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DEVELOPMENT: “Africans Should Become Their Own Philanthropists”

Christi van der Westhuizen

CAPE TOWN, Nov 6 2009 (IPS) - Africans “should dare to imagine an African world not defined by the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund but one that comes out of Africa”. This is necessary for Africans to grow out of dependence and become the agents of their own development.

These were the words of Narciso Matos, executive director of the Foundation for Community Development in Mozambique, at the closing session of the “Energising Civil Society” conference held by Inyathelo, the South African Institute for Advancement, on Nov 2-5. The conference was attended by about 150 delegates, mostly from South Africa but also from across Africa and the globe.

Inyathelo, which means advancement in the vernacular Xhosa, is a non-profit organisation that works to build the capacity of civil society organisations to ensure their sustainability.

The issue of philanthropy came under the spotlight at the conference during debates on the power relations between grant-makers and grantees; whether philanthropy could be regarded as activism; and whether philanthropy acts as a mere plaster on the open sores of socio-economic inequalities.

The aid-to-Africa industry is worth some 40 billion dollars annually, with international philanthropic foundations playing a significant role across the continent. As one example, the Ford Foundation has made 9,785 grants and spent 1.3 billion dollars in Africa from 1953 until the present.

Matos told IPS in an interview that philanthropy has benefited Africa in the form of financial resources and exposure to experiences elsewhere in the world. But, while Africans should learn lessons from other continents, they should make their own plans for development. “We should not rely on the goodwill of external resources.”

He regards education as one of the conditions “for being the masters of our own future. Otherwise we will remain exporters of raw materials and importers of finished goods”.

External philanthropy can stimulate a culture of internal philanthropy, which is not only necessary to mobilise resources but to advocate for the strengthening of governance.

He argued that, contrary to impressions, Africans have a culture of giving but that it manifests differently to philanthropy in the West as “Africans give to family members and people close to the family, rather than strangers”.

In the U.S., philanthropy is linked to the accumulation of vast amounts of wealth. African business is only now taking off, which means philanthropy by the wealthy is only starting out now, he added.

Vincent McGee, a senior advisor at the U.S.-based Atlantic Philanthropies, argued strongly for philanthropy by the governments and civil societies of African countries. However, “the problem is the concept of power and people losing their ability to make any change”.

Success is measured by projects continuing beyond the life of a grant, according to Bill Moses, a programme director at the U.S.-based Kresge Foundation. Referring to South African civil society’s heavy reliance on foreign money, he challenged South Africans to decide whether their own civil society is worth supporting.

But Shelagh Gastrow, chief executive of Inyathelo, pointed to another obstacle in the way of African civil society generating funding from domestic sources. She cautioned delegates that the international non-governmental organisations operating on the African continent compete with indigenous initiatives for local funding.

Sometimes these organisations dominate the discourse on development in such countries, with the result that indigenous initiatives “are wiped out”. All that remain in many countries “are international NGOs plying the aid trade”, she argued.

Saliem Fakir, an environmentalist, went further and challenged delegates to reconsider philanthropy itself. He questioned whether philanthropy does not just serve as “ambulance work to pick up the pieces” of capitalism. “We have to ask ourselves whether we are changing power relations or whether we are ratifying them.”

This means questioning the notion of prosperity: “It is pitched as being about material goods and not about happiness or contentment,” Fakir argued. This serves the capitalist purpose of making people consume what they do not need, with detrimental effects on the environment.

In stark contrast, Russell Ally, programme officer at the Ford Foundation, argued that there exists a “false dichotomy” between philanthropy and activism. All philanthropists started out as entrepreneurs, which is as much of an activist as anyone can be in the capitalist system, if activism is defined as action in pursuit of certain goals, he added.

In response, Melanie Judge, a programme manager at Inyathelo, questioned whether private wealth has contributed to social justice and whether it has challenged the power relations that facilitate the concentration of wealth in a few hands.

Ally retorted that how philanthropists made their money had nothing to do with their positions on social justice later on. Many have funded social justice causes. He advised civil society organisations to be aware of these contradictions and to decide on that basis whether to engage with certain philanthropic foundations or not.

The conference coincided with Inyathelo’s annual philanthropy awards ceremony, aimed at acknowledging people who make a difference in their communities, according to Gillian Mitchell, Inyathelo’s philanthropy programme manager.

Inyathelo awarded 12 individuals working in the fields of HIV and AIDS, children, technology, disability and poverty, both in rural and urban areas across South Africa.