Magatte Wade with Michael Strong
As an African who has spent my adult professional life in the U.S., I am proud to say that I have never encountered racism here. I am, of course, even prouder of the U.S. for having elected Barack Obama, thus proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that a majority of U.S. voters care more about merit than they care about race. I truly believe that the U.S. has largely moved into a post-racial phase, and that in the future we will continue to move towards a world in which people love and celebrate racial and cultural differences. I look forward to bringing my children into such a world, one in which they will be celebrated for who they are.
Prior to living in the U.S., I was educated in France, and occasionally I would encounter some racism there, especially among older people. On one occasion I was visiting an elderly French woman, a relative of a white French boyfriend, who, when I arrived, whispered to him, "But what will I feed her? I don't have any bananas." She was well-intentioned but ignorant; good-hearted as she was, she confused black Africans with chimpanzees. What does one do if one doesn't have bananas to feed them?
On a brochure for a tour of Jeff Sachs' Millenium Village in Rwanda, managed by one of Sachs' Columbia University colleagues, Rule #1 is "Please do not give anything to the villagers -- no sweets, cookies, empty water bottles, pens or even money." While I'm sure the rule is well-intentioned, it captures perfectly the revolting condescension that I feel from the Millenium Villages project. Unlike the ignorant elderly woman, celebrated professors at Columbia University cannot be excused through their ignorance. When highly educated people can objectify us with a "Don't feed the animals" sign, the only explanation is a blinding arrogance. These people are so sure that they are noble for helping the ignorant chimps, that they hadn't even noticed just how humiliating the expression is.
Rule #1 goes on to explain the rationale for the rule, "Our desire is to encourage a culture of entrepreneurship and service provision rather than handouts." Again, I'm completely sympathetic to the encouragement of entrepreneurship, but the situation is entirely ludicrous -- American professors spending tens of millions of dollars telling villagers how they should live their lives, so that American tourists can go and watch the new feature at the zoo in which the African natives are doing just as they are told by the American experts -- with the careful warning to the tourists not to contaminate the zoo display by feeding the animals. This is how Sachs supports African entrepreneurship?
As an African entrepreneur living in the U.S., just over a year ago I was approached by a representative of the Millenium Villages project. As someone who cares about Africa and who is eager to eliminate African poverty through enterprise, I was happy to meet with this person to see what we might be able to do together. Imagine my surprise when, rather than propose some kind of professional business partnership, he expected me to open up my connections so that they could sell the agricultural and artisanal products being produced in their villages. First I was stunned by the fact that they had produced goods before thinking about how to market them, something a real entrepreneur never does. Second, as a successful entrepreneur, I had expertise in sales that could have been useful to them if they had been willing to consult me as a relevant expert. Instead they simply asked me to give them my sales contacts and offered to sell their products to my company -- neither of which was respectful of my entrepreneurial expertise nor me as a business person with a carefully cultivated reputation. I was being objectified as "The African businesswoman who will be grateful to work with Columbia University professors to end African poverty." There was no real understanding of or respect for my expertise as an entrepreneur.
In my first company, Adina World Beverages, I had spent years traveling to trade shows and retail stores in order to get our beverages into Whole Foods Market, Wegmans, and dozens of other high-end retailers. As a consequence of many thousands of miles and hundreds of hours of relationship building, I had gradually built up an effective network for selling our products. I had gotten our products into retailers by paying close attention to market trends as well as to the idiosyncrasies of various buyers both retail and wholesale. Moreover, even before hitting the pavement to sell product, I had designed the entire company concept based on a prior identification of a market niche that I believed I could fill. My success at selling on the ground was directly linked to my identification of a niche prior to creating the company. I knew that the cultural creative demographic would relate to both the product and story that I was promoting.
By contrast, Sachs had begun with a self-important "save the Africans" concept, obtained tens of millions in philanthropic donations for his projects ($50 million from Soros, $15 million from Gates, etc.) and then gone on to carry their White Man's Burden. Only after spending gobs of other people's money did it occur to them that "Oh, maybe we need to find a way to sell the products that we are encouraging our villagers to produce." I had seen this story before. When I began training Senegalese women to grow organic hibiscus and promised to buy it from them, initially they laughed at me, because countless NGOs had helped them grow hibiscus in the past, only to have it rot after harvest because there were no buyers for their product. The women were delighted to find that because I had, in fact, identified a niche and was an effective saleswoman, the hibiscus had found a market. But NGOs and academics rarely think in these terms.
When Sachs' colleague came to me expecting me to hand over my contacts, he did not bother to bring me product samples or to provide me with any evidence that their products were of sufficient quality that I would put my reputation on the line for the products. Nor did he provide any evidence that their organization was capable of executing on their operations in a sufficiently reliable manner that I would want to hand over my contacts to them. They simply expected that because they were from Columbia University, with celebrity cheerleaders and mountains of cash, that I should therefore be eager to open up my network for them. But why should I believe that Columbia University professors can manage a reliable supply chain?
As an entrepreneur a significant portion of my expertise is identifying appropriate products that meet my quality standards and are aligned with my products' branding. The notion that an NGO rep could show up at my doorstep and "offer" me products for which I should be grateful is both condescending as well as profoundly ignorant of how business really works. It is as if I had showed up at a Whole Foods Market and deigned to offer them my products, for which they should be grateful -- sorry, guys, producing and selling products is hard work, managing a global supply chain requires a great deal of management expertise, research and legwork, and is a tough game that one can never take for granted.
In addition, a portion of an entrepreneur's skill is, well, selling. Most academics and NGO types have no respect for nor appreciation of the art of selling. Living in a world without accountability, most of them simply don't understand it. If Sachs & Co. want to support African entrepreneurs, they should first learn to understand Africans as human beings, then to understand entrepreneurs as professionals with distinctive expertise, so that they can then become more effective at supporting real African entrepreneurs to create real businesses. There is something surreal about a group of famous, mostly white male, professors claiming that they know how to make Africans more entrepreneurial. Black Africa as learning laboratory for white academics in New York? Maybe they think they can learn more about how to make us Africans more entrepreneurial by telling the tourists coming to admire their work not to feed us sweets?
The Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo is receiving a great deal of attention for her recent book Dead Aid, in which she proposes that all government-to-government foreign aid to Africa should be stopped in the next five years. Jeff Sachs, the great aid advocate, has harshly criticized Moyo, believing that her proposal would result in great suffering.
While I am largely in agreement with Moyo's perspective, her great failing is that she does not offer realistic solutions, and is thus vulnerable to Sachs' attacks. The fact is that most African leaders abuse foreign aid (but not all; I support aid to Liberia due to the fact that I trust Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf more than I trust most African leaders). But Moyo does not focus adequately on African entrepreneurship and the way that Africans themselves need to step up to the plate. Aid has corrupted the African work ethic and encouraged a culture of corruption and manipulation, and we need to work together to identify and support the up-and-coming new Cheetah cohort of honest, hard-working Africans (in honor of Ghanaian economist George Ayittey's distinction between the older generation of Hippo rulers dependent on aid and the younger Cheetah generation of fast-moving entrepreneurs. Sachs, by the way, did not create the Cheetah generation. Indeed, he is ignoring us).
It enrages me that well-intentioned Americans, ranging from Hollywood celebrities, to academics such as Sachs, to philanthropists such as Soros and Gates, limit their focus on Africa largely to misguided advocacy for increased foreign aid. Rather than experiment on rural villagers in Rwanda (and in Senegal, my home country), I'd respect Sachs more if he supported real African entrepreneurs. Bono, to his credit, has moved beyond an advocacy of foreign aid to support trade through his DATA program (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa). I would like to see a new generation of caring Americans focus more on respectful collaboration with real African entrepreneurs to create great new businesses through investing in our companies, buying our products and services, selling products and services to us, and working with us as respected business equals. Poverty in Africa will be eliminated not by aid, but by entrepreneurial job creation, by real entrepreneurs creating scalable enterprises that will ultimately create millions of jobs. Despite Sachs' warning not to give us "sweets, cookies... or even money," you can, in fact, invest real money in real African entrepreneurs. In exchange, we'll supply you with great products and services because we Cheetahs are committed to excellence, to exchanging value for value rather than relying on handouts.
You might even enjoy joining us for a business lunch. Whether we buy the lunch or you buy, know that it is okay to buy a business lunch for a real African entrepreneur. And, by the way, we eat many things other than bananas ;).
Thanks for this, Magatte.
I agree with you, that nothing will ever achieved until the so called good-doers "focus more on respectful collaboration with real African entrepreneurs" key word being RESPECTFUL. Reducing poverty will NOT come solely from Sachs and Co, it'll come from us Africans and this is something that these well intentioned Americans NEED to fully and genuinely understand. Yes you can help us, but do it with the best intentions at heart and treat as equals - something i unfortunately have yet to see happen in Rwanda.
Again, excellent excellent article, Magatte! I applaud your hard work and efforts to put the truth out there.
There's a great deal to say about what you have written.
In short - well done - an excellent pithy piece - long overdue.
Don't take any notice of the flack coming from the learned professors who claim to understand Africa through projects such as the Millenium Villages project - as you have so clearly stated - they don't understand the concept of *working with* Africans to develop African solutions for African problems; they don't understand the concept of self-sustaining solutions; they never seem to understand that there is an immense skill set in Africa - like doing more with less and so on.
I've just come back from Rwanda - my second visit this year. I think there is much to admire about Rwanda with regard to its sense of self-determination.
Let's talk about NGOs. Having recently been in Kigali and Bujumbura II have never seen so many pristine white SUVs owned by so many NGOs doing so little. As a very highly placed official in Burundi told me - "the UN comes here for a rest and the NGOs for the lake".
Keep writing pieces like this.
TJC
Regarding the "no handouts" request: When I was in a national park in Rwanda a few years ago, during a tour run completely by Rwandans, we were also asked not to give any gifts, food or candy to children who might ask for it. There is a very good reason for this: Children should not be given an incentive to run after well-meaning tourists when they should be in school, or an expectation that they can and should depend on handouts from foreigners. This belief extends to all levels of Rwandan society.
Rwandans saw in 1994 that the rest of the world did not come to its aid even when hundreds of thousands were being murdered. In my experience, Rwandans are today extremely dedicated to developing their country so they will be able to be self-sufficient and not be dependent on outside aid of any kind.
But don't take my word for it. Ask them.
You can't fly in DC contractors to build national identity and national purpose. Aid may be useful, but not within a political or social vacuum.
There are better ways to use money to help countries. Paul Collier lays out some productive recommendations in his latest book: provision of security if free and fair elections are held being the main one. Certainly providing cheap vaccines and medication and nutrition is a good use of aid -- but Moyo doesn't dispute that. But how do these public goods get distributed? That's where aid falters -- aid is co-opted by those in power for personal gain...and this is a key weakness in Sachs' more-money Sirens call. It's like Sachs is still in denial that not everyone is a good-hearted saint.
Moyo I think has explained where she stands on aid very well, and the reason she's being attacked so much for it is because people are still under the belief that spending a lot of money to help developing nations is successful and unassailable and immoral -- all of which are highly dubious.
On the banana thing, couldn't it just be that the woman thought that Magatte's cultural diet was different? But no, that woman is maligned as thinking Africans are like chimpanzees, with no evidence offered to support such a perspective. To my mind she offers assessments that she doesn't back up.
There is a much higher ground to be taken than has been taken here. "Sachs had begun with a self-important 'save the Africans' concept", the authors wrote. Self-important? Who can be more self-important than the authors of this article? This commentary is as demagogic as anything Rush Limbaugh does. And I am sure it has persuaded the choir, but no one else. It is unfortunate that the focus of the article wasn't on informing and giving people a new vision.
the point is that the typical attitude taken towards foreign aid is not only condescending, but also counterproductive. i doubt that either of these claims is in question. certainly it is clear that foreign aid has not been effective in spite of its volume, hence it is necessary to reconsider the aid process to determine how it might be improved. this article is not meant as a source of information, but rather as a suggestion towards a revised attitude for a revised foreign aid effort.
anyways, i would hope that few readers are convinced by any single blog post, 'informational' or not. those who are further interested should take the time to research the subject and come to their own conclusions instead of expecting these blogs to be a series of essays. i think that magatte has offered a fresh, worthwhile perspective on how to develop our aid relationship with africa, but i will study further before deciding whether or not i agree with her assessments.
I once saw a gentleman who was blind because he had been bitten by a tsetse fly, if I recall correctly. He was waiting to cross a street at a US university. I came up to him and grabbed his arm to guide him across the street. He corrected me by telling me that the way to deal with a blind person is to let them grab your arm and they will follow you. So, without calling me condescending he respected my intent and told me what he needed. And we got along fine. Did he call me self-important, ignorant, or condescending? No he helped me and I helped him.
So perhaps a call should be made for working together without calling names and insulting those who give the resources. Perhaps those who give the resources actually want to have those resources effectively used and will be open to hearing better ways. And if not, it is their resources anyway--are they hurting someone?
First, thanks for asking about a positive vision. See,
http://tinyurl.com/mvjxhh
for such a vision.
Regarding "the banana thing," it is hard to imagine that you believe your own argument. Bananas-as-the-only-appropriate-food as a "cultural diet" for black people is a race-neutral presumption? Wow!
I was honored to hear a speech recently by Harry Belafonte, who talked about the trajectory of race relations in his lifetime, from a childhood in the 1930s in which Africans were portrayed as apelike in Tarzan movies of the time to Obama's victory today. Huffington just reported that a GOP Activist described Michelle Obama's ancestors as gorillas.
If you don't see a problem with the banana incident, then no doubt you also don't see any problem at all with the Millenium Villages brochure's Rule #1, "Please do not give anything to the villagers -- no sweets, cookies, empty water bottles, pens or even money."
You ask for evidence. i reply that the fact that the brochure exists and states Rule #1 is ipso facto evidence of condescension.
What additional evidence would it take for you to be convinced that such a comment is condescending?
The fact that you are blind to this issue validates my point more perfectly than any further argument I could have made.
The big issue here is Sachs' condescension.
Respect should be the foundation of any healthy endeavor.
Thanks for your comment; it was most instructive.
Magatte
While it would certainly be a pleasure to get to know you under other circumstances, you have unfortunately decided to attack my team without being properly informed or having contacted us before, and you make us the scapegoat for your personal grudge against Jeffrey Sachs and his team. I could just say that by making these malicious and false comments, you are falling in the same trap that you are criticizing in others. But that would be too easy. I'd like to try to prove you wrong through actual facts!
I'm the Director of the Eos Visions network that, through our Rwandan member New Dawn Associates Ltd, got under fire here for offering the Millennium Village tours in Rwanda, and - and I'm happy to admit it - I'm also the author of the brochure that you, some of your commentators and even people like William Easterly in his blog happily criticize to a point that verges on insult.
Since this site doesn't allow me to post comments that are longer than 250 words, please click on William Easterly's blog http://blogs.nyu.edu/fas/dri/aidwatch/2009/06/should_starving_people_be_tour.html in order to read my full comment with facts and statistics.
Let me finish by inviting you to visit the project with us and to form a more informed view.
Kind regards,
Michael
Keep up the good work!