A friend of mine once produced a documentary entitled ‘Africa is Open for Business’. She had lived in Nairobi for several years and was a correspondent for an international media outlet in East Africa.

During the time she spent here, she became of the opinion that few international reporters covered business stories from Africa and especially on the fast growing economies and high yielding stock markets. I recall her telling me that, ‘heck if you can run a successful business in Africa, you can pretty much run it anywhere in the world.’

Somehow, that sentence stuck in my head. Now it is all coming back to me and making sense.

For the past few weeks I have been working on delivering a series of communication products to a client in Rwanda. I have worked with a team that includes a filmmaker, a photographer, a graphic designer, a printer and many people who were the actual sources of information. The work went smoothly until we started planning for its finalization and eventual delivery to Rwanda. The publication design work slowed down a few times due to power failures in the area where the graphic designer has its office. In Rwanda, the client’s computer server went numb for several days: emails were never received, edited documents and high resolution files had to be sent multiple times because they went missing.

When we finally got to the printing stage, the job got delayed due to backed up work resulting from yet another power failure, this time in the printer’s area. Since the products were intended for a ‘big launch event’ we were working on deadline. Every delay represented a serious setback.

Plan A: We decide to start sending some already completed products one week ahead of the launch instead of sending them all together. One set of materials was packed in a box marked ‘Kodak’. Do I need to say more? That particular box went missing after the courier company checked it on the plane. The other three boxes arrived but instead of two days, as originally agreed with the courier company, it took them one week – cutting it close to the actual deadline.

Plan B: The graphic designer decides to reprint a set of all materials instead of waiting for the 'Kodak' box to reappear. Good idea. The box never reappeared. One of the reasons the other three boxes got to Rwanda late is because the President of Rwanda decided to declare this last Monday a national holiday. On what grounds? Not sure. The fact is that businesses were shut down and all deliveries were cancelled.

Plan C: The day before the event we booked a last minute evening flight for a colleague to travel to Kigali and deliver all remaining materials that finally got printed. But wait, the colleague needed a Rwandan visa. No problem, normally it does not take more than one day if one goes directly to the Rwandan embassy in Nairobi. But guess what? The rules have changed recently and now it takes 2 days to process the visa. This may be due to recent grenade attacks in Kigali and the tighter security linked to the upcoming Presidential elections. We are not going to make it.

PLAN D: We need a person who is either an American – no need for a visa to Rwanda if you are a Yankee these days - or a Kenyan, someone from the East African community who can move freely across the region. The clock is ticking. Only a few hours left to change the booking and finding a willing person to travel to/from Nairobi/Kigali within 24 hours and to carry a bag full of publications and reprinted materials that were originally lost or stolen.

The day of the event: Believe or not the event does manage to happen and all is in place, despite the multiple setbacks. A Kenyan colleague is the savior and ends up traveling to Rwanda on a moment's notice.

I reflect on my friend’s statement and think that yes, if you want to do business in Africa you need to be persistent, patient, not be afraid of roadblocks, think outside of the box and of course have an excellent team in place. In other words, you must be a bit of a juggler and have not one but a series of contingency plans. Anywhere else in the world, you would probably kick ass.