Given the scale of human development needed in India and South Africa, individuals in the private sector and not-for-profit organisations will have to step in, collaborate, and contribute in the critical areas of education, entrepreneurship and healthcare
The conversation began by an empty swimming pool that usually serves no purpose. Past midnight in August 2012 we — Miniya at that time an employee of the World Economic Forum in Geneva and founder of The Stargazers Foundation, and Marlon who was head of Mxit Reach and Founder of Rlabs, a social enterprise in Cape Town — met for the first time by this empty pool in Hyderabad. At this most unlikely of places, we talked passionately of our shared engagement in creating innovative solutions to complex social challenges.
We decided to travel together the next morning to a village located on the outskirts of the nearby Nizamabad district to meet a community of young girls, mothers and pre-school children that The Stargazers Foundation was serving. This visit would change Marlon’s life. He saw there how the power of hope had unlocked confidence in young people even whilst they lived with so little. Their confidence had led them to organise their education, health and well-being.
Cut to year 2015. Rlabs is now operating in 22 countries, its work reaches out to five million people globally, and Marlon has been selected as a Young Global leader by the World Economic Forum.
Miniya has, in the meantime, chosen to move to India after 13 years of living abroad and is leveraging the private sector here to implement large-scale projects of socio-economic impact. This year we — Miniya and Marlon — met in Cape Town, both as participants at the World Economic Forum on Africa that recently took place on June 3-5.
The official theme of the WEF Summit on Africa 2015 was ‘Then and Now: Reimagining Africa’s Future’. It addressed issues of leveraging Africa’s resources, enabling markets, and inspiring creative solutions towards Africa’s challenges. The summit convened the usual elite participant list of heads of states, ministers, topmost global leaders from business, and a few prominent members of the civil society.
However, most discussions at the summit eventually revolved around education, jobs, and healthcare, alongside a general consensus that corruption remains one of the most significant challenges in the continent. There was an agreement that Africa’s structural transformation is proceeding along a very different trajectory, where across the region agriculture’s share of GDP is declining, manufacturing is stagnating, while the service sector is increasing as a share of total employment and GDP.
The human capital agenda emerged as a foremost priority. With the world’s largest proportion of young people, it was estimated that Africa’s working age population would double to one billion over the next 25 years, whereas a major skills crisis would challenge the creation of jobs for the 450 million workers projected to join the workforce between 2010 and 2035.
There were frequent comparisons at the summit to the great progress achieved during past years on comparable challenges in China. Harnessing the demographic dividend in East Asia also had propelled and transformed the region’s economy and contributed to a 6 per cent annual average growth in its per capita income between1965 and 1995.
leaders agreed that it is not just money that delivers development. Instead it is the combination of financing, well thought-out policies, delivery capacity, as well as the ability to leverage the expertise, knowledge and innovation of individuals in civil society and the private sector that brings good returns.
On the close of day two of the WEF Summit, we — Miniya and Marlon — caught a drink at the leopard Bar inside the fabulous Twelve Apostles property located a short distance away from the Cape of Good Hope. We caught up on life updates and spoke of the immense potential for collaborations between our countries towards social upliftment.
India and South Africa have a similar demographic strength of having a large chunk of population under the age of 25. However, as compared to India’s 3.6 per cent unemployment rate, South Africa has a massive 24.9 per cent of its 51.7 million population without jobs (World Bank, 2010-14). This is despite the 93.1 per cent literacy rate in South Africa being far higher than that of many other countries including India.
We felt, therefore, that revamping the education system is a major potential area of collaboration between South Africa and India. The current exam and rote based education system in both countries ensure that it sets the child up for failure, because it causes the child to grow up in the fear of giving the ‘wrong answer’ and failing the exam.
As we know, there are no right or wrong answers in real life. Children need to be instead equipped with a constant appetite for learning. Private companies, NGOs, and indeed individuals can enable formal and non-formal means of such learning for the upliftment of societies across both countries. The focus must be to enhance curiosity, entrepreneurial skills and leadership.
Rlabs, for instance, empowers people to make a difference in the lives of others by imparting to one another hope and specific skills in community development, social and disruptive innovation, mobile and internet solutions. The Stargazers Foundation sponsored three students from economically challenged backgrounds in India to live and work at Rlabs in Cape Town for three months so that they can return to implement the Rlabs learning model in India.
There are many other innovative models across India and South Africa for alternative means of learning and skills development, which can be leveraged by both countries.
Entrepreneurship is indeed another sphere of potential collaboration. If jobs are scarce, then let the growing young populations across both countries be empowered to create work opportunities for their own selves. Young Indians are starting their own companies, yet there are only a few innovative business models emerging.
Whereas in the entire African continent, innovative business models, such as mobile technology services, hold much promise for the future. In both India and South Africa, entrepreneurs face the challenge of access to funding, support services, skills training and infrastructure, as well as administrative barriers. Entrepreneurs in India can test the scalability of their business in South Africa, and this way also get a foot in the door of the massive market offered by the African continent.
Incidentally South Africa ranks 43 in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2015, much higher than India’s 142 rank. There are thereafter many other learnings that Indian and South African entrepreneurs can make from each other.
Both countries also face the colossal challenge in developing efficient largescale healthcare delivery models. There are also common health issues. India and South Africa are grappling with HIV/Aids as well as malnutrition and diarrhea. Government expenditure on healthcare in India (WHO, 2012) is not much at just $157 per capita. This is far lesser than $982 for health expenditure per capita in South Africa (WHO, 2012).
Not-for-profit organisations in both countries, therefore, are actively engaged in supplementing the work of the Governments in healthcare delivery, but they face the challenge of inadequate funds. These organisations are, in fact, all chasing the same funding sources.
This presents an opportunity for these organisations to collaborate and join forces, develop projects that are scaled up to be relevant to both India and South Africa, and then get financial support from donors.
We spoke of how the Governments in both India and Africa at large are still plagued with red-tapism and inefficiencies. And this is why, given the scale of human development that is needed, individuals in the private sector and not-for-profit organisations will have to step in, collaborate, and contribute in these critical areas of education, entrepreneurship, and healthcare.
These individuals will need to create new models of socially relevant businesses. We also think that our countries need more ‘career drop-outs’ — these are people who are willing to nurture an appetite for living authentically, abandoning the rat race, and instead embracing the risk of following their true calling in what they do as work.
Friendships, more communication, and collaboration across the countries can only help these individuals living in both countries learn new ways of facing so many common challenges.
Indeed nurturing such a mindset amongst the youth is especially challenging in developing countries, where individuals in the age group of 20 to 40 are more likely to be caught up in income and status driven work choices, social networks that enhance self-projection, and often an attitude that is more survivalist than collaborative.
However, Marlon points out with a smile that if one’s life is tied to purpose then that can entirely change the perspective on how that person sees the world.