Over the last twenty years, horticulture in Ethiopia has become the country's second-largest source of foreign currency after coffee. Every year, almost 300,000 tonnes of horticultural products are exported to the four corners of the world.
With a background in economics and business finance in Canada and the United States, Modibo Mao Makalou was responsible for designing and evaluating development policies and strategies at the Office of the President of the Republic of Mali between 2004 and 2017. In this interview, he discusses issues such as the situation in Mali three years after the coup d'état, the future of the fight against terrorism in the Sahel and how the continent can unite to better defend its mining interests, which fuel conflicts and are often based on the exploitation of children.
Priyal Singh, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, joined us this week on Business Africa to talk about the importance of the arrival of two new African members to the BRICS group.
Esther Kariuki, head of agribusiness at the Co-operative Bank of Kenya, has just won the prestigious African Banker of the Year award. This advocate for the cause of farmers and supporter of women's autonomy in the sector also brings to the bank her expertise in converting farms into profitable businesses.
In the village of Madenkene, Cameroon, small-scale extraction and sale of sand are the inhabitants' primary income sources. It's one of the cogs in a very active construction sector propelled by galloping urbanisation. Men, women and children take part in this arduous work, which they see as essential to the development of their community.
Soil-less agriculture, or hydroponics, involves growing food plants on agricultural, agro-industrial and even landfill waste substrates. It is mainly developed in greenhouses or closed, controlled environments. This type of agriculture responds to the constraints of land scarcity and soil erosion, can be adapted to all essential crops and helps to combat deforestation. In Grand-Bassam in Côte d'Ivoire, a group of enthusiasts have taken up the subject of soil-less planting and adapted it to the production of Big Sun, the famous "good-smelling pepper ".
Lancinet Kémoko Sidibé is a Guinean entrepreneur and CEO who set up his shea butter and black soap industry in Morocco in 2012. He now sells his products in 15 countries around the world. This cosmetics processing unit in Casablanca has enabled him to make an active social commitment to help Africans struggling as immigrants. Since its creation, around a hundred young people have been able to find employment. In the late 2000s, Morocco became one of the continent's top destinations for foreign direct investment and, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Index, is ranked third in the Middle East and North Africa region.
