“What would happen if we stopped perpetuating fundamentally unsustainable models and innovated alternative financing sources and models?”

Boikanyo Mothibatsela is a Partner with Dalberg Advisors, bringing nearly fifteen years of experience in strategy, investment, and advisory work across sub-Saharan Africa. His work focuses on private sector development, entrepreneurship, economic inclusion, agriculture, and healthcare. Boikanyo has advised businesses, governments, investors, and development actors across multiple African markets and brings an additional perspective through his experience as an entrepreneur and investor. 

In this interview, Boikanyo shares perspectives on rethinking development finance, entrepreneurship ecosystems, and long-term structural shifts.

After working across so many African markets, what’s one development narrative about the continent that you think those outside it still fundamentally misunderstand? 

There are a number of misconceptions or rather partial views on the development story on the continent, including views of the continent as homogenous in its challenges, people, and approaches. While notable shifts in perceptions and engagement models have taken root, perhaps one of the often misunderstood perspectives on the development narrative across a number of markets on the continent is that of aid dependency. It is true that the continent is the largest recipient of overseas development assistance (ODA); however. (i) this global share has been steadily declining (Africa’s share of ODA has dropped 11 percentage points from 37.6% in 2013 to 26.7% in 2023) and (ii) this source of income for development projects often pales in comparison to sources such as remittances, foreign direct investment, and tax revenues. This is not to negate the important role of ODA, but rather a reflection that too often equally critical assistance such as innovation in alternative financing sources and models and their effective delivery are underplayed by development partners—often at the cost of perpetuating fundamentally unsustainable models. 

Looking back at the last 15 years of your work, what’s a moment that quietly changed how you think about development, even if it looked like a small project at the time? 

Not to be overly philosophical, but there is a popular quote often ascribed to author Paul David Tripp that ‘Change doesn’t occur in the big moments of life. It happens in the 10,000 little moments of every day’. Along this vein of thought, a few big moments have rarely changed how I think about development; however, a common thread over time has been interacting with clients, colleagues, and other stakeholders and understanding others’ paths, processes, and journeys. These moments, and the impact they are having through everything from mobile payment systems to new approaches to delivery of solutions at the last mile has evolved my thinking over time. This includes development and advisory being achieved through highly technical, well-articulated solution development and, at its core, resting on people and our collective ability to nurture and scale continuous improvement in interpersonal, cognitive, and emotional abilities of ourselves and those we work with. This leads to our seeing challenges differently, innovating, and solving them for people. 

You’ve been both an investor and an entrepreneur yourself. What has running a manufacturing business taught you about advising entrepreneurs that consultants often miss? 

Fundamentally, success in business ventures is hardly ever achieved through rigidly following a business plan. It boils down to a balance between clarity in direction, and strategic and intentional flexibility to test, iterate, refine, and respond to real market realities within a strategic framework. This is as true in a purely corporate venture as it is in more social enterprises. 

What distinguishes successful ecosystems is not taking a one size fits all, and distinguishing between different businesses and businesspeople. Business owners and entrepreneurs differ in their motivations, aspirations, and intrinsic entrepreneurial drive for example. This requires tailored approaches and support at various stages of the business lifestyle. I am not sure anyone has completely cracked it yet; however, a common thread in those that are not as successful in the long-term are ecosystems and component programs that bundle these nuances into single or very limited tracks. Those with growing traction do the opposite: they understand not every businessperson is an entrepreneur nor do they need to be, that not every business wants to or has to scale in a traditional sense and success looks different for different typologies. That is the critical first step in then designing appropriate support systems to support SMMEs (and more importantly their operators) on the different appropriate journeys they can take. 

Dalberg turns 25 the same year you become Partner. If African economies were to make one structural shift over the next decade that would meaningfully change development trajectories, what would it be? 

Hard currency exposure has a significant impact on public sector debt distress and private sector investment activity. Increasing the availability of local currency financing through local capital market development and structural shifts in how available domestic pools of capital can be reinvested in local economies, as well as shifts in how concessional funding is leveraged to support denomination of foreign sourced funds into local currency instruments could have a profound impact on the risk profile, investment decisions, and development trajectory of a number of African economies.