Digital media is poised for growth in 2015 as the industry consolidates its advertising market share.
According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report, South African Entertainment And Media Outlook: 2015-2018, digital revenue from advertising will hit 33% by 2018 from 14% in 2009. The report also posits that by 2018, internet advertising will overtake television as the largest segment.
Digital analyst Gerhard Muller says the online space is a medium no marketer can ignore, as even the lowest income markets and most remote places in Africa are connected.
“African digital marketers used to replicate strategies and techniques from Europe and the United States, however, it is now incredibly exciting to see African digital solutions and strategies emerge with some of the most original and exciting executions, often internationally acclaimed and recognized,” says Muller.
Going forward, all digital marketers will need to embrace a mobile-first approach to any solution. An online presence is non-negotiable.
“With millions of devices, touch-screens and computer keyboards in our country it has become harder and harder to find the people you want to talk to. Brands should therefore put effort into strategically utilizing the latest tech tools and methods to target accurately. Not only for the sake of being heard but more importantly, being relevant. To me, honest and relevant is what cuts through clutter,” he says.
Take South African banks for example. First National Bank (FNB) is regarded a pioneer not only in online marketing but for their digital offerings too.
“Internet and app banking have become a quintessential part of this brand and not just an additional service they serve on the side,” says Muller.
Another example he offers is of Heineken, and the remarkable work done in the social media space that’s relevant and well thought out. The main drivers of this kind of success are talented people, bold choices and the guts to pioneer something incredible no other brand has done before. The opportunities and technology are there for us to use, so often, it’s a matter of looking, giving some thought and connecting the dots.
Companies are working towards a more collaborative approach to all media, and print, radio, TV and online need to work together to meet marketing objectives.
“This synergy is important and it’s great to see how TV needs online support or how online needs radio. We consider all these mediums as our essential tools in the box of tricks that we use together to create advertising magic,” offers Muller.
Clearly, gone are the days when digital was an add-on towards the end of a great advertising concept. Quartz.com says it’s time to wake-up and make 2015 the year of radical – and concerted – solutions.

shutterstock_248077036

Internet And Tech: Dot The I’s And  Cross The T’s

The thatched roof houses and brown earth make Awra Amba, in the Amhara area of northern Ethiopia, look like any African village. But this is no ordinary village.
Here, young girls go to school, and walk short distances from their homes to get to them. Once home, they don’t have to trade their textbooks for chopping boards or babies. Household chores don’t await them. In Ethiopia, less than half the girls don’t go to primary school, but not so in Awra Amba – they all do.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29883 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4780-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4780-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4780-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4780-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IMG_4780.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Take Trissew Fente for instance. She chose not to marry before turning  19. Child marriages are common in the rest of Ethiopia, but not in Awra Amba. Fente opted to marry a man of her generation, and didn’t need to ask her family’s permission for it.
There were no celebrations, no dowry paid. The union was desacralized. Today, 30 years old, she is a mother of three and has opted not to get pregnant again.
Fente uses oral contraception. Awra Amba supports family planning methods, and opposes the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). The villagers are well aware of the long-term health issues associated with it.
“We don’t inflict [excision] on our daughters because this creates many complications at birth,”
says Fente.
In Ethiopia, excision is punishable by law (since 2005). Yet, it’s believed that more than 70% of Ethiopian women continue to be victims of this practice – the country has one of the worst rates in the world.
“The people in Ethiopia think we’re crazy. Personally, I think their customs are terrible,” says Fente, as she works away on her wooden loom, traditionally an activity men engage in on the continent.
Petite she is, but performs this physically-arduous job just as skillfully as the men.
In Awra Amba, men and women get the same pay. The jobs are not distributed as per gender, but according to skill-sets. Here, women can be seen ploughing the land while men bathe the children and prepare injera, a pancake made out of a cereal grown locally.
“Doing a woman’s job does not change my sex, it changes my ignorance” is one of the mottos of this community created by Zumra Nuru, a 70-year-old illiterate peasant.
Known for his trademark green hat, Nuru founded this exclusive community at Awra Amba in 1972. Village lore has it that he decided to create his own utopia based on impressions from his childhood, when he witnessed the gross inequalities between his mother and father.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29885 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2015/10/P1000302-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/P1000302-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/P1000302-600x338.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/P1000302-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/P1000302.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
The beginnings were difficult, as Nuru sought to emancipate and free himself and his community of binding religious ties. Today, the community is made up of a hundred families who follow the unique egalitarian principles set by Numra for a self-sustaining society.
Hopefully, his model will encourage Ethiopia – and the rest of Africa – to come up with other more unique and emancipated concepts that benefit their communities – and the women.

P1000272

Ethiopia or Utopia?

Getting Africa out of the development woods will require more than technology and telecommunications. After decades of lost trading opportunities, Africa needs a new trading lens. Personal and institutional initiatives to close the lacuna between ‘extant realities’ and development ideals is desperately needed.
New advanced technologies, progressive policies and new investment models to integrate economic and political systems would certainly help. Africa must open up its markets to African customers. We need to build new factories, generate energy solutions and open up trade corridors across the vast continent.
Intra-Africa tourism barely exists and intra-Africa trade is low, between 10 and 12% of total trade. Trade within Africa needs to surpass trade between Africa and the rest of the world. West Africa now accounts for 40% of the total African, Caribbean and Pacific trade with the European Union.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) region accounts for about 45% of Africa’s trade with the rest of the world. In East Africa, Kenya’s top 10 export markets are Uganda, Tanzania, Netherlands, the United States (US), Britain, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, UAE, South Sudan and Egypt. The five African countries here account for more than 30% of Kenya’s total exports. Kenya’s tea makers are yet to make a serious push into Nigeria, Africa’s largest market.
Ethiopia, Rwanda and Burundi produce excellent Arabica coffee. Most of it ends up in North America and Europe. You will search very hard to find East African produce in stores between Dakar and Douala. European coffee brands however abound.
Africa is largely disconnected from itself due to its poor infrastructure, restrictive immigration policies, corruption, failure to formalize informal trade, and unclear customs and immigration rules. Fresh facts emerging, however, suggest it is improving slightly. Data for 2013/14 shows that intra-African finance is a significant source of foreign investment in low and middle-income countries such as Burundi (79%), Namibia (42%), Rwanda (62%), South Sudan (64%) and Uganda (45%).
National and regional policy frameworks need to be strengthened and harmonized. This is a job for governments, companies and citizens alike.
Easing trade barriers would help. Building on a current system which allows citizens visa-free access to other West African countries for 90 days, the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is planning to launch a biometric identity card in 2016. It will be a digital identification card, travel document, and residence and work permit. This biometric passport is expected to resolve the regulatory bottlenecks that penalize local businesses at the expense of their international competitors.
Similar integration plans in other regional economic blocs also exist, aimed at reducing the expense and stress of traveling and trading across Africa.
Kinshasa and Brazzaville are only divided by the Congo River, yet a return ferry ticket cost the equivalent of $40, more than 40% of the average monthly wage for a Kinshasa resident. It costs less to move a container of maize from the flood plains of the Mississippi, US, to Dakar in Senegal, than it is to take the same harvest from Dakar to Tema in southern Ghana.
An ongoing diplomatic détente between Accra and Nairobi seems poised to attenuate these issues.
Puzzled by the poor levels of trade between Ghana and Kenya, Leah Nduati Lee, a Kenyan married to a Ghanaian, organized the very first Kenya Trade Expo in the Ghanaian capital last November. The three-day event smoothed trade relations between the two regional giants, building on the seven agreements signed in 2014 by President John Dramani Mahama and President Uhuru Kenyatta, to consolidate existing economic and trade ties, and deepen institutional cooperation in the energy, ICT, trade, tourism, transport, agriculture and education sectors.
According to Kenya’s Export Promotion Council, the country’s exports to Ghana were worth KSh479 million (around $4.7 million) in 2014, while imports from Ghana were worth KSh369 million ($3.6 million).
During the expo, Kenya’s envoy to West Africa, Ambassador Tom Amolo, said that consensus building between Africa governments to tackle integration issues is beginning to happen.
“Kenya is fully open for business,” says Amolo. “Our investment promotion frameworks continue to foment long lasting networks and commercial alliances between the business communities in East and West Africa… Deepening and broadening integration is essential for Africa’s inclusive development.”
The momentum between the gateway economies across Africa needs to be sustained.

TRADE WINDS  MusT Blow

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety nine percent perspiration.”: a saying by Thomas Edison that could be applied to Brent Kairuz.
At the age of 19, he stopped being a karate instructor to open his first food outlet, Shawarma King. That was the beginning of a journey that would eventually see the 36-year-old own 28 coffee shops in partnership with South African food giant Famous Brands.
Kairuz arrived 30 minutes early at our office. Before we started, he firmly told me his intentions for agreeing to the interview.
“I’m very honored and grateful for this interview but I just want to be clear on how you want to angle it. If you want to angle it on the fact that there’s entrepreneurship, building a business outfit and how to do it then I’m more than welcome to give you the interview,” says Kairuz.
&nbsp;
Growing up in the south of Johannesburg, Kairuz has always had a passion for entrepreneurship, venturing into two businesses while in Glenvista High School. In standard 9 (grade 11), Kairuz coached karate and by the time he turned 18, he had 180 students at four different schools, generating a good income at the time.
“With some of the money I made from being a karate instructor, I bought equipment for my mobile disco company. I was a DJ at weddings, 21sts and different gigs while still being a karate instructor,” he says.
As good as he was in karate, he realized the risks of injury and how it could hamper him as a breadwinner.
So Kairuz went to varsity, after a year he dropped out to open Shawarma King, in the south of Johannesburg.
“I approached one of the student’s fathers who had a successful business for advice on possible ventures I could go into. He ended up giving me a loan of R30,000 ($1,800) and I used it to open up Shawarma King in 1998,” says Kairuz.
With hunger for success, Kairuz grew his Shawarma King business and by the time he was 20, he had five shops.
Three shops were in university canteens at Midrand University, Milpark Business School and Damelin Braamfontein, in Johannesburg.
“I called the shops Shawarma King but I had a fully-fledged menu. I had steak rolls, shawarmas, chips, burgers, you name it. I had a wont to be Steers,” chuckles Kairuz.
The downside of running the shops in varsity was that it wasn’t a year-round business because of holidays and exams and Kairuz wanted more.
A telephone conversation with a man who ran hospital coffee shops would allow him this opportunity. The man told Kairuz that he was getting out of the business because it wasn’t paying and Kairuz said he wanted in.
“I put the phone down, did my research on all the sites that his particular company was in and phoned the relevant hospitals, told them I have a coffee shop business that I’d like to see them about,” says Kairuz.
Kairuz didn’t own a coffee shop. One of the hospitals listened and gave him a chance. By the time he was 22, Kairuz got his first break.
“My first coffee shop looked like a franchise, felt like a franchise, had menus that gave variety and quality products like a franchise but we were not a franchise business,” says Kairuz.
In 2006, Kairuz formed a partnership with Royal Sechaba Holdings to merge all the Royal Sechaba coffee shops into Kairuz Café, under Kairuz Holdings. With this partnership, Kairuz grew from three coffee shops, to owning 49% equity in 10 hospital coffee shops, by 2008.
At this point, Kairuz wanted to franchise off the Kairuz Café but Royal Sechaba Holdings wasn’t keen, so, he bought their 51% equity and franchised out their stores.
“I retained two of the coffee shops and franchised the balance,” he says.
Kairuz was still interested in growing his business and looking for options to do so. He got a call informing him about a brand that was going into liquidation. When he called to inquire, he heard that the brand was going to be auctioned off in a closed auction within the hour.
He got into his car and quickly rushed to the auction venue where he ended up bidding against industry giants Famous Brands.
“After tying twice in the bidding, I said to them, ‘Do we need to carry on driving the price up? Can we not do a joint venture together like you’ve done with other Famous Brands businesses?’ and they declined,” says Kairuz.
In the third bid, Famous Brands ended up beating him by R1,000 (around $60) but they were impressed with how he took initiative to negotiate during the bidding process. This paved way for a new partnership as he got talking with the group CEO, whom he knew prior the bidding, and in May 2011, he formed a partnership with Famous Brands.
Kairuz Holdings and Famous Brands launched Creative Coffees and they set up coffee shops in three different hospital groups. For Life Healthcare they set up House of Coffees, for Mediclinic they set up Coffee Couture and for Netcare they created NetCafé.
“We had 28 coffee shops in various hospitals across South Africa under Creative Coffee all in captive business,” says Kairuz.
In March this year, Kairuz moved on, selling his 39% equity in Creative Coffee to Famous Brands.
When I suggested that he probably made a fortune in the buyout, he was very modest in his reply.
“Everyone always perceives the buyout to be bigger than what it is. It was a fair buyout, but it was good enough for me to reposition myself, start again and move on,” says Kairuz.
At present, Kairuz is weighing out his options for future endeavours and is creating a Juicy Lucy Smoothie from his Juicy Lucy brand.
“I’m currently doing a lot of consulting work for the likes of Famous Brands and looking at other business ventures for the future,” he says.
Kairuz is living proof that dedication and hard work pay off because, at the end of the day, that’s virtually all he had.

Let’s Do A Deal Over Coffee

When Ben Ajofu was diagnosed with hypertension at the age of 35, doctors told him he would be on medication for the rest of his life. Ajofu proved them wrong; within three to six months of taking moringa, he realized his blood pressure had lowered.
“I didn’t really want to take medication at 35 for the rest of my life,” says Ajofu.
The improvement in Ajofu’s health led to him becoming one of the most enthusiastic advocates of the moringa plant in Ghana. He is the founder of Moringa King, a producer of juice and powder containing parts of the plant.
The moringa leaf is thought to have numerous health benefits. The plant contains high amounts of magnesium, potassium, zinc and vitamin E, which are important nutrients to combat hypertension, a condition of unusually high blood pressure.
Growing up, Ajofu thought he would become an engineer or a pilot. His parents always put education first. At the age of 11, Ajofu moved to Britain and completed his university degree there. Although he began working at the age of 17 as a bicycle mechanic, it was during his first year at university that his entrepreneurial journey began.
“The mobile phone network Orange had just launched in the UK so we approached an Orange dealer, grabbed a couple of phones and started selling them in university,” says Ajofu.
The success of this led to Ajofu setting up Business Mobiles after university, a company that sold mobile phones to businesses in Britain.
“I was approached by some investors in the UK who were interested in investing in Ghana because of my Ghanaian heritage and as a result I provided consultation on the Ghanaian terrain,” says Ajofu.
During one of his trips to Ghana, Ajofu discovered the moringa plant. After extensive research, he realized the health benefits the plant could provide.
“I realized moringa was very good for regulating blood pressure, combined with a healthy lifestyle. I did more research and established that most households in Ghana have a moringa tree but the main issue was how to access the nutrients from the plant,” he says.
He formulated a drink full of the plant’s nutrients.
“Moringa King came out of a need for myself to find a solution, so I didn’t have to be dependent on using medication for the rest of life and, after seeing the results, I knew others would benefit from the product too.”
The start-up phase of the business was arduous. Ajofu began by sourcing raw materials that were sustainable and readily available. Ghana is the largest exporter of pineapple in Africa and hence has an abundant supply.
“My wife and I would wake up early each morning to get pineapples and blend them into juice before adding the moringa. We did not have a car so we used taxis to deliver to clients,” says Ajofu.
Before they could sell the product, Ajofu had to overcome the difficulty in securing certification of his product by the Food and Drugs Authority in Ghana. After three years of trading, the company has a staff of 10 and an annual turnover of GHC300,000 ($79,000). It counts two of the world’s largest hotel brands, Movenpick and Kempinski, as clients as well as being stocked in all the major fitness and retail outlets in the country.
“The plan is to expand and get a farm whereby we can control access to raw materials for our production. We are also speaking to local growers and getting women involved in agriculture so we can buy from them and as a result have an impact in local communities,” says Ajofu.
There is a methodical process to get the finished product.
“We harvest only the best leaves, then we go through a washing process to get rid of any organisms in the leaves. After this the leaves are juiced. We then get pineapple from a farm, which we process, into pineapple juice and blend the moringa into the juice along with dandelion leaf and raw ginger. The final product is the Moringa King juice.”
Moringa King has ambitious plans and is looking to increase production so it can enter the markets in neighboring West African countries as well as be stocked in major international retail outlets. To do this the company needs investment, something Ajofu has found difficult to source. In addition to his own money, Ajofu has relied on friends and family to fund the Moringa King business. With bank interest rates being too high and government funds extremely difficult to access, private investment is the only way the company can grow. In the meantime, Ajofu is keen to grow the company organically and is optimistic about the future.
Although he started the business to make money, Ajofu is pleased that his products also improve the health of his customers.
“My juice is actually transforming lives in terms of making people healthier and better. That is a secondary benefit of product but it is fulfilling to know that my product is transforming lives,” says Ajofu.
Like the juice, the business looks to be healthy.

A Healthy Body And  Business

It is fitting that young entrepreneur Bheki Dube makes his money out of travelers. He has been on the move all his life. He spent years skateboarding and taking photographs in Johannesburg and Durban. It was on these rides that the backpacking idea was born two years ago.
Back then Dube, a Troyeville resident, in the east of Johannesburg, was a walking tour guide at the Maboneng Precinct, the trendy art and tourism hub of Johannesburg.
“During that period I worked really odd jobs like skate shops as a salesperson and as a cashier. Learning at a young age to cash-up, to manage stock, those are the qualities that I carry out today. I also worked at the Spaza Art Gallery and that exposed me to a lot of artists. I also worked at a call center for a month and I hated it, but I learned so much from it, I was calling people in homelands trying to sell cellphones. Those were skills and qualities that became significant,” he says.
In Maboneng, he met a German tourist who liked what he was doing and advised him to explore.
Soon after this encounter, Dube packed his camera and went backpacking for a week in Durban hostels. Fate led Dube to another German tourist who happened to be a judge and had been touring the world for 35 years. Dube said his acquaintance spoke passionately about Africa’s beauty and opportunities. In his dormitory, Dube met another traveler in the travel and export industry who had been there for over a year because she preferred backpacking to hotels.
Back in Johannesburg, Dube looked to build onto the walking tours. It was the brainchild of Dube and his partner Greg Solik, a businessman he met at Maboneng while they were trying to figure out the next big project. These tours became the foundation of their company, Curiocity Backpackers.
“It was a concept that encouraged people to discover Johannesburg because it was seen as a no go area, especially around our Jeppestown. So walking through the streets of Johannesburg and breaking away from the norms of tourist in buses and engaging with the space like the locals do,” Dube says.
On his return, Dube also met Jonathan Liebmann, the developer of the Maboneng Precinct. The two knew each other from Dube’s old job where he was a general worker at the independent cinema, The Bioscope. Dube sold tickets, set up the projector and swept floors. Liebmann had also been on Dube’s walking tours.
“I met him at the Bioscope while I was working there, Liebmann came in for a drink and one of the first things I said to him was ‘when I am your age, I wanna be greater than you’. He looked at me and laughed,” says Dube as he recalls their first meeting in 2012.
Dube sold his idea of backpacking to Liebmann. That was the birth of a business partnership and mentorship.
It didn’t take much convincing. Liebmann was a traveler himself and he immediately liked the idea of accommodation. So Curiocity Backpackers was formed and Liebmann helped to buy the property.
In early 2012, Dube found a derelict building owned by company called Pacific Press, in Jeppestown, Johannesburg. The premises had a political past, it used to be a place where pamphlets were printed for the Black Sash – a white liberal human rights organization.  It was also a hideout for political activists such as Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo and Tokyo Sexwale.
Today, Curiocity Backpackers has grown to accommodate over 100 people per day and there are plans to expand to more luxurious and private sections.
“We have a guest by the name of Dwight who is from the USA. He has now invested in property in Maboneng and he was here about a year ago, stayed with us, fell in love with the space, fell in love with the lifestyle, fell in love with the culture,” says Dube
Almost half of Curiocity’s customers are international visitors, mostly from Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Austria, and Sweden. It has also seen a rise in people from South America and Australia. But there are fewer domestic travelers – at just 25% they are mainly students and rugby fans heading for nearby Ellis Park Stadium.
The notion that Jeppestown is crime-ridden has negatively impacted their bookings, says Dube.
Still they come to meet people and sleep soundly in the heart of the city.

A Skateboard  To Success

This year Lonmin, the world’s third largest platinum producer, will try to save its African business.
After a disastrous couple of years, the future of Lonmin hung in the balance in November as the platinum mining giant needed a $407-million bailout to keep going. It was the third capital raising in six years.
Wounded by declining platinum prices, electricity shortages, slow demand, and strikes, the company’s financial circumstances deteriorated sharply. To make matters worse, the company frittered away money.
“In the boom times around 2004 and 2005, Lonmin went and bought a ground in the Northern Province around the Plat Reef, a property called Akanani. Akanani was bought for almost a billion dollars. Today, in our books, it’s worth zero. So that billion dollars went down the drain,” admits Lonmin CEO, Ben Magara.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4358" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2014-Catalogue_Jay-Caboz-192-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Magara says a further billion dollars was wasted when Lonmin embarked on a failed mechanization program. The rock was too hard and shafts too narrow.
“To try and reverse all those challenges has needed even more money,” says Magara.
On the morning of November 19, Lonmin went cap in hand to its shareholders for an emergency capital injection. Prior to the meeting, other shareholders sold out of Lonmin. The share price went down from $8 in December 2010, to just 16c in November just before the meeting.
In London, Lonmin offered shareholders a 94% discount as part of its rebuilding plan. The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) saved the day by increasing its stake in Lonmin by 23% from 7%.
Even though the bailout was successful, 6,000 job losses are expected by September. Paul Theron, the CEO of asset management company, Vestact, reckons Lonmin’s shareholders are growing tired of bailouts.
“It’s a bit like SAA (South African Airways) where they say ‘this is one last bailout please’, but unfortunately that is exactly what happened in the past. The management team has raised additional funding in order to increase equity and to pay down debt, but then proceeded to run business in a way that didn’t result in a sustainable profitable scenario,” says Theron.
“No one anticipated that we would see this level of oversupply in the industry and this level of self-demand and this level of poor prices. A lot of people assumed that once the supply side started to calm down, there would be an immediate response in terms of higher platinum prices.”
Lonmin is hoping upon hope it can save its 106-year-old African operations and more than 30,000 jobs.

Lonmin Tries A Lazarus

If you own a Twitter or Facebook account you would have seen the recent anger leveled against Walter Palmer for shooting Cecil, Zimbabwe’s most renowned male lion. You may have also heard the outcries of comedian Ricky Gervais and the general public last year about United States television host, Melissa Bachman, and football cheerleader, Kendall Jones, who both posted pictures of lions they hunted in South Africa. These hunts were labeled unethical, barbaric and cruel. But, as I waded through a plethora of social media posts, I noticed that the criticism never seemed to consider the ecological dangers of trophy hunting or, contrastingly, its use to generate revenue for wildlife management.
The African lion is 220 kilograms – with a muscled physique enabling them to hunt buffalo and giraffe – that possesses a roar that can be heard from five kilometers away. I can understand why people have a problem with the ethics of wealthy hunters killing lions in Africa, but there are deeper issues. With as few as 22,000 lions left in just seven population strongholds on the continent, many of Africa’s lions are in crisis. Furthermore, male lions group together, and depend on the size and protective power of their coalitions to protect their prides from neighboring males who will kill non-related offspring when they attempt to gain control of a pride. Hunting too many male lions destabilizes the defensive power of male coalitions and doesn’t allow adult males to be in an area long enough to protect their sons and daughters.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4351" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/MG_5206-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
In Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, where Cecil was killed, a team of Oxford University researchers, led by Andy Loveridge, found that between 1999 and 2004, 24 of the 62 radio-collared lions were shot by trophy hunters. Overhunting halved the ratio of males to females and new males killed unrelated cubs. Zoologists, Matt Becker and Elias Rosenblatt, found a similar trend in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park, where trophy hunting was the leading cause of lion deaths, resulting in fewer cubs, low teenage and adult male survival and lower life expectancies for females. Even the world’s most tenured lion biologist, Craig Packer, showed that Africa’s lion stronghold, Tanzania, was being subjected to overhunting in a lot of the hunting blocks across the country over the past decade.
Trophy hunting of large carnivores affects almost every large mammal, from black rhinoceros to elephant, and even common antelope like impala. The list is endless and so is the need for developing scientifically robust techniques to protect populations against the negative effects of hunting.
But, there are several places in Africa where animal populations are holding steady despite being hunted. The leopard population in the north of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province suffered from unscrupulous hunting, with 40% of the population dying between 2002 and 2004. However, with a series of legislative reforms, a cap in quotas and intensive population monitoring, the population recovered to near capacity. The lion hunting management scheme, pioneered by Colleen Begg, in Niassa National Park, Mozambique, is another place where large carnivores are hunted but are not declining. Niassa employs a reward system with its outfitters, encouraging them to hunt older animals – considered safe for the population because they have sired at least one litter of cubs to independence – then their quota increases for the next season. If the hunter chooses a young individual or a female then their quota will decrease. Even in Zimbabwe, the land of the mythical Cecil, lion hunting is now capped, and lion populations have been stable since the hunting reforms made by Loveridge and his team.
&nbsp;
Millions of people in Africa live inside or on the borders of protected wildlife areas and their associated management zones. Many have to protect their livelihoods and sometimes their lives against animals such as lions and elephants. Surprising to most, many of Africa’s parks are linked to trophy hunting and the revenue generated from it. Recent science suggests hunting contributes to local economies and livelihoods. A recent study by Peter Lindsey, a leading wildlife management policy expert, and his colleagues found that approximately $400,000 generated through trophy hunting in Mozambique is ploughed back into the management of Niassa National Park, which amounts to 20% of the parks funding. On a larger scale, the $11 million generated by the Zambia Wildlife Authority, the country’s wildlife management and conservation body, is made up of $5 million from trophy hunting.
In 2000, a study by Michael Humavindu and Jonathan Barnes found that trophy hunting constituted about 14% of Namibia’s annual tourism and $19.6 million in gross output. But what about money going back to local communities? Lindsey found that in Tanzania 60 to 65% of hunting income from wildlife management areas, where wildlife and people live together, goes back to local communities. In Zambia 50% of hunt license fees and 20% of concession fees go back to communities. They also found families in wildlife-rich game management areas get about 17% more income and have a 7.8% better chance of finding a job than those living outside. Similarly, Humavindu and Barnes found about 24% of income earned from Namibian hunting went back to the poorer sector of the population.
Some of these statistics are difficult to ignore, especially if one considers Africa’s population growth will surpass China and India in the next 35 years. Much of this population growth will take place inside or along the borders of some of Africa’s largest wildlife areas.
Two recent studies suggested if lion hunting was banned in several countries, as much as 59,538km2 of wild land could become unviable for hunting. What would happen to that land? Although some operators could opt to try game drives or birding safaris, there is nothing to say that the land won’t be used for agriculture or the lions will not get poached.
Replacing hunting with tourism and photographic safaris might be plausible in some areas, but will be dependent on wildlife sightings in hunting zones being as good as those in national parks and whether the animals are scared of vehicles and people or not. In Zimbabwe’s Matetsi concession, a large hunting zone bordering Hwange National Park, the densities of buffalo, giraffe, kudu and zebra were similar to those of the national park between 1995 and 2010. However, if one looks at Zambia, the majority of game management areas have far fewer numbers of wildlife compared to their neighboring national parks. This would make safaris difficult unless they were geared towards specific species, rare birds or landscape and culture.
The Zimanga Private Game Reserve in South Africa has an intriguing idea of creating an artificial wetland and state-of-the-art bird hide which would allow photographers an eye-level opportunity to photograph animals. If such initiatives were attempted in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, and community members were integrated into these ventures, they could become profitable. However, at this stage, there is no legal framework linking community benefits and photographic tourism in national parks. Is it not time to make it easier to pick up a camera than a rifle?

Can Hunting  Save Animals?

South African farmers have a tough choice, they either have to sell their cows or watch them die, as the country suffers the worst drought in 23 years.
In this dry world, more than 800,000 livestock are under threat from thirst and hunger.
Gerhard Schutte, the CEO of Red Meat Producers’ Organisation, says 30,000 commercial farmers, 250,000 emerging farmers and 1.2 million households owning livestock are feeling it.
“In the emerging sector [the farmers] have lost up to R1.35 billion ($96.9 million) while in the commercial sector its R3 billion ($215 million),” says Schutte.
“In the case of emerging farmers and households owning livestock, there are no means to buy in feed, so the scenario is bleak. Commercial farmers can still buy in feed but availability is a problem.”
In the KwaZulu-Natal province alone, along the east coast of South Africa, more than 40,000 cattle have died.
“A lot of livestock have been lost by farmers. In our farm at Brakspruit, in Utrecht, alone we have lost thousands of livestock. If this crisis continues, we are likely to lose more than 800,000,” says Mandla Buthelezi, Vice-President of the National African Farmers Union.
Molemi Modise, from South Africa’s North West province, has been a farmer for 25 years and says this is the worst drought ever.
“The last time we had decent rain was five years ago and you can imagine how the farm is looking like now. I spent every cent I had to sustain my livestock.”
“There is no grass left and I have already spent more than I should. I visited other farmers at Molatedi Dam and saw carcases everywhere. Some cattle collapsed lying alongside the dam. The situation has gone beyond worse. The unfortunate part is that rain is not going to help anything now. We are a few months before winter and no grass will mature between now and then.”
“If I don’t get help in the near future, I will lose my stock, which would be unfortunate and that could mean my entire farm workers will lose their jobs and their families will suffer. The situation is very bad. I am improvising to keep my head above water,” says Modise.
Like many farmers in the country, Modise appeals to the government to help with the drought.
“This situation calls for help from the government because if we don’t get any soon the country will be heading for a major disaster.”
According to climatologist Simon Gear, the drought is the result of the EL Nino, warm and dry weather conditions, which occur every two and a half years.
“It’s a regular cycle but this one is the warmest. It’s at its peak and would probably decline towards the end of the summer season,” says Gear.
What is clear is that breeding herds are likely to get smaller. Schutte says it could take three to four seasons to recover.

Livestock Doomed To Die

Edison Gbenga Ade believes agriculture will transform Africa. That faith, however, was not born overnight.
Born in Nigeria to a father who was a cocoa exporter, the information technology major from the prestigious Berkeley, in California, United States, was once told that he was too short to be a pilot. Undeterred, he knew he wanted to help society, no matter what career path he took. After graduation, Gbenga went on a journey of self-discovery, which took him to India.
“I wanted to know what to do with my life. I was interested at the time in solving problems and adding value to people’s lives,” says Gbenga.
The first service he started was a healthcare center in the heart of India that helped those who could not afford medical care. After six months, the business could not be financially sustained and closed down. However, the short experience sparked a desire for business, which Gbenga didn’t know existed.
Edison tried his hand at his own modeling management agency and also opened an internet café providing ISP services. Edison also dabbled in the training space, providing free ICT training to schools around Africa. Six years ago, Gbenga arrived in Ghana to attend a religious camp;  he now calls the country home. The first thing he did when he arrived in Ghana in 2009 was to organize a summit called the Kumasi Economic Summit. It attracted around 400 people.
“I think Kumasi will become one of the most sought after cities in the world in the next 15 years, don’t ask me how I know, I just do,” says Gbenga.
The Youth Alliance for Leadership and Development in Africa conference was set up by Harvard University graduates in 2004 to bring together young people passionate about Africa’s development.
“Agriculture is not the way to solve Africa’s problem, the best way to solve a problem in Africa is through the creative economy. I think that agriculture is slow-paced and hence very difficult to provide solutions to develop any economy,” Gbenga told his peers at the conference in Nigeria.
Six months after that speech, Gbenga started an agribusiness company in Ghana.
“I think, psychologically, I was against the idea of agriculture because my dad failed at it. He was a large exporter of cocoa, exporting millions of tons but did not make a lot of money from it due to the large overheads associated with the business,” says Gbenga.
His outlook changed when a chance agricultural opportunity came his way. There was a conference in Senegal that was looking to sponsor young people interested in agriculture. Edison decided to find some budding agriculture entrepreneurs who could benefit from this opportunity. After searching the country, the closest person he could find was a young man who had inherited a cocoa farm from his father but did not have a passport to travel to Senegal.
“I realized that food security in the next 10 years will be a problem, simply because young people were not interested in agriculture,” says Gbenga.
He decided to lead by example. He entered a business competition in Ghana and pitched an innovative idea, which finished in third place. The idea was simple – connecting investors to farmers and buyers to sellers. That idea has evolved over time.
“We realized that if you do not have professional farmers who understand their numbers and their books, investors would not trust their money in their hands. You also have to prove to investors that you are an expert in your field.”
Most of the local farmers could not meet these criteria. There needed to be a long-term plan to address these challenges for the business model to work. In the process of identifying their strategy, which would set them apart from other agribusinesses, Gbenga decided to focus on the niche market of organic farming. In 2013, Gbenga and his team organized the first organic food market in Ghana, which was covered by the Guardian newspaper in Britain. The article gave the company worldwide publicity.
“I remember getting emails from India and all over the world and I thought to myself ‘what do we do now?’ People think we know everything about the organic market in Africa and this was just our first try.”
After this initial success, he returned to his original model but refined the process.
“We now have a cluster of people who are interested in agrobusiness and we crowd fund and crowd source knowledge, investment and experience. The idea is that people have money but want to share the risks, so it’s easier for 50 people to invest GHC10,000 ($2,600) in a business than one person.”
Using the expertise and resources from various people, Gbenga attempted to reduce the risk of investing in agriculture. He expanded his business into another brand, Just Fresh. It is an organic fruit and vegetable delivery service for people who do not want to go to the market. Last year, they added a smoothie making delivery service to local businesses and residents in Accra.
The organization is now focusing on pig and poultry farming. They supply market access and give advice on the farming system for around 25% of the farmer’s sales. Unlike his father, Gbenga is determined to be successful in agriculture. He aims to generate $100 million in investment in agriculture within the next 10 years, helping 100 businesses make $1 million in revenue.
Lofty ambitions for an entrepreneur who now believes agriculture can solve Africa’s poverty.

The Born Again Farmer

It’s a multi-billion-dollar business that is struggling, with millions of lives on the line.
The business of food is a major industry in Africa, but the lack of investment is threatening it.
Grain SA expects that South Africa will, this year, need to import about 770,000 tons of maize, its staple.
Speaking at the 6th African Grain Trade Summit in Kigali, Rwanda, Michael Hailu, the Director of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), said Africa spends at least $25 billion on food imports, according to reports. Nigeria alone ate 5 million tons of rice in 2013, while importing 2 million tons of this. It spends over 350 billion naira ($1.78 billion) a year importing rice.
“To decrease imports, we need to solve the problems we have in the agricultural sector so that the continent can be a bigger agricultural investment option,” says Dennis Matangira, Senior Managing Partner at Databank Agrifund Manager, which invests in African agriculture.
It is risky, according to Matangira, because of poor rainfall, a lack of technology, support and seeds, expensive inputs and uncertainty around land tenure in many countries.
“African agriculture productivity is way behind the rest of the world. Investments in technology and modern farming methods are what made the difference in high productive regions. If Africa has to be food secure, adequate investments will need to be made. It’s not so much about the size of the land, but the productivity of the land under use,” he says.
African entrepreneurs want to solve this problem and make money from it.
Fertilizer companies, like Avison, are taking the bull by the horns. It has created a semi-organic fertilizer in which Databank has invested. According to Matangira, this fertilizer enhances soil fertility.
“Increasing yields from currently utilized land is the only solution for necessary, sustainable, production increases,” he says.
Databank invested in Avison in 2014 and has helped build three fertilizer plants.
“When you apply semi-organic fertiliser, you introduce macro- and micro-nutrient elements to the soil. That gives life back to the soil, making it productive. After years of using 100 percent chemical fertilisers, micro elements are depleted, the soil gets damaged by the fertiliser and yields are reduced. This fertiliser counters that,” he says.
Avison mixes organic material and chemical fertilizer which returns higher yields that Databank claims tripled revenue in 2015.
“If you use purely organic fertilizer, like bird manure or chicken manure, without blending with chemical fertilizer, the yields are not as great. There is less work with this because you only apply it once before planting and there is no need for boosters,” says Matangira.
“We use satellite technology to map the soil and use 13 years of historical data to determine the production capacity of the soil. In conjunction with this we do comprehensive soil classification and soil potential maps. Armed with this information we can pinpoint the specific needs within each hectare. Now we can fairly accurately estimate how much the farm can produce each year. If you know the soil can never produce more than 5 tonnes a hector you won’t fertilise for more and can save time and money.”
Below the empty road to Jasper van der Linden’s farm in Mookgophong, a two hour drive from Johannesburg, lie healthy crops as far as the eye can see. There is a vast field of wheat waving in the wind.
Van der Linden says his farm is an agricultural paradise. He claims his yields have increased by around 40% since he began using Avison’s fertilizer.
“The protein levels in the wheat have also increased. The top grade is 13 percent but now I have it at 15 percent. I grew up on a farm and I have been farming my whole life. I farmed two years in the US and in Sudan and many parts of Africa and I have never seen a combination like this that has such great outcomes,” he says.
“Too many yields are lost in the continent and we need such inventions to improve it. This puts a smile on my face because it means I will make more money than most farmers.”
The World Bank estimates that food production and processing in Africa could generate $1 trillion a year by 2030. All it needs is investment, innovation, rain and canny, hardworking farmers.

Satellites And Sweat Coax Wealth From The Soil

It has been a tough seven years in Barbourfields, a suburb of Bulawayo in Matabeleland North in Zimbabwe, where drought has driven people within an inch of their lives. Here children wake up to a spoonful of sugar and hot water.
This is life at the sharp end of the global food shortage and it is hungry and painful. Their only comfort is that it was even worse seven years ago.
“There was no food at all. Most food products were imported from Botswana and South Africa. We didn’t even have corn. When I saw a queue, I would just join, even though I didn’t know what it was for. It was the norm. There were queues everywhere,” says Xoli Dube.
In tough economic times, Zimbabweans queued for everything from food to fuel.
“It was like an everyday job for us. I remember a day I even fainted while queuing. I remember my neighbors used to eat pap with water and sugar. Many people couldn’t even afford to buy beans.”
Most of what the people had farmed was destroyed by the scorching sun in one of the worst droughts in history, in an economy that was already struggling.
Seven year later, many parts of Africa face the same fate. Drought cuts yields making farming a risky business.
According to Grain SA agricultural economist, Wandile Sihlobo, the drought in South Africa has led to a 27% decrease in a summer crops production basket, from 16.5 million tons in 2014 to 11.9 million tons in 2015. Crops that are staple food for most Africans, such as maize, decreased by 30%, from 14.3 million tons in 2014 to 9.9 million tons in 2015.
It means Africa spends at least $25 billion on food imports every year.
In South Africa, the 2015/16 total maize imports in November stood at 536,687 tons, which is 70% of the grain the country used. South Africa’s forecasted imports for this season is 770,000 tons. South Africa contributes a minimum of 630,000 tons annually to the Southern African region.
Hunger knows no friend but a provider. Monsanto, a sustainable agriculture company that delivers products to support farmers, wants to be that provider.
Located in Benoni, a mining town east of Johannesburg, in South Africa, Monsanto says it has created a product to mitigate the effects of drought – Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA); genetically modified (GM) drought-tolerant and insect pest-protected maize varieties. Maize is the staple for 300 million Africans.
“Drought is a very complex issue and there’s no single solution to address it,” says Mark Edge, Director of Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) Partnerships at Monsanto.
For nine years, WEMA has been testing and developing conventional and GM maize hybrids in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa. It aims to boost productivity by 20 to 30%, in a project worth $85 million.
“Our first introduction of conventional white maize hybrids, which is sold under the brand name DroughtTEGO, started in 2013 in Kenya and has shown promising harvest results… To date, we have more than 40 unique conventional hybrids approved for commercial release across the five countries,” says Edge.
On its website, Monsanto shares a story of Bertha Otor, a resourceful Kenyan farmer who was one of the first to plant DroughtTEGO.
A year later, Otor says she is continuing to see positive results and has increased the area with maize on her farm. She began farming in 1994.
“There was no rain, there was nothing to eat and I was having a baby. I decided to work with my hands and not wait for my husband to bring food for us. The weather always keeps changing. If you plant your maize and the rains are not there, [crops] will get spoiled and you lose everything,” she says.
Otor says her yields have increased and the maize is bigger since she began using the WEMA seeds.
However, the Director at the African Centre for Biodiversity, Mariam Mayet, says the safety of the drought tolerant gene has not yet been proven.
The safety of genetically modified organisms (GMO) has been an issue of controversy over the years. GM developers and some scientists claim there is a scientific consensus on GMO safety. Mayet says this is due to the lack of enough scientific evidence published to date, which prevents conclusive claims on safety, or of lack of safety, of GMOs.
“They are scale-neutral and can benefit smallholder farmers as much or more than commercial farmers. They are only one of many valuable technologies and tools in agriculture,” Edge replies.
Mayet argues there have been negative consequences for human health and environment in many communities due to use of chemicals in agriculture.
She says Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) maize and cotton have been supplied to smallholder farmers through government-sponsored interventions for free, or at subsidized rates, and farmers have not been able to experience the real costs of the seed.
“Bt maize is currently sold at about double the price of popular non-GM hybrids and five times that of the price of open pollinated varieties,” she says.
Some studies, however, argue that even though Bt maize is expensive, farmers will benefit over a period of years compared to hybrid conventional maize.
“But the resistance of the stem borer has been revealed to be highly variable between seasons, and thus during years and at sites that experience low insect pressure, the economic benefit of planting Bt maize can be negative. It will be hard for smallholder farmers who don’t have resources to counter the impact of these losses in years if the cost of Bt maize seed fails to pay off,” says Mayet.
She says GM crops also have health concerns.
“GM crops heavily use agro-chemicals such as glyphosate, most commonly known as Roundup. This year, the International Agency for Research into Cancer (IARC), which falls under the World Health Organisation (WHO), has classified glyphosate as a ‘probable human carcinogen’.”
Proponents of GMOs claim that the use of the GM seeds reduces the need for pesticides. However, according to Mayet, case studies show that the use of pesticides and herbicides has increased with use of GM seeds, especially in cases where there is pest and weed resistance.
“This has a huge effect on biodiversity with run-off chemicals from agricultural farms which contaminate water sources,” she says.
Her solution to end world hunger?
“Focus on agroecology by government should be key to ensure that smallholder farmers are at the centre of food production and promote food sovereignty,” she says.
Will improved yields and greater paydays come with GM technology or traditional seeds? The choice is yours.

The Dry End Of The Stick

One day, the world may go to war over rice. Food is the new oil.
About 795 million of the world’s people, 200 million of them children, are hungry. Most of them are in Africa and Asia. It will cost $267 million per year to end world hunger by 2030. That is $160 annually for each person, according to the United Nations.
The business of food could be the business of the future. Most of the world is putting bricks and concrete over its fields and importing food. This could mean good business for entrepreneurs who harness the fertile red soil of Africa.
FORBES AFRICA dedicates this issue to food and the investment case.
Over 60% of the world’s arable land is in Africa, 65% of Africans work in the fields and 35% of South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) comes from agriculture and food, according to Old Mutual Investment Group’s Director of Strategic Projects, Craig Chambers.
At least $25 billion in food imports are coming into Africa; and food is wasted on the continent.
According to Duncan Vink, Joint Managing Director of UFF Agri Asset Management, 39 million hectares of agricultural land in Africa is physically suitable for irrigation but only 7% of this farmable land is currently irrigated, and in sub-Saharan Africa that figure is only 3.7%.
“There is no doubt that the opportunity within African agriculture is really vast, we have a decent pipeline of anything between $200 and $400 million in opportunities in Africa,” says Chambers.
For years, farming was going out of fashion but entrepreneurs are rediscovering it. Necessity may prove the mother of food production ripe for investment.

Food The New Oil

Dr. Ben Sarkodie is a medical maverick in Ghana. His use of interventional radiology is unorthodox in the country. Interventional radiology is relatively new in the medical world, allowing doctors to treat and diagnose diseases without using invasive procedures.
Sarkodie came across this specialist field in a chance encounter during an exchange program in the United States (US). However, his passion to see the practice become a vital method of medical diagnosis was borne out of one tragic event.
Five years ago, a good friend of Sarkodie sought treatment from him for an ongoing heart condition. The patient had already undergone several surgeries to help solve the heart problem. She arrived at Sarkodie’s office for a routine check-up. It was far from routine.
“Before we could start our procedure, she had a sudden cardiac arrest and dropped to the floor,” says Sarkodie.
Responsible for more than 400,000 deaths a year, sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is a condition that causes the heart’s normal rhythm to become chaotic and stop pumping blood effectively, leading to the victim’s collapse with no detectable pulse. SCA can strike anyone at any time.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4321" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/A6A0996-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
“My biggest pain was that we couldn’t do that much to help save the life of this good friend,” says Sarkodie.
There are many challenges involved in practicing medicine in this part of the world. Basic lifesaving equipment needed for emergency situations like this are not available in many hospitals. A common response to SCA is the use of a defibrillator, which provides a lifesaving electric shock that restores the heart’s rhythm.
“We should be able to resuscitate someone who has just got a cardiac arrest, you want to be able to give the patients some lifesaving shocks, and if you do not even have a defibrillator, how do you do that?” asks Sarkodie.
He had to watch his friend die because he did not have the necessary equipment. It was difficult for Sarkodie to accept.
“For the next three days, I locked myself in my house. I didn’t want to be a doctor again, I didn’t think I could continue. The biggest shock was to see a fellow human being passing away and I was absolutely helpless. We did all we could but we were very limited with the resources we had,” he says.
Sarkodie knew he wanted to be a doctor from early childhood. His uncle was a doctor and Sarkodie would follow him to theater while he was in secondary school. It was all the inspiration the schoolboy needed.
Sarkodie attended medical school at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana. He started out enthusiastically but Sarkodie’s interest waned after three years.
“I am more like a maverick, I like to be challenged and I like to do new things, so after studying theory for three years, I completely lost interest,” says Sarkodie.
Things changed when Sarkodie was part of a medical exchange program at the Thomas Jefferson University in the US. This was his first exposure to interventional radiology.
“I said to myself this is so cool and I would love to do something like this,” says Sarkodie.
The exchange program was eye-opening. Sarkodie took part in radiological investigations. He used imaging techniques and some interventional procedures, like putting tubes into kidneys to alleviate blockages. The program lasted only two months but Sarkodie’s bond with interventional radiology would stay with him for life. Upon his return to Ghana, he realized how niche the subject was. The medical school in Ghana did not have a radiologist; they had to hire an expert from Britain to come down every four weeks to teach the subject.
After more than 10 years of studying, Sarkodie finally qualified as a senior consultant in radiology.
“Every doctor needs a radiologist because if we do not diagnose the condition, how do you manage it?” says Sarkodie.
He further honed his skills in interventional radiology by practicing in Singapore before his return to Ghana. Interventional radiology is used to treat conditions without traditional surgery, X-rays, and MRI scans.
“We are able to help in every discipline, including fibroids, which traditionally will be treated by a gynaecologist for example. In terms of surgery, instead of amputation, we are able to insert catheters and solve the problem locally,” says Sarkodie.
Following the death of his friend, the practice has gained even more prominence for Sarkodie.
“Cardiac intervention for patients like her now exists, which would have easily saved her life,” says Sarkodie.
The tragedy still haunts him to this day.
“I told myself ‘we can’t save everybody unfortunately. We would love to, but we can’t.’ I started looking at all the people I had helped to get back on their feet, people who keep sending me messages to say thank you, people who still call me today and send cards and gifts to say ‘thank you for what you did for me, and because of what you did, I am still here.’ That put me back on track.”
There are still many problems in the medical world, and if lives are going to be saved in the future, Sarkodie, with the help of interventional radiology, will lead the way.

A Tragedy That Led To Many Lives Saved

It’s 10AM and the scorching summer sun burns over the lush suburb of Rosebank in Johannesburg. On this morning, under the shade of a tree, in the quiet backyard of a law firm office, is Africa’s top boxing promoter Rodney Berman, the guiding spirit of Golden Gloves Promotions. In a light blue short-sleeve shirt and cut-off jeans, Berman meets an equally casual boxing trainer Colin Nathan. Almost two years ago, a suited Berman met Prince Albert II at the Palace of Monaco, a meeting a world away from this tree in Rosebank, but at the heart of his business fortunes. On that day, an African entrepreneur met a prince with an idea of making money out of putting Monte Carlo back on the boxing map.
“It will take time, but we will build Monaco as one of the boxing Meccas in Europe,” says Berman.
The two men, under the tree in Rosebank, finalized the undercard fight for the next Monte Carlo bout between Hekkie Budler, the South African WBA and IBO minimum weight champion, and Jesus Silvestre, a Mexican with a famous first name and a strong jab. Budler defended his titles against Xiong Zhao Zhong in Monte Carlo in October.
The drawcard for February 21 in Monte Carlo, with a $3-million purse, is undefeated Russian Gennady Golovkin against Martin Murray, an English middleweight.
“It will break all the previous records, notwithstanding the Marvin Hagler and Norberto Rufino Cabrera fight in 1979. Television audiences all around the world will have it. It’s the fruition of what we have been working towards for more than 30 years, in a nutshell. I was very fortunate that I was into Golovkin, who in my opinion is the most exciting fighter in the world today, and even Mayweather respectfully ducks him. I understand Mayweather wishes to beat the Rocky Marciano 49/0 record. He is entitled to it, he has earned his greatness,” says Berman.
It’s a fight that sprang from an African connection with Monte Carlo – Princess Charlene, the wife of Prince Albert II. The former Olympic swimmer was born in Zimbabwe and bred in Benoni, a suburb east of Johannesburg. Her father, Michael Kenneth Wittstock, a former salesman in Johannesburg, had a chance conversation about boxing in Monte Carlo with the South African Emperor’s Palace Casino chief executive. He recommended Golden Gloves to Wittstock and his royal in-laws.
“The reality is I am very proud of the fact that I am from South Africa, the backburner of boxing in the world. Without the financial muscle and without the talent my opposition has, we are still regarded as one of the leading promotion companies in the world, which is a big endorsement. One thing Monaco has done for me was to level the playing field to put on Murray and Golovkin, where on the South African basis, you talking R4 million ($350,000) just for one fighter. HBO television will pay $10 million for the fight; I can’t reasonably expect to get that amount of money. The casino will pay $5 million and the crowd will pay $2,000 for a ringside seat, so despite all that, for over 30 years we have managed to build this reputation,” says Berman.
Berman has come a long way since his first venture into the fight game. That was with Charlie Weir, known as the Silver Assassin because of a streak of white hair, and Bushy Bester. It all began amid blood and fury at Wembley Ice Rink in Johannesburg on August 29, 1977. Weir, who died of cancer at the age of 35, knocked out Bester in the first of six rounds to become Golden Gloves’ first middleweight champion. The company produced more than 50 world champions, most South Africans. Among them: Vuyani Bungu; Welcome Ncita; Brian Mitchell and Budler. It took Golden Gloves 12 years to breed a world champion. Ncita won the world super bantamweight title in Israel against Fabrice Benichou in 1990.
Berman’s 37-year career in boxing has rarely been dull. He staged one of the greatest upsets in the history of heavyweight boxing at Brakpan, a grimy mining town east of Johannesburg, in 2001. The swaggering British millionaire heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis lost to underdog Hasim Rahman in the fifth round. The fight, which Lewis dedicated to Muhammad Ali, was described as the greatest upset since Gene Tunney defeated Jack Dempsey in 1926.
Speaking of Ali, another Berman adventure was the great man’s daughter’s fight in 2006. The historic first female professional bout in the continent between Laila Ali and Gwendolyn O’Neil, of Guyana, was cancelled at the last minute when a Cape Town promoter couldn’t find the money. Ali’s fee alone was $522,000. She won Berman’s rematch at Emperor’s Palace, in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, on February 3, 2007. Apparently, it was Ali’s wish that his daughter fight in Africa, as he fought in Kinshasa in 1974, the famous Rumble in the Jungle with George Foremen.
Many people saw the historic fight of Laila as a breakthrough for female boxing in Africa. Berman disagrees.
“In my opinion women should not be boxing. To me it’s not a sport for women,” Berman says.
The 72-year-old father of two believes casinos are the future.
“Monte Carlo Casino is the most magnificent casino I’ve ever seen. Boxing revolves around casinos. The Mayweathers, the Pacquiaos, the Klitschkos the Mitchells and even the Baby Jakes, they could have never achieved what they had achieved without pay television and casinos. The national televisions around the world cannot afford to pay what these boxers command and what they are entitled to,” he says.
Peter Leopeng, a veteran boxing analyst in South Africa, agrees.
“In America, Madison Square Garden was the Mecca of boxing before MGM Grand in Las Vegas took over. Mayweather fought most of his fights in MGM; Las Vegas is known worldwide as the capital of gambling. Casinos pay promoters to host their fights; it’s not about boxing but the event. These events attract punters and gamblers to the casinos and that means more money to them,” says Leopeng.
Golden Gloves has more than 300 international fights under its belt, but Berman himself has never thrown a punch. He is a football fanatic and played at the University of Witwatersrand in the 1960s. Berman tells FORBES AFRICA he was a good goalkeeper and if were not for his lack of height he would have turned professional. During the political turbulence in the country in 1993, Berman staged a friendly between Orlando Pirates and Italian side AC Milan, at Ellis Park, in Johannesburg. Nelson Mandela, who was to become president the following year, attended the 3-2 win by the Italians along with 60,000 fans.
Berman was close to Mandela and has fond memories. During Laila Ali’s fight, Berman welcomed Mandela, ready to usher him to his ringside seat.
“As he was getting out of his car he shouted: ‘Rodney, Rodney, you may not remember me, its Mandela here, Nelson Mandela.’ That’s the kind of man he was. He just made everybody feel comfortable.”
Though the future appears bright for Golden Gloves, Berman says he’s concerned about the dimming talent of boxers and administration in his country. There’s no point of taking boxers to fight for international titles when they are not up to it, he laments.
“It’s not about the greatness of the promoter but it’s the greatness of the boxer. You can be the best promoter but if the level of boxers is lowering, you can’t do anything. Africa is not good at producing heavyweights. Nigeria is trying but it’s not good enough. It is a sad indictment,” says Berman.
Even so Berman – the ring entrepreneur – is ready to go another round. Monte Carlo or bust!

Tag: February 2015

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Internet And Tech: Dot The I’s And Cross The T’s

Ethiopia or Utopia?

TRADE WINDS MusT Blow

Let’s Do A Deal Over Coffee

A Healthy Body And Business

A Skateboard To Success