Business
Private sector increasing driving change in Africa
There are brilliant business leaders in Africa not only who are among the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, but who are giving to others as they build their own empires. The change taking place in Africa may not be so easily seen in political systems, but is being driven in many ways by the private sector of Africa, an increasingly powerful force for change.
“We in America still have a long way to go in understanding and certainly acknowledging the changes underway in Africa today. There is the development of a far more vibrant private sector than has existed before. Yet we continue to view Africa as a destination for our aid missions and too often still encourage a top-down approach to change, and one directed from the outside looking in. In so doing, we are missing the reality of what is happening in Africa today.”
The world is changing as it has never done before. Technology, for better or worse, is sweeping the old order aside, sometimes leaving chaos in its wake, but also allowing new fields of play and opportunity that did not exist under the old orders. The hurricanes of discontent roar over our lands, influenced by new kinds of political climate changes. One cannot control these changes anymore than one can control the directions of the winds.
Many of these changes, good or bad, are not coming from governments, but from the private sector and from individuals and groups of individuals. It is the private sector that is providing the new jobs and the new opportunities and the race is not whether we can maintain the old order of nations, but whether we can provide sufficient economic opportunity for a growing population whose aspirations are being fed by the technological revolution happening daily throughout the world. The private sector must be a primary player in meeting those aspirations.
