Africa's Moment

At the beginning of this month I attended a seminar about Entrepreneurial Thought in Action. Seemed honest enough from the title, even if I worried about the potential of mild boredom. I was completely blown out the water. 

Our conversation was led by Professor Elizabeth Thornton of Babson College. We started with everything you might expect to hear about entrepreneurship but ended somewhere very different--the psychological tools one needs to build internally to become an effective entrepreneur. There's a lot of great stuff an MBA/equivalent program can equip you with (or not, see Top Discussion: Social Change, Does it take an MBA?)but how do you train your brain to become more objective about situations and not project your insecurities on others' actions, how do you learn to seek out or create opportunity when the plan you meticulously laid out fails or leads you somewhere different from your intended destination? In short, can you cultivate the intangibles that make someone entrepreneurial?

Elizabeth Thornton, Professor of Entrepreneurship & Chief Diversity Officer Babson. Photo:Dina Rudick.

Elizabeth made a lot of great points that I hope you can thump through when she publishes her book, but I found her seminar resonated with me because the best of entrepreneurship is really life-skills learned on speed. I've learned/am learning this the hard way.  This summer has been a trial of nerves for me. Being an entrepreneur tests the faith I have in myself and my chops everyday.  Am I attempting something too ambitious? What makes me think I can pull this off? Does everyone I approach see me as the emperor with no clothes rattling off about the minutia of another business detail or are they impressed with how quickly I've educated myself about random details that are my business' flavor of the week?  

The battle is constant and everyday.  In moments of victory I find loop holes and clever ways of edging my agenda forward. On harder days I'm overwhelmed and have to be reminded--why am I doing this again?  I love having the comfort of others around me who know what I am going through, who mentor me through my very real internal and external battles.  I love that entrepreneurial action deepens my self-knowledge and forces me to sharpen the tools that allow me to have faith that I can pull this off. There's a lot that probably cannot be taught about being entrepreneurial in action, but there is such as thing as cultivating entrepreneurial thought and it may be the first step to entrepreneurship in action.

In case you missed it, this week was Africa's moment.  Seventeen African nations mark 50 years of independence this year and we can all agree 1960 was a radical, exciting time for just about anyone of African descent.  Big Deal.  A lot of noise was made about this in Paris, where Cameroonian President Paul Biya and Burkina Faso's Blaise Compaore joined Sarkozy in applauding France's former colonies.  A lot more stink was made in the news about this particular celebration, not just because of the obvious irony --celebrating 50 years independence in Paris at the behest of the French president--but because of the human rights track record of the likes of Compaore, who has been associated with the murder of his predecessor, Africa's own Che Guevera--Thomas Sankara.  Meanwhile in the United States, President Obama threw a different kind of fete for Africa.

The White House Young African Leaders Forum was something of a townhall meeting Obama called. One hundred fifteen Under Age 35 leaders from 47 sub-Saharan African nations attended.  Invited guests included  Djibouti entrepreneur Miguil Hasan-Farah, who runs an accounting firm; "The Real Enchilada" radio show host Tumie Ramsden  from Botswana; Ivory Coast's activist journalist Aminata Kane-Koneprotect who promotes Muslim women's rights and Malawi's HIV/AIDS activist Tamara Kapichira-Banda.

 Photo: J.Scott Applewhite, AP

Obama succinctly summarized the key takeaway from his own speech, "And so when you go back and you talk to your friends and you say, what was the main message the President had -- we are rooting for your success, and we want to work with you to achieve that success, but ultimately success is going to be in your hands.  And being a partner means that we can be there by your side, but we can’t do it for you."

Obama's choice of celebrating Africa's next 50 years with tomorrow's leaders has been interpreted by some as a snub to the continent's current heads of state, some of whom are openly labeled dictators (Describing Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Obama said that "he is not serving his people well").  The New York Times just ran a debrief on the forum titled, "White House Party for Africa Leaves Out Leaders".  I have to disagree.

Instead of reading a diplomatic bruise into the situation, I see a vote of confidence for where Africa is going and the young innovators most likely to take the continent there.  Certainly, there are luminaries past the age of 35 who share this vision of a better Africa, but to me, there is a palpable generational shift in the expectations African youth have for what is possible.  I see this as the call for our generation.  Just as our parents and grandparents had the seemingly insurmountable task of liberating Africa from colonialism in their youth, our plight has to be picking up where they left off (mind you some of them are Africa's current leadership) and doing the so-called impossible, making Africa an undisputed success.  If they could shed the yoke of political and socio-economic oppression 50 years ago, surely we can be the generation that leaves behind sound institutions and government/economic systems that serve their people?  And to think of it as snubbing misses another point, salient especially in African culture.

Every child can thank their parents they were ever born.  Even in the most sore circumstances, you would not be alive if they had not conceived you together or had she not carried you to term.  And so with us.  Acknowledging the work that lies ahead for young African leaders does not negate the good work of forebears, even in the most sore circumstances (insert Mugabe), but simply states what needs to be said--Africa needs you. The continent will not achieve success without young African leadership at the helm.  No one can do it for us, not even Obama.

South Africa is really a tale of two countries.  Like most of Africa, the divide between rural and urban poor is wide.  Being born into a humble family in rural Polokwane is a far cry from being the poorest on the block in Khayelitsha or Thembisa Townships.  I say this not in competition of whose the poorest of the poor, but to outline how blunt need is in rural Africa.

So, you can imagine how important good development work is in rural outposts.  Take Axium Education.  These guys have set up shop in the Eastern Cape--arguably South Africa's poorest province.  The organization was founded by South Africans, including Catherine B. Reynolds Fellow Craig Paxton.

Focal Point Aid. School in Coffee Bay, Eastern Province.  Photographer: Joe McKay.

Economic opportunity is scarce in the Eastern Cape as a whole, largely because large swathes of the area were underdeveloped under apartheid designated homelands.  In these "independent bantustans", Ciskei and Transkei, subsistence farming on sub-par land was the main source of income.  Even though the Eastern Cape boasts some of Africa's finest tertiary institutions, Rhodes University in Grahamstown for example, most kids growing up in the province will face a hard time graduating, never mind thinking about college.

Axium Education "grows talent and opportunity in rural communities by working with students and educators to raise student achievement."  Their approach is three-pronged:

1. Develop Teachers, who were systematically underqualified during apartheid.  This should be a non-issue in today's democracy, except that many teachers were inherited from a broken system and still use destructive teaching methods
2. Improve School Leadership.  South Africa spends more of its budget on education than any other item, 18.5% of GDP. Despite this, resources often do not reach schools because of poor leadership/local ownership and little transparency.
3. Extra Science/Math/English Tutoring for Gifted Kids. No matter how talented you are, if you attend school in the Eastern Cape your chances of just graduating high school are slim without help.  Why should be held back because you lost the geography birth lotto?

Axium Education has just launched its pilot phase and I'll be eagerly following their progress.  I am really inspired by their example.  I believe in and am a product of education and in others investing in me.  I also believe that as Africans, to realize what economists call our potential demographic dividend, we have to invest not just in our smartest and most promising kids but also in the average student.  How do we improve the entire system so it serves not just a cherry-picked few elite, but every child that walks those miles to their schoolyard.  We have to raise the bar on what average performance is if we are really going to use education as the transformative tool Mandela promises it to be, "Education is the most important weapon which you can use to change the world". 

Axium Education is accepting applications for teachers and also, expanding its board.  Download the application material here.

Recently I posted my impressions on Africa's big win and the possibilities South Africa proved its capable of as a society, Africa-World Cup Winner-It's Possible!  A friend reacted to the post with a challenge, "I like the post on the world cup-what I would like to know is how? What are the feasible next steps to be put in place to making low crime, high growth etc.. an everyday reality."

To be honest, I hadn't thought of this, because I thought the proof was in the pudding, ie. "how" would be done the same way it was during the Cup.  But thinking about it further, my friend has a point. Sustaining the efficiency of the World Cup after the big party may be tantamount to expecting emergency response months past a crisis.  How do we maintain what we proved possible?  As a South African, I take this as a personal challenge--What can I bake into my daily/weekly/month routine to build the nation I want to live in?  On a national scale, the same thinking can apply.  I've been thinking about my end of the stick harder and seriously. I co-founded Zenzele Circle with the belief that the best contribution I can make is helping create jobs. I still believe this, but as Zenzele becomes its own reality, I find I'm asking more of myself.  No resounding answers yet, although I do have some fuzzy ideas. Maybe more on that when I've congealed something more coherent in my head.

Illustration By Kevin Cyr

At the community level, I think there are great examples of what can work:

• Volunteers can be successfully absorbed by the police force to fight crime, as we saw during the World Cup, and can be quite sophisticated.  Why not mobilize every street block the same way people organized themselves to fight against apartheid, using street level units/cells to keep neighborhoods safe?
• For many, the World Cup represented one of few celebratory experiences shared with other ethnic groups. How do we foster this collective identity of being a South African? This is really a tricky one for me, because there are countries such as the US, where nobody looks like an American or shares something uniform.  Should we adopt a Thanksgiving Day? Or put all our high school graduates through mandatory national service, similar to Bostwana's now defunct Tiro ya Sechaba?  Things that are forced have a funny way of smelling like communism and breeding resentment, even with best intentions.  I think the best shared experience comes from transformative, progressive education that prepares citizens to contribute to their society.  The introductions of Outcome Based Education (OBE) and later Curriculum 2005 in South Africa are certainly starting points, if controversial. 
• Having a credible, external commitment for meeting a goal and working toward it. The World Cup was for years a thing that loomed over South Africa and threatened to embarass us on a global stage if we couldn't get our act together. That pressure helped make sure things got done speedily.  For some members of the EU, membership plays something of a similar role.  We need to bind ourselves with more "credible commitments", in MIT Professor Daron Acemoglu's language, of this kind.  What about setting the goal of educating enough of the labor force to become a true information technology hub by 2020? We could do it.  But there has to be a credible commitment. And maybe it's getting on the global soap box now and telling everyone our intension so there's no pulling back.

This is just a start.  I am still thinking.  And a great deal of that is listening.  I am so curious what other South Africans think we can do to help build our nation. To be honest, I'm not even that interested what we should/could hold government/communities accountable to as much as I'm interested in what we're committing to as individuals.  I've often heard smart people say that Africa's problems will not be solved until Africans solve them.  I agree.  In some ways, my life is already a commitment to building my nation.  But in challenging myself to stretch that commitment even further, I am asking the same question of every (South) African around me. I'm tempted here to stop writing, buy an old truck (as pictured), drive through the country asking people how they will build our nation to it and hold them to their word.

It's pre-Revolution Paris and you are Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1739-1799).  Your father is a French aristocrat and your mother, an African slave from Guadeloupe.  You are celebrated as among France's best fencing athletes and your music has the ear of Marie Antoinette.  When she whispers to her husband, "Make him the next Director of the Royal Opera", he takes her seriously and word spreads through town.  Three divas in the opera approach the king and remind him that you are, after all, what you are, and it would offend their sensibilities to take orders from your like. But, your celebrated accomplishments--Europe's finest swordsman, noted composer, conductor and violinist, The Black Mozart--offer serious challenge to prevailing wisdom. If the king himself would consider you for this position, does it mean blacks are indeed as talented as whites?

How To Write About Africa: Collage by OneDollarADay. How many ways do I love this collage? Is it the tribal markings across Gwyneth's cheek that pull my hear strings or is it Lindsay Lohan smiling so angelically with those kids? 

Back to 2010. Am out cold, sick as a dog--why dogs, I've always wondered?  Cannot speak, which is certainly humbling for a chatterbox like me.  But I've been comforted by NPR and stories like the Chevalier's.  How is it possible I'm only learning about this man now? How was he buried that far beneath the dust of history? 

I'll give you an about-the bush response by suggesting, no insisting that you read Binyavanga Wainaina's How To Write About Africa II: The Revenge--notice I'm giving you credit by assuming you read/saw the youtube rendition of the original. It's all at once hilarious, biting and quick whipped enough to tie the themes I've thrown out here together.

Back to the 1700s. The Revolution comes and Joseph sees all his Aristocratic friends butchered. So he joins the Revolutionary Army but lands in jail. So much for equality for all in sweeping revolutions, huh? Long story short, (read the whole thing here) George's music is banned by Napoleon in 1802.  While he's at it, Napoleon also reinstitutes slavery. But history is impossible to conquer, even if you're Napoleon. 

Paris' Mayor Bertrand Delanoë renamed a street in honour of  Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges in 2002. Three years later, those infamous French riots burst from Suburban Paris, led mostly by disgruntled African youth who feel alienated and misunderstood.  Not good enough, perhaps? Not as talented? Wonder what Le Mozart Noir would have made of all that jazz?

Source: Aschobi Designs  

Apparently, sustainable hotness is becoming something of a democracy.  Can't say I don't approve--shouldn't fashion at every price flaunt the soc-ent values we uphold? The problem? A dirty little secret about fashion: sustainability does not sell, hotness does. I don't ogle a shoe because its stacked heel is made of repurposed material.  I drool because of a sexy cutout, a play of patent black against obscene fuschia or because a shoe is so impossibly loud and obnoxious, it's begging me to tame it with something quiet and classic.  The best fashion marketers know this, and they've had you; whether you think this article is ridiculous but secretly devour the glamour ads in New York Times/The Journal or whether you're the kind of out fashion monkey I am. 

Sources: Sawa and Aschobi Designs 

Which is why I find the trend toward sexy sustainable fashion so enticing.  The values I love (some of them at least) stitched to the style I crave.  Stella McCartney's brand was a welcome start, but animal rights and organic cotton have never spoken to me the way creating sustainable livelihoods for Africans does. That's why I cannot get enough of a new crop of fashion that's simply about sustainable sourcing in Africa. Edun, founded by Bono and wife Ali Hewson, has received a lot of attention, including a 49 percent equity purchase by luxury group LVMH. The brand's mission is building trade in Africa. Sawa Shoes is even bolder. Designers behind the brand challenge themselves to source and finish products in Africa.  I love this part, "We don't promise to donate part of our income to some charity association for each pair of shoes purchased, not build a pipeline towards Manhattan." Stoned Cherrie has been a beloved brand in South Africa for years, and the founder, Nkensani Nkosi, is an Endeavor Entrepreneur. A brand I'm absolutely bonkers for is Freetown Sierra Leon based Aschobi Designs by Adama Kai--all the splash and color of Africa with the understated sophistication of a cosmopolitan, global woman, Made in Africa. Love that concept. 

I'm reminded of the Proudly South African marketing campaign. Without barricading ourselves behind a mercantilist wall, perhaps the most sustainable fashion for Africa is something bold enough to stick to outstanding design and a loud, obnoxious but full-proof Made In Africa stamp. 

Last year, I attended the Academy of Achievement Summit, where I got to meet affable author of "The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency", Alexander McCall Smith.  That series of books has been a great comfort to me living abroad, especially because the author is so attuned to the naunces of everyday life in Southern Africa, Botswana in this case.  A year later, what stands out best about my exchange with Smith is how he described kindness in the African context, and how elusive capturing that quality in the written word can be.

What strikes me today is the shift I detect in how the best minds approach development work in and for Africa.  Understanding and tapping into the fiber of who Africans are as people seems a starting point of some of the best models I look to.  Superstar Jacqueline Novogratz often speaks of the power and importance of preserving human dignity in development work.

Another favorite author, Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie writes and speaks quite eloquently about the "danger of the single story".  Reading Ngozi-Adichie is recognizing elements of myself, remembering my mother tongue and hearing echoes of my cousins' naughty jokes. As Chimamanda rightfully argues, giving so much colour to the African experience (if there really is such a thing) makes the reader not only identify with a human story, but also restores a character's human dignity.  Imagine how different development work would be if every organization and philanthropist began work from this vantage.                                                                                             (Related and off-tangent, there's a fascinating, if ancient, ongoing conversation about New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof's writing, questioning his use of westerners on white horses working in Africa.)

I may be wrong, but there does seem something brewing in the development zeitgeist about how to see (and be seen) in Africa and the developing world at large.  A gorgeous and provocative interpretation of this theme is Zwelethu Mthethwa's photography. Speaking about his work, pictured, the artist had this to say, "I was trying to portray these people in a different light. They are poor ... but I wanted to portray them as human beings".  Incidentally, Mthethwa speaks July 15, 2010 at the Studio Museum in Harlem, at his first NYC solo show.

If you watched even a handful games of the FIFA World Cup matches hosted by South Africa, then you know this year was full of many surprising firsts.

As an African, the most important first to me, was of course my home country's successful bid to host the Cup. 

Source: The New Black Magazine, Brian Dalek

Yes, the games were terribly expensive.  All told, South Africa spent roughly $5.6 billion. But lets not forget The Economist approximates the World Cup generated 0.5% worth of GDP  growth for the country and quite a chunk of the budget was sunk in improving infrastructure, a long-term plus.

Yes, most of the money was spent on beefing up goods and services primarily catering to foreign tourists--insert heightened security measures, plentiful accommodation and rail airport shuttles and state of the art stadiums.

And Yes, there was plenty of nasty pre-game prep, including accusations of government mandated forced removal of informal settlements.  And do you remember those snarls about an inevitable African botch-up of the entire tournament ("they'll never be ready in time")? Or maybe you'll recall talk of South African crime, which was sure to smear even the most careful grand plan?

Despite these hurdles, or perhaps because of them (this is after all the country self-branded as "It's Possible"), South Africa and indeed Africa (we still love you, Ghana, even if you don't know what to do with a penalty kick) put on quite a show. 

But, the story I'm most inspired by is what the Cup proved we are capable of.  Over the past month, South Africa has been, in many ways, the best of what is possible.  In parts of Johannesburg, crime dropped by as much as 70%. Commercially, the Cup was successful, although it would be great if more of FIFA's estimated $3.4 billion earned revenue was shared with local business.  More than showing the rest of the world that an African nation can host a worlwww.keepflying.co.zad-class event without a hitch, the World Cup's loudest message to Africa is "Yes, We Can".  Could you ever have imagined a South Africa without excessive and violent crime?  Yes.  We actually now know what that feels and looks like.

Now that we know what we are capable of, why wait for a PR opportunity to create the Africa that's possible?

Meet Susan Davis and she will change your life.  The President & CEO of BRAC USA and founding member of BRAC USA is a poised woman who holds power with a rare mix of humility and humor.  

Cross paths with rock-star turned social entrepreneurship writer David Bornstein and you may be struck by how much listening he does.  There's an intense concentration to David that creates the magic of reading his books--an inside out X-ray examining the lives of social innovators.  

Author David Bornstein with NYU Reynolds Program for Social Entrepreneurship Director Gabriel Brodbar

Bring the two together, and you'll soon be thumbing through "Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know", which Susan and David co-authored.  The book marries that trademark Bornstein X-ray analysis of social entrepreneurs with Susan's knowledge of how to build a social entrepreneurial ship while sailing.  

Susan and David spoke briefly at a book-signing party hosted by the NYU Reynolds Program for Social Entrepreneurship last night.  They described the genesis of the book and summarized its broad themes as a stock of where the sector has been, where it is and where we're headed.  

The authors talk about the celebration of the individual social-change agent, the social entrepreneur, as a hallmark of the sector early on (Professor Paul Light is noted for his eloquent arguments against the danger of the individual social entrepreneur model.  See Stanford Social Innovation Review article, Reshaping Social Entrepreneurship).

The wave of wealth and newly-minted philanthropists during the dot.com bubble injected market rigor and business acumen/tools into the space, pushing organizations to re-evaluate performance and impact measures. 

Today, we find ourselves living in the realm of Soc-Ent2.0.  The authors talk of our time as a moment for the multitudes, the increasing recognition that we are all social entrepreneurs in some capacity.  I'm reminded of a fun online social enterprise which harnesses good intentions into a world of micro-actions, IfWeRanTheWorld.  As it turns out, social-entrepreneurship is headed in the direction of your next actualized good intention. Now, remembering that "the path to hell is paved with good intentions^1", what are you doing with your good intentions?

¹I'm reading Jacqueline Novogratz' memo, The Blue Sweater.  I picked this phrase up from the book, which I love, apparently one of her mother's favorite idioms. 

I was scared silent a few days ago while visiting the law offices of Weil Gotshal & Manges.  Miriam Buhl, the firm's Pro-Bono Counsel, was explaining why taking on a board seat at an NGO is such a serious endeavor.  You are not just assuming responsibility for a public charity (and fulfilling its mandate), but you are also placing personal stakes on the line should things go awry.  There's a good deal of due diligence to do before signing on.  So, what questions to ask and how to suss out good organizational governance?  Miriam shared some preliminary questions worth asking.  I found them so useful, I'm posting them below.  I should be pointing out the obvious in reminding you that the questions are only a guide, not a full legal framework, and that every organization's unique characteristics should be considered in entirety.  

Finances

• What is the organization's budget overall? 
• What is the distribution of programmatic and administrative costs (should be at least in 75%/25% range)?
• How are the funds raised, and what is the percentage of each source (institutional foundation support, contracts, individual giving, etc.)
• Ask to see the most recent 990 and audit.  (If they cannot provide, this is a concern.)
• What am I expected to give and get as a board member?
• Do you feel that this financial formula is working, and if not, how should it evolve?

Planning

• Is there a strategic plan for the organization?  (If yes, ask for a copy.)
• If not, is there a plan to develop one, or how are the organization's goals set each year?
• What are the organization's goals in the next year/3 years/5 years?
• What challenges does the organization face?
• Has the organization ever been in the red?  In a lawsuit?  Had any other trouble I should know about?

A Student Board Meeting in Khayelitsha, Students for Humanity

Leadership

• Who are the staff leaders?  (You might ask about plans for successorship here -- if it's very much a cult of personality, that might be a concern)
• Who are the board leaders?  (You should absolutely have a meeting with the board chair before agreeing to join board)
• How involved is the board?  Would you like more or less involvement?
• Do you have D&O insurance?  Be very concerned if not.
• What role do you need me to play on the board? 
• What are the board term limits?  (If they don't have any, that's a red flag.)  Are they enforced?  (If not, also a red flag.)
• Are there any particular events that you feel it is important for board members to attend?

Infrastructure

• What are the board committees?  Am I expected to sit on one? 
• How often does the board meet?  (Ask for copies of recent minutes if they can share them)
• How many staff?  How is the agency organized?
• Is there any risk here?  Where are the weaknesses?

Programmatic Work

• What are some current programs that are particularly successful/challenged?
• Which programs do you envision for the future?

1. We are currently searching for sponsors to help pay for scholarships for our current students for 2nd semester. ($1,000 per student). All of the Akilah students are currently on full scholarship. We target low-income women who can not otherwise afford higher university. It’s a challenge for them to even come up with the transportation fees (about 60 cents per day) to get to the Akilah campus. 

2. We want to buy our own textbooks so that students will be able to get so much more out of each class. The Akilah classes don’t currently have textbooks. They share books or use paper handouts. 

Last night I moderated a very heated discussion hosted by NYU Wagner's Student Alliance for Africa.  The panel was titled, "Africa's Development: Who's Ownership?" The ideas sparked pivoted around accountability and responsibility.  Who is ultimately responsible for the development of Africa? 

Is it wealthy nations--some of whose wealth may be attributed to the spoils of colonization? Is it Africa's elite and educated diaspora community that has amassed valuable resources and experience abroad? Panelist Andrew Garza, co-founder of Titagya Schools,spoke about the importance of the diaspora community and how his organization has leveraged the community's unique resources and expertise not just for fund raising in the West and but also for better navigating local circles in Ghana.  Titagya schools (pictured) addresses Ghana's dearth of early childhood education.

What about elected officials on the continent, shouldn't we expect them to fill the mandate of their offices by owing and initiating development? Jacqueline Muna Musiitwa, Esq is Managing Partner of Hoja Law Group.  Among her clientele are opposition presidential candidates in two African states. Throughout the panel, she stressed that yes, politicians matter but let's not discount individual country's records when we talk about ownership and who has the capacity to deliver on what they say. If a country has negotiated the shorter end of the stick for its people in contracts for mineral wealth exploitation, what makes you think that country will make good on MDGs (Millenium Development Goals)? Further, should we be using MDGs as a benchmark, just how realistic and fair are the goals?

Muna's fellow Zambian was also on the panel, Ambassador Isaiah Z. Chabala.  Ambassador Chabala is a diplomat through and through.  He urged us to consider just how much more time governments need to make good on their promises and how little bargaining power African statesmen+women face when negotiating with foreign investors. 

Listening to the Ambassador alongside Muna, I could not help but realize there has been a paradigm shift in African leadership within a generation.  Mr. Chabala was among only 100 or so Zambians with a college degree in 1964.  This small handful young leaders assumed positions of power and were charged with building a nation. Most of them had only known one model of national government: colonia; rule.  Should we be surprised if they adapted this model to the African climate without thoroughly re-imagining the way things could be?  Muna's generation is too young to remember colonization and the triumphs of liberation. More embedded in their minds may be the failures of the African state, especially in stark contrast to other emerging markets. This generation is far less patient for change, propelled by the possibilities they see in Africa.  Perhaps, more than anyone else, development and the promise of its rewards, belongs to these young lions.

Considering these Africans, to what extent do they own the process and means of development?  In the organizations that you know of, are Africans controlling the shape and ends of development? How are Africans holding development institutions and talking heads accountable? (See previous posts on this). 

At the risk of labeling myself a capitalist, let me repeat what I said last night: It's almost irrelevant who owns the development initiative until we create incentives that align Africa's development with individual/institution's self-interested actions. There are few incentives as effective as money. Until the African narrative becomes a story of sustainable economic opportunity (beyond the rent-extraction that's characterized the continent's wealth)--the last gold rush if you will, we will continue to hold panels on who African development belongs to instead of conversations about African wealth creation.

Just returned from Miami, where I was invited to moderate a panel at the Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference--more on that in another post. The conference concentrated on Latin America, but there are plenty we can all learn from the region. I was really impressed by the conversation from "Unique Mobile Solutions from the Region". Speaking were Alison Bloch of LoneWolfe Ventures, Barbara Pantuso from Frog Design and Steve Hardgrave, Gray Ghost Ventures. David Reich from Assured Labor moderated. 

Companies/Innovations Worth Note:

• Signal Point Partners. Invests in and advises companies working in emerging markets, using mobile platform for service delivery
• iSend. Allows immigrants to top up airtime minutes for family in home countries. Tapping into the $60B remittance market from US to LA/Caribbean. Ultimately, the service could eliminate expensive intermediaries by functioning as a mobile wallet for diaspora communities to send money home safely, efficiently + most cost effectively.
• Source Trace. Allows microfinance clients to use mobile phones for bill payments. Sounds useless, but consider how far BoP consumers often have to travel to reach a bill-pay center, only to have to wait in line a few hours.
• Movirtu. Allows different profiles on the same sim card, allowing for example an entrepreneurial user who shares a phone with 3 other people to have her own phone number and a message retrieval system for to better serve her clients.
• EpiSurveyor. Survey Monkey meets emerging markets, allows data collection (accountability+performance assessments) from service recipients through text surveys. 
• Ultrasound Imaging via Smartphone. The applications for rural, remote healthcare are potentially life-saving, but costs remain high for this technology.
• Ushahidi, see previous posts. 

Challenges

• Scaling is hampered by  the difficulty of proving results for pilot programs, especially in healthcare. Frog Design worked on Project M in South Africa (see ASEF post from September 2009 for more on Project M). The program was widely successful in disseminating HIV/AIDS information--call volume to hotlines multiplied significantly, but it is difficult to prove health outcomes from the program, much less quantify to what extent Project M prevents the spread of HIV/AIDS. 
• Fragmentation. Rolling out even a simple pilot means coordination between several stakeholder-service providers, such as multiple mobile phone carriers/operators in a single market, healthcare providers, call centers, etc. This drives up costs. 
• Regulation is not always on-par with mobile tech capacity. In some markets, businesses are forced to use airtime as a proxy for real money because regulation prevents easier delivery of payment through mobile-banking.

Resources

Frontlinesms

Mobileactive.org

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Just read a rather provocative and hopeful paper, that follows the same line of thinking as Michael Clemen's The Long Walk to School, which I posted about in December. Researchers Xavier Sala-i-Martin and Maxim Pinkovskiy argue that Africa's poverty is falling faster than we imagine, and goals such as the Millennium Challenge may be missing the point. Consider:

• Africa's poverty rate--at number of people living on $1/day--increased over the two decades 1970-1990, from 39.8% in 1970, to 42 percent in 1985 and 41.6% by 1990.
• Beginning 1995, the trend reversed. Poverty rates began declining
• Poverty rate in 2006 was 31.8%.  That's 28% lower than 1990 levels and 30% less than rates in 1995.
• Gini coefficient--a measure of economic inequity, 0-1, where 0 is perfect income equality-- has needled from 0.66 in 1990 to 0.63 in 2006

Impressive, right? Now, consider why poverty rates would have started a downward swing beginning 1995. The authors offer sustained economic growth as the cause. I would say there's a correlation, because one has to wonder what caused a sudden expansion of the economy when the lost decades made Africa's tragedy seem irreversible. So, what do we know about economic growth rates over the same period?

• GDP growth rate slumped an average negative 1.3% during the lost decade of the 80s and took a further hit to -1.8% between 1990 and 1994
• Beginning in 1994/5, the African economy caught a spark. Finally, painful macroeconomic reforms were starting to bear some fruit.
• By 2004, average real GDP growth rate was 5.2%, and 5.7 percent by 2006

If Africa maintains 1995-2006 economic expansion rates, Sala-i-Martin and Pinkovskiy anticipate Africa will hit the Millennium Development goal of regional poverty rate reduced to 21% by 2017, two years after the target date.

What to make of all this data? Two key takeaways:

1. Africa's poverty rate is falling. Sure, not the enviable rates of Asia, but let's not nullify the hard work that's gone into something worth merit in the past 10 years
2. Private sector-led sustained economic growth reduced poverty. Inequity is rife throughout Africa, so its justifiable when people argue that big-ticket investment on the continent only beefens the bellies of a handful fat-cats. Yes, the rich are definitely benefiting from surged commodity prices and a more active private sector, but so have the poor.

Does it make me uncomfortable that to pull masses out of poverty, we essentially have to line the pockets of some already outlandishly wealthy people? Arguably. But let's consider the alternatives: an Africa on life-line ad nauseum...not an option. So, lets start embracing (eyes wide open--see ILO's research on pro-poor economic growth) what magic economic growth, ie. business, can sprinkle on the poor. 

Note: If you check out the paper in its entirety, definitely read some thoughtful critique. A good place is start is World Bank Chief Economist for Africa Martin Ravallion's blogpost. Remember though, this is a working paper--despite the bold title, be forgiving.

This is not a political post, so don't get excited. Just a note on African leadership and an open-ended question--Do Fools Rise Faster in Africa?

Take South Africa, easily one of the most colorful, budding democracies in the developing world with the most celebrated Constitution and an embarassment of top-brass leadership. Apart from the Stephen Bikos and Nelson Mandelas, there have been the Zackie Achmats--leading HIV/AIDS advocate--the Mark Shuttleworths--venture capital pioneer and celebrated entrepreneur--and the likes of Ashoka Fellow Charles Maisel. And then there was Julius Malema.

Asked during a TV interview by noted journalist Debrah Patta if he would have considered suicide had he failed South Africa's famous series of high school exit exams, Matric, Julius replied, "Me commit a suicide?... I'd rather kill myself than doing such a horrible thing."

Hilarious, disturbing. But is the joke really on him?  Julius has become something of a celebrated political whip in South Africa, offering fraught, public advice at every opportunity and benefiting from government contracts which have secured him a flashy lifestyle. During President Zuma's infamous trial for sexual assault, Malema offered a mass assault of his own, "When a woman didn’t enjoy it, she leaves early in the morning. Those who had a nice time will wait until the sun comes out, request breakfast and ask for taxi money....In the morning, that lady requested breakfast and taxi money. You can’t ask for money from somebody who raped you."

Standup comedians love Julius, who practically writes his own satires verbatum. Who doesn't laugh at buffonery? But given our continent's history and the pressing demand for sound leadership, shouldn't alarm bells sound when a loud empty voice clogs public discourse? And exactly why are we captivated when that voice seizes the mic? How do African societies prevent the rise of a noted buffoon or crazy campaigns?  Note Uganda's current proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. You will recall both Idi Amin and Mobutu Sese Seko rose to power from behind the curtains.  How do you guage the aspirations and ultimate destination of someone regarded harmless because of seeming ignorance? 

Last week, I spoke at NYU Law School's Law & Social Enterpreneurship Association.  LSEA has a nifty learning lab--"Inside The Social Entrepreneurs' Studio"--essentially a round table open discussion between a featured practitioner and law students. What I love best about this model is it's emphasis on process and dialog, so many conferences and events make the false assumption that there is only one expert in the room, showcasing the speaker's work as a polished product without much analysis of the daily frustrations, challenges and tiny, incremental challenges any must entrepreneur face. 

The conversation focused on my work with Zenzele Circle. Naturally, we spoke at length about the law and its role in social entrepreneurship. I was struck by two things:

1. Student lawyers are hungry to go beyond pro-bono. Many people asked hard questions about how to employ the law to remain committed to an enterprise's social mission. For example, at Zenzele Circle, we measure our impact by the number of living wage jobs created for Africans. But is any job a good job? How do we raise the bar of expectations and remain competitive? A perfect example of this characteristic is embodied in LSEA Co-Founder and Catherine B. Reynolds Fellow, Keren Raz. Keren has been asking how to bridge the gap between her interest in law and social entrepreneurship since I met her.  This first led to forming LSEA, one of the first organizations of its kind in the US, focusing on how to align the legal field with the advances of social entrepreneurship.  As she prepares to take the bar this year, Keren is beginning a second phase of pushing and informing law's boundries...she may be the first person you'll want to turn to with your hybrid legal matters in a year or two.
2. The For-Profit model for social change remains a new concept. I was asked repeatedly why we've decided to incorporate as a for-profit social enterprise. I gave our reasoning, our most fundamental logic being our philosophy. If we believe that scaled social change depends on market-based solutions that create incentives for people to respond in a particular manner, shouldn't we walk all that slick talk? Apparently not. 

Both in my conversation with LSEA students and beyond, I've found there is still resistance to the idea of a company like Zenzele making money and pocketing it. Never mind that we in fact make it harder for ourselves to get going--nonprofits typically benefit from a menu of grant funding unavailable to for-profit ventures--and never mind that in most cases, by virtue of being a social enterprise, fixed operating costs are higher, undermining gross profits. So I wonder, why? And in expecting more social solutions to go the non-profit route, to what extent are we curtailing the growth of a post-social entrepreneurship entrepreneurship?

You may recall a blog post here that quoted Pamela Hartigan, probing the issue of how to get every business venture to embed blended value returns so that there is no distinction between a social entrepreneurial startup and any other. In pushing so hard for nonprofits, are we moving ever slower toward that point of entrepreneurship, where blended value is an unspoken obvious--a prerequisite to plain good business sense?

A healthy stable of conferences focusing on Africa are cropping up. Some just have a relevant African component, but isn't it high time we started turning to the continent for best case models and fresh ideas...

What am I excited about?

• 2010 Harvard Social Enterprise Conference. Yes, Ethiopian beauty Liya Kedebe will be there (all anti-celeb mania activists sigh) but White House Office of Social Innovation heavyweight Sonal Shah will deliver the keynote. Feb 27-28
• Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference Miami. Conference organizer John Rosser is filling a niche in the Latin American soc-ent space with this LA focused super-conference in Miami. 130 speakers and a mini-conference dedicated to Haiti. Better still, yours truly will moderate a panel on South-South cooperation and cross learning, Investment Lessons Latin America can glean from Africa. March 17-19
•  Africa Economic Forum, SIPA @ Columbia University. Seems high glamour is on the agenda this year. The conference includes a panel on "African Fashion Going Global" not to mention Arise Magazine Editor Helen Jennings and Nigerian Supermodel Oluchi. I love Arise and think the brand is doing bucket-loads of good to counter the belly-bloated image of Africa, but I wonder--do we miss the bull's eye for making real social change if we go to the other extreme, spotlighting Africa's uber-wealthy and a lifestyle foreign to most but a handful few? March 26-27.

I've left out some other favorite stop-points--Africa Business Conference at Harvard Business School and Wharton's Africa Business Conference too--for good reason, I think. Shouldn't African conferences, whose mandate extends to tangible impact, beyond information sharing be held in Africa? As Co-Chair of the Africa Social Enterprise Forum, I struggle with this dilemma and am working to bring value to and in Africa. I'd also like to profile high-value conferences and events on the continent people should know about. If you know something I don't (as I'm certain you do), do Tell.

King's College London has a fantastic new opportunity for young leaders--Peace, Security and Development Fellowships for African Scholars--to begin September 2010, at King's College at University of London.

The fellowship's purpose is to increase the pool of African experts on peace, security and development and working to generate African-led ideas to address the security and development challenges on the continent. Program components include:

• A strong mentoring program
• Institutional visits throughout Europe + Africa
• Training in London + the Africa Leadership Center in Nairobi
• Research projects + policy work

Please find more details here: link

It seems counterintuitive. Societies with a strong emphasis on community are not necessarily more philanthropic than individualist ones.  In the US for example, there is a pervasive culture of private giving--foundations alone have $300 billion under management according to The Ford Foundation. By contrast, a book titled "Giving & Solidarity" reports that while giving is alive and well in South Africa, institutional, nonstatal giving accounts for only R5 billion/year, about $646 million. Interestingly, state grants are included in "Giving & Solidarity" as a form of philanthropic capital. South Africa spends R80 billion, $10.33 billion, on such cash transfers annually.

These figures resonate with my experience of giving in South Africa and the US. A conversation with a fellow South African recently led to the question of philanthropy among Black Diamonds--South Africa's new class of black elites, young professionals whose rise follows decades of apartheid suppression. Black Diamonds are infamously consumption driven. They drive posh cars, live in exclusive gated communities and boldly display their new wealth in the face of quite some want. Do these Black Diamonds give? How can South Africa harness their collective buying power and professional smarts to really build the country? 

Many are grappling with this question. Institutions such as Cape Town-based Inyathelo are dedicated to promoting a culture of giving in South Africa. But I wonder, are they misdirected? Is the philanthropic approach of private foundational giving a relic of the West that cannot be transplanted to communal societies? Growing up, I don't recall an African relative of mine ever writing a check for a charitable organization or even supporting anything such as a social enterprise verbally.  And why should they? The transparency necessary to building trust was not characteristic of the institutions they would have known. But this is not to say they didn't build social safety nets.

They don't write checks but the extended family was a charitable organization of sorts. One of my relatives was visiting a sick loved one at Chris Hani Baragwanath, at least 10 years ago. She noticed two kids roaming about mindlessly. They were very young, so she took them home with her. Mind you, this woman lives in a three roomed house and already shared it with her children and extended relatives. A few months on, her state inquiry about the kids finally came up, so she went to court to investigate their welfare. Their mother was present but not fit to parent. The state gave my relative a choice--either you adopt them legally or we take over. Without ever intending to, she became a legal guardian. Just like that. Two children who were otherwise complete strangers. 

If we are going to unlock Africa's potential to bank-roll it's own philanthropic initiatives, shouldn't we shift the focus on how we perceive giving and how we measure philanthropy? There are countless women like my relative. Too many. Their giving does not show up easily in statistics. How do we account for that? And how do we start institutionalizing the way they give? Shouldn't a Black Diamond get a tax break every time she pays for a lower-income cousin's school fees?

The search is on and nearing a close (Jan 31, 2010) for the 2010 Schwab Foundation Africa Social Entrepreneur of the Year.  The Schwab Foundation is among the most respected philanthropic groups in the global social sector and affiliated with the World Economic Forum.  No wonder then, the competition draws such high-calibre social entrepreneurs whose work has collectively changed the lives of millions. 

Take Mitchell Besser and Gene Falk, founders of mothers2mothers (m2m).  In Kayelitsha last year, I met a woman who first found out she is HIV positive status when she discovered her pregnancy.  Can you imagine the devastation of learning you are not only HIV positive, but the child you are carrying may also become infected?  This woman turned to m2m.  She got counseling and mentoring throughout her pregnancy from another HIV+ woman just like her, a mother who knew her pain and related to her life as daily struggles.  By the time she addressed us, she had become a mentor to other mothers through m2m.  She was also the very proud mother of a beautiful bright boy--he has to be at least 6 years old this year.  HIV- and starting life with a strong, healthy mother. m2m describes the type of social venture the Schwab Foundation is interested in:

• Stellar performance record
• Excellent, visionary leadership and,
• A venture model that can benefit exponentially from Schwab Foundation/The World Economic Forum networks

If you know a social entrepreneur in Africa--apart from South Africa which has a separate competition--who fits the bill, the clock is ticking. Share this link with them asap: http://www.schwabfoundseoy.org/africa