Today in Global Small Business: Unlocking the Growth Equation for SMEs in Africa's Fragile Markets

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in fragile Africa need growth capital to thrive. Investors are constantly seeking promising businesses to invest in.
• Expand globally with confidence.
• Quote of the week:  “The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries." – Albert Schweitzer
• Small businesses wither under Trump’s tariffs: ‘It’s hard to breathe’.
• Five small businesses that helped knock down Trump's tariffs.
• How to boost exports?  Learn from France.

Note:  The Global Small Business Blog has been in operation since 2004 and is ranked number one in the world for entrepreneurs and small businesses interested in going global.  As of February 1, 2026, we have more than 900,000 readers on a monthly basis.

A Blast From the Past: We Are the World (Music Video)

Calling All Female Founders Based in Africa

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Are you a female founder or co-founder of a business based in Africa? Do you want your business to reach the next stage? Do you aspire to grow your business reach? Do you aspire to achieve substantial growth? 

If so, the Female Founder Program is the right place for you! You've got until today, December 15th to apply.  Go for it!

The program aims to help you to develop your entrepreneurial mindset, acquire adequate skills, understand the market, grow your reach, and pitch your business to investors.

In addition, the program is designed to holistically support African female founders in their entrepreneurial journey, using the lean and agile methodology as a driver, focusing on running experiments to facilitate growth, and allowing a safe space to fail and to learn along 3 months.

Today in Global Small Business: How Christopher Columbus Became an Italian-American Icon

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• How Christopher Columbus became an Italian-American icon.
• Klasha raises $2.4 Million in seed funding to build technology for cross-border commerce in Africa.
• Mexico to require more documentation for shipments traversing the country.
• Quote of the week:  "Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World." – Christopher Columbus
• Major reform of the international tax system, which will ensure that Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) will be subject to a minimum 15% tax rate from 2023.
• Small businesses that rely on Facebook and Instagram question their loyalty after global outage.

TradeDepot: eCommerce Platform for Consumer Goods in Africa

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Since its launch in 2016, TradeDepot, the B2B eCommerce platform for consumer goods in Africa,  has built a network of more than 40,000 micro retailers in Nigeria. Working with global distributors and manufacturers including Nestlé, Unilever, GB Foods and Danone, TradeDepot makes household supplies, such as milk, soap, detergent and other essentials more accessible and affordable for the informal urban retail networks it operates in.

Cooler than all that is this:  TradeDepot has raised a further $10 million in a pre-Series B equity round co-led by Partech, International Finance Corporation, Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) and MSA Capital.

Learn more about how a new investment will enable access to credit for retailers and Africa expansion.

The New World of Artificial Intelligence

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Africans are ready for the fourth industrial revolution, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa confidently asserted at the World Economic Forum (WEF) conference in Davos earlier this year.

WEF founder Klaus Schwab sees the fourth industrial revolution as being shaped by the emerging digital technologies that will “fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another."

The new world of artificial intelligence, which requires the cultivation of independent thought and self-learning skills at the school level to prepare children for a world where life skills are critical, is conspicuous by its absence in Africa.

As the article below goes on to say:  "Africa is not short of young entrepreneurs with good ideas, ambition, energy and talent, which can be harnessed to drive more inclusive growth."

Read more about the new world of artificial intelligence and how Africans are eager to engage with technology to create new opportunities for themselves and their country.

Climate Change to Have Consequences Worldwide

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Climate change is expected to have consequences worldwide, especially in Africa. Harvests will be affected, threatening agricultural outputs. This is said to hurt farmers and lead to greater food insecurity.

But there hasn’t been much discussion about what effects climate change will have in other areas – like in the continent’s small and medium business sector. This is a worrying oversight.

Research, conducted in Zambia and Botswana, revealed that businesses activities faced major disruptions during the 2015/2016 El Niño event.

Learn more about how small businesses in Africa will be on the frontline of climate change.

New Gen Startup Campus in Johannesburg, South Africa

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Virgin Group founder, Sir Richard Branson, will open the 10th anniversary celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) by participating in the launch of a new startup campus in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The campus is the first one opened by the Global Entrepreneurship Network - offering direct and virtual support services to entrepreneurs throughout Africa as well as access to an international network of mentors, investors and entrepreneurial support organizations.

Learn more ... new Gen startup campus, 22 on Sloane, in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Building Bridges to Tackle Global Challenges Together

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The 7th Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) 2016, taking place June 23-24, 2016 in Silicon Valley, California, aims to showcase inspiring African entrepreneurs and investors from around the world, creating new opportunities for investment, partnership, and collaboration.

The summit was previously hosted by the US, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Malaysia and Morocco, and now returns to the US in a move the organisers say highlights Obama’s commitment to building bridges to tackle global challenges together.

Lean more:  African startups invited to apply for 7th Global Entrepreneurship Summit

Participate here (applications accepted only until 2/18/16).

Exports Thrive in a New Facility for Madagascar Chocolate Company

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The African island nation Madagascar had some of the best chocolate in the world, but didn’t export any of it.  That's about to change.  Two Peace Corps volunteers Tim McCollum and Brett Beach are on a mission to import and sell both chocolate and vanilla products that are entirely made in Madagascar.

Their company can be found by visiting:  Madécasse

Read the entire article:  Former Pfizer factory trades medicine for chocolate

Technology Is Shifting To Reflect New Poles of Growth

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Which country is leading the new pattern of growth?

The old theories governing the way that countries produce and trade are being replaced. The pattern of trade is being transformed by increasingly sophisticated technology and innovations in transportation; and the topography of actors is shifting to reflect new poles of growth.

One single factor that helps?  Confidence.

Learn more here.

Rhythm of Africa: Exotic and Bashfully Sexy Tiffany Amber

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Iconic African fashion brand, Tiffany Amber has embarked upon it’s global expansion plans with three new retail outlets launching in the second quarter of this year.  The collection will be sold at Italy’s leading department store – la Rinascente.

La Rinascente was the first department store to open in Rome in 1887 and now owns a chain of 11 department stores located in several Italian major cities.  La Rinascente carries the world’s most luxurious brands and has a flagship store in the fashion capital of the world – Milan. 

Learn more here.

Small Enterprises Are Not The Solution?

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Very provocative article originating in Ghana ... see what you think and feel free to weigh in with your comments.

Excerpt 1:

Close behind it comes operating a small business that is not making it. The small and medium sized enterprise sector (SMEs) carries the hopes of government, being advocated by conventional economists as the solution to unemployment in the global market, and large amounts of money annually being pumped into support for small businesses – with micro-financing schemes, training and support.

Excerpt 2:

That is a result of the second reason: the global market gives huge advantage to size. If a small business succeeds, it is inevitably taken over by larger business. Even Mark Shuttleworth, perhaps the most successful small business start-up in South Africa, could not resist the terms of the take-over. When that happens? Jobs are lost because the larger entity remains competitive only by replacing people. Mergers and acquisitions dominate at the top.

Ouch.

Read the article here.