Reframing the informal sector in the African consumer market: The real African middle class
This is Ruth’s shop, on the side of the highway, approximately 5km on the road to Kisumu, from Busia in western Kenya. Not quite directly part of the borderland’s economy, that trades incessantly with each other, these businesses still manage to feed off the energy of the hustle and bustle of biashara, as it flows […]
Infrastructure has a direct relationship to how much your rural business can scale
This is a micro-wholesaler and retailer in a staple commodity. Infrastructural constraints limit the stock she can manage at one go – seen as the sack with her name on it. This indicates that it was sourced from some distance away, as this is the matatu’s informal package tracking service. It could have come from […]
What marketing 101 can teach development practitioners and academics
The entire universe of people with an unmet need that you expect your solution to fulfill is not your target audience. The fundamentals of market analysis include the basic calculations that allow marketing managers of all stripes to calculate (guesstimate) their potential market size, and thus a realistic assessment of its value. That is their […]
Carrefour in Cote D’Ivoire: Thinking global; acting local
Unusually, for a global retail brand like the French Carrefour chain, their range of products in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire include numerous locally sourced products. News has it that they signed as many as 170 different supplier agreements in their bid to source indigenously. …local products like pineapple from Bonoua (south-east), yam from Bondoukou (east), rice […]
Lessons for toilet builders from the history of India’s cookstove development efforts
Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar has written a superb critical analysis looking back at the history of India’s development efforts to provide viable, feasible, and desirable solutions to the myriad unmet needs of the common man. Using cookstoves as her narrative theme, she explores the challenges of base of the pyramid product development and marketing, and draws lessons […]
The end of an era: Where next for the big smartphone brands of today?
Africa’s marathon to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of connectivity and access is now a sprint to the finish line. Ericsson’s latest report shows penetration rates on the continent have overtaken India. The market we began our careers in has now, not only matured, but is expected to cross 100% […]
Innovation, under conditions of resource scarcity
When Mkulima Young, a social media community for young farmers in Kenya tweeted this photograph of a motorcycle modified to pump water, I was delighted. It had been a long time since I’d seen such an excellent example of innovative product development under conditions of resource scarcity. REculture, the group blog hosted by the now […]
The formal sector and economic development: A lesson from marketing
Pursuing the thoughts introduced in the previous post further, I looked up the original reference on “formalization of the informal sector”1. Alan Gelb, et al. 2009. “To Formalize or Not to Formalize? Comparisons of Microenterprise Data from Southern and East Africa.” CGD Working Paper 175 “…in East Africa, weak enforcement of tax payment and no […]
Top 5 African Trending Topics in 2015
Every day I scan the African business news, and share selected articles on Twitter and Tumblr. Fascinating hobby aside, it gives me a finger on the pulse of stories swirling around the infowebs. On the last day of the calender year, it’s de rigeur to sit oneself down and attempt to cluster these swirling motes […]
Collapsing the sustainable agricultural value chain of commodities with a single tweet
Tony Addison of UNU-Wider, in Helsinki, just tweeted this photograph, expressing his pleasure at seeing Rwandan coffee at his favourite coffee shop, Roastery. I retweeted it and within minutes, Josh Kariuki proudly tweeted that his neighbourhood Gachatha coffee, from Nyeri county in Kenya, was being sold far away in Helsinki, Finland, by name. The next […]
