HANS STOISSER
HANS STOISSER
“Yes, that’s like it is!” has always been the answer when putting forward to an aid practitioner the principle of permanent acceleration: When a certain type of project or program has become mainstream, right before results are visible, the aid community…
… and make it increasingly irrelevant ” … we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. More than half the people of…
William Easterly argues in his new book “The Tyranny of Experts” that for the last decades authoritarian development has been the default consensus on global poverty reduction. Authoritarian development relies on technocratic solutions, tries to implement pre-fabricated ideas and plans in whatever local…
Africa’s next Billion WEF on Africa – Today the World Economic Forum in Davos brought a very interesting discussion on Africa. “We’re enjoying in Africa what I call the democracy dividend“, said Ghana’s president John Dramani Mahama. The basic assumption behind…
Recently I had a very interesting talk with my colleague Johannes Fiedler, architect and urban planner, who just came back from Ethiopia where he spent one year as a Visiting Professor at the University EiABC (Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building…
The South African transition from the apartheid regime to a multi-racial democracy in the early 1990s was one of the most successful change management projects in history. It is commonly agreed that Nelson Mandela was the leading figure and without him…
Nelson Mandela The world gathered on Tuesday in Johannesburg to commemorate Nelson Mandela. Much has been said. In a way it was Nelson Mandela who heralded the big change on the continent and the era of modern Africa. Until the 1980s…
Europe is the largest provider of development aid to African countries. Although aid is still very much needed in certain places, it increasingly becomes an outdated concept. It is also outdated because its influence on Africa’s realm of ideas has…
China’s State-Capitalism and US-Shareholder Value Thinking The economic success story of several African countries over the last 15 years has a lot to do with the emergence of non-Western countries, particularly China, India, Brazil, Turkey, and other Asian and Arabic…
Emerging Africa is on the move The economic performance of Africa’s 54 countries more than doubled in real terms since 2000 (GDP based on PPP + 145,2%), income per capita improved alone in Sub-Sahara Africa from 1.380 to 2.580 USD…