Toguna Africa

Poverty is one of the biggest challenges facing most of Africa’s 54 countries with 511 million people living on less than US$1.90 a day. 47 out of 54 countries are either off track to meeting UN SDG 1 (eliminating extreme poverty by 2030) or are experiencing increasing poverty.

The private sector is the most effective driver of growth over time. Africa does not lack enterprise, what it lacks is enough enterprises that have successfully scaled and existed over time to be able to contribute meaningfully to providing decent work and contribution to economic growth. 

Our proposed solution entails looking within the continent and making the best of what is available -each other. Our platform will connect Africa-focused entrepreneurs wherever they may be to aid collaboration, foster motivation and promote information and opportunity sharing. Our aim is to see several world-class, large, multinational businesses grow out of Africa.

[11:08, 18/06/2020] Babykaykes: Toguna aims to facilitate the growth of MSMEs in order to promote decent work and reduce the prevalence of poverty across Africa.

According to the United Nations, 687 million people representing 10% of the world population, live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than US$1.90 a day. A disproportionate 74% of these (511 million people) live in Africa representing 38% of the total African population. The situation is more severe in some African countries. For instance, Democratic Republic of Congo has 66 million people (75% of its population) living in extreme poverty. Nigeria has 102 million people (50% of its population) living in extreme poverty, increasing at a rate of 26,000 people per day or nearly 10 million people a year.

Unemployment and underemployment are the key factors leading to such severe poverty on the continent. According to the International Labour Organisation, although the official unemployment rate is 6%, about 86% of those employed work in the informal sector. A large proportion of these informal workers is not paid enough to feed properly, do not have health and other benefits and do not benefit from job security.

Our solution is creating a community of African entrepreneurs and facilitating two sets of connections: within African entrepreneurs and between entrepreneurs and stakeholders. Our inspiration comes from the historical public huts in most parts of Africa where the communities gathered to solve problems.

By connecting entrepreneurs to each other, we provide a platform where they will encourage each other, build valuable relationships and share ideas and resources to grow their businesses. A differentiator for Toguna will be to ensure that each member of the Toguna community feels valued and part of something bigger than themselves.

We will use emerging technologies especially artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify common interests, match users and ensure that each user receives curated referrals and ideas that are very likely to be useful to them. Our emphasis will be on building trust so that our community is able to share freely and thus increase the value to each user.

The initial focus will be facilitating connections between entrepreneurs. However, we will also provide a platform for other stakeholders such as investors, professional parties, governments and charities to engage and interact with our community.

Our potential users are owners of micro, small and medium enterprises across the African continent. They will largely be based in Africa with some based outside the continent.

We have initiated a survey which we have and are sending around to potential users. From the first set of results, we have been able to gain insights into the issues that are most important to the entrepreneurs. In addition to the survey, we continue to speak to entrepreneurs as well as other stakeholders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Our solution is geared at helping more Africa-focused businesses scale so that they can contribute to reducing unemployment and poverty across the continent. Although there are barriers to growth beyond the control of entrepreneurs, we believe that there are a lot of other barriers to growth which entrepreneurs can work together to solve.

Our analysis of the survey responses indicates that there are two broad objectives of our potential users: 

1. increased awareness for their business 
2. access to resources, ideas & opportunities that will help them grow their businesses

Our community will provide a platform for them to meet these needs through collaboration.

Despite an abundance of natural resources and human capital potential, Africa is home to most of the world's poorest. 

We believe the private sector especilally entrepreneurship is key to lifting Africa's population out of poverty. Entrepreneurship abounds on the continent, our solution aims to see businesses achieve scale and long-term growth through collaboration.

As businesses grow, they are better able to provide better pay and benefits to their staff. This has the potential for powerful effects in these discrete communities through the improvement of standard of living and safety nets which most governments are not able to provide