Why is African Healthcare the Best Sector to Invest In? A Discussion with Sven Hermans of Ponea

Sven Hermans, Board Member at Ponea Health, explains why Africa is the future of healthcare and discusses investment opportunities in the African healthcare sector.

“At the moment, the traditional big powers and the big markets are shifting, and that positions Africa for investors, but also for growth and investment. Growth rates in Eastern African markets are at 2 to 3 times what is currently in the United States or Europe. So, from a growth perspective, that is exciting. In the US and Europe markets, there are low population growth rates, while in the Eastern African markets, there is a 15% or 20% growth rate and a population that is young, talented, and digitally-savvy. So, from a talent and growth perspective, that makes it a very exciting market where you could leapfrog from to a future-proof, digitally enabled ecosystem for healthcare, whilst many markets in Europe and the US are dealing with a lot of legacy and need to go through different stages. We can immediately make the step from where the country is today, or the markets are today, to a fully digitally enabled situation. Besides, in markets like Europe or the US, close to 100% of the people are insured. In Africa, that number is somewhere around 10 to 20%, which means that 8 out of 10 people are not insured for unexpected healthcare expenses. And that is either because they chose not to take insurance or because they cannot afford it. From a marketplace perspective, that creates a lot of opportunity for improvement, because all these people are spending money from their pockets on healthcare on a regular basis, and being able to use a platform to do that efficiently and get the best quality is of course a big opportunity”, says Sven Hermans.

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