Call centres could be a gold mine for Africa

Mercy Mugure first heard about business-process outsourcing (BPO) in the mid-2000s. Word of how the practice was transforming India, its global champion, reached Africa, which had largely missed out on the fruits of globalisation. “We thought: why not us?” says the Kenyan entrepreneur. With a friend, she set up one of Kenya’s first BPO firms in 2006, hoping to tap into the job-creating potential of an industry that covers anything from picking up phones and processing insurance claims to flagging illegal or violent content on social media.