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That those who have been blessed with high rank or great wealth
should help the numerous less fortunate is an ancient dictum. Noblesse oblige-
privilege entails responsibility! Modern philanthropy, as illustrated in the
activities of the Gates Foundation or the Rockefeller Foundation, walks in that
old tradition. It is the essence of philanthropy to be a voluntary contribution
from the private sector.

Expanding government services to the indigent or the helpless
are not a substitute for the personal gifts or donations of a continent’s
elite. A country’s public services guaranteeing a minimum amount of decent
education or decent healthcare at public expense should be a complement to the
donations of its elite. As denizens of a continent teeming with the poor, the
uneducated, and the hungry, when should Africa’s wealthy entrepreneurs and
investors conduct their philanthropic activities? What activities should be
nurtured by their donations?

My point of departure is that philanthropy has deep roots in the
cultures of several African countries. For example, there has been a long
tradition of community leaders donating land or money to educational causes. In
1876, financial contributions from local businessmen, combined with teaching
staff and other forms of support from the Methodist Missionary Society in
London, resulted in the establishment of Ghana’s oldest boys secondary school,
Mfantsipim, then known as the Wesleyan High School of Cape Coast. I have little
doubt that similar tales of philanthropic support from eminent Nigerians lie
behind the development of schools such as the Methodist Boys High School and
Abeokuta Grammar School.

It does not seem that Africans established permanent collective
institutions for collecting gifts and dispensing those gifts. The modern
vehicle for those institutions, today, is the foundation. America was a pioneer
of the foundation, eponymously named after its settlor-Andrew Carnegie or Bill
Gates. It spread to other countries like India which got one of its first
foundations in 1919 with the creation of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, thus forging
an ongoing link between the Tata group of companies and India’s world of
charities. Africa is following in those footsteps with foundations such as the
TY Danjuma and the Dangote Foundations in Nigeria, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in
the United Kingdom, or the Tiso Foundation in South Africa.

Americans tend to establish foundations after they amass a
fortune. Our needs are so pressing that it would be preferable if foundations
were established alongside the growing fortunes of African benefactors. The
Tiso Foundation embodies my preference. It was set up at the birth of the Tiso
Group, a black-controlled and managed investment companies, with a 16% equity
stake in the Tiso Group donated by its founders.

Led by two consummate and unassuming professionals, Nkululeko
Sowazi from South Africa and David Adomakoh from Ghana, the Tiso Group has made
several successful investments in South Africa between 2001 and 2010.
Consequently, the Tiso Foundation’s endowment has risen rapidly in value,
alongside the success of the Tiso Group, from 5 million Rands (61.2 million
Nairas) to 500 million Rands (10.35 billion Nairas) today. This model of
granting equity stakes in new businesses at their birth can generate large
charitable endowments in rapid order on a fast growing continent.

The Tiso Foundation has chosen skills development and education
as focus areas. By choosing those areas, it is fighting to defeat the apartheid
legacy of mediocre human capital levels among black South Africans. For
example, one of its current programmes is an artisan development system under
which it is providing financial assistance to train 500 competent artisans in
appropriately accredited training institutions. The selection of artisan
development illustrates a major advantage of philanthropy-the ability to
encourage and nurture activities of major social benefit that both governments
and free markets may fail to finance in adequate quantities.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s focus on improving the quality of
governmental and political governance in Africa, by instituting a Mo Ibrahim
prize for wise leadership in Africa and creating an Ibrahim Index to measure
the quality of African public governance, is another example of private
foundations treading where governments and the free markets have been
noticeably absent. Africans should use their charities to tackle festering
intransigent social problems which can yield gargantuan social benefits upon
their resolution.

All of us can make our contributions, no matter how modest. An independent
Africa needs more of its wealthy and powerful to emulate the examples of a Tiso
or a Mo Ibrahim. Then, peace and prosperity will germinate a little more
quickly in Africa’s soils.