In June 2016, the crowdfunding industry in East Africa met for the first time in Nairobi, Kenya. The indaba hosted over 60 leading platforms, regulators, donors, researchers and business service providers from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The event highlighted crowdfunding as a potential source of alternative finance in the region (summary here).
To maintain momentum, FSD Africa has partnered with the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance and Anjarwalla and Khanna to examine the existing regulatory and policy landscape that governs debt, equity, rewards and donation-based crowdfunding activity in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
According to Joe Huxley of FSD Africa: “Effective regulation and policy frameworks are critical. They provide the necessary rules and incentive structures to ensure the growth of crowdfunding markets in East Africa is carefully managed.”
The objectives of this work are to:
- Map out the existing regulatory and policy landscape for all crowdfunding models in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
- Determine a list of priority areas for regulatory and policy development to support crowdfunding market development in East Africa.
- Identify key lessons from the regulation and policymaking of leading crowdfunding markets.
To provide relevant insights for East Africathe regulation and policy frameworks for crowdfunding markets in South Africa, the UK, New Zealand, the USA, Malaysia and India will also be examined. In addition, the research team will also interview and seek insights from selected crowdfunding platforms, practitioners and experts internationally.
According to Kieran Garvey of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance: “Throughout the project, we intended to work closely with regulators and industry practitioners in East Africa to foster common understanding of key crowdfunding risks and opportunities, and how to manage them appropriately.”
The research will be finalised and launched in September 2016.
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Further information:
To express your interest in this research or to participate, please email Kieran Garvey from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance “mailto:kjg44@cam.ac.uk”>kjg44@cam.ac.uk
For further information on the crowdfunding industry, please the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance reports here: https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternative-finance/publications/
Furthermore, the Africa and Middle East alternative finance benchmarking survey is currently underway. Please see further details here:
Crowdfunding platforms in Africa & the Middle East can access the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/AltFin_MiddleEast_Africa
