Obama and Raila

Dear friends this week i continue with my posts on African development with some ideas from Euvin Naidoo a Harvard Graduate who has worked with McKenzie consultanty agency as well as various development and investment agencies.

Watch the video below and share some of his insights into development in Africa.

Euvin Naidoo: Africa as an invesment

In my view Africa will really begin to take of when many of the economies become more integrated and goods and services can move indiscriminately across the different regions of Africa. It is also good to note that economies such as Angola are growing at 18% which is the highest economic growth rate in the sub saharan Africa.  Watch the Kenyan Prime Minister discuss about these developments in Africa.

Mpesa Banking

Watch Mark Shuttleworth, President of the Ubuntu Foundation,and June Arunga, Open Quest Media, speak about opportunities and challenges business and individuals face in developing parts of the world.This a lovely talk of African Prospects with historical occurences being put into context. June Arunga has travelled Africa from Cairo to Capetown and is an expert in the Mobile Phone revolution in Kenya. Kenyans are using mobile phones to expand their economic space and conduct business. She argues that the country needs to develop address systems to allow people to conduct business in a transparent manner. I also remember reading that issuing of title deeds to squatters would be an efficient way of distributing capital and wealth. Anyway here are the videos.

DLD Internet and Mobile Entreprenuership Conference

Watch Video [Click Here]

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Dambisa Moyo - Author Dead AID

I disagree heartily with the notion that Africa needs more economic AID to help spur its own economic growth. Indeed as evidence has clearly shown the last 50 years of economic AID have hardly helped any single country in Africa reach even middle income status. Furthermore the countries which have ignored economic AID like Malaysia and India have seen rapid growth and are now emerging as the dominant economies of the 21st Century. Indeed the AID dependency model that is employed by the World Bank and IMF has fueled corruption as well as laid back attitudes in governance.

Dead Aid

Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo has spent the better part of this year canvassing around the worlds huge media networkings promoting her book “Dead Aid” which among other things compares and contrasts different economic models that have worked for the Tiger Economies and the failed policies in Africa.

I have posted some videos here for you to watch and please feel free to make your comments there in.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Kenya’s Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta also echoed this sentiments and urged African countries to reduce their dependence on Foreign Aid. Uhuru encouraged the Private sector especially social entreprenuers to work hand in hand with goverments to reduce this dependence. It is interesting African leaders are begining to read from the same page, which shows that dambisa’s book is timely. Watch these Videos below.

Please read this feature on Rwanda’s model of economic development by Jeff Chu. [Read Here]

ALJAAZERA INTERVIEW – RIZ KHAN

PAUL KAGAME & UHURU KENYATTA

BOOK REVIEW

The question of international aid to developing countries is one of the most controversial subjects in modern development literature. One simply needs to look at any local bookshop under the “current affairs” section and you are hit with many large and often time consuming volumes on the subject. So when I stumbled on DambisaMoyo’s book at my favourite bookshop (Waterstones Charing Cross Station), I felt a mixture of delight and nervousness. Delight because here we have a Zambian academic weighing in on a subject that has been the preserve of self-appointed “development experts”. This should fill every Zambian with pride and admiration. God knows we have so few Zambian economists ready to engage such serious issues, let alone publish a book on it. That feeling quickly gave way to nervousness because with so much written on this topic by leading experts such as Easterly, Collier,Riddell and others, could Dead Aid really offer any fresh thinking on the subject? [Read More]

Happy Holidays to you all.