infrastructure where they can build
(13:06):
their charging stations. So in terms of financing, it's not
necessarily that or you have to do another capital race.
Can you find people in the ecosystem who you can
leverage and you reduce your capex costs because I'm sure
to set up or to go to I don't know
how many landlords or you know, property owners and say
(13:28):
I want to establish charging stations. Yet if you have
a supermarket with sixty one physical brick and mortar locations,
that's an easy way for you to plug into the system.
So we're not directly funding startups, but I think for
startups that have applications to our existing businesses, that's an
(13:51):
indirect way of financing and supporting them to grow.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Martha, what is going to be key for momentum in
innovation to continue to build over the next few years.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
I think it's has been said by all the panelists.
It's solving real problems. Yeah, if I just relate to
what Ayula was talking about. In our supermarket, at least
fifteen percent of our products are fresh that we are
sourcing from twenty thousand farmers. Yeah, if we could provide
them a way to store those products. What happens in
(14:27):
Kenya is the fresh products are transported overnight because it's cooler,
and we know, at least in Kenya over fifty percent
of farm losses are happening because of a lack of
that cold chain. Okay, So partnering with the supermarket providing
coolboxes to these farmers one, I think solves your financing challenge.
(14:52):
But two, you're solving a real problem for a customer
who ultimately could either be you know, your exit plan
or your exit plan to to other supermarkets. So I
think what is key for startups is make sure you're
solving a real problem for people who are in your ecosystem.
(15:15):
Don't only look at private equity, but also look at corporates,
especially corporates that have been sponsored by private equity, as
potential ways for you to grow your business and ensure
your sustainability.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Of course, many economies are looking for new investment opportunities,
like those at the Katar Economic Forum. After the US
under President Trump, signaled it would be stepping back its
role in the global economy, with South Africa one of
the economies hit quite hard by the US pulling back
from aid spending and imposing tariffs. President Zero Ramaposa has
(15:51):
been in Washington for talks with President Trump. The South
African president found himself though ambushed by President Trump in
the overall, if there.
Speaker 8 (16:01):
Was Afrikana farmer genocide, I can bet you these three
gentlemen would not be here.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Each one of those white things you see is across and.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
There's approximately a thousand of them.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
They're all white farmers, the family of white farmers.
Speaker 8 (16:19):
So there is criminality in our country. People who do
get killed, unfortunately through criminal activity are not only white people.
Majority of them are black people. And we are now
the farmers are the farmers are not black.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
And I'm saying that's good or bad, but the farmers.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Are not black. Next week we'll bring you the full
analysis of the fallout of those talks and what the
future looks like for US South African relations. And you
can see all of our coverage from the Qatar Economic
Forum on Bloomberg platforms now, including the Next African Newsletter.
Will put a link to that in the show notes.
This program was produced by Adrian Bradley and tiwa Adebayo
(17:02):
don't forget to follow and review the show wherever you
usually get your podcasts.
Host
Jennifer Zabasajja
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