by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
In a direct and hard hitting article recently by Howard French (here) in the well respected Foreign Policy magazine, entitled: “U.S. Apathy Paved the Way for China in Africa…Despite a strong foothold during the Cold War, Washington has since fumbled on the continent.”, he points out that “…if the West wants to have a future in terms of its relations with the world’s fastest growing population center—Africa—it’s going to have to reinvent the way it engages around true competition and tangible deliverables, meaning things that Africans need and want.”
We have often heard that the West wins the war, but loses the peace. Meaning that having done the hard stuff, the rebuilding of countries previously hit by war has been slow, allowing a vacuum to develop into which another dictator or hardline group emerges. Or a non-West actor pops up to finance and thereby gain influence at a major scale, happy to build upon this unease felt by many (not only within the Global South) that to impose the West’s way of doing things upon other countries, might just be missing the point.
So it was with great relief when we saw a Risk and Opportunity Inquiry financed by the Dutch Development Finance Institution, the FMO and the Swiss Capacity Building Facility (SCBF) that looked closely at this problem of the Global North dictating actions that impact disproportionately the Global South, entitled ‘Southern Voice in ESG’ (well worth a full read - here). As they write: “Despite the world’s richest 10% producing over half of global carbon emissions, it is the poorest 50% of the world’s population…that are placed at greatest physical risk by the climate crisis…Most international ESG frameworks have been developed from a Northern-facing perspective, reflecting the priorities experienced there…There are concerns that as nations respond to the climate crisis, ESG frameworks do not fully grasp the realities and complexities of the Global South, leading to their potentially unintended exclusion from investment opportunities…being classified as “high risk” or “out of compliance.”
We are not surprised by this as we have written previously, about the Basle banking regulations, ensuring the safety of large banks but (unintended consequence again) at the expense of Africa, making it often too costly for investment. The FMO mention IFRS 9 and 16 in particular. Simply put, to ensure that banks don’t go bust, investments and in particular lending are classified in a ‘risky’ league table and certain ‘costs’ are added to doing business in such areas (no prizes for working out where Africa sits on that particular table!). In their defence, no large western banking group has gone bust because of lending to Africa in the last decade, so perhaps it works, but there again hundreds of thousands of African business have gone bust due to a lack of finance and especially a lack of a depth of market or competition to bring down pricing…is there a connection?
We discussed last weekend the disconnect between the talk of saving the Planet, vs the globe’s largest ESG Rating Company MSCI, where they reward those through their league table on how the collapsing ecosystem will impact the company (and therefore profits), rather than how a company and its actions impact the Planet. This is a not-so-subtle difference as we pointed out (here), resulting in many simply ‘ticking the box’. The Harvard Business Review agrees, stating (here): “To date, most companies have been treating ESG efforts like a cell phone case—something added for protection (in this case, protection of the firm’s reputation).”
And this is one of the issues, with many differing sets of ESG league tables, different rules and regulations, they can pick and choose which suits, so how do we truly know if a company is good for the Planet or if the Planet is good for that company?
FMO show: “…there is no single accepted definition of ESG globally or even locally. Instead, there are now multiple general frameworks and some specific frameworks which address particular aspects such as climate.” It was no surprise then that in asking ‘32 financial institutions’ the FMO found: “…a gap between self-assessed level of knowledge of respondents and their actual knowledge based on a very few relatively simple technical questions…” with the banks seemingly stuck like a Rabbit in front of the compliance and regulatory headlamps, unable to do much else. In spite of the fact that: “To date, most international ESG frameworks have been developed mainly under northern leadership and pressure, reflecting the environmental and social priorities of these countries” (FMO), so they should have known how to handle it - yet even they cannot make it work for Global South conditions!
Perhaps this is why there are so many differing definitions, so that many more companies and FIs (backed by regulators) can slip on that ‘cell phone case’ and feel safe - there is always some ‘style’ of ESG to wrap around them! Thankfully, there is a meeting of minds in the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, but also through the creation of the ISSB in 2021by the IFRS, but will this work if it is still ‘developed mainly under northern leadership’?
One area where we have seen great successes over the past 40-50 years has been in Microfinance in the Global South, perhaps there we can find a route forward. The true leaders and pathfinders of this were Grameen Bank’s Mohammed Yunus, BRAC’s Fazle Abed, Bancosol’s Pancho Otero and of course our very own, the brilliant Lioness Essma Ben Hamida from Tunisia, who started with $10k and over the past 25 years, has lent out to 900,000 borrowers a massive US$2.5 billion! Think of the businesses, the people, the communities impacted and lifted by that one Lioness!!
How did they manage where others failed? Perhaps the fact they actually lived in the countries and communities gives a clue. They were not handed down regulations from afar, but built Microfinance from the communities up, and this is why possibly the FMO’s report emphasizes: “…intentional engagement over time will likely improve outcomes…for the many vulnerable clients they [the banks] serve.” (As an aside is this why according to the UN Women it will take over 300 years for gender equality - have women just not been invited to the top table where the decisions are made? (here) Ok, no prizes for that one either.)
If we are to truly move ESG to something meaningful, we have to bring together all the hanging threads, all the spaghetti, all the interests and various actors currently mixed in the pot to one strong rope and route to prosperity for the Planet, which includes, which absolutely must include input from the Global South and its businesswomen. We have to be part of the discussion, we have to be part of the process, we have to be included. Not as an afterthought, not as a ‘cell phone case’ that brightly states “Gender” or “Africa” wrapping the old western credit and risk rules which should be the engine room powering this, but currently only contain the brakes.
“Speaking at the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue on 28 March, [The Kenyan President, William] Ruto called on the EU and national governments to boost investment in African clean-energy infrastructure. He stated that, with proper investment, Africa could achieve universal energy access by 2030 while reducing emissions by around 80%.” (here) But and this is the crux of the issue, he wants a ‘fairer conversation’, one that contains African voices.
As another of our inspirational Lionesses, Nkem Okocha, (here), a serial award-winning social entrepreneur and the founder of Mamamoni Limited in Nigeria, that empowers low-income rural-and-urban slum women with free vocational and financial skills and small loans, correctly states:
“No one can claim to be a community worker if no one in the community has ever heard of you!”
She truly knows what her community needs and wants, as do many of our membership creating massive impact across Africa, in jobs, in solutions to climate and sustainability issues, in taxes (yes), and importantly, in creating meaningful communities where people want to stay, work and build a future. They are facing climate issues daily and head-on.
This is what it takes. The FMO know it, we know it and our membership really know it. Come join us on the battlefront, ask what we 'need and want’ to fight this battle, and most importantly - Work with our inspirational community and listen to their voices.
Stay safe.