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<p>This episode of Focus On takes aim at the R165.8 billion Gauteng provincial budget for the 2024/2025 financial year delivered by Gauteng Finance MEC Jacob Mamabolo on Tuesday. With a focus on fighting crime and improving health services, CNBC Africa&#8217;s Keamogetswe Mosepele speaks to Gauteng Health MEC, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko and Mzi Khumalo, Gauteng MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, e- Government, Research and Development on their plans to utilize the newly allocated funds.</p>


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Focus On Gauteng Provincial Budget 2024/25

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<p>The Gauteng provincial government delivered the final budget presentation for the 6th Provincial Administration, Gauteng Finance MEC Jacob Mamabolo on Tuesday tabled a provincial budget for the province of R165.8-billion for the 2024/25 financial year, with a focus on fighting crime and boosting the township economy.</p>


Gauteng MEC Jacob Mamabolo delivers 2024/25 Provincial Budget (full speech)

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<p>Finance professionals have had to rethink their roles in business. This, as finance operations are forced to embrace emerging technologies. Disruption has indeed created megatrends in the Finance space. Joining CNBC Africa to unpack the future of finance is Cedric Miller, Chief Financial Officer at Altron.</p>


How technology is shifting the role of finance professionals

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<p>South Africa’s medium term budget will be a defining litmus test on whether the government can take the country out of an economic slump or send it in the direction of a financial crisis.</p>


#MTBPS2020: A tightrope walk for Finmin Mboweni


<p>JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa’s Deputy Finance Minister David Masondo has been asked to step down by the governing African National Congress party’s integrity commission for involving an elite police unit in a dispute with a former lover.</p>



<p>Masondo has been tasked with driving pro-growth economic reforms and is among potential successors to current Finance Minister Tito Mboweni.</p>



<p>A former leader of the Young Communist League, he is seen as more left-wing than Mboweni. Earlier this year he called for the central bank to print money to fund the government response to the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout.</p>



<p>In a letter to Masondo seen by Reuters, the ANC’s integrity commission said his actions had brought the party into disrepute and showed poor judgment.</p>



<p>Masondo’s written response, also seen by Reuters, insists he had acted on the advice of his lawyer when reporting the former partner to the police for harassing him and his family.</p>



<p>He sent WhatsApp messages to the commission that he said corroborated the harassment claim. He asked the commission for further guidance and said he was aware that ANC leaders were expected to subject themselves to “organisational processes”.</p>



<p>Neither Masondo, the ANC nor the chairman of the integrity commission responded to requests for comment.</p>



<p>The integrity commission is expected to deliberate further. If it maintains he must resign, Masondo could appeal the decision, or the matter could be referred to the ANC’s national executive committee.</p>


International travel for South Africans is now allowed, this is how it will work

South Africa’s deputy finance minister asked to step aside over abuse of power claim

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<p>The government of Rwanda has set up a $100 million COVID-19 relief fund so as to mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic on Rwanda&#8217;s economy. CNBC Africa&#8217;s Arnold Kwizera spoke to Rwanda&#8217;s Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Uzziel Ndagijimana for more.</p>


These are the COVID-19 relief measures Rwanda’s government is offering to SMEs


<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/mtn_-_flickr_1-1024x682.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-86362"/><figcaption>The company said its board would find a new CEO during the year to enable a seamless handover. </figcaption></figure>



<p>JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; MTN Group Ltd, Africa’s largest mobile network by subscribers, said on Wednesday Chief Executive Officer Rob Shuter would step down from his role at the end of a four-year term in March 2021.</p>



<p>The company said its board would find a new CEO during the year to enable a seamless handover. <br>
Shuter, a former head of Vodafone Europe with a background in banking, took over from Sifiso Dabengwa in 2017, who resigned after Nigeria imposed a $1.7 billion penalty on the company for its failure to deactivate unregistered users. <br>
During his tenure, Shuter overhauled the telecom firm’s governance standards and is in the middle of a strategic revamp of MTN to hunt for returns in everything from financial services, music to video games. <br>
The company also said headline earnings per share (HEPS) rose 38.9% to 468 cents for the full-year ended Dec. 31 on the IFRS 16 accounting basis. On a like-for-like IAS 17 accounting basis, HEPS rose 61.7%. </p>



<p>Revenue rose by 9.7%, while service revenue grew by 9.8%. <br>
“The group’s results were supported by double-digit growth in service revenue by both MTN Nigeria and MTN Ghana, while economic pressure, new data usage rules and a reassessment of recognition criteria for roaming revenue from Cell C impacted our performance in South Africa,” Shuter said in a statement. <br>
MTN, which competes with rival Vodacom Group, said it raised 14 billion rand ($876.70 million) from asset sales within the first 12 months of its three-year 15 billion rand divestment plan aimed at simplifying its portfolio. <br>
The company said it currently does not anticipate a material impact on its near-term network rollout plans due to the coronavirus outbreak and was developing contingency plans to mitigate the impact. <br>
Shuter said on a media conference call that due to the outbreak MTN had restricted non-essential travel a few weeks ago to some countries, including Iran, where it has operations. </p>



<p>“We don’t really want people travelling in and out unless there is an absolute emergency,” Shuter said.</p>


MTN Group CEO Rob Shuter to step down in March next year

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Nigeria&#8217;s Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed says the 2020 budget may be revised if government revenues are significantly impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. Meanwhile, CFG Advisory is recommending a major policy overhaul for Nigeria to reduce its revenue vulnerabilities and budget deficits. Tilewa Adebajo the CEO of CFG Advisory who was also a former Senior Technical Adviser to the Minister of Industry Trade and Investment joins CNBC Africa for more.</p>


Will COVID-19 force Nigeria to review its 2020 budget?

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Nigeria recorded an economic growth of 2.55 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2019, its highest quarterly growth since the 2016 recession. Zainab Ahmed, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning joins CNBC Africa’s Esther Awoniyi for a focus on Africa’s largest economy.</p>


FinMin Mthuli Zainab Ahmed on Nigeria’s growth outlook

FinMin Zainab Ahmed on Nigeria’s growth outlook, how to increase revenue base

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<p>Nigeria&#8217;s Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed says it is very important for African countries to balance the need between development and debt sustainability. She also stressed that Nigeria is not anywhere near debt distress levels when asked about the government&#8217;s recent borrowing plans. CNBC Africa&#8217;s Kenneth Igbomor caught up with Zainab Ahmed in Dakar at International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) international conference on Sustainable Development and Debt Sustainability.</p>


Sustainable Development

Sustainable Development, Sustainable Debt: Zainab Ahmed: Nigeria not anywhere near debt distress levels


<p><strong>Kigali, Rwanda, 25 November 2019 –</strong> African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina has called for greater access to finance for African women when he addressed the inaugural session of the Global Gender Summit.</p>



<p>&#8220;When women borrow, they
always repay. And 90% of them repay their loans without the least problem. So,
where is the risk? The problem is prejudice and the banks&#8217; lack of flexibility.
We must leave this behind to allow women access to financing,&#8221; President
Adesina urged.</p>



<p>The session headed &#8220;<strong>Unlocking women&#8217;s access
to finance in Africa</strong>&#8221; had a panel of high-level speakers,
including Salimata Diop Dieng, the Senegalese Minister of Women, Family and
Gender; Andrew Temu, President of the African Guarantee Fund; Kennedy Uzoka,
President and CEO of United Bank of Africa (UBA); Joséphine Anan-Ankomah, CEO
of Ecobank Group; and Christine Ngiriye, an entrepreneur.</p>



<p>Salimata Diop Deng said,
&#8220;It is important that financial institutions support initiatives from
women. They have the market gardens and produce to process. They create
start-ups in innovative areas. But they lack resources and collateral, and the
procedures for accessing loans are complicated. These women have relatively
moderate finance needs, just enough to create projects and jobs. They need
support from the private sector and the banks to help them weave their way into
the economy.&#8221;</p>



<p>Andrew Temu advocated
&#8220;holding discussions with countries to improve the business environment.
What is especially needed is legislation that reassures the banks. There are a
number of actors, banks, investors, entrepreneurs and clients operating within
the economic market. Everyone needs to be in communication to address the
risks.&#8221;</p>



<p>For Anan-Ankomah, ECOBANK is
already making big strides to gender parity. The pan-African bank has signed up
to the African Union gender parity principle of 50/50. “Currently we are at 46%
and out of that, 30% of those women are in senior management positions,” she
said.</p>



<p>Ngiriye said that she had seen
little change in nearly 30 years: &#8220;The problem that comes up again and
again is that of collateral.”</p>



<p>According to Adesina the
financial sector had a responsibility to the women of Africa. And he made an
announcement: &#8220;From now on, we shall be grading every African financial
institution for how well it helps women. Every financial ecosystem must evolve
to support women. And we are going to put pressure on the guarantee
banks.&#8221;</p>



<p>The African Development Bank and the government of Rwanda are hosting the Global Gender Summit from 25 to 27 November in Kigali. The Summit is being organised by the Multilateral Development Banks’ (MDBs) Working Group on gender for the first time in Africa.</p>



<p><em>Content provided by African Development Bank </em></p>


gettyimages-870006586-594×594 (1)

Global Gender Summit 2019: “Put prejudice behind us and give women access to finance” says Akinwumi Adesina


<p>By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/alicia-adamczyk/">Alicia Adamczyk</a> </p>



<p>As online shopping heats up ahead of the holiday season, consumers should be aware of an increasingly common scam called “e-skimming,” the <a class="" href="https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/current-activity/2019/10/23/fbi-releases-article-defending-against-e-skimming">FBI warns</a>.</p>



<p>Skimming involves thieves installing devices in ATMs or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/24/use-of-credit-cards-skimmers-at-gas-stations-atms-is-exploding.html" class="">gas station credit card machines</a>&nbsp;that secretly record an unsuspecting user’s financial information as he or she enters it. In the electronic version, scammers edit JavaScript code and “capture the credit card data in real time as the user enters it,” per the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/portland/news/press-releases/oregon-fbi-tech-tuesday-building-a-digital-defense-agaist-e-skimming" class="">FBI’s announcement</a>.</p>



<p>That data is then sold to other malicious actors, or used by the scammer to buy things online. Small- and medium-sized retailers are most at risk of being targeted, per the FBI.</p>



<p>While the FBI and security experts make clear it’s primarily the responsibility of merchants to secure their sites and educate employees on the best cybersecurity practices, there are a number of measures anyone can take to help keep their financial information secure. Here are seven things you can do now.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1. Use a virtual credit card</h2>



<p>Virtual credit cards are temporary numbers that allow you to use your real credit card without exposing your account information to a retailer’s website. You can use these only once, or however many times you choose.</p>



<p>If your information is skimmed or revealed in a data breach it’s okay; you won’t have to replace your real credit card, only close down the virtual card. You can create these virtual cards on&nbsp;<a href="https://privacy.com/virtual-card" class="">Privacy.com</a>, or on your&nbsp;<a href="https://www.americanexpress.com/us/payment-solutions/amex-go-virtual-cards/index.html" class="">card issuer’s website</a>.</p>



<p><a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/debit-cards-are-dangerous-warns-fraud-expert-and-ex-con-artist-frank-abagnale.html">Never use a debit card</a> when shopping online. Credit cards offer <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/17/when-to-use-a-debit-card-instead-of-a-credit-card.html">better protections for consumers</a>. Debit cards act essentially as cash, whereas if a thief uses your credit card, no money is actually taken from you.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2. Pay using a third party</h2>



<p>Rick McElroy, principal security strategist at Carbon Black, a cybersecurity firm, tells&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/make-it/" class="">CNBC Make It</a>&nbsp;that if you’re not using a separate credit card for online purchases, it’s smart to pay through a third-party processor like PayPal or Venmo if the retailer’s site gives you that option.</p>



<p>If you use PayPal, for example, the online retailer never sees your information, says McElroy. “They see your email address, but other than that PayPal just sends a token that says the payment was made.” There’s no personal information to steal.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">3. Keep your tech updated</h2>



<p>Consumers should keep their internet browsers and phone and computer operating systems up-to-date, particularly at this time of year, McElroy says. He suggests everyone turn on the auto-updates on their personal tech.</p>



<p>“The attacks on retailers ramp up between Thanksgiving and the first of the year,” he says. “The vendors are already seeing it, so they are putting out continual updates.”</p>



<p>He also suggests installing secure browser plug-ins.&nbsp;<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sitejabber/" class="">SiteJabber</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/wot-safe-browsing-tool/" class="">Web of Trust</a>, for example, provide community-sourced security ratings for websites.&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/https-everywhere/gcbommkclmclpchllfjekcdonpmejbdp?hl=en" class="">HTTPS Everywhere</a>&nbsp;ensures that the sites you visit are automatically encrypted and secure (when you’re browsing, you want site addresses to begin with “https://” as opposed to “http://”).</p>



<p>And if you’re shopping locally, go in person to make a purchase. Small retailers often do not have the resources to completely secure their sites.</p>



<p>“From a consumer perspective, stick to the major retailers. They do a pretty decent job of ensuring that stuff is protected,” says McElroy.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">4. Be careful with gift cards</h2>



<p>Scammers are now using the same tactics they use to steal credit card information to steal gift card balances, McElroy notes. Whereas you’d likely notice a mysterious credit card transaction or money missing from your checking account right away, that isn’t the case for gift cards.</p>



<p>“Who checks their gift card balances on a daily basis?” McElory says. “Thieves get a lot longer to hide.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">5. Watch out for phishing emails</h2>



<p>Emails from companies purporting to be Apple and Amazon, among others, abound during the holiday season, McElroy warns. Always double check for spelling and grammatical errors, and be weary of emails asking you to click certain links, which might be a phishing attack that gives scammers access to your financial information.</p>



<p>“Always be weary of incoming communications,” he says.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">6. Regularly monitor bank accounts</h2>



<p>With all of the sophisticated financial scams that abound these days, consumers are wise is to proactively protect their financial information.</p>



<p>Regularly check bank and credit card statements, and set up credit card and bank account withdrawal alerts. If you receive an alert about a purchase you did not make, immediately alert your bank and credit card issuer.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">7. Keep tabs on your credit report</h2>



<p>On top of your bank and credit card statements, you’ll want to regularly check your credit reports, as well. Though legally you can pull your reports from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion just once a year for free from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action" class="">AnnualCreditReport.com</a>, there are a variety of apps and other financial platforms that will now monitor your report for you, like Credit Karma. If you see something that’s amiss, you’ll want to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/14/how-to-remove-bad-marks-from-your-credit-report.html" class="">dispute it immediately</a>.</p>



<p>And if you regularly shop online, you may also consider freezing your credit reports to protect against an inevitable data breach at a site you’ve purchased something from. Here’s <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/30/capital-one-data-breach-5-things-to-do-if-you-were-affected.html">how to freeze and unfreeze your reports</a>.</p>



<p><em>This article first appeared on CNBC </em><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/29/how-to-protect-your-credit-card-info-from-e-skimmers.html"><em>https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/29/how-to-protect-your-credit-card-info-from-e-skimmers.html</em></a><em> and is republished with its permission.</em></p>


cybersecurity_shutterstock

7 ways to protect your financial information from online scammers


<p>JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa’s public debt, which is approaching rating agencies’ red line of 60% of economic output, is reaching uncomfortable levels, an IMF official said on Thursday.</p>



<p>Public finances in Africa’s most industrialised economy are under strain as growth has proved weaker than expected and a clutch of state companies have needed large cash injections.</p>



<p>In July, the government said it would give power utility Eskom 59 billion rand ($4.1 billion) of additional financial support over the next two years, on top of an already-promised bailout of 230 billion rand spread over the next decade.</p>



<p>That spooked investors and credit agencies.</p>



<p>Finance Minister Tito Mboweni warned shortly afterwards that this and other bailouts for state firms would almost certainly push up the budget deficit as well as state borrowing, raising the prospect of emergency external loans.</p>



<p>“South Africa has not requested an IMF-supported programme. We do not see a balance of payments need &#8230; so as far as we are concerned there’s no need for South Africa to approach the IMF,” the lender’s senior resident representative in South Africa, Montfort Mlachila, told a conference in Johannesburg.</p>



<p>Mlachila, however, said the debt trajectory, forecast at 55% of GDP in February by treasury but likely to be revised upwards at the October mini-budget, was worrying.</p>



<p>“South Africa has the highest level of debt in its history,” he said. “This is actually quite concerning without a doubt &#8230; The public debt trajectory is not favourable and becoming uncomfortable.”</p>



<p>Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Writing by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Andrew Cawthorne</p>


IMF says South Africa’s debt is “becoming uncomfortable”, but no bailout requested, what you need to know


<p>By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/emmie-martin/">Emmie Martin</a> </p>



<p>“The key to your financial freedom in the future is investing when you are young,” Suze Orman, personal finance expert, best-selling author of<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Women-Money-Revised-Updated-Orman/dp/0812987616/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;amp;psc=1&amp;amp;refRID=4DW7BVRGNY76PRRGC6Q0" class="">“Women &amp; Money”</a>&nbsp;and host of the&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/suze-ormans-women-and-money/id1439621652" class="">“Women and Money” podcast</a>, tells&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/make-it/" class="">CNBC Make It</a>.</p>



<p>“I would much rather see you invest a specific amount of money when you are young, a lesser amount of money, than waiting and have to invest five or six times [as much] when you are older,” she says.</p>



<p>That’s because with <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/how-compound-interest-works-and-how-it-can-help-you-save-money.html">compound interest</a>, any interest accrued then earns interest on itself. So the earlier you start, the more your money will grow.</p>



<p>Orman gives the example of a 25-year-old who invests&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/retirement/roth-ira-plan-calculator.aspx" class="">$100 a month in a Roth IRA</a>&nbsp;for 40 years and earns a 12% average annual return. When that person retires at age 65, their investment will be worth just over $1 million.</p>



<p>But not everyone starts putting money away in their 20s. “You think, ‘I don’t have to invest, I’m young,’” Orman says.</p>



<p>If you start investing $100 per month at age 35, though, you’d only have around $300,000 by the time you reach age 65. “Those 10 years just cost you $700,000,” Orman points out.</p>



<p>“How much would you have to be investing later on to make up for that?” she says. “Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month.”</p>



<p>It is worth noting that all investments are risky and you’re never guaranteed to earn a 12% rate of return. The S&amp;P 500 index, for instance, has earned an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/18/the-sp-500-has-already-met-its-average-return-for-a-full-year.html" class="">annual average return of 9.8%</a>&nbsp;over the past 90 years, and&nbsp;<a href="https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/tools/benchmarkreturns" class="">other indexes average even less</a>. But even at lower rates of return, the difference between starting at 25 and 35 is significant.</p>



<p>Here’s about how much you’d earn with various average annual rates of return if you invest <a class="" href="https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/retirement/roth-ira-plan-calculator.aspx">$100 per month into a Roth IRA</a> and retire at 65.</p>



<p> <strong>With a 6% rate of return</strong></p>



<p>Starting at age 25: $196,000<br>Starting at age 35: $100,000</p>



<p> <strong>With an 8% rate of return</strong></p>



<p>Starting at age 25: $335,000<br>Starting at age 35: $146,000</p>



<p> <strong>With a 10% rate of return</strong></p>



<p>Starting at age 25: $584,000<br>Starting at age 35: $217,000</p>



<p>“The key isn’t the amount, the key is the time,” Orman says. So, even if you can only contribute $50 a month, do “whatever you can do.”</p>



<p>There are several easy ways to get started. The simplest choice is to contribute to an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/30/the-no-1-retirement-savings-mistake-is-skipping-the-401k-match.html" class="">especially if you’re offered a match</a>, which is essentially free money.</p>



<p>If your company doesn’t offer a 401(k), you can look into other&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/09/definitive-guide-to-retirement-savings-accounts.html" class="">tax-advantaged retirement savings accounts</a>, such as a Roth IRA, a traditional IRA or a SEP IRA.</p>



<p>Outside of retirement accounts, many experts, including Warren Buffett, recommend <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/19/warren-buffett-and-tony-robbins-agree-invest-in-index-funds.html">investing in low-cost index funds</a>, which allow you to own a small piece of many different companies. You can curate a mix of funds yourself or <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/02/i-invested-my-first-7000-dollars-heres-where-i-decided-to-put-it.html">use a robo-advisor</a>, which does the work for you.</p>



<p><em>This article first appeared on CNBC </em><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/10/suze-orman-why-you-should-start-investing-in-your-20s.html"><em>https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/10/suze-orman-why-you-should-start-investing-in-your-20s.html</em></a><em> and is republished with its permission.</em></p>


Suze Orman: Why you should start investing in your 20s

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<p>At the ongoing ECA Conference of Ministers in Marrakesh, Morocco CNBC Africa’s Fifi Peters caught up with Giovanie Biha, Deputy Executive Secretary at ECA about the progress this conference has made so far.</p>


ECA’s Giovanie Biha gives update on ministers’ conference 2019

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<p>The 38th meeting of the Committee of Experts of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development opened in Marrakesh, Morocco on Wednesday 20th of March. This year’s event celebrates the one year anniversary of the signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement. CNBC Africa’s Fifi Peters caught up with Stephen Karingi, Director, Regional Intergration &#038; Trade, ECA to hear his thoughts on about Ethiopia&#8217;s ratification of AfCFTA and the progress of the Inter Africa Trade so far.</p>


ECA’s Stephen Karingi shares on AfCFTA agreement progress

<p><div id="attachment_322578" style="width: 625px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-322578" class="wp-image-322578" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/digital-finance_PxHere2.png" alt="" width="615" height="615" /><p id="caption-attachment-322578" class="wp-caption-text">Picture: PxHere</p></div></p>
<p><em>We put academics and innovators together in the same room for a week. Guess what happened next.</em></p>
<p>By Nnamdi Oranye</p>
<p>Two weeks ago I had the immense privilege of speaking and being involved with a Colloquium at the University of Johannesburg called “Digital Finance in Africa’s Future”. The Colloquium was birthed from an idea I had some time last year that came in the form of a question: what would happen if we put Africa’s best innovators together in a room with academia and asked them some hard questions? Interestingly enough, I met two other Professors with the same idea – Prof. John Sharp and Prof. Peter Vale.</p>
<p>The result of this idea was absolutely mind-blowing.</p>
<p>In fact, the week far exceeded any of the expectations of those of us who were involved in setting it up. The opening night included a keynote address by Trevor Manuel, former South African Minister of Finance, and then a panel discussion on “The Impact of Digital Finance on Africa’s Future”. I was one of the panellists along with Stephen Mwaura Nduati, International Technology Consultant and former head of the National Payments Systems at the Central Bank of Kenya. We even had someone who came all the way from Chile just to be part of this Colloquium!</p>
<p>I want to focus on the big takeaway from this conference that I think is going to be incredibly important as we build innovation in Africa going forward. It’s simply this: All innovators should have an anthropologist by their side.</p>
<p>Sound odd? Actually, it’s less odd than you imagine. Anthropologists study human cultures and societies and their development. Immediately you can see how this would benefit any innovator. The concept of bringing academics like anthropologists together with innovators who are on the ground, solving African problems in African ways, is absolutely critical. At this colloquium, I saw how well it worked.</p>
<p>Here’s an example of why this is so needed. An innovator who attended told me off-hand about some interesting stats when it comes to the average life cycle of an innovator in Africa. He was part of an accelerator programme, and of the eleven people who were part of that programme, only two are still “alive” today in the innovation and tech space. That’s an incredibly low conversion rate! And if one of those two is still going on in two or three years time, I’d be impressed. These stats are so dire that we <em>have</em> to have a different approach to innovation in Africa. There’s no choice. We don’t have something like a Silicon Valley where there is just money lying around that we can throw here and there and hope something will be successful. We can’t take those sorts of risks.</p>
<p>One of the ways of sorting this out, as far as I’m concerned, is to make innovators aware of the potential challenges they’re going to face in the industry they’re coming into. The best way to help these innovators is to pair them with those who can guide them through social science, social history, and the history involved in the problem the innovators are trying to solve. Who better than an anthropologist?</p>
<p>Here are some examples to showcase the beauty of this pairing.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Mobile Money’s Ethiopia problem</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Professor Mesfin Woldmariam from Ethiopia at the Colloquium talked us through some of his research that asks why it seems mobile money &#8211; which has been so largely successful in many African countries &#8211; has not taken off nearly as well in Ethiopia. The reason, according to the research, has to do with literacy.</p>
<p>Here’s an example of a point he made. Cash is easy to work with. You know how to distinguish its value just by looking at it. For example, if it’s green and has Madiba’s face, you know it’s a ten rand. You don’t need to know how to read the number ‘10’. But if you decide to remove the cash and digitise it, you run into a problem where value is only determined by a number &#8211; not by colours or sizes or faces on notes. For people who can’t read or understand numbers, this is not helpful at all. They simply don’t know or understand the value of R501.67 in their mobile phone’s wallet.</p>
<p>Plus, this opens up other problems. For instance, a grandmother might give one of the young ones the cellphone and instruct them to go to the closest agent and have the money stored on their mobile money account converted to cash. Neither the child, nor the grandmother, might have that good of an idea how much money is actually in the account. So when they get to the agent he gives the child R400, but in reality the account had R500. He pockets the rest and lies to the child about the value on the account. It’s way too easy to manipulate.</p>
<p>These are the sorts of things we have to think about. How do you keep the same methodology people are used to &#8211; ascertaining the value of cash by looking at it and feeling it &#8211; and transfer that to the digital space, which is safer and more convenient in other respects?</p>
<ol start="2">
<li><strong> Insurance resurgence</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Here’s a second example. For a very long time it’s been difficult to find a clear and efficient way to provide insurance to Africans on our continent. Insurance is primarily a foreign concept to many &#8211; and for good reason. But one of the academics at the Colloqueim provided an interesting argument that is well worth pursuing. It starts with realising that we have to change how we define insurance in the first place.</p>
<p>In most African contexts people make a lot of investment into social networks. We do this because we know family will be there even when other things collapse. We can trust family and we’re always keen to help each other. Even close friends are incorporated into this circle. The logic goes that if anything happens to you then you know your kids are going to be taken care of, because you’ve invested into your family and your social networks in a big way.</p>
<p>This is an African thing. But it’s also far more than that. It’s actually, if you think about it, a form of insurance. It’s just not typically how we think of ‘insurance’ and how we classify it &#8211; when you put, say, R550 aside every month into some or other bank account.</p>
<p>So when we think of how we innovate in this area, how do we innovate around how Africans already actually ensure their futures? Another question worth pondering &#8211; and doing something about.</p>
<ol start="3">
<li><strong> Remittance </strong></li>
</ol>
<p>This was a fascinating example and it links to both of the above. When a bunch of anthropologists decided to actually track money sent from a young man in the diaspora back home they uncovered some very interesting facts.</p>
<p>In most cases, money appears to go to mothers or grandmothers. What is the reason for this? Well, after some research the answer was uncovered: because the mothers and grandmothers have their ears to the ground. They know who is in dire straits and needs the money. They make the decisions as to who gets what and for how long. The distribution, the anthropologists found, was not usually haphazard. Umama’s and Gogo’s know what they’re doing!</p>
<p>The conclusion was we cannot assume that just because people don’t have bank accounts that they are financially excluded. The way the money flows is just very different to the formal financial sector. There is a financial system that functions and is already in place. Research into Kenya found that the reason why M-Pesa is so successful there is because it has piggy-backed off this financial system that was already in place. All they did was took what the culture was doing and made it easier and safer. Instead of cash going to the mothers or grandmothers it now goes to their cellphone, and they know what to do with it once it comes in. This means we need to change our view on what financial inclusion means for people in Africa &#8211; and we must learn the lesson to look at how Africa functions and innovate based on how we already think and work and live.</p>
<p>There was a lot of discussion at the Colloquium about intellectual property (IP) and the impact of IP laws we’ve inherited from the colonial system and that sort of thing. All of this actually has tremendous impact and relevance to innovators, and getting them into the same room with academics has worked much better than even I dared to dream. In short, it’s put a fire in the heart of many of the innovators I spoke to. They’re seeing things more clearly &#8211; and putting more creativity into the right places. And this is the first step of many that I hope will pick up the pace and get us running!</p>


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