FORBES AFRICA was at Expo 2020 Dubai to witness the tech-filled finale of the multi-billion-dollar, 182-day global event that also brought all of Africa.



The party was on for six months.



And on a balmy night, under a gold dome in a grand spectacle of sound and light that saw hundreds of performers and several thousand diverse and starry-eyed visitors, the curtain came down on the Expo 2020 Dubai that brought through its gates an estimated staggering 23 million visitors.



The closing ceremony of the world gala in the UAE emirate last night (March 31), had thousands of visitors streaming in well into the wee hours for the live shows, fireworks and pyrotechnics.



Tech reigned.



Even as Grammy award-winning singer and headline crowd-pleaser Norah Jones said it’s her first trip to Dubai and dazzled in a grey sequinned dress at the piano singing the soulful Come Away With Me, and as thousands thronged every inch of space on the walkways – dodging baby strollers and e-scooters – to hear global pop sensation Christina Aguilera, the true star of the show was the Al Wasl gold dome, the all-rounder of the mega event.



The intricate lattice dome’s eye-popping technical specs? At 67.5 meters tall and comprising 13.6 kilometers of steel, it weighs 2,544 tonnes – “as much as 25 blue whales”. And under it, a sea of humanity gazing at an immersive 360-degree projection system with giant fabric screens.



At the closing event, the baton was handed over to the Japanese city of Osaka, where the next expo will be held in 2025.



The UAE, which celebrated its 50th year during the expo and changed its weekend to Saturday and Sunday in keeping with the West, is home to multiple nationalities. The expo, delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, is being seen as “the start of a new beginning”.



Africa was well-represented too. The colorful African stalls in the world souq areas were quite the magnet for crowds, with hand-woven African baskets and print sandals selling at Dhs100 ($27) a piece.



The African Union pavilion located within the Opportunity District at the expo site spoke to the Agenda 2063 aspirations of the continent and strengthening trade links between the Middle East and Africa.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“It’s been a great experience,” says Coumba Dioukhane, a spokesperson at the Côte d&#8217;Ivoire pavilion, even as crowds queue up around us to get their expo passports stamped by the West African country.



“We were able to showcase the Ivory Coast from an economic, social and cultural point of view; this was an opportunity to show to the whole world where we are, and the investment opportunities we have.”



Similar sentiments at the Sierra Leone pavilion.



The salesman at the store inside points to the python skin for sale and a crocodile skin handbag selling for Dhs1,500 ($408). “But you know we also have gold and diamonds,” he says with a glint in his eye. “Our country was hidden but not anymore. The last six months here in Dubai have been incredible.”



South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had also been at Expo 2020 Dubai, at his country’s pavilion three days before the finale, calling it “a seminal event… as we strive to recover and rebuild in the wake of the pandemic”.



Some enduring connections for Africa in this glistening city in the desert.

Closing Ceremony Held For Expo 2020 Dubai

World Fair Ends With Festivities, Pyrotechnics And High Tech

Ivorian entrepreneur Charlette N&#8217;Guessan is on a mission to solve a $400 million problem faced by Ghanaian financial institutions.



The BACE Group, co-founded by Charlette N’Guessan, is on a mission to solve a $400 million problem faced by Ghanaian financial institutions to identify customers. Their solution – the BACE API, a software that uses facial recognition to help banks streamline their Know Your Customer (KYC) process.



N’Guessan, who is also CEO of the Ghana-based software company, stumbled upon the idea when she relocated from her native Ivory Coast to Ghana to take part in the one-year MEST entrepreneur training program. MEST, which is an Africa-wide technology entrepreneur training program, was founded in Ghana in 2008 and provides funding as well as skills training to Africa’s brightest software developers.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“We started talking to banks and fintech companies in Ghana and we noticed that they were spending a lot of money in terms of KYC and also things related to security.”</blockquote>



“When I first moved to Ghana, I could not speak English, so it was very difficult to communicate. But we had the ecosystem where we could learn English through MEST. That’s how I met my co-founder and we had a similar interest in terms of solving key challenges in Africa. We started to study the local market and what challenges they were facing and we started talking to banks and fintech companies in Ghana and we noticed that they were spending a lot of money in terms of KYC and also things related to security,” says N’Guessan.



With a strong background in electronic and computer science as well as software engineering, the 26-year-old set out to initially create an app before pivoting and launching an Application Program Interface (API) instead that could be integrated into any existing bank app or solution.



“Outside Africa a lot of people are trying to use facial recognition and there was some confusion about how it can work properly in Africa. But we are young and we want to do something challenging. We decided to use facial recognition instead of finger print because, for us, facial recognition was a lot simpler because it doesn’t require a lot of devices. If you go to your bank, you go to an agent and she will check your identity by looking at your face and your ID and know that it is you. She won’t check your fingerprints first. So, we wanted to bring this natural process into tech digitization and facial recognition was the technology that would be able to make this happen for us,” says N’Guessan.



The BACE API has been specifically developed for Africans by using nothing more than a device’s inbuilt camera and utilizes live images and short videos on those devices. The company has also teamed up with certified government-issued Identity documents that has granted the company access to Ghanaian passports to further expand its reach.



N’Guessan’s innovation is currently being utilized by two financial institutions in Ghana and has made her the first woman ever to win the Royal Academy of Engineering’s prestigious 2020 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation.



“From 15 teams we were shortlisted to four teams who pitched to the jury and based on our track record, we won. We received £25,000 ($34,000) which we are investing into developing the product even further. It is good because the product is relevant for Covid-19 where a lot of people are no longer meeting physically.”



N’Guessan and the BACE Group are now targeting all African companies and different sectors where, she is hoping the technology will be used for remote onboarding of drivers in companies like UBER to telecom companies’ enrolment of simcards.

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The Techpreneur On The Money

Some of the best looks in Beyoncé’s new feature film, Black is King, have come from designers from the African continent.



Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s brand-new new visual album Black is King that released on July 31 on Disney Plus, boasts an African touch, with many designers from the continent showcasing their work in it.



Out just a little over a year since the release of the live-action version of The Lion King where Beyoncé played the female lead, Nala, it was originally filmed as a companion piece to The Lion King: The Gift soundtrack, but the singer explains in a post on Instagram that the events of 2020 (specifically, the Black Lives Movement protesting police brutality in the United States) have made the message in the film more relevant.



For the “passion project”, Beyoncé spent over a year filming, researching, and editing it as a love letter to celebrate the breadth and beauty of black ancestry. &nbsp;



“I believe that when black people tell our own stories, we can shift the axis of the world and tell our REAL history of generational wealth and richness of soul that are not told in our history books,” Beyoncé says in a post on Instagram.



Since its release, she has been praised for how she celebrated people of color as a whole in her visual album through the representation of artists (like Pharrell Williams, Naomi Campbell and Lupita Nyongo), background dancers, and black and African designers.



One of those African designers is Lafalaise Dion, based in the economic capital of Côte d&#8217;Ivoire, Abidjan, who designed the shell headpieces seen throughout Black is King.



“Although I had a big vision for [my work], and the faith that I’d be able to take it far beyond Côte D’Ivoire, I never imagined I would get to this level in such a short time,” says Dion.



Also basking in the glory of the recent success of the film is Abidjan-born designer, Loza Maléombho, who designed a piece dubbed by Harper’s Bazaar as one of the best looks in the visual album.&nbsp;



The graphic, black-and-white ensemble with gold hardware worn in the film has already become an iconic piece as it has received much praise from social media.



The ode to African fashion continues even in these Covid times. Watch this space for more.

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King And Queen: Beyoncé Takes African Fashion To The World

How is it that West Africa only accounts for 5% of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the African continent? The World Bank wondered this in July this year.
This is a region that includes the continent’s largest economy, Nigeria, with gross domestic product (GDP) of $406 billion in 2016, about 29% of sub-Saharan African output of $1.4 trillion. By comparison, South Africa, the continent’s most advanced economy has a size of $294 billion. Furthermore, the largest and most dynamic francophone African country, Ivory Coast, with a $36 billion economy, is also West African. So why the scant foreign investor interest?
Jack Ma, one of Asia’s richest men, led a group of people with similarly deep pockets to East Africa in July. His first stop was Kenya, an economy barely one-fifth of Nigeria’s size. Ma also visited Rwanda, a tiny landlocked neighbor to Kenya.
If corruption, terrorism and the occasional rebellion in Nigeria and Ivory Coast is disturbing, why is Ghana overlooked? With an economy almost as large as Kenya, Ghana has a better democratic record and has proved to be one of the most stable African countries. And just as Nigeria struggles to deal with the Boko Haram terrorist group in its northeast, so does Kenya with Al-Shabaab. Additionally, political violence is more of a problem in Kenya than it is in Nigeria.
So why did Ma and his 38 billionaire friends find relatively smaller African countries more attractive to the larger coastal countries in the West with such cosmopolitan cities like Lagos and Abidjan? The reasons are not farfetched.
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The World Bank asserts cumbersome administrative procedures and corruption at the ports hinder the speedy clearance of goods, for example. These apply to most African countries, though. It attributes access to finance as well. This is not significant though, as foreign investors bring their own capital. But if a country’s exchange rate policy is controlled and not transparent, this can be stymied.
East African countries have been more reliable in this regard, allowing their currencies to trade without much interference and not hindering the free flow of capital in and out of their jurisdictions, even during periods of crisis. Historically, this has not been the case in West Africa, especially Nigeria, which until recently not only rationed hard currency but blocked the repatriation of capital, causing great losses to foreign investors. Also, myriad bottlenecks around doing business in most West African countries are worse than they are in East Africa. Little wonder the World Bank ranks Rwanda and Kenya 56th and 92nd out of 190 countries respectively in its latest ease of doing business index. Ghana and Nigeria are ranked 108th and 169th respectively.
Even though corruption underpins the relatively more difficult business conditions in West African countries, it is not likely the reason they are less attractive investment destinations. Kenya is perceived by some to be more corrupt than Nigeria, for instance. In fact, Transparency International ranks Kenya as more corrupt than Nigeria in its corruption perception index.
The reason could be that East African countries are more economically integrated. In contrast, West African countries, under the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), have been more successful at political integration than economic cohesion.
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A more innovative streak is also a factor, especially with information technology; albeit West African countries, like Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria, are increasingly demonstrating technological progress as well. Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, visited Nigeria in August 2016, for instance.
So what can West African governments do to attract more FDI? They must make doing business easier. The World Bank is helping via a European Union funded four-year ‘Improved Business and Investment Climate in West Africa Project’. It is hoped the ECOWAS Investment Climate Scorecard will bring quicker progress with integration.
With patronage-based politics continuing to be crucial to the stability of most West African countries, however, there is not much political will towards economic integration. Move too quickly and they might have bigger problems than just being difficult to do business in. &#8211; Written by Rafiq Raji

Tag: Ivory Coast

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World Fair Ends With Festivities, Pyrotechnics And High Tech

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King And Queen: Beyoncé Takes African Fashion To The World

Why Is West Africa Less Attractive To Investors?