According to Tunisia’s Chambers of Commerce and Industry President, Wided Bouchamaoui, “There is still ambiguity that hinders economic growth…and efforts to provide more job opportunities.”

She told Reuters in an interview at the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit that “There is no clear political vision or final road map, and investors at home and abroad are often reluctant to wait for a resolution of these matters.”

Bouchamaoui, the first woman to head the Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said faster growth would be difficult without more political clarity. She asserts that political uncertainty was hampering the government’s response to economic problems.

“There is a lack of boldness in government decisions…Businessmen and investors do not feel they have adequate guarantees in light of the fragile security situation and the growing sit-ins, which could cost the companies huge losses,” she said.

Bouchamaoui, who is also the founder and chief executive of spinning and knitting enterprise Maille Fil, said the economic environment has deteriorated since hardline Islamists stormed the U.S. embassy in Tunis in September to protest a film made in California that was deemed offensive to Islam.

“The urgent thing is to adjust the political map…Most businessmen at home and abroad want to know the characteristics of the future, because this government is temporary.”

On the ban issued on about 70 businessmen who were suspected of involvement in corruption cases under the former regime, Bouchamaoui said the government need to resolve those suspicions one way or the other as soon as possible, rather than leaving the businessmen in limbo.

“The government should resolve these cases in the courts, so the innocent can take care of their projects and contribute to the growth of the country’s economy.”

Tunisia is waiting to hold its presidential and parliamentary elections by June 23, 2013 while the post-revolution ruling coalition, led by the moderate Islamist Ennahda Movement take charge of the government political affairs while trying to rebuild the country’s economy. The North African nation had experienced a setback in its economy as strikes and worker sit-ins at factories cut industrial output, while many foreign investors and tourists stayed away after the then authoritarian leader, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in January 2011.

Business confidence has however improved in the country this year as the new Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the country rose 24 percent from a year earlier in the first ten months of to $957 million this year. According to government data, this is not far below its level in the same period of 2010.

The government predicts economic growth of 3.5 percent this year and 4.5 percent in 2013, after the economy shrank 2.2 percent last year. Growth is still too slow, however, to make a major dent in unemployment, which is at an officially estimated 17 percent and was a major source of the discontent which fuelled the revolution, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, apart from the need to look into the country’s political stabilisation, Bouchamaoui said , it was vital for the government to speed up revision of investment laws to cut bureaucratic red tape, make business more transparent and eliminate corruption.

Tunisia’s Finance Minister Slim Besbes however told the news agency that at the summit that government is in the “final stages” of preparing a new investment law that would strengthen protections given to investors and make procedures easier.

Tunisia aims to attract a target of 2.5 billion dinars ($1.6 billion) of foreign investment in 2013, according to Investment and International Cooperation Minister Riadh Bettaieb.

Besbes said Tunisia will need about 7 billion dinars ($4.4 billion) of loans and aid next year to compensate former political prisoners freed by the 2011 revolution

“The government is also committed to restoring many of the former prisoners to work, and this will cost the state a lot of money. The state will carry out its responsibility to provide immediate compensation to former prisoners who are in difficult situations because of their ideology,” he added, without specifying the amount of aid required.”

As the birthplace of the Arab Spring upheaval (a Tunisian vegetable seller’s suicide in December 2010 was the initial trigger for uprisings in the region) Tunisia is very sensitive to the need to cut unemployment and poverty, and that will require substantial spending, Besbes said.

“Our financial needs in the next year will be 7 billion dinars of loans and aid,” he said. That figure compares with the 4.3 billion dinars that the government has said it plans to borrow in 2012.

While affirming that the United States has pledged to guarantee a $500 million loan to his country, the finance minister said that Tunisia was discussing with the World Bank a potential loan of $500 million, plus a $500 million loan from the African Development Bank to meet next year’s needs.

The post Post-Revolution Tunisia Needs More Foreign Investment appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

A couple of years back, world No2 miner, Vale, pitched its tent in Africa by exporting its first overseas coal shipment from Mozambique. It started with the exportation of 35,000 metric tons of thermal coal from the port of Beira to the United Arab Emirates – now Vale is aspiring to double its capacity to 22 million tons of coal annually over the next few years. The company plans to spend more than $12 billion across the continent over the next five years.

However, according to a CNN report, Vale is not the only Brazilian firm eyeing a spot on the continent as the South American giant’s state and private firms have quietly made inroads into the continent, operating mostly in strategic sectors such as infrastructure, energy and mining.
Other Brazilian companies that have pitched their tent in Africa include Odebrecht, Brazil’s biggest construction company, and Petrobras, a state-controlled energy group.

The relationship between Africa and Brazil dates back to the era of slave trade, and Brazilian leaders are quick to use the country’s cultural affinity with Africa as an advantage in its competition.

According to Cristina Stolte, researcher at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, “The fact that the majority of Brazil’s population is of Afro-Brazilian origin – making Brazil the world’s largest black population after Nigeria – is frequently quoted by the almost exclusively white governing elite of Brazil in order to stress Brazil’s cultural similarities with the African countries.”

“Brazilian officials as well as businessmen frequently stress the aim of contributing to the development of African countries by pointing to the fact that Brazil is hiring and training local workforce and offering social projects to foster local development.”

Trade between Brazil and Africa has jumped from around $4 billion in 2000 to about $20 billion in 2010.

This, analysts accredit to the effort of Brazil’s former President, Lula da Silva who made Africa a strategic priority for Brazil as part of the country’s efforts to expand its global influence. The same stride is made under the present leadership of by Dilma Rousseff, who in the first year of her office visited Angola, Mozambique, and South Africa.

The continent has a “new opportunity. I’m based here in (Mozambique capital) Maputo because our investments here in Mozambique are the most important,” says Ricardo Saad, who oversees Vale’s Asia, Australia and Africa operations.
Saad says that Vale, along with making profits, is committed to the development of local communities.

“When we talk about Africa, it’s not possible to talk about Africa not thinking about sustainable development and respect to the people, respect to the environment, respect to the planet, but having the sense that our development is going to be also a local development,” he says.

“We are here to be a Mozambican company — we come from Brazil, but we are Mozambican now,” Saad adds.

Vale operates in several African countries, including Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa. It has been in Mozambique since 2004. The thermal coal was mined from the company’s Moatize concession in western Mozambique, an area believed to hold one of the world’s biggest untapped reserves.

Over the years, the mining giant has broaden its pitch by spending millions of Dollars on infrastructure, including a railway line passing through Malawi and connecting its Moatize facility with Nacala, the largest deep-water natural port on Africa’s eastern coast.

The post Brazilian Companies Eye More African Investment appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

The Doing Business project provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 185 economies and selected cities at the subnational and regional level. The Doing Business 2013: Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises report, which is the 10^th edition, examined regulations that apply to businesses in an economy during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and protecting investors. The aggregate ease of doing business rankings are based on 10 indicators and cover 185 economies. Doing Business does not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors.

African countries rated on the list include, Botswana, Ghana, Namibia, Zambia, Egypt, Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria which were positioned at 59, 64, 87, 94, 109, 120, 121, and 131 respectively.

Other are Swaziland – 123, Ethiopia -127, Tanzania-134, Lesotho-136, Madagascar-142, Liberia -149, Burundi – 151, Mali-151, Togo-156, Malawi-157, The Comoros -158, Burundi-159, Cameroon -161, Gabon – 170, Angola – 172, Benin -175 and Guinea-178 and Democratic Republic of Congo at 181 position globally.

At the bottom of the list of the 185 economies examined are; The Central African Republic, Chad and The Republic of Congo with 185, 184, and 183 positions.

The report, however, attested that African economies made consistent progress in improving business regulation in the reviewing year. According to the report, of the 50 economies making the most improvement in business regulation for domestic firms since 2005, 17 are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Doing Business is about smart business regulations, not necessarily fewer regulations. We are very encouraged that so many economies in Africa are among the 50 that have made the most improvement since 2005 as captured by the Doing Business indicators,” said Augusto Lopez-Claros, Director, Global Indicators and Analysis, World Bank Group.

“The report, finds that from June 2011 to June 2012, 28 of 46 governments in Sub-Saharan Africa implemented at least one regulatory reform making it easier to do business—a total of 44 reforms. Burundi, with four reforms, ranks among the 10 economies worldwide that improved the most in the past year across three or more areas measured by Doing Business—the only low-income economy on the list.”

African economies that have improved the most since then (June 2011 to June 2012) include Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Angola, Mauritius, Madagascar, Mozambique, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Niger, Nigeria, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

With Rwanda 52nd out of 185 countries, the country retained its reputation as the best business destination in east and central Africa region. The report singles out Rwanda as having consistently improved since 2005, implementing more than 26 business reforms. The East African nation made an amazing business recovery from 2008, when it was ranked 150th globally.

Nevertheless, the report concluded that despite those achievements, much more can be done to enable African economies to build a strong and competitive private sector. The region’s average ranking on the ease of doing business is 140 out of 185. Mauritius and South Africa are the only African economies among the top 40 in the global ranking.

On the global scene, Singapore continues to take the lead as the easiest place to do business with the most business-friendly regulation for the seventh consecutive year. Others on the top ten list of the easiest place to do business include: Hong Kong SAR, China; New Zealand; the United States; Denmark; Norway; the United Kingdom; the Republic of Korea; Georgia; and Australia.

Topping the list of countries that recorded the biggest improvements in the ease of doing business over the last year were Poland, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Burundi, Costa Rica, Mongolia, Greece, Serbia, and Kazakhstan.

The post Mauritius Leads As The Easiest Place To Do Business In Africa appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

It predicted a 4.8 per cent growth rate for sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2012 but cautioned countries to be prudent in spending their resources wisely and to focus on public investment.

Shantayanan Devarajan, the World Bank’s chief Africa economist said, “Resource-rich African countries have to make the conscious choice to invest in better health, education and jobs, and less poverty for their people because it will not happen automatically when countries strike it rich.”

The global financial institution its report released yesterday also predicted that Africa’s largest oil producer, Nigeria, could keep supplying at the 2011 levels for another 41 years while Angola, the second largest producer in the continent has about 21 years at current production levels before its reserves would be exhausted.

The World Bank believes Africa is still on track despite global economic setbacks. It says growth in sub-Saharan Africa, apart from South Africa, will rise to six per cent in 2012. Countries such as Mozambique, home to some of the world’s biggest untapped natural gas reserves, and mineral rich cum iron-ore exporting Sierra Leone are expected to perform strongly.

“A third of African countries will grow at or above six per cent with some of the fastest growing ones buoyed by new mineral exports such as iron ore in Sierra Leone, uranium and oil in Niger, and by factors such as the return to peace in Cote d’Ivoire, as well as strong growth in countries such as Ethiopia,” World Bank Vice-President for Africa, Mukhtar Diop.

The report indicated that although African exports rebounded in the first quarter of 2012, at an annualised pace of 32 percent, up from 11 percent 2011; the continent is still vulnerable to the recent cases of market volatility occasioned by crisis from the Euro area and the growth slowdown that is occurring in China, which had remained an important market for Africa’s mineral exporters.

Should China not succeed in engineering a soft landing, “demand for and prices of major metals and minerals could decline significantly,” it stated.

The international financial institution stated in the report that , 22 of Africa’s 48 countries have officially achieved middle-income status, while another 10 could reach middle-income status by 2025 if current growth trends persist.

While ascribing high commodity prices and an increase in exports from countries that have made mineral discoveries as the major source of growth in the continent in 2012, the report says new discoveries of oil, gas, and other minerals in the continent would continue to generate a wave of significant mineral wealth in the region.

It also noted that child mortality and poverty rates in the continent has declined faster than one percentage point a year and for the first time, between 2005 and 2008, but cautioned that recent spikes in food and grain prices had become worrisome given that Africa’s Sahel region was already suffering from higher food prices, high rates of malnutrition and persistent crisis and insecurity.

The post World Bank: Africa Pulse Report Predict 4.8% Increase In FDI appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

VENTURES AFRICA — One of the most discomfiting stories that welcomed Africa to the current year was written by US-based Zambian journalist, Field Ruwe, after meeting, on a transatlantic flight, a white man who introduced himself as a member of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation.

Ruwe’s companion had scathing words for African leaders and their people, their reasoning, their inferiority complex against whites, their laziness with making inventions, their thoughtlessness.

Although he admitted that scientific research had long confirmed the equality of white and black men, save skin pigmentation, Ruwe’s friend (barring the well-known bitterness of truth) boasted that he felt superior to any black man. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education ….,” he added.

He ended his rather demeaning but candid assessment of Africans with an advice, though: “Get over this white-skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff, for God’s sake.”

Of course, any honest African will agree with the unidentified white man’s utterances. It was clear, too, that Field Ruwe had little answers for the many embarrassing questions he was faced with. Ruwe’s predicament was understandable: he hadn’t met many people like Bola Akindele. This, again, is understandable: on the continent, there aren’t many Akindeles, the IT-savvy chief executive officer of Nigeria’s only company in the business solutions development sector to be certified compliant with international standards under the ISO 9001:2008 approved standards.

Incorporated in 2005 as a limited liability company, Courteville Business Solution plc. already operates in 18 of Nigeria’s 36 states and is poised to stamp its international presence in other African countries within the next 18 months.

But it is Courteville’s work at home that has earned it a place in the international spotlight, having stepped into the country’s business of vehicle licensing and insurance with such vigour and technological innovation that even his compatriots could not believe is wholly homegrown.

The process of registering, licensing and insuring vehicles had been a cumbersome affair, spawned by a combination of the country’s ever-rising population and the drudgery associated with the manual system of the process, which, worse still, is very often usurped by layabouts.

“It was clear to me that the solution lay in intelligent deployment of IT,” he says. “What was needed was a large-enough database and an automated system. If we could bypass all the bureaucratic nonsense, the dilapidated filling systems and the handwritten chits then in use, we could deliver the same service far more rapidly, efficiently, securely, verifiably and profitably. Everybody would win — the vehicle owners, the councils, the insurers.”

It was “difficult” initially, but the buck soon began rolling in. “We had to wait for owners to come renew their annual licenses to start inputting data,” he recalls. “Once the initial information had been installed, other items fell to place. Our database continued to grow rapidly. We now have records of over 15m motorists in Nigeria and in each file you have at least 10 entries. I believe we have the largest database in sub-Saharan Africa.”

In implementing his strategies, he was widely expected to turn to the West, but he turned in a pleasant disappointment: “I get calls from some states asking to know our promoters and if we are representing foreign firms because they cannot believe that what we do can be done solely by Nigerians,” he laments, saying it shows “the extent of disbelief in our own capabilities.”

“Everything about this business is homegrown,” he assures. “We did not buy any proprietary software. We design, develop and deliver everything locally. There is a goldmine of young IT specialists right in this country. They are very innovative. With a little help from government, we could be exporting our expertise — much as India is now doing — and probably earn more, with far less investment, that [we do] from oil.”

If there are any lessons to take from Courteville’s success, they are the power of self-belief, which the country unfortunately is lacking in bounds; the value of thoughtfulness, that intellectual determination to carve out a bridge from a scene of gridlock traffic; that essential recognition of the strength of the black man.

The post Akindele, Courteville And The Value Of Homegrown Intelligence appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

VENTURES AFRICA – “Fortune favours the brave.” Well, not always. Sometimes it can prove you to be ill-informed and lacking in judgement related to economic development in general!

It is with pride that I am writing this article with reflection on a printed edition of the The Economist regrettably labelled Africa “the hopeless continent” a decade ago, a fundamental and profound change has taken hold of the reigns for keeping the global economy’s head above water.

There are “Elephants” in the room scaring off probable foreign investors that would otherwise be streaming into the US and European economies. Firstly, looking back at the re-runs of governmental investigations into the banking and financial roles that led to a meltdown, proves that the focus on “greed” proved a distraction to the colossal impact such ignorant decisions would have had. Then, we consider PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland Italy and Greece) and the phenomenal implications the financial meltdown has had on these countries, coupled with the lack of foresight in fiscal bail-outs that did not work – at all. I would be watching the IPO of Facebook with interest over the next month or so. So far the share price seems overstated.

So let’s not rub too much salt on this wound as Africa itself needs to prove “herself” fit to reap the rewards of what “she” sows NOW.

In addition to considering SADC as an investment destination, cognisance should be given to the following factors for economic growth;

- Water

- Energy

- Climate

In general, the SADC region has remained unscathed in comparison to other regions in Africa. The energy sector, albeit short on sufficient energy brings the prospect of foreign direct investment (FDI) as considered in South Africa due to the energy shortfall. Water resources remain stable in comparison to that required for scalable trajectory of infrastructure growth. Water in particular, was a concern in Zimbabwe.

Other factors of concern are the overall backing system and status quo companies may have if debt is a requirement to stimulate growth. Liquidity in Zimbabwe is not the first choice and the Zimbabwean government does not have a lender of last resort resulting in liquidity dearth.

Economic Development and Growth Nodes

A look at the mineral resources sector has shown that Zimbabwe is a pretty good bet. China has long seen the potential of this sector and made significant investments. But let’s not thank China just yet!

Estimated economic growth for Zimbabwe stands at 9.4 percent and the mining sectors seems set to gain a trajectory to 15.9% with agriculture slightly behind, rising to 11.6%. Subsistence farming in Zimbabwe has not have bad “pickings” itself, with maize showing gains in the south-east of the country. Emerging markets show above average growth of 5.4% due to the contracting eurozone while Zimbabwe stands out….this time not as a sore thumb. The development of supply chains from industry in Zimbabwe has growth nodes for various players in surrounding countries.

Another “windfall” for development is land. Theory suggests that land has significant potential in SADC based on the following indicators;

- Most countries have extreme spatial inequalities – 50 percent of US GDP is produced in 2 percent of space; 82 percent of the EU’s GDP is produced in 36 percent of its area.

- Convergence between developed and undeveloped regions takes a long time – Convergence between regions more successful where poor regions are functionally linked and connected to centres of economic activity.

- Regions and countries with unequal spatial economies converge at about 2 percent a year (if at all).

National Spatial Development Perspective

Africa’s youth, what potential “she” bears herein? Africa’s population is set to double in the next 40 years moving a median of young people into productive years. This has the potential to create a more competitive spirit among Africa’s new ‘diamonds’, by opening up markets to become more competitive as well. In turn this makes education more competitive and has the ability to reduce the cost of education. Should the Department of Education and Training – Green Paper adopt a clever strategy, it could lead education strategy into the SADC region with a positive spill-over effect.

Commodities from 1981 to 2010 that cause growth spurts in SADC are mainly due to the fact that Africa holds half of the world’s Gold reserves, a third of ‘her’ diamonds, produces a significant portion of global copper, Colton, platinum, just to name a few. The supply chains in these markets do not have predominant African ownership. This has led to monetary seepage into the ‘developed’ economies. For all her life, Africa has made the developed world, what it is today. And it all started with Slavery.

With HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB causing significant deaths throughout Africa, new markets exist for competitive pharmaceutical solutions as opposed to a grant/donor system, which by the way is paying a huge role in saving lives.

Thus infrastructure should be used as a carrot to attract FDI instead of Government making direct investments into such projects. Forming partnerships could assist SADC government through NEPAD to aid this process. Infrastructure should also be implemented as a sustainable option to tax payers and not leading a development trajectory as the pool of resources across the board needs to feed the tax system to recoup any investments.

What Africa, will you do with your opportunity?

The post Africa Rising: Economic Development And Growth Nodes In SADC Region appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

Africa’s literary industry has been re-vamped with modern titles, new authors and also fresh interest in what Africans have to say in print. Tracy Nnanwubar profiles the publishers making waves and some of the factors that set them apart with African writing.

VENTURES AFRICA – Half a century ago, writing from Africa was unheard of in the wider world. Though the history of the African Writers Series is commendable in encapsulating the history of Africa’s struggle to rid itself of colonial domination and post-colonial oppression, contemporary Africa still needed a voice to tell its own post-modern stories. By presenting to the world stories written by Africans in which Africans were themselves subjects of their own histories, contemporary African publishers are positioning themselves as visionaries in the movement to represent an African identity in the modern world.

According to Charles Larson, those who say that nothing good has come out of Africa have not read the continent’s writers. African writers inhabit a world devoid of privilege or advantage, lacking many of the things that their Western counterparts take for granted such as—informed and understanding critics, and enlightened political leaders willing to acknowledge the importance of their art. Yet, contemporary African writers have left an indelible mark on the continent’s psyche as well as the international literary scene. In Africa, very few writers can live on their royalties hence they often have day time jobs and maintain writing as a passion not necessarily a money-earning career.

Successful African writers have therefore tended to be published by the metropolitan publishing houses that have the financial resources and established marketing networks to promote their work to a world audience. This could be economically rewarding but culturally, there are some writers who feel pre-disposed to write stories tailored to Western sensibilities and pre-conceived stereotypes – this being a yard stick for huge book sales. And indeed, whoever has the funds and plays the piper, definitely dictates the tune in developing African literature.

African publishers often find and nurture black writers only to lose out to the bigger mainstream Western publishers because of their inability to secure the financial backing that would guarantee African writers reasonable income. If African writing is to retain its originality and universal values, then African governments and the business community must do more to support writers and the publishing industry. This important task of writing our own histories has tended to be left to generous Western donors who often come with their own agenda for publishing those stories.

If recent achievements by African writers on the world literary scene are a barometer for future events then, African writers do have a lot to celebrate because African literary production is now fully acknowledged as part of world literature. Chinua Achebe’s winning of the Man Booker International Prize; an accolade given every two years for an exceptional lifetime’s contribution to world knowledge and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s winning of the Orange Prize with her novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, is a clear indication that African writing has become relevant. African writers, readers and publishers should be creating their own institutions not just by writing but also publishing in becoming film-makers, theatre directors and getting actively involved in the ownership aspect of the literary arts. This is something that Muhtar Bakare of Kachifo Publishing is already doing with the soon-to-be-released movie on Chimamanda’s novel Half Of A Yellow Sun.

Kwani? (yes, with the question mark) is arguably Africa’s most exciting and varied literary initiative of recent years. Describing itself as a magazine of ideas seeking to entertain, provoke and create, Kwani? commissions and publishes stories, poetry, art and photography from all around the African continent and the diaspora. Kwani?’s literary material “reflects Kenyans growing out of [the] ashes [who] have learnt to need nobody; be competitive and stay creative.” Kwani? asides publishing literature in English language often publishes in Sheng, a Swahili-based patois spoken in East Africa.

Kwani? represents a wail of new voices in literary concert such as Billy Kahora, Mukoma wa Ngugi and Shalini Gidoomal with the not so new: Binyavanga Wainaina, Muthoni Garland, and Doreen Baingana. Kwani? delves “deep into those spaces where the Kenyan story lives: the street corners, the neighbourhood pubs, the in-between semi-rural places where the clash of cultures – the traditional versus the modern- continues to redefine the social roles of the individual, dismantle patriarchal constructs and still retain the pithy wit and the devices of ancient orature that time and the ritual of the communal fireside have honed.” Still, as though in ridicule of such notions of Africa being the continent on the lee side of the Digital Divide, Kwani?’s publishing projects reach into the burgeoning realms of the Kenyan blogosphere to bring such politically brave, borderline intellectual and rebellious voices in a fresh look at the old themes of politics, slices of life and religion. In its literature, Kwani? places these themes alongside such taboo subjects as sex beyond the hetero-normative idea, thus establishing for itself in Africa a space for cutting-edge new fiction, mind provoking non-fiction, witty photo-essays and classic graphic narratives.

Binyavanga Wainaina is the founding editor of Kwani?. A Kenyan author, journalist, winner of the 2002 Caine Prize and former food and travel writer in Cape Town South Africa, he is currently the Director of the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists at Bard College. Much of the eccentricities that he displays in person are also displayed in the kind of stories that he writes and publishes. His milestones with Kwani? include discovering and publishing over thirty fresh African voices, some of whom have won the Caine Prize for African writing and have been awarded MFA Literary fellowships.

To encourage more African writing, Kwani? hosts the monthly Sunday Salon Nairobi and Kwani? Poetry Open Mic; places where authors and publishers can talk-shop, share ideas, and encourage one another. These sessions are very popular with promising writers and audiences who are interested in African literature.

Also a big star in African publishing is Muhtar Bakare, Founding chairman at Kachifo Limited who re-invented Nigerian literature after twelve years of working in the banking sector. His first and most successful author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has become an icon for new African writing, and is increasingly becoming the new brand for Nigerian literature. Kachifo Limited was set up in 2004 as an independent Nigerian publishing house “tell[ing] our own stories”, with a non-profit trust – Farafina Trust, whose board mission is to promote literature and literary skills in Africa. Kachifo does this through various initiatives such as the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Creative Writing Workshop held every year to provide a mentorship platform for budding young writers in Nigeria, and recently including participants from the rest of Africa.

Of late, Kachifo’s publishing projects are also delving into multimedia content, digital/e-books, including CD-ROMs, audio books, e-based learning platforms and film adaptations of the some of the novels they have published since inception. Already, a movie adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book Half Of A Yellow Sun has commenced and the production team – Slate Films, a British film production company – works closely with Kachifo on a film set in Lagos, Nigeria.

In this way, Kachifo is proving that publishing can be a viable business and though Nigeria’s leading independent publisher, it is still struggling with some of the challenges facing most publishers in Africa – piracy, illiteracy, other media forms like web and TV, and the economic unaffordability of e-books. Because of Muhtar Bakare’s vision to unearth new African writing and tell fresh stories from a pan-African perspective, undiscovered writers are energised and the Nigerian audience is beginning to see literature and books as good value for their time and money.

The back-bone of Storymoja Publishing, Muthoni Garland, is an author with the ability to word-paint Kenya in such vivid colours such that everyone who is Kenyan will recognise a little bit of everything she describes. She explains her inspiration as a “struggle to live with dignity in the face of appalling poverty, and political and religious hypocrisy. [Her] writing attempts to capture moments in which ordinary Kenyans are faced with moral dilemmas and are forced to confront issues. Our life is not easy but Kenyan resilience is frankly amazing.”

With regards to the future of reading and writing in Kenya and East Africa, Storymoja believes that it can only be “bright, brighter, [and] brightest.” There is also a growing realization that reading is a critical part of the process to achieving global understanding. In this way, Africans can and will embrace tribal differences as a source of national strength. To accelerate development in Africa, developing the reading sector is key. Part of the struggle for African publishers lie in nurturing a reading culture that goes beyond academics and politics. Even though this is done through Book Shares, Book Clubs, Book Readings, Literary Conferences, Writing Workshops, Writers-in-residence programs etc., more needs to be done to help Africans understand that a book is much more valuable than a materialistic pursuit of flashy acquisitions.

Storymoja is a venture recently formed by a collective of five writers who are committed to publishing contemporary East African writing of world-class standard; and whose books are marketed to a wide Kenyan audience for entertainment rather than as textbook material. This is Storymoja’s unique selling proposition. Because it is imperative for African publishers to challenge the perception that Kenyans do not read (except required educational text), Storymoja is providing African audiences with contemporary stories they can connect to.

One would agree that even with good media exposure, price is a significant factor affecting the purchasing power of many Africans because most Africans are simply focused on surviving and ensuring their basic needs are met, first, before purchasing a book. Storymoja claims that by simply focusing on volumes as opposed to high margins, a long-term strategy that is unlikely to be financially profitable to them in the short-term, will hopefully fulfill their deeply-felt motto of getting ‘A book in every hand’ eventually. In essence, Storymoja “dreams of the day when the ordinary Kenyan is as excited by reading as he is by Kenyan music, Nigerian DVDs and the mobile phone!”

Image via NAI

The post Africa’s Publishing Industry: The Success Story appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

VENTURES AFRICA — Egyptians are currently riding on the coat-tails of last year’s globally followed uprising against Hosni Mubarak to, for the first time in the country’s nine-decade history, elect their president, with an eye on a long-sought revitalization of its failing economy.

With its interim military tribunal promising to hand over power by July 1, a country once under the grip of octogenarian strongman, Mubarak, has indeed been handed an unprecedented lifeline. But the man to lead that charge must first amass more than 50 per cent of votes cast in a presidential contest featuring 12 aspirants or face the second placed candidate in a run-off next month.

Among the contenders are Mohammed Mursi, 60, candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, who will be counting on the most populous Arab country’s likely affinity for Islamic leadership; independent Islamist Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh, 60; leftist Hamdeen Sabahy, 57, who is the popular candidate among those who can neither stomach an Islamist regime nor aspirants with a hand in Mubarak’s deposed regime; and Amr Moussa, 70, the former Arab League chief who previously served as Mubarak’s foreign minister but stood down a decade before the revolt.

Still, Ahmed Shafiq, who was premier for a few days before Hosni Mubarak fell but quit after the protests at Tahor Square, retains an outside chance, considering his appeal to the section of electorates who consider only a strongman fit for rebuilding a country that spent nearly the whole of 2011 in anarchy.

The Egyptian revolution, lasting 25th January 2011 to 11th February when Mubarak resigned, led to significant truncations in the economy, after announcement by Vice President Omar Suleiman that the Egyptian military would assume control of the nation’s affairs following the former president’s deposition.

The high level military command of Egypt later announced the dissolution of both the Egyptian constitution and parliament of Egypt. Parliamentary elections, earlier scheduled for September did not hold until 28 November 2011.

Such yearlong polity disruptions have taken their toll on Egypt’s economy, which depends mainly on agriculture, media, petroleum and natural gas exports, and tourism — its main revenue source, alongside traffic that goes through the Suez Canal.

Hopes of a turnaround are palpable in the air, voters revelling in their first opportunity to truly decide the result of a contested election after decades of rigged votes and doctored reports, as was the case under other previous Egypt presidents, who were all military men.

“This is the first time that I vote in my entire life,” Mohamed Mustafa, a 52-year-old engineer told local media in Cairo. “I didn’t take part in past elections because we knew who would be president. This is the first time we don’t know.”

But whether the hopes translate to the change that Egyptians desperately crave, the change that made them risk their lives for Mubarak’s ouster, will have to be seen, as a sizeable portion of the North African country’s intellectual class believes the election is about choosing the least offensive of the candidates; not choosing the most desirable.

The post With Landmark Election, Egypt Hopes To Revive Flagging Economy appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

VENTURES AFRICA — The Nigerian government is coming under increased pressure from aid organisations and rights groups for the release of US$5.4 million that had been promised as aid for lead-poisoned children in Zamfara State.

Although government officials keep sidestepping the subject, Nigerian and international specialists, aid workers, scientists and ministers from the northwestern state as well as local cultural leaders recently gathered at an international conference in the capital, Abuja, to devise a combined plan to clean up poisoned sites, test and treat affected residents, who are mostly children, enthrone safer mining practices.

In the last two years, more than 400 children are reported to have died while another 4,000 have been contaminated by acute lead poisoning in the state, with the Nigeria head of renowned international health NGO, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Ivan Gayton, describing it as “one of the worst, if not the worst, lead-poisoning crises ever.”
In November 2011 the federal government committed US$5.4 million to help the poisoned children, but no amount has been released neither has the delay been explained, eight years on.

“Without delay, the $850 million naira from the ecological fund must be released in order to begin the environmental remediation and the safer mining programme in Zamfara State,” Gayton said at the close of the conference.

Thousands of children in Zamfara go untreated while their villages await remediation, excluding them from chelation [removing lead from the body] while they are continuously re-poisoned.

Lead poisoning is caused by artisanal mining practices in the gold-rich but destitute Zamfara, during which independent miners use crude hand tools to extract gold from crushed ore in their villages.

With the toxic dust contaminating soil, water, food and homes, children under five years of age are particularly susceptible to poisoning, as their bodies weigh much less and absorb far greater amounts of lead from the environment than adults. Similarly, children also ingest dust contaminated by lead more than any other age group, as they crawl on the ground and put dusty hands in their mouths.

The lead crisis peaked in 2010, when rapidly rising international gold prices (1 ounce of gold is valued at approximately $1,600) forced hordes of residents to turn to artisanal mining.

“The state government is doing all it can with its limited resources,” said Mouktar Lugga, Environment Commissioner for Zamfara State. “The state has been working with US-based environmental engineering firm Terragraphics to clean seven of the affected villages, while Geneva-based MSF has treated over 2,500 children under five.”

Still, no federal minister of mining, environment, or health attended the conference, and no concrete government action was announced.

“By not participating in the conference, the federal government sent a message that the political commitment to resolve this really isn’t there,” said Jane Cohen, an environmental health researcher with Human Rights Watch. “It’s not just about a symbolic message, it’s about whether or not the resources are there to now take action and, unfortunately, they’re just not.”

Speaking on behalf of government during the conference’s closing remarks, Professor Abdulsalami Nasidi, Project Director of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, assured of government concern in the matter.

“The federal government is regarding this problem not only as an emergency, but a chemical warfare declared on Nigerian children,” he said. “The government is obligated under international law to protect the rights of these people, and they’re really failing in this duty.”

The post Experts Seek End To Zamfara Lead Poisoning But Government Neglect Stretches On appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

VENTURES AFRICA – I read a proposal by Harvard Development Professor, Calestous Juma, in which he proposed the establishment of specialized agricultural universities in Africa to tackle the continent’s food problem. He suggested that such institutions would be better positioned to partner with farmers on research and training. They would also be able to provide solutions to problems experienced by such farmers. As a graduate of one of such institutions who has interacted with a number of local farmers, the proposal set me thinking about the food problem in Africa.

Indeed the highest employer of labour in Africa is agriculture. Many of the countries even claim that as high as 60-70 percent of their working population is involved in the production of food. So, why is there still a food problem?

In this article, I intend to propose solutions to some of the easily observable reasons:

1. Bigger is better: Subsistence farming worked hundreds of years ago. It is not realistic today! Unfortunately, it’s the very model still in operation in many of Africa’s farms. It explains the reason why so many people can be engaged in the industry and produce so little. I am of the opinion that most African governments are working on the wrong premise. In my country for instance, the government regularly embarks on projects with the aim of getting more people farming. The problem is not the number of farmers but the quality and scale of their production. The government should spend more resources on helping existing farmers grow bigger. Unlike Africa’s 60 percent, the United States has less than 1 percent of its population involved in agriculture. Yet the US is a major exporter of food. The average farm in the US covers 418 acres! Economies of scale favours larger production in agriculture.

2. Connecting the dots of production: I visited a farming community about a year ago. The roads were almost completely unusable! After a rough ride of almost one hour from the main road, I arrived at the village. There was no power supply and very few signs of development. As a village (or a collection of villages), these people produced a sizeable amount of food products. But they had no access to technology to store their highly perishable produce. With the bad roads, they would find it very hard to transport their crops to markets. Because of factors like these, they would be losing about 50 percent of their harvest. At the end of my visit, I could not but wonder at the difference it would make to those farmers (and the entire nation) if they could have better roads and facilities to enhance their productivity. Little wonder most of their children had left for the cities to pursue more appealing careers.

3. Educating farmers of the future: As Professor Juma proposed, there is the need to set up (and enhance existing) universities dedicated to agricultural research and training. Having passed through such a system, I must however warn that care must be made not to turn the research into mere academic exercises that lack relevance to local farmers. Also, I have many colleagues with high-sounding agricultural degrees who are never going to go anywhere near farming. The reason is simple: school taught us to spend hours in the sun farming with hoes and cutlasses. School taught us drudgery and graded us on outdated, mediocre tools. Quite frankly, if Africa is going to develop her agricultural sector, she is going to need to pay attention to what happens in the educational sector.

4. The Private sector should get involved: I have a simple word of advice for the private sector- in African agriculture; production is not always the most profitable sector. African agriculture needs large-scale middlemen- people (and companies) who can undertake to provide transportation, storage and marketing for her agricultural produce. Although the challenges associated with this can initially seem daunting, it is probably the most profitable endeavour in Agriculture on the continent. So get involved and stay involved through partnership!

The post The Business of Agriculture In Africa: Four Ways To Tackle Food Problem appeared first on Ventures Africa | .