Posted November 2010
If only there was more of Africa
African beer market | The Republic of South Africa, prominently projected
as a rainbow nation throughout the world football season, has
done Africa proud. From the comfort of my living room I watched
many of the Football World Cup matches. Not that I am a soccer
fan. I just wanted to see for myself the century held
presumptions and stereotypes about Africa dispersed. Jubilant
African soccer fans put the prejudice to rest that the continent
is all about woes, worries and what nots. And if it took the
damned vuvuzelas’ incessant, monotonous, droning moan, which had
millions of viewers and even players screaming for a little
peace and quiet, to blast any remnant prejudgment out of our
minds, so be it. Yes, Africa can. Now let them have a beer to
that.
The brouhaha over the Football World Cup could almost make us forget that
2010 was a momentous year for the whole of the African
continent. Older readers will remember that fifty years ago,
between January and December 1960, 17 sub-Saharan African
nations, from Mauritania to Madagascar, gained independence from
their former European colonists. Many have had a tumultuous time
since independence. Many fledgling states experienced civil war,
natural disaster, famine, tribal rivalry and even genocide. Many
have got to the brink of collapse. Seven of the world's top 10
“failed states” are in Africa: Somalia, Chad, Sudan, Zimbabwe,
the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic
and Guinea. They are “a sadly familiar bunch” says the Fund for
Peace, based in Washington, DC, the publisher of the index.
Even those blessed with oil wealth have struggled. Africa's most populous
country, Nigeria (150 million people) is among the 10 biggest
exporters of oil globally and the largest oil producer in
Africa. Since oil was discovered off Nigeria's coast in the
1970s, it has become a major source of wealth. Oil accounts for
90 percent of Nigeria's exports and over 80 percent of
government revenue.
But these oil riches have not been accompanied by food security for the
majority of the country's population, reminds the prestigious
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Washington, DC.
No wonder many Africans question what exactly they should have been
celebrating given the lack of progress post independence.
Indeed, the notion of independence itself — in a context of bad
governance, economic inequality, poverty and dependence on
foreign aid — has been called into question by some African
intellectuals.
Over the past 50 years about USD 1 trillion of development-related aid
has been transferred from rich countries to Africa, estimates
the UN. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in
the 1970s, and more than 50 percent of the population live on
less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in
two decades. Even after the debt-relief campaigns in the 1990s,
African countries still pay close to USD 20 billion in debt
repayments per annum, a stark reminder that aid is not free.
“Something new always comes out of Africa”
(Pliny the Elder, 77AD)
All of the above should give Africa’s brewers reason to cry into their
beers, had they not a different story to tell. The economic
landscape of Africa has changed dramatically since the “dismal
decade” of the 1990s, when Africa’s economy spluttered and GDP
growth trailed the world’s by a wide margin. Perhaps South
Africa’s former President Thabo Mbeki had the gift of foresight
when in 1997 he confidently predicted that the new millennium
would coincide with an “African Renaissance”. Actually, lots of
glad tidings have come out of Africa this past decade:
stagnation has given way to dynamism in a broad swath of African
countries; fewer people are living in extreme poverty; child
mortality rates have declined while primary school enrolment has
increased; more people have gained access to clean water and
fewer have died in violent conflicts; over 315 million people
began using mobile phones. And many have drunk more beer.
Between 2000 and 2009 beer consumption has risen 50 percent to 95 million
hl (Barth Report). Per capita consumption increase has been less
marked but already stands at slightly under 10 litres. The good
news is that beer has become available to large segments of the
population. Better still, many can afford to trade up to premium
brands. As Tom de Man, Heineken’s Regional President Africa &
Middle East told analysts a year ago: “A consumer drinks
‘affordable’ beer if he must, but he drinks a higher priced beer
if he can!”
I never thought that I would say this, but these past two years as the
global economic crisis wore on, global brewers SABMiller and
Heineken have both been saved by Africa. Without Africa’s beer
volume growth and healthy profits, their balance sheets would
have been in worse shape. Take a second to let this sink in.
Saved by Africa. It’s true. Even when the economic crisis hit
Africa in 2009, GDP growth only temporarily slowed down to 2
percent. This year it picked up again to over 4 percent. Next
year it is expected to rise 4.5 percent, faster than Latin
America’s, Central Asia’s, Europe’s, or the United States’ said
the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, a few months ago.
Not bad for a continent that many deemed lost, steeped in
perpetual misery and despair.
In fact, all of these numbers tell the story of a continent on the rise.
This is a story that needs to be told. What do I say? No, it
needs to be shouted from the rooftops accompanied by those
deafening vuvuzelas until the message rings in our ears.
The rest of this report of reserved for subscribers to Brauwelt. Read on
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