governments are increasingly “comfortable with companies from the other side of the border”, notes Mr Opalo. Even so, challenges linger. One is the high cost of capital. In the 2000s Tanzania’s banking sector was so small Mr Dewji had to go to South Africa for loans to expand the business. Today, he notes, “we have local banks and access to capital locally.” Credit is getting cheaper. But even a larger group like MeTL, which can tap banks from South Africa and Mauritius for big syndicated loans, still struggles to secure affordable long-term finance. Initial public offerings remain rare, even if a few are beginning to happen even outside of South Africa. Mr Dangote is relatively unusual in having listed parts of his empire on Nigeria’s stock exchange. Africa’s total listed market capitalisation is about a third of the region’s total GDP, compared with 113% globally and 61% in emerging markets on average. Partly, that is because African capital markets remain shallow, giving firms little incentive to list. But family owners are also often reluctant to cede control or open their books to scrutiny. Nitin Madhvani of the Madhvani Group, a Ugandan conglomerate, notes that his family lost control of their businesses in the 1970s when Idi Amin expelled Asians. “We don’t want to do that again,” he says. Conversely, foreign investors may be wary of African firms seen as too close to the state. “Mo Dewji has been an MP,” says an executive at a rival Tanzanian conglomerate. “There are very few private-equity firms that would invest with those kinds of things.” Politics remains the biggest challenge. In a new book on Rwanda’s economic development, Pritish Behuria of the University of Manchester argues that the government’s distrust of homegrown capitalists helps explain why the country has produced so few big firms of its own. Foreign capital, he says, is seen as the politically safer bet. Whether it is a smart economic bet is less clear. For all Mr Dangote’s corporate achievements, in Nigeria his firms have yet to kickstart broad- based industrialisation. And Mr Behuria notes that most African conglomerates still invest little in upgrading technological know-how, leaving them ill-equipped to compete globally. Still, a bit more competition for Africa’s super-tycoon is unlikely to hurt, says David Olurin of Cardinal
Torch, a new Nigerian agricultural conglomerate: “You can’t have just one person and expect phenomenal growth to happen.”■ Sign up to the Analysing Africa, a weekly newsletter that keeps you in the loop about the world’s youngest—and least understood—continent. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/08/23/the-quiet-tycoons- powering-africas-rise
Middle East & Africa | Marching across borders Why smugglers are stealing Kenya’s ants A global craze for pet ants has created a lucrative black market Aug 27th 2026 IT WAS A smuggling operation to make your skin crawl. At Nairobi airport earlier this year, Kenyan authorities discovered more than 2,200 African harvester ants hidden in a man’s luggage. Most were packed inside small plastic tubes plugged with damp cotton, designed to keep the ants alive for weeks while they made it to their recipients, collectors in China. In April the smuggler was sentenced to a year in prison. His conviction followed a series of similar cases, including the arrest last year of two Belgian teenagers carrying around 5,000 ants. A global craze for pet ants has fuelled a booming black market in live queen ants. An African harvester queen can sell for more than $200 in the black market (it costs barely $3 in Kenya). The country has become a hub for
illegal trading because it has abundant populations of the species, alongside established smuggling networks that have long trafficked wildlife. Ant-keeping became a popular pastime during the pandemic as people searched for indoor hobbies. Enthusiasts keep colonies in transparent formicariums—miniature “ant cities”—where they watch the insects dig tunnels and forage for food. Social media has helped turn the pastime into a global phenomenon. YouTube channels such as AntsCanada, which has more than 7m subscribers, narrate the stories of individual colonies like nature documentaries, from queens founding new nests to battles with rival species. Most ant-keeping is perfectly legal. Specialist dealers breed the insects and sell them in licensed shops. But demand for rare and exotic ants has outpaced legal supply. African harvester ants are especially prized because they are among the world’s largest ant species and display complex social behaviours, making them “the tigers of the ant world”, says Dino Martins, an entomologist and evolutionary biologist based in Kenya. Scientists worry that removing large numbers of ants could damage Kenyan ecosystems. Traffickers target queens because each colony has just one breeding female. She typically lives for 25 years and can produce a colony of thousands of workers. Ants play a crucial role in east Africa’s savannahs. As they forage, they collect and disperse grass seeds, helping maintain the diverse grasslands on which much wildlife depends. The ants’ vast underground nests add oxygen to the soil and create nutrient-rich hotspots where plants grow more easily. Meanwhile many other animals, such as pangolins, feast on the ants themselves. Authorities are scrambling to stop the illegal exodus. Kenya Wildlife Service has pushed for tougher penalties and stepped up inspections at airports. But conservationists say the recent seizures are probably only the tip of the anthill. And interceptions address the trade only after the damage has been done. Alongside tougher enforcement, Mr Martins argues, authorities should educate collectors and local communities about the insects’ ecological importance. Unless demand falls, smugglers will find new ways to keep ants marching across borders. ■
Sign up to the Analysing Africa, a weekly newsletter that keeps you in the loop about the world’s youngest—and least understood—continent. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/08/26/why-smugglers-are- stealing-kenyas-ants
Giorgia Meloni is Italy’s steadiest postwar prime minister The renewed threat to global grain supplies Europe’s new renewable-energy champion is a surprise European countries are battling over rules on booze Can music festivals save the melting Alps? Gallivanting EU politicians reveal where power really lies
Giorgia Meloni is Italy’s steadiest postwar prime minister Fusing populism and moderation proves a recipe for staying in power Aug 27th 2026 On September 4th Giorgia Meloni will become Italy’s longest continuously serving prime minister since Benito Mussolini. Her tenure is remarkable in a country where leaders tend to be as durable as gelato on a hot Rome day. Since taking office in October 2022 she has watched prime ministers in once-stable Britain, France and the Netherlands come and go. Having risen to power as a hard-right populist, she has reshaped Italian politics and put herself at its centre. For other populist-right leaders in Europe, her lesson seems clear: tacking to the middle pays off. To be sure, the position of Ms Meloni and her Brothers of Italy (FdI) party is hardly ironclad. In March voters rejected a referendum on justice reforms
that she had made a personal priority. Economic growth is minimal: in the second quarter GDP rose at an annual rate of 1%, and the last of the European Union’s billions in post-covid recovery aid will soon run out. By year’s end, Italy is expected to replace Greece as the euro-zone state with the highest rate of public debt. Meanwhile a new party has emerged on the far right, led by an ex-general, Roberto Vannacci. It has attracted defectors from the FdI’s right-wing coalition partner, the League. That has forced the prime minister to become more radical on issues ranging from migration to hunting. Yet Ms Meloni looks less like a leader in decline than one laying the foundations for a dominant second term. She remains Italy’s most popular party leader (or “less unpopular than the others”, says Lorenzo Pregliasco, a pollster for Youtrend). Polls give the Brothers a higher share of the vote than at the 2022 election. Ms Meloni has become “the person around whom the entire political system is revolving”, says Giovanni Orsina of the LUISS University in Rome. Italo Bocchino, a former MP who belonged to the same neo-fascist youth movement as Ms Meloni, thinks she could remain on the political scene for decades. Three things explain Ms Meloni’s political success. First, she is lucky in her opponents. The opposition is split between the progressive Democratic party (PD) and the Five Star Movement, a once ideologically heterogeneous populist movement that now strives to outflank the PD on the left. The Five Star leader, Giuseppe Conte, and the secretary of the PD, Elly Schlein, found some common ground earlier this year. But on August 2nd Mr Conte ripped the breach open, declaring his party would not support the arming of Ukraine. “The opposition is in a bloody mess,” says Mr Orsina. The second ingredient is limited activity. Antonio Misiani, the PD’s economic spokesman, says the government’s ministers are “navigating by sight” rather than shaping a strategy. The government has invested too little political capital in reforms to raise long-term growth, argues Carlo Cottarelli, a former director of the International Monetary Fund. But reluctance to challenge vested interests is good politics in an ageing, conservative society.