US President Joe Biden this week hosted a three-day summit attended by 45 African national leaders and aimed at strengthening trade ties between the United States and Africa after years of incursion by rival China.
IFC Managing Director Makhtar Diop told Archyde.com that the IFC is working with African countries to help connect entrepreneurs with the financing they urgently need to support economic growth and job creation. on the continent.
“Africa is buzzing with innovative technology solutions that can transform people’s lives for the better. We have seen a surge of new business models and new platforms in everything from health technology to Yet more than 80% of African start-ups report difficulties in accessing finance,” he said.
The goal, he said, is to develop “local innovative solutions” for Africa that could also be exported to the rest of the world. “Supporting African entrepreneurship and digital transformation is essential for economic growth, job creation and resilience on the continent and beyond.”
William Sonneborn, global director of disruptive technologies at IFC, said Africa, with a population of 1.4 billion people under the age of 18, is home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world.
“Africa is the market of the future for American products and services, and so if (the United States) is not active, it will miss out on a huge opportunity,” Sonneborn said, quoting what he called an “economic pivot” to focus on new key markets.
Mr Sonneborn said a new $225 million platform to encourage venture capital ecosystems across Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia would help create more opportunities for potential entrepreneurs in countries. with little experience in this field.
He said there was clearly an appetite for such help. In Ethiopia, for example, 240 of 300 young women trained in coding through an IFC program later said they wanted to start their own tech business, Sonneborn said.
Addressing issues such as slow licensing and lack of funding could spur innovation across Africa and enable countries to focus on more lucrative services rather than positioning themselves as hubs. cheap to make, he added.
“It’s a standard promise for technology and entrepreneurship,” he added.