Leon Louw
Executive Director, Free Market Foundationleonlouw1@telkomsa.net
Biography
Leon Louw is an experienced leader in the fight for prosperity in Africa. In his role in Enterprise Africa! he helps to bring the information collected through case study to the attention of policymakers and the media in Africa.
Mr. Louw is a well known South African personality who has been active in diverse aspects of public life. He is credited with having had a significant impact on the course of events in South Africa, especially regarding the extensive economic reforms that have taken place during the past two decades. He has received numerous international awards, and, with his wife, Frances Kendall, has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Presently he is the Executive Director of the Free Market Foundation (FMF) and of the Law Review Project.
Mr. Louw co-authored South Africa: The Solution and Let the People Govern – both of which had a significant impact on the constitutional process. SA: The Solution has been republished in various countries, including the USA and Canada. Many of the authors’ specific proposals for the post-apartheid constitution have been incorporated in South Africa’s new constitution, despite having been almost uniformly dismissed at the time of publication.
Mr. Louw has spoken and lectured in 30 countries, and has been a guest speaker for many of the world’s most prestigious organisations. He has given guest lectures or debated with scholarly opponents at all of South Africa’s 23 universities, and has been consulted by many governments (directly or through the FMF, he has been consulted by various governments including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Namibia, Zambia, Russia (Yakut), China, Hong Kong, Malta, Malawi, and Swaziland. He also assisted government advisors informally in Ghana, Hungary, Mauritius, Surinam, and former Czechoslovakia. Within South Africa, numerous central government departments and regional and local governments, political parties and corporations have consulted him. Mr. Louw is one of the few South Africans who networks regularly with all major political parties and leaders in the country and is on first name terms with many key players across the spectrum.
He has also played a key role in the establishment of half a dozen of South Africa’s most respected institutes and NGO’s.
He has undertaken extensive international research for the Department of Justice on the principles of good law and best practice in law-making.
Small- and micro-business and black economic empowerment have been Leon Louw’s principal interest throughout his public life. He has been intimately involved with and a prominent activist for organised and informal SMMEs, starting with the fledgling National African Federation of Chambers of Commerce (NAFCOC) and Johannesburg Street Vendors in the late 1960s. Much of his life presently is spent with grassroots black communities in tribal areas and inner cities, fighting for their right to trade freely and own the land they occupy.
