Ashoka Seeks Greater Equity for Most Vulnerable People in Africa

Gilbert Ekugbe 

A global partnership of social entrepreneurs, Ashoka has called on both public and private sectors to promote greater equity for the most vulnerable people in the society for greater good.

The Fellowship Director, Ashoka Africa, Ifeyinwa Egwaoje, said to achieve this feat, it brought 15 fellows from across Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco and Egypt to build capacities, collaborate and co-create in its bid to increase their impact across the equity ecosystem.

According to her, the programme is specifically designed to increase greater equity on the continent while also bringing together the fellows who have provided solutions within the ecosystem.

 “We are providing them with capacity, providing them with opportunities, resources, tools, for them to solve some of the problems that they have as regards you know, achieving greater scale to ensure that the work that they are doing, they do it much more effectively than they are presently doing and then also, they are able to identify who else is within the ecosystem and how can they come together collaborate to ensure that those other problems that they have identified can also be solved together for them to reach more people and then achieve greater equity to ensure that the most vulnerable people are provided resources, opportunities and support,” she said.

Earlier, the Director Ashoka South Africa, Dadisai Taderara, said Ashoka’s partnership social entrepreneurs is to unlock their power and potentials in the different regions

“So the purpose of this is to really look at how do we increase their impact across the different regions and how do we foster that kind of collaboration that can bring these ideas to the different regions as well. We are trying to find creative ways of solving social problems and new ways of solving social problems in a sustainable way,” she added.

On her part, the Director, Ashoka Anglophone West Africa, Josephine Nzerem, said the accelerator is a statement of the fact that the world is beginning to listen to women’s voices as people are recognising the importance of equity.

“We have five fellows from South Africa, five Ashoka fellows from Nigeria, five Ashoka fellows from Egypt and Morocco. This is a wonderful experience for us to host them being Nigerians and to also hear what is happening in other parts of Africa. Especially in equity, especially on how we are responding to women rights issues and how we are ensuring that girls and women are thriving all across Africa. So it’s important that we are seeing that and we are creating a system where women and girls can synergise,” she said.