AFRICAPITALISM: ENABLING THE AFRICAN VALUES OF KWANZA & UBUNTU PHILOSOPHY.

AFRICAPITALISM: ENABLING THE AFRICAN VALUES OF KWANZA & UBUNTU PHILOSOPHY.

© 2018                     CHIBU NDUBUISI            13/10/2018   WEEK 41

“what rescues a nation is not weapons but ideas” . Jonathan Sacks

Peace be upon you.

As entrepreneurs converge to celebrate and network, I would like to make this ample contribution to the discourse of entrepreneurship. Africapitalism seeks to ask critical questions like, what do I need from Africa? And what does Africa needs from me? It is an idea of Africa's cohesion and consolidation devoid of needless fragmentation, polarization and alienation.

  In a Personal Introduction by Tony Elumelu” he posited that:

“Africa is capitalism’s final frontier, and as such it offers boundless economic opportunity — not just for investors and entrepreneurs to build successful businesses, but also for economic growth to solve many of the continent’s most pressing social challenges. That is the heart of Africapitalism: long-term investment that creates economic prosperity (a commercial objective), as well as social wealth — a private sector approach to solving some of Africa’s most intractable development problems”.

Africapitalism is an economic conceptualization, a mode of economic expression and a source of economic ideology. As a form of conceptualization, it shapes the way in which people look at Africa by understanding the nature of its culture and how to build it up through economic participation. It is about enabling network of relationships already fractured and creating new set of values that we all share.

                     AFRICAPITALISM PRINCIPLES

Tony Elumelu list Africapitalism principles as

1.     Setting the stage for a new mindset in Africa where our economic renaissance is internally driven by our energetic and enterprising youth.

2.    Government enabling support and incentives that encourage long term private investments.

3.    Entrepreneurship

4.    Long term investments in strategic sectors such as power, transportation, infrastructure, etc.

5.    Local Value creation through intra-Africa processing of our raw materials

6.    Empowering entrepreneurs (who form a key segment of Africa’s private sector) to play a more pronounced role in the continent’s socio-economic advancement.

7.    On philanthropy, committing resources towards empowering the next generation of African Entrepreneurs that will transform Africa for good.

                 KWANZA PRINCIPLES

Maulana Karenga(1966), Kwanzaa is a unique African American celebration with focus on the traditional African values of family, community responsibility, commerce, and self-improvement. Kwanzaa, means "first fruits of the harvest" in the African language Swahili. Kwanzaa is based on the Nguzo Saba (seven guiding principles), which are;

·         Umoja (oo-MO-jah) Unity stresses the importance of togetherness for the family and the community, which is reflected in the African saying, "I am We," or "I am because We are."

·         Kujichagulia (koo-gee-cha-goo-LEE-yah) Self-Determination requires that we define our common interests and make decisions that are in the best interest of our family and community.

·         Ujima (oo-GEE-mah) Collective Work and Responsibility reminds us of our obligation to the past, present and future, and that we have a role to play in the community, society, and world.

·         Ujamaa (oo-JAH-mah) Cooperative economics emphasizes our collective economic strength and encourages us to meet common needs through mutual support. Nia (NEE-yah) Purpose encourages us to look within ourselves and to set personal goals that are beneficial to the community.

·         Kuumba (koo-OOM-bah) Creativity makes use of our creative energies to build and maintain a strong and vibrant community.

·         Imani (ee-MAH-nee) Faith focuses on honoring the best of our traditions, draws upon the best in ourselves, and helps us strive for a higher level of life for humankind, by affirming our self-worth and confidence in our ability to succeed and triumph in righteous struggle.

UBUNTU PHILOSOPHY

According to sociolinguist Buntu Mfenyana, Ubuntu “runs through the veins of all Africans, is embodied in the often-repeated saying that: “A person is a person through other people” that we are first and foremost social beings, or as the African proverb says “One finger cannot pick up a grain.” Ubuntu is, at the same time, a deeply personal philosophy that calls on us to mirror our humanity for each other. To the observer, Ubuntu can be seen and felt in the spirit of willing participation, unquestioning cooperation, warmth, openness, and personal dignity for all. William E. Flippin, (2012)

The idea is about Africans not seeing Africa as a stranger continent. It is about relaying the foundations by working to put the pieces of broken continent back together again. It is about leveraging on a network of relationship from the micro to macro. The family, community and nation by making everyone come up as a builder. It is a philosophy of “we the people” rather than “I the person” it is a philosophy that negates the Darwin ideology of only the strong surviving. Jonathan Sacks(2015) writes that “civilization works at the level of the group we may pass our genes as individual but we survive collectively”.

AFRICAPITALISM AND ECONOMIC NETWORK BUILDING IN AFRICA

An economic network consists of individuals, groups, organizations, communities or entire nations that work with one another to benefit all of the networks members, Leveraging all the members’ competitive advantages, assets and resources, the economic network aims to increase the capacity for production and economic growth of its members collectively. This is what Africapitalism is trying to build with its emphasis on creation of social wealth from networks of relationship for stakeholders and shareholders alike. Cross border investments are part of the larger constituents of Africapitalism. Tony Elumelu (2017).

THE SOCIAL CAPITAL OR SOCIAL NETWORK THEORY argues that entrepreneurs are embedded in a larger social network structure that constitutes a significant proportions of their opportunity structure (clausen 2006). Shane &  Eckhardt(2003), argues that an individual may have the ability to recognize that a given entrepreneurial opportunity exist, but might lack the social connection to transform the opportunities into a business startup. It is thought that access to a larger social network might help overcome this problem. Africapitalism position of social wealth creation is validated. Davidson P., Honing ( 2003).  

Steven Barboza(2012) posited that Africapitalism drives entrepreneurship in these ways.

• Bottom-up. Traditional development models are often top-down. Entrepreneurship is a bottom-up approach to economic growth and development, focusing on empowering the individuals not just institutions.

• Homegrown solutions. At the micro-level, entrepreneurship empowers individuals to decide how best to improve their own economic circumstances. At the macro-level, it is the expression of African solutions to African economic problems.

• Self-reliance. Africa’s large and growing population of young people means millions of new jobs need to be created each year. This demographic explosion can spell an economic boom or doom for the continent. Governments and big corporates alone cannot provide employment for the millions of young Africans entering the job market every year.

• Competitiveness. Supporting entrepreneurship means creating policies that improve the enabling environment for millions of potential job creators to succeed rather than for a small number of government or private entities.

• Empowerment. Entrepreneurship means Africans no longer have to find a job or be trained to be employees. Instead, it will enable our young people to create their own jobs, become employers, and take charge of their futures, instead of letting the future happen to them. 

Central to the five points above is the fact of meaningful engagement of the youth in productive ventures.
 

Osalor P (2015) writes that the illiterates of the 21^st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot unlearn and relearn. He further explained that the present times have shown over time that the global arena is blind to your credentials but is wealth creating slaves to your skills and abilities.

Entrepreneurship simply put is the bedrock of a nation’s path to industrialization. Leveraging on becoming a “learning economy” as Calestous  Juma(2017) puts it,will lead to “brain gain” rather than brain drain.

 

Harvard Kennedy School tweeted that “Empowerment begins with Knowledge. But what you do with that knowledge is what actually affects people’s lives”. Africapitalism is not the only solution to the continents numerous problems but it is a contribution to how the power of entrepreneurship can lead to productive living.. 

Africapitalism is a narrative on “Afropragmatic” or “Afrorealistic” vision on how to follow the “road less travelled” which always makes the difference.

 

Jonathan Sacks (2011) writes that “the wealth of nations depends more than economics. It depends on the degree to which a culture teaches us to act today for the blessings of tomorrow”. 

Peace be with you

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