UNITED KINGDOM IC PUBLICATIONS 7 Coldbath Square, London EC1R 4LQ Tel: +44 20 7841 3210 icpubs@icpublications.com https://african.business FOUNDER Afif Ben Yedder PUBLISHER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Omar Ben Yedder | o.benyedder@icpublications.com PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Wes Stanton | w.stanton@icpublications.com EDITOR David Thomas | d.thomas@icpublications.com EDITOR-AT-LARGE Hichem Ben Yaïche | h.benyaiche@icpublications.com DIGITAL EDITOR Shoshana Kedem | s.kedem@icpublications.com SUB EDITOR Charles Dietz | c.dietz@icpublications.com DESIGN J Ve n k a t a s a my | j.ven katasamy@icpublications.com HEAD OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE Desné Masie | d.masie@icpublications.com VP DEVELOPMENT Saliba Manneh | s.manneh@icpublications.com PROJECTS DIRECTOR Zine Ben Yahmed | z.benyahmed@icpublications.com ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTORS Medrine Chitty, Baytir Samba, Nick Rosefield ADVERTISING advertising@icpublications.com DISTRIBUTION distribution@icpublications.com PRODUCTION MANAGER Stuart West | s.west@icpublications.com TUNISIA Slah Nouri | s.nouri@icpublications.com Néjib Ben Yedder | n.benyedder@icpublications.com Mohamed Ali Aboudi | m.aboudi@icpublications.com GHANA – SPECIAL PROJECTS AND ADVERTISING Silvia Salvetti Ollennu Top Reports Tel: +233 24 910 5995 top@topreports.org IC EVENTS info@ic-events.net SUBSCRIPTIONS IC Publications Webscribe Unit 4, College Business Park, College Road, North Aston Clinton HP22 5EZ UK Telephone + 44 (0) 1442 820580 contact@webscribe.co.uk https://african.business/subscribe PRINTERS Roularta Media Group Meensesteenweg 300 8800 Roeselare Belgium

All pictures AFP unless indicated. Registered with the British Library. ISSN 0142-9345

©2022 IC Publications Ltd

CONTENTSContents

Cover story: Africa’s Top 250 Companies

Business Intelligence 4 News and deals from around Africa

Cover story 10 Africa’s Top 250 Companies

Opinion 30 African borrowers should unite to get better deals

Interviews 32 Wamkele Mene,

Secretary-General, AfCFTA 36 Tidjane Thiam, Chairman,

Freedom Acquisition 40 Alex Vines, Director, Africa

Programme, Chatham House

Focus on technology 42 Can Uganda’s tech

scene compete with Kenya? 46 Uganda telemedicine startup

aims at African market 48 Freeze on accounts upsets

African startups 50 Interview: Daniel Yu, CEO, Wasoko

Focus on resources 54 Can African mining ever be sustainable? 58 Event preview: Mining Indaba 60 Why the West should invest in African gas

Manufacturing 62 Morocco turns to high-tech manufacturing

Events 66 AfDB gears up for Annual Meetings

Wildlife trafficking 68 Covid impacts illegal wildlife trade

Countryfile 72 Nigeria’s mass SIM

cancellation hits SMEs

Editor’s View 74 The cynicism of UK’s Rwanda

migration plan