Creating Sustainability in Africa

"The only way Africa is going to change is if institutions that establish and sustain economic growth and a free-market structure can gradually emerge through this. That means a banking and judicial infrastructure, real education, and of course, a somewhat progressive and enlightened government". Adam Hanft on Africa's challenges.

"What I would like to see is an integrated vision for how the vast resources and beneficence of the foundation can not just moderate (if not eliminate) the scourge of AIDS, but can also create a framework for more than the absence of a negative. Just like Microsoft's business wasn't singularly focused on writing code, but on all the moving parts required for market dominance.

The focus on AIDS is bad for Africa's global brand because the continent has become almost singularly identified with the disease.

By making brand Africa stand for disease, it becomes impossible for the continent to succeed economically in the foreseeable future. That's because Africa needs more than foreign aid, it needs business investment. And who's going to invest in the world's most dysfunctional place, with a missing generation, parentless children, a dysfunctional infrastructure?

Africa needs the same globalization that is pissing off so many people. Africa needs call centers and research centers linked to universities and centers of intellectual excellence; it needs Richard's Florida's Creative Class; it needs factories that make cheapo souvenirs to sell at the Eiffel Tower (all successful post-War economies, from Japan to China, started with cheapo junk); it needs Nike to have the courage to open a factory in Kinchasa, rather than pretending it takes courage to open a store in Harlem when it's just part of their marketing mission to sell rubberized crack to inner city kids. None of this can happen overnight, but in the context of Africa's current perception as the continent from hell, and with the global competition for jobs and talent, it's never absolutely guaranteed never to happen.

Of course, there has been, and continues to be, many efforts to move the economic needle in Africa, including the work of Jeffrey Sachs. And the Gates Foundation needs to continue to fight AIDS. Because Africa can't even begin to turn around under these current conditions. But a foundation with a narrow focus is the wrong model, even with these extenuating circumstances. When I look at the website for the Gates Foundation I see separate and isolated spheres of activity, of which public health in Africa is the largest. I see a narrow focus on treatment, when Africa's problem transcends that.

Exquisite Safaris: Mr. Hanft: Have you had the opportunity to read this speech? Please click here.

What I would like to see is an integrated vision for how the vast resources and beneficence of the foundation can not just moderate (if not eliminate) the scourge of AIDS, but can also create a framework for more than the absence of a negative. Just like Microsoft's business wasn't singularly focused on writing code, but on all the moving parts required for market dominance.

I'd like to see a plan for establishing and organizing the building blocks required for economic growth, in the same way that a Microsoft PowerPoint slide for launching a new operating system would include marketing, advertising, sales, partner programs, development efforts, public relations, internal communication, the works. All of it talking to each other, building on each other, driving each other.

I'd like to see a couple of regions identified for this focus, where AIDS drug availability and treatment improvements are strategically linked to a plan for investments across the dimensions required to create a functioning society. Where education and housing are addressed. Where entrepreneurship is cultivated. Where a telecom infrastructure is established, the banking network functions, roads are passable, and sovereign risk is reduced, so that global companies can be encouraged to take a flier on building a factory. This would allow the national resources of the country to flow back into it, instead of out of it as is currently happening.

It's a grand vision, yes. A new kind of philanthropic nation building, perhaps. Ambitious as colonialism, without the mendacity and economic pillaging. But it's the right vision for Africa's brand and future. If we started to see this message on CNN we'd feel better, more uplifted, less donor fatigued. I'd like to see the Gates Foundation start a dialogue on the subject. After all, if the largest foundation in the history of mankind with assets dramatically beyond what the UN can find in its couch can't think this way, who can?"

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