Africa may be a needy continent but this need offers rich rewards for businesses that are daring, innovative and flexible enough to grapple with poor infrastructure, underdeveloped markets and volatile politics. This is the premise of a new book, Africa Rising: How 900 Million African Consumers Can Offer More Than You Think published by Wharton School Publishing. The book is timely, tapping into investor optimism about Africa — a feeling that does not seem to have been badly dented by political crises in Zimbabwe and Kenya, war in Somalia or a coup in Mauritania.

900 million Total population in Africa, which is seen as a huge market. People do need food, clean water, clothing and medicine but also cell phones, bicycles and computers

$978 billion Total gross national income. If Africa is treated as a single country, it will be ahead of India

What makes Africa better

High commodity prices, greater political stability in many countries, fewer wars, better communications and economic growth of around 6.5 per cent have helped lure new investment, often from China and other emerging countries, primarily for resources such as oil and gas.

The stories of crocodiles and blades

Mahajan cites the example of Zimbabwean company Innscor which operates the restaurant chain Steers in that country. Short of foreign exchange, it got into crocodile farming and became one of the world's biggest producers of crocodile meat and skins.

In Zambia, he writes, Gillette put some 18,000 young men on bicycles to sell small cards with five of its inexpensive double-edged blades — they took the product all over the country, increasing sales from 5,000 to 750,000 units in 2004.

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