Reflections from Harvard's 25th Africa Business Conference

Two weekends ago was one for the history books as we had the Silver Jubilee of the Africa Business Conference at Harvard Business School -- a conference that has evolved to become the largest student-run conference in the world about doing business in Africa whether in terms of number of attendees, size of budget or caliber of speakers. This was a full circle moment for me as I had the privilege of co-planning and executing the Conference working with a Steering Committee of seven excellent individuals and a broader workforce of 60 tireless volunteers over 322 days. It was also a big highlight of my time at HBS and a defining moment of my service as Co-President of the Africa Business Club. The feedback we received from over 1,100 attendees who attended our keynote sessions, fireside chats, multiple panel discussions spanning most sectors in Africa, career fair, networking sessions, New Venture Competition (with over $50K given out in prize money) and soiree was overwhelmingly positive and we could not have been happier at the outcome of this milestone Conference. Some highlights on programming available on hbsafricabusiness.com

As I reflected during my opening remarks and at many other times during the Conference, Africa is often disproportionally affected by exogenous shocks that it had little or nothing to do with creating in the first place — everything from climate change to geopolitical conflicts to pandemics and the list goes on. When the world sneezes, Africa catches more of the cold than the rest of the world because our dear continent has become too reliant on commodities, is positioned far away from lucrative segments of multiple global value chains, has yet to build sustainable institutions that generate inclusive growth and shared prosperity, and remains at a vulnerable position in the rapidly evolving geopolitical context and world order! We Africans should consider it the defining mission of our lives to change this embarrassing status quo! And there’s a role for every African to play whether you’re located in Africa or not.

My panel conversation on “Unleashing the socio-economic power of the African Diaspora” uncovered some ideas on how Africans outside of the continent can play a role. The power of the African diaspora is significant and an often quoted supporting metric is remittances from the diaspora to the continent which tend to exceed global Official Development Assistance by a wide margin — according to the African Development Bank remittances from the diaspora reached $95.6 billion in 2021 and provides a countercyclical and relatively stable source of funds for the continent. The African diaspora is so powerful that the United States Government recently set up a whole program to figure out how to engage this bloc. But the diaspora is fragmented and often acts in silos, rather than as an aggregated unit to amplify its impact on the continent. Our discussion surfaced some mental models (see here >> https://tinyurl.com/ycksuwkn) to inspire new ways of leveraging the African diaspora.

But this is only one solution pathway to ensure the holistic socioeconomic development of Africa, and there are many others to be explored! All of us who call Africa our motherland should work together to change our continent’s fortunes for good within our lifetimes. With everyone pulling their weight and leveraging the collective intelligence and human capital of Africans around the world, the continent will undoubtedly progress.

In the years to come, I hope that many change agents will look back at our Conference (and perhaps this article) as the ignition that pushed them to make meaningful contributions towards Africa's future!

Long live the Africa Business Club at Harvard Business School, and long live Africa!!

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