“Not every network is built to grow. Some are designed to protect power, not share it.”
The Double-Edged Sword of Networks
In policy, advocacy and governance across Africa, networks are everything. Who you know, who knows you and who’s willing to connect you can determine whether your idea is buried in committee or passed into law. Yet not all networks are created equal. Some act like accelerators – enabling reforms to scale rapidly across institutions, regions, or sectors. Others act like traps – stalling momentum, hoarding access, or preserving the status quo in the name of gatekeeping.
How Networks Can Stall Reform
(a) Gatekeeping Without Accountability
Some networks are built primarily to protect access to power. They often form around political elites, industry incumbents or senior technocrats who see new actors as a threat rather than a resource.
(b) Exclusion Masquerading as Strategy
Networks that exclude youth, women, grassroots voices or informal sector actors often do so under the guise of ‘expertise’ or ‘efficiency.’ But exclusion often weakens the implementation of reform.
Example: COVID-19 Palliatives and Response Networks
Across several African countries, COVID-19 response committees were largely composed of senior officials and international partners, with limited inclusion of civil society or youth groups. In Nigeria, this led to widespread public mistrust, logistical chaos and at one point, the looting of undistributed food warehouses. The failure wasn’t just logistical. It was relational.
(c) Too Centralised to Move
When a network depends on one or two dominant figures, it may appear strong but is actually fragile. These networks often collapse when leadership changes, or they become bottlenecks when decision-makers are unavailable or unwilling to pivot.
Example: Zimbabwe’s Land Reform Networks
In the early 2000s, land redistribution was heavily tied to the centralised authority of President Robert Mugabe and his inner circle. Although this was justified as a populist policy, implementation became erratic, violent, and ultimately economically disastrous. There was no distributed network of accountability or shared leadership to course-correct.
Networks That Scale
In contrast, reform networks that scale tend to share these characteristics:
(a) Distributed Leadership and Trust
Scalable networks decentralise authority. Leadership is shared, and influence is distributed across trusted nodes.
Example: Nigeria’s Startup Act Network (2022)
As profiled in my Shadow Networks article, the success of the Nigerian Startup Act was not just a legislative win, it was a relational victory. A coalition of tech leaders, policy advisors and diaspora Nigerians worked informally and formally to move the Act forward. The group was young, dynamic, and operated largely through trust and shared purpose. Not hierarchy.
They scaled not because they had more power, but because they had more connection and agility.
(b) Cross-Class and Cross-Sector Collaboration
Scalable networks intentionally bridge divides: between government and grassroots, elites and youth, civil society and business.
Example: Rwanda’s Umuganda System Meets Smart Policy
While Rwanda’s formal governance system is highly centralised, the practice of Umuganda – monthly community service, acts as a distributed community-building network. During reform rollouts (e.g. health insurance, sanitation), this social infrastructure is paired with smart digital coordination across ministries and local leaders.
The result was community buy-in without top-down coercion, enabled by a network that already existed informally.
(c) Narrative Unity with Structural Flexibility
Scalable networks are united by purpose, but diverse in form. They leave room for contributors to self-organise.
Example: Burkina Faso’s 2014 Uprising and the Fall of Blaise Compaoré
In 2014, Burkina Faso witnessed a massive wave of citizen protests that ultimately ousted President Blaise Compaoré, who had ruled for 27 years and was attempting to amend the constitution to extend his tenure.
What made the movement effective wasn’t a single leader or organisation, but a coalition of networks that came together around a shared narrative: “Non à la modification de l’article 37” (No to changing Article 37, the term limit law).
- Youth-led groups like Le Balai Citoyen (The Citizen’s Broom) mobilised across cities and rural areas, using music, art, and social media.
- Unions, students, artists, and civil society each brought their own organising style, constituencies, and languages.
- Despite their differences, they converged on a unified purpose: defending democracy.
The movement had no rigid hierarchy. By the end of October 2014, the protests had grown so large and sustained that Compaoré was forced to resign after his almost three decade rule.
Lesson: The uprising showed that when diverse actors rally around a focused, resonant narrative, even without formal structure, they can achieve seismic change. In many ways, this mirrors the ancient story of the Tower of Babel, where people unified under one language and purpose to build something extraordinary. While that Biblical effort was ultimately scattered by divine intervention, its early momentum showed the raw power of narrative unity and collective ambition, even among diverse peoples. Today’s networked movements often echo that impulse, to reach high by moving together, even without a single leader or rigid structure.
From Bottlenecks to Breakthroughs
The real difference between change that lingers and change that leaps lies not in the vision, but in the vehicle – the networks that carry it. Across Nigeria and Africa, policy stalls not for a lack of ideas, but because relational bottlenecks choke momentum. Where elite interests reinforce old hierarchies and gatekeepers circulate influence within narrow loops, even the most promising reforms can decay in committee rooms and senate chambers.
Yet, we have also seen the opposite: movements, ecosystems, and reform coalitions that defy hierarchy, flatten access, and scale trust. These networks aren’t accidental, they are intentionally nurtured, socially embedded, and structurally flexible.
This is the deeper story: Networks are not just who you know, they are how you build. In Part Two, I will explore what it takes to design networks that scale with integrity.
Because in the age of networks, the ability to connect will matter more than the power to persuade.
***Written by Aramide Abe.
Aramide Abe is a networking expert and a professional in international development. She is the convener of an African business leader network – Naija Startups. Follow arams on Twitter, Website – www.aramide.ng
