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Research Project on the Good Economy

Elisabeth is completing a business PhD at the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture at the University of Oslo. The research is inspired by valuation studies and the emerging thinking around the «good economy». The research focuses ethnographically on the start-up scene in Tanzania, where she explores how innovative ideas and solutions materialize as business entities in the encounter with impact investors and intermediates.

Approaching 'the good' through economic practices in Africa is not new. For decades, the international development sector has aimed at bringing capitalistic logic and private sector actors into the country to eradicate poverty. However, investor appetite is low, making it difficult for innovators to attract needed venture capital. The challenges in Africa are apparent; access to capital is scarce, property rights are poorly managed, and there is still an insufficient technical workforce and infrastructure. In addition, a bottleneck lies in access to investments locally and the need for more willingness of foreign investors to invest. 

The research looks into the encounters between innovators and impact investors. Impact investors are of interest for this research as they have introduced a value plurally in a market setting, particularly in Global South markets. They have introduced calculative tools for valuing economic, social and environmental impact, but also, these tools juxtapose financial value against the others. In sum, impact investors have expanded the notions of values in economic practices. Impact investors are also of interest in this research because they have succeeded in bringing public funding into the investor scene. Multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, as well as bilateral donors such as NORAD and SIDA, contributes with financing to the private impact investors as a means of 'de-risking' the private investments, but also to strengthen the capacity of the local innovators, thus supporting them to access the markets in a good way. 

This research will explore how 'the good' takes form as economic practices impact investors' engagement with innovators in Tanzania and their common ambitions of growing and scaling solutions that contribute to something socially or environmentally positive. The research aims at a complex ethnographic understanding of good businesses in the making. Thus, the reserach will contribute to understanding what it takes to make new, innovative businesses aiming for good. 

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