Future Of Business: Is Africa The Next Gold Mine?

Eager To Make Money In Africa? Start by Solving Any of These 8 Serious Problems

VISITOR: John-Paul Iwuoha

Author, Business Strategist & & Champion for Entrepreneurship in Africa

When you take a look at Africa, what do you see?

When most people take a look at Africa, there are 2 extremely strong but opposite images that emerge:

Some see a continent that has plenty of issues-- joblessness, illness, hunger and insecurity-- a place where whatever is wrong and nothing works.

Some others see a land of huge chances and untapped potential.

Optimists like to explain Africa as the "world's last frontier" of rewarding service opportunities.

While the oblivious and fearful see a dark and unpromising continent, clever business owners see the amazing organization opportunities that lie beneath all of Africa's problems.

Looking for major issues and thinking of fascinating and ingenious methods to fix them is among the most reliable methods of finding high-potential business ideas.

Issues are true blessings in camouflage and every effective business owner understands this secret.

The most lucrative chances in Africa are not in its crude oil, gemstones or wood. No. Africa's biggest prize lies in finding services to much of its severe and pushing problems.

Anybody who can resolve the issues you're about to read stands the opportunity of generating income in Africa.

This article takes a look at eight serious problems in Africa that hold financially rewarding business opportunities and will make money for business owners who can open them.

1) Hunger

Cravings is one of Africa's most significant and most severe problems.

Images of hungry and starving African children frequently make the headlines in traditional media and have pertained to represent the face of our continent.

Despite having more than 60 percent of the world's uncultivated arable land, a conducive environment for farming, and an overwhelmingly young population (more than 60% of the African population is under 25 years of ages), millions of individuals on our continent still go hungry.

Currently, Africa does not produce enough food to feed itself and has actually remained a net importer of food.

With one of the world's fastest growing populations, many African countries spend billions of dollars every year importing standard food products to fulfill local demand and consumption.

Our continent's population (currently at simply over one billion) is predicted to increase to 2.3 billion over the next 30 years. With all these mouths to feed, agribusiness is more than likely to end up being a booming industry in Africa's future.

There are numerous reasons for the major cravings problem on our continent.

Apart from appetite which is caused by disputes and natural catastrophes (like dry spell and floods), Africa's failing agriculture market is arguably the root cause of cravings on the continent.

Agriculture, which utilized to be a booming and attractive market, has actually been deserted for white-collar jobs in the cities.

At the current migration rate, more Africans will reside in cities than in rural areas by 2050. With reducing interest from regular people and low financial investments from both the business neighborhood and federal governments, the current state of Africa's farming industry makes it not able to produce the quantity of food required to feed a large and fast growing population.

There are several rewarding opportunities for entrepreneurs who start services, no matter how little, that aid to solve the appetite problem in Africa.

The high demand for food staples is resulting in intriguing opportunities in veggie farming, cassava farming, animals farming (fish, chicken, pigs, ostrich, snails).

There is likewise a big capacity for businesses like animal feed production that support the animals industry.

The opportunity in Africa's appetite problem is basic:

Food is a standard requirement and a matter of survival.

It's boom time for food businesses. You can hardly ever go wrong with food in Africa!

2) Unemployment

With one of the world's youngest populations, Africa's big and growing swimming pool of unemployed labour is among its biggest problems.

Youths, many of who are physically and psychologically capable, can not find the jobs they need to earn a decent income for their upkeep and basic survival.

Depending on whose figures you're looking at, the unemployement rate on our continent is substantial (approximately 50 percent).

Since tasks must exist before individuals can be used, does it mean that there are no jobs in Africa?

Obviously not!

In fact, before the current financial decrease, Africa's economy had actually been growing progressively for over a years and six of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world remained in Africa.

Despite the immediate difficulties, the continent's economy is expected to experience impressive long-term growth.

A growing economy is often a clear sign that more jobs are being produced. Nevertheless, the main problem with the task market in Africa is that it is mainly chaotic. It is quite tough for companies and companies to find possible workers with the right skills, education and experience for the positions they want to fill.

To a significant part, Africa's unemployment issue has to do with info sharing rather than overall unavailability of jobs.

A number of clever Africans are currently rising to the difficulty of fixing our continent's unemployment issues. In Nigeria, Jobberman.com, which was started by three university undergrads in 2009, has ended up being Nigeria's Number 1 task search and recruitment portal.

In a nation where more than 40 million able-bodied individuals are out of work, Jobberman is helping millions of people get a job by connecting vacancies with the best prospects; saving recruitment costs for businesses.

Seeing the substantial capacities in this service design, Tiger Global, a New-York based fund with investments in Facebook and LinkedIn became an investor inJobberman.comin 2011 ... a little less than three years after it started!

The service now has a subsidiary in Ghana and prepares to present throughout Africa in the near future.

Apart from offering critical information services that help companies and possible employees to find each other, there is likewise another angle to the unemployment problem in Africa-- unemployability.

Much of individuals trying to find jobs on our continent do not have actually the required education, training, abilities and experience that make them desirable for employment. Companies and business owners who can provide services to this problem in the kind of skill acquisition programs, education and training are very likely to take pleasure in big benefits.

3) Diseases

While Africa is home to about 15 percent of the world's population, Africa alone represents almost 24 percent of all diseases that happen in the world.

Apart from poor access to essential medications and vaccines, low quality healthcare, poor nutrition, and poverty, our continent's tropical (warm) environment favours the breeding of illness vectors (particularly mosquitoes which cause malaria).

In addition to these factors, the increase of persistent diseases like cardiovascular disease, cancer, breathing diseases and diabetes is causing more deaths in Africa every year.

According to a recent WHO Report, contagious illness are the leading reasons for sickness and death in developing regions like Africa.

Of these contagious illness, malaria, HIV/AIDS, pneumonia, tuberculosis, diarrhoeal illness, and measles comprise more than 90 percent of over 10 million disease-related deaths that take place in Africa every year. Most of these illness can be treated with the ideal drugs.

Africa's severe illness problem has actually caused a substantial and rapidly growing need for drugs, medications and other pharmaceutical products.

The size of Africa's pharmaceutical market is anticipated to reach almost $45 billion by the year 2020 and entrepreneurs like Uganda's Emmanuel Katongole are already taking advantage of this big opportunity.

Malaria, for instance is estimated to cost countries such as Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo approximately 1.3% of their GDP, according to the Malaria Consortium. That's why Faso Soap, the brainchild of two ingenious African entrepreneurs has got me really excited!

Consisted of shea butter, lemongrass, African marigold and other natural deposits that abound across Africa, this soap is developed to leave an insect-repelling smell on the user's skin after bathing. It might be utilized to prevent against a wide range of mosquito-transmitted conditions-- maybe ultimately even Zika.

And this is why I think over the next couple of decades, both huge drug manufacturing companies (inside and outside Africa) and healthcare-focused entrepreneurs will reap substantial advantages while they assist to combat and decrease Africa's illness burden.

4) Education

The requirement of education in numerous parts of our continent has actually deteriorated terribly. Poor access to quality education at all levels-- from standard main education to university-- is another severe and unpleasant issue across Africa.

The bad quality of federal government education and low investment in the education sector has actually put it in a state of crisis in lots of African countries.

Since numerous Africans understand that education is one of the few bridges out of poverty, countless poor families on the continent are desperate to discover excellent schools for their children. Nevertheless, the existing schools and training facilities are unaffordable for lots of people and are not even sufficient to cater to the needs of Africa's large and quickly growing population.

To resolve the problem of insufficient chances for budget friendly quality education (specifically for children from poor homes), some entrepreneurs on our continent have come up with fascinating solutions.

Omega Schools, based in Ghana, is a chain of affordable private schools that offers basic primary education to kids in poor households for an exceptionally low and budget-friendly fee (less than $1 a day per trainee).

Bridge International Schools in Kenya utilizes a similar low-priced design to provide affordable education to thousands of children in East Africa for less than $5 monthly per student. Before these fantastic organizations started, it was believed impossible to educate bad individuals at a profit.

5) Electricity

Some people say that if you take a look at the African continent from deep space during the night, it looks empty and pitch black.

Possibly this is why the rest of the world refers to Africa as the 'dark continent'.

The poor supply of electricity to support daily needs like illuminating bulbs, pumping water and charging smart phone batteries is a huge and very serious issue in many parts of Africa.

In numerous nations on the continent, less than 20 percent of the population have access to electricity; the scenario is much even worse in backwoods where less than 5 percent are connected to the electrical power grid.

Electrical power is such a severe problem for Africa that the development and success of its economy and the benefit of our lives depends upon it.

Did you understand that all the 40+ countries of Sub-saharan Africa (except South Africa), with a combined population of more than 750 million people, generate approximately the same quantity of electricity as Spain (a single country of less than 50 million people)?

According to the WorldBank, Africa arguably has the worst electric power facilities worldwide with the most affordable scores in power generation, usage and security of supply!

Entrepreneurs like Tanzania's Patrick Ngowi are taking the lucrative chances in Africa's electrical power problems. By concentrating on solar power, which is easily and generously available in Africa, Patrick has brought electrical energy to thousands of homes in his country.

To date, his business (Helvetic Solar Contractors), has installed more than 6,000 little rooftop solar systems in his country and 4 other East African countries-- Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

And there are more ambitious business owners like him who are utilizing the power of the sun to illuminate Africa. And here's a list of the Top 10 Solar Businesses that are illuminating Africa!

6) Waste

Africa is losing its natural beauty and environment to various kinds of destruction particularly solid waste pollution.

As Africa ends up being more urbanised and the spending power of the typical African increases, more items will be taken in leading to even more waste. The volume of waste created on our continent is expected to double in the coming years as the size and population of its cities explode.

Apart from the unclean and unsightly appearance that heaps of waste are giving to a number of cities across Africa, bad waste management is closely related to, and mostly responsible for, the outbreak of illness. In addition to its unfavorable impacts, the way we deal with and treat our waste will play an extremely substantial role in handling Africa's natural deposits in the future.

Recycling waste (like cooking area waste, paper, plastic and metals) assists to reduce the contamination in our environment and provides jobs for countless people on our continent.

To deal with the hazard of plastic waste in Nairobi (the Kenyan capital), Lorna Rutto, a previous lender decided to start a little plastic recycling business. Her company utilizes plastic waste gathered from dumpsites and garbage cans across Nairobi to produce fencing posts.

These posts, which are utilized to fence houses and forest reserves, are becoming a favored option to timber. So far, her ingenious company has created over 7,000 fencing posts, 500 brand-new tasks, generated more than $150,000 in yearly revenues, conserved over 250 acres of forests and eliminated more than 1,000 tonnes of plastic waste from the environment.

Another interesting service that is fixing the problem of waste disposal in Africa is DMT Mobile Toilets in Lagos (Nigeria)-- among Africa's most populated cities.

In its bid to reduce the general public disposal of human waste, this business provides affordable access to toilet centers in public spaces (bus parks, events, and so on) throughout Lagos. To date, this company has actually produced over 3,000 mobile private toilets. It produces over 200 systems each month for sale and for hire throughout Nigeria and in the West Africa region.

7) Transportation

With millions of humans and goods that are moved around daily throughout Africa, transport has ended up being main to the functioning of Africa's economy and crucial to standard survival on our continent.

With potholed roads, poor transport networks, absent railway and weak water transport, the options for moving people and products around on the continent are quite limited.

Although the roadways are bad, people and products still require to move around.

With a population that is growing quicker than anywhere else in the world, transportation remains a problem of today and future for Africa.

In spite of its challenges, smart business owners are rising to the occasion to resolve everyday transportation needs for millions of Africans. Motorbikes, taxis, buses, trucks and ferries are a few of the methods of tackling the transportation problem.

8) Shelter

After food, shelter is arguably the next essential necessity in our lives.

Shelter in this regard refers to housing lodging, office and public buildings.

The growing migration of Africans from rural to city areas is putting a great deal of pressure on offered and budget-friendly real estate in cities and towns throughout the continent.

Seeing the substantial chances and capacities in our continent's real estate issue, it's barely any surprise that entrepreneurs like Nigeria's Aliko Dangote, who is presently Africa's richest male, has been making very considerable financial investments in cement production, the most crucial material in building construction.

Other structure and building and construction products like wood, glass, aggregates and steel have actually become hot-selling products.

People, services and governments are making big financial investments in Africa's property and facilities market. Smart entrepreneurs are buying up undeveloped land around major cities in a bid to construct their own houses and possibly make rental earnings from renters who need shelter too.

Other popular realty investments are in office spaces and retail areas; shops for traders.

What do you see when you look at Africa?

Do you still see issues or financially rewarding and untapped opportunities?

Africa is complete and overruning with remarkable capacities for people like you to make money. The difficulty is that the majority of these opportunities are buried inside difficult and tough problems.

It's the same with whatever in life.

It is the same with mining gold, diamonds or petroleum; there is normally a lot of hard and dirty work involved. Somebody needs to dig or drill lots of metres into the tummy of the earth to discover these precious resources.

It's also the exact same thing with Africa's problems.

If you wish to earn money on our continent, you will need to roll up your sleeves and resolve a serious problem. The tougher the problems you resolve, the more money you are likely to make!

This article is meant to open your eyes to the possibilities around you.

Have you observed a major problem or suffering in your environment?

What have you been doing about it?

Nagging?

Complaining?

Blaming the government?

Well, now you know you need to alter the way you look at and respond to problems. Issues are substantial opportunities to make money. Find one and repair it!

Do you believe there are some severe problems I left out?

Please share your ideas in the remarks section below.