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The Opportunity for Africa up to 2063 Now is the time to identify, plan and build 1,2 or 3 Regenerative SMARTERu-Urban Cities in each of the 55 African Union Member States. By 2063, over 1.5 billion more Africans will be living in African cities, bringing the total population to over 3 billion of which 80% or 2.4 billion will be living in cities. 1.5 billion people yet to be born living in over 10...

We are overjoyed (and a bit speechless) to announce that ALL of our learners have passed Matric at Bulungula College! This is the first time in the history of Elliotdale to achieve a 100% pass rate. A big congratulations to our second-ever graduating class, who have proven that with focus, hard work and grit, anything is possible. To be the first school in our community to ever pass 100% of its l...

Anton Cartwright – Fellow from Class Akani and Director at Econologic & Credible Carbon comments on The Gaurdian article that suggested Verra’s avoided deforestation carbon (known as REDD+ in the carbon industry) to be “worthless”. The Guardian, who worked with Die Zeit’s and the privately-funded SourceMaterial, claims come amidst rising carbon market activity from the p...

Desnei Leaf-Camp, also a Class Akani fellow, is senior financial adviser at Xina Solar One. This solar power station has a 100 megawatt solar power capacity and they sell the solar energy they generate directly back to ESKOM. Xina Solar One’s efforts to support education in the four rural communities in its immediate vicinity, are truly commendable. The company published their first newslet...

By Fred Swaniker.  Ready for a sneak peek into the week we had? I always say that the African Leadership Group’s culture is our secret sauce, but experiencing it in person? One word: magical! Day 1 On Day 1 of our staff retreat in Kigali, we’ve managed to bring almost 200 members of our team to Rwanda to meet for the first time since 2020. We enjoyed taking the team to see a bit of our ...

By Dr Ntuthuko Bhengu This article highlights the complexities of healthcare service delivery. The UK National Health System is widely regarded as one of the most successful healthcare systems globally. It is also a huge source of pride and social cohesion for citizens. But an article in the Observer recently revealed the NHS trusts tell patients they can go private and jump hospital queues. Ob...

San Diego forms part of the boundary between Mexico and the USA. With its close proximity to another country, it is clear that diverse cultural realities have a deep impact on the true heartbeat of this city.  Our excursion to Chicano Park – known for its murals and seen as the emotional melting pot of Barrio Logan, San Diego’s oldest Mexican-American neighbourhood – revealed both the arti...

By Oscar van Heerden This past weekend, I attended the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation (KMF) Inclusive Growth Forum in the Drakensberg, and boy, was it filled with excellent inputs from across the spectrum. The overall theme of the gathering, which meets every year, was “dialogue among equals”. The point of the dialogue is to see whether a cross-section of South Africans can not only iden...

In 30 years from now, around 2050, it is predicted that 50% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population will be under the age of 25. According to Dr Mothomang Diaho, if we do not address individual well-being through an intergenerational lens, we would only continue to see further health declines. To take on the leadership roles of the future, Dr Diaho proposed that the cadre of future leaders would nee...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 University of Cape Town (UCT) has elected ALI Fellow and former Safika Holdings CFO Babalwa Ngonyama (Class VIII: Mahube) as the new chair of its council. Nazeema Mohamed will serve as deputy chair. In the words of UCT’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, the appointment is “historic” because it is the first time in 100 years that a woman chair serves on UCT’s Council. It i...

It is widely held that death and taxes are the only certainties. Given the state of the world’s economy and natural and social systems, we can add two more for the foreseeable future: debt and uncertainty. With unprecedented government borrowing, the lockdown of half the world’s people and the strangulation of much of the world’s economy, we are “on the way to hell in a handbasket”. Emp...

ALI would like to congratulate YALI Fellow Phathutshedzo Madima for his appointment as the new non-executive director and advisor of the Young African Entrepreneurs Institute (YAEI). The non-profit youth development organisation focuses on well-rounded career development by integrating employability, entrepreneurship and mentorship for diversified post-schooling opportunities in South Africa. Wit...

Paul Garner shares his experience of having COVID-19 In mid-March, I developed COVID-19. For almost seven weeks, I have been through a rollercoaster of ill health, extreme emotions, and utter exhaustion. Although I have not been hospitalised, it has been frightening and long. The illness ebbs and flows, but it never goes away. Health professionals, employers, partners, and people with the disease...

Adi Enthoven has served on the ALI board for 12 years; he spent the last five years serving as the chair. Most Fellows are aware that Adi and his family have been the backbone of this organisation and its largest funders for some time. He will soon come to the end of his tenure. Adi commits to remain active in support of ALI, and we will keep Spier as our seminar base for the foreseeable future. ...