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There are thousands of startups in Nigeria, and they're not just producing high-tech products targeted at the upper and middle classes. Some are trying to get traction in that tricky ground between making a profit and taking on big social problems. After finishing her MBA at MIT, Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola started WeCyclers, basically a motorbike-based trash collection business that serves the 60 percent of Lagos' population that lives in slum neighborhoods where people are too poor to pay for trash collection. WeCyclers takes their waste and pays them with money it earns from recycling.
尼日利亚有成千上万的初创公司，他们不仅生产针对中上阶层的高科技产品。有些公司正试图在盈利和解决重大社会问题之间找到平衡点。比利基斯·阿德比伊-阿比奥拉在麻省理工学院完成MBA学业后，创办了WeCyclers，这基本上是一家基于摩托车的垃圾收集公司，为拉各斯60%的人口提供服务。WeCyclers回收人们的废物，并用回收所得的钱支付给他们。
The spirit of small business is everywhere. The informal sector—street vendors, local businesses and tradespeople—is booming as well, particularly in Lagos. Nigerians have a work ethic that makes Scandinavians look like slackers.
小企业精神无处不在。民营行业——街头小贩、当地企业和商人——也在蓬勃发展，尤其是在拉各斯。尼日利亚人的职业道德让斯堪的纳维亚人看起来像懒虫。
No one sits in Nigeria. It's impossible to walk down the street without being approached by someone selling something, from peanuts to windshield wipers to an on-the-spot manicure. In Kaduna, the governor has converted a section of the market into a "recycling program" to provide employment for youth. It's backbreaking and dangerous work: smashing old alternators to pieces with hammers to pluck out the copper wire inside; bending old, razor-sharp roofing sheet metal to make bread bins; and melting down aluminum cans to recast them into cooking pots. The program has no shortage of applicants, many of whom are less interested in getting the basic skills the program provides than in earning money to pay their school fees so they can move on to better jobs. Nigerians are passionate about education and self-improvement.
尼日利亚没有人闲坐着。走在大街上，不可能不被兜售东西的人接近，从花生到挡风玻璃雨刷，再到街头美甲。在卡杜纳，州长将市场的一部分改造成“回收计划”，为年轻人提供就业机会。这是一项繁重而危险的工作：用锤子把旧的交流发电机砸成碎片，把里面的铜线敲掉；把旧的、锋利的屋顶金属板弄弯来制作面包箱；熔化铝罐，重新铸造成烹饪锅。该项目并不缺少申请者，他们中的许多人对获得该项目提供的基本技能更感兴趣，更感兴趣的是赚钱支付学费，以便能找到更好的工作。尼日利亚人热衷于教育和自我完善。
That's all great. But movies, high tech and street retail are not enough to support three-quarters of a billion people. As Aiyesimoju says, "Google's been a great success, but it hasn't transformed the American economy" alone. Transformation will require addressing core industries like petroleum, manufacturing and agriculture, making them more efficient and competitive. In the case of petroleum, there's also the need to streamline the state company that oversees the industry, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. In the case of agriculture, it's moving away from subsistence farming using almost Stone Age tools and techniques toward modern high-yield farming and redeploying those displaced workers in what Tufts University economics professor Margaret McMillan calls the "modern sector." So far, progress is spotty.
这都很好。但电影、高科技和街头零售不足以养活7.5亿人。正如埃耶西莫朱所说，“谷歌取得了巨大的成功，但它并没有改变美国经济”。转型将需要解决石油、制造业和农业等核心产业，使其更有效率、更有竞争力。就石油行业而言，还需要精简监督该行业的国有公司——尼日利亚国家石油公司。就农业而言，还正在用石器时代的工具和技术，从自给自足的农业转向现代高产农业，并重新部署那些流离失所的工人，塔夫茨大学经济学教授玛格丽特·麦克米伦称之为“现代部门”。到目前为止，进展参差不齐。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
