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The Top Fintech Startups of 2017 for African Entrepreneurs to Take Note

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The world of fintech is universal. Do not think because you are in Burundi that your competitors have to be localized in your country. No, finance is a global business and you have to understand the big players, locally and internationally, to architect the right strategy.

They are the ones that will determine how you will perform because this is a game of dog eats dog. If they sign-up the customer, that customer is gone. There will be winners and losers.

The old Paypal is still alive. IBM Blockchain is emerging. But here we have focused on startups leaving the old guards out of it. But that does not mean the old guards are not relevant. They are. Why? If IBM succeeds in making Dubail a Blockchain nation, most of the startups we have listed below will die because IBM will morph them as it expands globally. What is happening in Dubai now is an existential threat and a disruption at a scale you may not imagine. Dubai may not need banks in the future and IBM Blockchain will become the financial grid.

Here are the fintech players after we explain what we mean by fintech in this piece.

Fintech is a portmanteau of financial technology that describes an emerging financial services sector in the 21st century. Originally, the term applied to technology applied to the back-end of established consumer and trade financial institutions. Since the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the term has expanded to include any technological innovation in the financial sector, including innovations in financial literacy and education, retail banking, investment and even crypto-currencies like bitcoin.

  1. Activehours develops a smartphone-based application that enables hourly workers to get paid early when they need it. It works on both Android and iOS smartphones and is recommended for hourly employees with an electronic timecard system at work and a direct deposit. .
  2. Lemonade Insurance Company is a licensed insurance carrier, offering homeowners and renters insurance powered by artificial intelligence and behavioral economics. By replacing brokers and bureaucracy with bots and machine learning, Lemonade promises zero paperwork and instant everything. And as a Certified B-Corp, where underwriting profits go to nonprofits, Lemonade is remaking insurance as a social good, rather than a necessary evil.
  3. Flutterwave provides technology, infrastructure and services to enable global merchants, payment service providers and Pan African banks accept and process payments on any channel (Web, Mobile, ATM & POS). We help businesses in africa go global by smoothening the exchange of funds in 150+ currencies.
  4. Addepar  – Cloud-based software allows wealth managers to track and analyze all of a client’s holdings and automates bringing new ones on board.
  5.  Affirm  Makes instant point-of-sale loans for online purchases at annual interest rates of 10% to 30%. Some merchants subsidize 0% loans. To help Millennial customers build credit histories, it recently started reporting loan-repayment history to credit bureaus.
  6. AlphaSense  Contextualized algorithms give investors the ability to search across millions of documents with a few clicks, dramatically reducing research times.
  7. Paystack lets businesses accept payments via credit card, debit card, money transfer and mobile money on their websites or mobile apps.
  8. Aztec Exchange Finances receivables for developing-world suppliers based on strength of their U.S. corporate buyers.
  9.  Betterment  Robo-advisor manages ETF portfolios to fit investors’ goals and risk tolerance, for a sliding fee, usually 0.25% of assets a year. Recently launched managed 401(k) product.
  10.  Cadre   Invitation-only platform that cuts out middlemen and lowers fees for high-net-worth and institutional buyers of shares of commercial and multifamily properties.
  11. C2FO  Fairway Uses algorithms and bids to match retailers and manfacturers sitting on extra cash with suppliers ready to accept discounts for payment within 48 hours.
  12. Chain Blockchain infrastructure provider. Helped develop first-ever blockchain-based product with a financial services incumbent, Nasdaq Linq, for trading shares in private companies. Visa is using Chain’s blockchain infrastructure for B2B Connect, an international payments system for business set to launch in 2017.
  13.  CircleUp  Crowdfunding site connects entrepreneurs behind new consumer products with potential distributors and financial backers. Recently launched a new “Classifier” tool that uses 90,000 data points to help investors evaluate a company.
  14.  Coinbase A rare cryptocurrency firm that is fully compliant with government regulations and has top-notch -security, Coinbase operates both a professional trading platform, Global Digital Asset Exchange, and a retail operation that maintains cryptocurrency -“wallets” for 4.7 million customers from 33 countries, who use these accounts to spend (or simply hold) bitcoin and “ether,” another digital currency.
  15.  Credit Karma Offers consumers free credit scores and monitoring plus recommendations for credit cards and loans, providing streamlined applications for them. Site will soon add access to mortgage comparison and Goldman Sachs’ new consumer-lending platform.
  16.  Dataminr  Uses machine learning to sift through Twitter and other public data to identify, and send alerts on, market-moving events.
  17.  Digital Reasoning Originally sold machine-learning software to the U.S. Army so it could scan text communications in Afghanistan for intelligence and threats to troops. Now Digital Reasoning’s Synthesys technology is used by top financial firms to screen their employees’ e-mail, instant messages and phone conversations for signs of insider trading and other misconduct.
  18.  DV01 New  Allows investors to track performance of peer-to-peer loans from nine originators, down to the loan level, in a matter of clicks.
  19.  Earnest   Has made more than $1 billion in personal loans and student loans, thanks to novel underwriting (it crunches up to 100,000 data points) and a feature allowing users to set repayment schedules to match their budgets.
  20.  EarnUp Service links to customers’ bank accounts and tracks income and expenses, making micropayments toward debt whenever the customer can -afford it. EarnUp figures it will save users an average of $22,000 in interest over the life of a mortgage and $4,000 on student loans. Company changed its name from APAsave after research conducted with famed behavioral economist Dan Ariely found that people prefer “earning” to “saving.” The product is free to borrowers; loan servicers pay EarnUp, since it cuts their cost of dealing with late and missed payments.
  21. Ellevest   Second-generation robo-advisor site designed for, and largely by, women. For a 0.5% of assets annual fee (twice what Betterment typically charges), clients get personalized portfolios of ETFs, with automatic contributions, rebalancing and asset allocation based on goals. Elegantly simple site design excludes traditional risk-tolerance questionnaires, which Ellevest argues don’t provide useful results.
  22.  Fundbox  San Francisco Helps small businesses deal with cash-flow problems created by the typical 90-day terms by linking to their Quickbooks or Freshbooks accounts and providing advances of up to $100,000 against invoices of their choosing.
  23.  Fundera Helps small-business owners compare and apply for everything from term loans to business credit cards.
  24.  Funding  Circle International marketplace small-business lender automates much of the application process, but unlike some competitors, still relies on humans to make final underwriting decision. About 25% of its new loans are made to U.S. borrowers, at rates of 5.5% to 28%.
  25.  Fundrise  While most real estate crowdfunding sites require clients to be wealthier “accredited” investors, Fundrise exploits a 2015 SEC rule to form “eReits” available to anyone ready to plunk down $1,000. So far, 10,000-plus investors have put $99 million into five eReits.
  26.  Gusto  Cloud-based software helps smaller businesses, most with under 100 employees, administer payroll and payroll taxes, health insurance and 401(k) plans.
  27. IEX Stock-trading venue uses 38 miles of cable, coiled up in a box, to create “speed bump” that levels playing field between high-frequency traders and other investors.
  28.  Kabbage  Automated lending platform offers lines of credit for small businesses–at a stiff price. Daily underwriting means line limits and rates can change monthly. Platform now being licensed to banks, too.
  29.  Kensho Uses huge historic database and machine learning to analyze how a specific event–from a natural disaster to an election result–might affect markets, presenting results in an easy-to-digest knowledge graph.
  30.  Klarna Allows shoppers (mostly in Europe) to check out at 65,000 merchants with just an e-mail and address and pay after delivery–pay within a grace period and it’s interest-free.
  31.  Metromile Offers novel pricing that combines a low, flat monthly fee with a charge per mile driven, tracked by a device plugged into a car’s diagnostic system. Metromile says this saves city dwellers, retirees and others who drive little an average of $500 a year. After acquiring a traditional insurer, the company is now underwriting and processing claims in house and plotting expansion -beyond its current seven states.
  32.  Motif Investing Allows individual investors to design, share and buy baskets (Motifs) of up to 30 stocks for $9.95 a transaction. In nod to robo-craze, recently launched auto-investment service Motif Blue.
  33. Numer.ai Next-generation hedge fund runs online competition in which anonymous data scientists (using encrypted data sets) create machine-learning models to predict stock market moves. Hedge fund uses top models, paying winners in bitcoin.
  34.  Orchard Platform Aims to create secondary marketplace for peer-to-peer loans; already validates performance data from the sector’s biggest originators.
  35.  Personal Capital  A “robo-hybrid” advisor offering 10,000 paying customers a combination of computerized portfolio management and human financial advice (available by phone, e-mail and video) for 0.89% of assets a year on the first $1 million, with a minimum investment of $25,000. For larger taxable accounts it creates portfolios of individual stocks that mimic an index fund, thus maximizing tax-loss harvesting opportunities. Personal Capital has a pipeline of prospects: 1.2 million people use its free tools to track investment returns on $270 billion in wealth.
  36. Plaid Its tools connect other firms to users’ bank-account information, making it possible to transfer funds, track spending and detect fraud.
  37.  Point  Liquidity provider for homeowners. Invests in their equity, sharing in profit (or loss) when house is sold. Sells the equity to institutional investors looking for real estate exposure.
  38.  Qapital App helps Millennial users curb spending and squirrel away an average of $160 a month with personal triggers, e.g., transfers $5 to savings after every “guilty pleasure” charge for GrubHub or Uber.
  39.  Quantopian  Crowdsourced quantitative-investing platform. DIY quants create investing algorithms using site’s data and research. Best performers are licensed for a 10% cut of profits.
  40.  Ripple Aims to establish a global financial-settlements network, with cross-border payments available instantly, built on a digital-currency platform.
  41.  Riskalyze  Software helps financial advisors analyze clients’ risk exposure and construct suitable portfolios; also offers a new robo-platform for advisors who prefer to leave asset allocation to the computers.
  42.  Robinhood Mobile app offering free basic stock trading, or $10 a month “Gold” service with margin loans, extended trading hours and quicker access to stock-sale proceeds.
  43.  Signifyd  For under 1% up to 4% of an online merchant’s sales, Signifyd and its algorithms take over fraud protection, assuming liability for any bogus charges that slip through.
  44.  SoFi  SoFi (short for Social Finance) started as a student-loan refinancer. Now also offering jumbo mortgages, robo-investing and a service that enables employers to help pay workers’ student debt.
  45.  Stripe  Its plug-ins make taking online payments easier.
  46.  Symphony  For $15 a month per user this “Bloomberg killer” provides a secure environment for messaging, apps and video-conferencing, as well as connection to Selerity Context, Money.Net, FactSet, Dow Jones and other apps.
  47.  Tala  Microlender and mobile app that crunches 10,000 data points gleaned from an applicant’s smartphone, including purchases, Web searches and social media use, to approve $10 to $500 loans for developing-world borrowers who lack credit scores.
  48.  TransferWise  Peer-to-peer app for moving money around the world has software that matches unrelated customers’ orders to limit how much currency actually crosses borders. Aims to undercut bank charges by 80%.
  49. TrueAccord  Employs machine-learning algorithms to collect bad debts using texts, e-mails and fewer but friendlier phone calls than traditional collection agencies.
  50.  Trumid  Alternative electronic-trading platform enables bond trading at a fraction of the cost of traditional banks, while allowing users to negotiate trades anonymously.
  51.  Xapo  Stores Bitcoin on offline servers for wealthy Western investors; processes mobile bitcoin transactions for consumers in developing world.
  52. Xignite  Supplier of real-time market data.
  53.  ZestFinance  Uses big data–100,000 signals, many unconventional–to underwrite loans to borrowers with thin credit histories or low credit scores.

(Sources: Crunchbase, Forbes, Fortune, Tekedia)

 

What is Power Line Communication technology?

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BPL stands for Broadband over Power Lines. It is an alternative means of providing high-speed Internet access, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and other broadband services to homes and businesses by using the existing medium voltage (MV) and low voltage (LV) power lines. It is also know as Internet over power line (IPL), Power Line Communication (PLC), or Power Line Telecommunication (PLT).

Right now, we enjoy many technological advances on the internet, but this is not experienced for everyone. The BPL technology is blissful for those peoples who are living in rural areas where proper internet connection is still a dream. In rural areas, we can not get internet connection easily or to extend the internet connection is costly.

Broadband over power lines (BPL) is the answer as it allows data to be transmitted over utility power lines. Just imagine internet data is running on those power lines caring power as well. This is quite possible with the help of BPL technology.

If we can provide internet through BPL technology, in every ruler area or right now the areas where the internet connection is not possible, then the people can get education easily, people can learn from anywhere, people will be connected with world more optimally.

BPL allows access via our home wall socket. We have got a wall socket that provides power to our home electric appliances including TV, Fridge, AC, Lights, Fan etc. and the same socket can enable to use the internet as well from the same power line. BPL is a new technology with the huge potential in future.

The cost of a LAN cable and building a necessary infrastructure to provide DSL or cable in ruler area is still quite high, but if broadband could be served through power lines. This means there would be no need to build a new infrastructure as the electricity system can be used for broadband internet connection.

 

How the BPL technology works?

  •  Power lines must be in every area where we have to provide internet service.
  •  Internet Service Provider (ISP) setup it’s BPL system at power station.
  •  The BPL system inject the internet data in power line through multiplexer system and transmit with the power in power line.
  •  BPL technology need repeaters to amplify the data signal, so repeater are installed approximately every 1000 to 2500 ft. 5) The Internet data travel through power line from the sub-stations. The internet data distribute from the sub-station to the home are and office area with power.
  •  BPL extractors are located at each low voltage distribution transformer feeding a group of homes.
  •  The last mile is the final step that carries data into the subscriber’s home or office. In the various approaches to last-mile solutions for BPL, some companies carry the signal in with the electricity on the power line, while others put wireless links on the poles and send the data wirelessly into homes.

Advantages

  • Wide, spread and extensive infrastructure that is already available in remote areas in terms of electrical cables allow easy access to internet with relatively very little equipment investment, particularly in areas where limitations in terms of having a cable or DSL connections are experienced by service providers.
  • Maintenance costs of BPL are also extremely low.
  • Installation time is very less and rural penetration is relatively easy.
  • BPL is a good solution for Home Networking than other available solutions as no other infrastructures is required.
  • Access BPL systems have the potential in increasing the availability of broadband services to homes and businesses

Difficulties

  • Standardisation – due to absence of international standards with physical characteristics of electricity.
  • The amount of bandwidth that a BPL system can provide compared to cable and wireless is in question.
  • Inherently very noisy due to high energy that they carry.
  • Turning on or off every time of any electrical device introduces a click into the line which causes disruption.
  • Compatibility and Interference problems with other users of the radio spectrum.
  • Signal attenuation, boosting and repeater design.
  • Coordination among Telecom & Power service providers. Security issues in adoption of Internet Services.
  • Step down Transformers blocking high frequencies.

Case Deployments in Africa

  • Egypt: The Engineering Office for Integrated Projects (EOIP) has deployed PLC technology widely in Alexandria, Fayed, and Tanta. Based on a locally developed system, the company provides AMR for electricity utilities. Currently, the company has about 70,000 subscribers.
  • South Africa: Goal Technology Solutions (GTS) trialled the technology and is offering service in the suburbs of Pretoria, and plans to extend it to other areas. The tests were done with Mitsubishi equipment using a DS2 chipset, and the company claims a maximum throughput of 90 Mbit/s although initially only “512 Kbits/s ADSL equivalent speeds” are available. Now it uses DefiDev’s equipment, and according to GTS’s website, it will expand available bandwidth up to 5-20 Mbit/s.

Three key forces driving digital transformation of Africa’s telco industry

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Despite on-going economic challenges and some tricky regulatory issues, Africa is fast approaching the 1bn mobile subscriptions landmark. The continued rollout of 3G and 4G networks, as well as an influx of low-cost smartphones, is changing the face of the African telecoms market by making the latest mobile innovations accessible and available to African citizens. In light of the continent’s often underdeveloped broadband infrastructure, this is particularly significant as it finally brings African citizens into the global mobile fold, where anyone from business leaders and diplomats to smallholder farmers and school children can access the internet and increase their knowledge and economic opportunities.

Africa has also often played a leadership role in mobile innovation: its mobile money products – such as Mpesa – are among the most successful of any around the world, and the continent often finds innovative ways to work around its infrastructural challenges by finding new uses for feature phone tech such as USSD and SMS.

However, Africa is undergoing a process of broad and sweeping digital transformation which, in the telco industry, is being driven by three key forces:

1. OTT services putting pressure on telcos’ traditional revenue streams
Globally, more than 1.8bn people use OTT mobile services, which is why Ovum predicts a $293.4bn loss in the telco industry due to OTT VoIP services. In fact, Ovum predicts that by 2020 there will be 2.7bn OTT VoIP users, which will upend the entire traditional telco industry as providers seek new ways to increase revenue. Telcos have already begun to incorporate OTT services as part of value-add packages to consumers. Of such telco-OTT partnerships, a quarter involve video content, 22% offer music services and a further 19% offer social media to consumers at reduced rates.

2. Consumer demand for online videos forcing data costs down
According to recent stats, 62% of mobile users consume online video content. In 2014 already, 50% of all YouTube traffic came from mobile devices, and analysts estimate that video will account for 70% of all mobile traffic by 2021. The continued growth of data consumption – fuelled in part by the demand for online video content – is creating robust revenue growth for operators. An Ovum report estimates that mobile data in Africa will grow from $6.40bn in 2015 to more than $27bn in 2021. As revenue from traditional voice services continue to be disrupted by OTT players, and consumers increasingly shift consumption habits to more data-intensive media such as video, operators will need to be in a position to innovate quickly and accurately or risk losing customers (and revenue).

3. Hyper connectivity – machine-to-machine and IoT devices creating opportunity for new revenue streams
Despite strong mobile revenue growth predicted for Africa over the coming years – from $55.55bn in 2015 to a predicted $69.67bn in 2021 – it is the emergence of the Internet of Things that will make the biggest impact on the African telco industry. The World Economic Forum estimates there will be more than 50bn connected devices by 2020, creating what McKinsey estimates to be a $6.2tn industry by 2025. As a company we have also made a strategic decision to take advantage of the opportunities on offer around IoT: in September, SAP announced it will invest $2.2-billion in IoT by 2020. Telco operators have a natural advantage in Africa as their infrastructure is often quite advanced, potentially making it easier for IoT devices to be connected to a single network with big data capabilities.

Telcos will need to navigate these forces if they are to create the new revenue streams they need to replace traditional voice income streams. The emergence of big data is likely to be the single biggest tool in telcos’ attempts in this regard, with a recent Ovum report identifying it as the top strategic investment among African telcos in the next 18 months. Building on that through real-time analytics that allow for better decision-making, and enabling a deeper level of personalization that opens the door to new digital service offerings would give telcos the opportunity to transform their business models.

With a continent-wide mobile penetration rate of over 83%, Africa is well-poised to take advantage of the immense socio-economic and technology benefits promised by connected IoT devices. For example, telcos could merge data from commuters’ phones with smart sensors to determine traffic patterns and provide accurate insights to city planners in an effort to improve cities’ integrated transport plans. Up-to-date weather information could be merged with agricultural sensors to provide African farmers with critical insights that can boost crop productivity and minimize risks to crops.

Telcos’ advanced infrastructure and data-processing capabilities can bring these benefits to life: by delivering personalized and accurate information to mobile users, telcos are uniquely poised to discover new opportunities for value-added digital services that bring true benefit to the end-user while creating entirely new revenue streams for the telcos themselves.

To thrive on the African continent, telcos need to find innovative new partnerships with OTT partners, video providers, and others to drive monetised traffic on their networks. Simultaneously, there is an urgent need for telcos to modernise their networks and IT infrastructure to ensure they are capturing all revenue opportunities, such as releasing new digital services including connected cars, home automation, and more.

by Mariam Abdullahi, Telco Industry Lead at SAP Africa. Was originally written as “The building blocks of a new mobile revolution: strategic focus areas for Africa’s telcos in 2017”

Jobberman publishes Top 100 Companies to Work for the Year 2016 in Nigeria

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The 3rd Annual Jobberman Best 100 Companies To Work For focused on identifying, recognising and celebrating top employers in Nigeria, as rated by employees and professionals. The ranking also provides insight to job seekers on companies they should have their eyes on, for employment and career growth, as well as providing opportunities for business prospecting.

GE is the best company to work for in Nigeria followed b Airtel, Ericsson and Google, according to Jobberman.

  1. General Electric
  2. Airtel
  3. Ericsson
  4. Google
  5. Shell
  6. Guaranty Trust bank
  7. First Bank
  8. Andela
  9. Union Bank of Nigeria
  10. Konga
  11. Nestle Nigeria PLC
  12. Integrated Corporate Services Limited (ICSL)
  13. Cool FM Lagos
  14. Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)
  15. Leadway Pensure PFA Limited
  16. Chevron
  17. KPMG
  18. Nigerian Bottling company Limited
  19. UAC PLC
  20. Courteville Business Solutions PLC
  21. Exxon Mobil PLC
  22. Nigerian Port Authority (NPA)
  23. Nigerian Breweries PLC
  24. Institute of Human Virology Nigeria
  25. Central Bank of Nigeria
  26. AXA  Mansard Insurance PLC
  27. Access Bank PLC
  28. Lafarge Cement WAPCO PLC
  29. Public and Private Development Centre Limited (PPDC)
  30. Nigeria LNG Limited
  31. Dangote Group
  32. Aluko & Oyebode
  33. Insight Communications Limited
  34. Honeywell Flour Mills PLC
  35. MediaReach OMD Limited
  36. Total PLC
  37. IBM
  38. SystemSpecs Limited
  39. Seplat Petroleum Development Company PLC
  40. Interswitch
  41. CHI Limited – TGI Group
  42. Cummins West Africa Limited
  43. BUA Group
  44. APIN Public Health Initiatives
  45. Reckitt Benckiser
  46. Guinness PLC
  47. UNFPA
  48. MTN
  49. Huawei
  50. Maersk
  51. Accion Microfinance Bank
  52. Wema Bank PLC
  53. Zenith Bank PLC
  54. British Tobacco Company
  55. United Nations (UN)
  56. Procter & Gamble
  57. Levant Construction Limited
  58. Microsoft
  59. Unilever PLC
  60. World Bank
  61. Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)
  62. British Airways
  63. Seamfix Nigeria Limited
  64. Aggreko Project International
  65. Jumia
  66. DHL Express
  67. World Health Organisation (WHO)
  68. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
  69. Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS)
  70. Etisalat
  71. Mastercard
  72. ECOWAS
  73. iROKO Partners
  74. Fidelity bank PLC
  75. Agip Oil Company Limited
  76. Lagos TV (LTV)
  77. Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC)
  78. Sahara Group
  79. US Embassy
  80. AIICO Insurance PLC
  81. IHS Nigeria Limited
  82. Deloitte
  83. Schlumberger Nigeria
  84. Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN)
  85. Globacom
  86. Africa Finance Corporation
  87. Nigerdock Nigeria PLC
  88. Accenture
  89. Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)
  90. Standard Chartered Bank
  91. FHI 360
  92. Flour Mills of Nigeria PLC
  93. Federal Civil Service Commission
  94. Uber
  95. African Development Bank
  96. Sanofi Pharmaceutical company
  97. Addax Petroleum
  98. Nepal Oil and Gas Services Ltd
  99. Cadbury PLC
  100. APM Terminals

Liberated Africa: Pathways to Self-Transformational Development by Prof Ehiedu Iweriebor

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In the period since independence in the 1950s, Africa has undergone profound social, cultural, economic and political changes. Some inherited and historically rootless colonialist political and social systems have collapsed, been transcended and reconstituted. Different political systems – single party rule, personal rule and military governments have come and gone. New post-independence political and social systems; economic institutions, professional associations and labour unions, various types – traditional and new and varied cultural expressions have all emerged. Creative efforts to foster effective nation-building, develop a sense of belonging and manage diversity productively have also been made. New political systems, different forms of electoral democracy and democratic government;  political parties and groups, varied social and intelligentsia organizations, confident youth groups, civil society organizations are also emerging. Disruptive and traumatic political and social crises have occurred. These include civil wars, secessionist wars, famines, elite generated manipulative ethnicity and deadly intergroup conflicts, and recently home grown and imported religious terrorism and their destructive wars, spectacular damaging actions, the creation of refugees and internally displaced peoples and the generation of general feelings of insecurity.

Social development institutions like health and educational facilities that barely existed under colonialism have been built. For example, vast numbers of schools at all levels including universities and other tertiary institutions – conventional and specialized have been established and dot various parts of Africa. They have produced millions of educated Africans as never existed before in African history. New physical infrastructures: roads, railways, water ways and airports have been built. This is a rough profile of profound changes in Africa since the 1950s.

However, given Africa’s size and vast unmet human, social and economic needs there is no question that substantial as what has been built is, the extant physical and social infrastructures are not adequate or abundant enough.

At the same time, it is quite clear that the physical and social landscapes of Africa today are vastly different from what they were 60 years ago such that it is unlikely that people from those times will recognize Africa of today.

Yet it is also true that there are some aspects of African realities that have not changed substantively or for the better during this period because Africa did not regain, recover or assert its ownership and use of its autonomous self-direction capacities in some spheres over the past six decades. These are primarily in the areas of economic sovereignty, development capacitation, self-actuated development and ideological self-direction. This failure is manifested in such conditions as persistent underdevelopment, the pre-eminence of primary commodities production and export in its economic interactions with the world, import dependency, development incapacitation and poverty generation. It is also manifested in Africa’s ideological subordination to external diktat through the acceptance and implementation of the economic management dogmas and prescriptions of the multilateral imperialist agencies – the World Bank, IMF and similar bilateral external agencies. These prescribed non-development dogmas include: privatization, deregulation and African states self-withdrawal from promoting socio-economic development and the simultaneous promotion of the ascendancy of  “MARKET FORCES, FOREIGN INVESTORS, FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENTS and FOREIGN TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER ” as the primary and indispensable engines of African economic growth.

The forceful application of these disempowering dogmas through the active complicity of psychologically programmed and ideologically defeated African leaders and elite over the past three decades has yielded or in fact consolidated Africa in its status as under- developed, under-equipped and incapable of development self-propulsion. With African economies arrested in primary commodity export and the mass importation of manufactured goods they are mired in the same exocentric rut and this inevitably results in the export of jobs and import of poverty, therefore recurrent poverty-generation.

This condition and its persistence over this period suggest that IT CANNOT BE RESOLVED WITHIN ITSELF. It has to be transcended by African strategies of psycho-cultural recovery and development capacitation. Psycho-cultural recovery will entail the self-conscious efforts of liberated Africans to peel off the layers of self-deceit, self-delusion, psycho-ideological incapacitation, diminution of African self-worth, self-marginalization of African agency in African development. It would also require the expurgation from African leaderships and elite of their worshipful dependence on outsiders and preference for all things foreign including pre-fabricated solutions that have been introduced into Africa as dogmas of disempowerment and mechanisms of control from the slave trade era to the present. In its various incarnations, African disempowerment was partially procured through various  seemingly neutral but ultimately destructive external ideological constructs such as “Christianization”, “Islamization”; European “Civilization” during the colonial era; “Modernization” in the neo-colonial period after independence and its latest expression, as multilateral imperialist “globalism” and dictatorial globalization that ideologically and politically dictates a single, global capitalist and liberal democratic system as the only “approved” economic, political and social and order for all times. This would be composite world of the rich and powerful, and the weak and powerless with Africa at the top.

But all these disempowering political, social, cultural and economic constructs and systems of domination were politically and self-consciously created by organized and mission-driven national and racial elites pursuing the objectives of group ascendancy and global domination. They are not divine constructs imposed on the world. In the same way, liberated Africans can self-consciously choose and work to exit from this state of UNFREEDOM AND INDIGNITY by dismantling and reconstituting the extant world order (as Asians have done) and chose to create and enter the realms of FREEDOM AND SELF-DIRECTION through development capacitation, psychological liberation, cultural recuperation, mental freedom and self-actuated development so as to emerge as powerful participants in the world system as actors not subjects. This is the liberatory imperative.

In order for Africa to assume responsibility for its own transformation and elevation, and be able to undertake self-reliant development and create secure domestic prosperity, it has to create its own specific ideology and strategy of self-development. To do this there are a number of irreducible components that have to be designed and put in place. These are: the recovery and application of African agency in African development, the creation of the liberated African state, establishment of an African development capacitation system, the creation and dissemination of the Affirmative Africa Narrative and African comprehensive military empowerment.

The Centrality of African Agency in African Development
The first requirement of this liberated development strategy and process is the emplacement of African Agency at the centre of African thought and action as the primary psycho-cultural foundation, ideological premise and endogenous propellant for Africa’s self-actuated development. In this context African Agency is the endogenously created psycho-cultural software embedded in societies with which African societies train, organize, motivate, self-activate and direct themselves to accomplish desirable ends individually and collectively. It is the absolute psycho-cultural grounding and ideological ownership of the African project devoid of compromises to any external imperatives. African Agency is grounded on the supremacy of African endocentric thought and motive-forces as the propellants of development as a self-directed imperative.

Without contemporary Africans’ psychological internalization of this understanding and ownership of their development vision and their assumption of complete responsibility for self-actuated development, African societies will remain dependent, underdeveloped and insecure. Therefore the new liberated Africa vision must recognize the absolute necessity of the restoration of African Agency to primacy for any successful African actuated process of transformation. This new perspective is critically important because it has to be realized that one of the major challenges and primary impediment to Africa’s development since independence in the 1960s has been the absence of African Agency in African development as the directive force. This was due to the concerted and largely successful efforts of external multilateral imperialist forces (posing as omniscient advisers) working with psycho-ideologically unprepared and even naive African collaborator-leaders to promote exocentric authority and the corresponding marginalization, diminution and de-activation of African Agency in African development. Consequently, without the unquestioned ascendancy, centrality and directive role of African Agency, African development understood as Africans’ self-equipment for total liberation and radical transformation can never occur.

The Liberated African State
Second, is the imperative of the creation of a new Liberated African State through the rigorous ideological cleansing, psychological re-empowerment and administrative reconstruction of the contemporary politically compromised and disabled neo-colonial African states that are more representative of external forces than national interests.

The decolonization of the colonial African state and the evolution and emergence of the liberated state after independence was disrupted in the 1980s when most African states were captured and disabled by the cancerous ideologies, dogmas and prescriptions of the multilateral imperialist agencies – the World Bank and the IMF and their bilateral supporters in the context of the economic crises of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Embodied in various formulations and policy diktats such as the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), and its unvarying conditionalities: currency devaluation, subsidy removal, trade liberalization and others like deregulation, privatization, poverty reduction; these prescriptions have transformed African states into disabled, compromised, neo-colonial political-administrative contraptions that are responsible to neo-imperialist multilateral institutions and not to Africans. They therefore cannot serve Africa’s interests

This is why it is imperative to create the new Liberated African state. It will be a strong and interventionist developmental state. Its raison d’ etre would be the representation and promotion of national interests. This Liberated African state will be grounded on the affirmation and militant expression of its untrammeled sovereignty; and the absolute non-compromise of national interests to any external agencies, formulations, dogmas and imperatives. It would self-consciously assume and assert uncontested ideological ascendancy. In fact the new liberated state will represent the completion of the decolonization of the African states and the emergence of truly endogenous states. It is only such Liberated African developmental states that can lead to the realization of the African citizens’ expectations for defence and protection, advanced development, material prosperity and freedom from want and colonialist philanthropy, psychological security and empowerment, dignity and equity with all other groups in the world.

The African Development Capacitation System
The third critical requirement is the development and placement of an African Development Capacitation System as the primary motive-force for Africa’s social and economic transformation and creation of advanced societies. This is proposed against the background of the complete failure of the extant neo-colonial economic system inherited and maintained from colonialism. In over five decades of its use and application as the dominant economic management system and growth strategy it has yielded and maintained Africa in a state of development incapacitation, primary commodity exportation, secondary goods importation, dependency, poverty generation, incapacity for self-propulsion, and subjection to the diktat and control of multilateral imperialist agencies – the World Bank and IMF. It is quite clear that the extant exocentric economic system with its development motive forces externally situated is organically defective, un-reformable and inherently incapable of propelling Africa to the highest levels of development.

Therefore in order for Africa to develop and achieve the highest levels of human development it has to own the instruments and systems of self-actuated development. This perspective is partly based on this author’s succinct definition of Development – as a society’s self-equipment with the resources and capacities for its self-reproduction. Consequently, the African Development Capacitation system is the creation and existence within all African societies of the endogenous capacities to conceive, design, construct, manage and operate projects in ALL sectors of the economy. These include the technological, scientific, managerial and operational capabilities for all facets of modern industrial and agricultural production and development self-propulsion.

Practically, the components of the development capacitation system include the domestic possession and ownership of the following capacities: Project Conception and Design capabilities; Technological Production Capacity or Capital Goods Industries comprising : Engineering Industries for the manufacture of all types and levels of machine tools, industrial machinery and equipment, transport equipment, electrical and power equipment;  electronic and professional tools and equipment. Intermediate Goods Industries (Metals, Heavy Chemicals, Petrochemicals, Paper, Rubber etc); Civil Engineering Construction Capabilities for large, medium and small scale projects; and Project management and operation and supervision Capabilities.

This endogenous development capacitation system is found in all successful  global examples of societal self-development as the prime movers of any society’s self-actuated transformation from conditions of UN-FREEDOM: material underdevelopment, mass poverty, indignity and colonialist philanthropy to new empowered conditions of FREEDOM: expressed as self-created material abundance and prosperity, psycho-cultural confidence and dignified existence. This is practically expressed in mass industrialization, modernized mass agricultural production, mass mineral exploitation and beneficiation primarily for domestic use; mass employment, mass prosperity generation; cultural elevation, self-actuation, self-agency, human dignity and societal power. This is in effect the enthronement of the strategy and process of endocentricity and its ineluctable creation and production of a state of development.

The Affirmative Africa Narrative
The fourth basic requirement is the creation and permanent dissemination of a self-elevating paradigm or narrative to be known as the Affirmative Africa Narrative. Currently there is no global African created narrative that conceives, presents, projects and widely propagates a truthful, complex and elevating narrative of Africa and Africans. In its absence there exists a universal externally fabricated, pervasive and routinely propagated perverse perspective on Africa that I describe as the Pathological Africa Narrative. This narrative which evolved from the era of the European slave trade; was expansively propagated and consolidated during colonialism and has been fine-tuned and expanded since independence to the present to include other foreign propagators like Asians and even Africans. It presents an image and impression; perception and narrative of Africa as a world of deficits, lack, deprivation, absence, danger, disease, inaction, native incapacity, immobility and a basket charity case that is rescueable only by the self-assigned salvationary efforts of Western multilateral imperialist agencies – World Bank and IMF – their dogmas, experts and prescriptions. This Pathological Africa Narrative is not only inaccurate but it is also dangerous and damaging as it represents the software of African self-denigration, servility, surrender and incapacitation.

In order to pursue the vision of liberated Africa it is imperative to create and propagate the Affirmative Africa Narrative. This would be a robust and unapologetic statement of African accomplishments in all areas of human endeavor since independence despite all internal and external obstacles. It would provide the psychological props and grounding among Africans for their self-representation. The Affirmative Africa Narrative is intended to confront, combat, degrade, pulverize, defeat, eliminate and replace the Pathological Africa Narrative that currently pervades external and internal descriptions and representations of Africa and Africans. In its place, the Affirmative Africa Narrative should become the primary perceptual representation and imagistic projection of an energetic and boundless; resurgent and self-directed Africa.

Consequently, for Africans committed to racial upliftment and continental advancement and empowerment embodied in the new liberated Africa vision, the requisite framework of self-representation, self-projection and self-activation is the Affirmative Africa Narrative. This is thus a necessary and indispensable accompaniment and organic adjunct to the determined pursuit of the liberated African vision and mission.

The Imperative of African Military Empowerment
A fifth requirement of the liberated Africa vision is the imperative of Africa’s military empowerment through deliberate provisions for continent-wide development of military capabilities. In order to meet the defence needs of a self-conscious people and continent determined to assume responsibility for its own self-advancement,  self-protection, self-projection and emergence as a powerful and dynamic participant in global affairs, two range of actions are minimally imperative.

First is the establishment and development of military industries throughout Africa to ensure that virtually all military equipment from the most basic to the most advanced are manufactured (not assembled) in Africa. This is will free Africa from its current pathetic situation of dependency for military wares from the countries which participated in the past in Africa’s conquest and colonization as well as from new armament producers and traders. To be militarily none self-equipped and self-reliant is to reside in a state of UNFREEDOM.

The second aspect of African military empowerment is the revival, re-steaming and realization of the long-standing grand visions from the 1960s for continental defence institutions and systems. The founding nationalist and pan Africanist leaders of the 1960s and 1970s, had canvassed and proposed the development a comprehensive continental military defence system. This is was to be known as the African Military High Command. These pioneer leaders envisaged it as a powerful continental defence force for self-protection, internal security issues, intra-continental intervention, conflict resolution, contributions to continental and global peace keeping and management as needed and as a force of self-projection that announces Africa’s global presence. It would also be responsible for the security of African geo-political and oceanic spaces against foreign powers desirous of containing, controlling and constraining Africa by the establishment of their military cordon around the continent.

The over-all rationale for the prescription of Africa’s military empowerment is due to the historical purblindness and psychological incapacitation of African leaderships and dominant elite since independence.  In the light of the rapid conquest, colonization and exploitation of African communities after the Berlin Conference between the 1880s-1900s, self-conscious Africans should never have the luxury of forgetting that Africa was conquered primarily because of Western military superiority in arms and armaments. Thus it would seem minimally patriotic, psychologically imperative, behaviourially logical and eminently sensible that such a people and continent should give premium attention to the establishment of a powerful military capacity for defence and offense as indicated by its historical experiences and new status as sovereign states.

Therefore a fulsome strategy for African military self-equipment and a powerful and expansive African Military High Command should be developed and incorporated as part of the liberated development strategy to equip Africa to defend, protect and project itself and to play a dynamic role in global affairs.

Conclusion
The various elements outlined above constitute a new strategy and process of endocentric development or African Liberated Development and their application would produce Liberated Africa. This Africa would be truly self-made: developmentally transformed, ideologically self-directed, politically stable, technologically advanced, industrially developed, socially prosperous, culturally renascent, psychologically assertive, militarily powerful, a globally ascendant continent with self-restored human dignity, an Africa of which all Africans will be duly proud.

Ehiedu Iweriebor, Ph.d (Columbia) is a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Africana and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies, Hunter College, City University of New York, USA.