一项最新研究显示，撒哈拉以南非洲五个最大经济体中，黑人拥有的企业在扩张所需的资金上存在2090亿美元的短缺，这阻碍了经济增长并限制了金融包容性。
Black-owned businesses across five of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest economies are falling $209 billion short of the capital need for expansion, hindering economic growth and limiting financial inclusion, a new study showed.
由英国国际投资公司（British International Investment Plc）和瑞典发展金融公司（Swedfund International AB）委托进行的这项研究显示，这一资金缺口占尼日利亚、南非、肯尼亚、塞内加尔和科特迪瓦所观察到的资金缺口的80%。
The deficit represents 80% of the funding gap seen in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Senegal and Ivory Coast, the study commissioned by British International Investment Plc and Swedfund International AB showed.
黑人企业面临的挑战是多方面的。研究人员指出，这些挑战从许多企业的组织架构方式到缺乏对投资者网络的接触不等。资本分配者之间也存在偏见，其中很少有人拥有相同的社会或背景，代表这些发展金融机构进行研究的Open Capital Advisors研究人员表示。
The challenges faced by Black businesses are diverse. They range from the way many are structured to a lack of access to investor networks. There is also a bias among capital allocators, few of whom come from the same social or ethnic backgrounds, researchers at Open Capital Advisors, which carried out the study on behalf of the development finance institutions, said.
英国国际投资公司非洲负责人克里斯·奇朱托米（Chris Chijiutomi）在接受采访时表示：“如果这些企业没有获得用于增长的资本，它们就会陷入停滞。它们作为企业仍在运转，但无法实现增长。它们没能为广泛的经济发展做出贡献。”
“If these businesses aren’t getting capital for growth, they’re just plateauing. They’re still working as businesses, but they’re not able to grow,” BII’s Africa head Chris Chijiutomi said in an interview. “They’re not helping to contribute to broad economic development.”
研究人员发现，黑人拥有和黑人领导的企业（简称BOLD）主要规模较小，“随着企业规模的扩大，其代表性也在下降”。BOLD企业最大的资金缺口在尼日利亚，达到1310亿美元，其次是南非，为450亿美元。肯尼亚的资金缺口为230亿美元，塞内加尔和科特迪瓦的资金缺口分别为57亿美元和46亿美元。
The researchers found that Black-owned and Black-led businesses, or BOLD, are mainly small “with representation declining as businesses scale.”The biggest funding gap for BOLD businesses was in Nigeria at $131 billion followed by South Africa at $45 billion. Kenya had a deficit of $23 billion while Senegal and Ivory Coast have gaps of $5.7 billion and $4.6 billion respectively.
奇朱托米说：“尼日利亚有2万多万人口。”他说：“我们在尼日利亚的报告中看到的一些情况更加明显，因为那里存在着大量的企业。”
“Nigeria has 200 million-plus people,” said Chijiutomi. “Some of the things we’ve seen from the reports in Nigeria are more pronounced because of the volume of businesses that exist” there, he said.
他说，英国国际投资公司等组织需要确保它们提供的资金对BOLD企业更加触手可及，并应设定目标。
Organizations such as BII will need to make sure the funding they offer is more accessible to BOLD businesses and should set targets, he said.
研究人员写道：“弥补这些资金缺口不仅是一个包容性问题，也是一个大规模释放增长、创新和发展影响的机会。”
“Closing these funding gaps is not only a matter of inclusion,” the researchers wrote. “It is an opportunity to unlock growth, innovation and development impact at scale.”