la diaspora africaine en Suisse : quelles dynamiques ? Quel rôle pour le Programme de développement 2030 de l’ONU ?

Quelques soient les sources, la notion de diaspora tourne toujours autour des mêmes éléments, à savoir l’ensemble des membres d’un peuple dispersés à travers le monde mais restant en relation. Certains élargissent ce groupe également aux descendants des migrants. La notion de mémoire collective ou de culture du pays d’origine est un autre aspect important de cette définition.

Si on l’applique au contexte africain, et selon les critères de l’Union africaine, il s’agit des « personnes d’origine africaine vivant hors du continent africain, qui sont désireuses de contribuer à son développement et à la construction de l’Union africaine, quelles que soient leur citoyenneté et leur nationalité ».

C’est ce lien spécifique entre la personne établit à l’étranger et son pays d’origine qui rend la diaspora comme un élément déterminant pour le développement (durable) du continent. De par son importance à travers le monde, la diaspora africaine joue un rôle primordial pour nombre de pays du continent, notamment à travers ses apports financiers, matériels et humains. C’est dans cette optique, que la diaspora africaine est devenue un acteur de premier plan dans la mise en œuvre à la fois de l’Agenda 2030 de développement durable de l’ONU, mais aussi pour l’Agenda 2063 de l’Union africaine.

Dynamiques mondiales

L’étude des flux migratoires ne peut se faire sans lien avec le phénomène de mondialisation. Cette dernière n’est pas sans incidence dans les dynamiques migratoires à l’échelle internationale tant dans ses causes que ses formes. Elle rend ainsi ce phénomène difficile à appréhender.

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Cape Town’s RLabs opens applications for InnovIA accelerator

Cape Town-based social impact incubator RLabs has opened applications for the 2016 cycle of its Innovation, Incubation and Accelerator (InnovIA) Programme, aimed at turning innovative ideas into scalable social enterprises.

Founded by Marlon Parker in 2008, RLabs is a global movement and registered social enterprise that provides innovative solutions to address various complex problems.

Its core activities are skills and training, community development, social and disruptive innovation, mobile and internet solutions, social enterprise incubation, impact investing and social franchising.

Disrupt Africa reported in November the incubator showcased 10 new startups that graduated from the InnovIA programme, bringing the total number of innovations it has produced in four years to 47.

“The RLabs InnovIA programme, now in its fifth year offers an exciting and invaluable opportunity for innovators and social entrepreneurs to grow and build their enterprises. This 12-week programme is designed to assist participants during their startup’s most vulnerable period, and support taking an idea or product to market,” RLabs said.

Aspirant social innovators and entrepreneurs are invited to apply online, with applicants to be subjected to a selection process. If successful, they will be expected to commit themselves or one team member to the programme.

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Selling Solar to Rural Africa is Emerging as a Hot Market

Will electricity in developing rural areas spread more like cell phones than land lines? These startups think so.

After years of fits and starts, startups and big businesses are finally starting to pay attention to the solar market in rural corners of the developing world.

Over the past few months, a number of high profile investors have backed startups selling solar panels to off-grid customers across regions like Africa, India, and East Asia. Meanwhile, big solar companies have created divisions focusing on rural customers in the same areas.

That this market is now starting to mature shows how solar is increasingly affordable to people who earn less than $2 daily. At the same time, it highlights how business can lead social development—electrification, in this case—in ways that some non-profits have failed.

For the most part, wealthy countries like the U.S. and Germany have been the ones to adopt home solar panels. Home owners typically buy their solar systems out right or lease them from a third party like SolarCity  SCTY -2.29% . These solar systems tend to plug into the broader power grid.

But in regions like rural Africa, where the power grid is lacking, an entirely new strategy has had to be developed. These new solar products have relied on new types of financing, have ridden on the back of mobile technologies, and have depended on the emergence of cheap batteries. Will this type of solar product become the norm in rural off-grid areas?

The innovators

One of the rapidly growing startups tackling this market is M-Kopa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. The company was founded nearly five years ago by Jesse Moore and Nick Hughes, who was one of the original creators of mobile payment system M-Pesa. If you haven’t heard of it, M-Pesa is one of the world’s most successful mobile payment services. By some estimates, 95% of Kenyan adults use it to buy goods and services, and a third of Kenya’s GDP flows through it every year.

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World’s first impact focused equity crowdfunding portal launches in Africa, to support SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) are the primary job creation engine in Africa, accounting for over 95% of firms and 60%-70% of employment. Yet, SME’s on the continent report access to finance as the biggest obstacle to growth. Malaik, an impact-focused equity crowdfunding portal, test launched today, to connect investors interested in impact investment opportunities and entrepreneurs raising equity finance. Malaik offers the global community clear and well-documented opportunities for high impact investing in African businesses, a chance to participate in Africa’s growth story.

“Young companies all over Africa face a scarcity of funds to fuel their growth,” said Neku Atawodi, Founder of Malaik. “Apart from banks and occasional angel investors, there is often nowhere to turn. Malaik is turning this crisis into an opportunity for startups and investors alike by offering stakes in young African companies to the crowd. Our unique impact tracker means that investors can track their investments impact on the platform.”

Malaik is targetted at sophisticated investors, who understand the risks of investing in start ups. The platform uses a unique system of first identifying a lead investor before putting a company on the platform. The lead investor sets the terms and valuations of the deal, and personally invests a minimum of 25% of the companies’ asking round. The lead investor negotiates a fair valuation and is required to conduct their own due diligence before putting their money in. A lead investor may be an individual investing alone, or a representative for an investing group or institution. The crowd receives the same class of share, and the same price per share, as the lead investor, except indicated otherwise. Companies listed on Malaik decide how much money they want to raise in exchange for a certain percentage of equity, and each investor’s equity interest is proportionate to the size of their investment.

Malaik will focus on high-impact companies that provide jobs and solve social and infrastructural issues in African nations while maintaining profitability. The global portal will fund seed stage businesses requiring funding between $200,000 to $2,000,000. Malaik has identified local partners in key regions around Africa that will source for high impact start ups locally, entrepreneurs can also apply to be listed on www.malaik.com.

5 initiatives helping SMEs in Botswana

Botswana is a small country with a population of 2 million. The country located in the sub-Saharan Africa, is well known for its Kalahari desert which occupies 70% of the landmass and its mineral wealth in diamond.

Almost all of Botswana’s US$14.79 billion GDP is made up from the mineral extraction industries, with over 50% coming from diamond export revenues in the mineral sector, followed by livestock trading and others.

The challenges

The country is ranked 149 among 188 global economies in the World Bank’s ranking for competitiveness for doing business, which measures the ease of starting and run successful enterprise in Botswana.

Some of the most noteworthy challenges experienced by SMEs are inadequate marketing skills, business premises and other start-up business problems. This is according to  A 2002 research paper “Government Policy and Entrepreneurship Performance“ by the Department of Accounting and Finance at the University of Botswana.

In a 2012 editorial by the Sunday Standard, editor Outsa Mokone said  ”[Botswana's] regulatory framework is not only outdated but also excessive, intrusive, tedious and outright unfriendly”, and that It takes two full months to register and start operating a business in Botswana.

The country has an unemployment rate of only 18%, which is marginally better than its SADEC neighbors of South Africa where it is at 25%, Namibia at 29%, or Zimbabwe which is unknown.

The successes

Writing in the Washington Post in November 2014, the Head of Stanbic Bank in Botswana, Onkabetsi Morapedi said there was a noticeable growth, particularly in the last five years, and an increasing number of SMEs in the country.

“More opportunities have arisen in time, largely in the form of tenders or purchase orders,” Morapedi wrote.

And an overview of the country by the World Bank released in April 2014 shows that  Botswana has rapidly grown into becoming one of the fastest growing economies and moved into the ranks of upper-middle income countries from being one of the poorest countries in Africa since independence from Britain in 1996.

We look at the five ways Botswana stakeholders are assisting the country’s SMEs:

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