"If you take the time to look into communities, you find people who are making a difference and finding solutions," according to Coumba Toure, Ashoka's representative for Sahel West Africa. "But when they are overlooked, [these social entrepreneurs] have difficulty getting resources because people seem to think nothing in Africa is working, and it is so overwhelming." A wave of innovation and entrepreneurship in Africa is being driven by two key trends -- the growth of social enterprises, and the expansion of grassroots organizations.

More than Giving: A Business Approach to Philanthropy in Africa

Finding ways for people to make their own decisions is a powerful model for change -- and nowhere is that truer than in Africa. Those who will succeed in improving lives in Africa will be the people who recognize the poor as consumers and make critical goods and services that meet their needs and desires accordingly. At the end of the day, development is a people business, pure and simple. The challenge is to get philanthropic investors to see the value of affordable prices for poor individuals....Read more.

After the Helicopter Leaves: More than Anything Else, Africans Need Jobs

Whenever anyone asks me how to conquer poverty in Africa, an indelible image comes to mind. It is one that has been deeply embedded in my consciousness since I first saw it on the television screen two years ago. It is the image of a tall, dark, and handsome man -- maybe about 35 years old -- in the traditional flowing indigo robe and matching turban worn by Tuareg men in the Sahel region of Africa. He is running toward a helicopter hovering above a stretch of land in the forbidding and oppressive heat of the Sahara desert. He cradles a baby in one arm and pulls an emaciated young boy about 6 years old with the other, as he frantically charges toward the emergency food aid that is being dropped from the helicopters hovering about 20 feet above the ground. His struggle is just one among hundreds of his neighbors in what appears to be a massive free-for-all rush for donated food and medical supplies....Read more.

Kids Play, Water Pumps: A Sustained Investment

Everyone agrees that providing free, clean drinking water to African schoolchildren is a great idea -- particularly if they can have fun while collecting it. But for the International Finance Corporation, the key selling point of the PlayPump^TM water system is the simple but ingenious technology and the business model that supports it....Read more.