Nasdaq and JSE-Listed Karooooo has set its sights on innovation and expansion, headquartered in Singapore and with operations in about 23 countries and over 2.13 million subscribers. The tech tycoon behind it, ZAK CALISTO, accelerated to ai over a decade ago long before the rest of us.



Ask Karooooo Group Chief Executive and Cartrack founder, Zak Calisto, how he has stayed ahead of the curve and he will tell you that innovation is the key. It’s this concept that is seemingly at the core of his professional ethos, and more than 20 years on, the narrative hasn’t changed.



Karooooo, with five o’s, and a reported market cap of around $1.22 billion, provides on-the-ground operations cloud. Cartrack (wholly owned by Karooooo) is a Soft- ware-as-a-Service (SaaS) vehicle-tracking platform that provides insights, real-time data analytics and business intelligence reports. Calisto explains that the business initially addressed telemetry challenges, IoT devices and vehicle theft. But, by 2007, the company’s commercial customers wanted more than just track and trace – they wanted data on the vehicles. “So, we launched our first fleet management platform. We were the first company in South Africa to have our platform on the cloud,” Calisto tells FORBES AFRICA. “Everybody was still at desktop solutions and since then we’ve just continuously evolved our platforms. Today, I think we’ve got one of the most comprehensive operations platforms.



“I think we’ve been doing AI for over 10 years. Clearly, what we are doing is getting better and better at it. I do believe we’ve got very advanced technology for what we’re currently doing. It’s innovation… if we stand still, we die. We’ve got to continuously compound on our innovation capabilities.”



He also explains the interesting story behind the company’s name. Calisto held his shares in Cartrack through holding company Karooooo (sans the five o’s), which was incorporated in Singapore. During the takeover process of Cartrack, this involved the buying out and reinvesting of shareholders, so he sought to acquire the URL for the holding business.



Unfortunately, the owner of the URL wanted “a few million dollars for it” so Calisto had to get creative.



“I said if that’s the case, I’d rather keep the zeros in my bank account and put the zeros on to the name.” And that’s how Karooooo came to be.



The company, which listed on the NASDAQ in 2021, with a secondary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), has operations in about 23 countries spanning Africa, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, the United States and Europe.



According to the company’s Second Quarter 2025 Financial Overview (unaudited), Cartrack subscribers were up 17% to over 2.13 million as at August 31, 2024.



South Africa, in particular, where Calisto founded Cartrack in 2001, saw the number of subscribers increase 16% to approximately 1.6 million for the same period, with subscription revenue growth of 15%.



Calisto also shares his delight at the company’s recently-built office space in Johannesburg, which, according to him, can house around 3,500 employees.



“All these geographies we operate in, I think the room for growth is so obvious, it’s so big. It’s just about us having the capacity to onboard more business.”



At this point, Calisto also harks back to his own early days, the days that he didn’t know he would be heading up such a large business. He studied Mathematics and Statistics at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and Actuarial Science at the University of the Witwatersrand, but indicates he did not finish either degree.



He completed an accelerated training program at Standard Bank from 1986 to 1991.



At the beginning of his journey as an entrepreneur, he faced several notable challenges, though he acknowledges the businesses that were instrumental to the company’s progress.



“Today, our biggest partners in the business are the cell phone networks. They still are. We contribute a lot of revenue to the cell phone providers. I was able to convince them to believe in me and for our past finance. Without them, we would never have been able to get off the ground.”



Entrepreneurs often face these types of challenges but, through them, emerge stronger and often with lessons that they can share with the next generation of change makers. Apart from being prudent with capital allocation, Calisto emphasizes that “culture and your management is key”. “You’ve got to always be agile. Communication is key, and not being scared of making mistakes, provided you fix them quickly – that is critical to success.”

Zak Calisto; Image supplied

Engine Of Growth: A South African Entrepreneur On Scaling To 23 Countries

Namibia’s ruling party, the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), will retain its status as woman leader, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah secures the Presidency, a first for the country.



According to reports, the current Vice President secured 57% of the votes.



Namibia, which has a population of about three&nbsp;million, as per 2024 figures from the World Bank, initially went to the polls on November 27. However, the elections had to be extended until November 29-30 at some stations, reportedly due to technical challenges, including a shortage of ballot papers.



This has contributed to a dispute of the results by opposition parties, who have claimed the extension was illegal.



Opposition leader Panduleni Itula, of the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), which secured 25.5% of the votes, was quoted as saying that the “IPC shall not recognize the outcome of that election”, and that the party would fight “to nullify the elections through the processes that are established within our electoral process”.



According to reports, President-elect Nandi-Ndaitwah commented on the results on Tuesday, stating, “The Namibian nation has voted for peace and stability”.



Fellow female leader, Samia Suluhu Hassan, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, commented on the appointment on X.



“On behalf of the Government and the People of the United Republic of Tanzania, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to Her Excellency Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, President-elect of the Republic of Namibia, on your historic victory in the 2024 Namibian general election. I am looking forward to working with you in strengthening the all-weather fraternal bonds and historical ties between Tanzania and Namibia.”



The World Bank’s economic outlook for Namibia indicates that its recent economic performance was stronger than expected. The economy grew by 4.2% in 2023, partly due to the mining sector, which included investments in oil exploration.&nbsp;



Furthermore, the World Economic Forum&#8217;s Global Gender Gap Index 2024 ranks Namibia eighth with a score of 0.805, with 1 equaling parity. It is the only sub-Saharan African country in the Top 10.

Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of

Namibia Makes History As It Elects First Woman President

South African businesses and consumers alike could reap the rewards during November and, possibly, long after, as retailers look to take advantage of increased consumer confidence before the festive season (officially) begins.



Seen as ‘the largest trading weekend on the Retail Calendar’ for some, the knock-on effect of Black Friday and Cyber Monday can be used to create economic movement over a longer period.



Reports online recently forecasted consumer spend of ZAR3 billion ($164.7 million) over the Black Friday weekend, according to First National Bank (FNB), partly due to an increase in consumer purchasing power and the fact that it fell after payday.



Further to this, research commissioned by&nbsp;Capital Connect, a platform that offers financing for retailers, indicated that South Africa’s wholesale, retail and fuel sectors were forecasted to generate more than ZAR88 billion ($4.8 billion) in additional economic value for the economy as a whole during November 2024.



Udhveer Sookraj, Data Integration Specialist at Insight Consulting, emphasizes to FORBES AFRICA that Black Friday is not just a retail event but rather an important stimulus of the economy.



“There is a very widespread impact to the economy in general from this boom. This is as simple as driving the need for the transportation to stores and delivery logistics, to the impact to manufacturing, supply chain and marketing, positively impacting direct participants and indirect participants.



“Black Friday could in fact be seen as one of the most important economic events in the country.”



The knock-on effect of these retail days could, equally, be seen in other sectors of the economy.



“With consumers focusing largely on retail on Black Friday, this puts more focus on the social industry – holidays, restaurants and entertainment – in the festive season as consumers feel less pressured with the traditional festive shopping, moving more towards social experience,” Sookraj explains.



“In other instances, there is an increased focus in preparing for the new year – back to school, a new car – thus in turn stimulating these industries. This pattern of economic activity results in increased consumer confidence, and creates the important knock-on effect that results in active economy well&nbsp;into the new year.”



Steven Heilbron, CEO of Capital Connect, explained, in a statement in October, that the positive outlook for&nbsp;Black&nbsp;Friday&nbsp;2024&nbsp;indicates that “the tide is turning for South African retailers after a long period of economic and retail stagnation”.



In a thought leadership piece on the frenzied festive shopping season, Ulana van Biljon, Chief Operating Officer of Emira Property Fund, states that consumers are more likely to spend during seasonal shopping peaks when they perceive their financial situation as stable or improving.



Following the announcement from Reserve Bank Governor, Lesetja Kganyago of a rate cut of 25 basis points, with the repo rate falling from 8% to 7.75%, consumers may feel more confident about their spending power.



However, van Biljon did caution that, for the 2024 festive season overall, consumers would remain cautious and focus, primarily, on essentials.



Sookraj believes that Black Friday has truly been adopted as a mainstay event by South Africans.



“It’s an event that is so focal to South Africans that budgeting and saving for this event happens months in advance, firmly underlining the joy this event brings,” he says.



“South Africa’s rise in the technology space has also seen [an] incredible increase in online sales participation. For a larger number of retailers, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become the highest trading days in the retail calendar, with some retailers doing over half the annual turnover in that single weekend than in the entire year.”

Shoppers In Manhattan On Black Friday

Stimulating Consumer Spending In South Africa: Could ‘Black Friday’ Become The Gift That Keeps On Giving?

Sustainable housing could play a significant role in the way the continent tackles its housing deficit. We unpack the ground-breaking innovations, Initiatives and ideations&nbsp;developing&nbsp;the&nbsp;‘green&nbsp;scene’. 



In a village in the Mtwara region of Tanzania, a project borne from the concepts of architectural innovation, sustainability and social responsibility is underway. And it’s just one of many aimed at tackling the demand for environmentally-conscious housing in Africa.



A report from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) states that the continent’s housing deficit is estimated at over 97 million units and “this is expected to increase as the continent’s population grows, and urbanization continues”.



The clinical trial in Mtwara, dubbed The Star Homes Project, was initiated in 2021 by Denmark-based Ingvartsen Architects in cooperation with the Hanako Foundation and, according to the company, was developed by a cross-disciplinary team of architects, physicians, entomologists and social scientists along with local community leaders and stakeholders.



However, Jakob Knudsen, Principal Architect at Ingvartsen, says that the focus of the project, initially, was simply to improve the health of the occupants of the houses.



“The [houses] are made [of ] very light materials. It looks like concrete, but actually it’s a very thin steel profile with a thin plaster, so it has a very low material use. And what looks like glass is basically a net, so we kind of replaced all the walls with netting, and we made this house naturally very cool. We can see that we have lowered the material consumption and CO2 use by 30% to 40% depending on how you calculate it. And that’s because we try to kind of maximize all the components,” he says.



“It actually didn’t start as a sustainability thing. It started as a way to make the buildings cheaper, but we realized, during the process, that actually we are onto something where we’re using far less materials. It also became interesting from a financial side and a material side, and this is what we’re looking at now. We know that these houses are actually working against malaria, we can see that.”



An article from the World Health Organization on Malaria Day 2023 indicates that Tanzania is one of the four countries in Africa that accounted for slightly over half (52%) of all malaria deaths globally in 2021. Further to this, the country alone accounted for 4% of all malaria deaths, and the disease continues to pose a major burden in the northwest and southeastern regions of the country.



As part of the Star Homes Project, the health of the occupants of the 110 constructed homes will be compared to those living in 440 control homes over a three-year period, which is set to conclude this year.



“We conclude by the end of this year, then we have the three- year period. Nothing is published yet, but I can say that we have very promising results already on the malaria [aspect]. There’s a clear benefit from having a new house when you’re looking at malaria. I mean, this is a rural area in Tanzania, so lots of people [have] malaria, and they’re much better protected. But this is one of the first housing projects, to our knowledge, the first time a house has been built and used in this way to demonstrate it.”



Each house also has a 40W solar panel that provides lights in each room and USB charging, and rainwater is collected from the roof and stored in a 2,000-liter tank for clean drinking water. According to Knudsen, based on the materials used, it cost around $9,000 to build at the time.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-does-a-green-future-look-like">What does a ‘green’ future look like?</h4>



The ongoing demand for affordable housing coupled with growing climate change concerns has brought sustainable or green architecture to the fore.



Britannica defines green architecture as a philosophy of architecture that advocates sustainable energy sources, the conservation of energy, the reuse and safety of building materials, and the siting of a building with consideration of its impact on the environment.



A 2023 report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) titled, Building Materials And The Climate: Constructing A New Future, indicates that the buildings and construction sector is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for 37% of global emissions.



However, herein lies the opportunity. Entrepreneurs and businesses alike have taken up the mantle to innovate, ‘go green’ and make a positive impact on the environment at large.



According to the World Green Building Council’s (WorldGBC) Africa Manifesto for Sustainable Cities and the Built Environment, by 2050, Africa will be home to 1.1 billion more people than it is today, and 80% of the buildings that will exist in Africa in 2050 are yet to be built.



Lisa Reynolds, Chief Executive Officer of the Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA) and Vice Chair for the WorldGBC’s Africa Regional Network, emphasizes the progress of the collaborative efforts across the continent. 



“We’ve got different sort of levels of Green Building Councils. In Africa, there are two established Green Building Councils – South Africa and Kenya, and the others are mixed between emerging and prospective. Our job, and I include Kenya in it, is really to support the prospective and emerging councils,” she tells FORBES AFRICA.



“Africa has [been] hit by climate events, so there is a huge awareness that, whether it be the Green Building Council or governments, [we] have to do something to alleviate these things,” Reynolds adds.



Knudsen echoes the sentiment on collaboration, stating, “I think one of the sustainability problems I see in Africa is that materials are used in a very inefficient way in many local buildings. You could easily save 30% of the materials if there was better knowledge for the builder who’s doing this, but that’s not something you can expect. We need somebody else who knows how to work with building techniques.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Trash to treasure</h4>



In 2019, the first plastic road was laid down in South Africa’s Jeffery’s Bay, and reports, published recently, indicate that it has lasted longer than traditional tar roads. And the uses for this often-troublesome product seem to only increase from here.



As per the United Nations’ goal 11 of making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, entrepreneurs across Africa are tackling sustainable building prac- tices in their own way.



One such example is Kubik CEO and co-founder, Kidus Asfaw. Kubik, an environmental tech company, takes plastic waste and transforms it into low-carbon, low-cost housing in Ethiopia, where the startup is based.



Asfaw, who has worked for the World Bank, Accenture, and Google, as well as on technology and innovation initiatives for UNICEF, relays the story of how he got into the trash business. “I helped set up the first-ever circular economy project for UNICEF in Cote d’Ivoire, and we were able to create bricks out of plastic waste. We made over 500 schools using those and my love changed from software to trash, affordability, housing and cities. I did that for about four years,” he says.



“During that time, I learned the issues not just around trash, but a multitude of major challenges that human beings that live in cities are facing, especially on rapidly urbanizing continents like Africa. Alongside poor waste management [which] needs to be addressed, affordable housing is probably one of the biggest priorities in many countries right now. And then, of course, there’s climate change.”



Kubik, which was founded in 2021, produces products that are high in compression strength, non-flammable, non-toxic and modular.



“We’re a business that transforms hard-to-recycle plastic waste into building materials that real estate developers can use at a cheaper price than conventional cement-based materials without compromising the quality or safety of those buildings,” says Asfaw.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-63677" style="width:568px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kubik-Wall-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Kubik Wall expression</figcaption></figure></div>


“Part of them doing business with Kubik [is] they’re also reducing the greenhouse gas impact that they bring to building cities like Addis Ababa. In a nutshell, we take all of that very bad plastic that you typically see in a landfill, and we make things like bricks that can make an entire wall, and that wall is as unremarkable as it looks, because it’s supposed to look just like every other building. What makes it remarkable to us is how accessible it is to lower-income communities, price-wise, and how green and sustainable it is within the real estate sector.”



In South Africa, sisters Kedibone and Kekeletso Tsiloane are tackling the plastic pollution and waste management issue through Ramtsilo Manufacturing and Construction, a company they founded in 2013. The business focuses on transforming hard-to-recycle plastics and other waste products into eco-bricks.



Kekeletso, who has a background in engineering, tells FORBES AFRICA about how this passion project turned into a fully-fledged business in a traditionally male-dominated industry.



“We initially started with small construction jobs, so building roads and building small projects, and that’s when we actually noticed that we spent so much money on materials, specifically bricks for us. We went out to look for a woman-owned brick manufacturing company, which we struggled to find. We then started making the bricks ourselves,” she says.



“I am interested in the green economy and what happens to waste and that grew an interest of learning about the afterlife of waste. In our research, we did not know that plastic had different properties and had different values. In terms of money, per kilogram, in the recycling space, it has different prices as well. And with that, we then sought out to make a product that we’re still comfortable with, but is innovative and in the green space.” South Africa, according to World Wide Fund (WWF), produces over 2.5 million tonnes of plastic annually. And while the bricks produced by Ramtsilo reportedly function in exactly the same way as conventional bricks, Kedibone, who has a finance background, states that the company still had to do a fair amount of educating on the product.



“We’re still having to re-educate people. It’s a plug and play solution but it integrates seamlessly into the construction industry. That was one of our biggest value-adds… the fact that people could easily use the product because they had the same look and feel as the conventional brick,” she explains.



“We then realized there’s additional benefits that come with the products – from an installation perspective, from a condensation water absorption [perspective] – because of the use of the plastic. The brick is actually branded so that people know that they’re [buying] an eco-friendly product. We’ve seen from the retailers, that product doesn’t stay in the retail stores and it’s simply because of the quality [and] the performance of the product.”


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="768" height="1024" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-768x1024.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-63676" style="width:516px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Kekeletso-Kedibone-Tsiloane-scaled.jpeg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Kekeletso &amp; Kedibone Tsiloane (Photo Supplied)</figcaption></figure></div>


According to Kedibone, the bricks can be found at South African retailers like Builders Warehouse and Leroy Merlin in Gauteng. And while Ramtsilo’s business model tends to focus more on partnerships with corporates and retailers – a model that appears to be working well for them – Kubik’s has opted to focus on and develop the company’s relationships with waste pickers.



“We grappled with what our supply chain model should look like for many months. There are thousands of waste pickers in Ethiopia. Most of those pickers happen to be women, over 80% of them, and most of them end up selling their produce for the day to brokers at very low prices that are not economically sustainable for them to pass the poverty line,” he says.



“We wanted our business model to have a supply chain that not only worked at scale and made business/financial sense for us, but ethically is also empowering those that have previously been exploited in this space. We typically would work with city administrations that typically manage landfills. We get into a partnership with them, set up a collection site and we directly source from these waste pickers at prices that are at least three, four times more than what they would normally get from a broker.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-endless-possibilities">Endless possibilities</h4>



A quick search online reveals some of the most commonly-used sustainable materials in construction. Aside from bamboo and recycled plastic, others include recycled or reclaimed wood, cork, Hempcrete and biocomposite cement.



Traditional building practices have also been employed in some parts of the continent. UNEP had published an article about a project at a school in Burkina Faso, where the modules that form the structure for the school are built out of locally- sourced laterite. This is then cut into bricks and left in the sun to harden. The bricks reportedly absorb the heat during the day and radiate it at night.



Another example of innovation at work is the The Wits Flower Hall Examination and Test Centre in South Africa. Ac- cording to a recent release by the institution, the now energy- efficient building has been recognized for its sustainable design and shortlisted in the Creative Reuse category at the World Ar- chitecture Festival, set to take place in November.



“We believe that adaptive reuse is a critical foundation of green sustainable building due to the embodied carbon content of existing buildings. Wits has a great track record of repurposing buildings, for example the Science Stadium,” said Dr Heather Dodd from Savage + Dodd Architects, who worked on this project in 2022, in the release.



The growth of the sustainable or green building space presents significant employment opportunities as well, according to Reynolds.



“The more that certification grows, the more people need to be aware the job opportunities are growing with it. I do a CEO message on all our newsletters; the latest one is talking about job expansion. So, you know, there’s job creation, but there’s also potential for job expansion because we need accredited professionals; we need EDGE experts,” she states. “We did our first certification in 2009. If you think of pre-2009, there were no such things as accredited professionals. Now, small companies are formed just doing certification. It’s a true reflection of job creation and I would try to encourage more and more people to do it. If they’re in the space [and] it’s not job creation, expand your portfolio and go into this space.”

Com_Ingvartsen_Mtwara_StarHomes_C-JulienLanoo_20220907L1034048 copy

Building Africa’s Green Future: How One Project Is Even Aiming To Curb Malaria With Sustainable Architecture

Zelda la Grange, South African author, motivational speaker and former executive secretary to late former President Nelson Mandela, shares more in her latest book.



“Madiba showed us that you can’t leave everything to someone else. You have to start with yourself. That’s how change happens,” Zelda la Grange tells FORBES AFRICA, referring to the South African apartheid activist and leader Nelson Mandela, before the launch of her new book in October.



With warm sunlight shining through the large glass windows at the Holiday Inn in Rosebank, a trendy suburb in South Africa’s Gauteng province, an equally illuminating conversation is happening within its walls.



“It’s a growth process, and this is my journey of growth,” la Grange adds, speaking of What Nelson Mandela Taught Me, Timeless Lessons on Leadership and Life.



“I want people just to be hopeful again, because if you speak to the poorest of the poor, you know they have the same hopes. They want to have a good education for their children. They want safety. They want running water. They want electricity. They want a job. They want dignity. Everyone wants that in life so the frustration is real, but I want people to think of Madiba… How do you remain hopeful? He did, and I hope that inspires people to be reminded.”



In the book, la Grange presents a collection of lessons that she believes will encourage readers, including Every drop counts, More than one version of the truth, Looking at life from all angles and Our contradictions make us human.



However, la Grange, who wrote her first book, Good Morning, Mr Mandela in 2014, says that while the difficult conversations in our society have to happen, the lesson she has enjoyed sharing the most is on respect, compassion and empathy for others.



“When Hansie Cronje admitted to match fixing, he was canceled. It wasn’t known as ‘cancel culture’ [in] those days. But about six months later, Madiba announced that he wanted to go and see Hansie, and he had tea with him, and he said to him, ‘you&#8217;ve made a big mistake, and now you have to man up, because charges will be brought against you, you’ll have to face it. There’s nothing anyone can do about that, you know, it’s a process you have to go through.’ But then he reassured him of his love for him as a human being, despite his mistakes.



“We are so quick, because of social media, to judge people today based on whatever they say on one platform, whatever happens, people make mistakes. We are all very complex human beings. For me, that is something that stands out, and something that I definitely would want people to hold on to – let’s deal with each other with compassion, because no one is going to learn unless we do so in a compassionate and kind way.”



La Grange, who, currently, also does charitable projects and speaking engagements, where she shares Madiba’s love for South Africa with tourists and those who want to know more about the country’s history, hasn’t ruled out another book, adding, “Who knows? I also think there’s a book about ordinary people talking about their experiences with Nelson Mandela. That’s something that I&#8217;ve been toying with…maybe collecting all those stories.”

Zelda La Grange – Credit Brenda Veldtsman2

‘Want People Just To Be Hopeful Again’: Lessons On Compassion In New Book On Mandela

Author and former professor, Abdulrazak Gurnah, scheduled to speak at the 2024 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture at Wits University in South Africa, elaborates on the significance of leaving his home country when he was a teenager, and the importance of kindness and a shared humanity.



Abdulrazak Gurnah places his pen on the table as he finishes signing the last book in the orderly stack next to him. Then, settling on a deep-seated burned orange chair at the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s center in the leafy suburb of Houghton in Johannesburg, he relays his writing process.



“It’s not like you sit there and then, ‘I know what I will do’. These are usually long running ideas or preoccupations. It takes a while of reflection, making a few notes and thinking things through,” Gurnah, a Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature, tells FORBES AFRICA.



“I guess, at that time, when I was thinking about it, I didn&#8217;t really know enough to write a book like Afterlives. I did, instead, actually write Paradise, which ends with a recruiting drive as the conflict is beginning. Inspiration is – here’s a story I’m hearing, about other people. I don’t know very much about it. I think about it, I read, move on, do other things, and so on. And then a time arrives when I think, yeah, I think I know enough now to be able to write about this.”



Gurnah, born in 1948 in the Sultanate of&nbsp;Zanzibar, has written more than 10 books, including titles like Gravel Heart (2017), Desertion (2005), Pilgrims Way (1988) and Memory of Departure – his first book, published in 1987.



It’s about 15-year-old Hassan, who has sought to escape the violence and poverty he’s experienced in the small village he lives in, and told from his perspective. He goes to live with a relative in Kenya but doesn’t find what he hoped for.



According to The Nobel Prize, he was recognized as the 2021 laureate due to his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”.



A former professor of English at the University of Kent, he left the island of Zanzibar in the late 1960s, with Britannica citing that “when Gurnah was a teenager, a coup in 1964 overthrew the Arab rulers on Zanzibar and led to political upheaval and the persecution of Arab citizens in the following years”.



He credits this move to a different place as one of the most significant moments in his career.



“There’s more than one, but I suppose leaving my home country… It’s a transforming moment. I’m a stranger in a place, and I had not been a stranger before. So it then required a rearrangement of my mind, my life, my future, etc. Everything was different,” Gurnah explains.



“I can’t tell how it would have been if I hadn’t made that move, of course, but making that move feels, in retrospect, to have been a moment of great change. Also because of what followed – several years of living away from a place you know, getting to learn about a new place, new ways, a new language; I could hardly speak English.”



Gurnah is scheduled to speak at the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture Series on September 28, 2024, and elaborates on this year’s theme, Realising Our Shared Humanity.



“It’s an everyday thing. We recognize others. We recognize them, either by acts of kindness or by sympathy or understanding what’s happening to them and sharing something of their pain or their happiness – all of these ways. But there are several obstructions in the way of these things.”



“This might be to do with race, to do with intolerances that we can’t get rid of, and perhaps just to do with unkindness, to do with nastiness. There are barriers to what sounds like the thing that we do every day. We are kind to this one, but not kind to that one. So, how do we move on from this? How do we get to understand others enough so that we don’t obstruct our humanity as a human response to others?”



He explains further that there are different levels in which to say that we need to be kinder but we need to continue saying it, while his advice to the next generation seems to equally and perfectly surmise his work ethos – “Whatever it is that you choose to do, work hard at it.”

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‘How Do We Move On?’: Tanzanian-Born Nobel Prize Laureate For Literature On Transforming Moments And Getting To Understand Others Enough

Accolades aside, Kenyan actor-and-host-turned-producer, Sarah Hassan seems to see no limit as to what she can achieve.



After discovering her love for performing at a very young age, she went on to join the cast of drama, Tahidi High, playing the role of Tanya. It earned her the award for Best Actress at the CHAT Awards in 2010 and 2011.



However, while she truly enjoys acting and hosting, which she had done for several years, there was another passion in her heart that she could only fulfill later on in her career.



“I wanted to go to, specifically, the New York Film Academy [ever] since I was out of high school… but, of course, [there were issues of ] finances and all that. I told myself one day I am going to go. I remember I had a different bank account where I just saved for film school, and I had gotten to a place where I could go, I think a couple of years before I went, but it didn’t feel like it was the right time,” she says.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/GI4C0329-2-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-63035" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/GI4C0329-2-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/GI4C0329-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/GI4C0329-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/GI4C0329-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/GI4C0329-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Hassen on set (Image supplied)</figcaption></figure></div>


“I remember, two years later, I wasn’t getting auditions at that time. I felt like if I had the necessary skillset and everything, that I could do my own story or do a short film and satisfy that part of my soul. By that time, I felt like this is the time… So I sent in the application.”



Hassan, speaking to us from her home in Kenya, recalls the experience with great enthusiasm, detailing all the skills she had learned, including the basics of editing and lighting, directing, writing and producing. As soon as she had completed her year in Los Angeles, she put the skills she had learned to good use.



“My dream has always been to be able to, first and foremost, have that skillset, and then be able to work as a producer; as an actor, not only in my country, but anywhere else in the world. Before I left, I remember I did a few projects out there. I did my first-ever short film where I wrote, co-directed, produced and acted in. It won about eight film festival awards. So [that] was quite pivotal for me,” she adds.



“I had gotten awards for acting before that, and for hosting, but this, I would say, is a highlight, not because of the awards but because of what it symbolized. I was behind-the-scenes of a project that I had produced. This was the first time ever doing something that was not acting or hosting. It was the first time doing a story from development – taking it from my mind all the way to seeing it completed.” Hassan, who has her own production company, Alfajiri Productions, would go on to work with streaming giant, Netflix.



“For 40 Sticks, I was brought on board as a lead producer. It was so beautiful because I was there from the beginning, from bringing onboard the writers, from the development stage, the pre-development stage, filming stage, the post. Then Just In Time – that was with my company; with my team, and in collaboration with Lola D, who’s a very good friend of mine and a fantastic director. To see it on Netflix worldwide, not just in Africa, was surreal,” Hassan says.



“Now, with Anyango and the Ogre – it was a commission project, because it’s by Netflix and UNESCO – it was amazing to also see that other side, to be able to work with the executive producers in South Africa, you get to learn a lot. We have been doing [this] for a while but not as long, and to see all the different steps… it was absolutely amazing.”



She concludes that collaboration is key, especially between directors and producers on the continent. Not only does it bring in diverse audiences, one also gets to share resources and learn.

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Kenyan Actor-Producer On Wearing Many Hats And Why Timing Is Everything

Arnold Vosloo made his mark in films and series not only in his native South Africa but also in Hollywood, and often, as a villain. Unsurprisingly, when asked which character was his favorite to play on screen, he says: “The role I enjoyed playing the most in my career was two and a half years ago… I came back to South Af- rica for a Netflix production called Ludik. I just loved the part of Daan Ludik because it was so uncompromising,” he tells FORBES AFRICA.



“Here was this family guy trying to hold things together, running a business empire but smuggling diamonds on the side; he has family issues and a religious father. It was just the to- tal package. I thought it was very well-written, the part was especially great, and I just had the best time. It was on Netflix, which meant it was seen all over the world.”



Vosloo, who says there really wasn’t a Plan B and that acting was always what he was go- ing to do, has well over 80 filmography credits to his name between 1982 and 2024.



Throughout his career, there have been highlights he can recount.



“They were moments I was acutely aware of… number one, when I worked on Broadway in New York City in a production called Salome, Oscar Wilde’s Salome. I was cast as John the Baptist, and the star of the show was Al Pacino. It just doesn’t get any better than that – to be on Broadway in a big production, and Al Pacino is the star… I’ll never forget it. It was an amazing few months, not just because of the work and watching him on stage, but especially for the rehearsal period; he really taught me a lot because he was so ‘all-in’ on the rehearsals,” Vosloo recalls.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="666" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-50995195.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-62871" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-50995195.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-50995195-300x195.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GettyImages-50995195-768x500.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Actors Arnold Vosloo and Brendan Fraser get to grips with a Mummy at &#8220;The Revenge Of The Mummy &#8211; The Ride&#8221; Gala Benefit Opening At Universal Studios on June 24, 2004 in Los Angeles California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>


“In terms of film, it’s got to be The Mummy movies. They’re be- loved… in fact, it’s the 25th anniversary; I know it’s screening again all over the world. That was an amazing experience. It was just so cool – at the time I was in Los Angeles, I was driving down Sunset Boulevard and see these big billboards and it would say The Mummy and my name was on the post. It was a cool moment.”



“The third sort of ‘aha’ moment was when I was doing 24 – a television series. I was asked to come on just for an episode or two and then the producers liked what I did. They asked me to stay on for the whole season. I knew of the show, but I just didn’t know it was as big as it was. It was all over the world and with its kind of innate fan base,” he adds.



Having worked hard on many memorable and beautiful locations and film sets, including in Costa Rica and Morocco, which is actually where a lot of the outdoor scenes for The Mummy were shot, Vosloo admits that walking is his favorite way to de-stress.



“I’m not a big gym guy – I went to the gym especially when I was younger because I had to. But that’s the cool thing about being on these locations – Paris, London or New York… I’ll just go walk in these great cities, you know. And it’s just such a luxury. Walking has been my church, as an artist and as a person.”



Since getting back in South Africa, Vosloo has done several projects, including two productions, back-to-back, in Cape Town.



Despite being 62, he says his current plans are to continue working for authentic South African stories here, as well as American films, if the opportunities present themselves.

ARNOLD VOSLOO (1) (1)

South African Actor Arnold Vosloo: ‘It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than Working With Al Pacino On Broadway’

With a growing youth population, the African continent could find itself on the path towards a bright future. However, this may only become a reality if the continent is able to provide widespread upskilling initiatives and tangible employment prospects.



The International Labour Organization reported in August that more than 72 million youth in Africa are not in education, employment or training, with the majority being young women. Furthermore, it was reported previously that by 2030, young Africans are expected to make up 42% of the world’s youth.



The goal to empower Africa’s young people has become a collective one. One organization working towards this is Prince’s Trust International (PTI). Founded by His Majesty, King Charles III (then Prince Charles), the Trust partners with local stakeholders to develop programs that equip young people with the skills and/or interventions needed to create a future for themselves.&nbsp;



“As a result of Prince&#8217;s Trust International’s human capital development focused&nbsp;programming, we have been able to reach over 15,000 young people since 2019 and provide them with the key skills and opportunities to secure livelihoods,” Shabir Randeree, Chairman of Prince’s Trust International, tells FORBES AFRICA.



“We have also been able to partner with a number of fantastic organizations, working together to help improve the way training facilitators and teachers engage with young people on the continent. This work has helped to deliver more impactful programming with greater rates of positive outcomes and created a ripple effect beyond the young people who directly benefit from our programs.”


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="682" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Arunma-Oteh-and-King-Charles-image-supplied.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61387" style="width:464px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Arunma-Oteh-and-King-Charles-image-supplied.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Arunma-Oteh-and-King-Charles-image-supplied-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Arunma-Oteh-and-King-Charles-image-supplied-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Arunma Oteh and King Charles; image supplied</figcaption></figure></div>


CEO, Will Straw says that what started out as an organization that provided grants for people from disadvantaged backgrounds, when the organization was established in the United Kingdom (UK) over 40 years ago, has grown and evolved.



“Over time, [it] expanded into programs with employers, helping young people into job vacancies, where perhaps the employers were struggling to find work-ready youth. Then, more recently, on education programs and personal development programs in schools and other educational settings, helping young people to gain some of the core skills that are so important in the world of work – things like self-confidence, communication, problem-solving, teamwork, resilience, managing feelings, setting and achieving goals,” Straw says.



“And so Britain&#8217;s Trust International, founded in 2015, has sought to take those programs and insights about the needs of young people&#8217;s skills, and helping people to find meaningful work or set up their own business, to countries around the world.”



Currently, on the African continent, the organization has programs in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.



In addition to this, African Development Bank Group (AfDB) President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina and Straw met in November to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and to explore strategic partnerships to scale up youth employment, human capital, and entrepreneurship opportunities.



The MoU indicated the commitment of both the AfDB and PTI to work together to identify and develop partnership opportunities, in countries of common interest, to mainstream employability skills for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) projects, funded by the Bank. PTI is also expected to participate in the preparation, design, implementation and monitoring of TVET and skills development projects.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Participants-on-the-Get-Into-Programme-Nigeria-2023-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61471" style="width:584px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Participants-on-the-Get-Into-Programme-Nigeria-2023-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Participants-on-the-Get-Into-Programme-Nigeria-2023-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Participants-on-the-Get-Into-Programme-Nigeria-2023-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Participants-on-the-Get-Into-Programme-Nigeria-2023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Participants-on-the-Get-Into-Programme-Nigeria-2023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Participants on the &#8216;Get Into&#8217; Programme in Nigeria 2023</figcaption></figure></div>


It was reported at the time of this meeting that the Trust would be committed to “co-hosting a youth-focused investment summit in 2024 in the UK, in conjunction with the African Development Bank.”



According to PTI, it’s the insights of the youth they work with and their local partners that inform the type of work that’s done. Straw echoes this, adding that the role of the Trust is simply to impart the knowledge gained over the past few decades.



“[It’s] a mixture of programs; it depends on what the specific needs are in any particular country, and which local partners we&#8217;ve identified already doing valuable, impactful work on the ground, supporting young people&#8217;s journey, in a sense, from education to employment,” he says.



“Then we&#8217;ll work with them either to introduce one of our own programs or potentially to adapt or add to a program they&#8217;ve already got in place with some of our content or methodologies, to make it even more impactful.”



PTI Trustee, Arunma Oteh, who was the Vice President and Treasurer at the World Bank from September 2015 to November 2018, shares her experience with the organization, saying, “I am honored to be a member of the Board of Prince’s Trust International. I believe that it has even greater potential to do more in Africa and particularly expand its activities in the six countries it already has a presence in, as well as establish its programs in several of the other African countries.”


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Winners-Enterprise-Challenge-Kenya-2022-2-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-61470" style="width:634px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Winners-Enterprise-Challenge-Kenya-2022-2-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Winners-Enterprise-Challenge-Kenya-2022-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Winners-Enterprise-Challenge-Kenya-2022-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Winners-Enterprise-Challenge-Kenya-2022-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Winners-Enterprise-Challenge-Kenya-2022-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Winners Enterprise Challenge Kenya, 2022. </figcaption></figure></div>


“Its employability and entrepreneurship programs prepare young people for future success, teaching them valuable business and leadership skills, early in their lives. For example, a number of successful people of African origin, such as Idris Elba and Ozwald Boateng, got their break from Prince’s Trust.”



“I have a personal attachment to both Africa and Asia. I was born in South Africa of Asian origin when my family migrated from Northern India in the 1860s. The opportunity to internationally apply my experience, having also served on the board of The Prince’s Trust in the UK, was hugely appealing,” Randeree adds.



“Having had a career in business, it never ceases to amaze me what can be achieved by elevating educational aspirations of our youth. Last year, almost 30,000 young people were impacted positively by Prince’s Trust International in 18 countries. It was Nelson Mandela who said ‘education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world’.”

Kenya Royal Visit 2023 HMK with PTI participants

His Majesty’s Trust In Africa’s Youth:Helping Bridge The Education And Skills Gap

Debt Crisis Looms for Poorer Nations Most Vulnerable to Climate Change

In Its Own Sweet Time: Sustainability And Innovation In South Africa’s Sugar Industry

In anticipation of COP28 – the United National Climate Change Conference – which takes place later this month, we speak to food and beverage conglomerate, PepsiCo about the significance of the conference, and how the company is tackling its climate change goals.



Multinationals worldwide have begun the process of reviewing their business and operational strategies in order to meet their net zero goals.



With COP28 set to take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from November 30 – December 12, FORBES AFRICA speaks to Eugene Willemsen, CEO for PepsiCo AMESA (Africa, Middle East and South Asia) about the company’s agricultural strategies, its focus on renewable energy and growth prospects on the continent.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Q. In terms of COP28 and PepsiCo, what&#8217;s the premise behind this? What are your plans for the upcoming conference?



A. COP28 is a crucial event for not just PepsiCo, but for the world. I think everyone is seeing the impact that climate change is having on everything from food security to people being displaced, etc. At PepsiCo, we firmly believe that we have a role to play to create a more sustainable world, and I think that is also embedded in our positive vision and strategy that we rolled out a couple of years ago.



There are a few elements within that strategy that are, for us, critical. One is positive agriculture. The second is positive value chain and the third one is positive choices. As we look at COP28, in particular, the focus is going to be primarily on the first two of those pillars. Within positive agriculture, we have committed ourselves to convert the equivalent of the agricultural land that we&#8217;re using to grow our crops. We work with about 100,000 farmers across the world and we want to convert the equivalent of the land that we&#8217;re using with these farms to grow our crops to regenerative agricultural practices.



On positive value chain, this is very much in focus for COP28. A few key focus areas there – as a company, we&#8217;ve committed to become net zero, across our entire ecosystem, by 2040. If you then break that down –agriculture is, for us, one of the important drivers of our emissions. The second area that we need to work on is packaging, which is another contributor to our emissions. And there, we&#8217;ve pledged to significantly reduce the amount of virgin PET, so we will reduce that by 50% by 2030, per serving. That means that we need to establish proper recycling infrastructure, especially, in the markets that I&#8217;m responsible for, but also start including recycled PET within our packaging footprint to ensure that we create this circular economy for packaging. Within the Africa, Middle East and South Asia (AMESA) sector, we now have established the right legislative framework in most of the markets, in the sense that recycled PET is allowed to be used for food grade consumption.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="567" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Tshego-Selepe-agribusiness-manager-at-the-Kgodiso-Development-Fund-helping-with-the-first-planting-at-a-model-farm-in-Kakamas-Northern-Cape-South-Africa-1024x567.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-60163" style="aspect-ratio:1.8059964726631392;width:542px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Tshego-Selepe-agribusiness-manager-at-the-Kgodiso-Development-Fund-helping-with-the-first-planting-at-a-model-farm-in-Kakamas-Northern-Cape-South-Africa-1024x567.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Tshego-Selepe-agribusiness-manager-at-the-Kgodiso-Development-Fund-helping-with-the-first-planting-at-a-model-farm-in-Kakamas-Northern-Cape-South-Africa-300x166.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Tshego-Selepe-agribusiness-manager-at-the-Kgodiso-Development-Fund-helping-with-the-first-planting-at-a-model-farm-in-Kakamas-Northern-Cape-South-Africa-768x426.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Tshego-Selepe-agribusiness-manager-at-the-Kgodiso-Development-Fund-helping-with-the-first-planting-at-a-model-farm-in-Kakamas-Northern-Cape-South-Africa-1536x851.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Tshego-Selepe-agribusiness-manager-at-the-Kgodiso-Development-Fund-helping-with-the-first-planting-at-a-model-farm-in-Kakamas-Northern-Cape-South-Africa-2048x1135.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Tshego Selepe, agribusiness manager at the Kgodiso Development Fund helping with the first planting at a model farm in Kakamas, Northern Cape, South Africa</figcaption></figure></div>


We have been and are working with other stakeholders to set up and further scale up proper collection and sorting mechanisms. And also we&#8217;re working with suppliers to secure a sufficient supply of recycled PET and we have now launched, in nine markets, recycled PET with our packaging footprint. We&#8217;re now in the process of further scaling that up and adding a few other markets to the roster.



And the third one, of course, is in our manufacturing and logistics setup. There, the focus is to drive towards renewable energy. That&#8217;s going to be a big focus area for us, again, as we look at COP28, for discussions with governments and other stakeholders.



Then the last focus area for us is on water, where we’ve pledged to become net water positive, and again, making good progress on that by reducing water usage consumption as much as possible, but also leveraging our technologies to help others save on water.



Q. With the countries and the markets you&#8217;re involved in, what kind of practices are you implementing to improve the livelihoods of farmers in those areas?



A. As I said, globally, we work with about 100,000 farmers – that&#8217;s from very large scale commercial farmers, like you would have in the Midwest, to smallholder farmers in, whether it be India, whether it be the African continent. Especially in the sector that I&#8217;m responsible for, we have tremendous experience working with small-scale farmers. We have a lot of know-how in terms of how you can reduce water usage, how you optimize the use of fertilizers, the best type of fertilizers, but also how we can work with those farmers to improve their yields. We&#8217;ve deployed that across many markets in AMESA, definitely also in Egypt and South Africa, as well as in Ethiopia.



In South Africa, one of the other things that we&#8217;re doing, as part of the financials acquisition, is we have made available a development fund, which is R600 million (approx. $32.7 million) in total. [Half of that] is specifically earmarked for agriculture, and with a focus of including emerging farmers into our value chain, and helping them with tools, with skills building, and with that, hopefully, also create better livelihoods for them, for their families and for their communities. That is one of the areas that we&#8217;re very much focused on in South Africa.



Q. With your renewable energy practices, what are some of these you&#8217;ve implemented or are implementing?



A. Net zero has many different components, because we have emissions across that entire value chain, but if you specifically look at what the focus is, and when it comes to our manufacturing and logistics setup, within manufacturing, the aim there is to move to renewable energy sources. That will be through investments in solar energy, using wind energy as well, where possible.



The big unlock that we need to still see happen in many of our markets is the establishment of power purchase agreements, so that will help us generate energy through renewable sources. And when we&#8217;re not in a position to use that energy, we can put it back on the grid. When we need energy from the grid, we can take from it. That is the ‘wheeling arrangements’, as they&#8217;re called, that is not yet in full force in most of the markets in AMESA. That is a big focus area for us in the discussions with local governments.



Second – when it comes to our fleet – you&#8217;ll see us investing in electric vehicles, in order to ensure that our fleet, over time, also becomes a fleet that is not using fossil fuels anymore, but is using renewable energy as the main source, to transport our products and raw materials.



Q. Let&#8217;s talk about opportunities in Africa, and then in the AMESA region in general. What are you seeing in terms of growth and expansion?



A. It spans about 45% of the world population. It&#8217;s a very young population. There is also an opportunity for us, as we look at that growth, to create very positive impact in the communities where we operate. And that is, again, linked to some of the work that we&#8217;re doing with farming communities, because, specifically for our foods business, we need to source crops, and we largely want to source those crops locally. The region as such, I think, offers a lot of opportunity for growth.

Eugene Willemsen

How This Global Company Is Pushing for Regenerative Agriculture And Renewable Energy In Africa

Championing financial independence for immigrants in the United States (US) is fundamental for digital banking startup, Waya. With a team also based in Kenya, fintech co-founders Aenoi Chanthavong, Hempstone Maroria, David Wachira and Renzo Sotomayor started by fixing the remittance problem.



A Zoom call that connected Washington DC in the United States (US), Kenya’s capital city Nairobi and Johannesburg in South Africa at the same time made this interview possible; just one minor example of what is now a norm in a hyperconnected world.



And yet, a concept as basic as financial independence and access to financial services for all is still a challenge on the African continent. Waya, a fintech based in the US that especially caters to immigrants, minorities and underserved communities, aspires to change this. “For us it’s that broad recognition that financial independence is not a solitary endeavor. It’s a collective pursuit.



The goal here is for us to unlock financial opportunities and provide the tools and services and resources that will enable people achieve their dreams,” says Waya co-founder Dr David Wachira.



“We find that if someone is not financially connected, or they are not integrated into the system, they are largely overlooked. As a result of that overlook, it has a huge impact on other facets of life. So we think of ourselves as coming in to actually solve that social impact problem.” 



A Waya account allows you to fund your account and hold money, make instant and secure Waya-to-Waya transfers, international money transfers, and go cashless or pay online with your Waya card.



Wachira, who previously served as a finance and economics specialist at the World Bank Group, started the company in 2019 with co-founders Hempstone Maroria, Aenoi Chanthavong and Renzo Sotomayor. Coming from diverse backgrounds, they each experienced first-hand the challenges with financial inclusion.



“We were connected in the industry by circumstance, and then that circumstance led us to be friends. I met Aenoi when I was refinancing my home. He was working at the World Bank credit union that catered mostly to immigrants, so it was just a natural connection. And this was almost four years before Waya was [even] a conversation,” says Wachira. “And then meeting Hempstone – it was a chance meeting. We happened to be meeting or knew a common friend,” he adds, “and long story short, in that particular friendship, the conversation of sending money on PayPal –because he was doing a lot of website and software development – came up.”



Wachira lived in the US and was paid in dollars but had a vested interest in Kenya and encountered challenges with large- value transactions, especially when he needed to travel there, while Maroria lived in Kenya but worked for a US company and was paid in dollars but found it challenging to move his money to Kenya. “We were both experiencing this problem and we thought ‘What can we do to solve it’? That’s how we started off trying to solve the issue of payments on the remittance side,” says Wachira. “The more we spoke to other immigrants, the aspect of remittance, of course, was important because we were experiencing it. But beyond that, was the issue of larger financial access.” He adds that they determined that those remittance issues were simply a &#8216;symptom’ of the lack of financial access.



“&#8230;people are sending money to their family and everything else. But if you start speaking to them ‘Tell me about how you receive your income, where do you get paid?’, they are like, ‘It’s very difficult to open bank accounts as an immigrant in the US; I have to transact with a lot of cash’&#8230; Then the more we started looking at it, if you try to fix the remittance problem, which is okay, it’s more symptomatic – the root cause is financial access. So we pivoted towards that and that’s how Waya was born.” 



They approached Chanthavong with the idea and he had seen the effects of these obstacles in his line of work. “In terms of the background, working for the United Nations Federal Credit Union, and the World Bank, I got to see that essentially, the guidelines or rules that was given, in terms of loans or lending, was not really catered to low-income or moderate-income immigrants like us,” he says. “I’ve worked with foreign nationals, who came from all over the world with visas, and they make great salaries, but because they don’t have the right documents – social security number – they couldn’t open up a bank account. It became just a perfect fit when David brought that up.”



According to the World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief, released in June, officially-recorded remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are estimated to grow by 1.4% to $656 billion in 2023. However, as economic activity in remittance-source countries is set to soften, it may limit employment and wage gains for migrants. “For me, I can also relate, coming from an immigrant family, from Laos, during 



the Vietnam War. And when you’re settled here as a refugee in the United States, there’s a lot of other things that was not given to you, because you know you have to rely on public assistance, low income and all these other stuff,” Chanthavong recalls.



“This problem that we’re trying to solve is to make sure that we incorporate or include all those minorities [that] were denied because traditional banks didn’t understand them. They didn’t understand where they came from, didn’t truly understand their needs,” he adds. “Most traditional banks typically would focus on clients that are less risky or risk-averse, right? And that was the reason. This was a perfect match. Since then, I got introduced to Hempstone and the rest was history.”



Maroria, a professional in fintech, mobile payments, e-commerce and disruptive technologies, says as an innovator, his personal experience with remittances is what triggered him to start thinking about building solutions around payments for immigrants. “Our goal really is to continuously build products and solutions within our banking offering, to make sure that we are able to give immigrants and minorities, the tools and the power they need to be able to stay ahead, especially in these countries where they live and work,” he says.



“For us, that means being able to continuously add on more services, like lending and credit, and [the] ability for these people to be able to actually access products. And then majorly one of our biggest things in the pipeline is being able to help all without social security numbers. So these, I would say, would be students, and other people that move into the United States but are not really in the system.”



“One of the key items we’ve done in trying to build innovation is us going into the different communities, understanding their user case, and then developing a product to be able to meet those needs,” Chanthavong says. The startup today has over 5,000 active users and has closed pre-seed investment from strategic investors and partners. 



“We’re discovering different AIs you can embed in building better processes, for example, customer service, engagement. Rather than doing the coding manually, you have AI that’s able to read this code and something that would take you, I’m just going to exaggerate, years, takes you 10 minutes. These are the things we’ve been able to incorporate and innovate to provide better services to our customers.”



When asked about the challenges they have faced, Maroria says capital investment was the biggest, along with navigating the regulatory landscape – especially in a country like the US that is one of the most highly-regulated markets in the world – and being able to build a team, 70% of which is based in Kenya, that understands a product in the US market. 



“I think maybe a crux of the problem is we think we just have one solution, and we will be the only people that can actually solve this particular aspect. We can’t be it all to everyone but what we can do is try to address a particular problem and even innovate and actually have more competition that helps solve that particular problem,” says Wachira. “If we can actually lead the way, be that tip of the spear that enables others to come and say, ‘You know what, let me build on what Waya has done’ and kind of light up the darkness so to speak.”

Waya co-founders Aenoi Chanthavong,Hempstone Maroria and David Wachira; Image supplied

From Africa To The US: Championing Financial Independence For Immigrants

Earning the support and trust of the community surrounding the Malaika school in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was vital in its early days, and still is today, says the non-profit’s founder and philanthropist, Noëlla Coursaris Musunka.



In the heart of Kalebuka – a village in Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – the Malaika school, which opened its doors in 2011, has just celebrated its first graduation.



Empowering girls through education has been a key focus of the grassroots non-profit organization and founder, model and philanthropist, Noëlla Coursaris Musunka tells FORBES AFRICA that having the support structure that she has, has been vital.



“It has been challenging to help the community recognize the value of girls’ education when it has been a part of their culture to prioritize boys’ education and expect girls to do domestic duties only.



“When we gather the community to play sports we teach them about equality, social cohesion and the value of education. This has helped them to recognize why girls should be educated and to be supportive of this,” she says.



The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimated that the out-of-school population in sub-Saharan Africa reached 98 million in 2021.



However, the organization noted that “important data gaps have been filled in countries that have large out of school numbers but where no administrative data of good quality has been available for over a decade”. This included the DRC (5.9 million).


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ROB3606-1024x681.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-59153" style="width:662px;height:440px" width="662" height="440" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ROB3606-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ROB3606-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ROB3606-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ROB3606.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 662px) 100vw, 662px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"> Noëlla and a student. Image Supplied. </figcaption></figure></div>


Since its establishment, Malaika has developed into a primary and secondary school, and a community center and organic farm has been added, along with the refurbishment of 30 wells in the area.



“It has been extremely important to earn the trust and support of the community. Our mission is to empower girls and their communities and if community members were not interested in taking part then our work would have had minimal impact,” Musunka says.



“Our school, and our community center that provides vocational education and training to youth and adults, have been better because of the community’s help and support.&nbsp;Having their buy-in with our community center where they come to play sport and learning together has been wonderful to see and when whole families come and benefit from education, the girls at our school benefit even more.”



She also emphasizes that the support of the community was vital in getting the girls to school in the early days, and that many have been volunteers and helped to maintain the premises and land over the years.&nbsp;



Students at the school receive Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and can learn concepts like VPL, Blockly and Scratch languages as well as other basic and advanced computer skills.



Along with this, the school teaches sustainable farming practices and ensures that the community has access to basic needs, like clean drinking water, all of which can give the community what it needs to uplift itself in the long-term.



“I would like to see more investment in education and community development. Malaika is a sustainable ecosystem that can be duplicated in any context and we have created a toolkit in order to support others to create a similar provision in their communities.



“I would also love to see more focus on sustainable development. There also needs to be a holistic emphasis, including focus on infrastructure and health needs. There needs to be provision that can empower a community with lasting change,” says Musunka, who lives in the United Kingdom with her husband and children, and was named one of the BBC’s 100 Most Influential &amp; Inspirational Women in 2017.



As a mom, a feminist, and a believer in the right to access to education, health, and opportunity, her advice to young girls and women on the continent is to bet on yourself and aim high.



“Keep working hard and don’t give up even if things don’t seem to be going your way, just keep following your passion.”

_ROB7761

Pushing For Change In The DRC: School-Founder On The Challenges And Rewards Of Prioritizing Girls’ Education

An in-depth look at investment in some of the continent’s most promising entertainment industries reveals areas of growth, challenges and what the future might hold.



Africa’s heartbeat is in rhythm with the passion, culture and creativity of its people. On a continent of 1.4 billion people according to estimates by the United Nations (UN), there are effectively 1.4 billion stories to tell, each one unique and brimming with potential.



The question is: what is the narrative, and who is telling the story? 



Africa’s prospects in creative industries like art, fashion, film and television, crafts and architecture, among others, are well-documented. An oft-quoted fact comes from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) 2021 report African Film: A Booming Industry. It illustrates the potential in the film and audio-visual industries, which could result in generated revenue of $20 billion per year.



Speaking on the outlook for entertainment and media in Africa over the next few years, Charles Stuart, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) South Africa’s Entertainment and Media Partner, says to FORBES AFRICA:



“We look at consumer spend in terms of what’s covered from a cinema perspective. [It] is growing; it’s just taking longer to recover to where it initially was. Is cinema dead? No, we are not seeing that.”



But where is investment for this forecasted to come from? With the growth of video-on-demand (VOD) and over-the-top (OTT) services, and a burgeoning appetite for authentically African media and content, venture capital (VC) is poised to be at the forefront of development on the continent, for film and television in particular.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center" id="h-show-me-the-money-jerry-maguire-1996">“Show Me The Money” (Jerry Maguire, 1996)</h4>



The African Private Capital Association (AVCA) indicates that 58 private capital investments, with a total reported value of $346 million, were recorded in Africa’s creative industries over the last decade (2012-2022).



“Starting from a low base of only four investments in 2012, private capital investments in Africa’s creative industries more than tripled, reaching a total of 13 in 2022,” says AVCA.



Notably, VC investments attracted the largest share of these. They accounted for about 67% of the total number over the 2012-2022 period, followed by private equity investments at 33%.



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:36% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="429" height="522" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-59059 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-1.png 429w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-1-247x300.png 247w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 429px) 100vw, 429px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“WE LOOK AT CONSUMER SPEND IN TERMS OF WHAT’S COVERED FROM A CINEMA PERSPECTIVE. [IT] IS GROWING…
<cite>Charles Stuart, Entertainment and Media Partner, PwC South Africa</cite></blockquote>
</div></div>



“These investments spanned various sectors, including the development of online gaming platforms, music and video streaming developers, operators of music websites, live broadcasting, film streaming platforms, providers of advertising and marketing services, and clothing designers, among others,” says AVCA.



Jeff Schlapinski, Managing Director, Research, at non-profit, independent membership organization, Global Private Capital Association (GPCA), echoes these sentiments. 



“Africa’s VC investments in media and entertainment companies reached $31.2 million across six rounds in 2022, a new record in terms of deal value.”



However, Schlapinski notes that investments into this sector have, historically, represented a very small percentage of investment activity in Africa’s venture ecosystem (~1% of the $2.75 billion invested in VC in Africa in 2022, according to GPCA).



“The significant growth of the venture capital asset class in recent years, along with the increased allocation of capital towards technology or technology-enabled businesses, has contributed to the growth of investments in this sector as well,” says AVCA.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center">Economies In The Spotlight</h4>



According to AVCA, the increase in the number of investments in Africa’s creative industries strongly indicates investors’ increasing interest and recognition of the sector’s potential. A handful of countries attracted the biggest chunk of that investment over the 10-year period (2012-2022).



“In terms of their geographic distribution, South Africa has attracted the largest share of private capital investments in Africa’s creative industries at 24%.” Following South Africa is Egypt, accounting for 14% of these investments. The country has also emerged as a significant technology hub on the continent in recent years.



“Nigeria and Kenya, two of Africa’s largest private capital markets, have each accounted for 10% of these investments,” says AVCA. Speaking on 2022, in particular, Schlapinski notes that the markets that led VC investments in media and entertainment – in terms of deal value – were South Africa with $22.5 million, Nigeria with $5.7 million and Egypt at $2 million.



They represent three of the four most active countries for overall VC investment with Kenya rounding off the top four.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center">The Redefinition Of Main ‘Stream’</h4>



Regarding three of sub-Saharan Africa’s emerging economies, namely South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, streaming service, Netflix, released its Socio-Economic Impact Report earlier this year, where it reveals its impact since entering the market.



Over the 2016–2022 period, it invested $175 million in content and in the overall creative environment in these countries specifically.



South Africa received the bulk of this investment, accounting for at least $125 million. In addition to that, over the same period, it invested in upwards of 425 licensed titles in these economies, further opening up the market to a host of proudly African films and television series.



Expanding on PwC’s outlook for Africa, Stuart says that success for OTTs necessitates an understanding of the type of content you put out there.



“You can have a wonderful distribution platform [but] if you’ve got nothing good to show – which is part of cinemas’ challenges over the last while; some of those big titles and also the lack of big titles has worn out in terms of what we’re seeing.”



He emphasizes the fact that content is always going to be king.



“Coming back to Africa, the culture and the richness and the heritage that we have, if you drive around, you’ve got Shaka [iLembe], there’s Rosemary’s Hitlist (both documentary series) advertised on billboards. You’re seeing the importance of local content to the success of your streaming platforms. Initially, when a Netflix entered Africa, it didn’t do really well. All it was doing is, ‘here’s the international content’. People were familiar with it but we like our African stories as well,” says Stuart.



With streaming platforms, the cost base is mostly fixed, so, in reality, he says that it’s the subscriber base that drives the growth.



“How do you really translate things into profit? It’s getting more people to subscribe to your service. What they were lacking a lot in the early days was this local content – that really resonated with it. What many of the streamers have learned is that it is about finding that balance between your international content, supplemented with your local content. When you look at a lot of the communication coming out of Apple, Netflix, Amazon, there’s continued communication around the fact that they are investing in local content.”



Stuart adds, “There’s still opportunity for your local players but it’s not an easy industry. For every bit of content that ends up on Netflix, there’s probably 10 pieces of content that doesn’t end up on Netflix.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center">A Continent Up For The Challenge</h4>



The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) recently took an in-depth look at the continent’s Culture and Creative Industries (CCIs) in its African Trade Report 2022: Leveraging the Power of Culture and Creative Industries for Accelerated Structural Transformation in the AfCFTA Era.



It noted that some of the obstacles hindering the growth of CCIs include policy frameworks, finance, infrastructure, intellectual property rights, standards and norms in the area of cross-border trade, accurate data, language barriers, colonial legacy and an extroverted model.



Furthermore, it states that “a positive outcome of the pandemic has been the necessitated shift to digital solutions and online streaming, which has helped boost the performance and resilience of creative industries underpinned by digital models and platforms”.



While Africa does have its fair share of challenges, PwC’s Africa outlook for 2023-2027, which is expected to be released in September, sheds light on infrastructure investments, particularly in the telco space, which has a fundamental impact on streaming platforms, data consumption, and the growth of mobile gaming on the continent.



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:39% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="333" height="420" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-59060 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-2.jpg 333w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-2-238x300.jpg 238w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 333px) 100vw, 333px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“AFRICA’S VC INVESTMENTS IN MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT COMPANIES REACHED $31.2 MILLION ACROSS SIX ROUNDS IN 2022, A NEW RECORD IN TERMS OF DEAL VALUE.”
<cite>—Jeff Schlapinski, Managing Director, Research, GPCA</cite></blockquote>
</div></div>



“For the first time, in this year’s entertainment and media outlook, there’s a telco outlook that has gone with it. One of the aspects that has been covered as part of that telco outlook this year is telco capex spend – how much are the telcos actually looking to spend from a capex perspective in the various markets,” says Stuart.



A glance at the numbers in the assurance, tax and advisory services provider’s Perspectives from the Global Entertainment &amp; Media Outlook 2023–2027: Resetting expectations, refocusing inward and recharging growth for the three aforementioned sub-Saharan African regions seems to indicate an appetite for investment. This includes the convergence of the creative and technology industries.



“When we look at capex spend – and there is some further breakdown in terms of broadband, mobile broadband – in Kenya in 2022, there was $470 million worth of spend in the capex space and that’s going to grow each year at around 2.2%. By 2027, telcos are forecast to be spending around $520 million on their capex infrastructure in Kenya. The vast majority of that – about 85% – is going to be in the mobile space. That probably comes as no surprise given the strong mobile- first characteristics that the market has.”



Stuart adds: “Nigeria is going to be spending more than three times that, so almost $2 billion by 2027. There is a lot of investment in Nigeria. You’ve got your big players – Glo, MTN – they’ve been spending in terms of upgrading the network. They’re already sitting at about



$1.8 billion and it’s going to be a bit above and below that over the forecast period; fairly consistent with that level. Again, the vast majority of that is sitting in the mobile space. South Africa is spending $1.6 billion and that’s actually going to drop a little bit over the forecast period. It makes sense in a way because a lot of the 5G stuff is already in progress. There’s a lot of spend happening at the moment but over time, that does mean it will slow down.”



Data consumption is expected to continue its increase, leaving telcos with solutions to find from an economic and infrastructure perspective. “The challenge that telcos and, particularly, the content providers have is the monetization of that because [it’s] very expensive to upgrade this. There’s obviously downward pressure on data prices but money needed to be spent to upgrade the infrastructure to cater for the increasingly data-heavy world that we live in.



About 80% of data consumption is sitting in the video space, and there are various other categories around communications, music etc. Does it mean that people are watching more than listening to music? Not necessarily. Video [is] just much more heavy from a data usage perspective,” says Stuart.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center">African, Tech Savvy &amp; Proud</h4>



Another notable point in the report is the impact of the continent’s youth on the growth of the mobile gaming sector.



“The fastest growing segment of video games we’re seeing is in what we call casual and social gaming. That’s your Candy Crush, it’s mobile games that people either play on a free-to-play model or ‘freemium’ where it’s free to start but then you might start paying for things down the line. A lot of that is also funded potentially through advertising that appears in those games so that’s where a lot of that growth is coming from,” says Stuart.



These developments have also opened up an emerging avenue in the cinema space and he adds that this could create opportunities in emerging economies that are primarily tech and mobile-focused.



“Video games are seen as one of the access points to the youth. [They] engage in it and we’re seeing things expanding. During Covid, the Fortnite platform, which people access from a video games’ perspective was used to host music concerts – Travis [Scott], I think, was who appeared on the Fortnite platform and had thousands and thousands of people watching his show, whereas you previously wouldn’t have seen it. There’s a bit of multi- functionality within the video games space.



“What we are seeing in the cinema space is interesting. We’ve always had, traditionally, other sorts of areas like Lego, and then you’ve got Lego: The Movie. We are now starting to see video games that have movie titles and movie franchises attached to them. Why? Because you’ve got this audience that’s already engaged with your content in the video games space and how do you try and stay engaged with them but in a different media format? It could be a series on OTT or it could be an actual big screen film. Maybe that’s some sort of element of opportunity within Kenya and Nigeria – as video games continues to grow, that could help to spur some growth as that content is repackaged into the cinema space,” Stuart concludes.

singer on stage with crowd reaching for him

Where Does Venture Capital Feature In Africa’s Entertainment Sector?

“It’s not just a knowledge-sharing initiative,” Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) CEO, Cas Coovadia, tells FORBES AFRICA of its collaboration with government. This is following a pledge by CEOs from over 115 of the country’s leading corporations to contribute to addressing challenges around energy, logistics, crime and corruption.



With CEOs from over 115 of South Africa’s leading companies signing a pledge recently, stating their firm belief in the potential of the country and their aim to achieve sustainable, inclusive economic growth, there is new hope from Big Business and a message – that it’s keen to work with government and build the country.



The companies span a range of sectors and include the likes of Anglo American, Sasol, SAB, RCL Foods, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Arcelor Mittal, PPC, Mondi, Hollard, Allan Gray, Deloitte, KPMG, Naspers, EOH, Growthpoint, Fidelity, and more.



The reported market cap of the 115+ entities exceed R11 trillion ($598 billion) and they together employ more than 1.2 million people.



“Through strategic partnerships and focused interventions, we have the power to make a significant and positive impact on our nation, creating hope for all South Africans. We are resolutely committed to being a force for good,” the pledge concludes.



Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) has said, in a statement on this pledge, that through the Business for South Africa (B4SA) structure, it is collaborating with government to implement key interventions in energy, logistics and transport, and crime and corruption.



BUSA CEO Cas Coovadia says following their dialogue with President Cyril Ramaphosa, which resumed earlier this year, they are collectively working on a structure to tackle these issues.



“We don’t want to reinvent the wheel in trying to determine what the problems are. We’re actually giving three pages on each of these – so these are the interventions you need to make and if you make those interventions, this will be the impact on investment, growth and jobs.



“We briefed a broad range of CEOs on this and what we suggested is that if they can sign a pledge along the lines of the one you’ve seen, which basically backs up this work we are doing.”



He adds that this move reinforces the message that business is keen on working with government.



“We will put in the resources and capacity to make all of this happen, provided we have a structured relationship with government, with clear outcomes, with clear timeframes and their people are sitting with us in a real partnership – that’s what the pledge is all about.”



President Ramaphosa had a follow-up meeting with business leaders on Tuesday, continuing their collaborative efforts.



South Africa’s energy challenges have been well-documented. According to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) country focus, published in June, the economy grew by 0.4% between January and March this year, with power cuts, volatile commodity prices and a challenging external environment the main contributions to the weak growth.



The fund adds that it projects that, by year-end, real GDP growth will fall sharply from last year.



“The country has faced rolling blackouts after years of mismanagement of the state-owned utility, Eskom, prompting the authorities to ease the registration process and licensing requirements for energy production to encourage private sector investment,” cites the report.



“Additional far-reaching reforms are needed to achieve job-rich, inclusive, and greener growth. These include improving the country’s energy and logistical constraints, reducing barriers to private sector investment, addressing structural rigidities in the labor market, and tackling crime and corruption.”



Encouragingly, Coovadia says that energy is actually where government and business have made the most progress.



“[The President] put together a National Energy Crisis Committee (NECOM) in his office. He then realized he doesn’t have the expertise to implement the plan and approached us. We discussed this – we were happy with the plan on the basis that there were some good people at NECOM under very difficult circumstances, trying to actively get the plan implemented,” he says.



This is where the Resource Mobilization Fund (RMF) came in. The Presidency reported in March that the fund had raised R100 million ($5.4 million) from businesses and philanthropies.



“We put together a light touch, not for profit, called the Resource Mobilization Fund to do two things – raise the money and procure the expertise. We raised half the money from our global foundation, the rest from South African business. We put together a procurement team made up of procurement people from five corporates. On the basis of the expertise NECOM needed, we went through an open RFP (request for proposal) process.



“As of three weeks ago, expertise have been donated to NECOM and they started working with NECOM to implement the plan as a matter of urgency. We’ve put engineers into four power stations to increase the energy factor in those power stations so we’re working well with them on energy. There’s good progress.”



While South Africa’s challenges in energy do clearly impact the economy, Coovadia says progress in logistics is equally, if not more, crucial.



“Logistics is probably a bigger problem than energy in the sense that the opportunity costs on our ports degrading, our rail system degrading, as a result of goods being transferred by road – our road system degrading – the cost to business, of that, are severe,” he says.



“We believe if we get that right, we will have a significant impact on instilling confidence in the country, on investors coming in and on actually reducing the cost of doing business, and the cost of production and businesses operating efficiently. To us, that’s a big issue.”



Coovadia reiterates that the massive problem with crime and corruption is that it has a direct impact on business, the confidence of investors and in the lives of the country’s people. But the focus on these three areas does not mean they are the only areas of concern.



“Let’s get to a stage where we can show results on these and then we can look at other stuff.”



He also mentions the importance of impacting more than just the country’s major companies.



“One of the pieces of work we’ve done in addition to this is looking at what are the factors that can lead to employment, looking at the informal sector, the SME sector and so on. As part of this, we would want to see one, from a regulatory point of view, what needs to be done, but secondly, how does bigger business relate to SMEs and the informal sector,” says Coovadia.



“Firstly, in the SME sector, to try and get SMEs in the value chains, to support SMEs, to look at why so many SMEs are failing and what we can do about that. From an informal trading point of view – to see what light touch regulation [and] management that can actually get those informal traders into more impactful situations, and how points and supermarkets in townships can work with informal traders. As soon as we’re ready to release that, we will do so.”



Coovadia concludes that the business sector is going into this collaboration with their eyes open and will assess and review their stance in the next four or five months if there’s no traction or progress being made.

Nicole Pillay

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA