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This article was contributed to TechCabal by Tochi Louis. For decades, Africa’s creative economy has thrived in pockets, driven by the indomitable spirit of its creators and internal stakeholders. With Nigeria recently becoming the sixth-largest music-exporting country in the world—trailing behind creative economy juggernauts like the US, UK, Colombia, and South Korea—every melody, every frame, pulses with the potential to not only reshape our image and narrative on a global scale but also to evoke a promising economic future. However, one question persists: what’s the extent of the financial sector’s involvement in this renaissance? For too long, the financial sector has cursorily viewed the local creative economy through a lens of skepticism, largely stemming from a misunderstanding of its value chain and perceived volatility that is not always reflective of our reality. It’s time we start having honest conversations and map out strategies to bridge the divide. The creative ecosystem is not monolithic. It spans industries such as music, film, and fashion, and even intersects with sectors like real estate and tech. Yet, as Wakiuru Njuguna, Managing Director of HEVA Fund, a key player in creative financing, points out, “The creative sector has too often been seen as a charity case, when in fact it represents a powerful engine for economic growth if oiled properly.” This mindset has stifled the financial sector’s will to tap into the full potential of Africa’s creative ecosystem. A major part of this hurdle also stems from the misperception of creatives themselves. As Chin Okeke, Founder of Misan Partners, explains, “There’s a view of creatives as just creatives. People do not understand that creatives have business acumen.” This illusion has created a chasm between the financial sector and the creative economy, with the former seeing only surface-level creativity rather than the robust, multifaceted industry and infrastructure powering it. Chin insists, “To truly understand it and change that perception, they [financial sector] have to view it from an industrial perspective. The value chain, the assembly line, input-process-output—it’s no different in music and film than it is in oil and gas or real estate.” Banks and private investors routinely argue that the creative economy carries too much risk, largely because it is viewed solely as a collection of isolated artistic endeavors, rather than as an ecosystem ripe with opportunity that requires appropriate, tailor-made backing. There’s a valuable lesson to be learned from Africa’s agricultural sector, which has long benefited from tailored financial products like micro-loans and crop insurance. Wakiuru suggests that the same level of responsiveness be extended to the creative industries: “What we are seeing is a need for financing that’s as nuanced as the sector itself. It’s not about injecting money into the sector but about creating financial products that reflect the realities of each value chain within the industry.” When dealing with a sector like the creative economy, which primarily generates intellectual property, Wakiuru advises against using the same lens across board to evaluate risk. She cites the need for financial models that blend different forms of capital, from grants to venture capital. Chin also echoes the validity of a blended finance approach: “It allows us to stack different types of capital along the value chain, from grants to equity, to unlock opportunities at every stage.” In her decade-long run at HEVA Fund, Wakiuru has built financing facilities responsive to the creative sector, aligned with their respective markets. She highlights the importance of local context, noting that Africa comprises many countries, each with its own spending and consumption habits, as well as cultural influences. For instance, one of the largest video-on-demand platforms in Kenya has over five million Google Play downloads and has built, a strong business case around affordable, culturally relevant content delivered through a pay-per-view model, championed by local talent. Meanwhile, the Nigerian box office is increasingly recording more billion-naira blockbusters compared to the past decade. “Most of that revenue comes from local audiences, which is proof that local markets can drive substantial revenue when given the right infrastructure,” Chin says. “So, the game isn’t just to make more films; it’s also about expanding from 300 screens to 3,000 to make content more accessible for our people and meet local demand,” he adds. The same principle applies to audio. In Nigeria, the music consumed is overwhelmingly Nigerian, yet there are hardly any platforms that allow Nigerians or Africans to fully access and engage with their own music on a specialised scale. “The demand for local audio is huge,” Chin explains. “We have the market, we have the demand, but we need a solution tailored for Africa because streaming, as it stands, applies a Western solution to a market where it isn’t fully working.” Wakiuru complements Chin’s perspective, challenging the perception that ‘success in the creative economy should ultimately be tied to foreign demand’. “We could consider demand from the diaspora,” she asserts, “but that ultimately depends on the investor’s agenda and the kinds of opportunities they’re pursuing.” Chin explains that layers of opportunity in various creative industries can be viewed differently. “If we look at the Music industry, 98% of the revenue comes from outside Nigeria. Thus, you would focus on exports for short- and mid-term investments. On the other hand, Film presents a different picture. Here, the short- and mid-term opportunities for revenue lie within the local market.” Chin points to promising indicators such as a growing youth population, improved education, lower mortality rates, and rising disposable income to buttress this. “The demand is there. We want to consume our own products—our clothes, music, and films. The supply is also there. What we’re missing is the infrastructure to make it accessible. That’s where the local opportunity lies.” He adds, “If we can produce nearly a billion streams on Spotify in the first half of 2024 and rank in the Top 25 out of Spotify’s 184 markets by streaming appetite in just three years of Spotify launching in the market, the real question should be about scaling that number from one billion
Read MoreZepz, the parent company of African cross-border payment companies World Remit and Sendwave, has raised $267 million. This comes two years after the fintech reported reaching profitability for the first time. The company did not disclose its valuation in this round, but it was valued at $5 billion when it previously raised $232 million in 2021. New and existing investors invested in the round led by venture capital firm Accel. Leapfrog, TCV, and Coller Capital also participated. The International Financial Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group has also pledged to invest up to $20 million. The fintech will use the funding to expand its reach in Africa. It currently operates in over 150 countries including South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and South Africa. This new raise punctuates the long pause of Zepz’s IPO plans. In 2022, the London-based company paused plans to go public due to accounting issues. The unicorn’s investors are “in no rush” for a public listing, Harry Nelis, partner at Accel one of the lead investors in this fresh round told Bloomberg. It also follows the layoff of 26% of the workforce in May 2023 and 30 people in November 2023 citing redundancy and duplication of roles. Founded in 2010 by Ismail Ahmed, WorldRemit enables users to send money from various countries to different destinations globally, with options for bank deposits, mobile money, and cash pickups. WorldRemit became the UK’s first Black-founded fintech to achieve unicorn status with a valuation of $1 billion. It acquired Sendwave in February 2021 and now both operate as payment brands under the group, Zepz. Mark Lenhard, Zepz’s CEO, believes there is more growth on the horizon for the company especially due to the continuing unrest across the world. “We certainly saw it during Covid. We’ll see it when there’s an earthquake. We’ll see it when there’s geopolitical unrest in the country,” Lenhard said. “More money will flow in because people get concerned about their families, about their communities and that’s their time of need.”
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Will Nigeria’s 3 Million Technical Talents Initiative bridge the growing tech talent gap while positioning its workforce for global opportunities? In November 2023, Maryam Shuaibu Aliyu was scrolling through Facebook on her phone at home in Kano when she stumbled on a post announcing Nigeria’s 3 Million Technical Talents (3MTT) programme. Despite not knowing how to use a laptop proficiently, Aliyu, a Bayero University graduate, volunteer teacher, and mother of two, felt a pull. “I would never have imagined learning a tech skill if I hadn’t come across the programme,” said Aliyu, who was selected as one of 31,270 fellows for the first cohort of the 3MTT. The four-year initiative, launched by the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, wants to transform Nigeria into a hub for global tech talent. The minister, Bosun Tijani, calls it “the largest technology talent accelerator in the world.” President Bola Tinubu also referred to it during his October 2024 Independence Day speech, outlining it as one of his administration’s big plans. Over 1.7 million people applied to join one of the 12 technical skills offered through the programme: software development, UI/UX design, data analysis and visualisation, quality assurance, product management, data science, animation, AI/machine learning, cybersecurity, game development, cloud computing, and DevOps. 3MTT received applications from almost all of Nigeria’s 774 local governments, partnering with Prembly to ensure proper verification. Francis Sani is the Technical Adviser to the Minister on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Capital and is also in charge of the programme. According to him, the decision to focus on these skills came after stakeholder engagement, driven by the need to equip Nigerian youth with skills experiencing rapid growth in demand. The local talent, global opportunity vision Every year, thousands of Nigerians migrate to seek opportunities abroad. This Japa phenomenon often means that these talents, their taxes, and income are spent boosting other economies. While the global demand for technical talent intensifies, driven by sectors like AI, data science, and software, many more young Nigerians need help to compete and access these opportunities. Beyond Nigeria, this challenge is common to countries with large populations–like Brazil, India, and Kenya–where we’re beginning to see policies and initiatives aimed at upskilling their populations to remain competitive in the global economy. In Nigeria, several digital training and talent outsourcing companies have popped up in the last decade to train thousands of people in core technical skills and help them find placements. In 2014, Andela was founded with its “talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not” ethos, training software developers and placing them at jobs in US companies and elsewhere. Andela became renowned for its rigorous selection process, admitting only the top 1% of engineers trying to get into the programme. By 2019, Andela was pivoting from a junior-first model to senior talent sourcing, with its CEO Jeremy Johnson saying, “We haven’t been able to scale remote, junior placements, in part because boot camps and CS programs have grown rapidly over the past five years, and we’re no longer able to lead with a junior first strategy.” In 2016, Hotels.ng CEO Mark Essien, frustrated by his inability to find local technical talent, started the HNG Internship program with almost 200 design and software engineering interns. An average program runs for 3-6 months, with thousands of interns participating in a free high-intensity internship, powering through ten stages of challenges. The 2023 cohort started with over 22,000 people at the first stage and ended with less than 500 by the end of the tenth stage. More recently, companies such as Decagon, ALX, and AltSchool have built programmes to train technical talent and make them more competitive for global talent opportunities. These three companies have cumulatively trained over 146,00 people across varying levels of expertise in the past decade. Collectively, these initiatives and others like them operate on the belief that Nigeria, with its youthful population, can meet local and global demand for tech talent. According to a Statista forecast, by 2030, around 28 million jobs in Nigeria will require digital skills, positioning these programmes as essential for the country’s economic future. 3MTT is the government’s approach to creating a technical talent pipeline: mass inclusion, targeting Nigerians in urban and rural areas and communities traditionally left behind. Sani explains that this is a unique situation where Nigeria’s population supply meets global demand. “We know there is a demand for tech jobs, and the demand isn’t small. It is why we can’t do a small number,” This ministry is betting on 3MTT as a crucial lever for Nigeria’s growing digital economy. The ICT sector went from contributing 14.07% in the Q2 GDP of 2020 to 19.78% Q2 GDP in 2024. The ministry aims to increase this contribution to 22% of the GDP by 2027. “If we say that there is an opportunity for us to make our digital economy a lot larger, the ingredients are the people,” Sani says. The structure of 3MTT After she was selected, Aliyu underwent a three-month learning journey on the cybersecurity track. The process began with self-paced online courses on Edtech platforms like Coursera, AltSchool, ProductDive, and IHS Academy, where she and fellow participants were introduced to foundational concepts in their chosen fields. The 3MTT programme uses a tiered 1-10-100 structure, starting with a small cohort and scaling efficiently while learning from each phase. The first phase (1%) surpassed the 30,000 goal, onboarding 31,270 fellows, with each cohort lasting three months. The next phase (10%), which began in August 2024, will ramp up the number of fellows to 300,000, while the last phase, which will end in 2027, will hit the 3 million target (100%). “3MTT isn’t just a training program,” Sani explained. “We want to build an ecosystem for technical talent development.” Aliyu also participated in physical learning sessions with other fellows at Aisha Kwaku and Associates, a Cisco Networking Academy based in Kano. This facility is one of the 120 applied learning clusters (ALCs) that make up the in-person, hands-on component of
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