The current issue of The Economist has this in a leader about mobile money in Africa: ONCE the toys of rich yuppies, mobile phones have evolved in a few short years to become tools of economic empowerment for the world’s poorest people. These phones compensate for inadequate infrastructure, such as bad roads and slow postal… Read More »
1. Is economics as a subject of study still attractive? 2. Is there a role for industrial policy in the developing world? 3. A collection of links to articles on What’s Wrong with Macroeconomics? 4. Financial crisis in Africa? Dr. Okonjo Iweala of the World Bank presents an analysis 5. Joseph Stiglitz on GDP fetishism… Read More »
A news story on crossing from Benin to Nigeria, through the Seme border: “At every half kilometre, you encounter checkpoints manned by all sorts of agencies. This is a real problem to the sub-region,” he said. “On a bad day, from the Seme border down to Lagos, you meet over 70 checkpoints and they all… Read More »
While Africa is blessed with much natural wealth — gold, diamonds, ores from tin to uranium, oil and ivory — it has also long been a target for plunder. Listen to Ian Fisher recount how some, mostly outsiders, built great fortunes off of Africa’s material riches — and for centuries its people as well —… Read More »
From Foreign Policy: Imagine a tiny country flush with oil money, where the wealth per person is on par with that of Spain or Italy. Now picture a place quite the opposite, where nearly two-thirds of the population lives in extreme poverty and infant and child mortality rates are on par with those of the… Read More »
Fukuyama wrote a review of Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid, and the somewhat less popular The Challenge for Africa by Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. The following paragraph raises a very important issue about the problem with African countries. The roots of Africa’s political malaise go far deeper than the post-independence foreign-aid regime. Unlike East… Read More »
The bottom billion blog says Africa is open for business. Didn’t know it was ever closed, but…. Paul Krugman: China is in a dollar trap. The IMF is still busy cleaning up its image. Dominique Strauss-Kahn writes about a lending overhaul. On Obama’s Special Olympics gaffe . And, Nigeria records first all-female crew flight.
I just read in the current edition of Intelligent Life: Adichie’s follow-up to “Half of a Yellow Sun” is a collection of stories about Nigeria’s professional classes ans their struggle to cope with corruption, which infects every aspect of their lives from school exams to hospital treatment. The luckier ones can escape to a new… Read More »
The UK – Tiny cities that somehow promise you that they would get bigger for you once you get used to them, or once you grow to love them. The US – Large cities that promise that the huge impersonal cities will narrow down to become smaller and more personal for you. In other words,… Read More »
Mr Kunle Alake, the Dangote Group COO, tells BusinessDay that the textile industry in Nigeria cannot be viable, and he cites the usual suspect: smuggling. “The Nigerian textile industry is dead; it has been dead since the last 5 years. It cannot be resuscitated with N70 billion, those pushing for the resuscitation are only after… Read More »