Bwwob bwwobbubwub…the first sound of grinding mealie-meal emerging from the Namanongo community’s new hammer mill was a moment two years in the making, though the grinding was quickly drowned out by the sounds of community members singing and dancing in celebration. The mere sound of the hammer mill coming to life was a dream come true for those living in Namanongo – a remote rural area in Zambia’s Rufunsa District – as well as a moment for celebration for the Zambian Governance Foundation (ZGF) who had been working with the Namanongo community for two years around building local philanthropy. It was...

  This piece originally appeared on the website of the Independent Philanthropy Association South Africa (IPASA). Two weeks before President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that South Africa was about to go into full lockdown, the Social Change Assistance Trust (SCAT) staff discussed protocols for working in the face of a pandemic. While we were discussing social distancing and sanitizers for the office, epidemiologists and mathematicians were trying to work out the trajectory of this virus for South Africa. Since then our world has changed completely and we only see each other on screens, while working from home we try and coordinate our response...