African start-ups, addressing overlooked needs, are putting the spotlight on a burgeoning tech scene, despite challenges such as inequality and limited digitization.
At the GITEX Africa fair in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh this week, innovations in remittances and healthcare that cater to the continent’s demands underscored the thriving sector.
One of those at the show, Jean-Charles Mendy, launched an app with his business partner three years ago, giving people working abroad better control over the money they send to their families back home.
Photo: AFP
“The market for sending money by Africans in the diaspora is huge,” the 40-year-old Senegalese entrepreneur said on the sidelines of the gathering, which drew about 1,500 start-ups, companies and banks.
The app, only available to the Senegalese diaspora for now, enables direct payment of bills, including electricity or phone expenses, or conversion into vouchers for supermarket purchases.
Remittances to sub-Saharan Africa reached more than US$50 billion last year, the World Bank says.
People in the diaspora “find that they sacrifice too much for their money to be misused,” Mendy said. “If you are not Senegalese, you won’t imagine that this is a problem that people encounter.”
“All solutions we have put in place are a combination of European solutions used to meet African needs, thanks to technology,” he said.
The International Finance Corp, the World Bank’s private sector arm, says that Africa’s start-up ecosystem, particularly in mobile payments, is the world’s fastest growing.
However, significant inequality plagues the continent, characterized by a widespread lack of digitization and a challenging financial environment.
The Partech Africa private equity fund says the continent’s tech ecosystem was valued at US$3.5 billion last year, a 46 percent decline from 2022, with half of its active investors lost.
Bennie Mmbaga, head of investments at Maua Mazuri, a biotechnology start-up aimed at boosting banana yields, said that when the firm was established in 2020, foreign investors “failed to understand the need” for its innovative approach.
“In East Africa, bananas are used for everything,” and although Tanzania has some of the largest banana plantations in the world, yields fall far behind other countries, partially owing to a virus that has been particularly rampant since 2020, he said.
Today, his start-up helps 1,000 farmers with disease-resistant seeds and makes up to US$655,000 in revenue per year.
“Investors realize now that there is a need,” he said.
Healthcare technology is another growing sector in Africa, where more than half of the continent’s1.4 billion people live in poverty and lack medical coverage, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) says.
“Governments spend only 6 percent of their GDP on healthcare,” said Mactar Seck, head of innovation and technology at UNECA. “We have to do something. Half of Africa’s population doesn’t have health care coverage.”
Renee Ngamau confounded CheckUps, a company providing “tech-enabled” medication and delivery services in remote areas of Kenya and South Sudan.
Through its mobile app, patients find access to affordable medical coverage without age or medical record criteria, receive small loans from a partner bank or promptly get in touch with the nearest nurse.
The company also provides services to relatives of the main beneficiaries.
“We understand the ecosystem in which we are,” Ngamau said. “The African family is structured differently, so we allow our beneficiaries to share their benefits with their parents, neighbors, whoever is important to them.”
In Kinshasa, doctor and entrepreneur Ulrich Kouesso launched LukaPharma, an app with a map of nearby pharmacies where medication is available in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital.
Kouesso said the app solves three problems: the time wasted looking for pharmacies in a city of 15 million people, the phenomenon of “fake pharmacies” operating without a license and finding coveted medication, especially cancer drugs.
“People are not aware of the potential that technology can bring to solving their problems,” Kouesso said.
“Knowing that the Congolese population is around 100 million, imagine the potential lives that can be saved with such an application, and also the potential in doing business,” he said.
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