Two of Africa’s most prominent foundations – the Nigeria-based Tony Elumelu Foundation and the Oppenheimer family’s Brenthurst Foundation of South Africa – launched an important new book titled Africans Investing in Africa on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Africa meeting in Cape Town.
The 338-page book covers a range of important topics critical to Africa’s development. It provides a unique perspective of how Africans are leading the way through intra-African trade and investment, documenting how, where and why Africans invest across the continent. The book also identifies the economic, political and social experiences that hinder or stimulate investment, and highlights examples of pan-African companies and investors.
This book is the outcome of a project conceived in 2011 by the two foundations, and builds on a paper published by their respective principals – Tony O. Elumelu, CON, and Jonathan Oppenheimer – in which they first explored the depth and breadth with which African companies were expanding across the continent and contributing to Africa’s growth.
The foundations, have established records of scholarship and policy advice on issues impacting Africa’s economic growth and development. Together, they conducted in-depth, case study-based research into why many African-owned and/or African-based companies were still struggling to succeed across multiple geographies on the continent, despite Africa’s impressive economic growth rates and overall improvements in macro-economic management.
“Through my experience as CEO of the United Bank for Africa, I worked hard to expand UBA from a Nigerian bank to one that now has subsidiaries in 18 additional African countries,” said Mr. Elumelu, now Chairman of the bank. “This experience showed me the commercial benefit of investing across Africa as well as the broader economic and even social impact the private sector can make, which was the origins of the philosophy I call ‘Africapitalism’.”
The book has sixteen different contributors hailing from respected universities and research institutions in Africa, Europe and North America; all with deep knowledge of and experience in Africa.
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