Catherine S. M. Duggan, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Business, Government and International Economy unit of Harvard Business School who specializes in financial-sector regulation and contract enforcement in sub-Saharan Africa, speaks passionately about the critical roles youth and individual efforts will play in driving sustainable growth in Africa. She did so at the 16th Annual Africa Business Conference at Harvard University, hosted by the Africa Business Club, a member of Student Clubs of Harvard Business School, from Feb. 28 to March 2 this year. Below are seven takeaways from that presentation. Read her entire speech here.
1. What the Africa conversation needs. We need stories told about the people who have come up with new ideas, about the young entrepreneurs who are making a difference, who are driving forward the way business works in Africa – the story of creativity that comes from young and driven minds.
2. The youth mindset. Nelson Mandel wrote the book titled, The Long Walk to Freedom. Nowadays, youth around the world, but particularly in Africa, want a quick sprint to wealth.
3. Think in a long-term way. Do not just think about what you’re going to do next year; about what’s going to happen on the continent in the next six months, in the next 12 months, but take a really long-term view because it’s your vibrancy, your energy, which is going to build things in the long term.
4. China is no model for Africa. China is going to face a real demographic problem in the future because the future of growth and development, the future of ideas, comes from young people, which is a shrinking percentage of China’s population.
5. Africa’s development model. Models of growth, democracy, development; and understanding of how to make things like government legitimate, make things feel fair, make things feel as though they’re moving in the right direction and can channel Africa’s tremendous energy, those models have to come from Africa.
6. No precise roadmap needed. We don’t need to find an exisitng model or to draw a line from where we are today to where we wish to be in 2050. What we need to do now is understand that there is tremendous opportunity and tremendous promise, and that the road to exercising that promise and that opportunity is not easy, but the payoff is potentially bigger than one could possible imagine.
7. The difference you make. The way to really contribute to the growth in the continent is to think to yourself ‘how can I live a life which will make a big difference and make sure that I have the fewest regrets at the moment when I take my last breath.’
