Breadline haunts the middle class in Africa
Study seeks to dispel the myth that there is no middle class in Africa and that the continent only has rich and poor people
Just a step above poverty, is what a two-year research project concluded about Africa's middle class of 100million people who still have a combined spending power of more than $400-million a day. The report, which spanned 10 sub-Saharan cities in nine countries, excluding South Africa, by the UCT Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing and Ipsos South Africa, shows that 43% of the urban middle class is vulnerable, 25% are considered comfortable and 32% are accomplished. The research canvassed growth in the middle class in Abidjan in Ivory Coast, Accra in Ghana, Lagos and Kano in Nigeria, Douala in Cameroon, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Luanda in Angola, Lusaka in Zambia, Nairobi in Kenya and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Nanzala Mwaura, head of content at Ipsos South Africa, said: "We tried to represent the diversity of Africa in our research and covered Anglophone, Lusophone and Francophone countries." "The middle class excludes anyone who earns less than $2 a day and includes those who...
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