Public Sector Excellence
Logo to be supplied
Man (or Woman!) in the Mirror
Kojo Malcolm Parris is is chairman
of A4e Africa and the African Social
Entrepreneurs Network, the founding CEO
of Social Private Equity South Africa and
a director of Khulisa, Operation Hope,
and Heart. He is a former investment
banker with NM Rothschilds, Merchant
Bank of Central Africa and African
Banking Corporation Holdings, oversaw
investment portfolios at TA Holdings
and Takura Ventures Fund in Zimbabwe,
and worked in operational management
for Booker Tate in Papua New Guinea,
Australia, Kenya and London. Kojo was
the Head of the Colloquium for Social
Entrepreneurs @ GIBS, chairman of
Homeless Talk and mentors young adults
privately through formations such as Youth
Alliance for Leadership & Development in
Africa (YALDA). He won the Cambridge
Commonwealth scholarship where he read
for an MA in Engineering (Manufacturing).
He subsequently qualified with Deloittes
in London where he worked also as a
management consultant.
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A
s morning morphed into noon last
Saturday, I felt increasingly irritable.
It seemed the driving of everyone
else on the road was deteriorating by the
minute. The friend I had just collected
from the airport had sunk into a mildly
terrified silence – a request for a lift after a
dreary domestic flight now seemed like a
foolhardy bid to see for herself if the King
of Pop had really journeyed to the great
beyond. And then I understood, Eureka!
My subconscious was not enjoying the
calculus that had led me to conclude that
foreshortening a shopping trip for school
stuff with my daughter was justified in
order to go and listen to Professor Yunus,
the amazing Nobel Laureate tell us what
we already knew. Now, don’t get me
wrong. Yes, I would have loved the have
popularised the transformative concept
of microfinance, visioned the Grameen
Bank and indirectly transformed the
lives of hundreds of millions as the Prof
has in his lifetime. But, I reflected, what
new would I hear? As we approached my
passenger’s sweet release, Park Station,
the heaving mass of the industrious, the
disadvantaged, the dispirited, the hopeful,
offered graphic testimony to the yawning
gap between known solution and failure
to execute that plagues our societies. Why
should we continue to subject ourselves
and our visitors to the indignities of
squalor, danger and inconvenience
that park Station represents when the
(road) transport industry yields such rich
pickings for those who control it? It is an
ultimate self disrespect that we, the post-
independence ruling elite subject our kith
On the whole, emerging markets have not the tide of portfolio capital recede,
benefited from the post-WW2, Marshall revealing the fragile sands on which we
Plan-type social spending bonanzas of have built the post-94 edifice that is the
developed countries. Indeed the cruel Rainbow nation. One consequence will
irony of current euphemism, quantitative be a steady increase in both the real and
Indeed, unless we can
easing, twists the knife of indifference perceived risks of doing business in South devise and promptly
in the backs of the Park Stationers. The Africa. Indeed, unless we can devise and
resulting widening of socio-economic promptly implement approaches that
implement approaches
disparities represents the most persistent reverse these increasingly embedded that reverse these
danger to our overall socio-political social dysfunctions, the (perceived) long
cohesion in South Africa given our still run risk related returns to investors will
increasingly embedded
fragile political dispensation. Not too long be significantly undermined. Thus, it is in social dysfunctions, the
from now the commodities’ cycle will the interest of all, especially traditional
reverts to historical, and more modest, capital, to support solutions that deliver
(perceived) long run risk
growth characteristics; the disingenious, sustainable, and even unconventional, related returns to investors
Ponzi-like 2010 hype will fade and solutions.
& kin to such indignity. Now, less than a
kilometer away, we were going to disgorge
from our shiny German, deficit widening,
machines to hear the Prof tell us a simple,
self evident truth – invest in the poor to
end poverty.
And indeed, over canapés washed away
by rivers of Moet later that evening, we
oohed and aahed about the inspirational
genius that is Professor Yunus. The simple
profundity of his message long lost amid
the satisfying caress of the Dior jacket.
Almost without exception, those who
attended the 7th Nelson Mandela Lecture
are winners in the post-independence
socio-economic stakes. We represent the
dominance of private capital has exerted
over the past 30 years globally while the
slightly threatening huddled masses at
Park Station, graphic testimony of how
little sustainable impact the prevailing
orthodoxy has had on poverty alleviation.
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The recent elections results across the
world, from New York to La Paz, through
Delhi to Luthuli House, signals measured
frustration at the failed ‘Washington
Consensus’, leading to renewed attempts
at the repackaging of historically low
impact formulations such as Public Private
Partnerships, selective re-nationalisations,
to cite a few which promise timid changes
to the previous outcomes. Based on their
historical track records, these approaches
are not only unlikely to affect the growing
socio-economic chasm, but will not attract
much post crisis interest from the owners
or managers of capital. On the other hand,
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over the past two decades there has been a
dramatic increase in non-sovereign capital
flowing into the developmental space.
Even with the global downturn, estimates
put this at US$10-20bn per annum.
Increasingly these flows are directed by
wealthy individuals & institutions that bring
with them a recent history of operational
management of private or public companies.
Thus, not only do the challenges require
sustainable socially-biased models, but
interested capital providers are more likely
to respond to approaches that promise
credible, long-term, replicable, and,
perhaps, scalable solutions.
It is in this context that an alternative
model, Social Entrepreneurialism (SE), is
coalescing. SE has its genesis in benevolent
feudal landed gentry, through to the late
20th century venture philanthropists. SE
nurtures and replicates enterprises whose
raison d’être is to provide social goods and
services to the poor and disadvantaged.
The distinguishing element of this
economic genre is the primacy of its social
outcomes in the context of its operational
effectiveness, financially sustainability
and entity replicability. This contrasts with
both the incidental accrual of CSI-type
social benefits of traditional corporate
involvement, and NGOs and Civil Society
entities that generally have a primary focus
on social value outcomes, but either don’t,
or are unable to, place this in a framework
of sustainability and replicability.
Importantly, it also provides an alternative
conduit into social transformation for
Public Sector Excellence
capital partners, combined with a version aspects of social infrastructure critical to
of recognizable corporate structure, CSI. underpinning a stable socio-economic
environment, and the financial markets
President Obama recently appointed grow bored of well meaning but often naïve
the brilliant ex-Googleite, Sonal Shah philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurialism
to head the newly established Office for represents a complementary and
Social Innovation (read, Office for Social necessary economic tool of the modern
Entrepreneurship). In his recent Cairo developmental state. 
speech, he briefly mentioned the potential
for social entrepreneurship to transform
the lives of the disadvantaged. We in the
SE space in South Africa must seek to have
a political impact and partnership through
an Office for Social Enterprises (OSE)
at the highest governmental level, the
Company profile to go here
Presidency. The OSE will foster legislation
and relevant corporate structures, similar
to the L3C, positioned somewhere
between the familiar but ultimately
inadequate S21 and pty structures, that
will foster SE. Given the limitations on
the reach and capacity for the State, the
more credible and capacitated SEs must
become partners in the service delivery
utilising internal and bi/multilateral
development support. It is indeed as
exciting, as it is unsurprising, that one,
slightly renegade, Provincial leadership
has expressed seemingly credible interest
in the capacity of Social Enterprises to
deliver on the service delivery promise,
embedded in the Freedom Charter, that
has signally failed the huddled mass that
trek to Park Station.
As a heady mix of ideology, capacity and
sheer indifference increasingly proscribes
the State from providing access to key
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