William Asiko – The Rockefeller Foundation

On this edition of the Voices of Africa podcast we speak to William Asiko. William, for a long time worked for Coca-Cola Africa, which at the time was the largest employer in Africa. Laterly he was responsible for running the Coca Cola Africa Foundation. He then moved on to the Investment Climate Facility, a donor and private sector sponsored programme to improve the business enabling environment throughout sub Saharan Africa. He was then headhunted to Grow Africa and now is the president for the Africa region at the Rockefeller Foundation. He has spent his career in international development, working both in the private sector and with philanthropic foundations,operating at the intersect –  where markets meet the state. Throughout this conversation William draws on his valuable experience and history to educate us on what works and what doesn’t at that intersect.

Marcus Courage for Stories Africa (SA): I have been astounded by the quantum of commitments and multiple partnerships that the Rockefeller Foundation has across Africa and I’m interested to delve into that. However, firstly, I know that the Rockefeller Foundation has been very active in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic both globally but in Africa specifically. I think you’ve made a commitment of USD 1 billion over the next three years to help with the COVID-19 recovery as well as driving more sustainable, inclusive growth in the post pandemic environment. The pandemic is undoubtedly still growing in Africa and although we were fortunate last year, the current statistics are not looking good. The vaccine has begun to be deployed in some countries and we’ve had some good news from COVAX just this week. What is it that the Rockefeller Foundation is doing specifically towards COVID response efforts in Africa?

William Asiko (WA): Africa has been the beneficiary of over fifty years of international development projects striving to generate success in sustainable development. However, even with these high level interventions, development on the continent has so far been unsatisfactory. There are now a multitude of institutions, organisations and even national governments beginning to realise the potential of using public sector and philanthropic resources to attract the private sector to de-risk private sector investment. I believe that this is the way to go to finance development projects. This is growing to be a hugely important area and the Rockefeller Foundation is at the forefront of instigating this. Our position as one of oldest private philanthropic foundations in the world, has meant that we have undertaken a large number of commitments. Larger foundations are now coming to the fore, foundations with bigger endowments and an ability to commit much larger sums of money, pushing us to adapt to meet growing demands for high level, inventive assistance. Because of this shift. one of our core focuses is now data and innovation. We have taken the stance of viewing ourselves as catalysts that start initiatives, bring other partners on board and then subsequently rely on functioning platforms or institutions to execute the work. 

Turning now to the pandemic, the whole world is currently battling to recover from the immeasurable challenges it has produced and the subsequent effects of steps taken by governments to alleviate the virus; yet in Africa there are obstacles which have existed long before COVID-19 across a whole range of sectors. Philanthropic organisations play a vital role in assisting governments and the private sector to address such challenges and find innovative solutions. The foundation has made a commitment of USD 1 billion to fight the pandemic and assist in a clean, green recovery from its effects particularly in the most vulnerable communities. Inevitably, there is a natural instinctive desire for us to return to pre-Covid days where we could socialise, touch each other and go about our business in the way that we please. Whilst in reality, there are multiple communities not just on the continent but across the world which will never return to these pre-Covid days. These communities were already struggling prior to the pandemic and the subsequent effects of lockdowns and social distancing have driven them to a place difficult to recover from. 

‘Moonshot’ represents the Rockefeller Foundation’s two commitments, made alongside the existing USD 1 billion. The first of these being to end the pandemic, everywhere and for everyone. Whilst richer countries, with access to vaccines and medication, have made significant strides in their fight to overcome the pandemic, many poorer countries and communities will continue to struggle and the pandemic will be much longer for them. These poorer countries are our main focus. In Africa we have made a USD 35 million commitment to help with testing and tracing capacity and vaccine deployment. As well as this, the money will be devoted to helping community health workers, not just medical workers who are on the frontline, but community workers, especially in rural areas who are really at the forefront of the pandemic response. The grant will assist Africa CDC in working with national governments to ramp up preventative measures and monitoring of the pandemic and then eventually on the broader vaccine rollout and the issues which surround its execution. 

On the second level, our focus is ending energy poverty. You may have heard that China has pulled 100 million people out of poverty in the last eight years which is a huge achievement. There is no country in the world that has pulled people out of poverty at scale that has not first worked on energy poverty. Therefore, our belief is that to fight poverty at its very core, you must first address energy poverty. This provides the greatest opportunities, not just in terms of providing lighting in the home etc. but also in allowing small businesses to flourish. In agriculture, it facilitates increased irrigation, agro-processing and overall benefits in a way, which other interventions cannot. Ultimately it is a catalyst for development and economic growth. So in nutshell that is the basis of ‘Moonshot’ and our pandemic response. 

(SA): Moonshot represents a significant commitment that you’ve given in these areas, on a continent of 55 countries, this is an expensive exercise. Have you been reassured that Africa is going to be capable of mobilising adequate resources to achieve progress and the required results in each of these areas?

(WA): Undoubtedly, no single country or institution will be able to do this alone and therefore a partnership approach is vital. There lies a real need for each institution to bring their best resources to the table in order to fight this pandemic. The African Union with support from the Rockefeller Foundation established the African Medical Supplies Platform, in essence an Amazon for medical supplies. Enabling governments to connect directly to suppliers is just one major example of Africa’s remarkable response effort so far. On top of this is the Vaccine Task Force which has already secured 270 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines through a number of manufacturers, exclusively for Africa. The Rockefeller Foundation has provided a commitment of USD 12 million to the Africa CDC to strengthen its capacity to collaborate with national governments on testing, tracing and capacity in community health workers and vaccine deployment. We are not operating in isolation; we are cooperating with a number of other donors through the African Donor Collective. The Collective is a platform for our development partners, currently 24 donors are on the platform who are interested in supporting the fight against COVID-19 in Africa through the Africa CDC. Whilst there are certainly a number of resources available, I don’t think anyone could say that these resources are enough but it is a very good starting point. 

(SA): We’ve spoken about the African Medical Supplies Platform on a few occasions on this podcast, frankly because we’ve all been impressed at how fast the initiative was established and has become effective. I recall being told that non-African countries are also using the platform to procure supplies, which is a testament to a great initiative. I was hugely impressed and encouraged by Strives’ statement that the Vaccine Task Force is determined to reach 60 percent coverage,Although we still have a long way to go in the COVID-19 recovery, it’s been particularly encouraging to see that with collaboration between multilateral institutions, especially here in Africa with the AU, and the initiative and leadership of the private sector, individuals and support of African governments we can achieve things of this scale. I’m keen to benefit from your international experience working in this nexus over the past two decades. Does this provide you with grounds for optimism? Is there now a political will and an acceptance that the private sector can deliver solutions to our development challenges and we need to provide them with the licence to innovate in these areas, with appropriate regulation of course. Does this mark a seismic shift which has been significantly accelerated by COVID-19. Would you agree with some of those observations?

(WA): Yes certainly, I think having been exposed to COVID-19 and its many effects, many of these hugely challenging, yet some have actually been quite positive. There is no doubt that countries, nations, communities have come together like never before to fight this. When you look at the resounding response to the imposition of lockdowns in the earlier stages of the pandemic, the response of communities around the world has been astonishing. Lockdown fatigue has certainly played its part as the pandemic has continued to burden the world, not sparing Africa, but overall the response of individuals at all levels of society and the ability of governments to come together with various development partners, is hugely impressive. One of the examples of this, in the area of vaccine deployment, is companies bringing together their expertise to evaluate how they can assist governments with supply chains and logistics involved with getting vaccines from manufacturers to airports, to distribution centres and eventually into the community without breaking the cold chain. A lot of training and capacity building is required, all of which require high level partnerships with national and sub-national governments. This does give me hope, it is a turning point in the way that development assistance, projects and international development in general is conducted, so I see much reason for optimism. 

(SA): In this effort to deploy vaccines across the continent, I am hopeful that this will be a shot in the arm for the African Continental Free Trade Agreement as well. I am hopeful that some of the obstacles to ratification that have existed across all African countries can now be more easily addressed now that there’s this urgency surrounding procurement of vaccines. You spoke about the COVID response and the commitment the Rockefeller Foundation has made to energy access and I am aware that you’re heavily invested in health and you’ve spoken about these interventions in the context of the pandemic, but also you do a lot in the area of food security. We’ve discussed the green revolution, which you’ve been actively involved in supporting in the various positions you have occupied over the last twenty years, and presently at the Rockefeller Foundation.Despite being an agrarian society , why have we failed to become globally competitive in the sector? I understand there has been a lot of progress, but we have still not achieved what I would perceive as the transformation that is so much part of the vision of persons like the late Koffi Annan. In this context, could you tell us specifically what you’re doing and the philosophy that the Rockefeller Foundation takes towards agriculture and food security. 

(WA): Agriculture is something very close to the hearts of many Africans, not only because it’s a major sector of the economy in most countries across the continent, but also because the majority of African’s were raised by parents who are either smallholder farmers, or had a connection to agriculture in some shape or form. Agriculture on the continent has been the subject of policies for investment for many years, but ultimately policymakers in Africa have taken the wrong approach.  Having said this, there are pockets of success, not every country has done the same, some have done much better than others. However, overall we are still far from the potential that could be achieved. So, you are right, we haven’t seen the transformation we have been seeking in Africa. We’ve been looking to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which was essentially set up to address some of those challenges. Now, the challenge with agriculture is that many countries, particularly here in Africa see it as an isolated sector around food production. Despite a lot of focus being placed on this, that in itself is not sufficient. Agriculture must be viewed as a system, once you begin to take this systemic approach to the sector, you begin to evaluate other factors that affect the industry aside from just the farmer and the farm. 

The UN Food System Summit will be held his year, chaired by Dr Agnes Kalibata, who is the President of AGRA and I believe this is a really good thing for Africa, because the influence she has on the continent with heads of state and policy makers is immense. In recent years, even pre-pandemic, the sector has been bedevilled with two challenges. Firstly, low productivity, a challenge which in itself is caused by a multitude of factors: over-reliance on rain fed agriculture, low inputs, poor farming methods to name a few. Second is access to markets, this idea that agriculture has to be used for food security by many smallholder farmers across Africa, is understood by all. Today, even those who produce surpluses face the challenge of reaching the market, those who produce for the market face further challenges of middle men and cartels taking advantage of them. Ultimately this is why we must shift out perception and view it as a food system. This fundamental shift is necessary to solve productivity and access to markets. Therefore, on the topic of the African Continental Free Trade Area, neighbouring countries in Africa still import things that their neighbours make, because we haven’t reached that level of intra-Africa trade that we should have. These are the things that I believe should come into play. As we seek to fix agriculture, we are not going to achieve any kind of transformation until the private sector is investing at scale, and they are profiting from agriculture. Only then, will we begin to see this transformation but it must first be viewed as a food system, rather than a sector. I think this is the direction we are moving in. 

(SA): Tell us a little more about what you’re doing to expand economic opportunity on the continent, both through your own direct interventions, but also the enabling environment that you’re creating for other actors.

(WA): Data and innovation has been a pillar of the Rockefeller Foundation for a long time. Data, artificial intelligence and innovation are a critical path to solving some of the world’s pressing challenges. We’ve made investments in companies that carry out geo-tagging and that look at selling their expertise and services to national governments in the area of geo-spacing. They look at parts of the country that are going to have a good harvest, where there’s a risk and ultimately policy makers are able to make better decisions with information that they couldn’t obtain before this kind of technology was available. 

External to the field of data and innovation, our specific focus is on ending energy poverty through working to expand the use of energy in agriculture. The question is, how do we bring together the work we do around energy and agriculture to examine this ag-energy nexus.  I talked earlier about the challenges that bedevil African agriculture; low irrigation, low processing and post-harvest food.  All of these are essentially very solvable with energy. Increasing the amount of land under irrigation provides so much opportunity for both small holders and large commercial farmers and increasing cold storage capacity to allow farmers not to lose their harvest of perishable crops, potatoes, horticulture falls into this. 

There is no single country in Africa, which lacks the will or even a strategy to process agricultural produce more than just what comes from the farm. They all possess that desire and understanding that it’s a big revenue generator and has the capacity to be a large employer. However, many of these countries are unable to achieve it  because of a lack of energy and this is certainly the case for communities not on the national grid. Ultimately these are our target communities where we hope to connect them to green, clean energy and allow them to facilitate a productive use of this energy. We aim to do this through increased irrigation, increased costs, reducing post-harvest loss and through agro-processing, where it makes sense to do so. Then, in bringing all these things together: data, innovation, ag-energy and ending energy poverty, all these things we view as imperative in aiding the economic recovery of Africans. 

(SA): Late last year, the Rockefeller Foundation committed to withdrawing all the fossil fuel energy investments from its endowment and to not  make any fossil fuel investments going forward. That’s quite a big commitment given the foundation’s legacy, but is it right to say that this energy theme is indeed a sort of preoccupation for the foundation? Additionally, in that context, how active do you think you’re going to get over the course of the next few years, in terms of decarbonisation,  driving the climate change agenda and equipping African nations to adopt the appropriate policies for adaptation and mitigation. My observation is that we are a long way behind the curve in Africa. Big pools of finance are currently being made available for climate investment in Africa, yet there is still a lack of projects, policies and programmes, and governments haven’t instituted the right regulations and laws to enable this finance to flow into Africa at scale and create what you refer to as the green recovery.  This seems to me such an opportunity, and I wonder what degree you as the Rockefeller Foundation are invested in this journey and how you view it in the context of not just ending energy poverty, but ultimately global warming?

(WA): The Rockefeller Foundation is at the forefront of fighting climate change, our strategy places strong emphasis on this agenda.  Climate change in some senses falls on the supply side, in reducing carbon footprint. Those industries and sectors that are producing the carbon are scientifically believed to be the ones causing climate change. Therefore It is necessary to find a way to reduce the carbon footprint. That is the supply side. Then there’s the demand side, for clean energy and then on two sides of the same coin is making sure that as you’re reducing reliance on fossil fuels and other activities that produce carbon, you are increasing the amount of green energy in order to balance the two, because you do not want a reduction in reliance on fossil fuels to cause economic hardship for communities. Ultimately, it’s a balance and I think today on these two issues there’s a huge momentum. Some would say that the effects of the pandemic have accelerated this, because people have begun to understand the benefits of clean air. 

The reasoning behind our focus on clean energy as part of the response can be simply outlined by the point I made earlier – climate change is real. It is now our conscious responsibility to bring on board various partners to push for cleaner energy and make this a prerequisite for eradicating poverty. So far, we’ve gathered tremendous responses from development finance institutions, the World Bank, and national governments who also align to this. Energy is critical in ending poverty, but we have shown a willingness to commit to doing this in a clean, green way, which reduces reliance on fossil fuels. A major part of the work we are doing around ag-energy is looking at areas where there’s a large amount of irrigation being conducted using diesel generators, and working with farmers to make it financially viable to convert  to clean energy. Ultimately there are a multitude of challenges, however this is not in absence of a wide range of opportunities which have opened up for us across the continent.