Keynote speech by Atiku Abubakar, GCON, former Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria at the Panel on Philanthropy, LSE Africa Summit, at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Protocol
I thank the organizers for the opportunity to participate in this very important summit and in this panel. As Africa struggles to live up to the expectation as the next big investment frontier it is appropriate to focus on what will be the key driver of Africa’s advancement - Africa’s human resources.
In this panel we have been asked to speak about how we are to use philanthropy to identify, motivate, train, and reward people in such a way as to promote development in Africa. Development, a contented term, means to me the efforts to increase the productive capacity of a society, improve the people’s wellbeing, and expand the frontiers of freedom, while protecting the ecosystem for current and future generations.
Philanthropy and entrepreneurship have helped Africans build schools, roads, churches, and mosques. Through philanthropy many Africans have secured scholarships, employment, start-up capital for business, and cost of medical treatment. An individual’s success is deemed to be of limited social value if it does not lead to the success of others in the family, clan or community.
I point these out to underscore a very important point, which is that the link between philanthropy, entrepreneurship and human capital development has a long history in Africa.
Now let me tell you my own story.
