Africa 2 Rises

Meet Denis Ruharo, an entrepreneur with a master8217;s degree, a man who carries a BlackBerry and two cellphones...

Meet Denis Ruharo, an entrepreneur with a master8217;s degree, a man who carries a BlackBerry and two cellphones, buys organic greens at a grocery store and sometimes does business over a cold Nile beer at a club called Silk. 8220;I have the mortgage and home improvement,8221; he said, 8220;The car, carwash and parking tickets. Cable TV, two movies a month. The health club. We vacation twice a year.8221; 8220;What else,8221; he said, scrolling down on his Mac laptop. 8220;Newspapers, charity, clothes, books and CDs 8230;8221;

In a region more often associated with grinding poverty, Ruharo is part of a modestly growing segment of sub-Saharan Africa8212;upwardly mobile, low- to middle-income consumers. The group includes working Africans who make as little as 200 a month, a paltry sum by Western standards, yet hardly the 1 a day that describes life for about half the continent8217;s population. Perhaps a third of all Africans, or 300 million people, fall into a middle category8212;struggling to put their kids through school and pay rent, but able to buy a cellphone or DVD once in a while.

Their buying power is evident around Kampala, a green and hilly city where iron-sheet homes are interspersed with high-rise condos, streets are crowded with bikes and Japanese sedans, and the city8217;s newest mall, Oasis, is under construction. It will be anchored by what amounts to sub-Saharan Africa8217;s first Target-style superstore chain, Nakumatt, which sells corn flour, aromatherapy bath salts and nearly everything else. The company is opening two other superstores here, two in Rwanda, three in Tanzania and 11 in Kenya.Said Thiagarajan Ramamurthy, Nakumatt8217;s operations director: 8220;The appetite is increasing8212;the 14-inch TV became a 21-inch. The 21 became a 29 and the 29 became plasma. It8217;s an aspiration.8221;

The middle ranks include secretaries, computer gurus, merchants and others who have benefited from economic growth of around 6 per cent annually in countries like Uganda, Ghana and Kenya, and around 8 per cent in Rwanda. As Ramamurthy sees it, the growth of consumer culture reflects something more significant than the availability of Chilean wines and red patent leather pumps from Paris. It reflects a gradual opening up of African economies and a change in how people define themselves.

Ruharo8217;s identity has to do with where he shops and what he buys, which in turn reflects the wider world he greets each day on the Internet and cable TV or on occasional trips to London. 8220;What matters is your lifestyle,8221; said Ruharo, 8220;The car you drive8212;it should be a Japanese import. You have to live in an apartment. The BlackBerry is important. It8217;s purely a status symbol because no one here is that busy yet.8221;

Ruharo, who started his own business developing text-messaging products for cellphone companies, now has 14 employees, recent college graduates who share his taste for designer jeans and iPods.

Vijay Mahajan, a University of Texas business professor, recently coined the phrase 8220;Africa 2s8221; to describe people who are neither desperately poor Africa 3s nor obnoxiously rich Africa 1s, and says the middle group is one of the most important drivers of economic growth in Africa. Mahajan, who has written a book, Africa Rising, says, 8220;Africa2s are the people sending their kids to school 8230; who are the most optimistic, the most forward-thinking.8221;

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On any afternoon in Kampala, the parking lot of the Garden City mall is full of Africa 2s like Zubedah Nanfuka, shopping inside the dimly lit, air-conditioned expanse. 8220;It8217;s the one place you can be international and keep up with friends from Western countries,8221; said Nanfuka, a 27-year-old programme assistant at an embassy who until recently hosted a local lifestyle TV show called Cook and Dine. 8220;If you say 8216;I shop at Garden City8217;, it puts you in a certain class.8221;

Mariam Adam, a cosmetologist and playwright, said that her friends come to the mall even though they can8217;t afford to buy much. She said it8217;s not so much about shopping, but rather what the mall represents. 8220;People come to be seen here, so other people assume you have money. Things have changed a lot,8221; she said, recalling the days when she felt shabby compared with a visitor from London. 8220;Now, someone from London can come and they8217;re wearing the same shoes I have.8221;