How Entrepreneurship Is Lifting Millions Out of Extreme Poverty Across Africa

As a little girl growing up amid poverty in a community much like the ones she now serves, she once asked her mother why some people rode the bus while others rode in cars. Decades later, she is running an organisation built to answer that very question.

In this episode, Alberto sits down with Sazini Mojapelo, CEO of Village Enterprise and the first Africa-based leader in the organisation’s history, to explore the Poverty Graduation Model that has reached 2.5 million lives across seven African countries, and what it actually takes to turn government ministries, rural households and a one-off injection of capital into a lasting exit from extreme poverty.

• What exactly does Village Enterprise look for when it identifies a single household to work with, and why does that targeting process take months rather than days?
• Why did this incoming CEO describe her first six months as “a baptism of fire” rather than the honeymoon period most new leaders expect?
• What actually transforms a rural woman with no business experience into an entrepreneur still running a profitable enterprise a year later?
• Why can it take up to 18 months to secure a single government ministry’s sign-off on a poverty programme, and what does it genuinely take to earn that signature?
• What did growing up watching her own family run small enterprises just to get by teach Sazini about what ending poverty really requires?

Press play to hear how a tri-sector leader, shaped by government, corporate and NGO experience alike, is scaling an entrepreneurship-first model built to reach millions more.

This episode is for everyone who believes real poverty alleviation starts with entrepreneurial opportunity rather than charity, and wants to understand what it genuinely takes to build an exit from extreme poverty that lasts.

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