The epicenter strategy has been created in Africa, by Africans for Africa. When we prepare to re-create it in a new country, it requires us to do a thorough examination of the local context, being guided by the “Five Principles” of the epicenter strategy as described in the Core Philosophy section.
THP has found that this examination benefits from a scoping team that has a foot in each of two worlds – the prevailing local context and the “transformed world” of successful existing epicenters. The scoping team spends at least a week of intensive interviews with diverse stakeholders to learn as much as they can on homw the epicenter strategy can make the highest leverage contribution in a particular context.
1. Transforming the mindset
Africa has long aspired to shake off all remnants of colonialism, however the prevailing centralizd, top-down approaches to development both reflect and reinforce the mindset of dependency and resignation that helps hold hunger and poverty in place.