Moving Windmills Rebuilds a School

The Moving Windmills Project partners with buildOn.org to rebuild Wimbe Primary School:

The new building project encompasses a master plan for approximately seven new structures over the course of two to three years. Each new school building will sturdy construction, fully equipped classroom, boys’ and girls’ latrines, and, thanks to William Kamkwamba’s design additions, carbon-free hybrid solar/wind power, battery storage systems, lights, ventilation fans and A/C electricity. The plan also provides for a much larger library than the one that inspired William to build his windmill.

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The Symbolism of Yar Adua's illness

Hilary Ugwu writes about Nigeria's president in NVS:

No one denies the fact that symbolism is a greater part of the human culture expressions. A symbol is a reality that points to another reality. The former being merely a pseudo depiction of the beingness of the later which is more a quintessential. In other words, a symbol is less the center of attraction than the object or reality which it represents. If you ask me what symbol should represent a nation, I would say the president...Consequently, it seems undeniable that the much talked about medical condition of the president is a clear pictogram or rather a symbol of the Nigeria‘s national illness. The country is simply sick. And it appears that our frantic efforts to revitalize her proves sterile as had been shown by Yar’Adua’s stubborn illness.

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An Elite Education is Not Enough Nor is an MBA

William Deresiewicz wrote in American Scholar:

Being an intellectual begins with thinking your way outside of your assumptions and the system that enforces them. But students who get into elite schools are precisely the ones who have best learned to work within the system, so it’s almost impossible for them to see outside it, to see that it’s even there...[continue reading]

An observation even more ominous for the future of Africa's productive capacity where the elite adopt a redistributive rather than productive approach to wealth. This is further accentuated by a preference for non-manufacturing MBA's

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish-Steve Jobs

In a most memorable commencement address Steve Jobs states "...Stay Hungry Stay Foolish...":

via TED's Best of Web

African Media Leaders Forum 2009

Ideas  to ponder from the African Media Leaders Forum,Tolu Ogunlesi in 3QuarksDaily:

• Monetising content

• The Obama Effect

• The Law OF ‘KATO’

• The State Versus The Market

Continue reading

'Contemporary African Art Since 1980'

In Boing Boing:

Contemporary African Art Since 1980, a new book by Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu,The book explores how political, social, and cultural changes over the past thirty years have shaped urban, indigenous, and globalized "diasporic" art forms. Contemporary African Art is a roadmap of change and of evolving identities.

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Zain Africa Challenge

From JoyOnline, the objective of the Zain Africa Challenge:

"...is to develop the intellect of Africa’s youth and highlight the excellent educational opportunities that African Universities offer to its citizens."...“Zain will be awarding 50,000 USD to the winning University and 5,000 USD to the student contestants, which is part of the company’s 1,000,000 USD total investment in cash, educational grants and teaching materials,”The questions in the fast-paced quiz programme cover a wide range of topical areas including: history, science, African culture, geography, literature, music and current events.

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How roads hold back African exports...

Caroline Freund and Nadia Rocha write in Vox:

It has been shown that poor trade infrastructure is a key reason for Africa's weak exports. This column goes a step further and provides evidence that the delays in inland transport are the most crucial factor restricting Sub-Saharan Africa's trade. Policy makers’ focus on foreign trade policy may therefore be misguided.

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Photo courtesy of Global Envision

What does a Warlord do?

In West Africa Always Wins:

...most of what Ryszard Kapuscinski wrote about the warlord phenomenon still applies to the handful of ex-students and poorly educated former army sergeants who have been plundering the northern half of Ivory Coast for the past seven years. "Warlords," he writes in The Shadow of the Sun, "are the sowers of tribal and racial hatred in Africa. They will never admit to this. They will always proclaim they are leading a national movement or party...What does a warlord do? Theoretically, he fights with other warlords. Most frequently, however, he is busy robbing his own country’s unarmed population. The warlord is the opposite of Robin Hood. He takes from the poor to enrich himself and feed his gangs. We are in a world in which misery condemns some to death and transforms others into monsters. The former are the victims, the latter are the executioners. There is no one else.”

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Photo courtesy of Screaming Pen

Missing the Africa investment opportunity

Alonzo Fulgham wrote in CS Monitor:

Normally, by the time an investment tip makes its way into a newspaper, conventional wisdom says the money is already off the table. Not so in the case of sub-Saharan Africa. American investors and companies are overlooking an investment opportunity in plain sight. And the smart money will climb aboard before the economic tide rises. The rest will miss a fast-moving boat.

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SME's-innovation comes in small packages

SA's Human Sciences Research Council urges further focus on SME's

Small, medium and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs), a central policy focus area in South Africa, specifically with regard to economic growth and employment creation, have the potential to become engines of innovation. But lack of funding hampers the sector's innovation development. Irma Wilkinson believes that current SMME policies and programmes need to be broadened to stimulate innovation.

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God’s letter to Nigerians

Okey Ndibe writes in Sahara reporters:

At the slightest provocation – in fact, often at no provocation at all – Nigerians invoke God’s name. In today’s column, I imagine a letter God has written to Nigerians titled “You’re on your own.” Here goes. Beloved Nigerians (yes, I call you beloved even though many of you are among the world’s most unrepentant sinners), I’m going to be blunt.

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From the UN Millenium Office-"Stop Aid"

Are the UN Millenium crew coming to their senses? The Guardian reports on comments made by Sylvia Mwichuli:

African countries need to find alternative sources to money to finance their national budgets, rather than rely on overseas aid, according to an official from the UN millennium campaign..."African governments must find ways of financing development; we are calling for a paradigm shift in financing of development, not depending on donors,"

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Wade's path to Centralisation and Decadence

Amy Niang writes about the decline of leadership under the Senegalese president:

The implications for state-building in Senegal and similar regimes are clear: democratic change may be a prerequisite but the absence of an institutionalised effort to stabilise the system beyond the regime remains an obstacle. The Wade administration may have few days of glory left. But the damage done by his ruling style to the state-building project is immense. The nominal state has become a carcass institution with a flag and an anthem. Its leading structure is a coalition of an amorphous body made of new political aristocrats whose main characteristics are wealth and relative economic prosperity.

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The Fomunyoh Foundation of Cameroon

The Fomunyoh Foundation (TFF) on Paul Biya,Cameroon's long term dictator:

...he has systematically undermined Cameroon's legal and political institutions to perpetuate his own rule. He has minimized the role of the legislative and judiciary branches of government and totally ignored input from opposition parties and civil society. He has also co-opted most of the traditional authority in the country, where 55 percent of the population lives in rural areas under the influence of powerful chiefs and lamida.

Climate Change contd.

James Shikwati writes:

For resource rich Africa, the Copenhagen meeting if not well debated, might provide yet another excuse for wealthy nations to seek to micro manage mineral exploitation on the continent. It is therefore crucial that the continent's experts and leadership focus on judicious parameters for exploitation, and use of technology to ensure clean usage of the same. Climate change eschatology through the fear of "melting earth" or "end of the world" should not be used to render a resource rich continent poor at the stroke of the pen simply because world powers are at each others throats over resources.

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Permanent Poverty the South & Climate Change Talks

Franklin Cudjoe and Richard Tren write in the Bangkok Post:

The question is whether or not developing nations should be permitted to harness their natural resources to lift their people out of poverty. Many rich-nation delegates, particularly from Europe, say "no" as they fear such development will exacerbate climate change and ecological degradation

More here via African Liberty

Equatorial Guinea Justice

From the EG Justice site:

We believe that by educating, engaging and empowering the people of Equatorial Guinea, we can create an Equatorial Guinea in which justice, equality, and harmony are fully realized...We envision a truly democratic and open society in which power and resources are shared; in which all people participate meaningfully in the decisions that affect their lives; in which every person has food, shelter, health care, education, and a safe and sustainable livelihood; in which all human rights are protected; in which the environment is cared for; and in which people come before profits.

Dele Olojede speaks about 234Next

TED speaker Dele Olojede, talks about setting up 234Next:

Nigeria's 'Brain Gain'

Hopefully a strengthening trend for the country's far flung diaspora. CNN reports:

Via Anannsi Chronicles

'Riches to Rags' the commodity dead-end

The cautionary tales of commodity dependence continue.In Pambazuka Khadija Sharife writes about Zambia's copper straitjacket:

Once perceived as an icon of progress in Africa thanks to wealth from its copper mines, today over 75 per cent of Zambia's population lives below the poverty line...Khadija Sharife recounts the country’s ‘riches to rags’ story – a story that is being repeated in former resource colonies across the continent, which although ‘politically liberated’ have ‘remained economically chained’.

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Even Russia's Medvedev rails against commodity dependence.

Resource Cursed-Equatorial Guinea

Image via Wikipedia

Tutu Alicante and Lisa Misol write in FP:

Imagine a tiny country flush with oil money, where the wealth per person is on par with that of Spain or Italy. Now picture a place quite the opposite, where nearly two-thirds of the population lives in extreme poverty and infant and child mortality rates are on par with those of the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of the Congo...impossible as it sounds, these two sentences describe the same place: Equatorial Guinea, a West African country home to roughly a half-million people. Earlier this month, the country's president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, marked the 30th anniversary of the coup that brought him to power.

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via Pambazuka

Hope Floats Initiative

In the Open Architecture Network,The Amphibious Clinic/Community Center by Hope Floats Initiative,Makoko Lagos:

...is meant to demonstrate the bottoms-up approach to sustainable development, and aside from solving land-use issue by use of floating platforms we also demonstrated the use of low-cost LED lights graciously donated by RedBirdLED.
Much work remains to be done on the clinic: we are working on deploying composting toilets, low-cost photovoltaic system, rain-water catchment cisterns and self-powered medical equipment.

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via Grandiose Parlor

Building Cultural Bridges

Building cultural bridges and xenophilia etc. Ethan Zuckerman at BIF:

Betty Makoni-Activist

In CNN:

Zimbabwe native Betty Makoni founded the Girl Child Network to provide a haven for young victims of sexual abuse. The organization has rescued more than 35,000 girls since 2001.

More here
photo courtesy of The Star

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Nnedi Okoroafor-Writer

Charles Tan of the Nebula Awards interviews writer and blogger Nnedi Okoroafor he asked:

Is incorporating Nigerian elements into your stories a conscious decision on your part or does it fall more along the lines of “write what you know”?
Nigeria and the greater Africa are where my muse resides right now. Maybe someday that will change. I don’t see that being soon. It’s not a conscious choice, it just is what it is. It’s not always writing what I know. I’ve never been to Niger (where The Shadow Speaker takes place). Well, I’ve flown over it. I’ve written an adult novel that incorporates a mix of Nigerian, Sudanese and Tanzanian magic and culture. I’ve only been to Nigeria.
If I’m doing anything conscious it’s that I’m filling in blanks. I’ve always wanted to read fantasy set in Africa that is about Africa and Africans, that’s set in the now or the future.

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Nigeria Conservation Foundation

Nigeria Conservation Foundation has "...maintained a nature conservation standard with unrivaled competence. Its ability to localize global conservation efforts with adequate attention to local peculiarities is evident in the needs of inhabitants that are being met on a daily basis in its multiple project sites across the country they track records cut across conservation education, biodiversity surveys and species identification, policy advocacy, habitat identification and protection, research, internship for college graduates, media sensitization and fundraising, advocacy for rare species conservation, fight against environmental pollution and poverty reduction..."

LibraryPort-Encouraging reading one Book at a time

Led by Mina Ogbanga LibraryPort aims to:

...to provide quality educational opportunities by establishing libraries, creating local language children's literature, constructing schools, and providing education to girls. We seek to intervene early in the lives of children in the belief that education empowers people to improve socioeconomic conditions for their families, communities, countries and future generations.

Africa Past and Present

"...Africa Past and Present is a podcast about history, culture, and politics in Africa and the diaspora. The show highlights interesting and significant people, ideas, and discussions in African Studies from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. Our mission is to broaden the availability and accessibility of cutting-edge knowledge relating to African experiences and to do so in a down-to-earth and informed manner..."-website

Promoting a Reading Culture in Schools

It does not get more oxymoronic than this,George Ngwane writes:

One of the daunting challenges in the Cameroonian education system is the lack of reading culture in schools. This problem is compounded by two major factors.First, the Cameroonian system of education is dominated by exams which play a crucial role in deciding the students’ future. Second, almost all the students and teachers speak English as their second or even third language.

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Mushtaq Kahn on complex patron-client networks and corruption

Aid Thoughts delves into the work of Mushtaq Kahn who recently participated in debate with Daniel Kaufmann on the issue of corruption.Mushtaq asserts that:

Much of Sub-Saharan Africa is characterised by complex patron-client networks, in which a number of groups vie for the patronage of a Government with a weak power base vis-à-vis these groups. The Government cannot cut the corrupt relationships that exist between them and any of these groups in order to aid economic transformation, as the spurned group frequently has the political power to successfully challenge the Government. This contrasts sharply to patterns prevalent in most currently developed countries at the time of their transition to capitalism.

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