The Publishing Test — What This Note Proves
A short note written through the new admin panel to confirm one thing: an article can go from draft to live styled page without touching a single file.
Read the dispatch →Follow Who Know Road — why your market report is lying to you about Africa
Fifteen years on the ground, from Abidjan to Kinshasa: the Apple lesson, the trade-bloc reality, the experience gap, and the AI trap. The report is the map — not the terrain.
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WAEMU just built a backstop and set a belt-tightening path
On 3 July in Ouagadougou the Union switched on its Financial Stability Fund and fixed a 2.9%-of-GDP deficit path. The state is stepping back as financier — and the "stable region" average hides one member near 132% debt/GDP. What the 3 July Council means for your entry.
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A record 7,870bn FCFA raise — and 80% of it only rolls over old debt
The headline says deep local capital. The redemption line says ~80% refinances maturing debt, and two borrowers took 63% of all issuance. The number that decides your funding strategy is not the one in the headline.
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Your Francophone exports now enter China duty-free — read the fine print
China zeroed the 8–30% tariff on Ivorian cocoa and every WAEMU commodity. But duty-free is claimed, not automatic — and Côte d'Ivoire is on a 2-year clock. What exporters must actually do.
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Who really makes money in Francophone Africa now?
The 2017 map said France — currency, troops, politics, language. By 2026 the bases are gone, China took the trade crown, the CFA grip loosened, and Africans are redrawing the map. Who the new gatekeepers are, and what it means for your entry.
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83% accept mobile money. So why can't my users pay?
The ITC's 2025 e-payments report is right about the appetite and quiet about the rail: 83% accept mobile money, but cross-border interoperability still fails — and the fix it names keeps slipping. Reading the numbers from the ground.
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Interoperability: friction or fiction?
WAEMU's single instant-payment rail was "mandatory" — until it was postponed five days before, again. Meanwhile users still can't pay. The gap between the announcement and the ground, and what it means for your entry.
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Côte d'Ivoire's PND 2026–2030: what a 70%-private plan means for your entry
A state betting 70% of a $200bn national plan on capital it doesn't control is a demand signal — not a subsidy. Where the tailwind blows, and the gap between the ambition and the ground.
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The frontier everyone can see and no one can measure
WAEMU's informal economy runs to ~92% of employment — bigger than Nigeria's, and less measured. Why the market you can't count is the one that decides, and what that means for deploying capital.
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Why well-capitalised firms fail in Francophone Africa within 18 months
Three failure modes that appear in no market report — regulatory timelines, distribution, and relationships — and how terrain intelligence catches them before month 14.
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OHADA & CEPICI: the real company registration timeline in Côte d'Ivoire
The official 24–72 hour promise versus what registering and *operating* a company actually takes — and the sequencing trap that turns three weeks into three months.
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