Tuesday, November 26African Digital Business Magazine

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Main, Nigeria News

African Challenges to African Development

The parlous story of African economic and social development since independence best expressed in the failure to achieve the autonomous capacity for self-actuated development and in particular to create conditions of national and continental modern mass production and prosperity is well known and need not be repeated. It is enough to re-state that Africa’s development failure was because of the leaderships’ choice to retain, maintain and expand the inherited exocentric colonial system of development incapacitation, primary commodity export, import dependency and poverty generation. The progressive efforts of some African states and leaders to change the system and create self-reliant economies were stymied by the leaderships’ ideological inadequacies and dependency, the balance of paymen...
Africa Travel, Ethiopia News, Main

Ethiopia Gearing to become Africa’s Top Tourism Spot

During the past two decades, Ethiopia’s ambitious economic initiatives to become a middle income country managed to progressively grow and develop the economy. The country has given ample focus to sectors like tourism, increasing their GDP contribution to the entire economic key factors. Addressing the country development shortfalls and poverty reduction initiatives has grabbed the nation's attention, working on better policies improving infrastructural constraints. Among other sectors, tourism has received ample attention preserving historical sights and developing infrastructure which has been the biggest setback for the industry. Although the sector has been improving significantly for the past five years, the recent security alert has cost the country seven million dollars from the in...
Africa Travel, Ethiopia News, Main

Ethiopia Gearing to become Africa’s Top Tourism Spot

During the past two decades, Ethiopia’s ambitious economic initiatives to become a middle income country managed to progressively grow and develop the economy. The country has given ample focus to sectors like tourism, increasing their GDP contribution to the entire economic key factors. Addressing the country development shortfalls and poverty reduction initiatives has grabbed the nation's attention, working on better policies improving infrastructural constraints. Among other sectors, tourism has received ample attention preserving historical sights and developing infrastructure which has been the biggest setback for the industry. Although the sector has been improving significantly for the past five years, the recent security alert has cost the country seven million dollars from the in...
Energy, Main, Nigeria News

Crowding the private sector into Africa’s climate action

The global community for climate action was spooked by the November 8 election of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States. The US President-elect had earned the sobriquet of “climate denier,” for his claim that climate change is a hoax. However, there is cautious optimism that his presidency will not overturn the global agenda on climate change. Hopefully, his views on climate change will change and align with reality when he settles into the Oval Office. Policymakers also believe that global climate agreements cannot be reversed easily. In the meantime, stakeholders are pressing on with formulating strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22) to the United Nations' agency on climate change held on Nove...
Africa Travel, Ethiopia News, Main

Jumia Travel Predicts Record Growth for the Ethiopian Tourism Industry

Jumia Travel celebrated its 1st annual tourism industry and hotel awards day at Ramada Addis. After over a year of successfully establishing and growing its online hotel booking service in Ethiopia, Jumia Travel, has become the N°1 online hotel booking platform in Africa. On this annual celebration day experts on the hospitality industry presented their findings on the Ethiopian hospitality industry’s progress, shortcomings and future expectations. The event pointed out that Ethiopia has massive tourism potential, however the current situation as it might have impacted other sectors it also have impacted the tourism sector. Nevertheless, the sector remains resilient and the country is working hard to ensure the safety of tourists and to eliminate the impact of security threats on the tour...
Main

Revolutinising The Global Food System

A strong theme emerged from the Future Food Tech Summit in London last week, that the world is in desperate need of innovative and sustainable solutions to increase agricultural output, while reducing inputs, in order to meet the needs of a growing population. At the forefront of these discussions was the consensus that the global food ecosystem is becoming very complex. As it undergoes a rapid transformation towards higher-value products, there was a call to more efficient processes and higher degree of vertical integration that optimises supply chains. Although not yet well understood, the implications for the whole industry structure, its competitiveness and consumer markets would be far-reaching. Developing countries in particular face resource and structural constraints, potentially i...
Main, South Africa News

The Effects of the Education System on South Africa’s Economic Growth

by Matt Radcliffe .pdf Acrobat Reader Abstract In the two decades since the end of Apartheid, the international community has perceived South Africa to be the most influential country in Sub-Saharan Africa.  The country continues to play an important economic role on the continent and is a driving political force in the African Union (AU).  As such, South Africa has received recognition as an important emerging power and gained access to key international platforms, including the United National Security Council, the G20, and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) forum (German Development Institute, 2016). However, in recent years, South Africa’s position as the continental power has been challenged by fast growing African economies such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, and K...
Main

The Ripple Effect: The Role of Women in African Economic Development

By Marieke Shukla Abstract Africa is a continent with incredible hope and opportunity along with incredible challenges.  When visiting Africa, one hears about challenges regarding basic human needs such as nutrition and health care.  One also hears about the leadership challenges South Africa currently faces. Upon further reflection after visits to several organizations, including Olam International, Philani, and the African Leadership Academy, it is clear that women in Africa are uniquely positioned to move the continent forward economically and politically.  Based on the author’s experience in South Africa, there are three key areas where women can have a substantial impact: (i) agriculture, (ii) health education and (iii) leadership in politics and business.  These areas will be the f...
Main, Tech

Technological Trends in Africa

By Rafiq Raji ‘Africa Tech’ is the True ‘Africa Rising’  Leading African technology (Africa Tech) innovators believe the African culture has become attuned to the internet age. [1] The internet-consuming culture is now fully African, they say. As they are some of the leading techies on the continent, they probably know what they are saying. The example of one of them, Jason Njoku – who founded iROKOtv, perhaps the most comprehensive online catalogue of Nigerian movies, popularly known as ‘Nollywood’ – is instructive. His idea was about using technology to meet a longstanding need of Africans in the diaspora, who are typically nostalgic about home, craving content and news about the continent. It also typifies the trend towards making technology more African: Africa Tech is essentially A...
Main, South Africa News

Espinaca Innovations: A Case Study in Innovation in South Africa

By Johan Burger, NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies   The Espinaca Journey At the age of 24, Lufefe Nomjana from Khayelitsha, Cape Town, in South Africa, came up with a plan to add spinach to foods consumed daily, like bread. He realised that a lot of people in his neighbourhood were obese, yet malnourished! They consumed a lot of food that although it filled their stomachs, did not provide nourishment to their bodies. It was typically cheap food that had high volumes. This created all kinds of lifestyle maladies, such as diabetes and even cancer. The idea Lufefe had when he started this innovation was to bring about change in the lifestyles of the people in the township of Khayelitsha, within the metropolitan area of Cape Town. Unemployment in South Africa is at a high figure of 26%. ...