The Salient Flicker Of Hope In Francophone Africa’s Startup Scene

Francophone Africa. It's not often mistaken for a country or a peninsula of sorts but it has in a myriad of ways been labeled as "one of Africa's sub-continents". If Europe's largest country had a twin back in the motherland, it'd most likely be Francophone Africa.

English, like in most other places, is a popularly articulated language in Africa. But, the twist is: when it comes to the over 300 million people who actually speak French worldwide, 44 percent of them (as of 2019 stats) are in Africa.

Minding this, there are professional prophecies that by 2050, a wholesome 85 percent of the entire planet's Francophones will live on the continent. It's pertinent to note too, that besides English, French is the only language spoken in five of Earth's seven continents.

Though 'Mother France' is a European bigwig in many senses of speaking, French-speaking nations don't seem to have quite baked into a hot cake in Africa—at least in comparison to the Anglophone countries.