Blockchain, known for its secure and transparent digital ledgers, isn’t just about cryptocurrencies. Here are some African initiatives that showcase the technology’s potential to drive inclusion, efficiency, accountability, security, and transparency.
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1. Catch of the Day (Senegal): The Bleu comme la mer platform connects fishermen and customers directly, eliminating brokers and financial gatekeepers. Payments for seafood can be made in Bitcoin, Ether and Tezos. Details like species, location, and dates are recorded by fishermen and shared with buyers on the blockchain as an attempt to reduce overfishing and waste.
2. Private Property (Kenya): e-Health company Afya Rekod uses blockchain to store, analyse, and encrypt health data. It offers mobile-based portals for patients to securely input, share, or retrieve their details. Providers like hospitals and pharmacies can take up services like management and analysis of medical records and supplies.
3. Light and Bright (South Africa): Sun Exchange stands out for its innovative use of blockchain in the renewable energy sector. The platform allows users to invest in solar energy projects by buying solar cells, contributing to clean energy initiatives and providing an opportunity to earn passive income.
4. Yellow Card (Pan-African): This fintech allows users to buy, sell, and send cryptocurrencies using familiar methods like cash and mobile money in real-time, across the borders of over 20 African countries. It also offers bill payments and airtime top-up.
5. Freedom to Grow (Uganda): Block Commodities’ uniqueness lies in its focus on blockchain projects related to agriculture. It offers to promote transparency, traceability in the supply chain, and equitable compensation for farmers. The company has secured funding to also produce, process, and market medicinal cannabis.
6. New Steps, Old Dance (Ethiopia): The Yatreda NFT project was founded by a collective of Ethiopian artists. They used blockchain technology to create “looping motion portraits” of legendary kings, warriors, and even fictional characters. Their NFT series is called “Movement of the Ancestors”. They intend to preserve and share Ethiopia’s rich cultural heritage while selling their art in the Metaverse.
7. Safe Haven (Nigeria): Xend Finance, an “African-founded global crypto bank” is a DeFi platform that initially focused on decentralised savings and credit unions. It now claims to combat inflation and currency depreciation by enabling customers on its platform to easily change fiat money into reliable cryptocurrencies and earn interest on their savings.
8. Creative Blocks (Mauritius): BitOrb offers a digital toolbox that enables “average” users to mint, advertise, purchase, sell, and trade text, images, videos, and audio in both traditional and NFT formats. Digital content producers, streamers, bloggers, artists, collectors, and retailers can all interact and transact in this Web 3.0 marketplace.
9. Land Locked (Ghana): Bitland leverages blockchain technology to tackle land rights issues in Ghana. They provide land registry services, creating land tokens to increase ownership security and liquidity. They aim to reduce land grabbing, improve transparency, and empower communities by facilitating access to finance and promoting self-governance.
10. Take It Back (International): Looty NFTs aren’t your typical digital art collectables. This project tackles cultural restitution by digitally capturing looted African artefacts using 3D technology. The company turns these “digital versions” into unique NFTs. Owning a Looty NFT doesn’t grant ownership of the actual artefact, but it represents a digital piece of history, while trying to raise funds for young African artists.
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