Africa: Where Have Africa's Future Builders Gone?

By Louis Otieno,

Analysis

"Young people around the world are facing an emerging opportunity divide between those who have access to a good education, the skills and connections to be successful and those who do not."

                                           Photo Credit:Port Shepstone High School

The Education for All and Millennium Development Goals were set out in 2000, but twelve years on the world is a very different place. Looking around us, there is a great deal of uncertainty. The economic and political landscape of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) continues to evolve following the Arab Spring. A global recession is exacerbating existing unemployment issues, even where the effects of the downturn are less evident, such as sub-Saharan Africa.

In particular, youth unemployment is growing across the region, and this presents a huge problem. We absolutely must not lose sight of the young people who will help shape the economies of tomorrow. These 'future builders' have the potential to challenge the status quo, yet in a shrinking labour market their options are becoming increasingly limited. Set to play a critical role in economic revival, our future builders need our support. How can we fashion a more inclusive economy? The answer is surely a cohesive, regional strategy and post- 2015 development agenda that addresses skills as well as opportunity.

Looking at the statistics, young people in the MENA region make up the largest share of the population, yet suffer the highest rates of unemployment. According to the 2012 Global Employment Trends report by the International Labour Organisation, youth in the region are around four times more likely to be unemployed than adults, with youth unemployment rates well in excess of 25 percent.

Many of these future builders have university and advanced degrees; but the issue of their unemployment is often more about skills than it is about academic preparation. In fact, a 2008 World Bank report stated that young people in MENA who have a university degree are more likely to be unemployed than their less-educated peers. In sub-Saharan Africa, the ILO found that 'youth tend to be affected disproportionally in an already extremely difficult labor market'.

Young people around the world are facing an emerging opportunity divide between those who have access to a good education, the skills and connections to be successful and those who do not. So how can we stimulate growth and support young people to shape the future they will inherit?
IDC predicts that by 2014, 90 percent of employers will require candidates to have ICT skills and the ILO has said that we need to foster entrepreneurship and self-employment among youth. To that end, we need to renew our focus on the role of ICT in employment and improve the framework for skills and apprenticeships. This is a long-term solution for securing supply and demand of the labor market. The region needs much quicker fixes, but the key question is: can countries in MENA and sub-Saharan Africa accomplish this?

Regional stakeholders must be proactive in engaging talented youth, and help to support skills and education programs in line with existing government policies. Some countries are gaining good traction - for example, Microsoft recently partnered with the local Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) in Mauritius to roll-out a specific SME curriculum, called 'Build Your Business', designed to promote e-skills training and create new businesses across the region. We've trained 18 master trainers in the country who will shortly roll it out to more than 2000 SMEs in their database. Our aim is to show young Mauritian entrepreneurs how to leverage productivity and technology tools to grow their businesses, so it'll be exciting to see the outcome.

We're working on a similar Build Your Business project in Kenya, where we have already had success with working with a local NGO partner to drive employability through education. Despite a wealth of local IT talent in the country, several Kenyan industries still struggle to recruit candidates with specialized IT skills. We partnered with NetHope to open an online selection system to all computer science graduates in the country, attracting more than 400 submissions.

40 shortlisted students gained technical certification and professional skills training before being hired as paid interns in various companies, including Microsoft partner organizations. They are currently undergoing a six month mentorship program and hands-on training, with the ultimate result being full-time employment. Demand from local companies is growing so we have just initiated a second intake of graduates into this successful program, and expanded the number of placements.

A post-2015 development agenda must focus on providing young people in MENA and sub-Saharan Africa with opportunities like these - in other words, the right support, education and skills training they need to spur economic renewal and become the business leaders of the future. Our planning must be long-term and incorporate public-private partnerships that help close the opportunity divide, support young people to find good jobs through the right skills, and empower them to start their own businesses. We have placed a heavy burden of expectation on the shoulders of our future builders. But that burden must be carried, and as incumbent business leaders, we must support those that do that every step of the way. The region's future will be built by the next generation on the entrepreneurial foundations we lay today.

Louis Otieno is Regional Director, Business Development & Strategy for Microsoft Africa

A year later, the war in Libya is far from over, Horace Campbell (From Pambazuka News)

October 23, 2012 will be exactly one year after the Chairperson of the National

Transitional Council declared that the Liberation of Libya was complete. A few days later the Secretary General of NATO, General Anders Fogh Rasmussen declared the end of the NATO mission, declaring that the NATO mission to Libya had been ‘one of the most successful in NATO history.’ Despite this announcement of success there are daily reports of fighting all across Libya with the levels of insecurity unprecedented in the history of the country with over 1,700 militias roaming. After Col Gaddafi was executed on October 20, 2011, the disinformation agencies of empire worked hard to keep the news of the militias and the insecurity out of international news. However, the competition between the differing oil companies had ensnared numerous forces. So this warfare continued with the militias linked to western oil companies through private military contractors and relevant western agencies.

Citizens of the United States learnt of the levels of insecurity of the people of Libya on September 11 when the Ambassador of the United States to Libya was killed in Benghazi, the city that was the base of the rebellion against Gaddafi. The death of Ambassador Stevens brought out facts of the US diplomatic/intelligence activities and its relationship to the militias. The differing accounts of the death entered into the presidential campaign as the Republican controlled Congress mounted hearings to get to the ‘truth’. Prior to these Hearings reports had been coming out in drips and drabs about the US intelligence presence in Benghazi. When the US security personnel were evacuated after the fateful events of September 11, 2012, the Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagour told the Wall Street Journal: ‘We were surprised by the numbers of Americans who were at the airport. We have no problem with intelligence sharing or gathering, but our sovereignty is also key.’ Libyans were awoken to the extent of the integration between the large numbers of US intelligence and the competing militias in Benghazi.

The testimony of the officials of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security at the Department of State before the US Congress only created more uncertainty in relation to the objectives of the United States in Libya. This Hearing before Congress failed to bring out the important role of the intelligence community in Libya in the coordination of the present war in Syria.

In our commentary this week, we will note that the war in Libya is not over and that the United Nations and the BRICS societies will have to be more forthright in placing a different plan for the restoration of peace and decent livelihood for the peoples of Libya. Ultimately, the triggers of war that spun out of the NATO intervention in Libya are having a tragic effect on all of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa. The African Union will have to once again intervene in Libya as the NATO countries descend into deeper economic depression and political repression at home and abroad.

SELLING THE SO-CALLED TRANSITION

After the execution of Gaddafi on October 20, 2011 and the capture of Saif al-Islam in November, the western media went into overdrive to present the idea that a new era of peace and reconstruction had arrived in Libya. Carefully managing the news coming out of Libya, Western citizens were assured that Libya was in a ‘transition’ phase. Step one in the planning of the masterminds of the intervention was declaration of victory after the destruction of Sirte and the displacement of hundreds of thousands. Step two involved the formation of an interim government which was supposed to have been completed by October 31, 2011 with Abdurrahim El-Keib succeeding Mahmoud Jibril. This phase of the transition was supposed to be guided through February 2012 when there was an appointment of an election commission with the adoption of electoral legislation. The farcical nature of this transition was soon made obvious when in March 2012, NTC officials in the east, centred on Benghazi, launched a campaign to re-establish autonomy for the region, further increasing tension with the central NTC in Tripoli. This push for autonomy in the oil rich region ensured that there was a flurry of activities as the executives of the oil companies and their private contractors fanned out in Benghazi to ensure that their own companies would emerge as strong forces after the redistribution of oil contracts.

It was in the midst of the dangerous squabbling between oil executives and their contractors and militias when there was the constant announcement of plans for elections in Libya in June 2012. The elections for the General National Congress were held on July 7, 2012. International news organizations went overboard to highlight the success of the elections and the ‘fact’ that Islamists and Jihadists did not come out as winners. The transitional government handed power to the General National Congress. This Congress then elected Mohammed Magarief of the liberal National Front Party as its chairman, thereby making him interim head of state.

These well-crafted versions of the ‘transition’ concealed the continued warfare that was going on all over Libya. There were approximately 1,700 militia groups running the country with each neighborhood dominated by a faction that went into the business of using weapons as a means of gaining access to resources. After the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, US citizens were alerted to the existence of what the State Department called ‘security incidents.’ But the 230 ‘security incidents’ over the past year were the tip of the iceberg of the massive destabilization and killings that had occurred. Black skinned Libyans from Tawergha were expelled from their community and more than 30,000 displaced. Even the usual spokespersons for Western imperial missions had to speak out as Human Rights Watch joined in the condemnation of the rule of the militias. Human Rights Watch brought out a ‘Report Rule of Law or Rule of Militias’ bringing into sharper focus some of the outstanding questions of the role of these armed marauders all over Libya. In June one militia brigade briefly took over Tripoli international airport

OIL AND MILITIAS

Despite the 230 security situations in Libya, international oil companies were back in business so that by the end of September 2012, Libya was producing 90 per cent of its pre-NATO intervention output. In fact more oil was now being pumped out than in the month immediately prior to the start of the NATO war. Foreign companies had been trooping back into Libya with BP being the last to arrive in May. Even without the hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, the stability of the exportation of oil had driven foreign companies to focus on who would be in control of Benghazi, especially after the noisy declaration of autonomy by the militia/political leaders in February.

US oil companies did not want to be left behind in this new insensate struggle, hence US diplomatic efforts were now directed at Benghazi. Christopher Stevens had been appointed ambassador of the United States to Libya in January 2012 and arrived in Tripoli in May. When the uprisings had started in February 2011 and the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy was going into Benghazi to mobilize support for French interests, Chris Stevens was one of the first US diplomatic personnel to be on the ground in Benghazi. He had served as a ‘Special Representative’ to the Libyan Transitional National Council from March 2011 to November 2011 during the NATO intervention. Prior to this period he had served as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya from 2007 to 2009. At that time, Stevens described Gaddafi as an ‘engaging and charming interlocutor’ as well as a ‘strong partner in the war against terrorism.’

Chris Stevens belonged to that section of the US Department of State that was very knowledgeable about the movements of militia members between Benghazi, Libya, and the current war against the Assad regime in Syria. Libyan Islamists from the Eastern region comprise the largest single component of the ‘foreign fighters’ who are playing an ever more dominant role in the war being waged in Syria with the aim of toppling the government of President Assad. According to some estimates, they comprise anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 of approximately 3,500 fighters who have been infiltrated into Syria from as far away as Chechnya and Pakistan.

DEATH OF AN AMBASSADOR

Throughout North Africa, the fallout of the NATO war was being felt with the citizens of Libya bearing the brunt of the lawlessness that had been unleashed. Such lawlessness suited the short term interests of the capital equity forces of Wall Street, the oil executives and the Emirates. The proliferation of military weaponry from unsecured Libyan stockpiles — including small arms, explosives and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADs) — expanded the availability of weapons with the border regions suffering directly. The present destruction in Mali is directly related to these forms of plunder by Western interests.

The NATO powers and Western nations remained smug because this instability temporarily postponed the questions of African integration. However, some sections of Africa were sufficiently angry for them to work for the removal of the Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, Jean Ping.

The purpose of Wednesday’s hearing of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee was to examine security lapses that led to the killing in Benghazi last month of the US ambassador and three others. What this hearing confirmed was what many knew; that there was no real ‘consulate’ in Benghazi, but a vast intelligence and private contractors web for the CIA and the oil companies. It was the testament of Charlene Lamb before Congress that gave away the fact that the ‘facility’ in Benghazi where Christopher Stevens and three others lost their lives was not a diplomatic facility.

The events surrounding the death of Ambassador Stevens exposed the USA in Libya at a number of levels. First, the role of Stevens exposed the hypocrisy of the so called ‘war on terror’. Second, the evidence pointed to the integration between US intelligence and the militias. In the testimony before Congress, Charlene Lamb told US law makers that the intelligence compound depended on the militia in Benghazi known as the 17th February Brigade. Lamb, Deputy Assistant Secretary State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, told Congress on October 10 that in terms of armed security personnel, there were five Diplomatic Security agents on the compound on September11. ‘There were also three members of the Libyan 17th February Brigade’ – a reference to the Libyans hired to guard the American compound.

The third level was the jockeying between French, British, Italian and US oil companies over political dominance in Benghazi. Traditionally, the Italians had been a force on the ground in Libya but during the NATO operations French, British and WE operatives muscled out the Italians as junior partners in the imperial operation.

These factors did not come out in the hearings, but what did come out was the inter-agency conflicts between the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. The US military has kept quiet as these inter-agency squabbles were played out on C Span.

Even before the hearings, Eric Nordstrom had engaged in a media battle to place his stamp on the events leading up to the death of the ambassador. In his testimony, the regional security officer who served about 10 months in Libya, said he sought to obtain more agents and to extend a mission for the security site team in Libya.

There was in fact need for security but as the diary of Ambassador Stevens showed, he was opposed to the presence of official State Department personnel because of the integration of the private contractors, the intelligence operatives and the militias. Earlier in June there had been an attack on the intelligence facility that was called a ‘consulate,’ a June 6 bomb attack on the Benghazi consulate, a June 11 rocket-propelled grenade attack on a convoy carrying Britain’s ambassador to Libya, and an August 27 State Department travel warning noting the threat of car bombings and assassinations in Tripoli and Benghazi. However, despite these attacks Stevens argued to the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security that the matter of security should not be entrusted in the hands the Marines who usually guarded US diplomatic establishments.

Stevens took this decision to ‘show faith in Libya’s new leaders,’ according to the Wall Street Journal, which wrote: ‘Officials say Mr Stevens personally advised against having Marines posted at the embassy in Tripoli, apparently to avoid a militarized US presence.’

FALLOUT BEFORE THE US PUBLIC

While the media was hailing Ambassador Stevens as a hero, the first major inclination of the depth of intrigue was the struggle between CNN and the State Department over the contents of the diary of Ambassador Stevens. This diary and the appointment calendar which was picked up by journalists were found by journalists and parts of this diary which exposed the multiple roles of Stevens were aired on the US network CNN. This same network had been complicit in the disinformation during the war, but in the current ratings competition, CNN did not wait for clearance before exposing the activities of Stevens as documented by Stevens himself. These revelations displeased the State Department. While Stevens was given a public tribute by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, the three other US personnel who succumbed to the attack on September 11 were buried quietly so that the local papers from their towns would not raise questions about what they were doing in Benghazi.

CIA AGAINST THE STATE DEPARTMENT

When Stevens was killed, the US representative to the United Nations, Susan Rice, stated that the killings took place in the context of the international demonstrations over the obnoxious video about the prophet Mohammed. Soon afterwards it became clearer that the attack on Benghazi was not related to the international demonstrations but in relation to the inter-militia warfare in Benghazi. The Republican candidate for president, Mitt Romney pounced on this disparity of the facts and the US Republican controlled Congress called hearings to embarrass President Obama.

However, no sooner were the hearings in session before the Republican lawmakers found out that they were opening a can of worms, exposing the extent of the CIA operations in Libya. Very early in the hearings, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was the first to unmask the role of the CIA. ‘Point of order! Point of order!’ he called out as a State Department security official, seated in front of an aerial photo of the US facilities in Benghazi, described the night of the attack. ‘We’re getting into classified issues that deal with sources and methods that would be totally inappropriate in an open forum such as this.’

The State Department official then retorted that the information being presented was available on commercial sites and easily retrievable through Google Earth maps. The State Department revealed that the material was unclassified; bring out to the US public the differences between the CIA and the State Department. ‘I totally object to the use of that photo,’ Chaffetz continued. He went on to say that ‘I was told specifically while I was in Libya I could not and should not ever talk about what you’re showing here today.’

After Representative Chaffetz alerted the world that something valuable was in the photo, the chairman, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), attempted to close the barn door after the horses had been out. ‘I would direct that that chart be taken down,’ he said, although it already had been on C-SPAN. ‘In this hearing room, we’re not going to point out details of what may still in fact be a facility of the United States government or more facilities.’

Dana Milbank from the insider beltway media poked fun on the CIA and how they were outed in the hearings. In an article posted on Huffingtonpost, he wrote:

‘In their questioning and in the public testimony they invited, the lawmakers managed to disclose, without ever mentioning Langley directly, that there was a seven-member ‘rapid response force’ in the compound the State Department was calling an annex. One of the State Department security officials was forced to acknowledge that ‘not necessarily all of the security people’ at the Benghazi compounds ‘fell under my direct operational control.’

'And whose control might they have fallen under? Well, presumably it’s the 'other government agency’ or 'other government entity’ the lawmakers and witnesses referred to; Issa informed the public that this agency was not the FBI.’

The operations of the CIA in Libya had backfired. The plan of the Republicans to make political capital out of this incident had backfired and the entire world was brought closer to the multiple roles of the US military, private contractors, intelligence operatives and oil companies in Libya.

The number of CIA operatives in Benghazi was also a revelation to the ‘provisional’ government in Libya. When the US evacuated their personnel from Benghazi, the Libyans were surprised and wanted greater accountability from the US about their operations. However, for the US intelligence community, the major question was damage control.

‘It’s a catastrophic intelligence loss,’ a US official who had been stationed in Libya told the New York Times. ‘We got our eyes poked out.’

IF YOU FEED A SCORPION IT WILL BITE YOU

Robert Fisk of the Independent drew the linkages between the NATO intervention in Libya and the escalating war in Syria, warning the West of the dangers of its duplicity in the Middle East and North Africa. Writing after the death of Ambassador Stevens, Fisk commented that:

‘The United States supported the opposition against Libya's Colonel Gaddafi, helped Saudi Arabia and Qatar pour cash and weapons to the militias and had now reaped the whirlwind. America's Libyan ‘friends’ had turned against them, murdered US ambassador Stevens and his colleagues in Benghazi and started an al-Qa'ida-led anti-American protest movement that had consumed the Muslim world. The US had fed the al-Qa'ida scorpion and now it had bitten America. And so Washington now supports the opposition against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was helping Saudi Arabia and Qatar pour cash and weapons to the militias (including Salafists and al-Qa'ida) and would, inevitably, be bitten by the same ‘scorpion’ if Assad was overthrown.’

Fisk quoted from one of his friends in Syria who was warning against the current escalation of the war:

‘You know, we're all sorry about Christopher Stevens. This kind of thing is terrible and he was a good friend to Syria – he understood the Arabs.’ I let him get away with this, though I knew what was coming. But we have an expression in Syria: 'If you feed a scorpion, it will bite you'.’

This bite is now being felt even in the halls of the US Congress as the Congressional hearings backfired on the Republicans who had hoped to make political capital out of the events in Benghazi because what is emerging from the press reports is that the CIA agency was not merely conducting covert surveillance on the Islamists based in eastern Libya, but providing them with direct aid and coordinating their operations with the current war in Syria.

THE WAR IN LIBYA IS FAR FROM OVER

Libya is again dominating the news as the US government is forced to juggle lies and disinformation. There are now at least seven new books that detail the quagmire of the NATO intervention. Next month, my own contribution will be published by the African Institute of South Africa. The title of my book is ‘Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya: Lessons for Africa in the Forging of African Unity’. This book will join the wave of statements from across the world calling for corrective measures for Africa against this new plunder. NATO is now completely discredited and is being called to expand war to Syria, Iran and beyond.

After the death of Stevens, the US Navy sent two destroyers to Libyan waters. Inside Libya, there have been cries for the disbanding of the militias. Demonstrators are calling on the Libyan government to disband the forces of terrorism in Libya. However, the Central government of Libya is torn between the competing interests of the French, British, Italian, US, Emirates, Saudi and Turkey. The continued warfare in Libya points to the need for an intensification of the calls for the UN Security Council to remove the private contractors and foreign military personnel from Libya. On March 12, 2012, the United Nations Security Council extended the mandate of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) for one year in order to assist the transitional authorities with security and administrative challenges. This extension of the Security Council mandate was in fact assistance to the external oil companies.

Members of the BRICS societies had been angry over the manipulation of the Responsibility to Protect resolution. The anger of Brazil, Russia, India and China must be turned into concrete support for the peoples of Africa and Libya by pressuring the USA and NATO to expel the private contractors and intelligence operatives who are now using Libya as one of the rear bases for the war in Syria.

African peoples everywhere are mindful of how the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 heralded the start of World War II. The slow and escalating wars across North Africa and the Middle East pose great dangers to humans everywhere. Vigilance is needed and clear political agendas to oppose African dictators while strengthening the Peace and Security Council of the African Union.

From Kenya to Madagascar and to Nigeria: The African tech-hub boom

There's a buzz, a palpable energy, running through the corridors of Africa's capitals and urban areas, and much of it revolves around tech. What happens when smartphones outsell computers four to one, and 50% of a continent's population is below the age of 20? You have a technology-literate mobile generation unlike any that has come before.

This week finds me in Botswana.I've talked to a couple of start-up entrepreneurs - Pule Mmolotsi, who is testing out an Oyster-like card for public transportation in the country, and Katy Digovich, who is creating apps for the Ministry of Health.

They represent what I continue to see across the continent - a new generation trying new ideas and taking to technology.

African governments aren't fast or savvy enough to build the infrastructure needed to support this type of entrepreneurial tech activity. Academic institutions are woefully behind in teaching skills for computer science and design. So where do people like Pule and Katy go? What mechanisms support their start-ups and connect them to capital, businesses and their peers?
Incubators and accelerators.

If you had asked that question two years ago, the answer would have been: "Very little." But in the past two years there has been an interesting phenomenon in Africa - the proliferation of tech hubs and incubators.

These range from incubation and training spaces like MEST Ghana to co-working environments such as ActivSpaces in Cameroon, and community spaces like the Co-Creation Hub in Nigeria.

Governments are involved, with places like the Botswana Innovation Hub here in Gaberone, and some academic institutions are jumping in, like we see with the Strathmore iLab in Nairobi.

There are now more than 50 tech hubs, labs, incubators and accelerators in Africa, covering more than 20 countries. In Nairobi, we have six.

I've had a front-row seat as the founder of the iHub in Nairobi, where four years ago we had an idea and built a space that now has more than 8,000 members and holds approximately 120 events per year.

We sit at the centre of Kenya's tech community, where our role is to serve as a connection point and support the phenomenal hi-tech growth in the country.
Last year five of these tech hubs founded AfriLabs, an umbrella body that allows investors and media to connect more quickly to the tech activity in each of the countries that houses a member lab. There are now 14 member labs across 10 countries.

At the iHub, we've built strong relationships with some of Kenya's top companies, including Zuku, Nokia, Google, Nation Media Group, Safaricom, InMobi, MIH and Samsung.

We also have a great relationship with the government, through the Kenya ICT Board and the permanent secretary for information and communication, and we have strong ties with Strathmore and Stanford Universities. But if we had waited for the government to create the iHub in Kenya, we would still be waiting today.

We often joke that in Nairobi people don't think you have a job unless you wear a suit and tie and head to the city center each day. In a world where suits and ties are expected, who provides the space for the next generation to work, build companies and be taken seriously as start-up coder wearing ripped jeans and a T-shirt?

Innovation comes from the edges, so it comes as no surprise that innovators are found in the margins. They are the misfits among us, the ones who see and do things differently.

The tech hubs in Africa provide a home for those with new and innovative ideas, create an atmosphere where they are encouraged to try new things, and most importantly are able to meet like-minded individuals they can grow with.

By Erik Hersman; Technologist, blogger, co-founder of Ushahidi

Muhammed Jah; Millionaire without a business plan

The Gambia's Muhammed Jah clearly remembers the day, in the late 1990s, when a friend told him that he was going to the airport to pick up a consultant who was coming to teach his department a word processing application popular at the time, WordPerfect. "I said: 'How come we have a consultant coming all the way from Europe just to teach our people how to type a letter on a computer?'" Mr Jah told the BBC's series African Dream."That was funny but serious to me, and there and then I decided that I was going to start teaching people computing."

QuantumNet, the company that he set in motion with four employees, now has more than 300 information technology (IT) professionals on its payroll and, according to his estimates, is worth around £100m ($156m). For him that is no mean feat. After all, Mr Jah - whose father was a school teacher - was the first in his family to go into business.

It all started when, having finished school in The Gambia, he got a scholarship to do a diploma in Islamic Studies in Saudi Arabia. He says that although the stipend was very generous, he lived frugally and saved money - including the funds he had for holiday flights home - to pay his way through university. He then read for a degree in Electronics and Communications engineering at the University of Sierra Leone.

When he returned to The Gambia he considered working as an engineer but then saw - thanks to his friend's illuminating trip to the airport - that there was an opening for computer entrepreneurs in the country. "When I finished my studies in Sierra Leone I had money left over from what I was saving in Saudi Arabia, and I also had a family loan, from an uncle of mine, but I remember I started my whole business with about $16,000 which enabled me to buy a few computers to start a training centre," Mr Jah told the BBC Africa's Victor Okhai.

"My business instinct showed me that there was an opportunity so I quickly transformed myself from pure engineering to computing which is almost the same, so I did a few courses in computing to give to my people what I had learned. "Though I don't have a PhD or a Master's degree in computing, at that time I didn't need that high level to teach people how to type or how to use Excel."

Mr Jah said that he felt he had received so much from his country that it was time to give something back. But when he started out, he did not have a business plan - "I didn't have time for that," he said. "I went straight into the business, I bought some machines, I started training people, a lot of them for free because when you teach people for free, even though they're not paying you, they'll bring you people who will pay you."

In 2006 his training centre became the QuantumNet Institute of Technology which, according to Mr Jah, is one of the biggest private institutes in The Gambia. It offers a series of IT courses, from basic to advanced levels, including a diploma programme in Computing Science and Business Management, delivered in partnership with the University of The Gambia and Saint Mary's University, in Halifax, Canada.

The firm, which was one of the West African country's internet pioneers, gradually expanded into selling products and became a distributor for companies such as Dell, Samsung, and Nokia. "Two and half years ago, I decided to move into telecom proper by investing in the first 3G mobile telecommunication company in The Gambia which is QCell," the entrepreneur said.

QuantumNet is now a group of companies which has also gone into the car business - distributing, amongst others, Mercedes-Benz. Mr Jah - who has won a number of national and international awards, including Gambian Businessman of the Year three times - says that he tries to avoid borrowing money or using credit because interest rates are usually too high, often more than 20%, so he prefers to grow the business slowly and to add products when he can afford to do so.

"If I had the finance at the right price 20 years ago, I would have probably been where I am today 10 years ago. But then, based on the type of person I am, I would rather reach my goal in 18 years than to fail in five years," he pointed out.

According to Mr Jah, the biggest risk he ever took was venturing into the internet business because at the time The Gambia only had one telecommunications company (or "telco", as people in the industry call them), the state monopoly Gamtel.

"Overnight, you have this young boy - with no money - just deciding to compete [against] that telco in delivering internet services. And, remember, the internet gateway was owned by that monopoly and I'm supposed to buy bandwidth from them and compete with them on the retail.

"But the government telco was operating on normal government working hours, from 8.30am to 4pm. For me, as a small internet service provider I was operating 24 hours and this is how we captured the clientele," he explained.

He has not only competed with the government, he has also worked with it, in both a formal and an informal capacity, as an advisor on IT issues. He sees this as part of the role of the private sector.

The Gambia now has 90% mobile phone penetration rate and a very good internet access. A new internet cable is due to reach the country in October 2012 and Mr Jah's company has bought the most private shares in this public/private partnership.
This new venture is core to QuantumNet's expansion plans as the cable will improve internet speeds in the country and make things like video conferencing easier.

Mr Jah believes there will be more opportunities for young Gambians to build businesses around the fast internet that the cable will provide. He says that when he was starting out, it was "madness" for bright graduates like himself not to seek a job with the government since most opportunities were in the public sector.

Now most young people dream of setting up their own companies. Technology has changed everything. The private sector has overtaken the public, and this is the way Mr Jah thinks it should be.He would advise young people to be disciplined, honest and hardworking. He says that the main challenges he faced at the beginning were social attitudes, like getting employees to come to work on time, to be well-organized and show good customer service skills.

He also points out that young entrepreneurs should start moderately so they can learn along the way. "Big mistakes can cost big," he says. Mr Jah, who this year is 43, speaks fondly of his younger employees. "The greatest satisfaction to me is when I start seeing my employees moving from bachelorhood to marriagehood. When we meet at our yearly family parties I feel very good because I see that, with the small steps I have taken, I've managed to change a few people's lives, and I think I can do more."

From the BBC's African Dream.

NATO's Libya blitzkrieg and the coming colonial wars

The scale of the ongoing tragedy visited on Libya by NATO and its allies is becoming horribly clearer with each passing day. Estimates of those killed so far vary, but 50,000 seems like a low estimate; indeed the British Ministry of Defense was boasting that the onslaught had killed 35,000 as early as last May. But this number is constantly growing. The destruction of the state’s forces by British, French and American blitzkrieg has left the country in a state of total anarchy – in the worst possible sense of the word. Having had nothing to unite them other than a temporary willingness to act as NATO’s foot soldiers, the former ‘rebels’ are now turning on each other. One hundred and forty seven were killed in in-fighting in Southern Libya in a single week earlier this year, and in recent weeks government buildings - including the prime ministerial compound - have come under fire by ‘rebels’ demanding cash payment for their services. $1.4billion has been paid out already - demonstrating once again that it was the forces of NATO colonialism, not Gaddafi, who were reliant on ‘mercenaries’ - but payments were suspended last month due to widespread nepotism. Corruption is becoming endemic - a further $2.5billion in oil revenues that was supposed to have been transferred to the national treasury remains unaccounted for. Libyan resources are now being jointly plundered by the oil multinationals and a handful of chosen families from amongst the country’s new elites; a classic neo-colonial stitch-up. The use of these resources for giant infrastructure projects such as the Great Manmade River, and the massive raising of living standards over the past four decades (Libyan life expectancy rose from 51 to 77 since Gaddafi came to power in 1969) sadly looks to have already become a thing of the past. But woe betide anyone who mentions that now. It was decided long ago that no supporters of Gaddafi would be allowed to stand in the upcoming elections, but recent changes have gone even further. Law 37, passed by the new NATO-imposed government last month, has created a new crime of ‘glorifying’ the former government or its leader - subject to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Would this include a passing comment that things were better under Gaddafi? The law is cleverly vague enough to be open to interpretation. It is a recipe for institutionalized political persecution. Even more indicative of the contempt for the rule of law amongst the new government - a government, remember, which has yet to receive any semblance of popular mandate, and whose only power base remains the colonial armed forces – is Law 38. This law has now guaranteed immunity from prosecution for anyone who committed crimes aimed at ‘promoting or protecting the revolution’. Those responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Tawergha - such as Misrata’s self-proclaimed ‘brigade for the purging of black skins’ - can continue their hunting down of that cities’ refugees in the full knowledge that they have the new ‘law’ on their side. Those responsible for the massacres in Sirte and elsewhere have nothing to fear. Those involved in the widespread torture of detainees can continue without repercussions - so long as it is aimed at ‘protecting the revolution’ - i.e. maintaining NATO-TNC dictatorship. This is the reality of the new Libya: civil war, squandered resources, and societal collapse, where voicing preference for the days when Libya was prosperous and at peace is a crime, but lynching and torture is not only permitted but encouraged. Nor has the disaster remained a national one. Libya’s destabilization has already spread to Mali, prompting a coup, and huge numbers of refugees - especially amongst Libya’s large black migrant population - have fled to neighbouring countries in a desperate attempt to escape both aerial destruction and lynch mob rampage, putting further pressure on resources elsewhere. Many Libyan fighters, their work done in Libya, have now been shipped by their imperial masters to Syria to spread their sectarian violence there too. Most worrying for the African continent, however, is the forward march of AFRICOM -the US military’s African command - in the wake of the aggression against Libya. It is no coincidence that barely a month after the fall of Tripoli - and in the same month Gaddafi was murdered (October 2011) - the US announced it was sending troops to no less than four more African countries - the Central African Republic, Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. AFRICOM have now announced an unprecedented 14 major joint military exercises in African countries for 2012. The military re-conquest of Africa is rolling steadily on. None of this would have been possible whilst Gaddafi was still in power. As founder of the African Union, its biggest donor, and its one-time elected Chairman, he wielded serious influence on the continent. It was partly thanks to him that the US was forced to establish AFRICOM’s HQ in Stuttgart in Germany when it was established in February 2008, rather than in Africa itself; he offered cash and investments to African governments who rejected US requests for bases. Libya under his leadership had an estimated $150 billion of investments in Africa, and the Libyan proposal, backed with £30 billion cash, for an African Union Development Bank would have seriously reduced African financial dependence on the West. In short, Gaddafi’s Libya was the single biggest obstacle to AFRICOM penetration of the continent. Now he has gone, AFRICOM is stepping up its work. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan showed the West that wars in which their own citizens get killed are not popular; AFRICOM is designed to ensure that in the coming colonial wars against Africa, it will be Africans who do the fighting and dying, not Westerners. The forces of the African Union are to become integrated into AFRICOM under a US-led chain of command. Gaddafi would never have stood for it; that is why he had to go. And if you want a vision of Africa under AFRICOM tutelage, look no further than Libya, NATO’s model of an African state: condemned to decades of violence and trauma, and utterly incapable of either providing for its people, or contributing to regional or continental independence. The new military colonialism in Africa must not be allowed to advance another inch. By Dan Glazebrook

Coventry wonder boy from Burundi

Gael Bigirimana was walking to the supermarket with his brother to buy some milk when he spotted Coventry City's academy training facility.

The following day he went there and asked for a trial. Slightly bemused, the coaching staff looked at the smiling yet determined 11-year-old with the broken English and explained that the club did not just take on young players who turned up unannounced. He would have to be scouted like everybody else.

Running home afterwards, having left details of the school he attended and buoyed by the promise that somebody from Coventry would come to watch him play, Bigirimana was surprised when a member of the coaching staff stopped him.

"They asked if I had all the equipment, boots, shin pads and stuff like that," Bigirimana told BBC Sport. "I said 'yes' but I did not. They said they saw me running fast but to tell you the truth I was jogging.

"The next day they gave me a trial. It was near the end of the season but they took me on for the following campaign. It must have been a miracle."

Miracle or not, seven years later the 18-year-old has just been named the Football League Championship Apprentice of the Year for a season in which he has made a significant impact at the struggling second-tier club.

He has so far played 21 times for the first team after making his debut against Leicester in August and quickly became a cult figure among the club's supporters with a series of skilful and wholehearted performances in the centre of midfield.

"He has a good touch and has shown a maturity beyond his years," said Sky Blues manager Andy Thorn. "He has acquitted himself well."

Performing in such a pivotal position in a struggling side is a big responsibility for somebody in their debut season and Thorn is candid enough to admit that the youngster's form started to tail off. Bigirimana has not played for the first team since their match against Southampton in January. Even so, he had made enough of an impression to reportedly be the subject of a recent approach from Championship rivals Burnley, who wanted to sign the youngster on loan.

Bigirimana himself sounded philosophical when asked about his return to the youth side after a prolonged taste of first-team action.

"Football is full of disappointments," he explained. "Each one must make you a better player. Besides, the youth team are pushing for the league title and it is great to be able to help my friends there."

This upbeat, selfless attitude is part of the reason why players in the younger age groups look up to him. He told me that one of the things he needed to work on is developing a selfish streak in front of goal. He has infuriated his coaches at times this season by passing to a team-mate when he should have gone for goal himself. When I asked him about his ambitions he talked more about wanting his team-mates to succeed than listing any particular aspirations for himself.

He has regularly volunteered to visit schools in the area to talk to the younger pupils about his story and I imagine it must make for gripping listening because Bigirimana's journey in life sounds like the plot for a Hollywood script.

He is a refugee from the war-torn African country of Burundi who came to England in 2004. His mother arrived first before Gael followed with his father, two brothers and a sister.

Back in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, he played football at every opportunity, barefooted, on the streets. Prior to his arrival in England he lived briefly in Uganda and had his first experience of wearing boots and playing in a structured competition.

He had not been at Coventry City for more than a handful of training sessions before he approached the coach and asked to be moved to a higher age group. He explained that he was not finding his own group challenging enough.

It quickly became obvious that the boy from Burundi was a gifted footballer who loved to entertain and played with a freedom that endeared him to those around him. However, it was equally apparent that he understood the value of hard work.

"His determination to achieve manifests itself in his being the first at training and the last to leave," said Coventry academy manager Gregor Rioch.

Bigirimana is a deeply religious man who believes that everything that has happened to him is part of God's plan. The setbacks have been designed to make him stronger. He clearly has a huge determination to overcome any obstacles in his way.

This season he has attended extra sessions with the club's education officer on a Thursday afternoon to catch up on the studies he has missed as a consequence of his involvement with the first team. It is the sort of application that helped earn him his Apprentice of the Year award and should stand him in good stead for a successful career.

Thorn told me Bigirimana can have a "massive, massive future in the game" and added: "Gael's is an amazing story and just shows with the right dedication, work ethic and commitment what you can actually achieve."

As Bigirimana walked off the stage in London on Sunday evening clutching his award he had a huge grin on his face; don't bet against it being the last.

Story Credit: Paul Fletcher's Blog

Why Good news about Africa is bad for business in Western Media

Ever wondered why Western coverage of the entire continent of Africa is usually a steady stream of bad news - poverty, wars, famine, 'starving Africans', AIDS, corruption, Western 'aid', bureaucracy, mob justice, tribalism - leavened occasionally by a bit about wonderful nature (love the safaris!) or football, or how warm the people are and how they keep smiling in spite of the poverty? Or even if this bad news might actually be reassuringly good news to some people, and who these people might be? Well, here's a paragraph from an article we just came across that got us digging for more:

Between May and September 2010 the ten most-read US newspapers and magazines carried 245 articles mentioning poverty in Africa, but only five mentioning gross domestic product growth, yet, according to the McKinsey Quarterly, Africa is “among the world’s most rapidly growing economic regions,” and, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, poverty rates throughout the continent have been falling steadily and much faster than previously thought.

We're willing to bet that if someone did a survey of European newspapers' coverage of Africa the findings wouldn't be much different.

Is there poverty? Of course there is? Is there corruption at high levels? Yes, indeed. Are there wars going on? Yes. Yet, regardless of the story, if you dig deeper into most reports on Africa and you're quite likely to find that the society you're reading about isn't quite as bleak as the story you're reading is trying to make out. And sometimes the report isn't merely an exaggeration, it's just plain wrong: remember the commentary CNN posted to accompany Vice Magazine's video about 'Ghana's e-mail scan gangs'? Or how, for years, Kibera kept being referred to as Africa's biggest slum with a million inhabitants until a population census in 2009 revealed a figure of 194,269? Most people don't have the time to dig deeper, so an entire continent becomes a place of nothing but misery. And if that is the case then there must be something wrong with Africans, mustn't there?

Now, why would Western journalists persist reinforcing the beliefs of their readers, instead of challenging these readers with the reality of whichever part of Africa they are reporting from?

In the Columbia Journalism Review, Karen Rothmyer puts forward the following explanation in her article Hiding the Real Africa - Why NGOs prefer bad news:

... the main reason for the continued dominance of such negative stereotypes, I have come to believe, may well be the influence of Western-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international aid groups like United Nations agencies. These organizations understandably tend to focus not on what has been accomplished but on convincing people how much remains to be done. As a practical matter, they also need to attract funding. Together, these pressures create incentives to present as gloomy a picture of Africa as possible in order to keep attention and money flowing, and to enlist journalists in disseminating that picture.

She goes on to explain that journalists rely on aid organisations for the information on which to base their stories, and since it's in the interest of aid organisations for stories about the continent to consist of nothing but bad news, guess where your average aid worker in Africa is going to take a journalist in search of a quick and simple story?

Graham, based in Ghana, has this to say in a recent post on his blog Critical Point:
Societies work hard to justify their own existence. The rich countries attempt to convince their citizens, and citizens from other parts of the world, of the superiority of their system. They are steadily winning the battle to convince us that theirs is the only way to live. The need for new homogenised markets is the driving force behind this fiction.

The media corporations often belittle other ways of living, ignoring their own self-destruct mechanisms and failing to point out the benefits of alternative systems. In this context, the denigration of Africa is essential for getting Africa to come into the world-wide market, to persuade Africans to desire every bit of consumerist nonsense produced and to convince the rich country’s own increasingly atomised, individualised citizens, that their work-driven, stressful, isolated lives were the destiny the whole of humanity had been striving towards since we first waddled out of the sea.

In a piece entitled Good News Stories About Africa Are Bad For Business, the Ghana-based writer/blogger Fiona Leonard has some suggestions for Western journalists reporting on Africa, at least if they have the faintest desire to get to the heart of stories and paint a truer and clearer picture of reality for their readers/viewers. They are:

Geography
Africa is a continent, not a country, so stop writing about it as if it were. Be specific, and use reference points that people can understand to show just how far apart and how different one country is from another.

Why Are 'We' There?
Instead of writing with the suggestion that the West is "giving" Africa anything for humanitarian reasons, call a spade and spade and admit that foreign governments are investing; aid is tied to trade, aid is tied to long term economic imperatives, some of which are embarrassingly commercial - like wanting access for mining companies. Others have direct social implications. For example, investing in another country's health system has global implications.

Why do people behave the way they do?
There is always a reason why people behave they way they do; it may be cultural, historical, emotional or personal, but there is always a reason. Don't just take what you see at face value, and don't simply accept the first superficial explanation you hear. If you want to understand the nuances of any situation keep digging.

[A Western journalist who does not have the time, patience or inclination to get to the root of whatever he or she is reporting on and look for information that contradicts his or her first impressions will end up with a narrow, context-free story similar to the one they'd have produced had they written it in their bedroom in New York or London. In other words, they'll confirm their own prejudices and those of their readers.]

These are summaries of Fiona's suggestions, so I would urge you to read her complete article, not only to get the full gist of what she has to say but also because she refers to a blog post in the New York Times by a journalist who is clearly troubled by the way Western journalists write about Africa - his post is titled How Should We Cover Africa - and explains why even 'concerned' journalists get it wrong.

WHY POOR REPORTING IS BAD FOR AFRICA
Africans, wherever they live, are not immune to the cumulative effect of these misrepresentations, distortions, incomplete stories and skewed reporting, not even those who live on the continent and have the benefit of a fuller, more complex picture, so eventually many simply start to believe that Africa must be inferior in every way, and if this is true then Africans must be inferior, too. It makes some Africans ashamed to be African, it erodes their confidence (which makes it more difficult for them to deal with non-Africans on an equal footing), makes them take less pride in their culture, and it makes them feel they ought to emulate the American/European econimic system and way of life in every respect, even when this emulation proves to be disastrous. Foreign = good, African = bad. Full stop. If you're a kid growing up with this belief in the air you are basically screwed. Actually, if you're an adult and you believe this, you're screwed, too, because self-loathing is a downward spiral, at least until something jolts your consciousness and knocks some sense into you.

It gives non-Africans a picture of Africa that affects their perceptions of and relationships with Africans, whether they are aware of this or not. I don't think I need to elaborate on why this is a bad thing.

It hurts Africa economically, affects investment in the continent and also the way non-Africans do business in Africa. At a very basic level it does nothing for the tourism industry of any country: On the one hand it puts anywhere in Africa low down on most people's holiday list, so who knows how many potential millions are lost to each country's economy as a result? Or when tourists do visit an African country some automatically assume that any local way of doing things that isn't quite the same as the way things are done back home must be wrong. As someone commenting on Graham's blog wrote, this leads to some very odd remarks like the American lady she overheard complaining that Ghana has too many languages. On the other, it discourages the tourism industry from developing anything beyond the parameters of foreign tourists' expectations of Africa: they want safaris and carved elephants? Ok, safaris and carved elephants all the way. On another level it encourages Westerners doing business in Africa to treat Africans as lesser, baser human beings, and to do things they'd hesitate to do elsewhere - such as being willing to pay bribes or dumping toxic waste without worrying about the consequences.

According to Karen Rothmyer it also has 'the potential to influence policy. “The welfare model [of Africa] is still dominant on the Hill and in Hillary Clinton’s world,” according to van de Walle. Among corporate officials, says Catherine Duggan, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, the perception is still that “Africa is where you put your money once you’ve made it somewhere else.”

Karen's article end on this realistic note: ... in the end, it will probably take sustained economic progress to break the current mould. Sunny Bindra, the Kenyan management consultant, recalls that in the 1980s, “Japan got attention because it was whacking the US. It’s the same with India and China now.” Until that happens, a sick African woman in labor will continue to be treated as poverty porn, and most Africans will have to starve in order to make it onto the evening news.

And that's spot on. Remember how 'Made in China' used to be a sign that a product was crap? Or how the Japanese were seen merely as 'funny' people with 'bizarre' game shows, good for a laugh on the Clive James Show? Look who's laughing now, and it certainly wasn't PR that shifted the balance.

Article Credit: This is Africa

Bullets rule Africa!

Stophira Sunzu scored Zambia's ninth penalty of a heart-wrenching shootout to give the Chipolopolo (Copper Bullets) an 8-7 victory over Ivory Coast in the Africa Cup of Nations final at the Stade de L'Amitie in Libreville.Congratulations to the boys in Orange and Green, as well as to the tournament organizers, CAF, and hosts Mali and Gabon, you made the continent proud. Thank you to the participants for a great tournament, especially to the Chipolopolo boys who have just shown that if there is a desire and a determination to win, then winning does happen. let's take this mentality to the next world cup and break into the semi-finals if not the finals for the first time ever.

Photo Credit: AP

Does your smartphone fund conflict in the DRC?

Armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo make millions each year from illicit mining of "conflict minerals" used in cell phones and computers. Conflict mineral mining generates between $300 million and $1.4 billion per year, and thousands of Congolese families live off the industry.

The US government attempted to curb the purchase of conflict minerals from the DRC by passing the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which included a provision requiring public companies to report buying material with minerals that are not “conflict-free.”

However, critics argue that the legislation has allegedly deprived one to two million already impoverished people of their livelihood.

In this episode, journalist and foreign policy analyst Mvemba Dizolele and Sasha Lezhnev, a policy consultant with the Enough Project, join The Stream to discuss conflict minerals from the DRC.