Blog
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The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Africa’s SMEs: Some Big Gaps with Lot’s of Space for Growth!
MSMEs (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises) in Africa Micro, small, and medium enterprises (also known as MSME’s) are the vast array of startups which characterise our economies. They range from small one-man operations on the roadside or a barber’s chair or the influencer behind a computer, to larger more affluent businesses with numerous employees, robust […]
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Full blog – The Big Bet: Engaged Communities
The discussion on the assets within communities is slowly disappearing from Development discourse, thanks to a preoccupation with state behaviour. Our big bet this year is on engaged citizens working collectively in communities and establishing associations are vital conditions for democracy and inclusive development to thrive. We will spend time trying to unravel how local associations work […]
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Lessons Learnt: the policy advocacy lab experiment
Leveraging Advocacy Labs to Solve the Public Problem of (UN)-Employment Reflections by Matron Muchena Introduction I am an Associate at SIVIO Institute. My responsibilities include the day-to-day coordination of several activities within the Centre for Civic Engagement. In our centre, we have, since (26 August 2023) been experimenting with the idea of advocacy labs. The […]
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Africa Giving and Shared Responsibility
Last week on Friday, we SIVIO Institute launched our 2023 signature initiative – AfricaGiving. It has been a long and challenging but exciting journey to get here and there is still a long journey ahead. AfricaGiving is many things to different people, on the one hand, it is about our culture, and what defines us as a people. Bheki […]
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Philanthropy and the Law in Southern Africa
Originally posted on Wings: https://members.wingsweb.org/news/651286 By Tendai Murisa and Shelly Satuku at SIVIO Institute The past decade has seen a nascent philanthropy/giving/solidarity movement in Southern Africa, like many other parts of the continent. There has been an increase in institutionalised forms of giving across the region through foundations led by High-Net-Worth Individuals (HNWI), community-based forms of solidarity […]
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My Reflections on the Policy and Advocacy Lab
What comes into your mind when you hear the term advocacy? In my case, whenever I explain my work to people, they always ask if I am now a politician. I have come to realise that most people associate advocacy with politics. Then again, everything is political. Prior to joining SIVIO Institute, I envisioned advocacy […]
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SAVE-OUR-SELVES: A Quick Note on Horizontal Philanthropy, Survival and Development
If you have found yourself reading this, I’d like to imagine that you already have a good enough understanding of what philanthropy is. So, I’ll delve into a brief explanation about the ‘horizontal’ part of it all- but of course, not without a little background.Philanthropy was not a new concept to me when I started […]
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The Return of Hyper-inflation and Suggestions for Fixing the Problem
Knock Knock, Who is there? It’s me.. Who are you? C’mon have you already forgotten me. I was here ten years ago…? I wasn’t here ten years ago Oh I see…my name is hyper-inflation I used to hang out with that fella Gono. Hyper-inflation is back albeit in a slightly different from what we saw […]
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ZIMAT 3: Tourism, Investment Model, Rural Development and Financial Services UPPs Cluster
Introduction Analysis of the various parties’ manifestos provides some indication of similarities of areas of focus and pledges made by the parties to the electorate, but in all that space of potential opportunities for engaging voters are attempts at differentiating propositions that are unique to each party. The question is whether these unique proposition points (UPPs) speak […]
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ZIMAT 2: Mining, Land & Agrarian Reforms, Infrastructure and Economic Model UPPs Cluster
Introduction Analysis of the various parties’ manifestos provides some indication of similarities of areas of focus and pledges made by the parties to the electorate, but in all that space of potential opportunities for engaging voters are attempts at differentiating propositions that are unique to each party. The question is whether these unique proposition points (UPPs) speak […]