Alliance Magazine just released the second article in the series; it was an interview by Rose Maruru from EPIC-Africa titled Infrastructure is Invisible but Critical for System Change. You can read that article here.
This is a draft to that article that I will submit to Alliance Magazine for publication. It is for private reading. Please do not share this post yet.
To help make the invisible seen and heard, I’d like to share an experience in Niger in 2011. Upon visiting a patient, the hospital I saw looked nothing like the ones I’ve known living in the U.S. The surgery room had dark, stained cement walls probably built in the 1930s. This was where poor, local people went to get operated on, often without proper supplies, medication, or adequately trained doctors. Circumstances such as these draw together concerned citizens who form civil society organizations (CSOs) to solve such problems. You can be certain that they will do what they can to ensure surgical knives are sterilized and that a sufficient supply of anesthetics is on hand to make these procedures not as so painful.
But where can these citizens go to change such egregious conditions? They can’t just use their recently renewed Candid membership to track down likely funders. They can’t simply hop online to identify potential partners or retain a professional consultant. Most Africans don’t belong to philanthropy support organizations where they can enjoy the privilege of participating in valuable peer-to-peer learning and exposure to funders.
I presented just one scenario. There are countless real problems across Africa, with people experiencing real pain. And they are taking place every day across 54 countries on a continent with 1.2 billion people. And darn it, almost nobody wants to build the infrastructure that we need to make things move a lot farther, a lot faster! As published on Propel Philanthropy’s homepage, “If you want a well-built house, you need a solid foundation. You also need plumbing, heating, and electricity.” If you want an Africa that will enable people to have at least a decent standard of life, those doing the hard, noble work need a way to connect to the grid! If they don’t have opportunities to learn from others, they will waste years discovering what is already well known.
Rose Maruru is the Co-Founder and CEO of EPIC-Africa. She and her team spent five years engaging 6000+ CSOs from 46 countries. And what these people told her does not differ much from what I wrote. They need partners. They need data. They need ways to publish articles that can be seen by others. And they definitely need well-organized media dissemination channels because a lot happens on this continent that the rest of the world does not know about, and we should. As one woman shared, many need a way out of isolation.
Ms. Maruru wrote, “A key feature of the platform is a database of CSOs.” We have a Candid in the U.S. that helps so many foundations make informed decision. Candid also helps nonprofits raise money, find partners, and access critically valuable data. Why can’t we have one like that which spans the continent of Africa?