Global Opportunities

Corporate Strategy and Social Performance: Kenya and Zambia 2026

Nairobi

Course Description

For decades, multinational corporations operating in African markets have benefitted from the type of long-term, systemic development assistance funded by traditional development partners such as the United States and European Union. However, as foreign assistance budgets shrink and Western donors retreat, the private sector may eventually find that the lack of Western government engagement in basic education, health, rule of law, etc. is affecting their ability to profit in African markets due to a degraded domestic workforce at best or increased instability at worst. During a watershed moment for countries previously dependent on overseas development assistance, this course challenges conventional notions of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by examining how companies navigate weak states, fragile institutions, and volatile political environments across Africa. Through deep-dive country case studies, executive briefings, field research, and engagement with African executives and policymakers, students will investigate how firms in sectors like energy, telecom, agriculture, and extractives balance profit objectives with survival as de facto political stakeholders. Rather than treating CSR as peripheral, optional, or merely reputational, this course recasts it as a strategic and often existential business function ‘critical to firms' resilience and long-term competitiveness in markets where social investment becomes inseparable from business continuity, political risk management, and license to operate.

 

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

•Critically assess the role of business in contexts where governance gaps are significant and systemic.
•Evaluate CSR strategies not just as branding tools, but as operational imperatives tied to regulatory risk, local legitimacy, and long-term survival.
•Analyze real-world case studies from companies operating in high-stakes environments.
•Identify political, social, and ethical trade-offs that firms must navigate when substituting for or partnering with weak states.
•Design context-specific business approaches to social responsibility that integrate political intelligence, stakeholder engagement, and institutional constraints.

 

This course hits a strategic sweet spot for MBAs: where business, politics, and operational reality collide. For students preparing to work in global strategy, investment, consulting, or entrepreneurship, this course offers a deeply relevant lens: how do you ensure the stability and sustainability of your business operations when institutions are weak, the rule of law is uneven, and governments are managing the shocks of changes to the foreign assistance landscape, tariffs, and trade?

 

We'll use our field visits in Kenya and Zambia as living laboratories, converting on the ground learning into actionable knowledge that benefits the broader community and informs future practice. Kenya's diversified economy, vibrant tech sector, and dynamic public-private interactions reveal how firms adapt when regulation, inclusion, and services determine market share. Zambia's resource driven economy spotlights extractives, community-company relations, and infrastructure bottlenecks where governance gaps hit the bottom line. Our field visits will show how shrinking aid accelerates those pressures, and how smart CSR protects supply chains, workforce health, and license to operate.

 

Faculty Bio

Dr. Lesley Anne Warner has two decades of experience as a foreign policy expert at the intersection of political transitions, stabilization, and security cooperation. She was most recently a Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where she oversaw the Anti-Corruption Center; Justice, Rights, and Security office; and the Program Office, which handled the Bureau’s budget, communications, and legislative engagement. While at the DRG Bureau, she represented the U.S. Government in engagements with foreign officials, implementing partners, and members of civil society in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and was part of the executive leadership team that oversaw a foreign assistance budget
of $261 million across 72 countries to advance efforts to protect human rights defenders and mitigate democratic backsliding.

Dr. Warner was previously a Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, where she served as her principal adviser on Sub-Saharan Africa. During her time at USUN, she originated the concept behind the African Democratic and Political Transitions (ADAPT) Initiative, which became a deliverable for the U.S.-African Leaders' Summit in 2022. From 2015 to 2021, Dr. Warner was a Senior Professional Staff Member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where she served as the principal adviser to Chairmen Eliot Engel and Gregory Meeks on Sub-Saharan Africa. While on the Committee, she authored the Sudan Democratic Transition, Accountability, and Financial Transparency Act of 2020, which became law as part of the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act.

Dr. Warner holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London, a M.A. in Security Studies from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and a B.A. in International Relations from Carleton College, where she was awarded the Boren National Security Education Program Scholarship and a Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Research Fellowship. She is the author of Military Integration during War-to-Peace Transitions: South Sudan’s Attempt to Manage Armed Groups, 2006-13, Routledge, 2023, and her research and analysis have been widely published and cited in prominent international television, radio, print, and online outlets. Dr. Warner is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a 2018 Next Generation National Security Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and an International Career Advancement Program (ICAP) Fellow.