In it’s mission to drive sustainability in the social services sector, the Chief Executive Officer, Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation, Ms. Osayi Alile, has said that collaboration amongst stakeholders in the private, social services and government sectors is crucial to ensuring sustainability of social service projects in Africa.
Making the submission on the sidelines of the fifth anniversary of ACT foundation and Breakfast Dialogue themed: “Shifting Paradigms: Transforming our approach to addressing Africa’s challenges”, Alile stated that with the growing social challenges across the world and proliferation of Non Governmental Organisations, the much needed impact of social services might not be felt if projects are not sustainable.
She noted that for the social service sector to reach it’s maximum potential in transforming societies, NGOs have to collaborate with other NGOs to strengthen the impact they make in communities.
She said: “We have a number of NGOs doing a lot of work but we need to be more strategic. The problems we are facing across the world is getting worse. NGOs who have the capacity to do the work are not many and many NGOs work in silos. We can’t work that way anymore. We need impact not just numbers. We need to be able to show that whatever we are doing is impactful in the communities we work with.
Alile also harped on the need for interagency collaboration as key to achieving sustainability of projects in the sector.
“All the different tripods need to work together; the private sector, the social sector and the government as well. Nobody can do it alone. For the countries that have worked is the fact that all the sectors have worked together, they have collaborated and they have partnered,” she said.
Making a case for the brain drain Africa currently is experiencing as a result of societies which are unsustainable, President of Ashesi University, Ghana, Mr. Patrick Awuah, opined that to build sustainable societies in Africa and stem cases of talent migration, Africa has to develop a honour based leadership system. which supports young people to gain meaningful employment or start their own businesses.