Chris Marshall suggests that the progress of mobile banking in Nigeria will be a telling indicator for the viability of such a system elsewhere in Africa.
The mere presence of cyber cafes and WAP enabled mobile phones will not entice the vast majority of Africans to go online, unless what they can access is relevant to their everyday lives, suggests Jonathan Bhalla.
The challenge for technology entrepreneurs, business, NGOs and think tanks in Africa is to focus attention on clearly documenting what works – how and why – so lessons can be learned says Jonathan Bhalla.
Two thirds of Africans depend on agriculture for their livelihood, and the sector accounts for 30-40% of the continent’s GDP. Flowers, fruit and vegetables from Africa are increasingly present on the shelves of European supermarkets. Smallholder farmers have been able to service...
Martha Byanyima chronicles the history and development of agricultural standards in Africa and argues that they provide an opportunity to increase the continent’s presence in global trade.
Self-sufficiency in food production is the new mantra of donors and policymakers in Africa. But farmers, large and small, can be much more ambitious. Agriculture is the continent’s most neglected – and important – potential competitive advantage. It is Africa’s best answe...
In this highly personal and keenly argued commentary, James Gikunju Muuru makes the first detailed response by an African smallholder to the controversy over ‘food miles’. His account describes the serial feats of coordination, discipline, productivity and manual...
Few tests of the new methods of e-learning can be more exacting than to improve standards of clinical care by hard-pressed nurses in Kenya’s busy hospitals and clinics. But such is the ambition which drives the country’s first nationwide e-learning programme for...
Kenya is effectively partitioned by criminal and ethnic violence, triggered by the December 27th presidential ballot. The unrest threatens Kenya’s cohesion as a nation state, with sever consequences for its landlocked neighbours and the East African region. Evidence of...
