IMPACT – Bridge Africa mobilises entrepreneurs for Africa’s development
Published on 15 February 2024
The African continent has been the focus of the business world’s attention for several years now. It has seen the strongest growth in the world over the last fifteen years (5% on average) and the highest returns on direct investment (14%). It is also a continent brimming with resources and raw materials, which has been structured into the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to facilitate access for the continent’s one and a half billion inhabitants.
Last but not least, it is an area of tremendous innovation and a particularly dynamic entrepreneurial scene, especially among the continent’s women. These entrepreneurs have been able to turn the lack of infrastructure and the challenges of sustainable development into opportunities to experiment with solutions that are sometimes frugal, and very inspiring for the rest of the world that has to deal with planetary limits. In the fields of mobile money, fintech, e-health, off-grid and the circular economy, the continent has seen the emergence of pioneering solutions and genuine successes.
Since 2018, the members of the ANIMA network in the Europe-Mediterranean area have wanted to open up the network’s cooperation to the entire African continent. The aim is to bridge the gap between markets, investors and entrepreneurs in Africa and those in Europe and around the Mediterranean, and to encourage collaboration between economic players in these areas.
Since then, ANIMA has implemented several business networking initiatives in 16 countries belonging to all regions of the African continent: North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa. Some of these initiatives have also linked up with communities of entrepreneurs and investors from the African diaspora based in Europe, who are natural levers for spreading African innovation beyond the continent’s borders.
It is this #BridgeAfrica strategy that guides ANIMA’s action towards the continent today: to encourage sustainable and inclusive economic development, in line with the network’s DNA and global issues, by bringing together entrepreneurs who want to participate in Africa’s development, wherever they are, on the continent or elsewhere in the world.
In February and March, ANIMA honors those African and diaspora entrepreneurs who have particularly inspired us on its social networks, and launches the Bridge Africa Hub, the platform for entrepreneurs wishing to develop between Africa and Europe.