NEWS
Around Africa in seven stories… TECHNOLOGY
A G R I C U LT U R E
COCKROACH FARMING FLYING INTO FASHION
AFRICA’S GAMING CULTURE LEVELS UP AFRICA’S LARGEST GATHERING of game developers and players has taken place at the annual Africa Games Week in Cape Town. Avid game enthusiasts such as Alexander Poone had the opportunity to celebrate and show off their latest creations at the exciting hybrid event. South Africa boasts the largest gaming market across the continent, with a rapidly rising 40 percent now obsessively playing in some form. A further spike is expected with an estimated high of one billion gamers
across Africa within the next five years. Traditional barriers to the African gaming market are gradually being broken down, with issues such as poor infrastructure, as well as unpredictable electricity and telecoms vastly improving in recent years. There is a high demand for African-made content on a developmental level, and experts believe this is the last untapped consumer audience in the gaming world.
DESPITE NOT BEING a huge crowd pleaser in the animal kingdom, and the less than hygienic reputation they carry, cockroaches are being declared as Africa’s “new oil” as insect farming is on the rise across the continent. This tiny downtrodden creature could provide future solutions to poverty, hunger, and economic struggles all over Africa. They contain surprisingly great nutritional value and are one of 18 species of insect identified as suitable for mass farming. Requiring only scraps of waste to feed on, there is huge potential to this market, as some farmers in Tanzania have already discovered. Daniel Rwehura is a pioneering frontrunner in cockroach farming. Selling each kilo for five euros, he commented in a report by Africa news that he considers the insects his new goldmine.
ECONOMY
THE GIG ECONOMY RISES IN SOUTH AFRICA IN THE CONSTANTLY evolving modern world, we are slowly seeing the decline of the typical ‘9 to 5’ jobs, where you clock in and clock out five days a week. In the face of such global challenges as the COVID-19 pandemic, this outdated structure’s 6 | Africa Outlook issue 95
gradual decline has been rapidly sped up. To combat mass unemployment across South Africa, the Temporary Employment Services (TES) provide the perfect retaliation to this crisis. Therefore, the more adaptable and risk free ‘gig economy’ is being embraced nationwide by businesses looking to avoid being tethered to giant permanent workforces.
