ASAFE: Strategic Challenges for E-Commerce Promotion in Central Africa
24 Pages Posted: 13 Jan 2009
Date Written: June 30, 2003
Abstract
This case study was developed in 2003 as a blueprint for case studies on leading social entrepreneurs. It explores the tension between scaling up and scaling deep, analyzing the case of Association pour le Soutien et l'Appui' la Femme Entrepreneur (ASAFE) in Cameroon and its leader Gisele Yitamben from 1987-2003. Since its creation, ASAFE had successfully addressed many challenges and was well known in the national and international development community. Its very existence gave hope to hardened expatriate development workers in the field, disillusioned by the omnipresence of corruption in Africa. Expectations ran high. As an attache at a major embassy interviewed by the authors put it, "only half a per cent of the local NGOs are reliable and transparent. Combine that with their expertise and a fifteen year track record, and you will agree that ASAFE is unique." But this also created challenges. ASAFE's reliability and transparency almost had international donors chasing the organization to secure its involvement in a diverse array of activities. Balancing donors' needs and sticking to one's mission was not always easy. ASAFE had entered new fields three times in a decade - business education, microfinance and e-commerce - always driven by the importance of its constituency's newly arising needs. But a lot remained to be done to promote large-scale e-readiness. The case study thus poses the following management dilemma: Had the time come to take ASAFE's proven track record on education into the domain of public health and accept funds readily available for an HIV/AIDS project? Or should it focus on the core competences established so far?
Keywords: Social entrepreneurship, non-profit sector, case studies
JEL Classification: L31, M13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation