Africa's Success Story
BY MONICA ASHLEY LA-COURE 14 JUNE, 2016 02:31
Africa is bestowed with a young, fast-growing population. This population has been credited with the current economic boom all over the continent. In the past ten years, African countries have experienced unprecedented growth rates, with seven of the top ten fastest growing economies in the world being those of key African countries this year. This growth increase will be fuelled by domestic demand, continuing infrastructure investment and private consumption driven by lower oil prices.
Ethiopia’s economy is growing at 10% a year and it is expected to double within the next seven years. This means that by 2025, it will have grown to a middle-income nation. Ethiopia’s economy is mostly agriculture-based with coffee as the major export crop, but the government has made a push to diversify into manufacturing, textiles and energy generation.
Rwanda is doing everything possible to reduce bottlenecks in transport and energy infrastructure to bolster economic growth. The 1994 genocide severely damaged the fragile economy. However, over the years, the East African country has become a success story with unity and reconciliation forming part of reason for its fast growth.
Tanzania and Mozambique have attracted large investment projects in natural resources, translating to continuation of both countries’ high growth rates. Mozambique grew an average annual rate of 6-8% in the decade up to 2014, one of Africa’s strongest performances. Tanzania has continued to maintain a healthy fiscal position, keeping the deficit at sustainable levels and managing expenditure growth in line with the broad objective of sustaining macroeconomic stability.
In the newly released sixth edition of Nomad Africa Magazine, our executive editor – Heather Balouza was invited by Xolani Zwane, a traditional healer, to his wife’s homecoming ceremony, after which, she would be integrated in to her Zulu culture as a fully recognised traditional healer. Traditional healing has been around since the start of mankind and is practiced in various forms across Africa. However, the question is how effective is African traditional medicine?
Better cooperation and exchanges are expected in the field of tourism between the Seychelles and South Africa, after the two countries’ respective tourism boards signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at the INDABA trade fair in Durban, South Africa (page 91). South Africa is also establishing itself as a successful emerging offshore destination for voice and non-voice outsourcing services, with Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban positioning themselves as the country's outsourcing hotspot trio (page 90).
In a ground-breaking development, Nomad Africa has just introduced a newly developed online content channel called NomadTV. This OCC (Online Content Channel) was established primarily to promote business investment, travel and tourism in Africa.
The Nomad Africa project involves using several media platforms to celebrate life on the African continent and promoting its vibrant pulse at the same time creating a unique advertising platform for clients wishing to promote their brand across Africa. We are continuously looking out for partners and investors from across the globe. This will further assist in telling Africa’s success story to the world.
