Since 2009, McGill University’s business school had organized a trip each spring for students, faculty and alumni to visit countries that are considered emerging economies. After a three-year pause due to the pandemic the “Hot Cities” tour returned this year, taking students to West Africa.
The Hot Cities Tour is intended to expose students to the economic climate in countries where growth is occurring, and also highlight the culture and challenges the communities face.
Past trips have taken groups to Indonesia, Seoul, Russia, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Israel, South Africa and other nations.
The pandemic forced a three-year hiatus on the tour. It was revived this year and about 50 undergraduates and alumni traveled to Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Desautels Faculty of Management Associate Professor Karl Moore is the Hot Cities coordinator.
“We had hundreds of applicants and I think we’ll have even more demand because you know word spreads that this is a fun way to spend 12 days.”
Moore says he had wanted to take students to Africa for some time.
“We see Africa as being an important continent from a number of dimensions. And part of it was inspired by three covers of The Economist magazine about Africa over the last 10 years, whereas the sense of Africa is an important continent for the future of the world. Partly because of demographics. They have lots of young children and something like 22 of the youngest countries in the world are in Africa. They also have lots of minerals and resources the world needs. And there’s a bit of an ah China and to a lesser degree Russia are influencing Africa and somewhat the West is missing I think a bit of a responsibility to go in there and help provide democracy and also resources and investment and so on. So I think the U.S. and Canada and Europe have kind of dropped the ball a bit and Africa is an important place for us to be”
“What was the draw," Bradley asks, "To go to Ghana and the Ivory Coast for this trip and really expose your students to those two countries right now?”
“Well, the slogan of the trip is taking the future to the future," notes Moore. "That is young people to where there is strong economic growth. So I looked at The Economist Intelligence Unit, which provides country reports, very well thought out about economic growth. So when we looked at the countries there Ghana and the Cote d’Ivore stood out as ones that had strong economies, had some interesting dynamics that we could go visit safely and comfortably. But it was mainly economic growth that’s really the thing that drew us there to start with.”
“What did you find the students were most curious about as they went to the two countries?” asks Bradley.
“One of the highlights was the slave castles down on the coast," remembers Moore. "You know very moving. It just seemed like we should start there. To stand in this room with one small window for light and hundreds of people would stay there and some would die and they would just leave the corpses there. It was just horrific stories of how Africans were treated as slaves. That was incredibly sobering. Then we went up to a orphanage. So those were very moving meetings we had. We had meetings with the head of Deloitte, the head of Vodafone, two or three cabinet ministers, the head of the Bank of Ghana. So interesting meetings but the most emotional ones were those two. But there was also we had a great restaurant. One of our students and her father recommended we went to. We come in and they’re having wonderful African music. And it wasn’t music that we knew. And afterwards there were just moments of joy of dancing together, of music moving you. It was just the joyfulness that we said we need this in Canada as well. Just the sense of community and pure joy about being alive. It was a wonderful moment.”
Desautels Faculty of Management Finance Major Senior Bo Wen Chen is a research fellow who helped organize the trip to Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Born in China, he moved to Canada as a youth and speaks Mandarin, English and French. This was his first trip to Africa.
“I wanted to go to Ghana and Ivory Coast since I believe it’s not an opportunity that you have every day to go in Africa. This is just an opportunity that I really cherish because Africa is really the future of the world. Still a lot of development to be done and with development comes a lot of opportunities. And I think just going to Africa like Ghana and Ivory Coast it’s very different from what we’re used to see here in North America.”
Chen says the trip provided an opportunity for cultural observation and personal learning, admitting he had some preconceptions that changed due to the trip.
“One of the first things that I found very impressive was the cities that they have over there. I thought it was like a lot of nature, really hard to get around. But they basically live life not too far from what we know. I think way more similarities than differences. But culturally it’s still very different.”
While the Hot Cities Tour visited the West Coast of Africa, to the east Sudan is experiencing civil unrest. Moore, an economist, doesn’t think the violence will have a direct impact on economic investment in West Africa.
“It makes you nervous about Africa when you hear about violence. Is that relevant for Ghana and the Cote d’Ivore and I don’t think so at all from talking to a lot of cabinet ministers and senior people over there and from talking to hundreds of people I don’t think so. But if I was an investor, I would say maybe I should go for a safer haven these days with high interest rates and things like that. I thing that’s the wrong decision.”
Under consideration for next year’s Hot Cities Tour, depending on costs, are Cairo and Morocco or Rwanda and Kenya or Vietnam and Hong Kong.
