Africa
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A neighbor’s premature death sparks a vision for connecting Black communities to ownership — not just employment — in the energy and mineral industries shaping the future.
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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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Low Covid-19 death toll raises hopes Africa may be spared worst – So far, African countries have avoided the devastation the US and Europe have experienced from Covid-19. The nervousness in my chest won’t leave for some time, and I pray that Africa countries continue to navigate this virus as best they can. It’s been…
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COVID-19 Edition: What is venture sentiment today? – First Republic Bank published interesting results from a survey they conducted of 427 venture capital firms. Over the past month or so, there have been a lot of VCs posting on Twitter that they’re open for business. The data here tell a different story. Internet Speech Will…
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COVID-19 in Africa: Outcomes and Scenarios – Ronak Gopaldas of Signal Risk put together a nice analysis of the potential economic impact of COVID-19 on African markets. The central conclusion is that the path out of this situation is going to take years, something that is true for countries around the world. It’s frustrating to…
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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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Some Policy Lessons from COVID-19 “It is about time that African progressivism focused not just on criticizing those in power, but also on developing viable political programs that can win power. This will require organization, political education and communication that resonates with mass publics, genuine openness to knowing “the realities on the ground”, and a…
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How Rappers and Record Studios Are Coping With the Pandemic – “As devastating as this has been to recording studios, to think the coronavirus is the sole cause of Black artists leaving major recording studios is to ignore the past decade of Black music.” A Revolution of Values – “At Riverside, King assumed Malcolm’s previous…
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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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Zoom, Zoom, Zoom! The Exclusive Inside Story Of The New Billionaire Behind Tech’s Hottest IPO While reading this piece, all I could think about was how different Zoom was from other Silicon Valley unicorns-turned public companies that are more well-known. The company registered to go public with a profit after having already turned a profit.…
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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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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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This guest post is by my friend Ifunanya Nwokedi. I’m excited about her starting to put her point of view out in the public square. While Africa needs a well-educated and experienced graduate to drive change and development, these are not the experiences students receive at universities. In their Quartz article, Seth Traudeu and Keno Omu…
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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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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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Bloomberg: Star Rapper Akon Mulls IPO of Chinese-Funded African Solar Unit I was surprised to see this news. Akon’s Lighting Africa project has gotten a good bit of media attention over the past several years. Perhaps, as time goes by, more information about the company’s financials will come out. I think a lot of people…
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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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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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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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The Case for Private Equity to Play a Bigger Role in Supporting Africa’s Entrepreneurs Yemi Laludi, TPG Growth Africa’s Managing Director argues that private equity can tailor its approach to various markets in Africa in efforts to fill the financing vacuum that has stymied Africa’s entrepreneurs in their efforts to take their ideas to the…
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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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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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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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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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This piece on Jack Dorsey being named as CEO of Twitter while keeping the CEO reins at Square is pretty poor. How do you give recent examples of folks successfully running multiple companies without discussing what is enabling them to get this done? Yet, you reach back to 1990 to pull out a worst case…
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It’s an advertising company! It’s an infrastructure company! It’s, it’s Google! What doesn’t this company, now a portfolio company of Alphabet, do? Google is trenching around 1,000km of fiber optic cables to connect Accra, Tema and Kumasi. Through Project Link, internet service providers will buy capacity from Google to offer to consumers, unlike Google Fiber…
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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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Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance landed a senior advisory role with the asset management firm, Lazard, in their sovereign advisory practice. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala faced a good bit of criticism the last few years of her tenure, with the perception that she was quiet on corruption issues,…
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Take a look at the tweet below. If you follow economic development across Africa, you have seen the referenced charts. All I will say about the paternalism in this tweet is that the reasons for optimism about Africa go back further than 60 years. Moving on. Scott Galloway, a professor at NYU, said that the…
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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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Andreessen Horowitz just posted a short interview with four high school girls who recently competed in Technovation 2015. (If you’re opening this in your email, click on the title so that you can see the podcast linked below.) The winner of the competition was a team from Nigeria! All of the teams are really impressive.…
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No. A little over a year ago, Jehiel was telling me about this idea he had for smart tractors. A few days ago, he talked about what Hello Tractor is doing while moderating a panel with President Obama. Amazing. It is so frustrating to read story after story on America’s failing infrastructure. Great post by Mark…
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Tidjane Thiam gets off to a nice start at Credit Suisse Silicon Valley’s Political End Game Rocket Internet’s portfolio value has grown $2.5 billion in nine months Wistia founder shares how not being fake helped them close an account with a big customer Not sure I buy the analysis that Eurobond issuances among African countries with…
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One more before bed. Netflix released its shareholder letter today and had some interesting results. Jake Bright mentioned in his comments during the book launch for The Next Africa, that Netflix is paying attention to what is happening in African markets in the internet TV streaming space. So, when I saw that Netflix released its…
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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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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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Imagine being able to pull up a film on Yaa Asantewaa for your daughter when she asks to watch TV. I am frustrated with the dearth of animated films with black princesses as the star characters. After my daughter’s 30th viewing of Frozen, I looked for other films with a black princess. So far, I…
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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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I gave a presentation earlier this week on how investment was key to moving the needle on transforming economic engagement with African countries from development aid to infrastructure. Here is my brainstorm in preparation for that talk, with some edits. During the IMF Spring Meetings a couple weeks ago, I heard a theme of working…
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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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While doing research for another article, I ran across my talking points from a presentation I gave at Yale’s Sankofa54 conference. They were interesting to take a look at a year later. I figured it could not hurt to post them here. Reflections on role models for Anna Olivia Last night was incredible for me.…
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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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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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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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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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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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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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I left a 10-day vacation in Switzerland last month in awe of the country’s rail infrastructure. One can live in a small village hours away from a major city like Zurich or Geneva, yet work in the city without a car. This would be tough to do in Atlanta. In Switzerland, trams are an indispensable…
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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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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 