Founder's message
"...we emphasize the ultimate responsibility of Africans for delivering quality technical assistance to enhance and sustain management effectiveness."
MARC A. OKUNNU, Sr., CEO, MSA
I was privileged to lead the founding of MSA some eight years ago, after nearly thirty years in family planning and reproductive health program development. In those years, I found one of the most important challenges to Africa's development to be how to strengthen management performance and increase effectiveness in both individual workers and organizations in the often volatile and unstable development environment in sub-Saharan Africa.
I believe that the greatest challenge facing Africa at the dawn of this millennium is how to achieve rapid and sustainable development, eradicate poverty and disease amongst our peoples, and integrate our continent into the global community as an effective and respectable partner. Pervasive poverty and disease create a lot of suffering to our people and undermine the efforts at bringing about sustainable development. For as long as the vicious circle of poverty and disease persist in Africa, development is illusive.
These challenges cannot be addressed without first dealing with the larger issue of weak institutional capacity. Clearly, there are many dimensions and complexities to institutional capacity and any solutions at all are more likely to be longer rather than short term.
Complex and challenging as these challenges may be, the search for alternative solutions must continue with a sense of urgency. Action must start and be strengthened today, led by Africans with support from our many friends and sympathisers from other regions. It is said that Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero - Seize the day today, trust as little as possible in tomorrow.
There is a strong need for renewed commitment to partnership that entails a shared responsibility to eradicate poverty, diseases, social exclusion and marginalization. We owe it to Africa, our optimum input for the development of new health and social strategies, and solutions towards the alleviation of existing problems. Hercules Furens observed; "Non est ad astra mollis e terris via - There is no easy way from the earth to the stars" Over the past eight years in MSA, we have built a unique team to spearhead our vision in addressing these areas.
I am immensely pleased at the priviledge of playing a central role in coordinating and channelling this tremendous expertise and energy to the service of Africa's SRH and HIV/AIDS institutional capacity building goals. I remain excited over the prospects and the potentials that MSA holds for advancing the issues of health and social development on the African continent.
The eminent Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe, in his book 'Home and Exile', tells the story of a little bird that flew off the ground and landed on an anthill. The little bird congratulated itself believing that it had left the ground not knowing that the anthill was part of the ground.
MSA should not be like the little bird and its illusory flight. MSA should mean a positive and demonstrable change in the health and social lives of our African people.