Unlocking Africa's Business Potential: Trends, Opportunities, Risks, and Strategies

Africa welcomes business investment and offers some of the world's highest returns and impacts

Africa has tremendous economic potential and offers rewarding opportunities for global businesses looking for new markets and long-term investments with favorable returns. Africa has been one of the world's fastest-growing regions over the past decade, and by 2030 will be home to nearly 1.7 billion people and an estimated $6.7 trillion worth of consumer and business spending. Increased political stability in recent years and improving regional integration are making market access easier, and business expansion will generate jobs for women and youth, who represent the vast majority of the population. Current economic growth and poverty-alleviation efforts mean that more than 43 percent of the continent's people will reach middle- or upper-class status by 2030.

Unlocking Africa's Business Potential examines business opportunities in the eight sectors with the highest potential returns on private investment--the same sectors that will foster economic growth and diversification, job creation, and improved general welfare. These sectors include: consumer markets, agriculture and agriprocessing, information and communication technology, manufacturing, oil and gas, tourism, banking, and infrastructure and construction. The book's analysis of these sectors is based on case studies that identify specific opportunities for investment and growth, along with long-term market projections to inform decision-making.

The book identifies potential risks to business and offers mitigation strategies. It also provides policymakers with solutions to attract new business investments, including how to remove barriers to business and accelerate development of the private sector.

Landry Signé is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program and Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings. He is a professor and founding co-director of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Globalization 4.0 Initiative at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, distinguished fellow at Stanford University's Center for African Studies, chairman of the Global Network for Africa's Prosperity, and has been recognized as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.