NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Researchers from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University (Virginia, USA) and the Free Market Foundation of Southern Africa launched Enterprise Africa! — a project dedicated to finding and documenting the success stories of Africa’s entrepreneurs.

“African entrepreneurs hold the key to economic prosperity in Africa,” said Free Market Foundation Director Eustace Davie. “South Africans in particular have the opportunity to be a beacon of economic hope for the rest of Africa as long as we continue to promote policies that enable entrepreneurship and economic growth.”

Enterprise Africa! will work with entrepreneurs in Africa — South Africa, Mauritius, Namibia, Rwanda, Kenya, Botswana, and Tanzania — to document how poverty is being successfully overcome through local enterprise-based solutions. Successful entrepreneurs in these countries have developed their own workable solutions to problems of poverty, inadequate healthcare, political corruption, famine, and broken education systems. Enterprise Africa! researchers will identify and document solutions and create models for further efforts based in successful African experiences.

“The answer to Africa’s problems ultimately lies with Africa’s people, not in well-intentioned western PR stunts or increases in foreign assistance. We’re in Africa to learn what’s already working and ask why it’s not working better,” said project director Brian Hooks. “Enterprise Africa! will demonstrate how entrepreneurs are erasing poverty locally and share their successes with other entrepreneurs, governments, and international development groups who clearly need models that work.”
Press release found here.