History, Aims & Methodology of the Brenthurst Foundation

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Maritime Development in Africa
This Paper is prepared by The Brenthurst Foundation in partnership with the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa and the African Center for Strategic Studies in Washington DC.

Brenthurst Foundation announces Advisory Board appointments
The Brenthurst Foundation is delighted to announce that HE former President John Kufuor, The Hon Luisa Dias Diogo, HE Torben Brylle, Rory Stewart MP, and HE Erastus Mwencha have accepted the invitation to serve on its Advisory Board.

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The African Century

To mark the Foundation’s fifth anniversary, we have produced a publication on ‘The African Century’ chronicling the Brenthurst’s activities.

The Oppenheimer family established The Brenthurst Foundation in October 2004. The Foundation has its origins in the Brenthurst Initiative of August 2003, which instigated a debate in South Africa around policy strategies for higher rates of economic expansion.

Today the Foundation is on the frontier of innovative development thinking and knowledge in formulating strategies and policies for strengthening Africa's economic performance. At the invitation of African governments it works in the full spectrum of countries: From those emerging from conflict to those diversifying their economic activities.

The Foundation has been established deliberately not to be another academic talk-shop. While it identifies and shares international best policy practice in international fora, it is concerned not only with ‘what to do’ but the more difficult analytical question as ‘how to do it’ in turning good advice into tangible policy and seeing it through its implementation. In so doing, it is founded on two fundamental precepts: One, that economic growth is the best avenue for prosperity and political stability. Two, to reiterate the words of Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, that companies should have ‘a broad and deep involvement with the societies in which they do business.’

Contrary to sweeping policy perceptions of Africa, answering the ‘how to’ question depends on taking a nuanced view of the continent, country-by-country and sector-by-sector. To carry out these tasks, the Foundation has developed a diverse and knowledgeable international network of analysts drawn from policy specialists across Central and South America, Central Asia, the US, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Europe.

Employing this methodology, the Foundation has focused its activities in the following three areas:

  • Events: Running the annual Tswalu Dialogue each May in collaboration with international partners, plus a range of international seminars and conferences related to its thought-leadership role:
  • Policy Advice: This has taken three forms.

    1. Government secondments and/or engagements in Rwanda, Liberia, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe in Africa, and, in 2006, with the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

    2. Liaison with the Commission of the African Union, which has included, in 2009, collaboration on the Tswalu Dialogue, the speech on African Competitiveness by Nicky Oppenheimer to the AU plenary in May, and also the ongoing development of a maritime policy for the continent.

    3. Regular policy study-tours that Brenthurst has organized for its African partners to a number of countries. These have the aim of exposing African opinion-formers to development best practice. These trips included participation by officials up to prime ministerial level, and have incorporated meetings with current and former heads of state. Countries visited include: Viet Nam (2007 and 2009), Singapore (2008 and 2009), Paname (2009), Colombia (2009), Costa Rica (2009), El Salvador (2009) and Morocco (2008). Planning is underway for a visit to India in the near future.

The Brenthurst Foundation recognises the need for close public-private partnerships in formulating strategies for African economic growth and development. Overall, it reflects the Oppenheimer family's commitment to Africa .