Please describe your proposed solution.
<u>Our Solution:</u>
Formalizing and developing a framework for an Africa Stakepool Alliance.
Bridging the gap between the Cardano ecosystem of single pool operators, the impact investing world, and would be delegators.
Accelerating progress to an equitable and sustainable world supported by an impactful Africa Stakepool Alliance.
An Alliance collaborating, combining and sharing resources in order to provide a clear, coherent and understandable offering to diverse stakeholders.
An Alliance that will effectively communicate and demonstrate the opportunities for investors/delegators to not only make a return on their investment, but to also have a positive social and environmental impact via supporting mission driven, single pool operators, the change makers on the ground in Africa.
In order to drive change where it is most needed, and to ensure finances are optimally used for maximum positive impact, accurate and trustworthy data is necessary to make informed decisions. Having said that, “statistics alone do not feed the hungry, create jobs or provide social services but they are critical in helping us to better understand the challenges, and to design more effective policies for inclusive, sustainable and resilient development.” - UNESCAP, 2017
<u>What is Impact Investing?</u>
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv3oKGUbCPo>“Impact investing is not an asset class. It is an investment approach, across all asset classes, themes and geographies, and has a full range of risks and returns.”
<u>Why Africa?</u>
Africa is the 2nd most populated continent in the world, and the youngest continent in the world with 60% of its population under the age of 25 in 2019 (Statista, 2021).
With blockchain being the number 1 in demand hard skill of 2020, our proposal seeks to catalyze, cultivate and encourage the burgeoning interest amongst the architects and entrepreneurs of the future in blockchain and related technologies in the digital economy.
Business schools switch focus to people, purpose and planet l FT
“We face an analogous situation in impact investing. Business schools can help to fill the gap. Graduates who are not trained to understand the social impact of the great breakthroughs happening in technology, biology, physics and other essential areas are less likely to understand the risks and rewards of investing in these innovations to overcome poverty and climate change… If business schools can capture this essential interplay between profit and purpose, they will go a long way to teaching their students that impact and a strong focus on environmental, social and governance factors are not just nice things to have, but bedrocks of sound financial investments.” - [**https://www.ft.com/content/3f1d912e-17b1-4d6e-ad28-20e52ed61ea0?shareType=nongift**](https://www.ft.com/content/3f1d912e-17b1-4d6e-ad28-20e52ed61ea0?shareType=nongift)
Cardano and its stake pool operators operating out of Africa and Asia, the two most populated continents globally, are perfectly situated to drive Cardano towards impact purposes, and provide many services across multiple fronts such as education, financing positive social and environmental initiatives and helping to uplift communities from poverty to prosperity through economic security and financial and digital literacy and upskilling. Such mission driven SPOs should be on the radar of the impact investors coming out of business schools across the world.
“In order to effectively and efficiently ensure that impactful changes are made, it is essential that interventions are based on evidence rather than assumptions. Blockchain technologies can play a crucial part in establishing the required chain of evidence for environmental compliance: validating sources of emissions data, informing policy decisions, providing evidence of compliance, and monitoring impacts in a transparent and incontrovertible way.” - <https://static.iohk.io/green-blockchain-paper.pdf>
Single SPO’s play an essential and integral role in ensuring Cardano remains a secure and decentralized network. Mission driven pools are also at the frontier of a paradigm shift in disrupting legacy systems and methods of directing finance to solve local and global problems.
Having said that, single SPOs everywhere have been struggling. A common theme pops up all around the community, the challenge of marketing a SPO and its benefits.
Simply put, they are failing to attract more delegators to their pool. This makes operating one economically challenging and unviable for many.
In the developing world, most people are unfamiliar with web 3.0, blockchain and Cardano. Many are oblivious to the potential benefits of blockchain, staking and what even is a SPO.
In the spirit of collaboration and collective intelligence sharing, cultural and knowledge exchange, we propose that a structured and organized Africa Stakepool Alliance can bring about many benefits to the Cardano community at large, the Alliance members, and provide a coherent and understandable message to would-be delegators, and potential impact investors.
Stakeholders from ecosystems currently external to Cardano, but who are open to innovative ways to support mission driven causes and actors, whilst making a return on their investment via Cardano’s innovative Proof of Stake model, will be targeted for onboarding into the Cardano ecosystem.
The Africa Stakepool Alliance can prove to be an inspiration for others globally, with others inspired to follow a path that may have previously been deemed inaccessible.
Alliances currently exist in the Cardano community and we seek to add value to this growing constellation of impact actors in the increasingly decentralized network, by providing a framework for geographically situated mission driven, single pool operators to receive support in finding their feet.
The alliance made up of single pool operators can also collectively explore the research published by IOHK that proposes the idea of Conclave, “… stake pools tend to increase centralization, since they are typically managed by a single party that acts on behalf of the pool’s members. In this work we propose Conclave, a formal design of a Collective Stake Pool, i.e., a decentralized pool with no single point of authority.” - <https://iohk.io/en/research/library/papers/conclavea-collective-stake-pool-protocol/>
“One day I’d love to see Enterprise employees and shareholders voting on Cardano which MDPs to delegate ESG/CSR funds to for 12mth at a time.
Scores of SDG targets would be knocked down and many missions would be funded ad infinitum
#Cardano #Blockchain #Crypto #CardanoCommunity”
- David Taylor, Global Marketing Director, Cardano Foundation
https://twitter.com/I_Am_DTaylor/status/1507430167991492625?t=P07uzndtLg_G4Z53QZtYuw&s=19
With the Africa Stakepool Alliance, in tandem with other Mission Driven Pools/Alliances, with the support of this proposal the Africa Stakepool Alliance can cover the costs, time commitment and resources needed to produce:
- An Alliance Website
- Social media channels
- External Communication materials such as an Impact Investor Pack
These efforts can support Alliance members in being seen and potentially receiving delegations from:
- financial institutions
- Corporates
- Philanthropists
- Private Equity and Venture Capital Fund managers
- Foundation Directors
- Family Office Principals/Directors
- NextGen Leaders
- Incubators
- Accelerators
- And all those who have access to significant capital, or have responsibility for large investment portfolios and are used to managing assets of High Net Worth Individuals, families or funds.
Armed with the awareness and knowledge of the happenings in the Cardano impact ecosystem, external stakeholders as listed above, and those such as individuals who are either deploying or intend to deploy capital with an impact investing lens can arrive at an array of options offered by the Africa Stakepool Alliance.
Evidence that there is indeed a desire out there for such a service and information is demonstrated with news announced at the Cardano Summit 2021. UBX, the fintech venture studio and fund spun out of UnionBank of the Philippines, opened their own public stake pool. UBX became the first in the world to run a public stake pool as a regulated institution. UBX Staking provides Filipinos a reputable and trustworthy source to earn rewards on their ADA for helping to secure and operate the Cardano blockchain. - <https://www.ubx.ph/2021/10/01/ubx-leads-in-crypto-becomes-first-regulated-institution-to-run-a-public-stake-pool/>
More info on the UBX stakepool:
The Africa Stakepool Alliance will aim to include single pool operators as members from across Africa, representing Africa inclusively and reflecting its richness of cultural diversity.
Collectively the Alliance will work to improve the digital and financial literacy among its members and population, its delegators, and all those who stand to benefit from being part of this revolutionary Web3.0 digital movement, bringing power, ownership and value to all that wish to participate.
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
According to UN forecasts, Africa is expected to double its population by 2050, from 1 billion to nearly 2.4 billion inhabitants. Half of that population will be less than 25 years old.
World Bank figures show that young people represent 60% of the unemployed population in Africa. Among those who do have a job, the majority work in the informal economy. A report published in 2018, by the International Labour Organization (ILO) on the topic, indicated that 94.9% of people between the ages of 15 and 24 in Africa work in the informal economy. In West Africa this figure is as high as 97.9%.
DRC has the 7th youngest country in the world according to the UN. This presents a unique mix of challenges and opportunities.
The success of the GOMA stakepool in DRC as led by Genty and his team, is testament to the strength of the Cardano community with the support of the funded proposal : <https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/369320>.
GOMA pool, and others that will join the Africa Stakepool Alliance can and will prove inspirational to others as to what is possible.
As they say, where there’s a will there’s a way!
<u>Why is it necessary?</u>
Impact investing is at its nascent stage in Africa. Although it is now getting an increasing level of attention from various actors in the social investment ecosystem, there are only a handful of impact funds and foundations that are actually practicing impact investing.
The obstacles that are hindering impact investing from gaining traction in Africa amongst wealth holders, asset managers and their advisors include the perception that it will necessitate a trade-off on financial returns, a lack of an investment-ready pipeline, inexperience in managing a portfolio, and the complexities in defining and evaluating impact measurement. - <https://avpa.africa/africa-asia-impact-investing-fellowship/>
With the support of this Catalyst proposal and the Cardano community, developing the Africa Stake Pool Alliance, will enable, equip and empower populations across the world’s youngest and 2nd most populated continent.
The creation and formalization of this framework and Alliance will open up new pathways for stakeholders and impact investors from the world’s largest markets.
As a coherently organized Alliance, with professional, high quality materials and resources, the Alliance can approach and be approached by stakeholders from impact investing fellowships and networks and beyond.
An Africa Stakepool Alliance can capture external stakeholder’s attention and bring attention and real financial flow where it is needed, to who needs it, by providing capital and resources to those who are best placed to understand the problems and how to solve them, those on the ground. This in turn can catalyze a positive multiplier effect with new inflows of capital unlocking the potential of grassroots change makers and organizations, helping to accelerate their progress and giving them the means to scalably have the most impact on the ground.
This proposal will work to bring all interested members/SPOs in the ecosystem, to be part of the group of ‘founding members’, to lay the groundwork and continue building towards a common vision and mission of a better world for not just those in Africa, but the whole world!
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTJYOHEtn-4>$1 Billion Impact Investor Explains How She Makes Money While Making The World A Better Place
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
<u>Working on this project whilst managing an existing workload: </u>
Working and managing diverse responsibilities and workloads will require constant communication between team members. Group members must be clearly aware of individual responsibilities and plan accordingly to meet project expectations. We are all deeply invested in ensuring we have sustainable work practices whilst bringing our visions of success for this project to life.
<u>Working in a decentralized team:</u>
Similar to the above, communication is key. With project members in different time zones, communication and consistent meetings are going to be keys to the Alliance’s success. On the other hand, what is perceived as a challenge can be a strength - with a decentralized, global team, team members will be that much more effective in the onboarding process and be ready to respond to questions or concerns from stakeholders. Our core team are all experienced in this regard.
<u>Working in a space with legal and financial uncertainty: </u>
We are seeking to find the appropriate legal and financial professionals in the jurisdictions of the locations of the alliance members, and work to ensure transparency is respected when dealing with external stakeholders to ensure operations and practices are legally compliant.
<u>Currency exchange volatility:</u>
Can exchange ADA into a stable coin (Djed TBC) or fiat accordingly upon receival of funds
<u>Operating in a context that may be sensitive with cultural awareness:</u>
We are a diverse team made up of individuals from across the world, with experience of living and working in numerous countries and continents. Between us all we have a deep understanding of the cultural norms and nuances, and interpersonal skills needed that will prove beneficial in communicating and onboarding processes. Crypto can be seen as a subject of contention and we are all well versed in handling such discussions and topics with patient understanding and sensitivity with regards to privacy and non disclosure agreements where appropriate.