The Elite Africa Project is a global network of scholars working to shift how Africa and its elites are understood.

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The Elite Africa Project

is a Canadian-based global network of scholars working to challenge predominant understandings of Africa and its elites.

Both in academia and in wider public discourse, African elites have either been ignored or depicted as grasping and self-interested. This framing perpetuates negative depictions of the continent and its peoples and draws on a simplistic understanding of what power is and how it is wielded. Our work aims to counter these perceptions by initiating global conversations about “who leads” in Africa and how they do so.

We seek to disrupt and renew both academic and public discussions of African leadership, refocusing attention on a wider, qualitatively different set of elites from those that have predominated in the past (such as the parasitic “Big Men” of neo-patrimonial politics).

Burna Boy, Nigerian musician, rapper and songwriter; in 2021, his album Twice as Tall won the Best World Music Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, and he enjoyed back to back Grammy award nominations in 2019 and 2020.

This project focuses on Africa’s elites, defined as those who operate at the highest level across a range of domains, wield significant power, and possess expert knowledge, skills, and personal strengths that are deployed in strategic, creative, and generative ways. While elites are those who possess the most consequential and powerful agenda-setting and decision-making capacity, Africa’s elites have either been sidelined in many of our analyses or rendered monotonal. When we switch frames to consider the continent as embodying and projecting new, generative forms of power, it changes our view of Africa. It may also change how we understand power itself.

We look at six domains of elite power, from the political to the aesthetic, and ask how we might shift how we think about and study Africa, and how this shift would impact our conceptualization of power and its exercise. Our goal is to contribute to popular conversations about Africa and to highlight the achievements of the astonishing new generation of leaders for a broader public audience.

This website will serve as a hub for collaborative activity by scholars, activists, and practitioners working on Elite Africa and house a searchable database of primary and secondary materials on African elites.

Kofi Annan (1938-2018), Ghanaian-born diplomat, trained in economics, international relations and management; was the first UNSG to be elected from within the ranks of the UN staff itself and served in various key roles before becoming Secretary General.

The Elite Africa Project

is a Canadian-based global network of scholars working to challenge predominant understandings of Africa and its elites.

Both in academia and in wider public discourse, African elites have either been ignored or depicted as grasping and self-interested. This framing perpetuates negative depictions of the continent and its peoples and draws on a simplistic understanding of what power is and how it is wielded. Our work aims to counter these perceptions by initiating global conversations about “who leads” in Africa and how they do so.

We seek to disrupt and renew both academic and public discussions of African leadership, refocusing attention on a wider, qualitatively different set of elites from those that have predominated in the past (such as the parasitic “Big Men” of neo-patrimonial politics).

This project focuses on Africa’s elites — those who operate at the highest level across a range of domains, wield significant power, and possess expert knowledge, skills, and personal strengths that are deployed in strategic, creative, and generative ways. When we switch frames to consider the continent as embodying and projecting new, generative forms of power, it changes our view of Africa. It may also change how we understand power itself.

This website is the hub for collaborative activity by scholars, activists, and practitioners working on Elite Africa and will house a searchable database of primary and secondary materials on African elites.

ELITE AFRICA PROJECT DATABASE

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Creating Emerging Markets: Interview with Badreddine Ouali

Creating Emerging Markets

Date: July 20, 2023
Summary:

Badreddine Ouali is the Founder and Co-CEO of Vermeg Group, a financial services software company with a strong presence in the Netherlands and Tunisia. With a background in engineering, Ouali founded BFI in Tunisia in 1993, later re-establishing it as Vermeg in Amsterdam in 2002. The company's success is attributed to factors like a focus on user experience and a hardworking culture. Ouali emphasizes equity in hiring and social impact. Beyond business, he founded the Tunisia Foundation for Development and contributed to the Smart Tunisia program. Ouali addresses challenges for entrepreneurs in Tunisia, such as infrastructure limitations and currency control, and stresses the collective responsibility of business and government in using technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence, responsibly.

Read about the interview here.

Creating Emerging Markets: Badreddine Ouali

Creating Emerging Markets
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Badreddine Ouali is the Co-CEO of Vermeg Group, a financial services software company, emphasizing equity and social impact in business.

Economic

Simson, Rebecca and Yannick Dupraz, "Elite persistence in Sierra Leone: what can names tell us?" Africa Economic History Network, Volume 71, 1 March 2023

Can name analysis be used to study elite persistence in African contexts? Taking Sierra Leone as a case study, we use surnames to measure how two historical elites (descendants of settlers that comprise Sierra Leone’s Krio community and members of Chiefly Ruling Houses) have fared over the postcolonial period. We find strong and persistent overrepresentation of these groups across a range of postcolonial elites, although decolonisation is associated with a marked decline in political elite persistence. The results also show strong elite compartmentalisation: Chiefly name-holders are more overrepresented in politics and mining, and their overrepresentation falls the more educationally-selective the profession. The Krio, conversely, are increasingly overrepresented the more educationally-selective the sector, and their role in politics diminished rapidly after independence. This speaks to the enduring legacy of the colony-protectorate divide in Sierra Leone, and to different strategies of elite perpetuation, whether through educational investments or political capital. It demonstrates that name-based methods can bring new perspectives to African elite studies.

Source: Paper abstract

Simson, Rebecca and Yannick Dupraz

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The authors use name analysis to study elite persistence in African contexts.

Political

Tieku, Thomas Kwasi. “The Legon School of International Relations.” Review of International Studies 47, no. 5 (2021): 656–71. doi:10.1017/S0260210521000395.

The article explores the Legon School of International Relations (LSIR) which is the research, teaching, and academic programming of International Relations (IR) at the University of Ghana, Legon. The LSIR came out of attempts to decolonise knowledge production, dissemination, and academic programing in Ghana in early 1960s. The article shows that the LSIR is decolonial in theoretical perspective, grounded in southern epistemologies, relational in ontology, qualitative in methodology, practice-based, and it is equity-oriented. Although the LSIR scholarship as a package is distinctive, some of its ideas overlap with the work of several contemporary IR communities in the West. The article highlights implications of the LSIR story for the IR communities in the West and the value of paying close attention to the works of IR centres of scholarship in Africa.

Source: Article's abstract

Tieku, Kwasi Thomas

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The article highlights implications of the Legon School of International Relations story for the IR communities in the West and the value of paying close attention to the works of IR centres of scholarship in Africa.

Coercive
Political

Creating Emerging Markets: Interview with Funke Opeke

Creating Emerging Markets

Date: July 11, 2022
Summary:

Funke Opeke, CEO of MaineOne, shares her journey from the United States to Nigeria, where she founded MainOne and built vital digital infrastructure for West Africa, culminating in the company's acquisition by Equinix.

Read about the interview here.

Creating Emerging Markets: Funke Opeke

Creating Emerging Markets
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Funke Opeke discusses her journey from the US to Nigeria, and MainOne's role in West Africa.

Economic

Creating Emerging Markets: Interview with Francis Okomo-Okello

Creating Emerging Markets

Date: Feburary 28, 2014
Summary:

Francis Okomo-Okello discusses leadership challenges in Kenya based on his experience at Serena, emphasizing regional diversification, ethical practices, and the role of banks in responsible lending.

Read about the interview here.

Creating Emerging Markets: Francis Okomo-Okello

Creating Emerging Markets
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Okomo-Okello discusses Serena's response to political risk, emphasizing regional diversification and ethical business practices.

Political
Economic

Creating Emerging Markets: Interview with Uche Orji

Creating Emerging Markets

Date: September 1, 2021
Summary:

Uche Orji recounts his journey from studying chemical engineering to leading the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA). He emphasizes his return to Nigeria and the challenges he encountered while establishing the Authority, underscoring the importance of public service for young African professionals.

Read about the interview here.

Creating Emerging Markets: Uche Orji

Creating Emerging Markets
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Uche Orji discusses his career journey and encourages African professionals to engage in public service.

Economic
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