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
On a recent trip to Malawi, my colleague Aubrey and I drove from the capital city of Lilongwe to Blantyre and back… roughly five hours each way. The trip was longer than we expected, partly because we also made several stops so that Patrick, our driver, could distribute money to his relatives who lived in rural areas. Continue reading
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
by Adanma Osakwe
Due to crippling energy shortages and power blackouts in homes and businesses, African nations are facing the question of energy security. As a result, an increasing number of African countries are taking an interest in the development of nuclear power energy. Continue reading
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
During my recent trip to South Africa, I spent some time with a friend who lives in Johannesburg. She just purchased a house and told me that she was looking forward to buying a solar water heater. She mentioned that the South African Government had recently announced that the price of electricity would increase by about 30% in the next year and, while a solar water heater was expensive in the short-run, in the long-run it would be both good for the environment and her bank account. Continue reading
In this issue:
Coffee is Uganda's top export, earning $348 million in 2008.
Uganda’s economy is expected to be among Africa’s strongest in 2009 with a growth rate of around 6% thanks largely to strong regional trade and continued demand for its agricultural exports, according to the African Economic Outlook 2009, published in May by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). Continue reading
South Africa recently approved renewable energy subsidies to help increase investment in projects that use sources of energy other than coal, such as wind, hydro, landfill gas, and solar power. South Africa is the largest carbon emitter on the continent and depends on coal for 90% of its electricity needs. Under this project, South Africa will pay companies a certain amount to use these renewable sources of energy instead of coal on new projects. 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
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
Three social entrepreneurs from Africa were in Washington, DC, in February to promote their creative – and lucrative – solutions to some of Africa’s most intractable sanitation problems.
The three – Kenyan David Kuria, Nigerian Joseph Adelegan and South African Trevor Mulaudzi – have each identified a problem in their communities and set about finding a solution based on a business model rather than turning to aid or public funding. Their innovations are successfully changing social behavior and improving public health, the environment and the economy. Continue reading
By Meg Dallett
It’s no surprise that Africa’s chronic power supply problem is bad for business. The World Bank has started adding up just how bad it is, though, and the results are staggering-Uganda alone loses $50 million annually from distribution and transmission problems on its electrical grid. 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
By Meg Dallett
Only ten percent of people who receive remittances have bank accounts, but 86 percent of them have cell phones. That’s one of the reasons why companies like MTN and Zain are introducing mobile banking services, where people can use their phones to pay bills, make withdrawals, or send money. Continue reading
Bottom of the pyramid strategies (BOP), where companies reach huge markets by selling inexpensive products designed for living conditions in developing countries, are helping companies like Coca Cola and Standard Chartered Bank better weather the global recession. And true to the BOP model, success in emerging markets is transforming into innovation in developed markets as consumers face constrained cash flows and demand more value per unit purchased. 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
Search engine company Google announced in October that it awarded grants of more than $14 million to support researchers in Africa and Southeast Asia who are working to prevent the next pandemic. The initiative, known as Predict and Prevent, will be part of a global effort to identify hot spots where diseases may emerge, detect new pathogens circulating in animal and human populations, and respond to outbreaks before they become global crises. Continue reading
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