COVID-19’s silver lining for education in Africa
By Robert E. Hinson (PhD) & Abena Asomaning Antwi (PhD)
This is the best time for scientists, social work departments, pharmacy, and chemistry departments (for sanitiser production etc.) business schools, schools of public health, to design proposals and projects to be funded by corporate Africa.
Corporate Social Initiatives (CSIs) are deliberate actions taken by organisations with the aim of dealing with social problems; promoting social and environmental impartiality; while enhancing the access to opportunities for disadvantaged or marginalised persons, groups, or communities as well as improving the quality of social welfare; and contributing to sustainable development in general.
CSIs are generally categorised into six key types: cause promotion, cause-related marketing, corporate social marketing, corporate philanthropy, employee engagement and socially responsible business practices.
The commonest CSI in Ghana in respect of Public Private Partnerships, when COVID-19 struck was corporate philanthropy; with firms providing direct support to a cause, usually by way of donations in cash and kind (products and/or services).
Being in the academia, we are focusing here on corporate philanthropy in Ghana for tertiary and research institutions.
In Ghana, universities have opened mostly in digital mode and, in some selected instances, in blended mode.
In aid of full reopening, a leading waste management company in the country partnered with the Ghanaian government, through the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, to carry extensive disinfection to prepare for the re-opening of selected universities and other public spaces.
Headquartered in Ghana, Zoomlion is an award-winning pan-African waste management company with operations in nine African countries, and has a foundation which focuses on healthcare, environment, sanitation, and education improvement.
In the spirit of supporting education, the company decided to disinfect all universities in Ghana, both privately-operated and government-owned, to let them reopen.
As part of efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Citi TV (a Ghanaian TV station) partnered with Zoomlion to undertake the exercise at the University of Ghana. Officials of Zoomlion and CITI TV opined that the gesture was in response to the President Nana Akufo-Addo’s call on all and sundry to support the fight against the pandemic. Prior to the University of Ghana disinfection exercise, the Zoomlion team had embarked on a spraying exercise also at the University of Professional Studies Accra.
Additionally, halls of residence, lecture theatres, and other academic areas in the University of Cape Coast, other public universities and privately-owned universities were disinfected. The disinfection formed part of efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among students and staff of the University and also, to keep a generally sanitary environment aimed at fostering a more conducive teaching and learning environment.
Besides disinfection, the Zoomlion also presented a cheque of US$20,000 to Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) – the leading COVID-19 testing facility in Ghana – to promote research on the COVID-19 pandemic. This was after the announcement that scientists from NMIMR and West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), University of Ghana had successfully analysed samples from selected cases to gain a comprehensive understanding of the variations of coronavirus present in country. Incorporated also in the Zoomlion’s corporate social responsibility project dubbed: “Free Community Disinfection Campaign”, the company disinfected some prison facilities which serve additionally as learning and rehabilitation centres for deviants with a planned exercise of disinfection in 130 police posts in the Greater Accra region.
The Consolidated Bank Ghana (CBG) also donated Ghȼ100,000 to NMIMR while Standard Chartered Bank halso donated portable Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing equipment and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to NMIMR.
Two lessons for African University-Industry Collaborations, COVID-19 and beyond
First, corporate entities are willing to partner educational facilities and institutions performing functions of public good. While these gestures may be for altruistic intentions, there is a good value proposition from these universities to these corporate entities. Sophia Lissah, Chief Corporate Communications Officer of the Jospong Group (the parent holding company of Zoomlion) noted in the presentation to NMIMR, for instance, that their US$20,000 donation was to support the advanced laboratory and research facility to fight COVID-19. She noted further that Zoomlion was moved by a call from NMIMR to support its work, particularly regarding sequencing and testing processes of the COVID-19 genome. The lesson here is: build a viable selling proposition by doing valuable work which benefits society and then Corporate Africa would step in to support in cash or kind. Inadvertently, two benefits are achieved – first, that the Jospong Group (and by extension, the Zoomlion) advances a sense of good CSR among like-sized companies and businesses with similar architecture. Secondly, the company gets to augment its brand identity with goodwill gained from the “donations” made which are ultimately good for business.
Finally, COVID-19 has forced most brands to conduct some critical introspection on how their brands can be socially responsible and ultimately more sustainable. Given the general decimation of the tertiary education sector in Africa, this is the best time for leaders of tertiary institutions to co-develop society friendly programmes to assist in lifting people out of the crippling effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the best time for scientists, social work departments, pharmacy, and chemistry departments (for sanitiser production etc.) business schools, schools of public health to design proposals and projects to be funded by corporate Africa to lift the continent out of the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. If there has ever been a time for Universities in Africa to lift their innovation game to better attract corporate funding for university development, the time is now.
COVID-19 after all, may have a silver corporate funding lining in its cloud.
Dr. Robert E. Hinson is a Professor of Marketing and Leader of the Project on Sustainability and Enterprise Development at the College of Humanities, University of Ghana.
Dr. Abena Asomaning Antwi is the Managing Director of the Africa Environmental Sanitation Consult based in Accra, Ghana
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