One of my new favorite blogs is Afro-IP which describes itself as: the blog for intellectual property law, practice and policies in Africa. Written collaboratively by Paul Asiimwe, Roshana Kelbrick, David Njuguna, Darren Olivier and Jeremy Phillips, it covers everything related to Intellectual Property Law and related issues across the African continent. One story that caught my eye last week was this one by contributor Darren Oliver in which he discusses how some African businesses are attempting to cut out the ‘middle men’ who have built strong businesses importing African products:

The IP article sub titled Africa Bursting with Opportunities claims that the application of IP tools and branding techniques could add value to Africa’s products and services allowing the IP owners to retain the huge profits now being made by middlemen. The article cites Kenya Tea, Sudanese extra long staple cotton, Namibia’s marula oil, Togolese black soap, Sengalese yeloow fin tuna, Tanzania’s blackwood, cashews from Madagascar, mud-cloth from Mali, Ethiopian Leather and, surprisingly, television animation which is apparently worth around $50-$70 bn annually. The report is unfortunately vague as to what it means by IP techniques or the “middlemen”. However, Afro Leo suggests that the techniques are a combination of recognizing that IP exists, defining and protecting it and at the same time marketing the product under a brand as a premium product to distribution networks and channels that can take the message to as many consumers across the globe as possible. In other words creating a brand and an exclusive category for the product, and taking it to market by partnering with licensees and distributors with appropriate expertise and networks. There is no doubt that these opportunities exist and that Ethiopia has been astute enough to recognize and exploit its latent IP for long term growth in demand for its coffee beans.

About the Author: Jonathan Gosier (Founder) is an American-born software developer, writer and social entrepreneur. He currently lives in Kampala, Uganda where he is working on two fronts: to encourage western businesses and investors to engage African entrepreneurs and to encourage the adoption of computers, programming and use of the internet in the developing regions of Africa. He is a huge advocate for promoting the ways in which a semantic web will benefit emerging economies in the world.

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