Hi, Quartz Africa readers!
High-tech hustle
In a room bare of anything but desktop computers, young girls in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania file a few times a week to learn to code from other female scientists. In Somalia, where internet penetration levels stand at just over 2%, entrepreneurs have launched successful e-commerce stores and e-hailing apps. In Rwanda, designers once denied financial support by established local banks have had their clothing lines worn on Hollywood’s red carpet.
In Ethiopia, where internet shutdowns have occurred regularly, Africa’s next high-tech workforce is being nurtured. And despite the political and economic chaos that has engulfed Egypt since the 2011 revolution, innovators have created an ecosystem that has sprung multi-million-dollar firms.
In the past three years, as I traveled across East Africa and beyond to report, I have always been drawn by these stories of defiance amid challenging and impossible circumstances. Hardscrabble entrepreneurs, techies, and creatives were undertaking ambitious projects disrupting sectors from education and health to politics, microfinance, and filmmaking. This free-form nature to strive and conceive a better tomorrow is at the heart of the concept of “kanju,” defined in Nigerian-American writer Dayo Olopade’s book The Bright Continent as creativity born of struggle.
As government corruption and inefficiency act as a millstone to progress, young Africans are also employing rule-bending ethos determined to steer the course of their lives. There are the activists fighting for a clean and healthy environment in Kenya. There are the Sudanese artists drawing murals to defy authoritarians; the peaceful protestors from Algeria to Zimbabwe clamoring for change; and the students demanding the end of gender violence and sexual discrimination in South Africa. As the late Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina wrote about this hopeful narrative, young Africans “motor on faith and enterprise, with small steps. On hope, and without hysteria.”
This chronicle of hustling and hacking is the story of modern Africa. It’s a story that inspires as much as it depresses but it’s a story that demands consistent coverage nonetheless. As young Africans defiantly shape a new future, we miss telling their stories at our own peril.
— Abdi Latif Dahir, Quartz Nairobi correspondent
Stories from this week
The most unusual ways many African countries got their names. There’s a lot of untold history in the many ways African countries were named. But as Ciku Kimeria found out there was something of a pattern involving geography, bumbling European explorers, unimaginative colonialists and roots in Latin, Portuguese and even Greek.
African languages are the fastest growing in the United States. Analysis of US Census Bureau data reveals African languages, including Swahili, Yoruba, Igbo, Twi and Amharic are leading the list of the ten fastest growing languages in the United States. Chidinma Irene Nwoye details how recent immigration trends have contributed to this development.
Rwanda is investing in dads in the hope of reducing poverty. A home-visiting program known as Sugira Muryango aims to train poor parents—especially fathers—to become better caregivers to their kids. The goal, explains Annabelle Timsit, is to reduce violence in the home, improve children’s long-term life outcomes, and ultimately reduce poverty.
Nigeria is finally turning to phone operators to drive financial inclusion through mobile money. Nigeria has long been the big hope for mobile money and financial inclusion evangelists on the basis of its vast population and mobile phone penetration. As Yomi Kazeem explains, that promise may be set to be fulfilled with regulators finally allowing phone companies operate mobile money services to reach millions of unbanked people.
West Africa’s cocoa farmers are trapped by the global chocolate industry. Farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana should be diversifying away from cocoa production if they want to improve the state of their livelihoods finds research. But many are trapped by their obligations to major chocolate producers who need them to keep growing cocoa despite evidence to the contrary.
Zimbabwe is clamping down on social media use with a cyber crime bill set to become law. A new cyber crime bill passed by president Mnangagwa’s cabinet has been couched as a necessity to protect Zimbabwe’s cyber-space.” But as Tawanda Karombo points out, there is wide-spread sentiment that the law is being pushed through to deal with potential uprisings and free speech.
Russia’s Africa summit is the latest step in its resurgence as a global power on the continent. Russian president Vladimir Putin has overseen the last five years of a concentrated diplomatic, economic and military push across Africa. Now, in the run-up to the first-ever Russia-Africa summit in Sochi later this month, Joe Penney explains how the outcomes of Russia’s influence in Africa are not that different from France’s or the US.
Chart of the Week
Private equity firms are raising billions to back African businesses but need to do more deals. The half-year fundraising total for African private equity firms is on pace to surpass fundraising figures from the last two years but in contrast, the total value of deals and rates of exits are dropping.
The Dealmaker
SweepSouth, the Cape Town based on-demand domestic cleaning service, has raised $3.9 million in a funding round which saw participation from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. The startup is also notable as the first South African beneficiary of Naspers Foundry, a startup fund by Africa’s most valuable company which is exclusively focused on local tech businesses…Egyptian venture capital firm, Sawari Ventures led a $4.5 million Series A round in Almentor, an e-learning platform which offers personal development courses to Arabic speakers across the region. The round also saw participation from Egypt Ventures.
Quartz announcement
Quartz Africa is looking for freelance writers in Nairobi and London.
In Nairobi, we’re looking for writers who understand how the local tech ecosystem fits into Kenya and East Africa’s broader story on everything from business and politics to culture and design.
In London, we’re looking for writers who can report the story of the African diaspora’s growing influence in the UK and on Africa with intimacy and first-hand knowledge across business, culture and politics.
Please send a CV, three links to previously published work and two original story ideas you think would work for Quartz Africa to africa@qz.com, with subject line: “Nairobi freelance writer” or “London freelance writer”.
ICYMI
MIT Africa teachers fellowship. The program offers African professors a chance to interact with MIT faculty and gain access to some of the best science and engineering facilities in the world. (Nov. 1)
Australia Africa scholarships. African postgraduate candidates interested in fields including extractives, public policy, and agricultural productivity can apply for a fully-funded study in Australia. (Dec. 6)
Keep an eye on
Mozambique general elections (Oct. 15). The killing of poll observers, growing insurgency, and political tension have marred the two-way polls in which the long-ruling Frelimo party will face off with the opposition Renamo party.
Hong Kong court to hear controversy over Djibouti port (Oct. 15). Dubai’s DP World sued China Merchants for bypassing its concession agreement with Djibouti and acquiring an indirect shareholding in the strategic Doraleh terminal. Two rulings in the UK have already sided with DP World with the Court of International Arbitration even ordering Djibouti to pay $533 million for breaching contract terms.
*This brief was produced while listening to Ye Ye Dey Smell by Fela Ransome-Kuti & Afrika 70 featuring Ginger Baker (Nigeria/UK). [Spotify] RIP, Ginger Baker.
Our best wishes for a productive and ideas-filled week ahead. Please send any news, comments, suggestions, ideas, Swahili, Yoruba, Igbo, Twi and Amharic lessons and Nigerian mobile money to africa@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter at @qzafrica for updates throughout the day.
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