Guinea vs. the United States

Haute has chosen Guinea, West Africa, to begin its operations in Africa.  Below you will find a comparison of Guinea vs. the United States, using data from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Reports website.  

If you are unfamiliar with the Human Development Index (HDI), the UNDP describes it as a "way of measuring development by combining indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income into a composite human development index, the HDI. The breakthrough for the HDI was the creation of a single statistic which was to serve as a frame of reference for both social and economic development."



Feel free to further explore UNDP data using the their StatPlanet interactive world data map.

The need for business education in Africa

1.  Development efforts in Africa must focus on “wealth creation”, not just “poverty reduction” (See my post "Poverty reduction vs. wealth creation"). 
2.  Businesses are the engines of wealth creation.
3.  Two requirements of a successful business: 
    a.  Affordable capital 
    b.  Skilled entrepreneurs 
4.  Access to affordable capital is increasing in Africa through microfinance and other initiatives. 
5.  Access to appropriate, practical business education is fragmented or non-existent in Africa. 
6.  Because business owners are unable to acquire the business knowledge and skills they need to grow their businesses and create jobs, Africa remains the poorest continent on Earth.

Poverty reduction vs. wealth creation

“Haute empowers entrepreneurs in Africa to grow their businesses and create jobs by providing them with management training and consulting services.”

Haute’s mission statement might sound a little strange to you.  Most charities operating in Africa focus on well-recognized activities like digging wells or providing people with mosquito nets.  So why doesn’t Haute engage in these “standard” activities?  It’s because Haute focuses on wealth creation rather than poverty reduction.  And - unfortunately for Africa – poverty reduction programs abound, while wealth creation programs are scarce.

Poverty reduction programs are aimed at treating the symptoms of poverty (see my post “Symptoms vs. causes”), and usually involve hand-outs of physical objects such as money, goats, wells, food, clothing, etc.  These well-intentioned hand-outs do a great job of reducing suffering in the short term but do not build the capacity of their recipients.  For this reason, when the hand-outs stop, the benefits of the programs stop. 

Wealth creation initiatives, on the other hand, address the root cause of poverty by building peoples’ capacity to start, lead or participate in viable businesses (again, see my post “Symptoms vs. causes”).  These initiatives empower people to take control of their own lives in a dignified manner.  They reduce unemployment and under-employment, and increase tax revenues.  Wealth creation is the only sustainable solution to ending poverty.  Think about it… do you know anyone that has become independent and successful by receiving hand-outs from charity?

Andre Mwenda, a Ugandan journalist, does a great job of highlighting the differences between wealth creation and poverty reduction in this 2007 TED Talk.

[From the TED website] In this provocative talk, journalist Andrew Mwenda asks us to reframe the "African question" -- to look beyond the media's stories of poverty, civil war and helplessness and see the opportunities for creating wealth and happiness throughout the continent. Andrew has spent his career fighting for free speech and economic empowerment throughout Africa. He argues that aid makes objects of the poor -- they become passive recipients of charity rather than active participants in their own economic betterment.

Getting to know Konan & Kouadio

For many of our readers, it is difficult to imagine what everyday life is like in Africa.  There are an abundance of images on TV and stories in the newspaper, but these are difficult to weave together into an understanding of the realities of daily life on this vast continent.

I was therefore excited to find the BBC News article below, which presents the lives of two men – Konan Vercruysses and Kouadio Koffi – who live in Abidjan, the largest city in Ivory Coast (West Africa).  Konan manages a phone box (read the article for a definition) and earns about $20 a day.  Kouadio works as a third shift security guard and earns around $2 a day.  

The article shows how they spend their money each month, but also goes into detail on their hopes and dreams:

Konan: “I just want to live alone to be a man, to face the difficulties by myself and be independent.”  “I don't like the word poor because if you have this in your mind it brings you down.  I'm convinced I will be rich one day. I would like to reach my goals.”

Kouadio: “There are many challenges. I want to see a better life, a better life for me.  I want to have a wife and children but what food can I give them?  I need money to give them a life and send them to school. I don't want them to suffer.  When life is better for me I can have a family.”

The reality is that Konan and Kouadio are just like you and me… they just happen to have been born in Africa, while we happen to have been born here.

Please click on the link below to read the full story!

BBC News: What is middle class in Ivory Coast? (25 June, 2013)