This week we worry a bit over the weight that Kenya’s constitutional referendum is having on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. The intriguing mainstream ‘confession’ regarding how Western media prioritizes crisis coverage in Africa gets some attention. We offer a different perspective on a titanic struggle for the direction of world cocoa prices. We propose that South Africa may be entering a season of post-World Cup ‘Enron moments.’ In addition we are intrigued by a formidable alliance that may be forming between a leader from North Africa and one from the Southern region.
Finally, we offer applause for a progressive regulatory step taken by African nations in the enormous telecommunications sector.
It’s all in the current edition of Africa PreBrief. Subscribe today at:
http://www.africaprebrief.com/pages/subscribe-to-apb.php
I’m getting great feedback on my review of Moky Makura’s book, ‘Africa’s Greatest Entrepreneurs.’ Some who are not on my personal email list did not see the following which I sent out along with a link to the review (which is featured as this week’s Africa PreBrief blog):
As many of you know, if I had to choose between a political activist affiliated with a grant-receiving NGO; a CEO of a Fortune 500 company mining precious minerals; a macroeconomist who focuses on ‘the numbers’; a tribal chieftain; and a entrepreneur without seed capital to advise me on what steps need to be taken to produce sustainable African economic development it would be the latter two groups (the chief and the entrepreneur), both of whom receive scant attention from a Western media that either depicts Africa as a land of famine and conflict or romanticizes over its booming ‘growth rates’ (an increasingly accelerating phenomenon). I say neither socialism, capitalism, nor ‘general theory’ sheds more light than the perspective of kinship systems and the risk-taker. I dealt with this (and why ‘growth’ can be a misnomer) in my debut Africa PreBrief interview (http://africaprebrief.com/pages/posts/whatrsquos-next-for-african-economic-development-and-investment-q-a-with-cedric-muhammad-founder-africaprebrief-25.php).
Today, as the Africa PreBrief Blog I have reviewed what I believe to be the most important book on African economic development written in the last few years - Moky Makura’s Africa’s Greatest Entrepreneurs - a work that better than any other (and free of ideological bias) depicts the reality of what happens when inspired risk-takers seek to innovate in societies where custom and tradition, colonialist inequality and mismanagement of the business monopoly by post-independence governments still loom large.
I hope you will enjoy it at:
As many of you know the 15th African Union Summit/17th session of the Executive Council of the African Union is meeting along with the Assembly of the AU in Kampala, Uganda.
Media coverage will vary, so include a review of the original and official documents of the gathering posted on the African Union’s official website at:
http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/index/index.htm
Cedric Muhammad
July 23, 2010