Viewpoint: The case for mixing faith and business in Africa

There is an under-tapped channel to catalyse trade and economic development in Africa. It has existed for hundreds of years.

There is an under-tapped channel to catalyse trade and economic development in Africa. It has existed for hundreds of years. Today, it readily and effectively responds to disaster after disaster around the world. It is a part of the civil society sphere, which is considered vital to a functioning society. This channel is faith networks. Here we will consider the Christian faith network.

In Africa, there are close to 500 million Christians and 400 million Muslims. These numbers account for 90% of the entire population. The Christian faith is predominant in sub-Saharan Africa. So, if you want to reach out to Africans in this region for any reason, it’s logical to tap the Christian faith network.

Some may have a hard time with this because in the West there is a vocal credo of the “separation of church and state” whether it is truly legislated or really works is another issue. For example, it is known that when disaster strikes in the United States the National Voluntary Active Disaster (Vo-ad) network, comprised mostly of faith-related institutions, is a fast and effective responder. In fact, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the United States signed a memorandum of understanding with Vo-ad to reach out to communities in disaster.

And, if the truth be told, government and international aid organisations partner with local faith organisations to reach local populations in the developing world. Why? First, they understand and have become in varying degrees part of the local culture and people.

Second, faith culture in developing nations is one of the most powerful social institutions.

Third, the Christian faith network has a way of reaching people even in very remote regions. Some Christian pastors and bishops establish churches in rural and remote regions. To reach these communities, they may have to walk or ride a motorcycle, but they do reach them.

So, if the Christian faith network can help address natural disasters, why can’t they be tapped to address an even larger, continual disaster – poverty in Africa?

To the audience that finds it hard to mix business and faith, poverty or untapped wealth in Africa is a continual disaster that needs to be addressed. From an economic standpoint, until Africa is able to tap its wealth more broadly there will continue to be an overreliance on aid.

In actuality, faith-based organisations already support economic development. Professor Nwabufo Uzodike, Head of the School of Politics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), reports that the Catholic Church has stepped in to assist communities with economic development projects in the DRC because of insufficient government institutions. Also, large international aid organisations like World Vision embed economic development components in their community development projects.

Other faith-based organisations like Business Partners International and the Center for Entrepreneurship at Regent University’s School of Business help develop small and medium enterprises in developing countries. In these instances, however, the goal is to serve the people by helping them get out of poverty.

What is not activated is positioning the Christian faith network as a market and economy. If we look at the aid sector, Western businesses already tap large aid, faith or non-faith, organisations as clients. So, in some realms this is already working, but at the same time the “aid” engine is perverted in certain ways making some wealthy and keeping others in poverty. A friend of mine worked for a large US-based aid organisation focused on refugees in parts of Africa. She suggested that they help the refugees develop enterprises. She was told matter-of-factly they would not do so because it would put the organisation out of business.

Fortunately, the traditional development formula may be changing in small ways, at least in the U.S. since one of the pillars of its development assistance is to catalyse sustainable economic growth.

But beyond the argument for helping people get out of poverty is the importance of pulling people out of poverty for the global economy so everyone wins. Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid, popularised the stance of “trade instead of aid” for Africa. While aid is helpful for development, it is not a sustainable solution. And until this balances out, developed countries will likely continue to pour out aid to assist. These are the same countries who are reeling under debt like the US and UK At some point, if there isn’t a shift in this system, like the world financial systems, it will reel out of control and break, leaving more destruction in its path.

Trade, markets, and business, on the other hand, are the engines of thriving economies. Africa’s poverty is systemic, so a systematic solution is needed not just pockets of solutions.

First, we need to identify and leverage existing systems that have enough momentum to catalyse economic opportunity. Second, we need to find ways to catalyse trade within these networks in Africa to create wealth instead of poverty, reducing reliance on aid.

Faith and business have co-existed for hundreds of years in Africa. The Islamic faith spread through Arab traders in Africa. While Christianity started in North Africa and Ethiopia many centuries before Islam, it did not spread into sub-Saharan Africa in a major way until Europeans came to the continent. It is now time to activate this channel as a market, or economy to benefit many.

The Christian faith network is organised in local, regional, and global spaces, which can perhaps be considered markets not just faith communities or organisations. For example, local churches are normally under the leadership of a geographic administration, which in turn is connected to state, national, and international church administrations.

There are also often direct connections between churches in developed nations to those in developing nations, focusing on specific projects like building schools, houses, and hospitals.

It also should be noted that, in the United States, faith is a specific market segment. There is a very strong Christian marketplace, including music, messages, books, etc. CBA, a Christian retail sector association, estimated that in 2006 Christian sales through its members exceeded $4.6 billion. This doesn’t include sales in mainstream bookstores and discounters like Barnes and Noble and Wal-Mart.

So, faith and the marketplace do mix. Why can’t the social networks in the Christian faith network be leveraged for other economic pursuits on a more systematic and global scale, connecting one community at a time?

The Christian faith network can also bring a transformed ethical framework, trust, and emphasis on people into the alternative market constructed around them. And, if anything, the importance of these factors in the wake of the global economic crisis should be self-evident.

Leveraging faith networks in agriculture

So how would something like this work? One of the best markets to consider is agriculture because of Africa’s ability to be a major agricultural consumer and producer. Africa has a growing population, increasing the demand for agricultural products.

In fact, agricultural production in Africa has the potential to serve world markets as well. The importance of agriculture to the world was felt with the food shortages and price spikes in the last several years. This has ignited greater interest in the agricultural sector, particularly in Africa, which has a lot of virgin, arable land. The purchase of African land for agricultural development by foreign investors and governments is a normal occurrence now.

Unfortunately, the agricultural sector in Africa faces challenges, including low crop yields, distribution, and access to world markets, giving a very different picture. However, some improvements in the value chain have made a significance difference as is illustrated by the example of Malawi.

If the US Christian church turns its attention to this opportunity, there are consumers, businesses, and investors within this faith community that could tie into the African agricultural sector. Christian businessmen, specialising in agriculture and related sectors, could develop and/or invest in African agricultural projects for profit. US Christians can take advantage of AGOA (to export products from Africa to US) and other US programmes.

The Christian church can also tie these business opportunities to communities they serve or provide aid to in Africa, helping develop sustainable livelihoods. This includes marketing, distributing, and selling the products among their networks. As an example, the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee advocates purchasing Fair Trade products.

Again, it’s not that pieces of this puzzle are not already working in varying degrees, but it’s not configured as a market or economy to leverage and maximise existing assets within it to benefit the broadest number of members in the Christian faith network whether in Africa or elsewhere. If it does represent a market or economy, it is fragmented.

And finally, while there are significant challenges and obstacles to taking this approach, the Christian faith network has many leverage points working in its favour, including existing infrastructure to distribute information and resources, funding for seeding agricultural projects which will bring a return on investment, and most of all, ecosystems of people who have the knowledge and expertise to make it happen.

Conclusion

There can be no question that traditional ways of looking at assets and capital are reasons why many opportunities lie fallow. As we speak of innovation in technology, we also need to look at how to innovate the raw materials, both tangible and intangible, that we have and to which we have access to.

Cultural networks are a way of life in Africa, and they also represent channels through which business is done. The Christian faith network is one of those networks that have an extensive reach on the continent both in urban and rural areas, as well as formal and informal marketplaces.

The Christian faith network represents a unique network to leverage because on many variables it already has the resources – people on the ground, local knowledge and connections, funding, facilities, distribution channels, etc. The key is to transform use of these resources for economic development through broad-based, for-profit ventures.

This article was first published in Redefining Business in the New Africa (2011). Click here to buy the book.