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Between 2007 and 2017, a staggering USD 50 billion were invested in the African port sector. With growth of 7% a year in maritime traffic of all types and a four-fold increase in maritime trade, driven in particular by Asia, Africa is the focus of renewed interest.

Demand for electricity in sub-Saharan Africa is growing fast – driven primarily by economic growth and by policies for widening access to electricity – and yet production capacity has developed very little since the 1990s. Even today only 30% of the population has access to electricity – compared with 80% worldwide – and the economies of many African countries are severely disadvantaged by the quality and quantity of electricity at their disposal. The economies of Tanzania and Uganda, for example, lose an estimated 4% to 6% of GDP every year to power cuts.

Fad, smokescreen or real paradigm shift? CSR generates interest as well as controversy. Yet despite this, the last decade has seen it spread across every continent, transforming businesses. More and more private companies are taking their stakeholders’ interests into account and incorporating environmental, social and governance concerns into their operations. The CSR movement is a reality and the major international organisations have produced guidelines, norms and standards to provide the private sector with the relevant benchmarks and references.

The African banking sector – largely dominated by the European banks through to the late 1990s – is currently undergoing radical change. Alongside the sector’s traditional players, regional operations are emerging – and steadily evolving into genuinely pan-African groups. These banks, whether they are local, regional or continental, are deploying a more aggressive growth strategy, seeking to penetrate new market segments and reach target groups previously excluded from the banking system.