Between 2010 and 2019, Africa’s GDP increased by 4% annually, more than twice as fast as the EU-28 (1.7%) and Latin America (1.7%) combined.
Over half of Africa’s professional developers live in Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa, and there may be as many as 700,000 of them overall.
According to a report by Google and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Africa’s Internet economy has the potential to grow to 5.2% of the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025 and contribute close to $180 billion to its economy.
Google and IFC estimate that increasing internet penetration to 75% can increase GDP per capita by 2.5% in Africa, compared to 2% globally. This could create 44 million new jobs and reach $712 billion by 2050. Digital startups in Africa are driving innovation in sectors like fintech, healthtech, media and entertainment, e-commerce, e-mobility, and e-logistics, contributing to Africa’s growing internet gross domestic product (iGDP). However, access to early-stage and pre-seed funding remains lacking across most of the continent. Venture capital investment in Africa reached an all-time high in 2019, with fintech startups receiving 54% of all startup investment in 2019.
