Africa’s Potential

“Be the change you want to see in your world!”

“Those words were spoken by one of the greatest leaders of our time. I fully agree, if you deep inside feel that something needs to be changed to the better, you must embody that change yourself in order to make a real difference in people’s daily lives.”

- read more about Emre Gürlers story about Africa’s Potential at Social Entrepreneurship Forum (SE FORUM).

Lecture by Dr Ayittey: “Cheetas vs Hippos” for Africa’s future.

Dr. Ayittey was listed by The Foreign Policy as one of the “Top 100 Public Intellectuals” in 2008 who “are shaping the tenor of our time”. After looking at several TED-talks, I came by Mr George Ayittey’s TED-talk in Arusha, Tanzania. The Ghanaian economist George Ayittey unleashes a torrent of controlled anger toward corrupt leaders in Africa and calls on the “Cheetah generation” to take back the continent.

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“Africa’s development dilemma” – Last & final part.

This last part of the three part article-series, “Africa’s development dilemma” is Abdullahi Borus last piece (picture on the left side), his conclusion thoughts regarding “Africa’s development dilemma” .

Abdullahi is a Kenyan native and is currently an intern at United Nations High Commission for the Refugees (UNHCR) in New York City, at the same time as he’s pursuing his studies at Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs in New York. Candidate for Masters in International Affairs, International Security Policy. Has also been working with news production and feature articles in English and Swahili at the BBC East African Bureau, Uganda Radio Network, Guardian Newspaper as well as carrying through UN Millennium Campaign in the media in East Africa.

The final part of this long part series will focus on NEPAD, an African driven initiative meant at addressing some of the crisis in Africa.

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“Why Africa welcomes the Chinese” – the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame.

“Africa must attract broad investment, not rely on handouts, if we are to sustain development”

There is a debate among geopolitical and economic commentators about the merits of Chinese versus western involvement with Africa. One argument is that Chinese investment is exploitative and undermines the development of democracy and human rights on the continent. Others view the matter in terms of competition, arguing that China is encroaching on the decades-long monopoly of the west over Africa’s natural resources.

Biometric ID solutions in Uganda – a BCTA initiative.

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Aid + Entrepreneurship = True?

Photo of Gunilla Carlsson was taken by the Foreign Ministry's Arba Kokalari, 9/12 - 2009.

During the workshop and seminar “Opening up the Aid/Öppna Biståndet” last Wednesday with Gunilla Carlsson the Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation, Ministry for Foreign Affairs made an open-hearted and sincere gesture that she and SIDA needed innovative and creative solutions in order to  make the Swedish Aid more effective.

The seminar was initialized by the world famous Professor in Global Health from Karolinska Institutet, Hans Rosling. founder and director of Gapminder, he is one of the world’s “100 most important global thinkers” of 2009, according to Foreign Policy Magazine. The speech he held at the Bonnier Conference Center was really as astonishing, impressive and energetic as the talks I’ve seen on TED. You could call him “The guy who brought sexy back to Statistics”.

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Innovative & effective aid-ideas in the making, Swedish Aid 2.0?

Innovative & effective aid-ideas by the African horizon?

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Rwanda: Africa’s New High-Tech HotSpot.

The Vision 2020 in Rwanda is something that almost all the entrepreneurs that I met in Kigali was keen on re-telling to me. Leapfrogging development is a term which is often mentioned in the developing world and the world hasn’t seen a real strong evidence/case, not until Rwanda emerged on the global development map!

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