For OVO coach Guy Bylemans, it would be totally unwise for Europe not to look at Africa now. Not from a classic North-South logic, but from the perspective of entrepreneurship, investment and economic cooperation. The stories of Martha and Daniel of MADCO and Charles of My Guardian show us why.
For OVO coach Guy Bylemans, it would be totally unwise for Europe not to look at Africa now. Not from a classic North-South logic, but from the perspective of entrepreneurship, investment and economic cooperation. The stories of Martha and Daniel of MADCO and Charles of My Guardian show us why.
For Guy Bylemans it is actually pretty simple. In the current geopolitical context, Europe cannot afford to only look at Africa’s problems and needs. We also need to consider the economic potential of the continent and the entrepreneurs who are already unlocking that potential today.
Guy knows what he's talking about, given his extensive professional experience in the international business world. For the last two years he has used this experience as a volunteer coach at Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs (OVO). There he meets entrepreneurs who build companies in circumstances that are often less predictable than ours, who seek access to finance, create jobs and develop solutions to very concrete problems.
| "If Europe or Belgium does not look at Africa from an economic point of view in this geopolitical context, then that’s just stupid." |
— Guy Bylemans, Business coach OVO
For Guy, this does not mean that international cooperation no longer has a role to play. We can look at it differently: less as a one-way street and much more from a perspective of entrepreneurship, investment and sustainable economic relations.
| "We have the opportunity to tell an economic story about what international cooperation can also look like. Take Martha for example. That is investing. That is entrepreneurship." |
— Guy Bylemans, Business coach OVO
Economic cooperation with Africa is not just about what European entrepreneurs can contribute. Those who spend time with entrepreneurs such as Martha and Charles quickly discover how a lot of innovation develops in an environment in which resources are simply not available. Entrepreneurs often have to be particularly pragmatic. They work with what is locally available, adapt their business model when conditions change and constantly look for ways to create added value with limited resources.
This often leads to activities that are strongly in line with the principles of the circular economy: optimal use is made of local raw materials, residues are given a new purpose, and various processes are linked in such a way that the output of one creates value again in another. Circularity is not necessarily a separate sustainability strategy, but is often interwoven in the business model from the start.
This is a particularly interesting theme for OVO. For us, sustainable entrepreneurship is not only about economic growth, but also about how entrepreneurs use raw materials in a smarter and more efficient way; strengthen local value chains and develop long-term solutions. At the same time, we see circularity as a domain in which knowledge exchange is a two-way transfer. Belgian and African entrepreneurs can learn a lot from each other.
This is not to romanticize entrepreneurship in Africa. The challenges are real. Access to capital remains difficult. Infrastructure and regulations can slow down growth. International markets are not easily accessible. But it is precisely because of this context that entrepreneurs must be particularly creative and resilient.
And that is precisely why OVO, during the Inspiration Tour, does not only want to show what Belgian entrepreneurs can bring to Uganda. Equally important is the question of what they can take back to Belgium from Uganda.
Martha Namabiro is exactly such an entrepreneur. Together with her business partner Daniel, they are building MADCO Investments in Uganda, an agribusiness they developed step by step in recent years to meet the needs of local farmers. Guy from OVO guides them and in doing so, got to know Marha and Daniel well. For Guy it is clear: with the bond they have created and the mutual trust they developed during this process, coaching is ultimately about much more than just numbers and business plans.
Guy likes to describe MADCO as the ‘baby’ Martha and Daniel are raising together. Once he asked them if the baby was a boy or a girl. The answer: a girl.
| “Because girls are so dedicated.” |
—Martha Namabiro, Managing Director MADCO
The image fits surprisingly well with the story of MADCO. Martha and Daniel did not build their business in one go. They grew it step by step, each time by looking closely at what was missing on the ground and developing a business solution for it.
Martha simply summarizes this way of doing business as follows:
| “We are looking at the gaps and encouraging ourselves to fill the gaps.” |
—Martha Namabiro, Managing Director MADCO
According to Guy, this is precisely the strength of her entrepreneurship. Martha does not start from the question of which project she can set up, but from the reality of her customers. Where's a problem? What is missing? And can MADCO develop a solution that simultaneously creates economic and social value?
This approach works, as is also evident from the financial evolution of MADCO. In 2025, the company achieved annual sales growth of nearly 78%. At the same time, profitability also improved considerably. MADCO therefore not only extended the range of activities and ambition but also developed an increasingly stronger financial base.
Martha knew the agricultural sector from the inside and saw, among other things, how farmers invested in agricultural machines, but did not always have the knowledge to use them in an optimal way. Instead of only supplying machines, she also started to advise and guide farmers. MADCO continued to grow from this service: from consultancy to the rental of agricultural machines to the sale of ingredients for animal feeds.
For Guy, that growth really became tangible when he realized what it meant for other entrepreneurs. He recalls a visit to a farm with a herd of about a hundred cows. MADCO had not simply delivered a machine or a product. Martha and her team had looked with the entrepreneur at his company and helped improve his way of working. In business terms: they re-engineered the farmer's processes.
What was striking to Guy, was the entrepreneur’s confidence in Martha.
And it is precisely here that it becomes visible what a company like MADCO can mean. When MADCO grows, it not only creates economic value for itself. It helps client farms to become more productive, it spreads knowledge, creates jobs and contributes to a stronger local economic ecosystem.
Today MADCO is facing another important step. The sites on which the company is located are for sale. Martha and Daniel would like to stay there and acquire the land themselves, but currently do not have sufficient resources to bear that investment alone. Together with OVO, they are looking into the possible options.
So their “daughter” is far from being an adult. And maybe she doesn't have to be. Because for Martha and Daniel, doing business means looking again and again where there is a problem and seeing new opportunities. MADCO does not grow despite the challenges, but by constantly looking for solutions.
According to Guy, Martha is therefore much more than a good example of international cooperation. She represents what we sometimes see too little in Europe when we look at Africa: an entrepreneur with ambition, a growing company and a market full of opportunities.
Martha's story is not an isolated one. In his work with OVO, Guy has met entrepreneurs from all sorts of industries, but he always sees the same dynamics: they start from a concrete problem, build a company to tackle that problem and then meet the next challenge that entails growth.
Dr Charles Maina is another example.
Charles is the entrepreneur behind My Guardian, a Ugandan technology-enabled company supporting East African migrant workers, particularly those working in the Middle East. He studied and worked in Belgium, earning his doctorate from Hasselt University, before turning his experience toward a problem much closer to home.
For many East African families, migration to the Middle East can transform household income. But earning that money often comes with sacrifice, distance and, sometimes, serious vulnerability.
My Guardian developed its Track, Trace and Rescue approach to help workers remain connected and visible, trace them when contact is lost, and coordinate assistance when someone is in distress.
OVO became part of that growth journey, providing Charles with coaching and a social-impact loan that helped My Guardian expand its activities. But solving one problem soon revealed the next.
Guy, who coaches Charles through OVO, has watched the business evolve beyond worker protection into another major challenge: what happens to the money migrant workers work so hard to earn?
Uganda alone received around US$2.5 billion in remittances in 2025. Much of this money ultimately pays for food, healthcare, education, housing and family livelihoods.
This led to GuardianPay, My Guardian's financial-services arm under common ownership. OVO is now coaching Charles through its development, with the ambition of making remittances more affordable and transparent so that more of every dollar earned in the Middle-East, reaches the family back home.
The longer-term ambition is bigger still: to develop services capable of reaching more than one million East African migrant workers across Middle Eastern labour corridors, combining financial inclusion with the protection network My Guardian has already built.
| “A migrant worker may spend years away from the people they love to create a better future for them. If we can help keep that worker safer and make sure more of what they earn reaches home, then we are building both a good business and something that matters.” |
—Dr Charles Maina, CEO, My Guardian
Charles sees a similar challenge with African products. Through Carledorian Connection, his international market-linkage business, he is exploring how products such as Ugandan coffee can reach customers in Europe more directly.
The underlying problem is familiar: having a good product is not enough. Entrepreneurs also need trusted routes to buyers, logistics, distribution and international relationships.
“The problem is market entry.” Charles increasingly thinks about this in terms of economic corridors: corridors for people, corridors for money and corridors for products.
One day, Ugandan coffee could increasingly travel into the same Middle Eastern markets where hundreds of thousands of East Africans already live and work, while continuing to build stronger coffee-trade routes into Europe.
For OVO, this is entrepreneurship pur sang: an entrepreneur who starts with one concrete problem, builds a viable solution and, along the way, identifies new opportunities to create value and impact. OVO’s role is to accompany entrepreneurs like Charles on that journey — through coaching, access to finance and connections to the right networks and partners. What started with protecting migrant workers has evolved into new solutions for moving money and connecting products to international markets, showing how supporting one entrepreneur can ultimately create impact far beyond one company.
It brings us back to the vision that Guy and OVO share. Because if Europe really wants to look at Africa from an economic point of view, it is not enough just to help African entrepreneurs to build better companies. We must also be willing to build business with them.
Traditionally, Europe often starts from the question: what can we bring? Capital, expertise, technology, training… That remains relevant. But within OVO we consciously want to add a second question: what can we create together? It is precisely this reciprocity that is central to our vision of entrepreneurship and cooperation with Africa.
Martha shows why that question is interesting. She is building a company that develops solutions based on the daily reality of Ugandan farmers, making other companies more productive and in the meantime growing strongly. Charles applies the same principle on an international level. Not only is he asking for support for his own company but asking how African companies can access new international markets.
This changes the relationship: from aid to cooperation, from beneficiaries to entrepreneurs, from projects to investments and from North-South to economic partners. And above all: from knowledge transfer in one direction to a relationship in which both sides have something to gain and something to learn.
Economic cooperation with Africa is not just about what European entrepreneurs can contribute. Those who spend time with entrepreneurs such as Martha and Charles quickly discover how a lot of innovation develops in an environment in which resources are simply not available. Entrepreneurs often have to be particularly pragmatic. They work with what is locally available, adapt their business model when conditions change and constantly look for ways to create added value with limited resources.
This often leads to activities that are strongly in line with the principles of the circular economy: optimal use is made of local raw materials, residues are given a new purpose, and various processes are linked in such a way that the output of one creates value again in another. Circularity is not necessarily a separate sustainability strategy, but is often interwoven in the business model from the start.
This is a particularly interesting theme for OVO. For us, sustainable entrepreneurship is not only about economic growth, but also about how entrepreneurs use raw materials in a smarter and more efficient way; strengthen local value chains and develop long-term solutions. At the same time, we see circularity as a domain in which knowledge exchange is a two-way transfer. Belgian and African entrepreneurs can learn a lot from each other.
This is not to romanticize entrepreneurship in Africa. The challenges are real. Access to capital remains difficult. Infrastructure and regulations can slow down growth. International markets are not easily accessible. But it is precisely because of this context that entrepreneurs must be particularly creative and resilient.
And that is precisely why OVO, during the Inspiration Tour, does not only want to show what Belgian entrepreneurs can bring to Uganda. Equally important is the question of what they can take back to Belgium from Uganda.
| “We need to move beyond the idea that Europe goes to Africa simply to bring knowledge or solutions. There is so much we can learn from each other. But real collaboration doesn’t start with assumptions — it starts with meeting people, listening to each other and understanding each other’s realities. That is where trust grows, ideas are exchanged and opportunities emerge that neither side could create alone.” |
—Anne-Lise Passelecq, Manager Team Support Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs
According to Anne-Lise Passelecq, who co-organizes the Inspiration Tour from OVO and heads the delegation to Uganda, this trip has an important basic principle: real economic cooperation starts with encounters.
You can read hundreds of reports on Africa's economic growth. You can view figures on population growth, investments or market potential. But standing next to Martha and hearing why she has once again developed a solution for her farmers, or discuss with Charles why Ugandan coffee is difficult to get directly to European customers, is something completely different.
There economic cooperation gets a face.
This is also where OVO wants to play a role. African entrepreneurs who participate in our programs are individually guided for several months by local coaches alongside experienced Belgian and international entrepreneurs and experts.
This coaching deliberately starts from equality. It means that a Belgian expert does not travel to an African entrepreneur to explain how entrepreneurship works. After all, Martha and Charles know their customers, their market and their context better than a European coach will ever do.
The added value lies in the exchange: asking the right questions, sharing experiences and expertise, taking a critical look at a financial model together, challenging an entrepreneur to think further and helping to open doors to financing, new markets or potential partners. By doing so, each party brings their own knowledge and experience and a collaboration is created in which the coaches can continue to learn themselves.
But the ambition goes beyond individual coaching. By bringing Belgian and African entrepreneurs in contact with each other, OVO can also be a connector between two economic worlds.
And this works in both directions.
African entrepreneurs can access expertise, financing, partners and European markets. Belgian entrepreneurs, in turn, gain access to new ideas, companies and markets and are introduced to an entrepreneurial culture in which creativity and adaptability are often essential.
Precisely this reciprocity is central to the Inspiration Tour.
In November, Anne-Lise Passelecq will travel to Uganda together with a delegation of Belgian entrepreneurs and the provincial governor Jan Spooren. This is not a classic study trip, but to experience African entrepreneurship up close.
The delegation will visit companies from a variety of industries and will speak to entrepreneurs about technology, agriculture, construction, circularity, sustainability, financing and growth. Martha and Charles are not anonymous cases in a presentation, but entrepreneurs who will present their companies, tell their stories and also speak openly about the challenges they face today. All these encounters have ultimately one simple ambition: learn to see things in a different light.
We do not start from the assumption that Europe has all the answers but are curious about how Ugandan entrepreneurs tackle problems. Not only to talk generally about Africa, but to speak with African entrepreneurs. And not only to look for projects that Europe can support, but also for companies to be invested in, companies to do business with and entrepreneurs from the same industry to exchange knowledge, techniques and experiences. In this way, collaborations can develop in which Belgian and Ugandan entrepreneurs can learn from each other and build lasting economic relationships.
Because international cooperation and economic cooperation do not have to be two separate worlds. When a company grows, it creates jobs, knowledge and income. When its customers become stronger, that impact continues to grow. And when European and African entrepreneurs start to see each other as partners, opportunities arise that go far beyond one project or one financing.
And so we’ve come full circle, back at Guy’s story. Looking at Africa from an economic point of view does not mean that we ignore the challenges of the continent. It means that we also see what is already being built today – by entrepreneurs such as Martha and Charles.
Not because Africa needs Europe to shape its future. But because Europe has a unique opportunity to participate in the economic future that African entrepreneurs themselves shape today.
