The private sector is Africa’s primary engine of growth. It generates an estimated 70 percent of Africa’s output, approximately two-thirds of its investment and 90 percent of employment on the continent. Based on these statistics supplied by the African Union (AU), the creation and development of private sector jobs is seen as one of the […]
Africa
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Levels of peace and stability on the African continent
The concept of “peace” has traditionally been abstract in definition. Perhaps the most workable methodology of approaching the concept of peace is to define it in terms of harmony achieved by the absence of war or conflict. This definition applied to nation states would purport that those countries not involved in violent conflicts with neighbouring […]
Posted inGeneral
Children are the future
On the occasion of my 28th birthday in March this year, the message from my mother was slightly different from that of years gone past: “Happy birthday son. You know I’m now eagerly anticipating the day you bring someone home and of course, also looking to hold your child in my hands.” From where I […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Understanding the growing trend of large-scale land acquisitions in Africa
The exponential international interest in investing in African farmland has attracted considerable attention recently. A 2011 Africa Development Bank study notes that 29 million of the 56 million hectares of land – approximately 51.8 percent – sought after by foreign investors globally is located in sub-Saharan Africa. Though countries with abundant uncultivated land attracted the […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Challenges to regional integration and trade in Africa
History and the legacy of colonialism have bequeathed the African continent with a legacy of fragmentation. The African continent geographically is divided into 54 countries, 28 of which have a GDP under $10-billion. In addition, 26 countries have a population under 10-million inhabitants, and 16 nations are landlocked. This fragmentation has traditionally been a significant […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zimbabwe 2013 elections: Necessities and options
By Discent Bajila In 2006, Professor Jonathan Nathaniel Moyo wrote, “That Mugabe must go is thus no longer a dismissible opposition slogan but a strategic necessity that desperately needs urgent legal and constitutional action by Mugabe himself.” Five years down the line, political events might have connived with each other and thrown the learned Mlevu […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Tracking economic growth and poverty reduction in Africa
Africa is currently experiencing its most dynamic growth period in recent times. Our continent has achieved an overall growth rate above 6 percent for most of the last ten years. This makes Africa one of the fastest growing regions in the world today, with notable progress in nearly all dimensions of development. Between 2000 and […]
Posted inGeneral
Joyce Banda: Not your average president
By Anneke Meerkotter If you do a search of Joyce Banda’s speech on May 18 2012, you will find a range of international media articles with headlines such as “Malawi president vows to repeal gay ban” (BBC, Huffington Post); “Malawi to overturn homosexual ban” (Guardian); “Malawi president to repeal gay laws” (Al-Jazeera) or “Malawi’s Banda […]
Posted inBusiness, General
Scramble for Africa 2.0
By Marc van Olst An auspicious meeting took place at the Berlin residence of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck about 130 years ago. Foreign ministers of 14 European powers and the United States established ground rules for the future exploitation of the “dark continent”. It must have been a lively and tense meeting as the superpowers […]
Posted inBusiness, General
Obama, please don’t break our hearts
by Bright Simons The enthusiasm that greeted the election of Barack Obama, the first and only American president with an African name, was palpable across Africa. Everywhere you travelled you heard and felt a new wave of positive sentiments about the possibility of a great new era for doing business between Africa and America. One […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Why we always sow the same old reap
I think most readers will be familiar with that unbearable screech which sometimes blasts out of a concert’s or meeting’s sound system. Well, that screech is caused by the feedback into the sound system of some of the amplified sound already produced by the system. Because the sound wave of the feedback is in phase […]
Posted inLifestyle
Cervical cancer: We can, must and should do more
The Reuters article on cancer in Africa that appeared in the Mail & Guardian on May 1 was an important reminder to all of us that while head-butting HIV and tackling TB, rushing food parcels to the malnourished thousands around the continent and battling our way through the diarrhoeas and pneumonias that plague our sickly […]