Post Tagged with: "South Africa"

The Economist Intelligence Unit reports on Banking in Sub-Saharan Africa

The Executive Summary:

African countries south of the Sahara are poised to enjoy a surge in growth in their banking systems during this decade. The three main drivers of this development will be generally very high rates of economic growth, financial deepening to fulfil huge unmet needs for basic financial services and new technologies to provide them—particularly over mobile phones.

In this report we trace out two scenarios for the growth of the sector. In the conservative scenario, driven exclusively by economic expansion, we project that the industry in 16 key African economies will boost its financial assets by 178% to US$980bn by 2020. In the more likely scenario, driven by both economic growth and financial deepening, we foresee assets expanding by 248% to US$1.37trn at the end of the decade (see chart).
The boom will vary markedly across the continent, however. Banking is likely to enjoy its most rapid expansion in Angola, increasing assets at least fivefold by 2020, as that country experiences a surge in petroleum production and builds up an industry long hampered by civil war and economic malaise. Banks in a number of other economies—including Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda—will expand assets at least threefold over the same period.
Slower-growing markets will include South Africa, which is the financial powerhouse of the continent but will expand its own banking sector only modestly by 2020. Botswana and Namibia, two other economies with well-developed banking systems, are also slated to expand banking assets at rates below the regional average.

In most regards the region is trailing the rest of the world in developing the banking systems that are vital for stronger economic development and growth. However, in some key aspects Sub-Saharan Africa is leading other regions in ways that will allow it to rapidly catch up, or even leapfrog forward, in the next decade and beyond. The continent’s industry is a leader in mobile banking and other innovative approaches to reaching new customers. Most of its markets are also unusually open among emerging markets to foreign banks and microfinance firms. More than anything else, it offers huge unmet financial needs in a world largely marked by excessive debt and leverage.

You can register here to download a summary of the full report.

August 7, 2011 Read More

A Bleg: Where are the psychologists doing research in Africa?

Sometime last week I attended a podium discussion at the Berlin Humboldt University. The topic was Africa as the laboratory of globalisation. The idea was to discuss different ways in which Africa serves as a laboratory for ideas that then travel to other parts of the world.

Some of those on the podium are STS people who study medical practices in Africa, so the topic of clinical trials in Africa was discussed. For example, it is sometimes much more difficult to get permission to test new drugs in Europe and North Africa than in many African countries. Plus, in many cases, many people would never have access to the treatment if they did not partake in the tests. Of course, there are discussions on what happens to the test subjects when the test phase is ended. From what I gathered in the discussion, it seems that some steps are being taken, in some cases, to make sure that some of them continue having access to the medication. In this case, it is pretty obvious that the test results form part of the decision to introduce drugs in European and North American markets.

Even the idea of no-consent testing is being introduced in some European countries. This is a case in which your Dr does not have to seek your consent before sending samples off to test for HIV. This was first introduced in certain African countries, and if I understood the speaker correctly, it is currently being practiced in France.

With regards to constitution making, someone from South Africa was part of the committee that ‘made’ the new Kenyan constitution, because the SA constitution is thought to be one of the most progressive in the world. Plus the process of constitution drafting in many African countries is influencing the way people think about the nature of constitution around the world etc., etc.

There was also a discussion of cultural forms that have travelled out of the continent. Nollywood is an example; kente is another one.

I am sure you can think of some economic issues.

After the discussion, my friend asked me a question that totally stumped me: if Africa is a laboratory of globalisation, then some people are the lab scientists. Apart from the obvious medical examples, most of those scientists are social scientists. How come, of all the social science disciplines, one never gets to hear about psychologists working in or doing research in Africa?

I was stumped because I couldn’t think of anyone I know who is a psychologist doing research in Africa; and I haven’t heard of the participation of psychologists qua psychologist in development programmes, not even in post-conflict situations. I am ready to accept that it is possible that I am the one who is totally ignorant, which is why I am throwing this out at readers who are much more experienced in development practice than I am, and who have experiences in parts of Africa where I have never worked.

So, to recapitulate, the bleg is: why do my friend and I never get to hear of psychologists doing research in Africa? Any thoughts are most welcome.

March 28, 2011 Read More

Africa banking rising

According to a report by Bain & Company, quoted in a Reuters article:

Bain Partner Andrew Tymms said the continent’s financial services industry will continue to grow at a compound annual rate of 15 percent to 2020, outpacing gross domestic product growth.

“Retail banking will grow faster than corporate banking … to make up 38 percent of banking revenue by 2020, bringing in the previously unbanked population and shifting the experienced to sophisticated products,” Tymms said.

The study, “Financial Services in Africa: A Decade of Opportunities” reckons financial firms will make up 19 percent of Africa’s gross domestic product by 2020, compared with 11 percent in 2009.

H/T @AfricaResearch, whose blog you should check out.

March 8, 2011 Read More

On Negrologie

Keith Hart, the economic anthropologist who, from his research with urban slum dwellers in 1960s Ghana, coined the term ‘informal economy’, announced his intention a couple of days ago to kick-start the writing of a book, Africa’s Urban Revolution, with a series of blog posts.

The first in the series appears today, and it is an excerpt of a review he wrote of Stephen Smith’s Négrologie: pourquoi l’Afrique meurt. The following two paragraphs are typical of his take on the book:

There is no systematic attempt to give an account of the role of the great powers in Africa – the USA, allied with South Africa and Museveni, France and Nigeria increasingly drawn together in opposition to these, China and Japan as aid donors. Britain’s remarkable eclipse as an influence is passed over. Smith’s aim is to show that Africa’s present has no future. Perhaps this is true of France and some of its former colonies; and Nigeria’s potential seems to be indefinitely on hold; but the other players are on a roll, with South African capital entertaining expansionist scenarios not seen since the days of Cecil Rhodes and Asian manufacturers tapping into Africa’s burgeoning market.

……..

Even more damaging to this emphasis on a moribund Africa is the astonishing rise of cities in 20th-century Africa. A region which had hardly any urban population in 1900 is now half urbanized. The reality of African societies today is a very young population living in cities with a lot of time on their hands. There has been a cultural revolution in the modern arts as a result of this development, although you would not read about it in this book or in most of the mainstream western media. Rather Africa is portrayed as the unchecked playground of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. This is systematic and some writers have pointed out the continuity with earlier attempts to advocate genocide on grounds of imperialism. “Exterminate all the brutes”, were the last words of Kurz’s report in Heart of Darkness. (Another of Smith’s books is Africa without Africans!) It is hard to miss an apparently unconscious wish today that Africans would die out, instead of merely performing their role as congenital inferiors in world society. Smith’s relationship to this claim is ambiguous.

I am pretty sure that the series of posts will be excellent, and you should definitely join the discussion. Even if for you, an interest in Africa is nothing more than just a smart career move.

January 1, 2011 Read More

Freshlyground and the Zimbabwean government

You probably already know about the Freshlyground music video.

Well, in what is probably the least surprising news of the day, the Zimbabwean government has pulled their work visas. Upcoming concerts in Zimbabwe are cancelled.

Listen to band members Zo and Simon talk on the PRI’s Global Hits programme here [mp3].

September 15, 2010 Read More

Is neoliberalism dead or dying?

John Comaroff thinks not:

Once upon a time, anti-neoliberal theory posited an opposition between state and the free market, arguing that the antidote to the latter lay in the active intervention of the former. But the opposition is false, just another piece of the detritus of the modern history of capital. As states become mega-corporations (Kremlin, Inc.; Britain, PLC; South Africa, Pty Ltd.; Dubai, Inc.) all of them, incidentally, branded and legally incorporated – they become inextricably part of the workings of the market and, hence, no longer an “outside”, an antidote or an antithesis, from which to rethink or reconstruct “the neoliberal paradigm”. Which, in part, is why government is increasingly reduced to an exercise in the technical management of capital, why ideologically-founded politics appear dead, replaced by the politics of interest and entitlement and identity, three counterpoints of a single triangle. And why the capillaries of neoliberal governance seem so firmly entrenched in the cartography of our everyday lives, there to remain for the foreseeable future. To the degree that any future is foreseeable.

The article is worth reading in full.

July 16, 2010 Read More

African companies spread out in Africa

From WSJ:

Foreign consumer-goods companies including Coca-Cola Co., Nestlé SA and Unilever PLC have been in Africa for decades without much competition from local players. Now, home-grown companies are expanding aggressively across the continent, eager to accommodate a growing middle-class among the billion-person population.

Examples?

Among the most prominent of these consumer upstarts: African retailers such as Nakumatt Holdings Ltd. of Kenya, the top supermarket chain in East Africa, MTN Group Ltd., Africa’s largest cellphone provider, and South African restaurant chain Spur Corp. Nakumatt has expanded into three neighboring countries while 348-restaurant chain Spur has opened in seven other African countries.

And:

Aiding Nakumatt and others’ cross-border expansion is an African gross domestic product expected to grow 4.3% this year from just under $1.5 trillion in 2009, according to the International Monetary Fund, a clip that trails only China and India among the world’s massive emerging markets. The growing investment and trade, from African companies in African countries, has helped cushion the continent from the shocks of the global economic crisis.

Commercial growth also is being fueled in part by the rise of young African banks that have opened branches across the continent, providing much-needed capital to local companies. Ecobank, from Togo, now has branches in 27 African countries and $9 billion in assets. In Nigeria, 10-year-old Guaranty Trust Bank PLC operates in five English-speaking West African countries.

I can think of others…. but I would presume that one gets the picture with these examples. The whole article, which is on the whole pretty upbeat, is here.

June 2, 2010 Read More

Post-Doctoral Fellowships for Research on ‘The Human Economy’’

POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS FOR RESEARCH ON ‘THE HUMAN ECONOMY’

UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA

The Faculty of Humanities at the University of Pretoria invites applications from suitably-qualified researchers for Post-Doctoral Fellowships to contribute to an interdisciplinary project on ‘The Human Economy’.

People always insert themselves practically into economic life on their own account. But what they do is often obscured, marginalised or repressed by dominant economic institutions and ideologies. The human economy is conceived of as being made and remade by people themselves, being based on a holistic conception of human needs and with the interests of humanity as a whole in mind.

This project builds on and will contribute to a collaborative international research program that began in the World Social Forum, 2001 and has already brought together theoretical and practical work on alternative economic institutions in Brazil, Argentina, France, Britain and other countries. Its prime focus is on the growing scope for economic initiatives that lie between the stark alternatives of the free market and state planning. As well as guaranteeing social rights, governments must encourage forms of self-organization where solidarity has a greater role. Equality and freedom come from the mutuality of everyday life, and not just from market contracts or citizenship.

Scholars who have undertaken research relevant to these topics in disciplines such as Social Anthropology, Sociology, History, Political Economy, Development Studies, Philosophy, Literature or Geography are welcome to apply. Because the making of world society is at stake, there are no restrictions on where this research has been done. But the Faculty has a particular interest in fostering a dialogue on such issues between researchers from countries in the ‘global South’.

The Faculty intends to award up to six Fellowships associated with this project to begin in January 2011, with the aim of bringing together scholars from around the world, and stimulating an international and interdisciplinary exchange of ideas. Successful applicants will

Have completed a doctoral degree in a relevant discipline within the past seven years
Preferably be younger than 40 years
Have undertaken in-depth and high-quality research on a topic relevant to the project

Fellowships are for one year (2011), with the possibility of renewal for a further year depending on progress. Fellows will be expected to write up and publish research relevant to the designated theme, and will have an opportunity to undertake additional, comparative research in southern Africa, should this be appropriate.

Successful applicants will also be expected to

Contribute to the Faculty of Humanities Seminar Programme
Participate in an International Workshop on ‘The Human Economy’ to be hosted by the Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria in the course of 2011
Provide guidance to postgraduate students who will undertake research on topics linked to the interests of particular Fellows. Each Fellow would mentor at least one student.

Fellows will receive

A tax-free stipend of up to R175 000 per annum
A return air ticket between their country of residence and South Africa
Funding for possible research in southern Africa
Funding to attend one international conference outside South Africa during their tenure
Access to the facilities of the University of Pretoria, including office space.

Applicants must complete the University of Pretoria Post-Doctoral Application Form before 30 June 2010. Applications will be considered by the university’s Post-Doctoral Fellowship Committee.

For further information, please contact

John Sharp, Professor of Social Anthropology and Deputy Dean, Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria (john.sharp@up.ac.za)

Keith Hart, Honorary Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Pretoria (johnkeithhart@gmail.com)

May 22, 2010 Read More

On political leadership and anthropology: AIDS in South Africa

Keith Hart writes:

The contrast between Zuma and Mbeki could hardly be greater, a tribal chieftain in the mould of Bolingbroke or Henry Tudor against Mbeki’s Othello, a man happy to be photographed dancing in Zulu warrior gear versus the austere western intellectual with his stiff suits and goatee beard. The number of Zuma’s wives, lovers and children is uncountable. He was once tried for raping an HIV-positive woman who was the daughter of a trusted political aide; claimed that it was his duty to satisfy any woman who appeared to want him; and took a shower after the act so as not to catch the disease. Jacob Zuma epitomises the image of African male sexuality that Thabo Mbeki tried so desperately to counter. Yet Zuma appointed a leading progressive medic as Minister of Health; and he has pushed through drastic changes in government AIDS policy, winning singular praise from AIDS social movements for having committed state resources to the fight. Only recently Zuma made public his own HIV status (negative after four tests). Political leaders like this make nonsense of the stereotypes that pass for analysis of South Africa’s trajectory.

Now at last many more South Africans have access to the most effective sources of prevention and treatment known to normal science, although this is still highly unequal and plagued by Christian and traditional beliefs affecting the use of condoms, for example. The whole story is mind-boggling. You couldn’t make it up. Because of or despite all this, South Africa has stimulated a number of compelling book-length studies by leading anthropologists which, taken individually and together, offer a remarkable chance to reflect on how our discipline might illuminate a tragedy that has implications for how we all live in today’s world. Here I will briefly consider three: Didier Fassin’s When Bodies Remember (2007), Robert Thornton’s Unimagined Community (2008) and Ida Susser’s AIDS, Sex, and Culture (2009).

Read the whole article, including his review of the three books, here.

April 27, 2010 Read More

Dominique Strauss-Kahn on his trip to Africa

Africa is a different place from how it is often portrayed in the popular media. Thanks to sound economic policies in many countries over the past decade or so, Africa has been able to withstand this crisis much better than has been the case in the past. The fact that the crisis hit Africa anyway does not mean that the policies were wrong. On the contrary, those policies helped to buffer Africa from the worst of the crisis, and they should now be strengthened. All three national leaders with whom I met—President Kibaki of Kenya, President Zuma of South Africa, and President Banda of Zambia—conveyed to me their strong sense of the policy agenda ahead.

Read the whole article.

March 13, 2010 Read More

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Post Tagged with: "South Africa"