Nigeria, May 6 -- In one of Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund's WhatsApp groups last week, as colleagues were getting ready to travel home for the Easter break, a message came through: fuel prices had just jumped by around 30 per cent. Someone joked, "Those heading to the village, be careful - you might end up walking back to the city."

It was funny because it was true.

Behind the humour was a familiar reality. Global crises do not stay global for long. In Africa, they show up quickly: in the price at the pump, the cost of transport, and the price of food. And then in the small decisions people make every day: whether to spend, invest, or hold back. Those decisions, multiplied across millions of households and businesses, are what quietl...