Scene setting
A population boom in a country with underdeveloped, and hence underproductive, rural areas and inhospitable and overcrowded cities and towns will be an unforgiving reality for Kenya in the next 10-15 years. Envisage 65 million people from the current 46m, 70% of whom will be living in urban centres characterised by “idle and poorly educated youth living in sprawling urban [slums]” as described by Nick Wachira in an article in the journal Kenyan Affairs in which he paints the population picture of Kenya in 2025 and beyond. He goes on to add that, “[even] though the basic human development indicators are projected to improve, the alleviation of mass poverty and suffering will just be marginal.” It is ironic that the article, published in 2011, is titled "Pathway to Development."
It is likely that this scenario will play out in other Eastern Africa countries given the population forecasts - Burundi reaching 17m in 2030 from the current 11m, Ethiopia 138m from 99m, Rwanda 16m from 11.6m, Tanzania 83m from 53.5m and Uganda 62m from 39m (source: World Population Prospects, 2015 Revision).
A population boom in a country with underdeveloped, and hence underproductive, rural areas and inhospitable and overcrowded cities and towns will be an unforgiving reality for Kenya in the next 10-15 years. Envisage 65 million people from the current 46m, 70% of whom will be living in urban centres characterised by “idle and poorly educated youth living in sprawling urban [slums]” as described by Nick Wachira in an article in the journal Kenyan Affairs in which he paints the population picture of Kenya in 2025 and beyond. He goes on to add that, “[even] though the basic human development indicators are projected to improve, the alleviation of mass poverty and suffering will just be marginal.” It is ironic that the article, published in 2011, is titled "Pathway to Development."
It is likely that this scenario will play out in other Eastern Africa countries given the population forecasts - Burundi reaching 17m in 2030 from the current 11m, Ethiopia 138m from 99m, Rwanda 16m from 11.6m, Tanzania 83m from 53.5m and Uganda 62m from 39m (source: World Population Prospects, 2015 Revision).
Migration mitigation
Rural-to-urban flight is driven primarily by the lack of employment, occupational and entrepreneurial opportunities in the former and the perception that these are available and abundant in the latter. This migration is made more justifiable by the general state of rural areas which are characterised by poor-quality built environments, degraded natural ecosystems and hard-to-reach and often inferior-quality services including education, health, transport and recreation. This phenomenon – moving out of tough, unyielding rural areas to urban centres which under-deliver on their promise of a better life – is what could result in the marginal improvement of living standards over the next decade. We at the Tafaria cHub (creative hub), based at Tafaria Castle in rural Nyandarua County, Kenya, looked at this picture and did not like what we saw. We were also convinced that these negative outcomes were not inevitable.
Rural-to-urban flight is driven primarily by the lack of employment, occupational and entrepreneurial opportunities in the former and the perception that these are available and abundant in the latter. This migration is made more justifiable by the general state of rural areas which are characterised by poor-quality built environments, degraded natural ecosystems and hard-to-reach and often inferior-quality services including education, health, transport and recreation. This phenomenon – moving out of tough, unyielding rural areas to urban centres which under-deliver on their promise of a better life – is what could result in the marginal improvement of living standards over the next decade. We at the Tafaria cHub (creative hub), based at Tafaria Castle in rural Nyandarua County, Kenya, looked at this picture and did not like what we saw. We were also convinced that these negative outcomes were not inevitable.
One of the ways to counteract this trend is to make rural areas anything
but what is described above. Rural areas can be aesthetically pleasing; one just has to travel to the English countryside to see how nature can be sculptured to beautiful effect. They can be sites for alternative occupational pursuits and unconventional employment and entrepreneurial
opportunities – the creative and cultural industries (visual and performing arts, writing and publishing, audio-visual media production, design and other creative services, traditional cultural expression and heritage etc.) – being examples of such avenues.
Integrating these twin objectives into the physical and social fabric of the particular
site can produce iconic
architecture and hospitable, inviting environments – Tafaria Castle and the many
lodges spread around the country’s game parks, reserves and conservancies are
examples of this adaptation. The aim would be to develop an alternative rural
narrative in which beauty and opportunity are deployed as anchors for population retention and rural revitalisation.
Acumen arrives
The challenge we faced at cHub, which is run by the Tafaria Foundation in partnership with Kuona Trust, was integrating social good with commercial imperatives while bearing above aim in mind. Acumen is one of the better places to learn how this can be successfully accomplished. Acumen’s social investments are geared towards tackling poverty through market solutions. In her book, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World published in 2009, Acumen’s founder Jacqueline Novogratz describes how she identified this sweet spot, halfway between charity on the one hand and markets on the other, which she called “patient capital”.
The challenge we faced at cHub, which is run by the Tafaria Foundation in partnership with Kuona Trust, was integrating social good with commercial imperatives while bearing above aim in mind. Acumen is one of the better places to learn how this can be successfully accomplished. Acumen’s social investments are geared towards tackling poverty through market solutions. In her book, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World published in 2009, Acumen’s founder Jacqueline Novogratz describes how she identified this sweet spot, halfway between charity on the one hand and markets on the other, which she called “patient capital”.
The Acumen Fellowship, which I attended in 2015, has helped cHub travel
this route. The Fellowship begins with a series of readings which demonstrate
that many people before us have imagined a better world and contemplated the consequences of an unjust and an unequal one; to use a phrase from
Acumen’s manifesto, these philosophers, writers and politicians – Plato, Gandhi,
Mandela, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Ibn Khaldun, Martin Luther King, China Achebe, Aung San Suu
Kyi, Lee Kuan Yew, Amartya Sen and others – have had “the audacity to imagine the world as it could be.” It
helped that Jacqueline Novogratz facilitated these readings in person.
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| Acumen Founder and CEO Jacqueline Novogratz receiving a gift from an East Africa Fellow, Anthony Mulli, the designer of the necklace he is putting around her neck. His social enterprise, Katchy Kollections, which he set up at the age of 16, employs women from Nairobi's slum areas who produce handcrafted fashion-wear and travel accessories for sale; this helps the women improve their circumstances while maintaining the commercial viability of the firm (picture by the author). |
Lifelong learning
As suggested earlier, it was similar idealism which allowed cHub to look at the grim predictions enumerated at the beginning of this article and conclude that the consequences were avoidable. A useful operational framework of getting to the real work was provided via a seminar on Adaptive Leadership which distinguishes tough challenges from technical problems. Getting assignments done or projects going is often stymied by a myopic focus on mundane issues whose resolution is as easy as turning on a light bulb. This is work-avoidance but as soon as you determine what the essential task is – the adaptive challenge – you should be on our way and with a little help from the rest of the seminars, informatively so.
As suggested earlier, it was similar idealism which allowed cHub to look at the grim predictions enumerated at the beginning of this article and conclude that the consequences were avoidable. A useful operational framework of getting to the real work was provided via a seminar on Adaptive Leadership which distinguishes tough challenges from technical problems. Getting assignments done or projects going is often stymied by a myopic focus on mundane issues whose resolution is as easy as turning on a light bulb. This is work-avoidance but as soon as you determine what the essential task is – the adaptive challenge – you should be on our way and with a little help from the rest of the seminars, informatively so.
I am both a market researcher and information designer. As a researcher, the imperative to involve users for who you are
creating or modifying a service or product comes naturally but as a designer,
this is not normal practice – creatives think they know what users, viewers or
audiences want and rarely involve them when developing ideas or fashioning products. Human-Centred Design (HCD) is a tool which brings research practice into the design process. The prototyping phase of
HCD was the most amenable to a creative like me – we love building stuff and
are pretty good at it too; as such, distilling a complex, social enterprise idea into a minimum
viable product and testing the prototype among potential users, viewers and
audiences demonstrated the ease with which research and design, the new R&D, could come
together with beneficial effect.
On a personal, pedagogic level, this has been the singular reminder: I began the Fellowship just before I turned 51 years; I have a PhD in Visual Communication; I have taught design courses at universities in Kenya, United Kingdom and South Africa since the mid-1990s; I have served research clients from these countries on assignments in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa since 1999; yet, it has been invigorating and humbling and sobering to gain the knowledge and understanding and courage to go forth and do 'the work'; if there was any proof required to signify that learning is a lifelong undertaking, the Fellowship has delivered on this.
On a personal, pedagogic level, this has been the singular reminder: I began the Fellowship just before I turned 51 years; I have a PhD in Visual Communication; I have taught design courses at universities in Kenya, United Kingdom and South Africa since the mid-1990s; I have served research clients from these countries on assignments in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa since 1999; yet, it has been invigorating and humbling and sobering to gain the knowledge and understanding and courage to go forth and do 'the work'; if there was any proof required to signify that learning is a lifelong undertaking, the Fellowship has delivered on this.
Global goals
The fuller benefit of the Fellowship, however, has been its ability to engender "moral imagination: the humility to see the world as it is, and the audacity to imagine the world as it could be," tempered by the realities of placing plans, projects and programmes within social, economic, cultural, ecological, ethical and technological contexts. For example, the seminars on Design Thinking, Theory of Change and Systems Thinking introduced frameworks for assessing social impact; Design Thinking is a discourse which recognises design as a problem-solving endeavour – it was from Design Thinking that Human-Centred Design emerged, in effect putting people at the centre of what we do; Theory of Change tests assumptions made about the predicted or anticipated impact of a social investment while Systems Thinking projects the investment's effect on the wider society.
I have attempted to demonstrate the fulsomeness and utility of the Acumen Fellowship especially as it relates to an audacious idea, the problem which it is attempting to solve and the leverage of existing knowledge: a confluence of ideals and abilities. I have observed the same convergence among my fellow East Africa Fellows which goes to show the open-minded, albeit rigorous, nature of Acumen's selection process, which it must maintain if it is to build the next generation of social sector leaders, this being the goal of Acumen's regional and global Fellowship programmes.
The fuller benefit of the Fellowship, however, has been its ability to engender "moral imagination: the humility to see the world as it is, and the audacity to imagine the world as it could be," tempered by the realities of placing plans, projects and programmes within social, economic, cultural, ecological, ethical and technological contexts. For example, the seminars on Design Thinking, Theory of Change and Systems Thinking introduced frameworks for assessing social impact; Design Thinking is a discourse which recognises design as a problem-solving endeavour – it was from Design Thinking that Human-Centred Design emerged, in effect putting people at the centre of what we do; Theory of Change tests assumptions made about the predicted or anticipated impact of a social investment while Systems Thinking projects the investment's effect on the wider society.
I have attempted to demonstrate the fulsomeness and utility of the Acumen Fellowship especially as it relates to an audacious idea, the problem which it is attempting to solve and the leverage of existing knowledge: a confluence of ideals and abilities. I have observed the same convergence among my fellow East Africa Fellows which goes to show the open-minded, albeit rigorous, nature of Acumen's selection process, which it must maintain if it is to build the next generation of social sector leaders, this being the goal of Acumen's regional and global Fellowship programmes.
