Global South Trade Boosted with Increasing China-Africa Trade in 2013
Thursday, July 2, 2015 at 3:49AM
It was announced in January 2014 that China has surpassed the United States to become the world’s number one trading nation, as measured by the total value of exports and imports. This new economic behemoth also continued to grow its trade relationships with Africa.
US exports and imports of goods totaled US $3.82 trillion in 2013, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. China’s annual trade in goods passed US $4 trillion for the first time in 2013 (Guardian).
Zheng Yuesheng, a spokesman for China’s customs administration, told The Guardian that becoming the world’s number one trading nation was “a landmark milestone for our nation’s foreign trade development.”
Significantly for Africa, 2012 was also a record year for China-Africa trade, which reached 5 per cent of China’s total foreign trade and made up 16 per cent of all of Africa’s international trade, according to a new report from South Africa.
Consultancy Africa Intelligence (consultancyafrica.com), a South African-based organization with more than 200 consultants focused on “expert research and analysis on Africa” highlights the achievements of this strong trade relationship – and also some of its threats and weaknesses – in its report.
Trade between China and Africa has surged during the decade since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) (wto.org) in 2001, rising from around US $10 billion in 2000 to US $198.49 billion in 2012, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce. Ambitiously, it could reach US $300 billion by 2015, announced Cheng Zhigang, secretary-general of the China-Africa Industrial Cooperation and Development Forum (www.zfhz.org) (China Daily).
The World Bank reported South-South trade now surpasses South-North trade, meaning exports from developing countries to other developing countries exceed exports to wealthy developed countries. South-South trade experienced rapid growth in the 2000s, accounting for 32 per cent of world trade by 2011 (World Bank).
South-South trade and investment between Africa and lower-income and middle-income developing countries rose from 5 per cent in the 1990s to almost 25 per cent in 2010 (Consultancy Africa Intelligence). Before the 1990s, over 90 per cent of trade for Africa was with high-income or developed countries.
China is attractive as a trade partner for many reasons. One of them is the strong admiration for its success in lifting millions out of poverty through an aggressive growth strategy and rapid urbanization with big investments in education, science, technology, infrastructure – modern airports, ports, roads and rail – and research and development.
Since 1978, it is believed China has lifted 500 million people out of poverty, out of a population of 1.3 billion people (World Bank). Incomes have doubled every 10 years with average GDP growth of 10 per cent a year, meaning the country has almost reached all the Millennium Development Goals.
Building a trade relationship with China has led to Zambia’s copper mines running again, Gabon’s oil fields being re-explored, and Sudan becoming a major oil exporter to China. Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo and South Africa are all benefiting from exporting commodities to China.
The relationship has not been entirely beneficial, according to the Consultancy Africa Intelligence report. Some African industries, such as textiles, have suffered from competition with cheaper Chinese imports, leading to factory closures and job loses.
Non-commodity exports from Africa to China amounted to just 10 per cent of the trade total. Many of the contracts signed for projects also go to Chinese companies, the report found.
Renewed concern has also emerged over rising debt levels in Africa.
In summary, the report finds a growing trade relationship with China has brought to Africa commodity booms, growing GDP (gross domestic product), and lots of foreign investment. On the negative side of the ledger, there have been job loses due to cheaper imports, rising personal and government debt levels and an over-dependence on minerals for economic growth.
Across Africa, new infrastructure has emerged where it probably would not have come about under the continuing debt burdens from the 1970s and 1980s. The continent has received a shot of energy, but it remains to be seen whether governments can sustain this economic jolt and make the wise choices that create African jobs and build liveable cities for the 21st century.
By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions
Published: March 2014
Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.
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African Infrastructure Dreams Back on Agenda
Tuesday, June 30, 2015 at 12:03PM
Africa’s patchy infrastructure is not keeping pace with the continent’s economic growth.
Satellite photos of Africa at night show a place where light is concentrated overwhelmingly in the South – primarily South Africa – and in the North, with a sprinkling of lights on the west and east coasts (http://geology.com/articles/satellite-photo-earth-at-night.shtml).
This is just one visually arresting way to view the much larger problem of the continent lacking 21st-century infrastructure – from roads to airports to sewage and water services to harbors and rail connections. All are in desperate need of an upgrade.
The World Bank says only one in four people has access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the region will require more than US $300 billion in investment to achieve universal electricity access by 2030.
This lack of modern infrastructure is clashing with Africa’s impressive economic growth in recent years. The continent will be home to seven of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world by 2015, according to the IMF. Yet still too much of this is a reflection of a booming resource economy, which sounds impressive in numbers, but still leaves much of the continent’s population living in a day-to-day world of underdevelopment and poverty.
Africa desperately needs further investment in infrastructure. The good news is that a mix of positive developments is coming together to breathe life into efforts to upgrade the continent.
One is a new campaign to mobilize Africa’s wealthiest to stump up the necessary funds to conduct feasibility studies to lay the groundwork for a big boost to infrastructure spending in the coming years. Another is a flurry of new pledges from the United States to spend more in Africa to increase access to energy – a necessary precondition to improvements to living standards. China, too, is to continue to grow its already substantial investments in Africa.
For innovators, better infrastructure across Africa will make it easier to export products, connect with markets and customers and gain access to new technologies and products available to others around the world.
The Made in Africa Foundation (madeinafricafoundation.co.uk) hopes to turn to Africa’s wealthy global community to help with funding the feasibility studies required to unleash a new wave of infrastructure spending and building across the continent.
Africa takes up 30 million square kilometers (UNEP), is home to approximately 15 per cent of the world’s population and has 60 per cent of the world’s potential agricultural land. Yet, just 34 per cent of Africa can be reached by road and only 30 per cent has access to electricity. One estimate has placed the cost of meeting Africa’s power and transport needs at US $28 trillion by 2050.
That is a vast amount of money, and nobody will commit those sums unless they know that work has gone into planning for this infrastructure and that people are thinking long-term. This is where the Made in Africa Foundation wants to make a difference: it is hoping to get Africa’s wealthy to contribute US $400 million to fund feasibility studies which in turn will kick-off a US $68 billion first phase in investment into roads, railways, ports and energy.
“In 2009, there was (US) $150bn (billion) available to spend, but no bankable infrastructure projects in Africa,” that these funds could be directed towards, said the Foundation’s George Brennan. “These figures should make us angry – the problem is not the availability of funding but the fact that projects are not in a condition to be funded.”
Just as a global diaspora of Indians and Chinese have been instrumental in economic growth and development in India and China in the past two decades, so it is hoped the same formula can be applied to the equally substantial, successful and wealthy African diaspora.
“African Americans spend (US) $1 trillion every year in their economy, but what do they spend on Africa? About 0.01 percent,” said Chris Cleverly, Director of the Made in Africa Foundation. “They have the wherewithal to make profound differences – personally, and by lobbying their pension funds, investment advisers and government to invest in Africa on the basis that it provides good returns.
“It was China and India’s diasporas that developed them – it is the same with Africa’s now.”
Ozwald Boateng (http://ozwaldboateng.co.uk), the dynamic Ghanaian-descended London tailor who built his reputation on a quirky and modern take on traditional British bespoke suits, took the lead along with the Ugandan Prince Hassan Kimbugwe (http://www.cdrex.com/prince-hassan-kimbugwe/1251509.html) and former British barrister Chris Cleverly.
Boateng’s reputation and fame rose along side the buzzing British capital throughout the 2000s. But now he is reaching back to Africa to lead a campaign to substantially raise the level of investment in the continent’s creaking, antiquated or non-existent infrastructure.
He is trying to rally Africa’s wealthiest business leaders to contribute to creating a 21st-century African infrastructure of roads, railways, ports and power supplies. Made in Africa is tackling the fact many big global investors are willing to invest in Africa but find it difficult to do so. Much has to be done before an investor can come along and start, for example, building a new road network or airport. Local governments need to do the initial site survey and environmental impact studies and develop a larger vision for where they would like their country to go and how its cities are to develop.
The campaign got underway with a star-studded gala event earlier this year in Marrakech, Morocco, at the African Banker Awards (http://www.ic-events.net/awards/african_banker_awards_2013/). It also comes with a film, Our Future, Made in Africa, to help explain the campaign and the company.
Some of the people who attended included Nigerian philanthropist Tony Elumelu, Angola’s richest woman Isabel dos Santos and Sudanese telecoms mogul Mo Ibrahim.
“This is the start of fully understanding what Africa can do for itself,” said Boateng. “The Chinese managed to build a railway across China; the Japanese have the bullet train – we need to get past thinking about why it’s difficult to create the roads and railways that Africa needs and just get on with it.”
The Foundation is being supported by the African Development Bank (http://www.afdb.org/en/), a long-time supporter of African infrastructure investment through loans and technical assistance.
An additional boost to African development comes from a recent U.S. government pledge to spend US $7 billion over the next five years in Africa to improve access to energy. Energy is the needed fuel for any significant improvements to human development over the long-term.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced “Power Africa” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/30/fact-sheet-power-africa) while he was in Cape Town, South Africa on his recent African tour. At the heart of Power Africa is the pledge to double access to power in Africa. According to medical journal The Lancet, 3.5 million Africans die every year due to indoor air pollution – a figure larger than those who die every year from malaria and HIV/AIDS combined. The pollution results from the fumes caused by burning fuel for cooking, warmth and light.
President Obama promised the funding to help governments in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania. The funds will be used to boost access to electricity for 20 million households. Funds will also be used to help Angola and Mozambique modernize their energy export sectors.
Power Africa will act as a go-between to encourage links and deals between American energy companies and African partners.
On top of this, Power Africa is being supplemented by an additional US $10 billion in private sector contributions, including a commitment from the General Electric Company to bring 5,000 megawatts of affordable energy to Tanzania and Ghana.
In total, the US estimates it will take US $300 billion in additional funds to bring full power to sub-Saharan Africa.
For the past decade, the biggest change in Africa’s infrastructure story has come from the growing role played by China. China has become Africa’s largest single trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching US $166 billion in 2011 – a jump of 33 per cent from 2010. The total volume was valued at $198.5 billion in 2012 and is expected to surpass $380 billion by 2015.
And much, much more has been promised to come: China’s President Xi Jinping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping) renewed a pledge to offer US $20 billion in loans to Africa in March 2013 (Reuters). Much of this is going to electricity-generation projects.
By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions
Published: July 2013
Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.
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Burgeoning African E-commerce Industry Full of Opportunity
Tuesday, June 30, 2015 at 11:59AM
Africa has seen huge change since 2000 in the way people access information and do business electronically. The most championed accomplishment has been the widespread take-up of mobile phones. This has given birth to countless entrepreneurs and innovators who are using phones to help people, do business and sell goods and services.
Not as quick to spread, mostly because of high cost and poor infrastructure, is access to the Internet. While Web access is taken for granted in many wealthy countries and is increasingly commonplace in many developing nations, Africa as a whole still suffers from poor infrastructure for access to the Internet. But this is changing by the month as more undersea cables connect countries and bandwidth is increased (http://www.submarinecablemap.com/).
Africa’s population can be expected to at least double from 1.1 billion to about 2.3 billion by 2050 – and most will live in urban areas (Population Reference Bureau).
And incomes are rising. Africa is richer than India on the basis of gross national income (GNI) per capita, and a dozen African countries have a higher GNI per capita than China (Africa Rising).
According to the McKinsey Global Institute, “The incomes of these new consuming classes are rising even faster than the number of individuals in the consuming classes. This means that many products and services are hitting take-off points at which their consumption rises swiftly and steeply. By 2025 urban consumers are likely to inject around (US) $20 trillion a year in additional spending into the world economy.”
Research firm Jana (jana.com) – which specializes in emerging markets – studied the consumer preferences of people in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. They surveyed 600 consumers in each country, seeking to unearth what their preferences were when it came to using e-commerce services (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce). E-commerce is the buying and selling of products and services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer-enabled systems. This is still a young industry in Africa and one ripe with opportunity for hardworking and innovative players. Many are starting to realize they had better move fast because this is a market that still has much up for grabs and is not – yet – dominated by mature players such as eBay or Amazon.
The survey uncovered five trends driving e-commerce in Africa. These trends address the unique conditions present in Africa and what challenges need to be met.
The first trend the firm identified is cash on delivery. This has become the main way people do e-commerce in Africa because of the lack of trust in the security of online payments. Cash is still king in the region. The second trend is having a proprietary logistics network. This comes in response to the poor infrastructure present in much of Africa. This has meant e-commerce companies need to take charge of the whole process of getting a good to the customer’s home. This is, of course, costly and places a big restraint on any new company in the e-commerce market.
The third big trend is one that reflects the reality of how people communicate electronically in Africa. Mobile phones are king, and this means e-commerce needs to be mobile phone-friendly or lose out on reaching many customers. The fourth trend is related to the fact Africa is still off the logistics route for much world trade. This means e-commerce companies need to set aside space for large warehouses to store the goods so that they are on hand when the customer wants them.
And, finally, the fifth trend is the importance of good customer service as the clincher for success in the marketplace. Word of mouth gets around if a company is not able to deliver on what is promised so it is important to have high-quality customer service to build trust, keep engaged with consumers and let them know problems are being resolved.
South Africa has emerged as the continent’s powerhouse when it comes to e-commerce, according to Jana. Successful players in that country include Zando (http://www.zando.co.za/) an online fashion store by Rocket Internet, MIH Internet Africa’s Kalahari online store (http://www.kalahari.com/) and entertainment and consumer electronics online store Takealot.com supported by Tiger Global. Research firm World Wide Worx (http://www.worldwideworx.com/) calculated that online retail in South Africa is growing by 30 per cent a year.
But South Africa cannot rest on its laurels: the survey found Nigeria is fast overtaking South Africa as its large population takes to the Internet. Impressively, Nigeria’s Government has pledged to expand broadband Internet access to 80 per cent of the country over the next five years.
In East Africa, Kenya’s Rocket Internet’s service Jumia (http://www.jumia.co.ke/) is now one of the top 100 online destinations in the country.
Jana also found there were various key areas for improvement for the e-commerce industry in Africa. One, was the importance of explaining to African consumers the basics of online shopping. Many respondents to the survey seemed confused about making purchases on the Internet and through e-commerce. They also showed low levels of understanding about payment methods and available financial products. And finally, one of the big obstacles to expanding the industry is improving delivery reliability.
But all these problems and challenges spell opportunity for innovators who can solve them and make some money too!
By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions
Published: July 2013
Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.
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African Digital Laser Breakthrough Promises Future Innovation
Tuesday, June 30, 2015 at 11:29AM
For decades many African countries have experienced low investment in research and development (R&D) and scientific innovation. One of the few nations to benefit from a sophisticated university network and research and development sector was South Africa. It still ranks top on the continent for funding R&D and its high number of scientific journals.
And it seems this support has paid off in a recent innovation. The world’s first digital laser designed and built in Africa has been developed by a team of physicists at the University of KwaZulu–Natal in South Africa (http://www.ukzn.ac.za/), as reported in the MIT Technology Review (http://www.technologyreview.com/).
This innovation joins a positive trend in Africa, where support to science, technology and R&D is rising – albeit from a very low base. In 2010 UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – found Africa was reversing decades of neglect in research and development. African countries were increasing investment in science and technology after realizing it will accelerate their connection with the global economy and help create better-quality jobs to tackle poverty. The UNESCO Science Report found Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa had adopted laws to support biotechnology research, for example.
Since 2005, six new science academies have been established in Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Sudan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. This compares to nine established between 1902 and 2004.
The proportion of GDP (gross domestic product) devoted to R&D averages 0.3 per cent in Africa, according to UNESCO.
South Africa continues to lead in R&D spending, raising its investment from 0.73 per cent of GDP in 2001 to 0.94 per cent in 2006. The country is home to 46 per cent of Africa’s scientific publications compared to 11.4 per cent in Nigeria and 6.6 per cent in Kenya (UNESCO).
Experts say the digital laser developed in South Africa is a breakthrough that will open up ever-further innovations and business opportunities.
So, what is a digital laser and what is the innovation? A laser is short form for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It is a device that produces a concentrated light source. Unlike conventional light sources that emit a diffused, multispectral light, lasers allow for a monochromatic light beam to be concentrated on a small area. This can be used to cut an object precisely, or beamed over long distances without losing its strength.
Lasers can create immense light, heat and power at close range and are regularly used in surgery and medical diagnosis.
Conventional lasers require external devices to alter and bend the laser light beam. The digital laser allows the shape of the beam to be digitally altered internally at the touch of a computer keyboard and gives greater immediate control. This means a plethora of new shapes can be formed with the laser beam, and this can have many practical applications.
The digital laser augers in a new age of creativity with lasers and more spontaneity in how they are used. Rather than having to place a lens or mirror at the front of the casing to shape the laser beam, this innovation makes it possible to create any shape desired digitally by a computer. The research team has been able to create various complex shapes for the laser beams in experiments. One mooted use is to apply laser beams to manipulate microscopic objects – similar to the tractor beams seen in science fiction films such as “Star Trek”.
Few of us spend much time thinking about lasers, yet they are ubiquitous in the modern world and are found in many electronic products (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laser_applications). They play a critical part in the modern world’s economy. Some common applications for lasers include laser light shows at music concerts, bar code readers at the grocery store, or laser pointers used during public presentations. Dentists also use them to speed the hardening of fillings.
Not to exploit lasers as a technology in the modern world is equivalent to bypassing the silicon micro-chip that sits inside personal computers, electronic devices and mobile phones.
By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions
Published: April 2013
Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.
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The Water-Free South African Bathing Solution
Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 9:11AM
As the world’s population grows from its current 7 billion to a projected 9 billion in 2050 (UN), competition for access to the Earth’s resources will become fiercer. The most essential resource for life on the planet – and an increasingly precious resource – is water. Water is necessary for the very survival of humans, animals and plants, and is also used in vast quantities by industries and farms.
As demand increases, water resources will need to be conserved more and more, while clever ways will have to be developed to use less water. And there is also another factor to consider for the world’s poor: many millions live in very constrained conditions in urban and rural areas. For their health and dignity, the ability to wash every day is critical. Being clean is vital to being able to economically advance in life: it is something that sounds obvious but is often not a possibility for many millions of people living in slums.
Many will face lives where water is an uncertain resource that will be either expensive to purchase or will require lots of labour to obtain.
Anyone who can come up with a way to help bring the dignity of being clean and healthy while also saving water is onto a winner.
A clever South African, Ludwick Marishane, has developed a clear gel that works like soap and water but doesn’t need H2O to get a person clean.
The product is called DryBath (http://headboy.org/drybath/) and uses a “proprietary blend of a biocide, bioflavonoids and moisturisers.” It differs from common liquid hand anti-bacterial cleanser products that people use to sterilize hands. Those products use alcohol to simultaneously sterilize germs and evaporate the liquid.
DryBath works in a different way by not requiring water or alcohol to complete the washing. The liquid gel is odourless, biodegradable and moisturises and does not need to be rinsed off. It instead leaves users smelling fresh and “tackles the hygiene and water consumption problems in a manner that has never been used before.”
It also comes in a special package developed in South Africa. EasySnap™ sachets allow users to quickly snap the package and dispense the solution on to their hands to have a wash. EasySnap is a rectangular sachet that is snapped in the middle to open.
Marishane, a 22-year-old student at the University of Cape Town, told Reuters that the idea for DryBath came to him when he was a teenager living in his rural home. It was wintertime and his friend didn’t want to bother washing because there was no hot water available.
“He was lazy and he happened to say, ‘why doesn’t somebody invent something that you can just put on your skin and you don’t have to bathe’,” Marishane said.
That was when the light bulb went off in his head.
Intrigued, he started doing research on his web-enabled mobile phone. He trawled through the search engine Google and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to find what would work as a water-free wash. After six months of research, he came up with the formula for DryBath and acquired a patent.
Now the strategy of Headboy Industries Inc. (headboy.org) – the company set up by Marishane – is to sell DryBath to corporate clients and in turn donate a free sachet for each sale to DryBath’s global charity partners, who will distribute DryBath to poor communities either for free or at a subsidized cost.
Marishane believes his product will be particularly popular with certain industries: flight crews and passengers on airlines; hotels looking to save on water usage; the military for soldiers serving in the field; and NGOs and charities providing services to poor communities, in particular during emergency situations when it is difficult to provide a reliable water supply.
Marishane has won several awards for his invention, including Global Champion of the Global Student Entrepreneurs Awards 2011, and is considered South Africa’s youngest patent holder.
“DryBath will go a long way in helping communities,” he believes.
By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions
Published: September 2012
Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.
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Southern Innovator Issue 1: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q1O54YSE2BgC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Southern Innovator Issue 2: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ty0N969dcssC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Southern Innovator Issue 3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AQNt4YmhZagC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Southern Innovator Issue 4: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Southern Innovator Issue 5: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ILdAgAAQBAJ&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s
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