Africa News Headlines for 9 July 2014

Americans Think Africa Is One Big Wild Animal Reserve
Source: The New Republic

US: African Leaders Should Honor Constitutional Term Limits
Source: Voice of America

Boko Haram: Terror’s Insidious New Face
Source: Newsweek

Canal+ launches new channel for Africa
Source: Digital TV Europe

Sasol begins study for gas-to-liquids plant in Mozambique
Source: SouthAfrica.info

Gabon signs Global Tax Convention
Source: Business Ghana

Sudanese president hold talks with Qatar’s Emir in Doha
Source: Sudan Tribune

Museveni era and the killing of the civil service
Source: The Observer

SABMiller to reduce water use by 14% in sustainability pledge
Source: Moneyweb

Big Beer: How Does SABMiller Stack Up?
Source: Guru Focus

Facebook Officially Doesn't Approve of Dead Animals or Baby Butts
Source: The Wire

Global effort needed to stem elephant slaughter: CITES
Source: Business Recorder

Djibouti In Legal Dispute With DP World Over Port Concession
Source: Gulf Business

Africa's Challenges Are Tech Startups' Opportunities
Source: The Wall Street Journal

Vatican, exorcism and witch hunting in Africa
Source: Sierra Express Media

Why Is Namibia Killing Its Rare Desert Elephants?
Source: Scientific American

Ugandan gay activist John Abdallah Wambere, unable to return home, visits Portland to screen "Call Me Kuchu"
Source: The Oregonian

Immunity for African Leaders?
Source: Africa in Transition

President Uhuru Kenyatta banks on reform agenda to create more jobs
Source: Standard Digital

Now Small Farmers In East Africa Can Sell On The World Market
Source: Huffington Post

UNSC concern over Ebola, terror threats in West Africa
Source: Firstpost

W’Africa gets innovative cancer care facility
Source: The Guardian Nigeria

Africa News Headlines for 6 July 2014

Kidnapped Nigerian girls escape from Boko Haram abductors - reports
Source: The Independent

Akin Bello wins Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa
Source: WorldStage

US military Africa chief: Chaos in Libya is destabilizing the region
Source: Asharq Al-Awsat

Equatorial Guinea leader's son Obiang loses legal case against French magazine
Source: RFI English

Video footage shows Pistorius re-enacting killing
Source: NBC29

Senegal prime minister sacked
Source: Aljazeera

Uganda taxpayers to pay for Kutesa’s one-year stay in New York
Source: The London Evening Post

Cape schoolgirls in animal porn shock
Source: IOL News

Muhwezi envious of Mbabazi – ex minister Hope Mwesigye
Source: The Observer

Malaria Remains A Threat In Southern Africa
Source: Bernama

African Youth and the Job Market: Asset or Liability?
Source: Fair Observer

13 Nigerian banks make top 1000 world ranking, lead Africa
Source: The Guardian Nigeria

Philippines, S. Africa in air talks
Source: Business World Online

Avoid unhealthy competition, PM tells universities
Source: New Vision

Gambian passport is 5th most powerful in Africa – report
Source: Star Africa

Ugandan president accuses sex as root of African problems
Source: Business Standard

Guinea-Bissau gets new government
Source: IOL News

Ugandans celebrate Pride in secret, despite anti-gay laws
Source: Gay Star News

Could it be that African farmers are seeking new jobs?
Source: GhanaWeb

Uganda salutes USA Independence
Source: New Vision

No visa required: Africa’s most powerful passports
Source: How We Made It in Africa

Nine low-income African countries win funding to transform renewable energy services
Source: Star Africa

Into Africa: Capturing unforgettable memories on a photo expedition
Source: The Anniston Star

Malawi celebrates fifty years of independence
Source: Aljazeera

Electrify, energize and power Africa: Partnering with Africa for the long run
Source: Business Day

Jill Biden Travels to East Congo on Africa Tour
Source: ABC News

This time for Africa: why India must woo this continent
Source: Hindustan Times

Uganda army kills 41 'tribal gunmen' near DRC
Source: Aljazeera

Airtel to work with Government in developing ICT and help fight Ebola
Source: PC Tech Magazine

Unrefined oil politics: How close links to Mbabazi cost Chinese US$3bn deal
Source: The Independent

Africa News Headlines for 3 July 2014

Will Ethiopia’s New Sovereign Credit Rating Increase Foreign Investment?
Source: Brookings/Africa in Focus

Arab Spring Largely Ignored in Sub-Saharan Africa
Source; Gallup World

West Africa fertile ground for pharmas
Source: Destiny Connect

Ex-Ugandan intelligence chief warns against military intervention in S. Sudan
Source: Sudan Tribune

Equatorial Guinea disqualified from Africa Cup of Nations
Source: Soccerway

Africa: Four reasons skilled workers leave - and how to keep them
Source: Radio Netherlands

Analysis: Uganda sucked into CAR vortex
Source: Daily Maverick

Africa: On the frontier
Source: Financial Times

E-commerce could challenge bricks and mortar retail in Africa
Source Bizcommunity.com

RED ALERT: Africa's vulture population in danger
Source: The Himalayan

African nations give Rwandan rebels six months to disarm
Source: Ahram Online

John Githongo: corruption in Kenya is poisoning politics
Source The Guardian

Kagame hosts Museveni, Kenyatta for integration meet
Source: New Vision

How fast is Africa really growing?
Source: Business Times

Challenges of transit trade and trade facilitation in West Africa addressed by UNCTAD at workshop
Source: UNCTAD

Central African Republic: “It’s the Economy, Stupid!”
Source; Africa in Transition

China is a force for good in Africa
Source: People's Daily

Camco, Eiser to help run Africa fund
Source: ReCharge

China Continues to Expand Its Influence into Africa
Source: IVN

Thai ivory boom 'fuelling Africa elephant crisis'
Source: New Vision

African-Elephant Poaching Soars as Ivory Prices Triple in China
Source: TIME

Analysis: Understanding organized crime in Africa
Source: IRIN

What are the Chinese up to in Africa?
Source: The Spectator

PSD student to be ‘youth ambassador’ in South Africa
Source: Coloradoan

Tech solutions from Africa: The next big thing?
Source: Deutsche Welle

African wildlife-hunting cheerleader Kendall Jones targeted by critics
Source: Fox News

Ugandans ignorant about the East African Court of Justice
Source: New Vision

Booming economies are not boosting employment in Africa, why?
Source: The Guardian

Africa Must Have Coherent Approach to Trade Negotiations
Source: Ghana Broadcasting Corporation

Africa's number crunchers leave investors in the dark
Source: Reuters

Africa's Richest Man To Build 11 Health Centers in Nigeria To Combat Polio
Source: Forbes

Electrify Africa, Energize Africa and Power Africa: Partnering With Africa for the Long Run
Source: Roll Call

US warns of terror threat at Ugandan airport, nearly 4 decades after deadly hijacking
Source: Fox News

Ugandan president calls Western aid ‘unreligious,’ ‘sinful’
Source: The Washington Times

An interview with Greg Mills about 'why Africa is poor'

Why is Africa poor? What can Africans do about it?

These two questions are combined in the title of a 2010 book, Why Africa Is Poor and What Africans Can Do About It, by South African scholar Greg Mills. The book was released in paperback in 2011 and in a Kindle edition in 2012.

Mills is director of the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation, which “was established in 2005 by the Oppenheimer family,” he told me in an interview after a book forum at the Cato Institute in Washington. He is also the co-author, with David Williams, of Seven Battles that Shaped South Africa and, with Jeffrey Herbst, of Africa's Third Liberation: The New Search for Prosperity and Jobs (2012; Kindle edition, 2014).

The foundation’s objective, Mills said, is to “try to strengthen African economic performance. Essentially we operate at a strategic level with African presidencies, at their request,” providing research and advice “based on primary fieldwork in African countries” and drawing “a lot of good and bad examples from around the world: things to avoid and things to try to replicate.”

Describing Why Africa Is Poor and What Africans Can Do About It, Mills explained it has three parts.

“It tries to understand, firstly, why Africa is poor, and it advances the idea that this is a choice of African leadership. It’s an option that they have taken; it’s a result of their poor decisions,” he said.

It also tries to explain, Mills added, “why those decisions have been made. It often relates to the fact that African electorates are apathetic. In many cases, they don’t hold their leaders to account.”

The book also relates how economic aid from developed countries – or lack of it, depending on how one looks at it – “provides an opportunity for Africans to externalize their problems and also their solutions.

The second part of the book, Mills said, “focuses on international experiences and the best examples that Africa can draw” upon, while “the third part of the book really focuses on some of the opportunities in Africa [and] how these ideas might be implemented.”

That third section, he explained, examines the coming “demographic dividend in Africa and what this means [as] a huge opportunity for Africa, and what we have to do to realize this.” It also focuses on issues like agriculture, mining, and tourism, “three areas of great comparative advantage for the continent.”


Huge Potential for Tourism
With regard to tourism, Mills noted, “Africa currently gets about 4 percent of the global one billion-person tourism market,” meaning that Africa is wildly underrepresented in that economic sector, even though “in terms of wildlife and other beach and safari-type options, we have tremendous potential.”

Greg Mills at the Cato Institute, 2010

He gave the examples of “a country like Kenya has a million fly-in tourists a year. Tanzania has 500,000 fly-in tourists a year, [while] Mozambique just has 50,000,” despite being “right next door to South Africa. There’s clearly a lot of potential in terms of an increasing that market.”

To increase tourism, Mills said, “we need to make it easier to get to Africa, cheaper to get to Africa, [and provide] higher quality resorts when people get there,” as well as assure “safer conditions where people don’t have to be worried about what surprises they’re going to find en route.”

He said that “the way to do it is to try to make it cheaper for South African tourists, in particular, to fly” to other African countries, “and then to relax visa restrictions on other external tourists.” In his formal remarks, Mills had pointed out that the Republic of Georgia no longer requires tourist visas for visitors from countries that have a bigger GDP than Georgia has, because such people are unlikely to stay there looking for work.

“Unfortunately,” Mills lamented, “most African countries have a very onerous visa regime and the air flights are not only unreliable, but relatively sparse in terms of their coverage and penetration of African markets.”

Still, he concluded, there is “certainly a huge amount of unrealized potential in tourism with all the multiplier employment prospects that it offers.”


‘Ditto’ for Agriculture
“Ditto,” he said, “in terms of agriculture,” which is extremely underdeveloped in relation to its potential in Africa.

“Africa’s agricultural yields have been two-thirds below that of the rest of the world,” Mills explained, due to “a huge lack of investment in extension services and fertilizer and seed programs.”

African agricultural output, he said, has “more or less flat-lined since independence in terms of its yield increases. This means that 38 of 48 sub-Saharan African countries are net food importers. It’s a staggering statistic.”

With more and more Africans moving to urban areas, he warned, “if we are to develop in our cities and if we are able to reduce food costs, we need to up our game.”

That means “addressing questions about land title, it means improving extension services, it means getting the private sector involved. It means upping scale in terms of agriculture, because that obviously brings certain efficiencies, and it means introducing technologies.”

In essence, Mills said, Africa must move “from a subsistence, peasant-type farming environment to a large-scale commercial involvement, [with] all the steps in between, particularly in mid-level farming.”

Despite this current underutilization of agricultural resources, Mills continued, “there’s huge potential on the continent. We shouldn’t be stuck at 5 percent growth. We should be looking at 10 percent growth and find out and understand the reasons why we’re not doing 15 percent growth,” since Africa is starting “from such a low base.”

(This article originally appeared in two parts, and in somewhat different form, on Examiner.com, on October 7 and October 8, 2010.)

New Africa Book of the Day - 10 June 2014

Africa's Third Liberation by Greg Mills and Jeffrey Herbst

Release Date: June 2, 2014
Publisher: SA Penguin [Kindle Edition]

Africa has experienced two liberations: the first from colonial and racist regimes, and the second from the autocrats who often followed foreign rule. African countries now have the potential to undertake a third liberation - from political economies characterised by graft, crony capitalism, rents-seeking, elitism and social inequality. This third liberation will open up the economic space in which business can compete - a necessary condition for expanding employment. During the 2000s, the continent had its best growth decade on record since independence. High commodity prices offer a launch pad for sustained growth and employment creation. Now is the moment for African countries to act. This book asks how Africa's political leaders and interest groups can promote economic growth in their countries. Drawing on studies of countries outside Africa, Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills identify the factors separating the performers from the laggards worldwide. Aside from the need to create an enabling environment for business through good governance, provision of infrastructure and improvements in education, most critical is the need for a laser-like development focus by governments. In Africa's Third Liberation, Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills show why a new African political debate is necessary to make progress in accelerating growth and creating jobs.

Jeffrey Herbst, president of Colgate University, is author of The Politics of Reform in Ghana, 1982-1991 (1993), The Future of Africa: A New Order in Sight (2005), and States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control (2000). Greg Mills, director of the Brenthurst Foundation, is author of Why Africa is Poor: And What Africans Can Do About It (2011).

Africa News Headlines for 28 May 2014

Making a hash(tag) of Africa policy
Source: The Hill

Gabon Oil Company to boost oil sales, eyes acquisitions
Source: Reuters

Independents stepping up role in Nigeria’s oil industry
Source: Business Day

China Turns To Africa For Resources, Jobs And Future Customers
Source: NPR's Fresh Air

Zebras take prize for longest terrestrial large mammal migration in Africa
Source: PBS Newshour

Interactive Map: Africa’s mixed progress on water and sanitation access
Source: Humanosphere

No sex please, we're parliamentarians: S.Africa's ANC
Source: Yahoo! News

U.S. Special Forces Worry #BringBackOurGirls Will Tweet Them Into Africa Like #Kony2012 Did
Source: The Wire

How is China expanding its economic empire in Africa?
Source: PRI's The World

E-learning Africa Conference opens in Uganda
Source: New Vision

Why Ending Child Marriage in Africa Can No Longer Wait
Source: Inter Press Service

Youth unemployment Africa’s greatest challenge
Source: NewsDay

Boko Haram too extreme for 'al Qaeda in W.Africa' brand
Source: Reuters

US prepares investment push into Africa
Source: Financial Times

US special operations troops reportedly training counterterrorism units in Africa
Source: Fox News

Africa maintains growth momentum despite security challenges
Source: Euronews

African young people are shaping their future
Source: UNAIDS

Gabon starts talks on massive Belinga iron ore mining
Source: The Africa Report

Africa News Headlines for 28 April 2014

Columbus Zoo to open new Africa exhibit in May
Source: Sandusky Register

Africa on the way to realising 4.4pc growth in agriculture
Source: KBC

President unveils bronze bust of Nelson Mandela as South Africa marks 20 years of democracy
Source: Fox News

Mauritius leads Africa in using ICT for development – WEF
Source: Human IPO

Seychelles is Africa’s second best ICT nation
Source: Star Africa

Single visa for African countries in the works
Source: TTG Asia

Japan aims to help address African food crisis by training farmers in the region
Source: Japan Daily Press

Sub-Saharan Africans underemployed: IMF
Source: News Day

China set to play bigger role in Africa trade
Source: Shanghai Daily

AU accused of failing to act over S.Sudan violence
Source: Capital FM

Website traffic explosion in South Africa
Source: mybroadband

Developing a regional trade market in East Africa is vital to U.S. political and economic security
Source: U.S. News & World Report

Africa needs investment not aid, says Equity boss
Source: Capital FM

EU increases funding for Ebola in West Africa
Source: Business Day

Military Decline Calls South Africa's Regional Leadership into Question
Source: World Politics Review

South Africa keen to host BRICS Development Bank
Source: Odisha Sun Times

‘Little Africa’ in India
Source: Bangkok Post

"Is there any hope for Africa?"
Source: Somaliland Press