Magat Wade is the author of a memoir and a manifesto. The Cheetah's Heart: How we've been fooled about Africa's poverty and what it means for human flourishing (Cheetah Press), in which she argues that the solution to Africa's problems lies in „.Cheetah generation” African youth embrace free markets, individualism, human rights, and government transparency.
Born in Senegal, currently lives in Austin, Texas. wade I am the director of African Prosperity Center in atlas network Founder and CEO of skin is skinsells African skin and lip products. During December, reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Wade to discuss her book, African entrepreneurship, and startup cities.
Q: The dominant metaphor in your book is cheaters and the cheater generation. Where did that word come from and what does it mean to you?
A: The reason I am all a cheater is because of my beloved professor, the Ghanaian economist George Ayiti, whom we lost (in 2022). He made this distinction between Hippo spirituality. These are the people who still believe that colonialism is holding us back. Those who believe that slavery is holding us back, even if we have come out of it. Putting it all together is more or less victimhood. Because as long as we remain in a victim mindset, we won't fight any further. We remain poor and foreign aid continues to be poured in to supposedly solve that poverty. And who will they face off against? Cheetah generation.
George said that the Cheetah generation is truly a generation of Africans who have the mindset that no one is waiting for them. They are not going to wait for the government. They are not going to wait for foreign aid. they believe in themselves. They know they have the tools and just get on with it. And the future of our continent rests on the backs of cheetahs, he said.
It's not about your age. It's not about whether you're African or non-African. It's not about whether you're an African living on the continent or an African living in the diaspora. Very true, but do you believe we have a bright future? And do you believe that that bright future will be realized through free markets?
Q: You criticize Jeffrey Sachs, the development economist who helped develop and advance the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. What is fundamentally wrong with people like Jeffrey Sachs? What is wrong with the framework they are trying to convey to developing countries?
A: To me, it's just not understanding how the world works and not understanding economics. It's not really rocket science. And perhaps that is why people who are always looking for complexity do not realize it. I think for people like him, there's something very disturbing about this idea that the market can solve things.
Jeffrey Sachs thought he could solve things like poverty, but then what he did was basically establish what were called Millennium Development Villages. So they basically continued with a very top-down approach to economics. What ended up happening was they didn't go anywhere and things started rotting everywhere. They spent millions of dollars on all this. By the way, an entrepreneur probably could have produced the same thing, with higher quality, cheaper, and still sold it, but they had nothing to show for it. That's the psychology of such people.
Q: You said Africa would benefit from millions of Africans starting businesses and becoming entrepreneurial. But you highlight how difficult it is to start a business within Africa.
A: Life is made up of trade-offs. But when it comes to foreign aid, I think people are probably considering only small gains in the trade-offs. I had a woman and she was very angry with me. She is sure that for her the road can only be useful. Isn't that so? It turns out that roads equal profits. Let's talk about costs. Because of this path, I have a culture of dependence that continues to be ingrained in my people. That's never good for the entrepreneurial spirit we need them to truly create wealth and value. Dependence on culture has nothing to do with economic development.
Q: How do roads create dependence?
A: This path was made possible thanks to foreign aid. Foreign aid came to us because we were thought to be poor. Our government is literally poor. They don't have enough money to meet all the needs that the government needs funding for.
Now, I want to say to people, why do you think we are in that situation? First of all, why do you think we are so poor that we need an injection of extra cash so that we can use the money we earn to build the roads we should be building ourselves? We are poor because we don't let entrepreneurs work. If you come and fund for me what I should have financed for myself and myself, and we continue to do this, the end of so-called colonialism Nothing has changed since then.
Therefore, there is a generation of young people on that path who behave in a way that makes it impossible for them to function in the market. Because of that path, I suffered even more violence and leaders who would never leave me.
Q: How can startup cities help in the African context?
A: Africa is the poorest region in the world because it is the most overregulated region in the world. This is a region of the world that lacks what entrepreneurs need most: a viable business environment.
I'm sure everyone in the audience knows how cumbersome, complex, difficult and time-consuming it is to enact laws and even reforms in stages. Cost, timeliness, everything. We have to accelerate. And most importantly, we need to be a little more radical because we can't get there just by tweaking something here or tweaking something there.we have to do pure Then start over.
So why not clean it up one place at a time instead? Start-up cities are the next generation of special economic zones with their own laws, their own governance especially when it comes to commercial law, usually common law. It is based on. That's really the solution for me. Because what you're suddenly doing to African entrepreneurs who are currently stuck in a dysfunctional system is giving them an opportunity.
Q: How do you get incumbents, the people who profit from the status quo, to allow such an experiment?
A: The reason I'm so bullish about Africa's future is that we don't need all 54 countries to tackle this at once. All I need is a country with leaders who think a little differently and have different goals than other countries. Because not all of them are as corrupt as we think. And even though they are doing corrupt things, not all of them would want to stay in this state of misery and despair if given the chance.
Startup City is also a way for these leaders to really have their cake and eat it too. So keep doing whatever you're doing over there. But let's try an experiment that won't affect (the leaders). Sovereignty cannot be attacked. Family law, immigration law, criminal law all remain the same. When it comes to building prosperity, all I'm saying is that entrepreneurs need an enabling environment. So we're going to look specifically at commercial law and make sure we provide the best environment for them to build.
This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity.