Magatte Wade, Senegalese African prosperity activist, serial entrepreneur, inspirational speaker, TED Global Africa Fellow, and Forbes 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa, sat down with Reason’s Nick Gillespie to discuss her book, The Heart of a Cheetah: How We Have Been Lied to about African Poverty and What That Means for Human Flourishing.
To describe the main synopsis of her book, Wade recalls her favourite professor, Ghanaian economist and author George Ayitteh’s ‘Cheetah Generation’ philosophy, which asserts that young African entrepreneurs and professionals will pave the way for Africa’s prosperity.
She adds, “The book is about the right diagnosis when it comes to why this continent is still the poorest in the world…80% of the book spends time on that because we need to make sure that we got the diagnosis right so that we can have a good solution.”
Magatte Wade further explains the inspiration for her book from George Ayitteh’s talk titled, “The Hippos versus the Cheetahs,” which he gave to 100 TED Fellows, African cohorts, which included Wade in 2007.
Ayitteh explained that the hippos have a victim mentality where they still believe that slavery and colonialism hold Africans back. The majority of the beneficiaries of this mentality are African leaders who want us to stay where we are and continue to rely on foreign aid. This is the crucial factor that keeps Africa poor.
On a more positive note, Cheetahs are generations of Africans, like the cohort of Africans Ayitteh spoke to, that are proactive in looking for solutions to curing African poverty with their tools.
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