【Sub-Saharan 】Conflict Diamonds, Sanctions, and Illicit Finance – Ep. 160

Yeah. I mean, I think you had Nigeria at number two on your that’s right in geography. So, yeah. I mean, look, I think you’re seeing the use cases expand across the continent. You have, you know, mobile ride and taxi apps in Kenya, kind of integrating with with crypto and and being able to and mobile payment systems, obviously, you know, peer to peer trend trading supply chain, again, helping to ensure things like Coco supply chains in West Africa are free of human trafficking by being able to document the supply chain and document payments. You know, I think so the use cases are expanding. And as you mentioned, the innovation, the creativity in places like Nigeria, South Africa is really and Kenya are really remarkable. And I think that’s if I had to point to a couple of you know, what are we missing? I think, on the whole, in the United States and in the West generally, we still see Sub Saharan Africa, as you know, an area for exploitation. I mean, there’s so much in the press day by day about critical minerals. And you know, if it’s not Ukraine, it’s basically, it’s a great race for grant for rare earths. That’s exactly right. And here we are again. And you know, the scramble for Africa underway, and, you know, and it’s also, you know, where we look just for exploitation and extraction too often. Or, you know, e waste, frankly, right? Ghana, Nigeria, the massive dumping grounds for those kinds of things. So we still, we haven’t really integrated our approach to the economies and the creativity of Africa. There’s lots of reports about the growing population and sort of the growing markets. I think 11 of the top 20 growing markets. In the world are in Sub Saharan Africa, and we’re really wrestling with it, right? There’s also this emerging reporting about the administration putting out, you know, higher travel alerts, and I think two thirds of the countries that are in the that would be subjected to these higher travel restrictions coming to the US in Africa, or in Africa, right? So it’s, do we want to be increasing our engagement and economic ties, or are we raising red and yellow flags? That’s what’s missing is really that orientation to how do we engage with these markets? How do we understand the marketplaces? How do we understand that these are, yeah, in some ways, the most innovative and creative, because they’ve had to develop often outside. You know, 50 years ago they were developing outside, you know, the use of phone lines and then outside the financial system, right? So the creativity and the ability to develop and to innovate is, you know, as strong there as it is anywhere on the globe. And I think we’re missing that this, but at the same time, you know, without you don’t want to be too Polly honest, like there are real risks. There’s a level of, you know, there’s a level of, there’s still a level of corruption, a level of exploitation on the ground that has to really be monitored as you do your investment and do your engagement, you have to take that part seriously, and that really takes a level of awareness and understanding of an experience on the ground to know who’s who and what’s what I mean.

One interesting thing for me is watching reactions to the administration’s indications that it may ease enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, right? And so you’ve had really decades of Western American companies going into the continent and using the FCPA as a way of saying, like, look, we’re here as a means of investment, and as a contrast with investors from, say, China or other parts of the world where they’re going to be maybe more open to corruption and use of bribes as a way of just getting in. And you’ve had the FCPA as one of these shields to say, look, we have to do business in a certain way, and because we do business in this way, our investment is going to be more sustainable, more manageable, and ultimately more profitable for you. I think we’re in a moment where there’s a lot of discussion about the FCPA, but we do also have to realize that keeping up with those principles is going to what is going to be, what helps continue to be the advantage that American and Allied companies have when they engage on the continent. So it’s, you know, it’s a complicated story. Of, there’s a lot of opportunity, there’s a lot of creativity, there’s a lot to build from due diligence and meaningful under and meaningful understanding of the environments is essential, and holding on to the principles that you know have underlined what American companies in the American economy is about is really going to be key? Yeah,

Conflict diamonds, sanctions evasion and the evolution of organized crime in digital assets. In this episode we cover all that and more with