My Beauty Best Teacher

Efam Dovi asks at African Renewal:

What if wealthy Africans decided to invest their earnings in Africa instead of overseas? What if the 80 per cent of Africans who don’t have bank accounts were able to use financial services? And, what if African governments were able to invest their money in ways that will produce more goods and services?...The answer, says Samuel Gayi(of UNCTAD), is that “rates of savings [would] go up significantly and Africa could perhaps meet more of its own needs.” Turning Africa’s hidden homegrown wealth into profitable investments, however, will require new thinking and innovative policies by bankers and government officials alike...[continue reading]

Ernest Harsch writes in African Renewal:

As economic growth slows worldwide and some major industrial economies have gone into recession, it has become clearer that the repercussions of the global financial crisis will be felt throughout Africa’s “real economy” — beyond the narrow realm of stock trading. Dwindling financial remittances from Africans working abroad, lower world prices for Africa’s exports, scarcer and more costly commercial credit and less generous flows of foreign aid will inevitably dampen productive activity across the continent...[continue reading]

Mary Kimani writing in African Renewal:

According to the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), women own about 48 per cent of all enterprises in Africa. But they have the hardest time gaining access to finance...According to IFC Operations Officer Mary Njoroge, “by focusing on established small and medium enterprises that are looking to expand,” the organizations hope to “increase the share of women’s enterprises that actually make it to middle and large scale.”...[continue reading]

Efam Dovi reports on the importance of access to credit for micro-entrepreneurs looking to ascend into manufacturing:

About 80 per cent of women-owned businesses are stuck at the “micro” level. They are unable to expand because they lack properly coordinated support, cheap and long-term credit and sufficient access to new technologies. They face poor infrastructure, low capacity and sometimes obstructive government policies

notes that the banks appear more willing to give loans to importers of cheap products than to local manufacturers. The importers sell their produce quickly, at higher returns. But home-grown businesses require more time to turn a profit and to repay their loans, so the financial institutions shy away from them.