Sustainable development, in any given society, is driven by the interplay of five forces, the Founder of CWG Plc, Mr Austin Okere, has said.
In an article, ‘Introducing Austin’s Five Forces Model for Analysing Sustainable Development’, made available to Financial Street on Friday, Okere listed organisations, population, enablers, infrastructure and socio-political environment as the forces, asserting that sustainability challenge was becoming clearer.
He said, “I see five forces driving sustainable growth as follows – organisations, population, enablers, infrastructure, and the socio-political environment. I have codified the relation between these forces in a model which I call Austin’s Five Forces Model for analysing Sustainable Development.”
Explaining the model, Okere noted organisations impact on the society by providing jobs for the population for shared prosperity.
“At the heart of providing jobs is the organisation – public, private, start-ups and non-governmental.
“In Nigeria, while there are only about 161 companies listed on the Stock Exchange, the total number of MSMEs as of 2019 stood at 41.5 million according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Just imagine the scale of jobs that will be created if each of these businesses is empowered to employ just only one additional person,” he said.
The population is the source of skilled labour to the organisation and which in turn contributed to the welfare of society, he said.
While society in the past was split between the haves and have-nots, Okere pointed out that now society is between those who were included and those left behind.
He said, “Research has shown that youth unemployment increases all sorts of crime. It is estimated that by 2050, Africa’s population will double, reaching 2.5 billion people – just about the current combined population of India and China. Without a credible plan towards sustainable employment, this could be a ticking bomb.”
Okere sees enablers as institutions and mechanisms which remove economic blockages and open economic arteries, maintaining that regulators were one of the most critical enablers of a society.
“Regulators, however, tend to be either a source of support or a headwind against progress. The regulator should not constrict the pursuit of opportunity nor act in a manner to entrench protectionism.”
Other significant enablers, Okere said include health, education and technology platform, regarding the last mentioned as the most significant enabler in modern times.
“Technology platforms have heralded an era of unprecedented inclusiveness,” he said.
Okere, who now runs the Ausso Leadership Academy, regards infrastructure as becoming imperative due to the increase in digital transformation, largely driven by the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to him, the biggest infrastructure drawback, however, has been electricity.
“Almost half of the people living in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to electricity. The attendant impact on entrepreneurship can only be imagined. If Africa were able to achieve in power what she has achieved in telecoms the impact on sustainable development would be immense,” he said.
Nothing impacts sustainable growth as much as a stable socio-political environment, Okere also stated.
He said any society that does not abide by some code of conduct whether in public or private matters tends to become chaotic, and virtually ungovernable.
“The blind application of the law without regard to status, tribe or creed is what enshrines deterrence. It is the pursuit of deterrence that drives developed countries from sparing any high-ranking members of the society who fall foul of the law, not least their leaders, who are held to a higher account,” he said.
The CWG founder added that the sustainable development of any society depends on where they lie on the spectrum of these critical five forces.
