Greetings, I don't think African business people are unique in financing a business on debt. That phenomenon is a reality throughout the world - small businesses take loans to finance their start ups.

I agree that "indigenous equity" is a reality. However, the idea of land ownership comes into play when considering such options. In the Kenya context - there is large tracts of land owned by Uropeans, however there is probably triple the land owned by the Moi, Kenyatta, and other political and business people that grab land.

I used the example of crafts because it is in fact a way for some people to escape persistent poverty. There's literally thousands of people that have empowered themselves and their families in the Kamba, Masai and Giriama communities in Kenya, through handicrafts - and it has become very sustainable (Bombolulu Workshop, Mombasa, Illegwesi Community Trust, Akamba Handicraft Cooperative among others). African art has persistently stood the test of time, as a valuable commodity - because more often than not, the artisan receives money for their work immediately, or soon after completion.

In the coffee and tea industries in Kenya, this is not the case, where you have a multi-billion dollar industry and the producers/farmers are reaping close to nothing for back-breaking labor.

I wouldn't lean too much on the idea that export markets are just available in the liberal "first world" (im assuming western). For example, there is a HUGE market IN Africa for Khanga, Ktenge, Vitenge (fabrics), carvings etc - that are produced In Kenya, Tanzania and to some degree Uganda, that are exported to Azania, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland, African Diaspora etc (so much so that even the Chinese have started replicating them). The idea also that micro-finance is something that's exclusively controlled by the West is another assumption that is not wholly correct - there are many instances where National and Co-operative Banks, have vibrant micro-finance products, and communities have developed their own system of savings and loans where money is collected by and loaned to other community members through strategic and systematized "merry go round" financing systems.

There are obvious easy targets such as the World Bank, USAID, EU, among others who initiate programs for their own best interest. That's a fact that I think that we are all in agreement; but the notion that "systematic change and without sovereign control(indigenous ownership of the means of production, land and resources)" while it reads good - is a simplified liberal response in my opinion because who defines indigenous, in relation to land and resources?

Again in the Kenyan context, a westerner may say, indigenous simply means a Kenyan, without taking into consideration deeply held ethnic identities, and it's relation to land ownership. Uropeans primarily own all of the Coast of Kenya, who "bought" land from indigenous Giriama community land owners of Coastal Kenya, many of whom are now "squatting" on their indigenous land. The post election violence of 2008, is another example; in Rift Valley Kenya in Kalonejin and other communities - there was widespread killing and destruction of property because of the deep resentment of Kikuyu's who bought land and had thriving business in areas that were "indigenous" Kalojin land. Again who defines, who is indigenous - is that label defined by nationality or ethnicity? This of course is one of the persistent problems in many countries in Africa.

While the World Bank and others are obviously guilty of being the root of many developing countries problems; but greed and corruption, by some in our own African collective house perpetuates the problem.