My Beauty Best Teacher

"...By educating small farmers about production chains and larger markets for their produce, Joseph Sekiku gives them new opportunities to increase their profits and improve their livelihoods. He also equips them with the tools to take advantage of these opportunities, teaching them the basic entrepreneurial skills to turn surplus into quality products. These include use of new technologies such as fruit driers and processors that lengthen the shelf life of perishable farm products, enabling farmers to sell products when the market is good. Finally, Joseph opens access to new markets by linking farmers to Tanzanian and international markets through a partnership with Adrian Mukhebi’s Kenyan Agricultural Commodities Exchange...",Ashoka.

Dan Gardner reviews and discusses the issues raised in Robert Paarlberg's book 'Starved for Science': How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa:

Why is African agriculture so unproductive? It's not the fault of African farmers, who "handle their tools, cropping systems, and animals with experienced judgment and considerable skill," writes Robert Paarlberg, an expert on agriculture at Wellesley College and Harvard University. The problem is that the technologies used by those farmers are the same they've used for centuries, if not millennia. "No matter how long or hard they work with these unimproved technologies," Paarlberg writes, "their productivity will remain constrained and their incomes will scarcely rise."

At TED "...Paul Collier (author of the Bottom Billion) lays out a bold, compassionate plan for closing the gap between rich and poor..."

"...Kabissa was founded on the belief that technology is a revolutionary force for change in Africa:

Over the past 8 years, we have built a vibrant network of over 1100 African civil society organizations who are all striving to integrate technology into their work ‚ from fighting human rights abuses to feeding AIDS orphans..."

From Grandiose Parlor:

In other countries, politics is a vehicle for effecting change, in Nigeria(read most Africa), it is a means of economic survival. We have politics and politicians, but we do not yet have democracy, and so, every May 29, we can only gape as the politicians describe the bore holes that they have sunk, the street lights that they have provided, the school buildings that they have re-painted, the roads that they have resurfaced - as true evidence that they are democrats! - Reuben Abati

Which Way Nigeria questions the institutional fund-raising/endowment-building strategies of the country's Universities and indicts the leadership:

As long as the NUC and ASUU cannot get their acts together to compel FG and FME to grant full autonomy to the Universities in Nigeria, which would enable them access funds from businesses and corporations without unduly charging the already impoverished and over-stretched studentry; the standard or education and quality of graduates from Nigerian universities will remain what the CBN Governor, Chukwuma Soludo observed as poor and unemployable...There are many options open to universities to raise funds to support academic and research work without charging extra tuition on the students. This should be made clear to allay the fears of the anti-autonomy protagonists

Mfonobong Nsehe asks? in an American Chronicle article:

Are there any universities at all which are as supportive of student entrepreneurs as to organizing business plan competitions to fund businesses of students which have mega potential?...Where are you going to find venture capitalists in Kenya or elsewhere in Africa who will be willing to swallow their pride and listen to a student entrepreneur who is armed with nothing but a world-shaking idea?

He believes that:

We have such bright student entrepreneurs in Africa. But until African financiers and the self-proclaimed 'Venture capitalists' are easily accessible and listen to student entrepreneurs in our African Universities, Africa may never have its own answers to such mega, internationally famed corporations like Google, Yahoo, TicketAdvantage, CollegeHumor and Facebook which were all the brainchildren of student entrepreneurs. We need financiers who will believe in and support the dreams of African student entrepreneurs and get those big ideas out of the boxes and into the pages of history. African student entrepreneurs are equally as smart, gifted and visionary and if supported can come up with big, world-changing ideas that would change the world.

And so, will the venture capitalists in Africa please stand up?

via eikonne

Damola Awoyokun's article The Next Einstein and the Expressway Churches highlights the battles that need to be fought against unreason and religious induced irrationality:

The problem of the expressway churches in every nook and cranny of the country(Nigeria) is not essentially in their mushrooming, it is in the way they barge into our minds and corrode the roots of our thinking with what they preach. They start with fear. And fear like HIV is very polite and diplomatic, its effectiveness is in being unassuming, going on easy till it shatters your immune system and leaves you gullible to all sorts of senseless teachings and practices... Weirdly, Christianity no longer calls itself a religion, it is a way of life. So every time on any day you turn on your TV or radio, in the buses, in the offices, markets, on the Internet, a preacher is there retailing some messages or emails of mental bacteria. Little wonder there is an outbreak of mediocrity all over the country...

Referring to the Neil Turok's TED prize wish he states:

Young African minds eager to be the next Einstein or Hawking must start by rejecting their being made sheep that the religions constantly find fulfillment in doing...Through the Enlightenment, Europe began to see progress when they squashed the prevailing grip of religion over their minds.

Echoing these points Dipo Bandele calls for Industries, Not Churches:

The problem with Nigerians is that reason has taken the back seat while gullibility takes the driver's seat. It is in this country that warehouses are being turned into churches while the opposite happens in Europe and America... For Nigeria to be a leading economy by the year 2020, we should be building industries and not churches. We have had enough of these churches, they teach us things that can not be proven or substantiated. No miracles have ever happened and no one would happen.

William Easterly questions the role of "development experts" he asks?:

Where are the experts who guessed in advance that an obscure Indian company making edible oils would become a $10bn-plus company (Wipro) providing information technology services and call centres? Or that a lossmaking Brazilian state enterprise (Embraer) would go on to capture a lot of the world market for regional jets after being privatised? Or that South Korean entrepreneurs would create a carmaker (Hyundai) with greater market value than General Motors or Ford? Or that a schoolteacher named Dong Ying Hong, formerly earning $9 a month in Datang, China, would become a millionaire making socks?

What to do in a world of such unpredictability? There are some general principles and they do not require experts. Another Nobel laureate gave the crucial insight a long time ago – the answer is freedom for multitudinous individuals to figure out their own answers. Friedrich Hayek said: “Liberty is essential to leave room for the unforeseeable and unpredictable; we want it because we have learned to expect from it the opportunity of realising many of our aims. It is because every individual knows so little and ... because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it.”

Roger Thurow writes in the WSJ about the promise and growing interest in African Agriculture:

If agriculture has a final frontier, it is Africa. After agriculture transformations in Asia and Latin America since the 1960s, Africa remains the one place where the farming potential has barely been scratched. African agriculture has less irrigation, less fertilizer use, less soil and seed research, less mechanization, less rural financing, fewer paved farm-to-market roads than any other farming region in the world. Conflict in many parts of the continent has chased farmers out of their fields, and neglect by both local governments and international development experts have let Africa's agriculture infrastructure fall into dire disrepair.

Kevin Kelly provides us with a summary of Iqbal Quadir's talk at the Long Now Foundation:

Quadir presented this broad outline of development in order to give context for his belief that technology can alleviate poverty. He reminded us that 500 years ago, when the western countries were still “developing” their own societies, their political systems were no better, and often worse, than the instable corrupt regimes of many developing countries today. England had a series of kings who were impeached, arrested, ousted, or beheaded for their crimes. It was only after citizens were empowered by economic markets did the balance of power shift from the central king to decentralized citizens. All steps that devolve power away from a central authority — including laws, trade, and education — will raise democracy.

In Quadir’s view, it’s not that centralization per se creates poverty. Poverty is the natural beginning state of all societies, east or west. Rather, decentralization is the engine which removes poverty and brings wealth. To the degree that infrastructure, education, and trade can be decentralized, wealth will rise in proportion. To the degree that infrastructure, education and trade are centralized, poverty will remain.

The WSJ writes:

There is blood on the streets in southern Africa once more, and the white colonial legacy of economic iniquity is again trotted out for blame. The real culprits, however, are Zimbabwe's octogenarian strongman Robert Mugabe and his South African enabler Thabo Mbeki...Mobs in Johannesburg's poor districts have gone on a rampage the past fortnight, attacking migrant workers and their families. The death toll rose to 42 yesterday; 16,000 people have been displaced. Next door in Zimbabwe, in the wake of an election, opponents of the Mugabe regime are beaten up, driven out of their homes and killed.
The two cases aren't linked in the media coverage, but they are inseparable. Each is rooted in Mr. Mugabe's destruction of Zimbabwe. For his part, President Mbeki has for years propped up the dictator in Harare, through March's presidential elections and the ensuing violence, with his "quiet diplomacy." Mr. Mbeki leaves office next year, though pressure grows daily for him to go sooner. The riots in Johannesburg that jolted this sophisticated and prosperous country are a tragic, but fitting, coda to his waning presidency.

Ali Mohamed Shein (VP of Tanzania) lays emphasis on Agro-processing:

He said the participating countries needed to change the current habit of exporting raw commodities.Citing Tanzania as an an example, he said that currently 98 per cent of cashew nut production was being exported in raw state, which was also the case with 80 per cent of the cotton, and various other commodities.
"But in order to achieve greater employment and wealth creation in Tanzania, and within the SADC region in general, we must develop greater competency and scale in agro-processing and valued addition,"

Henry Neondo writes in African Science News:

In Kenya like other sub-Saharan countries, Mabeya J. (of VACID) said the relationship between research institutions and industry is weak. “While the research institutions do little to establish working relationships with local companies, the firms think poorly of institutes’ abilities and expect little from them”.
As a result, research institutions do little or no industrial research, and are used by a few companies that, for the most part simply want to access testing facilities.
At the same time the industry is hell bound to seek for new technologies from the developed world or from the emerging economies, giving little preference to technology developed locally.
Mabeya said this has facilitated the current trend of the North-South movement of technology much to the detriment of local innovativeness, industry and economic development.
“Subsequently farmers access less of local technologies compared to those sourced from foreign countries”. He noted that although many Science and technology institutions have been established, often at a great cost, unfortunately, most of these institutions work in isolation, without effective linkages with the productive sector.

Awenlimobor Sylvester writes:

When they were given the hosting rights to the tournament few years ago, there was much joy and excitement all over the continent, but recent events - including the uncertainty over the completion of the several stadia across the country - have seen the celebrations dampened considerably.
The World Cup is an event designed to foster unity amongst nations - it is an event that seeks to bring peace. When a potential host country of the tournament begins to exude characteristics that are contrary to the spirit of the game, then there is really a cause for concern. Such is the case with the recent, tragic violence that strikes the country.
I, being an African, am definitely in favor of the tournament coming over to our continent, but I would not be particularly inclined towards hosting it amidst the current social ambience that prevails in South Africa at present.

Richard Behar at Fast Company delivers a special report on the China-Africa relationship:

While America is preoccupied with the war in Iraq (cost: half a trillion dollars and counting), and while think-tank economists continue to spit out papers debating whether vital resources are running out at all, China's leadership isn't taking any chances. In just a few years, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has become the most aggressive investor-nation in Africa. This commercial invasion is without question the most important development in the sub-Sahara since the end of the Cold War -- an epic, almost primal propulsion that is redrawing the global economic map. One former U.S. assistant secretary of state has called it a "tsunami." Some are even calling the region "ChinAfrica."

Illustration courtesy of Plamen Petkov

Anthony Faiola at the Washington Post reports on the dwindling role of the IMF.This was highlighted recently when Ghana refused the IMF's advice for a smaller infrastructure bond sale than the country itself required:

"It takes a while for your parent to realize that you are mature enough to make your own decisions, but they eventually do because they have no choice," said Sam Mensah, one of Ghana's senior negotiators with the IMF. "Ghana has outgrown the fund's money just as many countries have. . . . And I think the big question for the fund now is how is it going to stay relevant. To do that, it needs to operate very differently than it has in the past."

Alex Duval Smith writes in the Guardian:

An astounding lack of political delivery surrounds the South African crisis. Neither Mbeki nor his likely successor, Jacob Zuma, have altered their diaries in the past week to visit the displaced or speak to the nation. Instead, ministers, police chiefs and senior civil servants have put their energy into a two-pronged exercise of denial, aimed at proving that the attacks are linked neither to poverty nor to xenophobia. The intention is clearly to deflect any accusations that Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy' over Zimbabwe has led to an uncontrollable influx of foreigners and, thus, to xenophobia. Neither will the ANC tolerate suggestions that it has neglected its own poor...Established immigrants see the start of a worrying trend. 'Either there is government complicity, and that is unconscionable, or the government does not know how to react,' said writer Alois Rwiyegura, from Burundi, himself the survivor of an attack nine years ago. 'If the South African government does not know what to do, then how will it react if - as many of us fear - the violence degenerates into inter-ethnic clashes between poor South Africans?'

Other Coverage:
In a related article African Path reports on South Africa's "Ethnic Cleansing"
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes about the danger to South African Interests across the continent.
Nanja Boy highlights the potential risks to South African Businesses in Nigeria

The NYTimes writes:

Under Mr. Mbeki’s leadership, the fruits of the nation’s hard-fought victory over apartheid have gone mainly to officials and former officials of the ruling African National Congress, not to the millions of poor people in the townships who faced down the dogs, the bullets and the pass laws and still must live without adequate jobs, education, housing or health services.
The resulting frustration and anger helps explain, though it cannot justify, this week’s outbreak of xenophobic violence in the shantytowns. At least 42 victims have been killed — many beaten, stabbed, hacked or burned to death — and some 25,000 have been chased from their homes.

At last count Nigeria was listed as having 36 states within its Federal Structure. Unsurprisingly the great bulk of them(33 we now hear) are fiscally unable to sustain themselves.So there we have it, "resource curse" Nigeria incubates unsustainable states (every now and then) that bring new meaning to the phrase Intra-Country clientelism. 'State Governors' have no other role but to sink their snouts in a trough and thieve the handouts, while they apply no effort whatsoever to generating state revenues or creating wealth. If there is a better example of multi-layered governmental,knavery ,welfarism and indolence we are keen to know where?
What is the point of having administrative structures that have no financial viability? The 'Leaders ' of these synthetic constructs are actually administering imaginary territories...The emperors truly have no clothes!
I would bet that the 3 sustainable states include Lagos and Kano. What do you think?

As articulated by Moussa Seck, Sebikotane Farming Systems, "...increase yields at the same time as creating environmental benefits..."

The most important lessons of the Sébikotane experience is that the environment should be treated as a factor of agricultural production along with fertilisers, inputs and production techniques. Moreover, it is not possible to just protect, preserve and restore the environment, it is also possible to ‘produce’ it. Therefore, desertification(see Vetiver photo gallery ) is not an irreversible phenomenon.-ID21.

White African reports on the UnitedforAfrica mapping application:

The Ushahidi engine (version 1) is being used to map reports of the current xenophobic attacks happening in South Africa on a site called UnitedforAfrica.co.za. The attacks are a product of foreigners moving across the borders, especially Zimbabwean, and encroaching on the lives of South Africans.

Miles Moreland co-founder of Development Partners International, states in the FT:

“Many people think that the only opportunities in Africa are in commodities and infrastructure. That’s wrong,” says Mr Morland. “The best opportunities are the same as in Asia or Latin America. They are to be found in companies providing goods and services to rapidly growing middle classes. Things like banks, financial services, beverages, telecoms, power, middle income housing and health services.That is where we will be focusing.”

In light of the continued spike in food prices we take a look at Ifeyinwa Fransesca Smith's 1995 paper on the need for an Indigenous West African Food Culture. She made a strong case for educating the public on the benefits of under-recognized foods then,a point which remains relevant today:

There is a dire need for well planned and executed popularization campaigns of foods produced both within countries and the subregion. The many food technology institutes and food industries have roles to play in ensuring easy availability of our local foods in nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable forms. Their roles must not end with the production of such foods, there is need for continuous research aimed at evolving better, versatile and more acceptable products. These new products should in turn be subjected to intense recipe development, be aggressively popularized through their use in the preparation of locally acceptable and nutritionally adequate meals. Finally, there is a need for continued research into newer and better ways of utilizing the partly processed foods and popularizing new recipes evolved.

Faith And Sustainable Technologies combines appropriate technology and spirituality in its development approach.They:

Provide teaching and training of appropriate technologies including but not limited to:
a. Reducing deforestation by encouraging the use of solar energy and biogas.
b. Construction and use of slow sand filters and water purification techniques to reduce water borne diseases.
c. Construction, use and maintenance of low cost water pumps for irrigation.
d. Manufacture and use of compressed earth blocks to build permanent structures for
housing etc…
e. Use of bio-digesters and composting techniques as methods of waste management to reduce the spread of disease and improve crops.

Barney Jopson at the FT reports on the continent's developing mortgage industry:

The African mortgage sector remains tiny. In spite of huge pent-up demand, mortgages are available only in a dozen or so countries and the barriers to making them a mass-market product are formidable – not least the murkiness of property rights across much of the continent. “Maybe the hype exceeds the reality, but banks are at least trying to roll out products,” says Rod Evison, head of the Africa department at CDC, a private equity fund-of-funds specialising in emerging markets...The market’s boundaries are being pushed by young innovators such as Equity Bank, which is using capital secured last year when Helios, the London private equity group, paid Ks11bn for 25 per cent of the group. Banque Commerciale du Rwanda, which is owned by Actis, another London-based private equity group, has just sold the country’s maiden corporate bond to fund its nascent mortgage business...

The recently published LESSONS FROM THE POOR Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Spirit
Edited by Alvaro Vargas Llosa reveals:

That entrepreneurial energy can be a persistent catalyst for change. But unfortunately in societies dominated by political corruption and unnecessary regulation, men and women seeking to innovate must hurdle a series of challenges. Wealth transfer, favoritism, excessive taxation, and lack of institutional security all conspire against progress.-Independent Institute.

Amengeo Amengeo writing in Business in Focus about the South African "anti immigrant" crisis states that:

Since the ‘end’ of apartheid [and this is moot since whites still control the economy, the courts and the land] South Africa has experienced unparalleled levels of violence, much of it directed inwardly. The people’s rage like an unstoppable river had to find its way and it fell back on itself. The late African-Martinician revolutionary Franz Fanon warned that a people, denied outlets for their anger will turn this rage inward, teetering on a pre-revolutionary precipice.
The anger and horrific brutality expressed in South African violence and crime are not the acts of mad people, but the acts of people made mad by the denial of justice and closure against those who oppressed them for so long. These people have been placed out of reach by the insane generosity of ‘forgiveness’ and ‘reconciliation’ offered without the consent of the people. The unfortunate ‘immigrants’ who have every right to be in South Africa, since without their unswerving support and solidarity apartheid could never have been toppled, are convenient scapegoats subjected to ‘xenophobia’ –destined to be the new divisive buzzword- while the government stands aghast, caught off guard by a situation they should have seen coming. This is a very, very dangerous time not just for South Africa, but the entire Continent.

While African Shirts insists that the countries "Rainbow Nation" image is phony and an example of faux liberalism:

The truth is that SA has a liberal/progressive constitution, but this liberalism isn't a reflection of actual South African society. See William Gumede's article in yesterday's Guardian. And I've always been suspicious of it. I never thought South Africa's adoption of gay marriage was a genuine reflection of what people thought.

via Benin Epilogue etc

Luke Johnson asks in the FT "What’s so terrible about making money?":

He's convinced that many intelligent, ambitious individuals would adopt a self-employed way of life if they could strip away all the cultural bias and realise that building a venture can be a creative, even an heroic, endeavour. In truth, becoming an entrepreneur is a vocation, like fine art or quantum physics or teaching. But intellectual snobbery, prejudice and the comfort blanket of big organisations means business frequently fails to win the moral arguments...Most people focus on the risks of free enterprise and are scared to join the ranks of the self-made. Some have learned to play the system of government and institutions like a game, and enjoy power, pension and profit from their position in the state sector.
Why should they encourage choice and competition when they have such a safe haven as a bureaucrat, trade union official, academic, etc?

Chris Tomlinson writes:

A year-long exploration by The Associated Press shows that progress — while fragile — is finding a foothold, in spheres ranging from democracy to education. Perhaps most strikingly, after few results from five decades of advice and $568 billion in aid, today's developments in business, education, government and other areas are being led by Africans themselves.
There is a new sense among many Africans that it is up to them to rethink their continent and challenge the West to do the same. The change shows up all over — in newspaper editorials, in a regional partnership for African leadership, in the revamping of the African Union, in a newly aggressive stance for fairer terms in agricultural trade, and in the confidence of entrepreneurs...

Ory Okolloh writes about the attacks on “foreigners” in South Africa :

This is not something that has just suddenly erupted, xenophobia in South Africa has long been documented (since immigrants started arriving post-1994)….and in my experience it is very difficult to find any African immigrant in my circle who feels integrated or genuinely welcome here….most people carve out their only little niches and circles and focus on what brought them here, because it is really difficult to become “local”…even with effort.

See Black Looks for further coverage...

Edward Miguel discusses Nation Building in his Boston Review article about Africa's Prospects:

It should not be surprising that it is taking a full generation or more for real nationhood to take root in these infant countries. Everything started from scratch after independence. Politicians had to figure out how to forge political compromises across class, regional, gender, linguistic, tribal, and religious lines. History and civics textbooks needed to be written. Citizens had to come up with their own national narratives and heroes. Creating new identities and institutions is not something that foreign colonizers, aid donors, or the IMF and World Bank are willing or able to do. That kind of transformation demands visionary leaders, who have too often been lacking in Africa, or have themselves been victims of political violence. Further complicating matters, leaders and citizens trying to assemble structures of civic life must contend with the immediate economic imperatives of boosting agricultural productivity, educating the workforce, and building a modern transportation infrastructure.

via 3 Quarks Daily
Photo Courtesy of Christopher Herwig/herwigphoto.com

Businessweek reports:

Banking powerhouses including Citigroup and JP Morgan operate in sub-Saharan Africa, but last week Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital (RenCap) showed signs of things to come as it bought stakes in brokerages in Ghana and Zambia...Mr Cornthwaite(of Rencap) said: "The situation is similar to our experience in Russia 15 years ago. There is a business opportunity here, and if you've seen the movie before, you're in a better position to capitalise," he said.

While India trys to play catch-up:

India and Africa have similar markets, value systems, levels of development," says Sunil Mittal, chairman of Bharti. "Emerging markets make sense for us."Especially markets in Africa, where connections to India run deep..."If we don't step in today, we will lose a huge market 15 years from now," says Malvinder Mohan Singh, CEO of drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories, which operates throughout Africa.

Athar Osama writes about strengthening South-South scientific and technological research collaboration in SciDev:

Scientific collaboration between developed countries, such as members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and to a lesser extent between developed and developing countries (often referred to as North–North and North–South collaboration respectively) has become increasingly popular since the 1970s and ‘80s. But South–South collaboration between developing countries has only recently emerged.
Such collaboration is now growing in scientific and economic importance. South–South research collaboration can promote research on problems that have low priorities in the North, and can provide shared opportunities for capacity building. It also fosters social and economic links between countries, potentially helping them strengthen their position in the global economy.

Egoli reports on the conclusions of a recent Credit Suisse analysis :

"We think the end of an era in terms of China's mighty export industry has just began," say the Credit Suisse economists.
The team has been visiting Guangdong province (China) regularly, and has found that its initial assessment of the new labor law's impact - already pessimistic - was understated. The economists predict that one third of export-oriented manufacturers in the province will be closed within three years. Guangdong produces 30% of China's exports.
What does this mean for the global economy?
The Chinese export economy had already peaked. Replacing its impact has been the growth of the domestic economy, fueled by higher wages and growing domestic consumption, and supported by a government flush with foreign reserves keen to bring Chinese infrastructure up to, or beyond, the standards of that enjoyed by the West. While rising wages and improved labour rights are generally bad for capitalists, as Credit Suisse notes, they are good for workers and domestic consumption. Hence the economists foresee a greater shift towards the growth of China's domestic economy, which would lower the pace of overall growth but improve the "quality" of that growth.

From the IMF's Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa,2008(PDF):

The term “emerging market” was coined in 1980 to refer to countries that had stock markets and were in transition toward having the features of the mature stock markets in industrial countries.This box suggests that some African countries fit within the emerging market group and supports this view by benchmarking these African economies of 2007 against the ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore,and Thailand) of 1980, when the term “emerging market” entered the lexicon.
Selected African countries compare favorably with the ASEAN countries of 1980. The ASEAN countries were already experiencing strong economic growth. Yet, in many other respects, the ASEAN countries looked quite different from what we see today. Inflation rates were still high in some cases, the depth of their financial sectors was limited, foreign direct investment had yet to accelerate, and their financial
resources, reflected in international reserves, were adequate but not high. Many African countries have perhaps reached broader macroeconomic stability than the 1980 ASEAN benchmark. Growth is strong, inflation moderate, and international reserves relatively high. Like ASEAN, financial depth remains limited.Foreign direct investment is quite high, although this is in large part a reflection of the larger share of naturalresources such as oil in the case of African countries.2 Debt-to-GDP ratios are low.

The Ft reports:

Historically, there have been tenuous links between farmers and food producers, with many companies having scant knowledge of how and where their ingredients are grown.
But as the prices of raw materials soar – from the barley used to make beer or the cocoa used to make chocolate – leading brewers and food manufacturers from Cadbury Schweppes to Diageo are increasingly recognising their businesses will benefit from investment in agriculture.

"...Pandiaspora encourages Nigerians in the Diaspora to volunteer their skills to work on short term medical mission projects and to consider returning home to contribute to longer term sustainable development...their mission is the principle of direct intervention - helping people and communities to attain better health and well-being and to support better education for vulnerable school-aged children. To achieve our mission, we work in support of existing health and educational infrastructure in Nigeria and mobilise the skills of Nigerian professionals in the Diaspora to bridge the health and educational needs of the people we serve... "

Uganda proves that food self-sufficiency can be realized with the right sets of policies.G. Pascal Zachary reports in Foreign Policy:

The country’s rice output has risen 2½ times since 2004, according to the Ministry of Trade. Rice production is expected to reach an astonishing 180,000 metric tons this year, up from 135,000 in 2006 and 102,000 in 2005. Consumption of imported rice, meanwhile, fell by half from 2004 to 2005 alone, and by half again from 2005 to 2007. Uganda’s importers, seeing the shift, have invested in new mills in the country, expanding employment and creating competition for farmer output, thereby improving prices. New mills, meanwhile, lowered the cost of bringing domestic rice to market. While people in developing countries across the globe are clamoring about the sharp rise in food prices, Ugandans are still paying about the same for rice as they always have. And Uganda is poised to start exporting rice within East Africa—and beyond.
The secret of Uganda’s homegrown success? Ignoring decades of bad Western advice.

Jeremy Cronin writes in Pambazuka News:

"We are told, for instance, that ‘land reform’(in Zimbabwe) did not succeed because the British failed to meet their financial obligations as agreed in the Lancaster House negotiations. But what kind of heroic anti-imperialist liberation movement is this? Can you imagine the Cubans arguing two decades after their revolutionary breakthrough that they had not implemented land reform because the US refused to subsidise it? President Mugabe’s demagogic ‘anti-imperialism’ is not an anti-imperialism that seeks to defend the interests of the peasantry, the workers (insofar as any remain employed) and the progressive professional and middle strata of Zimbabwe’s society (and indeed of our region). It is a pseudo anti-imperialism that seeks to defend the narrow interests of a rentier capitalist elite within Zanu-PF and the upper echelons of the state. It is a stratum that is entirely parasitic on state power. State power is used to pillage for the purposes of primitive accumulation. And remember, much of the recent socio-economic crisis in Zimbabwe dates back to the pillaging ‘peace mission’ to the DRC in the mid-1990s, which ended in bankruptcy and defeat for a once professional and proud Zimbabwean army."

Recently detained Andrew Mwenda, addresses the Progressive party of Norway on Traditional Aid

The British PM Gordon Brown, seems to have changed his position on Aid.In a speech on international development he stated that:

Some argue that it is the presence of big international corporations that is the cause of the problems in developing countries, but I disagree. Indeed, I believe it is the absence of business - and not the presence of business - that blights the lives of poor people, leaving them dependent on aid and denying them the opportunity to work, denying them the chance to support their families and denying them the means to ensure their children get the chance to succeed.
Economic growth alone has lifted more than 500 million people out of poverty over the last 25 years, accounting for over 80 per cent of poverty reduction.
And the countries whose economies are growing fastest, like Rwanda and Ghana represented here today, are those that are making progress on the Millennium Development Goals - with countries whose economies are growing more slowly falling behind.
So we need to fully acknowledge the critical importance of the private sector in driving development - focusing our attention not on an old one-dimensional welfarist approach but on enterprise, on free and fair trade and open markets, and on harnessing the power of innovation -- the building blocks of growth.
Developing countries - including Ghana and Rwanda - are already working hard to put in place the macroeconomic stability, supportive regulatory environment and measures to tackle corruption that are necessary for business and trade to thrive.

He expands on this and urges the strengthening of successful methodologies:

Today we need a new approach --- moving beyond minimum standards, beyond philanthropy and beyond traditional corporate social responsibility - important though they are - to develop long-term business initiatives that mobilise the resources and talents that are the central strengths of global business...From delivering financial services via mobile phones so that millions of people have access to basic bank accounts for the first time; to providing rural farmers with electronic price and weather information so they can decide when best to harvest and sell their crops; to sourcing ingredients from local supply chains to develop the base of the local economy --- each one of these initiatives is providing innovative solutions to the problems we face and spreading enterprise and opportunity across the developing world.

The award winning Tiwai African Health & Fitness Village is modern health and fitness center built around the principles and practices of West African ethnomedicine and located near the high biodiversity Tiwai Island Gola Forest. Their aim

...is to protect the high biodiversity environments of West Africa by making them relevant to sustainable livelihood activities of the people who live in or around them. West African life and customs emerged from the rich biodiversity of the Upper Guinea rainforest. Preserving the cultures that emerged from this forest could be an important unifying factor in conflict-prone West Africa, while applying traditional knowledge in a 21st Century context is potentially a rich source of revenue for rural development.

Judi W. Wakhungu writes in Africa Science News about the shortcomings that are leading to a dearth of innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa:

Institutional inefficiency is historical and in SSA these have been broadly into three systemic categories-institutional inertia, organsational ineffectiveness and institutional gaps. Institutional inertia is multi-faceted and does not necessarily mean that an organization is not changing.
Rather, it means that an organization may not be responding fast enough to keep abreast of changes in the local, national and global contexts.
Functional incoherence was designed into the structure from the beginning and the institutional forms have not been refined and adapted to the changing context.

She asks the question:

What is the relevance of the existing R&D institutions if they are not connected to the productive sectors? The lack of strong market coordination means that funding or inadequate funding exacerbating ineffectiveness.

In this video she discusses the transformative power of investment in science and technology:

Continuing our focus on academia-industry linkages we take a look at the Makerere University Private Sector Forum. They describe themselves:

As a new vehicle for promoting value addition to the University products in addressing the Private Sector needs. It will serve as a central 'hub' for practical support and information dissemination, encourage and facilitate the University Departments by linking them up with the Private Sector in socio-economic development, initiate demand driven joint research and practice to influence development policy and curriculum review, technology innovations and projects at national and regional levels. Value for money based-practices to promote the Private Sector enterprise development is key in the partnership.

Ismail-Musa Ladu covering the initiative at Zibb states

The marriage between the University and the private sector will ensure that both participate in the creation and running of academic programmes like training and research and stand to benefit from technological innovations generated by the academia.
This will also ensure that the University produces graduates who will fit the needs of the jobs market by being employment-focused student training, problem-oriented and demand driven research that include policy at the national and regional level.

Ryan Shen-Hoover writing in the Cheetah Index asks the question:

Would a portfolio consisting of equal allocations to each of these 10 African markets be exposed to unacceptable levels of risk? To find out, I back-tested such a portfolio and compared it to the S&P500 and EEM using the most recent 16 months of returns.
The S&P500 returned an average of –0.04% per month with a 3.42% standard deviation. The Emerging Market Index posted better returns of 1.71% but was more volatile with a 6.31% standard deviation. Our Africa portfolio returned 2.90% with a 2.36% deviation. Better returns and less volatility. Could Africa be an investor’s safest and most rewarding bet?

The Guardian profiles the life long rule of Omar Bongo,president of Gabon:

Bongo's rule has been a masterclass in the use of patronage. His ascent to the presidency coincided with Gabon's rise to being Africa's third-biggest oil producer, and he quickly realised that money could be more effective than bullets in keeping power...The scale of the high-level cronyism and corruption astonishes diplomats from other African countries. "In Gabon, government and business are one and the same," said one. "If you want to do business here, you must know a minister, or at least somebody with the surname Bongo."

In his 2006 piece The Case for Contamination, Kwame Anthony Appiah wrote:

The ideal of contamination has few exponents more eloquent than Salman Rushdie, who has insisted that the novel that occasioned his fatwa "celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs. It rejoices in mongrelisation and fears the absolutism of the Pure. Mélange, hotch-potch, a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world." No doubt there can be an easy and spurious utopianism of "mixture," as there is of "purity" or "authenticity." And yet the larger human truth is on the side of contamination - that endless process of imitation and revision.

The website of RSUST's Department of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering is testament to the innovation at many of the continent's underfunded and neglected universities.It does however raise a number of questions:

• To what extent are their engineering departments and others like them liaising with their business counterparts to explore the possibilities of developing spin-off enterprises?
  
• The sizable number of standalone research institutes and in-house institutional facilities (within the continent) are yet to spawn any startups of note. Why is this so?
• Could the Civil-Servant university mindset be impeding the awareness of realizable assets that exist within the confines of the same institutions?
• To what degree do local industries,businesses, agricultural concerns etc., perceive the results of prototyping and research as aligned with their business needs and objectives? Could we be looking at the most deleterious examples of the ivory tower syndrome writ large, where it can be least afforded?
• How can we begin to kickstart the process of bootstrapping innovation and entrepreneurship within existing institutions that are reservoirs of talent and appropriate research?
  

"...The Africanhiphop.com site serves the goal of unifying everybody who's inspired by hip hop and by the cultures of Africa and of African origins. The info at Africanhiphop.com is provided mostly by the artists themselves...It is a project of the African Hip Hop Foundation, a non-profit organization registered in the Netherlands which is run by a group of young volunteers from different countries and backgrounds..."

Akin dissects what may become the benchmark in White Elephant projects - The Grand Inga Dam Project:

When I read of the instigation of the largest dam project in the world being planned for Africa in a hydro-electric configuration last week, I skipped the news as one of those grand schemes of delusion...I find it interesting that for a project that would affect so many African countries, as it also involves 7 African countries with the intention of distributing electricity from DR Congo to Egypt in the North, Nigeria in the West and South Africa down South is coordinated by the World Energy Council in London.
This represents the Genesis of why this project probably serves no particular purpose to Africans in general, it is a project that would cost $80 billion and a good deal of that would not go to Africans but we would be saddled with the debts...There is no people-driven element about this grand scheme, it is a résumé boosting project that would be completed by 2022 and would probably collapse in 3 years with the big names involved having moved on to another grand white elephant.

G. Pascal Zachary also states:

For the forseeable future, however, there are many more practical and beneficial African hydro schemes. Talk of Inga is irresponsible and should cease, pending some clear watershed in the Congo's own stability. The country is riven by civil wars, badly governed and fatally wounded by its own sprawling geography. Supporters of Inga should be forced to shelve any financing maneuverings until the Congo sorts out politically and socially. Today, the country is essentially a fiction, propped up by the armed forces of the United Nations and the money of foreign donors.

In contrast to the mealy mouthed Thabo Mbeki, the Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf clearly states what is at stake in Zimbabwe,News 24 reports:

"This is why today ... we send a strong message to all the African leaders to look at the Liberia example - to know that when the will of the people is suppressed, you create the underground tensions and torrents that eventually can lead to unmaking a society," she said.Sirleaf warned that the effects of that suppression spill over into the region - as happened with Liberia's wars."

via African Path