4 Keys to Making Africa Insanely Prosperous

How a Startup City Can Create a Booming Economy

Africa’s Bright Future is on its way. 

With it comes more than $500 million in investments. 400 start-ups. 1 million new jobs. Technology and innovation that leapfrogs the global competition. A community where the best and brightest individuals from all over the continent can live, put down roots, and lead a good life. 

If this sounds pie-in-the-sky, I hear you. We’re aiming high. 

But this future is becoming a reality, as I write this. 

That future is tied to a project I’m proud to be part of: 

Building a Startup City in West Africa and making it the envy of the global business community. 

Image created by Ryan Rhoades. 

In the first ten years alone, this Startup City will drive more than $100 million of investments and create more than 50,000 jobs. It will transform a desolate expanse of land into a safe, lush, and vibrant location where hundreds of thousands of Africans will prosper. 

Instead of struggling to meet their families’ needs, residents will have access to state-of-the-art business facilities, spacious new residences, excellent schools, rapid public transportation, and plentiful green space. 

To achieve our vision for this first Startup City, we’ll establish a 3,000 hectare zone designed to generate positive economic growth. We will have the autonomy necessary to provide a world-class business environment. In essence, we’ll be able to cut through all the existing red tape and political nonsense and start from scratch. 

Think of the Startup City as a form of technology, which allows Africans to build a business ecosystem that works. 

This Startup City will make it easy for African entrepreneurs to do business, and its success will attract foreign investors eager to share in African prosperity. That will kickstart the momentum for even more Startup Cities throughout Africa, resulting in an unstoppable movement toward prosperity for the entire continent.

Our city won't be drawn from thin air; it will be based on proven principles and the practical knowledge gleaned from other economic development success stories, such as Singapore, Dubai, and Shenzhen, China, while being integrated with local customary law. 

For example, citizens will be able to choose their clan’s family law while having access to best-in-class commercial law from around the world. An individual can opt for British common law for business contracts while staying true to traditional Wolof rules for marriage. 

Our goal is to create an African-inspired city for African entrepreneurs. It will draw on the best commercial laws around the world, but its overarching goal is to make prosperity and flourishing possible for all African people. 

And when I say “all African people,” I mean it. This isn’t about filling rich people’s pockets or—when I get right down to it—even about making money. It’s about amplifying opportunity. Boosting human well-being. Creating more fulfilled and prosperous lives—for Africans of all origins, ethnicities, classes, and backgrounds.  

Here is my dream: I want an old farmer from the North to rest assured that when his son or daughter comes to the Startup City, they will find a good job and a good life. 

There’s nothing half-assed or Utopian about our plans. Our Startup City is primed to become a reality. 

Africa’s Bright Future is on its way. With it comes more than $500 million in investments. 400 start-ups. 1 million new jobs. Technology and innovation that leapfrogs the global competition. A community where the best and brightest individuals from all over the continent can live, put down roots, and lead a good life.
—Magatte Wade

Our ability to foster a booming economy, generate long-lasting stability, and bring Africa’s Bright Future to fruition hinges on four key principles.

They are: 

1. Legal Autonomy So Entrepreneurs Can Easily and Freely Start and Run Their Businesses

At the moment, many African entrepreneurs are held back by legal restrictions. Everywhere they turn, there’s new paperwork to fill out, new processes to undergo, more fees to pay, more notaries to see… It gives me a headache just to think about it. 

With a Startup City, that red tape can disappear overnight. And in its place will be a new commercial legal code that actually supports business, instead of hindering it. 

Want to start a business? Great! You can do it in minutes or hours. With no fuss. 

Does your business need flexibility to change staffing to respond to global supply and demand? We will create more jobs by allowing such flexibility.  

If we want to boost African prosperity, entrepreneurs need this kind of supportive legal autonomy. They need to be able to start and run their businesses smoothly, easily, and freely. 

Our Startup City will allow people to choose the commercial laws that will empower African entrepreneurs to succeed the most.  

2. Regulatory Autonomy for Transparency, Simplicity and Equal Access for All

No more needing to know someone in government in order to get anything done. No more needing to have money to hire lawyers, notaries or experts to start your business. No more navigating arcane codes and special interests. No more wasted time. No more dead-ends. No more money passed to grasping bureaucrats. No more confusion. 

Instead, we will be able to create transparency, simplicity, and ease. 

And—let’s not forget—we have a whole set of business-friendly best practices in our toolbox. We can see how different regulations have played out in other rapidly developing economies, and we’ll have the freedom to improve on their models. 

Africa has some of the best-educated, most ambitious people on the planet, but you can’t spread your wings when you’re stuck in a tiny, constricted box. Our Startup City will provide talented entrepreneurs plenty of space to create, innovate, and prosper—in short, deploy their wings. 

Regulatory autonomy is a crucial part of legal autonomy, and we will have the power to create our own regulatory economy from scratch. 

3. Fiscal and Trade Autonomy for Efficient, Straightforward, and Clear Tax Policies

Instead of the current labyrinth of nickel-and-diming tax policies, we’ll go back to basics: 

• A simple, flat income tax calculated on gross income

• A retail-level VAT or consumption tax and a land value tax—at a rate low enough to compete with neighboring countries

• No more tariffs or duties on international trade

Why? 

Here’s the plain and simple truth: no one wants to invest in a place that has complicated rules and exorbitant taxes. 

So far, that’s what investors have gotten when they’ve tried to break into the African market. No wonder, then, that so many African countries lack business opportunities. 

If we want to attract significant foreign investment—and we do!—our Startup City must have the power to adopt efficient, straightforward, and clear tax policies. We’ll also flex our business muscles by removing barriers to domestic and international trade. 

When we make it easy and affordable to invest in Africa, the money will follow. And when the money hits our shores, I have faith that our people will respond with fire. 

We’re ready and waiting. 

4. Administrative Autonomy

In addition to freedom with respect to choice of law, choice of regulation, and freedom to trade, we need efficient local administration.  

Imagine if an African city had an e-government that was MORE efficient than the best e-government in Estonia, Singapore, or Silicon Valley! 

To make that happen,  we can’t rely on existing inefficient government structures. Instead, we need the freedom to set up new administrative structures that are based on the most efficient systems in the world. This will allow us to leapfrog beyond what other governments are doing. 

We can pioneer “Government 3.0” in Africa and get ahead of everyone else! But we need the freedom to do so.

At the end of the day, these four tenets come down to a single—essential—truth: in order to succeed, our Startup City needs freedom. 

That’s what this project’s committed to. Freedom. We want entrepreneurs and workers to have the autonomy they need to thrive. 

Africa is ready for economic prosperity. I know how ready our people are for opportunities. And I know how much talent lies within our brains and hearts. 

We Africans are our own best untapped asset, and we’re on the precipice of an economic revolution. 

Join our movement and help us bring Africa’s Bright Future into the present.