Foreign aid funding to the global south may have been drastically cut — but its social enterprise leaders are optimistic that the changes will bring new opportunities as well as challenges.
“There’s an optimism which isn’t blind to what’s happening,” Wawira Njiru, a Kenyan aid leader, told the Skoll World Forum, a conference for social entrepreneurs taking place in Oxford, United Kingdom this week. “I am optimistic that African countries — and countries around the world — will step up. Already, we have had the government reach out to us more.
“What would previously have been an aid-based approach has changed,” added Njiru, who is the CEO of Food4Education, which provides school meals. “Now the government is coming to the people who are from the country.”
About the author
David Ainsworth@daveainsworth4
David Ainsworth is business editor at Devex, where he writes about finance and funding issues for development institutions. He was previously a senior writer and editor for magazines specializing in nonprofits in the U.K. and worked as a policy and communications specialist in the nonprofit sector for a number of years. His team specializes in understanding reports and data and what it teaches us about how development functions.
