(c) Financial Times’ Africa Special, March 2023
This month of March has been almost as busy as Idris Elba making deals across the continent.
🇺🇸 US VP Kamala Harris is just wrapping up her week-long Africa tour that took her to Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia. Besides announcing various measures in support of conflict prevention or climate resilience, Harris also toured Vibrate Studio, a community recording studio for young creatives located at Freedom Skatepark in Accra. The space opened in 2022 and is a partnership between Kendrick Lamar’s company pgLang, Spotify, and local sports NGO Surf Ghana.
Last year, the United States joined the growing list of countries and institutions suddenly interested in the African Creative sector, notably through their program Prosper Africa.
👩🏾 March being Women's Month, Harris also had the topic of investing in women as part of her agenda. Scroll through for my take on the place and role of women in the Creative sector on the continent, and some myth busting about African men.
🇳🇬 In March, Nigeria also completed its disputed general polls with the election of its state governors, which followed Bola Tinubu's victory as President in February. According to many observers, these elections, which have been marred by ethnic tensions, have been the nastiest since Nigeria's independence. Nevertheless, the country's many supporters - including myself - are now rooting for Nigeria to get back to business.
📆 Looking ahead, I will be attending MIPTV on April 17-19 in Cannes, and hosting a table on "How to produce with and in Africa" at the event's co-production breakfast on Tuesday March 18th at 8:30am (ouch, the pandemic is definitely over). In particular, I will share details about Afreximbank's $1 billion Film Fund, which types of projects qualify, and how to apply. Space is limited so arrive early!
Here we go for the rest of HUSTLE & FLOW #44:
MY TAKE ON WOMEN'S MONTH
I often get asked (by Westerners) how challenging it has been making my way as a woman in business in Africa these past 17 years.
🙄 They expect me to validate their assumptions about how biased or discriminatory African societies and cultures are towards women.
There is nothing furthest from the truth.
👧🏽 From the moment I stepped foot in Nairobi in 2006 as a rookie 24-year-old journalist to today, I have only encountered respect, kindness and support from African men across the continent - and this includes your garden-variety warlords and area boys.
😖 In fact, the place in the world where I feel the less secure as a woman, both professionally and physically, is France. The country where I'm from.
💯 Of course, I very much acknowledge my privilege as a white, educated, and assertive woman in Africa -- it certainly has been easier for me than for many.
📢 But in a month where we all get reminded of the massive gender gap that exists worldwide, I wanted to share another perspective:
🌟 As I wrote back in 2017 in an op-ed for Le Monde entitled "What can Africa teach the West in these times of trouble?", women actually do BETTER in Africa than in any other region of the world when it comes to executive positions both in the private and the public sector (click here for the English version).
🔥 In the Creative Industries in particular, many sub-sectors (film and television, broadcast, fashion, visual arts and publishing) are mostly run by women. They are the CEOs, the MDs, the creative directors, the designers, the senior producers, the content programmers, the gallery owners, the editors, the writers.
Head over to my original Linkedin post for the names of top women creative leaders to follow, and supportive men to emulate.
DIGITAL AND CREATIVE ECONOMY
Nigeria's ambitious $600+ million I-DICE program, which aims to support the country's Digital and Creative Enterprise sectors, was launched in March in Abuja.
🙏 I am proud to have contributed to I-DICE's feasibility study and program design as Creative Sector Expert.
🤔 However, there's been a lot of confusion in the press about I-DICE, which has been wrongly reported as a "tech fund for young investors" (Reuters, what happened?).
So here's the correct gist:
💡The program was initiated a couple years ago by the Federal Government of Nigeria, and more specifically by the Office of Vice-President Professor Yemi Osinbajo.
🤝🏾 It was developed and is being implemented in partnership with the African Development Bank.
💻 I-DICE aims to support young people in the digital innovation and creative spaces across all 36 Nigerian states, with a focus on entrepreneurship.
📍 The program tackles 4 main pillars: Policy and Enabling environment, Infrastructure, Human Capital, and Financing.
✅ It does include provisions to create a venture capital outfit.
❌ But I-DICE itself is not a fund, and the entire $600 million is not the amount that will be dedicated to VC investment. A lot of that money will go towards the other pillars, especially infrastructure (bringing proper internet to the entire country, for example) and both broad and specialized technical training programs in a variety of cutting-edge areas.
💰 Funding commitments include $170m from the African Development Bank Group, $116m from Agence Française de Développement (AFD), and $70m from the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB). The Federal Government of Nigeria will contribute $45m in loans to qualifying start-ups through the Bank of Industry (BOI).
Another $200 to 300 million is expected to be raised from the private sector and other institutional investors.
🥇 This is not the first time I have done work for the government of Nigeria. Despite what might sometimes appear from the outside as unbridled chaos, there are some really smart people in there who understand that they are sitting on gold (their young people).
FILM
💪🏿Two African giants 💪🏿have joined forces to support talents and storytelling on the continent.
🌟 Hollywood actor Idris Elba and Nollywood mogul Mo Abudu have announced a new partnership between their two production companies, Green Door Pictures and EbonyLife Media to provide training and development opportunities to a new generation of creatives from Africa and the diaspora.
🎓The capacity building part of the partnership will be led by EbonyLife's Creative Academy in Lagos.
📽Elba and Abudu also plan to create a new joint development slate of TV and film projects.
🔥This is one more notch in Abudu's belt, who has already racked up development or coproduction deals with several international studios including Netflix, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Westbrook, BBC Studios, Starz and Lionsgate.
The first products of this long list of partnerships have been the Netflix coproductions 'A Sunday Affair'', 'Blood Sisters' and The King's Horseman'.
Developing films and TV series takes years, and not all announced projects will see the light of day. But these partnerships are definitely instrumental in bringing the culture of content development to an emerging market such as Africa, and in slowly building cohorts of skilled local filmmakers and content executives.
📢 'African Folktales' are out on Netflix.
📅 The six short films that were selected by the platform and UNESCO for their joint 'African Folktales, Reimagined' anthology project were released on 29 March 2023.
🤗 This first-of-its-kind collaboration between Netflix and UNESCO is a direct result of the publication of my 2021 report on the African Film Industry.
😎 The six selected emerging storytellers were granted a $90,000 production budget and creative guidance by established filmmakers.
🎉 Congratulations are in order for: Mohamed Echkouna (Mauritania) - Enmity Djinn, Walt Mzengi Corey (Tanzania) - Katope, Korede Azeez (Nigeria) - Halima’s Choice, Voline Ogutu (Kenya) - Anyango and the Ogre, Loukman Ali (Uganda) - Katera of the Punishment Island, and Gcobisa Yako (SouthAfrica) - MaMlambo.
ANIMATION
🥇 In a big win for African storytellers and animators, the new kids series 'Kiya & the Kimoja Heroes' has premiered on Disney Plus & Disney Junior, as well as on YouTube.
🇿🇦 The show, which is based on an original concept by Robert Vargas ('The Smurfs', 'Spidey & His Amazing Friends'), was adapted from characters created by South Africans Marc Dey and Kelly Dillon.
🤝 It was developed and produced by leading South African studio Triggerfish Animation in partnership with eOne Hasbro, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Frog Box and France Télévisions.
🏩The richness and diversity of storytelling is on full display on the show, which features a landscape and culture inspired by Southern Africa, with both African and Asian heroes moving to music from around the world.
SPORTS BUSINESS
🏀 The third edition of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) kicked off on March 11 with the Sahara Conference in Dakar, Senegal. It will be followed by the Nile Conference in Cairo, Egypt from April 26-May 6, while the playoffs and finals will take place in Kigali, Rwanda from May 21-27.
🤝 BAL was launched in 2019 as a partnership between the NBA and the International Basketball Federation. The league is headed by Amadou Gallo Fall, a former Senegalese player and long-time NBA executive who spent 15 years building sports-for-development programs.
⛹🏿 However, BAL is first-and-foremost a commercial enterprise: as it is the case for most sports, Africa presents a deep well of potential recruits for the NBA. At the start of the 2022-2023 season for example, NBA rosters included 16 players born in Africa, while 35 players had at least one African parent.
👊🏾 Africans are also making boss moves in the international football space.
🇳🇬 Nigerian co-founder and CEO of Paystack, Shola Akinlade, bought a 55% percent stake in 2nd Division 🇩🇰 Danish club Aarhus Fremad Fodbold.
💰 Paystack was acquired by payment giant Stripe in 2020 for $200 million, giving Akinlade the means to pursue other ventures.
⚽️ Just a year ago, Akinlade launched Sporting Lagos Football Club, stating his ambition to use the new club as a way to deepen his community involvement and vowing to bring modern, professional management to Nigerian football.
🏃🏾The acquisition of Aarhus Fredmad will allow Akinlade and his team to create pathways for young Nigerian football talents to get training and exposure in Europe.
Akinlade joins the small circle of African business people taking ownership of the future of African football by tackling structural challenges.
🌍 Another example is KINGSLEY PUNGONG's Rainbow Sports Global, whose player identification and development program for African talents leverages its network of clubs and academies across Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America.
📈 Referring to the music industry, someone asked me recently what should be done to get more African artists signed by Universal and the likes. I responded that this shouldn't be the goal. The ambition should be to create, finance and grow African companies that are strong enough to compete against (and even acquire) other global players.
💎 African talents and athletes are the raw material of the continent's entertainment and sports sectors. Let's not make the mistake of letting their value get captured elsewhere, like it's been the case for other African resources for centuries.
FOR THE CULTURE
In March, the Financial Times released an Africa Special edition that is a juicy treasure trove of goodness.
Conceived by FT Weekend editor Alec Russell and Nigerian-British poet Ben Okri, this collection of articles celebrates African creatives, from literature to film, visual arts, music and fashion.
Click through take your time to enjoy:
✒️ ‘We are daring to invent the future’ — the generation that rewrote Africa’s story
🎨 West Africa’s art scene: uncovering a long legacy of creativity
👑 From ‘The Woman King’ to Netflix’s ‘African Queens’ — how Africa’s history went pop
📽 Curator June Givanni on African cinema: ‘Films need to be seen in their own countries’
📖 Nuruddin Farah: ‘I can live without my books. They make their own friends’
📙 ‘The Famished Road’ and my quest for the imaginative richness of Africa
🦸🏾 Africa’s comic book superheroes tell the continent’s forgotten stories
🎤 How Afrobeats took over the world — and is still evolving
🏇 A new generation takes the reins at Nairobi’s polo club
🏍 Two wheels to Lake Turkana: my Kenyan motorbike adventure
✍🏿 The new talent lighting up Nigeria’s bestseller lists
🔊 Zeitz Mocaa boss Koyo Kouoh: ‘We are building our own voice, our own language’
👔 The African designers turning western waste into fashion statements