This continued until the day he lost his own daughter. The community and all the people who knew him reciprocated -- they signed cheques and sent them to him. And, like him, they did not attend the funeral of his daughter. He was left alone.
Nothing is more unAfrican than being left to bury a loved one alone. It did not matter how much money he had, he needed the solidarity and care of his community, friends, relatives and colleagues.
This story illustrates how the glue of solidarity and reciprocity, among other defining features of African communities and societies, binds philanthropy and wellbeing together. In Africa, everyone is both a philanthropist and a recipient of philanthropy.
Philanthropy is not the preserve of only a few rich individuals who can make huge donations. It cuts across all classes and finds its expression in forms that include mutual aid, rotating savings clubs, stokvels, co-operatives, burial societies, foundations, trusts, corporate social investments, voluntarism, individual and religious giving, among others.
All these form an ecosystem of the philanthropic landscape in Africa, which involves a diverse set of strategies that includegrant-making, public-private partnerships, endowments, advocacy and lobbying, online giving and other new social media-related innovations, social impact investing, peer learning, collaborations, joint programming and capacity-building.
Understanding the philanthropic ecosystem in Africa and how it relates to wellbeing and development raises policy questions and areas for potential advocacy in promoting wellbeing for the 21st century.
New Philanthropy
There is a new way of practising philanthropy in Africa, one that builds on solidarity, reciprocity, giving and helping from local sources. The emergence of locally established and funded foundations - and the fact that from Tanzania to Kenya, and South Africa, individuals and corporations give to public and private causes - is a reaffirmation that Africans are natural givers.
This gives hope that Africa can support its own developmental needs and define its own trajectory.
Until Africa finances its own development, wellbeing will remain elusive.
In many ways this calls for a review of the development trajectory that Africa adopted and that failed to prioritise local institutions, knowledge and perspectives. In most African countries, there is still no legal and institutional framework for philanthropic practice.
What about the new high net-worth individuals in Africa? They are indeed well positioned to fund development differently in Africa. Not
only can they provide leadership, they are also influential individuals who can champion policy agendas for wellbeing in Africa. For this to happen, though, philanthropy in Africa must forge a partnership with different types of high net-worth individuals and policy influencers to address wellbeing questions in Africa.
There is still a danger, especially as a result of these individuals and the private sector still not funding or supporting social justice questions, that the notion of wellbeing is simplified to mean such things as access to water, education and health and does not address the wholeness of a human being. Wellbeing comprises both material and nonmaterial aspects, and focus must be given equally to all its dimensions.
Because increasingly wealth is concentrated among a few high net-worth individuals primarily from the private sector, there is a tendency (perhaps understandable given their background) for them to seek solutions for social challenges in the business models that have made them successful. But the sure and fastest way to address wellbeing is for development to be driven by the people concerned.
For policymakers and development actors alike, this means there is a need to invest as much in the means and methods by which people can determine their own futures as in the material aspects of human wellbeing. Questions of infrastructure and leadership development, governance reforms and education need to be even more important than project-based
