My Beauty Best Teacher

M G Zimeta writes in Prospect that Ethiopia:

...gets a disproportionately large slice of Africa's aid, but the Ethiopian regime does not act in the best interests of its citizens or its neighbours. So why has the G20 made the country a spokesman for the entire continent?

He contends that the G20's

...refusal to think long term, or to recognise the diversity of Africa, they are doing the continent great disservice. Instead of indulging in tokenism, they could be drawing more on success stories like Ghana, Botswana, Senegal, Namibia and Tanzania—and we could all be learning more from what actually works.
As for Ethiopia’s citizens, whose iconic suffering seems to be what has earned their prime minister the right to be the “voice of Africa”—their suffering continues.

More here

George Katito writes in AllAfrica:

African leaders have, however, failed to inspire confidence in their ability thus far to develop "African solutions to African problems." Among a long list of well-meaning development and governance initiatives which Africa has come up with are 20 critical infrastructure programmes. But the continent has battled to raise and manage the financial and human resources needed to bolster them...if sustainable and meaningful solutions to Africa's most pressing problems are to be found, its leaders and activists should not look primarily to crumbs falling off the G20's table. They must rather push for the fulfillment of commitments to develop Africa which are already in place and, more critically, they must clean up government and governance.
...[continue reading]

From the Moor Next Door:

The Africans are increasingly disappointed with Qadhafi’s performance as AU President. He antics and rhetoric in Mauritania, Niger, Guinea-Bissau and elsewhere have caused embarrassment to many AU statesmen...[continue reading]

Do not tell me they are not surprised, meanwhile we have Meles Zenawi representing Africa at the G20. How can we expect to be taken seriously?
More Qadhafi eccentricity

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