TrustAfrica Blog

I recently caught up with Hakima Abbas, deputy director of Fahamu, at the first Pan-African Grantmakers Assembly, which was convened Nov. 3-5 in Nairobi, Kenya, by the African Grantmakers Network. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:



Tell us briefly about your organization.

Fahamu is a pan-African social justice organization. We work to support the movement for social justice in Africa. We do that in four ways. The first is through knowledge generation and research. The second is through learning and capacity building. The third is through providing platforms for Africa–centered advocacy. The last is platforms for communication, debate and analysis through Pambazuka News and Press.

How do you define African philanthropy?

African philanthropy needs to be defined at various levels. There’s the philanthropy of day-to-day people supporting one another, helping one another, usually at the family or community level. Then there’s the philanthropy that we’re very good at in terms of whole communities coming to support an individual for their education, that type of support, that hopefully builds up the whole community and the philanthropy has been exercised through the extended family and the community. Then there’s also of course the philanthropy of, say, the middle classes in terms of giving to causes or to organizations. And then of course there’s the African grantmakers and donors. Continue reading "Hakima Abbas reflects on African philanthropy"