It is 2015, the deadline for the WHO Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG5) to reduce 1990s’ maternal mortality by 75%. On May 23, the world will observe United Nations International Day to end obstetric fistula (a breakdown of the birth canal caused by obstructed labour, leaving women incontinent, infection-prone and ostracized). 2015 is also the deadline for WHO MDG4 to reduce 1990s’ under-five child mortality by two-thirds.
A London-educated obstetrician gynaecologist and fetal medicine specialist, I’ve just returned to South Africa after 14 years. I’m delighted to be joining the WITS Maternal and Fetal Medicine Centre at Morningside Mediclinic in Sandton in Johannesburg and with the extra day I’ll spend every week as an Honorary Consultant at Chris Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.
As a Ugandan-Rwandan, I also return as a sub-Saharan African, fully aware that sub-Saharan Africa made the slowest progress (under 20%) in reducing maternal mortality, that its share of the world’s maternal deaths actually grew from 42% in 1990 to 62% in 2013, and that the projection is it will fail to meet the MDG5 target. I’m also aware that nearly three million women and girls, mostly sub-Saharan African, live with obstetric fistula. Sub-Saharan Africa also has the highest under-five child mortality – 16 times that of developed countries, with more of the 6.6 million child deaths (44% in 2012 compared to 37% in 1990) occurring in the newborn period, clearly linked to a deficit in safe maternity care.
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Coming from a UK system, my conscience is heavy. I have worked within clinical governance frameworks where maternity health workers manage obstetric emergencies in multidisciplinary teams, have unrestricted access to updated evidence-based protocols, emergency drugs, blood products and broad spectrum antibiotics and are regularly appraised and supported through enforced emergency drills and continuous professional development. In sub-Saharan Africa, there will be an isolated traditional birth attendant dealing with a post-partum haemorrhage on her own, an unknown expectant mother walking in labor to get help, and I can remember the midwife I met traveling through rural Uganda in 2013 who, when I asked about clinical audit in her unit, responded saying “we are too demoralized by what we face everyday to be dealing with audits”.
However, against the bleak backdrop of sub-Saharan Africa’s high maternal and under-five child mortalities, I’m hopeful. The speed of mobile phone penetration in sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade, faster than anywhere else in the world, points to Africa’s potential. In 2007, mobile subscriptions were already three times faster than in Europe, and in 2009, there were 10 times as many mobile phones as fixed-lines, Kenya being a shining example.
Aside from clear evidence that GDP increases with mobile phone penetration in developing countries, the possibilities are countless.
Relevant to me are the growing number of mHealth projects. Programs and applications that provide real-time intelligence, monitoring and response to disease outbreaks (Nigeria’s ‘EOCs’), provide remote diagnoses (Botswana’s ‘Kgonafalo’), prompt patients to take their medication (South Africa’s ‘Cell-Life’), and prevent drug counterfeiting (Ghana’s ‘mPedigree’). I’m excited by the mHealth projects in maternal health – Nigeria’s ‘mCBS’, South Africa’s ‘MAMA’ and Uganda’s mobile electronic fetal heart monitor ‘Winsenga’.
I owe something to the 800 women and 25,000 children under five who die every year, from preventable causes.
The United Nations has called for accelerated interventions and prioritization in maternal and child health and we await political will, sound strategies and adequate resources. I’ve decided I must take advantage of the great strides Africa is taking in mobile infrastructure and have taken to mHealth, developing a mobile App targeted at safer childbirth as most maternal deaths are due to complications occurring around pregnancy.
Mismanaged labour is also a direct cause of obstetric fistula and newborn deaths. The App will prompt community birth attendants on timely assessments during labour and detect deviation from normality for both mother and fetus. These remote assessments will be electronically visible through a real-time location-based platform for skilled obstetricians and midwives.
Pre-existing medical conditions are another cause of maternal death. The App will therefore in the first instance, perform a risk-assessment to guide on the safest venue for delivery. Patient data and outcomes will be captured into an electronic system to facilitate audit and accuracy of maternal mortality estimates for central monitoring.
I can’t be a bystander as Africa goes through this historic boom in technology while women are evicted from our world simply because they are deprived the safe experience of childbirth. I have to do this because my heart is heavy knowing that with every hour, 33 women die in childbirth from preventable causes. Investing in maternal health will not only improve a mother’s health and her family’s, but will increase women’s numbers in the workforce and promote the economic wellbeing of their countries. I have to do this because women hold up half the sky.

Mobile Apps  For Maternal Health?

Imagine if the next time you needed to toss together a salad, spice up a meal or garnish an after-dinner treat, you only went as far as your balcony, rooftop or garden to source the ingredients. If you are a city-dweller in sub-Saharan Africa, that is more possible than you think.
Urban farming is mushrooming on the continent, almost as quickly as the rate at which people are moving into cities. Around 40% of the African population (around 375 million people) are metropolitan residents and that number will grow to 60% by 2050. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 150 million of those people grow their own food.
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A handful of them are hipsters who nurture herb gardens while practising yoga and preaching about organic eating and low carbon footprints. Hundreds of thousands more are after more than just a feel-good factor. Just as urban farming became part of the recovery after the First World War and is being used by Cubans to combat crippling sanctions, in Africa it is solving some of society’s most severe problems. Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s most under-nourished region and is rife with hunger and unemployment.
The FAO cited Malawi, Cameroon and Ghana, where up to 50% of households have vegetable gardens, as three countries with successful urban farming programs. South Africa is not far behind, with steps being taken to encourage urban farming in a country where around 20% of the population does not know where their next meal is coming from.
“Urban agriculture projects strive to reduce food security and create economic upliftment. Growing food in the backyard of your shack can be the difference between going hungry and having a healthy meal on the table for your family,” says Catherine Nicks, the Project Manager of Tyisa Nabanye, a non-profit urban agriculture organization which runs a farm on the slopes of Signal Hill in Cape Town.
Tyisa Nabanye occupies land on ERF 81, one of the original sites of agriculture in the Cape that dates back to the 1700s. Although it is historically farmland, these days it is not an ideal place to grow crops. While the clay soil remains nutrient rich, the area is often lashed by heavy rains and strong winds which destroy a harvest overnight. But Nicks and a team of seven others have found a way of working with the elements instead of fighting them through an ideology of permaculture.
“We practice companion planting in our garden, where certain vegetables are planted together with certain herbs and play different roles. Some plants feed or fix nutrients in the soil, others repel or attract insects that perform specific functions,” says Nicks.
“We find that kale and spinach do well in our garden, partly because they need little attention and they grow year round. And partly because they sell well, people cannot get enough of the very limited kale in the city.”
Kale is the new ‘it’ food and is often used in green juice where it is blended with spinach, cucumber and apple to create a healthy brew. One-Juice, a company that specializes in selling these drinks, buys some of its kale directly from Tyisa Nabanye. By doing that, they have created a direct connection between customers that are conscious of where their food comes from and the producers who supply that food.
People who drink One-Juice’s products only have to ask where the raw materials come from to be directed to Tyisa Nabanye. There they are welcome to see for themselves how the crops are grown. Nicks meets many of them personally, answers questions, introduces them to the gardeners and invites them to
come back.
“Urban farming is largely about reducing the distance between farm and fork, about increasing ones understanding about where our food comes from. We now know the name of our farmer as well as our doctor,” says Nicks.
“It’s about knowing what a gooseberry looks like before it has been dehusked, washed and placed on a layer of bubble wrap in a plastic container, what the leaf of a watermelon plant looks like and how tall a tomato plant can grow. We use our garden to share our knowledge about where our food comes from and how we can be more sustainable.”
But it’s not as simple as that. The 8.2–hectares, of which Tyisa Nabanye does not even occupy a tenth, is owned by the South African National Defence Force and run by the Department of Public Works. The farm does not have a lease to operate and there are constant bureaucratic battles to overcome, despite a policy in place which promotes urban farming.
In June 2007, the City of Cape Town drafted an urban agriculture policy in which stated its vision to create a ‘prosperous and growing urban agriculture sector,’ which would center on poverty alleviation and job creation. By encouraging agriculture in the city, the government hoped to take steps to increase food security and provide people with a sustainable income source.
More than five years after the document was tabled, the city reached an agreement with the Oranjezicht City Farm (OZCF) to turn a disused bowling green into a bowl of greens, literally. The farm uses that phrase as its slogan now. It was the city’s first pop-culture urban farm and quickly captured the attention of Capetonians because it was promoted as a community space.
OZCF connected itself to locals through a weekly market which sold fresh vegetables grown on the farm and grew to include a variety other stalls. It became the place to be on a Saturday morning for socializing, sipping on fair-trade coffee or craft beer or even trying a hand at farming as one of the OZCF volunteers. But the quaintness did not last.
The farm is situated on a heritage site and city officials require certain safety requirements to be met to accommodate the foot traffic and a proper market licence to trade. In early December, news broke that the market would stop until those boxes were ticked and the young and beautiful were outraged. They had grown to think of OZCF as a public property and exerted enough pressure to move the market to the official residence of the province’s Premier, Helen Zille, from where it continues to operate from.
The fracas over OZCF remains unresolved but it achieved something the community wanted most; it created awareness. Residents cared enough about where their food was coming from to go to where it was being grown. They watch it flower and flourish, buy it unwashed and unpackaged, cook it themselves, eat it and share it with others. If that sentiment lasts, urban farming will continue growing in Africa and could become as commercially viable as it in Beijing, where half the vegetables consumed in the city are in grown in urban farms.
With that in mind, go on and grow
a little.

Farming Coming  To A Town Near You

One day, the world may go to war over rice. Food is the new oil.
About 795 million of the world’s people, 200 million of them children, are hungry. Most of them are in Africa and Asia. It will cost $267 million per year to end world hunger by 2030. That is $160 annually for each person, according to the United Nations.
The business of food could be the business of the future. Most of the world is putting bricks and concrete over its fields and importing food. This could mean good business for entrepreneurs who harness the fertile red soil of Africa.
FORBES AFRICA dedicates this issue to food and the investment case.
Over 60% of the world’s arable land is in Africa, 65% of Africans work in the fields and 35% of South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) comes from agriculture and food, according to Old Mutual Investment Group’s Director of Strategic Projects, Craig Chambers.
At least $25 billion in food imports are coming into Africa; and food is wasted on the continent.
According to Duncan Vink, Joint Managing Director of UFF Agri Asset Management, 39 million hectares of agricultural land in Africa is physically suitable for irrigation but only 7% of this farmable land is currently irrigated, and in sub-Saharan Africa that figure is only 3.7%.
“There is no doubt that the opportunity within African agriculture is really vast, we have a decent pipeline of anything between $200 and $400 million in opportunities in Africa,” says Chambers.
For years, farming was going out of fashion but entrepreneurs are rediscovering it. Necessity may prove the mother of food production ripe for investment.

Food The New Oil

Pulling together the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) many threads is extraordinarily difficult. Each UNEP thread connects to others, they intersect; touching one affects all.
If looking after the environment is your mandate, what can possibly be off limits?
In Nairobi, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner tried in June to stitch the threads together to form a cohesive whole.
Bursting with justifiable pride, he opened the first UNEA, the A for Assembly, and also an ‘A’ for his tenacity and energy in getting 1,200 very important people to go to Nairobi to move environmental matters up the global agenda ladder.
For Steiner, it’s a no-brainer.
“Everything is connected.”
Whether it is deforestation, illegal trade in reptiles, microplastics in the ocean, developing green energy alternatives, climate change, food waste, sustainable palm oil, rhino and elephant poaching, environment and the rule of law or global investment strategies, all is connected.
“We may have been at the periphery of the global agenda in 1970 when UNEP started. We are no longer there, we are at the center.”
He’s right, of course. Getting governments, business, investors and vested interests to see this is a different matter. So this is the task he has set his staff.
What constitutes success for this first assembly?
Softly-spoken, a dual citizen of Brazil and Germany, Steiner smiles at the question, then answers softly but directly.
“The minute your child is born you claim success. A newborn does not start running like Usain Bolt.”
“So, success? First, did people come? Are we seeing other sectors involved? Has UNEA attracted a bigger constituency? Can we conduct our business?”
UNEP’s business is predicting or pinpointing disasters then doing something to prevent them. Climate change, deforestation, illegal wildlife trade and the oceans’ decline are among the issues on its radar.
The assembly child born in Nairobi is quite an achievement: 1,200 people, from around 150 of the potential 190 countries, and about 100 ministers.
Getting this bunch together in a country many see as a security risk shows how the United Nations (UN) and the world sees the environment moving center stage socially, economically, politically.
The UN does not easily give permission for an assembly outside of the General Assembly. Even if you do have one, nobody might arrive. But they arrived in droves, from Prince Albert of Monaco to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
This first meeting had more goals than all those scored in Brazil. Setting goals, and targets towards goals, is UNEP’s speciality.
When it comes to money, numbers bandied about in Nairobi were eye watering: sums saved, used, needed, pledged, spent.
Green bonds have attracted billions; the cost of illegal wildlife crime is estimated at $213 billion a year; even a tiny program like reducing short-lived climate pollutants has $50 million in its trust fund.
These numbers are chicken feed for Steiner.
“How will 10 billion people live together on the planet? Entire economies are rethinking how they provide power, food, transport. The world wants an authoritative body on environment.”
“We are rediscovering nature, not as a romantic thing, but as a harsh reality. Seven million people die every year from pollution. Why?”
He says the public knows more, expects more and demands more. A trillion dollars a year is needed to finance a green economy, Nick Robins, director of UNEP’s Inquiry into Design of a Sustainable Financial System, says.
“The global stock of assets is $225 trillion, so the money is there. The rules of the game are just not driving it towards a green economy, although returns are huge,” he says with a shrug.
There is an irrefutable logic to everything proposed at the assembly, yet often a concomitant lack of implementation.
Like climate change. We all know it is coming, why is so little done? Another shrug. Vested interests, greed and global corruption.
Yet there are literally countless success stories told in Nairobi, from saving the ozone layer to stopping lead in petrol and sulfur in diesel.
The assembly has meetings aplenty. High-level meetings, country specific, illegal fishing group, green economy specialists, wood scientists, donors, funders, oceans, climate, water, the energy group. Whew! Each has a report, a book, a foundation, and everyone is desperate for publicity.
UNEP strives for a minimum standard of living, it not being just a dollar thing. It is sanitation, education, clean air, food, security, transport and insurance.
UNEP also seeks out the bad guys and tries to discipline them. Overfishing, pollution, illegal charcoal, logging and poaching.
Governments are convinced by UNEP to stop subsidies to fish faster, or subsidies to burn coal for energy. Enemies are legion and include plastic in the ocean, carbon in the air and loggers on the ground.
Despite the environment’s dark outlook, optimists people the assembly. Reports fall on journalist’s desks like confetti. Saving the forests, towards a green economy, stopping pollution, reversing coral reef decline. Much is being done.
Take oceans. The report shows drivers of decline – rising demand, technological advances, fish stocks plummeting, habitat loss, weak governance, climate change – but matches them with eight drivers of recovery: development goals for oceans; governance; stopping overfishing; closing seas, ports and markets; keeping plastics away; establishing oil and gas standards, a global oceans board, creating regeneration zones.
Was this first assembly successful? People came. It made news. Other sectors were sucked in. Yep, pretty successful for a first try.

Billions To Save Millions

Roxy Marosa is a true example of success through relentless reinvention. And she has been an ardent proponent of that, traveling the world as a motivational speaker, telling people of all ages and statuses that basically, life is what you make it.
The statement sounds easy and effortless when you are blessed with the kind of looks like Marosa’s, but charmed as it might seem, her life has been no fairytale.
Born Rosalia Maletsatsi in Kimberly, the diamond town of South Africa’s Northern Cape, 45 years ago, she was only 10 when she first started entering – and winning – beauty pageants.
At a glance, her life seems to have come full circle. Marosa runs an eponymous beauty studio in Cape Town and has a successful personalized skincare range. It almost seems a given for a former beauty queen to work in a sector affiliated to beauty. But there is more to this soft-spoken beauty with the direct yet friendly gaze.
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More than once, her dreams were shattered. First, when she fell pregnant with her son Tumi a mere two years after matriculating. The pageants and modeling assignments had to come to an end.
Marosa then joined retail major Edgars as an accounts clerk and was later transferred to Cape Town, where she moved in with her partner. For a while, life in the city was ideal.
“I quit my job to study full-time, while my partner took care of our son,” says Marosa. The couple wed in 1998, when Tumi was eight.
The world of glamor beckoned again, when she had taken Tumi for an audition for a commercial, and she was offered a role as well. It was a godsend really, says Marosa, who realized “the man above” was listening to her hopes and dreams.
But her journey was destined for another detour when, in 2000, she was diagnosed with HIV after contracting it from her husband. The couple separated, divorcing seven years later, and Marosa threw herself into facilitating HIV programs and roadshows for corporate giants, and was even sent by the United Nations to do the same in places as disparate as Cape Town and Korea.
“When I returned from a World Aids Conference, my work as a speaker escalated,” says Marosa, who was an ideal candidate to discuss HIV.
“It was a road I had traveled, from fear and negativity, to living positively.”
Marosa turned the hurdles into springboards.
“When I was diagnosed with HIV, I was walking dead. Seven months later, the virus was undetectable. ‘You defy nature,’ my doctor told me before he died.”
She conquered the disease with medication and by practising what she preached as a motivational speaker with international organization Landmark.
“I developed an interest in ontology (the philosophical study of the nature of being) and how people respond to what life brings them,” she says of her four-year stint with the organization.
“I started taking responsibility for the choices I had made. That was the beginning of something really important in my life. I also saw a whole lot of people who were broken by their past – people of different calibres, nationalities and all ages. The outcomes were phenomenal, I knew I was on the right track. I got to be grounded and I realized it doesn’t matter what I did, whether I was on TV or not, I was the same. Because we are all dealt the same stuff.”
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She also developed an interest in chemical products versus natural, organic products. In 2010, Marosa realized a longtime dream when she released her eponymous skincare brand, available online and from her Beauty Studio in Wynberg, Cape Town. Her passion for holistic natural healing led to her meeting Japanese chiropractor Yukari Abe, a keynote speaker at the International Women’s Club, who taught her the Japanese massage technique she now offers clients.
“I develop myself, my business and the people around me on an ongoing basis,” says Marosa, who employs sales consultants countrywide.
Her next goal is to grow her beauty salon brand countrywide. Luckily for her now, time is on he

Roxy-Pic3

‘I Was Walking Dead’

Virginie Ingabire was still wearing her mother’s shoes when her turn came. The shoes dangled from her 10-year-old feet as the two strangers carried her towards the thick bush behind the house. Everyone who had been taken before her had not returned and Ingabire knew the men with machetes had come for something.
She remembers thinking she had done nothing wrong, and that the men must have wanted money, so she cried, “I know where Mommy stashes her money, I can just go and get it for you.” But the killers ignored the offer. They forced her on the ground and informed her she was going to be killed. The last thing she saw before they spared her was a spiked plank of wood being lifted above her.
Two decades after that harrowing episode, the little Tutsi girl has come a long way.
Ingabire is almost 30 and cuts an effortlessly elegant figure. She’s an administrative assistant at the Rwandan Mission to the United Nations (UN). The eldest of her two children, a daughter, turned seven in May.
But for many years, after those frightening moments with the men in the bush, she couldn’t talk about it.
“I managed to bury my feelings when I was a teenager, but as I grow older, it gets more difficult,” she says.
At one point, Ingabire planned to write a book about those days, but she could never bring herself to do it.
Finally, a year ago, she found the courage and the forum to share her story. She spoke at a small gathering at UN headquarters in New York, the only survivor on a panel commemorating the genocide. It wasn’t fully satisfying, though; Ingabire rushed through her story, and she felt the audience didn’t really get to a chance to understand how she lost her family – and how traumatic it still is, years later, to survive without them.
Still, for her, it was a cathartic experience, and so she agreed to tell her story again, for only the second time, on the eve of the 20th anniversary.
“I don’t think I am ever going to move on, but now I feel like I should face it,” she says.
Ingabire grew up in the capital, Kigali, with her parents and five siblings. As the bitter civil war was ending in 1994, peace negotiations droned on in Tanzania, but Ingabire’s mother began to believe that the city was no longer safe for the children. Then there were the frightening visits from gangs of men, the Hutu militia known as the Interahamwe, or those who work together. In early 1994, they were surveying homes that they would later return to, with murderous intent.
It was after one such unsettling visit that Ingabire’s pregnant mother pulled the children from school and moved with them to rural Gitarama, 23 miles south of Kigali. They stayed with their aunt who had seven older boys of her own. Ingabire’s father, optimistic things in Kigali would change, remained in the capital.
The village was a harsh change for Ingabire and her siblings. There was no electricity, and they passed their days playing with their cousins and helping with the chores.
“I felt safe. The whole family was there.” On April 6, 1994, just as the family was about to go to bed, the radio delivered news to her aunt’s kerosene-lamp lit living room: the president had died in a plane crash.
“Mom screamed and was like ‘We’re gonna die, we are all going to die!’” says Ingabire. Her mother, now nine months pregnant, knew the crash was a sign of worse things to come. For a while, though, Gitarama was calm. People kept going to the market, and Ingabire’s eldest cousin, Kagame, still ran his shop in the center of town. In late April, her mother gave birth to a son, Emmanuel, who became the family’s seventh member.
But the quiet was interrupted by a night-time visit from unknown men. Ingabire’s mother offered them money to leave but they were unmoved. “I heard one of the guys say, ‘You think we are after your money? You inyenzi!’ They called the family cockroaches, or inyenzi, made some threats, then left.”
After that, the family hid in the bush at night; the time when Interahamwe were most likely to come. “In the morning at six, we would come back home and take a shower. People would go to work and go to the market. But then at 6PM, everyone goes inside. Today, we would hide in the trees, tomorrow we would hide in an abandoned house,” she says. It was the rainy season, so often they would spend nights in wet clothes.
Then one day, Ingabire’s cousin, Kagame, didn’t come home from work. In the afternoon, the family heard that “Kagame is killed and they are circulating his body in
Gitarama city”. Suddenly, hiding out at night seemed pointless to her mother. So the family stayed at home that night – only to be invaded by another gang of strange men.
Seven of them surrounded Ingabire’s family as the youngest children slept. Ingabire, her seven older cousins, her two older sisters, her mother and her aunt stood in single
file in the front yard. The men chose their first victims: her older cousins, Rutajengwa and Rujira. “We are starting with these two,” they said, and led the boys away.
“I guess they were professional killers. We didn’t even hear a sound,” she recalls. The women were taken next, and one by one the entire family was led to the forest behind the house. Ingabire was the last. When the men picked her up, “my feet weren’t even touching the ground”. She remembers asking the men, “Where are you taking me?” Then came the moment when the men refused her offer of money. They continued to the bush, finally forcing her on the ground and lifting the spiked plank above her.
In the end, the men could not bring themselves to kill a 10-year-old girl, says Ingabire, who was the youngest family member on the lawn that night. They pointed her toward a hill and told her to flee to Mushubati, a place she did not know. She ran, but not far, and when she stopped, she could hear the voices of her family “crying, dying, I guess it was”.
“It’s the worst sound you can ever imagine,” she says.
Ingabire ran back to her aunt’s house where the baby, now just a month old, was crying. She thought it was her mother. “I went in calling, ‘Maman, Maman, Are you there? Maman, Maman’. She didn’t answer.”
That was the night when Ingabire became mother to her three younger siblings: baby Emmanuel, her eight-year-old brother and a sister who was about to turn three.
The next morning, the four children fled the house, taking nothing with them, and joined a procession of refugees walking to a church in the nearby village of Kabgai. For more than four months, they wandered, in search of safety. On the way to Gisenyi, two Hutu women took Ingabire’s brother, promising to care for him. The baby was left with an elderly woman in Gitarama.
Finally, in September, a full two months after the genocide had ended, Ingabire’s father found her and her sister in Goma, Zaire, where they had taken refuge. He took them home to Kigali – though their family home had been looted and burned to the ground. “There was nothing,” says Ingabire, not even a photograph of the mother and sisters she had lost in the genocide remained.
The months of the genocide were harrowing, and yet it is the aftermath – those days, when she returned to Kigali, that most haunt her today.  “My story and my experience during genocide, it was all about surviving, trying to get to the next point. What touched me a lot was life after, when we got back home [and] how it changed us.”
In 2010, Ingabire emigrated to the United States. She now lives in New Jersey with her husband and two children. She and the other family members who survived have never spoken with each other about what happened during the genocide. Even her father, who lives in Kigali, didn’t know her story until she spoke at the UN last year.

Blood And Tears Haunt A New Life  In New York

You may not recognize his face but you may know the voice.
Liberian-born Max Bankole Jarrett spent more than a decade as a radio program producer and presenter covering major political events during the tumultuous 1990s for the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Africa service. Now, the self-styled pan-Africanist is playing a leading role in a bold organization that is at the forefront of policy debate on the continent and its future.
Earlier this year, Jarrett was appointed as deputy executive director of the Africa Progress Panel (APP) headed by former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and housed in Geneva. With an all-star cast of panel members, among them Bob Geldof and Graca Machel, the wife of the late Nelson Mandela, the panel is focused on promoting equitable development in Africa. It is also not afraid to point fingers at Western governments for their role in capital flight and underdevelopment in a continent rich in natural resources. The panel’s hard-hitting report last year explored why the continent’s resource-rich nations had failed to reap the benefits of their natural wealth and how this can be changed.
“In many countries, for example, natural resource revenues are widening the gap between rich and poor. Although much has been achieved, a decade of highly impressive growth has not brought comparable improvements in health, education and nutrition,” wrote Annan in the report.
“[A]cting alone, African governments cannot resolve the most intractable natural resource governance challenges. The international community must also shoulder responsibility.”
The report also found that African countries lost $38 billion a year through offshore tax havens and the Democratic Republic of Congo lost $1.36 billion through dubious mining deals between 2010 and 2012 alone.
This year’s report, set to be released in May, will focus on fishing and agriculture, industries that many economists believe could fuel economic growth and large-scale employment throughout the continent. In particular, it will address how African farmers and fishing communities can access the money they need to create so-called green and blue revolutions in Africa.
While efforts in countries like France, Britain and the United States have been made to prosecute companies for corrupt practices committed on foreign shores, Jarrett argues more needs to be done to curb bribery and illicit outflows.
“Western countries and banks should do a lot more to make sure that money that is coming from Africa is legitimately being deposited,” he tells FORBES AFRICA.
Jarrett is skeptical about much of the current ‘Africa Rising’ narrative that he says is overly bullish and doesn’t resonate with many Africans. He argues that political vision can transform the continent. The APP hopes to play a role in this.
“We are moving forward, but this pace as of late, from 2000 has not been as consistently progressive as I would have hoped when I was a young man starting my professional life with the BBC in 1990,” says Jarrett.
“Africa is in a better position now to seize its opportunities; it has more freedom to act and the commodity super-cycle is playing to our benefit. But the ball is in our hands to be dropped.”
The 44-year-old started his career in broadcast journalism. He is no stranger to the world of policy and African diplomacy. He spent 10 years in Addis Ababa working as a communication expert and speechwriter, policy analyst, and a coordinator of a groundbreaking initiative to strengthen media in Africa for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa before joining the APP.
Jarrett says that the antagonism between some African leaders and Western powers that peaked during the Cold War and continued throughout the second wave of African liberation in the 1990s, has eased and opened up valuable space for debate about governance, transparency and accountability.
“There is no longer a fear of discussing governance and corruption… It is really refreshing for someone who covered this all as a journalist earlier, nearly a quarter of a century ago, to now be able to contribute to, read and reflect on the discussion about governance, where people don’t just get locked up by mentioning it,” says Jarrett.
Jarrett says he hasn’t spent more than eight weeks at a time in Liberia since he left as a child for boarding school in England. Due to the long conflict, and his family’s displacement from his home, he did not return to the country at all between 1989 and 2008.  However, during his years at the BBC he monitored and reported on a civil war in his homeland that he thought would never end. For Jarrett, 10 years after the war, Liberia’s prospects are positive if it can overcome the mistakes, divisions and inequalities of the past that led to the political crisis and civil war.
“It could become a beacon of hope for other African nations, just as it was when it became the first black African republic in 1847,” he says.
If Liberia, a country of under 4 million, managed its resources and political conflicts it could become a nation where all of its children were well educated and well fed.
“Liberia could really set the pace for the continent. We’ve already set the pace in terms of electing the first female president; there are so many other firsts we can continue to make,” says Jarrett.
Africa’s ball seems to be in safe hands.

Africa To The Max

Almost two decades since the ground-breaking Beijing Women’s Conference, no country in the world can claim gender equality. As the United Nations Under Secretary-General Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka notes, giving women equal opportunity and removing economic structural barriers, will spur inclusive growth. This view is echoed by prominent economists, such as the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) Mthuli Ncube and AGH Capital’s Charles Okeahalam, who say studies show that providing economic opportunity to the other half will without doubt lift growth.
“As with most issues of social transformation, reducing gender inequality is a process, not an event. The key issue is for society to distribute inputs and resources in a way that allows for a full set of economic and social opportunities to be more gender neutral. In Africa, this would lead, as it has done in a number of more industrially advanced societies, to an increase in the opportunity cost of maternity,” says Okeahalam. Yet women remain largely marginalized. According to the WEF’s 2013 Global Gender Gap Report, there are no African countries in the top 10 economies that have closed their gender gaps in the main categories of education, health, economy and politics. Lesotho and South Africa are the best placed, at number 16 and 17 respectively. Overall, the region closed 66% of its gender gap last year, though in education, the continent holds last place.
The 2014 report will be released at this year’s WEF, to be held in Abuja, Nigeria, from May 7 to 9. Women’s issues will be addressed in various other forums around the gathering, says Huguette Umutoni, WEF Africa Team Co-ordinator.
“We are looking to have women’s issues as a common thread for many of our sessions be it around jobs, entrepreneurship, agriculture, peace and security,’’ says Umutoni.
Femmes Africa Solidarité’s Bineta Diop, recently appointed the Africa Union Commission’s special envoy for Women, Peace and Security, will be one of the co-chairs of the Abuja summit. There will also be two other sessions focusing on female leaders.The forum’s efforts are part of a broader struggle to increase women’s participation in the continent’s development. AfDB’s 2014-2018 gender strategy is closely linked to its 10-year strategy, which promotes inclusive growth.
“Investing in women and girls is smart economics and impacts everyone positively,’’ says Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the AfDB’s special envoy on gender.
The statistics certainly make for some sad reading. A fifth of Africa’s women have bank accounts and the United Nations Development Program says the continent has suffered a 60% loss in development because of gender inequality.
African women and girls are among the world’s poorest, have the highest illiteracy rates, earn amongst the lowest wages and even in agriculture, where women dominate, productivity is 30% lower than men because of lack of access to inputs, according to the AfDB. Klaus Schwab, the Executive Chairman of the WEF, says it is everybody’s responsibility – governments, civil society, educators and media – to provide policy frameworks and the environment to empower women.
“There is not one path to parity, but many. Cash transfer programs, equal access to credit and financial services, parental leave, affordable childcare facilities, innovative hiring processes, redesigned career paths and meaningful mentoring programs are but a few of the types of changes that  must be made,’ says Schwab in the 2013 Global Gender Gap Report.
African governments have also been making strides. In March, South Africa’s parliament passed a gender bill that criminalizes discrimination against women and seeks to improve their access to education, training and skills development. But across the continent, the absence of statistics and lack of gender mainstream planning means more remains to be done.

Invest In Us, It’s Smart’

Women perform 66% of the world’s work, yet they only earn 10% of income generated across the globe, according to the United Nations Development Programme.
Statistics like these serve as a stark reminder of how far women still need to go to become equal players in the business arena. And with seven of the fastest-growing economies based in Africa, it is critical that female entrepreneurs take advantage of the expansion.
WEConnect International, a corporate-led, non-profit that empowers female business owners to succeed in local and global markets, has come to Africa’s shores to help businesswomen make their mark.
“If you look at the power of the markets, there is huge growth potential for our corporate clients in Africa,” says Elizabeth Vazquez, CEO and co-founder of WEConnect.
The network, which is headquartered in the United States, held its first African launch in South Africa. Vazquez says Nigeria is next.
WEConnect certifies women’s business enterprises based outside the United States to make it easier for multinational corporations to source from them. It also connects its corporate members with businesses that have at least a 51% women ownership.
The corporations represent $700 billion in annual purchasing power. They include Coca-Cola, HP, Intel, Pfizer, Master Card, Boeing, Wal-Mart, IBM, and Procter and Gamble.
“We are looking for countries that want to grow businesses, grow wealth and create jobs. We want early investment… because we know if you spend on women, they tend to invest in families and communities,” says Vazquez.
Last year, WEConnect’s corporate members as well as the Vital Voices Global Partnership and the Clinton Global Initiative announced a commitment to source $1.5 billion globally from female-owned businesses by 2018.
The agreement focuses on training female entrepreneurs to be ready to supply goods. The partners committed themselves to mentoring and targeting at least 15,000 female-owned businesses globally in that same five-year period.
WEConnect, which has female business owners from 70 different countries worldwide, has launched in South Africa with the blessing of the Trade and Industry Department.
“Studies have proven women are very good at paying back bank loans… but banks still don’t trust them. But it is not only [banks], but it is even by us in government. We still have a long way to go to realize women can drive and sustain business.
“[But it has been shown] wherever there are very powerful organizations of women, there will be very strong, sustainable women entrepreneurs because women thrive on networking,” Nomvula Makgotlho, chief director of women empowerment at the department, told guests attending the South African launch.
She says structures are imperative in lobbying for female entrepreneurs in order to change perceptions about how women have graduated from the kitchen and classroom into business.
“Women lack access to markets, they lack access to procurement. The journey of empowering women is a very difficult one. You make enemies on the way,” says Makgothlo.
Kalvenie Raja, who heads up the women’s fund at South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation, agrees that it has not been an easy journey for women in South Africa.
“When we did BEE [black economic empowerment], women were somehow lost along the way. We need to see women coming into these markets,” she told the launch.
Accenture, a management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, is one of WEConnect’s corporate clients. Linda Basson, who heads up procurement for Accenture South Africa, says the value of the network cannot be underestimated.
“By widening the supply base, you increase competition and also get greater creativity and innovation.”
“Being socially responsible is quite fashionable. We can’t look to government for hand-outs anymore.”
WEConnect has appointed Nathalie Chinje to head up its South African program. Chinje is the founder and director of an entirely female-owned marketing company, Upbeat Marketing.
While bias against female-led businesses remains entrenched, WEConnect is helping the so-called green ceiling turn a new shade of gender equality.

Get Out Of The Kitchen

Not everyone gets a second chance to do things over, least of all presidents. But two rem-arkable former leaders are doing it again, out of office.
The first is former US president Jimmy Carter, who managed to reinvent himself through his philanthropic work with Habitat for Humanity.  A renowned peace-broker, Carter recalibrated his image, which had been severely dented during the Iran host-age crisis, through his dedication to providing affordable, low-cost housing to poor Americans.
Carter has also played a pivotal role as a member of the Group of Elders, former heads of state who speak out on issues of global leadership.
The second is former South African president Nelson Mandela. While in office, Mandela was hemmed in by numerous global factors that inhibited his new government from undertaking fundamental change.
When he retired from active politics and executive office, Mandela dared to tread where he had been unable to as the country’s first democratically elected president. Through his altruism, Mandela has managed to re-engineer his legacy and is today recognized as one of the world’s greatest philanthropists.
Known affectionately by his clan name, Madiba believes in fundamental change rather than charity. It is an outlook which is embraced by the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF), which was formed in 1999 to support the causes that were close to the statesman’s heart, especially those he could not focus on while he was in office.
However, attaching the Mandela brand to projects is a risky undertaking, especially as many are keen to profit from the icon’s name, including those who would use the brand for selfish ends.
Sello Hatang, who is the CEO of the NMF, says the foundation, has to be mindful of what is considered peer-based philanthropy. This occurs when projects are undertaken for financial benefits, such as tax breaks, instead for bringing about long-term change.
The NMF also guards against encouraging consumerism and instead focuses on building skills and knowledge within communities.
“Communities must be empowered… and assisted to see what they can do for themselves. Of course it is done with help of others from the outside,” says Hatang.
“It is important that whenever you do a philanthropic program you don’t throw money at the problem, but you find out from these communities what they need the most.”
He cites an example in which the NMF visited a community in Limpopo that wanted a library. While his colleagues were on-site, they realized that while there was no library in the area, there was a greater need for ablution facilities at a local school.
“What my colleagues found was children washing their hands in buckets and then because there is no fresh water, they also drink from that. So it is important that you don’t come in and impose what you think is best for communities, but rather find out from them what they need. We are now going back to the drawing board and we are now addressing the issue of water and a library.”
The foundation believes that for its philanthropic work to have value, community members must have a sense of ownership over the projects. The NMF encourages locals to be part of its initiatives by chipping in, financially or otherwise.
“So we would say for example (to a school): ‘You have to pay something towards the library.’ So for example they would raise R20,000 ($1,900), and the library is R220,000 ($21,000). They give it to us, we don’t collect that money. We give it back to them and say: ‘Now you use this money for a sports field or to improve something in the school.’ But there is a sense that they paid for it,” he explains.
Sustainability has to be at heart of philanthropy if it is to transcend charity, something Hatang is keenly aware of, and which saw the work of the foundation undergoing a shift from its initial remit.
As the Mandela brand continues to grow, it has massive clout, especially with corporations and businesses keen to be associated with it. The foundation is no longer a philanthropic organization that gives money to projects, but is itself is a donor-funded organization.
“Whenever we find a new partner who comes in who wants to work with us… we do ask that they submit their founding records, check they are registered and that they do things above board,” says Hatang.
Because the NMF does not deal with money directly there is little chance of it being swindled of cash. However, there still are chancers who want to make a profit off the Madiba brand.
Hatang cites an example from early in 2013, when a pizza company was bust for lying. It claimed that for every pizza sold, R1 ($0.10) was don-ated to the foundation.
Something else Hatang says the NMF has to be acutely aware of is building the brand of Mandela instead of denuding it.
“We always have to strike a balance between managing the brand, protecting the brand, and making sure that people can use it for good. That balance is what we always struggle with. We try to have people concentrate on giving for Mandela day and doing it genuinely and in a sustained way. Not necessarily for their grand enhancement.”
Nelson Mandela International Day, which falls on Madiba’s birthday on July 18 and which is recognized by the United Nations (UN), is where the foundation focuses most of its philanthropy.
“The rallying call is: Take action, inspire change. Make every day a Mandela day. Because we believe you have to bring about structural changes (to make a real difference),” says Hatang.
Mandela day is theme-driven, and education has been the main focus over the past three years. Events are decided on in consultation with the UN and the South African government.
This year the foundation prioritized literacy, school feeding programs and housing. The latter included bringing in corporates, with the help of local aid organization Gift of the Givers, to build homes in Johannesburg’s impoverished Alexandra township. The year before, Habitat for Humanity helped the foundation provide homes for residents of Orange Farm informal settlement in Gauteng.
With its literacy initiatives, the NMF has received a lot of help from international charity group Breadline Africa. The organization has helped build libraries across South Africa and fill them with books.
“We believe a learned community is an empowered community. We have young people who are still struggling. And with the kind of education we have at the moment, we want to build on it. Instead of pointing fingers, do something about it. And sometimes it’s minimal where you just build a library,” Hatang explains.
South African packaged goods company Tiger Brands and mobile communications giant Vodacom have been brought on board to help supplement the school feeding scheme.
“Tiger Brands, with the Department of Education, have a program where they feed the kids. I think it is breakfast and a lunch. This one that we have introduced is different. We launched it in July where kids are given food parcels when there is a long break. They get fed at school, but because of the levels of poverty, for some of the kids that is the only meal they have the whole day. Now what happens when they are on school holiday? They get the food parcels to take home on the last day of school,” says Hatang.
The program was launched in
Alexandra and is being rolled out to the rest of Gauteng, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal.
When the NMF was launched, the philanthropic projects it undertook were infrastructure-heavy, as most of the communities that Mandela visited asked for clinics and schools. In 2004, the foundation realigned itself, focusing on  philanthropy, dialogue and preserving the memory of Mandela.
Hatang says these elements are vital to build South Africa, as they help to create social cohesion.
He is particularly proud of a new project that sees South Africans and international players assessing how communities have moved on from repressive pasts and how they deal with that oppression.
“This is us venturing into the international community. This is the first project where we are spreading our wings. It is important that South Africa learns from others. We tend to think that we know it all and that we have done it all. There are communities that have gone through what we went through, maybe for not as long as we have, and they are still learning. There is room for us to learn,” he says firmly.
The foundation is also spreading its wings on the continent and has started to look at projects in other African countries that complement its values and objectives. Cooperation in trade and industry and greater intra-African trade between South Africa and her neighbors create the ideal context for branching out. One of the initiatives the foundation is currently considering addresses how African countries are moving away from alienation toward more cooperation.
In a similar effort to encourage social cohesion, cooperation and tolerance, after the drastic rise in xenophobic attacks in 2008, the NMF used its Dialogue for Change program to get people talking. South Africans often blame foreigners for taking ‘their’ jobs, as many migrants are willing to work for less money and under unfavorable conditions.
“We shouldn’t always just be pointing fingers to make excuses sometimes for our own failures,” Hatang points out.
He says the next dialogue series will focus on young people. The highest unemployment rate in South Africa is among the youth, and as a result, many of them turn to crime and other social ills.
“It is really needed. It is clear that young people feel alienated because of the level of unemployment hitting them very hard. You have alienation because of political processes where young people don’t feel included enough; also because of the fact that they didn’t live through what the older generation lived through. Young people also need to feel included in terms of decision-making processes.”
A resource that will prove invaluable to future generations is the NMF’s memory archives, a collection of Mandela’s papers that capture a sense of his life and the times he lived through. Hatang says the archives include various books and publications, including a graphic novel to teach pupils about Madiba’s life.

The Spirit of Giving

More than five years ago, she found herself on the wrong side of history when South Africa’s ruling party opted for leaders whom it believed would be more connected to the country’s poor and working class.
But now Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who has been in the background since then, has been appointed as a leader of the world’s largest bureaucracy, the United Nations (UN).
For the next four years, she will serve as the executive director of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women, known colloquially as UN Women.
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“It’s always been a defining feature for me, that if anything works, it must work for women. I have always known that this is my benchmark and I must get there as quickly as possible… If I cannot facilitate change, God forbid!” she says.
The body, which was formed in 2010, is tasked with promoting women’s rights and their participation in global affairs. UN Women can boast some successes, such as helping women gain seats in seven national elections, and reforming laws and policies in 26 countries to increase women’s access to economic assets and social protection.
But Mlambo-Ngcuka has her work cut out for her. Although there are calls, which she supports, to develop a stand-alone UN goal to achieve gender equality, the organization faces serious challenges, including inadequate funding.
Also, in a time when the world has to deal with economic uncertainty, more than often, budget cuts negatively affect the progress of women and entrench gender inequalities.
Mlambo-Ngcuka joins a list of women who were shining stars in former South African president Thabo Mbeki’s cabinet and have since left the country to take up international positions&#8230; Mlambo-Ngcuka, African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and special envoy on gender at the African Development Bank, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, could all, arguably, in their own right lead South Africa.
However, the experience Mlambo-Ngcuka gained while she served in government, and her well-known
tenacity, will now be put to use on the global stage.
She insists Africa will be a priority, but not at the expense of other regions.
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“When you think about Africa, the first thing that comes to your mind is poverty. And yet there’s a lot of good things in Africa… I want for us to start picturing a different Africa and bring forward that Africa does have resources. That there is a fighting spirit that we need to harness,” she says.
Mlambo-Ngcuka is not alone in her approach. For far too long, Africa has been depicted as the begging bowl of the world , a perception that Dlamini-Zuma also wants to remedy.
Mlambo-Ngcula says she plans to work closely with Dlamini-Zuma, as well as Africa’s two women presidents, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from Liberia and Malawi’s Joyce Banda.
“I would want to go to these women on the issues I’m going to be pushing forward as they relate to Africa. I actually want to harness their stature and the influence they have to make a push. Also, I will need them in working with the other leaders in Africa.”
There are strategic countries on the continent whose buy-in Mlambo-Ngcuka will have to get, such as Nigeria, with its wealth of powerful and influential women.
Women across the world face a multitude of challenges, which change in severity depending on where they live and what their social standing is. Mlambo-Ngcuka believes that if she can improve the quality of education and reproductive health, her time at the UN will not have been wasted.
“One of the things that is uniquely disabling sometimes to women, is failure to address their reproductive health. Women have an unwanted baby when they are not ready to support the child. You trigger inter-generational poverty and the life of that woman comes to a standstill. So allowing women to reach their full potential without having to deal with the responsibility of having a family they have not planned for, is, for me, very important.”
Mlambo-Ngcuka took office in August 2013 and has a number of initial ideas on how she will improve UN Women. When her predecessor, former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, resigned to focus on politics, she was criticized in some quarters for not leaving much of a legacy. Some of this was blamed on her role being confined to raising awareness about women’s living conditions and UN Women having no executive powers.
“I don’t want to be all gung-ho right at the beginning, and maybe create that vibe for myself, but really, I am also concerned. I cannot leave my country to be a token. We need to do something that is destiny-changing for women.
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“In my discussions with UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, he made it very clear it is important that we make an impact on women. I am hoping that I can lean on him and when it turns out actually that there isn’t scope for that, I can go and speak to him.”
Mlambo-Ngcuka’s strategy is not to reinvent the wheel, but to build on what people are currently doing. Her aim is to give UN Women a much stronger presence and make sure that women’s issues are more visible.
“I want to make sure women are in your face… I just feel our voice is a bit muzzled, a bit timid. And I feel that this is one time where you want to lead from the front.”

SA’s global citizen: The new head of UN Women wants to redefine the world for women.

The fallout of the Arab Spring brought its fair share of highs and lows, and while Egypt and Tunisia have had to grapple with some very worrying challenges, perhaps no country has embodied the elation and the trepidation of the new political landscape as Libya.
The political upheaval of the Arab Spring complicated the region’s economy. Economic grievances were a significant factor in the uprisings, but the resulting instability drove away foreign capital, dragged down output and spurred a rise in unemployment. However, Libya, nearly three years into the post-Gaddafi era, has seen some encouraging progress made in terms of restarting the economy and fostering a broader and more inclusive base for growth, but continuing unrest and the stubborn problem of armed militias continues to limit gains. There is no doubt that the country offers significant potential for investors, but the question remains: at what cost?
On the face of things, Libya ought to face the most grueling uphill struggle to restart its economy, given its prolonged conflict and the historical lack of any centralized governance structure. However, with proven oil reserves of 48 billion barrels, making up for around 3.5% of the global total, and a relatively small population of 6.5 million, the country has a wide range of policy options at its disposal to restart long-term sustainable growth—far more so than Tunisia or Egypt.
This is due in large part to the country’s natural largess. In 2012, oil accounted for 78% of GDP, 98% of exports, and 95% of all fiscal revenue. Oil exports also foot the bill for a vast system of regressive subsidies, which for electricity and fuel can be anywhere between 11% and 14% of GDP annually. With production averaging 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of 2013—up from a low of 30,000 bpd in 2011 and just short of the pre-revolution levels—revenues are also funding the country’s large public sector wage bill, which is estimated to cost roughly one-fifth of GDP but is a necessity, given the urgent need to expand employment and reduce the country’s poverty rate of almost 33%.
While the country’s resources give it a comfortable tool to jump-start growth and minimize short-term unrest, Libya’s broader performance over the past 18 months has also been comparatively strong. In July 2012, the country went through relatively peaceful general elections and by early 2013, headline indicators were impressively robust. The country saw real GDP growth of 95.5% in 2012, although this figure was distorted by the economy’s contraction of 60% in 2011. Nonetheless, the IMF is projecting 17% growth for 2013—the highest on the African continent—followed by more stable growth rates of 7% set to take place until 2017.
The strong growth has managed to recoup some of the capital that was withdrawn during the height of the country’s conflict. Outflows in 2011 were unsurprisingly significant. Most companies shut down operations completely and in some cases evacuated staff in a frenetic rush. The drop was all the more noticeable given the country’s star status in the preceding years. The end of United Nations sanctions in 2006 brought about an impressive growth in foreign direct investment into the country, in spite of caps on ownership requirements and the outsized-role of the state in directing activity. While post-Gaddafi Libya still grapples with a cumbersome bureaucracy and a burdensome regulatory framework for new investments, some of the less risk-averse companies have started to move in.
Oil is obviously one of the ripest attractions for foreign investors, particularly since Libya’s government is planning outlays of $10 billion over the next few years to boost overall production to 2.2 million bpd. Firms have been quick to move back in and the government moved quickly following the end of fighting to reaffirm the validity of existing contracts. Some companies—like Italy’s ENI, who holds signifcant stakes in the upstream sector—even resumed activity as early as mid-2011, although given the burdensome requirements of the previous regulatory code and the lacklustre rate of discovery, there are expectations that terms of some exisitng contracts may be renegotiated.
Foreign capital is also coming into the country’s long under-developed tertiary sector. While the state-dominated banking industry has nonetheless been grappling with a post-conflict jump in NPLs and decline in asset quality—and more worryingly, legislation in January 2013 that banned interest on all transactions in the country—there is abundant liquidity and no shortage of possible clients, which has attracted investors like Qatar National Bank, who acquired a 49% stake in Libya’s Bank of Commerce and Development.
Finally, infrastructure—which was a major recipient of foreign investment under the previous regime—is an area that offers enormous potential due to the volume of work needed. There is a need for capital in everything from sanitation to transportation to electrical transmission, and even property—particularly residential and commercial. There is less than 100,000 square meters of gross leasable area for grade A commercial property in Tripoli, a figure expected to grow tenfold over the medium-term. The new investment commitments and strong headline indicators represent the country’s highs but there are still plenty of lows that it must grapple with, both in the short- and long-term. The past 18 months have seen some notable and encouraging advancements, but a rosy outlook is far from assured.
One of the greatest challenges has been maintaning security and overall stability. The country’s loosely-organized militias were central to Gadaffi’s ouster, but controlling them after the revolution has proved to be problematic. Some of the larger militias in both Tripoli and Benghazi have resorted to kidnapping and extortion, in part to help pay wages, while armed groups have also used explicit threats and displays of force to pressure the government into passing favorable legislation, such as a ban on former government employees holding public office. Targeted attacks on diplomatic and government buildings in 2013 have also led to foreign embassies and corporations evacuating their staff again.
Recent months have also seen a troubling eruption of broader civil unrest, including strikes by workers, street protests and militia groups, primarily over insufficient and inadequate political representation or economic exclusion.
In August, a number of refineries, ports and pipelines were forced to shut down as a result of workers downing tools and militia blockades. Offloading and receiving capacity was already hurt by the damages incurred to key ports during the 2011 fighting, and given the heavy reliance on both imports—which account for 75% of food staples—and export earnings, recent port stoppages are weakening the overall economy further.
The lost earnings could amount to $4 billion a month and the damage in terms of output and attracting capital is a concern and could have longer-term implications. Concerns over supply reliability may force the country to discount its oil price in future contract negotiations, and some operators, like the United States-based Marathon Oil recently announced that they are exploring a potential sale of their stake in a local consortium.
Libya currently finds itself at a critical juncture and how things play out over the coming months will have a significant impact on the country’s long-term prospects. Libya has the ability to emerge from the fallout of the Arab Spring in far better shape than either of its neighbors, but with the stubborn problem of militia violence and continuing unrest, it looks like a challenging task.

A New Dawn Of Uncertainty

There she was, wearing a woven two-piece suit, with earrings hanging like chandeliers, flanked by empty chairs on either side.
This was at the United Nations (UN) in New York on July 16, 1963. In parts of the United States, a black person couldn’t even sit down at restaurants freely. Yet, here was an African singer from the beer halls of Sophiatown and Soweto sitting confidently before the most powerful leaders in the world, telling them of the ills of apartheid South Africa.
“I ask you and all the leaders of the world, would you act differently, would you keep silent and do nothing if you were in our place? Would you not resist if you were allowed no right in your own country because the color of your skin was different from the color of the rulers, and if you were punished for even asking for equality? I appeal to you, and to all the countries of the world, to do everything you can to stop the coming tragedy. I appeal to you to save the lives of our leaders, to empty the prisons of all those who should never have been there,” said Miriam Makeba calmly.
At the time, 31-year-old Makeba was a revered singer and activist. She was among the first female African singers to achieve international success and used this to become a powerful voice in the anti-apartheid movement.
Rivonia trialist Denis Goldberg, who faced the death penalty with Nelson Mandela, had been arrested just five days before Makeba’s speech.
“The talent of a black musician made South Africa sit up and take notice. During apartheid, it was rare to see such an outstanding woman like Miriam Makeba,” says Goldberg.
She left the country when the apartheid government banned black musicians from performing in halls and theaters, and paid a terrible price.
It was in 1960, when Makeba tried to return to South Africa for her mother’s funeral, that she was told her passport had been revoked. This was punishment for her appearance in the documentary Come Back, Africa that exposed the inequities of living under the rule of the nation’s oppressive government. She lived in exile for three decades.
When she spoke at the UN, her citizenship was taken away all together.
In 1964, Makeba spoke again at the UN. This time before the decolonization committee, where she pleaded for the release of female political prisoners in South Africa. In an interview with Bomb magazine from the United States, in 2000, she says it was the African National Congress (ANC) who asked her to use her popularity for the cause.
Makeba remained in exile until the end of apartheid in the early 1990s. During Mandela’s tenure as the country’s president, she was a member of Parliament between 1994 and 1999. She became the first African woman to win a Grammy Award, sharing the musical honor for best folk recording, with Harry Belafonte for their anti-apartheid album, in 1965. Belafonte had helped Makeba settle in the United States, where she had a successful singing career.
Makeba died of a cardiac arrest in November 2008 after a concert near the town of Caserta, in southern Italy. Her final performance was to campaign for journalist Roberto Saviano, who had received death threats for writing about organized crime.
To the end, Mama Africa, as she was affectionately known, sang in the cause of those under the heel of oppression. Millions remember her unique tongue-clicking music, sung in her mother language of Xhosa; songs such as Qongqothwane, popularly known as the The Click Song, Pata Pata and Malaika. She also made appearances in musicals King Kong and Wait a Minim!.
But maybe millions more will remember her for her brave words on a summer’s day in 1963.

The Song Bird Who Changed The World

In its five-year history, the community of countries that make up BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa)—collectively home to 45% of the world’s population; 20% of output and whose contribution to global economic growth over the last decade has reached 50%—has been more pilloried than praised.
And its critics made it clear that they were not about to let up. Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s newly-elected leader Xi Jinping, host Jacob Zuma, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, met again on March 26-27, for the first time on African soil, in Durban, South Africa. They were joined by 15 of Africa’s 54 heads of state.
Bold announcements at the end of the summit did not seem to placate the critics either—including the decision to create a Brics development bank that could rival the World Bank and the IMF; the signing of a Contingent Reserve Agreement (CRA) to pool $100 bilion from the five countries’ reserves; as well as a Multilateral Agreement on Co-operation and Co-financing for Sustainable Development.
Although grudging acknowledgements were made here and there and backhanded compliments were given, the coverage of major American and British publications was around inherent problems within and among the BRICS countries.
“The alliance faces serious questions about whether the member countries have enough in common and enough shared goals to function effectively as a counterweight to the West. For all the talk of solidarity among emerging giants, the group’s concrete achievements have been few… partly because its members are deeply divided on some basic issues and are in many ways rivals, not allies, in the global economy,” wrote the New York Times.
Parallels were drawn between India, Brazil and South Africa’s strong democratic traditions on the one hand, and Russia and China’s autocratic one on the other, although the good democrats were not spared either. The host country came in for a hiding for its small economy and anemic growth rates, while Brazil’s economy had cooled drastically, and India’s hope of reaching double-digit growth had ebbed.
The BRICS economic development ministers, met ahead of their heads of state to tie down decisions for final approval. They must have wondered as to whether there was any co-incidence in the release, the day before the BRICS summit, of a comprehensive report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The detailed report showed how the BRICS countries hardly invest in one another, preferring their neighbors and the developed world’s major economies instead, like those of the European Union, the United States and Japan.
Previous remarks of President Zuma, criticizing the way trade was conducted between China and the African continent were hauled out to show how he had appeared to have a change of heart before the summit meeting. But the same was not done to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the 2011 FORBES AFRICA Person of the Year and head of Nigeria’s central bank, who has been just as critical of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank as he was in the opinion article published in The Financial Times about how China has grown to be “a significant contributor to Africa’s de-industrialization and underdevelopment”.
The morning after the summit, China threw a lavish breakfast for the African heads of state. There are no prizes for guessing why it felt the need to do so.
With the promises of the BRICS heads of state from the previous afternoon’s session gnawing at their minds, African leaders were queuing up, one by one, at the office of their host. The purpose of the meetings were to strike the iron while it is still hot—ostensibly to open discussions that could lead to trade deals and to make sure they were not taken for a ride as guests who just came to hobnob and have a party.
Indeed, the time for African leaders to party and enjoy crumbs falling from their dishonorable colonial friends, while the looting of the continent’s resources continues unabated, is over. And so too should be the growing tendency of having too few people—usually a motley bunch of well-connected, cigar-puffing, whisky-drinking and posh-car-driving elite—benefitting handsomely from the opportunities that are being created by the world’s renewed focus on the continent.
According to Standard Bank, BRICS-Africa trade will increase threefold, from $150 billion in 2010 to $530 billion in 2015. Between 2010 and 2015, BRICS’ share of Africa’s total trade will increase from one-fifth to one-third and BRICS FDI stock in Africa will swell from around $60 billion in 2009 to more than $150 billion by 2015. The IMF also conducted a study, which indicated that the trade and investment from BRICS to low-income countries was deemed as a critical factor to protect them from the shock of the recent global recession.
With all its remaining problems and imperfections, Africa is a much better place today than it was two decades ago. But leaders would do well to remember that the reason coup d’états are frowned upon, elections are held regularly, and governments are a lot more open and transparent, is because Africa’s people are ready to take care of their own destiny, if they feel that their leaders are betraying their trust.
BRICS and many other opportunities that are sure to come our way need not be squandered.
And given our dreadful colonial past, now is the time to be even more vigilant. It’s the only way to deal with the derision emanating from pretentious, ideological dispositions of the western media, its commentators and research institutions—all of whom seem to have conveniently forgotten how they built their countries on the carcasses of Africans, their mineral resources, and how those structural adjustment programs imposed on the ‘dark continent’ by the IMFs and the World Banks of the so-called first world, have continued to play their part in strangulating many an African country, to this day.

Tag: United Nations

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