The puzzle is not whether Africans give. They clearly do. It is whether some of that capacity for private mobilisation could also support the production of new knowledge.
It is really good that this questioning and seeking is becoming part of the continents discourse, but I believe there are more fundamental issues at play. It starts with paradigms of forward / future thinking and problem solving. When these come to the fore initiative is born and all the other stuff flows. But instead we have paradigms of dependancy (so giving is out of guilt - mostly - not to spread goodness and grow anything) and 'just make it through today'. As long as that is the case ... nothing will change.
I think this is an important dimension of the question, particularly the distinction between giving as a response to immediate need and giving as an investment in future capacity. I would, however, be cautious about treating dependency, guilt or short-term thinking as established explanations. Those are hypotheses that deserve to be tested rather than assumed.
For me, that is precisely where the research question becomes interesting. If forward-looking problem solving and initiative are important drivers of development, then we should also ask what institutions, incentives and social norms enable those orientations to emerge and become sustained. The issue is therefore not simply whether Africans give, but whether existing forms of collective resource mobilisation can be connected to institutions that produce knowledge, experimentation and long-term solutions.
Perhaps the deeper question is not why Africans do not give enough to research, but why the continent has not yet developed stronger institutional pathways through which private giving can become investment in future knowledge and productive capacity.
It is really good that this questioning and seeking is becoming part of the continents discourse, but I believe there are more fundamental issues at play. It starts with paradigms of forward / future thinking and problem solving. When these come to the fore initiative is born and all the other stuff flows. But instead we have paradigms of dependancy (so giving is out of guilt - mostly - not to spread goodness and grow anything) and 'just make it through today'. As long as that is the case ... nothing will change.
I think this is an important dimension of the question, particularly the distinction between giving as a response to immediate need and giving as an investment in future capacity. I would, however, be cautious about treating dependency, guilt or short-term thinking as established explanations. Those are hypotheses that deserve to be tested rather than assumed.
For me, that is precisely where the research question becomes interesting. If forward-looking problem solving and initiative are important drivers of development, then we should also ask what institutions, incentives and social norms enable those orientations to emerge and become sustained. The issue is therefore not simply whether Africans give, but whether existing forms of collective resource mobilisation can be connected to institutions that produce knowledge, experimentation and long-term solutions.
Perhaps the deeper question is not why Africans do not give enough to research, but why the continent has not yet developed stronger institutional pathways through which private giving can become investment in future knowledge and productive capacity.