Coups, Contracts and Corporate Survival in Africa: Turning Uncertainty into Opportunity
Sicuro Conversations - Episode 4
Political instability, unconstitutional changes of government, and shifting geopolitical alliances are reshaping Africa’s business landscape. Between 2020 and 2023 alone, nine successful coups occurred across the continent—from Mali and Burkina Faso to Niger and Gabon—catching many businesses unprepared and forcing costly evacuations and contract renegotiations.
In this episode of Sicuro Conversations, host Sheila Kamande sits down with Hubert Kinkoh, a subject matter expert in security, governance, and politics across Africa. With 12 years of experience tracking political, military, and socioeconomic developments continent-wide, Kinkoh provides rare insights into the early warning signs businesses missed, the risks emerging from resource nationalism, and why local intelligence networks consistently outpace diplomatic reporting.
This conversation moves beyond headlines to explore practical survival strategies: how to read the signs before a coup, whether to evacuate or stay during political upheaval, and why embedding operations in local ecosystems is the key to long-term resilience. From climate-induced security threats to cyber warfare and urban instability, Kinkoh maps the challenges businesses will face over the next decade—and reveals how to turn Africa’s uncertainty into strategic advantage.
Key Topics Covered:
- Understanding unconstitutional government changes and coup warning signs
- Resource nationalism and the shift toward non-traditional partnerships
- Why private sector intelligence outpaces diplomatic channels
- Digital governance trends and tech-enabled solutions across Africa
- The new generation of African leaders: rupture vs. continuity
- Climate-induced security threats and proxy conflicts
- Urban instability and state-society relationship gaps
- Building resilient business models through local networks
- When businesses should (and shouldn’t) influence political reforms
- Cyber security threats and geopolitical warfare in Africa
Full Transcript:
Sheila: Welcome to Sicuro Conversations where we engage thought leaders, business influencers, and policy shapers. My name is Sheila Kamande and our guest today is Hubert Kinkoh. He’s a subject matter expert in the areas of security, governance, and politics.
Welcome, Hubert.
Hubert Kinkoh: Thank you very much.
Sheila: Maybe you can introduce yourself and the work that you do so that we can get to understand a bit more of your background and how it is relevant to risk and the Sicuro conversations.
Hubert Kinkoh: Thank you very much. My name is Hubert Kinkoh. My background is in the governance of peace and security in Africa. I am very interested in understanding how external influences—whether it’s geopolitical, what I call geopolitical gymnastics, or armed conflicts—how they impinge on African states and people, how armed conflicts whether happening in Russia, in Gaza, but also within the continent, affect development outcomes for African societies and states.
For the last 12 years, it’s been my business to track political, military, and socioeconomic developments across African states to produce analysis on these issues. And based on this analysis, to be able to advise different kinds of stakeholders on intervention options, whether within Africa or elsewhere.
Sheila: Great. So you’ve mentioned that you’re in the research area of Africa’s political and economic and security dynamics. Perhaps you can tell us from your research and from your perspective, what are the biggest risks that are shaping how businesses and governments are interacting on the continent?
Hubert Kinkoh: This is a very interesting question because I think mainly there is a tension that exists between an old, often asymmetrical way of engaging between African states and other actors and businesses within the continent and from outside, and a new more assertive way of engagement. And within this tension there are lots of risks that are emanating.
I think the first risk that comes to mind for me is the risk of persistent political instability and unconstitutional changes of government that we’re witnessing across Africa over the last few years. We’ve seen between 2020 up to 2023 cases of military leaders coming to the stage as presidents in different countries through unconstitutional means—whether it’s in Mali or Burkina Faso or Niger or Gabon. What this does is that it creates a certain level of uncertainty for businesses.
In Burkina Faso, for instance, we’ve seen the renegotiation of mining contracts. We’ve seen the same for all the states in the Sahel. And this uncertainty is not good for business. It means that businesses have to recalibrate how they operate. They need to renegotiate terms. In some cases, their engagement has had to be cancelled. So political instability is really not good for business and we’re seeing this risk come to the fore a lot.
On the second level, we are seeing a risk in terms of the shifts that have happened in terms of geoeconomics. In the past, African states have been viewed almost as though they were passive actors, passive partners in their engagement with other actors. But this is shifting. African stakeholders, whether state or non-state actors, businesses as well, are realizing that they can choose what partners they engage, they can set the terms, they can negotiate better terms of their engagement. So we are seeing a movement away from Western partners towards non-traditional partners like the Gulf states, other actors from the Global South, China, Russia. And each of them brings something else. But what this creates in terms of risk, Sheila, is an avenue of competition. And competition breeds a lot of complexity when it comes to business operations. So this I would say is a second risk.
But interestingly, the third risk—and I think this is a very interesting risk—is that there’s a risk of socioeconomic pressures. I mean we don’t need to look so far to see how this plays out. Questions of high inflation rates, pressures that come on the cost of living, questions around massive youth unemployment—despite the growing numbers of young people across various African democracies, the ways in which governments fail to integrate these youth populations into development plans is a major risk. So the grievances that are emanating from failures of governments to deliver to the people is actually causing chaos and bringing about a bit of instability for businesses.
In Kenya in June 2024, we’ve seen how young people have gone to protest against what was the perception or the reality that the government’s knees were already on the necks of people—increased taxation. We saw this also play out in Nigeria in 2020 with the EndSARS protest. We’re seeing this not only in Africa, we’re seeing it in Nepal. So it’s almost like a global movement where young people are increasingly mobilizing around socioeconomic issues, forcing their governments to think or rethink how they engage. This is going to be in future a serious question when it comes to risk, and businesses suffer as a result when protests take place. A lot of businesses come to a standstill. In some cases, businesses have to evacuate their staff. This is not good for the business environment.
But finally, just to close on that point, I think a major risk is going to come from climate-related pressures. For so long, the conversation has been about how important dealing with climate pressures is. There have been movements on so many levels with the COPs, with the African Climate Summit, the most recent happening just a few weeks ago, on why governments and peoples need to begin to adjust the way they relate with the environment. But climate change issues are not just environmental issues. They’re political and they also have operational risk implications when it comes to businesses. This is why now in so many businesses we’re talking about ESG. Climate change is at the center of a lot of operational calculations of so many businesses. These are some of the risks that I see emanating between businesses and governments within Africa that have to be looked at.
Sheila: Okay. Yes. You’ve mentioned some countries have had unconstitutional waves of changes, especially in West and Central Africa. So how can businesses in those areas or even those other areas that haven’t had that anticipate the kind of risk and preparedness that would help their businesses?
Hubert Kinkoh: This is interesting. So just to give a bit of context, if you look at the political climate of let’s say West Africa over the last five years in the context of constitutional or unconstitutional changes of government, you realize that even prior to 2020 there had been a lull in the waves of unconstitutional changes of government. If you go as far back as the post-independent days, between 1960 and 1990, almost every 10 years you will realize there were at least 40 coups—successful or attempted or failed. After that period from the 2000s to the 2010s, that figure halved. And then at some point in 2007 for instance, there was no coup. There were some years where there was no coup.
And then in 2020, coups actually came back and we saw—I think just in the span of three years—we saw about nine coups happen. Two in Mali, two in Burkina Faso, one in Niger, one in Gabon. There are other coups that came up. I’m not sure in terms of the specifics, but nine coups and several attempted or failed coups. So it took a lot of businesses unawares, unfortunately, but some were prepared.
For those that were prepared, I think what actually helped was that the intelligence gathering centered local agency. They were able to have connections within the community. They engaged community leaders. They engaged local civil society. They had friends within various neighborhoods. And these connections enabled them to be able to stay in touch with the realities as they were shifting. So every coup, before it happened, there was always a sign that it would happen. They picked up on these signs as soon as they emerged.
One of these signs, Sheila, is that when you look at contexts like Burkina Faso or Mali, certain breakdowns in the setup of governance is already an indicator that a coup is likely. Of course, governance dysfunction is something that is commonplace amongst many African contexts. But not everyone translates into a coup. The question and the challenge for businesses then is: how do you treat that information as though a coup would happen? Some would ignore them. In contexts like Sudan, for instance, it was ignored. The warning was there amongst the diplomatic networks and businesses, but some of them ignored. In Niger as well, the signs were there and a lot of businesses ignored. But when the coups then did happen, they were faced with questions like evacuations and all these things.
So I think for me at the heart of this question is that businesses have to make sure that they are in touch with local realities. They are reading the signs of the time. When governance dysfunction begins to shift in ways that make them uncomfortable, they should not ignore those signs.
Sheila: So what should they not ignore and what should they do at that point when they can see the signs of a coup coming? What should businesses do? Should they evacuate? Should they stay still? From your perspective, what should they do?
Hubert Kinkoh: Well, I think that sometimes evacuations should not be rushed. We have seen in contexts—I will take Sudan as a case in point—when the war unraveled in April of 2023, not many businesses were ready to move. Sometimes an evacuation is ill-timed, it’s ill-informed. So just engaging as much as possible with the intelligence that comes from local sources, for me, it’s a starting point.
If it is safe to move your staff, I would advise for the staff to be moved instead of waiting for the unraveling of the situation like Sudan really showed. In a context let’s say like Kenya when the protests were happening, a lot of embassies issued statements warning that the situation might actually turn, the risk levels were increasing. So some embassies actually urged their staff to leave. Others maintained that there will be calm shortly after the protest and so there was no need for staff to actually move.
It turns out that sometimes the intelligence gets it wrong. The intelligence sometimes escalates issues that should ordinarily not be escalated. And I think here, just again making sure that you’re reading the temperatures on the ground is really important.
Sheila: Okay. Great. Would you say that private companies such as ours, private sector intelligence, outpaces diplomatic reporting in some instances? Perhaps you can give pros and cons of both in the sense of when they’re advising investors who are already currently in the continent.
Hubert Kinkoh: Yeah. This is quite pertinent because sometimes you can look at both as competing sources of information, but actually they’re complementary. I think though the private sector has a distinct advantage over other forms, especially in terms of the speed and agility in which it operates.
I think first of all, private sector intelligence is agile, is purpose-built in ways in which diplomatic protocol cannot really meet. On the one hand, there are political sensitivities that it can bypass that diplomatically cannot be bypassed. If you look at the ways in which traditional diplomatic sources operate, if you look at the ways in which bureaucracy is followed, that already gives private intelligence an advantage because sometimes it is more adaptive. It responds a bit faster to on-the-ground issues as they unfold than the bureaucratic, the democratic channels actually can.
Also, private intelligence has a different focus. It’s business-oriented. It’s more business-oriented and sometimes quick thinking is good for business. This quick thinking we don’t see the same within diplomatic circles. The ways in which diplomatic circles and sources of information are structured are such that sometimes it takes a longer time for approvals to be gotten at capital or headquarters from different hierarchies. Yet with private sector intelligence, I think they’re more flexible in how authority is given to on-the-ground people to be able to act.
And so in this sense I see private intelligence as having an advantage over very traditional ways of access to information. And I think private intelligence firms often have a stronger grip on local networks than diplomatic channels have. The ways in which they engage—diplomatic channels can be more elite-focused with very little hands-on-the-ground networks. But with private intelligence firms, I think they understand that local knowledge is actually value for money. So they invest a lot in local networks, whether it’s civil society organizations and individuals who have access to information as it unfolds.
But I also think that the financial incentive that drives the work of private intelligence firms is an issue that makes it tip over diplomatic sources of information because it creates this powerful drive for high-quality, accessible intelligence that, of course, diplomatic sources cannot.
Sheila: Okay. So when we look ahead, which governance and political trends across Africa would you say businesses would most likely benefit from in their long-term strategy when they’re dealing with governance and political trends? What should they be looking at?
Hubert Kinkoh: I think there is a few trends that we observe nowadays. There’s a clear shift from managing a crisis to building strategies that are actually resilient. And this defines how businesses and governments will be moving in the years ahead.
I think first and foremost, if you look at within African states, there is a rise of what I call resource nationalism. If you look at the ways in which non-traditional actors and even traditional actors are engaging with African states today, there’s a movement from African states and businesses towards—I think I mentioned—choosing their partners, but also managing resources in a way that benefits their people.
The ways in which the UAE and Saudi Arabia, for instance, are engaging in mining in various countries across Africa—whether it’s in the DRC or in Zambia or in the Sahel—what you notice as a common trend amongst the African governments is that they are ensuring that the negotiations of these contracts center local beneficiation. In the past, the case of DRC, for example, where decades of conflict have gone on because of minerals, that situation is giving lessons for several African nations but even for DRC itself that they need to do things a bit differently.
The ways in which the DRC has now negotiated the peace deal with Rwanda, mediated by Qatar, a non-traditional actor itself, shows the shift towards making sure that there’s resource nationalism—that resources that come from African countries benefit whoever but also the African citizens themselves. I’m not surprised then that the government of the DRC should offer the United States a “security for minerals” kind of deal. The question is security for who anyway, because sometimes the governments can negotiate security for themselves but not for the people. So there is this shift towards resource nationalism and new partnerships will continue to define the trend moving forward.
Again, a second trend is the fact of digital governance and tech-enabled solutions, whether it’s in taxation, for instance, that is very central to how businesses operate. If you have a good business climate, it attracts a lot of businesses. But the lack thereof makes businesses reluctant to come and set up.
If you consider, for example, the case of Ethiopia, for so long until recently, businesses operating in Ethiopia could not remit their profits out of the country because of the critical forex challenges that they have. And so it repelled businesses. It’s only now that the Ethiopian government is opening up, liberalizing its economy, allowing for foreign banks to set up within Ethiopia, even allowing Safaricom to expand its options for mobile money transactions. So this is a trend that we’re seeing—economic liberalization and just tech-enabled solutions.
In Kenya it is easy for businesses to operate because the iTax system on eCitizen is very easy to deal with and you can process taxation through this system. With the coming of artificial intelligence as well, we are seeing a lot of opportunity for businesses to engage and embed artificial intelligence in the ways in which they engage.
I think one other trend that actually would inform long-term the way businesses and governments engage in risk planning is the increasing availability of information. And this is happening within a context where, of course, disinformation is being used as a political tool, but also within a context where social media is taking over. And with that comes a lot of misinformation on the one hand, but disinformation which is calculated, it’s intentional. And so being used as a political tool, disinformation has the potential of shaping how businesses either thrive or they falter. So for risk managers, the ability to be able to decipher between false information and facts is going to drive how successful or not their business engagements will be in future.
Sheila: All right. Yeah. Speaking of trends, we have a new wave of very young leaders across the continent, whilst still maintaining a very old number of leaders in the continent. Would you say, from your research and looking at the trends in these countries that have now had quite a number of new leaders who are young, would you say that their style, the style with which they rule or they lead, has a positive or a negative effect on businesses and investors? I think you had mentioned that earlier, but perhaps you can expound on that a bit.
Hubert Kinkoh: Yeah. Interestingly, I think the new crop of leaders that we’re seeing in Africa now—we’re seeing a rupture. Instead of, on the one hand, we see rupture in terms of how the other leaders have been engaging, but on the other hand we see continuity. So first we see rupture in the sense that they want to be different, they know they’re different, and they want to act differently.
So they are young. If you look at Senegal as an example, the leader in Senegal is a very young leader and came up within a context of a lot of contestation, political contestation, and massive support for new youthful leadership within that country. And so he’s thinking in very youthful ways, which means that he’s taking advantage of some of the trends that we’ve talked about, whether it’s social media to showcase what he’s doing. So there’s more sharing of information. Senegalese have more access to what the presidency is doing than in the previous regime.
They are also very business-oriented. The ways in which they are negotiating deals is so different from the past. Accountability measures are in place. They are very transparent about the deals that they negotiate and they’re also making sure that these deals are beneficial for their own people. So we’re seeing a rupture in the sense that in the past, most of these, most of the African leadership negotiated deals that benefited them and the elites that surrounded them.
Of course, we are still seeing some of that, which is why I say on the one hand there’s rupture and on the other hand there’s continuity. Unfortunately, we are still seeing a crop of leaders coming up who maintain the status quo—who instead of breaking away from the lack of accountability and transparency, themselves are even reinforcing these structures. They’re becoming less accountable. They’re becoming less transparent. They’re becoming more corrupt even than the predecessors. And so there is a tension.
But we’re also seeing that there’s an engagement between the new leadership and the people that was not there in the past, helped so much by the availability of information, access to social media of course, but also a common—how do I put it—the common realization amongst people that the issues that bother one person bother the whole community. And so we’re finding a lot of social movements galvanizing around the same issues. This is why we are seeing a lot of protest activity coming up in different contexts, not just in Africa but elsewhere.
But also we are seeing that certain governments are engaging with the issues that are central to the protests, whether they like it or not. In some context, in the Kenyan context, I think the government was forced to engage with the citizens when they protested. Did the Kenyan government like it? Not so. But did they do right to engage? Yes, they had no choice. And this brings us to the realization that state-society relationships is going to be central to this new crop of leadership we’re seeing in Africa.
Gone are the days when states could just act independent of whether their actions have any repercussions on the citizens, on the people that they ruled. These days there’s the increasing realization that governments will be held accountable. And we’re seeing that materialized in so many contexts. Of course, in more authoritarian contexts, there’s increasing repression, there’s closure of these spaces where public participation can be encouraged, and so we’re seeing less of rupture and more of continuity.
But finally on this point, I think that the question of realizing that the global multilateral order is actually fragmenting is one of the things that the new crop of African leaders are actually recognizing and taking advantage of. I think in terms of African agency, something that I’ve been talking about recently a lot—African states are realizing that they are agents. They can influence outcomes. They can leverage. They can maneuver and even play states against each other to get the kinds of outcomes that they need for themselves and for their people. And this is increasingly happening.
If you look across, whether it’s from Rwanda—of course Rwanda is not new leadership but it’s a new context of leadership in the sense that the global order is not the same as it was in 1994 when the regime came into power. So the leadership is adapting to the context. The ways in which that regime in Rwanda is engaging let’s say Qatar, for instance, it’s making sure that it’s getting as much as possible out of that bilateral relations with Qatar. It may not be able to get as much from multilateral contexts as the UN and other groupings, but bilaterally it is negotiating better terms. It is ensuring that it is not a one-sided relationship, that the power asymmetry, though it may exist, should be beneficial for both countries in Africa and elsewhere.
In Ethiopia we’ve seen the same materialize where the agency of the Ethiopian leader—of course he’s come into power since 2018, he’s Ethiopia’s new leader. Seven years, it’s not as old, so he’s still a new leader—and he’s negotiating better deals. We’re finding in Ethiopia now a lot of progress in terms of physical infrastructure, and the funding for this comes largely from the UAE. In 2018 when Prime Minister Abiy took office, the Emiratis promised $2 billion to be directed at physical infrastructure and agribusiness, and that money or this investment is already yielding a lot of visible outcomes for Ethiopia.
They can negotiate better outcomes compared to the old crop of leadership. If you look at contexts like Cameroon, if you look at contexts like Uganda, if you look at contexts like Equatorial Guinea, if you look at all these contexts where octogenarians remain in office, they do not negotiate any better outcomes for their citizens anymore. Instead they are trying to surround themselves with a few elite to benefit out of these deals.
If you even just look at the statistics in terms of the rate of borrowing, whether it’s from the IMF or elsewhere, you find that they borrow huge amounts of money that are not invested in the country. If you look at the amounts that are borrowed compared to the physical infrastructure, for example, in these countries, the physical infrastructure is deteriorating every year. It is deteriorating, but the cost of borrowing keeps going up. So the new crop of leadership, you don’t see this trend amongst them. Whether it is in Kenya—of course Kenya is debatable—but you don’t see this as overtly as you see in some of these contexts that I have mentioned.
Sheila: So are we saying that changing guard is good for a country?
Hubert Kinkoh: Well, yes and no. Yes, because I think that leadership needs to be refreshed every time. The question is after how long? So do four-year terms guarantee fresh ideas? No, not necessarily. Do seven-year terms guarantee that? Not often. We’ve seen contexts where a change in leadership every four years or every eight years—because some regimes now have to stay for two terms at least, so every 8 years as the case may be—but there’s no real change after those two terms have been served.
In some contexts you find leaders who have been there for a long time, but there’s significant change. And I know this is controversial, but the context of Rwanda is a case in point. If you went to Rwanda 10 years ago and you went back there a month ago, you will see the difference. It’s the same leader who has been there for close to three decades. But there’s visible change. In some contexts where there is a constant reshuffling of leadership, unfortunately we cannot see the same semblance of change. It can be a change of guard but not a change in the systems.
In the end, Sheila, I think every leadership that is in place needs to guarantee results for its people. It doesn’t matter to me how long they are there. It has never mattered to me who is there. It has never—sometimes it has not mattered how you came into power even. I mean there have been military leaders in the past. Rwanda’s president is a military leader. He came into office militarily. But he has been able to deliver in ways that some civilian leadership has not delivered. For me in the end it is always about results—not about who is there or how they came into power or how long they’ve been there.
Sheila: In the case of Rwanda, I think they keep a very young—not just the national leader—but they refresh their cabinet, their local governments. I mean so are we saying that it doesn’t matter who is in power at the top but it also matters who’s in power surrounding the national power?
Hubert Kinkoh: Yes, I think we could say this, but I think we should nuance it as well. Because again, comparatively, you will see that this can be true in some contexts and not so in other contexts. Because when you realize that government cabinet reshuffles sometimes are not to ensure service delivery—oftentimes it is to protect a certain agenda, it is to protect a certain regime in power. Sometimes it is also reward for political loyalty. It does not necessarily guarantee results or is not even engineered to be able to guarantee results.
In some contexts, the cabinet reshuffles are a means to just breathe in fresh air into how government operates to ensure results. If you look beyond the cabinet to military reshuffles, the reshuffles are always, always a means to entrench regime stability. They’re always a way to consolidate power.
If you just look back in Gabon when the coup happened, two governments reshuffled their military immediately—the government of Cameroon, the government of Rwanda. Why? Because the same issues that led to the ouster of Bongo in Gabon were the same issues that created vulnerabilities within Cameroon, but also in Rwanda. So the reshuffle of the military leadership was a means to consolidate power and it was not as though they were meant to guarantee effectiveness in how the military operates, whether it’s in terms of provision of security or whatever. It was a means of power consolidation.
Sheila: Okay. When we look 5 to 10 years from now, what new security challenges are we looking at politically, technologically, geopolitically, or climate-related? What can you say we need to get prepared for? Especially for those in business, those looking to invest, what can they prepare for?
Hubert Kinkoh: Well, they should prepare for all of those that you’ve mentioned, whether it’s climate-induced security risks or technological threats that will evolve into a form of geopolitical warfare—and we’re seeing a lot of that happening nowadays. But we’re also seeing an intensification of proxy conflicts, but also like when we discussed the case of Kenya, we are seeing urban instability. So let me just talk about each of these a bit.
In terms of climate-induced insecurity, there are threats that are emanating from how we are failing or falling short from managing climate-related issues. And if you look at the Lake Chad Basin, for instance, the ways in which the states within that basin are now incapable of benefiting from such a huge water resource—the water resource is shrinking. And what this does is it has ripple effects on even agricultural output. So irrigation is directly affected. Fisheries are affected, for instance, and so we have direct threats on food security, also threats on economic security.
And so companies now will need to adapt their strategies to be able to center climate-induced security threats because these also fuel a lot of things, whether it’s cross-border displacements and the kinds of tensions that arise between people on the move and host communities. These have ripple effects on businesses. So no business should operate within a context without thinking about how the linkage between climate change and security is actually formed. So this is one of the risks moving forward.
The second risk that I mentioned is how technological threats can actually turn into a form of geopolitical warfare. In 2020, I think there was a case in South Africa where there was a coordinated cyberattack and this disrupted a lot of businesses. We’ve also seen cyberattacks staged at the level of the African Union where a clear state of unpreparedness allows for vulnerabilities that can be exploited through cyberattacks. So in terms of businesses moving forward, I think no business should be able to downplay the importance of cybersecurity because systems are very vulnerable and people attack these systems for different reasons. So this is one of the threats that need to be factored in as well.
A serious one for me would be just the intensification of proxy conflicts. This is a major one for the mere reason that many contexts within the African continent have become a theater either of experimentation for external actors or competition. These contexts have certain commonalities. They are often rich in minerals. They are often very fragile. They are often poorly governed. And this allows cracks that can be exploited by external powers.
So take Sudan as a case in point. Various actors have stakes in the Sudan conflict that is ongoing now. It’s a regional conflict, for instance. It is not just a war being fought between General Burhan and Hemedti. It is actually a regional war within the East African region as well. Various member states are picking sides and supporting different sides of the conflict. Beyond the African region as well, Gulf states, various Gulf states are also stakeholders in perpetuating the civilian rampage that we are seeing in Sudan. Why? Because the government is fragile. Of course, because there are mineral resources, gold, that they want to access, and instability allows for ease of access without checks and balances, without accountability.
So gold is being traded in the black market in a manner that benefits external powers instead of local Sudan, for instance. And so this war in Sudan is not just a national—it’s not an intrastate conflict. It is actually a geopolitical war. And so this is one of the things to keep an eye out for. But also we will see this also happening in places like Libya, in the DRC, in the Sahel, where in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, we’ve seen the entrance of Russian mercenaries, Wagner Group and now Africa Corps, under the pretext of protection. We’ve seen other governments even invite Wagner to come and protect the presidency. We’ve seen this in Central African Republic. And this is already now playing out clearly in the context of the Sahel.
The war in Libya as well—the two factions that are de facto governments in Libya, they have allegiances with different external partners and this sustains the war unfortunately.
And I think finally is a question of urban instability. Poverty is causing and sustaining a lot of movements towards urban areas. And with a lot of access to information, people are more conscious about expectations. People are now holding their governments to account more than ever. And still the tension between government and people, state and society, still exists. The gap in state-society relations continues to widen, and so protest activity, crime rates will continue in the foreseeable future unless this gap between state and society is narrowed.
So this is another threat that cannot be overlooked by businesses because like we’ve discussed, protest activity hurts businesses. In cases of vandalism, businesses stand to lose. And in any case, if businesses have to evacuate their staff, it is not a cheap process. So these are some of the cases I can point to.
Sheila: So with what you’ve said, how can businesses then build resiliency to adapt to all those factors that you have stated to be able to operate sustainably in Africa?
Hubert Kinkoh: Yeah, I think I’ll take you back to a point I made about access to local networks. It’s for me really fundamental because if you’re building your business around a local ecosystem, it really helps to avert these kinds of risks because this guarantees you access to timely information. And it even allows for easy operation once there’s a connection with local communities. And so for businesses, investing in these communities is paramount.
Setting up a business in a community that only extracts is actually a cause of tension. When you invest in the community in ways that is gainful for members of that community, it’s actually very constructive and it allows for the businesses to operate quite efficiently.
But beyond just embedding operations in a local ecosystem, I think another way for businesses to be resilient is actually to diversify risk, whether it’s from supply chains to the investment portfolio. I think diversification of risk has oftentimes proved to be a proper way to manage risk and to build resilience.
But also being proactive in every sense. Reactive responses have often proved to be a shortcoming in any case. If you wait for something to happen before you can respond or you can react, it proves to be counterproductive. So being proactive helps a lot.
But also finally, building a very strong relationship with partners. You diversify your risk, but you also diversify your partners. And you make sure that the relationship that you’re building with partners is solid. It’s based on trust. And that it’s a win-win for you and your partners. And so these are really important to build resilience for businesses.
Sheila: Great. Yeah. In your opinion, should businesses play a role in helping or assisting government reforms, or should their mandate be solely on their people and their assets?
Hubert Kinkoh: This is a great ethical debate when it comes to businesses operating, and so there’s a fine line to walk. In the sense that for me it’s a debate between two ideas or two arguments—the argument about the duty of care and the argument about leverage for good.
In terms of duty of care, I think a company’s primary duty is really to its stakeholders, its shareholders, and its employees. It is not to government. It is not to ensuring political reform because that can be seen as an overreach and it can provoke tension between the host government where the business is and the business itself. And so it can be actually counterintuitive and counterproductive.
So in some cases, when you look at how big businesses, multinational corporations have operated in some contexts, if they begin to be seen to be intervening in political issues, it breeds even questions around neo-colonialism, for instance. And this kind of reputational risk is not good for any business. They need to protect the reputation of the business as politically independent, but not detached from the political realities, because they themselves are affected by these political realities. Which now introduces the question of leverage for good.
And the argument literally thinks that businesses are powerful economic actors and so you cannot ignore political realities. You may not engage in them, but investing in communities in such a way, for instance, that guarantees positive outcomes for your business and the communities themselves is in itself political. It’s a political decision, because the issues that breed vulnerabilities in communities mostly are economic but sometimes turn to be political. And so in investing economically in communities, businesses are addressing political issues. So it’s a balance between the duty of care and the leverage for good.
But in the end, I would actually say that what path is effective lies in the middle—that businesses again cannot act as if they operate in a vacuum. There is always a political context that allows for businesses to operate smoothly, and the same political context can frustrate business operations. So the question of applying intelligence in such a way that balances between a political obligation and the central business of business operations itself is where the trade actually lies.
Sheila: All right. Yes. Okay. So finally, if you had one piece of advice for any business or investor looking to invest in Africa, what would that be?
Hubert Kinkoh: It’s simple for me. Think beyond the headline. Invest in the local knowledge. I think the turn to the local is oftentimes not emphasized enough. Sometimes businesses operate based on intelligence that comes from outside and yet ignore the same intelligence that is easily accessible, that is fact-based, and actually driven by on-the-ground reality.
So for foreign corporate businesses in particular, relying on a network of local actors for me is going to be the way to move forward. And it speaks again to the question that we just talked about—about building a resilient business model. I do not think that you can build a business model that is resilient and that is detached from local networks and the local realities.
So for me again, the call is the call for the turn to the local. Yes, take the headlines, but make sure you’re investing in local knowledge and networks.
Sheila: Oh, great. So wonderful to have you here. We look forward to having you again.
Hubert Kinkoh: Thank you very much, Sheila. It was a pleasure.
Sheila: Great. Thank you.
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