My Beauty Best Teacher

Harry Goldstein writes in the IEEE:

To stem the brain drain that steals the best minds from developing countries, you first have to provide students with educational tools and opportunities that let them study at local institutions. And then slowly, over the course of years, technology sectors will start up, expand, and begin to employ homegrown engineers. Nigeria has seen this starting to happen in the telecommunications sector, where the country has gone from no cellphones in 2000 to an estimated 10 million in 2006.

K.Y. Amoako states that:

we have to admit that so far, science and technology policies in Africa have been too elitist, or much too centred on high-level experts and researchers," he said, stating that not enough attention had been paid to impacting the daily lives of ordinary people. He said it was now important to focus on exploring ways in which science and technology could empower the poor to make beneficial changes in their own condition.

Raghuram Rajan writes:

While no one has the "magic bullet" for growth, there are some things that do seem important. These include sensible macroeconomic management, with fiscal discipline, moderate inflation, and a reasonably competitive exchange rate; laws and policies that create an environment conducive to private sector activity with low transaction costs; and an economy open for international trade. In addition, investments in health and education—which create a population that not only lives a better life but also sees opportunities in growth and competition—ought to be encouraged.

Ashoka Fellow Cynthia Mpati "...has used her expertise in correspondence teaching to develop a program which is not only able to reach large numbers of teachers in isolated areas but also make up for correspondence teaching's greatest shortcoming: the isolation of the trainee...student-teachers learn how to study by correspondence and concentrate in improving English fluency and understanding of the Western thinking/learning process, often foreign to them. They also choose a mentor teacher, a volunteer coach, on the basis of his/her outstanding teaching skills. The mentor-teacher becomes a concrete link to the system when the student-teachers return to rural areas..."

Issa G. Shivji states that:

the state itself has to be reformed and restructured. The despotic colonial and the authoritarian post-colonial state cannot play a popular developmental role. Its limits have been reached. The reformed state must have its roots in the people and must seek legitimacy from the people. It must seek a new social consensus and build its legitimacy not only on the economic terrain – development – but also on the political and legal terrain of popular participation, freedoms, rights and stable constitutional orders.

Cyril Enweze has stated that:

To enhance trade among African countries, Mr. Enweze said, the ADB, together with the World Bank and IMF, advocates tariff reductions on imports. But many countries have been reluctant to do this because external trade tariffs are important sources of government revenue. To reduce such dependence, Mr. Enweze recommends that countries "begin a very important process of diversifying the tax base, to see what can be done with various types of taxes -- income tax, sales tax and value-added tax."

Self Help's philosphy is to help:

people to help themselves. Innovative and appropriate technologies and techniques are employed by Self Help's staff, who work in partnership with beneficiary communities and government agencies to create a real and lasting change. These people do not want food handouts, they want to grow their own and recover their independence and self sufficiency. Food aid may be essential in the short term, but in the long term the only way to break the famine cycle is through development...The organisation implements projects designed around the priorities of each local area. Each project is tailor made to the specific requirements of each community and with the full input of the people in that community, using their expertise, ideas and labour.

Ethan Zuckerman reports on Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala's presentation at TED that received a standing ovation,he states that:

She tells us about “a different Africa”, not the Africa we hear about all the time: poverty, hiv, malaria, conflict, disaster. “It’s true that these things are going on, but there’s also an Africa you don’t hear about very much, an Africa that’s growing and reforming itself....“We have to help Africa transform by creating jobs.” That means we don’t have to concentrate on making drugs cheaper - “We allow people to buy the antimalaria drugs themselves,” because they’ve got high-paying jobs.

Thompson Ayodele writes:

The ownership of the rail transport by the federal government is responsible for the present state of rail in Nigeria. The rail system has been solely funded by government. Partnering with the private sector that could muster enough funds and invest in development of the rail has never been encouraged. Rail business in developed countries has progressed significantly leading to strategies like Design Build Own and Transfer (DBOT). This strategy has made it easier to adequately fund railway revitalization. For instance, the Bangkok's Skytrain elevated rail system, the Great Belt Fixed Link in Denmark and the joint Øresund Strait project between Denmark and Sweden.

African Axis is"...committed to mobilizing and harnessing the intellectual and financial resources of professionals of the African diaspora to contribute to public debate and policy making on Africa at the European level and to the development of the African continent...."

Anil Gupta writes:

Local innovations could help inform scientific research, if only scientists would invest the proper resources into exploring them.
Scientists do not respond as enthusiastically as they should because they are often sceptical about the value of traditional knowledge. There are few opportunities for understanding the real potential of grassroots innovations and the rewards of validating or further developing them may seem limited.

Creating a global grassroots innovation foundation could also help blend formal and informal science to address persistent problems of survival in marginal environments. Billions are spent on solving the problems of the poor, but not the millions it would take to forge partnerships between informal and formal science around the world to develop people-oriented sustainable technologies.

Amar Bhide and Carl Schramm write in the WSJ:

Mr. Yunus's ameliorative entrepreneurship however is very different from the transformative entrepreneurship that Mr. Phelps argues has been central to modern capitalism. Indeed, most of the ventures funded by microloans in Bangladesh (read Sub-Saharan Africa) are activities that were marginalized by modern entrepreneurs: They don't involve any economies of scale or scope or the use of new technologies capable of producing significant advances in overall productivity and incomes.
Economic development does wonders for peace, but what does microfinanced entrepreneurship really do for economic development?... A few small port cities or petro-states aside, there is no historical precedent for sustained improvements in living standards without broad-based modernization and widespread improvements in productivity brought about by the dynamic entrepreneurship that Mr. Phelps celebrates...In principle, microfinance does not preclude modern entrepreneurship. But in practice, we wonder if the romantic charm of the former might distract governments in impoverished countries from undertaking reforms needed to foster the latter.

Henry Ekwuruke asks

Is money an important vehicle for invention and innovation in science and technology research?

the need to adequately fund research without unfairly compromising invention and innovation,this is why money is such a complicated component of any scientific and technological development.

Rainer Chr. Hennig writes about the emerging 'green' protectionist policies of developed world:

Populist solutions that are to satisfy customers, politicians and the European industry alike are therefore surfacing all over Africa's neighbour continent and the main market of its products. And the solutions seem neat and nice - easy to understand and with the potential of creating more work locally. Even the industry starts propagating these solutions.
The victim mainly is Africa, because the message is that, as longer as a product or person is transported, the more energy is wasted unnecessarily. Worst of all is airborne transport, having the highest emissions of climate gases such as CO2. Unluckily, Africa is far away from European markets and poor transcontinental infrastructure puts most products and travellers on an airplane.
All over Europe, therefore, home-grown campaigns are being promoted, attacking Africa's newest and most successful export products. Anti-globalisation activists, "green" politicians, local industry and even occasional experts and scientists head these "buy local" campaign

Africa-Ready for Business reports on the various attributes of Nigeria's Movie industry and asks whether it is a "Diamond in the Ruff?":

What if....what if there was a product that could be made in Africa, boost local employment, earn foreign exchange, and enhance Africa's image outside of Africa all at the same time? That would be tremendous, am I right? In fact, just performing one of these items in good fashion, in any part of the world, would probably earn the business person or persons behind the effort major recognition. So, it should follow that anyone whom is able to simultaneously do all five of these functions, plus do it in Africa, should attract major international press coverage-right? If you are nodding your head "yes" that's exactly what I did too. However, there is such a product-that is made in Africa. Many of you may not have heard of it before, but I am sure that most of my readers who are from Africa are at least somewhat familiar with it. This brings us to today's topic-Nigerian cinema.

Afrol News reports:

No oil, no precious minerals are driving Ethiopia's economic growth forwards by two digits each year. Hard work, economic reform and investments in its people and infrastructure are showing results to lift one of the world's poorest nations up to new heights...growth is extremely robust in this potential African powerhouse, comparable only to the oil-driven economies of Angola and Equatorial Guinea. In fact, the four years of double-digit growth is best characterised as a boom. And contrary to oil-booming states, very much of the economic growth reaches the poor masses of the country.

Christine Bowers reports

Telecom companies aren't offering m-banking out of the kindness of their hearts. They like m-banking because it's a way for them to attract new customers by doing what they already do well—processing millions of tiny transactions. Banks aren't as interested, because they don't expect to profit from poor clients who won't be taking out a mortgage anytime soon. But the telecoms could start siphoning away bank customers who don't need all the bells and whistles.

Eco Tourism states that tourism:

Should promote the welfare of local communities. Ecotourism Kenya's Community Outreach Programme aims at sensitising local communities living in areas with high potential for tourism on the opportunities available to them through ecotourism. Among other things, the programme entails conducting participatory training sessions like barazas (meeting under a tree), workshops and seminars

Payment News reports on a paper (PDF) which outlines the promise of card based remittances:

The robust and increasing demand for person-to-person cross-border remittance services coincides with the increasing dominance of electronic transactions and the rise of prepaid cards.These two activities, though independent of one another, share important characteristics and opportunities. Remitters are more likely to have limited financial access because of their immigrant status. Prepaid cards are increasingly seen as a tool to provide the un- and underbanked with broader access, and many providers are marketing their products specifically to immigrants...though significant gaps exist between the demand side and supply side of cardbased
remittance solutions, there is potential to capitalize on a product set that offers value for underbanked remitters given the right product design. Rather than simply putting card products to market, companies that carefully consider the entire financial picture of remittance senders can begin to develop the marketing, distribution, consumer education and pricing models needed to allow card-based transfers to compete with traditional money transfer companies and other options, such as mobile and Internet remittances.

Della Bradshaw at the FT reports on the aspirations of African Business Schools:

"Economically we are the lost continent," says Juan Elegido, dean of the Lagos Business School in Nigeria. But he and others like him are planning to change that. Like many of his peers in African business schools he sees it as part of his mission to bring economic stability and growth to the country he represents.
Mike Ward, director of the graduate school of management at the University of Pretoria clearly speaks for many of his peers when he says: "There are 800m people on a continent that really needs uplifting and we are being looked to for help."

Becky Hogge at OpenDemocracy reports on the Reuters partnership with Global Voices:

Beyond large news agencies like Reuters, the western media are increasingly unwilling or unable to fund the correspondents needed to cover life on the vast continent - to the detriment of colour, depth and context. It is often left to enterprising and brave young stringers to make their own arrangements and ensure their own safety...Some western reporters now find their trips sponsored not by independent media outlets, but by disaster-led international NGOs. A veteran of the continent once communicated her wariness at this new set-up to me, expressing concern over the abundance of tragic images it produces for the audience back home.