More hereSeventeen years after he left office, Babangida, now a 68-year-old widower, has become the first Nigerian to announce a presidential ambition for 2011. As you would expect, the disclosure has set Nigeria on fire – everyone is talking. Most of the voices are of anger, disbelief and surprise. How dare Babangida? A man who annulled the least controversial election Nigeria has had in its 50-year history, now turns around to say he wants to be elected into office?
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More hereNot far from Pô is located the famous city of Tiébélé composed of spectacular semi-circular shaped traditional houses. In Tiébélé like in Pô, the facades are decorated with black, white and brown geometric signs and symbols. The black is obtained from graphite, the white from kaolin and the brown is a mixture of earthy tones and nere (Parkia Biglobosa) also used to colorize and seal ceramics. The regular patterns symbolize the culture, the history of the Kassena community part of the Gourounsi people.
The Western Renaissance helped to democratize “the word” so that all of us could speak of our own individual struggles, and this added new meaning and urgency to the alleviation of the suffering of others. The problem with foreign aid in Ethiopia is that both the Ethiopian government and its donors see the people of this country not as individuals with distinct needs, talents, and rights but as an undifferentiated mass, to be mobilized, decentralized, vaccinated, given primary education and pit latrines, and freed from the legacy of feudalism, imperialism, and backwardness. It is this rigid focus on the “backward masses,” rather than the unique human person, that typically justifies appalling cruelty in the name of social progress.More here
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According to the 2009 Milken Institute report "Stimulating Investment in Emerging-Market SMEs," they account for 57 percent of employment and over 50 percent of GDP in developed countries. But in the developing countries, they contribute only 18 percent of employment and 16 percent of GDP. The report concludes that "if barriers to their growth were removed, SMEs would contribute more to economic development by providing jobs and income, expanding the middle class, broadening the tax base and ultimately decreasing poverty levels."...[continue reading]
European countries have been struggling these past few weeks with the issue of financially aiding Greece out of its deepening economic crisis. Surprisingly, the same countries that always readily recommend and prescribe IMF “assistance” for African countries have found themselves wrestling with accepting this route for Greece because it is supposedly “humiliating” and “embarrassing.”...[continue reading]
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...a combination of challenges and opportunities is producing a fizzing cocktail of creativity. Because so many consumers are poor, companies have to go for volume. But because piracy is so commonplace, they also have to keep upgrading their products. Again the similarities with Japan in the 1980s are striking. Toyota and Honda took to “just-in-time” inventories and quality management because land and raw materials were expensive. In the same way emerging-market companies are turning problems into advantages....the emerging markets are developing their own distinctive management ideas, and Western companies will increasingly find themselves learning from their rivals. People who used to think of the emerging world as a source of cheap labour must now recognise that it can be a source of disruptive innovation as well.More here
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Much has been said of celebrities taking an interest in Africa. Celebrities like Oprah, Madonna, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Danny Glover and, of course, Bono, have pusued a wide range of Africa-related causes and initiatives to mixed response here and elsewhere in the media. For their March/April issue Mother Jones magazine has put together a fun interactive map outlining which American celebrities have been most involved in which African countries.More here
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Every Saturday morning, the group of 30 little girls, drawn mainly from Valley View Academy, gather to practice the complex moves of the elite art form of ballet dancing.Photo courtesy of Anthony Njoroge
Their passion is easily visible, and they do not seem to mind the extra hard work. To them, ballet has replaced the more traditional children’s games like msongesho, katilo, blada, shake and kati...“Through ballet, the girls are empowered,” says Wamaya (The Anno's ballet instructor). “The girls go through a lot in the slums. They see violence and social ills; but in ballet they find hope.”
To stimulate growth and development in Africa, governments and international organizations to reverse the negative consequences of the “brain drain.” Aid donors should tap into the underutilized knowledge of Africans living outside of Africa when trying to craft aid plans...[continue reading]
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New media is all the rage. Tanzania’s political class has been pretty excited over the last week or two by the formation of a new political party, CCJ (the name stands for Chama Cha Jamii, or Party of Society). There are a number of interesting things about this event, but one of wider interest beyond the confines of Tanzanian political discourse is their use of an innovative way of registering new party members, normally poaching them from other parties: text messaging and internet registration. The Swahili daily Nipashe ran an article about this a few days ago which I’ve only just noticed now, under the headline ‘CCJ Yazidi Kujitanua Kisiasa’ (‘CCJ are Growing and Widening Themselves Politically’). It writes:“This strategy, unprecedented in the history of the whole of East Africa, relates to the use of news and communications technology [ICT] … as the service which allows citizens to join the party by electronic means wherever they are…”...[continue reading]
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Boston University African Studies Center Director Timothy Longman said opposition members are also often blamed in a power-sharing setting when things go wrong."What is actually a stronger answer is to guarantee that the opposition has rights, so that if you want to criticize the government, you are free to do so without being harassed, if you want to publish a newspaper that is critical of the government, you should be able to do that without being harassed, if you want to organize a party, you should be able to do that without being harassed..."And what is very important as well is to make sure that elections are actually free and fair, the reason that we end up with these coalitions is usually because someone has stolen an election," he added.More here
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photo courtesy of CNNAccording to a local market trader, the bead revival is a sign that young Ghanaians are experiencing what she called "sankofa.""There's a culture of 'sankofa:' Go back and retrieve what you've left behind," said bead-shop owner Ernestina Anafu...There was a period when they [young people] shunned beads; they said it was archaic, it was no longer fashionable. Since this period of 'sankofa' people are going traditional again."...[continue reading]
More hereMany traders are members of the Mouride brotherhood, a branch of African Sufi Islam which has become Senegal's most influential religious, political and economic force.A unique mix of militant capitalism and moderate Islam, its central doctrine of hard work as a means to paradise has led thousands to leave Senegal's sunny shores with one goal -- to earn money and send it back to the holy city of Touba.
More here...we all need to use a fresh lens when looking at Nigeria. Backroom deals in which political elites negotiate the fate of Nigeria's 150 million people are a relic of the past -- or they should be. The North-South power rotation, or "zoning" arrangement, that pretends to offer stability to Nigeria's ethnically diverse population has morphed into a convenient justification for self-centered politicians.
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More hereIn February 1897, a ‘punitive expedition' was sent to Benin to capture the king and destroy his kingdom in retaliation for the killing of a British Counsel and his party on their way to investigate reports of ritual human sacrifice in the city. But the punitive expedition not only went beyond its brief - capturing and destroying the city - it also engaged in large scale looting of artifacts. Among other war ‘booties', about 900 Benin bronze works were taken from the city to "defray the cost of the war." Many of these are held at the British Museum in London, and have been the subject of long standing contention between Britain and Nigeria.
HT! @digitalafrican"...reveal a unique snapshot of life in Africa today, documenting the nature of urban life in a developing country, a unique geo-cultural survey profiling the African city in a global context...he has captured the urban development of cities including Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda showing traces of its Colonial past, Tripoli in Libya, very much invaded by the energy of the present, the informal settlements on the edges of new cities like Abuja, Nigeria and the traces of apartheid still inscribed on Pretoria, South Africa."-creative boom
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Human-rights campaigners think the limpness of America and European Union countries, especially Britain, in the face of Mr Zenawi gives him a free rein to abuse his own people. This week’s report by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby, claims that, after 20 years in power, Mr Zenawi’s ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front has “total control of local and district administrations to monitor and intimidate individuals at a household level.” With a general election due on May 23rd, opposition supporters, says the report, are often castigated as subversives by the government, denied the right to assembly, and harassed. The press has been “stifled”. Newspapers avoid writing about opposition parties or people the government says have terrorist links...[continue reading]via Texas in Africa
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"It is not unreasonable to estimate total illicit outflows from the continent across the 39 years at some $1.8tn," writes Raymond Baker, director of the GFI."This massive flow of illicit money out of Africa is facilitated by a global shadow financial system comprising tax havens, secrecy jurisdictions, disguised corporations, anonymous trust accounts, fake foundations, trade mis-pricing and money laundering techniques."...[continue reading]
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A groundbreaking collaboration between documentary film and a series of recording sessions that rediscover the incredible music of the independence era in Africa,in time for the 50th Anniversary of Independence in many African countries in 2010
Museveni aims to maintain a projection of democracy amid a reality of family, dynastic rule. Unwilling to abide by term limits on his own presidency, Museveni takes steady actions to engineer a succession by a family member, perhaps a child or even his own wife, Janet, who is a member of Parliament and a political force in her own right. Once a political icon who justly achieved acclaim for bringing stability to a strife-torn Uganda and fighting AIDS with intelligence, Museveni has become a kind of Mugabe-in-the-making, ever-more willing to sacrifice his country’s well-being for his own narrow interests.More here
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More hereWhy do we, as non profits, not trust our donors to be smart enough to understand that the world is a complex place. Surely Americans are not as dumb as we have made them out. I would like to think that the average donor is capable of, and willing to take the time to see if they agree with any particular solution to the very complex problems facing the continent?
More hereRight now, I’m more concerned about influencing young people, especially in my country and in Africa, to think differently. We must not continue with the same thought patterns that have kept our continent so far behind the rest of humanity in many ways. Preserving and projecting our cultures is wonderful, but a deeper form of love for our people and for the places we come from, is demanding change when it will move us forward.
More hereThe tree-planting effort in the Sahel is an all-women activity. When we started, we left our lands un-cleared so that the tree stumps may grow. Then we clear the land. With each tree stump, we leave about 7 shoots on it to develop. Then with time, after two or three years, we thin the trees to reduce the density of the foliage. As time went on, the trees began to reduce the wind erosion. We then got firewood, fodder for our animals - and then the herbs started coming out.
He gathered young people from his hometown -- only a few dozen at first -- but those young people recruited their friends and family until there were hundreds. On only two acres of land they planted thousands of seedlings. Now, Tahir owns 11,000 acres of Ethiopian land on which his group has planted one million trees...[continue reading].
More hereI just wrote about the amazing ability of some birds to sing multiple notes at once. This woman's ability to switch rapidly between her head and chest voice is totally daring anyone to say humans couldn't defy all odds and learn to do it too: Akazehe par une jeune filleThe liner notes for these songs say that this woman is using her lips as a reed. If you listen carefully, you can hear the switch over to her normal voice. It's a traditional kind of song for mourning...
Most countries in Africa are using Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers as their templates for development. I have no problem with this approach insofar as there are a number of interlinked problems which hamper development and some idea of how scarce resources will be allocated to address them is to be welcomed; if there a clear vision as to what should be achieved and how it may be done, it should be welcomed. Unfortunately, my experience has been that most PRSPs have fallen prey to the problem of empty rhetoric as well. The PRSP professes to lay out a plan, and suggests a set of activities that will be performed in its name, but in actuality it is little more than a paper document designed to dazzle...[continue reading]
