Opportunities rise with Africa’s vast scale

The scale and diversity of the African continent poses challenges for project logistics providers – and offers opportunities in renewables, infrastructure, mining and more. Daniel Searle reports. 

Looking at a commonly used Mercator projection map of the world, which distorts and expands more northern landmasses, one would be forgiven for underestimating the actual size of the African continent. In fact, it accounts for just over one-fifth of all the land on Earth. Misjudging its scale can also lead to underestimating the demands facing logistics operations in the region. 

Highlighting the vast scale of Africa goes some way to redressing this, and a recently launched campaign called ‘Correct the Map’ aims to promote its real size. “Thanks to the Correct the Map initiative people are becoming more aware of the incredible size of Africa and the challenges (and opportunities) that come with that,” said Harmen Tiddens, managing director, Africa at Roll Group. 

Partnerships are one way of managing the huge scale of the African market, he added. “Roll Group’s partnership structure is helping us to be aware of all key projects and enables us to serve clients together with our partners all over the continent. We now have eight partners across Africa, and the network continues to grow with industry leading independents joining our partnership model.