By: Leah Ngari

In a rapidly evolving world, regulatory bodies often have trouble keeping up with the pace of business and technology innovation – especially when it comes to fintech. To allow for innovation while protecting potential customers, governments across the globe – and across Africa – have designed “regulatory sandboxes.” Read on to learn more about regulatory sandboxes and find out about the regulatory sandbox program in seven African countries. 

What is a Regulatory Sandbox?

The financial products and services sector is highly regulated almost everywhere in the world, because governments want to make sure that their citizens’ money is safe and protected. But although financial regulation is critical to protecting customers, it can also hamper innovation by raising the barriers to entry into the sector so high that they keep new players out. 

A regulatory sandbox is a controlled environment that allows entrepreneurs, regulators, and other players in the fintech industry to test out new financial products or services without being too constrained by inappropriate regulations. Since its inception in the United Kingdom, the regulatory sandbox has spread all over the world, with Asia and the Pacific regions taking the lead.

By: Shira Petrack

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes 

Aquaculture in West Africa can increase food production, preserve the marine ecosystem, and restore wildlife populations. 

What is Aquaculture?

Think of aquaculture as agriculture is for water-based organisms: “Agri” comes from the Latin word “ager,” which means field, and “aqua” is the Latin word for water. More technically, aquaculture refers to the breeding, rearing, and harvesting of fish and other organisms in three types of water environments – freshwater, brackish water, and saltwater. Aquaculture can involve big cages in existing bodies of fresh or saltwater and land-based tanks that rely on water filtration and recirculation systems. 

Sustainable aquaculture practices can increase the global supply of fish, shellfish, seaweeds, algae, sea vegetables, and fish eggs while preserving marine diversity. 

Why invest in Aquaculture? 

The expanding global population brings with it a growing appetite for animal protein, which could strain our planet’s already weakened ecosystems. According to the FAO, global per capita fish consumption increased 3.1% every year from 1961 to 2017, almost doubling the population growth rate of 1.6%. Since 2013, fish production from aquaculture has outpaced capture fish production – some experts believe that by 2030, almost ⅔ of all seafood produced for human consumption will come from aquaculture. Investing in aquaculture is the only way to obtain more seafood for human consumption without contributing to overfishing or ecological destruction. 

In many ways, farming fish is much more environmentally friendly than raising land animals such as cows, chickens, or pigs. Fish is the most efficient animal protein to produce in terms of feed to pound ratio: – it takes only around one pound of feed to produce one pound of fish. In contrast, it takes almost two pounds of feed to make one pound of chicken, nearly three pounds of feed for one pound of pork, and close to seven pounds of feed for one pound of beef. Meeting the increased demand for animal protein through fish rather than land animals can free up hundreds of millions of hectares of grazing land globally. 

And while some aquaculture methods create pollution and weaken wild fish stocks, aquaculture done right can help replenish our lakes and oceans. Since the 70s, unsustainable fishing practices have lead to the decline of global fish stocks. Sustainable aquaculture farms can also cultivate complementary species of marine animals and plants to increase profits while maintaining viable self-cleaning ecosystems.

Why West Africa? 

Currently, Fisheries in the West African Marine Ecoregion (WAMER) generate around $400 million every year. A large portion of this income goes to foreign corporations who engage in destructive and unsustainable fishing practices that drain the region’s natural fish populations. Most fish populations in West Africa are already fully or overexploited, putting coastal communities’ livelihoods and food security at risk and inhibiting sustainable and scalable economic growth. The recent expansion of fishmeal and fish oil factories in the area is putting even more pressure on the already depleted waters. 

Aquaculture was first introduced in Africa in the 1950s, but has yet to produce meaningful food quantities on the continent. Currently, most of the fish harvested by European or Asian commercial operations get shipped abroad: In 2018, aquaculture accounted for less than 10% of the region’s seafood consumption. The lack of trained aquaculture fish farmers, stunted fish seed, poor aquatic health management, and high post-harvest losses due to underdeveloped cold-chain infrastructure have kept the sector from achieving its potential.  

At the same time, food insecurity remains a daily reality for many West Africans. Investments in sustainable aquaculture in West Africa could allow local communities to establish economically and ecologically viable fisheries that produce food and income. With the right technologies and know-how, West African fish farmers can produce enough seafood to feed their communities and export the surplus abroad. 

Small Scale Aquaculture in West Africa Can be Profitable

Aquaculture does not need to be conducted on a massive scale to be profitable. Perhaps surprisingly, research shows that small reservoirs in West Africa tend to be more productive than larger ones. Investing in building locally owned and/or managed aquaculture production operations 

Companies such as SkyFox Ltd have had success empowering locals to become aquaculture fish farmers. SkyFox helps fish farmers build artificial ponds that serve as the heart of an integrated aquaculture and crop-production solution. Once the fish farms are up and running, SkyFox connects the fish farmers with fish distributors to sell their products quickly and reduce post-harvest losses. 

Israeli company Palgey Maim has worked in Nigeria to build a fish production operation on an island in the middle of a lake. The fish farm draws the water from the surrounding lake, uses it to feel the fish pond, and treats it before pumping it back into the lake.  

How to Invest in Aquaculture in West Africa 

Empower Africa Agriculture Consulting Services can help you bring your aquaculture expertise to West African farmers and communities. Whether you specialize in monocultures, polycultures, onshore operations, open net systems, or aquaculture support activities such as fish distribution and processing, you can help develop sustainable aquaculture in West Africa. 

Contact us to for help in finding the right partners and optimizing your business model to increase income, profits, and food security in West Africa. 

By: Leah Ngari 

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 

According to the World Health Organization, Africa is far from ready for the continent’s largest immunization drive. Data collected by the WHO on immunization readiness from 40 countries revealed only a 33% readiness to roll out the vaccines, a figure that is well below the recommended 80%. In many of the continent’s countries, the complex task of acquiring, distributing, and administering the vaccines is made more difficult by the lack of infrastructure, including electricity and good road networks.

Despite increasing urbanization, more than half the population on the continent lives in rural areas. Governments alone do not have the tools or resources needed to transport, store, or track the vaccines during their journey to remote villages and once they arrive at off-grid clinics. Getting the currently available COVID vaccines to Africa’s rural populations will require cooperation between the public and private sectors.

Ideal Transportation of the Vaccine

Most currently available vaccines require maintaining a cold chain during transportation and storage. The Pfitzer vaccine needs to be stored at -70°C, while the Moderna Vaccine needs to be stored at -20 °C. Regular refrigerators, however, do not typically cool below 2°C. The two vaccines would be viable for a much shorter time at that temperature, which risks causing massive wastage from the lack of proper infrastructure to keep them viable enough time until they reach their destination. 

What’s working for the continent?

While the Covid vaccine rollout has highlighted the need for effective cold-chain infrastructure on the continent, establishing cold storage and transport solutions across the continent will have a lasting positive impact on food security, farmer income, and public health beyond the current crisis. 

Below are some of the private-public collaborations working on mapping out and implementing cold-chain logistics in the upcoming vaccination drive:

The Africa Center of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold chain (ACES)

Operating out of the University of Rwanda, the ACES is a new project to establish and maintain a suitable cold-chain that will link the continent’s logistics providers and farmers with experts and investors. ACES aims to minimize post-harvest food loss and medicine wastage on the continent, improve urban diets, and increase food exports. Researchers are currently identifying Rwanda and Africa’s cold needs to understand how to design the most efficient cold chain solutions.

Arktek Cold Storage Device

The current pandemic is not the first time the continent required cold storage for a vaccine. During the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak, a vaccine developed by Merck also needed to be stored at around -70°C. The Arktek Cold Storage Device was introduced to Sierra Leone in 2014 and helped transport vaccines that immunized hundreds of thousands of Africans. 

Global Good, now part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, developed the device in partnership with Acuma, a Chinese refrigeration company. The device acts like a super-thermos that can maintain temperatures of up to -80°C without using any batteries, electricity, or solar panels. Arktek’s devices are small enough to transport easily and strong enough to withstand harsh transit conditions, making them ideal for transporting vaccines to hard-to-reach places on vehicles, motorbikes, and boats. Countries could use the device to deliver Covid vaccines to people in remote areas without equipped hospitals. 

Use of Solar Technology for Transportation

Electricity on the continent is not widespread, but sunlight in most Sub-Saharan African countries is abundant and cheap. As a result, public bodies and startups have started working together to develop a solar-powered refrigeration device to keep the vaccines cold during storage and transport.

PEG Africa, a for-profit solar energy company operating in West Africa, builds solar-powered off-grid solutions for the rural West African market. Some of its products include and pay-as-you-go solar-powered freezers for fishermen and women and solar-powered water pumps for small-holder farmers. Now, the company is collaborating with Power Africa, a public-private partnership facilitated by USAID, to provide solar-powered systems to off-grid clinics in Africa. 

Another company driving cold-storage innovation on the continent is Gricd, a Nigerian startup that has designed solar-powered smart cold boxes. Gricd’s goal is to minimize waste of food, medicine, and medical supplies such as blood and plasma and solve the “last mile” problem in rural and remote areas. Since Covid started, the company has been helping transport Coronavirus test samples from remote locations, and its cold boxes are in the process of acquiring PQS certification from the WHO. 

Private-public partnerships driving innovation in cold-chain infrastructure  

Private-public partnerships are leading the way for cold-chain innovation on the continent. These types of partnerships will grow as African countries continue their race against time to deliver vaccines to their populations. The cold storage solutions designed for Covid vaccine transport will continue to serve the continent long after the pandemic is managed.