Business was the theme of the day, with Dr. Mthuli Ncube, Vice President and Chief Economist of the African Development Bank, opening the morning’s keynote with the forceful affirmation that: “Africa is a place where business can be found”. He continued by calling for the unleashing of “a class of African entrepreneurs” through joint ventures with foreign investors that would build business and place Africa firmly at the forefront of solving the global economic crisis.

Supporting the endeavours of those entrepreneurs who responded to the Jacana survey, Andile Ngcaba, Chairman at Convergence Partners advised Said’s MBA students looking for jobs in the African technology industry to go and create their own businesses across the continent. In his call to action, he said:  “Entrepreneurship is in the mind. Embrace failure; don’t let it punish you.”

Fortunately, the OBN Africa MBA students had no ‘failure to embrace’; the conference, which featured H.E. Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda as keynote speaker, was a raging success.

I would like to elaborate on this today.

Africa is the second largest continent in the world after Asia, and with a total land area of more than 3 million hectares, its landmass is more than 3 x that of the USA.

Agriculture and horticulture are crucial economic activities, providing employment for many, and serving as the basis for many industries. With more than 200 million people (50% of the total labour force) active in agriculture a decade ago (WHO), it is estimated that this percentage will increase to 60 % by the end of this year.

As Africa continues to grow in economic significance, combined with the afore-mentioned new technologies, is it safe to assume that land is therefore the continent’s greatest asset?

A prime example of her vision in practice is Eric Vincent Guichard, who secured the Entrepreneur of the Year award for his online initiative, Homestrings – an investment platform that facilitates Diaspora investments into their own communities.  It was an award we thoroughly toasted, as well deserved of our client!

Most of the continent is going through an unprecedented period of stability whilst an economic revolution is sweeping across it. With more investors coming in every day, Mr Mahama shouldn’t worry. Africa’s equity markets are hot and a virtuous cycle has already emerged. And the good news doesn’t end there. The Economist reported at the start of 2013 that a rapid increase across the full investment spectrum is expected within the next couple of years. People across Africa therefore have good reason to be optimistic. According to the IMF, 84% believe that they’ll be better off in two years.

Another possibility, of course, is that they’ll be much better off.

We also have to add the steady remittance inflows to the good news coming from Africa, currently estimated at $31 billion.

Not to be sneezed at are the increased investments that are supporting the region’s growth performance. In 2012, for example, net private capital flows into the region increased by 3.3 % to a record $54.5 billion; and foreign direct investment inflows to the region increased by 5.5 % in 2012 to $37.7 billion.

The World Bank report also mentioned that exports are increasingly helping the continent’s growth and that the traditional destination of these goods over the last decade is also changing. Since 2000, the overall growth of sub-Saharan exports to emerging markets and other African countries has surpassed that to developed markets. Africans are increasingly selling to and buying from other Africans, which is the best news of all.

First, Cambridge Associates, in partnership with AVCA, has developed the first African PE Performance Benchmark, which serves to help investors assess and participate in private investment opportunities in Africa. The findings of the benchmark were wide-ranging, as illustrated by the resulting media coverage, but a key headline was that African private equity funds outperformed US venture capital over last decade. All good news for Africa.

The positive stories didn’t stop there: AVCA and Ernst & Young also announced their joint research on African private equity exits. Private equity is a clear winner; the research shows that African PE firms are not only making excellent headway with generating exits, they are making strong returns in the process – almost double that of the JSE All Share Index.

When the research later broke to the packed hall of 400+ delegates here in Cape Town, Twitter went wild. The appetite for research of this kind is clearly huge from industry and media alike, with most of the afternoon of day two spent facilitating journalist calls and appearances on CNBC. It will be interesting to follow the impact these regularly updated reports have on the industry in months and years to come.

Read more on AVCA’s conference from The Economist’s Boabab correspondent, here.

For South Africa, which makes up just 2.5% of total GDP in BRICS, the summit was an opportunity to showcase its role as an investment gateway to Africa and President Zuma therefore invited 15 African heads of state to attend. Tensions between South Africa and Nigeria (surrounding Nigeria’s belief that they should also be part of BRICS) means that President Goodluck Jonathan did not attend, but other heads of state including Angola, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Uganda, Ethiopia and Egypt, did. Each country actively showcased its nation, grabbing the momentum of the African continent’s current economic boom.

What caused the greatest stir however, were the talks about the establishment of a development bank, which would rival the World Bank and the IMF, and is meant to fund infrastructure and development projects in member states and developing nations, through a joint foreign reserves fund.

The discussions of where the bank will be, or how much money each nation will contribute, did not reach a conclusion. Several experts and officials have said the bank will start with 50 billion dollars, divided equally. BRICS members are clearly seeking greater sway in global finance to match their rising economic power. Undoubtedly the “New Development Bank” will be top of next year’s agenda. The 2014 Summit will be held in Brazil.

We were watching in avid anticipation of news on behalf of our latest client, HSBC Premier, with whom we have been developing a webcast discussion on how the latest budget will affect the UK economy, the individual, and the business world.

One point of interest that has emerged is the confusion around the proposed £12bn mortgage guarantee scheme to help homebuyers, which  - while claiming on Radio 4’s Today programme that he did not want the scheme to help people buy second homes – George Osborne has refused to deny that second homebuyers will be banned from using. The Chancellor is currently in consultation with the housing industry before confirming the small print – but in the meantime, it is likely that this point and more will be raised in tomorrow’s webcast discussion.

Danny Finkelstein, Executive Editor of The Times and Chairman of the Policy Exchange will be joined by Allister Heath, Editor of City A.M., Leonie Kerswill, Tax Partner at PWC and Simon Wells, HSBC’s Chief UK Economist, for a discussion of the full implications of the 2013 budget, with an opportunity for questions, in the inaugural HSBC Premier webcast at 16:30 GMT on Friday 22^nd March. For more details and to register for the event, please follow this link: http://www.media-server.com/m/s/z6f74ddz/lan/en

With 54 diverse markets offering unique prospects and challenges, most delegates had different opinions.  What they didn’t have however, was conflicting opinions. Most agreed that there are still only a handful of  good entry point to expand into Africa today.

Here are the top 5.

1. With a population of 170 million people, a growing middle class, and a reputable stock exchange, Nigeria is a notable market for those looking to target a large consumer base in Africa. With reformed petroleum regulations, Nigeria has also become an appealing market for multinational companies.
2.  Ghana is doing incredibly well and has proven to be politically stable. The fact that Ghana and Nigeria have space programmes is a measure of how much these two countries are ahead of the game. The difference between Ghana and other countries is that everything (power, institutions, infrastructure) works. With the discovery of offshore oil, the country now really has everything to soon be claiming the number 1 spot.
3.  Kenya is more business friendly compared to other regions on the continent. In addition, there is access to good human capital, excellent IT infrastructure, and IT skills.
4.  Tanzania has always been politically stable and is therefore emerging as the most effective gateway for trade into Eastern, Southern and Central Africa. It has lucrative investment opportunities in infrastructure, privatization and value-adding facilities, and oil has recently been discovered off-shore.
5.  Mozambique is developing at a rapid pace, has much oil and is also politically stable.

I should add that Ethiopia received an honourable mention at the Gong breakfast meeting; It has become Africa’s fastest-growing non-energy economy and Diageo and Heineken recently paid nearly $400m combined to acquire state breweries in the country. Ethiopia is not for the faint-hearted, however. Its population of 85 million people still ranks among the world’s poorest.

The conclusion was to watch what the diaspora is doing – and  they are returning first and foremost to our top 3.

There might be skirmishes at polling stations people say, but the real danger comes once the results are announced on Wednesday or Thursday, and then no one knows what will happen. There has already been trouble in other parts of the country, and there are rumours of the intimidation gangs of 2007 regrouping.

Monday is a holiday. Polling stations will open at 6am and close at 5pm, but if you are already in the queue at 5, you will be allowed to vote, so I’m told that people will probably be casting their votes up until about 9pm. I’m relying on taxi drivers for the word on the street – perhaps not the most reliable source of information but then I’ve never claimed to be a journalist and I usually find I learn a lot of interesting things from taxi drivers.

For example, what I hadn’t realised until this week was that everyone will be voting for six different people, from the President as Head of State, to the Governor (there are 47 counties so will be 47 Governors elected on Monday), Senator (47 again), Member of Parliament representing every constituency (eg Nairobi has 17 constituencies), a woman representative (47 women will be elected as part of the new constitution, which says each county gets a woman representative), and then finally a County Ward Representative (initially called councillors) – so everyone is voting for 6 different people! Andrew, my favourite taxi driver with whom I regularly sit in Nairobi traffic having long conversations, is confident that most people understand the new system and know what they have to do. He patiently explained the whole thing to me, including percentages. 98% of the 14 million registered electorate will vote on Monday he says.

I think it’s very positive that Kenya has automated it’s voting system, so it’s all digital this time round and supposedly less likely to be rigged as a result. But this election has also apparently been one of the most expensive in the world to organise, and Kenyan politicians are some of the highest paid, which is not so great to hear.

Last year in August everyone voted for the new Constitution, a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote, and were given a booklet outlining all of the information they needed on how the new constitution would work. 90% voted yes. DJs on Royal Media radio stations in each of the different tribal languages worked hard to explain the details and make sure everyone knew what was what. 90% of Kenyans now understand what it’s about and how it all works (again, these numbers are from Andrew, and by no means official stats, but a cheering vote of confidence on the new system and your fellow Kenyan).

I tried to register two SIM cards this week and spent ages waiting for someone to do all the paperwork, and then once I’d left found that only one works because it isn’t registered. Admittedly that was Safaricom, but getting six votes accurately inputted into the new digital system, and counted up is going to be quite a feat in and of itself.

And who’s going to win? Uhuru is from the Kikuyu tribe and Raila is Luo, and Kikuyu vastly outnumber the Luo in Kenya (Barak Obama’s father was Luo). Andrew reckons Uhuru will win hands down and that lots of other tribes are voting for him as well, but someone pointed out to me that Andrew’s Kikuyu, so he would say that.

He also assures me it will be peaceful.