Michael Bratton and Robert Mattes. Reviewed By Devra Moehler. Observers of sub-Saharan Africa are sharply divided over the consequences of democratic and market reforms. Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-Boadi enter this polarized debate armed with extensive data about how ordinary Africans feel about the changes underway. The authors are generally hopeful about the prospects for democracy, noting that Africans define democracy in liberal terms, prefer democratic regimes, and give civil and political freedoms precedence over economic goods when evaluating their governments. (They are less sanguine about the popularity of market reforms.) And in sharp contrast to the social and cultural explanations…
Author: CASADE
Kirsty Taylor. Korea will further help tackle hunger in Africa following the Korean launch of a major UN report on the issue. The Korea International Cooperation Agency said Thursday that it will launch new rural development projects over the next 18 months in African nations including Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and Ethiopia. The projects to be started by the end of 2013 were announced at the Korean launch of the UN Africa Human Development Report 2012. Senior Foreign Ministry and KOICA officials were joined by United Nations Development Programme Seoul Policy Centre director Anne-Isabelle Degryse-Blateau and Kenyan…
Sub-Saharan Africa cannot sustain its present economic resurgence unless it eliminates the hunger that affects nearly a quarter of its people, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) argues in the newly released Africa Human Development Report: Towards a Food Secure Future. “Impressive GDP growth rates in Africa have not translated into the elimination of hunger and malnutrition. Inclusive growth, policies and people-centered approaches to food security are needed,” said Anne-Isabelle Degryse-Blateau, UNDP Seoul Policy Centre Director. Arguing that action focused on agriculture alone will not end food insecurity either, the Report calls for new approaches covering multiple sectors: from rural…
U.S. Africa Command Public Affairs. At the invitation of and in coordination with the government of Cameroon, U.S. military forces will partner with Cameroon’s Ministry of Defense on a temporary, expeditionary contingency support location. The combined activities conducted at this location are designed to better enhance the capability and capacity of our partners in the Cameroon defense forces to promote stability and security within Cameroon and the surrounding region. The deployed personnel will support Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) flights being conducted in the area. The results of these ISR flights will better enable African partners to secure their borders…
In a special report on how Nigeria’s elites and public officials mismanaged the country’s oil revenue, Tim Cocks and Joe Brock of Reuters, provide evidence and analysis that lend substance to the allegations made by the erstwhile governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank, Lamido Sanusi. Tim Cocks and Joe Brocks. In late 2013, Nigeria’s then central bank governor Lamido Sanusi wrote to President Goodluck Jonathan claiming that the state oil company had failed to remit tens of billions of oil revenues it owed the state. After the letter was leaked to Reuters and a local news site, Jonathan publicly dismissed the claim and replaced Sanusi, saying the…
Jared Kalow. In July, 2015, Nigerian President Buhari and President Obama spoke at length in the Oval Office. Much of the discussion focused on defeating Boko Haram and rooting out corruption in Nigeria. Yet, President Obama’s Power Africa Initiative, which aims to help provide access to 60 million households and businesses across Africa, was also high on the agenda. That is no surprise. Over 80 million Nigerians currently live without electricity and the general public is becoming increasingly negative about the pace of power sector improvements. So, where should Power Africa and other partners focus their efforts in Nigeria? One…
Ben Leo. On August 14, 2015 the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), led by Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) and Ranking Member Ben Cardin (D-MD), dropped its long awaited Electrify Africa Act of 2015. This follows a House companion version, which was introduced in June. Both actions are good news for US development, foreign, and commercial policy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Whereas the last Congress was unable to get similar legislation over the finish line, we are hoping that this one will get the job done. There are three key reasons why this is so important. First, it would provide a…
THE stylishly dressed men and women window-shopping in the air-conditioned cool of the Lagos Palms shopping mall speak of a Nigerian economy and middle class on the rise. But out the back, the stench of diesel fumes hanging heavily in the muggy tropical air is evidence of failings that are holding back Africa’s biggest economy: banks of diesel generators chug away to supply eye-wateringly expensive power because Nigeria’s rickety national grid is so unreliable. Across Africa investors joke about living in a “bring-your-own-infrastructure” continent, in which firms must provide independent generators, water purification and even sewage treatment when building a…
By James Rickards. In 1971, President Nixon imposed national price controls and took the United States off the gold standard, an extreme measure intended to end an ongoing currency war that had destroyed faith in the U.S. dollar. Today we are engaged in a new currency war, and this time the consequences will be far worse than those that confronted Nixon. Currency wars are one of the most destructive and feared outcomes in international economics. At best, they offer the sorry spectacle of countries’ stealing growth from their trading partners. At worst, they degenerate into sequential bouts of inflation, recession,…
By Ashish J. Thakkar. More movies are made in Nigeria than Hollywood each year. M-pesa, arguably the world’s most successful mobile payments system, is a Kenyan creation. There are signs that not only is Africa’s brain drain reversing but that outsiders are increasingly viewing the continent as a land of opportunity rather than a place to be pitied. These are just a few of the themes explored by Ashsh Thakkar in this book. Thakkar uses his own life story — Rwandan genocide survivor, Ugandan school dropout-turned-entrepreneur at 15, and now, aged 34, founder and head of the diversified Mara Group…