Thanks for this Daniel, having worked for two decades in export promotion from developing countries and local market systems development, I find this genuinely refreshing. The approach seems most effective as a pioneering ‘development push’ for non-existent or strongly underdeveloped export markets, a push that could then be followed by more targeted capacity development for export market systems development more broadly.
In addition to the risk-tolerant capital and hands-on operational support that the Africa Jobs Fund already provides, I see two areas where broader EA networks could add distinctive value:
Peer-to-peer support networks: connecting pioneering entrepreneurs with mentors who have navigated similar export market development in other countries and sectors, reducing the learning curve and risk of early-stage ventures.
Proactively fostering spillovers into the local economy, ensuring that the foreign entrepreneur’s initial push catalyses broader, structural market systems development. This is where the real systemic development impact lies, and where deliberate facilitation makes the difference between one main success and a transformative one.
A third enabler worth adding: systematic analysis of promising but underdeveloped export market sectors in African countries, identifying where the highest unrealized potential lies before entrepreneurs commit. ITC’s Export Potential Map is a useful existing resource here, indicating not just export potential by sector but also the percentage of that potential currently realized, effectively highlighting where the frontier opportunities are.
Do you see scope for the Africa Jobs Fund to extend into things like peer support networks, spillover facilitation, and export market analysis, or is the cleaner model to keep the fund focused on capital and operational support while catalysing complementary organizations to cover those layers? There are existing organizations with related export promotion mandates, like ITC, CBI and SIPPO, but as far as I know none of them has an exactly comparable focus to your initiative. Curious whether you see a gap worth filling there, and if so, what the right vehicle looks like.
Thanks Daniel, both your ideas for concrete enabling support facilities sound spot-on to me. Will keep them in mind and share them with export enablers in my network. In case promising synergies arise, I will let you know.
One question on the Asia mentor model: do you think established Asian exporters in the same industry would genuinely be willing to mentor potential African competitors? I wonder whether market size is sufficient to remove competitive hesitation, and whether the Asia-Africa context gap might make experienced African exporters from comparable industries (not exactly the same) maybe a better-motivated and more contextually relevant alternative.