Thursday, November 3, 2011

YES WE CAN. DO IT AGAIN!


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Sunday, October 23, 2011

NATO Assasination: Colonel Muammar Gaddafi

Gaddafi's killing - with all the hallmarks of a 'coordinated assassination' – marks 'one more episode ion this NATO war in Libya and North Africa', writes Horace Campbell. The 'remilitarization of Africa and new deployment of Africom is a new stage of African politics,' says Campbell.

The news of the killing of Colonel Gaddafi in the battle to take Sirte marked one more episode in this NATO war in Libya and North Africa. The killing has all of the hallmarks of a coordinated assassination, synchronized between NATO aircraft and forces on the ground. The reports are that Gaddaffi was attacked when he was attempting to leave Sirte in a convoy. The convoy was attacked from the air. The National Transitional Council has announced that the war is over but the very nature of this execution guarantees that this uprising will not end soon.

This execution comes one day after the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of the United States openly called for the political assassination of Col Gaddafi, the Libyan leader. "We hope he can be captured or killed soon," This statement guaranteed that although Gadhafi was captured alive he was killed while injured.

The very management of the news of this execution represented efforts to influence the continued political/military struggles within the divided forces. The hijacking of the body and its transportation to Misrata was one more indication of the internal struggles in the NTC and Libya.

It is still urgent that the African Union and the United Nations work for the demilitarization of Libya and for the work to organize an inclusive government in Libya. The execution of Gaddafi comes in a week of heightened military action in parts of Africa, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and the Horn.

This remilitarization of Africa and new deployment of Africom is a new stage of African politics. Remilitarization, killings, and death will not answer the cries for democracy, peace, and food in Africa and other areas of the world where the exploited and marginalized are raising their voices against oppression. A new revolutionary energy is sweeping the world manifest in the current general strike by workers in Greece and the massive occupy wall street movement with 900 manifestations all over the world last weekend.

In every case over several decades, examples of militarization and remilitarization have increased the anguish of those living on the margins of wealth and power. I am certain that careful investigation will expose the callous disregard for human life, what in NATO and Western Military language is called "collateral damage." Given the cloud that hangs over this killing that it was most likely a coordinated execution - those of us who are on the side of peace and justice asks the following questions:

Why did the West want him dead?

Did they have something to hide?

The answers to these and other questions now lie with the corpse of a man who was more friendly to capital than to his people.

Peace and justice forces must work harder to end wars, plunder and western military interventions in Africa.

* Horace Campbell is professor of African-American studies and political science at Syracuse University. He is the author of ‘Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA’. See horacecampbell.net, and a contributing author to African Awakening: The emerging revolutions. He is currently Visiting Professor, Department of International Relations, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Kwame Nkrumah: Positive Action

by Odette Aponza
Kwame Nkrumah (21 September 1909 - 27 April 1972) the leader of Ghana Listen to Reason! In 1909, Kwame Nkrumah was born to Madam Nyaniba in Nkroful, Gold Coast. Nkrumah graduated from the Achimota School in Accra in 1930, studied at a Roman Catholic seminary, and taught at a Catholic school in Axim. In 1935 he left Ghana for the United States, receiving a BA from Lincoln University, Pennsylvania in 1939, where he pledged the Mu Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, and received a Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 1942. Nkrumah earned a Master of Science in education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942, and a Master of Arts in philosophy the following year. While lecturing in political science at Lincoln he was elected president of the African Students Organization of America and Canada. As an undergraduate at Lincoln he participated in at least one student theater production and published an essay on European government in Africa in the student newspaper, The Lincolnian. During his time in the United States, Nkrumah preached at black Presbyterian Churches in Philadelphia and New York City. He read books about politics and divinity, and tutored students in philosophy. Nkrumah encountered the ideas of Marcus Garvey and in 1943 met and began a lengthy correspondence with Trinidadian Marxist C.L.R. James, Russian expatriate Raya Dunayevskaya, and Chinese-American Grace Lee Boggs, all of whom were members of a US based Trotskyist intellectual cohort. Nkrumah later credited James with teaching him 'how an underground movement worked'. He arrived in London in May 1945 intending to study at the LSE. After meeting with George Padmore, he helped organize the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, England. Then he founded the West African National Secretariat to work for the decolonization of Africa. Nkrumah served as Vice-President of the West African Students' Union (WASU).

Return to the Gold Coast
In the autumn of 1947, Nkrumah was invited to serve as the General Secretary to the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) under Joseph B. Danquah. This political convention was exploring paths to independence. Nkrumah accepted the position and sailed for the Gold Coast. After brief stops in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Ivory Coast, he arrived in the Gold Coast in December 1947.
In February 1948, police fired on African ex-servicemen protesting the rising cost of living. The shooting spurred riots in Accra, Kumasi, and elsewhere. The government suspected the UGCC was behind the protests and arrested Nkrumah and other party leaders. Realizing their error, the British soon released the convention leaders. After his imprisonment by the colonial government, Nkrumah emerged as the leader of the youth movement in 1948.
After his release, Nkrumah hitchhiked around the country. He proclaimed that the Gold Coast needed "self-government now", and built a large power base. Cocoa farmers rallied to his cause because they disagreed with British policy to contain swollen shoot disease. He invited women to participate in the political process at a time when women's suffrage was new to Africa. The trade unions also allied with his movement. By 1949, he organized these groups into a new political party: The Convention People's Party.

The British convened a selected commission of middle class Africans to draft a new constitution that would give Ghana more self-government. Under the new constitution, only those with sufficient wage and property would be allowed to vote. Nkrumah organized a "People's Assembly" with CPP party members, youth, trade unionists, farmers, and veterans. They called for universal franchise without property qualifications, a separate house of chiefs, and self-governing status under the Statute of Westminster 1931. These amendments, known as the Constitutional Proposals of October 1949, were rejected by the colonial administration.
When the colonial administration rejected the People's Assembly's recommendations, Nkrumah organized a "Positive Action" campaign in January 1950, including civil disobedience, non-cooperation, boycotts, and strikes. The colonial administration arrested Nkrumah and many CPP supporters, and he was sentenced to three years in prison.

Facing international protests and internal resistance, the British decided to leave the Gold Coast. Britain organized the first general election to be held under universal franchise on 5–10 February 1951. Though in jail, Nkrumah's CPP was elected by a landslide taking 34 out of 38 elected seats in the Legislative Assembly. Komla Agbeli Gbedemah is credited with organizing Nkrumah's entire campaign while he (Nkrumah) was still in prison at Fort James. Nkrumah was released from prison on 12 February, and summoned by the British Governor Charles Arden-Clarke, and asked to form a government on the 13th. The new Legislative Assembly met on 20 February, with Nkrumah as Leader of Government Business, and E.C. Quist as President of the Assembly. A year later, the constitution was amended to provide for a Prime Minister on 10 March 1952, and Nkrumah was elected to that post by a secret ballot in the Assembly, 45 to 31, with eight abstentions on 21 March. He presented his "Motion of Destiny" to the Assembly, requesting independence within the British Commonwealth "as soon as the necessary constitutional arrangements are made" on 10 July 1953, and that body approved it.

Independence

As a leader of this government, Nkrumah faced many challenges: first, to learn to govern; second, to unify the four territories of the Gold Coast; third, to win his nation’s complete independence from the United Kingdom. Nkrumah was successful at all three goals. Within six years of his release from prison, he was the leader of an independent nation. At 12 a.m. on 6 March 1957, Nkrumah declared Ghana independent. He was hailed as the Osagyefo - which means "redeemer" in the Twi language. On 6 March 1960, Nkrumah announced plans for a new constitution which would make Ghana a republic. The draft included a provision to surrender Ghanaian sovereignty to a Union of African States. On 19, 23, and 27 April 1960 a presidential election and plebiscite on the constitution were held. The constitution was ratified and Nkrumah was elected president over J. B. Danquah, the UP candidate, 1,016,076 to 124,623. In 1961, Nkrumah laid the first stones in the foundation of the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute created to train Ghanaian civil servants as well as promote Pan-Africanism. In 1964, all students entering college in Ghana were required to attend a two-week "ideological orientation" at the Institute. Nkrumah remarked that "trainees should be made to realize the party's ideology is religion, and should be practiced faithfully and fervently." In 1963, Nkrumah was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union. Ghana became a charter member of the Organization of African Unity in 1963.
The Gold Coast had been among the wealthiest and most socially advanced areas in Africa, with schools, railways, hospitals, social security and an advanced economy. Under Nkrumah’s leadership, Ghana adopted some socialist policies and practices. Nkrumah created a welfare system, started various community programs, and established schools.

Politics
He generally took a non-aligned Marxist perspective on economics, and believed capitalism had malignant effects that were going to stay with Africa for a long time. Although he was clear on distancing himself from the African socialism of many of his contemporaries, Nkrumah argued that socialism was the system that would best accommodate the changes that capitalism had brought, while still respecting African values. He specifically addresses these issues and his politics in a 1967 essay entitled "African Socialism Revisited": "We know that the traditional African society was founded on principles of egalitarianism. In its actual workings, however, it had various shortcomings. Its humanist impulse, nevertheless, is something that continues to urge us towards our all-African socialist reconstruction. We postulate each man to be an end in himself, not merely a means; and we accept the necessity of guaranteeing each man equal opportunities for his development. The implications of this for socio-political practice have to be worked out scientifically, and the necessary social and economic policies pursued with resolution. Any meaningful humanism must begin from egalitarianism and must lead to objectively chosen policies for safeguarding and sustaining egalitarianism. Hence, socialism. Hence, also, scientific socialism."
Nkrumah was also perhaps best known politically for his strong commitment to and promotion of Pan-Africanism. He was inspired by the writings of black intellectuals like Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, and George Padmore, and his relationships with them. Nkrumah's biggest success in this area was perhaps his significant influence in the founding of the Organization of African Unity.

Economics

Nkrumah attempted to rapidly industrialize Ghana's economy. He reasoned that if Ghana escaped the colonial trade system by reducing dependence on foreign capital, technology, and material goods, it could become truly independent. However, overspending on capital projects caused the country to be driven deeply into debt—estimated as much as $1 billion USD by the time he was ousted in 1966.

Decline and fall
The year 1954 was a pivotal year during the Nkrumah era. In that year's independence elections, he tallied some of the independence election vote. However, that same year saw the world price of cocoa rise from £150 to £450 per ton. Rather than allowing cocoa farmers to maintain the windfall, Nkrumah appropriated the increased revenue via federal levies, then invested the capital into various national development projects. This policy alienated one of the major constituencies that helped him come to power. In 1958 Nkrumah introduced legislation to restrict various freedoms in Ghana. After the Gold Miners' Strike of 1955, Nkrumah introduced the Trade Union Act, which made strikes illegal. When he suspected opponents in parliament of plotting against him, he wrote the Preventive Detention Act that made it possible for his administration to arrest and detain anyone charged with treason without due process of law in the judicial system. Prisoners were often held without trial, and their only legal method of recourse was personal appeal to Nkrumah himself.
When the railway workers went on strike in 1961, Nkrumah ordered strike leaders and opposition politicians arrested under the Trade Union Act of 1958. While Nkrumah had organized strikes just a few years before, he now opposed industrial democracy because it conflicted with rapid industrial development. He told the unions that their days as advocates for the safety and just compensation of miners were over, and that their new job was to work with management to mobilize human resources. Wages must give way to patriotic duty because the good of the nation superseded the good of individual workers, Nkrumah's administration contended.

The Detention Act led to widespread disaffection with Nkrumah’s administration. Some of his associates used the law to arrest innocent people to acquire their political offices and business assets. Advisers close to Nkrumah became reluctant to question policies for fear that they might be seen as opponents. When the clinics ran out of pharmaceuticals, no one notified him. Some people believed that he no longer cared. Police came to resent their role in society, particularly after Nkrumah superseded most of their duties and responsibilities with his personal guard - the National Security Service and presidential Guard regiments. Nkrumah disappeared from public view out of a justifiable fear of assassination following multiple attempts on his life. In 1964, he proposed a constitutional amendment making the CPP the only legal party and himself president for life of both nation and party. The amendment passed with 99.91 percent of the vote, an implausibly high total that could have only been obtained through fraud. Indeed, observers condemned the vote as "obviously rigged." In any event, Ghana had effectively been a one-party state since independence. The amendment transformed Nkrumah's presidency into a de facto legal dictatorship.

Nkrumah's advocacy of industrial development at any cost, with help of longtime friend and Minister of Finance, Komla Agbeli Gbedema, led to the construction of a hydroelectric power plant, the Akosombo Dam on the Volta River in eastern Ghana. Kaiser Aluminum agreed to build the dam for Nkrumah, but restricted what could be produced using the power generated. Nkrumah borrowed money to build the dam, and placed Ghana in debt. To finance the debt, he raised taxes on the cocoa farmers in the south. This accentuated regional differences and jealousy. The dam was completed and opened by Nkrumah amidst world publicity on 22 January 1966. Nkrumah appeared to be at the zenith of his power, but the end of his regime was only days away.
Nkrumah wanted Ghana to have modern armed forces, so he acquired aircraft and ships, and introduced conscription. He also gave military support to those fighting the Smith administration in Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia. In February 1966, while Nkrumah was on a state visit to North Vietnam and China, his government was overthrown in a military coup led by Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka and the National Liberation Council. Several commentators, such as John Stockwell, have claimed the coup received support from the CIA.

Exile, death and tributes
Nkrumah never returned to Ghana, but he continued to push for his vision of African unity. He lived in exile in Conakry, Guinea, as the guest of President Ahmed Sékou Touré, who made him honorary co-president of the country. He read, wrote, corresponded, gardened, and entertained guests. Despite retirement from public office, he was still frightened of western intelligence agencies. When his cook died, he feared that someone would poison him, and began hoarding food in his room. He suspected that foreign agents were going through his mail, and lived in constant fear of abduction and assassination. In failing health, he flew to Bucharest, Romania, for medical treatment in August 1971. He died of skin cancer in April 1972 at the age of 62. Nkrumah was buried in a tomb in the village of his birth, Nkroful, Ghana. While the tomb remains in Nkroful, his remains were transferred to a large national memorial tomb and park in Accra.
Over his lifetime, Nkrumah was awarded honorary doctorates by Lincoln University, Moscow State University; Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt; Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland; Humboldt University in the former East Berlin; and many other universities.

In 2000, he was voted Africa's man of the millennium by listeners to the BBC World Service.

Peace, wisdom be unto you all!


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Tuesday, October 11, 2011

THE UJAMAA METHOD: A SYSTEM FOR THE ECONOMIC UNITY OF THE AFRICAN WORLD

by Shannon Rose
Africans have been at the forefront of epic achievements of immensity and splendor since antiquity.  Africans on the Continent produced the primordial and incomparable Kingdom of Kemet which spawned the greatest examples of scientific achievement know to man.  From Africa also ascends the legacy of Nubia, Timbuktu and the noble empires of Mali, Ghana and Songhay.  The Transatlantic Slave Trade brought Africans to the "New World" where this heritage of achievement would continue.  Against formidable odds we sacked the French in the Haitian Revolution, gave birth to the Brazilian Kingdom of Palmares and seated the first Black president of the United States of America.
Like so many other monumental feats of the past, the African in America has today begun to amass great sums of wealth.  In fact, African Americans represent roughly 12% of the United States and by the first quarter of 2012, will be in command of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS of monetary power.  

One trillion dollars is equal to over $25,000 per each Black man, woman and child in the US.  Properly harnessed and reserved strictly for the fortification of the Black collective, this amount of economic power makes African Americans the 8th richest community on earth.

Given the economic uncertainty of this new millennium, it is incumbent upon the African American community to devise a plan to reign in our buying power and make sure it is OUR COMMUNITY that reaps the benefits of OUR MONEY.  The African principle of Ujamaa or Cooperative Economics, urges us to build and maintain Black businesses, educational facilities and other institutions, and to profit from themThe three part method you are about to read combines three, viable money making systems that allow us to recycle the Black dollars, advertise to the Global Black market and exchange vital business tools through networking.   

The first part of this strategy is utilizing the Black Business Builders profit distribution system.  This system is not pyramid or MLM, its simply “RECYCLING BLACK DOLLARS”.  The creators of this program have built a foolproof system where we can “use the Internet to build wealth and keep it circulating within the Black community.”

Current members enroll prospective members and get paid for doing so.  As long as members maintain their $27 monthly membership fee and continue to fervently add people to the system, everyone profits.  In fact, members of Black Business Builders receive residual profits from EVERY person they’ve EVER enrolled into the system, for the LIFE of your membership.

Black Business Builders members are given a treasure trove of tools to market this business online i.e., your own webpage, audio/video postcards, pod casts, Internet radio and Live Broadcaster, a flash-based, software application that allows the broadcaster to conduct live audio and/or video events online.  By paying $27 per month, your community will be paying you and you will be paying your community. http://www.BlackBusinessBuilders.com?7860

The second part of this system is the MLM program Better Web Builder.  With this system, members are supplied with a website, online video presentations, capture pages, auto responders, sales pages, advertising banners, a link creator, affiliate rotator, affiliate placement, email affiliates and more.  In fact, you can join the company for free or pay the $29.95 monthly Gold membership fee to receive optimal benefits.  http://www.mybwbsite.com/2103166

With the Gold membership, you’ll be paid for SEVEN levels of subsequent enrollments.  As well, the Gold membership allows members to promote, advertise and market FIVE OF YOUR OWN BUSINESSES.

The third part of this system is a referral program called  Zip Nada Zilch (ONE).  This is an umbrella company for 18 different websites that pay people to refer other people to different companies.  You need a PayPal account and a debit/credit card in order to sign up.  When the person you’ve referred to a company, on one of the 18 different websites, orders something from one of the companies, you can get paid for the referral or you can get iPhones, iPads and other digital devices.                                 http://one.zipnadazilch.com/index.php?referral=213043

Some may ask, why were these 3 systems combined?  Why wouldn’t we just use Black Business Builders?  My answer is, indeed, the Black Business Builders program is GENIUS and CREATED FOR US BY US!  UJAMAA can’t be defined better anywhere, in any other system, online or offline.   What’s more, THIS BUSINESS DOESN’T SELL ANYTHING EXCEPT THE OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO BECOME RICH BY INVESTING IN OURSELVES!   However, in utilizing Better Web Builder, for $30 you can ADVERTISE and MARKET FIVE BUSINESSES on the Internet.  This feature allows us to fast-track our individual Internet footprints and create multiple streams of income.

Lastly, Zip Nada Zilch is the FASTEST and EASIEST way to get paid on the Internet simply by paying if forward.  Once I’ve referred someone to the program and they make a small purchase, I make money.  As well, the referral INSTANTLY becomes a member and can then begin referring people and getting paid.  Further, the referrals can be used to obtain the digital devices vital in operating a highly mobile, online business.  If we use our imagination, as a community, we could use this system as a FAST and EASY way to generate money for a myriad of things.

The impetus for all this is found in the imminent monetary power of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.  The order in which the programs are implemented, isn’t what’s important.  The importance lies in making our dollars BOUNCE within the Black community and the organization of our wealth thereafter.  With the power of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS, the African race could be of the highest educated, most innovative and pioneering people on the planet.

This is not the plan, it’s A plan.  A plan that is instantly implementable.  Other plans for the economic unity of the Black community can be added to this one for further fortification.  

Put the UJAMAA into motion and make ONE TRILLION DOLLARS BOUNCE in the hands of your own people.  BLACK PEOPLE UNITE

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“I freed a thousand slaves.  I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”  Harriet Tubman

"Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it."  El-Hajj Malik-El Shabazz  The Honorable Minister Malcolm X

“To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.”  W.E.B. Dubois

"Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it."  Dr. John Henrik Clarke

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking.  There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions.  Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”  Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Organize, organize, organize!  Organize with a sense of scientific rebellion.”  Kwame Ture

"Patience Has Its Limits. Take It Too Far, And It's Cowardice."  George Jackson

"Have you forgotten that once we were brought here, we were robbed of our name, robbed of our language. We lost our religion, our culture, our god...and many of us, by the way we act, we even lost our minds."  Dr. Khalid Abdul Muhammad

“Every time we put our money into another group’s hand we are aiding them in wiping us out.”  Dr. Claude Anderson

"I wake up each morning with a vision of a restored Kemet (New Africa), re-constructed by New African Men and Women, renewed and re-affirmed in their Africaness, and giving rise to a New World, in which we step back on the stage of Human History, as a Free, Proud and Productive People.”  MK 10311

"But now with the living conditions deteriorating, and with the sure knowledge that we are slated for destruction, we have been transformed into an implacable army of
liberation."  George Jackson

“No man is free until he learns to do his own thinking and gains the courage to act on his own personal initiatives.”  Napoleon Hill

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Friday, September 23, 2011

The Very Familiar, But Not Surprising Troy Davis Case

by Shannon Rose


After disseminating all of the information I could concerning Troy Davis online this morning, I got a message from Mr. Prince A. Lee, asking me to write an article for the Connecticut Black News Network.  I messaged him and told him I didn’t know all of the facts of the case and he told me he was looking more for commentary as opposed to facts.  So, I agreed. 
Troy Davis is scheduled for execution on Wednesday September 21st at 7pm.  His defense team lost it’s bid for appeal on Monday the 19th and again today.  They attempted numerous tactics to get the Georgia Board of Pardons to grant a stay of execution, including offering to take a polygraph test, but again that too was denied.  The NAACP, the ACLU, Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Pope have all requested an immediate stay of execution on behalf of Troy Davis.  People across the country and around the world are staging protests, Facebook campaigns and vigils on behalf of Troy, but as of 5pm Eastern standard, Mr. Davis remains scheduled to die by lethal injection. 
Troy was convicted of the 1989 shooting death of an Atlanta police officer, despite the fact that no gun was recovered, there was no DNA evidence found at the scene and seven out of nine witness affidavits were recanted.  While admitting he was there when the shooting took place, Mr. Davis maintains he was not the shooter.
The prosecution claims ballistic evidence places Troy Davis at the scene of the crime, but this contention, along with many others concerning the evidence compiled in this case are the cause of grave skepticism and should therefore reveal evidence of reasonable doubt, according to Davis’s supporters.  Some compelling questions include, how does ballistic evidence place Troy Davis at the scene, if no murder weapon was ever found?  As well, on what grounds could he be denied appeal, when seven witnesses say their statements were coerced, one witness saying “all the cop wanted to hear was that Troy Davis was the shooter”?  In fact, one woman was reported to have told police that a man that was proven to have been at the scene of the crime, bragged about being the actual shooter.
Again, as I told Mr. Lee, I don’t know all of the facts in the case and I don’t feel as if I’m qualified to write an article about it, however, I do feel Troy Davis has been wrongly convicted and should be granted appeal based on the amount of doubt shrouding this case. 
While I do agree, Troy Davis has received insurmountable support from his family, community and legal team, I think local and federal, Black politicians could have used their office more effectively in pressuring the state of Georgia to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt, in the face of so much doubt, before committing a possibly innocent man to a Georgia death chamber.  I mean, what are they there for, particularly local politicians, if they aren’t going to publicly fight on behalf of their constituency?  What’s more, why do we continue to elect people to office if they aren’t going to exhaust every resource available to them in times of great need? 
Still all of this is neither here nor there, because African Americans are a minority in this country and there is only so much the politicians we elect can do on our behalf.  We don’t have the economic power and therefore the political clout to effect the outcomes of civil or criminal litigation, even when the evidence surmounted against us is shoty at best.  Hear in lies the real problem with the Troy Davis case, for if he were able to afford some high powered, hot shot attorney, we all know, nine times out of ten, the evidence in this case would have been found inconclusive and Troy Davis would be a free man.  The fact remains, we as a community must fortify our economic foundation by keeping our dollar in our community.  According to Dr. Claude Anderson “a dollar is supposed to bounce eleven times within its community before it bounces one time outside of it”, but we all know this.  Dr. Anderson is one of one hundred scholars that have been trying to get the African American community to understand that we have been programmed to be diametrically opposed to profit sharing and until we break this affliction of economic retardation we will have a million Troy Davis’s.  In light of this very well known notion, but still very ignored, ironically, indeed, I am Troy Davis, you are Troy Davis the entire  African American community is Troy Davis.       

Friday, September 2, 2011

LA CÔTE D’IVOIRE C’EST LE 1

LA CÔTE D’IVOIRE C’EST LE : - 1 er PRODUCTEUR MONDIAL DE CACAO - 1 er EXPORTATEUR D’ANANAS VERS L’EUROPE - 1 er PRODUCTEUR AFRICAIN DE BANANE - 1 er PRODUCTEUR AFRICAIN DE CAFE ROBUSTA - 1 er PRODUCTEUR AFRICAIN DE CAOUTCHOU NATUREL LA CÔTE D’IVOIRE, U...N ESPACE OUVERT AU MONDE Située au cœur de l’Afrique de l’ouest, et d’une végétation généreuse sur le golf de Guinée, la Côte d’Ivoire s’étend sur une superficie de 322 000 Km2, pour une population de près de 21 600 000 habitants, qu’elle a su entretenir avec le soutien d’une économie aux grands atouts, ainsi que par diverses et riches potentialités agricoles, minières, pétrolière, touristiques, etc… La côte d’Ivoire qui compte plus de 26% d’allogènes venus y travailler (le plus fort taux d’immigration au monde), est considérée à juste titre comme la porte d’entrée, le centre des affaires par excellence de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, pour toutes les commodités dont elle dispose et qui permettent des échanges aisés au plan local et régional.. LA DIMENSION ECONOMIQUE La Côte d’Ivoire occupe une position de leader en Afrique de l’Ouest, grâce à sa balance commerciale positive par rapport à l’ensemble des pays de l’UEMOA, de la CEDEAO et des principaux blocs économiques au sein desquels elle occupe une place prépondérante… 45% MARCHE DES ASSURANCES Considérée comme terre d’investissement sûrs, parce que détenant 45% du marché des assurances en Afrique francophone (hors Maghreb), la Côte d’Ivoire représente près de la moitié de la masse monétaire de la zone franc. Ce qui confirme sa place de meneur sur le plan économique dans l’ouest Africain, et précisément au sein de l’Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africain (UEMOA)… Au niveau des exportations, on peut noter de net progrès. En effet, de deuxième exportateur mondial, la Côte d’Ivoire est devenue en deux décennies le premier producteur mondial de cacao à hauteur de plus de 1 200 00 tonnes par an. Elle est aujourd’hui un pays exportateur de plusieurs produits agricoles notamment: - le Caoutchouc naturel (plus de 350 000 tonnes/an) - la banane (plus de 224 000 tonnes/an) - le palmier à huile ( plus de 273 000tonnes/an ) Avec un rang de premier producteur et exportateur pour chaque secteur ci-dessus.. Il est par conséquent un partenaire privilégié des pays consommateurs notamment en ce qui concerne l’ananas dont il est le premier fournisseurs sur le marché Européen. Tous ces produits sont le reflet du potentiel exportable qui fait de la Côte d’Ivoire un espace ouvert au monde avec d’immenses possibilités de partenariats bilatéraux. A côte de ces cultures d’exportations bien connues, les légumes et fleures pourraient se révéler d’intéressantes sources de diversification pour la Côte d’Ivoire. Décidé à jouer son rôle d’accompagnateur de développement du secteur privé, le gouvernement ivoirien envisage en effet miser sur ces produits…Pour les fleures, l’origine Côte d’Ivoire bénéficie déjà depuis plusieurs années d’une bonne réputation chez les acheteurs étrangers…Ils font vivre une dizaine de sociétés exportatrices… La Côte d’Ivoire est aussi l’un des rares pays exportateurs d’ananas fleurs. La Société Ivoirienne de Raffinage (SIR) qui est considérée comme la plus grande de l’Afrique Subsaharienne, la Société Nationale de Recherche de Pétrole( PETROCI), et la Société des Mines (SODEMI) constituent les trois maillions essentiels du rêve minier Ivoirien qui du reste est matérialisé par un important volume existant de gaz, de gisements miniers (or; nickel; etc…)dans l’ouest du pays. En outre, de récentes et immenses découvertes de pétrole viennent consolider l’autosuffisance du pays au plan des mines afin de favoriser de la sorte, l’exportation de l’excédent vers le reste du monde à l’instar de l’électricité qui se vend déjà à des pays voisins. Toujours au chapitre du développement économique, l’on remarquera que le solide tissu industriel de la Côte d’Ivoire l’a aidé à renforcer à faire prospérer davantage son commerce extérieur.. APPUIS AU DEVELOPPEMENT ECONOMIQUE La constante recherche de partenariat ouvert devant permettre à la Côte d’Ivoire d’améliorer et garantir la qualité des produits et services offerts au reste du monde, l’amènera à créer divers organes aux attributions tout aussi différentes que complémentaires pour dynamiser ses actions commerciales. Il s’agit notamment : - du CEPICI (Centre de la Promotion et d’Investissement en Côte d’Ivoire) qui est se charge de la promotion des investissements dans tous les secteurs d’activités; -de l’APEX-CI (Association pour la Promotion des Exportations de Côte d’Ivoire) -de CODINORM (Côte d’ivoire Normalisation) crée pour la certification et la normalisation des produits Ivoiriens. En outre, les différentes chambres consulaires d’Agriculture, des métiers, du Commerce et de l’Industrie, pour la prise en main des préoccupations du secteur privé. Le ministère du Commerce, à travers sa direction générale chargée du commerce extérieur, est chargé de centraliser toutes les activités se rapportant au domaine de l’exportation. Pour soutenir et encadrer toutes les actions commerciales entreprises, des mesures et des instruments judiciaires ont été mis en place, de façon à rassurer les partenaires et étendre d’avantage les marchés à tous les horizons, à tous les pays membres de l’OMC sans exclusive. La Côte d’Ivoire a par ailleurs mis en œuvre des actions de transferts de technologie pour la transformation de ses produits de base afin que ceux-ci soient plus compétitifs et puissent répondre aux normes de marchés extérieurs de consommation concurrence de plus en plus exigeants. La Côte d’Ivoire a décidé d’accroitre la production de base par l’introduction de nouvelles méthodes tertiaires de façon à accentuer ses positions de leader sur les marchés régionaux et mondiaux. La Côte d’Ivoire est dotée d’infrastructures portuaires et aéroportuaires modernes par lesquels transitent les marchandises en provenance et à destinations de ses voisins enclavés que sont le Burkina Faso; le Mali et le Niger ( et quelque fois la Guinée). Avec autant de diversité au niveau de ses produits, la Côte d’Ivoire compte devenir très vite le carrefour portuaire de toute l’Afrique Subsaharienne. La notoriété et la crédibilité de la Côte d’Ivoire résident dans la confiance de ses partenaires et surtout dans la qualité et la diversité de ses produits.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Nigeria's Historic Opportunity

By JEFFREY D. SACHS
Published: May 30, 2011

ABUJA, NIGERIA — Visiting Nigeria the week of President Goodluck Jonathan’s inauguration is a special privilege. This country of nearly 160 million people, about one in five of sub-Saharan Africa, is on to something historic. The people feel it. After a sometimes agonizing half-century since independence, Nigeria is on the verge of a takeoff.

In my conversations with President Jonathan — who took the oath of office on Sunday — and with government ministers, leading businesspeople and representatives of civil society groups, I felt a firm determination to ensure that this time, in this decade, Nigeria fulfills its potential to become an African economic powerhouse and a member of the world’s leading emerging economies. In practical terms, Nigeria would like to make the BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — the BRINCS by the end of the decade.

To those who only know Nigeria as a country that squanders its oil wealth, this ambition might seem outlandish. But for those of us who have had the chance to work with its leadership, this goal seems fully with reach.

There are five solid reasons for optimism. The first is the reform that Nigeria has been undertaking over the past dozen years. The country has changed since June 8, 1998, when the brutal dictator Sani Abacha died, opening the way for a restoration of civilian rule and the strengthening of critical institutions, including the National Assembly and state and district governments.

The second is the advent of democratic elections. President Jonathan came to power last year when his predecessor, Umaru Yar’Adua, died in office. This April he won a resounding mandate of his own in elections that were praised by observers as by far the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s history. The president’s democratic mandate is not in doubt, even if tensions linger in Nigeria’s traditional north-south ethnic divide.

The third is the global wind in Nigeria’s sails. The rise of China and India is reshaping the world economy, and providing solid support for Nigeria’s growth. Commodity prices are high, as the Asian giants tap global markets. Nigeria can expect to sell not only its vast hydrocarbon deposits at good prices, but also a wide range of agricultural products and manufactured goods. The links with Asia won’t be only through exports. China is determined to be a major partner, financing core infrastructure — highways, rail and power grids — and developing major industrial capacity.

The fourth is the “age of convergence,” the tendency of developing countries like Nigeria to make unprecedented economic advances through the deployment of best practices and advanced technologies. China, of course, has been doubling its G.D.P. every seven years with blistering economic growth rates of 10 percent per year. Nigeria is enjoying robust annual growth of around 7 percent, and could catch up to China’s rate if policies are well designed and implemented. Information technologies are rapidly spreading, from the heart of sprawling Lagos to the most remote villages. For the first time, Nigeria will have a network of up-to-date information, providing a platform for sharply higher productivity and economic specialization.

The fifth is Nigeria’s commitment to tackling extreme poverty and disease throughout the nation. The president’s senior adviser on the Millennium Development Goals, working with the National Assembly, has been leading a bold mechanism to transfer federal funds to state and local governments in a robust and accountable manner. All over the country, schools, clinics and water points are being built. It’s a great honor for us at the Earth Institute to be working with the government on this initiative.

Nigeria’s international partners can also take a bow. Back in 2005, they entrusted Nigeria with partial debt relief, and the country is turning money that otherwise would have gone toward debt payments into local investments in health, education and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, a series of finance ministers has been working to end Nigeria’s image as a place of financial scams and official corruption. Prosecutors have warned international oil companies to clean up their act — even indicting Halliburton for corruption and obtaining a settlement from the company.

Of course, Nigeria still faces very real risks. The country’s population is enormously diverse, with sharp regional and religious divisions. Violence continues to flare. Global climate change poses risks to health, agricultural development and water supplies. A recent U.N. report notes that Nigeria’s rapidly growing population could exceed 700 million by the end of this century, unless family planning services are put in place. The public wants these services; the government’s challenge is to respond effectively.

I’ve watched nations on the eve of economic takeoff, in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia. Optimism is in the air in Abuja, and for good reason.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Africa's Megacities and the Opportunities They Offer


Lagos is West Africa's largest city.By 2030, the 18 largest cities on the African continent will have a combined spending power of US$ 1.3 trillion. How can the needs of a growing urban community create opportunities for investment and growth? Dianna Rienstra compiled the following summary from a discussion on the continent’s megacities at the recent World Economic Forum on Africa, held in Cape Town.

Lagos is West Africa's largest city.
In 2010, 14 African cities had a total population above 3 million. All African cities are growing at an accelerating pace. Energy, water and sanitation challenges exist today and are being exacerbated as increasingly people move to cities in search of a better life. New technologies are needed to meet these challenges.

New, “enabling” infrastructure is needed, which will require public-private partnerships. There is a huge incentive for renewable energy and “smart water” powered by technology. Jobs will be created as smart cities are developed.

Cities – and megacities – can be incubators for innovation. Resource efficiency in these urban centers and their satellites could become a competitiveness factor as they attract domestic and foreign investment.
The Middle East focused too much on building housing for middle- and high-income people. Today, most cities in the region face critical housing shortages for low-income residents. African city planners should not make the same mistake. In Egypt, for example, there is a shortage of 1 million units. There is room for public-private collaboration to address this need. Building affordable housing is a growing market, which will create jobs.

Myriad opportunities exist for the financial services in Africa’s growing cities. Consider that in Lagos and Accra, for example, an estimated 25% of residents have access to bank accounts. Economic clusters in cities and their satellites are driven by SMEs, but most entrepreneurs, particularly women, have no access to finance to grow their businesses. By offering competitive products, financial services – particularly commercial banks – can be a driver of growth in Africa’s cities.

Cities are becoming increasingly congested and in Africa, cholera outbreaks are commonplace. To relieve this pressure, it is important to fund rural development and satellite cities. Local government involvement is key to ensure that planning meets the needs of citizens.

Megacities offer mega-opportunities, but there are no mega-solutions. Customised solutions, new technologies and new ways of thinking are needed to retrofit today’s cities and to build the sustainable urban centers and satellites of tomorrow. Future cities cannot be built on old models that do not work.

Historic African Telecom Satellite Lauched

Image: Ariane 5 launch
S. Martin  /  ESA / CNES / Arianespace
Europe's Ariane 5 rocket lifts off from its launch pad in French Guiana carrying the Yahsat Y1A and Intelsat New Dawn satellites into orbit on Friday.

Africa's first private-sector communications satellite that will provide broadband and wireless services has been launched from South America bearing South African statesman Nelson Mandela's signature, according to a statement from Arianespace on Saturday.
The Ariane 5 took off late Friday from French Guiana carrying the Intelsat New Dawn, which was built through a joint venture with Intelsat and Convergence Partners consortium. The satellite also was imprinted with a Zulu phrase that means: "Go Well, New Dawn."
It joins 21 other Intelsat satellites serving Africa.
Also launched was the Yahsat Y1A, the first satellite operated by the United Arab Emirates' Al Yah Satellite Communications Co. It will provide customized relay services for governments and businesses in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Southwest Asia.
The Ariane 5 was carrying a record 10,050 kilograms (22,156 pounds).
The satellites were supposed to be placed in orbit in late March, but Arianespace, the commercial arm of the 13-country European Space Agency, postponed the launch after reporting problems with the rocket's main engine.

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Low Cost Airline Set to Boost Tourism Travel Within Africa


by Denis Mugerwa
Fly540, a Kenya based airline which became the 3rd operator on the Entebbe-Nairobi route in February is positioning it self to take on the continent’s established airlines as the race to capture African skies by regional airlines moves into advanced stages.

Fly540 is a semblance of the low cost carriers as it kicked off with low cost flights on the Entebbe-Nairobi route as compared to Kenya Airways and Air Uganda. With a major motive of becoming Africa’s first budget airline, Fly540 is promising to extend its services to other African regions, a statement from the marketing department read.

A statement also stated that Uganda is the first target, after establishing a nationwide existence in Kenya though soon, it will spread to Tanzania with Mwanza as the first destination of operation thereby offering low cost carrier to tourists and business people traveling between Kenya and Tanzania. According to the statement, “Mwanza first because there is a lot of business travel there. The traffic is very heavy and because people are flying quite frequently, and for them to do so, they also need to save.”

By October, the Tanzania route is expected to be open while there is a plan to extend services to Dar-es-salaam, Zanzibar, Moshi, and Kilimanjaro accordingly before further extending to Angola.
After Angola which will act as hub for Southern Africa, the next target is Rwanda and there after, proceed to West Africa of which, Ghana will act as the hub for the West African Region. After all this is achieved, it will then be a pan African low cost airline, becoming the first airline with hubs in 3 quadrants in Africa that offers services which people require that is; low costs for travel that will be convenient to their budgets.

The airline which has flown about 7,000 passengers on the Entebbe-Nairobi route since it started establishes that it is growing on a monthly basis with a steady increase in sales which is no doubt a step towards achieving their ambitious dream.

This step is set to improve travel with in the East African region there by enabling the branding of East Africa as a single tourist destination with the chance of visiting Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania tourism attraction at the same time. As the plan for the rest of Africa sets in, Africa would become a better place to visit since travel costs will be reduced a factor that has been impeding tourist visits to the continent.

Denis Mugerwa - About the Author:
I am a tour Consultant at Adventure Trails Limited a tour company operating in the East African Region, here to help any one interested in travel with in the region

Monday, July 4, 2011

The Mothership


Africa is moving at the speed of light! The continent is in the dawn of its second renaissance. Forget what mainstream Western media is showing you, its not the whole picture.

Africa is China's #1 trading partner and we all know what's going on in China. India is currently vying for Africa to take its top trading spot as well. While the Western world has been mired in recession for the past few years, Africa has endured no such trouble, in fact, since 2000 the middle class all over Africa has increased significantly due the jobs China and India have flooded onto the continent. This burgeoning middle class is what is spurring investment in retail outlets, real-estate and infrastructure development.

"Long a symbol of stagnation, the African continent is experiencing a reawakening. Poverty and hunger are still widespread problems, but Africa's growing middle class is creating business and investment opportunities that are among the best in the world. With the right trade policy and development assistance, we can unlock the potential of a thriving private sector and lift millions from poverty.

Six of the 10 fastest-growing economies of the last decade were in sub-Saharan Africa, the Economist recently found. And over the next five years, the average African economy will outpace its Asian counterpart. From telecom to financial services, extractive ..."
- WallStreetJournal.com

There are 1.2 billion people in Africa and half of the population is under 30.  The giant influx of technology coupled with increased political stability and more educational opportunities is a recipe for enormous economic and social progress. Out of the top ten countries building and innovating the fastest are South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana where significant inroads have been made in telecommunications, education and real estate development.

For those of us who've never been to Africa or don't have any relatives or friends to connect with as a means of making contact, there is a wealth of information online that can aid in one's quest to find a way of making business connections somewhere on the continent. The fastest way to actually get to Africa is by simply vacationing there. Africa is a tropical paradise! There are literally thousands of tourist destinations and five star resorts to consider from.

Granted, there is much work still to be done, but that is where the gold mine is, in the WORK that has to be done! The current movement opens up opportunities for more innovation, development and the cultivation of ideas that those of us who love Africa have so long waited for the chance to bring to fruition. African people all over the world must begin to think seriously about how it is they are going to do business with and within the continent. We can't allow outside influences to usurp the unsurpassed opportunity currently flourishing in Africa. We must strike now while the renaissance is in its dawn and not one second later. Do you have your ticket for the Mothership?

Friday, July 1, 2011

Hiding the Real Africa!

Hiding the Real Africa Indeed

I've been screaming this since 1996, when I lived in Ghana for seven months doing a semester exchange at UG, Legon. I came home trying to tell people Africans generally are not poverty stricken in the way we think. Granted, there are terrible things occurring throughout the continent in the case of war and famine in Africa, as there would be anywhere in the world. Where governments are relatively stable, however, just because SOME people don't have a lot of material possessions, doesn't mean they are poverty stricken (I emphasized some, because there are a lot of wealthy and "middle class" Africans that we would never know existed if we didn't travel to the continent). The so-called poor eat every day, they work every day, they send their children to school, they travel throughout the region, they participate in MANY ceremonies and celebrations. Yes they are earn much less in terms of money than we would on a typical job in the US, but they do earn money. All those women we see carrying huge loads on their heads are working. What's more, they're part of an enormous market system, an economic network that is the backbone of everyday African life. I could go on and on, but I will say, what they lack in terms of material possessions, they make up ten fold in culture. In the US, we don't even know what culture means.
ITS PAST DUE TIME. FORWARD AFRICA.

Reports — March / April 2011
Hiding the Real Africa: Why NGOs prefer bad news By Karen Rothmyer
And now for some good news out of Africa. Poverty rates throughout the continent have been falling steadily and much faster than previously thought, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. The death rate of children under five years of age is dropping, with “clear evidence of accelerating rates of decline,” according to The Lancet. Perhaps most encouragingly, Africa is “among the world’s most rapidly growing economic regions,” according to the McKinsey Quarterly.
Yet US journalism continues to portray a continent of unending horrors. Last June, for example, Time magazine published graphic pictures of a naked woman from Sierra Leone dying in childbirth. Not long after, CNN did a story about two young Kenyan boys whose family is so poor they are forced to work delivering goats to a slaughterhouse for less than a penny per goat. Reinforcing the sense of economic misery, between May and September 2010 the ten most-read US newspapers and magazines carried 245 articles mentioning poverty in Africa, but only five mentioning gross domestic product growth.
Reporters’ attraction to certain kinds of Africa stories has a lot to do with the frames of reference they arrive with. Nineteenth century New York Herald correspondent Henry M. Stanley wrote that he was prepared to find Zanzibar “populated by ignorant blacks, with great thick lips, whose general appearance might be compared to Du Chaillu’s gorillas.” Since the Biafran War, a cause célèbre in the West, helped give rise in the late 1960s to the new field of human rights, Western reporters have closely tracked issues like traditional female circumcision. In the 1980s, a famine in Ethiopia that, in fact, had as much to do with politics as with drought, set a pattern of stories about “starving Africans” that not only hasn’t been abandoned, but continues to grow: according to a 2004 study done by Steven S. Ross, then a Columbia journalism professor, between 1998 and 2002 the number of stories about famine in Africa tripled. In Kenya, where I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1960s and where I returned to live four years ago, The New York Times description of post-election violence in 2007 as a manifestation of “atavistic” tribalism carried echoes of Stanley and other early Western visitors.
But the main reason for the continued dominance of such negative stereotypes, I have come to believe, may well be the influence of Western-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international aid groups like United Nations agencies. These organizations understandably tend to focus not on what has been accomplished but on convincing people how much remains to be done. As a practical matter, they also need to attract funding. Together, these pressures create incentives to present as gloomy a picture of Africa as possible in order to keep attention and money flowing, and to enlist journalists in disseminating that picture.
Africans themselves readily concede that there continues to be terrible conflict and human suffering on the continent. But what’s lacking, say media observers like Sunny Bindra, a Kenyan management consultant, is context and breadth of coverage so that outsiders can see the continent whole—its potential and successes along with its very real challenges. “There are famines; they’re not made up,” Bindra says. “There are arrogant leaders. But most of the journalism that’s done doesn’t challenge anyone’s thinking.”
Over the past thirty years, NGOs have come to play an increasingly important role in aid to Africa. A major reason is that Western donors, worried about government corruption, have channelled more funds through them. In the mid-1970s, less than half a dozen NGOs (like the Red Cross or CARE) might operate in a typical African country, according to Nicolas van de Walle, a professor of government at Cornell, but now the same country will likely have 250.
This explosive NGO growth means increasing competition for funds. And according to the head of a large US-based NGO in Nairobi, “When you’re fundraising you have to prove there is a need. Children starving, mothers dying. If you’re not negative enough, you won’t get funding.” So fierce is the competition that many NGOs don’t want to hear good news. An official of an organization that provides data on Somalia’s food situation says that after reporting a bumper harvest last year, “I was told by several NGOs and UN agencies that the report was too positive.”
Rasna Warah, a Kenyan who worked for UN-Habitat before leaving to pursue a writing career, says that exaggerations of need were not uncommon among aid officials she encountered. “They wanted journalists to say ‘Wow.’ They want them to quote your report,” she says. “That means more money for the next report. It’s really as cynical as that.”
Western journalists, for their part, tend to be far too trusting of aid officials, according to veteran Dutch correspondent Linda Polman. In her book The Crisis Caravan, she cites as one example the willingness of journalists to be guided around NGO-run refugee camps without asking tough questions about possible corruption or the need for such facilities. She writes, “Aid organizations are businesses dressed up like Mother Teresa, but that’s not how reporters see them.”
Pushed and pulled by slashed budgets and increased demands, journalists are growing increasingly reliant on aid groups. Sometimes that involves not just information or a seat on a supply plane, but deep involvement in the entire journalistic process.
In an online essay written in 2009, Kimberly Abbott of the International Crisis Group discussed a 2005 Nightline program on Uganda that her NGO helped to produce and fund. It was hosted by actor Don Cheadle, the star of Hotel Rwanda. Nightline’s Ted Koppel explained in his introduction, as retold by Abbott: “Cheadle wanted his wife and daughters to get a sense of the kind of suffering that is so widespread in Africa. The International Crisis Group wanted publicity for what is happening in Uganda. And we, to put it bluntly, get to bring you a riveting story at a greatly reduced expense.” According to Abbott, “versions of such partnerships are happening now in print and broadcast newsrooms across the country, though many are reluctant to discuss them too openly.”
Daniel Dickinson, a former BBC reporter who is now a communications officer for the European Union in Nairobi, has seen the impact of technology and economics on reporting on Africa first-hand. “The big difference in the past five to ten years is the expansion of the Internet,” he says. “Journalists have got to feed these animals. Add to that the financial crash, and more and more internationals are taking the content we offer them.”
Ben Parker, co-founder and head of IRIN, a news agency that is part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, admires Dickinson’s success. “He does stories and they’re picked up whole,” Parker says. IRIN itself can point to many similar successes in finding takers for its stories on aid projects. “The Western media won’t reprint us verbatim,” he says. “But some plagiarize.”
Lauren Gelfand, a correspondent for Jane’s Defence Weekly who is based in Nairobi, says most reporters she knows string for three or four news organizations to make ends meet, and can’t afford to do time-consuming stories. She saw the effect when she took a year off from journalism to work for Oxfam. “If reporters were going to cover a development story it had to be easy,” remembers Gelfand, noting that the simplest sell was a celebrity visit to an aid project.
Gelfand says that her Oxfam experience helped her to understand just how much attention ngos put on getting their story told. “All the talking points are carefully worked out…. It’s a huge bureaucracy and there are as many levels of control as in any government,” she says of Oxfam, adding that many NGOs are reluctant to cooperate with media unless they know they’ll be shown in a positive light.
To be fair to the NGOs, Gelfand says, “It’s easier to sell a famine than to effect real, common-sense policy change.” And, she says, she continues to believe that most aid workers do what they do because they want to make a difference. Nonetheless, “A lot of what Oxfam does is to sustain Oxfam.”
Stories featuring aid projects often rely on dubious numbers provided by the organizations. Take Kibera, a poor neighborhood in Nairobi. A Nexis search of major world publications found Kibera described as the “biggest” or “largest” slum in Africa at least thirty-four times in 2004; in the first ten months of 2010 the claim appeared eighty-three times. Many of those stories focused on the work of one of the estimated 6,000 or more local and international NGOs working there, and cited population figures that ranged as high as one million residents. Recently, however, the results of Kenya’s 2009 census were released: according to the official tally, Kibera has just 194,269 residents. In 2010, Rasna Warah wrote in the Daily Nation, a Kenyan paper, that while working for the Worldwatch Institute, an NGO, she had published inflated population estimates using UN-Habitat data, despite knowing there was no consensus on the numbers among her former colleagues at the organization. Sometime after 2004, she wrote, population estimates for Kibera started to rise, and “Before we knew it, the figure spread like a virus.” She added, “The inflated figures were not challenged, perhaps because they were useful to various actors…. They were particularly useful to NGOs, which used them to ‘shock’ charities and other do-gooders into donating more money to their projects in Kibera.” Questionable figures of another sort are to be found in reports on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, a series of targets on poverty reduction and other measures of well-being. UN and NGO officials routinely describe Africa as failing to meet the goals, and the press routinely writes up this failure.
But some experts, among them Jan Vandemoortele, one of the architects of the MDGS, have expressed concern that the goals are being misused. He wrote in 2009 that the MDGS were intended as global targets, but have been improperly applied to individual countries and regions. “It is a real tragedy when respectable progress in Africa is reported as a failure by international organizations and external observers,” Vandemoortele wrote, voicing the suspicion that particular measurements have been selected “so as to present Africa as a failure, solely to gain support for a particular agenda, strategy, or argument.”
Nonetheless, when the UN met in September, The Associated Press quoted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as saying, “Many countries are falling short, especially in Africa,” while the Los Angeles Times quoted an Oxfam report as saying, “Unless an urgent rescue package is developed to accelerate fulfillment of all the MDGS, we are likely to witness the greatest collective failure in history.”
The consequences of skewed or incomplete reporting on Africa are not just a disservice to readers but also have the potential to influence policy. “The welfare model [of Africa] is still dominant on the Hill and in Hillary Clinton’s world,” according to van de Walle. Among corporate officials, says Catherine Duggan, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, the perception is still that “Africa is where you put your money once you’ve made it somewhere else.” Moreover, such reporting is demoralizing to Africans working for change. Martin Dawes, a unicef regional chief of communication for West and Central Africa, says that when there is a disaster, journalists “come to us as aid workers but often don’t talk to the government, which is often what we’re working through. It means that the chances for Africans to show an engaged response is limited. They are written out of their own story.”
Even with shrinking resources, journalists can do better than this. For a start, they can stop depending so heavily, and uncritically, on aid organizations for statistics, subjects, stories, and sources. They can also educate themselves on how to find and interpret data available from independent sources. And they can actively seek out stories that deviate from existing story lines.
But in the end, it will probably take sustained economic progress to break the current mold. Sunny Bindra, the Kenyan management consultant, recalls that in the 1980s, “Japan got attention because it was whacking the US. It’s the same with India and China now.” Until that happens, a sick African woman in labor will continue to be treated as poverty porn, and most Africans will have to starve in order to make it onto the evening news.
This article was adapted from a paper (pdf) written for Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

A New Scramble for African Riches

Posted on Thursday 5 May 2011 - 12:58
By André-Michel Essoungou, courtesy United Nations publication Africa Renewal
When the world's biggest retail company, US-based Walmart, bought a majority stake in South Africa's Massmart - also a retail company - for a staggering $2.5 billion last year, eyebrows were raised. Foreign investors in Africa usually put their money in the riches that lie beneath its soil, not over its discount counters.
Cosatu to face Walmart in SA retail operations
In fact, the steady growth of foreign direct investment (FDI) to the continent during most of the past decade has been mostly concentrated in mining, especially oil.

Yet, much like Walmart, a growing number of investors are betting on the continent’s ultimate wealth — Africans themselves — a report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reveals. And for all the shock that Walmart’s foray into African retailing initially prompted, it still fell well short of the $10.7 billion sale of Kuwaiti telecommunications company Zain’s African assets to Bharti, an Indian competitor, a few months earlier.

Overall, the UNCTAD report notes, amidst a recent slump in FDI flows to Africa caused by the global 2008 financial crisis, “The services sector, led by the telecommunications industry, became the dominant FDI recipient.” Across the continent, new deals involving major foreign corporations are becoming a common occurrence in industries previously considered unattractive. Nestlé, the Swiss food giant, has announced plans to spend $1 billion by 2013 for acquisitions in various African countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Angola. Less than two years ago, Nestlé’s main competitor, France’s Danone, took full ownership of South Africa’s leader in fresh cultured dairy products, Clover.

Investments in African infrastructure, services and retail sales, development experts note, could have a very positive impact on African economies. Unlike extractive industries, they say, growth in consumer-oriented sectors often lead to the creation of many more jobs and stimulate domestic spending.

Benefits of growth

Africa’s booming middle class and its recently-acquired purchasing power is the main reason behind the new trend in FDI to the continent. Various researches suggest that the number of Africans who can afford to buy more than the necessities of daily life is rising rapidly. A much-talked about report by McKinsey, a US consulting firm, estimates that the continent is home to around 50 million middle-class households (defined as those with incomes of at least $20,000), as many as in India. One in every 10 Africans, says a study by the French aid agency, is already a “solvent consumer” — those who can afford the latest smart phones, the newest computers and dinners at trendy restaurants.

The rise of this middle class is linked to the strong economic performances recorded in many African countries since the end of the 1990s. Average economic growth has been around 5 per cent a year, while average inflation rates declined to 8 per cent from an earlier high of 22 per cent. From 2000 to 2010, six of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies were in sub-Saharan Africa, reports The Economist, an authoritative London weekly. In fact, the publication argues that Africa is the site of “the surprising success story of the past decade,” high praise from a magazine that is generally not very enthusiastic about the continent.

Strong growth — and not only in the oil-rich countries that have benefited from booming demand from emerging economies — enabled millions of people to move up the financial ladder. And while growth in oil-producing countries usually did not create many new jobs, growth in many others did, spurring consumer demand and boosting domestic spending. In South Africa, Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco, Africa’s four most advanced and diversified economies, domestic consumption has been the largest contributor to growth in recent years.

Policies, peace and governance

Africa’s improved economic prospects are also a result of good economic policies, says the World Bank. In Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania, for example, business-friendly policies opened new markets to foreign investors and encouraged start-ups. Angola and Rwanda became fast-growing economies after long civil wars.

Some also argue that the continental development plan, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) also contributed. NEPAD “did help shape a new, more positive perception of Africa,” argues Patrick Osakwe, an economist with the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and co-author of a study on FDI to Africa. By emphasizing the importance of good governance, Mr. Osakwe told Africa Renewal, the plan has fuelled a momentous shift in the way the rest of the world sees the continent.

Expanding prosperity

For a continent so long regarded by outside observers as “hopeless,” the coming years are likely to bring more good news. Having weathered the global recession better than most regions of the world, Africa’s growth rate is now second only to that of Asia. Over the next five years, The Economist predicts, “The average African economy will outpace its Asian counterpart.”

Such promising prospects are central to Walmart’s expansion plans in Africa and other Western investors are likely to follow. With the continent’s combined consumer spending forecast to reach $1,400 billion by 2020, up from just $860 billion in 2008, companies from China, India and Brazil are also expanding operations in the region.

As foreign investors rush to benefit from the arrival of upscale African consumers, however, prosperity still remains elusive for too many others. “To expand prosperity, African leaders need to invest in infrastructure and education, to diversify their economies, so that many more people can benefit from growth,” argues ECA’s Mr. Osakwe. Western investors seem to think Africa is off to a good start.