Posts Tagged ‘East Africa Fellows’

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We Are Watching You – Political Accountability through Civic Participation

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

We Are Watching You is a campaign to create political accountability in Kenya by increasing citizens’ vigilance and civic participation. The campaign uses elements of popular culture to sensitize citizens and works in collaboration with civil society leaders. Created in the wake of the 2007-2008 post-election violence in Kenya, it is led by Ramadhan Obiero – an Acumen Fund East Africa Fellow. Ramadhan has experience as the Coordinator for the Vumilia Youth Group, the Stage Manager for musician Eric Wainaina, the leader of the Kale Leo Band, and the Chairman of the African Cultural Research and Education Foundation.

Acumen Fund launched the East Africa Fellows program to identify and train the next generation of leaders united by a common mission of harnessing the power of social innovation to create solutions to East Africa’s most pressing problems. The Acumen Fund East Africa Fellows Program is made possible through the sponsorship of KCB Foundation and the Edmond de Rothschild Foundations.

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Letter from Jacqueline Novogratz – Winter 2012

Friday, February 24th, 2012

Dear Friend,

See an interview with Jacqueline on Bloomberg TV's MoneyMoves.

As I write, soft rain is blessing Accra’s early morning, allowing a quiet moment of reflection about our work in West Africa and what it means for Acumen globally. When Acumen Fund’s board approved an exploration of a new region in September 2011, it did so knowing we were determined to put into action our values around patient capital and moral leadership. We would go quietly, do more listening than talking, insist on partnering with local leaders, and ensure there was a solid pipeline of investment opportunities. We chose West Africa, starting with Ghana and Nigeria, because we believed opportunity was here. A year later, we are thrilled we made the right decision.

It starts with leadership. Our colleague Catherine Casey took on the challenge and flew to Accra in early January 2011 with just a suitcase and a few phone numbers, exemplifying the spirit of servant-leadership. Soon, Ghana’s warm spirit welcomed her through people like Ken Ofori-Atta, one of Ghana’s leading investment bankers, and Kweku Bedu-Addo, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank in Ghana. Our global team gave support from afar in developing investments and navigating regulatory requirements.

GADCO's community of smallholder farmers.

A year later, we have launched the West Africa office after making significant strides. The team has invested $2.5 million in two companies that provide a sense of what patient capital can mean for the region. I am also proud and excited to announce our new West Africa Director, Godfrey Mwindaare. Catherine will now assume leadership for our global expansion efforts.

Godfrey brings more than a dozen years of experience investing across 32 African countries, both at commercial banks and as Chief Investment Officer at the African Development Bank. Acumen Fund West Africa also launches with three founding partners who are contributing financially to these efforts: Ken (who also joined our global Board of Directors), Kweku, and Ashok Mohinani. And our team is supported by a strong, vibrant community: more than 170 professionals joined our launch event, a wonderful night of celebration. We could not be more grateful for the generosity of so many individuals in Ghana and Nigeria.

I’m particularly excited about our two first West African investments. They have the potential to impact millions. Together, they also represent powerful innovations at the nexus of land rights, food production, and incomes.

Medeem’s unique ParcelCert™ product provides land documentation.

The complexity and scale of these issues is enormous. Much of Africa’s land has no legal title – a huge challenge given the millions of acres of land currently being purchased by foreign investors, often for bio-fuel production, export, and land speculation – not for domestic food markets. At the same time, aid systems too often romanticize smallholder farmers, providing insufficient inputs and failing to recognize that larger farms are required to feed the population. Layer on this the estimation that 80% of food crops currently grown in Africa are produced by low-income smallholders. More than a fifth of Africans, 239 million, are undernourished.

A country like Ghana, heavily dependent on agriculture, imports 70% of its rice, a main staple, mostly from Asia. Given dramatic weather fluctuations, the country is increasingly vulnerable to huge price spikes. Yet there is ample opportunity to build systems and markets that enable domestic production for domestic markets.

One of our first investments in West Africa is in GADCO, a company that focuses on improving smallholder farmer livelihoods by commanding the full agricultural value chain from farmer to domestic sales. GADCO is innovating in several ways. First, the company, founded by entrepreneurs Iggy Bassi and Toks Abimbola, has leased formerly unproductive land from the Fievie clan in Sogakope, a part of Ghana’s Volta region. Because the land is located in potential swampland alongside the mighty Volta River, the community had not seen its value for rice production, and so the land lay fallow. To begin operations, GADCO has brought the best in technology and expertise from Brazil to develop the land and infrastructure. The community benefits from rice production as it receives a revenue share from the company and also plays an advisory role, meeting with company leadership on a regular basis.

After one harvest, GADCO’s farm is one of the largest rice producers in Ghana, bringing high quality rice to domestic markets. With the community’s first revenue share, it is establishing a school feeding program for its students.

GADCO also plans to start a smallholder farmer program to provide skills and enhance income levels of community residents who are mostly subsistence farmers. This will entail significant training, organizing, and learning to become a model supporting community residents, strengthening local development and enabling the company to emerge as one of the strongest producers in the region. Though it will not be easy, we believe GADCO can bring much to the discussion of models for a new capitalism.

We see similar power in Medeem, a private company founded by Craig DeRoy, former CEO of First American Corporation, a Fortune 500 company. With the aim of providing affordable land documentation services, Medeem’s unique ParcelCert™ product is targeted toward solving the longstanding issue of lack of security of land tenure. The company got off to a strong start this year, documenting 1400 properties in the country, and has ambitious plans to grow. Already, other countries are interested in their process, approach, and pricing – as everyone who understands Africa understands how paramount land title is to the continent’s future.

And so we begin in West Africa. Our vision is for each regional office to move toward greater independence and accountability while being linked to the global community through mutual bonds of respect, knowledge sharing, and support. And we couldn’t be more excited.

Indeed, 2012 is already emerging as a watershed year. In addition to launching West Africa, we are exploring new geographies based on local philanthropic funding raised, the pipeline of entrepreneurial opportunities in place, and the existence of an engaged business community willing to support our patient capital approach. We also plan to launch our next Regional Fellows program in Pakistan and will bring on a second class of East Africa Fellows, supported by JS Bank in Pakistan and KCB Bank in East Africa, respectively, with the ongoing support of the Edmond de Rothschild Foundations. Our portfolio is growing and we will focus even more on managing for value and impact. Sasha Dichter is now leading our efforts to strengthen our work in leadership, metrics, and learning from our portfolios, with the goal of investing wholeheartedly in ideas that we believe can change the way the world tackles poverty.

When preparing for the West Africa launch, I came across the following quote by Ghana’s founding President, Kwame Nkrumah. He stated in his Christmas Eve address in 1957:

“We shall measure our progress by the improvement in the health of our people; by the number of children in school, and by the quality of their education; by the availability of water and electricity in our towns and villages, and by the happiness which our people take in being able to manage their own affairs. The welfare of our people is our chief pride, and it is by this our Government will ask to be judged.”

In this, President Nkrumah could have written Acumen Fund’s mission statement. We cannot and must not allow ourselves to be controlled by capital but must instead control it as a tool to better humankind. We aim to build a global community of companies and individuals with a shared vision of a single world in which all may flourish and we will not stop until we have succeeded. Thank you, always, for being a part of it.

With hope and optimism,

Jacqueline

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Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder and CEO of Acumen Fund.

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A New Movement in Philanthropy

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Candidates for the Acumen Fund East Africa Fellows Program

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on Blair Miller’s blog on February 5, 2012

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I have spent the majority of my professional career working in emerging markets and one of the reasons I love what I do is because I know I am on the cutting edge of innovation.  Every time I go to Kenya, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, or South Africa, I am fascinated and energized by the amount of innovation coming out of these regions.  My late mentor C.K. Prahalad deeply understood this and it is captured in his paper The Innovation Sandbox.   But C.K. is certainly not alone.  Mckinsey recently published the report entitled “Lions on the Move” about the huge market potential and innovation coming out of the African continent.  And there is an incredible Ted Talk on the hot bed of innovations in India. I could go on and on and if you spend time in these regions you know exactly what I am talking about.

But, my recent excitement is not only about business model innovation it is about philanthropic innovation.  Due to the rise in income in many individuals in these regions a group of philanthropists are emerging, mostly business leaders, who are developing new models of philanthropy and innovating in exciting ways.  Please note: I don’t want to discount that philanthropy has always been a part of these economies, as the majority of people do give back on a daily basis, in particular to their home communities (I highlight this in a recent blog about my trip to Nigeria).  But, I do believe something different is happening.

To put this in perspective, some examples I have seen are the MTN Foundation (creating a very strategic model for CSR with real metrics) and The Tony Elumelu Foundation (focusing on impact investing and human capital) based in Nigeria, the Praekelt Foundation (leveraging mobile technology to improve health outcomes in Africa) based in South Africa, and Nilekani ID Project based in India (here is a great article on this rising phenomenon in India).

What makes these philanthropists and their models unique is that they deeply know their markets (compared to many outside philanthropists or foundations) and, in addition, many of these leaders are one or two generations out of poverty which allows them to personally understand development and the limitations of traditional aid. In fact, many of these leaders are favoring trade vs. aid.  See Ngozi Okonjo Iweala’s Ted talk and check out Dambisa Moyo’s book “Dead Aid”).

There must be a movement to build more partnerships between western donors and non-profits and local philanthropists and foundations, as there are shared learnings that these collaborations can create.  We have experienced this first hand in the Acumen Fund Regional Fellows Programs (East Africa, India, Pakistan, and West Africa).  We have committed to raising the majority of capital for these programs locally and over the long term our plan is that all of this capital will come from local sources.  In order to do this, we found an amazing partnership with the Edmond De Rothschild Foundations whose global capital was able to galvanize and compliment the support of local capital.  As a result, the Regional Fellows Program was launched in partnership with the Edmond De Rothschild Foundations and Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB).   Working with KCB and Rothschild has taught us a tremendous amount around global and local collaborations, using culturally relevant language, and leveraging a local and global brand to build local credibility and networks.  This experience has made us recognize that non-profits have to not only be willing to listen to the poor in the regions in which they work but also listen to the wealthy.  These collaborative partnerships will ask us to iterate on our models and develop new ones.  This is hard but, speaking from experience, I know our program in East Africa would not be what it is today without the synergy between Acumen Fund, KCB, and Rothschild.

So as this emerging market philanthropic movement takes place Western philanthropists and non-profits must take advantage of this opportunity to grow and learn by forging partnerships and raising local capital.  These types of collaborations have the opportunity to unlock scalable new models for social change that truly represent the global community we all imagine.

Blair Miller is focused on developing Acumen Fund’s work in leadership, and she leads all of Acumen Fund’s Fellows programs including our flagship Global Fellows Program and our expanded regional Fellows programs which operate in East Africa today and will soon operate in all of Acumen Fund’s geographies. Blair holds an MBA from the University of Michigan and a BA from the University of Virginia. Follow her on Twitter @_BlairMiller.

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Notes from East Africa: No More Time Outs from Poverty

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

Sometime last year, a friend invited me to one of Jacqueline Novogratz’s talks in Kibera, one of Africa’s largest slums. He described her as a cool woman who had written a book on poverty. I declined the invite.

I was so broke, and feeling so poor that I was not ready to have yet another author come tell me what poverty is like.  He later offered me a copy of The Blue Sweater, which despite my love for books, I refused to read. I was in a place where just any book on poverty wouldn’t do, unless it was a certified manual on how to get out of it.

Weeks later, I was sitting in a friend’s office and there on the table I saw The Blue Sweater. I picked it up to pass the time, but it took only a few minutes to realize I was wrong about the book and the author. I read it earnestly, and reflected on its wisdom. One quote in particular stuck out to me: “Poverty won’t let you to raise your head, but dignity won’t let you bow it either.”

This was the second time I had an “Aha moment” due to the word dignity. This time around it was much deeper; it was dignity in relation to poverty, something I could relate to just too well. I noted the quote in my journal, appended it to my email signature and promised myself two things: first, that I would live by this mantra, and second, that I would one day meet this woman, give her a hug, and apologize for blowing off a chance to meet her in Kibera.

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Later I learned about the Acumen Fund East Africa Fellows Program. The Program is a platform to actualize dreams of building a better East Africa through investing in a new type of leader. While I am usually reserved and shy, I thought that if I linked myself with people doing remarkable things, like the Acumen Fund Global Fellows featured on their website and the characters I read about in The Blue Sweater, then I would have the guts to do something amazing too. And of course it did present a chance to meet Jacqueline.  I did not dare mention this second reason in my application as I couldn’t take the risk of having the application marked as fan mail.

Fast forward to today – I was selected as an Acumen Fund East Africa Fellow for my work with the Living in Shanty Towns (LIST) Initiative, and I got my chance to meet Jacqueline, give her a hug, and apologize for blowing her off. The past couple of months of the Fellowship have been incredible. There have been moments of learning, courageous conversations, and reflections with self, with each other, and with the great, historical writers and thinkers that we read and discussed during the “Good Society” seminar. There have been moments getting off the dance floor and into the balcony for a critical look at ourselves and our projects.

It is truly an amazing cohort with an extraordinary diversity of experiences. As one of the other East Africa Fellows, Johnson Kithendu, said: “Some of us have hands that haven’t touched poverty – went to some of the best schools in the World and had secure jobs, but quit to commit to social change – and some have touched and seen poverty and lived it first hand – yet all have the same urgency to lead a life of service and to create a better society.” We share a promise of upholding the dignity of the world’s poorest by providing clean energy to off-grid communities, asset finance to small holder farmers, affordable irrigation pumps, effective micro credit, and by helping farmers add value to their products and create a sustainable life based on farming. Here we have all dared to try to make a better East Africa – and while some may fail in the process, we hope we will have the courage to pick ourselves up and try again.

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I was born and bred in Kibera, and like many other “slum dwellers” (I so hate this phrase), I have been a beneficiary of many youth empowerment and poverty alleviation programs. Sadly, most of them have not had a real impact on our lives – and at times – they have left us worse off. One such project remains ingrained in my mind. It was a youth empowerment project with enough resources, lots of good will, and a near-perfect design. The beauty of this particular effort was that unlike other aid projects, it was scalable and had the potential of impacting hundreds of slum dwellers by way of creating jobs and low cost housing.

Despite great promise, much of this didn’t happen. But, we did get chauffeured around, have good food, interact with different people, and dreamed a bit about an escape from the drudgery of slum life for a while. I am not saying this break was a wholly negative experience; it meant a lot to many of us. But from hundreds of such projects, all that the people in need seem to get is a time out from poverty, and not a real chance to break out of poverty. In most cases the time out lasts to the end of the project cycle.

Why didn’t this project work? I can’t really tell. To the outside world, the project has been featured as a successful one. I do know the 300 beneficiaries gave it their all too, but our lives haven’t changed much as a result.

I am now working in the aid industry, a matter of choice, implementing a Youth Empowerment Project targeting 1,200 youths. A third of these youth will be drawn from my home neighborhood. The organization funding it and employing me to implement it is credible, and has been working with poor communities for forty years and counting. Yet, deep down I fear this project, like so many others, may not have a real impact. This fear has motivated me to call for courageous conversations, to become accountable, and to look hard at the impact we can show for so many long hours of work.

Despite the many failed efforts by poverty alleviation projects, I earnestly believe there is another way in which we can create a world beyond poverty – a world in which every human being lives a dignified life. Poverty assaults that dignity, and it beckons the good will of others to help those in need to not bow their heads down. I will keep my head lifted, and though I may not yet be sure of how to break the cycle of poverty yet, I am sure that I can’t take any more time outs from it.

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Pauline Wanja is an Acumen Fund East Africa Fellow in the Class of 2011-12. Pauline is the Co- Founder & Executive Director of the LIST (Living In Shanty Towns) Initiative, which aims to unify young people living in informal settlements and prepare them for a productive and dignified adulthood and together work toward personal, social, economic and political justice.

The Acumen Fund East Africa Fellows Program is made possible through the sponsorship of KCB Foundation and the Edmond de Rothschild Foundations.

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And at once I knew I was not magnificent

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

In stating the objectives of the East Africa Fellows Program (EAFP), Acumen Fund talks about creating “a world populated by leaders with the audacity to dream, the operational skills to execute, and the moral fiber to act as beacons of justice in an otherwise unjust world.”  Our second seminar focused on the question of moral fiber/moral imagination, and Hugh O’Doherty of Cambridge Leadership Associates walked us through what adaptive leadership looks like and how we can apply it to the contexts in which we are working.

If you’re truly passionate about what you do, it consumes you from the inside out.  If you’re fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on what’s happened that particular day) enough to be able to create your own space in which to push for social change, you will work harder towards that goal than you’ve ever worked in your life.  You will give it all that you have, and all that you are; and that sacrifice will eventually take its toll on you.  “When there’s nothing left to burn, you must set yourself on fire.”

Since we became Fellows, we’ve been congratulated for our achievements, and we’ve expended time and energy trying to prove our worth. This past seminar, however, was – to our surprise – about shining a light on the cracks in the armour. Our facilitator did an amazing, if not occasionally discomforting, job of getting us to talk about our weakest spots (thank you, Hugh!). With many weak spots identified, at some point there was a running joke about Acumen Fund needing to seriously reconsider their selection process if these are the people who are meant to be the future of East Africa.

There’s a line from my favourite Bon Iver song, Holocene, that goes, “And at once I knew I was not magnificent.” If ever I was acutely aware of my own lack of magnificence, it was during this last seminar for the East Africa Fellows, away in a forest with the rest of the Fellows’ cohort. In light of all this, I came out of the seminar with 2 clear opinions:

1)  I have nothing but the highest respect for the 18 other Fellows, who have made this incredible commitment to follow their callings in the face of occasionally overwhelming evidence that the risk-free road is the one that will yield higher returns. They stick it out, they make it work, they excel.  They inspire me beyond what I can express. I salute them, and I am awed and humbled to spend a year learning from them.

    2)  There is strength in community, in the space to be able to talk freely and openly about the stuff that’s not-so-pretty with people who truly empathize with what you’re going through because it’s a part of their reality as well. To anyone who’s looking to spearhead work in the social sector I say this: don’t do it alone. Find a like-minded community that will hold you up (and kick you in the rear when necessary) – all in the pursuit of making you better at what you seek to do.  For this opportunity to have this community, I salute Acumen Fund.

    From Alain de Botton’s ‘The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work’:

    “For the rest of history, for most of us, our bright promise will always fall short of being actualized; it will never earn us bountiful sums of money or beget exemplary objects or organizations. It will remain no more than a hope carried over from childhood, or a dream entertained as we drive along the motorway and feel our plans hovering above a wide horizon. Extraordinary resilience, intelligence and good fortune are needed to redraw the map of our reality, while on either side of the summits of greatness are arrayed the endless foothills populated by the tortured celibates of achievement.

    Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet demonstrably on the wrong side of the line… We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle.”

    Here’s to the people who opt out of the path of “most of us,” no matter the cost.  Here’s to some of the most incredible people I know, and to those who will be inspired to follow them.

    Rachel Gichinga is an Acumen Fund East Africa Fellow in the Class of 2011-12. She is the Co-Founder of Kuweni Serious, which is an online platform that focuses on creating a corps of everyday changemakers among young, educated, middle class Kenyans.

    The Acumen Fund East Africa Fellows Program is made possible through the sponsorship of KCB Foundation and the Edmond de Rothschild Foundations

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