Soccer-loving young girls in northern Kenya may never have heard of Elham Sayed Javad, but they have a lot to thank her for. If it was not for the Canadian-based fashion designer, they would not be able to play in official tournaments.
Javad created a hijab which operates magnetically. It opens and releases if it is pulled from anywhere around the neck area. Her design was one of the two approved by FIFA in June last year, when it lifted its ban on the religious garment, which had been in place for five years due to safety concerns.
<div id="attachment_5872" style="width: 268px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5872" class="size-medium wp-image-5872" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/000_Nic502245-258x300.jpg" alt="" width="258" height="300" />Bahraini player Muna al-Edaysi (R) vies with Palestnian Nivin al-Kolayb during their Women&#8217;s Arabia Cup football match in Manama on October 27, 2010. AFP PHOTO/ADAM JAN</div>
The ruling means women and girls who wear the hijab for religious reasons can now play in competitive soccer competitions. Having overcome that hurdle, all that was left for the girls from the Horn of Africa (Hodi region) was to find a competition to participate in.
Last year’s East Africa Cup presented them with a rare opportunity. The event is organized for youths between the ages of 11 and 16. It combines a range of sporting and cultural events and is lauded for highlighting gender issues. Apart from that, the team have little else.
There is no girls’ or women’s league to play in, and any ambitions of representing the country, while admirable, may prove little more than a pipe dream.
The level the Kenyan girls would have looked at, the under-17 event, appears to be one of the most problematic in their country and many others on the continent.
Kenya withdrew from the under-17 World Cup qualifiers in August because of what they claim was a logistical issue with their opponents, Equatorial Guinea. Kenya claimed the Equatoguineans’ communication regarding match details such as the venue and the kick-off time, as well as confirmation of visas, was received too late.
What actually occurred is not clear. Equatorial Guinea’s media had reported that Kenya may not arrive, but on the match day, August 16, activities went ahead as planned. The officials were present, the Equato-
guinean team warmed up, and stood to attention for their national anthem.
They were even instructed to kick off, and did, scoring a goal before the match was awarded in their favor because of the Kenyan no-show.
Farce aside, Equatorial Guinea have now qualified for the final playoffs which will decide which three African sides travel to Costa Rica for next year’s under-17 women’s World Cup. They will play Ghana in a two-legged tie this month.
The other clashes will be between Zambia, who beat Botswana to advance to this stage, and South Africa, who received a bye into the deciding stage. Nigeria were also given a free passage to the last six and will face Morocco.
For Kenya, all that’s left is disappointment and questions. While some of their aspiring players received a boost in the form of the lifting of the ban on the hijab, others were left high and dry by the under-17 shenanigans.
Their coach, Florence Adhiambo, says incidents like this make it difficult for the girls to stay motivated.
“It’s heartbreaking to see things like this happen. It discourages girls who have just started with their careers,” she says.
She is not alone in these sentiments. Former Nigeria captain Flo-rence Omagbemi, who was on the organizing committee for the 2012 under-17 World Cup, and remains on it for next year’s event, echoed those thoughts at a meeting in Zurich.
“All is not well with the game at the moment in Africa and we need to act fast to salvage the situation,” she says. “We have a lot of talented young girls with great passion for the game but they have no support from their federations. The soccer administrators are not doing much to help improve women’s soccer.”
The most obvious example of that is in the lack of fixtures. The African Women’s Championship has been taking place biennially since 1998 (the men’s has been going since 1957) and age-group qualifications are also held every two years. But the number of countries pulling out means the competition is often marred by the cancellation of fixtures.
More tellingly, there are no fully professional leagues in the women’s game on the continent. That leaves it lagging behind places like the United States, where the women’s game is run the same way as the men’s.
As a consequence, Nadi Sora, the coach of the Hodi girls’ team, explains they don’t have much to aspire to.
“There are no female role models, so there is still discrimination against girls. The whole community enjoys sport, but the girls do not have leagues, we just have tournaments, so we have to wait for a tournament to compete,” she says.
One woman to look up to is the president of Burundi’s football association, Lydia Nsekera, the first woman on FIFA’s executive committee, and who was profiled on these pages last month. Nsekera agrees that without regular competitive matches, women’s soccer will continue to lag behind. She has also identified financial reasons as one of the main roadblocks to developing the women’s game.
“In Africa, there are people who question the rationale for funding female football. But I am confident that, with the right encouragement, women’s football will evolve and reach the level of men,” Nsekera says decisively.
South Africa is one place where corporates have been captivated by the women’s game. In June, Sasol announced a four-year extension of its sponsorship for Banyana Banyana, the national women’s team, and the semi-professional soccer league for women. Many players in the league combine playing soccer while they are still studying.
At least in South Africa, there is some form of encouragement for girls to think seriously about the game. In other countries, especially those with more traditionalist ideas of the role of women, it is frowned upon for girls to take up the game.
FIFA’s unbanning of the hijab has helped for some, but Sora reveals that the Hodi girls’ team still face reprisal from their neighbors.
“The community looks down on us, they curse us and say things to us like, ‘you should not disrespect your culture’, but we continue to play, because when we play football, we are free.”
What the youngsters need are more people like Nassra Juma Mohammed, the founder of Zanzibar’s Women Fighters FC. Mohammed was inspired by the Swedish women’s soccer team, who visited the island in 1998, and wanted to start her own club.
The team are another of Africa’s success stories. They are sustainable because they draw funds from a small shop Mohammed started. And they are successful because their determination, more than their love of the game, allows them to challenge everyone from teachers to their husbands as they fight for their right to play soccer.
Some of the people standing in their way are hard-line religious men who claim women should not play soccer because “they shouldn’t wear shorts”. Even though these women continue to rebel against such restrictive ideals, if any one of them was to agree with the idea or felt she would have a better chance if she covered up, she need only don one of Javad’s hijabs to adhere to Islam, stay on the right side of the FIFA’s laws and still play the beautiful game.

Hijhab scores a goal against FIFA

Art can pull you in deeply. Expressive and raw, it can be believably real, and not. Just like life, it has a fascination; it shows us that it goes on all the time, in straight lines, or abstract.
For all our over-civilized attitudes toward art, our relationship with it is still primal. We are consumed by its emotional involvement with us, constantly wanting to understand its intuitive physical movement in all that stillness, captured on canvas, paper or stone. No wonder it is known as an ‘investment of passion’.
But art is turning out to be more than an unthinking love affair with the aesthetic. It is a tangible investment, and the numbers do not lie. In 2011, the European Fine Art Foundation estimated the global art market was worth $60 billion, a six-fold increase over the past two decades. In 2012, sales at Christie’s auction house were more than $10 billion, up 10% from 2011. And the Citadel Art Price Index, which looks specifically at the South African art industry finished 2012 on a high, at 12.2%.
True, in the past, art was considered a high-end collectable, available only to extremely wealthy individuals. But thanks to the emerging market, trends are finally changing and art acquisition is far more transparent, less guarded and opaque.
Like most investments, buying art requires thought and consideration – it is not only about what is pleasing to the eye. FORBES WOMAN AFRICA spoke to the CEO of Business and Arts South Africa, Michelle Constant, to get a clearer understanding of what you need to get started.
“Let’s face it. Investing in art is a dual investment – both emotional and
financial. Once you invest, you’re stuck with the work as a long-term investment. So first and foremost you must love it. It’s an incredible relationship, owning but also loving the piece of work you’ve bought,” Constant says.
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<h4>WHERE TO BEGIN</h4>
Art is not that much of an enigma. Sometimes it is best to keep it simple. According to Constant, it is useful to visit “galleries, auctions and art fairs, they are good places to get a feel for art and the type of artwork you might want to buy”.
It is also about being informed; you have to learn how the market operates. Sometimes it is best to take at least a year to wrap your head around the ins and outs of the creative space of the industry, before you set out to choose your first artwork. Most importantly, you need to understand your aesthetic, Constant advises. What kind of art do you like? Do you lean more toward painting, sculpture or print, to name just a few?
“Read art magazines and websites (The SA Artist Magazine or www.arttimes.co.za) to find out about openings,” she explains. If you are inte-rested in learning the basics or the history of art by studying a formal course, there are several on offer in South Africa. A good place to start is probably the online directory: www.art.co.za/training.htm. “A great book to read, which will give you wonderful insight, is Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton,” Constant suggests.
Once you have a feel for what you want to buy, engage.
“Go to galleries, auctions, talk to curators and collectors, the market’s expert consultants, so that when you buy your first piece, you are competent in the subject matter.” Try to attend the annual FNB Joburg Art Fair in South Africa, or the Affordable Art Fairs, which take place in America, Asia, Europe and the UK.
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<h4>WHAT TO BUY</h4>
“When it’s time to buy, buy according to what you love, because the return on investment is not guaranteed. What is guaranteed is that you’re going to have to wait at least 10 years, so you really should love it,” Constant advises.
“Remember, once you’ve bought your first work you need to grow your knowledge and become informed in your participation. The more you know, the more you like or don’t like, the more astute you will be in your buying.”
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<h4>WHERE TO GET ADVICE</h4>
You are looking for the kind of company that can offer a range of services – from helping you choose your art, to helping you avoid buying fakes, or stolen goods. Remember that even with all the advice that comes your way, there is no guarantee that you will make queenly profits on any work that you acquire.It is best to book an appointment with auction houses.
Some of the most well known in South Africa are:
Stephan Welz &amp; Co. (<a href="http://www.stephanwelzandco.co.za">www.stephanwelzandco.co.za</a>) Strauss &amp; Co. (www.straussart.co.za)
Artinsure (www.artinsure.co.za) Russell Kaplan Auctioneers  (www.rkauctioneers.co.za)
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<h4>HOW BEST TO INVEST</h4>
Consortiums, an art fund, or as a lone buyer? “As far as I know, there are no real art funds active in South Africa, so you would have to invest in one primarily in the UK or North Ame-rica. The problem with art funds is that they’re set up like private equity funds… but that doesn’t align with the 10-year plan. Their track record is apparently not that brilliant, in general. There are successful consortiums in South Africa. It’s a bit like a ‘stokvel’ (rotating credit unions) and it also provides excellent opportunity for emerging buyers. Importantly, though, all the individuals in the consortium must have the same long-term view.
“For me, lone ownership has been the best way to go. It has meant I can go out and buy smaller works and build my collection. It’s a much more personal process and ties into the concept of a dual investment – emotional and financial,” Constant says.
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<h4>HIDDEN COSTS</h4>
“If you buy from a gallery they will be sharing 40 to 50 percent of the sales price. The work then takes a long time to sell at that or a higher price in the secondary market (auctions, etc). In essence, you need to account for dealer costs, maintenance costs – such as archival and framing – insurance and security. This is why you need at least 10 years. In that time your artist is also building his or her brand, thus growing the value.”
Keep in mind that your artwork must remain in perfect condition. Many experts will advise you to rent proper storage facilities. South Africa is not known for major natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornados or floods, but if your pieces are stored under suitable conditions, they will not deteriorate.
For those storing art at home and on the wall, specialist insurance is key. Barrington Insurance Brokers in Johannesburg is a good place to start:
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<h4>HOW LONG TO HOLD ON</h4>
“A common argument is that for contemporary art you hold on for 10 to 12 years, whilst with modernist art  (a Pierneef or an Irma Stern) it’s around five to seven years. My personal opinion? If you love the work you hold on forever.”

Investing: The New Art Form

I finally meet the second-most powerful person in the US government’s development finance arm at a lavish awards evening in Manhattan, New York City, in late September. The 60th anniversary of the Africa-America institute; it is a spectacular affair. The who’s who of the Diaspora and African glitterati mingle with global business leaders, dignitaries and heads of state. At ease among them all, in a fabulous blue Tracy Reese cocktail dress, is Mimi Alemayehou.
We are seated at the same table, along with former Congolese-American basketball star Dikembe Mutombo and Nigerian model Oluchi Onweagba. Alemayehou manages to look as much a modern woman of the world as she is intrinsically African. She is a global player, with a très chic sense of fashion. As we exchange pleasantries, I am struck by her self confidence and keen sense of direction.
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Alemayehou is the executive vice president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic). Based in Washington DC, Opic works with the US private sector, and has a portfolio of more than $17 billion invested in over 100 countries around the world. And as the body’s second-in-command, Alemayehou oversees the distribution and implementation of these funds. She explains that Opic fosters investment in developing nations, by addressing “major world challenges, from poverty and hunger to access to electricity and financial services”, which also helps the US gain a foothold in emerging markets.
Alemayehou has held the senior Opic position since March 2010, when she was nominated by US President Barack Obama; a decision the Senate supported unanimously.
“I feel privileged to help lead an agency that is making a real difference around the world every day. Opic’s work supporting American businesses and mobilizing investment in emerging markets is particularly relevant today at a time when the private sector is playing such a key role in development,” Alemayehou says.
Although she is a naturalized American citizen, living and working in Washington DC, Alemayehou was born in Ethiopia, and the African nation has shaped the woman she has become. “I was definitely impacted by my early years in Ethiopia, as was every Ethiopian of my generation who lived through the Red Terror years,” she says.
A dark period in the country’s history, the Red Terror was a violent political campaign carried out in Ethiopia and Eritrea between 1976 and 1978. It is estimated that up to 500,000 people were tortured and killed under the brutal regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam.
“Seeing family members and friends imprisoned and killed for political reasons gave me a very early life lesson in the pursuit of freedom, not just political, but economic freedom.
“My parents’ and grandparents’ properties were expropriated and overnight they and many other families lost everything they had worked hard for. That’s a lesson that’s hard to forget.”
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When she was eight years old, Alemayehou’s family moved to Kenya, where she spent some of the most impressionable years of her life. “I still have more friends in Kenya than I do in my country of birth,” she points out. Four years later, the family left for California, in the US. Shortly after they arrived on American soil, Mimi started high school.
“I was fortunate enough to have had parents who valued education and particularly to have had a mother and grandmother who were progressive, loving, and had the same expectations of me as they did for my two brothers, Addis and Daniel. In fact, my brothers would argue that our parents expected more from me than them,” she recalls, laughing.
Our short encounter leaves me yearning to know more. As fate would have it, I meet Alemayehou again the following evening, this time at a party organized by Sudanese telecommunications entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim. The billionaire philanthropist is celebrating the launch of the New Africa Center in Harlem, New York. Once known as the Museum of African Art, the building is being reinvented as a policy institute and space to showcase both African art and African intellect.
As on our previous encounter, Alemayehou is perfectly at ease ming-ling with the high-profile guests. Among them are musician and philanthropist Bono; Ethiopian-born
supermodel, Liya Kebede; the former president of Botswana, Festus Mogae; and head of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
With Afrobeat melodies playing in the background, I probe Alemayehou for more details about her career path. “I got to where I am today partly because I did not always listen to the advice I got,” she concedes.
Before she joined Opic, Alemayehou tells me, she served as the US executive director at the African Development Bank, effectively the most senior US Treasury official in Africa.
“Earlier in my career I was always interested in working on Capitol Hill, but a lot of people – including some of my own family members – told me that there was no way a member of Congress would hire someone who was not an American citizen. I pursued this dream anyway and was ultimately hired as legislative staffer on Capitol Hill.
“I have found it invaluable to question things and not necessarily take ‘no’ for an answer,” she says firmly.
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After graduating from the West Texas A&amp;M University, Alemayehou completed a Master’s degree in international business, law and deve-lopment at The Fletcher School in Massachusetts.
Today, she juggles her high-powered, travel-intensive job with the equally demanding roles of a life partner and mother. She says having a supportive partner, a live-in nanny, and close-knit network of girlfriends make it possible. “I think the family that you make is much more important that the family you are born into.”
But she cautions that “every woman is unique, and what is the appropriate balance for one is not necessarily right for another”. For Alemayehou, going for light jogs with her son means that she can spend quality time with him and still get her workout done.
“One thing about being a mother, I have become an expert multitasker! For example, I could breastfeed the baby and send out emails at the same time,” she quips.
Alemayehou’s roles as a life partner and a mother are clearly a great source of joy and pride to her. “My daughter has been to Switzerland, Senegal, and Puerto Rico. Three continents and she is only two years old! It is very important to me that I expose my children to much more than I was exposed to growing up,” she says seriously.
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She also derives great fulfillment from her work: “Opic has supported many exciting projects in Africa in the past few years”. These include the development of a plant cultivation and agricultural production facility in Rwanda and the rehabilitation of municipal water systems in Ghana. She points out that Opic is one of the largest private equity investors in Africa: “I am very proud of our record. Our investment in Africa has gone up by 300 percent over the last four years.”
She is particularly interested in young people on the continent. One of Opic’s projects in Kenya is a microfinance loan program, which lends money to various entrepreneurs such as youth cooperative groups. Alemayehou also believes in the importance of mentoring.
“What is truly important is mentoring young women who look up to us. It’s our duty to mentor as many young women as we are able to. (Former US secretary of state) Madeleine Albright said: ‘There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women’. She is right. We have to do our part to make sure the next generation learns from our experience and hopefully benefits from it.”
She may be a global executive operating in the fast lane, but she claims to have “no desire to run for political office”. Instead, Alemayehou says she focuses on what she cares about: development in Africa: “The most important thing is to find out what you are passionate about.”

Mimi juggles the globe

I am a well-educated, well-traveled, intelligent young woman. The kind of young woman who has Destiny’s Child’s ‘Independent Women’ as the soundtrack to her life. If or when I get married, I expect my suitor to pay the bride price or ‘roora’, as it is known in Shona, to my parents.
Now, the so-called Westerner may say this is anachronistic. Why would any truly independent woman subject herself to a practice that is affiliated with notions of the commodification of women? Where the woman’s ability to birth to male heirs determines her economic value to her new husband?
The Africanist in me would quickly dismiss the Westerner and respond that modern life (read: increasingly Eurocentric life) has distorted the real meaning of roora. In the same way that the wedding ring symbolizes unity between two people, the payment of roora is a symbol of unity between two families. It represents an acknow-ledgement of the role that parents have played in the upbringing of the woman. Most importantly for a 21st- century woman, roora injects a sense of accountability into a marriage, ensuring that the suitor is serious, and is ready to make the necessary emotional and financial commitment.
That would be my response to a Eurocentric critique of roora. However, recently I read that Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, who is by no means a champion of the West, weighed in on the practice. He effectively called for its end at the Global Power Women Network Africa conference, bemoaning the fact that such customs tend to subordinate women in marriages.
It is a sad legacy of colonialism that we so-called Africanists are protective of traditional practices that no longer serve our best interests. And having a sparring partner in the form of Mugabe, who is arguably a staunch Africanist, forces open a window for honest reflection on roora.
Except that now I cannot win the debate on roora on the Eurocentrism vs. Africanism ticket, I have to apply my mind to the conflicting effects it has on those involved. I need to eva-luate the practicalities of roora and whether we Africanists are willing to live with them.
To begin, the abuse of roora is perpetrated by fathers and families who see their daughters as cash cows (pun intended). A daughter is sometimes perceived as a means to enrich families through her ‘sale’ to another man and his family. Fathers who see their daughters as money-spinning projects charge hefty prices. These in turn are often seen as a license for the husband and in-laws to treat the woman as ‘purchased goods’, and in the worst cases, as indentured slaves.
A 1998 study found that men held conflicting views on the relationship between roora and domestic violence. Some men indicated that they were more likely to beat a woman for whom they had not paid roora, because they could get away with it. There was no recourse for such behavior. Others reported the more common refrain that it was acceptable to beat a woman for whom roora had been paid, because, as they reminded their wives: “ndakakutenga”, “I bought you”.
It is also important to understand the effect of roora on the psyche of women. The findings of a 1999 study by South Africa’s Medical Research Council help to explain the meanings women attach to roora.
The majority of women polled felt that it was culturally accepted that if a man pays the bride price, it means that he owns her. Other meanings attached to roora include: the subservience of women to their husbands, male ownership of women, notions of male sexual entitlement and an interpretation of beating as a sign of love.
The findings are a sad, but admittedly unsurprising, indictment of the practice. Nonetheless, it is misleading to argue that roora is a license for men to abuse their wives or to treat them as purchased goods. I know many men who never paid roora but still mistreat their wives. It would be equivalent to saying that there are no wife-beaters in places where roora is not common, such as the West.
The trouble with roora is that it is vulnerable to abuse. In other words, it is analogous to the argument that the trouble with Christianity is Christians, or that the trouble with Communism is Communists.
This does not absolve roora of its problems. We cannot ignore that there is something wrong when men and in-laws from both sides abuse women in the name of roora.
And as a woman, it becomes difficult to vote in favor of a system that could be harmful to me or other women.
However, that said, culture is not static; it evolves in order to remain relevant. Roora is adaptable and redeemable for the purposes of modern society. This has been proved in the way that the payment method has changed over the ages. In its genesis, as many young men would be envious to hear, a few field mice were acceptable roora.
This then moved on to cattle and then cash. So in the same way that roora has been adapted, let us eliminate the unfavorable tenets of the practice to keep it relevant to society today.
My proposition is that roora continues, with the following reforms:
Pre-marriage – Women’s importance in society should be reinforced. The principle of roora as a token of appreciation, a priceless debt, to parents who have raised a virtuous woman should be emphasized.
Girls from a young age, as well as women already married, need to be taught that they are not bought and hence owned in the relationship. This will lead to women refusing to accept the abuse they may face in marriage. Boys and men also need to be involved in this re-education, so that they too can appreciate the true value of women in their lives.
The negotiation – The key word is moderation. Roora should be a token of appreciation and not a price tag, as no person can be sold. I will go as far as to suggest a cap on the roora, that it never go above, say, the cash equivalent of a couple of head of cattle. This would end the myopic and short-sighted thinking where parents (and even some daughters) do not see that in overcharging their son-in-law, they are only taking away from their daughter’s future household.
Parents, your daughter and son-in-law are likely to be young professionals, only just beginning to have real financial independence. With what do you expect them to begin their future together, after you have charged him an entire year’s salary?
The cap, or at the very least the exercise of moderation, would help end the sentiment that women are the property of their fathers and subsequently their husbands and his family.
Post-marriage – We should institutionalize fair treatment of women as equals. Accountability should not end with the closing remarks of the negotiation; a man should be evaluated constantly, even after the marriage has been legitimized. In the same way that damages are paid for deflowering a woman, so too should there be damages for the mistreatment of wives.
With conditions such as these, roora as an institution is redeemable. Let us keep it as a symbol of the union between two families, a gesture of sincerity and good faith. The processes need to be reformed, to ensure that the institution of marriage is not a punitive exercise for prospective wives and husbands to ensure that the virtuous principles of the tradition remain intact.
So here, I will have to disagree with Mugabe and Westerners alike. I remain adamant that roora has its place in modern society, and I vote in favor of its reform.

Rethinking the Bride Price: Cash cows reformed

Since 1985, Africa’s growth has dipped below zero only twice – in 1991 and 1992. Over the past 10 to 15 years, the continent’s growth has been impressive, fueled by fast-paced urbanization, increasing political stability, connectivity, a youthful population and an expanding middle class.
Another contribution to its success is the emerging trend towards economic diversification. While in the past, Africa’s growth has been largely resource-dependent, the 2008 global financial crisis exposed the continent’s vulnerability to external economic shocks. Those economies largely dependent on the export of commodities were hardest hit.
The movement towards economic diversification has the potential to increase Africa’s resilience. It will also contribute to the continent’s development and ability to achieve sustainable, long-term economic growth.
Small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) have played a critical role in the stability of economies on the continent. Overall, SMMEs account for 20% of Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 50% of the continent’s jobs. In South Africa’s case, an estimated 2.8 million SMMEs contribute between 52% and 57% of GDP. They also provide about 61% of employment, according to official government figures.
However, the development of these budding areas of economic prosperity requires the combined efforts of African governments and the private sector.
“Finance is the number-one biggest constraint for businesses, particularly in Africa,” says Delphine Govender, co-founder of Perpetua Investment Managers. Finance is thus a very nece-ssary discussion to have. In Nigeria, for instance, the formal financial sector meets only 1% of business needs. In China and India, these percentages are above 20% and 30%, respectively.
There is no denying that Africa’s needs are great. But in addition to the construction of physical infrastructure, there is social infrastructure and business growth. Finding sound projects can be a challenge, Govender says. Investors require returns that commensurate with risk, and often, the challenge is not necessarily in financing the project, but in repaying that finance.
Brian Molefe, the chief executive officer (CEO) of South African rail and infrastructure company Transnet, believes “transformational leadership” is key to growth. He says leadership is about making bold and audacious decisions. And then acting on those decisions: “We’re good at talking, but we need to start doing.”
Furthermore, Africa’s leadership needs to decentralize and become more accessible. This is where social media platforms can play a role. In Rwanda, for example, the president and many politicians are active on Twitter, keeping the government accountable to ordinary citizens.
Admassu Tadesse, the CEO of the Burundi-headquartered Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank, commonly known as the PTA Bank, says that leaders on the continent are under pressure to live up to expectations.
“We’ve done well but there is huge pent-up demand that needs to be dealt with, such as infrastructure. This is the challenge we face.”
Tadesse points out that Africa’s strong growth has also not translated into jobs, which is of major concern, given the millions of young people who enter the job market every year.
“Average growth rates of six percent are not sufficient. Rather, we should be targeting nine percent,” he says. Tadesse has also highlighted that African investment as a percentage of GDP at 22% still lags behind other regions, including Latin America at 32% and Asia at more than 40%. The solution, he argues, is to ensure that Africa’s growth becomes inclusive.
One of the key challenges African companies face is how best to take advantage of the continent’s status as the new economic frontier.
Opportunities abound in developing industries such information and communications technology (ICT) and energy. This is evident from the growing investment in alternative sources of power, such as nuclear, gas and renewable energy (hydro, wind and solar). Immense quantities of natural gas have been discovered in South Africa’s Karoo region. It has led to fierce public debate, weighing up the possible impact on the environment against potential job creation.
Organizations such as the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private sector arm, are investing in the sector, particularly in energy efficiency and in renewable energy.
And the critical role that ICT is playing in transforming Africa by connecting businesses, citizens and governments cannot be undermined.
However, it is only through emphasizing intra-African trade that the continent’s growth and prosperity can be truly inclusive and sustainable.
The continent’s resources will not last forever, especially with a population that is expected to double in the next 30 years. This warrants more focus on diversifying economies, ensuring financial inclusion and emphasizing sustainable growth.
For Pravin Gordhan, South Africa’s finance minister, the solution lies in developing the kind of business models that will buffer the economy against further shocks. “Africa has come a long way in terms of reducing risk premiums… (But) we do have a perception deficit,” he points out.
The continent’s time has come, but success depends on the choices that African leaders make and the institutions they build.
The authors are media consultants. This article is based on discussions held at the Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals conference in September.

Africa Rising How Africans can Dynamize the Continent

A Tuesday night in early October marked yet another victory for African women with the launch of this publication in
Johannesburg, South Africa. The bold monochrome cover and red lettering of the inaugural issue sent the message that African women were seated at the boardroom table and ready to make their voices heard.
But even in the atmosphere of affirmation and optimism, the keynote speaker, businesswoman Cheryl Ca-rolus, pointed out that women still face many challenges, from the kitchen to the office.
“Even Superman had a mother,” said the Gold Fields chairperson, reminding the room full of powerful women that their ancestors had played a key role in men’s success for centuries.
What then about Wonder Woman? The iconic comic book character is a demigoddess who battles other-worldly villains with little more than a lasso of truth and a tiara of tele-pathy. Today, Wonder Woman would be wearing a business suit, multitasking her way through the corporate world with a personal digital assistant. But even she would probably buckle under the pressure.
In her book, Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection, former Harvard Business School professor Debora L. Spar explores the demands on women.
She notes that women may have broken through the glass ceiling, but they still face a plethora of obstacles in the corporate environment, which have not adapted to the professional and domestic demands of working women.
Referring to the impossibly high standards that women in the American workplace hold themselves to, Spar says the woman in the perfume advertisement has become the icon of the working girl: “It conveyed this image of this sort of effortless combination of work and motherhood and sexuality and professionalism and ease.”
As an increasing number of African women become a formidable force in business, a reinterpretation of traditional family values seems to be neces-
sary to ease some of the pressures on working women.
“If someone were to ask me what makes successful women, it’s about the infrastructure. But it’s also about love and the giving spirit,” says Basetsana Kumalo. The beauty queen-turned-media maven attributes much of her success to Agnes Mofokeng, the woman who has lived with her since she was 10 days old.
“She’s an extension of my mother. For me, she epitomizes grace, kindness. A good soul, who, in all my years, has been with me. She has always just been the rock for my family. My husband and I often ask each other what we would do without her.”
Shared child care is a common fixture in African homes, but not for Kumalo. “I don’t see her as an employee. It’s never been about that. We have a mutually respectful relationship and it’s about family. They say it takes a village to raise a child and she’s part of my village.
“It goes beyond employee-employer. It’s about being in a village and having an elderly person in my village helping me raise young men who will hopefully be trailblazers, world shakers and history makers,” says Kumalo.
Mofokeng agrees: “This doesn’t feel like work to me… sometimes I have to remind myself that she’s my boss. But often I feel like she’s my daughter –  having watched her grow and go through the different phases of her life.”
However, Mofokeng emphasizes the importance of trust in such a close domestic setting. “If you’re in my line of work, you need to respect your job, take it seriously and be professional. You must know why you’re working and throw yourself in.”
Meanwhile, performer and businesswoman Unathi Msengana describes her decade-long relationship with her project manager, Colene Arendse, as one that relies on this trust.
“I think, because there’s a lot of trust, and I know her intrinsically as a person and she knows me as a person and we know each other’s value systems and how we want to do business with dignity… It’s a huge trust that she has in me because her company is a corporate commodity,” says Msengana.
Currently Arendse is working toward launching the first music and business conference in South Africa next year. And Msengana is acutely aware that her professional behavior directly impacts on Arendse’s business. “It just takes one bad spell to tarnish her company.”
The usually shy Arendse, who prefers to work behind the scenes, jumps in: “It’s her brand, it’s my company. I take my hat off to her. She’s in music, on radio, on TV and not everyone will like you. The only place she’s not criticized is at home.”
As business partners, they are aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Where Msengana excels at sales, Arendse closes the deal with a watertight proposal and streamlined logistics management. It’s also a business model built on family values. “You identify strength in someone because you know that person and you use that professionally because trust is intrinsic in the relationship,” Msengana explains.
“Professionally, you know they have the capability. But personally, there’s that trust and if you betray it, it would not only destroy the professional relationship, but it would destroy families. We know there’s a lot at stake if we disappoint each other.”
The pair is also planning a series of wine and music festivals across the continent, modeled on the Soweto Wine Festival. The event aims to introduce South African blends to new audiences, while simultaneously promoting South African musicians. Msengana is not only a business partner but will also perform at the events.
When Kumalo began building her career, she knew she wanted Mofokeng to be a part of her life. After she won the Miss South Africa beauty pageant in 1994, Kumalo moved from her family home in Soweto to an apartment in northern Johannesburg. At the age of 20 and alone in the city, Kumalo asked Mofokeng to live with her and help manage her life in the public gaze, with the demands of being a beauty queen.
A year later, that beauty queen relaunched her career as a businesswoman, becoming an equal partner in Tswelopele Productions. The company would later merge with Union Alliance Media and was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Kumalo’s latest venture is the acquisition and redevelopment of abandoned buildings to create new urban spaces. But when she was building a family, Kumalo again turned to the woman who had helped to raise her and her siblings.
Kumalo and her husband, Voda-com CEO Romeo Kumalo, insist that their two sons speak Sesotho at home. And, with Mofokeng’s help, the children are taught to respect traditional values.
“When I look around, this family hasn’t changed much from the atmos-phere in the Makgalemele home. These families have the same values,” says Mofokeng, comparing Kumalo’s home to that of her parents.
“If she comes home late and leaves very early in the morning she will call and say: ‘would you please sort out this and that in the house?’ She’ll ask: ‘how are things going?’ and so on. I also give her feedback when she’s not around… There’s constant communication between us,” explains Mofokeng.
Kumalo values these regular updates: “There is an amount of guilt, when you feel: ‘I wasn’t there for this and that milestone in my child’s life’. I think guilt will always be there. As mothers we’re nurturers, we want to be there, we want to raise our children, but times have changed…
“People may say I’m a workaholic but it’s who I am, as well as a mother, and it makes me a happy mother.” Msengana believes her close relationship with her project manager has enabled her to be a better mother.
“I remember, in the first couple of meetings, Colene said: ‘You need to let go, you need to let go’. Because I used to micromanage. It’s allowed me to be more present as a mom.”

The business of family

People often say “life is short” as a justification to do or buy something immediately rather than waiting. But the truth is, life is not short. Life is long. The average life expectancy for an American male is 76.2 years, and 81 years for a female. A thirty-year-old discussing a short life may actually be looking at another 50 long years.
This is good news! And, financially speaking, a long outlook on life is important, because the decisions we make early on have a significant impact on the remainder of our lives. Specifically, these decisions can make or break our retirement plans.
Here are seven important financial decisions 30-year-olds make that could come back to haunt them in their 50s:
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<h4>The company you work for</h4>
There are many things to consider when choosing a job, but the retirement benefits offered are vital to wealth-building in the long term. A 30-year-old who doesn’t carefully research his or her benefits and chooses to work for a company with no company match or retirement contribution could  be way behind someone who works for a company with robust benefits. For example, a 30-year-old making $75,000 a year who saves 10% of his or her income in a 401(k) and earns an 8% average return would have a balance of just under $600,000 at age 55.  Compare that to a 30-year-old who saves 10% at a company that matches 5% and adds a profit sharing contribution that averages 5% a year. He or she would have almost $1.2 million in their retirement account – double our first example’s amount – at age 55.
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<h4>Your starting salary</h4>
Even a slightly higher starting salary can jump start your earning potential. A study by George Mason University and Temple University showed that employees who negotiated their starting salaries averaged a $5,000 increase compared to those who didn’t negotiate. Due to the effects of compounding, the researchers estimate that an employee who starts his or her career with a salary of $55,000 instead of $50,000 (with 5% increases each year) would earn over $600,000 more in income over a 40-year career.
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<h4>Your choice of a partner</h4>
Who you marry is one of the most important financial decisions you can make. I’m not advocating you marry for money – quite the contrary. Marrying for love and staying together is a smart financial move. Whether the 50% divorce rate is an accurate statistic or not, we can all agree that when it happens to you, it is devastating both emotionally and financially. The divorce itself can be expensive and dividing financial assets unravels your financial planning. Just ask Robin Williams, who is returning to television after two expensive divorces!
Your choice of a mate isn’t only about love and commitment; it’s also about financial compatibility. If you and your partner are compatible money-wise and commit to setting up a financial plan to save, invest and build your future, you can enjoy life and create financial security at the same time.
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<h4>When you have children</h4>
Americans are delaying having children. In fact, according to National Health Statistics Report, more than one in three college-educated women will have children after the age of 30. In the past few decades, the average age of American first-time mothers has increased by four years, and first-time fathers are aging at the same rate. Since the recession in 2008, the only age group that has continued to have more babies than in years past is the “over 40” group.
In Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In, she encourages women not to pass up promotions because of plans to have children. If you have plenty of support at home, this can be a great idea. Another way to look at it is, if you plan on having children, don’t wait because you are focusing on your career or waiting for financial security. There are advantages to having children earlier.
One reason has to do with timing of kids’ expenses. Consider a couple that has children when they are 25 years old. Before they hit their 50s, their kids are past the very expensive college years. These parents, still young themselves, have 15 years to focus on their own retirement savings if they plan to retire at 65. Couples that have children when they are 35 years old may not see the light at the end of the “empty nest” tunnel until they are 60 – much closer to retirement age.
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<h4>How you invest</h4>
Investing in high-cost managed accounts can take a heavy toll on investment returns over time. According to Forbes contributor Rick Ferri, founder of Portfolio Solutions, those fees can add up to 40% of your return each year. Rick shares an example of how, with annual mutual fund management fees of 1.1% and an additional advisor fee of 1% (on the first $1 million of your assets), an investor trying to squeak out a return of 5.3% (the expected return) of a portfolio of 60% global stocks/40% U.S. bonds could actually pay 40% of that return in fees. Make sure you weigh the long-term impact of fees when investing; consider choosing low-cost mutual funds or index funds for retirement savings.
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<h4>Whether you rent or buy a house</h4>
There are instances when it is better to rent than to buy a house. If you need mobility, don’t plan on staying in your area for long or aren’t interested in potentially being a long-distance landlord, you may be better off renting. However, in the long term, owning your home can be a coup for pre-retirees. Without even taking home equity into account, a homeowner with a fixed-rate mortgage won’t have to worry about a rent increase. Having a fixed housing cost is increasingly important as you get older, since rents can increase with inflation and you are attempting to estimate future expenses. As a homeowner, the mortgage will eventually be paid off and your housing budget will only have to cover taxes and repairs, so there may be more money to enjoy during your retirement.
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<h4>How you pay attention to your dollars</h4>
If I could take back what I spent in the past twenty years on coffee, clothes I bought on sale but rarely wore and my “guilty pleasure” books, I’d be a wealthy woman. Tracking expenses to see where your money is going which you can do with your bank, Quicken, or in the LearnVest Money Center (*disclosure – I work for LearnVest Planning Services) and identifying blind spots can help you save more and spend less. First of all, when you are tracking expenses, you have a heightened awareness of your money and subsequently are more reluctant to part with your dollars.
I hear clients exclaim all the time, “I had no idea I spend $600 a month on restaurants (or $800 a month on shopping). I am shocked!” When tracking, you can more easily identify areas for cost savings and put those savings toward your financial goals.
Mickey Mantle said, “If I knew I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” I suggest that if 30-year-olds knew just how young they’d feel in their 50s and how much life is left to live, they’d take much better care of their finances.
Life is long. Make decisions accordingly.

7 financial decisions made in your 30s that may haunt you in your 50s

The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else.”
So writes one Nigeria’s most prolific sons, Chinua Achebe, in his somewhat defeatist essay, The Trouble with Nigeria. His sentiments are part of a chorus bemoaning the fact that for all of Nigeria’s wealth, be it in the form of highly educated professionals or resource endowment, there is not enough patriotism. We don’t have functioning roads but I have a jet. We don’t have national security but I can hire a private security outfit. And so the logic goes. It is this ‘every man for himself’ attitude that erodes nationhood. With a population of 175 million jostling for a toehold, it is not surprising that this notorious spirit beats strongly throughout Nigeria.
One young woman who embodies the contradictions of the green-and-white nation is 24-year-old Orode Ryan-Okpu. To some, her claim to fame is as the daughter of Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, the governor of the Delta State.
Ryan-Okpu’s new claim to fame, however, is explained by two business cards. She offers me two – a pink one first and then a purple one. The latter is for Raum Oil Services, where Ryan-Okpu is the managing director. Raum Oil Services is the only upstream oil business in Nigeria owned by a woman. So far it has collected an impressive list of clients, including Nigerian lender Zenith Bank, pan-African energy group Oando, and oil and gas company Conoil.
Ryan-Okpu will be the first to tell you that she was born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth. She will also freely admit that she has used her networks to get to where she is today. But she is quick to point out that, “to whom much is given, much is expected”.
A young woman working in the male-dominated oil industry, Ryan-Okpu is regularly asked why she wastes her time on such a challenging venture when she could get more than enough money from her financially successful parents. Surely she should be able to live her life as a lady of leisure? Or, at worst, get a ‘nice’ job?
As she answers these questions, one word keeps making its way into the conversation – legacy. A popular preoccupation of many young people on the continent, it is perhaps best encapsulated by the phrase: “I’m on my hustle”. For Ryan-Okpu, however, it is not an obsession with hustlin’ to make money, but rather, hustlin’ to leave the world with something to remember her by.
The second business card is emblazoned with the words, ‘Pink Pearl Foundation’ (PPF). A pet cause for the Nigerian version of China’s famed silver-spooned princelings? If so, she certainly puts a lot of effort into it. Motivated by the loss of family members to cancer, as well as by her own brush with the illness, Ryan-Okpu founded PPF six years ago. A university student at the time, she decided something needed to be done to educate and empower Nigerian women in the fight against cancer.
The foundation carries out advocacy drives across Nigeria, increasing awareness about cancer symptoms and the importance of regular self-examination. PPF holds free breast and cervical cancer screenings at mobile clinics and has developed a series of educational talks aimed at women in rural areas.
In July, it opened the Rubies School of Women Empowerment, which offers cancer survivors short courses in business management, catering, tailoring and jewelry design. Ryan-Okpu has also just wrapped up a film called “Happy Funeral”, which raises awareness about cancer symptoms and the need for regular checkups.
PPF has reached out to nearly 4,000 women every year since 2007. The foundation believes that if you can save a woman, you can save a generation.
Inevitably, the question of why she chose not to follow in the footsteps of her political family crops up. When I probe her on her political ambitions Ryan-Okpu concedes that she is interested in pursuing the family tradition. Just give me time, she says, explaining that she wants to achieve much more before entering the political arena.
If Ryan-Okpu is an indication of the future of Achebe’s Nigeria, a new generation obsessed with what they leave behind, then the green-and-white nation may just be on the right track after all.

Hustlin’ for a Legacy

The South African adult sex industry is big business. And while some of you may blush and titter at my choice of phrase, it is impossible to ignore the fact that many players in the sector are coining it.
Although no official statistics are available, insiders say it is a multibillion-dollar industry. And if attendance figures at Africa’s largest sex expo are anything to go by, the sector is booming, as more and more women rid themselves of the shackles of conservatism.
Arthur Calamaras, who jokingly dubs himself the ‘king of porn’, is the franchise owner of Sexpo in South Africa. This year he had hoped 50,000 people would attend the four-day exhibition in September. In the end, 45,000 visited the health, sexuality and lifestyle expo, which is still considered a respectable number.
The face of consumers of adult sex products is changing dramatically. The stereotype of pimply teenagers or lecherous old men no longer applies. Women are getting into the game in their droves, with more women than men attending Sexpo.
Calamaras says one reason for women’s increased interest in Sexpo and porn shops in general is that women are now designing sex toys. So not only are they prettier, but they come in ergonomic shapes and have innovative features.
In addition, market players wanting to attract women, especially rich women, have opened upmarket, lux-urious adult shops.
One example is sensuality boutique Lola Montez. Owner Sharon Gordon, a qualified human rights lawyer, opened Lola Montez as she believed it was time to be an activist for what is regarded as one of the most important aspects in a relationship – sex. Gordon was newly divorced at the time.
“At the same stage I was going through that whole dilemma… that women over 40 go through, that no one is ever going to love me again, that I am never going to have sex again.
“I thought that rather than playing at the one-night stand thing, I needed a vibrator. So off I went to one of ‘those shops’ and had the worst experience of my life,” she recalls.
Gordon then traveled to Australia, England and the United States to establish what was going on in the adult sex market internationally. She came back to South Africa and opened Lola Montez more than a decade ago, becoming one of the first women to enter the local industry.
“I really started it from a point that nobody needs to feel dirty about their sexuality and that I could do this better than it was being done.”
Gordon believes that at the time, other than in San Francisco in the US, she had the first store where people could actually touch a vibrator before deciding whether or not to buy it.
“When you come to a Lola store it’s a holistic experience. You will get educated, you will be able to touch and feel. It’s all about feeling comfortable with your sensuality and your sexuality in a safe and educated environment.”
Calamaras has also shifted focus in his 65 Adult World shops, as women are driving the sales.
“I have started introducing more female lines. In the last three years, demographics have changed a lot. As we revamp each store, we change the look and feel to make women feel more comfortable,” he explains.
He agrees that to cater for women, products had to undergo a makeover.
“The vibrator has changed from what it was 10 years ago. It has multi-speeds. Medically, products are safer, more thought is put into design; it’s more cosmetic than looking like a genital.”
Charmaine Brewis, who owns Lady Jane, an exclusive adult toy and lingerie shop in Durban, South Africa, says most of her clientele are 35 and older, married, or have high disposable incomes. She says her customers do not bat an eyelash at paying $300 for a product.
“A lot of women who come in are going through menopause and they have taken responsibility for their sexual life because it is affecting their relationships. So then they will come in and they will buy a vibrator or something like that,” explains Brewis.
Gordon, who describes herself as a relationship engineer, believes adult toys can help improve connections. “We fix the relationship with yourself and the relationship with your partner because we can educate you. At the end of the day, they are toys. That’s what they are. They are to play,”
she says.
One of the most popular services Lola Montez offers is a ‘couple’s event’. Partners go to the store together and do several exercises to establish where they are in their relationship. They are then given communication techniques to help express to one another what it is they want. Afterwards, staff members assess what the couple would be interested in and are able to advise them on purchases.
Although there has been a surge in internet sites selling sex toys, Gordon says Lola Montez still sells more in-store. This is especially common with first-time buyers who are unsure what they are looking for.
“That first buy is always within the comfort of: are you a clit or G-spot girl? Are you allergic to latex?”
And yes, she does count well-known women among her clients. “They come into the store and it’s quite interesting because the minute that it’s a personality and you are supposed to recognize them, we just make as if we don’t know who they are. And the minute you do that, all of a sudden they are just a person, and you sell what you need to sell,” she says.
As with most businesses, the economic slowdown has had a negative impact on the industry and the middle class is making fewer purchases. Gordon believes this is a grave mistake.
“Essentially we are a luxury item. We are not bread and milk. You can still have sex without us. My big thing is that that’s thinking wrong. You actually have to have us.
“What’s the first thing that walks out the back door when financial woes walk through the front? It’s your sex life and your relationship. If you are maintaining it by buying naughtiness and sexiness and making sure that you are keeping your relationship and self-esteem in play, then you should be buying our product and therefore we should be at the top of the grocery list.”
Although there is money to be made, both Calamaras and Gordon say the sex industry is not an easy one to break into. And as a woman, the stigma attached to the sector makes it more difficult for Gordon. Some women refuse to sit next to her when she attends her son’s rugby games. Others keep their husbands far away from her in case she steals them.
This attitude and perception is changing in South Africa, but in the rest of Africa, the picture is very different. In the vast majority of African countries, sex toys are illegal. Women either have to make their purchases secretly in other countries, or find other ways to spice up their sex lives.

SA Sex Sector all grown up

Is the experience of coaching women different to coaching men? I posed this question at my coaching book club, which meets regularly for two hours of zesty discussion. We are all women.
The question sparked a lively exchange. Some of us had recently read Barsh and Cranston’s How Remarkable Women Lead. Some argued that the points made could equally apply to men.
I thought about the clients I have coached. Certainly men and women bring common issues to their sessions: self-esteem, presence, being grounded under stress, delegating, networking, managing upwards, etc.
So what have I noticed that is different?
Some women clients of mine want to get out of what is called the ‘velvet ghetto’, the ‘pink collar’ jobs for women in areas considered to be gendered: human resources, public relations and marketing. They want core business jobs that show their delivery on the bottom line. I have only had one male client trying to make this switch.
Recently, I attended a briefing in the financial services industry. The Manco was indeed a MAN-committee! Fourteen of the 15 members were men; the lone woman was the director of human resources.
But progress is being made. Career guidance at my convent school proposed social work and teaching prior to our becoming stay-at-home mothers.
Most of my women clients (with or without children) take on more household responsibility and struggle more with the work-life balance. In her keynote address at the launch of FORBES WOMAN AFRICA, Cheryl Carolus said: “Superman for women is a con job. Superman has a mother and never worries about matching socks both coming out of the washing machine, or what’s for dinner and whether there’s enough cat food.”
One of my black women clients sits on a board that has only two women members. One of her challenges was how to engage with the men during the breaks. She was angry: “The chairperson could only think of saying, ‘I like your shoes’. I realized that none of the men on the board have wives that work; they have ‘charity wives’. They can’t relate to us.”
I am not saying that all men are like this, and there certainly are ‘charity wives’ who are hard-working philanthropists. But our history of patriarchy leaves all of us, women and men, with a legacy that needs to be addressed alongside the legacy of race.
One black woman COO arrived at her new job. Her welcome from the CEO (a black man) included a description of how the previous incumbent (a woman) had failed. He had given her two days’ notice to prepare an important document for submission to the board. He had approved six weeks’ leave for her most senior direct report (a black man) at a critical time when compliance reporting was due. That same report had been on the shortlist for the COO position and was rumored to be the CEO’s preferred candidate. No wonder she felt that she was being set up to fail.
In her chapter, ‘Gender Issues in Business Coaching’ (Passmore, 2013), Sunny Stout-Rostron reviews Lerato Motsoaledi’s 2009 doctoral thesis, Executive Coaching in Diversity.
“Motsoaledi studied issues of male insubordination to female authority, finding that in several instances males refused to accept it, projecting in-adequacies on to women leaders and using aggression as a tool to dominate them. Although the women managers wielded power as individuals, they still had to deal with being a member of a subordinate group expected to comply with traditional patriarchal roles,” Stout-Rostron notes. Motsoaledi argues that being black as well as being a woman adds another layer of challenge that white women do not experience.
Research indicates that companies with more women in senior management have better results; others note that better, more forward-thinking firms hire more women.
In 1973, Samora Machel, the late president of Mozambique, said: “The emancipation of women is not an act of charity, or humanitarianism. The liberation of women is a fundamental necessity.”
Carolus, at the launch of this publication, noted, “Let us be there for our men folk – to help them on their way to the joys of freedom from sexism. For in the same manner that racism dehumanized black and white, sexism diminishes the potential of both men and women. Let us break the culture of silence we sometimes impose on ourselves.”
It is not easy. I have known of women executives who assert their authority so fiercely that when I have coached their male direct reports, loss of self-esteem is identified as an issue.
Moving forward requires commitment and compassion. I will share with you what has worked with my clients. Send me your experiences and concerns: helena.dolny@gmail.com

Should coaching be gendered?

Significant oil and gas discoveries in East Africa have sparked excitement and hope that the region can transform its economies, providing thousands of new jobs and lifting many people out of poverty.
But the jury is still out on whether the frontier countries of Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania can avoid the ‘resource curse’ which has dogged the continent’s biggest oil producers, Nigeria and Angola. This is when the exploitation of abundant mineral resources leads to a weakening in governance, economic distortions, slowing growth and a deterioration of living standards for the poor.
The history of oil development in Africa so far has not set a happy precedent. Oil accounts for more than 90% of the export revenues of Nigeria and Angola, and has fueled rapid rates of economic growth. But the influx of wealth has not led to the kind of broad economic development required for either country, or for the more than half of their combined population of 180 million still living in grinding poverty.
The International Monetary Fund says that $32 billion went ‘missing’ from Angola’s coffers between 2007 and 2010, while other studies suggest that several billion dollars worth of oil revenues have been embezzled in Nigeria.
However Nigeria has recently taken a very positive step. It has established sovereign wealth funds to manage excess earnings from crude oil and gas, by putting aside money for future generations, funding infrastructure and stabilizing its budget.
Ghana, a newcomer to Africa’s oil and gas frontier, has started out on a promising note. The country is on track to become the continent’s third-biggest oil producer, with output of 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) in a few years. This is a fraction of the output of both Nigeria and Angola, which are each producing closer to two million bpd. But Ghana, with a population of 25 million, has taken steps to manage its resources in a transparent and efficient manner. In 2011, the government passed laws to govern how oil revenues are allocated. It created a public interest and accountability committee to monitor the process, with 13 members from professional bodies, think tanks, and pressure groups. And like Nigeria, Ghana’s government has also prepared the ground for a sovereign wealth fund.
Modest quantities of oil have been discovered recently in Uganda and Kenya. Kenya has the advantage of being a highly diversified economy, unlikely to be disturbed by a sudden influx of oil revenue. It also has a coastline which enables its oil to be exported easily to expanding Asian markets. Uganda, on the other hand, needs a pipeline to transport its crude to Kenyan ports. Kenya is set to become the first oil exporter in East Africa, but its reserves of 300 million barrels are dwarfed by those of Uganda, which has 2.5 billion barrels. The Kenyan government is reviewing petroleum sector laws and discussing with stakeholders how better to allocate its resources to drive infrastructure development as well as expanding training and education.
However, it is the massive natural gas discoveries off the coasts of Tanzania and Mozambique which have generated the most excitement about the region. At present, the two countries (mainly Mozambique) are believed to have about 220 trillion cubic feet of natural gas offshore. This could eventually make the region one of the world’s top exporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
The challenges these two countries face in developing their resources are similar to those that must be tackled in Kenya and Uganda. Firstly, massive infrastructure development is needed
for the conversion of gas to LNG, which could drain money from other sectors of the economy. The price tag of proposed oil and gas investments in Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique amounts to about $50 billion, which is very large relative to the size of their economies.
Not only are the projects capital intensive, but it will take several years for significant revenues to be gene-rated, which means that these countries need to tap international credit markets. This poses a problem as none of them has investment-grade credit ratings, which will make borrowing costly. One possible strategy would be to incorporate infrastructure development requirements in the deals signed with international oil companies, provided they make financial sense.
East African oil and gas producers need to ensure that they get a fair slice of the pie in these agreements, without deterring investment. They must also increase their power- generating capacity to keep up with a faster pace of economic growth, Standard Bank warns in a recent report. Taking everything into consideration, energy policy must move swiftly to keep up with the breathtaking pace of oil and gas development in  the region.

Can Africa shrug off  the resource curse?

Women are itching to get involved in Africa’s multibillion-dollar infrastructure industry.
It is no easy task. The sector is historically dominated by men, financial institutions turn up their noses at women attempting to access money and established companies are favored for big deals.
But Leading Women of Africa (LWA) is determined to help women not only get their foot in the door, but become the ones formulating the plans and signing deals. LWA is a network of 18,000 contacts, mostly in Africa, which links women in different countries. “If you are not on the table, you are on the menu,” says LWA president Madelein Mkunu.
LWA launched Women in Infrastructure Development in Africa (Wida) at the third Corporate G20-Africa Investment Conference in London in July. The initiative is starting to create a space for women to engage with infrastructure stakeholders in the public and private sector. “We want to support a mechanism that will increase the number of women-owned companies that are in the infrastructure sector. Also at a policy level and at a legal framework level&#8230; because that is where everything needs to start; where women need to be recognized.”
Wida aims to ensure that women’s agendas are taken seriously by institutions and by the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (Pida).
Pida was set up to accelerate the delivery of Africa’s current and future regional and continental infrastructure projects in transport, energy, information and telecommunications technologies, as well as trans-boundary waterways. It promotes regional economic integration by bridging Africa’s infrastructure gap. The con-tinent is the least integrated physically and economically, with intra-regional trade and global trade at 10% and 3%, respectively.
Pida, which will run until 2040, is supported by the African Union (AU) Commission, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Regional Economic Communities.
African governments are increasingly focusing on infrastructure development to grow their economies. It is estimated that poor infrastructure alone saps the continent of 2% economic growth every year.
Earlier this year, the AfDB launched a $500 million development fund to sponsor feasibility studies of large infrastructure projects across sub-
Saharan Africa. Mkunu says the LWA is in talks with the AU, Nepad and AfDB, and that Wida has been well
received all round.
“At the G20 summit… there was a strong push by the LWA, Pida department and Nepad Business Council for more women representation in infrastructure development.
“We did not expect for them to be so receptive, because we know that the issue of women and infrastructure is a new issue we are bringing up. You know, nobody really ever thought that women would be interested in this sector. We were kind of amazed about how they were willing to listen to us.”
For the LWA, it makes business sense to focus on infrastructure. The industry is growing at a rapid pace, and if Africa is serious about development, much still needs to be done.
According to Pida, only 30% of people on the continent have access to electricity, while 34% have access to roads. Internet penetration in Africa stands at just 6% and only 4% of available water resources are developed. The total cost of implementing all the projects that Pida has identified to address projected infrastructure needs by 2040 will amount to $360 billion.
“For us at LWA, yes, we do agree that the economic empowerment of women needs to start at the bottom. Women have to put food on the table and send their children to school. However, when we look at the sustainability of women’s economic empowerment, it actually involves women getting access to real projects.
“Let’s just look at the next 30 years and Pida’s goals for 2040: we don’t want to be left behind. We want to get in there while they are planning. We don’t want, by the year 2040, that they realize, ‘oh women again have been left behind’,” says Mkunu.
One woman who is grabbing the bull by the horns is South African property developer Belinda Moleko. Moleko has gone where no African has gone before. She is spearheading a $500 million project to design and build a small town near Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Last year Moleko approached the Tanzanian government for a piece of land to develop. The government agreed and gave her land near Kilimanjaro, to take advantage of the high number of tourists who flock to Africa’s highest mountain, and therefore attract international investors.
“Through LWA, I presented myself to say: ‘I can do this type of thing. You offer me the land, you offer me payment guarantees, I will offer you performance guarantees’,” she says confidently.
“I was very lucky with Tanzania. They said: ‘Belinda, I will give you the MOU (memorandum of understanding) to develop 20,000 houses. We want you to create a whole new (town), like they do in South Africa.’”
The first phase of the project will see the local municipality moving its employees on site. Currently they have to travel daily from Arusha, which is about 100 kilometers away. A total of 1,400 houses with sanitation, electri-city and running water are due to be built by March next year. The town will eventually have all the amenities of a modern urban space, including schools, a library, hotels and parks.
“I’m going to leave a legacy that a woman came in and changed the face of Africa forever,” Moleko says intently.
But her dream has not been without obstacles.
“I could see there is a problem of housing, there is a problem with sanitation and that somebody needs to go in there and change it. But with this huge project on this table… I’m still finding it difficult, I cannot do it alone. I find that all the people I’m interviewing,
99 percent of them are men, and cannot believe that a black woman from South Africa has landed this project. They look at you as if to say: ‘you must have done something to deserve this’.”
One of Moleko’s major headaches has been access to finance, a common problem for women in the construction industry as well as in other sectors.
Commercial banks and even development finance institutions believe that women are more of a risk than their male counterparts. And that is even though Moleko has 20 years’ experience in the industry and her company, Bella Casa, built the first housing cluster in a South African township, Tembisa, near Pretoria.
“Take this project in Tanzania now. I have contacted banks here, and the first thing is: ‘what sureties do you have?’ I don’t have sureties, but I have a project that can give me sureties. I’m yet to see a bank that supports women without those conditions.
“I have seen ladies getting a small tender of about R100,000 ($10,000)&#8230; She gets that tender, knocks at the bank (door) to say government has given me a tender to supply them A, B, C, D. That tender even expires. That is why you see a tendency of people selling tenders to sell that project because it’s either you settle for a R1,000 ($100) or you lose.
There is no bank that wants to listen to you. They just aren’t friendly from the reception up.”
Moleko says another concern is that many women do not know how to put together a business plan, but banks and development finance institutions refuse to help them.
Although the AfDB has launched its development fund for infrastructure, Mkunu says the LWA will eventually set up its own fund to help women in infrastructure.
Moleko credits South Africa’s Trade and Industry Department for enabling her to move on the Tanzanian project. She approached the department’s gender desk to fund a $1.7 million feasibility study. After nearly five months of thorough checking, the department agreed.
But as Moleko says, governments cannot support infrastructure development on their own. Public-private partnerships, a buzzword gaining traction on the continent, are essential.
Although they look good on paper, in practice these partnerships leave much to be desired. Often projects are not completed because of logistics, non-payment by government, or even because companies run off with the cash. There are also very few systems in place to monitor what is being done, and unfinished projects are common across the continent.
Although Moleko is facing her biggest challenge so far, she believes her town will not be another half-baked project, and that once she has proved her mettle, the world is her oyster.
“We hope that from this project, all the other projects I have identified in Rwanda and Kenya, they will open themselves up.”
As a woman, Moleko’s journey has not been easy.
“In our industry, you have to be strong. It forces you to change yourself, your culture, your mannerisms, your ‘womaness’, and beat the man at his own game.”
She offers unequivocal advice for women wanting to enter the industry or those wanting to further their careers. “I always tell ladies wherever I speak: ‘Take off that apron! Don’t knock, kick (down) the door!’ Gone are the days of wanting to play housewife, cleaning. Create jobs by getting a helper to do it. Get out of your cocoon and go out there.”

Women demand a slice OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE PIE

Tryphosa Ramano has always had a passion for infrastructure and money. So when she got the opportunity to become the chief financial officer (CFO) of South Africa’s Pretoria Portland Cement Company (PPC), it was a no-brainer.
“Money and figures turn me on. But I always say: to what extent can you put money into perspective?”
Ramano, a qualified charted accountant, got her taste for infrastructure while she was the financial director of women’s empowerment group Wiphold. In 2007 there was a shortage of cement in South Africa. The group decided to import cheaper cement from China to undercut the country’s major cement producers. The Wiphold project is still in operation, but its 300,000-ton capacity is nowhere near PPC’s eight million.
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Ramano was in two minds when she was offered the CFO position at southern Africa’s leading supplier of cement in 2011. PPC was already established and did not excite her like a new project did.
“I thought, I mean this an old company; an old image. And you look at that elephant (PPC’s logo), that elephant looks tired,” she jokes.
“But eventually I thought: you know what, with my experience, something can be done. Because normally when you are on the outside, you can help… with new ideas. And you can learn from the experienced
ones. But when you combine it, it becomes brilliant because they are used to doing things.”
Ramano broke barriers when she joined PPC. The year before, it had celebrated its centenary as a company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) – an accomplishment that not many businesses across the globe can brag about.
Her appointment as PPC’s first woman CFO was welcomed across South Africa as a step in the right direction for women’s empowerment.
The company, which was formed in 1892, has been dominated by men over the years, but it is part of an industry that is slowly transforming.
“The industry is very tough. When I came in, I was the first woman on the executive. I had a chat with the CEO (chief executive officer) on how PPC can recruit women… because women don’t want to be where it’s not sexy. So far we have seen a number of changes,” she says.
In many regards, PPC is considered to be a leader in transformation in the construction industry. And this is largely thanks to Romano’s drive to have women at the boardroom table as well as at the bottom end.
She has set up a women’s forum specifically aimed at helping to transform PPC. In 2011, women held 18% of leadership positions in the company; just two years later, that figure has grown to more than 20%. The short-term target is 30% by 2016.
The forum’s other objectives include a pilot child care facility at PPC’s head offices in Sandton, Johannesburg, and developing a pipeline of leadership using mentoring, coaching and development programs for women in management.
PPC’s drive to transform its workforce through the women’s forum makes business sense. According to research by accounting firm Grant Thornton, companies that want to consistently outperform their rivals on the stock market, or improve sales, can do so by putting more women on their boards.
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It attributes this to the leadership behavior that women bring to the workplace, including participative decision-making, role-modeling and developing staff.
Stronger stock market growth is more likely with higher proportions of women in senior management positions. Grant Thornton’s International Business Report has found that companies with a greater proportion of women on their boards outperformed rivals, with 66% better returns on invested capital, 53% better returns on equity and 42% better sales.
Some of the firsts for PPC include that its mining planner is a woman and it has a woman dump truck driver.
Intakes into its graduate development program are mostly women, and 20% of procurement goes to women-led businesses.
The company has also redesigned overalls to make them more comfortable for women, and has implemented several diversity projects. One of these focuses on helping men to work alongside women because they are not used to members of the opposite sex being their bosses or even their equals in the workplace.
“It has been difficult for them to embrace you… but they don’t know how. Sometimes you do something, they realize you are sensitive. Sometimes, you know, you say something and they don’t understand you,” Ramano explains.
However, she firmly believes that there is no reason to ape what is considered traditional male behavior in the workplace. She maintains that if women are authentic and true to themselves, they will earn respect.
She says she often tells the women employed at PPC’s plants that they should take care of themselves and be aware of their appearances.
“Don’t be shabby. Look good and look nice; people will treat you based on who you are. Don’t be fluid.
“And I always say to women: when you (are in the boardroom), you must be visible. God gave us hips; move them so that you can have space, so that they can know that you are there,” she advises.
Ramano has had to hold her own throughout her working life, in a career that has included senior posts in both the public and private sector. She reportedly took a 30% salary cut when she moved from Rand Merchant Bank to the National Treasury.
Ramano says she chose to leave the private sector because at the time she was young, ambitious and impressed with what the government was doing with privatization and state-owned entities.
“When the opportunity came, I thought: this is a great opportunity for me to see how the government does their budgeting, how they plan for the country. I wanted to understand the macroeconomic aspect rather than reading it as an economist.”
Ramano also participated in the listing of state-owned telecommunications giant Telkom on the JSE and the New York Stock Exchange, realizing proceeds of more than $400 million to the South African government. One of her proudest achievements is closing national carrier South African Airways’ $600 million hedge book and implementing the airline’s turnaround strategy in 2004/05.
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Ramano has served on a number of boards, including Real Africa Holdings, Adcorp Holdings, Old Mutual Property Investment, the Financial Services Board, the African Union External Board of Auditors and the National Research Foundation. She is currently president of the Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals (Absip), as well as the African Women Chartered Accountants’ Forum.
It is difficult to believe that she has any time to relax, considering all of the hats she wears. The FORBES WOMAN AFRICA interview is an apt example. It was done while Ramano was eating lunch on the sidelines of an Absip conference she was co-leading.
Ramano says she is fiercely independent and tries to do as little as possible on weekends. She enjoys spending time at the nursery and in her garden.
“I love my flowers, I prune my roses. They are blooming; the Icebergs and the Just Joeys.”
Ramano’s staff are never far from her mind. She has a large vegetable garden, which keeps them in constant supply of spinach. And although numbers are her thing, at a recent PPC event she delighted 250 women by giving them jewelry she had made with her own hands.
Ramano is the ultimate multitasker. She is as confident in the boardroom as she is around her girlfriends when she lets her hair down. Women who occupy leadership positions are often under pressure to conform and underplay their feminine side.
Ramano will have none of this. As CFO of PPC, she is at the top of her game, but she knows that she had to start somewhere, hence her commitment to developing and nurturing women who are still coming up through  the ranks.

Cement’s first lady Tryphosa Ramano

Bigotry and prejudice rooted in sexism and Islamophobia were common subtexts in much of the reporting on the siege of Nairobi’s Westgate Mall in Kenya over the past few weeks. This was, of course, fueled by the alleged involvement of the so-called ‘White Widow’ in the brazen attack, which claimed several lives. Samantha Lewthwaite is a British national, who happens to be white and Muslim.
The reportage highlighted how women in general and Muslim women in particular are depicted when they are active in political causes, some of which are characterized by violence.
The fact that no conclusive evidence has been found to link Lewthwaite to the attack did not stop the media, especially the English tabloids, from framing women and Muslims in classic stereotypical terms. The Guardian’s Jamie Gilham explains:
“On Monday morning the front pages of the tabloids condemned ‘evil’ and ‘fanatical’ Samantha Lewthwaite, aka the White Widow, as the Nairobi ‘bloodbath mastermind’. The precise nature of the tragic events in Nairobi are still unfolding and, when the tabloids went to press on Sunday night, little was known about Lewthwaite’s alleged involvement in the Nairobi attack. A few days on, we still don’t know much, and the evidence against Lewthwaite is scant and contradictory. Nevertheless, the Muslim convert and widow of 7/7 attacker Germaine Lindsay has become the symbol of home-grown terrorism, a target of fear and loathing.”
Gilham goes on to say that for the tabloids, Lewthwaite’s transgressions are plentiful: she converted to Islam, took the veil and a Muslim name (Sherafiyah), married a black and notoriously radical convert, and is the mother of mixed-race children. And while it is not the first time a British citizen has converted to Islam, Lewthwaite’s case signified something else. It reveals that, by converting to Islam, women disturb conventions about ethnicity, gender and religion, Gilham argues.
Na’eem Jeenah, the director of the Afro-Middle East Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, concurs.
“If this was an anarchist organization, for example, and the leader was a woman widow, then I think the treatment would have been different. But because it is a Muslim organization, there is already this kind of sense that women in Muslim organizations and Muslim societies don’t play prominent roles. So this (Lewthwaite’s alleged leadership of the group that staged the Westgate Mall attack) is already unusual, an oddity.”
Jeenah says her race is also a key issue; for some Britons, Lewthwaite’s actions mean she has crossed over to “the dark side”. “In the case of Samantha, there is an extra exoticization… From the Western media’s sense, this is a very strange phenomenon because she is a woman, but more so because she is white,” he argues.
Men’s political choices are hardly ever questioned. Conversely, women face all kinds of scrutiny when they become active in organizations, especially those with an Islamist bent, such as al-Shabaab. More so because the conventional view of Islam is that it relegates women to the margins, as if they have little or no agency.
Ironically, Lewthwaite’s alleged involvement as the possible mastermind of the Nairobi attack debunks the myth that Islam treats women as second-class citizens.
Throughout history, women have played a role in politics, even in the so-called Muslim world. In fact, very few countries that have had women heads of state are from the West. Margaret Thatcher of Britain, Germany’s Angela Merkel and Australia’s Julia Gillard are among the few who have reached the top of the political game. Compare that with developing countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil, India, Malawi, Liberia and Chile – all of which have had women heads of state – two of whom are Muslim.
The fact that the developing world, which includes countries with massive Muslim populations, has had women ascend to the pinnacle of political power proves that conventional views of the role and position of women in these societies are far more complex and fluid than mainstream Western media portrays them.
In the West, Muslim women are cast as people who stay at home, are given household chores to do and are oppressed in their domestic confinement. When women operate outside of that mold, it messes with the stereotype that casts all lslamist groups as
inherently misogynist and anti-women. Jeenah says Lewthwaite’s alleged leadership of the group responsible for the carnage in Nairobi blows the Western media’s view of women in Islam out of the water.
“She is going further. Not only is she involved in politics, she is taking up arms, planning the attacks and leading the group. Her alleged role simply doesn’t square with the stereotypes – firstly of Muslims and secondly of Islamist organizations.”
History also questions the media-fed formula that women under Islam are subservient. From the fight for the liberation of Palestine to the anti-colonial war in Algeria and the struggle for equality in South Africa, women have played a role.
In fact, women have led some of the most audacious attacks against their enemies. The bitter war of independence in Algeria is one example. According to Danièle Djamila Amrane-Minne and Farida Abu-Haidar of the Muse Project, Algerian women had joined the struggle for independence from the get-go. Their research shows that there were 10,949 fighting women, representing 3.1% of all those taking part in active combat during the war of liberation. This percentage, which may seem negligible, is approximately the same as the percentage of European women who took part in World War II. Algerian women who joined the struggle were not merely sympathizers or militants on a short-term basis, but proper fighters and members of the National Liberation Army or the National Liberation Front Civil Organization.
The daring 1969 highjacking of a Boeing 707 by Palestinian Leila Khaled ensured a visual image of a woman as a courageous fighter for the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. Another example is Fatima Meer’s leading role in the fight against Apartheid in South Africa. These are merely some examples of how women in Muslim settings have broken the mold that portrays women as inferior or lacking in agency.
Granted, there are some Muslim states, such as Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, where women are actively prevented from living full lives. In the oil-rich desert state, Saudi women are not even allowed to drive. In Afghanistan, girls’ and women’s lives are threatened if they try to get an education. And while myths about the living conditions of all Muslim women is often false, they are fueled by the actions of states that claim to follow Islam when they oppress and sub- jugate women.
Jeenah concedes: “the thing about stereotypes is not that they are not true, but that they are not for most of the time”. Certain Muslim societies fuel stereotypes about the role of women in Islam – Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are cases in point.
Jeenah also points out that the position of women in Iran is often misunderstood. He says even if they are compelled to wear a headscarf, Iranian women are much more assertive than women in the rest of the Muslim world, and even in much of the Western world.
“If you look at the Muslim world, the biggest Muslim community is in Indonesia, second-biggest is India, the third in Pakistan… If you look at the manner in which women play their roles in all of these bigger communities, and even in the Arab world, where the biggest Muslim community is Egypt, in the broader Middle East, Iran and Turkey, women play a much more assertive role.”
The irony of the media’s stereo-typing of women in general and Muslim women in particular, is that the very stories meant to reinforce the negative framing of women as disempowered, often debunk that narrative. In reality, Muslim women, as in the case of Samantha Lewthwaite, are anything but subservient.

Women in politics: myths debunked

Have you ever wondered why it is that men who are happy to question everything about women, including their ability to think rationally and lead organizations intelligently and profitably, say nothing about multitasking?
I have a theory. I admit it is no science or divinely revealed knowledge, but it is a theory nevertheless.
You see, growing up in my grandmother’s house in Soweto, South Africa, I did not know that as a male child I was not inherently able to multitask.
From an early age, I was responsible for certain chores. For example, it was my responsibility to pick up litter around the yard. Later, I also became responsible for cleaning the toilet, which in the original township houses was always in a corner at the end of the yard.
With my cousins, boys and girls, we were all responsible for more than one task. We had to juggle these with playing, doing schoolwork and keeping up with the latest hits on the radio. I had to pick up my younger siblings from crèche, do my father’s dry cleaning and whatever other extra chores my mother had commanded.
While playing street soccer with my friends, I remember watching the length of the shadows to determine when my grandmother was about to arrive home, which meant that I had to run home to boil water for her tea.
My point: I had to read books to learn that as a man, I was not a natural at multitasking. This, according to mass media, happens to be a woman thing.
At first it was a disappointment. You see, I grew up in a South Africa obsessed with emphasizing how inherently different human beings were. As a result of my political consciousness, I questioned anything that suggested some people were lucky to be born with certain genes and those who were not just had to grin and bear it.
Then it dawned on me: If I had a partner whom I could praise for being a natural multitasker, my life would be so much easier.
I could get away with doing very little around the house. I would do only one thing at a time and if, for argument’s sake, it coincided with my favorite sport on TV, it would have to wait.
After all, it was not my fault. I was a mere man and therefore deprived of that which enabled women to multitask.
My partner, on the other hand, would have to do all the housework and help the kids with their homework. Even as we switched off the lights at night, her amazing ability to multitask would continue, as she worried about what to wear the next day and how to find ways of pleasing me.
Again, it was not my fault that she had been blessed with the multitasking gene, which somehow enabled her to fit so much into the finite time she had.
That was the plan.
Now that I have sons and a daughter I know it would be remiss of me to perpetuate the nonsense that men or women have special abilities that members of the opposite sex do not have.
I cannot imagine my daughter being the partner of my younger self.
My sons will be adults in the 21st century and must shed the mentality that they have a one-track mind that renders them unable to walk and chew gum at the same time. They certainly will be multitasking in my house, just like their sister.
Women have an equal responsibility to revisit the idea that multitasking is in their blood. It might mean they can take on a lot simultaneously, but as leaders and managers it also diminishes their ability to delegate. These women often end up being surrounded by people who do not trust them.
In an ever-changing world, we have to think on our feet and think laterally. I cannot imagine any organization that hopes to thrive by accepting that only certain people can be trusted with doing more than one task at a time. And not because they are lousy at their work, but because the dice simply rolled unfortunately for them.
Of course, women can choose to believe that multitasking is their divinely given privilege. From where I sit, the beneficiaries of such a belief will be lazy and inept men, while women become superwomen.
I cannot speak for women, but in my experience, women of whom a lot is demanded become increasingly resentful and grumpy. And eventually, the quality of their work or their family life suffers.
You do not need a degree in medicine to know that unhappiness is infectious. And you certainly do not need an MBA to know that any organ-ization made up of sourpusses does not make for a great workplace.

Tag: November 2013

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA