We need to shift philanthropy in Africa’s favour

Philanthropy has a critical role to play in the future of the university in Africa, more so now than ever, but higher educational leadership cannot take a business as usual approach to seeking investments into universities.

“This is a momentous time for philanthropy in the future of African universities, given that the interest around philanthropy has been growing over the last few years, including through adoption in formal policy processes.”

“Universities in Africa have faced difficult challenges, and the unequal nature of our society has placed pressure on university leaders to lead first class institutions that are inclusive.

To maximise on the opportunities will require the strengthening of existing partnerships, building epistemic and philanthropic bridges between the North and the South and the South and the South. To reconfigure and sustain the knowledge pipeline will mean challenging the colonially inspired historical intracontinental competition for talent and resources and will require a strong commitment to a pooling of the continent’s human, epistemic and innovation potential,” she said.

“The continuation of philanthropy to support higher education in Africa is historically justified but also an existential need, given the myriad of challenges that the African higher education sector is facing today. These include rising enrolment numbers that put pressure on the various dimensions of the institution, the need for austerity measures, the deteriorating infrastructure, mass turnover and migration of faculty to the North and the need to decolonise education in many African universities.”

Professor Osman said that investments in higher education in Africa generate returns of 21%, the highest in the world.

“Higher education is an important key to unlocking the continent’s two most formidable assets: a youthful population and the potential to lead market growth in the future. We know that Africa’s workforce will be the highest in the world by 2040 with potentially the biggest middle-class on Earth. However, at the same time, Africa’s young people lack dignified and fulfilling jobs. Higher education institutions must be ready to meet this challenge and produce opportunities and trajectories for decent work in the next decade and the future of work.”

Investment in the higher education sector has also produced significant multiplier effects, where the returns are greater than the initial investment.

“Research conducted by the Carnegie Corporation has clearly demonstrated this to be the case in Africa,” said Professor Osman. “The unquestionable protection from unemployment afforded by graduating from a university is consistently implicated in this equation,” she said.

“Moreover, the global higher education landscape is rapidly changing — following its digital recalibration necessitated by pandemic-related lockdowns in 2020. This digital shift could benefit the African continent because, although less digitally mature than its high-income counterparts, Africa could significantly and swiftly address its many skills shortages through the ‘brain-gain’ implied by online learning. In some ways, Africa’s higher education potential is less constrained by the legacies of the pre-pandemic world and is therefore better positioned to rapidly incorporate new forms of technology and learning in its wake.”

Professor Osman warns that this would require investment in the kinds of bandwidth and infrastructure required for meaningful online synchronous learning in modes that range from conventional lectures to robot-assisted surgical training.

At a macro level, the next five to 10 years will be characterised by the rise in digitisation and digitalisation – requiring a massive infrastructure overhaul as well as research and development. Universities are also faced with funding constraints as government subsidies have declined forcing many institutions of higher learning to look for additional resources from the private sector, alumni, philanthropists and alternative sources that include increased collaborations and partnerships with like-minded institutions.

Yet several institutions of higher learning in Africa don’t have fundraising offices, expertise and systems in place: “If we want to be future facing, these will need to be developed and resourced,” she said.

Various world wealth reports show that Africa has the fastest-growing market of high net worth individuals in the world – the number has soared by 145% in the last 20 years compared with the worldwide growth of 73%.

It is projected that Africans with assets of more than $30 million will double by 2025. A report by Candid. showed that the number of US foundations giving to Africa almost doubled in the last 10 years, from 135 to 248. Their funding increased from $289 million in 2014 to $1.46 billion in 2023, given to 36 of 54 African countries. 

In addition, the Coutts Million Dollar Donors Report published recently shows a massive growth since 2014 in mega donations of $1 million and above. A recent philanthropy report shows that $56 billion was donated mainly by donors from the UK, US and Middle East. Of this amount, $36 billion was given to foundations and $10 billion went to higher education. Education was among the top three recipients in the UK, US and China.

“Here is the kicker,” said Professor Osman, “Africa is missing in this picture and I believe that this provides an opportunity and a challenge for the future of universities in Africa. In South Africa, there are reports of most mega gifts being donated to health and higher education. According to a 2014 report, there were 19 mega gifts amounting to $52 million, of which $22 million went to higher education. For me, these figures, reflect the role that philanthropies – African and Atlantic – can play in the future of universities and higher education and there is a strong case for continued support in at least three key domains that should be leveraged so that we build strong knowledge architectures into the future.”

The first area of Investment should be in sustainable, high-quality supervision: “Targeting the growth of higher degrees in Africa is just part of addressing the broader problem of growing a sustainable research and innovation pipeline. Although the continent is growing its share of PhDs, this new cohort will not yet have the cultural capital and experience to immediately teach the next generation. Investing only in producing higher degrees will keep Africa on the innovation backfoot unless this new generation of knowledge-makers are accelerated through the skills transfer experience window. Only then will the pipeline be equalised globally.”

The second domain which is vital for our future is fostering a graduate culture in Africa: “One of the markers of bedding down a sustainable research and innovation pipeline is the emergence of a self-reproducing sense of ‘graduateness’ in whichever way that is defined. This sense should extend beyond the university into industry and other key endpoints for graduates. However, bonding curiosity, entrepreneurship and innovation to the very experience of being a graduate is ultimately an important enabler of sustaining the creation of knowledge by all those who leave the university in Africa. Philanthropic support should be leveraged here.”

Investment in digital capacity and bandwidth management: “This is required to ensure that the potential advantages of digitised teaching and learning can be leveraged in Africa. However, to ensure continuity, skills transfers that will drive local innovation and growth in keeping African universities at the leading edge of different forms of digitally enabled massification must also be prioritised. An investment in digital infrastructures is therefore vital for the future of the university.”

These notwithstanding, Professor Osman also pointed out technological issues warranting attention.  

“In my view, the proliferation of tech is going to bifurcate the knowledge market. On the one end, there is going to be a need for knowledge translation into very specific local needs and demands. On the other will be very niche basic science that will require high-level interdisciplinary expertise to study big issues like famine versus the race to Mars. 

“In my estimation, AI will manage the grey areas between these poles. As part of thinking about the future of the university, we must think about how to gear teaching and learning and research for a bi-modal knowledge market without replicating inequalities? That is without creating different tiers of universities. We have to ensure that Africa is not left behind, and again cyber colonised in the policy terrain, in the publications that are being put out and in the establishment of knowledge infrastructures like institutes, AI hubs and other platforms.”

In conclusion, she said that philanthropy needs to be collaboratively leveraged for this important investment into African futures: “Universities are spaces of innovation, hope and care, especially in times characterised by uncertainty and fear. This is a momentous decade for shaping the future of the African university – a future that we can all call our own.”

Janine Greenleaf Walker  is a contract writer for Universities South Africa.