What does it take to lead a business in a fragile or conflict-affected state?

Investing for Impact

This is a co-produced Development Finance and CDC podcast.

Two billion people are living in countries affected by fragility, conflict and violence. Fragility and conflict have a huge impact on poverty, so in these countries businesses are particularly important because of the economic and job opportunities they can create.

Growing a successful company in such a country is easier said than done, however. In this podcast, we aim to understand the challenges facing people trying to build businesses in these extremely challenging environments and find out how they are overcoming them.

We hear from Teza Bila, the Managing Director of Congo Invest Consulting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Michael Mithika, who's leading the World Vision Fund, which covers fragile states such as the DRC and Azerbaijan.

We also speak to Thierry Artaud, the Managing Director of M-Birr a mobile payment platform in Ethiopia - a country no longer classified as a fragile but one that still faces its fair share of challenges.