Renewing the consumer movement in Africa

Onica Makwakwa, Head of CI's Africa Office reflects on the recent growth of the consumer movement in Africa and what this means for CI and its Members. 

This year has been dominated by news of The Rise of the African Consumer led by reports from the McKinsley Institute.

While both promising and exciting from an economic and marketing perspective, these reports have sometimes been worrisome especially when thinking about the still lacking state of consumer protection throughout Africa.

It is therefore exciting to be part of the current renewal and growth of consumer organisations in Africa as experienced through the many new and upgraded Full Members who have joined CI during this time.

The commercial focus on the African consumer means that now more than ever we must seek to protect consumers’ rights through effective sector and comprehensive consumer protection law.

Many of these organisations are on the forefront of efforts to introduce legislation for consumer protection, such as Consumer Advocacy Centre, an upgraded Full Member in Ghana who is conducting stakeholder consultations on the newly drafted consumer protection policy that will be used to draft legislation for the country.

Such renewal of the consumer movement in Africa makes this an exciting time for CI and its Members.

We hope to continue to harness the collective power of consumer organisations in the region as a formidable voice of consumers that will usher in the necessary protections for 21st century consumers in Africa.

Food safety is just as important as food security in Africa

CI’s Head of Africa Onica Makwakwa looks at the work CI Members are doing around food safety on the continent

On a continent where food security is still a challenge due to limited availability and high cost, food safety may not be prioritised but it is integral to achieving food security.

The recent meat-label scandal, especially in the Southern Africa region, has highlighted just how misunderstood food safety is in a region where food insecurity, political instability, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other major concerns compete for government attention and priority. 

As such, many African countries are yet to prioritise the regulatory infrastructure required to ensure ‘access to nutritionally adequate and safe food as a right to each individual’ as articulated in the World Declaration on Nutrition.

Consumer organisations, therefore, play a pivotal role in advocating on behalf of consumers and holding those in the food value chain accountable for food safety as well as food security.

CI Members on the continent are doing their part to raise awareness about food safety. For example, in Namibia, Michael Gaweseb, executive director of CI Member Namibia ConsumerTrust, facilitated the testing of meat from supermarkets, raising awareness among officials and consumers alike when they found undisclosed meats including kangaroo in some processed meat products.

While in South Africa, Thami Bolani, CEO of CI Member Consumer Fair, continues to lead the media and public outcry on the growing meat-labelling scandal which is now being investigated by the National Consumer Commission.

Contamination of food -- as demonstrated in the case of aflatoxin contamination -- is another big safety issue which also has repercussions on scarcity.

Aflatoxins are poisonous mycotoxins that are produced by toxic fungi affecting crops in the field and during storage thus making them unsafe for human and livestock consumption. In Africa, aflatoxin contamination is a major cause of post-harvest losses and constitutes a significant threat to food security and livelihoods. Indeed, aflatoxins are a major public health challenge throughout the continent.

Richard Henry Kimera, chief executive of CI Member Consumer Education Trust (CONSENT) in Uganda, joined me at a Strategy Development-Stakeholder Consultation Workshop for the African Union on Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa. Kimera is a voice for consumers with his advocacy and consumer education on aflatoxins in Uganda.

With aflatoxin contamination affecting food safety and subsequently food security in most of sub-Saharan Africa, it is imperative that we draw upon existing research and the work conducted by CONSENT and other consumer organisations in the region to further identify and develop the necessary regional expertise on aflatoxin control.

To join our dialogue on aflatoxin control and other emerging issues of importance to consumer organisations in Africa, please join our new Facebook group. If you already have a Facebook account, you can find us here: www.facebook.com/groups/afroconsumers. (If not, you will need a Facebook account to join this group.) This is a closed group, therefore, to join you need to send a request to afroconsumers@groups.facebook.com or search and request to join via Facebook.

Looking forward to connecting and sharing with everyone.

Africa’s consumer movement - ready to fly

Africa’s consumers, and the consumer groups that represent them, are poised to drive real change on the continent.  Luke Upchurch on  CI’s recent council meeting in Pretoria, South Africa. 

If there is one thing the Africa consumer rights movement doesn’t lack its enthusiasm.

After spending five days meeting, talking and debating with groups from every corner of the continent, it’s clear that, despite intermittent communications technology, huge geographic distances and all-but-non-existent financial support – Africa’s consumer rights groups are finding their voice.

The overwhelming focus of development in Africa has been, and rightly continues to be, trade. But an increasing number of governments, and a huge number of people, now recognise the issues faced by consumers on the continent too.

Consumer rights groups across the continent, many with direct help from CI, are currently working on a wide range of consumer rights issues, including financial literacy, nutrition, sustainable consumption, and intellectual property–areas that are having a real impact on the quality of people’s lives.

As for Africa’s consumers themselves – they are leading the way with new forms of mobile telephone banking, urban agriculture, and collaborative initiatives – way ahead of many consumers, businesses, and market analysts in the global north.

These examples provide some of the background for the Africa summit of consumer groups held to mark the official opening of CI’s new Africa office in Pretoria, South Africa earlier this month.

Consumers International also used this special occasion in Pretoria to conduct its annual face-to-face council meeting, allowing Africa consumer groups the opportunity to hold detailed discussions with leading consumer advocates from across the world.

It was an extraordinary meeting of minds, with consumer group directors and CEOs from the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America working with their counterparts from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Benin, Kenya and Uganda.

The overriding message from the Africa consumer groups was the desire to be sustainable organisations. This was not a meeting to discuss handouts, but to kick off ideas about how the rest of the world’s consumer groups can partner with the Africa movement to empower consumer organisations.

This partnership could take many forms, not least access to the wealth of expertise from consumer rights groups in Asia, who found themselves at a similar stage of development 20 years ago.

Commitments were also made to increase knowledge-sharing with others to build on campaign ideas, fine-tune policy demands and reach out to both the poor and growing African middleclass.

Consumers International has a key facilitation role in this process and plans are already underway to establish  regional hubs across Africa.

These hubs would act as sub-regional facilitators for collaborative initiatives and campaigns, , and as CI’s ‘ear to the ground’ for issues, ideas and opportunities  for collective action in each geographic area.

There was a palpable sense throughout the three days of meetings that a significant step forward was occurring; that the consumer rights movement in Africa was entering a new stage.

The feeling was certainly shared by CI’s Malaysian council member Marimuthu Nadason, who donated $10,000 from his organisation FOMCA to the new CI Africa office – a highly appreciated gesture that will help kick start some of the new ideas for collaboration put forward by the Africa member groups.

But perhaps the clearest indication of this new enthusiasm came from South Africa’s Acting Commissioner for Consumer Protection, Ibrahim Mohammed.

Addressing guests at the high-level evening reception put on by CI Africa, the Commissioner made clear his government’s desire to work closely with CI and support our work to develop the movement across the continent.

It’s a long road ahead, but, with a new office, tremendous staff and the encouragement of those with influence, Africa’s consumer rights movement may well be ready to fly.

You can follow the latest development in Africa’s consumer rights movement on twitter @CI_Africa and by visiting www.consumersinternational.org/Africa.

Getting African consumer groups connected

With a new Head of Office, the forthcoming global CI Council meeting in Pretoria, and plans for  new hub offices across the continent, it’s a really exciting time for the consumer rights movement in Africa, says our Director General Helen McCallum.

I’m delighted to have our new Head of CI Africa, Onica Makwakwa, with us and wanted to take this opportunity to formally welcome her to Consumers International.

I know Onica has already spoken to several members across Africa about her ideas for the future of consumer rights on the continent, and I hope many others will have the opportunity to talk with her in the near future.

One such opportunity will be as part of the CI Council’s visit to our new office in Pretoria, South Africa, in early November. The occasion will include a collaborative workshop led by Onica for council members and representatives from consumer rights groups across Africa to discuss the challenges facing the movement.

All our Africa members are welcome to attend, but if you are not able to get there, fear not; we will be tweeting, blogging and reporting on proceedings during and after the meeting.

We really want to get input and feedback from as many CI Africa members as possible; that’s why we want you to send us questions for the workshop in advance.

CI staff will feed your questions into the discussions and report back after the event on the blog and via our social media platforms – Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

One of the major areas of discussion between the CI Africa Office and members is the creation of new ‘hubs’.

Outlined within our Africa strategy earlier this year, the intention is to create small member-led network points where neighbouring national members can focus their interactivity with CI and each other.

The ideas are still at the exploratory stage, but, once again, we welcome input and feedback whether you are able to attend the meetings in Pretoria or not. 


If you have thoughts on any of the above issues, we would love to hear from you, particularly before the CI Council’s visit during the week of 5 November. Please leave your comments below or email us at consint@consint.org.