When Covid-19 came flooding, small businesses were especially hard-hit with 31% stopping operations as a result of the crisis, according to Facebook’s State of Small Business report. But even in these unprecedented times, business must go on. Here are some strategies some businesses have successfully used to address the challenges you may also be facing. 

Leveraging on strategic relationships 

This has especially been seen in the food industry where restaurants and eateries are suffering from reduced foot traffic. Enter cloud kitchens. The lockdown period enabled restaurants, home cooks and chefs to offer food directly to customers via websites, apps, social media and mobile contacts. This new development has it that the global cloud kitchen market will grow to $236 trillion by 2026. For instance, Moh Wingz and Bwibo blew up during the lockdown period. 

Also Read: Promoting Intra-Africa Trade: Pathway To Unlocking Africa’s Economic Potential 

Digital

Financial exclusion remains a major issue especially in the informal sector. Expansion of services in this area by banks will not be very easy because of the special situation and needs. This article suggests that while structural solutions are expensive and nevertheless must be pursued, banks should think of designing a process response to the problem, drawing on the experiences and practices of the traditional lenders. 

Much progress has been credited to money transfer services that were introduced by mobile network operators (MNOs) in 2008. These services are also supported by a network of agents across the country offering a range of services and products, whereas the traditional bank-dominated financial system remains mostly urban-based and is still unaffordable for the vast majority of Tanzanians and their businesses. 

Where ordinary citizens once had to enter into risky arrangements to send money urgently to their families, mobile money services have almost eliminated

With the effects of Covid-19 taking a toll on businesses across the globe, those operating in low income countries and specifically those in Africa have sought for more than finance to pull through. 

Invest in Africa (IIA), a private sector-led initiative focused on growing local businesses and local content in Sub-Saharan Africa, has created a Covid-19 SME survival toolkit programme that helps SMEs overcome the potential damage to businesses caused by lockdowns and the ensuing economic shock. 

The survival toolkit includes practical guides, solutions and recommendations to help African SMEs get through the many challenges the pandemic represents. It is also organizing a series of webinars under which SMEs can benefit from several industry advisors.  

The entity has a curated list of online resources relevant to your business during this pandemic. 

“Because the vast majority of businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa are SMEs, they also provide nearly all

It is not ordinary for a 20-year-old school graduate to have achieved so much in a short period. However, for Ziyaan Virji, he not only leads in philanthropic endeavours but also is developing a social enterprise that looks at the menstrual health of women.  

For the last two years, Ziyan, a graduate of the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, has been working closely with communities both in Kenya and Tanzania as well as using proceeds of the Princess Diana Award to push for the welfare of the less privileged while still maintaining a social enterprise. 

At just 17, he founded the non-profit Affordable and Accessible Sanitation for Women (AASW).   This came about as a personal project for his Middle Years Program (MYP), where his research led him to find out that barely 2% of school girls in urban areas in Tanzania could

The African fashion industry is hanging on by a thread and stitch, as it continues to suffer plummeting revenues in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, swiftly thrusting it into economic distress. According to the research group Euromonitor, the apparel and footwear industry is cumulatively estimated to be worth $31 billion. However, the vibrant industry is teetering on the edge of a precipice, with a plethora of challenges that have brewed up a storm, with rippling effects across the supply chain due to its interconnected nature. Covid-19 has just stirred up a hornets’ nest in the industry that was already on high alert. 

Prior to the pandemic, the fashion industry was generating $2.5 trillion in global annual revenues, but is set to contract by 27 to 30% in 2020, based on a joint report dubbed ‘The State of Fashion 2020, Coronavirus update’