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.”