African Giving Knowledge Base

While philanthropy is an integral part of African society, the study of philanthropy in Africa is only recently gaining traction. To help us understand the field better and generate new knowledge that allows us to strengthen its role and impact, we have compiled a database of literature from academic as well as other sources. You will find a range of topics on African giving – from legally structured entities to systems and traditions of solidarity – in English, French, Arabic and Portuguese. We also include literature that looks at the impact of external philanthropy on African development.

We hope that this database will provide a foundation that will enable a better understanding of the nature of giving in Africa; encourage more widespread and cross-sectoral analysis of the gaps in our knowledge; and serve as a platform from which to develop new knowledge and as a basis for refining and adding to the discourse on African giving.

The African Giving Knowledge Base is an ongoing collaboration between TrustAfrica and IssueLab, a service of the Foundation Center. TrustAfrica would like to acknowledge the contribution made by Social Surveys Africa in pulling together and contributing to the repository of documents at hand. 

This database contains much information, but we believe that much more knowledge exists on African systems of giving. We invite you to submit additional knowledge products for inclusion to  [email protected].

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