You landed here because you searched for how to make money in dollar from your country in Africa, right?
You see, you are not alone. Many people living in Africa wants to earn money in foreign currency. This is very much so in Nigeria where I come from. And the trend is understandable.
Earning dollar income has become the best way to hedge against raging inflation and falling value of the domestic currency. This trend will likely continue due to the many headwinds challenging the country’s macroeconomy.
Financial asset managers also understand this. Thus, they are coming up with products that allow their customers invest in domestic currencies but earn their returns in dollars.
Yes you can earn money in dollar from your home in Africa legitimately and insulate your personal finances from the vagaries in the economy. The internet has made it very easy and In this post, I’ll share a few tips.
Here we go!
I’ll discuss the various ways you can make money in dollar as an African living in Africa in four broad categories
a) Become a Remote worker
b) Become a Freelancer
c) Create an Online Business
d) Start Investing online
Remote work describes any work from home job, i.e a type of employment in which the worker essentially work from outside the formal office environment. Mostly, the task is performed remotely from home using available technology tools.
It has been around for sometime but remote work became popular with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the economic lock down in most countries as a control measure against the pandemic; many organizations asked their staff to work from home.
However, remote work has become the norm in post pandemic corporate organizations around the world. And you can take advantage of the growing trend to work for companies in the US, UK, Cananda, Australlia, etc without leaving your country in Africa.
The role of a virtual assisteant to help organizations complete a wide range of routine tasks. This may include data entry, typing and trabscription, scheduling appointment, proof reading of documents, call center and phone support and creating basic materials for marketing.
If you have such skills as strong computer operations and/or typing skills, expert level excel skills, good communication skills in English, graphic designs, online research, etc., you are already pre-qualified to getting hired as virtual assistant by companies overseas.
Companies are willing to pay a work from home virtual assistant up to $50 per hour or more.
The job of a web designer is to build appealing websites and helping the company he works for maintain online presence. The job involves coding, on page and off page SEO (Search Engine Optimization), launching websites and maintaining its goals, etc.
You will need to have a good knowledge of relevant coding languages such HTML, CSS, Java, etc to be able to do this job. Fortunately, it is not difficult to learn and you can get great resources online to get started.
On the average, a remote web designer can earn up to $30 – $100 per hour.
A graphic designer helps to produce digital and print materials for the company he works for. His typical assignment will include but no limited to creating illustration for advertisements, making promotional videos, designing logos, brochures and creating infographics from company specific data.
A remote graphic designer will typically earn betwenn $15 – $35 per hour.
The work of a coypywriter is to create content for the employer. He crafts content for a variety of media including websites, newsletters, sales or landing pages, advertisement and marketing materials, emails, etc. A copywriter can also be enganged to to write blog posts, social media posts as well as materials for video.
Obviously you need a strong writing skill to be a copywriter and this also can be learned easily. The average salary a remote copywriter can earn is in the range of $30 – $50 per hour.
The work of a data analyst is to collate, manipulate and interprete data and present it in a manner to aid decision making. So their job is to put complex data set into understanble presentations using chats, graphs and tables.
Data analysts are needed in a wide range of organizations in banking, finance, manufacturing, IT even public sector. And you know what? Many of them work remotely. Data analysis is a growing occupation that offer enormous opportunity for its practitioners.
Again there are plenty of resources available online to learn the rudimentary skills and get started at it. An entry level data analyst on a remote assignment can earn $50 – $80 per hour.
A digital marketer uses online tools to promote and sell products and services for a company. A good number of skills is necessary for success as a digital marketer. These includes: search engine optimization (seo), search engine marketing (sem) and the use of social media.
Your typical job may include drafting marketing materials, planning online adverts, writing social media posts and driving engagements and maintaining company updates.
A digital marketing specialist can earn between $30 – $50 per hour.
Freelancing is the rendering of professional services as independent contractor or one in self-employment. Thus, a freelancer offer his services to a number of companies and charge each of them a fee, often based on negotiation. The difference between a freelancer and a remote employee is that the remote worker may be bound by a term of employment, whereas the freelancer is independent.
However, virtually all the jobs a remote employee does can be offered by a freelancer. In addition to what has been identified above, I highlight a few other freelance work type you can engage in to make money in dollar.
The marketplace is today content driven. Thus, good content writers, people who have the ability to write on a variety of topics are in high demand. The writing niche may include: business, finance, marketing, technology, money, health, relationship. It could be human angle and/or technical writing.
Writing jobs are many and varied.
Discover a niche of interest, get yourself thoroughly knowledgeable in that area, develop and hone your writing skill then offer your services to individuals and organizations who are hungrily looking for your services.
with a good writng skill you can easily enter the gig economy and be in a position to consistently make money in dollar as a freelance writer.
Start by creating your profile on freelance market places like Upwork, Fiverr, TextBroker, iWriter, Solidgigs, Flexjobs and so many more.
Transcription services is one of the most popular and in demand freelance gigs you can find online. As a transciber, your work is to convert audio recording to text using automated devices or by typing it out using wordprocessing application.
You may also be required to transcribe video files to texts. These files could be recordings of meetings, conferences, project reports, books, etc.
Transcription used to be the jobs of shorthand-typists. But this occupation has been rendered useless by technology. With technology anyone can transcribe documents and that’s where you come in.
If you can type accurately and error free documents with proper punctuation and grammer; then you are on your way to make money in dollar. Offer transcription services.
Where to find transcription jobs? Check out GoTranscript, Accutran Global, Upwork, etc are some of the online marketplaces where you can get started with transcription work as a freelancer.
Language translation is another high in demand services you can learn and offer as a freelancer. Why? Businesses are increasingly going global. As a result, business men and women as well as corporate organization are always in need of people who can help them translate contract and other business documents from one language to another.
This is a great opportunity for people who are bilingual. That is people who have the ability to speak and write well in at least two languages.
Translators for French, German, Spanish are in high demand online marketplaces. Demand for Manderin translation is also gaining popularity.
Where to find translation services gigs? Upwork, Proz.com, TranslatorCafe, Hyperlingo, etc
Do you have accounting knowledge, can keep simple records and are able to use some of the popular accounting software like QuickBooks? Then you have no excuse if you are still unemployed. With these skils, you can offer book-keeping services to a number of global companies and make money in dollar. Most of these companies outsource book-keeping and records keeping so that they can concentrate on their core businesses.
And this is where freelance book-keepers come in. These book-keepers work remotely from their homes. They maintain financial records, prepare invoices, follow up with collection, and reconcile stocks and bank records, amongst others.
You will be required to have a good understanding of spreadsheet as well as the accountig software that the organization is using.
Where to find freelance book-keeping jobs? Guru.com, Upwork, indeed.com, peopleperhour, are some of the marketplaces you go to find book-keeping services online.
Setting up an online business is one of the most sustainable way of earning and making money in dollar. Set up an online business and target the international market; your audience buy your product or patronize your services and pay you in foreign currency.
There are quite a lot of online businesses that you can do. We’ll highlight a few of them here. In this other post, we discussed 10 types of online businesses you can do even if you don’t have money.
Ordinary folks all over the world are making millions of dollars every from ecommerce. Ecommerce is a type of business where you buy and sell goods online. It involves setting up an online store, filling it with images of products you are selling (more like a catalogue) and using didgital marketing technique to get people to visit your store (i.e driving targeted traffic).
When your visitors place an order, you use of many metheods to fulfill the order (deliver the products) and collect payment using also one of many online payment methods.
A very easy way to start ecommerce business as one living in Africa is Dropshipping. With dropshipping model, you fill your store with other merchants products and when your visitors make a purchase, the merchant supplies and your collect your mark up price.
With a dropshipping software, the process is seemlessly done that the person you sold to is hardly aware that you don’t own the inventory you are selling.
You can set up a beauty or cosmetic dropshipping store, target the US women population for example, get your products from merchants selling on aliexpress.
So the process involve:
Set up online store (a website)
Install an ecommerce plugin (or connect to an ecommerce platform)
Integrate a payment method
Connect a dropshipping software
Target the international market. Then sell and make money in dollar.
If you are interested in writing and are/or fascinated by online publishing, then blogging may well be your path to starting an online business.
It invovles setting up a website, install a CMS and start writing on a subject in which you are most knowledgeable or passionate about. You can blog on a wide range of subjects.
Write good content to attract quality audience and then monetize your traffic. Selling ad spaces and joining the Google Adsense ad network is one of the most common ways, bloggers make money. However, there are many more way of making money with your blog.
In this other post, we cover how you can set up a blog and make good money with it.
There are people who will rather talk than write. If you are such a person, there are still a good chance for you to make money online and earn dollar income. Vlogging or video blogging is the alternative blogging. It is content creation with videos rather than text.
It is gaining very well in popularity because of the huge audience it commands. A lot of people will rather watch videos than read long boring texts. So doing short videos on topic of your interest and uploading on popular channels like youtube, titok and facebook has become lucrative ways of making money with content.
Monetizing video channels is usually through adverts, Google adsense and sponsorship. If you do it very well, vlogging is an easy route to becoming an influencer and attracting endorsement from big corporate organizations.
You will have to invest in a high end mobile phone, recording device, vidoe editing software and a camera to start vlogging.
There was a time it was very tough to become a published writer. Reason: you need a publisher to accept your draft, review, format, print and market. You get paid royalty in line with the terms of your contract with the publisher.
Not any more!
Now with the help of some self-publishing platforms like Amazon KDP, you can write your book, use the platform’s free resources to format your book, edit and get it published as an eBook. What more, you get to sell your book on Amazon. A lot of people are taking advantage of what Amazon KDP offers to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue through self publishing.
There are other ways you can also sell your ebook. You can set up a landing page for the book, use other platform like Selfy, Selz, Payhip,etc to sell your book.
With self-publishing, you can write and publish as many books as you can within a short period of time without restriction. You retain your copyright, control your sell, make and retain all your profits.
These days it is easy for you to make money trading and/or investing in financial instruments from the comfort of your bedroom. This is made possible by financial technology which provides every one access to the market.
Two ways to make money online using the financial market are:
If you want to make money in dollar, then use any of the online trading and investment platforms that enables you invest in foreign markets.
All you need is create an account on any of the platforms, complete KYC processes, fund your account and starting buying assets of your choice.
There are a plethora of assets you can invest in. These include stocks, mutual funds, and fixed income securities. In Nigeria, platforms like Bamboo, Yochaa, Trove and Risevest, amongst others allow their users invest in the US stock market from home.
For a long time, forex trading has afforded banks, fund managers and high networth individuals the opportunities to create wealth. However, with available digital tools, virtually everyone can now trade forex and other derivatives products such as options, commodities, indexes and stock CFDs.
All you need is get some training, register with a reliable forex broker, open an account, practice with a demo account to understand the platform then start live trading thereafter.
A word of caution: trading forex and other forms of CFDs is profitable but very risky. If not properly done, you can lose your shirt doing it. So be cautious. Start with an amount you can afford to lose, learn and understand the tricks then gradually increase your stakes.
Final Words
You can see that the opportunities are enormous. Anyone can actually make money in dollar even if you are in the remotest part of Africa. However, you will have to make some little investment to be able to take advantage of these vast income opportunities.
You’ll need a mobile phone, laptop and data subscription, at least. Some of these opportunities will also require that you acquire some equipment or subscribe to some digital tools. So it is important that you carefully study an opportunity of your interest to understand all you that you need to do.
But most importantly, to do most of the things mentioned here demands that you get some form of high income skill. So really, the first step is to identify these skills, learn them, then use them to make money in dollar.
Good luck
Buchi creates content and leads the Team at Kobotalk Management Services; a business development and investment consultancy firm. He provides strategic advisory to help SME's, small business owners and HNI's grow profitable business and make informed investing decisions.
Buchi creates content and leads the Team at Kobotalk Management Services; a business development and investment consultancy firm. He provides strategic advisory to help SME's, small business owners and HNI's grow profitable business and make informed investing decisions.