Technology and the online market place will create three million
jobs in Africa in the next five years, a new report by Boston
Consulting Group (BCG) has forecast.
The How Online
Marketplaces can power employment in Africa’, notes that platforms
including Jumia, Uber and Travelstart can, in addition to matching
buyers and sellers, raise incomes and boost economic growth.
“While
online marketplaces are often seen as disruptive forces in advanced
economies, in Africa’s less-structured economies they can be tremendous
catalysts of economic development,” said Ms Lisa Livers a BCG partner
and co-author of the report.
Concerns that growth in online marketplaces will merely
cannibalise the sales of brick-and-mortar retailers are misplaced in the
case of Africa, the report states.
There were only 15
stores per one million inhabitants in Africa in 2018, compared with 568
per million in Europe and 930 in the US.
e-commerce
This
extremely low penetration suggests that there’s minimal risk that
e-commerce will displace existing retailers and that much of the
population is underserved.
"We meet Kenyan SMEs on a
daily basis with great products, but who struggle to scale their
businesses for lack of capital. Growing in the offline world means more
shops and more stock — which takes working capital,” said Jumia Kenya
managing director Sam Chappatte, adding that “online marketplaces allow
these entrepreneurs to both reach new customers without additional
investment and build up a digital sales history that can be used to
unlock finance at a future point.”
According to the
report, along with creating new jobs, online marketplaces can stimulate
skill development, boost supply and demand for goods and services, and
bring more people into the formal workforce.
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