What is it like to be a small business owner in Mali?

He does not like to be compared to the Chinese small businessmen who arrived in Dakar in recent years: “We are not competitors. We are not in the same category, and we do not have the same way of doing business. In Senegal, I am the only one working in this sector. read more

Being a small-business owner isn't easy, but an overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs wouldn’t have it any other way. read more

I lived in rural Mali, in a small town named Sogola near the border with Guinea. Sogola is a Bambara village of about 1,000 people, of whom about 10-20 spoke French. The rest spoke Bambara, which I learned. Most engaged in farming, working tremendously, preposterously hard to grow food for their families. read more