Shaping Africa’s future growth: Why “best practice” is not necessarily a bad idea

On the topic of ‘best practice’, I recently listened to CDC’s Insight event: Shaping Africa’s future growth with Fred Swaniker, and I thoroughly enjoyed the chat. Fred Swaniker is one of the continent’s foremost thought leaders and an even bigger action-oriented leader. He appears to be the type of person that leverages networks and draws in resources to make things happen, and I value that. I admire him. And, he is definitely one of the people on my “have lunch with” list. If he were an athlete, he would totally be a Nike guy; he makes things happen.

Engaging the event Shaping Africa’s Future Growth

In the chat with CDC’s Colin Buckley, Fred highlighted a lot of important points, and many resonated strongly with me.

He talked about the importance of creating an enabling environment in Africa to attract and grow businesses. Then, he spoke about government not getting in the way of someone starting a business – and I clapped a slow and purposeful clap.

But he didn’t stop there; he shared more of his ideas, formed presumably from his experience as a businessman and entrepreneurial leader on the continent.

The interesting take from Shaping Africa’s Future Growth – ‘best practice’

Now to why we are here.

Fred shared a lot of thoughts on shaping the continent’s future growth. His main point, however, was around government and its role as an enabler and nothing more.

His was the idea that government need not be the gigantic and sloth-like machines that they are. Instead, they ought to be small (read nimble) and, according to Fred, must focus on doing three things only:

1. Create the rules.
2. Enforce the rules; and
3. Get out of the way.

Is that an “Amen” I heard?

These are the ideas that have an extra punch, personality, and pizzazz. Exhilarating.

On best practice: An alluring idea and a caveat

I always found the idea of ‘best practice’ intriguing, stupendous even. If you follow my writing, you will know I often highlight its importance in the African quest to create better livelihoods and improve lives, i.e. growth and development. But during this event, Fred shared some interesting thoughts that piqued my interest in an unsettling way. I’ll tell you more.

He made the point that what Africa needs “is reimagination; new practice and not best practice.” Before this statement, he used the analogy of a racetrack to ‘debunk’, if I may call it that, the idea of Africa importing ‘best practice’ to solve its problems.

“If you’re on a race track and driving behind another car,” he shared, “if you use the same vehicle and you go at the same speed, you’ll never catch up to that car in front of you because they are also moving forward. So, you need a different vehicle. You will need to move faster; you need to do things bigger and better, not hold yourself to the standard of the other car in front of you.”

As I sat in my bright yellow and slightly worn sofa, birds chirping and the construction workers next door aggressively drilling into the earth – or so it felt –, I shuddered at his idea and analogy.

I think it did some injustice to the idea of ‘best practice’ and why some of us advocate for it to be a tool in the toolbox.

Unravelling an oversimplified idea

So far, I do believe in the idea of seeking out and leveraging best – or if I’m to be literal, better – practice in the quest for growth and development. At the risk of babbling or waffling, I’ll put it this way.

Many countries have experienced interesting journeys in their quest for growth and development, for example, China, Vietnam, and the Asian Tigers (Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea).

The Asian Tigers, for instance, all used a similar model of growing manufacturing, import-substitution and then became real heavy on the exports. They learnt from each other. And while the playbook was the same, they focused on different things based on chance, strengths, comparative advantage, or choice.

Their outcomes were similar but not the same, at least not in terms of economic output and capabilities. This is the power of leveraging ‘best practice’ – for good and for bad. You see the playbook, mess with it, figure out what can work for you, and then work at it until you catch up or, better yet, surpass those you learnt from.

The racetrack analogy

I think another part of the analogy that was shared that was a little unsettling was the idea that if you take lessons from what others did to get where they are, you will be going at their pace and will thus be stuck behind them on the racetrack.

…….

Well, that was certainly not the experience of the Asian Tigers nor China.

Countries like China could overtake many Western countries and economically challenge superpowers like the US because they did not simply follow blindly. Instead, China took the desired set of “practices”, situated them within its country’s social and cultural contexts, opened up its economies, and added a dollop of urgency. Boom, world superpower.

It is important to acknowledge one of the reasons for their success – domestic ownership.

When the local context is side-lined and domestic ownership is absent from the pursuit of growth and development, rest assured the results will be pitiful at worst and subpar at best.

So, yes, we can see their vehicle type and speed and choose to replicate what they did, form-for-form. Or we can tweak things based on our resources, capability, strengths, and even weaknesses. Picking what is useful and what will help Africa and its economies attract the amount of investment needed and create the amount and kinds of jobs that will grow our economies, make our people competitive, and increase living standards.

We could also get a better car. For example, we can add an element to the engine that others did not consider. The options are many: we can change the tire companies; we can use completely different engineers; and we can decide to step a little harder on the accelerator because, damn, we are on a racetrack, not a dulling convoy.

Best practice(s) are like blueprints – you can, and should, modify

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo shared in the Asian Aspiration documentary about a trip to Singapore in 1993. He took some upcoming 40 African leaders who were eager to hear what the magic solution was. Lee Kuan Yew explain, in Baba’s account, that there was no silver bullet. To paraphrase loosely, Singapore “did a few things right – and kept doing them. Widening and deepening them all the time”.

That’s a practice – and lesson – one should keep handy.

Leveraging someone else’s or, in this case, or some other country’s experience is not a guarantee to success. Countries, possible like people, are not graced for another’s path.

And perhaps it is that innate repulsion to trying to be like someone else that we are importing into this context, hence why some wince at ‘best practice’. But, as Lee Kuan Yew insinuated, there is no blueprint. We will need to figure it out.

But, understanding what others did and how their journeys may inspire or influence us is not a crazy idea. Wanting to be innovative, novel, and creative is not entirely mutually exclusive of leveraging ‘best practice’.

Conclusion: Best practice(s) = Ideas worth sharing

I have questioned the idea of best practice and what makes best practice in the past because it does have its ills, especially when you consider what is generally considered as ‘best practice’. You can read that here. I have also addressed instances where it is useful, such as with my ex-gratia post.

Ignoring ‘best practice’, or shall I say, not being pragmatic and proactive by learning from best practice is time we don’t have to waste. In many more instances than many would care to admit, we do not have to reinvent the wheel and waste energy and resources – all of which are in scarce supply.

We sure do need all the new and novel ideas, but the lesson and paths of others have such significant value. We can but should not dismiss them.

A random mind-blowing point from the chat

Rest.

“The kind of vehicles we are using to prepare young people for work are outdated. Universities,” Fred shared, “are knowledge enterprises, not skill enterprises”.  

I have explored this idea in two podcast episodes I did with Sharmi Surianarain and Antoinette Eckersley (check them out here and here). You can also peruse the podcast channel I host!

As a continent, we need to rethink critically how skills are developed and acquired, including experiential learning and opportunities. I will say more about how another.

You can have a listen to the full CDC Insight chat with Fred Swaniker below. It really is a good use of an hour in your day. You may start at the 2:30 mark 🙂

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Noelle Wonders

Marie-Noelle is the creator and curator of Noelle Wonders - a blog created to pose questions, exchange ideas, explore power asymmetries, and humanize topics around growth and development.

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