Minding Africa's business

A new brand of entrepreneurs and economists say Africa can prosper the old-fashioned way—by earning it | Mindy Belz, Alisa Harris

Associated Press/Photo by Karen Prinsloo

June Arunga watched mobile phone use in Africa skyrocket: "It was like the discovery of the wheel." She and business partners at BSL Ghana Limited had an idea. With many parts of the continent cut off by poor electricity, nonexistent landlines, and too-expensive computers (or computers so old they operate on DOS), cell phones are the continent's lead form of communication. Africa has the largest telecom market of any continent in the world—300 million of the world's nearly 3.5 billion cell phones, and growing by the millions each year.

But while phone use has taken off, financial services lag: Eighty percent of African households have never opened a bank account. They wait in long lines to pay an electric bill with cash. Villagers making beautiful crafts have no way individually to market them beyond the village or to engage in ecommerce.