Engaging with Sachs – And Thinking for Myself

How AfricAspire™ shares a vision for dignity, while holding its own perspective

I’ve listened to Jeffrey Sachs for a number of years — not as a disciple, but as a thoughtful observer.

His voice has often helped me find shape for things I’ve long felt but not fully articulated: that global systems are tilted, that African agency is routinely overlooked, and that the West often talks about the Global South while failing to hear it.

That said, I don’t agree with everything he says. There are moments where I find his tone too sweeping, his generalisations too broad — particularly when he speaks critically of Britain or the West. It’s in those moments I feel a tension: part of me nods in understanding, while another part quietly recoils.

Still, I continue to listen. Because when Sachs speaks about structures — not just policies or politics, but the invisible scaffolding of inequality — I hear something worth considering.

And in that space of listening, AfricAspire™ has begun to take form.

Jeffrey Sachs has been a meaningful voice in my world for some time now.

Not because I agree with everything he says — I don’t. And not because he gets everything right — he doesn’t. But because he speaks with urgency, global awareness, and a conviction that the world doesn’t have to remain tilted against the majority of its people.

That, I agree with.

In an interview I recently watched, Sachs said:

“If we don't blow things up, which is possible, then things are gonna be okay ... the world that is taking shape will be more equal, more open, actually benefiting from a lot of the breakthroughs in technology.”

It’s the kind of statement that feels both hopeful and hard-earned. And for someone like me, working quietly from the UK on a small but committed initiative called AfricAspire™, it matters. Sachs’s optimism doesn’t come from naivety. It comes from global observation — and the sense that if we act thoughtfully, we can re-balance the world.

That’s the vision AfricAspire™ is rooted in: a world where Africa isn’t spoken about, but with. Where entrepreneurship is seen not as a Western import, but as a deeply rooted African reality, too often blocked by structures of legacy, access, or power.

So yes, Sachs has helped shape my thinking. His critique of Western-led development models — ones that often preserve inequality while claiming to fight it — has given me language for things I’ve long felt but struggled to articulate.
But that doesn’t mean I follow him uncritically.

Walking Through My Own Legacy

I grew up proud of Britain. Proud of her cultural sophistication, her presence in the world, her literature, her systems, her sense of order. Even in a world increasingly enamoured with American dominance, I believed Britain held something more refined — a kind of quiet depth.

I admired Britain’s global footprint — the stamp she had left across continents. The Industrial Revolution. Education. Infrastructure. Civil service. Systems of trade and governance. I didn’t, at first, fully reckon with how that footprint had been made.

Later in life, I learned more. I read more. I listened to those who had been impacted by colonialism in all its guises. And the weight began to shift.

It’s still shifting.

It seems almost beyond comprehension that in my own lifetime, Aboriginal Australians — living in a land colonised by the British — were once classified legally as flora and fauna. That alone should humble any blind patriotism.

But still, I find myself walking a careful line. Because I’ve met elderly Africans who remember the British presence with real appreciation. Who told me — with grief in their eyes — that when the British left, so did their jobs, their homes, their sense of order. Some lost children to the fallout of failed systems.

This doesn’t excuse empire. It complicates it.

And I believe someone like Jeffrey Sachs — as intelligent and globally engaged as he is — should be more careful before dismissing that history with sweeping remarks.

Where AfricAspire™ and Sachs Align — and Differ

Where we align is clear: I, too, resist the projection of Western values that diminish or overwrite African identity, culture, or innovation. I agree that Africa’s place in the next global chapter must not be subordinate, but central.

And I share Sachs’s hope: that the world might become more equal, more open, more fair — not through charity, but through structural realignment.

But AfricAspire™ is different too. It’s smaller. More personal. It emerges from lived experience — not theory.

I’ve sat in the homes of African families. I’ve walked with them in their grief, their resourcefulness, their spiritual and entrepreneurial depth. I’ve seen the damage that both colonial power and post-colonial instability can do. And I’ve also seen moments of beauty, stability, and opportunity made possible under British systems that some now want to entirely erase.

AfricAspire™ brings no blueprint. No grand policy. Just a deep and determined intent: to honour African brilliance, and to never again overlook it, even in its quietest form.

Why Now?

This reflection comes now not because I’m suddenly ready. In truth, I don’t think one is ever truly ready.

It comes because I feel the weight of time — and the responsibility to act with what I’ve seen, and what I’ve learned. Because the world is changing. Western dominance is receding. Africa is rising. And Sachs is right: there is opportunity here, if we don’t blow it.

AfricAspire™ has lived in my heart for years. A promise. A calling. A quiet vow made to a quiet boy with a quiet gift. Now, finally, it is being born.

And it brings with it the hope that we — all of us — might learn to think more carefully, speak more humbly, and build more justly.

AfricAspire™ is not an echo of Sachs — and it was never meant to be.

It is my response to something more intimate and enduring: the memory of a boy named Paul, the gift I once failed to receive properly, and a long sense of responsibility that has taken years to surface clearly.

Sachs helped give voice to the structural side of that story. But the emotional weight — the moral urgency — comes from experience.

As I move forward, I carry both: the structural insight Sachs offers, and the human story that still haunts and motivates me.

That’s where AfricAspire™ now stands. Between systems and stories. Between listening and action. Between conscience and courage.

It is its own voice — and now, it’s time to speak.

To support, collaborate with, or learn more about AfricAspire, please get in touch or visit www.africaspire.org.uk.

𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐋 𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘
𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐀𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞™, 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝟒 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐂.𝐋.𝐄.𝐀.𝐑.𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐱™
𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟓 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬’ 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐊, 𝐄𝐔, 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐀𝐬𝐢𝐚 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 — 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲, 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲.

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