Transforming with the 'Africa We Have' – Carl Manlan

Ataya: HUMA Interdisciplinary Seminar Series

Speaker and presenter: Carl Manlan

Carl Manlan is a development practitioner working at the intersection of public, private and civil society sectors. He contributed to health financing while at the Global Fund and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). As a Mo Ibrahim Fellow at the Economic Commission for Africa, he supported the Executive Secretary on policies to accelerate Africa’s transformation. In 2015, he led a public-private initiative to support the African Union’s response to Ebola in West Africa. From 2016 to 2021, he led Ecobank’s social impact strategy implementation in 33 African countries. Carl Manlan holds a Master of Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School, US and is a 2016 Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow. He writes on African economic transformation.

Topic: Grounded development in the ‘Africa We Have’ is a fundamental premise for the development we seek to attain when we reach the ‘Africa We Want’. But for us to move faster with the majority, we ought to ground our thinking into the pathway to prosperity of African citizens in the popular economy. It is when we build with enabling prosperity, as the end in mind, for the majority, that we see the value embedded around us. The papers here circulated provide two perspectives on the same theme: trade and market access. The creativity of African citizens is their currency, and by reframing the development narrative, we ought not to devalue it. 

 Access papers* 
*‘Stopping the Spread: A Citizen’s Engagement’ originally published in The Cairo Review, 15 April 2020; and ‘An Introduction to Trade’ originally published in The First Mile Project, 10 August 2020, both by Carl Manlan.