Magatte Wade 🐆 Africa and prosperity, sustainability, startup cities

Hello and welcome to Doing Good, a podcast where I speak about work, the future and the role of business in changing the world for the better. Today I'm speaking with Magatte Wade. She's an entrepreneur, a keynote speaker, African prosperity activist and the author of The Heart of the Cheetah, the book that we'll be discussing today. I hope you'll enjoy the conversation. So, Magatte, you are a serial entrepreneur, I always struggle with this word, but also a speaker that really focuses on prosperity of Africa. You just published a great book called Heart of a Cheetah. What is a cheetah?

Bardzo dobry pytań, Dorbos Wada, dziękuję. I w każdym razie, dziękuję za to, że mnie zapraszałeś. Bardzo dziękuję za tę okazję. Chita. Dlaczego nazwałam tego książki Chita, jest to w referencji i w honorze dla George'a Ayutthaya. George'a Ayutthaya był ekonomistą ghanijskim, straciliśmy go ostatniego roku. W 2007 roku, podczas pierwszego TED Global, to była pierwsza konferencja w Afryce, w 2007 roku w Rusie. I along with 99 other young Africans I was part of the African TED fellows.

We were the first TED fellows cohort. And so it was basically they went around the world and they both in Africa and outside of Africa Looking for, you know, a hundred of the young Africans that they thought would definitely play a role in, you know, in Africa's future. And I guess I got picked for that. And so it was my opportunity to go to TED for the first time. And there, I mean, during that conference, pretty much everybody back then in the world who had a big name was pretty much there. You had the Google boys, you know, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, you had Bill Gates, you had, I mean, pretty much everyone was there. To był pierwszy raz dla mnie, kiedy zaczęłam swoją pierwszą firmę, Adina.

Wtedy patrzę na siebie i myślę, że to był pierwszy raz, kiedy widziałam Afrykanów, którzy ekspresowali pewne odczucia i myśli, które miałam wtedy, bo do tej pory I have been more on the left of the left if you have to, if you have to position me somewhere. I was too much in the camp of, you know, aid is good, but trade is better. I had not turned my back on foreign aid yet. So I was very much into that, you know, and I just barely had gotten to that level. Before that it was just like, you know, corporations are bad, business is bad, you know, they're all terrible. So I was just, you know, Byłam w Orusza i słyszałam tych Afrykaninów, którzy wypowiadają to samo na scenie.

I o kim mówię? Mówię o ludziach jak George Ayite, ekonomista z Gdyni. Mówię o Andrew Mwenda. O ludziach takich, którzy naprawdę mają dobry związek z ekonomią. George's talk was titled Hippos vs Cheetahs and what he was saying was that basically the hippos were these people, you know, when it comes to Africa and it's not just the leaders, but the hippos is more like a mindset mentality. To ludzie, którzy jakoś, jeśli chodzi o Afrykę, poruszali to w dobrym, starym sposobie. Od zagranicznych służb, do NGO i multilateralnych organizacji. Mówimy o Banku Światowym, IMF.

Właściwie dla nich to jest tak, jak problemy w Afryce będą się rozwiązać. Prawda? Więc to jest prawie jak pochodzenie z mindsetu męczennictwa, prawie jak jeśli te Afrykanie, te biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne, biedne Poverty is an industry. From the leaders of the poor nations to the leaders of the donor countries to all the organizations that are involved in distributing

Wszyscy jedziemy, oprócz ludzi, którzy są zaprojektowani, tj. zwykli Afro-Africanowie na ziemi. Oczywiście, oni ciągle przeprowadzają tę mentalność, ten mindset, ten hipo-mindset. Face them off with those of us who say, we're not going to wait for anyone to solve this. We believe that the future of Africa lies in the hands of Africans themselves. Doing, you know, changing the style. Africans doing things for Africans by Africans. So that's a very different mindset. It's a mindset of we're not going to wait for anyone. We're certainly not going to wait for the government. We're certainly not going to wait for IMF, World Bank and all of you cronies.

Well, I shouldn't call them cronies because It's a mixed bag there. But we're not going to wait for all of you people to get our continent ahead. There is something else that needs to be done here. And especially we really believe in the free markets, because the free markets is what allows entrepreneurs to do their work. Because most people don't think about it. Poverty is solved by prosperity, not poverty alleviation. Ale każdy, z kim rozmawiasz, jest zaangażowany w opiekę o opiekę o opiekę o opiekę o opiekę o opiekę o opiekę o

Who builds prosperity? Entrepreneurs. That's why we care about them. What do entrepreneurs need on enabling business environment? The free markets. So George was just laying it all out there and he said the future of Africa lies on the back of the cheetahs. And he looked at all of us in the room, all of us, 100 Africans, this cohort of TED fellows, and Wczoraj powiedział mi, że jesteście moimi cheaterami. Powiedział mi, że jedyne, co mam dla Ciebie, to chodź, cheaterzy, chodź. Wtedy otrzymaliśmy od niego wskaz, chodź, cheaterzy, chodź.

Tak jak cheaterzy, chodźmy w lepsze i błędne kroki, ponieważ, jak lubię powiedzieć, czasu na wytrzymanie Afryki nie ma już. Teraz jest czas na lepsze kroki. Because this has gone on for too long. We now must leapfrog. And it's a good thing that the cheetah runs in leaps and bounds. So even there, you know, the metaphor remains. So that's pretty much what the cheetah metaphor is all about. It's those of us who believe in a bright future for Africa, but it's also those of us who believe that it's going to be achieved through the free markets. I pozwalając przedsiębiorcom na robienie pracy, które tylko przedsiębiorcy mogą robić, czyli stworzenie pieniędzy, z której pochodzi pieniądze narodów. Więc właśnie o tym chodzi. Myślę, że jest to ciekawe, ponieważ kiedy mówisz, że część problemu jest to, że nie ma mowy o przemysłowości, to ciężko jest osiągnąć przemysłowość, jeśli nie była to w pierwszym miejscu cel.

W sensie, że często przemyślimy w osiągnięciu naszych celów. That's why we like to make them ambitious so that they inspire us even if we are not able to completely achieve them. So once you realize that prosperity is not even something that is thought of as this inspiring goal, then there is absolutely no way it's going to ever be achieved. That's right. The reason why I wrote the book Beyond Making the Point is because I believe that the stories you tell yourself, ideas matter.

Ideas are so powerful. The stories we tell ourselves matter because what you believe in We'll then dictate what actions, which actions you're going to take. So it's very important. And when it comes to the Africa story, we have it wrong. We have it wrong. We've been distracted for decades since the end of colonization. And it's about time that we reconsider the narrative that we have come to a consensus on when it comes to Africa. And why to this day it remains the poorest region in the world. That narrative needs to be rethought. Because the minute it gets rethought, I do believe we're going to see something different, even from the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN.

I believe those 17 goals will probably change. It's probably going to go to one goal, which is We vanquish poverty. Because when you look at the 17 goals of the SDGs, A good 15 of them are a direct consequence of poverty. Yet they put them as goals as if it should be a goal. No. You go to the root cause that poverty is and then you see all of these other ones go poof, poof, poof, poof in the air. But right now I am supposed to spend all my energy, a good 80% of my energy is spent on addressing symptoms. Symptomy. Jak się tam dostrzegamy? Jeśli większość energii i czasu skupia się na symptomach, a 20% skupia się na podstawowym powodzie.

It's never going to happen, but this is going on because of the story we told ourselves to start with. The story is profoundly wrong. And so that's what the book is trying to correct. In a way, the story is just diagnosis. So that's where I'm coming from with all of this. So there's one more thing that you often mention, which I believe it's quite controversial, which is that we should stop Mówiąc o kolonializmie i błagającym kolonializmu za płatność, która dzieje się dzisiaj. Czy możesz powiedzieć trochę więcej o tym? Bo to jest główna narracja, którą widzę tutaj w Europie. Absolutnie. I jest to narzędzie, które mamy w Ameryce tak samo. I jest to narzędzie, które mamy w Afryce tak samo.

No matter what happened to us, I'm responsible for what I do for myself today. So my point is, colonialism happened. Has it played a role in where we are today? Yes, but is it the reason why we remain desperately the poorest nation in the world today? I argue not. Because, let's go back, poverty is solved by prosperity. Prosperity is built by entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs who need a viable, sane, friendly business environment. Then I look there and I realize that since there are independences,

Most African nations have never given themselves a chance to have a proper business environment. So I'm sorry, but if what we're talking about is poverty, because I think that's a question you asked me, it's controversial, but I'm saying Africa is not poor today because of colonialism. Tak, bo wracam do tego wypadku. Poverty rozwiązane przez prospery. Prospery rozwiązane przez przedsiębiorców. Entrepreneurzy potrzebują dobrego środowiska biznesowego. I kiedy patrzysz na to, zrozumiesz, że afrykańskie narody są jedyną z najgorszych środowisk biznesowych na świecie. I mean, so why in the world would you then keep talking about colonialism when we're talking about this is what causes prosperity, this is what builds prosperity, and guess what guys, you've never given yourself the tools to build prosperity. So I believe that until we have done that, we should probably go back to the drawing board, try that, see if it works or not, and then we can open our mouths again.

But until we do that, I absolutely have no patience for somebody who is out there just criticizing colonialism because last time I checked, Ethiopia has never been colonized. One of the very few, never been colonized. Ethiopia has been dirt poor. I think when you were looking at the economies of all of those places, for the longest time Ethiopia was a poor nation. It just recently was starting to do well once by the way. They started looking at the business environment. Once they tried to make it easy for businesses to be, that's when Ethiopia was rising up recently. I remember that when I was a kid, Ethiopia was basically an example or this country that everybody thought of when they were thinking of poverty because of children dying of hunger.

But I argue that in this situation, and as with anything in life, you can always, no matter your beginnings, however humble they might be, however screwed up they might be, There is always, always a path forward. Always. And as long as you keep looking behind you, you're never going to make it. As a racer, that's the first thing I learned. Do not look back. Do not look sideways. Because if you do, you're going to fall and trip. And yes, everybody's going to keep passing you. But if you focus, if you keep your eyes on the ball, you know, on the other side, you have all the chances of making it. And we're not doing that right now. Right now, everybody's like looking back. And then we wonder why we never get over there.

So that's what I mean by that. We know that poverty is not solved by supposedly lack of not having been colonized. There are some nations that have never been colonized and sincerely have nothing to show for themselves to this day. Conversely, you have nations that have been colonized and today look at them thriving. The one I use, because when you use Singapore, then they all cry like How can you compare Singapore to a continent like Africa or even like these big countries in Africa? I'm like, because you don't know how to learn a lesson. When scientists look, when we look at lessons in the world, you're going back to the essence of what might be working, you know? So then, most recently I'm also using the Vietnam case. I mean, Vietnam was not only colonized, but before the French left, they bombed the place, I mean, everything was ripped off and then that place has been bombed and bombed again.

I mean, senseless. Senseless and look at Vietnam today. Look at Vietnam today, kicking all of our asses back home in Africa. So please give me a break. At some point, come on. Come on, guys. That's what I mean. And also Rwanda is a great example in Africa. Another one. Tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak. And now being not only one of the most prosperous countries in Africa, but also having lots of women in the government and actually kind of being very inspiring in lots of metrics that we associate more with the first world, let's say.

Mówię o tym, co wiem. Co wiem, co buduje przemysłowość. Ronda daje sobie teraz narzędzia, aby budować przemysłowość, ponieważ oni byli bardzo seryjni. About this concept of a business environment that entrepreneurs need in order to thrive and that foreign investors need in order to say, hey, this is good, we're going to go. So they have been very serious. Here goes a country that understood that, understood it, went to work to get to be one of the top doing business index ranking reformers. You know, in Africa. And the magic is happening. We're seeing it. So it goes back to what I was talking about earlier. And then beyond that, you also have Botswana. Botswana has done amazingly well from the very beginning because their leader post-colonialism, Cyril Takama, was an Oxford lawyer trained, you know,

Widzisz, to jeszcze jedna rzecz. China dokładnie to zrobiła, była zupełnie inspirowana Hongkongiem. I więc dla Afrykanów, którzy siedzą tam i mówią, a to nie jest dla Ciebie, dobra słowa, ponieważ ja mam, jak widać, mało błyskawicznych błyskawicznych ludzi, ale kiedy siedzą tam i mówią, jak możesz używać Singapura jako model i porównując go z Afryką, nie możesz być serio. No, Chyna, 1,45 miliona ludzi. Comparing itself and taking lessons from a small island called Hong Kong. Yeah, because the solution is going to be special economic zones, city size, these are the SEDs, special economic zones.

That's what China did. Shenzhen, all of those different countries. So you do it, you know, like almost mini Hong Kongs all over the place within China. I to jest dokładnie to, co rekomendujemy ludziom próbować zrobić w Afryce również. Nie myślę, że... Rwanda jest wyjątkowym wypadkiem, bo Rwanda jest mniejszym krajem, ale nawet jako mały kraj, wciąż bym się zgadzał, zrób to z zoną po zonie. Nie ma potrzeby, ponieważ jeśli próbujesz przyjechać i zmienić cały kraj, od tego, gdzie jest, do tego, co to oznacza, co oznacza środowisko biznesowe world class, To może być trudne, ponieważ najpierw, kiedy przychodzisz do narodów, jak nieruchomo ten naród jest, jak w przypadku wielu afrykańskich narodów, wciąż są ludzie, którzy budowali życie na tym chaosie.

Więc jeśli przyjdziesz i chcesz zmienić wszystko od jednego dnia do innego, to na pewno będziesz mieć ludzi, którzy cię walczą. Będziesz mieć oligarchów twojego kraju, będziesz mieć wszystkie kroni, biznesy, wszystkie te osoby, i one są silne. Są silne, ponieważ są również w kontekście z rządem. Więc jest naprawdę trudno przyjechać i powiedzieć, że od jednego dnia do innego wszystkie reguły się zmienią, ponieważ a, będziesz mieć ludzi, którzy zainteresują się obecnym status quo, którzy będą przeciwko ci, ponieważ cię przerażają. Będziesz mieć ludzi samych. Who stand to gain the most from the improvement, yet they will fight you tooth and nail. Why? Because us humans for the most part don't like change. We don't. We don't. You remember the Facebook days. Whenever Facebook comes up with a new change, everybody was threatening to leave.

But then after a few months, if you take it away, they're like, oh no, this is staying. You see? But it was a little bit of friction at first. But if you try to force people, it's going to be problematic. Last but not least is the fact that it's one thing to change all of these reforms. Reforms mean laws or removing some regulations. In the case of many African nations who are Francophone nations like mine, Senegal, if you're going to be serious about having a world-class business environment, because this is the other thing we need to understand. In 2024, and it started before 2024, we all belong to a global world. I talent and capital. People, countries, nations are fighting for talent and capital.