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Burgeoning African E-commerce Industry Full of Opportunity

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

Africa has seen huge change since 2000 in the way people access information and do business electronically. The most championed accomplishment has been the widespread take-up of mobile phones. This has given birth to countless entrepreneurs and innovators who are using  phones to help people, do business and sell goods and services.

Not as quick to spread, mostly because of high cost and poor infrastructure, is access to the Internet. While Web access is taken for granted in many wealthy countries and is increasingly commonplace in many developing nations, Africa as a whole still suffers from poor infrastructure for access to the Internet. But this is changing by the month as  more undersea cables connect countries and bandwidth is increased (http://www.submarinecablemap.com/).

Africa’s population can be expected to at least double from 1.1 billion to about 2.3 billion by 2050 – and most will live in urban areas (Population Reference Bureau).

And incomes are rising. Africa is richer than India on the basis of gross national income (GNI) per capita, and a dozen African countries have a higher GNI per capita than China (Africa Rising).

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, “The incomes of these new consuming classes are rising even faster than the number of individuals in the consuming classes. This means that many products and services are hitting take-off points at which their consumption rises swiftly and steeply. By 2025 urban consumers are likely to inject around (US) $20 trillion a year in additional spending into the world economy.”

Research firm Jana (jana.com) – which specializes in emerging markets – studied the consumer preferences of people in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. They surveyed 600 consumers in each country, seeking to unearth what their preferences were when it came to using e-commerce services (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce). E-commerce is the buying and selling of products and services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer-enabled systems. This is still a young industry in Africa and one ripe with opportunity for hardworking and innovative players. Many are starting to realize they had better move fast because this is a market that still has much up for grabs and is not – yet – dominated by mature players such as eBay or Amazon.

The survey uncovered five trends driving e-commerce in Africa. These trends address the unique conditions present in Africa and what challenges need to be met.

The first trend the firm identified is cash on delivery. This has become the main way people do e-commerce in Africa because of the lack of trust in the security of online payments. Cash is still king in the region. The second trend is having a proprietary logistics network. This comes in response to the poor infrastructure present in much of Africa. This has meant e-commerce companies need to take charge of the whole process of getting a good to the customer’s home. This is, of course, costly and places a big restraint on any new company in the e-commerce market.

The third big trend is one that reflects the reality of how people communicate electronically in Africa. Mobile phones are king, and this means e-commerce needs to be mobile phone-friendly or lose out on reaching many customers. The fourth trend is related to the fact Africa is still off the logistics route for much world trade. This means e-commerce companies need to set aside space for large warehouses to store the goods so that they are on hand when the customer wants them.

And, finally, the fifth trend is the importance of good customer service as the clincher for success in the marketplace. Word of mouth gets around if a company is not able to deliver on what is promised so it is important to have high-quality customer service to build trust, keep engaged with consumers and let them know problems are being resolved.

South Africa has emerged as the continent’s powerhouse when it comes to e-commerce, according to Jana. Successful players in that country include Zando (http://www.zando.co.za/) an online fashion store by Rocket Internet, MIH Internet Africa’s Kalahari online store (http://www.kalahari.com/) and entertainment and consumer electronics online store Takealot.com supported by Tiger Global. Research firm World Wide Worx (http://www.worldwideworx.com/) calculated that online retail in South Africa is growing by 30 per cent a year.

But South Africa cannot rest on its laurels: the survey found Nigeria is fast overtaking South Africa as its large population takes to the Internet. Impressively, Nigeria’s Government has pledged to expand broadband Internet access to 80 per cent of the country over the next five years.

In East Africa, Kenya’s Rocket Internet’s service Jumia (http://www.jumia.co.ke/) is now one of the top 100 online destinations in the country.

Jana also found there were various key areas for improvement for the e-commerce industry in Africa. One, was the importance of explaining to African consumers the basics of online shopping. Many respondents to the survey seemed confused about making purchases on the Internet and through e-commerce. They also showed low levels of understanding about payment methods and available financial products. And finally, one of the big obstacles to expanding the industry is improving delivery reliability.

But all these problems and challenges spell opportunity for innovators who can solve them and make some money too!

Published: July 2013

Resources
 
1) E-commerce: The latest news from The Guardian newspaper. Website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/efinance

2) E-commerce Expo: From 2 to 3 October 2013 in London, UK, the eCommerce Expo is the industry event for the UK and, increasingly, Europe. It ranks as one of the largest gatherings of e-commerce professionals in Europe and boasts over 180 exhibiting companies plus a comprehensive conference programme. Website: http://www.ecommerceexpo.co.uk/page.cfm/newSection=Yes

3) Mashable e-commerce: E-commerce (or electric commerce) refers to the buying and selling of goods and services via electronic channels, primarily the Internet. Online retail is decidedly convenient due to its 24-hour availability, global reach and generally efficient customer service. Website: http://mashable.com/category/e-commerce/

4) Actinic: An online software system for setting up an online e-commerce website. Website: actinic.co.uk/

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2023

Categories
Archive Development Challenges, South-South Solutions Newsletters Southern Innovator magazine

Bringing the Invention and Innovation Mindset to Young Kenyans

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

A highly innovative new way to teach the basics of electronics, computing and technological innovation is being pioneered in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Driven by the desire to counter perceptions of apathy among young people, NGO Kuweni Serious is running a training course for girls aged over 8 years in some of the poorest parts of the city to turn on a new generation to the power of technology to make change.

“Technology is pivotal in our work, as Kuweni Serious is a primarily online platform that seeks to create offline action,” according to Kuweni Serious’ Rachel Gichengo. “It’s positive in that you can reach a lot of people with solid messages that are in bite-size pieces that are easy to disseminate and consume. Everyone can pass on the information with a simple click – it’s an easier way to begin socio-political discussion among people who would otherwise not be drawn into these kinds of discussions because they’re not presented in a way that appeals to them. The typical profile of a KS volunteer is someone in their 20s, middle-class, has some experience volunteering, has never been to a slum despite living in Nairobi, but wants more for their country.”

The course uses a clever, hands-on approach to teaching. Instructors use a new generation of learning toys that help young people understand how technology works and gives them the first taste of what it is like to build something from scratch. These toys comprise various components that perform tasks – a light, a motor, a computer, a music player. Active invention is required to work out how to assemble these parts to make something bigger and better. This stands in stark contrast to toys – or computer games – where all the hard work is done for the child and they just have to play.

“We chose tech training because it’s a traditionally under-represented area when it comes to reaching this particular group (underprivileged girls), yet such an important set of skills to be taught in this day and age,” confirms Gichengo. “We want to expand these girls’ thinking – to get them interested in the possibilities of careers in science and tech, rather than perpetuate the idea that all they’ll ever do, based on their circumstances, is tailoring or dance. We hoped to open our girls’ worlds a bit, as well as link them to our Kuweni Serious community of volunteers.”

Called PicoCrickets (www.picocricket.com), and manufactured by the Canadian Playful Invention Company (PICO), the toys were developed from research and ideas at the Lifelong Kindergarten group (http://llk.media.mit.edu/) at the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab (www.media.mit.edu).

“Pico Crickets are cool,” continues Gichengo. “They’re a fun way to learn to build things, to learn the connection between hardware and software, to begin to understand what computers can do. They make learning easy, and they make science seem accessible to a group that tends to see it as too hard for them. The kits were paid for by a grant from the Girl Effect (www.girleffect.org).”

The MIT lab conducted intensive research into creative learning environments for children. One of the first fruits of this research was Lego Mindstorms (http://mindstorms.lego.com), kits that allow children to make and program their own robots.

Inspired by this work, the PicoCricket places more emphasises on artistic expression. The company created the PicoCricket Kit (www.picocricket.com/whatisit.html) as a way to integrate art and technology to “spark creative thinking in girls and boys 8 years and older,” according to its website.

A typical kit includes a central PicoCricket that a child then plugs in to various motors, sensors, lights and other devices to make something that can spin, light up or play music. It is intended to give free rein to both technological innovation and artistic expression.

Kenya experienced violent rioting during the 2007 and 2008 elections. The shock of the events produced a number of initiatives to counter the violence and the social and economic disruption it has caused. One of the most well-known innovations, Ushahidi (www.ushahidi.com), a crisis-mapping platform, has been deployed around the world and led to many other new innovations.

Kuweni Serious (www.kuweniserious.org) is also a result of this crisis. The NGO sets out to counter the stereotype of Kenya’s youth as a “hedonistic generation of brand-obsessed youth, moving from party to party in the night and congregating on Facebook during the day.”

Kuweni Serious believes young people in Kenya were shocked into action when violence broke out during the elections. Prices jumped for everything – from fuel to food – and water and power started to be rationed. It was a wake-up call to youth: it was getting harder and harder to ignore what was happening in the country.

Kuweni Serious was founded by Kenyan youth and asked the question “how do Kenya’s youth feel about all the chaos around us?” It seeks to rally young people to their motto: “Fighting the evil forces of apathy.”

Their 125/100 program set out to train 125 girls on a 100-day course. It ended with a graduation ceremony on July 2, 2011.

The program, run by volunteers from the University of Nairobi, has taught basic computer skills, got the children working on Google Maps and making – and inventing – using the PicoCrickets.

The girls on the course came from Baba Dogo and Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum.

The technology training program lasted between three and six hours a week for 12 weeks. The inventions made by the children included merry go rounds, a lamp stand and fan and miniature automobiles. Participants even got to grips with Google Maps and learned how to use mobile phones in citizen journalism. At the end of the course, all the children received a certificate reinforcing their sense of accomplishment and achievement.

“We hope to continue doing similar projects, scaling up 125/100, and working on developing a corps of everyday change makers among young, educated, middle class Kenyans,” according to Gichengo. “We’re also preparing for the 2012 elections, so we need to have more conversations about what a new election means, given the outcome of our previous one.”

Another initiative seeking to improve life chances for Kenyan girls is ZanaAfrica (www.zanaa.org). It focuses on educational opportunities for girls, consulting them to find out what would increase their chances of graduation from school. Because of this back-and-forth dialogue with the girls, they have come up with various strategic programs, one example being providing girls with sanitary pads for menstruation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation) every month so that they do not skip classes and lose vital class time. ZanaAfrica was born around tackling the issue of lost school days for girls because of poor provision of sanitary pads in Kenya: an estimated 868,000 adolescent girls were missing 3.5 million school days a month, according to ZanaAfrica.  Sanitary pads in Kenya cost twice most people’s daily wage. Just to provide pads to all the school girls in Kenya, they estimated, would cost US $13 million a year, increasing by 5 percent every year.

Another disadvantage for these girls is finding the right support environment and strong, positive role models. ZanaAfrica’s solution is Empowerment Clubs (www.zanaa.org/empowernet-clubs), places where small groups of 15 to 20 students meet with field officers and tackle difficult topics not discussed at home or in school: drugs, relationships, self-confidence, health and disease. There are already 1,000 students in the Kibera area in these Empowerment Clubs. This approach has also been combined with something called EmpowerNet Clubs: these clubs take place in the schools and combine blogging and tweeting (www.twitter.com) with the discussions on life issues. Already in five schools, the clubs include a field officer and 20 girls meeting once a week.

ZanaAfrica was started in 2007 by social entrepreneur and Harvard University graduate Megan White, who has been living and working in Kenya since 2001. ZanaAfrica identifies poverty-eradicating, African-led innovations and then tries to build them up and find ways to replicate them and make them sustainable. They look for innovations in the areas of health, education and the environment.

“Kenyans are definitely early adopters, and are rushing to take advantage of new technologies,” confirms Gichengo. “The Kenyan success stories have been a huge inspiration, largely because they developed localized solutions that could then be exported to the world, rather than the other way around, which tends to be the case. There’s always value in looking further afield to see what else is being done around the world, but the iHub and Ushahidi (and the Kenya ICT Board, Safaricom, etc.) have gone a long, long way in inspiring local innovation.”

Published: July 2011

Resources

1) Make Magazine: “MAKE Magazine brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life. MAKE is loaded with exciting projects that help you make the most of your technology at home and away from home. We celebrate your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will.” Website: http://makezine.com/

2) Lego Mindstorms robot-making kits. Website:http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx

3) Southern Innovator Issue 1: New global magazine celebrating innovation across the global South. Website:http://www.scribd.com/doc/57980406/Southern-Innovator-Issue-1

4) iHub Nairobi: iHub Nairobi’s Innovation Hub for the technology community is an open space for the technologists, investors, tech companies and hackers in the area. This space is a tech community facility with a focus on young entrepreneurs, web and mobile phone programmers, designers and researchers. It is part open community workspace (co-working), part vector for investors and VCs and part incubator. Website:http://ihub.co.ke/pages/home.php

5) Maker Faire Africa 2011: MFA 2011 continues to cultivate new and existing maker communities across Africa. As was the case in Accra (‘09) and Nairobi (’10), MFA 2011 will present and spotlight the vibrant and endlessly creative individuals that have come to represent the spirit of ‘making’ throughout the continent. These innovators, artists and tinkerers will be exhibiting a fusion of the informal and formal; ideas, inventions, hacks and designs both low-tech & high-tech.  From cuisine to machines, come see their re-imagining of products, exploration of novel materials, and original solutions for some of the continent’s most important challenges and opportunities. Maker Faire Africa 2011 will be a celebratory showcase of unhindered experimentation and curiosity. Website:http://makerfaireafrica.com/2011/06/09/maker-faire-africa-2011-cairo/

6) Social enterprise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_enterprise): Learn more about the vibrant world of social enterprise and connect with others. Website: http://www.socialenterpriselive.com/

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2023

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Time Machines

By David South 

Flare Magazine (Toronto, Canada) 1992

Time Machines

While many designers are telling us to don platform shoes and love beads, the man behind London-based Hi-Tek watches is looking even further back in time – drawing his inspiration from classic visions of the future. 

Hi-Tek’s stainless steel timepieces bring to mind early futuristic films such as Lang’s Metropolis and Chaplin’s Modern Times with their grotesque exaggerations of modern machinery. That era’s confusion, fear, or simple wonderment at new technology influenced everything from toasters to steam trains. 

For the equally economically and technologically turbulent ‘90s, Hi-Tek designer Alexander has captured this sense of techno-wonder with watches, sunglasses, and other hip accessories. One watch looks as if a Cuisinart hit it, leaving gears strewn across the face. Another has a retractable lid like an astronomer’s observatory. Yet another tells time with the blinker of a radar screen. Despite their made-exclusively-for-James-Bond appearance, all cost less than $190. Available at Possessions in Montreal, Body Body in Toronto, and D and R in Vancouver.

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/11/24/too-black/
https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/16/canadian-magazines-newspapers-1990s/
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This work is licensed under a
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ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2022

Categories
Archive Development Challenges, South-South Solutions Newsletters Southern Innovator magazine

Global South Urbanization Does Not Have to Harm Biodiversity

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

How to balance fragile ecosystems with rapid urbanization will be the challenge for planners and governments across the global South in the coming years. The urbanization trend is clear: the world’s total urban area is expected to triple between 2000 and 2030, with urban populations set to double to around 4.9 billion in the same period (UNEP). This urban expansion will draw heavily on water and other natural resources and will consume prime agricultural land.

Global urbanization will have significant implications for biodiversity and ecosystems if current trends continue, with knock-on effects for human health and development, according to a new assessment by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Cities and Biodiversity Outlook – the first global analysis of how projected patterns of urban land expansion will affect biodiversity and crucial ecosystems – argues that promoting low-carbon, resource-efficient urban development can counter urbanization’s adverse effects on biodiversity while improving quality of life.

“The way our cities are designed, the way people live in them and the policy decisions of local authorities, will define, to a large extent, future global sustainability,” said Braulio Dias, Executive Secretary of the CBD.

“The innovation lies not so much in developing new infrastructural technologies and approaches but to work with what we already have. The results often require fewer economic resources and are more sustainable,” he added.

The report says urban expansion is occurring fast in areas close to biodiversity ‘hotspots’ and coastal zones. And rapidly urbanizing regions, such as large and mid-size settlements in sub-Saharan Africa, India and China, often lack resources to implement sustainable urban planning.

But the study found that cities do not need to be in conflict with plant and animal species and ecosystems. They can, in fact, protect species, as is the case with Belgium, where 50 per cent of the country’s floral species are found in Brussels, or Poland, where 65 per cent of the country’s bird species occur in Warsaw.

At the Alexander von Humboldt Research Institute in Bogota, Colombia (humboldt.org.co) researchers have been thinking about how to get this balance right and make sure the growing cities of the future are not ecological disasters.

According to Juana Marino and Maria Angélica Mejia at the Institute’s Biological Resources Policy Program – which investigates “Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Urban-Regional Environments” – how cities grow and develop must change.

They believe cities need to take into account the resources they require to function and the impact this has on biodiversity and ecosystems.

“The more people who arrive in cities, the more they demand goods and services (in a massive way!): roads, housing, infrastructure, food, water – (creating) an impressive amount of waste, challenging traditional waste management and sanitation policies,” said Marino.

In short, “Cities enhance consumption.”

The Humboldt researchers believe common patterns can be seen across the global South, where ecosystems “surrounding urban areas are deforested and have significant levels of water and air pollution; they also become deeply transformed by informal settlements.”

This process means cities “lose their ability to be resilient, they become highly vulnerable to global change and they decrease their production of ecosystem services to maintain human well-being in cities.”

They argue that human settlements must be sustainably planned for, with ecological resilience and human well-being. If this is not done, areas suitable for agricultural production and biodiversity preservation will be harmed.

While better planning is needed there also needs to be long-term thinking.

But planning and managing are not the only things required: “it is a matter of design” if new “resilient” urban-rural landscapes are to be created.

And what can be done? They believe better analysis is required and it needs to take on social and cultural knowledge, and take in the border regions around cities, the “suburban, peri-urban and other ‘transition’ landscapes should become main actors in these relationships, not mere by-products; (they are) compromise territories between a lack of definition and low governance.”

These complex relationships with the border ecosystems of cities need to be communicated to the general public in simple, user-friendly ways so they can understand how important these areas are to the overall health of the city.

In Latin America, the cities of Curitiba (Brazil) and Bogotá and Medellin (Colombia) have made great strides in managing and planning for biodiversity and ecosystem services, they say. But it is not just as simple as recording the number of native species and the percentage of protected areas in urban places. Links need to be created between “social, scientific and political” elements to create “socio-ecological indicators” that can be developed and turned into “easy-to-adopt mechanisms” for people to use.

And they see innovation as the way to do this. Innovation is critical if cities and urban areas are to avoid widespread destruction of biodiversity as urbanization increases.

“Innovation is not just an option – it is a ‘must’,” said Marino. “Not just the technical innovation already being carried on by infrastructure, transport and building sectors that are rapidly changing their patterns based on mitigation technologies.

“Innovation is also needed in terms of biodiversity, biotechnology, information and knowledge production; appropriation, use and management. Knowledge turns into innovation when appropriated by social spheres; when it enters the social and political arenas.”

Environmental governance can be strengthened “when promoting top-down and bottom-up innovations.”

Published: December 2012

Resources

1) Environmental Public Awareness Handbook: Case Studies and Lessons Learned in Mongolia. Website: http://tinyurl.com/yhjyd7h

2) Hyderabad Case Study: During the recent UN biodiversity talks in Hyderabad, the International Union for Conservation of Nature gave journalists the opportunity to see how biodiversity can thrive in the middle of a bustling metropolis. Website: http://www.rtcc.org/hyderabad-a-showcase-of-urban-biodiversity/

3) UNEP: A Global Partnership on Cities and Biodiversity was launched by UNEP, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), UN-HABITAT, ICLEI, IUCN Countdown 2010, UNITAR, UNESCO and a Steering Group of Mayors from Curitiba, Montreal, Bonn, Nagoya and Johannesburg to bring together existing initiatives on cities and biodiversity. Website: http://www.unep.org/urban_environment/issues/biodiversity.asp

4) Nature in the City: Nature in the City, a project of Earth Island Institute, is San Francisco’s first organization wholly dedicated to ecological conservation, restoration and stewardship of the Franciscan bioregion. Website: http://natureinthecity.org/urbanbiodiversity.php

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2023