(Me and H.I.H Prince Ermis Sahle-Selassie)

Ghana Investment Tour update

So, I promised to keep you updated on the Ghana Investment Tour coming up next month.

The word is out and we’ve managed to get quite a lot of publicity - particularly in the Ghanaian media - since I distributed a press release at the start of the month.

Interest in the tour (renamed as the Ghana Investment & Trade Tour) has also been significant, with calls and enquiries coming in from a range of investors, business owners and entrepreneurs.

Trip to Rwanda (Global African Investment Summit)

In the meantime, it’s business as usual and I recently returned from a trip to Rwanda’s capital city Kigali. Such a beautiful place. Very clean and orderly, and its citizens are extremely friendly and hospitable.

I made the trip (my first to East Africa) to attend the Global African Investment Summit (aka TGAIS), an event that aims to ‘demystify’ Africa and bring together the continent’s leading politicians with foreign businesses and investors. It was hosted by Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame.

(President Paul Kagame on the right, with Yoweri Museveni President of Uganda)

A huge highlight during TGAIS trip in Rwanda was meeting with H.I.H Prince Ermis Sahle-Selassie - grandson of the late Emperor Haile Selassie (pictured above). Sahle-Selassie is also the founder of the Crown Dynasty Group, which includes a soon-to-be-launched foundation advocating Impact Investing, Venture Philanthropy and Wealth Creation in Africa.

The UK Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Uganda and Rwanda, Lord Dollar Popat also attended TGAIS with a group of British business owners. He’s written a report on the experience, and we’ll be publishing it in our next newsletter. In the piece he talks about how Britain needs to get over its 1985 Live Aid image of Africa, and instead open its eyes to the thriving, entrepreneurial ecosystem developing in a vast number of countries on the continent.

I totally agree.

Ethiopia stop-over

On a similar note, I flew to Kigali via Ethiopia. When I arrived in its capital city Addis Ababa the weather could easily have been mistaken for a miserable day in London. Cold. Wet. And even a little windy! Ok, it is winter season there at the moment, but it’s still a far cry from the drought-stricken image we’ve been pumped with via aid posters (featuring a young child and a fly) in the West over the years.

Getting to know the real Africa

My point is, it’s so easy to conjure up images of what we think something is like - and base judgements upon it - without ever actually seeing it for what it truly is ourselves.

Which brings me back to why I’m involved in projects such as the Ghana Investment & Trade Tour. It’s provides an opportunity for people to look beyond the headlines.

I’m not a fan of complaining about how the world needs to change. As far as I’m concerned - and as Mahatma Gandhi says - we have to be the change we want to see in the world.

Off to pack now for my month long trip to Ghana!