Not the OP, and I do not live in Africa, but in Eastern Europe, where paying 10-15,000 euros/pounds/$ for a car is also seen as expensive by a lot of people (I couldn't afford it, that's for sure).

Looking on the roads around me the VW T3 is really popular around here for people who want to get things done, you can find decent enough examples at around 800-1000 euros (I know because I also looked at purchasing one). The repairs are easy to do, lots of spare parts available, and if you think diesel is too expensive you can always install a LPG system on it and now it becomes even cheaper to run it. Unfortunately the next T4 model is a little too big.

For a similar example that comes from Eastern Europe also look at UAZ-452 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-452), that's a very durable and reasonably cheap car that can handle almost anything.

I love how the Wikipedia page for the UAZ-452 highlights from the 2011 upgrade the exciting new feature "seat belts". I was going to ask about airbags, silly me.