Trendwatcher Farid Tabarki says it is time to forget Africa’s troubles and look at the opportunities the continent offers instead.

I’m counting on the fact that you donated your pennies during the Ebola crisis appeal over the past weeks.  Or did you go all out and by the 2014 version of Do they know it’s Christmas? Every little helps to stop the West African epidemic.

Yet all these images and initiatives put us on the wrong foot as well. Africa isn’t just a continent of troubles and relief aid but one of great opportunity. For the continent itself, but also for the Netherlands.

Potential

During the past year, I spoke about the international growth potential for SMEs at the Dutch Entrepreneurs week in five cities. I started with the same question every time: which economy do you think has the highest growth rate? China and India! Wrong. Even after showing a photograph of the national football team the audience answer of Brazil was still on the wrong continent.

The winner with 11.1% growth in the first decade of the 21st century is Angola. According to The Economist, the average African country will grow faster than the average Asian country in the coming five years.

Rwanda

Rwanda is also making great headway – which is nothing short of a miracle after the bloody genocide of 1994. The small, densely populated country of a thousand hills has ambitions as high as the 4,507 metres high dormant volcano Mount Karisimbi.

On 22 November the Financieele Dagblad covered the country’s potential extensively. ‘Rwanda gets serious about its future – but they need to hurry’, the paper said.

KLM contributes by flying direct from Amsterdam to Kigali, the capital.

Heineken

The Netherlands is also well represented in neighbouring Burundi. In the capital, Bujumbura, on the Tanganyika Lake beach, you’ll find the Bora Bora bar, a seriously trendy place to be with large lounge cushions that carry the Heineken logo. Actually, there is no place in the city where that logo is not present.

Two hundred kilometers to the north, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on Lake Kivu lies Goma. The Netherlands Ltd. is established here as well. In this megacity, the trendiest fashion store has a pristine white façade with ‘Vlisco’ painted on it in gold lettering. It is the name of a textiles company from Helmond, a city in one of the Dutch southern provinces which grew in turnover from €170m in 2009 to almost €300m in 2013. Vlisco’s pet name is ‘Africa’s Fashion Titan’.

Capitalise

Dutch companies are already capitalising well on the enormous economic opportunities in Africa. In the last quarter, Heineken grew by 6.5%. KLM-Air France adds African destinations to its network on an almost yearly basis, allowing you to fly direct to 45 African cities from Paris or Amsterdam.

In the meantime, Africans themselves have begun to realise they can do more than just deliver raw materials. They can also create services and manufacturing industries.

Earlier this month, for example, another Dutch paper published an article stating that Ivory Coast is about to surpass the Netherlands as the main cocoa processing country. Meanwhile, Dutch firm Moyee is doing good business in coffee. This company makes the production chain more transparent, takes out some of the middlemen and moves the production process as much as possible to Ethiopia. All this under the ‘Fair Chain’ brand.

Government

What does the Dutch government do? It closes embassies because it wants to concentrate development co-operation in fewer countries. This is a downright silly policy if you look at it from an economic potential perspective. Bye bye network and foot in the door.

With the amount of people expected to double from one to two billion in the coming 35 years, there are enormous opportunities for multi-nationals, SMEs and entrepreneurial individuals. I therefore urge you to look beyond conflict, illness, poverty and aid, and to consider Africa as a continent of hope and opportunity.

Injustice

At the same time, don’t close your eyes to injustice. Stability comes with oppression of the local population. In the long run this will lead to bloody incidents. This week, The EastAfrican reported on its front page an 8% increase in African weapons expenditure. On the other hand, maybe this is exactly your business: The Netherlands ranks in the top 10 of weapons exporters and has done for years. Rather you than me.

Nevertheless, I remain hopeful for an African mix of economic prosperity, peace and democracy. That way we can forget about Ebola again as soon as possible.

Farid Tabarki is trendwatcher and founder of Studio Zeitgeist. Twitter: @studiozeitgeist This column was first published in the Financieele Dagblad.