The 2nd Annual Middle East & Africa Alternative Finance Industry Report

Crowdfunding in Africa: Opportunities and Challenges

“…In reviewing the current state of the crowdfunding industry in Africa, we mostly report findings from the CCAF second annual Middle East and Africa bench-mark report (Ziegler et al 2018). And, hence, unless otherwise noted, all facts and figures presented in this subsection are referring to findings from the above-named source.…”

“…Nevertheless, several regulatory initiatives to support financial innovation more generally have been adopted by various African government agencies. These include, but are not limited to, various steps taken towards establishing regulatory sandbox processes for financial technology companies in Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda (Ziegler et al 2018). In addition, the African Crowdfunding Association was established in 2015 as an industry organization dedicated to lobbying in favour of crowdfunding legislation creation and reforms, increasing public awareness of crowdfunding, and ensuring industry practices that protect investors and democratize access to capital (African Crowdfunding Association 2019).…”

“…Despite the relatively slow adoption of crowdfunding in Africa, it is often regarded as a mechanism with great potential for increasing access to finance for entrepreneurs in developing economies in general and Africa in particular (The World Bank Group 2015). According to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (hereafter-"CCAF"), African volumes in a variety of crowdfunding models reached US $182 million in 2016, growing 118% from US $83 million in 2015 (Ziegler et al 2018). From a regional perspective, whereas 41% of these volumes have been recorded in West Africa, 28% have been recorded in Southern Africa, 24% in Eastern Africa, and the remaining 7% in North and Central Africa (ibid.…”

Donation Crowdfunding: Principles and Donor Behaviour

“…When compared to other crowdfunding models, donations represent one of the smallest models by volume in most regions. In 2017, donation crowdfunding volumes were estimated at, USD 290 million in the Americas (Ziegler et al 2018a), USD 113 million in Europe including (EUR 53 million in mainland Europe and GBP 41 million in the UK) (Zhang et al 2018;Ziegler et al 2019), USD 63 million in the Middle East and Africa (Ziegler et al 2018c), and USD 53 million in the Asia-Pacific region (Ziegler et al 2018b). Except for the Middle East and Africa, where donations account for 17% of total the crowdfunding volume, in all other regions this model only represents 1% or less.…”

The Global Status of the Crowdfunding Industry

“…Specifically, the facts and figures presented throughout the chapter are drawn from the research efforts undertaken by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) and its partners culminating in a series of annual industry bench-marking reports. Hence, for full disclosure and avoidance of repetitive referencing, all statistics presented in the current chapter are adopted from the CCAF's recent reports covering the Americas (Ziegler et al 2018a), the Asia-Pacific (Ziegler et al 2018b), Europe (Ziegler et al 2019), the UK (Zhang et al 2018), and the Middle East and Africa (Ziegler et al 2018c), unless otherwise indicated.…”