AndyM

Beer Is 50% More Profitable in Africa, And Other Crazy Numbers From A New Book on the Continent’s Fortunes The next issue of the .@The_EastAfrican is being distributed early this week in Gaborone, Botswana, where .@NationMediaGrp is holding the 5th Kusi Ideas Festival Dec. 7-8. The editors pushed us hard to get copy in nearly a week early. For the issue, I found inspiration previewing a forthcoming book, “Borderless Africa: A Sceptic’s Guide to the Continental Free Trade Area”, by Francis Mangeni and Andrew Mold. It does a wonderful job shattering prejudices about intra-African trade, and pointing to pots of gold for those who seize the opportunities already provided by economic integration in regional blocs like the East African Community (EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). In one of the many head-turning nuggets of data, they point out that eliminating mobile roaming charges between Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda in the EAC’s “One-Area Network” agreement of 2014, led to an increase in inbound roaming calls between Kenya and Rwanda of over 950% in the first few months. Also, that beer is 50% more profitable in Africa than elsewhere on Earth – partly as a result of closed markets and lack of competition (hence the title of the article, “Beer is 50% more profitable in Africa than elsewhere. This is the drunkard’s song”). Usually, folks will ask where they can get the book. It’s coming out in February 2024. On my part, I am pre-ordering on Amazon. #kusifest2023 @kusiafrica