Global social impact group, Dalberg, hosted a stakeholders’ networking engagement on the sidelines of the 2024 Africa CEO Forum in Kigali. This high-level event for the African private sector aims to harness the continent’s potential to secure “a place at the table” and command respect in global dialogues. Leonard Mungarulire, Associate Partner and Rwanda Country Co-Director, emphasised the firm’s global presence and diversity in his address on Wednesday, May 15: “At Dalberg, we are as much a Rwandan firm as we are Kenyan, Ivorian, European, Indian, or American. With our presence in 28 locations worldwide, our diversity sharpens our perspectives and enables us to bring our very best to the table when engaging with each of you.” “Two years ago, in partnership with the Hempel Foundation, we started a pilot programme to improve quality of foundational education and learning in Rwanda for Primary 1 to Primary 3,” he said, explaining their partnership with the government. “This pilot is on track, and we are honoured to have worked with the Ministry of Education.” Mungarulire continued, “We have also worked on projects within digital innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Rwanda. In collaboration with key Government agencies, we co-created two funds; one to support start-ups, called the ‘Early-Stage Financing Facility for Tech Start-ups,’ and another to support Enterprise Support Organizations (ESOs) that help these start-ups grow and scale. ” He added, “We’ve been involved in initiatives in the green economy, climate finance, and agriculture, partnering with ecosystem stakeholders, the private sector and government. We’ve also worked on enhancing Rwanda’s basketball ecosystem, a project entrusted to us by the RDB. In our collaborations with each of you, we prioritized listening and understanding before addressing the problem, often inspired by your fresh perspectives and nuances. We remain committed to pushing the boundaries of innovation and earning your trust as valuable partners in our country's development journey and beyond.” Diversity as a catalyst for innovative solutions, adaptable practices For Lillian Kidane, Regional Director for Africa at Dalberg, diversity means bringing innovative solutions to the table that are s, adapting successful practices for implementation elsewhere. She recalled, “For our firm, it is about keeping impact on livelihoods and the environment at the center of all that we do, asking ourselves “how do the recommendations, solutions or assets we create improve livelihoods and/or our relationship with our natural world?” As our world struggles with deepening social polarization, we are witnessing growing mistrust within communities that leaves populations at risk in many ways. We have seen this most recently during the Covid pandemic where populations across the continent expressed reluctancy to accept government-issued vaccines. Kidane continued, “For us at Dalberg, we aim to hold a critical balance between locally- sourced solutions that are stress-tested with global expertise to ensure that Africa receives the best of what we can co-create with our Africa-based changemakers and leaders.” When asked what Dalberg looks forward to at the conference, she said: “The Africa CEO Forum emphasizes the intersection of public sector, private sector and ecosystem builders. For us, the key question is how to keep livelihoods and impact on the natural world at the centre of this conversation. Successful investments should result in improved livelihoods. Africa shouldn’t be seen as a place to merely make money and extract benefits; it’s about building mutual benefit, where we can strike a sustainable balance between economic benefits for the private sector while securing social benefits for the communities in which they operate” Kidane said.
