Piles of cash and a town of solutions in Kenya, Nigeria (Summer School)

Economic development in Africa hinges on fostering human capital and overcoming the "missing middle"—the scarcity of mid-sized enterprises between informal micro-businesses and large corporations. Nigeria’s "YouWin" competition demonstrated that providing direct capital to small-scale entrepreneurs can effectively stimulate job creation, challenging the notion that high-growth potential is rare. Meanwhile, randomized controlled trials conducted in Busia, Kenya, have fundamentally reshaped development economics by replacing anecdotal aid strategies with rigorous, data-driven experiments. These studies revealed that simple interventions, such as deworming programs or targeted remedial education, yield significant long-term returns by improving health and education outcomes. Ultimately, building a robust economy requires reliable institutional frameworks, such as property rights and formal financial systems, to bridge the gap between individual entrepreneurial ambition and sustainable, large-scale economic growth.