DIVERSITY IN AFRICA
One Or Many ‘Africas’?
Business Implications Of
Africa’s Diversity
By Enock Wandera
I
start off on a light note – some 5 years
ago, I was on a business trip to one of
the South East Asia countries, as I left
the airport in a taxi, the first question the
driver asked me was whether I was from
Nigeria. When I said no, he went ahead to
ask whether I was from ‘Africa’! At that
point, I immediately knew that I needed
to do some quick Geography 101 – and
for almost 20 minutes, I had to explain
to my bewildered driver how Nigeria was
only part of Africa and that I was from
Kenya, just one of the over 50 countries in
Africa. He then asked me to tell him the
difference between me and the Nigerians
and, reassure him that I have not come to
‘charm’ their women! I was really tickled.
Just from the thirty or so minutes
encounter with a foreign taxi driver
gave me the impression of how Africa
is possibly thought of out there – from
one extreme, an ignorant assumption
of Africa being one big country, to the
semi informed notion that Africa, with
its many countries, is the same (Africa is
Africa) and finally to the other extreme
that sees Africa as a diverse continent
ready to throw surprises at those who
hold the first and second assumptions
above – and indeed, there are a number
of examples of brands and businesses in
general that have learnt the hard way
coming into Africa with assumptions!. I
am sure you can name a few yourself?
Zimbabwe is a classic example of how econom-
ic decisions and performance has had impli-
cations on marketing and business in general.
For a long time, economic challenges in this
country forced many businesses to shut down
including those that were in the giant agricul-
tural sector, hyper-inflation made doing busi-
ness extremely challenging and at some point
in the latest years, due to foreign exchange
controls, moving money out of the country be-
came a serious challenge - exchange of goods
and services became difficult and in some cas-
es, inter-country contracts were discontinued.
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To start with the very basics, we may all
know that geographically, it is argued that
Africa’s land area of approximately 30
million Square kilometers can easily fit
in India, China, US and parts of Europe.
This land mass, 25% under tropical
forest, carries as at now, about 1.2 billion
people majority of whom still reside in
the rural areas. The continent also boasts
of some of the most beautiful & breath
taking geographical features – from the
Atlas Mountains, the Sahara desert, the
Kalahari, the River Nile, Lake Victoria
to the grand Mt. Kilimanjaro and to the
world famous Maasai Mara!
Next, if we go beyond the simple
geographical profile, we start seeing how
complex the continent is from several
perspectives that have implications on
business. The simplest dimensions for me
to consider when discussing this are the
famous 4: Political, Economic, Social and
Technological factors.
Politically, we would imagine that we have
undergone seasons of transformation –
the first season being colonial days, mainly
18th century and before in which much
of the business done within the continent
mainly benefitted the colonialists –
raw materials were shipped out of the
continent, profits were re-invested in
huge business empires abroad as the locals
were limited to providing cheap labor
as a factor of production to the foreign
business owners.
Then came 1940s-1960s, a period in which