News & Highlights

  • AUGUST 2024
  • ALUMNI EVENT

Alumni Event with Prof. John Macomber in Dakar

In August 2024, the ARC Executive Director joined Professor John Macomber on an Africa immersion to Dakar, Senegal. During the visit, Prof. Macomber engaged with business leaders, corporates, Harvard alumni and other stakeholders to gain insights into the local business environment. The HBS Africa Research Center in collaboration with the HBS Business and Environment Initiative hosted an in-person Alumni event on Climate Adaptation and Urban Economic Development led by Prof. Macomber. The event saw over 20 attendees engage in a lively discussion.
  • AUGUST 2024
  • ALUMNI EVENT

Alumni Dinner with Prof. Ebehi Iyoha in Lagos

In August 2024, the HBS Association of Nigeria (HBSAN) hosted a dinner in Lagos, Nigeria to honour Ebehi Iyoha, Assistant Professor in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School. This dinner marked the conclusion of Professor Iyoha’s visit to Lagos, during which she conducted in-depth case study interviews with senior executives of select companies and engaged in strategic discussions regarding future case collaborations. The evening was highlighted by high-level networking and a shared commitment to advancing entrepreneurial excellence in Africa. Members of the HBSAN and ARC in attendance, expressed their gratitude for Professor Iyoha’s contributions and looked forward to the valuable case studies that would result from her visit.
  • May 2024
  • FIELD Global Immersion (FGI)

Reception and Dinner with Prof. Hakeem I. Belo-Osagie in Nairobi

In May 2024, the ARC Executive Director joined Professor Hakeem I. Belo-Osagie, his students, and members of the Harvard alumni community at a reception and dinner hosted by the Harvard Club of Kenya in Nairobi. Professor Belo-Osagie and his students were in Nairobi for the FIELD Global Immersion (FGI), a first-year MBA course that enables students to learn about business in markets outside of the United States. FGI culminates in a one-week immersion in several emerging market cities around the world, including Nairobi and three other cities in Africa (Kigali, Accra, and Morocco), requiring students to build on and apply learnings from their first-year courses into real-world business problems. During the FGI in Nairobi, students engaged with business leaders, corporate leaders, and alumni to gain insights into the local business environment.
  • May 2024
  • ALUMNI EVENT

Alumni Event with Prof. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell in Johannesburg

The HBS Club of South Africa, in collaboration with HBS Executive Education and GIBS, recently hosted a successful networking event featuring a talk by Professor Ramon Casadesus-Masanell. The event coincided with Prof. Casadesus-Masanell's visit to Johannesburg for the Senior Executive Program-Africa (SEPA). Africa Research Center staff, SEPA Senior Director Philip Cacouris, and HBS Executive Education Regional Director Stephane Sinimale also attended the event.

New Research on the Region

  • September 2024
  • Case

InfraCredit and the Project Inception Facility

By: John Macomber, Namrata Arora and Maagatha Kalavadakken

Around the world, large infrastructure projects are frequently stymied by the high cost and high uncertainty of the project inception phase: the research and engineering and planning prior to financial close and start of construction. Could there be a new kind of project inception financial product that would open up capital sources and development expertise? InfraCredit, a leading Nigerian infrastructure credit enhancement firm, is at a pivotal juncture. The firm currently only gets involved with credit support for projects that have cleared the inception stage – but there is a very small flow of incoming deals that qualify for InfraCredit’s guarantees. Accordingly, the firm contemplates backward integrating its operations to raise capital to fund project inception, potentially increasing its influence over a larger pipeline of infrastructure projects in Nigeria. While this strategic shift promises significant growth opportunities, it also introduces considerable financial risks, reputational concerns, and strategic focus issues. The prospect involves navigating complexities such as quality and capacity of project developers, pension fund strength, regulatory environments, revenue uncertainty, and currency risk management. Historically, InfraCredit has focused on large pools of local capital to invest in projects in local currency and eventually repay obligations in local currency. This is attractive to insurance companies, pension funds, endowments, and other entities whose near-term cash receipts and long-term payment obligations are both denominated in local currency as well. InfraCredit must now assess whether to stick with its proven credit guarantee mode, or to take on the added risks and potential rewards of project inception funding. Should InfraCredit go ahead with the new product, what must be its role in the product, and how will this impact its core offerings?

  • September 2024
  • Article
  • Review of Economics of the Household

Gender Gaps: Back and Here to Stay? Evidence from Skilled Ugandan Workers During COVID-19

By: Livia Alfonsi, Mary Namubiru and Sara Spaziani

We investigate gender disparities in the effect of COVID-19 on the labor market outcomes of skilled Ugandan workers. Leveraging a high-frequency panel dataset, we find that the lockdowns imposed in Uganda reduced employment by 69% for women and by 45% for men, generating a previously nonexistent gender gap of 20 p.p. Eighteen months after the onset of the pandemic, the gap persisted: while men quickly recovered their pre-pandemic career trajectories, 10% of the previously employed women remained jobless and another 35% remained occasionally employed. Additionally, the lockdowns shifted female workers from wage-employment to self-employment, relocated them into agriculture and other unskilled sectors misaligned with their skill sets, and widened the gender pay gap. Pre-pandemic sorting of women into economic sectors subject to the strongest restrictions and childcare responsibilities induced by schools’ prolonged closure only explain up to 65% of the employment gap.

  • August 2024
  • Case

Ashesi University: The Journey from Vision to Reality

By: Ranjay Gulati and Caroline de Lacvivier

In 1997, Patrick Awuah had a dream: to bring liberal arts education to Ghana. Amid the country’s declining economy and pervasive corruption problems, Awuah saw education as an opportunity to reverse its fortunes by investing in the next generation of African leaders. Five years later, he and his team established Ashesi University, which differentiated itself from Ghana’s traditional educational model by remaining privately funded (and therefore independent from Ghana’s public school system), religiously unaffiliated, and – in service of its mission of developing future leaders – operative under an honor code that allowed students to take exams without supervision, an unprecedented practice in Ghana. This case follows Awuah’s efforts to establish and grow Ashesi University and provides insight into the role that leadership can play in operationalizing purpose, especially in entrepreneurial ventures.

See more research

Johannesburg Staff

Pippa Tubman Armerding
Executive Director
→ Biography
Tafadzwa Choruma
Manager for Adminstration and Progamming
Maagatha Kalavadakken
Senior Researcher

Lagos Staff

Nairobi Staff

Agnes Wairegi-Regeru
Senior Researcher