Africa economy
Israel's charm offensive in Africa also involves its companies
Audio 02:18
Trade between Israel and Africa is very low, less than $700 million per year.
(Illustrative image) © Shutterstock/Ollyy
By: Olivier Rogez Follow
3 mins
If the time is for political warming between Israel and a good name of African countries, this normalization also passes through the economy.
The symposium organized on Tuesday, May 31 by the Israeli Embassy in Paris highlights the opportunities offered for African companies, but also for Israeli companies in this rapprochement.
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Steve Tchoumba runs Activespaces in Cameroon, the country's first network of tech incubators.
In 2017, he started a cooperation with Israel.
"
The idea came from Israel, through the ambassador who is based in Cameroon and who told us '
Go and see what Israel can do ,
'
" explains Steve Tchoumba.
“
So we started doing research, and we realized that Israel was, indeed, this 'startup nation' that developed partly through new technologies.
So we started looking into it.
We participated in training on the model of Israel's digital economy
,” he adds.
“This cooperation is very specific”
The exchange of know-how and training is what Israel offers in the first place to its African partners, details Simon Seroussi, the spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Paris.
Cooperation between Israel and Africa is not on the same scale as that which can be seen in France or in other European countries.
We have the modesty to say that we are not at the same level, already because we are a much less important country.
However, this cooperation is very specific.
It is not a cooperation that is done with investments, it has a main part which is training.
And it has been since the 1960s in fact.
We specialize in that.
We have a development agency called Mashav, which is huge in terms of training young professionals around the world and especially young Africans (because this development agency works 40% on the African continent) .
New outlets
On the side of Israeli companies, Africa is perceived as an opportunity for new outlets.
Thus, Simon Schwall created a startup in Israel to immediately focus on the agricultural insurance market in the Sahel.
“
The Israeli market is not very big, the European and American markets are already very well covered with a lot of “solutions”, while in Africa we have hundreds of millions of farmers who need to secure their income and which have no solutions.
So even though their buying power is not high, their sheer numbers and lack of solutions make it a huge opportunity for a startup to develop something new.
So we saw a bigger opportunity in Africa than anywhere else in the world.
»
An emerging opportunity for Israeli companies.
Currently, trade with Africa is very low, less than 700 million dollars per year.
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