More African countries than ever have entered the international financial system through the international bond market in 2009/10. Whereas before only countries like South Africa had credit ratings sufficient to enter, now places like Tanzania and Togo are considering how best to enter. Continue reading
Author Archives: Eliot Pence
African Diplomacy in an Era of “Messy Multilateralism”
The era of “messy multilateralism,” as Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, recently wrote in a Financial Times op Ed, has spawned new and more international forums, like the Major Economies Forum, Davos and Committee of the Parties. The more forums there are, the larger and more complex the portfolios of Foreign Service officers (FSOs) working in major cities like Geneva, Washington and New York become. Continue reading
Africa in Copenhagen Recap
What did Africa really get out of Copenhagen? A lot, and at the same time not that much. The following summarizes some of the major political and financial gains, and some of the issues that remain unresolved. Continue reading
African Private Equity on the Rise
In many ways, private equity (PE) firms are uniquely designed to deal with investment climates in emerging markets like Africa. They provide much-needed capital for moderately risky ventures and the management capabilities needed to make the companies grow. African PE firms are helping to enhance the investment climate for non-traditional sectors like green technology, telecommunications, and private healthcare systems. And while private equity is still only an emerging development paradigm (PE in Africa currently constitutes less than 6% of global PE deals), much can be done to support its expansion on the continent. Continue reading
Soot: Climate Change Pollution Comes From Africa Too
Soot, the black stuff that results from burning wood-fired stoves and covers the walls of many African homes, is the second leading contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide. Soot accumulates in streams, rivers and other waterways and eventually makes its way to the Arctic where, a recent report claims, it absorbs a higher degree of the sun’s light and burns through glaciers at alarming rates. Recent estimates suggest that soot is responsible for over half of arctic ice melt. Continue reading
A Jozi Revival
I’m in Johannesburg this week looking at the South African trade and investment climate. Having first visited Johannesburg in 1995, I had a particular image of what I thought I was going to return to. Then, all the businesses and government offices had abandoned their offices for commercial parks in the northern suburbs. The city skeleton that was left functioned more like an elaborate car park for taxis. Business offices were quickly repurposed to suit the new resident’s needs. Crime and squatting skyrocketed as immigrants, slum dwellers and drug dealers took refuge. Continue reading
Looking for Affordable Energy in Africa
The demand for electrical power in the developing world is growing at nearly three times the rate of demand in the developed world. And as countries in the global South, especially in Africa, add newly-affordable common household items such as refrigerators and air-conditioning units, the existing power grids, most of which were set up in the late 1970s, are becoming overwhelmed – already most operate at rates far higher than their capacity can support. Just last week, Kenya began rationing its electricity due to the low water supply for hydroelectricity plants from an ongoing drought. Continue reading
Manual Distribution Centers: Market Access and Job Creation
As a strategy for development, “manual distribution centers” are becoming as popular in development sectors as micro-finance was in 2005. A concept pioneered by Coca-Cola, MDCs are independently owned, low-cost operations created to service retail markets where classic distribution models are ineffective and inefficient because of distance or lack of infrastructure. For example, Coca-Cola hires local distributors in Africa to ship their beverages out to less accessible areas, creating jobs and increasing the markets they can reach. In addition to giving people in hard-to-reach parts of the world access to more products, the MDC system integrates local businesspeople into global supply chains, which is a crucial part of turning the opportunities of trade into broad-based prosperity. Continue reading
Reversing the Brain Drain
The African Diaspora is a continual source of interest to the development community. It represents a highly accessible and much needed employment pool. Africans are the most highly educated and highest-earning immigrant group in the US. But often initiatives designed to attract them fail, for any number of reasons. One problem is a pervasive belief that remittances (which amounted to nearly $40 billion for Africa in 2008) are more valuable than labor. Continue reading
Multimodal Technologies for Africa
As new social phenomena, like Twitter, combine one technogical platform (SMS – short message service) with another (the internet), the feasibility of communicating has increased. This has particular relevance for Africa, which has the world’s most dense cell phone usage. (With three out of every four people using cellular numbers as their primary number, cellular numbers in Africa are the closest thing to national ID numbers in most countries). And, as the highly anticipated fiber optic cable in East Africa comes online, Africa will be well-equipped to advance these multimodal technologies. Continue reading
Intellectual Property Rights For Africa
In Africa, ingenuity abounds. But the intellectual property rights designed to protect that ingenuity often don’t. Less than one percent of patent applications globally are from Africa.
If Africa is a well-spring of innovation, why doesn’t it protect its inventions? The answer is complex, and largely the result of a number of factors: under funded research institutions, cultural practices, lack of legal services and clogged governmental IP structures. Continue reading
