In their co-written article in The Huffington Post, authors Lena Sene ’00 and J. Skyler Fernandes address Africa’s “missing middle,” a term that can describe the scarcity of small and medium enterprises in African countries as well as the lack of capital targeted at SMEs. “No matter what the term…refers to,” they write, “a thriving SME base leads to substantial economic and social growth, and explains why this issue is so important to Africa and the developing world.”

The authors address their call to action to U.S. banks: “Wall Street banks that already have a presence in emerging markets could and should both reshape their missions and improve their images by adopting a more social oriented and yet profitable approach to investing.” Sene, a former White House Fellow who earned an M.B.A. from Harvard in 2009 , is completing the mid-career master’s in public administration program at Harvard’s Kennedy School. View story from The Huffington Post, April 13, 2010.