In much of Africa the family is bank, business and welfare state

A GAGGLE OF children play outside Dorothy Nabitaka’s front door on the outskirts of Kampala, the Ugandan capital. She shares her home with 17 people: her mother, child, sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins, and several children she has taken in simply because they had nowhere else to stay. She helps others pay school fees with the money she earns selling animal feed. In all she gives away around four-fifths of her income, she reckons, though she is not really counting. “I don’t like seeing people suffering,” she explains.Sharing within social networks is central to economic life in much of Africa. Although kinship systems vary, obligations typically extend beyond the nuclear family to include the children of siblings as well as cousins, or sometimes larger units such as clans. People turn to friends and relations for help with school fees, hospital bills, or for a place to stay. Where formal institutions are weak, the family is bank, business partner and welfare state.