Change is afoot across the African continent and even where it is slow in coming, there's evidence all around of a new
generation of Africans -- entrepreneurial and inventive who are shaping a brighter future for the their communities.
Businesses are being launched that can
transform the lives of millions. New communication technologies allow
ideas and information to spread, enabling markets -and governments-
to be more efficient. The numbers suggest that real growth is on the
way.
In this video here, Jacqueline Novogratz explains a new path to development assistance, one which leads only in facilitation, providing investment rather than traditional aid. A former employee of a large Wall Street concern, she has lived across the continent in the Ivory Coast, Rwanda and even our Kenya. She highlights many of the mistakes aid agencies make, and shows that the people are best allowed to decide their destiny for themselves.
In her view, traditional charity rarely delivers lasting results. Her
solution, outlined here through a series of revealing personal stories,
is that patient capital; support for "bottom of the pyramid" businesses
which the commercial market alone couldn't provide can make for a revolution at the local level. The result:
sustainable jobs, goods, services -- and dignity -- for the world's
poorest.
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So it is that with most such projects, aid organisations are sustained by creating need behind them. This hotel will only make money if there is a need (poverty, disease, etc) for the students to come. A bit like Kamale's comment on Kibera's slums, this approach ensures a spectacle that becomes a magent for donor funds, and international do-gooder tourism.
The approach advocated in the lecture above is more likely to succeed. Equip the people, train them and show them how their ideas can be made to work in a modern market economy, encourage creativity. How soon until we have our own philanthropists pouring their knowledge and finances into improving our poor and unemployed's propsects?
Does anyone know if the likes of Equity and Family Finance have had a big effect on productive capacity in the economy?