Agree, was thinking of submitting a proposal like this. A few ways to easily improve most journals:

-Require data and code to be shared

-Open access, but without the huge author fees most open access journals charge

-If you do charge any fees, use them to pay reviewers for fast reviews

I had the same question, I'm guessing every professor is wondering this

Some encouraging quotes from that podcast:

"you have a lot of opportunity, in my mind, if you’re a charity, to say, “Look, people love giving us money.” But we could invest in ESG-style companies that fulfil our mission, or what we’re trying to do or we believe in, and the management fee can go to the charity."

"particularly if you’re a fund where nothing else exists. For example, there’s only one African ETF. And if Africa goes gangbusters, guess who’s going to get the inflows?"

I'm in AFK for now, agree that its probably better than nothing.

Your podcast link was helpful, especially the ballpark numbers confirming roughly what I expected. The white label providers make it much easier from a legal/paperwork perspective, but it would take about:
~50k+ in startup expenses (probably higher to deal with multiple small foreign stock exchanges)
~$2.5mil in assets invested to get the ETF launched
~$20mil in assets under management to get to profitability

Overall that link together with the other reading I've done on white label providers the last few days have updated my idea of who could best pull this off. Background in finance and/or Africa no longer seems necessary (though would still be good). Instead fundraising skill/networks seems like the key. Still not my strength but relatively common in EA- everyone please feel free to steal the idea and run with it.