Celebrities and Development

Celebrities and Development

Name: Sanjana Rahman

Student ID: 10200217
Professor: David A. McDonald

TA: Yesutor Gbewonyo

Course: DEVS100A
Date: 27th November 2015

In a general sense, ‘development’ can be defined as an event establishing a new step in a changing situation. In an economic sense however, it cannot be simply defined as such, but instead has to be assessed in terms of changing variables in a global context. In the last half a century, ‘development’ has been a catchword especially in the Third World referring to improvement in a nation’s economic situation. In recent years, we have seen various celebrities such as musicians and actors dive into discussions about the issue of development. They have attempted to raise awareness about ongoing issues through concerts, campaigns and alike, and use their established following to reach out to larger crowds. In this paper I will look at the involvement of Akon Thiam - a man best known for his career as a pop artist - in issues relating to development. Akon’s charity, Akon Lighting Africa, provides solar electricity to underdeveloped countries in Africa. The government pays back in instalments over a few years, which is easier than having to pay the entire amount at once. In this paper, I will argue that while his charities are meant to boost development especially in the poorer countries in Africa, the actual results and impacts of some of his work have left countries unbenefited, if not worse off, either due to an increase in long term debts, or simply because his ideas have not been accurately translated into execution.

Akon’s first involvement in development began when he established his charity, the Konfidence Foundation, in 2007, to help people in underdeveloped areas in Africa by providing scholarships, clean water supply and mosquito nets (Sigué 2008:726). He then extended his work to a new project in 2014- Akon Lighting Africa, which aims to provide solar powered electricity to people living in rural areas of Africa. Thus far, the organization has installed over a hundred thousand street lights. Akon Lighting Africa stretches over nine countries, including Senegal, where Akon spent part of his early childhood (Cheikh 2014:18-9). He grew up in a house in Kaolack, Senegal, without electricity, and this experience influenced his decision to start up Akon Lighting Africa. Currently, Akon is working on launching the Solektra Solar Academy in Mali, in order to train Africans about solar power so they can design and build systems to provide electricity across Africa (Saldinger 2015:para. 14).

To follow up on this brief introduction about Akon’s involvement in development, I will first discuss the positive impacts of Akon Lighting Africa on the targeted receivers of electricity in Africa. In the next two sections, I will relate the impacts of Akon’s project to themes in development such as modernization and neoliberalism and examine how his initiatives are helping with Africa’s development. In the fourth section, I will expand on my thesis statement and argue that the project leaves the financial situation of recipient countries worse off due to the huge debt that gathers up from the installation of street lights and household electricity supplies. In the next section, I will discuss the drawbacks of Akon and other celebrities and development coinciding. I will then use various sources in the next section to demonstrate the inconsistency and unreliability of statistics to show that the actual benefits of Akon’s project may fall below what is expected or advertised. I will end by concluding that while Akon’s contribution to development activities cannot go unnoticed, his work remains more of a business venture rather than a charity to help Africa develop.