unecasetup's blog
Africa needs structural transformation not structural adjustment
Global Value Chains: Africa, the factory floor of the world?
Cape Verde development trajectory; a lesson for Africa
Can trade make a difference in Africa?
Africa can invent: Leapfrogging in unsuspected areas
One only needs to pick up a magazine or leading newspaper to read about innovations that are sweeping across Africa. From M-Pesa, a mobile money transfer service invented in Kenya that has revolutionized African banking practices, to South Africa hosting the Square Kilometer Array, the world’s largest and most powerful radio telescope ever constructed. This is quite different from common perception. Should Africa’s attainments come as a surprise?
Moving from early Pan-Africanism towards an African Renaissance
The celebration of fifty years of Pan-African institutional history is a time for reflection. Like the famous mythical Sankofa bird symbol, Africans must look into their past to create their future; acknowledging our previous mistakes and learning from them but also celebrating our successes and building on them.
African Youth: the custodians of a new social contract
History has shown the tenacity of African youth. Some of the most renowned figures of Africa’s independence struggle started their political engagements as young adults. By the time he turned 37, Kwame Nkrumah was deeply involved in the planning of the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester. Abdul Gamel Nasser, at 35, was a colonel in the Egyptian army and became President at 38. Frantz Fanon at age 27 wrote his first book to worldwide critical acclaim.
Africa must benefit from its mineral resources
Africa’s political economy is deeply ingrained with its history of the exploitation and (mis)management of its mineral and natural resources.
How can African countries capitalize on the current geopolitical changes?
This year Africa celebrates fifty years since the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU); never before has the continent been so poised to reap the benefit of its enormous resources. Sweeping political and economic changes over half a century have reformed global power structures, reconfigured international relations and led to serious rethinking of development paradigms.