Wealth Creation
Strategies for the Poor:
An African Perspective
Mandivamba RukuniDirector, Wisdom Afrika Leadership Academy
Keynote address at the Round Table Conference on “Post-Crisis Zimbabwe: Towards Poverty Focused Reconstruction and Development” Organized by the Brooks World Poverty Institute Manchester University & University of Zimbabwe Held at the Wild Geese Lodge. 25-26 August 2009. Harare. Zimbabwe
THE GENERAL THEORY ON AN AFRIKAN RENAISSANCE
Defining the Problem
• Afrikan society declining in all major areas:– Culture and Social life; Economics and Business; an d Politics and
Governance
• What is the highest order causal problem?– No CULTURAL FOUNDATION to Modernization Strategies– Foundation was STRONG FAMILIES and STRONG COMMUNITIES
– LACK OF CONFIDENCE!!
• The 3 major corrosive agents on Afrikan Culture & Confidence are:– Organized Politics; Formal Education; Organized Rel igions
THE GENERAL THEORY ON AN AFRIKAN RENAISSANCE
Defining the Solution• BE AFRIKAN -- Cultural renaissance for
advancement of Afrikan Society• Rebuild Strong Families and Strong
Communities• MODERNIZE not WESTERNIZE• Propel Afrikans, and Afrikan culture into
global impact• Apply Afrikan Philosophies and Values
locally globally in the 21st Century
The Zimbabwe I want
• Culture– Belief in education (quality and relevance)– Hard work– Saving and investment– Collective responsibility– Peace loving
• Society– Strong families (looking after own orphans and
elderly)– Strong communities (capable of addressing most
local issues)
The Zimbabwe I want
• Business/Economics– Small/medium family farms and businesses
– Small firms aggregating into large industries– Heritage products
• Politics/Governance– Highly decentralised
– Constitution clear on party values code of conduct
– Role to strengthen families and communities
What is poverty?
• Physical poverty –– rely on things you do not produce
– produce things you do not rely on– You are eroding your asset base
• Intellectual poverty – You do not value nor leverage your own knowledge
• Spiritual poverty – reduced sense of identity, belonging and self-worth
Poverty is a lack of access to power
Sources of Power
• Violence• Organised ideology- politics, religion
• Money• Knowledge• Love
Post-Conflict Zimbabwe• Global Political Agreement (GPA)
– Western paradigm- dysfunctional relationship
– Afrikan paradigm- crafting a robust relationship
• Government of National Unity (GNU)– Short Term Emergency Recovery Program
(STERP)– Government Clusters (Economic, Infrastructure,
Social, Rights & Interests; Security)
• From STERP to Medium Term Planning
Post Conflict Zimbabwethe burning issues
• National healing– Framework
– Forgiveness versus truth
• Constitution– Process– content
• Land– Audit, Tenure, compensation
Food Security
• Poverty is the major cause of food insecurity; hunger; and malnutrition. – major contributor to escalating land conflicts in Africa– as well as environmental degradation.
• Economic development- long term solution to poverty– But food insecurity in the short term, governments have to
provide safety nets for the vulnerable groups. • Zimbabwe needs to be food secure at three levels:
– household level; national level; and regional level. – Food security defined as a balance between food
availability on one hand and access to food on the other.
Zimbabwe needs a comprehensive food security policy and strategy
• Food Availability Strategies:– production; – storage; – Imports; and – appropriate food aid
• Food access strategies should include:– Livelihood strategies -capacity of poor to grow or purchase own
food;– income generating activities; – food transfer programmes to vulnerable groups
• (e.g. supplemental feeding of school children and pregnant women at clinics);
– public works programmes such as food for work programmes.
Agricultural Renaissance
• Economic growth- preceded/accompanied by solid agricultural growth.
• Paves way for broad-based economic development• Zimbabwe cannot jump this stage of development• As economy develops role of agriculture evolves
– But continues to be important and backbone at every stage
• Quality of life depends on forms of agriculture – healthy nutrition, clean air and water, protection of n ature.
Role of agriculture in Economic Development
• Adequate & affordable food for increasing populations.
• Supply raw materials to growing and diversifying domestic industrial sectors.
• Releasing labor for the growing industrial sector.
• Enlarging the size of an effective market for the products
• Providing employment and livelihoods• Domestic savings for investment and capital
formation.
Sustainable Rural development
• Premature Rural to Urban migration Most have no – Jobs; housing; life and economic skills to be gainfully employed in urban areas.
• Urban poverty and decay increases:– as the over-stretched infrastructure breeds ill health, crime and breakdown of
family structures.
• Young adults migrate, draining rural areas of energy and creative force
• Majority rural but political power urban• This rural-urban crisis decays both rural and urban areas • Rural development in Africa requires investing in people where they
are– so that rural families and communities are part of the mainstream economy and
enlightened society.
Strategies for Sustainable Poverty Reduction
• Re-build SOCIAL CAPITAL
• Rebuild ECONOMIC CAPITAL
Social CapitalInvest directly into people
• Rural institutions and structures– leadership and governance; – active and responsive citizens – Invest in people directly holistic and integrated education and public
health. • social and cultural investments –building self-confidence & life
skills• The Poor have to believe-
– once again that they are the architects of their own history. – as their ancestors before them, that they need not wait for Governments
and Donors to save them from poverty, but that change will start with them.
– Any Poverty-reduction strategy has to be built on this belief. • All poverty programs have to answer one over-arching question:
“How does this project build on the capacity and con fidence of these poor people?”
CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE AND SOCIETIES
• High levels of CONFIDENCE– Strong cultural and family background– Self-belief and self-reliance– Stamina
• BOLDNESS• They can take calculated risks• They do not hesitate
• High levels of SAVINGS and INVESTMENT• AMBITION
– Set themselves high targets– Think big, Think positive
• LEARN fast!!– Challenge themselves– Have fun
• A degree of CALLOUSNESS and/or RUTHLESSNESS
How do you create wealth?
• Add value – to what you have or what you produce
• Get your assets to work for you
Wealth creating strategies at community level
• Build physical and biological assets (ABCD)– Improved quality of trees, herbs, animals etc.,
– roads, wells, grain bins, improved houses
• Circulate local products and services– Family businesses– Use extended family as business model– local exchange of goods and services
Wealth creation strategies at community level-- cont
• Refuse to be a dog– Start own business, projects– Do not work for someone else after a certain age
• Bequeath life and survival skills to your children– Food production and preservation– Home improvement– Project management
• Transmute problems and challenges to business opportunities– Cultural industries and cottage industries most
lucrative business in future
Wealth creation strategies at community level-- cont
• Family and community food security– Availability of food determines ability to
create new wealth– Develop practical and holistic strategies– Harvest and/or sell some product at each
period in the year (as opposed to feast to famine syndrome)
Modernize and secure traditional land tenure rights:Basket of Rights
• Use • Transfer• Exclude/include• enforce
Self-drive mindset-The sustainable answer to poverty
• Model tested in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe
• In Zimbabwe tested in two sites:– Mhakwe Ward in Chimanimani
– Masendu Ward in Bulilima
Self-drive mindset:enables both individuals and communities to
• Find answers that lie from within• Generate own plans and visions that
articulate an attractive future.• Self-organize to accomplish these plans
and vision.• Demonstrate the confidence to hold their
own in interactions with peers and the powerful.
Self-drive mindset:enables both individuals and communities to
• Ability to recognize and use opportunity and manage conflict and change.
• Change in self-understanding.• Ability to initiate changes in deep-rooted
traditional practices and beliefs.• Ability to question and interrogate
Self drive mindset
• Individuals and communities develop their capacity for “self drive” and civic participation– taking initiative and engaging with outsiders.– believe in themselves & their ability to shape the future– driven by their own aspirations.
• They learn to think and act– In integrative manner at local level – in different, shared, aligned and comprehensive ways.
• These behaviors become reinforced as their actions create positive results.
3 levels of applying knowledge for transformation
• Level 1 - Improvement Change• Level 2 - Intelligent Copying and
Borrowing Change • Level 3 - Self-Drive Mindset Change
Level 1 - Improvement Changedevelopment of African rural communities by:
• Upgrading what they have indigenous and local systems
• Introducing grassroots community projects designed to achieve high impact and diffusion.
• Moving them to recognise and learn from their known achievements.
Level 2 –Change through Intelligent Copying and Borrowing
• Copying and borrowing from elsewhere what is useful to their communities
• Benchmarking to ensure intelligent borrowing from global systems, e.g. benchmarking best practices
Level 3 - Self -Drive Mindset Change
• This level entails a paradigm shift for rural communities
• Courage to leap from the known into the discomfort of the unknown future
• The ability to see the world anew, so as to develop creative and innovative solutions
Level 3 - Self-Drive MindsetCONT’
• The self-confidence and reflection to accelerate the development of African communities
• The ability to develop revolutionary break through ideas on development challenges
• The ability to improvise and experiment with new development ideas to re-write the rules of human progress, thereby creating a new self-drive mindset/worldview
THE KNOWLEDGE GAP IN AFRICA• Africans no longer value own knowledge
– Knowledge substantial, but not explicit nor propagated widely. Therefore African knowledge not sufficiently recognized and valued at home or globally.
• Conspiracy of Silence– indigenous and local people require a certain level of
trust before sharing their knowledge • Power relationships
– which are part of the struggle for development, can be changed by individuals and communities valuing their own knowledge and that of others.
Knowledge gap’
• Development knowledge remains oral– remains informal, and insufficiently
disseminated. As a consequence the voice and perspective of rural communities is insufficiently included in policymaking and planning.
• African communities need to be more strategic– in making use of other systematic knowledge in
order to compare, combine, and advance ideas.
Feminine leadership is the highest form of leadership
• Women have more Wisdom , Spirit , Courage
• Women are the original educators & spiritual leaders
• Women rely on deeper forms of power– Knowledge– Love
• The humblest are ultimately the strongest
How can Afrikan universities reinvent self? - some insights to keep in mind..
• Small Family businesses is the way forward
• We need a rural middle class majority not urban working class majority
• We have to re-invent rural family education:– culture, language, religion, business, politics
and governance, etc
• We have to re-build self-drive and self-confidence back into the rural Afrikans
Need for alternative education
• Formal education systems not relevant to society challenges and needs
• Irrelevant to ordinary peoples’ day to day lives.
• Holistic education is basically family and community education
• To develop the whole human being throughout their life.
Barefoot ‘holistic’ education
• Builds a person who is consciously and proudly Afrikan yet worldly.
• Focus on current society’s realities, and engage with the desirable Afrikan society.
• Priority on individual, family, community. • Learning becomes, once more, a way of life.• learners lead a purposeful life all the time.
Holistic ‘barefoot’ education• Learning to be human• Learning to belong• Learning to know and learning how to learn• Learning to do• Learning to live together • Learning to create, recreate and to transform• Learning to connect, interconnect
• Leads to: peace; prosperity; freedom; happiness; and love
Barefoot “holistic” education
• The Model aims at modernizing Afrika, not Westernizing Afrika.
• The primary ingredient for successful learning is rebuilding self-confidence of Afrikans–
• Confidence in their culture, historical heritage, as well as valuing their traditional knowledge.
Barefoot education–need for alternative education given the limitations of formal education
• Education for self discovery and self employment.
• Great employees because they are educated to;– keep a positive attitude in life, and to be
higher achievers, problem solvers, and generally self-motivated.
Transforming Afrikan society from roots up Foundation curriculum: Learn how to:
• self-organize; • mobilize self and others; • create social capital; • create wealth; • Self-start, self-assess, self-correct; • articulate; communicate, dialogue;
negotiate;• resolve conflicts; interrogate issues;• challenge convention when necessary;
Transforming Afrikan society from roots up Foundation curriculum: Learn how to:
• engage others; • borrow knowledge and ideas intelligently;• run and organize own affairs; • manage family affairs; • manage community affairs; • be an effective community, national and
global citizen; and • work with and appreciate other cultures.
Barefoot education is aboutCULTURAL REVIVAL FOR AFRICA’S RENEWAL
• Culture is way of life with its beliefs, customs, and accepted ways of relating and working with others.
• So development is really about re-crafting culture to meet evolving needs and challenges.
• That is why there is need for cultural revival before we can achieve Afrika’s renewal in a sustainable way.
Barefoot education is a radical and revolutionary
• Restoring learning as a cultural process, learning as a way of life.
• Restore learning in mother tongue .
• No formal entry qualifications
Barefoot education is about commitment
• Learners play major role in their learning processes.
• Learners expected to give back to their families and communities.
• They undertake several family and community projects.
• They also offer free time to help others in the family and community
African Dilemma
• Does democracy lead to development?• Or does development lead to democracy?• What is the relationship between the two?• Sacredness of property rights and free
enterprise wont automatically function for democracy where majority do not have any property to defend
• So the question for Africa has always been: After attaining political freedom– how do you convert this to economic freedom for our people?
The African Legacy
• Africa will rebuild its society on the basis of its historical strength and reliance on family and community structures.
• Rural economic development will ultimately depend on strong and effective rural institutions and empowered communities.
• Issues of agriculture and natural resource management, therefore, are to be more firmly integrated into issues of politics, democracy, and good governance.
• Agricultural growth and the efficient management of natural resources depend on the political, legal and administrative capabilities of rural communities to determine their own future.
• Restoration of this power (participatory democracy) is translated into secure land rights, efficiently managed common property and resources, empowered rural people, particularly women, and strengthened rural economic institutions.
The African Dream
• All Africans deserve to live in a country where there is abundant and affordable food, and that each African family has a home.
• These two components of the African Dream are a critical part of any African country’s comprehensive land reform policy.
• The practical implications of this is first that the policy has to be clear about how to attain food security and economic security by giving priority land access to the appropriate percentage of landholders who will deliver the economic part of the dream.
• Second is for the policy to have clear guidelines as to how the rest of citizens will access much smaller pieces of land for homes, both in urban and rural areas.
• This policy element should account for rural and urban landless and homeless; or potential landless and homeless.
Going back in order to move forward
• Our ancestors were smarter than us
• We are here to make new history
Modernize NOT Westernize
• You are all you have• Answers lie from within• The only truth is one you discover for
yourself• These are the highest values that create
wealth
Thank you to
BWPI&
Participants
