Member-only story
Is the West too blinkered to help frontier markets?
Is it time for a rethink? Why should the West impose conventional economic beliefs upon frontier markets when these economies function radically differently? It’s not as if industrialised nations hold all the answers to successful and equitable economies — as witnessed by the economic doldrums, corporate imbalances and rapid rise in socioeconomic inequality that afflict these countries today.
Arguably, the West tends to construe frontier markets — these are low to lower-middle income economies with great potential for innovation and growth — as chaotic and insecure. Frontier markets are depicted as lacking the institutional structures and systems to support markets and firm growth, or so the perceived wisdom goes. Western support in frontier markets seeks to address the deficiencies it sees for instance with formalisation, taxation, and entrepreneurship programmes.
In doing so, they are missing a rich treasure trove of solutions already at play which combat social and business problems. Frontier markets, many of which are in Africa, benefit from young, fast-growing populations and are projected to achieve substantial socio-economic progress in the decades ahead. As bustling hubs of economic activities, frontier markets, we’ve found, thrive according to their own rules.
