Selected statistics from the World Bank’s Regional Brief on Africa:
7. Between 1990 and 1999 PPP GDP per capita growth was 15 percent ($1,158.9 to $1,327.8) for Sub-Saharan Africa; in between 2000 and 2008 it was 54 percent ($1,372.9 to $2,113.9).
8. Exports rose from $319.0 billion in 2007 to $413.7 billion in 2008, a 29.7 percent rise; conversely, imports rose less than exports, from $305.3 billion in 2007 to $372.1 billion in 2008, a 21.8 percent rise. Continue reading
In This Issue:
Lesotho Stands Strong at Copenhagen Conference
Cellphone Technology Doubles E-Mail Access
Basotho Farmers to Grow Sorghum for Beer
Lesotho to Expand Safe Water Supply
Rural Homes To Gain Access to Solar Power
by Adanma Osakwe
Technology has become a major driving force for change and opportunity throughout the world. It has transformed many lives, and the unprecedented access to technology that today’s youth in Africa have allows them to compete with their peers in the global digital economy.
Young people gain a major advantage in terms of education, economic, and social opportunities when they have access to computers. Strategic use of technology can boost wealth creation and alleviate unemployment– providing marginalized individuals in rural communities with technological tools for training can help them to realize their economic potential. Continue reading
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
The other night I attended the launch of the Liberian Professional Network, the latest in a series of new organizations with the potential to revolutionize the way African expatriates can help develop their home countries. LPN brings together professionals in the Liberian diaspora to network, socialize, and support social causes and investment ventures back in Liberia. Diasporas have historically given significant financial support to their home countries – Liberia received $300 million in remittances in 2007 – but what sets groups like LPN apart is that they can coordinate all those resources to get a greater return. Continue reading
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
I’m writing from a hotel room in Nairobi, making do with slow internet. Like all of East Africa, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of cheap and fast broadband from the submarine fiber-optic cables soon coming ashore. SEACOM, the first of four competing cable projects, landed at the port city of Mombasa a few weeks ago. Continue reading
People always ask me what I think is the key to economic development in Africa. Usually I focus on two challenges: getting capital in the hands of African entrepreneursand building infrastructure to reduce the cost of doing business on the continent. Lately, I have added a third: the lack of middlemen in the right sectors and the proliferation of them in the wrong sectors of African business. Continue reading
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