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The events of the past two weeks in reaction to the capture, injury, and unjust murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, at the hands of the Iranian Morality Police, has mesmerized the world. It has captured the imagination of women and men alike, and set ablaze the Iranian people’s enthusiasm and quest for freedom, supported by their diaspora and people of goodwill throughout the wor...

On 22 September Eberechukwu Etike published an article on Technext announcing the appointment of ALI Fellow Leslie Maasdorp and Nigerian Ibukun Awosika on Binance’s Global Advisory Board (GAB). The primary goal of the board is to advise Binance on some of the most complex regulatory, political and social issues confronting the entire crypto industry, as it rapidly grows and evolves. The new ...

A decade ago 11 October has been marked as the International Day of the Girl and worldwide this day is observed to try and empower girls and rectify their status as equal to boys. In many countries girls’ rights are unrecognised or under threat. The purpose of the CFA Society South Africa’s specific shadow initiative is to create awareness of the investment industry among girl learner...

The AGRF (Africa’s Food Systems Forum) brings together private, public, development and non-profit partners, as well as the academic and research sectors in the agricultural landscape to take practical action that will move African agriculture forward. The AGRF seeks explicitly to unleash the full potential of Africa’s millions of smallholder farmers and their families. On 6 September Nozi...

We applaud Fellow Garth Japhet and his team at Heartlines for their excellent initiative: the Fathers Matter campaign. Heartlines, the Centre for Values Promotion, produced a series of 6 short films currently showing on Saturday evenings at 8:30 on SABC2 and also streaming on the Telkom One App. These short films aim to start a national conversation to promote the positive presence of men in child...

The landscape of work is changing fast and drastically. In many parts of the world we see the phenomenon of “the great resignation” from office jobs in order to work from home, whereas in Africa the phenonenon is that of the “great application”, with our youth desperately in need of work. There is growth of insecure part time contracts worldwide, and the need to really reco...

By Ralph Freese On Friday 26 August Minister Senzo Mchunu (Water and Sanitation) announced that his department would call for private sector help in securing and delivering water to South Africans – an “IPP” for water. This reminded me that Fikile Mbalula, Minister for Transport, recently announced that private business would be invited to operate rail services. ESKOM has long been on this...

The South African election of 1994 and the birth of our constitution in 1996 brought the promise of a de-racialised, democratic and wealthier future for all citizens. Democratic control of the state, with the purpose of righting historic legacies of race and tribe-based allocation of national assets, gave hope not only to South Africans but to the people of Africa and thinking citizens across the...

  Chenai Chipfupa describes what she and her compatriots in South Africa are going through, with an Introduction by Ferial Haffajee. In his achievements for 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa often lists the passage of the Critical Skills List by the Department of Home Affairs. Published in February, the list reveals the full list of critical skill shortages choking the economy. I’ve known Ch...

Together we can journey to a brighter future Don’t you know that its true That for me and for you The world is a ghetto Given that the word ghetto has evolved from meaning “a slum occupied by minority groups” to “a neighbourhood characterized by poverty, run down and occupied by the powerless”, the words of the song might ring more truly than we realise: Climate change ...

Ukraine and Russia both have founding myths linked to a medieval Viking and Slavic group called the Kyivan Rus. The Vikings were early slave traders whose efforts reached into the Arab and East African world and who settled along their trade routes. The Slavs gave their name to us as “slave” and occupied a large part of eastern and southeastern Europe being still the largest language group. De...

Academic, author and business leader Bonang Mohale explored the state of our nation at an ALISA Dialogue. And it is, by general consensus, in a very poor state indeed. Mohale did not hold back criticism against those in government who pillage national funds, leaving nothing with which to provide essential services. Will a new political party or business provide solutions? Mohale says yes and no. ...

As part of the Rachman Review podcast series David Pilling, Africa editor of the Financial Times, asks Stefan Dercon, professor of development economics at Oxford University why some countries stay poor while others find a rapid path towards growth and development. Professor Dercon has made a life study of this question and wrote the book, Gambling on Development, as an attempt to solve the riddl...

A month ago, scientists measured the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (as they constantly do) and found a reading so high that they spent time confirming it before publishing. A very discomforting new record has been achieved. 420 ppm. Up from 300 ppm in 1960. A 40% increase. In just my lifetime. Despite promises by governments and businesses, despite a long series of CoP gatherings and man...

Class 13 was the first ALI cohort to meet each other on Zoom. We feared this would mute their enthusiasm or dilute their class chemistry. Yet, they burst on to the ALI scene with enviable energy, expressing strong opinions on all readings, calling for extra sessions, and bombarding the moderators with questions. This a class of strong characters, tempered by wise voices. They showed an early det...

  Our history is one of migration, colonial conquest and the construction of four countries that were amalgamated to enclose a single economy, within which solutions to the “national question” continue to drive conflict. The tribe, class, race, creed and gender issues central to the building of our nation remain unresolved. Despite significant variation in definition and usage, we can ac...

We gathered for our first seminar, aptly titled The Challenge, just as the first Covid-19 wave started to gain momentum in March 2020. The period that followed proved to be exceptionally challenging, but we overcame the unforeseen obstacles brought about by a global pandemic and hosted Seminar 2: The Good Society (with a very successful Antigone) in September 2021. Class XII: Isilimela  experi...

In these turbulent times, with rampant inequality, dislocation and alienation; when, for thinking people, moral and emotional outrage is unavoidable – Can one be happy?  In fact, should one be happy? In the journey ALI-SA Fellows embark on we clearly encounter two arcs: the personal (Fellows emerge with a better understanding of themselves); and the social, which deals with governance of human...

Greetings to all ALI fellows across the continent and globe. After 2 very challenging years for public life, the sense I get is that we are returning to normality. Just at my children’s’ schools I see more public gathering and  greater social interaction as we have started the academic year. Ironically this felt awkward at first, then we appreciated the fact that this was what life was like ...

Native Merchants – The Building Of The Black Business Class In South Africa is Class 2 ALI Media Fellow, Phakamisa Ndzamela’s debut title. The book explores underwritten stories of black entrepreneurs during the 17th to early 20th centuries, giving insight into a time when black people built successful enterprises on their own account and not as labourers. The book is available from online re...

The 2030 reading panel plans to meet annually, bringing together respected SA leaders to monitor and influence progress in literacy in South African schools. Their gathering on 2nd February highlighted the parlous state of our nation. With SONA around the corner let us hope some attention is paid to their conclusions. For those who were able to join us yesterday for the inaugural Reading Panel, t...

What a wonderful year this has been! We wonder why, when solutions are at hand, we allow global heating to run rampant, fail to change our behavior in the face of the pandemic and tribalise into fractured communities when we know now more than ever, that issues of race, tribe and creed are social constructs that artificially divide. And this is just the global position. In SA we can add failure t...

Roboticist Prof Arthur G.O. Mutambara who is an author, chartered engineer, and academic has been appointed as the executive director and full professor of the Institute for the Future of Knowledge (IFK) at the University of Johannesburg. The IFK is a cross-disciplinary ecosystem – an epistemological interface between the fourth Industrial Revolution and the Humanities. He will be establishing ...

South Africans – at least, the party-political ones – are facing the future with a large degree of consternation since the results of the local government elections were released. With  42m South Africans eligible to vote and 26m registered these are the key considerations: There was a low turnout of 46% of registered voters. That is not unusual in local government elections. What was dif...

The CoP dance continues. One step forward, two steps back. With a jump to the left then a leap to the right. If we are to accept that the agreements reached in Glasgow is where this process will end, we must accept a 2,5 degrees Celsius warming and some dire consequences.  The credibility of the process is – again – being tested. However, it remains the only global forum and is valuable in m...

Long, long ago driving with my grandfather (a teetotaller and plumber) we saw someone lying next to the road. He pulled over and we checked on the man – somewhat drunk, but uninjured – then gave him, a complete stranger, a lift home.  Yesterday I saw two people lying on the pavement outside a private hospital in Rondebosch, Cape Town. Along with others, pedestrians and drivers, I drove on by....

Predictions of doom are as bad as denialism. There is much we can do to shift the trajectory of climate change.  We currently face the greatest challenge of civilised humanity. We are heating the planet, upending the balance of the ecosystem that birthed us, risking livelihoods, crop failure and drowning cities. In November, in Glasgow, politicians from 189 countries will gather under the gaze ...

Between them, Adriaan Basson (Class XIII), Ferial Haffajee (Class II) and Mondli Makhanya (Class III) represent three of the most credible news sources in South Africa: News24, Daily Maverick and City Press respectively. If anyone should know what’s going on, it should be they. So, these are the things we seem to be able to be sure about at this stage: What took place in KwaZulu Natal was an or...

The RDP and Breaking New Ground initiatives held “housing” as an excellent tool for redressing racial, economic and Apartheid spatial divides. These saw the delivery of three and a half million houses to poor South Africans. This we justifiably celebrate as a great success for the country. However, the failure of our housing practice was driven by our measuring success only by the numbers bui...

In November 1916, Pavel Milyukov, recognising the inability of the Duma to do the right thing, asked whether that was driven by stupidity or treason. Here, in the last few days, we can add questions of the levels of competence, quality of leadership, and management failures. For example, our intelligence services failed to understand and prevent the actions intended to reduce our supply chains in ...

by Sibongile Khumalo Seventy percent of South Africa’s children enrol in low and no-fee (quintile one to three) schools. Pre-COVID-19, less than a third of these children were making it out of the schooling system with a matric certificate. Almost half dropped out before grade 12, usually after repeating a few grades; and this grade repetition cost the system over R20 billion annually. Eight pe...

Eighty-one people joined a Zoom Dialogue in early March when a range of Fellows was invited to share their personal reflections on the state of the nation. It became abundantly clear that although there is the odd silver lining here and there, the dark clouds are mounting, leaving many feeling – if not helpless, certainly frustrated. Let’s start with the few silver linings that shone through ...

Previously known as the Young Africa Leadership Initiative (YALI), the ALI – Young Leaders Programme is premised on the Africa Leadership Initiative’s (ALI) purpose to develop the next generation of values-based, young African leaders who are prepared to be significant co-creators of a good society. The age profile of ALI – Young Leaders Fellows ranges from 25 – 35 years, and ...

Money has always evolved, and this evolution has always been towards reduction of transactional friction and better stores of value. Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and the underlying blockchain technology breakthrough fit the mould as possibly, even probably the next evolution of money. These are the bitcoin fundamentals: Only 21 million tokens or coins will ever exist (just over 18,6 million are al...

There is a fascinating concept at work in Like Water Is For Fish, a non-fiction book detailing the effectiveness of storytelling in communicating important messages and doing so in a mixture of memoir-style flashbacks and combinations of the perspectives of other individuals author Garth Japhet has met along the way. If it sounds like a hodge-podge, it doesn’t read like one, rather coming a...

How can the audit profession find its way back to noble leadership? In a passionate digital Dialogue hosted in late January, Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu spoke about the social role of the auditing profession with an emphasis on the big four auditing institutions. ALI Fellow Sindi Mabaso-Koyane (Class VIII Mahube) responded, and the session was moderated by South Africa’s Auditor-General, Tsakani ...

In the early 2000s, ALI Fellow (Class IV: Kalipha) and South Africa’s “First Lady of Song”, Sibongile Khumalo, released her hit single, Mayihlome (https://bit.ly/2L7vsy3). It would go on to be amongst the most loved songs within her illustrious discography of globally-acclaimed hits. Yet there was more to that particular song than poetic lyrics sung in her matchless voice. It was more than j...

Dear Fellows, To say that 2020 was a year like no other, would be classified as a massive understatement. The COVID-19 pandemic has been the item looming largest for all of us at a political, professional, social and personal level. Beyond the pandemic there is still an unprecedented democratic challenge in the USA,  the Black Lives Matter movement taking centre stage in the debate on race and t...

Written by Dr Zoe Lees It’s all very well talking about these lofty ideals of a new order for Africa, but in sub-Saharan Africa we are facing serious human rights abuses and chaos in Zimbabwe with deepening poverty and desperation, Mozambique is facing an ISIS incursion, Zambia is defaulting on its debt, Ethiopia… Tanzania….the list goes on. We can’t even agree on a common vision ...

2020 was a year in which natural phenomena shocked the globe in many ways. If we didn’t fully appreciate the economic imperative of addressing climate change before, we do now. And Africa is at the end of the queue for global support in terms of climate initiatives: of the total global ±$720 bn philanthropy spend, $5/6bn goes to climate space; and of that just 1% comes to Africa. The coronavir...

What a year it has been. It started well. From February 26-29, we had the rare joy of spending four days together at the second Africa Impact Forum. More than 100 Fellows from nine countries came together in Accra, Ghana, around the theme “Building to Last: Leadership vs Systems”. In the group there were 25 from ALI-SA; as always when we engage with our ALI colleagues from across the continen...

The Solidarity Fund has appointed Fellow Tandi Nzimande as Fund CEO. Nzimande was recommended as the CEO at a Board meeting held on October 22, 2020. It is her work in the development and empowerment fields which makes her the ideal candidate to lead the Fund especially now, as it enters a new phase that requires strong leadership to ensure mandates are met with efficiency, integrity, and passio...

The numbers of those in South Africa who are thought to now need food relief vary, depending on who you talk to [1]. Gift of the Givers director Dr Imtiaz Sooliman says maybe about 20-million. Andy du Plessis, manager of FoodForward, says it could be 30-million including those who were previously below the poverty line, those who lost their jobs during the pandemic lockdown, and those who lost ac...

The Aspen Institute has never been accused of a lack of ideas. And nobody attending its events complains of too little talk. Indeed, as we can all recall, the ALI seminar program is experienced through conversations. The readings, Antigone performance, and even the ventures are discussed at length. Moderators urge fellows to take action at every turn, “…..yes, but what will you do about that�...

The founding intent of ALI was for our Fellows to achieve an increased positive impact on the world in which we live. Whilst we now better understand the impact of our programme onFellows, it remains elusive to measure the full impact of Fellows on the world. It has long been said that the “Projects and Ventures” Fellows are required to initiate will be the drivers of our impact beyond tha...

My dear friends So many of you have been reaching out in the hours and days following the tragedy in Beirut, asking about us, about what happened, and about how you can help. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to respond to all of you. Here is my response now. Before anything else, we wanted to thank you from the bottom of our hearts; I cannot begin to express what it means to have your su...

Covid-19 has hit education hard. In an already fragile system, teachers, pupils and managers were all impacted negatively by the State of Disaster lockdown. The re-opening has been, if anything, worse, with contradictory messaging, union action, the trauma of infection hotspot suspicions, and crushing socio-economic disparities compounding fear, anger and frustration. In the formal education worl...

By Nomfundo Mogapi Our starting point: psychological depletion South Africa’s population was critically psychologically depleted even before Covid-19 dropped a pall of fear, stress and confusion over the country. Reports note that somewhere between one in four and one in six South Africans suffers from some form of mental disorder during their lifetime, with only 15-25% of affected individuals ...

The Karl Flowers Trust launched this June, 10 years to the month since our friend passed away. A member of the Kilimanjaro class, Karl was passionate about ALI and our work. He assisted as a moderator and was integral in helping to build our community. Karl’s will stated that a significant portion of his estate should be placed in a trust to assist “young people between 16-25 years, who are u...

ALI stands for a commitment to contribute to a set of lasting interventions towards the Good Society. The municipal audit results, under the theme “not much to go around, yet not the right hands at the till”, came at a particularly bleak time – a time when the Good Society feels like it may be an impossible dream. For some, the last straw has been questionable tender awards relating to the...