Caleb Maru

Africa is not a country. It has 54. But..

When you look at ethnolinguistic divides, this map gives a different view👇🏾

It shows the African continent if its borders were drawn along historical ethnolinguistic groups (groups connected by ethnicity and language).

And the national borders of Africa’s 54 countries we know today were drawn arbitrarily.

What can we take away from this?

First, Africa is (obviously) not a country.

And when we talk about Africa, we’re talking about a continent with:

- Over 3,000 ethnic groups
- Over 2,100 languages
- 54 countries
- Over 30 million square kilometers of landmass

This impacts everything: governance, trade, policy, migration and culture.

Let’s not forget this when we talk about the African continent.

Are there other generalizations about Africa you think should be talked about?

Let me know in the comments👇🏾

You can check out the full interactive map here:
https://lnkd.in/dXBuXTVU

And if you learned something new, follow me [Caleb Maru] for more takes on Africa + African tech 🌍

Two weeks ago I was admitted to hospital in Kenya. At 27, it’s my first ‘health crisis’ ever.

And it sucks.

Having no idea whats going on with your body.

Nurses in and out all night taking vitals, drawing blood and pumping you with meds.

Meanwhile, family is halfway across the world.

We’re still not sure how I ended up here.

But from jamming with doctors and many rabbit holes - it turns out Africa is a tough place to have a health crisis:

- Africa has 2% of the global supply of doctors
- With less than 1% of expenditures on global health.
- But experiences 24% of the global burden of disease.

Here are three of my hospital bed takes on how Africa deals with its health crises:


🥇 I dealt with my health crisis the like the top 1% do.

Over the last two weeks I’ve had:

- Teams of doctors working around the clock to figure out what’s happening.
- A clean, private room
- No serious financial concerns because I have insurance.

I don’t take it for granted.

Getting care in itself is a privilege.

Having family to check in is a privilege.

Friends bringing me food and supplies is a privilege.

And the biggest privilege is that my health crisis won’t turn into a financial disaster.

But unfortunately..


🌍 The other 99% have a different story.

Counter my experience with the typical hospital experience in Africa and you’ll find that:

- A doctor usually juggles 48 patients in a day
- Crammed spaces and not enough hospital beds for admission
- Patients pay out of pocket to get treated.

That last point is the roughest.

97 million Africans (or 8.2% of the continent’s population), pay ‘catastrophic healthcare costs’

And that will push 15 million of them into poverty each year.

Here, a health crisis can turn into a financial crisis very quickly.


🧑🏾‍⚕️ Prevention is the best cure

My resolution when I'm out of here is to put health and wellness as my number one priority.

It’s corny. It’s cliche.

But it’s real.

The best cure is avoiding a health crisis altogether. Its prevention.

ESPECIALLY when a health crisis can become a financial crisis.

One unlikely place that's gotten this right is an island in the Caribbean: Cuba

They make primary care free (and mandatory) for citizens

Doctors are there first and foremost to prevent diseases.

They spend $431 per citizen a year (compared to $8,553 in the US) and live on with a similar life expectancy as the US.

An interesting case study when thinking about preventing health crises in Africa.


Africa is a tough place to have a health crisis - but it’s the continent where you’re most likely to have one.


Have this happened to you? And which of these takes did you find most interesting or resonate with?

I’m banned from work until I’m out of here so let me know 👇🏾

PS → I’m diving into the rest of my hospital bed takes tomorrow in my newsletter. Grab it in your inbox here 💌 www.techsafari.io

PPS → Feeling way better now + recovering well :)

You may know the PayPal Mafia (Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Ried Hoffman, etc).

But do you know about the Paystack Mafia?

In October 2020 Nigerian fintech, Paystack, was acquired by Stripe for $200m.

And many of early Paystack team, the ‘Paystack Mafia,’ are starting and scaling their next companies, like -

Abdulhamid Hassan, CEO of Mono. Mono raised a $15m Series A round to build the Plaid of Africa.

Idorenyin O., Co-Founder of Grey (YC W22), letting Africans create digital foreign accounts to send and receive international payments. After getting into Y Combinator they raised a $2m seed round

Femi Aluko and Olumide Ojo, founders of Chowdeck - a food delivery startup - which joined the Summer 22 YCombinator batch.

Emmanuel Okeke, Co-Founder and CTO of Brass - building banking solutions for SMEs. Brass closed out a $1.7m round in 2021 to expand to Kenya.

Jimmy Kuassi KUMAKO, PMP®, co-founder of Moneco (YC S22), a neobank for African migrants in Europe.

Obi Ik, founder of Alvative, which provides startups with junior and medium technical support teams.

And it’s not just talent.

The Paystack founders, Ezra Olubi and Shola Akinlade, have both gone on to invest in most of the Paystack mafia companies and many other fintechs.

Just one acquisition has caused massive waves on Africa’s tech ecosystem.

I think we’ll see these founders create the next set of success stories in Africa, and the flywheel will be in motion.

What other African startups have had a huge impact on the tech ecosystem? I'd love to cover them next

Let me know in the comments 👇🏾






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