Where to set the bar - deciding our strategic goals and targets

By Paul Stuart, CEO

When setting goals like this we need to weigh up ambition to respond to the overwhelming need, with pragmatism.

There are 460 million people in sub-Saharan Africa living below the poverty line, with many forecasts indicating that this is increasing, so it’s clear that the need is vast. Ripple Effect’s proven approach has made a transformational impact on over 2.5 million people’s lives so far.

But of course, in order to scale up our work, we need to scale up our resources and the collaborations we have. So as well as looking at what is needed, we needed to review what is possible.

For example: “If we had no resource constraints, what could we achieve?”.

I am inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point which explains how comparatively little change can make a big difference. It’s a principle which sits at the heart of Ripple Effect.

For structural change such as fighting poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, what would be the critical mass needed? If we could reach 10% of those living in poverty, would that result in a better world for all?

Some were higher, some lower. Once Covid hit and economies stalled, we had to rethink.

In deciding to go for the ambitious-but-still-possible figure of 5 million we recognised that in order to achieve that tripling of our reach we will need to double our income – despite many countries now going into recession. We have a strategy for how we will do that. And we won’t fail for want of trying.

We needed to consider how we should modify our funding models. How we can adapt our delivery model. How we can attract and work together with more partners who bring complementary skills and greater access to local networks and communities.

Where should we focus our growth efforts – are there new countries where we can have a greater impact? We have developed a set of criteria to assess this.

That is a record number of project participants for us, engaged both in new projects and existing projects which have been extended to ensure their impact is sustainable. And we are planning for 10% growth in our project reach over the next year.

It’s important to stress that although we want to work with more people, we must not compromise the depth of impact our programmes have. We will never concede depth for breadth.

Such targets, set nearly 10 years in advance, will always be an educated estimate: as the past few years have highlighted so clearly, we can’t predict what the future holds. Our priority remains to ensure that those we work with are happy, healthy and resilient, and that we are building a confident, thriving and sustainable rural Africa.

Our indicators show that we are on track to reach this goal by 2030, and we may well exceed it. I’m inspired (and challenged) by some of our colleagues in Africa: when they’re talking about our strategic goals they say that our desire is to reach at least another 5 million people.

I hope that we’ve set the bar at the right point to ensure we are always pushing ourselves as an organisation to achieve what is possible. We will continue to be transparent about our progress.

As Nelson Mandela said:

“It always seems impossible until it is done.” - Nelson Mandela, Former President of South Africa.

If you don’t have a vision, if you don’t have ambition, then it won’t happen. When we first work alongside farmers, we ask them to envisage their future, starting with literally drawing a picture of what their farm could look like. And then together we map out how they will achieve it.

Radical change is possible.