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World Commission gets off to stormy start

posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 12:00 AM

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Comic Relief celebs criticised for their portrayal of Africa

Some Comic Relief celebrities were criticised for their portrayal of Africa at the opening hearings of the World Commission on sustainable social finance at the WES08 Summit in London. Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie, CEO African Foundation for Development said many on the fund raising television extravangaza perpetuate a negative stereotype of Africa as a continent dependent on charitable handouts. Celebs supporting aid charities have a responsibilty to take into account the fact that the way they tend to portray Africa has the unfortunate consequence of turning investors away from the continent.

A further surprise was in store when leading financial guru Rod Schwartz of Catalyst Fund Management said that the "onus was on social entrepreneurs" to learn the language of investors. The World Commission was established by i-genius and Delta Economics to create a better understanding "between" financiers and social innovators.

Participants included Alex Nicholls, Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship, Steve Brant, Trimtab, Cliff Prior, UnLtd, Sergio Arzeni, OECD, Prof Jay Mitra, University of Essex, Kevin Lang, Justmeans.com, Jessica Shortall, Catalyst Strategy Advisers, Mark Campanale, London Bridge Capital, Nigel Kershaw, Big Issue/big Invest, Malcolm Hayday, Charity Bank, Liz Cross, The Connectives and Richard Litchfield, Eastside consulting.

Lets hope calm will be restored when the World Commission reconvenes its hearings at the i-genius World Summit in Thailand, 13-16th March.

Comments
Peter Ongera
Sunday, January 20, 2008 11:19 AM

Africa can eradicate poverty through sustainable social investing in education and skills(especially information technology) transfer and partnerships with companies, governments and communities. Africa has all the natural,human tools and resources to overcome poverty. Poverty eradication is big business in Africa!

Chris Macrae
Friday, January 18, 2008 06:12 PM

I still have this question from the floor - is there a place to send testimonies in to the commission. I have a peculiar problem in that I dont see all social entrepreneurs as equally worth sustaining. I come from the Yunus school who loves people to clarify how they will get to 100% cashflow so that from then on they can reinvest in their social busness purpose without wasting energy on fundraising or being over-measured 90 day numbers and boxed-in goals Another thing that happens around Yunus is that problems get displayed up, and all potential service solutions transparently linked. As a banker/adviser to the poor he likes to choose the contextual and open best solution rather than own one that then competes for funds against another. Dont get me wrong. I live in DC and celebrate Bill Drayton. Yet I do not accept that the majority of the 2000 SEs he keeps funding actually pass the entrepreneurial standards my father largely systemised the term around in 40 years of writing for The Economist. SEs are not comparable like for like as currently classified. This makes a true submission of Macrae (or probably Yunus) views to commission likely to require iterative Q&A.
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