about Made in Afrika
Africa is a continent rich in resources. Its richest resource, beyond oil, metals and other minerals, are its people.
With more than one billion mainly young women and men the continent has abundant talent and economic opportunity. It could become a serious competitor for China and other Asian countries, once ruling elites get their focus right.
The Made in Afrika project looks at social, political and economic developments in a select number of countries on the continent, with a special focus on Ethiopia.
There, an ambitious semi-authoritarian government aims to attract foreign investment to develop export-oriented light manufacturing and agro-industry that should employ millions. Addis Ababa is hoping this will make Ethiopia a lower middle income country by 2025.
The Ethiopians aim to copy China's development approach in the Horn of Africa -a bold ambition. If it works out more or less as planned, it may become a model for economic and social regeneration in sub-Saharan Africa.
Via on-the-ground reporting MiA will take a closer look at the Ethiopian approach, and compare it with developments in Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
This will result in the book Made in Afrika, to be published in 2018 by Lias Publishers in Hilversum, The Netherlands. Some of the stories will be available via European, African and Chinese media in advance.
The MiA project is supported by a grant from the Innovation in Development Reporting Programme of the European Journalism Centre and the Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation.
These institutions have no say whatsoever in the content of the stories.
about the author
Hans Gerard Moleman was a foreign correspondent in Africa and China for over fifteen years.
While based in Johannesburg, South Africa, he witnessed African companies and workers struggling with new competition from rising China.
After moving to Shanghai he saw a rapid rise of Chinese labour costs. Multinational companies began to look for other locations for low cost production -both in Asia and Africa.
Which African countries would be able to make use of that, he wondered when he left China in 2012. Ethiopia says it plans to copy China. Will it?
Before moving to Africa and Asia, Hans worked at the economics desk and as reporter at large for the Volkskrant newspaper in Amsterdam and Dutch national news agency ANP.
He has written two books. De Rode Miljardair, about the rise of Jack Ma and his internet company Alibaba (Lias Publishers, 2015), and Avonturen in modern China, a collection of stories published by the Volkskrant in 2005.
In 2012 he moved back to Europe with his wife Petra, daughter Maxine and their dog Xiaohe. From Maastricht he now works on local and international projects.