Why?

2 SIDES OF THE SAME DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE

 

 

FROM THE EYES OF FOREIGN INVESTORS…

Many wealthy, hard-working and good-minded people from all around the globe decide to leave their home country and to start a new life in Zanzibar – now even more than ever since this process is speeded up by the repressive measurements in many parts of the world. They sell all their stuff in their home country, and therefore arrive on the island with a big bank account and good intentions, but without the knowledge of the skills that they need in order to fulfil their dreams.

 

We have met with and spoken to many of them, and what we heard are always the same problems and challenges they face:

  1. most of them fail to learn Swahili and therefore the integration into the local culture won’t work. They stay isolated migrants forever, and they lack the true understanding of local people. There seems to be an unbridgeable abyss between “us” and “them”, and before long that leads to many a misunderstanding
  2. Therefore, they also fail to learn the small details of life in Zanzibar, which include “trivial” things like paying a ZECO receipt with easypesa or getting a simple thing done in a government office, and also they can’t adapt their Europe mindset to the Zanzibarian mindset.
  3. many of them start their new life without any prior experience or expertise in their new investment field, so they often pay dearly for their beginner’s mistakes which could have been easily avoided with the right coaching.
  4. and last but not least, they have no idea how ever on earth they should get all their papers together: Company Registration, Approval of the Ministry, TIN number, business License, Resident Permit and many more. They feel powerless and helpless in that matter and like therefore they would “must” trust incompetent people and pay them too much for not even getting the work done, resulting in anger, distrust, and frustration.

 

To illustrate the third and fourth point, here a few true stories we witnessed:

 

  • 19-year-old Swiss girl driving a bit too fast, gets stopped by someone who looks like a policeman (but probably isn’t) and tells her "you go jail", she starts crying, then the wannabe policeman tells her she can pay him $750 instead... and of course she pays.

  • 20-year-old Swiss guy is doing voluntary work and the non-profit that hired him doesn't care about his papers. He is without any legal papers for 6 months and pays a $600 fine when he leaves the country.

  • Two Germans hear about the myth that it requires a local person to start a company. They trust the first person who smiles at them charmingly, found a company together and invest their capital. The local has tricked them, and now he owns part of the company and they may have to pay him off.

  • A young German craftsman renovates a place himself but has no work permit. He is caught by a governmental officer and must pay $200 + $600 fine, but now he still does not have a work permit.

  • A German couple hires an architect to renovate their recently bought investment during the next three months. They pay the architect 90'000'000 TZS in advance. They return after three months to find more of a ruin than a building site.

  • 53-year-old German hires a lawyer for $1,500 to set up her company papers, work and resident permit. The "lawyer" takes the money and never shows up again. And she experiences this story four times in a similar with four different "lawyers". Her trust in the country and also her wallet are destroyed.

 

These four difficulties lead to many a misunderstanding and leaves investors frustrated with and angry onto Zanzibar and its people. In worst case, they will cancel the investment and speak bad about Zanzibar as an investment place, or just run their investment poorly. This harms the overall investment which in the end harms Zanzibar as an investment place and its economy.


FROM THE EYES OF ZANZIBARIANs

the indispensable skills required to work for most investment projects are English, computer and internet, accounting, communication, publishing and marketing, self-management, punctuality, and reliability. Most Zanzibarians already disqualify as suitable employees due to English. The Zanzibarian school system fails to teach most of these skills sufficiently. Therefore, mainly qualified people from the mainland are employed in the key position, such as receptionist in hotels, barkeepers in hotel restaurants, accountants, managers, directors, computer specialists, website builders, social media experts etc. in any mayor investment. This is why Zanzibarians don’t get the chance to grow up to become investors and entrepreneurs themselves, since they don’t get to the key position employment where they would learn the necessary experience to do so.
So, from the eyes of Zanzibarians, the income generated in investments mostly goes into the hand of the investors and their employees from the mainland or abroad, which leaves Zanzibarians in poverty, and perhaps also frustrated and maybe even angry onto the investors.
This condition harms both investors and Zanzibarians. Many investors indeed complain about Zanzibarians who are “incompetent to do the work properly”. But that’s only half of the truth. Also, often, investors fail to communicate sufficiently with Zanzibarians to have them understand what result actually is really desired and how they should get there.


THE SOLUTION

With ACE, we want to attack the development challenge from both sides: by coaching the investors, such that they can work together better with Zanzibarians, as well as empowering Zanzibarians to teach themselves the necessary skills to get a job in the investment market.


We want to improve the situation of the challenge described above on three axes from both sides:

  • Arrival Advice

  • Corporate Consulting

  • Expats Education

AA + CC + EE = ACE

 

This event will be the first kick-off of the third pillar of ACE, namely Expats Education.