🗣️ Addressing Sub-Saharan Water Challenges & Opportunities

Host: Antoine Walter
Guest: Walid Khoury | General Manager | Desalytics
Category: 🗣️ Opinion

Podcast’s Essential Bites:

[3:53] “Desalytics relies on the partnerships and [an] innovative impact investing business model to deliver a diverse portfolio of water testing and also water treatment solutions to customers across Sub-Saharan Africa.”

[5:30] “First, [Africa is often seen as a difficult environment to do business in because of] a lack of understanding. And it's driven by bias. […] When [we] grew up, what you see in Africa [is] famine, […] wars, conflicts and instability. […] The second part is the risks. And these are not perceived, these are real risks. You have currency fluctuation, because you have multiple countries, multiple currencies. You have political instability […]. You have a commodities risk. Some countries are relying on oil, like Angola, Nigeria. Some countries relying on mining, let's say, Zambia, for example […]. And also you have payments risk, because you have a lot of defaults […]. On top of that you add complexity, it's very fragmented, the area I'm covering is 43 countries […], different languages, giant landscape, lack of infrastructure.”

[7:26] “We're starting from a very low level of water infrastructure. And you have [many] drivers that are changing the landscape. So you have further urbanization, people are moving more to the cities. We also have industrialization. So typically, Africa would import a lot of products from outside, it has been shifting completely towards investment in countries in country manufacturing […]. And also, you're having more and more […] enforced legislations, in terms of water discharge, or the limits and so on. As well as the demographics with young people looking for jobs, and this is creating a lot of needs. And also Africa is rising in terms of GDP and prosperity. So the disposable income for people is becoming even higher, [which means] more demand, and you have more needs to address.”

[15:59] “We buy shares in small companies, we help them to grow […]. But also, we are like an incubator. […] We're helping them to scale up and grow their business. We are even testing a startup model. So for example, in Cameroon, we started our own entity. So I found a local entrepreneur and local engineer, and we started the business together.”

[30:15] “For me, the impact is mainly on job creation. […] Also gender diversity, […] so the mix of the talent you have in your company […] and also impact on customers. […] These types of social impact investment opportunities is what originally Desalytics was built on.”

Rating: 💧💧💧

🎙️ Full Episode: Apple | Spotify (Original Title: "How To Irresistibly Rise in Sub-Saharan Africa When All Water Experts Step Out")
🕰️ 41 min | 🗓️ 11/24/2021
✅ Time saved: 39 min