PND: Rockefeller Foundation Working to Build “Resilience” in Africa

Today’s Philanthropy News Digest is reporting that as Africa “struggles to address the effects of climate change and an unprecedented youth bulge, the Rockefeller Foundation is working across multiple fronts to build the resilience of African economies.”

Attributing the report to the Voice of America, the Digest reports that current efforts includes the $100 million Digital Jobs Africa initiative, which was launched in 2013 with the aim of boosting the information and communications technology (ICT) sector in six African countries — Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Morocco, and Egypt.  Foundation president, Judith Rodin, told the VOA:

We are excited to see so much opportunity and such a growth market in the ICT sector more broadly across the continent.  [There are] so many technology parks growing [and] so many companies really growing on technology-based platforms.  We know that … the continent has to focus on employing this extraordinary youth bulge that we are going to see.  We think … a critical part of shared prosperity as we go forward [means] developing growth in the ICT sector which often yields some of the better paying jobs.       

Elsewhere on the continent, the foundation is working to help small farmers adapt to climate change by collaborating with local partners to capture run-off from flooding for use in irrigating fields.  It is also working in partnership with the World Food Programme and has bankrolled a technology called risk metrics that can help predict an impending drought.  As a final matter, the foundation is also — again in conjunction with the World Food Programme — creating a country-level insurance mechanism that enables countries to access resources in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster rather than having to wait for international development assistance to arrive.    

VEJ