Schumpeter in Africa??

Few people will contest the assertion that most of the entrepreneurial growth in this century will take place in BRIC countries (actually mostly India and China).

But Africa?? Africa, we hear, has too many little nondescript inchoate domains with a big-man at the top calling themselves nation states, while still struggling to curve a synthetic national identity out of the vestiges of a colonial past.

I argue that all that is changing; has changed.

Africa is democratizing, Africa is integrating. Africa is growing up.
The so-called “Arab Spring” is in fact the tail end of a long African Summer.



The newest of the regional integration programs is COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Summit. The Tripartite is an umbrella organization consisting of three of Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (REC’s), namely: the East Africa Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).



COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Summit will focus on expanding and integrating trade and include the establishment of Free Trade Areas (FTA’s), Custom Unions, Monetary Unions and Common Markets, as well as infrastructure development projects in transport, information and communications technology and energy.

With more than 527 million people and a Gross domestic product (GDP) of approximately 624 Billion US Dollars, the 26 member countries of the Tripartite make up 57% of the population of the African Union (AU) and just over 58% in terms of contribution to GDP.