We support locally-owned development by building the capacity of the independent institutions we have founded in the last 20 years across East Africa and Cameroon in order to help them achieve their ambitions and secure their long-term sustainability.
In the early 1990s, the large quantities of aid being channelled to Africa were failing to foster significant economic growth. Gatsby believed some of this failure could be attributed to the dominant role of donors in designing programmes and local people’s lack of real involvement. We thought that placing decision-making firmly in the hands of people with local knowledge, experience and networks would result in greater impact, and founded four independent trusts across Africa. The trusts - in Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda - were pioneering examples of the principle that aid should be managed by its recipients to best respond to local priorities.
Each set of experienced and respected African Trustees developed different programmes in the different countries, responding to local needs and opportunities to stimulate economic development. However, one common concern saw all the trusts develop some form of small business finance programme.
In 2005, the success of the country trust model encouraged Gatsby to set-up a regional organisation - the Kilimo Trust - based on the same principle of local-ownership but dedicated to agricultural development across East Africa.
While the trusts have lived up to the vision of locally-driven development, all face the important challenge of becoming sustainable in the medium to long-term. They need to choose between becoming commercial providers of services, sustainable from fees or profits; or becoming implementing partners for donors, securing grant finance on a permanent basis.
We have provided capacity-building support to allow the trusts to address this challenge. First, we supported independent reviews to help local Trustees think through their options and set out a clear strategy. These resulted in Kilimo and the trust in Kenya deciding to focus on sector development, and the other three trusts deciding to scale-up and commercialise their small business finance operations.
To help the trusts implement their strategies, we are providing short-term technical assistance, for example by funding training courses, mentorship programmes for senior management and small capital purchases. When it is responsible to do so, we also support the small business finance programmes with social investment in the form of loans or equity. The progress of the financial programmes is independently assessed by microfinance rating agencies, helping us understand the impact of our support.
The transformation of the trusts remains a long-term task, but progress has been strong, with all attracting funding beyond that received from Gatsby.
Projects
We have partnered with the Department for International Development to support the Kenya Gatsby Trust to take forward sector programmes in the country, beginning with the cotton and water sectors, and with the dairy and aquaculture sectors under consideration.
We founded Tanzania Gatsby Trust in 1992 as an independent institution dedicated to promoting economic development in the country. It has supported small businesses, primarily run by women, through microfinance, training and other activities.
We partnered with Makerere University to found Uganda Gatsby Trust in 1994, aiming to bring research into the small business sector. We are now supporting a small business finance programme spun-off in 2005 to achieve commercial sustainability.
We founded the Cameroon Gatsby Foundation in 1994 as an independent institution with local staff and Trustees. The Foundation focuses on providing microfinance to women’s groups, and is now seeking to scale-up activities to achieve sustainability.
We founded the Kilimo Tust in 2005 as an independent organisation funding and supporting agricultural projects in East Africa. Kilimo is now focusing on implementing regional sector programmes in staple crop markets across the East African Community.