African Perspective

About Three decades the concept of single aviation market was first proposed by the then 54-member African countries.
Earlier this year 2018, during the first AU General Assembly in 2018, 23 African states, including South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya, have launched a single aviation market in a bid to boost connectivity, reduce fares and stimulate economic growth on a continent widely considered the most expensive and inconvenient to fly around.

The first phase of the Single African Air Transport Market which officials hope it will eventually replicate the European or Asian Common Aviation Area, which allows airlines from member states to fly between any member state. Airline executives, as well as industry analysts, welcomed this move as a “seismic event” but cautioned that much more work was needed to create genuinely open skies in Africa.
David hosted Mr. Miya, a Senior Manager: Government Strategy, Corporate Compliance, Consular Services and Document Procurement at Fragomen’s Johannesburg office, to discuss the implication of the recent announcement of 23 African countries signing Africa's Single Aviation Market.
This is one of the major moves towards achieving the ambitious Agenda 2064 which is tagged ‘The Africa We want; A Shared Strategic Framework for Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development.
In its implementation, Agenda 2063 is leveraging on past and current initiatives which include: the Lagos Plan of Action, The Abuja Treaty, The Minimum Integration Programme, the Programme for Infrastructural Development in Africa (PIDA), the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), Regional Plans and Programmes and National Plans. It is also built on national, regional, continental best practices in its formulation.

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The role of mentorship (it takes a village to raise an entrepreneur)
Entrepreneurship (and entrepreneurship education) has long been lauded as a solution to economic marginalization – a way to get disenfranchised young people in particular into the economy.

African continent is rich in diversity – in language, culture, and perspectives – which has fostered innovation and creativity across a broad spectrum of categories – TechCrunch
This modern-day scramble for Africa also has nothing to do with the colonization of African territory by European powers between 1881 and 1914 but is rather about the hunt for the Next Big Thing. From Cairo to Kigali, Cape Town to Lagos, Nairobi to Accra and Kampala to Dakar, tech hubs are rising faster than the cities that contain them. – Forbes Africa
According to CEO Sundar Pichai, Google is committed to supporting African entrepreneurs; Google announced the Google Developers Launchpad Africa, a new hands-on comprehensive mentorship program tailored exclusively to startups based in Africa, which will provide African startups with over $3-million in equity-free support.
Several incubators are currently springing up across Africa hosting accelerator as well as incubation programs, these two terms often overlap.
When it comes to funding, we are now talking about Angel Investing, Seed Capital, as well as Private Equity Firms, Focusing mainly on SMEs segment.

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In the spirit of celebration, we join Africa Leadership Academy as they celebrate 10 years of developing and educating the new breed of young leaders in Africa.

We are speaking to Amjab Bashir who is a member of the European Parliament and Tijani Babatunde Folawiyo is a Nigerian businessman. He is the managing director of Yinka Folawiyo Group; our conversation is about the current trends in Leadership across Africa from the perspective of a businessman and a politician.

The Decennial Indaba brought together ALA alumni, staffulty, and alumni staffulty to the African Leadership Academy (ALA) campus to celebrate the community that has been built over the last 10 years and chart the course for ALA's future. ALA’s Indabas are gatherings for ALA community; they provide the perfect opportunity for members of the network to reconnect with old friends, meet other members of our community who share their passions, and renew our focus on the African continent. As 2018 marks ALA's decennial year, we are hosting the biggest Indaba in ALA's history. The Decennial Indaba will be held on ALA's campus and will feature special guests and speakers.

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As Nigeria returns to Eurobond Market since February 2017, the demand attracted what DMO terms a 'peak order book' of more than $11.5 bln. The US$2.5bn offering divided equally between 12- and 20-year debt instruments, at rates of 7.143% and 7.696% respectively.
The bond market remained scantily traded in today’s session. We, however, witnessed slight buys on the short end of the curve (2019s - 2022s) towards the close of market, as market players took positions in anticipation of a lower clearing rate on the 2021 bond at tomorrow’s auction.
The Niger State government has applied for two oil blocks in a bid to turn it to oil-producing state. Against the background of periodic challenges with the supply and distribution of petroleum products, the board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) approved the list of firms to be selected for the rehabilitation, operation and maintenance of its refineries at Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt last month

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The Democratic Republic of Congo joins Chad in negotiation for debt relief with trading partners; with the appointment of investment bank Lazard as an advisor. IMF has stopped Kenya from accessing a $1.5 billion standby credit facility last June after failing to agree with the government on a reduction of the fiscal deficit. Qatar injected roughly $43 billion into banks in 2017 after a Saudi Arabia-led boycott resulted in a drop in deposits.

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The Nigerian National Assembly has requested the National Executive to submit an N800bn($2.208bn), the supplementary budget which it said to owe marketers in an attempt to end the lingering fuel scarcity across the country.
World Bank to support Nigeria’s power recovery with $2.6bn. Nigeria external reserves to hit 54 months high of $45bn.
Nigerian Stock Market Records 0.08% Gain as Market Breadth Closes Negative; Down by -1.13% Week on Week.

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Salum Awadh is a renowned strategy and financial consultant based in Tanzania, covering the East African region, with about seven (7) years of experience in providing advisory services in the areas of business development, management, finance, investment, transactional advises, private equity and venture capital services, deal structuring, project management, risk management, socio-economic development, research and training.
He is the Founder and CEO of SSC Capital, a Finance and Investment advisory firm offering solutions in funds management, private equity transactions, Crowdfunding corporate advisory, corporate restructuring, and M&A.
The firm has recently launched an intermediary fund called EA Export Fund
He has served a diversity of clients from the government institutions, corporate, international investors, SMEs and not-for-profit institutions in a variety of sectors in Tanzania. Salum also works as a transaction advisor helping Tanzanian companies to raise both equity and debt from regional and global private equity and venture capital firms, advice on divestments, deal structuring, and M&A.

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The petroleum retail industry has evolved over the past three decades – in terms of structure, layout, ownership, and technologies. Processes are more streamlined through integrated process and systems, from mechanical DU, tank gauges, to electronic, automated Desktop Underwriter (DU) /Automatic Tank Gauging (ATG) and Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC), and integrated Point of Sale (POS), Back Office System (BOS) and Hours of Service (HOS).

But the traditional forecourt model where the processes are manual is, once again, ripe for disruption. Take for example the process of filling up your tank and purchasing goods at the convenience stores. With technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and analytics, the possibilities are endless.

If we have a look at macro-trends in the Retail Energy sector – including environmental concerns, new forms of biofuels, price pressures, and the advent of driverless cars – they are changing the game for fuel retailers. Our classic petrol forecourt scene may not be around for much longer, as forward-thinking energy players use advanced technologies to redefine the forecourt experience.

Petrol stations are under pressure from a number of retailers as they look to adapt to changing demographics (digital natives, millennials), and new technologies like e-commerce, robotics, mobility, and the Internet of Things (IoT). All these trends are upending site operations and customer service.

Here are a few ways to deliver new offerings and value propositions, enabling forecourts to evolve in the future – enhancing customer engagement, marketing efficiency, business capability:
- A shift to format fewer forecourts
- Smart Payments
- Loyalty on steroids
- On-demand, drone delivery
- Electric charging
- Integration into connected cars
- Beyond energy for autonomous cars
- New business models to complement or supersede

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Pete da Silva – CEO of the Jasco Group- joins us to discuss why the time is right for companies to take proactive action and consider alternate energy solutions in order to lessen the company’s impact on the environment and importantly, save some money.

Jasco has recently very successfully implemented a solution which has reduced their carbon footprint by 50% - So Pete offers useful advice in this discussion.

The approval of the Carbon Tax Bill has been in the making for a while, with the most recent development being South Africa’s cabinet approval of the release to parliament. It may be finalized and gazetted sooner than we think. It is not only the ever-increasing cost of electricity that is driving companies in South Africa to rethink their energy consumption and strategies, but the imminence tax imposed on an organization’s carbon footprint is driving a greener thought process too. South African companies are going to have to adopt a new approach to energy conservation with the ultimate impact on climate change by reducing the emission of greenhouse gasses.

Photovoltaic (solar) energy as an alternative energy source is now gaining traction in the South African market and as the cost of hardware decreases, the solution becomes financially more viable. Further driving this is the impact of Eskom’s proposed 19.9% increase. It becomes even more apparent that a long-term alternative energy solution is the solution to preventing a hefty carbon footprint tax whilst reducing the ever-increasing cost of energy.

One very effective (consumption and cost wise) solution is to look towards photovoltaic projects that leverage an area of a company’s real estate that is costly and doesn’t generate any benefit in terms of revenue – a company’s car park.

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- Augmented/Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, and Chatbots take center stage
- They’ll combine to radically change the ways in which we interact with the world
- Business leaders must prepare for a very different reality in 3-4 years

2018 will see the continued advancement of some key technology realms: most notably in the areas of Virtual and Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and voice-enabled chat and Chatbot interactions.

Each of these technology themes is at different levels of maturity on Gartner’s hallowed Hypercycle, with some poised to fall into the trough of disillusionment this year, while others already start their steady ascent upwards on the slope of enlightenment.

Trying to analyze each technology theme on its own, however, is the wrong approach. These are evolutionary, not revolutionary changes – they coalesce into one another, feeding off each other’s developments, creating something entirely new.

At those points where they converge, the magic happens. They will fuse together to reshape the ways in which we interact with the world around us, with each other, and completely alter the nature of the business.

MPUMI NHLAPO is a recognized thought leader, writer and public speaker on Digital Transformation. He spent over 10 years building Intervate Solutions, a start-up business in the Technology sector, with his partners, which they grew to become the leading Microsoft Solutions Provider in Africa.

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