Back in 2002, emerging-marketbonds offered a yield a full ten percentage points higher than American Treasury bonds. This year, although spreads have widened from the historic lows seen in May, they have settled at a modest two percentage points or so. The performance of the equity markets has also been impressive. The MSCI emerging markets index has risen by nearly 40% so far this year, a remarkable achievement given the credit crunch and geopolitical worries. Although China's stockmarket has more than doubled, this is not all about the People's Republic; the Polish, Indian, Brazilian and Pakistani markets are all up by more than 40%. Indeed, investor focus is now shifting towards what Michael Hartnett of Merrill Lynch dubs “the emerging emerging markets”, such as Botswana and Kazakhstan. MSCI is in the process of launching a benchmark for such exotica called the “frontier market” index.
Outside South Africa, Sub-SaharanAfricancapitalmarketsrepresent the last frontier for the unhindered flow of global capital. The problem has always been the absence of the combination of scale and local expertise required to attract global fund managers...There is currently not enough depth in the Nigerian market - its market capitalisation is $31bn, total issue of government bonds about $4bn - to support such a large inflow of cash without overly inflating the market. But the Nex-Rubica forecast is for this size to double between now and the final quarter of 2007, surpassing Egypt by 2008...In the last year, the outperforming stocks on the Nex-Rubica Africa Top 40 Index, have been Nigerian financials. One key attraction is that the risk/return profile in the Nigerian market is generally uncorrelated to western markets. Starting from a relatively low base, Nigeria alone has the momentum in terms of its population, resources and growth potential to catapult it to the first rank of emergingmarketeconomies.
In the end, global financial markets cannot save Africa alone. It will need to save itself. The World Bank and donor countries can help to finance the necessary infrastructureinvestments Africa needs to get on its feet, but African government’s will have to stop diverting the revenues from oil and other commodities to their cronies and invest back in their own nations. China has not been helpful in this regard -- by neglecting to put conditions on the money it loans, Beijing only enables corrupt officials to steal from Africa’s future. Still, the recent interest from Western financial firms has not come out of nowhere. The investment climate is improving in significant ways across most of the continent. But the road from “frontier market” to “emerging market” will be an arduous journey for Africa’s governments. Despite the current opportunities, many may still turn back before reaching their destination.
For the past 10 years the Nigerian economy has swung back and forth between emerging market, frontier market and even underdeveloped economy, as perceived by institutional investors. Personally I find it difficult to to tell the difference sometime.I am of the opinion that Wall Street is acutely tunnel visioned when it comes to recognizing the impressive changes that the African continent has undergone in the last ten years. This is why I find it difficult not to be cynical sometimes when ‘premier’ analysts sometime tout the equity markets in Nigeria as the next big thing...[continue reading]
Wall Street hired the best and the brightest paid them handsomely and gave them unlimited resources and technology. It turns out they were building enormously complicated castles made of sand. A great wave washed them away,astounding all the smart people who devoted their lives to speculation not production..."We need to get back to making stuff based on real engineering not just financial engineering..."-Thomas Friedman [continue reading]
Frontier markets offer opportunities to participate in some of the world's fastest-growing economies. Parts of Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East have been clocking growth of about 6% or more in recent years. That trend is largely projected to continue through at least 2009, far outpacing developed-economy growth of about 1.3%. Yet, frontier economies are some of the most volatile financial markets around. Kenya's stock market, rocked by political strife, lost more than 11% in just 10 days earlier this year...[continue reading]
According to Merrill Lynch chief investment strategist Richard Bernstein, Africa presents investors with both “tremendous potential” and “tremendous risk.” In the next decade, he believes it should above all provide them with opportunity. “Traditionally Africa has not been a place where more risk-oriented emergingmarketinvestors would invest, but that is changing,” Mr. Bernstein said in a report. “Investors in search of higher returns have increased their risk tolerances and have begun to search for greater returns from so-called frontier markets.” Africa's economic expansion has exceeded global growth and is expected to continue to do so in the coming years. The continent may be on the cusp of an “unprecedented stage of economic development,” one that will benefit 100 companies in more than 20 countries, he said.
If agriculture has a final frontier, it is Africa. After agriculture transformations in Asia and Latin America since the 1960s, Africa remains the one place where the farming potential has barely been scratched. African agriculture has less irrigation, less fertilizer use, less soil and seed research, less mechanization, less rural financing, fewer paved farm-to-market roads than any other farming region in the world. Conflict in many parts of the continent has chased farmers out of their fields, and neglect by both local governments and international development experts have let Africa's agriculture infrastructure fall into dire disrepair.
Excepting South Africa, the sub-Saharan mortgage market has been virtually non-existent up to a few years ago. Increasingly, populations in a number of sub-Saharan countries are being introduced to the concept of funding their lifestyles through debt. As formal personal financial services become more widely accepted on the continent, mortgages are now becoming an attainable reality for growing numbers of Africans. Yet despite optimism about the transformational potential of home ownership, few of these products truly extend below the well-heeled segment of society.
The continent's so-called frontier markets, such as Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Mauritius and Botswana, are up an average of 26% so far this year in dollar terms, according to Liquid Africa. By comparison, the MSCI Emerging Market Index, which includes just three African countries -- South Africa, Egypt and Morocco -- has risen 9.5% during the same period.
If you haven't heard this story, it's because the numbers are still small. The London Stock Exchange is five times as big as all African stock markets combined. And South Africa's exchange is 2/3 of the African total.
Excepting South Africa, the sub-Saharan mortgage market has been virtually non-existent up to a few years ago. Increasingly, populations in a number of sub-Saharan countries are being introduced to the concept of funding their lifestyles through debt. As formal personal financial services become more widely accepted on the continent, mortgages are now becoming an attainable reality for growing numbers of Africans. Yet despite optimism about the transformational potential of home ownership, few of these products truly extend below the well-heeled segment of society.
School Library Journal had an article yesterday on how Overdrive now is compatible with the Kindle. Overdrive is a popular ebook "check out" service used by many public and some progressive school libraries. As I checked the prices, I found that a license for a US school of up to a certain size is around $4,000 and it includes $2,000 towards 150-200 ebooks a year to add to your collection and you can add more. (This is only available for US schools presently.)
The fascinating thing is that you can have a 24/7 online library for students to check out with a customized book collection set up for just your students.
Rock, Paper, Ebook Cavemen wrote on rocks in caves. Then, with Egyptian papyrus, paper was born. Now, with Kindles, Ipads and the like, electronic paper is in its infancy.
There are things not perfect about ebooks right now. Earlier this year, Overdrive received quite a bit of negative press for their "use limit" for some books. (Read the Librarian in Black for more information.) The bottom line is that publishers have no idea how the pricing will look for this new model and librarians aren't happy and perhaps cannot afford to pay for each person who reads a title if that is a model that moves ahead.
Many ebooks are check one out only. For example, if you check out a book, you don't return it. It expires and is returned to the library and then next person can check it out. The person who checked it can recheck it if it is available in the library. You can buy multiple copies of a book and let multiple copies be checked out. Textbooks are currently not available through this program from what I'm reading.
But there is room for progressive authors and publishers who want to open up new markets to create "unlimited" check out books, so that possibility exists.
Are there other ways paper is better? In fact, I had this conversation with my teenage daughter who has my old Kindle (which I gave up unhappily as I do prefer reading on it to my ipad but she does love it.) I asked her why she didn't want all of her novels on Kindle and her answer was,
"Mom, when I have a book and the teacher has me underline and take notes, it is just a lot easier to take those notes and make those underlines in the book so I can have it to study for easily. I keep it on a shelf so when I'm a senior it will be easier to review for AP Literature."
OK, valid point. Since we had that discussion, I'm finding this to be true.
A Lesson from Cell Phone Days I remember when cell phones first came out and I got in the business in 1992. Everyone said,
"NO one is going to use cell phones, they are too big and bulky and we will never want to have a bag on our hip."
Yes, they were right. Cell phones as they WERE didn't have mass market appeal. (Anyone remember "bag phones" and "brick phones?")
The problem was that people didn't see the cell phone as what it would become.
The same with ebooks.
Do you realize that we are sitting upon the biggest innovation in the MEDIA upon which we read since Egyptian papyrus. Sure, Guttenberg's printing press made a big difference in the mass scalability of paper. Take a look at the youtube video from Cairo showing the making of papyrus paper in 4,000 BC.
But paper was paper.
We are literally evolving: Rock, Paper, eBook
There are librarians digging in to defend their media. They think they are about paper. Really, a good library isn't about paper: it is about learning. Whether a student reads on a rock, paper, or ebook, I don't think a librarian should really care as long as that student is reading.
In the ebook model we still need librarians as curators. Instead of teaching the card catalog system or electronic look up system, you'll teach people how to navigate a website. Instead of teaching students how to find it on a shelf, we'll teach them how to find it on a website and download it into their ebook reader.
Tired and Retire? You have an opportunity, librarian. Some of you are close to retirement and you might choose to say:
"This is too much, I'm just going to go how it is for now and let the next person worry about this."
Well, they aren't building any more libraries in the physical world but in the online world, they are just beginning. You have a legacy. Your legacy is built in a generation of learners who came to you for advice that you have helped. You've poured your life into these walls and these learners. Open the walls and reach new learners.
Look at the chairs that surround you now. Think of the hundreds and maybe even thousands that have sat in those chairs studying or taking wild adventures that took them beyond the world in which they live. You've been opening a frontier to these students for your entire life.
If your heart is still beating and you still have a desk in your current library, you have the opportunity to make a difference and leave a legacy. Others are looking at you and if you decide that you're going to learn something new and try it, then you are setting the stage for everyone younger than you. They can say:
"If Mrs. Librarian-Close-To-Retirement can do it. So can I."
In fact, your behavior is setting the stage for the new person who will replace you. It is hard for new people to innovate because they aren't trusted (yet) and they don't have the asking power. You do. You know that you can ask for the money for an ebook lending system (I'm sure there are some besides Overdrive out there) and you could get it.
Why put off for someone else to do what is clearly your opportunity to do?
The question is: are you willing to learn so you can leave a legacy of learning?
Picture this: the library chairs are no longer chairs in your library but beds, floors, recliners, couches, car seats and even the fields around the world. Wherever your students are, you can be too.
There are obvious benefits:
check in is automated,
students can find and download what they want,
no heavy backpacks
wear and tear on books,
eventually you can perhaps even see how many pages they read and how they interacted with the book - things we can't even imagine yet.
There are drawbacks:
something new to learn,
publishers bumbling through the process of trying to make this happen,
you can't write in the book (is that really a drawback for libraries?),
can you save the notes even when you don't have the book?
The point is that this evolution is happening. Some will always like paper and no one is making you get rid of your paper books. No one is asking anyone to read on something that they don't want to read upon.
The only thing that is being asked is by students and people like me who want the opportunity to be able to read in the media that we prefer: the ebook.
I get 10-15 books to review a month. NONE of the publishers will send it to me via ebook. How crazy is that? Publishers don't want this to happen - at least those who have warehouses full of printing presses, paper, and personnell who do nothing but print books.
Remember all of those people who used to stamp CD's? Albums? They just aren't there because people wanted to download music.
Change Change happens whether we like it or not. Change can be done by us to or us. We have a choice. With your many years of experience, the future library will be better if our most seasoned veterans are involved. I think we should look at libraries like the King County Library System (which won the busiest and Best Library of the Year.)
We need our veteran librarians more than ever I'm just reaching out and asking the heroes among us to continue to be our heroes. We need our librarian leaders to help us move into the next evolution of paper. And with Kindle now on Overdrive, the evolution of books and libraries has just moved into overdrive. Expect major disruption to happen to the publishing industry - it has begun and now libraries are feeling the nudge along the path to our electronic future.
Remember your noble calling, librarian. Same to you, parent and teacher. We've got a new generation to reach and teach. Let's get started.
When we launched Kindle Kids Corner with Stephen Windwalker and I saw just how our students love the ebook format, I realized that it was time. Let's move ahead.
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