1. Demand for water technology in sub-Saharan-Africa
Demand for water technology in sub-Saharan-Africa
With rising industrial activity, environmental legislation and engineering
capacity, water technologies are becoming more demanded.
Comments
Market share water technology products*
in sub-Saharan Africa
(in %, 2017)
The demand for water technology per country has been calculated by an individual formula compiled by:
Trade data
Industrial activity
Presence of engineering companies / technological readiness
Environmental legislation framework
Other conditions such as water scarcity and investment trends in the water sector.
The above mentioned points are key market forces which have to be analyzed and coupled with the individual understanding of the local markets for a successful market entry.
Countries like Nigeria and Kenya exhibit adequate environmental legislation combined with industrial activity, such as in the Cement and the Food & Beverages sectors.
Much of Ghana‘s and Zambia’s industrial water is driven by mining.
In South Africa and Ethiopia, water scarcity has induced engineering skills into emergence in line with positive trends towards water investments.
Source: africon analysis (2017)
*Note: Analyzed products were technology related to water filtration
© africon GmbH 2016
© africon GmbH 2016

2. The share of investments in the water sector in SSA is relatively small at 9.7% compared to other infrastructure sectoral financing according to the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (2016). The region’s water access flounders at 40% (World Bank 2017). Whereas industrial wastewater is aiding the deterioration in water quality, resulting in reduced biodiversity in rivers, lakes and wetlands by about one-third in the region, finds a UN brief on Water Management (2017). This overall, complicates Africa’s development efforts to achieve both industrialization and sustainability.
Primarily, a combination of water technologies and investments can implicitly unlock much of Africa’s stagnant efforts, largely driven by the private sector. However, something was missing. At africon we studied what additional forces could attract more technology providers to enter the market. Our findings show that countries equipped with engineering capacity and environmental legislation had a favorable environment for water technologies. Added to that, water scarcity coupled with industrial activity and investment trends were stark signals of strong market demand for water solutions.
As a result of our market analysis, the top 5 countries were: South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia.
© africon GmbH 2016