Magatte Wade to accept Julian L. Simon Memorial Award and share her story at the CEI dinner

According to demographers, about one-quarter of the world’s population is expected to be African at the middle of this century. Many are currently quite poor.  Magatte Wade aims to change that, through her advocacy of free enterprise and entrepreneurship. Wade is an entrepreneur herself, having started multiple companies based in her native Senegal.

She tells her story in her book, The Heart of a Cheetah: How We Have Been Lied to about African Poverty – and What That Means for Human Flourishing, which I aim to get signed tonight.

Wade is the recipient of this year’s Julian L. Simon Memorial Award at CEI’s annual dinner, held at DC’s towering National Cathedral. She is also the subject of an article by Dominic Pino, on National Review’s website. Wade, who emigrated from Senegal to France before eventually settling in the US, summarized the state of affairs in Africa:

“My continent is still the poorest in the world,” she says.

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Wade says this is largely the consequence of overregulation. She gave a TED talk in 2017 about tariffs, laws, and regulations that make it nearly impossible for African entrepreneurs to start businesses. Because there are no businesses, there are no jobs, and because there are no jobs, Africans risk their lives to flee to Europe or the U.S., she said.

Pino says that in many African nations, colonialism has been replaced by socialism, which itself is a kind of foreign imposition:

The socialism was learned from the West and then passed off by intellectuals as authentically African. Wade describes to NR how the African concept of “ubuntu,” which means “I am because we are,” was transformed into support for socialism that as little to root it in actual African history.

For more about Wade’s inspiring story, her influences, and her thinking, read the whole article. Then perhaps dig into her book. It is readily available, but my copy is already spoken for.