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About us

Strengthening Africa's Economic Performance

The Brenthurst Foundation is on the frontier of new ideas and innovative actions for strengthening Africa's economic performance. Our activities are focused in three areas: encouraging key decision-makers and experts to share experiences and insights at private meetings and seminars; delivering relevant, practical policy advice to governments; and generating new thinking and thought-leadership to address Africa's development challenges.

We facilitate policy conversations.

Our team engages with experts, policy specialists, and senior government officials in Africa and beyond. Our activities focus on:

Private Events

We convene meetings, seminars and conferences to facilitate the exchange of experiences and insights. With our unique network, we are able to facilitate vibrant discussions between key decision-makers and experts.

Policy Advice

We identify and share international best practice with governments, addressing not just what to do but how to do it. Our wide experience across different African countries affords us unique insights.

Thought Leadership

Drawing on our global network of analysts we undertake research and develop new thinking to address Africa's challenges and support economic transformation.

We work at the invitation of African governments.

Nicky and Jonathan Oppenheimer
We aim to contribute to the debate around strategies and policies for strengthening Africa's economic performance and enabling inclusive and sustainable development.

— Nicky and Jonathan Oppenheimer

Born in 2004, the Brenthurst Foundation was established by the Oppenheimer family to build on the work of the Brenthurst Initiative of 2003. This was a programme that instigated debate around policy strategies in South Africa to accelerate economic expansion. The debate continues across the continent, driven by the sharing of ideas, data, and experiences.

The Brenthurst Foundation is part of Oppenheimer Generations, a community consisting of a collection of autonomous but interconnected entities, each playing a critical and unique role to fulfil our long-term commitment of leaving our world better than how we found it.

We bring together policy-makers & policy-shapers.

Since its inception, the Foundation has regularly brought together the world's leading thinkers and practitioners to consider ways to enhance the continent's economic growth and development. We are fortunate to count these key players, from presidents and finance ministers to renowned scholars and UN officials, among our advisors and associates.

Meet our people

Our partners are invested in the economic development of Africa.

Africa Center for Strategic StudiesAfrican Center for Economic TransformationAustralian Strategic Policy InstituteBusiness SwazilandCouncil on Foreign RelationsDepartment of International Relations and CooperationG:ensisGordon Institute of Business ScienceIncaeInstitute for Africa and Middle East StudiesInstitute for Security StudiesJohns Hopkins University School of Advanced International StudiesKonrad Adenauer StiftungObserver Research FoundationRAND CorporationRoyal United Services InstituteS. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyanng Technological UniversitySABI Strategy GroupThe Moshe Dayan Center at Tel-Aviv UniversityUnited Nations Economic Commission for Africa