Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are key to the growth of African economies, but they are often plagued by challenges among them lack of adequate funding to startup or grow their businesses. Though governments like Rwanda’s are doing a lot to create a supportive and enabling environment, capital challenges still linger, especially for the micro SMEs operating in the informal sector, which find it hard to obtain loans from banks due to failure to meet the necessary requirements, for example collateral. Marlon Weir, a Jamaican-American diaspora who has relocated to Rwanda is developing a 1st of its’ kind, unique IT solution which he reckons can be a platform for local SMEs to qualify and host micro-investment opportunities, which will aid them in accessing funding from their counterparts in outside countries (the rest of Africa and the global African diaspora). Dubbed AFRIKANEKT.com, the application aims to be an all-in-one digital solution that provides multiple functions including global encrypted messaging, tourism, trading, Fintech, agriculture, social networking and entertainment, amongst others. In an interview with Doing Business, Weir explained that by using technology, Africans on the continent can start to access person-to-person or crowd funding from their diaspora-based counterparts, and this can be of benefit to those that face difficulty in accessing funds from financial institutions in facilitating the growth of their operations. “We feel that the best way nowadays is person to person. For instance, if someone based in the diaspora, say in the USA has $500 USD, it doesn’t go very far there. However, for someone in a rural area in Rwanda, that $500 USD can really assist a lot with certain projects, for example in agriculture,” he said. “Through a platform like AFRIKANEKT, Africans can submit their projects, explain the returns expected, and how much funding they need. The platform will do their due diligence on the project and expose it to diaspora-based counterparts who can provide the funding. We, as the managers of the platform will act as the (trusted) guarantors in this case. The micro-investor will pass the money through us, and we will take the necessary steps to ensure that the project is managed and executed correctly while guaranteeing a certain level of ROI (return on investment) for the investor,” he added. Weir believes that equitable partnerships between Africans on the continent and those in the diaspora can be harnessed to achieve a lot as far as improving livelihoods and enhancing the economies is concerned. “We have 1.3 billion people on the continent, but further to that, there is the diaspora. We have about 300 million people of African descent living outside of Africa. Considering things like spending power, education levels, global experience, etc - we can surely add something to each other. The future is African and going forward, our unity is going to be our strength, but to make that realized, we really need to leverage technology to facilitate it and make it happen faster,” he noted. Furthermore, Weir says that with the actualisation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), there are opportunities for the free movement of goods and people across the continent, and there should be technological mechanisms that aid the ordinary people to understand and benefit from this. “We don’t necessarily see a user friendly mechanism that helps the layperson to be able to be informed and trade via the AfCFTA, and we feel very strongly that a technology like AFRIKANEKT can fill that void,” he noted, explaining that people can use such an online platform to sell their goods, ranging from electronic devices like mobile phones to agricultural commodities, across the continent and globally. Stressing that tourism is a huge driver for cooperation, peace, tolerance and economic growth, Weir states that “creating an African crafted, up-to-date narrative of what our African countries have to offer today will be a game-changer going forward.” He gave the example of The Year of Return in Ghana in 2019, which attracted millions of tourists from the diaspora and over $1 billion to the Ghanaian economy. “Such bold and necessary promotional campaigns have to be enacted across the continent and on a regular basis. Awareness of these campaigns and opportunities on offer can be facilitated through AFRIKANEKT and strategic partnerships with the tourism, cultural and economic bodies on the continent.”
