A WELCOME MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR
Mark Ashurst has worked as a journalist in Africa since 1993, both for local media and as a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times, The Economist and Newsweek. He drafted submissions from the South African Broadcasting Corporation to the country’s first Independent Broadcasting Authority, and spent six years as the BBC's Africa Business Editor.
“In the first jubilant years of Africa’s independence, Nadine Gordimer cautioned her European friends that prescriptions from abroad would fail: ‘They have had so much of us, from tear gas and taxes to brotherly advice, that most Africans are going through a period where they prefer their own mistakes to successes (or mistakes) that are not their own’.
Since then, a new agenda of political and economic liberalisation has taken root in most of sub-Saharan Africa – a necessary adjustment if Africa is to harvest the fruits of its wealth and talent. In recent decades, change has been faster and more profound than over the course of several preceding centuries. This momentum cannot be halted, but the risks are high and the outcomes still uncertain.
No-one today can claim a monopoly of good ideas. Tolerance of mistakes has waned. Thabo Mbeki, the former South African president, contends instead that ‘to be a true African is to be sufficiently enraged by Africa’s condition in the world to want to join the mass crusade for Africa’s renewal’. Fierce emotion can be another liability in the pursuit of meaningful reform, but a growing consensus recognises the urgency of this task.
Renewal will demand creativity and pragmatism – qualities abundant in Africa, for all its problems. Outsiders need to play a more constructive role too. In the realm of policy, many received ideas and long-held assumptions are now in a state of flux. Good intentions, often voiced in terms still redolent of 19th century Victorian philanthropy, will count for nothing unless matched by a new readiness to take Africa seriously.
The Africa Research Institute, a new and non-partisan think tank based in London, has been set up with that objective in mind. We look for ideas with a record of success, and for areas where new ideas are needed. We listen carefully, and we strive to be practical. Wherever possible, we cooperate with people whose achievements are an example to all those with interests in Africa, at home and abroad. We look forward to working with you.”
Mark Ashurst
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