Africa
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George Mitchell and Floyd McKissick – New City Builders One of the books I recently finished reading was The New Map by Daniel Yergin. He does a fantastic job providing the historical context for where we are in the development of various renewable energy sources, where we are geopolitically in the competition for energy dominance,…
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Bond Investors Are Rushing to Nigeria – I wrote a bit about Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell’s 60 Minutes interview earlier this week. Another thing he mentioned in that conversation was that at some point, the US was going to have to deal with the rate at which its debt is growing relative to its…
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I was so excited to see the announcement last week that 54gene had raised $15M in additional funding for their work sequencing the genome of African folks. That type of work – building technology, research, and infrastructure is what Africa’s going to need as soon as possible. The wave of nationalism that has continued to…
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Thanks to Kwabena Sarkodie for having me on his podcast, Insights from the Sahara, to discuss all things artificial intelligence and Africa.
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Op-Ed: The Future of Africa’s diaspora is in Africa (CNBC) 42 Countries Agree to International Principles for Artificial Intelligence (NextGov) Five questions you can use to cut through AI hype (MIT Technology Review)
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Founder, Investor, Activist: Rebecca Enonchong’s Multi-Lane Road as a Tech Powerhouse (techcabal) Nigeria Extends 50% Discount For Business Name Registration (The Will) NCA drafts Mobile Money quality of service regulations for Ghana (Ghana Business News)
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No. 201: Edouardo Jordan Remembers Black Food | Ghana at Venice Biennale | Satya Levels Up Microsoft
Showing Up at Your Dream Job Uninvited (Without Fail Podcast) Ghana arrives at the Venice Biennale, bringing new narratives with it (Financial Times) The Most Valuable Company (for Now) Is Having a Nadellaissance (Bloomberg)
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Nigeria’s Bonny Light, Amenam crude under force majeure as disruptions resume (S&P Global Platts) If there is a global heat map showing the frequency of force majeure declarations in countries, I want to see it. It’s awful that Nigeria is still going through this waste of its lives and resources. SoftBank Vision Fund says its…
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Kenya wants to replace Bob Collymore with a local at Safaricom (Daily Nation) Young Designers Dismantle Cultural Stereotypes At Nigeria’s Arise Fashion Week (British Vogue) Fei-Fei Li & Yuval Noah Harari in Conversation – The Coming AI Upheaval (YouTube)
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5 AI Breakthroughs We’ll Likely See in the Next 5 Years (Singularity Hub) Is Ghana’s Economic Growth Failing to Reach The People? (Global Risk Insights) Uganda’s Leading Family Owned Businesses (Asoko Insight)
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Nigeria to Negotiate Future International Investment Agreements…. To Use New Model This is a strong quote from Yewande Sadiku, head of Nigeria’s Investment Promotion Commission, at a recent event honoring the late Professor Michael Ayo Ajomo: “it is true that Nigeria has challenges, but when we are going into a negotiation that is not the…
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Welcome to the Future Whatever Flutterwave and Andela cofounder Iyinoluwa Aboyeji is building, its focus on building a shared vision for the future of Africa is something I can get behind. Excited to see where this goes. Ghanaian startup mPharma is buying Kenya’s second-largest pharmacy chain You don’t see too many deals where a startup…
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Take Bigger Risks: Shellye Archambeau, Former CEO, MetricStream I’ve seen Shellye Archambeau’s name around and have been intrigued to learn more about her story. Her appearance on Masters of Scale gives a great peak into how she’s navigated her way through Silicon Valley. What stood out in particular was her telling about a Bible her…
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Kwame Anthony Appiah’s excerpt on Amo Afer is fascinating. I had never heard of Amo Afer, a Nzema man, who became a philosopher in Germany in the 1700s. After gaining relative stature for his thinking, he decided to move back to his family’s village on the Gold Coast, a place he hadn’t been to since he…
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Africa is projected to have more people at working age than the rest of the world’s population by 2035. By 2045, artificial intelligence is projected to reach the singularity, where it will be self-improving rapidly rather than being dependent on human inputs. On their own, these two developments are concerning. For years now, policymakers have…
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Bloomberg: Traders Snap Up Assets of Nation Where Default Is New Normal I’m not really sure what to make of this article. I wrote a several weeks ago about how I was nervous about hedge funds investing in countries like Mozambique. While the independent audit of the country’s finances seems to have given investors increased confidence…
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Moody’s downgrades South Africa’s power utility Eskom South Africa continues to face challenges as bad news continues to emerge from week to week. On Monday, Eskom’s chairman resigned. On Tuesday, Moody’s downgrades the power utility’s credit rating. The question in my mind is what is the path forward for South Africa. President Zuma, who has…
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Politico: SPG Signs Kenya Trump-connected Stanton Park Group signed a $1.2M contract to represent the country’s interests in the US. I look forward to seeing what they accomplish. White House: Seventeen Nominations Sent to the Senate Today President Trump has nominated Texas real estate tycoon Ray Washburne to be President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.…
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Bloomberg: Owner of $1 Billion Cobalt Project Says Rally Is Far From Over Eurasian Resources Group has a pretty massive cobalt mining project in the works in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company stands to realize a nice return on investment at the rate cobalt prices are skyrocketing. They jumped 71% last year and…
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All aboard #MadarakaExpress, May 31, 2017, 11:11 a.m. #SGRLaunch pic.twitter.com/0MQCS6A5U0 — Patrick Njoroge (@njorogep) May 31, 2017 Kudos to Kenya on launching its new passenger rail connecting Nairobi to Mombasa earlier today. Would be nice to have something like this connecting Atlanta and Savannah! Tech Central: MTN Slammed Over Bosses’ Millions A significant portion of…
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Great meeting with @POTUS US President @realDonaldTrump during G7 summit. Time for new deal for Africa. Let's do it! pic.twitter.com/2MuCNM55ib — Akinwumi A. Adesina (@akin_adesina) May 27, 2017 US and Africa need each other. President @realDonaldTrump will do great things with Africa, with time @IvankaTrump pic.twitter.com/Yievy2p4ud — Akinwumi A. Adesina (@akin_adesina) May 29, 2017 Towards…
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Cote d’Ivoire’s Military Situation Continues to Concern We continue to hear more and more about the cracks widening within Cote d’Ivoire’s Military. The military is a combination of trained career soldiers and rebel fighters who helped President Alassane Outtara oust Laurent Gbagbo when he refused to relinquish the presidency back in 2010/2011. Since that time…
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Tastemakers Africa CEO Cherae Robinson Gives Us A Sneak Peak On Her 10-Year Plan and I’m Here For It Marketplaces are powerful and have a track record of disrupting industries and building. See eBay and Airbnb. Look out for what Safaricom could build on its Mpesa platform if regulators don’t make the two break up.…
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Apologies for missing yesterday’s post. My body is making it clear I need to sleep more. The big market news yesterday was Ford CEO Mark Fields retiring, making room for Jim Hackett to take over at the home of America’s best selling vehicle. The news was surprising because Fields had done a pretty good job…
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Microsoft Announces First Public Cloud in Africa Microsoft announced today that it was going to stand up two data centers in South Africa, the first public data centers on the continent. Let that sit with you for a bit. Hopefully, this is the beginning of public clouds proliferating across the continent. The benefits of this…
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Africa Finance Corporation CEO Makes Case for Infrastructure Investment Andrew Alli is one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter. He is witty and always provides forthright analysis. During the celebration of the Africa Finance Corporation’s 10 years in business, Alli shared some observations on the importance of infrastructure in Africa. His admonishment to…
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CcHub Pushes to Keep Yaba’s Startups Clustered Together I struggled to parse out whether there’s really cause for concern for Yaba’s future as Lagos’ tech hub, or whether this piece was a veiled branding for CcHub. Perhaps, it was some of both. All the same, it’s cool to see CcHub making plans for the long-term…
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Investor Highlights African Financial Services Opportunity Despite Headwinds Kurt Davis surveys the financial services industry across Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cote d’Ivoire as ones where investors will find an upside though the current state of the industry isn’t the prettiest to look at. His projection of Cote d’Ivoire becoming the centerpiece…
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Nigeria’s Bank of Industry Provides Interest-Free Loans to National Youth Service Members Nigeria’s Bank of Industry has developed a Graduate Entrepreneurship Fund in partnership with the country’s National Youth Service Corps. The program provides NYSC members with loans they can use to further establish their businesses, and it seems like a nice program. Nigeria requires…
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Author Calls For African Entrepreneurs to Talk About Failure Idril Abshir penned this interesting piece arguing that African entrepreneurs should talk about failure more, indicating that they will find resilience in discussing failure. She cites the culture among Western entrepreneurs of acknowledging failure. While the stories in the piece were compelling, I don’t know that…
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Short and sweet this morning! Africa’s Women Innovators Honored at World Economic Forum These 6 are just a sample of the millions out there. Also, shout out to Cherae Robinson for winning 20,000 CHF at the World Tourism Forum for what she’s building at Tastemakers Africa. 2U Acquires South Africa’s GetSmarter for $103M Maryland-based 2U…
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Report Touts Investment Opportunity for Private Education Across Africa DC-based Caerus Capital put together a report on the investment opportunity in private education across Africa. The authors project that 25% of school age children – 66 million children – across Africa will be in private education by 2021, up from the 21% who are currently…
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No. 142: Three AM Reads: Cars45 gets $5m | Ethos Makes a Sugar Play | Ghana’s Illegal Mining Problem
Cars45 Gets $5M to Streamline Nigerian Used Auto Sales Jake Bright reports that Cars45 raised a nice Series A round from Frontier Car Group that has backing from some serious names in the venture capital space – Balderton Capital, EchoVC, TPG Growth, and Maryland-based NEA. Seeing that Cars45 raised its round from this one group…
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Kenya Pushes Forward on Geothermal Plans It’s fantastic seeing Kenya continue to make progress on its Vision 2030 plan to be generating 5000MW of geothermal energy by 2030. I was rooting for these projects back in 2011, so I’m glad they’re not making me look bad. The groundbreaking for the 158MW Olkaria V geothermal site…
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No Pain. No Gain: Egypt Edition Yesterday, I bristled at the scenario of a group of hedge fund managers pushing for the devaluation of the Naira. A country going through a devaluation situation experiences lots of pain, but good can come from it. Egypt seems to be seeing early fruit from the devaluation it initiated…
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A Case for More Hedge Funds Investing in Africa Kurt Davis makes an interesting case for why it makes sense for hedge funds to be more active in core sectors across African markets – financial services, metals and mining, oil and gas, and agriculture and land. I admit that I bristled a bit at the…
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Yesterday, I had lunch with a friend who is raising a fund for her Lagos-based startup. At one point in our conversation, she shared the effort she has had to go through to get people she has met with in Silicon Valley up to speed on what is happening in Nigeria’s tech space. This has…
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Africa’s fashion industry has the potential to be massive and you should pay attention to it. When I found out that Akin Adebowale, Kolade Adeyemo, Bobby Pittman, and the rest of the team were building Oxosi, I couldn’t wait to see what they would come up with. Oxosi is an e-commerce platform that brings African high fashion…
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The retail industry is so different from just a few years ago. I remember buying a shirt from Everlane when all the startup made were t-shirts. The kicker that got me to spend my money was that I could get better quality for cheaper because there were no retailers like Macy’s selling the product and…
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Eric Osiakwan stated this at the Africa Technology Summit a couple weeks ago, and from what I hear the Summit was a great success. Something of a debate broke out on what sub-sector of the technology industry was the next big thing in Africa. Eric pointed out communication, content and commerce and their impact on health,…
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I was embarrassed when Kweku Adoboli’s name went across the screen for losing $2.3B while trading ETFs at UBS. A Ghanaian brother had done something really bad. What impact would this have on the perception of Ghanaians? Here’s a fascinating piece on him now that he’s out of jail, but still not in the clear.…
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I nearly clicked my heels when I saw the news of Amrote Abdella being named Regional Director of Microsoft’s 4Afrika Initiative, an effort for Microsoft to support economic development on the continent while finding new business opportunities. I’m a big fan of Amrote’s. Seeing Davidson alumnae killing it will never get old. What is getting…
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Aly-Khan Satchu, one of the most respected equity investors in Kenya, discusses briefly how US-China cooperation would be a benefit to African countries. This aligns with comments Bobby Pittman, managing director of Kupanda Capital made at a session discussing the Electrify Africa Act. More on that sometime later this week. There are rumors of Anheuser-Busch…
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You’ve probably seen the news of Martin Winterkorn’s resignation from his CEO post at the Volkswagen Group. Rough year for this guy. Earlier in the year, VW Group supervisory board chair Ferdinand Piech publicly stated that there was distance between him and Winterkorn. I wonder if anything related to this discovery of VW vehicles emitting…
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The African Development Bank (AfDB) will be receiving the swagger Dr. Akinwumi Adesina brought to Nigeria’s agriculture sector, as he begins his term as president today. He takes the helm in times that are significantly different from when his predecessor, Dr. Donald Kaberuka got his start, and present their own set of challenges and opportunities,…
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I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing Eric Osiakwan about his experience building internet infrastructure in its early days in African countries, and the transition to investing in African startups. On top of that, he is pushing to get more Africans in the investing game to support the growth of the technology industry across the continent. Here’s the…
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When Aubrey Hruby and finance ministers from several African countries waited for the globe at Google headquarters to rotate to the African continent so that they could see how many hits the continent was getting at the time, they were stunned to see just a couple dots compared to completely outlined countries for the rest…
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Atlanta is a top-10 exporter amongst US cities to Nigeria. I hope the city puts more energy behind its connection to the country. The city recently completed its Metropolitan Export Plan with support from JP Morgan and the Brookings Institution. Currently, the only African countries an exporter in Atlanta can get information about exporting to…
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My neck hurts after shaking my head while reading this Economist piece on Ghana’s economic woes.
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Liberty Global and Vodacom are in talks for some sort of deal. Early rumors were that the two were considering a merger, which would be one of the biggest ever, but Vodacom denies a merger being part of deliberations. What’s interesting about this news, besides John Malone continuing to take over the media world, is…
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Bobby Pittman, head of Kupanda Capital, did a nice interview with the Center for Global Development where he serves as a board member alongside the likes of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Lawrence Summers. He highlights the reasons Dr. Adesina won the AfDB presidency, and some things on which he will have to focus. Three points that…
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For us, today, Africa is more important than the U.S. In five to 10 years, Africa can become the new frontier for luxury. – Ermenegildo Zegna While reading this Quartz piece on Africa’s fashion opportunity, I came across this Global Retail Development Index put together by A.T Kearney. The Index ranks the top 30 developing…
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Former UBS Chief Economist wrote this fantastic analysis of China’s ambitious One Belt, One Road plan – essentially a remix of the Silk Road we heard about in Disney movies… Magnus questions the likelihood of China realizing this plan due in large part to the difficulty of having the renminbi accepted globally as a reserve…
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What image comes to mind when you think African fashion? A dashiki worn by a person with an afro? A wax printed dress? A band of kente cloth thrown across a college graduates shoulders? I, for one, have a pretty limited knowledge of the diversity of Africa’s fashion aesthetics, and it has been exciting to…
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Marc Andreessen’s frenetic pace on Twitter has fascinated me for the past year. He seems to devour a ton of information and makes nice connections between the current technology landscape and the history and theory that got us to this point. The New Yorker did a helpful profile on him – the kind that makes…
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Andreessen Horowitz just wrapped up a series on the current cyber security landscape. It got me thinking about what the cybersecurity landscape looks like in African countries. In particular, I’m interested in cybersecurity work going on at the intersection of telecommunications and banking. Nigeria has a policy of reducing the circulation of cash in the…
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I am a huge fan of cities and their ability to create an environment in which people can thrive, so seeing the results of the African Mayor Awards last week was pretty cool. Awarded at the 2nd Africa Urban Infrastructure Investment Forum, the mayors of Praia, Cape Verde; Kinondoni, Tanzania; and Accra, Ghana were the…
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A couple weekends ago, I had a blast at a Dine Diaspora event that focused on connecting folks of African descent. We had a delicious meal prepared by Chef Dadisi Olutosin, and discussed Africa’s leadership challenges among other issues. The diversity of backgrounds among the participants was cool to see. There was a restaurateur, an investment…
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The World Economic Forum is taking place this week. At 10:15am today, January 21, a panel will discuss Africa’s Growth Agenda. A link to the panel is below. Africa’s Growth Agenda
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Yesterday was the 54th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, independent Congo’s first prime minister. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, one of the first blacks to attend my alma mater, wrote a nice piece on the importance of Lumumba and his death. He recently published a biography of Prime Minister Lumumba that I look forward to reading.…
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So, personal well-being in Nigeria is trending upward, according to data compiled by NOIPolls. December produced the highest results for the year – a month when the naira stumbled significantly, the Nigerian Stock Exchange went for a wild ride, and Boko Haram deadliness persisted.More than anything, I think this displays the resiliency of this country’s…
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I may have done a fist pump when I saw that Helios Investment Partners raised $1.1 billion for its latest Africa-focused fund – a new record besting the $908 million the firm raised about three years ago. The notion of investing on the African continent is not such a novelty any longer. Sixty percent of…
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As the number of wealthy individuals in Africa grows, I wonder if the US will see more public investment from such individuals. For example, Tony Elumelu invested an undisclosed amount in a California-based satellite startup last year. Will we see more folks follow the lead of, say, the Qatari government which gave around $100 million…
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LinkedIn is missing an opportunity to capitalize on its reach into the top management talent around the world to capture the stories of Africa’s top business talent and their experience before and ruing the economic sea change taking place across the continent. The company’s Influencers program has been running for over two years now and it does…
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The African Growth and Opportunity Act is up for re-authorization on September 30, 2015. The Act essentially makes it easier for certain African countries to export some of their goods to the United States, by making them duty-free. The goal of the Act was to support development on the continent and increase US-Africa trade. Fifteen years…
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Is the right next step for promoting American business investment in African markets a tax credit that encourage American companies to repatriate their investments on the continent? The Africa Report ran an interview in November with Rosa Whitaker, head of the Whitaker Group. She argues that this tax credit is the right investment response for US-Africa…
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List of my top people to follow for insights on Africa’s business and policy environments.
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I was 10 or 11 years old when I started crying while watching a PBS show about something related to HIV/AIDS in Africa. It is a bit blurry now, but I believe there was a woman with a child on the screen. Something about the image shook me so deeply. I remember writing in my…
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From LinkedIn. ECONOMIC PAIN CONTINUES – Moody’s downgraded South Africa’s five largest banks, nine of its municipalities, its two development finance institutions, following the firm’s downgrading of the government’s debt ratingand Eskom’s bond rating last week. While the outlook remains stable for the banks and one of the development institutions – the Industrial Development Corporation…
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President Zuma Skips Monday’s innovaBRICS & Beyond Conference – link South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma cancelled his scheduled Monday appearance in London at the innovaBRICS conference, hosted by Deloitte. South African publication City Press reported that President Zuma cancelled his appearance due to not being able to secure a meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron,…
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Oil Discovered Off Senegal’s Coast – link The wave of West African countries discovering oil continues with Cairn Energy, a Scottish Oil Company, striking oil about 100km off the coast of Senegal. The company is not yet sure about the size of the discovery – a first for Senegal. When Ghana discovered oil in 2010,…
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Here’s the rundown on last week’s episode of New Rules Africa. Check out the video for our deep dive into Africa’s stock exchanges: Link Marriott Plans to Build 50 Hotels in Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt by 2020 – Link Marriott is putting both feet in Africa, where it projects to have its highest revenue growth through…
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Cherae and I had a great time on New Rules Africa this week, covering: Zimbabwe established sovereign wealth fund Rocket Internet filed for IPO in Germany African Development Bank opened Young Professionals Program Read the summary below to get up to speed on what we covered, and check out the show. Zimbabwe Establishes Sovereign Wealth…
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Nigeria has tremendous growth potential and risks. My friends and I hopped on a Google Hangout to discuss.
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Key Points 1. The saga around the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria governor continues; 2. The Central Bank governor is handily backing up his reputation; 3. President Jonathan could get a black eye from this fight; and 4. The independence of the Central Bank of Nigeria is in the balance. The Saga The February 20…
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Davidson profiled Muna Musiitwa on her work in Africa. Great nuggets on key questions for mapping the way forward on the continent – [http://buff.ly/1ojta8X] Jason Njoku does some nice analysis on property values in Lagos in parallel with tech investments – [http://buff.ly/1ojtfsY] Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has paid a good bit of attention…
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The Dropifi team probably felt chills running through their bodies while watching Zendesk’s share price rise 49 percent on day one of its IPO on Thursday, and then reach a $1B market cap on its second day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Here’s why: 1. Big Sandbox – In its Form S-1…
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“I don’t feel pressure from being the President of the Toronto Raptors. I feel pressure from Africa.” The energy that entered the room when Masai Ujiri said that at yesterday’s NYU Africa Economic Forum is why I am still awake. Masai went on to say that his work would be a waste if he didn’t…
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When I first saw, the agenda for the Africa Rising seminar at this year’s IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings, I posted a tweet: There's a peculiarity in the agenda for IMF/World Bank Spring Meeting seminar on "Africa Rising." What is it? http://t.co/wiuvyow1We — KWAME (@KwameSomPimpong) April 7, 2014 Probably not the wisest thing to not provide any…
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No. 26: As a Third Grader, I Broke Up a Fight Between Two Fifth Graders
ABN Digital, AMCON, Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, Ben Bernanke, Business Insider, Central Bank, East Africa, EM, emerging market, Emerging markets, Federal Reserve System, Financial Market, Foreign-exchange reserves, Jendayi Frazier, Jim O’Neill, Lex Luthor, Mark Mobius, Nigeria, North-South, Richard Koo, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, South-South, Tony ElumeluAnd thankfully, Mark Mobius aka Lex Luthor is breaking up the fight going on between emerging and developed markets on US Federal Reserve Bank guidance rumors. The dance has gone something like this: Emerging Markets: Sigh, the Fed is being pretty tight with it’s currency. Come on coach, let emerging markets spin! Ben Bernanke: Policy…
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In 2009, The World Bank estimated that it would take $93B annually over the next 10 years to bring Africa’s infrastructure to a healthy level. Four years later, how much of the $372B needed has actually been invested on the continent? Watching Eddie Obeng give this TED Talk left me pondering on how we can…
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But I won’t argue the point too hard. Yesterday evening, I attended the DC Africa Tweet up hosted by Semhar Araia. I learned about the event through Twitter and had a blast chatting it up with folks addressing the task of contributing to African development from different angles. Of the ~60 or so people at…
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1. Mining and Governance in Africa – Kudos to Ghana for ramping up its move against illegal mining in Ghana with the arrests of several Chinese miners two weeks ago, and several Nigeriens a few days ago. I look forward to seeing how the country and others continue to build their capacity around governance to…
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It usually does not take long to sense when certain people have wisdom, but when are you able to actually feel a person’s wisdom? One can feel Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool’s wisdom. During our conversation over lunch on Wednesday, Ambassador Rasool stressed the importance of South Africa exporting the principle of Ubuntu – I am because…
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United Nations climate talks end today in South Africa and the United States and China are playing chicken on who will take the lead in stewarding the environment well while also driving economic development. Quietly, Kenya has signed major deals just this year that will see the opening of at least three plants that will…
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Entrepreneurs across the African continent are developing highly innovative technologies that are meeting real needs and improving the ease of life for people from all walks of life. At this year’s MIT Venture Capital (VC) Conference, I sat in on a panel that covered Brazil’s VC space. Two things struck me as very different from…
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While reading an article on David Cameron’s visit to Africa, I just couldn’t help but see an image of British ships exploring the new world, landing on the African continent and thinking – “we’ve got free labor”. The author follows Prime Minister Cameron on his trip to South Africa and Nigeria, highlighted by the fact…
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Why did there seem to be so many African health care professionals at DeKalb Medical Hospital? Over the course of my weeklong stay at the hospital, recovering from surgery, I could not help but ponder this. In the course of a week, nurses from Nigeria and Tanzania tended to me. My primary doctor was Nigerian.…
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Though back in the US, I am still in awe at how lush Uganda’s land is. I am also in awe to have seen so many children with malnutrition at the church I worshipped at on my last Sunday in the country. I and some friends travelled to a village called Kayongo that is located…
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Business people from African countries and Switzerland will gather for the Fourth Swiss-African Business Exchange in Geneva this week to dig in and find ways to do business with one another. Exchange sessions will cover several topics including manufacturing, East African trade and investment opportunities and renewable energy. The following manufacturers will make up part…
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While receiving an award for Excellence in Commercial Diplomacy at Howard University’s Africa Business Conference, Florizelle Liser, Assistant US Trade Representative for Africa expressed her desire to see entrepreneurs in the African-American community and in African countries seek out partnerships with each other. The city of Atlanta, Georgia has a mix of key ingredients to…
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At what cost will Africa realize the economic potential of its agricultural industry? According to McKinsey & Company, about 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land is on the African continent. A few months ago, NPR did a piece on how Brazil has leveraged science to establish the country as a breadbasket. While listening…
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None of the three options are sustainable for the continent and I align with your critiques. A consistent stance on governance is the best policy move for the international community to take in engaging African countries. For example, the World Justice Project is working to bring a consistent definition to the rule of law around…
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Wal-Mart makes big offer for largest retailer on African continent. SA Labor unions not happy. http://ping.fm/1ZRWw http://ping.fm/5OvlI
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South African Ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, gave a great speech to an audience in honor of Helen Suzman, one of the most persistent white supporters of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Thanks to Global Atlanta for the footage.
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These GDP growth figures look quite impressive. It would be great to obtain photography that tracks with the release of such figures. Imagine seeing pictures that crystallize African countries’ improvements, small as they may be. Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP | The Economist. … Read More via Investing In Africa – Mutual Fund
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I appreciate my sister, Chenae, asking me whether the World Cup will really help South Africa’s economy. My response to her question follows: I worry about South Africa’s ability to maintain these huge stadiums it has built. They could drain resources. 50,000 people aren’t going to watch professional games on a regular basis. Another concern is…
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In elementary school, I grew ashamed of the African heritage that sprung from my father’s Ghanaian homeland. Every day seemed to bring with it a new snide remark from fellow classmates. Either, I lifted rocks for exercise, had too big of a nose, or was an “African booty scratcher.” As I absorbed these remarks with…
Kwame Som-Pimpong 