On How African Philanthropists Can Catalyze Africa's Socio-Economic Transformation

In a recent article, Steven Barboza  interrogated the ways in which African philanthropists can help to transform the continent both socially and economically, leading to the entrenchment of "Africapitalism". Entrepreneurship training is the preferred route to the Africa of the future envisaged by Tony O. Elumelu, a Nigerian banking tycoon, who is the focus of Barboza's piece.

I do agree that Africa's destiny must be in the hands of its own people, but not just the very rich -- the ones referred to as philanthropists and included under the optimistic label "Africapitalism". These very rich Africans can make a significant difference, but will not for decades to come have the capacity -- and may never be allowed by the political class, even if they had the capacity -- to coordinate on a large scale (national, sub-regional or continental) the priority-setting and implementation efforts that governments, by the very nature of their mandates and reach, typically have or should.

Barboza defines "Africapitalism" as "economic transformation via private sector commitments" to the creation of  "economic and social wealth." As used in his article, however, the terms African Philanthropy and "Africapitalism" mean exactly the same thing, certainly in effect. The only reason that the former would be conceived of as something apart from the latter is that not all capitalist entrepreneurs have a philanthropic mind-set -- particularly so where the tax code is not conducive to 'material' expressions of generosity such as Elumelu touts and Barboza reports.

The initiatives of the "philanthro-capitalists" that Barboza lists are a useful pointer to what can be done, and will certainly, if sustained and expanded, contribute to the build-up of a critical mass of action in various fields. However, while the internship program initiated by Elumelu will certainly benefit the participants, it will contribute little if any to expanding Africa's capacity to grow its own 'real' industrialist or 'agricultural' or infrastructural "ramming rod" against backwardness.

I happen to think that entrepreneurship-training (such as is typically and mistakenly associated with MBA, BCom, BBA, CPA and/or CPS) is no substitute for in-depth command of the 'subject-matter' or skills upon which real-world enterprises are or can be founded and nurtured. What I mean is this: An MBA graduate without quality engineering training cannot in this day and age become a Ford or a Daimler or a Benz or a Toyota or a Tata or a Dangote -- all founding titans of industry. Nor can an MBA graduate without focused and superior software-design talents become a Jobs, or a Gates or a Zuckerberg. A 'pure' MBA graduate cannot become a Wangari Maathai, PhD. But she was as entrepreneurial as they come -- without an MBA.

In view of all this, one obvious omission from the above list of transformative initiatives in which home-grown (African) philanthropy could potentially make a significant difference, certainly in the eyes of those of us in academia, is the underwriting of quality PhD education and training, in ground-breaking quantities, in carefully selected areas of specialization across an array (and I say 'array' quite deliberately) of disciplines and sub-disciplines required to kick-start Africa's agrarian, 'industrial'/technological/ICT and infrastructural revolution. 

We can address this omission only in the context of 'Training of Trainers', and (within-continent) institutional empowerment -- even if for a decade or two the locally sourced scholarships allow or require recipients to study in elite universities (of their considered choice) outside the continent. We have so far been too dependent on outsiders to determine the range of skills for which Africa's future generations of 'top-flight' trainers will receive funding -- and, indeed, not only the range of skills but also the number (usually too few and too sporadic for Africa's critical needs) of scholarships per skill-category.

A complementary, but equally consequential, area in which African philanthropists can make a difference is the establishment of centres or hubs of excellence in carefully selected fields of comparative advantage across Africa. Such centres should be assured exceptional funding levels for research, R&D training, and globally competitive remuneration for experts playing critical roles and/or holding named chairs. These centres/hubs must, of course, be organically networked with 'industry', broadly defined. A model for this is the recently launched Beijing-Nairobi Innovation and Design Research Center, an 'industrial design' partnership between the Beijing Industrial Design Centre and the University of Nairobi School of the Arts and Design. Another relevant example from Kenya is the iHub initiative, an 'incubator' for talented, and typically youthful, apps developers for mobile telephony. iHub has recently received modest funding from Google; but where are we to find 'home-grown' donors, facilitators and mentors to ensure long-term viability or sustainability?



[Note: I have in the last week or so made a few clarifications and added some links and observations to the original post ~ MY (June 3, 2012]