Here is a visual display of How Africa Uses Twitter, courtesy of The Guardian.
Though perhaps it should have been entitled Where Africa Tweets, since it’s not so much a description of how people tweet as where most tweets come from, it’s an interesting look at social media in Africa. South Africa outscores everyone, even Egypt.
I took special note of the fact that 68 percent of those polled said they used Twitter to monitor the news.
The Guardian
Flickr, noodlepie
Business leaders at Rwanda's new stock exchange
I’m not sure why the foreign aid and development case is so hard to make to the American people, but perhaps we need to start looking at it as an economic investment opportunity rather than as a humanitarian imperative.
That seems to be how China sees it. China, which arguably is not known for its leadership in humanitarian endeavors, is doing tons of foreign aid and development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Why?
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that, unlike much of the rich world the last few years, many African nations have continued to experience significant economic growth and look likely to continue that growth. Continue reading
Flickr, subcomandanta
Mother and child, Ethiopia
Researchers at the University of Washington have reported some highly problematic findings regarding a common method of birth control in eastern and southern Africa.
They are problematic in that they indicate a popular injectable hormone, Depo-Provera, used by perhaps 140 million women worldwide (and often in poor settings) signficantly raises a woman’s risk of HIV infection.
But they were also problematic in that the evidence for this alarming claim is somewhat weak and inconclusive, meaning it could be wrong.
That’s science. But the net effect right now could be that women will choose to give up one form of known health protection — contraception — to protect against a still hypothetical threat. Continue reading
Kunle Oguneye
Here’s another (provocative) guest post from Kunle Oguneye:
To all the young, well-intentioned, recently-graduated students of International Development or similar programs, please stay in America. We don’t need you in Africa.
If you would like to visit, please do so, but we don’t need any more NGOs or Community Empowerment Programs or Disease Awareness Programs. Don’t get me wrong. Africa still needs your help and your passion. We just don’t need you on the ground anymore.
Where we need you is on Wall Street. Yes, I know the big bad Wall Street. The truth of the matter is that the inequity in Global Development can be directly tied to access to Capital. Poor cities in Africa have a difficult time issuing bonds and raising money from International Markets in order to fund their infrastructure developments. Without Infrastructure, micro-finance schemes for the poor can only go so far. The farmer still has trouble getting his or her crops to the markets before they spoil. The tailor in the rural area won’t get any customers because the roads are always flooded.
Municipalities are the ones that need to build the roads, the drainage canals that will enable commerce to flow. The municipalities are suffering because they don’t understand this world of high-finance, and even when they do, they are not considered attractive investments. So, the cycle of poverty continues to perpetuate itself in the Developing World. First, we try Farm Aid, let’s give them high yield seeds, then let’s focus on Micro-Finance, and then let’s focus on Disease Prevention. All laudable goals, but with limited impact because we haven’t addressed the underlying need for Infrastructure Development.
So young people, I implore you, please go back to school, get a degree in Finance or go to Law School. Go to Wall Street, where they’ll listen to you before they listen to me. Explain to them why investing in Developing Countries will be good for global markets. Explain to them that people in Developing Countries have buying power. Get the Hedge Fund Managers to invest in existing businesses in the Developing Countries.
The next time I see you in Africa, I want to see you wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and holding a Blackberry. When I see that, I’ll know there’s a future for global development.
Kunle Oguneye is president of the Seattle chapter of The African Network, a Nigerian and former tech worker who now writes children’s books (which should explain the photo).
Forbes
Forbes magazine recently published its selection of the world’s most powerful women, including a sub-list called the “20 youngest power women” such as Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Serena Williams and Danica Patrick.
In the U.S., most young women judged to be in power were entertainers, sports stars or supermodels.
In response to this somewhat typical (if not also dispiriting) celebration of American celebrity elite, Nigerian writer Mfonobong Nsehe decided to put together for Forbes his own list of the top 20 young power women of Africa.
Forbes
Ory Okolloh
They are mostly activists, writers, thinkers and entrepreneurs like Kenyan Ory Okollah, founder of the crowd-sourcing website Ushahidi, which allows citizens, journalists and eyewitnesses all over the world to report and/or track incidences of violence through the web, mobile E-mail, SMS, and Twitter.
Others on the list of Africa’s top 20 young power women include Nigerian writer Chimanda Adichie, controversial Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo and Ethiopian shoemaker-businesswoman (founder of Sole Rebels) Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu.
Yeah, but can they dance and sing?
Derek Sciba/World Concern photo
12 million people at risk of starvation
News on the 12 million people facing starvation in the Horn of Africa drought today is focusing on the Turkish prime minister’s visit to Mogadishu, Somalia, the first visit to the war-torn capital in nearly two decades.
According to a report in Al Jazeera, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit “follows Wednesday’s meeting in Istanbul by members of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), who pledged to donate $350 million to assist the drought- and famine-stricken Somalis.”
Meanwhile, humanitarian agencies continue to rush aid to the region.
Here is an update from Derek Sciba, in Kenya near the Somalia border. Derek is marketing director of World Concern, a Seattle-based, non-profit humanitarian organization providing community development and disaster response:
Mike Urban
African child with cerebral malaria
As reported here by Humanospere’s Tom Paulson back in July, the Global Malaria Programme of the World Health Organization (WHO) has long been worried over reports that mosquitoes were increasingly resistant to chemical-treated bed nets, a mainstay in the Gates-led, worldwide campaign against malaria.
Now, a study from Senegal published in The Lancet at the beginning of this month raises doubts over Gates’ plant to beat malaria, blaming mosquitoes’ growing resistance to insecticide and decreased immunity to malaria among the local population.
Voice of America
Malaria net distribution in Niger
Erin Gray/Mercy Corps photo
Eighteen-year-old Saadia Farah and her one-year-old daughter Amina
Last week I wrote about IREX, an international, nonprofit agency working in the famine-struck Horn of Africa on long-term projects like education, media and community building. Today I’m focusing on another group that is hard at work providing immediate aid to the region – Mercy Corps.
Tom Paulson recently posted a couple of reports on the work Mercy Corps Communications Director Joy Portella, and others, have been doing in getting out the news on issues in Africa and how they are, basically filling in for news organizations that have dropped the ball on international coverage. But today’s post is not about Mercy Corps’ communications role. It’s about Mercy Corps’ ongoing direct effort to head off starvation for more than 1 million people.
Yesterday, Seattle-based Portella and a colleague, Erin Gray, a communications officer for Mercy Corps’ European headquarters in Edinburgh, Scotland, gave me a rundown of the aid agency’s work in the areas facing famine.
Joy Portella/Mercy Corps photo
A traditional herder stands on the withered landscape outside the drought-stricken town of Hadado, Kenya
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