Notes from Learning to Love Africa

I bought this book for my girlfriend, who studied Latin America for years before being assigned to work with Africa. I thought that a story by a native African would be an interesting contrast to her experience coming from the outside. Meanwhile, I was reading The Paradox of Choice.

We decided to switch books midway through to learn what each other was thinking about, and I got to learn quite a bit about the possibilities and perils of working with the developing world. It turned out that her experience in Africa mirrored Monique Maddy’s: problems with NGOs (non-government organizations, like the UN), corruption in government, success with for-profit companies, meeting wonderful people.

And both their conclusions are similar: for real, sustainable change to happen in the developing world, it will have to happen through economic changes, especially for-profit companies. After reading this book, I’m inclined to agree. Yes, direct aid will always be needed for emergencies. But it is a disservice to people in developing countries to not give them their own economic opportunities.

It made me especially glad when Monique joined my company last month, to help build our nonprofit foundation. She still believes in the power of business to effect change, and she chose my company to do it with. So it will be exciting to work with her as we explore new ways of helping people help themselves.

### Lessons for me

* Support investments that build economic benefits: microfinance, investment in local companies, lobbying governments to relax trade laws.

* When companies invest in developing countries, it is just as important to partner with the government and build infrastructure as it is to build your own company’s assets.

### Notes

LAMCO invested heavily in Liberia’s infrastructure and partnered with the government to help ensure that there would be a country and workers there to make money with.

> Our experience in LAMCO has been that such ownership tends to reconcile divergent interests and to promote the kind of mutually confident collaboration that inclines more to partnership than to the relationship between giver and receiver. – 145

> LAMCO allocated a full 50 percent of its $275 million initial capital outlay to investment in physical infrastructure that was not operations specific and could be used by other industries in LIberia, and to social investments. – 145

Big idea:

> My argument is that, given the choice, the vast majority of the people living in poverty, almost four billion, would choose to be run not by their governments and the UN but by a global corporation, as economic security always trumps nationalism. How else can one account for the massive immigration from developing countries to developed ones? – 257

Her choice to work with the third world instead of investment banking.

> I realized that…my contribution to the American economy in a field such as management consulting or investment banking would be marginal…by contrast…I stood a decent chance of making a major difference in the lives of tens if not hundreds of millions of those less fortunate than I have been. – 260

It also gave her focus.

> All of my activities during my two years at Harvard were directed toward making a difference upon reentering the real world. Every course I took, and every contact that I made brought me closer to that objective. – 261

Like at Google, she found that food brought people together in a way business could not.

> Now with the entire team eating together in the intimate and cosy dining room of our newly renovated office, we had the opportunity to get to know one another a lot better, and to discuss both work and recreational topics…numerous new ideas were generated and presented for open discussion by everybody from the CEO to the receptionist. – 297

Others view the role of business as important in development as well.

> Business must be a medium of healing…building understanding…improving peoples’ lives. (Douglas Daft, Coca-Cola) – 330

The idea of “new colonialism”, based in business and including a country’s people as its shareholders.

> Perhaps a more enlightened colonialism is the answer…[and] why not let the people in developing countries be shareholders in these charter companies, and the Western public, rather than giving “free money” to Laputa, Inc., through their taxes, could invest directly in these companies.” – 342