Quick Hits

Business as usual, French corruption in Africa.
The passing of a whistleblower-David Munyakei via Displaced African
Another call for Intra-African trade.
Emerging markets have more to say-Mbanking
Questioning Abdoulaye Wade...
The paradox of plenty against a backdrop of plunder.
Nigeria and Ethiopia top investment index via African Loft
Zimbabwe farmers make progress in Nigeria.
More on the Africa Asia comparison theme from Coldtusker
The Gulf continues to invest in the continent.
How Mugabe steals.. via Global Voices
Bongo's french accounts frozen...Switzerland next?
Githongo on corruption-Economist

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• Mugabe Gets Ready to Bail (littlegreenfootballs.com)

Girls Power

Founded by Bene Madunagu "...Girls Power seeks to build a strong and empowered feminist institution with critical consciousness and capacity for analysis of social and gender prejudices, committed to managing and educating girls into healthy self-reliant, productive and confident women for the achievement of positive changes and transformation of patriarchal values in Nigeria..."

Magdelene Odundo

Magdelene Odundo's "...pieces are not made using a wheel, but by hand, primarily using a coiling technique. They are left unglazed and are burnished laboriously by hand. The potters of the Ganda royal court in Uganda use similar techniques to make vessels known as ensumbi...[continue reading]"-British Museum
via Mshairi

Cafés Scientifique

From SciDev:

Science cafés (or Cafés Scientifique) are stirring up dialogue between locals and scientists in Uganda — and their success has led to a grant to establish "junior cafés" in secondary schools around the country...At these meetings — organised around the school calendar — students can discuss a variety of science and technology topics with local scientists. It is hoped that this will stimulate extracurricular interest in science and broaden understanding. The idea is that the students will gradually organise the meetings themselves, thus also developing communication and leadership skills...[continue reading]

Baalu Girma Foundation

From Addis Journal:

It was 25 years ago today that the famous Ethiopian writer and journalist, Baalu Girma, was abducted by the military junta (Derg) in Ethiopia. He hasn’t been heard from since, but his legacy continues.The Baalu Girma Foundation, established in his memory, has just been launched.
The foundation set up by his daughter Meskerem Baalu Girma “will strive to empower creative writers and journalists underrepresented in East Africa”...[continue reading]

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• Former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam could be extradited from Zimbabwe (telegraph.co.uk)

"Communicating Scientists"

In SciDev Valerie Corfield writes:

Researchers in developing nations must become 'communicating scientists', sharing their knowledge beyond academia...Scientists must become proactive, and form a network of contacts beyond their own academic brotherhood. And they should recognise the value of science intermediaries, such as science centres and funding agencies' research translation offices...[continue reading]

Abandoment or a time to Adapt?

From Davos, Trevor Manuel stated that Africa is "at risk of decoupling, derailment and abandonment”...he is particularly worried by the threat of trade and financial protectionism in the developed world. He is concerned that banks and financial institutions in the US and Europe will increasingly be under pressure to direct loans towards their domestic markets...[continue reading]"-Gideon Rachman at the FT
Is it me or the self-pitying language "abandonment" et al. Doesn't this perpetuate a dangerously dependent non-constructive state of mind and policy?

Nature Conservation within Traditional Societies

Image by Martin_Heigan via Flickr

Ochuko Tonukari writes:

There has been, of late, enormous interest in the study of nature conservation by traditional societies. The protection of patches of forest as sacred groves and of several tree species as sacred trees belong to the religion-based conservation ethos of ancient people all over the world. ...

According to a very elderly and learned Urhobo man, “the concept of the sacredness of trees, from the Urhobo historical past enters into every facet of Urhobo traditional religion. It rests on the earliest conceptions of the unity of life in nature, in the sense of communion and fellowship with the divine centre and source of life. The sacred tree is said to be deeply rooted in the primitive religious ideas of earliest Urhobo people. In the history of Urhobo religious evolution, it lies behind the primitive era.”
As one Urhobo traditionalist noted, "If you come upon a grove of old trees that have lifted up their crowns above the common height and shut out the light of the sky by the darkness of their interlacing boughs, you feel that there is a spirit in the place, so lofty is the wood, so lone the spot, so wondrous the thick unbroken shade."

...[continue reading]

Hat Tip Toyin Adepoju!

Fufu made of Mashed Potatoes in a Box

Scarlett Lion highlights an endearing NYTimes report about home cooked food:

During the week she hews to African cuisine because, she said, it is healthier than American food. “My whole family is skinny,” she explained. It’s also because African cuisine is all her husband will eat.
Ms. Gray-Brumskine often makes fufu, a rib-sticking mash of potato starch and mashed potatoes from a box, a common American substitution for roots or yams that are used in Africa. She also makes cassava greens; she washes and grinds the leaves, then boils them in a pot with water and baking soda until they turn olive green — a process that can take two hours and often isn’t done until 11 at night. Her husband will wait and eat them then...[continue reading]

Catalysing South-South Knowledge Sharing

From Iconnect:

The South-South Experience Exchange Facility is a new multi donor trust fund that promotes the idea that the development successes in one country can be replicated in another. The trust fund has identified other areas suited for this financing including managing commodity windfalls; developing efficient tax systems; adapting to new technologies; creating social safety nets that benefit the poor; and trade integration and investment climate...[continue reading]

Education Deficits:Tradespeople and Specialists

From the African Commission:

One year to get an education. However, it is another thing to get an education that you can actually use to earn money with – and which can help contribute to the development of the society you live in. It is important, and not least of all in the poor, developing countries, to choose the right education, both to ensure the highest possible rate of employment and to ensure growth and development...[continue reading]

Street Kitchens

Treehugger points us to a show about the ingenuity behind "Global Street Food":

“Global Street Food” is dedicated to the fascination with improvised kitchens in public places. Urban fast food stations navigate the contrast between pragmatic dilettantism and complexity in the smallest of spaces. Mike Meiré presents a variety of objects and street foods from different areas of the world in a classic white cube. This exhibition explores the sculptural quality of authentic objects and their cultural identity...[continue reading]

photo courtesy of Mike Meire

Another Pan African University?

SciDev reports:

A draft concept note presents the PAU as a "continental flagship institution of higher education" offering advanced graduate training and postgraduate research opportunities for "the cream of the crop" of African students.The new university would also act as a "reference institution" providing a repository of knowledge and skills to support pan-African development initiatives...[continue reading]

More Pan-African Universities? Shouldn't we be focusing on the strengthening the existing institutions?

Layering Fashion

In the NYTimes:

For Nkhensani Nkosi, the founder of the South African label Stoned Cherrie, African fashion has been signified by “the Big Five and leopard prints” for too long. She was referring, of course, to the checklist (lion, elephant, Cape buffalo, rhinoceros and leopard) every big game hunter and tourist with a point-and-shoot hopes to bag...[continue reading]

photo courtesy of Lucas Jackson,Reuters

Quick Hits

Kikwete gets the enterprise religion.
The need to keep up the pressure on Mugabe despite the unity government deal, especially with the continuance of his party's Neronian extravagances.
Roots Cuisine explores "homeland foods".
Tom Mboya's gift to the world.

What Would the Poor Say?

Excerpts from participants at a recent Development Research Institute conference:

Yaw Nyarko:
"No nation has ever developed because of aid and outside advice".

Andrew Mwenda:
“Aid money makes African governments accountable to the aid agencies rather than to their own people.”

June Arunga:
"Aid money is diverting African skilled professionals away from private enterprise to writing proposals for NGOs.”

Wasting Abroad?

Ellen Gwaradzimba writes in the African Executive:

Empirical evidence from Southern Europe have shows that Third World academics who migrate to other countries, especially to First World countries, gain very little because they mainly do unskilled work which does not teach them anything. Only a minority gain new skills while working abroad. The majority do not learn anything new because they only do unskilled work. ...[continue reading]

Quick Hits

Ethiopia announces its first Diaspora bonds.
Kenya's obscene politician salaries.
More on the charity debate.
A society for goodwill-Ufadhili
Promoting the study of public and private governance-Initiative Africa

NigeriaTown

More on South-South cross pollination, Evan Osnos in the New Yorker writes about a largely Nigerian immigrant community in Guangzhou, China. Listen to and view audio slide show here.
via ...My Hearts in Accra
photo courtesy of the New Yorker

Never Forget Their Promises

A initiative worth implementing with adaptations everywhere:

"Never Forget" makes sure we do, and do it effectively. From knowing your local area representative (MP, MLA, Corporator) and the promises he/she made, to tracking down to evaluate his/her delivery of the promises - neverforget.in becomes the platform for public involvement in making the governance accountable.

via Zoo Station

Stealth Conflicts

Via Blacklooks:

Stealth conflicts are those that do not appear on the ‘radars’ of those in a position to respond. That is, they fail to attract the attention of policymakers, the media, the public and academia. Just like the stealth bomber, they remain virtually undetected as they extract their deadly toll. It is indeed because of the stealth with which they are played out that they become so deadly: deprived of attention, starvation and disease associated with the conflict remain unchecked and claim far more victims than do the bullets and bombs...[continue reading]

Asia’s Development Miracle and Africa’s Development Tragedy

In PoliticalArticles:

At the time of decolonisation in the 1950s and 1960s, the level of economic development in most of Asia was comparable with that of Africa. For instance, four decades ago, the per capita income of South Korea was comparable with that of the Sudan in Africa. However, since the 1960s, South Korea has achieved an incredible record of growth to become one of the 26 richest countries in the world and was able to join the trillion dollar club of world economies in 2004 while the Sudan is still one of the 33 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in sub Saharan Africa (SSA)...[continue reading]

Adapting Technology

In AppAfrica:

In an article called “The Drawbacks of New Technology“, BBC freelance writer Bill Thompson interviews several innovators and tech entrepreneurs that are creating tools and applications for Africans. They often leave, and come back a few years later to discover that Africans didn’t really have a use for these inventions as they were intended, instead they come up with new uses that are practical for how they live and see the world...[continue reading]

Sustainable Fishing Villages

From Tradewinds:

Six thousand artisanal fishermen in Kayar, Senegal are fighting back against West Africa’s perilous trend toward depletion of fish and seafood stocks with an innovative system of community-based fisheries and environmental management. By establishing and enforcing catch limits, Kayar’s fisherman have increased profits, improved hygiene at landing and processing sites...[continue reading]

For further information take a look at the work of WASSDA which supports the sustainable development of the West African fisheries and seafood sector

Democracy is more than elections

Anna Nadgrodkiewicz writes at CIPE:

Democracy is not just about singular events such as elections and inaugurations – even the most memorable ones – and it is not about particular leaders. Instead, the essence of democracy lies in building and constantly perfecting a system where decision-making in open, transparent, and inclusive, where the rule of law and accountability apply equally to all, and where economic prosperity is possible as a result...[continue reading]

Soft Power Education

The work of award winner SPE to-date has been primarily focused on primary school education yet SPE now endeavours to tackle many more of the factors that contribute to chronic poverty within rural communities; tackling health issues by improving sanitation at schools and facilities for washing hands, encouraging children to take their learnings home-organization website

Bracing for the Downturn

Ernest Harsch writes in African Renewal:

As economic growth slows worldwide and some major industrial economies have gone into recession, it has become clearer that the repercussions of the global financial crisis will be felt throughout Africa’s “real economy” — beyond the narrow realm of stock trading. Dwindling financial remittances from Africans working abroad, lower world prices for Africa’s exports, scarcer and more costly commercial credit and less generous flows of foreign aid will inevitably dampen productive activity across the continent...[continue reading]

via African Loft

Aid & Bad Government

In the WSJ Iqbal Quadir writes:

Tragically, the Cold War aid approach actually preserves suffering in poor countries. Aid empowers bureaucracies, promotes statism, and weakens government incentives to boost tax revenues through growth. Economic assets are often kept in the hands of the state, leading to monopolies, stagnation and extortion. All of this hurts entrepreneurs, who have the potential to create wealth and promote governmental accountability.
The history of Western economic and political advancement illustrates that it is the economic strength of citizens -- not governments -- that gives rise to checks and balances...[continue reading]

"Nigeria School"

Straightline Films presents Nigeria School a series which follows three rural schools in northern Nigeria over the course of a year.

via Sociolingo

Wikifying Elected Representatives

Grandiose Parlor writes:

Nigerians have written volumes of commentary on political issues, appraised government policies, and even staged protests and demonstrations, but there is one thing they have yet to do: Grab elected officials by their throats and hold them accountable. Nigerians have failed to look at them eyeball-to-eyeball and ask questions. And in few times they did ask and got unsatisfactory answers, they have lacked the courage to wrestle them down and kick then out.
Nigerians must be able to assess their elected officials via their voting records, public statements, issue positions, and constituency engagements. These data can be aggregated and refined into blocks of information to demonstrate how well elected officials have served...[continue reading]

Dambisa Moyo

The FT Interviews Dambisa Moyo author of Dead Aid she suggests:

...a telephone call from every donor nation to every aid-dependent government in Africa, warning that in five years the taps will turn off. This, she believes, would trigger the search for alternative financing on a commercial basis, and force governments to create conditions in which business would thrive.

On Celebrities:

“Most Brits would be irritated if Michael Jackson started offering advice on how to resolve the credit crisis. Americans would be put out if Amy Winehouse went to tell them how to end the housing crisis. I don’t see why Africans shouldn’t be perturbed for the same reasons,”...[continue reading]

Monetizing the Social and Political Capital of the Poor

From Slum Dwellers International:

Once Federations begin to negotiate with local governments around secure tenure and basic services, the next step is always to find the finance for the actual implementation and delivery. Very often the lack of access to funds delays projects and results in a loss of morale for the communities involved.
These constraints have prompted many SDI affiliates to build new institutions, called Urban Poor Funds(pdf), which monetize the social and political capital of savings groups to leverage additional resources from formal banking institutions, the State, and international donor agencies. By combining the savings of the poor with external contributions, Urban Poor Funds gear up capital for large-scale construction and infrastructure development...[continue reading]

photo courtesy of SDI

Quick Hits

Matching research to local needs-SciDev
Shades of Zimbabwe? The ANC and its stance on corruption The Guardian
Global Voices points us to a piece about "Chocolate Tourism"
The collapse of financial globalization-Council for Foreign Relations
Failures and Solutions - Afrifail...
Centre for Entrepreneurship and Development Research-UNN

The New TED Fellows Program

Crossposted at Timbuktu Chronicles
From the TED website:

The TED Fellows program helps world-changing innovators from around the globe become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities. Fellows are drawn from many disciplines that reflect the diversity of TED's members: technology, entertainment, design, the sciences, the humanities, the arts, NGOs, business and more...[continue reading]

"Solving Africa"

From Kingsley Kanu Jr.'s Solving Africa project:

...from what I’ve gathered, most African countries, stress the importance of science and math so much that African history and literature – the bases of cultural pride and identity – are ignored. The primary role of education in our society is to equip not to inform. This results in capable minds who do not see Africa as theirs to build as much as something to sidestep...is a collection of dreams; asking young Africans what they see as wrong or right with the continent and their role in its development.