“You can’t take your success from the international market and simply apply it to local market in Latin America. You’ve got to build your strategy from the ground up, not top down,” she says.
An article in their most recent newsletter discusses opportunities in the vast bottom of the pyramid market in Latin America. About 360 million people in Latin America fit into this category. Local companies have done better than multi-nationals.
This trend will most likely apply to African countries too, albeit it would be less obvious. African multi-national hold too much sway in the federal governments of the African countries in which they operate. A second factor will be the weakening of regional firms. If entrepreneurship, and the small private market will lift Africa from its present state. Attention ought to be focused less on institutional investors and multi-national and more of on Micro-finance and small business institutions.
One more time it has been shown that the change required to move from poverty to self sufficiency will not be dumped on us from above, but will be devised and formulated by our experiences and realities. This is also an argument against some type of aid programs. It is starting to unravel, slowly though, that Africa may have more to learn from the Latin American countries than from Asian Tigers.
Tags: Latin America
