With over 100 global giants such as KPMG, Colgate Palmolive, SAB Miller and Chevron leading the charge for the region’s future business leaders, many executives are recognising the opportunities available to them and now regard Africa as offering significant potential for them to take the next step in their career.

Rupert Adcock, Managing Director at Global Career Company, says: “With career opportunities increasing across the region, driven by continued growth and expansion across borders, Africans are more than ever considering moving home to further their careers and contribute to their local economies.”

Careers in Africa Recruitment Summit - London, 23-25 May 2008 Press Release

The first is Development - this site will deal with news specifically related to Development issues, the Millennium Development Goals and West Africa.

The second is EMWAB - East Midlands West Africa Bureau - this site which I’m currently developing is specifically aimed at encouraging companies from my own region in the UK (East Midlands) to look at West Africa as an area of commercial opportunity.

The Bureau’s aim is to assist them in finding suitable trading partners in the countries covered by the EWA News Agency.

JC

Take a drive around rural Ghana and large swathes of the country appear green and fertile.

The current supply of local rice is less than a third of the demand but there is potential for a green revolution here. And as international rice prices escalate, experts say the time is right.

“I believe if we used just 1% of what we spend in a year on importing rice to build up our own rice industry we could be self sufficient,” says Kofi Dartey of Ghana’s Crop Research Institute, based in Kumasi.

Click here for full story

So to come across the Riders for Health website was great and to then watch the short film narrated by Ewan McGregor filled me with the kind of hope that will one day see the great African continent stand on its own feet and singing to its own tune!

The information below is taken from their website:

“Riders for Health is an international non-governmental organisation born out of the world of motorcycle racing. Its mission is to ensure that health workers in Africa have uninterrupted access to reliable transport.

Without such transport, all health care projects fail. Using an innovative social enterprise model, Riders has developed a practical, dynamic approach which is helping to achieve real and sustainable development.

They have put in place reliable preventive maintenance systems for two- and four-wheeled vehicles used in health care delivery allowing health workers to reach rural villages time and time again.

Riders currently operates three national programmes, in the Gambia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria, where we work with ministries of health, UN agencies and local humanitarian organisations.

All programmes are managed by wholly-African, wholly-professional teams, and not by volunteers or expatriates.

This means that Riders is able to build a lasting base of local knowledge and a culture of maintenance in the communities with which it works.”

Click for website: Riders for Health

Click for the video: Ewan McGregor & Riders for Health

The programme looks at the work of the Carolyn A. Miller Elementary School in Ghana.

Located in the Buduburam Liberian Refugee Camp, the school offers pupils education against a backdrop of war, brutality and poverty.

The school, founded by refugee Karrus Hayes, struggles with hungry pupils, unpaid staff, no electricity and resources, however has high ambitions for its pupils and a spirit that is as uplifting as it is humbling.

Click here to watch this truely remarkable video: Inspirations - A West African Story

Burkina Faso: Pierre Kazoni reports for duty on the busy streets of Ouagadougou with Burkinabe police officer Adelaide Valea.

At 0530 Valea and I go to Ouagadougou Central Police Station’s parade ground - a vast compound where more than 200 dusty cars, mopeds and bicycles are parked.

It turns out they are all impounded.

Guinea: Karim is a sergeant in the police force in Conakry, where he worked for over 10 years.

This city is a bit like hell.

There’s too much work with very little pay, which explains why we are accused of blatant corruption, particularly those of us in the traffic division.

This is not out of choice but we can be seen taking little bribes especially from commercial taxi and minibus drivers in a bid to make ends meet.

“It is the only continent yet to be built,” he writes.

“It will be here that some of the great politics of our century will play themselves out.”

Click for details: Sir Bob Geldof

Click here for full details: Togo News - Topix

A three-day sub-regional workshop on the rural finance challenges facing Africa was opened in Banjul on Monday by the Central Bank of the Gambia governor Momodou Bamba Saho.

Saho told the participants drawn from the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria, that it was important to discuss and share experiences about “new initiatives for the development of sustainable micro-finance operations in the sub-region and beyond.”

He noted that micro-finance is widely recognized as one of the tools in the fight against poverty as it “can empower poor people in improving their livelihood.”

Click here for full details: Sociolingo’s Africa

At the height of the demonstration, before riot police started firing tear gas, IRIN saw around 1,500 protestors chanting “we are hungry” and “life is too expensive, you are going to kill us.”

“A kilo of beef has increased from 700 CFA (US$1.68) to 900 CFA (US$2.16) in just three days,” one of the protestors, Amélie Koffi, told IRIN. “One litre of oil has increased from 600 CFA (US$1.44) to 850 CFA (US$2.04) in the same time.”

“We only eat once during the day now,” said another protestor, Alimata Camara. “If food prices increase more, what will we give our children to eat and how will they go to school?”

Click here for full article: IRIN Africa