Pharo Foundation is a leading foundation in East Africa. It is a mission-driven, impact-oriented organisation that designs, funds, and operates economic development programmes to create a vibrant, productive, and self-reliant Africa. It focuses on three missions: providing high-quality accessible education, solving water scarcity and encouraging productivity by eliminating barriers to employment. They started operating in Somaliland and Ethiopia, but are now present in Kenya and Rwanda as well. In the future, they plan to expand and go beyond East Africa.
During Biografrica’s weekly African Spotlight Series in August 2023, we were privileged to have an in-depth conversation with Francesca Beausang, the Global Director of Communications and Partnerships, on achievements since inception in 2011, and the Foundation’s plans going forward.
Inspiration Behind the Foundation
In 2011, out of passion for the development of East Africa, a philanthropist called Guillaume Fonkenell, who is married to Somalilander Board member Farah Fonkenell, founded the Pharo Foundation, with a primary focus on Somaliland and Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, they currently focus on Benishangul-Gumuz in the West, with an operations office in Addis Ababa, whilst in Somaliland they operate in multiple locations including the capital Hargeisa. The Foundation expanded to neighbouring countries when they opened schools in Rwanda and Kenya in 2023.
How The Vision to Create a Vibrant, Productive and Self-Reliant Africa Evolved
According to Francesca, they started as a grant-giving organisation and then developed four pillars of non-profit work: education, health, agriculture and water, as means of achieving development. In 2016, they decided that for efficiency and accountability reasons, they would start designing and running their projects instead. In addition, as they went along, they realised that they must do something more sustainable to achieve a “goal of African self-reliance at the end of it”. This was the motivation behind the creation of Pharo Ventures, a group of social enterprises with the specific goal of creating employment and adding value to the local economy. “It is a very different take on things, and it’s very much about African people taking charge in terms of their entrepreneurial spirit kicking in.”
Ventures was created in 2019 and coincided with COVID-19 providing various obstacles to its launch. Quite a bit has been done in Somaliland, where the first Somaliland Venture is Pharo Construction and has completed multiple construction projects both in residential and commercial real estate but also social development projects, such as aiding in the buildings of two major universities. In Ethiopia, the foundation is getting closer to starting a specialty edible oil processing plant. “It is really about creating a vibrant private sector in these countries,” she stressed.
Transitioning From Grants-Giving to Projects
The grant-giving period was from inception until 2016, but the best way to describe the rationale was they were starting in the development world and needed to learn what they wanted to do from others in the sector. The grant-giving phase allowed them to learn more about development, and it was a very important first step.
By giving these grants, they gained this knowledge. In the process, they partnered with really good organisations like the African Education Trust, and within some time, they realised they had learnt a lot and wanted to have a bit more control over the outcome, to increase efficiency, accountability, and stability. So, “we concluded that the way to go was to run our programmes.”
Measuring Impact in Line With Their Vision
After grant-giving and the commencement of their projects, they organized themselves around a four-pillar approach, and all through the period, they were focused on the pillars. It was a period with a lot of experimentation and organically-driven projects. Now, they are moving on to the next phase, and are eager to reframe their strategies beyond the four pillars into three missions that are more ambitious and scaled up. In education, the Foundation’s mission is to ensure that all students have an opportunity to access high-quality and affordable education and become productive citizens in a rapidly changing world. In water, its mission is to ensure that people and communities across Africa have access to a safe and affordable source of water. In productivity, its mission is to eliminate health, financial, and structural barriers to employment and productivity for working people. They are also eager to do work that is more evidence-based and impact-oriented.
Impact measurement was never a direct focus in the early years, but this will now be a focus in the next phase and be managed by the new head of Research, Evaluation and Design who started in 2022. The Head of Research, Evaluation and Design is in charge of producing academic research-worthy studies of impact assessment using high-quality quantitative data. However, even without looking at this kind of high-quality data which is currently being collected, some of the contributions the Foundation has already made are:
– 500 jobs in Africa of which 55 are directly employed by Pharo Ventures
– 18 early childhood development centres in Somaliland with more than 1000 children
– Over 5 early childhood development centres in Ethiopia
– Good records in terms of academic excellence in students. In grade 8 exams in the Benishangul- Gumuz region, students from Pharo Foundation’s schools topped the results for the state, and a similar outcome was recorded for grade 12. Pharo Schools had 10 out of 29 girls who passed the exams in the region.
– Three dams now in Somaliland, serving up to 500 households each and their livestock. And a new even bigger dam in progress that is estimated to serve double that of the previous ones.
– Water programmes in Assosa in the Benishangul-Gumuz region have resulted in a 20% increase in their water supply, with coverage upgraded by 8%.
Why Technology is Not Yet One of The Strategic Pillars
Biografrica was told that the most obvious entry point to technology-driven projects is the Ventures, through the entrepreneurial spirit that they are trying to unleash. There’s a talk around technology, especially in Somaliland, but it could manifest down the line, even though no current technology-driven project is at hand.
Health Initiatives
The director stated that health was a relatively late addition to the pillars, and one of the projects they started in 2022 is the Pharo Diagnostic Centre in Assosa, Benishangul, Ethiopia. This was started in June 2022, and at the moment they have around 1000 patients coming in monthly. It is a clinical lab where people do blood tests and other diagnostics. It is adding value to lives because people can now do laboratory tests locally as opposed to having to travel to the capital city to do so. In September 2023, they added a clinic associated with the centre. This allowed patients to not only be diagnosed locally but also be treated. It has been so successful that people from the area are now having regular physical exams and getting treatment for chronic conditions. Another initiative is their involvement with public health, having done some work with two Benishangul public hospitals where they created intensive care units, and experienced quite interesting outcomes like the in-hospital infant death rate falling by 50%. Francesca mentioned that the Pharo Foundation works with the government (Ministry of Health) to implement some of these projects.
Water Projects
“This sector is a bit more mature,” Francesca said. They build big dams and have been focusing on this in Somaliland to make sure the water supply is consistent. These dams are rainwater harvesting dams with a geomembrane that protects the water supply. The geomembrane technology was a particularly innovative solution in Somaliland and now other organisations have begun to adopt it as well. They have managed to build three dams so far. In Ethiopia, they have three flagship projects, one of which is for Assosa town (in Beninshangul-Gumuz), and have had quite an interesting contribution to Assosa Hospital as they managed to get them a 24-hour water supply. “Imagine what difference that has made as the hygiene situation improved drastically,” she stressed. They are also drilling wells in rural areas, and ” in the future, we are focusing a lot of attention on water, and trying to work out solutions that are going to be scalable and sustainable.”
Effective Agricultural Intervention
The Foundation needed to understand what individual community challenges were. It was not so much about immediately providing farmers with the training and knowledge to grow productivity, but more about first hearing from the farmers themselves what their key problems were. From these conversations, it became clear that one of their biggest challenges was getting their product to market. Francesca said one of the things they wanted was for farmers to be self-reliant and to create a culture of savings, which is not always there for them. She revealed that there are some interesting cases where savings groups have saved enough to procure tractors to address the challenges of the community.
Specific Impacts
1. The Helen Takali’s Success Story
Helen, who is a grade 12 student from Pharo Assosa Primary School, is a typical case of self-motivation, but the foundation provided an enabling environment to express her creativity, especially in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), because they are keen on STEM at their schools. Helen won the 2023 Technology and Innovation Award for the Benishangul state, alongside another child, because of the school’s website she developed. Francesca says, “Helen is only one individual. We hope others will emulate her.”
2. Adult Education for Mothers
Mothers are the pillars of a successful society, and it is interesting to see the take-off of these adult literacy programs for mothers. The degree of interest keeps rising, so much so that after six months, a lot of them engage in follow-up courses which are more practical skills-oriented courses that can give them jobs. “It is remarkable how much these women want to do it,” Francesca said.
3. ECE Success
Pharo Foundation’s Somaliland Early Childhood Education (ECE) Programme has been a transformative force in shaping Somaliland’s education landscape, well beyond the mere provision of its teaching, into ECE policy and research. Pharo Foundation started the first-ever ECE centres in Somaliland public schools in 2016, allowing children from poor and middle-income families to access quality ECE. From a policy standpoint, the Pharo Foundation has also co-created the Somaliland National ECE Curriculum with the Ministry of Education, ensuring that all ECE centres follow the same standards and guidelines.
Partnership with UNESCO in Training Water Engineers
Until now, the Foundation has been creating infrastructure and providing training but “to make an impact, you need to go beyond mere provision of these assets.” So, they needed to involve other organisations, for example, the training partnership with the UNESCO Water Centre at the University of Thessaloniki. Francesca praised the Centre’s efforts and stated that they are experts in hydrology, who were kind enough to give the Foundation’s water team 100 hours of training in the areas in which they lacked the expertise to do their jobs effectively. This was organised across Somaliland and Ethiopia, and the sessions were recorded, enabling them to share it across communities. “It fits into the strategy of going big, not just to provide the dams, but to provide the skills to maximise the dams,” Francesca stressed.
Immediate and Long-Term Goals as a Foundation
Francesca stated that she couldn’t say much because plans had not been officialised yet, but “the new way is to focus on missions,” and she described it as “moonshots,” which is how John F. Kennedy motivated American scientists to land on the moon. He got the U.S. to the moon first because he had given American scientists something that seemed impossible, which motivated them to make it happen. So, for the Pharo Foundation, instead of building the 10th dam in Somaliland, they are nursing the ambition to solve the water problem in the entire East Africa. At the time of the interview, they had nearly finished formulating the dream. She stated that the next line of action was to get the resources together to make it happen.
Expanding Beyond East Africa
“This is something that has come up in the past,” she says. West Africa had been mentioned previously but these are long-term aspirations and there is nothing concrete yet. However, the Foundation does have expansion in mind for its long-term goal.
“Unlocking Africa” Being One of Their Themes
This idea is about unpacking African potential, using whatever it takes as long as it is within the missions. They see potential and opportunity, and they think all it takes is getting everyone on the same page.
How People Can Support Pharo Foundation
The first thing to do is to follow them on social media @pharofoundation, and if you would like to contribute, message them on social media or through the contact page on their website and they will respond immediately.