Afridigest Week in Review: The accelerating brain drain

Developing local talent is one of the keys to increasing productivity across Africa, but the exit of the continent's highest-skilled talent pools seems to be accelerating.

Emeka Ajene

Jul 3, 2023

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📌 Welcome to the second half of the year, friends. Things slowed down noticeably for Africa Tech in H1 2023 compared to last year, and we’ll publish more details shortly. Stay tuned.

If you’re new here: welcome — this Week in Review is sent on Mondays, the Fintech Review goes out on Sundays, the Content Corner or Intelligence Brief goes out on Wednesdays, and an original essay occasionally goes out on Saturdays. For past essays and digests, visit the archive & Afridigest.com. And with that said, let’s get into it!

Week 26 2023: June 25 - July 1

SOMETHING FOR READERS IN LAGOS

Our friends at alGROWithm got their hands on some GrowthCon tickets and they’re sharing the wealth with Afridigest readers — get 50% off your ticket when you use the voucher code AFRIDIGEST at checkout.

What’s GrowthCon? It’s a two-day growth conference happening in Lagos on July 21st and 22nd that’ll examine what drives business growth in African markets.

I just got my ticket & I hope to see you there. But don’t wait too long, the code is valid only for the first 20 Afridigest readers to use it.

🔦 Equity & Debt Fundraises

If you’d like us to know about a fundraise, please submit it here:

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💰 Investor Activity

Techstars, one of the most active investors in African startups, is raising $150M for a new accelerator fund for startups globally.

🕵️‍♀️ In case you missed it

NEWS

Ethiopia launched a tender for a new telco license in the country. Ethiopia is gradually liberalizing its economy, and telecoms is one of the focus sectors. Safaricom launched in the country late last year after winning Ethiopia's first independent telecoms license with a bid of $850M. This new tender further opens up the telco market in Africa's second-most populous country to additional competition after a long monopoly enjoyed by state-owned operator Ethio Telecom.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the IFC launched an initiative to support early-stage enterprises and accelerators in North Africa. A pilot capitalizing on the two institutions’ existing programs will be rolled out in an unnamed North African country first, then expanded across the region.
Ethiopia formally applied to join BRICS. Other African countries that have applied to join the emerging markets bloc in recent months include Egypt and Algeria. These countries see greater alignment with BRICS member countries, especially Russia and China, as a boon to their economies.

🎰 OPPORTUNITIES

Early-stage African climatetechs are invited to apply before July 7th to the AWS Climate Tech Accelerator.
African B2B SaaS startups are invited to apply to the Startup Wise Guys SaaS Accelerator Program Africa Africa before September 7th.

🙊 The last word

JUST MY THOUGHTS

Last Monday’s Week in Review highlighted the projected rise, over the next several decades, of emerging market economies like Nigeria and Egypt.

But unpacking those projections reveals that the expected rise is due largely to demographic factors, not productivity growth.

It raises the question: what will it take to spur & support productivity-led economies across the African continent?

And the recent McKinsey report (PDF) has a bunch of suggestions on this — not least of which is developing local talent.

But across Twitter and elsewhere this week, attention was drawn to the ongoing brain drain across Africa.

And not just in Nigeria, but across the continent’s other major economies too.

Indeed, governments abroad seem to be increasingly positioning themselves to attract the highest-skilled talent pools from Africa & other emerging markets.

Of course, an African brain drain isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, but it’s a trend that does seem to be accelerating. And given widespread implications for the continent’s startups, for economic growth, and beyond, it’s one worth calling out.

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