Projects aren’t enough. Africa’s builders want systems that last

In op-eds published across Africa and beyond, Public Voices Fellows Tackling Poverty call for building for the long term.

Nov 4, 2026

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Sabrina Habib, Co-Founder of Kidogo. Photo courtesy of Peter Irungu.

When you’ve spent years working to expand energy access, strengthen local economies, or improve public health, you begin to see where even the best-intentioned solutions fall short. You see the policies that stand in the way, the financing that never reaches the people who need it, and the institutions that struggle to keep pace.

But all too often, the people with these insights lack a platform to share their experiences with a broader audience and shape the global conversation. That’s why The OpEd Project teamed up with Acumen to create a special Public Voices Fellowship Tackling Poverty. Over the past year, the fellowship has helped the first cohort of 21 Fellows from East and West Africa publish commentary in outlets across the continent and internationally.

Their work draws on firsthand experience as founders and builders and spans a range of pressing topics from energy access and economic opportunity to public health and humanitarian aid. Across all of their stories, something striking stands out: They challenge short-term and surface-level solutions and ask what it would take to build systems that actually last.

We’ve brought together seven of their pieces reflecting a shared conviction that lasting change requires more than successful individual projects. It requires stronger systems around them.

A second cohort has just begun the program. Meet the 2026 Public Voices Fellows Tackling Poverty here.

Rethinking energy and economic opportunity

Kolawole Osinowo

CEO, Izili Group | Nigeria

What if the starting point for solving Nigeria’s energy crisis isn’t the national grid, but the millions of generators already keeping the country running? In his BusinessDay op-ed, Kolawole Osinowo challenges conventional thinking about energy access, pointing to an informal electricity system that households and businesses already pay to use every day.

Drawing on a year of smart meter data from 500 generators, Kolawole argues that the opportunity isn’t only technical. It’s financial. If clean energy solutions are designed around how Nigerians already use and pay for power, the transition to solar could become far more accessible.

“Nigerians are, in essence, funding electricity on a daily basis.”
Kolawole Osinowo, CEO, Izili Group

Read Kolawole’s piece: Nigeria’s Biggest Power System Is One We Never Planned — BusinessDay

Mohamed Okash

Founding Director, Institute of Climate and Environment, SIMAD University | Somalia

Africa holds an estimated 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, yet captures less than 1% of global mineral value addition. For Mohamed Okash, the global energy transition is an opportunity to change that equation and rethink Africa’s role in the emerging clean energy economy.

Writing in Climate Home News, he argues that African countries can move beyond supplying raw materials by building stronger regional cooperation, local industry, and greater economic agency. A just transition, he suggests, must change not only how the world produces energy, but also who captures its value.

Leaders should “treat minerals not merely as export commodities, but as strategic bargaining tools.”

Read Mohamed’s piece: Africa’s Mineral Wealth Can Make It an Architect of a More Just Energy Transition — Climate Home News

Making health systems work for people

Sabrina Habib

Co-Founder, Kidogo | Kenya

Good intentions alone cannot protect children from harmful practices, particularly when efforts to end them overlook the beliefs and communities that sustain them. That’s the challenge Sabrina Habib explores in her op-ed on infant gum cutting, a traditional practice thought to affect approximately 25 million children across East Africa.

Sabrina argues that awareness campaigns alone aren’t enough. Lasting change requires both stronger protections and the involvement of trusted community voices, a lesson that reaches beyond this particular practice to how public health interventions are designed more broadly.

“Good intentions do not shield children from consequences.”
Sabrina Habib, Co-Founder, Kidogo

Read Sabrina’s piece: To End Fatal Gum Cuttings, We Need More Than Well-Intentions — The Tanzania Times

Sahar Jamal

Founder and CEO, Maziwa | Kenya

For millions of working mothers, breastfeeding isn’t simply a matter of personal choice. It’s shaped by whether the systems around them provide the time, support, and resources to make it possible. In Kenya, where roughly 85% of women work in informal settings, those supports are often out of reach.

Sahar Jamal argues that improving breastfeeding outcomes means closing the gap between policy and women’s everyday realities. Drawing on her work with Maziwa, she makes the case for health systems, workplace policies, and practical solutions designed around the lives mothers actually lead.

Too many mothers face “the impossible choice between staying home to breastfeed their babies and returning to work to support their families financially.”

Read Sahar’s piece: From Global Promises to Reality: Why Breastfeeding Support Is Key to Saving Mothers and Babies — The Tanzania Times

Changing how development works

Amy Gaman

Managing Director, Nuru Nigeria | Nigeria

As international aid budgets shrink, calls to shift responsibility to local communities are growing. But Amy Gaman warns that transferring responsibility without the resources and authority to act isn’t meaningful localization. It’s withdrawal.

Drawing on her experience in Northeast Nigeria, Amy argues that communities need to be more than participants in development programs; they need real ownership over the decisions that shape them. Her work with displaced farmers shows what becomes possible when local leadership is matched with long-term resources and support.

“Localization is no longer a choice; it is an operational necessity.”
Amy Gaman, Managing Director, Nuru Nigeria

Read Amy’s piece: Rethinking Aid: You Can’t Shave a Man’s Head in His Absence — The Pan African Review

Jeph Acheampong

Founder and Director, Blossom Academy | Ghana

A training program reaches 10,000 young people. On paper, it’s a success. But how many actually find jobs? It’s a question Jeph Acheampong recalls asking after a skills program in Ghana celebrated its reach without tracking what happened to participants afterward.

For Jeph, the example exposes a broader problem where development often measures activity rather than lasting outcomes. He argues that Africa needs more entrepreneurs who think like system builders and more funders willing to invest patiently in the conditions that allow businesses, communities, and people to thrive over time.

“Africa doesn’t need louder success stories; it needs quieter systems that work.”
Jeph Acheampong, Founder and Director, Blossom Academy

Read Jeph’s piece: Africa Needs System Builders, Not Just Entrepreneurs — The Pan African Review

Aminata Kane Balde

Founder and Executive Chair, Craving 4 Development | Sierra Leone

Across Africa, promising entrepreneurs complete training programs, join innovation hubs, and win startup competitions, only to encounter the same barriers when they try to grow. After seeing that pattern repeat across Sierra Leone, Senegal, and The Gambia, Aminata Kane Balde began questioning whether more programs were really the answer.

Her argument shifts the focus from individual entrepreneurs to the systems around them. Rather than creating isolated pockets of success, she calls for ecosystems in which capital, markets, infrastructure, and policy reinforce one another so that innovation has a real chance to grow.

“The issue is no longer entrepreneurial capacity; it is ecosystem architecture.”
Aminata Kane Balde, Founder and Executive Chair, Craving 4 Development

Read Aminata’s piece: We Don’t Need More Projects. We Need Better Systems — The Pan African Review

Beyond one solution

These op-eds make a case Acumen has long believed in. The problems of poverty are rarely solved by a single intervention. They are solved when the systems around people start working for them.

These Public Voices Fellows Tackling Poverty are not waiting for that to happen. They are naming the gaps, proposing the fixes, and asking funders, policymakers, and the rest of us to build for the long term.

The leaders featured here are Public Voices Fellows Tackling Poverty. Meet the 2026 cohort.