African Economics 101: George Ayittey and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala address the freshman class of 2007

Some of you may remember the excitement expressed by many of Africa’s bloggers and friends over the TED Global conference held at Arusha, Tanzania in June 2007. I included several references to some great blog posts and other online resources about this conference Africa: The Next Chapter here at Jewels. Well the TED Talks video crew has completed the post-production work for the presentations delivered by some of Africa’s and the world’s leading thinkers and videos are now available at the TED Talks website for everyone to enjoy. TED has provided file types for viewing the videos online and offline including high resolution downloads for people with high bandwidth Internet connections (Note: the high-resolution MP4 files > 200MB).

I highly recommend that you have a look at Dr. George Ayittey’s talk titled “Cheetahs vs. Hippos for Africa’s future” and Euvin Naidoo’s opening address “Africa as an investment”. If you haven’t already done so please view Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s March 2007 talk in Monterey, California “How to help Africa? Do business there” and her June speech at the Arusha, Tanzania conference titled “Let’s have a deeper discussion on aid”. As a matter of fact have a look at all of the TED Talks featured on the Africa: The Next Chapter site. This is African Economics explained like you’ve never heard it done before, with passion and frankness and no holds barred, in a way that (almost) everyone can understand___ unless you are a Hippo and don’t want to know. This is Economics in Africa 101!

In case you are not aware of exactly who these people are I have provided brief bios below along with additional online resources about the speakers and the TED Global conference in Arusha. I don’t know about you, but as I work hard to learn more about economic challenges for African countries and examine the many investment and business opportunities that exist in Africa, I find myself wishing that I had paid much more attention in my Economics 101 classes back at university. A good basic education in economic theory and practices has become a must for business and political leaders in the 21st Century, and some outspoken economists have become the equivalent of media stars on the Net and in the blogosphere. Economics today has become downright sexy.

Euvin Naidoo: Africa as an investment (TEDTalks)
BIO for Euvin Naidoo

Euvin Naidoo is a VP of South Africa's Standard Bank. He's also president of the South African Chamber of Commerce America; in this capacity, he works with leading corporations and governments to strengthen trans-Atlantic economic ties.Euvin Naidoo wants to change your mind about Africa. Much of the investment banker's work centers around reversing false or misleading impressions of the continent, which are widespread through the western world. Armed with facts, figures and a philosophical outlook, Naidoo helps his clients -- and the wider public -- see a more nuanced picture of the Africa he knows: one that's large, diverse and full of potential. He offers persuasive reasons why the continent's challenges should be reframed as opportunities, and why investing in Africa can make great business sense.Based in Manhattan, Naidoo focuses on acquisition finance and private-equity transactions for emerging markets in Latin America and Africa. A third-generation South African, he spent four years as a consultant with McKinsey & Co., and holds an MBA from Harvard.

George Ayittey: Cheetahs vs. Hippos for Africa's future (TEDTalks)
BIO for Dr. George Ayittey

Ghanaian economist George Ayittey was a voice in the wilderness for many years, crying out against the corruption and complacency that -- more than any other factor, he believes -- are the bedrock problems of many troubled Africa states. "We call our governments vampire states, which suck the economic vitality out of the people," he says.

His influential book Africa Unchained has helped unleash a new wave of activism and optimism -- especially in the African blogosphere, where his notion of cheetahs-versus-hippos has become a standard shorthand. The "Cheetah Generation," he says, is a "new breed of Africans," taking their futures into their own hands, instead of waiting for politicians to empower them. (He compares them to the previous "Hippo Generation," who are lazily stuck complaining about colonialism, yet doing nothing to change the status quo.)

Ayittey is a Distinguished Economist in Residence at American University in Washington, DC.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Let's have a deeper discussion on trade (TEDTalks)
BIO for Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Brookings Institution press release)

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, was Nigeria's Finance Minister and then briefly Foreign Affairs Minister from 2003 to 2006, the first woman to hold either position.

During her tenure, she worked to combat corruption, make Nigeria's finances more transparent, and institute reforms to make the nation's economy more hospitable to foreign investment. The government unlinked its budget from the price of oil, its main export, to lessen perennial cashflow crises, and got oil companies to publish how much they pay the government. Since 2003 -- when watchdog group Transparency International rated Nigeria "the most corrupt place on Earth" -- the nation has made headway recovering stolen assets and jailing hundreds of people engaged in international Internet 419 scams. Okonjo-Iweala is a former World Bank vice president who graduated from Harvard and earned a Ph.D. in regional economics and development at MIT. Her son Uzodinma Iweala is the celebrated young author of Beasts of No Nation.

"Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a heroine not just of Nigeria, but of the entire continent. Her crusade against corruption has put her life at risk."
The Independent (UK)


Related blog posts, articles, and online resources

TED Global 2007 Conference in Arusha, Tanzania – TED Blog
TED Global bloggers look back at worldchanging days, 06/07/07
TED Global in Africa: Day 4, reports from the bloggers, 06/07/07
TED Global 2007 aggreagated articles from bloggers-in-residence
George Ayittey’s critique of Coconut Republics vs. Banana Republics, 06/04/07

Ethan Zuckerman (co-founder Global Voices Online)
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala with the last word on aid, 06/07/07
Bono vs. Mwenda, 06/04/07
Getting Rowdy with Andrew Mweda, 06/04/07

White African
Dropping the Bombshell on Aid Development in Africa, 06/04/07
We can take Africa back one village at a time, 06/05/07
Bono and George Ayittey at TED Global, 06/05/07
Meeting the Inventors, 06/06/07

The Center for Global Development
2nd Annual Richard H. Sabot Memorial Lecture (June 2007)
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala's keynote lecture "Corruption: Myths and Realities in a Developing Country Context"

Foreign Policy Passport blog
An astonishing fact about Africa, 08/01/07

iPenso by Pablo Halkyard (New York University)
China could buy every public traded firm in Africa, 07/29/07

The Economist
Into Africa: investors eye globalisation’s final frontier, 07/29/07

OpenDemocracy.net
The aid evasion: raising the ‘bottom billion’ by Professor Paul Collier

Paul Collier, Professor of Economics, Oxford University Dept. of Economics
Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies


Technorati tags:Africa development economics economics business governance politics TEDglobal TEDTalks Global Voices

G8 Summit 2007 in Germany closes with a fizzle. Will Africa's voices fall silent?

Dateline Berlin 06/12/07 – Sweltering in a sudden heatwave west of Germany’s cool capital. Updates on the close of the G8 Summit with a focus on African voices.

I’m still trying to figure out what happened at Heiligendamm? Was it a success as claimed by the G8 Summit 2007 host country Germany and some members of the German press and media, or was it a bust as described by Bob Geldof and Bono and other high-profile activists and various experts? If the G8 Summit at Heiligendamm was a success then a success for whom, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel?

I’m not as disappointed and pessimistic about the outcome of these talks as some people seem to be but at the same time you have to wonder, are the G8 Summits relevant anymore? Were they ever useful in helping to solve the world’s problems? It has all become such a circus for the politicians and every group under the sun to voice their outrage and anger about all kinds of causes that have little or nothing to do with the summit agendas that one has to ask, why bother?

TIME Magazine’s Massimo Calabresi writes in the article ‘Does the G8 Summit Have a Point?’:

It's hard to get a fix on just what the 80,000 protesters who descended on the G-8 summit here in northern Germany this week actually want. Plodding through a field towards the 7.2 mile, multimillion-dollar fence designed to keep him and his unkempt peers out, Channing Jones, a 40-year-old American freelance programmer, said Wednesday his purpose was to get governments to "help the common people." Earlier in the day, the art group Dropping Knowledge had released a huge floating sculpture of a baby into the River Warnow, in a less-than-self-explanatory attempt to show that "the Western world is not really taking Africa seriously," according to one of the group's sponsors, Stefan Liske. Late Thursday afternoon, a man wearing a fluorescent pink wig and standing on stilts made up to look like enormous pink go-go boots declared he was blocking the main road to the summit "for freedom of movement for all people, and no nations and no borders!"

One priority these disparate, confused groups share, however, is bringing the annual G-8 meeting to a grinding halt. They managed to shut down all the road and rail access to the summit Wednesday, and interrupted it Thursday. Some skeptics at think-tanks and college campuses around the world have suggested that may not such a bad thing. The annual G-8 meeting is an anachronism that no longer pursues the economic agenda for which it was created, they argue; it doesn't include some of the world's most important economies (China and India are not in the club) and fails to achieve even the limited goals it sets for its members.

As a small group of protesters bounded through a wheat field on Wednesday afternoon pursued by a slightly larger group of policemen, it was hard not to wonder what the point of the whole exercise was.

Inside the fence, it turns out, some were asking the same question. In the whitewashed buildings of the elaborately restored Baltic resort of Heiligendamm, important things seemed to be happening. Russia's Vladimir Putin and President Bush strolled out past the massive beds of hydrangeas to say they had held good discussions on missile defense in Europe, with Putin provocatively proposing the use of Russian installations as a substitute for the ones the U.S. plans to place in Poland and the Czech Republic. And the G-8 leaders agreed on a putative program for addressing climate change.

But even in the highest-level delegations, there were skeptics. "They should just hold the whole thing over secure video-conference and make it every other year," said one White House aide Thursday morning. "There's a whole industry now surrounding the G-8, and two weeks from now, when it's all over here, they're going to start again for next year. In my opinion, they'd be better off sending the money to Africa."

The Germany summit cost $134 million, much of it spent on security. Measured by the organizers' outlay or by the media coverage the event receives, it appears as if the protests themselves have become the point.

End excerpt---------------

My analysis: Call the whole thing off and save the taxpayers money. The carbon footprint alone from the 10,000’s of people at this summit is enough to setback efforts to fight global warming by one hundred years. Private passenger jets and military and police helipcopters for the official delegations, gas-guzzling motor vehicles of every type for the security forces and demonstrators, and 25,000 open-air barbecue pits using ill-gotten timber (charcoal) from developing countries on a planet under ecological pressure. I mean BITTE (Please)! Get a grip on yourselves.


What news do I take home for my people? AfricaVox journalists call it a wrap at the G8.

The 9 African journalists and media professionals invited by Panos-London to attend this year’s summit are heading home this week and I must say that I will miss their contributions to open expression and the sharing of their ideas and thoughts about the G8 Summit. Unfortunately not very many other CJ’s (Citizen Journalists) who write regularly about African news and affairs bothered to stop by the AfricaVox 2007 blog to express their appreciation and welcome these journalists to our sector of the blogosphere. I find that to be sad but heck, maybe many Africa bloggers didn’t know about this great journalism project. So if you haven’t stopped by the AfricaVox 2007 blog yet then do so before it’s too late (a hint for Melissa at Africa Media and other hardworking blogger colleagues out there in the Sphere).

I’ve made myself a real nuisance at the AfricaVox 2007 comments section but Risha Chande, external relations assistant for the Panos AfricaVox project, sent me a very nice message today thanking me for my support and encouragement. Problem is that “We the Bloggers” who write about Africa need to be thanking Panos-London and this fine group of African journalists and media professionals. Africa’s bloggers need to show much more support for Africa’s professional journalists and editors and publishers so that we all can learn from one another, not compete with one another as is so often the case.

Collins Vumiria, chief news editor of Uganda’s Radio West (Mbarara), writes in her G8 summary article titled ‘What news do I take home for my people?’

As far as I can tell, everyone who's attended the G8 Summit here in Heiligendamm leaves it with mixed feelings. Some are bitter that the G8’s announcement of $60 billion to fight disease failed to mention when it would arrive. Others complain that the Gleneagles promises have yet to be fulfilled.

But out of all this, what do I have to tell my people back home in Uganda when I return? To get a steer, this afternoon I rushed down to a news conference given by two musicians who for years have been campaigning to rid Africa of poverty and disease: Bob Geldof and U2’s Bono.

I find Geldof describing the Summit as a total mess. “I do not want to see 2005 reiterated endlessly,” he tells the assembled journalists. “The richest countries of the world, trillions of dollars, swirling around that table… do me a favour! Get serious guys! This wasn’t serious. This was a farce. This was a total farce.”

All very well, I think to myself. But I need specific information for my own people, not just these soundbites. I had hoped for something more constructive to communicate to my people in Mbarara than this emotional dismissal.

Next it’s question time for the journalists. “My name is Collins Vumiria, I am a journalist from Uganda.” Faces turn to look at me. “After this summit, what news do I take home for my people?”…

Read the full article What news do I take home for my people?

More articles of interest from the very fine AfricaVox 2007 crew:
AfricaVox 2007 – African voices at the G8 Summit 2007
Africa: master of its own destiny
The G8’s $17 million dollar security fence scandal
AIDS prevention paying the price of the G8 donor circus
The sick priorities of the G8
The J9 (Junior G8+1 Summit) at the G8

openDemocracy Speaks Up for Women & Girls at the G8 Summit

openDemocracy.org’s blog project ‘openSummit – Women talk to the G8’ has a good series of posts about the G8 Summit 2007 and the Alternative G8 Summit. See the great work by Patricia Daniels and the summit summary post by Jessica Reed. The openDemocracy open blogs section has an article by Chukwu Emeka Chikezie titled Africa at the G8 Summit: déjà vu? Mr. Chikezie who works for the London-based non-profit organization AFFORD writes:

So, here we are again. Two years on from the July 2005 gathering at Gleneagles, Scotland, the acceptable face of African leadership is preparing to assemble on the steps of the Group of Eight (G8) summit at Heiligendamm, Germany for a photo-opportunity amid more heartfelt pleas to increase aid to Africa.

The presence of "this" Africa at the summit owes much to the promotion and patronage of individual G8 leaders, most notably Tony Blair. Indeed, it seems hard to think now about the African component of the G8 summit at all without considering the input of the outgoing British prime minister; he has even made Africa a central part of his valedictory tour, whose aim (according to a normally reticent BBC) was to burnish the Blair legacy for posterity.

And this is the problem. The mere fact that media commentators seem routinely to put "Blair, Africa, aid, legacy" together in the same sentence underlines the inability to "see" Africa as it really is: a living, proliferating, diverse collection of some 700 million people in fifty-three different countries, making their lives, lurching forwards, sometimes falling backwards, occasionally sideways. "That" Africa is invisible; the one that has come to dominate public perception is a meek, grateful place that provides a soft, faintly glowing backdrop to an assessment of Blair's ten years in office. The African leaders on the Heiligendamm steps are unlikely to do anything to change the focus.
………………………………………………….

Aid: from critique to reform

Two years after Gleneagles, a year after St Petersburg, it is striking how little the discourse around Africa has changed. G8 leaders, NGO activists and African leaders all seem to agree that aid is pivotal to Africa's turnaround. Germany's chancellor and host of the G8, Angela Merkel, has joined the club - promising that this time the G8 will redeem its pledge to double aid to Africa by 2010.

This approach rests on a studied evasion about why so much aid to Africa in the past has failed to deliver transformation. It thus seems more concerned to salve consciences than to bring real change. It also ignores the lively debate that is raging behind the scenes and in public forums about whether aid is really effective as an instrument of development.

A thirty-year veteran of the World Bank, Phyllis R Pomerantz contributes one valuable view to this argument (see Aid Effectiveness in Africa: Developing Trust between Donors and Governments [Lexington Books, 2004]). Pomerantz attributes much of aid's ineffectiveness in Africa to donors' failure to pay attention to culture. Monologue and one-way impositions, donor paternalism, and insensitivity undermine the trust, mutual respect and understanding that should, in Pomerantz's view, underpin aid relationships.

Pomerantz would like to see donors pay more attention to African traditions and conditions. She is aiming for trusting relationships that underpin shared purpose, commitment, reliability, transparency, and familiarity.

Such a vision - which is echoed from a different direction by Michael Edwards in his openDemocracy article on the reinvention of "development" - seems very far from the cold calculations of summit talks where the paternalism of the discourse about aid is reinforced by hypocrisy over a second potential route to African development: trade. Here, the contradiction between the rhetoric of free and equitable trade and the reality of subsidies and preferential agreements is all too established. As the United Nations human-development report of 2005 says: "The world's richest countries spent just over one billion dollars for the year 2005 on aid for agriculture in poor countries, and just under one billion dollars each day of that year for various subsidies of agricultural overproduction at home."

Read more at openDemocracy.org Africa at the G8 Summit: déjà vu?

More posts and podcasts about the G8 Summit at openDemocracy.org
Podcast Nr. 22 – G8, are you listening? by Solana Larsen
Women won’t wait by Susana Fried
G8: the aid gap by Tina Wallace
Merkel’s G8 – spot the difference by Patricia Daniel

It would appear that the G8 Summit 2007 at Heiligendamm ain’t quite over yet but instead has only just begun. The follow-up activities from this summit to insure that what has been promised is actually done and that these initiatives and programs and processes bring the desired results for all stakeholders, depends on us. Oder?

We shall see.


Related news articles, posts, and online resources:
Guardian Online (U.K.)
Geldof hits out at G8 ‘farce’, 06/08/07

Globe and Mail (Canada)
Bono singles out Canada’s PM Harper in deriding leaders, 06/09/07
PM’s ‘laggard’ effort on Africa assailed

Bloomberg Financial News
Merkel quarrels with Bono, Geldof over Africa aid, 06/07/07

Washington Post
Geldof puts Africa on front page (BILD special Afrika edition), 06/01/07

Jewels in the Jungle
Germany: Saving the Africa Agenda at the G8 Summit 2007
G8 Summit and Tanzania (TED Global in Africa)
Circus Maximus Opens in Germany
G8 Summit and TED Global Updates II

Africa Media
World’s most famous African: Bono or Madonna?

More news coverage of the 2007 G8 Summit
Spiegel International (Germany)
G8 Summit in Heiligendamm special feature archive

Financial Times London
G8 Summit 2007 In-Depth special coverage
African graft is a global responsibility by Richard Murphy and Nicholas Shaxson
Why Africa needs a Marshall Plan by Glenn Hubbard and William Duggan
The rich world can help Africa by Jeffrey Sachs and Glenn Denning

New York Times
Group of 8 (G8) special coverage

Reuters and Reuters Alertnet
Interview with Kofi Anan: G8 must give Africa aid faster
No Coke, only German AfriCola at the G8 Summit (soft drink of choice since 1931)
Factbox: G8 measures to tackle African poverty
Reuters’ blogs: Who should hold the aid world to account?

Technorati tags:Africa Germany Tanzania development economics development aid global trade business media journalism G8 G8 Summit G8 Gipfel TEDGlobal2007 tedglobal07 Global Voices

G8 Summit and TED Global Updates II: G8 meets the J8, African voices at the G8 Summit, TED Global Africa closes with success

Dateline Berlin 06/07/07 – Outside the Bunker and on the streets
Updates on the close of the TED Global Conference in Tanzania; G8 world leaders meet J8 world leaders in Heiligendamm; South African journalist asks who is listening to the voice of African women at the G8 Summit

This is just a quick Heads Up post to keep my readers informed on what’s hot and what’s not at the G8 Summit in Germany today. First the good news:

G8 leaders meets J8 youth leaders in a roundtable discussion at Heiligendamm. No violence reported (yet).

Germany’s ZDF TV network televised a 1-hour roundtable discussion between all of the G8 world leaders and 9 members of the J8 Summit youth leaders. It’s about the best live TV news coverage you will see come out of the Circus Maximus 2007 where the world leaders go one-on-one with some of the finest young minds on the planet. All G8 countries were represented by a young person selected by members of the J8 (Junior 8) Summit in Wismar, Germany. A 17-year old young man from Tanzania represented his country and the continent of Africa and was paired with the European Commission boss from Portugal (what’s his name? José Manuel Barroso). Links to all of the related online websites and a 59 minute video available for free viewing at the ZDF website are listed at the end of this post.

Nobody’s listening to African women’s voices at the anti-G8 Summit in Germany

South African journalist Zihnle Mapumulo, a member of the AfricaVox 2007 news team that I wrote about in my previous post, is complaining that nobody is seriously listening to Africa’s concerns at the G8 Summit. However, this may change because it’s still early in the Circus Maximus and some world leaders and anti-G8 demonstrators may start to pay attention. Patricia Daniel writes in a post for the OpenDemocracy blog project Womens Open Summit - Women talk to the G8:

There is a team of award-winning African journalists here covering the G8 summit and the alternative summit, in collaboration with the Panos Institute, on their blog AfricaVox 2007 .The aim is to see whether the G8 are really listening to African voices, as the official press service claims Germany is doing.

I spoke to Zinhle Mapumulo, a reporter with the Sowetan in South Africa, who covers health issues and has a weekly women’s page. Zinhle was inspired to go into the media by the one black woman television presenter working during apartheid, Noxolo Grootboom. After finally opting for print journalism, she has previously covered youth issues, lifestyle and women in enterprise as well as spending two years in her native province of Kwazulu Natal as bureau chief for Sowetan news. So, what’s her particular motivation in covering the G8 this year?

“Firstly I wanted the opportunity to experience the whole sandwich – the demos, the debates – and to ask all the questions we don’t get to ask back in South Africa. Then, as a woman, I feel there’s never any in-depth coverage of women: I want to know how do the G8 contributions, how do their pledges benefit me and my 2 year-old daughter – and other African women and their children - how is this process going to help us?”

Zinhle went out on the demo at the airport when Bush arrived Tuesday evening. “I wanted to see the action. We don’t get to see this kind of confrontation now in South Africa – the violence, the police. I wanted to talk to the demonstrators.” But she came away with some concerns. “They say they want attention from the world about Africa’s problems. But when I asked them, they don’t know anything about Africa. I felt it wasn’t genuine, they’re doing it for the hype, just to be a rebel.” She told one of them: “Your struggle is not about us, it’s about you. You should be feeling some kind of spiritual connection with us.” (Read more at AfricanVox 2007 blog)

TED GLOBAL 2007 - Africa: The Next Chapter closes with success (and tears)

My friend and blogging mentor Ethan Zuckerman (EZ) of the Global Voices project mentioned in several of my earlier posts sums up the feeling of many of our fellow blogger colleagues who have had the privilege of attending the TED Global 2007 conference in Arusha, Tanzania. This is an event that was eagerly awaited and followed by the international blogger community that writes about and follows news and issues on Africa. The conference was attended by Bono and other world figures and was carefully monitored by Gemany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel as well (I think?). You see, TED Global 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania and the G8 Summit in Germany are tightly linked and are (presumably) very supportive of one another. Ethan writes in his blog on the closing day of this excellent meeting of minds:

Former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the sort of visionary African leader everyone on stage and in the crowd would wish for Africa. She’s challenged with summing up four days of discussions on “Africa, the next chapter”.

She tells us we’re seeing changes in Africa that we never thought would happen. We’ve seen annual growth of 5%, in some cases 6-7%, up from 2%. External debt has been massively reduced. Countries are building up foreign exchange reserves, shoring up their currencies. Private investment flows are increasing, remittances to Nigeria are skyrocketing, and there’s a net inflow of capital.

But Africa needs jobs. 62% of Africa’s population is under 24. We have to figure out how to make these people productive. Nigeria is now building an opinion research organization, a way of listening to citizen voices, which she notes is a rare thing on the continent. The top issue in every survey? Jobs…

Just a few years ago, she tells us, we couldn’t even talk about “the next chapter” for Africa. There was negative economic growth. There’s been an amazing transformation, and this is something that’s allowed us to have our debate about aid versus the private sector. “It has been a simplistic debate.” It needs to be about “a partnership that involves governments, donors, private sector, and ordinary Africans.” It’s not trade or aid - “what is the combination of all these factors is going to yield results?”

African entrepeneur Mo Ibrahim dreams of the moment when Africa is giving aid. “But we’re already doing it - the UK and the US could not have been built without African aid. The resources - including human resources - have made those countries what they are today.” So when those countries are willing to give something back, we need to take it, but we need to use it effectively.

Okonjo-Iweala tells a story about growing up during the Nigeria-Biafra war. Her father was a brigadeer on the Biafran side, and her family was doing very badly, eating a single meal a day. When she was 15, her mother was ill, and her three-year old sister was deathly ill from malaria. She put her sister on her back and walked 10 kilometers to a clinic, where she’d heard there was a good doctor. When she arrived, there were a thousand people outside, trying to break down the door. She went to the side and climbed in through the window. The doctor told her she’d barely saved her sister - she gave the girl a shot of chloroquine, put her onto rehydration and within hours, she was back to health. “The ten kilometers home with her on my back, that was the shortest walk of my life.” The point of the story: “When someone is saving a life, you don’t care that it’s aid - you want the person to be alive.” (Read more at Ethan’s blog on Madam Okonjo-Iweala’s powerful address at TED.)

That’s it for today folks. The weather has finally improved considerably here in northern Germany and my Staropramen pilsner is getting a bit too warm down at the local pub. I gotta go because I’m really thirsty. Auf Wiedersehen, bis Übermorgen. Ciao Bella...Mama mia!

Related articles and online resources

ZDF TV – Heute (daily news program) G8 Spezial
G8 in Minutentakt - G8 trifft J8 (multimedia plus 59:00 min streaming video)
J8 Gipfel in Wismar: “Wir wollen gehört werden” (ZDF feature article)
J8 Youth Summit in Wismar, Germany -Official J8 Summit website

G8 Summit 2007 at Heiligendamm official website (lots of stuff here boy)

OpenDemocracy blog – Women’s Open Summit - Women talk to the G8
Who is really listening to African women’s voices? by Patricia Daniel

AfricaVox 2007 – African voices at the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm
AfricaVox 2007: “We need the G8’s help in the fight against poverty and HIV”
Articles by South African journalist Zihnle Mapumulo

TED Global 2007 Conference in Arusha, Tanzania – TED Blog
TED Global bloggers look back at worldchanging days, 06/07/07
TED Global in Africa: Day 4, reports from the bloggers, 06/07/07
TED Global 2007 aggreagated articles from bloggers-in-residence

Ethan Zuckerman (Global Voices Online – Harvard)
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala with the last word on aid, 06/07/07

P.S. And what about the Bad News? There is no “Bad News” to report today. Think positive. Ciao y’all.

Technorati tags: Africa Germany Tanzania Nigeria development economics development aid global trade business media journalism G8 G8 Summit G8 Gipfel TEDGlobal2007 tedglobal07 Global Voices

G8 Summit & Tanzania: While they riot in Rostock, Africa gets down to business in Arusha

Dateline Berlin 06/04/07
As Germans ‘rumble in the jungle’ before the G8 Summit 2007, the TED Global 2007 Conference in Arusha, Tanzania gets down to business

After Europe’s ‘autonomen’ (anarchists) set the city of Rostock on fire in an ‘anti-G8 dress rehearsal’ for the G8 Summit 2007 in Heiligendamm, mainstream Germans and the demonstration organizers (Attac and anti-G8 Alliance) are debating what went wrong and pointing fingers at one another. The German media has shifted from coverage of the issues to be discussed at this year’s summit to the violence in their streets. Rostock of course and the former East German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, and Thüringen are no strangers to street violence as was demonstrated in week long siege of Vietnamese and Gypsies (the Romani people) in Rostock back in 1992. The big difference this past weekend is that it was not acts of extreme violence against Ausländer (foreigners) but instead a bloody and fiery battle between the Schwarze Block (Black Bloc) vs. the lean, mean Green Machine (German police and federal security forces).

Definition of the German term ‘autonomen’ (courtesy Spiegel Online)

The label "autonomen" refers to radical libertarian and anarchist groups in Germany, though it doesn't refer to a specific, organized group. Like many on Germany's well-established, left-wing fringe, the autonomen grew out of the leftist movement in the 1960s and 1970s. They often take part in demonstrations against atomic energy and also frequently join peace marches. They are not always welcome participants in such demonstrations due to their willingness to participate in violence. Indeed, they have also been called the "black block" because of their tendency to wear all black and to cover their faces with black masks during demonstrations to avoid being identified by the authorities. While autonomen generally recognize that complete independence of social networks is not possible, they reject outside influence as much as possible. The autonomen are considered potentially the most violent of the anti-G-8 activists and were likely behind the rioting on Saturday afternoon in Rostock.

The 2007 Rostock G8 Riots by the numbers

Approximately 1000 people have been injured, many seriously including 433 police officers and 520+ demonstrators. 130 people were arrested, 10 people were still being held in custody as of this writing, all others were released. No deaths have been reported… yet. The German government’s hard work to make the G8 Summit at Heiligendamm a success has been torpedoed by its own citizens at a cost of more than 100 million Euros and lots of injured people before the gates even open on the main event Wednesday, June 6th.

Meanwhile, down toward the southern end of the Great African Rift Valley in Arusha, Tanzania a kinder, gentler type of world event is taking place - Africa: The Next Chapter.

People who have a deep interest in really providing needed assistance to Africans are getting down to business in Tanzania. The TED Global 2007 Conference – Africa: The Next Chapter opens in Arusha today and the international media will pay little attention to this event that holds more promise for Africa’s future than that silly circus east of the Elbe River here in Germany.

In attendance at this conference are some of the world’s foremost thinkers and visionaries working alongside Africa’s future generation of leaders and entrepreneurs. At the end of this post are links to TED / TED Global online resources but first have a look at this TED TALK video featuring the former Finance Minister of Nigeria, Ms. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. This is the type of image of Africa that the world needs to see more often. This is what we mean, blog authors and citizen journalists and professional writers, when we say Africa is Open for Business:

"Negative images of Africa dominate the news: famine and disease, conflict and corruption. But Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Finance Minister of Nigeria, says there's a less-told story unfolding in many African nations: one of reform, economic growth and business opportunity. Cracking down on corruption -- and the perception of corruption -- will be the key to its success She tells how high-ranking Nigerian officials taking money illicitly have been jailed, and how citizens and prospective business partners are getting at least a partial picture now of where money flows. "

TED Talk video featuring Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
(March 2007, 20:18 minutes)






Wasn’t that nice and informative? I do have lots of questions regarding that fine presentation by Ms. Okonjo-Iweala, especially since she left the government of former Nigerian President Obasanjo BEFORE the historic elections went down in Nigeria last month that has received the scorn and outrage of so many groups and governments. But that is a matter for another day.

The TED Blog’s Hot Topic of the Day is a scheduled talk to be given by the renowned economist and educator Dr. George Ayittey. ‘Looking back to look forward’ is the title of his presentation to the TED Global 2007 Arusha audience today and should be available at TED Talks by mid-summer 2007. In a TED questionnaire sent out to Dr. George Ayittey months before the opening of the Arusha Conference he responded in a 6-page document opening with the following:

George Ayittey's critique of 'coconut republics' (TED Global Q&A)

What are you best known for?

CONTROVERSY. But my admirers refer to me as “unorthodox,” “unscripted” or “The Cutlass (machete),” who slashes through the thicket of suffocating platitudes and excuses to deliver the bitter truth about post colonial Africa.” Personally, I regard myself as an intellectual “rebel,” kicking against the old “colonialism-imperialism paradigm” which has landed Africa in a conundrum. By this paradigm, everything wrong with Africa is the fault of somebody else -- hostile external forces (Western colonialism, imperialism, the World Bank, etc.) and never the fault of misguided leadership. Witness Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

I am known for pushing the view that the old paradigm is now obsolete. It is kaput. We need a new way of thinking or a new paradigm that stresses the importance of internal factors as well. For example, brutal political tyranny, arrant economic mismanage, rampant corruption and senseless civil wars have nothing to do with artificial colonial borders or Western imperialism. Rebel leaders do not seek to redraw boundaries; they head straight to the capital city because that’s where power lies.

What are you working on now?

To save Zimbabwe from implosion. We hope to achieve peaceful change in Zimbabwe through the convocation of a “Sovereign National Conference.” It is the same mechanism (the Convention for a Democratic South Africa -- CODESA) which was used to dismantle apartheid in South Africa. If it worked in South Africa, then it will work in Zimbabwe.

End excerpt from TED Blog post
____________________________

Throughout the week of the G8 Summit 2007 here in Germany I will be reporting on what is being discussed and blogged about at the TED Global Conference in Tanzania and comparing that with the international media coverage of the Africa Agenda at the G8 Summit 2007. Please do explore the TED and TED Conferences websites to learn more about this important foundation and their work with people in Africa and around the world.

Resources on the TED Global Conference 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design)
TED Global Conferences
TED Themes – Africa: The Next Chapter (videos and discussion forums)
TED Talks – Nogozi Okonjo-Iweala ‘How to help Africa? Do business there.’

TED Blog homepage and blog posts
TED.com’s new discussion space Africa: The Next Chapter, 05/30/07
Three powerful talks from TED Conference 2007 (Monterey, California), 05/30/07
Dr. George Ayittey critique of ‘coconut republics’ in Africa, 06/04/07

Global Voices & Africa bloggers coverage of the TED Conference in Arusha
(Note: There are about 50 bloggers attending and writing from this conference)
Emeka Okafor – Africa Unchained, Timbuktu Chronicles
Ethan Zuckerman – My Heart’s in Accra – TED Africa: Introducing Africa 2.0
Jennifer Brea – Africabeat – TED Global Africa: The Next Chapter
Hash - White African - Dropping the bombshell on development aid

Global Voices Online - Blogging the G8 Summit

Technorati tags – TEDGlobal2007, tedglobal07

Businessweek March 12, 2007:
The Talk of TED by Jessi Hempel
The California conference of entrepreneurs, scientists, celebs, and politicians highlights the environment, Rwanda, and war photos, among other topics

Additional information about the 1992 Rostock Riots

TIME Magazine
Germany for Germans? 09/02/07

Human Rights Watch
Germany for Germans – Xenophobia and Racist Violence in Germany, April 1995
Foreigners Out! – Xenophobia and Right-Wing Violence in Germany, Oct 1992 (PDF)

German Anthropology Online
Die soziale Konstruktion von Fremdenfeidlischkeit by Martina Althoff (1998)

Pro Asyl - History (a leading NGO in Germany fighting for the rights of refugees)

Aspects of society and identity in the new Germany by Mary Fullbrook, Winter 1994

JSTOR – International Migration Review
Socialism, Unification Policy and the Rise of Racism in Eastern Germany, 1997

U.S. Department of State – Human Rights Report for Germany, January 1994
(Section 5: Discrimination based upon race…national/racial/ethnic minorities)

International Herald Tribune
Speak Up for the German Mainstream, 09/03/02


Technorati tags: Africa Germany Tanzania Nigeria development economics development aid global trade business media journalism G8 G8 Summit G8 Gipfel TEDGlobal2007 tedglobal07 Global Voices