 Well, thanks very much. I just want to introduce our panel first. Next to me is Xavier Duvelle, who's the Vice Prime Minister of Mauritius, previously the Finance Minister. Anyone? Still the Finance Minister. I'm still the Finance Minister. I'm an African Finance Minister of the Year. Sorry. I think so. Touch wood. Hopefully. And next up we have Rich Lesser, who's the CEO of Boston Consulting. And Wale Tanubu, who's the CEO of Ohando. And then we have Tabitha Karanja, who's the CEO of Karachi Breweries. And over there on the far end is Anand Singh, who's a producer, Oscar nominee. And we're going to be talking about, can Africa tap into local innovation to launch globally recognized brands? So is there a point of doing this? Do we want to go global? And is it necessary? And I think just to take a step back, it's worth thinking that here in South Africa, we have one of the most globally recognizable brands. A very valuable brand, potentially. A brand so valuable that it inspires pride and love and respect. And it's a brand that is recognizable from Beijing to Buenos Aires to Bloemfontein. And it's a brand built on consistency, on principles. A brand that has fundamentally changed the landscape of this country and fundamentally changed the lives of not just every South African, but many people around the world. Now, what is that brand? Nelson Mandela. So, you know, he is many things to many people, but he is one of the most powerful, lucrative, recognizable brands in the world. And Anand Singh has just produced a movie on him, Long Walk to Freedom. And it's taken you 20 years, more than 20 years, to get a movie about potentially the most famous brand in the world onto the screens. Why did it take so long and what were the real challenges in telling a story about a man who simply is quite fantastic to many people? You know, I think certainly the idea that Mandela is a brand and an African and South African brand, it's probably the most significant brand in the world. You know, you think of Coca-Cola, you think of Mandela, and what Mandela represents and the values that he represents that the world has embraced. So, you know, it's been a fantastic honor to be granted those rights and to make a film of it, but with it comes responsibility. So the function of making Long Walk to Freedom into a film has had many challenges. It's an amazing life and you're trying to encompass it into a two-and-a-half-hour film, which in itself is a mammoth task. So, you know, that 20-year period was very much introspecting, going into the book, going into his life, talking to people close to him and trying to tell his story in a true, honest way so that people identify his weaknesses and his strengths and become that brand, how he stayed to his values. So, you know, I think when I was granted the rights, I thought, well, maybe in five years I'll make the film, but when I think back to his journey and sitting in prison in Robin Island for 27 years and, you know, I feel that the responsibility that comes with trying to make that film and do it as an African product, is that there are 1000 people working on the film through the period. There are probably 20 foreign people on it. So, you know, we needed to create something that is inherently African, that we as Africans can own, but at the same time be able to take it to the world and stake our claim, which comes back to the first point you made about global and, you know, we want to try and be global, but coming out of Africa, emanating from here. And that's the key, because when I looked at the sort of theme of this, I thought, well, is global necessary? Isn't it good just to be regional or even really good in your own backyard? And I think it's a question I know that outside looking in, Rich Lesser has got an opinion on. I mean, what is your assessment of innovation, particularly African innovation or products or brands, and the need to make them world recognizable? So I think I would start by saying there's just enormous opportunity here in Africa to build over years and decades to come, that we look at consumer spending that's going to go from a little over $600 billion to over $1 trillion, over a relatively short period of time, and that there's an enormous amount of untapped opportunity and aspirations among consumers and businesses here in Africa. And so we would say that the first priority is about building strong, robust businesses here in Africa, that historically, for too long, Africa was viewed almost with a trading post mindset that you take resources out and you send finished products back in. And what we really want to achieve is Africa as an ecosystem, Africa where it's not just about the resources, it's about investing to build manufacturing infrastructure, strong brands, high quality educated workforce, and to really create robust businesses, and that that will take time and effort. And when you look at China or other places, you see that it started by building strong businesses there and then over time taking them to the rest of the world. And I think the key to that is Africans themselves. They've got to be able to say, listen, this brand is African and it's not substandard or, you know, I'd rather buy an international whatever because I think it's better quality or I trust it more, I know it more. I know from a beer point of view, you've set up your own brewery and you're selling Kenyan beer to the area around Nairobi. But you know, you've got to trust the Kenyan consumer to say, listen, I would rather buy homemade, you know, local Kenyan beer than, you know, Budweiser because I think it's better. How do you ensure the consumer, the African consumer, supports the idea of an African brand? Okay, yes. When we talk of getting into the manufacturing and starting brands that will go to Africa and the global market, we mean any time we are introducing a brand, we must make sure that it means the international standard because even if you don't, the other brands that will be coming in to your local market with Kenya, if it is Africa that are international and they will come to compete with you. So every time you're making a brand, we must make sure that you produce a brand that even is better than what you expect that will be coming in from other parts of the world. And that's what we did with our beer. We made sure that our beer is naturally brewed better than what was there after breaking that 80-year monopoly that was already there. Making it better, but it just needs to be good. Does it just need to be consistent? Wale Tanubu, what's your experience in terms of creating your own empire in West Africa when it comes to oil and gas? It's been a tough road, hasn't it? It was tough, but I think one of the first things we decided earlier in building the business was that we wanted to think local but act global. We wanted to create a business which had global standards in all we did, down to something as simple as our business cards and the directions of the letters we wrote or the service offering we gave to people. And it was a mentality which we drove right through the company. Even down to our environment, I mean, I'll crack a little joke. Somebody said to me that whenever they're stuck in traffic and they're looking for a place to go to the toilet, they go to an Oando station or an Oando location. In Africa, you don't really find a lot of public toilets around there because he knows it's going to be clean. And that was a mentality we drove right through the company. We've been able to take that brand and utilise it in driving the business in terms of our quality, our safety, our operations and duplicate that in every business which we've gone across. And I think that what I actually look forward to seeing is the continent brand itself as a place for investment, a place for good returns, a place for good corporate practice such that we can at least get that soft barrier broken and we can actually start to trade within ourselves as one trading group, build local brands and then face the international community because we do need to be good at what we do locally first before we can drive those brands externally. Absolutely. I want to talk about this a little bit later but before we get there, Mauritius in a way has become the poster child of a place to ease the ease of doing business. It's a regional economic hub when it comes to South African companies trying to set up businesses. You in a way have very, very blatantly rebranded yourself away from being just a high-end tourist destination. How did you do it and what was the real key in terms of trying to change the narrative? Yes, I think a country's brand is in fact what it lives, what is the reality. It's not just hiring a PR company and saying this and we've got a strategy. As they say, it's not what people say about you. It's not what you say about yourself, it's what people say about you. So we've actually diversified the economy considerably and over the years we've actually been consistent in what we do, consistent in achieving political stability, consistent in the rule of law, in a low crime rate, consistent in educating our people, consistent as you mentioned in easing the cost of doing business in Mauritius. And now with diversification away from sugar which was our main crop at independence now into tourism, textiles and now into high-end like education, medical services, financial services, BPO, etc. We see that Mauritius is expanding and of course the truth is always coming out and people realise that Mauritius is making an effort and I was very pleased to see in fact recently that in the country brand index published by Future Brands, Mauritius gained two places and is now in the top 20 of the brands in the world, exactly. First in Africa and ahead of many, many large countries. In many ways one of your benefits is that you're small, you're an island, you know, Nigeria is large and unwieldy, you know, how more difficult is it to be able, you know, you can be small, you can start off small but it's about scale in many ways, you know, you can brand yourself but it's harder the bigger and more unwieldy it gets. I mean, give me some sense in terms of making something bigger brings its own sense of problems and are there any lessons any of you can offer our audience and how you manage that in terms of upscaling? I'm just leading on from the point you mentioned. I think branding is not really about hiring a consultant to say this is what you should be. Your brand really is what you are, right? Now, so if you made the point about Nigeria being large and unwieldy, yes it is but what is interesting about Nigeria is that you have centres of excellence in everything. So if it's the telecoms market, for example, the 100 million lines the first class companies have developed and interestingly enough, African brands, you know, MTN is African, GLU is an African brand, all offering world-class services. AirTel before was V-Mobile, I was an African brand with a Zimbabwean technical partner and all the services were the international quality and those centres of excellence have been built up in different areas. For example, we've gone from 2 million tonnes of cement production to 20 million tonnes by indigenous entrepreneurs offering world-class services with world-class standards, first-class plants built with the latest technology. So effectively what you see is a very large, to a certain extent, unwieldy country with centres of excellence which are gradually being duplicated and converging and aligning a nation in a new direction and I think that's what is clear and that's effectively what Nigeria is increasingly beginning to stand for today. We've talked a lot over the years and in many ways one of your big bugbears in terms of sort of kick-starting African innovation or small African brands to make them bigger or better is the issue of capital. You're a little bit more hopeful, you're a little bit more excited about the amount of money coming in to actually allow this to happen. I don't know if you want to say anything, Rich, about, perhaps this outside looking in perception, is it just about people thinking, you know, I'm hearing better stories about Africa, do you think it's based on real appetite? So I'd just like to start just to build on one point that you had just said which is there's this tendency to decouple the brand from the offering and they're inextricably linked and the offering becomes the brand. When the offering is built on high service and product quality when it's built on talent and people, then that can be the starting point for defining the brand and I think what we're seeing now is innovation and companies and more of a spirit of entrepreneurialism that's starting to emerge across Africa that in part is because of the progress on the governance front which is not all the way there, but boy there's been enormous progress over years to create more rule of law, more stability and more opportunity and now you see businesses starting to form and so we look at a company like M-Pesa started by SafariCom which offers mobile banking in Kenya and now starting to take it elsewhere. I mean it's creative, it's entrepreneurial, it's a real service advantage and then that defines the brand and there is capital, there's frankly more capital in the world than there are investment opportunities and so the challenge is to create an environment where investors who see the growth potential, who see the potential to be a part of a growing vibrant economy feel comfortable with the risk end of the equation to want to invest around businesses. I think you know certainly from a standpoint of our industry what we've tried to do and I think it's true to every industry is over the last 20 years tried to do quality work even if it's at a ministerial budget by global standards you're establishing the quality, the capability of what you can do in this country or this continent and then as you grow so whether it was Sarah Fina or yesterday these little movies that we made that got attention but you know it never went to the half a billion dollar box office level you just keep at it and you keep doing good quality product you build a reputation and with that reputation now we have a film which is Mandala which is telling a story which hopefully hits into all of the boxes that you have to tick to go and compete with Iron Man 3 because they're spending 250 million dollars making the film but you know what intrinsically people want to hear stories and be moved by it and that's what we as Africans have great stories so how we tell that and how we put it out there and how we compete is also reputational and I think that is something that exists with every business you know irrespective of how it starts when it starts you have to just build on the blocks when we talk about this potential and the possibilities and all of that isn't there a sense of urgency though we can all agree everyone here can agree there's potential a billion people, new consumers but isn't there a risk that this is potentially going to all not fulfill its potential because a billion people perhaps are not as educated as they should be that there is a tendency to try and downplay the risk now perhaps because it's not fashionable do you sort of how do you balance that? If I can intervene here I think what's happening in Africa is that we're seeing a number of role models taking the lead and that's very important because once the role models succeed then the rest of Africa, the rest of the populations in Africa will require other governments to do the same so I think we're in fact going to see a snowballing effect the reforms bringing prosperity in some countries and other countries being forced to follow but there is a sense of urgency isn't there I know the IMF has just said you know if South Africa doesn't deal with growth rates and inequality there's risk of instability and that plays into the brand it affects a country like South Africa and the last year violence strikes severely affect the image of a country no matter how hard they try or doing well I think building a brand and economic development happens a block at a time you can't rush it it has to happen it has to be linked with education it has to be linked with training it has to be linked with the development of infrastructure it has to be linked with reforms in doing business low corruption etc but I really believe that growth in Africa is here to stay I think that's the global thinking nowadays but obviously countries need to get together to make it happen we sometimes rely on trade with outside in the rest of the world whereas in Mauritius we believe that there's a huge potential in inter-African trade and we're not really tapping it we have infrastructure issues but we're also cost of doing business issues and these do not cost a lot of money but they require a lot of effort and in Mauritius we've joined a group of five countries to try and accelerate the reform because we think that reforms are not going as fast as they should do Just to bring in Tabitha from your point of view East Africa is being quite progressive in trying to create some sort of economic zone how important is that for you as you look forward in terms of expanding your beer company but also it's difficult isn't it just trying to distribute in Kenya as its own set of problems never mind trying to cross the border for me I believe that we can do it we as Africans we can do it and we need to believe in ourselves that we can do it we need to know that we have enough for the African continent whatever we will do whatever we will put forward but we need to the support from above the law let's say our leadership the governance must be set right that anytime anybody who wants to take a risk and invest in the whole country and build up brands that can that we meet in the international standard that has the support of the local government and the support as an African brand even as we are going through a lot of difficulties and all that even to distribute in our country in the East Africa we may say we just need to understand that the market is there and we will get that enabling environment created by our government that we will be able to take the risk and put up capital so that we can start these brands that we meet in the international standard and with my small starting I've seen even starting up a beer breaking that monopoly that has been there for the last 80 years I can say the support I've gotten I'm ready to move and even do the because you can see the banks are ready do the financing and all that we just need to believe in ourselves then the world will open up for us and we'll be ready to move I mean how important is that a sense of self-confidence I mean is it an intangible ingredient to all of this is it as simple as that? I think it's certainly absolutely necessary to have self-confidence but I think self-confidence comes from the realisation that your product or service must really be of a global standard consistent good quality and then the brand starts to speak for itself and then the next thing you start to deal with is penetration regional markets like you said how have you managed to deal with that because the issue of breaking down barriers whether they're physical in terms of crossing borders or whether they're on paper in terms of regulation and that I mean that over and over again seems to be the real impediment to all of this really Well I think it's important to note that we need to stop looking at breaking barriers down as something which our governments ought to do for us I mean I figured it out in building a business very quickly that half the time it hasn't been thought of by them and you do need to spend time in educating them as to the reason why things need to be done so if we wanted to break a government monopoly for example because we could offer a service we would spend time educating the government taking time through we oftentimes have to draft the MOUs ourselves explain what we're doing and understand that look if we can cross the border here and shift those goods here for example we could make an extra amount of revenue for the state this is what the state gets and this is what we create and this is the number of jobs we do and oftentimes we succeed in doing it so all of a sudden regional trade now is a priority we've had projects like the West African Gas Pipeline done in the oil sector where gas is taking from Nigerian to other countries for example we've been able to expand our business service offering across the border and as opposed to a situation where the continent used to wait for foreign investors to come into our continent to do it now it's been done by a lot of indigenous players who've succeeded in delivering quality goods and services in their own local environment and now confident enough to take those services next door I think it's also managing failure managing risk because as in any business you have to do things be taking risks and how you do that vis-a-vis whether it's beer or movies or a country you've got to do things try to be innovative in one way but also manage it in a way that if it doesn't work that you can reconstruct and keep going so I think starting with your question about why the movie took 20 years because it was very much that it's one piece falls in three pieces fall out three pieces fall in one piece falls out and how you manage all of this and likewise if a big brewery company in Kenya has monopolized the country's beer logistics of getting delivery and how do you get that how do you do it it's all the same thing I do think we're in a transition period where there was a period of time where it was about just rebuilding underlying confidence and belief in Africa and its potential and I think we're now in a transition to a real focus on how do we unlock the potential particularly the human potential that exists here and I would point to four elements one is around infrastructure connecting the continent addressing some of the huge issues that exist in power, water, transportation information technology a second huge one is around education getting to really have the billion member workforce that's coming along feeling able to contribute we have to continue to invest in education and that will mean both traditional ways of education but leveraging new technologies as well to be able to reach more people to give them access to the world the third is around health and having de-risking for individuals and having a stronger health foundation and then the fourth frankly is around empowering women I mean it's half the population but if you look at literacy rates education, other elements there's a huge opportunity an enormous opportunity by investing to help women achieve their potential and be able to contribute at the same level and all sorts of research that says that it actually disproportionately contributes to both stability and economic growth getting those four elements is really the next step in unlocking the potential to have businesses feel confident to want to invest here and have entrepreneurs and others want to grow and create we know that in a way I mean I think every African would agree with you and governments know that the question is why aren't they doing something about it quick enough or are you doing something quick enough and do you feel like governments are on the right track and more importantly it's so crucial there's a sense of urgency that those very basic things have to be done in the next 20, 30 years because this potential is never going to flip over into reality unless the talking stops and governments actually get their hands dirty is it governments responsibility? Absolutely, I think governments have a lot to do in fact to encourage their industries to obtain good brands, to brand themselves because a country's brand invariably reflects on an industry operating within a country's borders Just to interrupt, but it's also about isn't it the Mauritian health department also has to create its own brand is that what you're saying I mean at every level government needs to perhaps rebrand itself Let's take our financial services and why for instance the Mauritian commercial bank is successful around the region because I think in Mauritians we have created a well-regulated financial services industry which is based on law which has a good reputation itself therefore banks operating from Mauritians can enjoy that reputation and the same perhaps for our tourism industry where the environment of the country is conducive to not only the development of a good hotel industry but supports the fact that when you market yourself as a high quality hotel that is supported by the brand of the nation itself So I think governments have got to do a lot they can do a lot to support its export industries generally I think the question is are governments capable of doing it and at the same time is there a responsibility on the private sector I know Wale we've talked about it with leaders before you know do you have to do what Tabatha did and literally sort of keep on poking your finger in the eye of the monopoly is it the responsibility of the private sector to really be tough and to break down these walls and help government in the way you say you literally got to take them kicking and screaming holding their hand I mean how is there a moral responsibility to do that well apart from it's obviously financial apart from moral responsibility it's just good business in the sense that we've come from a lot of the continent 30 years ago was involved in civil strife there was military rule there's been a lot of democracy I mean most of like I think 80-90% of the continent is now democratised good governance is kicked in because as you had democracy you had people recognising the needs to deliver to the promise and there's been a lot of liberalisation of the economy so all of a sudden having a government position doesn't guarantee you access to resources like it used to because population explosion has occurred and the government simply cannot cope so a lot of the liberalisation has actually been driven by a government's legislation that it needs to relax the restrictions on trade but be also the private sector realising that it needs to capture the moment and expand its own service offering improve its quality so we've had financial services groups springing across Africa supposing small scale industries medium scale industries as well as large scale industries and we've seen an evolution of trade particularly indigenously grown businesses which operate at global standards and are able to employ hundreds and thousands of people and create a better quality life for African citizens I think that it's a collaboration certainly from our industry we've learnt that ten years ago it was a miniscule industry in South Africa and we had meetings with government talked about incentives that were available worldwide the department of trade industries then introduced an incentive programme the film industry has exponentially grown in the last ten years from maybe 100 million rand a year industry to almost 8 billion rand a year industry and I think now Mauritius has introduced their incentive programme these things take time to grow but it was a collaboration between industry and government and government has recognised that the biggest benefits that they have generated in programmes that they've created in South Africa the film industry is one of the most tangible so you know which is really quite something when you think back in a short period of ten years that it's grown so well so I think it is definitely on the responsibility is on the private sector to work with government in trying to get to a place that we can build for the country and the continent the issue I know but while I discussed it pockets of excellence within Nigeria I mean when you look ten, twenty years ahead in terms of the African continent the world's workshop or the potential to be the world's workshop is it again that sort of model of there going to be pockets of excellence and there is going to be this sort of perhaps disparity or this inequality of excellence or any of you this is sort of a general question I don't think so it's a multi-play and you start moving in one direction I mean you're in the movie industry let's take the Nigerian movie industry initially it was young people with a home camera shooting videos with a lot of noise in the background and changing scenes behind them the quality was very, very poor gradually the quality has improved substantially the number of films being generated has improved and now we see those same movies across Africa because the sound quality is good picture quality they're shooting on better quality locations they even approach corporates like us to say we'll shoot a scene in your petrol station and we want X amount of we want you to pay X amount because it's advertising for you these are the statistics showing that this movie will be shown in Kenya in Ghana in Uganda, in Tanzania and I've traveled and turned the TV on in different parts of Africa and seen Nigerian movies on there and even a local industry has come with them being able to create subtitles albeit by pirates they now put French subtitles on Nigerian movies and they're selling it in Frankfurt, West Africa so it's really developed and the standards and now we have our own version of the Oscars we have our own stars and we're doing so well financially who've actually become African brands and with Mnet being there to distribute these movies all of a sudden African movies which were something which was shot in the corner 10-15 years ago are things that are of world class recognition today You touched on the issue of pirates and I think for you early on in your chatting that was one of the barriers you felt that in terms of getting your movies distributed in Africa the issue of corruption, piracy this even parallel and formal industry can dilute the brand? Well look just adding on to the point of Nigerian cinema I think it's a matter of time that there'll be a great film coming out whether it's commercial whether it's artistically but it's one enough, doesn't it need to be a whole lot every year? Exactly, because you're building on that starting in a sort of back room making these soaps and then learning your craft and developing and continuing and it will happen you've seen it in other countries in the world you've seen it in India and then Slumdog Millionaire comes along and does enormous box office a little film with the heart wrenching story so it's going to happen it's just a matter of time but I think the barriers like piracy is a big problem when I did Sarah Fina several years ago I mean I was shocked when I arrived in places in Africa to screen the film and it's already on then video and we get no revenue on it so I think if you make films and you look at regulation around the world and copyright protection it's basically stealing people don't think to go into a store and steal a carton of milk but they'll be happy to buy a pirate video off the guy on the street which is essentially the same thing the creative community that put that together they're being robbed but we need to develop from a governmental level that all of these things are done in a proper way it'll develop the cinema industry again which is slowly happening but there needs to be more action I mean even in China with piracy that's something that's being dealt with now because it's an enormous revenue stream both for government of the country because of the taxes because they've got each movie ticket sold you get a piece of the action the government does so it's something that we have to get our hands around talk to government and we're doing that certainly from South Africa and I think on the products that are created in Nigeria and they come here at least those are being sold legitimately we distribute some of the Nigerian films on DVD and it's amazing how well they've grown over the last four or five years but this issue of piracy and corruption in the greater scheme of things for someone like you starting a business trying to deal with the big monopolies and work within the Kenyan environment I mean did you have did you have trouble trying to make your way through any issues around corruption and how important and how much of a barrier has that been to you as I said from the beginning that belief you know the lack of that belief is what made us somebody like us now going through those problems because you're saying you want to make a beer you've been having a beer for the last eight years so who are you to tell us that you can make a beer because you're African but the minute now we have that belief we won't have good people going through those problems but it is true we went through a lot of barriers and that's what keeps on me every day believing that we Africans we can do it and we have that will and all what we need is that we can do the business that will enable us through the business and every time in every part of the continent we are talking of job creation every country is suffering from job creation but the problem is you wonder why is it that everybody is not understanding that all these can come through creating businesses that will create those jobs so many we need to encourage more Africans so that they can make more industries they can risk in their own continent and after they create those employment we will start seeing even the poverty level going down so going through these difficulties and all that I believe is because even us maybe our leaders and ourselves we don't believe that we can do even better in the world how key is the issue of transparency in terms of you as a country presenting your brand to the world I think it's been very key hasn't it absolutely I think the question of honesty transparency, good governance is essential to a country's reputation and to citizens as well we all need to be proud of our country and that obviously the more that we apply the rule of law and transparency and etc the better we feel and the better the more we are able to attract foreign direct investment we have seen in Mauritius that adopting a rules based approach to licensing of investments for instance those bring certainty and those attract investment to our country particularly outside looking in particularly American companies have often said to me there is still this fear this sense that they are going to pay a bribe and they can't obviously Foreign Corrupt Practices Act puts a whole another level on that but that perception and perhaps the reality that this is a corrupt continent has in a way limited and broken down the African brand as a whole never mind individual companies or individual countries look the main challenge and the main opportunity is to continue to create an investment orientation and some of that is companies that want to invest in feeling that their stability and rule of law that makes them confident to want to invest to develop not just sales operations but develop whole businesses here and put the capital in and invest the talent that's required to do that and create an investment orientation inside the country where entrepreneurs and people with ideas and passion feel like that they can take a chance and they can do that and there will be enough of a level playing field that if their ideas are powerful that they can make it work and then lastly investing and that's where you keep coming back to health and education and infrastructure that really enable people to grow themselves personally and be a part of the global workforce because the competitiveness of the global workforce you're coming early about you have to operate to a global standard it's completely real and so we need to develop the talent here that can compete not just with people in the neighborhood or in the same country but around the world in order for it to be a workplace for the world and that's the opportunity I mean I think a lot of the things that we've been talking about a lot of it is touchy-feely in a way it's about confidence it's about changing narratives it's about a sense of telling your own story I mean we all know that but do you think from again from an outside looking in perspective I mean has that worked how important is that that perhaps Africa's story has changed in the last few years I mean is that as important as trade barriers or visas being dropped? Perception always lags reality a bit but the reality and the way international companies perceive Africa today is just so much different than five years ago or ten years ago I go around the world I talk to clients you talk to them about their priorities and many of them now consider Africa one of the core areas of growth and some of that frankly is the challenges and the rest of the world growth isn't so easy to find in other places but some of it is I think people really feel like Africa if it hasn't completely turned a corner is really in the process of doing that and there are so many people thrive off of stories and that's true for individual entrepreneurs but it's true for bigger businesses as well and when they watch leading companies come in and build businesses and able to operate here and able to make it work then they see the potential and they want to do that as well so I do think the narrative matters but the narrative has really changed a lot you know this was the decade ago was the hopeless continent and the economist that's not the way anybody thinks about Africa right now which doesn't mean that there are issues to work through there are plenty it's a big change well I think it's certainly indicative of the summit this is the largest attendance in 20 years of the forum summit in Africa when you look at the list of people not only African people but from the United States from Asia from Europe and its CEOs you know so it's very interesting to see that shift happening so obviously as Rich indicates the you know the potential and the other markets and now you know whatever the challenges are if Africa is being has been identified as a place to be in, investigate get into business so even if it's a one to two year period, one to five year period whatever it is let's go see for ourselves which is the most important thing I think and this is only occurring because there are good case studies to talk about every time there's a success it resonates across the continent it gets copied in different countries and then people support it I mean we've seen us I mean in the developed world the way I see it this is only going to be driven by innovation because they've got everything everybody has a house, everybody has a car there's public transport so you've got to be Apple and creates version 5 version 6, version 7 every week to get an increased market in our markets you're satisfying demand that is pent up and there's never ever been service and I think the only barrier is this the right enabling environment to invest in and every time we get it right it means even more business coming I mean a classic example was the mobile phone explosion in Nigeria we had 400,000 phones before government would not be starved of capital you had to wait five years for a line and you were in a waiting queue even if you paid $5,000 then you would wait three years to get a line and then the government had the will political will to say we want to hold a transparent auction they held a transparent auction which was done on the internet everybody paid $20,000,000 to qualify and there were about 20 people who started the I was involved in one consortium we were called the Iglets because Nigeria national team is called the Iglets and we were at seven or eight people under the age of 35 who formed our consortium we reached out and we were able to bid because it was transparent was done on the internet we won our license eventually today we have close to 100,000,000 mobile phones in the country $25 billion would have investment and it's an incredible success story in which foreign companies who didn't look at Africa as a growth market avoided but local brands were created in the process and now I see companies like Vodafone selling their mature markets and saying we want to go to the emerging markets, we want to go to Africa we want to go to Asia because that's the only way we see growth because it's completely saturated in the developed world so I think with increased transparency we will get the right brand created, we will get the right message across and no wonder that they are coming here so the innovation that is there, the entrepreneurship is there it's just and the need is fueling it in a way but the trick is how to convert that into bigger, sustainable, larger brands, opportunities can I say just one thing perhaps we also have to realize is that the growth of the consumer markets in Africa will also bring a lot of competition which will in a way threaten existing companies operating in Africa so even though you may not wish to export you'll have to get better just to stay in the game, we see that everywhere in terms of the shopping for instance the local shops are being threatened by outside groups coming in this is happening also in IT in different areas so in a way the whole environment will change for companies because not only will they have opportunities to expand regionally and globally maybe but also they will have to get much better just to survive in their own markets because all this FDI that we are going to attract will create additional competition for all of us. Absolutely and to build on that we've done a lot of research on African consumers and one of the things we observe is they're very quality oriented they are loyal to brands but you have to get trial and you have to do it reflecting the challenges here lower income for many people structure challenges and so the people that can innovate and develop quality offerings and really differentiate and then get trial are going to be the ones that can win and they're not just African companies if you look at Indomie, Noodles, and Nigeria if you look at Bajaj motorcycles from India you see companies that came in invested to educate the consumer invested to get trial and then have built loyalty and share and have been able to really grow over time and I think that story is good for the African consumer they just want quality products at a price they can afford and choice it's a good thing it is an opportunity for African entrepreneurs but it's an opportunity to compete at the global standard where you are at the beginning and it's completely true Do you want to add does anybody want to add to this I'm going to open the floor if anybody wants to say something before I do that Does anybody want to ask a question about any of our panelists Hello my name is Ato I'm from the Accra Global Shippers Hub in Ghana and I actually wanted to direct my question to Mr Singh so you know I think you guys actually started talking about Northerwood and some of the different moving industries so I wanted to kind of do a quick comparison so in West Africa I see a lot of movies being created you know from Northerwood the Ghana movie industry from Ivory Coast etc and I feel like there's a smaller percentage of really quality movies like big budget movies and in South Africa I see a lot of big budget movies that are you know like winning Oscars like Totsi some of the work that you've also done how can we get a balance between having to tell a lot of stories versus getting you know maybe a few stories that can really travel very far do their film festivals etc so that's my first question the second question is how have you navigated some of the challenges around distributing your movies because for instance I would really love to watch a lot of South African movies but I always have to wait to come to South Africa before I buy them so I just wanted you to touch on that okay look certainly the budget and the scale of a film doesn't necessarily reflect you know how an audience will respond to it the first movie I made was done for under $10,000 as a whole feature film and I released it almost everywhere in the world in movie theaters and it was an anti apartheid movie being on the run from the police now the little movie that we made that was nominated for an Oscar yesterday was again a movie that was made for $400,000 so it's first and foremost it's about the story and how you tell the story so you know this myth that you've got to have big budgets to make stories that will engage the world is you know really in my experience not true of course you can make a big movie you get big stars and you probably will do decent business but you know it all adds up it's coming back to the point of risk but I think that as Africa and as a continent what I would like to see is a collaboration between countries like we have co-production treaties with France and Italy and Australia you know we should do more within our continent so a Nigerian South African co-production from Nigeria incentives from South Africa and create African product on a bigger and better scale and learn from each other so certainly those are the two things I think on the distribution side that is a big challenge on our continent that you know they aren't enough movie theaters they aren't the whole machinery of getting films out there whether it's movie theaters or DVD or television you know the restrictions that exist and I think again coming back to the idea of having corporates being involved you know sponsorship being able for sponsors to say I'm associated with this product it's an African product we are an African company let's try and make this an experience that every person no matter where you are in a little village or in an urban environment that you can all share the same experience but that is a big challenge and then taking our content and bringing it to the world is the next phase but you do have again it comes back to quality it comes back to the ability to have audiences and critics respond to the material because we have unique environments, unique stories great performances you know we made a little movie in Kenya we used all local Kenyan cast and again the film won awards around the world, won prizes because people want to know more about our continent and if you tell it in a way that they are engaged emotionally, entertained then you've won half your battle thank you can you hear me my question is actually to the Honorable Vice Prime Minister from Mauritius so I have two questions I represent the Financial Times Foreign Direct Investment magazine and so my first question is much more general there's a lot of this optimism in WEF but one of the things that I can't help but question is what's to say that this boom that Africa is going through is it cyclical so post independence 1960s Africa went through a massive boom and then it dipped so that's the first question is this just another cyclical trend and the second thing is could you identify to me some of the bottlenecks and some of the risks within Mauritius doing business environment that prevents local businesses from innovating effectively and also growing so could you also maybe talk about the risks that you have identified thank you I don't believe that it's a short term growth cycle that we're seeing in Africa I believe that it's not just a commodities boom and the prices are going up and then African countries are doing well I think firstly the quantity that is being extracted is much more than before firstly and secondly and importantly this is all being now linked to good governance so we see reforms all over the continent which will embed the growth I think this is happening also and as I think previous speakers mentioned it's hard to find high returns around the world at the moment so people are investing in Africa also because they see the higher returns there are higher risks involved and that's where we see Mauritius coming in in a way because countries like Mauritius can also help by sort of going via Mauritius you can actually reduce some of the risks associated with investing across the continent because of these factors in terms of innovation in Mauritius itself I think that was the question I think that traditionally we've been more of a manufacturing base we haven't been able to generate the sort of research and development within our citizens itself that will bring innovation but we are now realizing it more and more and in fact for instance taking the textile industry as an example we were just making suits and shirts for everybody else but we now set up a fashion and design institute and we're seeing actually young people in Mauritius beginning to design clothes and local brands coming up and becoming regional etc so there is to be a real effort in terms of the government itself fostering research and development fostering innovation and that has to be for countries like Mauritius it will not come by itself it has to be fostered and encouraged by government I know you wanted to say something Nechana YGL for this year the question the panel is the theme of this panel is made in Africa and I'm wondering the panel's thoughts on how does Africa brand itself as different from other regions so what is different and unique about Africa versus let's say Latin America or Europe or Asia and what's unique about the Africa value competition who would like to take that one I'll just start the starting point first of course is Africa has assets that in many ways give it an underpinning and a source of financial resources that can really help support more investment in terms of natural resources in terms of agriculture where 60% of the world's uncultivated lands it's here and really creates a foundation to be able to reinvest that should be very helpful for years and for decades to come I think second the workforce that's coming along will be the largest workforce in the world over the next 20 years it's a little bit of a mischaracterization to describe it as a single workforce the Africa's very diverse there's hundreds of languages but even then there's a very large workforce that should stay relatively low cost for the rest of the world for a long time to come but the challenge of course is then to differentiate beyond that and that's where encouraging more entrepreneurial culture taking advantage of some of the challenges that lack of infrastructure creates in terms of sustainability in terms of doing creative ideas it's going to be quite important and frankly the quality of the workforce will ultimately matter as much as the quantity of the workforce and that will require the investments in education and other elements so the truth is there's a much better starting point than there was a couple of decades ago in terms of the stability and the confidence people have in the region and there's an underpinning of the ability to invest financially in infrastructure the way Angola has taken $40 billion and put it into building infrastructure that the natural resources and agriculture offer beyond that that's the next challenge for African leaders is to not just go off of what's there naturally and the quantity but to invest in quality that will attract companies to want to be here and that story is not yet written just to add to that I think but it's also doing it responsibly so I just give you some very very basic examples this is boom time for the continent and rather than hear stories about religious corruption they're hearing about governments who are now balancing their budgets paying off their national debt like Nigeria did they pass laws like the fiscal responsibility act stopping them from spending it's very tough for an African government to actually limit its own ability to spend in Nigeria saying we wouldn't spend more than 3% over and above what we budgeted for they created policies for savings within the country created a compulsory pension scheme to create long-term capital available for businesses to borrow that long-term capital that has been kept has created the ability for people to get long-term funding to finance infrastructure projects and all of a sudden the private sector in Nigeria is actively financing infrastructure projects the government is privatizing it's pretty much privatized everything the thing that we haven't left to do is the past sector and there's already a past sector roadmap which would see the country in the next 24 months sell all the generating companies and the distribution companies to the private sector and it's an indigenous driven private sector it's not something that is driven from the perspective of saying we are seeking foreign investors most of the consortiums are run driven by local entrepreneurs from international financial partners but the international financial partners are not coming in to do it on their own they realize that to navigate the treacherous waters of doing business in Africa you need a strong local partner which ties them to the point she made regarding confidence and the ability of people to realize that as a continent we have to first of all do it ourselves and then be branded as a place where things do get done Ghana for example they've discovered oil they passed the law I think it's called the Heritage Stabilization Fund which compels them to save 30% of the newfound wealth of future generations now I think that the mere fact that we've done self-help solutions to our issues is really what it signals to the world it's a place that the growth cannot be reversed I know you wanted to say something sir just to add to that while the mic is getting over I've got the mic sorry to add to that you've got look at India and China 20 years ago and the consumer power that Africa represents 10 to 20 years from now which is an enormous potential to businesses all over the world my name is Henry Ekbiki, Eston Young my issue, the point I want to talk on is on perception, the perception cap and on the branding the impact that has on the branding of Africa I think there is still a perception gap between what people see outside and what the reality is on the ground and recently Eston Young did a survey on reviewing the issue of perception gap, what we found was that those who are already doing business in Africa are very positive about the attractiveness of Africa in fact the rated Africa are second to Asia but those who are not doing business in Africa who are not already in Africa actually so Africa is the most unattractive place to do business and this is about perception and how do they form this opinion it's about media, it's about what they hear what we find is that the international media focus more on negatives about Africa rather than the positive so my question is what is the role of media in changing the perception of Africa and actually improving the branding of Africa I'll jump in there, I think 10 years ago 20 years ago you could have argued that point but I work for CNN and I think the African story is pushing a lot of CNN's coverage from a business point of view and from a news point of view I present a program called Marketplace Africa each week telling African business stories to a global audience that wasn't 5 years ago that wasn't a story that was being told and it's an incredibly popular show and I think from CNN's point of view there's a responsibility from us, from the media to also tell the real story warts and all and I think there is that's why I was so interested in the narrative because the narrative is so powerful we all satir and agree that the value of what is made in Africa does come from perceptions I would dispute the fact that there is only bad news coming out of Africa I think there's a lot of good news and in fact in some countries perception in fact has gone beyond reality and you would expect things to be better than they actually are because there's such a lot of good news coming out of Africa I don't think that in fact bad news travels fast we all know that good news is no news at all but nevertheless I think there's a lot of good news which is probably dominating the bad news coming out OK I know you sorry OK they've switched it on now Hi my name is Dr Ola I run an air ambulance company and I'm YGL 2013 and my question is actually directed to Mrs Tabatha I just wanted to ask I think diversity is very important in business I think the more personalities the more creativity the more different skills you can bring into a business setting the better the business I also believe in Africa our attitudes to women in business lags behind the developed world so my question to you is did you face any unique challenges that you thought perhaps when you were setting up your business that you think that you experienced because you were a woman and also since we're focusing on made in Africa how do you see us creating these global international brands when we seem to be leaving 50% of the population behind maybe maybe I can say because of the type of business I started it didn't matter whether it was a man or a woman so I can't say that what I faced or what I went through was because I was a woman because it was a competition war and it was a monopoly that was there for 80 years and it was people had to protect so it didn't matter whether it was a woman or a man but I can say the second question is about the African women in business the attitude on women in business I can say in Africa we all know that women are taken person in anything that we do whether it is any type of relation is it in politics is it in business but what we've tried to do now being an example we are trying to show that even we women we can even do better and what men can do and I think it has been proven we have so many now women in Africa who are proving that we only need now us as women maybe to work a little bit harder and prove the world that we can do better than women than men not only in Africa even in the developed world but we've done it and we can also do it I think we have started doing it I think for our industry in South Africa the film industry is if not dominated by women it's actually quite significant to see variants from there can we take more questions or do we have to wrap up with Maxwell start wrapping up one more one more question if that's okay who can I go for? I wanted to follow up African financial group on the film the issue of branding and the message and I just want a quick comment from you and having you're not in film but maybe from the Nollywood experience you were referring to earlier how do we shift? because some of the movies that are making it are still promoting the victim issues of HIV AIDS which is fine because we're showing how we're dealing with some of this but how do we begin to shift this use film as part of the branding into messages that present beyond the struggle and the victim issues around some of the big challenges that we're experiencing to begin to present a new hope story that is linked to that because I'm becoming worried with some of the films that are doing well which are very good but on the other hand you listen to the message and just believe that you perpetuate the stereotypes look, certainly from my standpoint I agree with the point you're making the films that we've made whether it was the HIV AIDS story called yesterday which was an uplifting story but very emotional in the journey of a woman who gets inflicted and the stigma that comes with it but the film I made was a teenager about an 84-year-old man who goes to school to grade 1 to learn to read at 84 so you try to make stories that appeal to me as an individual or to any other producer or director but we cannot prescribe to people go make your movies, go do this do that, creativity is in the eye of the beholder and if they want to make an action movie if they want to be violent then everybody comes with public broadcasters when they put out a soap series every day and these issues are steered away from because they're afraid that's a big mistake these are issues that affect the lives of everybody every day and they should tell it in a real form but you know broadcasters are afraid so you know it's a very big dilemma because nobody can come and tell me well you should make this movie you want to make it, you go make it you pay for it, you do what you want but at the end of the day as an individual you assess your own responsibility, your own morality and your own ethics and you go do what you feel you should be doing so it's a very difficult one I think to interrupt, in a way you bring up a good point is that in branding your country or branding your company as world class or quality do you have to be honest about all the negative stuff that has to be very much perhaps part of the brand you've got to be sincere and true to yourself in that way if the brand is going to be honest so there are issues there are challenges there are faults here do you include that as part of the story I think transparency in today's world is such a premium it is so different than it was with social media and all the things out there that the thing that you can hide issues and people won't notice it's not the world we live in right now and it is far better to be direct obviously to portraying a positive light the steps that are being taken to address things but to try to instill quality wherever you can and be transparent it is the world we live in and it's critical I think for a brand to be sustainable you have to be based on the truth you don't have to necessarily tell all the truth it has to be truthful it has to be something that people will experience when they actually come to your country and without a doubt the brand would really and truly reflect what the product service or ethos is so I mean the point was raised about are we leaving women behind in Africa if we take somewhere like Nigeria and the public sector at least 35% of the of the ministers are women are formed by the cabinet the coordinated minister for the economy is female the minister of housing is female the minister of petroleum is female minister of finance is female so effectively the key powerful parts of the economy are driven so when we want to brand Nigeria from that perspective is it a gender sensitive country it is actually proven it's in its actions and there's no doubts in terms of saying what they represent in society because the reality is this and that truly is our brand today I think I'm going to start wrapping up I just want to ask our panellists sorry I'm getting the tick tock signal when we talk about made in Africa is there one word that each of you can give me about what you think defines made in Africa and how important is that and is it something you can put into one word so a label on the back of my shirt saying made in Africa what is the description perhaps underneath originality made in Africa I say the same for you confidence we create confidence to African people to the world that we can also do it and we've made it I say success in the challenging environment one word one word well it certainly will be success okay got you opportunity I think I'd say diversity Africa has 54 countries so it's not China there will always be differences around Africa we shouldn't look for one word one thing for Africa so that's it I mean diversity opportunity success confidence and originality so that make made in Africa a label that we want to buy into and that Africans want to buy into and I think that's the key for everybody doing business what's your one word exciting that's good thank you everyone good short dinner