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I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU. GIVE ME A SOURCE NOT YOUR opinion.SOUTHAFRICA THE ECONOMY TO A POINT IS CONTROL BY THE STATE AND BLACK OWN COMPANIES,THE REST IS CONTROL BY WHITES STILL AND MOST OF THE RESOURCES,BUT THE POWER IS THERE TO END IT,THAT'S THE POINT BUT THEY ARE DURING IT OVER TIME TO NOT MESS UP SO THEY DO NOT END UP LIKE ZIMBABWE. KENYA AND ZIMBABWE'S ECONOMY IS NOT CONTROLLED BY WHITES ANYMORE,YOU JUST SAID IT YOURSELF.I DO NOT HAVE FAITH IN WHITES LIKE YOU DO.I JUST SAID THE SITUATION IS NOT THE SAME IN ALL OF AFRICA.STOP MAKING BLANKET STATEMENTS THAT ARE NOT TRUE.IN MOST AFRICAN RULED STATES MOST Industries ARE CONTROLLED AND OWNED BY BLACK AFRICANS NOT OUTSIDERS.WHITES DO NOT HAVE THIS CONTROL THAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. GO TO THE SOURCE.GET THE INFO FROM THE STATE ITSELF AND STOP RELYING ON OTHER FOLKS OUTDATED AND FALSE opinions.think for yourself Tanzania is a different problem then south africa. I TELL YOU WHAT. THERE IS A EMAIL ADDRESS BELOW FIND OUT WHO CONTROLS WHAT FOR YOUR SELF.
HERE A MORE DIRECT SOURCE.IT'S NOT HARD TO CONTACT THEM.
Industries:
In the end of the 20th century, manufacturing activities in Tanzania have exemplified a steady growth, registering average annual growth of over 4 percent. Nevertheless, manufacturing activities in Tanzania, are relatively small and at an infancy stage. Its contribution to GDP has averaged 8% over the last decade, with most activities concentrated on manufacture of simple consumer goods - food, beverages, tobacco, textiles and furniture and wood allied products. Most of the present industries were established in the light of import substitution strategy, whereas production focused in substituting previously imported goods in view of saving the country’s meagre foreign exchange.
The government decision to liberalise trade and investment policies, effected since 1986, witnessed a number of firms even those believed to be as strong, clumping down as they could hardly withstand competition from imported manufactures. A number of measures were taken in view of revamping competitiveness of the local industries and enhancing their penetration into export markets.
The government starting in the early 1990s launched a deliberate programme to restructure and privatise publicly owned enterprises. Out of this programme some sheds of hope are now emerging. The overall utilisation of installed industrial capacities is improving, rising from an average of 20% in 1990 to around 50% at the turn of the 21st Century. Some of the recently privatised industries have undergone intensive rehabilitations - improving their capital structure, production technologies and management and marketing system as well as retrenched workers to match with production levels and improved quality and lower costs of production.
The manufacturing sector is of significant importance in the Tanzania’s economy. Up to 1999, the sector employed about 140,000 people or about 48% of total monthly wage earners, making it the largest urban employer. It remains to be the most reliable source of government revenue in terms of import sales, corporate and income taxes. It accounts for over half of government annual revenue collection. Though manufacturing export has been in a declining trend, yet it earns the country a fifth of total foreign exchange earnings to become a third important sector coming after agriculture and tourism. Moreover, it is the industrial sector that provides reliable field to practice invention, innovation and nurturing modern technologies for production and service provision.
Industrial Firms in Tanzania:
* Food, Beverage and Tobacco:
The food manufacturing in Tanzania include manufacturing of dairy products, canning and preservicing of fruits and vegetables, canning fish and similar foods, manufacture of animal and vegetable oils, grain milling baking, sugar and confectionery as well as prepared animal feeds. The beverages include the distilling of ethyl alcohol, distilling rectifying and blending of spirits; manufacture of wines, cider and beer. Also included is the production of soft drinks and carbonated waters and the bottling of natural spring and minerals waters. The tobacco subsector comprises manufacturing of cigarettes, tobacco and other tobacco production.
*
Textiles, Clothing, Leather and Footwear:
Activities undertaken in this category include spinning, weaving, finishing of textiles; the manufacture of made-up textile goods; knitting, manufacture of carpets, rugs, cordage, rope and twines.
For the leather and footwear activities involved include tanneries; leather finishing and manufacturing of products from leather such as luggage, handbags and purposes. The leather sub-sector was the first to be identified for privatisation. Hitherto, all the three large tanneries and two share making factories have been privatised.
*
Wood and Wooden Products, excluding Furniture Activities:
Accounted in the subsector include sawmills, planning and other wood mills manufacturing goods. Also included in this subsector is the manufacturing of wooden containers, cane products and wooden products.
*
Paper and Paper Products:
This comprises the manufacturing of pulp, paper, paperboard, fibreboards, light packaging, heavy packaging, stationery and other paper products.
*
Chemicals, Petroleum, Rubber and Plastics:
The chemical subsector comprise the manufacture of basic industrial chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides, plastic materials and products, medicinal and pharmaceuticals, soap, detergents, perfumes and other cosmetics, paints and other chemical products. While the petroleum subsector comprise of petroleum refineries, fuel oils, lubricating oils and manufacture of asphalt materials. Rubber products produced in the country include tyres and tubes conveyors and fan belts, rubber mats, groves, pipes and tanks, plastic sheets, kitchenware, furniture and footwear. Production, albeit characterized by peaks and troughs, has remained approximately constant since the early nineties.
*
Non-metallic Mineral Products:
This includes manufacture of pottery, china and earthenware, glass and glassware products, bricks, tiles, cement, concrete, gypsum and plaster products.
Physical volume of production has been in the up swing since the early nineties and particularly towards the end of the decade following privatisation of the cement mills. Level of employment has similarly been sustained.
*
Basic Metal Products:
This comprises rolling mills and foundries to produce products such as slabs, bars, sheets, plates, strips, tubes, pipes and rods.
*
Fabricated Metals, Machinery and Equipment:
This include manufacture of cutlery, hand tools and general hardware, furniture and fixtures, doors, metal staircases and window frames. Others are electrical motors transformers, electrical control devices and switchboard apparatus as well as radios and transport equipment, mainly bicycles and animal and auto-pulled carts.
*
Other Manufacturing Industries:
This covers products such as jewellery and related articles, furniture manufacture, measuring and controlling equipment and optical goods.
Production in thin group of products has persistently been in the upward trend. Employment levels have similarly been in rising.
Production in this category has exemplified a steady growth, with an average growth of over 12 percent over the last decade. For the last three years employment in the industry increased by 11,000.
Policies and Regulatory Framework: The future discourse for industrial development in Tanzania is elaborated in the “Sustainable Industrial Development Policy - SIDP”. The main purpose of SIDP is to set out a path for industrialising Tanzania so that by the turn of the first quarter of the 21st Century it becomes a semi industrialised country with industry, broadly defined, accounting for over 40% of GDP.
In its approach SIDP embraces the principles of a market-led economy and competitiveness. It points out plainly that industry would only prosper in the hands of increased private sector participation both in decision making and implementation. The government in this aspect has vowed to increasingly provide an environment which is welcoming, attractive, stable and that can encourage private sector investment.
The private sector in its part should take all necessary initiatives to respond and manage challenges of globalisation. Firms are challenged to pursue firm strategies which are geared towards building the necessary capabilities to enable them compete in the world market.
Facilitation:
There are several institutions rendering support services to the industrial sector. These, among others, include:
National Development Corporation (NDC):
The National Development Corporation is a public institution, was established by an Act of Parliament in 1962. Its primary objectives include:
*
To identify and lead the development of projects which have high inherent catalysts to enhance exploration of economic growth potentials in the country; *
To initiate economic projects by itself or in partnership with private sector both local and foreign, so as to facilitate emergency of world class competitive industries and industrial supportive infrastructure; and *
To assist in the creation of a human capital base for improved industrial and economic management for the country.
So far NDC has been mandated by the Government to:
*
Co-ordinate and guide implementation of various projects under the Mtwara Development Corridor. These projects, some of them have feasibility studies already completed, are to be implemented under the wider South African Development Community (SADC) Spatial Development Initiatives (SDI). Among others, such projects include power generation and transmission, transport infrastructure, telecommunications, water supply and management, agriculture, mining, tourism, forestry and fisheries. *
Initiate and to regulate the development of Export Processing Zones and Free Ports in Tanzania, and *
Besides NDC participates in equity financing of projects either initiated by NDC itself or by third parties.
The sponsors of projects seeking either partnership; support or assistance of NDC should take note of the following:
*
NDC gives priority to projects with positive impact for the country in terms of value addition, foreign exchange earnings or savings; employment creation; technological advancement and poverty eradication. *
NDC will normally invest in the initial stages of pre-feasibility and feasibility studies. Once the project has proved viability or affordability, NDC can assist either through equity financing, partnership, attracting in other collaborators or loans negotiations. *
NDC can enter into a commercial joint venture partnership with an agreed exit mechanism preferably through (but not limited to) sale of shares in the stock exchange; and *
The support and assistance of NDC could be effected when project promoters have mobilized funding not less than 25% of the total cost of the project.
Further information on NDC could be obtained through:
SIDO has been the leading business advisory services providers for small and micro-enterprises in the country. For the past 25 years of its existence, it has been the only institution advocating for SME’s development in the country. It has a credit channel for SME’s lending and savings advisory. SIDO also is engaged in capacity building, training and consultancy to micro-enterprises.
SIDO has its headquarter office in Dar es Salaam. The headquarter does the thinking, planning and overall management as well as procurement and clearance of imports for twenty regional offices. Besides, SIDO has industrial clusters at 16 regional centres, albeit a number of clusters are at the moment not operating. Some of these clusters are well furnished and serviced with all necessary industrial supportive infrastructures.
Centre for Agricultural Mechanisation and Rural Technology (CARMATEC):
CARMATEC is a parastatal organisation under the Ministry of Industries and Trade with its headquarter in Arusha. Its aim is to improve rural life through development, adaptation and implementation of appropriate technologies in the field of agricultural mechanisation, water supply, building construction and sanitation, rural transport and energy.
CARMATEC carries out applied research to facilitate the designing, adaptation and development of machinery and equipment suitable for use in agricultural sector and rural development. It also aims at developing and manufacturing approved prototypes and components of farm implement, and evaluating their suitability for local use. It also performs tests on all types of machinery and equipments intended for use in agricultural and rural development in the country. It also offers consultancy services on designing, testing and other technical aspects of agricultural mechanisation.
Tanzania Industrial Research and Development Organisation (TIRDO):
TIRDO is a parastatal organisation established in 1987 with the purpose of conducting industrial research and offering consultancy services to industries. The core of TIRDO’s operations had been to promote technology utilisation in economic ventures, encouraging use of indigenous raw materials and designing, fabricating and testing industrial parts using local materials.
TIRDO’s main services to industry are in the field of instrumentation, maintenance and repair, chemical analysis, energy management, material and property testing; trouble shooting and advisory services; cleaner production techniques; welding and fabrication and provision of industrial information.
Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS):
TBS was established by Act of Parliament in 1975 which was subsequently amended in 1977. It is a specialised parastatal organisation servicing in the field of standardisation, certification, quality assurance, metrology service and training in standardization and quality control.
It is has well equipped laboratories for testing chemicals, materials, food, metrology, textile and leather goods. So far TBS has published more than 500 standards and has issued more than 150 licenses to local manufactures.
Business Registrations and Licensing Agency (BRELA):
BRELA is a semi-autonomous agency in the Ministry of Industry and Trade. It is responsible for business facilitation and regulation. Specifically, BRELA’s main functions include registration of companies; registration of business names and registration and granting of patents. Others include overseeing copyrights and neighbouring rights administration as well as business and industrial licensing. Further information on BRELA’S functions and assistance can be downloaded throw E-mail:usajili@intafrica.com or brela@intafrica.com or ipo.tz@intafrica.com.
Agriculture dominates the economy, providing more than 60% of GDP and 80% of employment.
[edit] Agriculture
Agriculture dominates the economy, providing more than 60% of GDP and 80% of employment.
[edit] Industry
Accounting for only about 10% of GDP, Tanzania's industrial sector is one of the smallest in
Africa.
SO SEE THE ECONOMY IS DOMINATED STILL BY AGRICULTURE AND IT'S IN THE HANDS OF AFRICANS.NOT CONTROL OR OWNED BY OUTSIDERS. GIVE ME STATE SOURCES AND FACTS ,NOT opinions from outsiders or just writers who write in newspapers.
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^^ Well, in the final analysis, neither the 'Independence' nor 'Civil Riights' movements in CA and DA, respectively have restored the dignity of our people such that it can be stated we have regained control of our destiny.
That's because, in truth, we've never understood that freedom is all about 'Give me liberty or give me death'! A people that allow the opressor to sleep at night wll remain slaves.
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I agree abouT the civil rights movement in the u.s. but in africa has a whole there is more of a control of that destiny then we realized and the power is really there to make things happen,AND THINGS ARE HAPPENING .IN DIFFERENT STATES MORE SO THAN OTHERS. NO DIFFERENT THEN WHAT IS HAPPENING IN EAST ASIA OR SOUTH AMERICA.
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Every African or African-Carribean land that gained 'flag independence' from the Euro-American system of things since 1957 started out thinking they were about to enter the 'Promised Land' of progress, development and continued prosperity. It did'nt happen and never will because the post colonial or settler inheritance was never designed to benefit the African.
Pan Africanism has always understood this, which is why the movement in all African lands and communities is either undermined or attacked with demonic viciousness/ferocity by the Euro-American system of things, in order to maintain its hegemony over our labour and our lands.
Posts: 387 | From: England, UK | Registered: Feb 2008
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so you are saying that africans will not be free again?ever? and progress is not happening?i disagree with this.africa is free except in northern africa. development and prosperity is happening in african countries even black rules carribean states. africans control the land and labour in most african states except in northern africa and even in south africa there is a sense of freedom and change there. the politics and social order has change there even if the most of resources and most of land is in control of whites.blacks are over in control of that state.whites do not see a real future in south africa because of this.read the blogs and papers. over a million whites left south africa.that must be tell the world something.houses,and things are being built for black africans there, so the resources are being use for the black africans has a whole despite the resouces mostly in the hands still of whites and that will change too.give it time.there are laws there and whites can't do whatever they want anymore.there is true black rule in most african countries and if anyone says otherwise is out of touch with the real world.is there more that could be done to make africa stronger again on the world stage,yes,that is happening to.
I LISTED before the industries and and all the postive things going on there in other threads.you could look them up.but there are few and that will not just believe no matter what sources i give them.
Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004
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here are some facts about africa more from the source.there are contact numbers if you want more info. black africans are in control of most africa and are in control of their future just like east asians,south americans and others.this is all i have to say about this because there is nothing else to say.here are some facts.below the facts there is a website to go to to learn more.there are negatives but i here is a more balance view and below is more postives,so i will admit that. THIS IS MY LAST TIME REPEATING THIS AND COMING BACK HERE.I WILL NOT READ ANYMORE HERE.I GOT WORK TO DO AND THIS THREAD IS TAKING UP TO MUCH OF MY TIME.READ ABOUT GHANA AND BOTSWANA FIRST.THERE ARE MANY OTHER SUCCESS STORIES BUT I WILL POST THESE FOR AN EXAMPLE. BYE. I AM OUT OF HERE. PEACE.
Botswana rarely features in the news abroad.
With only 1.8m people and the world's largest output of diamonds, it has been a model of stability, avoiding the violence, corruption and boom-and-bust cycles that have plagued so many mineral-rich countries. Yet it had little going for it at independence in 1966. Largely covered with sand, it had little
agriculture—and few white settlers: it never experienced the bitterness of land dispossession and the ensuing disharmony that poisoned race relations in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. Mr Mogae's anointed successor, Ian Khama, is half-white, but few people in Botswana think his colour matters Diamonds have changed the country's fortunes. Its per capita income is four times the regional average and higher than Malaysia's. The diamond wealth has been spent on roads, sanitation, schools and clinics, not on palaces or Swiss bank accounts. AIDS has hit the country hard, but almost 95,000 patients—86% of those who need it—get anti-retroviral treatment. In Gaborone, the capital,modern glass buildings are
springing up. “Botswana is what it is because of diamonds,” acknowledges Mr Mogae. Yet it tops regional leagues for clean government. Economic growth has been steady, inflation moderate. There are no exchange controls. Taxes are among the region's lowest. The government has recently made it easier for skilled foreigners to come to Botswana for work
The ruling party has stayed happily in power for 42 years. Lepetu Setshwaelo, who heads a small opposition party, admits it is hard to convince people that their government is no good. “They don't easily see the point of the opposition,” he sighs. Divisions within the two main opposition parties hardly help their cause. Botswana's democracy is steeped in tradition. In Mochudi, 35km (22 miles) north of the capital, a local chief listens to a resident's complaint on the veranda of a former colonial building, while a clerk takes notes. Every week, chiefs from the area gather in the open space shaded by a thatched roof, perched on an assortment of weathered chairs, sofas and stools. Most villages and towns are still ruled by chiefs, incorporated into the country's administration. Though unelected, they can lose their position if their subjects are unhappy with them and their decisions can be appealed in court.
It could be even better, though Still, Botswana has its problems. Its government drives the economy; the private sector is feeble. According to the World Bank, local companies are not very competitive compared with those in other middle-income countries. Landlocked and with a minute domestic market, Botswana has struggled to lure foreign investors, bar those interested in minerals. So unemployment is 18%; about one-third of the people are poor. The income gap between townspeople and those in the countryside is wide and growing. Too much The country also wants to be a regional financial hub, with its low taxes and liberal fund-management industry. With lower labour costs and taxes than in neighbouring
South Africa, Botswana is a good base from which to export to its big-brother neighbour, which is linked to it by a customs union along with Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland. Outsourcing of government services and planned privatisations should
help the tiny private sector to grow.
Mr Khama wants to pep things up. As a former army chief and son of Seretse Khama, the country's much-admired first president, his style will be different. His detractors say he is authoritarian; his supporters call him decisive and efficient.
However successful it has been, Botswana may need gently stirring.
gnp ppp makes it a rich country,altas method makes it a high middle income country so there is great progress in botswana and stable african rule.
Rural poverty approaches, policies and strategies The Ghanaian economy has grown at an annual average rate of 4.5 per cent over the past two decades. The benefits of that economic progress are dramatically evident in the fact that national poverty rates have been cut almost in half, from approximately 51.7 per cent in 1991-92 to 28.5 per cent in 2005-06. Poverty decreased by about 17 points in urban areas and by 24 points in rural areas. The World Bank indicates that Ghana’s growth and poverty reduction rates are probably the best that have been achieved in all of sub-Saharan Africa over the past
The second phase of the Government of Ghana’s poverty reduction strategy is the Ghana growth and poverty reduction strategy: an agenda for growth and prosperity. It covers the period from 2006 to 2009, and it follows the first phase, initiated in 2002. Ghana is committed to transforming its economy to achieve growth, accelerate poverty reduction and protect poor people in a decentralized, democratic environment. The government emphasizes its will to consolidate achievements, strengthen partnerships, introduce innovation and increase policy dialogue in the coming years. To achieve its goal of transforming the economy, the second phase of the strategy will: ensure sound economic management increase production and promote sustainable livelihoods provide direct support for human development and basic services provide special programmes for the vulnerable and excluded ensure good governance and increased capacity in the public sector promote the active involvement of the private sector as the main engine of growth
The strategy focuses on vulnerable and excluded people such as poor agricultural workers, particularly migrant farm hands, and traditional fishers, as well as the productive poor, including women in the informal sector, unemployed young people who have completed training, subsistence farmers and disabled persons. While the first phase of the government’s strategy emphasized programmes and projects to reduce poverty, the second phase focuses on the implementation of activities that induce growth and have the potential to support the creation of wealth. The objective is to reduce poverty in a sustainable manner. Government priorities include continued macroeconomic stability, accelerated growth led by the private sector, vigorous human resource development, and good governance and civic responsibility. The strategy brings together important initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals and the New Partnership for Africa. Source: IFAD
________________________________________________ SOME AFRICAN MADE BUSES AND CARS.
benin ECONOMY Benin's economy is chiefly based on agriculture. Cotton accounts for 40% of GDP and roughly 80% of official export receipts. There also is production of textiles, palm products, and cocoa. Corn, beans, rice, peanuts, cashews, pineapples, cassava, yams, and other various tubers are grown for local subsistence. Benin began producing a modest quantity of offshore oil in October 1982. Production ceased in recent years but exploration of new sites is ongoing. A modest fishing fleet provides fish and shrimp for local subsistence and export to Europe. A number of formerly government-owned commercial activities are now privatized, and the government, consistent with its commitments to the IMF and World Bank, has plans to continue on this path. Smaller businesses are privately owned by Beninese citizens, but some firms are foreign owned, primarily French and Lebanese. The private commercial and agricultural sectors remain the principal contributors to growth.
Economic Development Since the transition to a democratic government in 1990, Benin has undergone a remarkable economic recovery. A large injection of external investment from both private and public sources has alleviated the economic difficulties of the early 1990s caused by global recession and persistently low commodity prices (although the latter continues to affect the economy). The manufacturing sector is confined to some light industry, which is mainly involved in processing primary products and the production of consumer goods. Benin is dependent on imported electricity, mostly from Ghana, which currently accounts for a significant proportion of the country's imports. Benin has several initiatives to attract foreign capital to build electricity generation facilities in Benin in order to break this dependency. The service sector has grown quickly, stimulated by economic liberalization and fiscal reform. Membership of the CFA Franc Zone offers reasonable currency stability. Benin's trading partners include Germany, Brazil, U.A.E., Spain, the United States, Singapore, India, Netherlands, Japan, and China. Benin also is a member of the West African economic community ECOWAS. . Real economic growth for 2007 was 4.2%. Commercial and transport activities, which make up a large part of GDP.
FOREIGN RELATIONS Abroad, Benin has strengthened ties with France, the former colonial power, as well as the United States and the main international lending institutions. Benin also has adopted a mediating role in the political crises in Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, and Togo and provided a contribution to the UN force in Haiti. Benin currently has peacekeeping forces, under the UN aegis, in Cote d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Benin's democratic standing, stability, and positive role in international peacekeeping have helped Benin's international stature continue to grow. Benin enjoys stable relations with Nigeria, the main regional power. Benin held a seat on the UN Security Council; its membership term ended December 31, 2005.
Post-Independence Politics National Assembly elections took place in March 2003 and were generally considered to be free and fair. Although there were some irregularities, these were not significant and did not greatly disrupt the proceedings or the results. These elections resulted in a loss of seats by RB--the primary opposition party. The other opposition parties, the Party for Democratic Renewal (PRD) led by the former Prime Minister Adrien Houngbedji and the Alliance Etoile (AE), joined the government coalition.
Former West African Development Bank Director Boni Yayi won the March 2006 election for the presidency in a field of 26 candidates. International observers including the United Nations, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and others called the election free, fair, and transparent. President Kérékou was barred from running under the 1990 constitution due to term and age limits. President Yayi was inaugurated on April 6, 2006.
Principal Government Officials President of the Republic (Head of State and Head of the Government)--Boni Yayi Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Integration, Francophonie and the Beninese Diaspora--Moussa Okanla Minister of State, in charge of Economic Forecasting, Development and the Evaluation of Public Action--Pascal Irene Koupaki Minister of State in charge of National Defense--Issifou Kogui N'douro Minister of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fishing--Roger Dovonou Minister of Labor and Civil Service--Emmanuel Tiando Minister of Administrative and Institutional Reform--Bio Gounou Idrissou Sina Minister of Culture, Tourism and Handicrafts--Soumanou Toleba Minister of Urban Development, Housing, Land Reform and Coastal Erosion Prevention--François Gbénoukpo Noudégbèssi Minister of Microfinance and Promotion of Youth and Women Employment--Sakinatou Abdou Alfa Orou Sidi Minister of Economy and Finance--Soulé Mana Lawani Minister of Industry, Commerce, and Small and Medium Scale Enterprises--Grégoire Akofodji Minister of Mines, Energy and Water--Sacca Lafia
Population (2007): 7.9 million. Annual growth rate (2006 est.): 2.73%.
Ethnic groups: African 99% (42 ethnic groups, most important being Fon, Adja, Yoruba, and Bariba),
Europeans 5,500. Religions: Indigenous beliefs (animist) 50%, Christian 30%, Muslim 20%.
Government Type: Republic under multiparty democratic rule.
Benin maintains an embassy in the United States at 2124 Kalorama Road, Washington, DC 20008, tel. 202-232-6656. The Permanent Representative of the Republic of Benin to the United Nations is located at 4 East 73rd Street, New York, NY 10021 tel. 212-249-6014, fax 212-734-4735.
Industry: Types--mining (41.4% of real GDP, 2005/2006): diamonds, copper, nickel, coal; tourism, textiles, construction, tourism, beef processing, chemical products production, food and beverage production.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS
Botswana has a flourishing multiparty constitutional democracy. Each of the elections since independence has been freely and fairly contested and has been held on schedule. The country's minority groups participate freely in the political process. There are three main parties and a number of smaller parties. In national elections in 2004, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) won 44 of 57 contested National Assembly seats, the Botswana National Front (BNF) won 12, and the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) won 1 seat. Individuals elected by the National Assembly hold an additional 4 seats; the ruling BDP currently holds all 4. The opposition out-polled the ruling BDP in most urban areas. The openness of the country's political system has been a significant factor in Botswana's stability and economic growth. General elections are held every 5 years. The next general election will be held in October 2009. The president has executive power and is chosen by the National Assembly following countrywide legislative elections. The cabinet is selected by the president from the National Assembly; it consists of a vice president and a flexible number of ministers and assistant ministers, currently 16 and 8, respectively. The National Assembly has 57 elected and 4 specially elected members; it is expanded following each census (every 10 years; the most recent was conducted in 2001).
The roots of Botswana's democracy lie in Setswana traditions, exemplified by the Kgotla, or village council, in which the powers of traditional leaders are limited by custom and law. Botswana's High Court has general civil and criminal jurisdiction. Judges are appointed by the president and may be removed only for cause and after a hearing. The constitution has a code of fundamental human rights enforced by the courts, and Botswana has a good human rights record. Local government is administered by nine district councils and five town councils. District commissioners have executive authority and are appointed by the central government and assisted by elected and nominated district councilors and district development committees. There has been ongoing debate about the political, social, and economic marginalization of the San
(indigenous tribal population). The government's policies for the Basarwa (San) and other remote area dwellers continue to spark controversy. Principal Government Officials
President--Festus G. Mogae Vice President--Lt. Gen. (ret) Seretse Khama Ian Khama Cabinet Ministers
Finance and Development Planning--Baledzi Gaolathe Communications, Science and Technology--Pelonomi Venson Office of the President for Justice and Security--Phandu T.C. Skelemani Trade and Industry--Daniel Neo Moroka Minerals Resources and Water Affairs--Ponatshego Kedikilwe Lands and Housing--Dikgakgamatso Seretse Local Government--Margaret Nasha
ECONOMY
Since independence, Botswana has had the fastest growth in per capita income in the world. Economic growth averaged 9% per year from 1967-2005. The government has maintained a
sound fiscal policy, despite three consecutive budget deficits in 2002-2004, and a negligible level of foreign debt. Foreign exchange reserves were $5 billion at the end of December 2005,
equivalent to 22 months of imports of goods and services. Botswana's impressive economic record has been built on the foundation of wisely using revenue generated from diamond mining
to fuel economic development through prudent fiscal policies and a cautious foreign policy. However, economic development spending was cut by 10% in 2004/2005 as a result of recurring
budget deficits and rising expenditure on healthcare services. Development spending began to increase again in 2006/2007 and was budgeted to increase by 27% in the 2007/2008 fiscal
year. Real GDP remained the same in 2005/2006, but the growth rate is expected to recover to around 5% in 2007/2008. The government recognizes that HIV/AIDS will continue to affect the
economy and is providing leadership and programs to combat the epidemic, including free anti-retroviral treatment and a nationwide Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission program.
Mining
Debswana (formed by the government and South Africa's DeBeers in equal partnership) is the largest mining operation in Botswana. Several other mining operations exist in the country,
including the Bamangwato Concessions, Ltd. (BCL, also with substantial government equity participation) and Tati Nickel.
Since the early 1980s, the country has been the world's largest producer of gem quality diamonds. Four large diamond mines have opened since independence. DeBeers prospectors
discovered diamonds in northern Botswana in the late 1960s. The first mine began production at Orapa in 1972, followed by the smaller mines of Lethlakane and Damtshaa. What has
become the single-richest diamond mine in the world opened in Jwaneng in 1982. The Orapa 2000 Expansion of the existing Orapa mine was opened in 2000. In December 2004, Debswana
negotiated 25-year lease renewals for all four of its mines with the Government of Botswana. The Debswana carat output for 2006 was a record 34.3 million carats, making Debswana the
world's leading diamond producer by value and volume. Exploration for other kimberlite pipes continues. In addition, as part of its drive to diversify and increase local value added within the
mining sector, Botswana has announced plans to establish a joint venture company with De Beers, which will be Debswana's sorting and marketing arm.
BCL, which operates a copper-nickel mine at Selebi-Phikwe, has had a troubled financial history but remains an important employer, although the life of the mine is expected to end in the
next 5 to 10 years. Other copper-nickel mines include Tati Nickel near Francistown. Botash, the sole producer of soda ash in the region and supported by substantial government
investment, produced 265,000 tons of soda ash in 2005.
Private Sector Development and Foreign Investment Botswana seeks to further diversify its economy away from minerals, which account for 40% of GDP. The Government of Botswana was considering additional policies to enhance competitiveness, including a new Foreign Direct Investment Strategy and National Export Development Strategy. Botswana's parliament adopted both a Privatization Master Plan and a new Competition Policy that were aimed at fostering economic diversification. With its proven record of good economic governance, Botswana was ranked as Africa's least corrupt country by Transparency International in 2006, ahead of many European and Asian countries. The World Economic Forum rates Botswana as one of the two most economically competitive nations in Africa. In November 2005, Standard & Poor's once again assigned Botswana an "A" grade credit rating. This ranks Botswana as by far the best credit risk in Africa and puts it on par or above many countries in central Europe, East Asia, and Latin America. U.S. investment in Botswana remains at relatively low levels.
Botswana maintains an embassy at 1531-1533 New Hampshire Avenue NW, Washington DC 20036 (tel. 202-244-4990; fax 202-244-4164). Its mission to the United Nations is at 103 E. 37th Street, New York NY 10017 (tel. 212-889-2277; fax 212-725-5061).
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS The Bahamas is an independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is a parliamentary democracy with regular elections.
Local government districts elect councils for town planning, business licenses, traffic issues and maintaining government buildings. In some large districts, lower level town councils also have minor
responsibilities
For decades, the white-dominated United Bahamian Party (UBP) ruled The Bahamas, then a dependency of the United Kingdom, while a group of influential white merchants, known as the "Bay Street Boys," dominated the local economy. In 1953, Bahamians dissatisfied with UBP rule formed the opposition Progressive Liberal Party (PLP). Under the leadership of Lynden Pindling, the PLP won
control of the government in 1967 and led The Bahamas to full independence in 1973. A coalition of PLP dissidents and former UBP members formed the Free National Movement (FNM) in 1971. Former PLP cabinet minister and member of Parliament Hubert Ingraham became leader of the FNM in 1990, upon the death of Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield. Under the leadership of Ingraham, the FNM won control of the government from the PLP in the August 1992 general elections . The PLP regained power in 2002 under the leadership of Perry Christie, but the FNM, again led by Ingraham, returned to government by capturing 23 of the 41 seats in the House of Assembly during the May 2007 election. The next election must be held no later than May 2012.
for more info The Bahamas maintains an embassy in the United States at 2220 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20008 (tel: 202-319-2660) and Consulates General in New York at 231 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017 (tel: 212-421-6420), and in Miami at Suite 818, Ingraham Building, 25 SE Second Ave., Miami, FL 33131 (tel: 305-373-6295).
Background Note: Cameroon Education: Compulsory between ages 6 and 14. Attendance--65%. Literacy--75%.
Government Type: Republic; strong central government dominated by president.
DEFENSE Cameroon’s goal is to develop a military with the capacity to contribute to peacekeeping efforts. While equipment needs pose a significant challenge, Cameroonian officers are already receiving training both in Africa and abroad, for example in Italy and the U.S.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS
The 1972 constitution as modified by 1996 reforms provides for a strong central government dominated by the executive. The president is empowered to name and dismiss cabinet members,
judges, generals, provincial governors, prefects, sub-prefects, and heads of Cameroon's parastatal (about 100 state-controlled) firms, obligate or disburse expenditures, approve or veto regulations, declare states of emergency, and appropriate and spend profits of parastatal firms. The president is not required to consult the National Assembly. The judiciary is subordinate to the executive branch's Ministry of Justice. The Supreme Court may review the constitutionality of a law only at the president's request.
Radio and television continue to be a virtual monopoly of the state-owned broadcaster, the Cameroon Radio-Television Corporation (CRTV), despite the effective liberalization of radio and television in 2000. Since the issuance of the decree authorizing the creation of private radio and television on April 3, 2000, not a single station has received a license from the government, though many have applied and are currently operating while their applications are pending. There are some 15 such private radio stations broadcasting in Yaounde, Douala, Bafoussam, Bamenda, and Limbe; their existence is tolerated by the government. Magic FM, a private radio station in Yaounde, and a Voice of America (VOA) affiliate, was shut down in 2003 after carrying controversial reports and critical commentaries on the regime, but was later reopened. There are a dozen community radio stations supported by the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) which are exempted from licenses and have no political content. Radio coverage extends to about 80% of the country, while television covers 60% of the territory. The sole private television station--TV Max--broadcasts only in the economic capital of Douala. The Cameroonian Government's human rights record has been improving over the years but remains flawed.
ECONOMY For a quarter-century following independence, Cameroon was one of the most prosperous countries in Africa.
In late August 2003, the Board of Directors of both the IMF and World Bank approved Cameroon's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) with high marks. The paper integrated the main
points of the Millennium Development Goal, which outlined Cameroon's priorities in alleviating poverty and undertaking strong macroeconomic commitments in the short and long term. By late summer 2004 Cameroon had met most of its PRGF targets. A lackluster performance in the fiscal arena, however, led the country off track and resulted in Cameroon not achieving the HIPC completion point. Negotiations are currently underway to create a new program so Cameroon can eventually qualify for HIPC debt forgiveness. The privatization program has lagged because of legal and political obstacles; difficult negotiations with the government on issues such as sale price, financial disclosure, tax arrears, and overlapping debts; and in some cases, a lack of willing buyers.
For further information on Cameroon's economic trends, trade, or investment climate, contact the International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, DC 20230
and/or the Commerce Department district office in any local federal building.
Burkina remains committed to the structural adjustment program it launched in 1991, and it has been one of the first beneficiaries of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) debt-relief and poverty reduction programinvestments are externally financed. Growth rates had been more than 5% from the late 1990s through 2003. Burkina is attempting to improve the economy by developing its mineral resources, improving its infrastructure, making its agricultural and livestock sectors more productive and competitive, and stabilizing the supplies and prices of food grains. Staple crops are millet, sorghum, maize, and rice. The cash crops are cotton, groundnuts, karite (shea nuts), and sesame. Livestock, once a major export, has declined.
Manufacturing is limited to cotton and food processing (mainly in Bobo-Dioulasso) and import substitution heavily protected by tariffs. Some factories are privately owned, and others are set to be privatized. Burkina's exploitable natural resources are limited, although deposits of manganese, zinc, and gold have attracted the interest of international mining firms.
Principal Government Officials President--Blaise Compaore Prime Minister--Tertius Zongo
Ministers Economy and Development--Seydou Bouda Defense--Yero Boly Mines and Energy--Abdoulaye Abdoulkader Cisse
Employment, Labor, and Social Security--Alain Ludovic Tou Arts, Culture, and Tourism--Mahamoudou Ouedraogo
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS With Compaore alone at the helm, a democratic constitution was approved by referendum in 1991. In December 1991, Compaore was elected President, running unopposed after the opposition boycotted the election. The opposition did participate in the following year's legislative elections, in which the ruling party won a majority of seats. The government of the Fourth Republic includes a strong presidency, a prime minister, a Council of Ministers presided over by the president, a unicameral National Assembly, and the judiciary. The legislature and judiciary are nominally independent but remain susceptible to executive influence.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ghana People Population (2007 est.): 23 million. Annual growth rate (2007 est.): 2.7%. Education: Years compulsory--9. Literacy--53.7%. Ethnic groups: Akan, Ewe, Ga, Moshi-Dagomba. Work force (11.1 million): Agriculture and fishing--47.9%; industry and transport--16.2%; sales and clerical--19.3%; services--5.9%;
Government
Type: Democracy. Independence: March 6, 1957. Constitution: Entered into force January 7, 1993. Branches: Executive--president popularly elected for a maximum of two 4-year terms; Council of State, a presidential appointed consultative body of 25 members required by the constitution. Legislative--unicameral Parliament popularly elected for 4-year terms. Political parties: New Patriotic Party, National Democratic Congress, Convention People's Party, People's National Convention, others. Economy Real GDP growth rate (2006): 6.2%. Inflation rate (consumer prices) (2006): 11%. professional--8.9%; other--1.8%.
ECONOMY Ghana's industrial base is rtobacco, simple consumer goods, and car, truck, and bus assembly. Industry, including mining, manufacturing, construction and electricity, accounts for about 25% of GDP. relatively advanced compared to many other African countries. Industries include textiles, apparel, steel (using scrap), tires, oil refining, flour milling, beverages, Gold shares the top export revenue spot with cocoa, each bringing in about $1 billion in 2006. Tourism has become one of Ghana's largest foreign income earners (ranking third in 2005 at $836 million), and the Ghanaian Government has placed strong emphasis on further development of the sector. The country's largest source of foreign exchange is remittances from abroad, which totaled about $4 billion in 2006.
During 1984-88 the economy experienced solid growth for the first time since 1978. Renewed exports, aid inflows, and a foreign exchange auction eased hard currency constraints.
While the reforms caused substantial shocks in some sectors, particularly agriculture and textiles, the overall effects were positive and helped bring about a measure of economic stabilization and recovery. However, a big drop in world cocoa and gold prices hurt growth and, in the face of pending elections, spurred government spending, leading to an increased deficit, falling currency and high inflation at the time a new government led by John Agyekum Kufuor took office in 2000. The economy has performed well under the Kufuor the previous administration, and has taken some difficult but necessary steps such as ending subsidies of petroleum prices. Solid macroeconomic management coupled with major debt relief, large inflows of donor resources, and relatively high cocoa and gold prices have been the keys to the steady improvements in real GDP growth, which in 2004 topped 5% for the first time in a decade and reached an estimated 6.2% in 2006. Further debt relief, continued large aid inflows, favorable commodity prices, and $4 billion in gross annual remittances--this figure includes remittances from individuals as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and embassies; individual remittances were estimated at about $1.8 billion in 2006--put Ghana in a stronger balance of payments position.Ghana was recognized for its economic and democratic achievements in 2006, when it signed a five-year, $547 million anti-poverty compact with the United States' Millennium Challenge Corporation. The compact focuses on accelerating growth and poverty reduction through agricultural and rural development. The compact has three main components: enhancing the profitability of commercial agriculture among small farmers; reducing the transportation costs affecting agricultural commerce through improvements in transportation infrastructure, and
expanding basic community services and strengthening rural institutions that support agriculture and agri-business. The compact is expected to contribute to improving the lives of one million Ghanaians.
Ghana's stated goals are to accelerate economic growth, improve the quality of life for all Ghanaians, and reduce poverty through macroeconomic stability, higher private investment,
broad-based social and rural development, as well as direct poverty-alleviation efforts. These plans are fully supported by the international donor community.
Principal Government Officials
President--John Agyekum Kufuor Vice President--Alhaji Aliu Mahama Minister of Finance and Economic Planning--Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu Minister of Trade & Industry--Joe Baidoe-Ansah
Ghana maintains an embassy in the United States at 3512 International Drive, NW, Washington, DC 20008 (tel. 202-686-4500). Its permanent mission to the United Nations is located at 19
E. 47th Street, New York, NY 10017 (tel. 212-832-1300).
Sub-Saharan Africa: Boom cutting poverty
October 18, 2007
Sub-Saharan Africa was enjoying its strongest economic momentum in more than four decades, with some countries at last recording "substantial progress" in reducing poverty, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said yesterday.
In its biannual survey of the world economy, the IMF found that while African oil exporters were growing the fastest, "most other countries are also growing strongly and outperforming historic trends".
It said sub-Saharan Africa "is clearly enjoying its best period of sustained growth since independence" in the early 1960s, and "faster-growing countries in the region are making substantial progress in reducing poverty rates".
But the report warned that the robust pace could slow if the global economy were to contract sharply, cutting demand for African commodity exports and imposing financial constraints.
After growth of 5.7 percent last year, the IMF said the economies of sub-Saharan Africa should expand at a rate of 6.1 percent this year and 6.8 percent next year - 40 basis points faster than it had foreseen in a projection in July.
The report attributed the region's "growth success" to a generally healthy global economy, sound domestic policies and increased "openness" to the world on the part of many countries, which had now begun to attract more private investment capital.
It noted that African nations had managed to diversify their export markets, finding new outlets in Asia, for example.
But the IMF also urged sub-Saharan governments to carry on with reforms to improve their administration, develop infrastructure and strengthen the business environment.
The report finally said many countries should implement more flexible exchange rate regimes and make greater use of monetary policy. Business, Economy and Infrastructure
Most Recent IMF World Economic Outlook Database (i.e GDP and percapita income)
AP Black S. Africans Benefit From Economy Thursday September 27, 6:15 am ET By Celean Jacobson, Associated Press Writer Business in Soweto Booms As Black South Africans Reap the Benefits of Growing Economy
BEFORE - There has never been a highway between the towns of Gorongosa and Caia, 150 miles apart and part of Mozambique's heartland. In some places, the road was only a dirt track cut through the countryside. Other parts were a mix of overgrown gravel and paved sections that had not been maintained in decades and ran through areas littered with landmines. Traveling by road between Gorongosa and Caia was impossible during the rainy season and took three days in good weather.
AFTER -The EN1 is now a paved, all-weather highway with modern signposting and 27 newly built or rehabilitated bridges. A car can cover the 150-mile section between Gorongosa and Caia in hours - not days - at any time of the year. The road has brought new life and economic activity to a previously desolate area. Access to schools and health posts has improved. Small businesses and even new villages have sprung up along the route due to the increased flow of goods and people. ____________________________________________________________________ Rural Areas Bridge the Digital Divide
Telling Our Story
* More Stories from Mali
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Rural Areas Bridge the Digital Divide
Community learning and information centers — Photo: USAID/Dennis Bilodeau
Community learning and information centers — "CLICs" — give rural areas access to new information technologies.
Access to information in rural Mali is notoriously difficult. Few libraries exist, computers are generally for the use of private institutions and Internet access outside of the capital city was virtually non-existent. To bridge this gap, USAID helped establish community learning and information centers — "CLICs" — in 13 rural communities across Mali.
CLICs have given rural Malians access to high-tech tools — the Web, email, DVDs, CD-ROMs — as well as more traditional information devices, like radio, video and television. Much more than just cybercafés, CLICs offer users access to specially trained staff, who help users find information on topics directly related to development. Additional information materials are also being produced that will make even more knowledge available at the CLICs. USAID has encouraged other donors to create similar community telecenters, so they could form an association that would facilitate the exchange of information among members.
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Irrigation pump unites village and empowers people to manage safe, reliable water Clean Drinking Water Is A Lifesaver In Mali
Konodimini had serious potable water problems. For years, five small pumps served a village of 3,500. Half the time the pumps were broken. Even when all five pumps were working, they were never able to produce enough clean drinking water for the entire village, or irrigate vegetable gardens that were an important food source.
Each neighborhood guarded its pump jealously. When the pump broke, they had to ask another neighborhood to help them out and the request was not always granted when water was scarce. There was bickering over water, and it divided the people in the village.
Photo: The villagers of Konodimini show Colonel Mamadou Bah, governor of the Segou region, and Pamela White, USAID Mali’s director, how well the clean water runs from their new SolarPedalflo pump.
The pump provides enough water for 600 people a day (at 20 liters per person) - that's three to four times the amount of water from one borehole that a hand pump can produce. USAID expects diarrhea in the village to be reduced by 90%.
The villagers of Konodimini demonstrate how well the clean water runs from their new SolarPedalflo pump.
The villagers of Konodimini demonstrate how well the clean water runs from their new SolarPedalflo pump.
Effective and transparent governance was a problem, particularly when it came to managing the water supply. In Mali, lack of clean drinking water leads to potentially deadly diseases like cholera and diarrhea – which is the second highest cause of death among infants. Many villages in this mostly desert country were experiencing the same kinf of drinking water problems. In Mali, 113 out of every 1000 infants die before their first birthday. To help address its water challenges, USAID formed a partnership with Moving Water Industries, the West African Water Initiative (WAWI), the Government of Mali, and local community leaders to provide an adequate and reliable supply of potable water to villages desperately in need.
USAID invested over $490,000 and secured over $570,000 more from private industry, non-governmental organizations and the government of Mali in a public-private alliance to help bring clean drinking water to over 48,000 rural Malians. The money is used to work with villages in introducing a new, sturdier kind of water pump powered by the sun or villagers' own feet: the SolarPedalflo. When the people of Konodimini were told that the village would be an active participant in not only installing but also managing the new pump, they readily agreed. Konodimini immediately formed an oversight committee, comprised of both men and women, that would take responsibility for the proper functioning and maintenance of the pump. They drafted bylaws, established a price-per-bucket policy, and identified when certain groups would have access to the pump – for example, women in early morning and at dusk.
This was the first time that the entire village actually put together a management plan - they were in fact governing. Two men, who hadn't spoken to each other in years, were serving on the oversight committee together and were talking. Pride replaced jealousy. The pump united the village. With the much increased, reliable water flow, the women decided to greatly expand their vegetable garden from just a small plot to a full hectare. The garden provides an excellent source of nutritious food for the village. The surplus vegetables are sold in a nearby market. The proceeds will pay for school fees, medical supplies and more seeds.
Skills and Knowledge Fight Malnutrition Challenge Initiative
USAID’s food program has shifted from distributing emergency aid to teaching self-sufficiency. The goal is to give Mozambicans the skills they need to produce more food, increase their household incomes, and reduce malnutrition through healthy diets. In 2004, USAID is investing $20 million a year in programs that combine agriculture development and nutrition education services to reach more than 200,000 rural families. Program participants include a group of sixteen women from the Associação Eduardo Mondlane – named for the founder of Mozambique’s independence movement – who are working to improve the lives of families in the Meconta District of Nampula Province in northern Mozambique. The women developed business skills to sell products for a profit as well as learned to grow staples like cassava, a starchy root, in small gardens to feed their families. USAID helped teach them how to improve productivity and grow nutrient-rich crops like sesame, sunflower, and sweet potatoes. The women also learned about healthy diets for children, who often are fed only plain porridge even when other food is available.
Results
Today, members of Associação Eduardo Mondlane are on their way to self-sufficiency with $200 in savings, three times the rural annual per capita income. With their new skills, they maintain an expanding seed bank, grow peanuts for sale, and recently launched a chicken-raising business. The women are in the process of selling a batch of 82 chickens, which will net $85 in profit and pay for 200 more. They built a chicken coop with hired labor, and paid for vitamins and feed to assure the chickens they market are of good quality. Each woman earns a share of the cooperative’s profits – money they use to pay for school fees and uniforms, and take their children to the hospital when needed. The organization is also looking ahead to new business opportunities raising fish.
For generations African women have had the slow and tedious task of shelling groundnuts by hand. The crop, a mainstay of rural commerce and diet in many countries, is hard to shell and commercial shellers are expensive, difficult to operate and unreliable. Several years ago, however, villagers in Mali developed a hand-operated sheller. Made of concrete, wood and scrap metal, it costs the equivalent of US$10. It can be run by a single person and meet the needs of a village of 2,000. With any luck each machine will shell groundnuts for about 25 years before it needs replacing.
Rugged, effective and perfectly suited to the demands of its operators, the sheller is a prime example of people across Africa innovating and adapting technologies to meet their needs. Expanding science and technology capacity features prominently in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the continental blueprint for economic and political advancement. In 2005 the African Union (AU) and the NEPAD secretariat launched the Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action, intended to develop an African system of research and technological innovation in agriculture, the environment, infrastructure, industry and education. It envisions a science and technology sector built around 12 research “clusters,” each with a different specialty, ranging from biotechnology to developing Africa’s indigenous knowledge to adopting new information technologies. However, African leaders did not reach a consensus on how to finance the plan, which the AU initially estimated would cost $158 mn over five years.
Sound policies, political commitment and increased investment, however, could allow African countries to leap forward to modern technologies. According to UNESCO, relatively small additional investments in countries such as South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and Zimbabwe, which already have a science and technology base, could establish world-class facilities to advance the region as a whole.
With many African economies posting strong growth, some countries are making major investments in their educational and technology sectors, including newly democratic Nigeria. In 2003 it launched a satellite to monitor the environment. The following year the government asked UNESCO to help it analyse government policies and spending in the sector and review the curricula and capacity of the country’s 75 research institutes, 55 universities and 44 polytechnics. In 2006 the country approved a $5 bn endowment fund for science and technology development, drawn mostly from oil export revenues. Egypt and South Africa have also attained significant success, notes UNESCO, with South Africa investing over $3.1 bn in 2002 in aeronautics, nuclear engineering, chemistry, metallurgy, and agricultural research, while Egypt specializes in chemistry and engineering
The continent, says the ECA’s Mr. Janneh, cannot afford to waste more time. It must train and deploy large numbers of scientists, engineers and technicians and establish strong links between industry, academia and government to ensure that today’s innovations become the building blocks for tomorrow’s economic and social development.
Africa Renewal
United Nations
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- States call each other to account
New African peer review programme promotes rights, accountability
By Gumisai Mutume, Addis Ababa
Setting the pace for other African states, Rwanda has become one of the first to allow external oversight of its performance under a new continental peer review programme. Rwanda's assessment began in February 2004 under the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an instrument that seeks to promote democracy and accountability on the continent. "Despite the significant economic and social progress made in the recent past, Rwanda still faces heavy challenges," says Mr. Claver Gatete, a high-ranking Rwandan government official. Those relate mainly to the economic structure and poor governance, which contributed to the 1994 genocide, he explains.
Rwanda confronts insufficient or ineffective government structures, a weak public sector, high population growth rates and unemployment. It also faces a host of economic and social problems that make the country difficult to run. Rwanda witnessed one of the worst genocides in modern history when 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by militias and armed forces linked to the government in power at the time.
The country is now under a new government and is rebuilding its national institutions. Mr. Gatete says that Rwanda has a lot to learn and gain from the APRM. Under the scheme, for the first time on the continent, African states will voluntarily assess each other's political and economic management. The review is open to all 53 members of the African Union and is a programme of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), adopted by African countries as the continent's development framework in 2001.
From Africa Renewal, Vol.21 #2 (July 2007), page 8 Women push onto Africa’s agenda
NEPAD responds to advocates for women’s rights Rwandan members of parliament taking oath of office
Rwandan members of parliament taking oath of office: Nearly half of the country’s legislators are female. The status of women in many African countries is improving. “Africa is in a period of great experiment,” says Ms. Anne Marie Goetz, who heads the governance, peace and security division at the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). “Things are starting to change, as countries see a window of opportunity to create ways for women to contribute their skills and talents to national development.”
And women themselves are driving that change, notes Ms. Goetz. “Women, through their groups, are making it clear they are not putting up with the status quo anymore.” Women are demanding, among other things, laws that guarantee their rights to manage economic resources and that protect them from violence. Such pressure has pushed governments to be more responsive. Countries have begun to respond with commitments to reduce maternal deaths, get more girls into school, give women rights to own land on a more equal basis with men and ensure that a minimum number of women get into key positions in government.
‘Don’t just complain’
When African heads of state originally launched their continental development plan, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), in 2001, women’s organizations banded together to protest the initiative’s seeming lack of sensitivity to gender issues. They demanded that NEPAD’s proponents ensure that women were not frozen out of the social and economic benefits promised by the initiative. Ms. Litha Musyimi-Ogana, an advocate for women’s rights, was among those in the forefront asking for change.
“I got the NEPAD foundation document into my hands,” recalls Ms. Musyimi-Ogana. “I rushed to the goals and the second one said that empowering women was a priority. I got excited. Then I flipped the pages to find a plan of action that said concretely what NEPAD would do — one, two and three — for women. There was nothing there.”
The once skeptical activist is today part of NEPAD’s management structure, heading the Gender and Civil Society Organizations Unit formed in 2004 to bring women’s issues into policies, programmes and activities related to the initiative. The unit, based at the NEPAD Secretariat in Johannesburg, South Africa, was created in direct response to recommendations by women’s groups, civil society organizations and other stakeholders.
“Our attitude in protesting was: If you see something missing, help add to it,” Ms. Musyimi-Ogana reflects. “Don’t just complain. While the NEPAD declaration was far from perfect, I saw a commitment, I saw a spirit in it. It is the first time heads of state are committing to Africa voluntarily. This is historic. I said to myself: ‘I am going to support this vision and change things from within if necessary’.”
Monitoring rights
In one of NEPAD’s most innovative initiatives, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), African governments carry out periodic reviews of the policies and practices of participating countries to assess progress in promoting democracy, good governance and economic management. Among other indicators, countries participating in the peer review are required to demonstrate the measures they have taken to promote and protect women’s rights, as well as the laws they have adopted and other steps they may have taken to enhance the participation of women in society. They are expected to back up their claims with figures on the percentages of women in decision-making positions, parliament and so on.
Rwanda has been a leader in the number of women elected to parliament, notes UNIFEM’s Ms. Goetz. The constitution mandates that at least 30 per cent of parliamentary deputies be women, but the strong push to support women candidates during elections has resulted in women holding 49 per cent of seats.
Women dig irrigation canals in Rwanda
Women dig irrigation canals in Rwanda: NEPAD acknowledges that women play the predominant role in food production.
NEPAD’s peer review report on Rwanda, released in 2006, found that in addition to constitutional provisions, “Rwanda has created a plethora of institutions and development programmes to enhance the status and welfare of women in all walks of life.” Inheritance, land, labour and family laws were reformed to address discrimination against women.
Despite the huge strides, the APRM’s country review team reported that women still face many hurdles. For married women to carry out commercial activities, for example, they still need their husband’s permission. Rwanda was advised to address such disparities.
Similar reviews, accompanied by proposals to improve women’s status and opportunities, as well as other recommendations, have also been carried out for Ghana and Kenya. Two dozen other countries are also part of the APRM, and await peer reviews.
Hands on the purse strings
Overall in sub-Saharan Africa, an average 16.8 per cent of parliamentary seats are held by women, close to the world average of 17.1 per cent, according to estimates by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), an international body that serves as a forum for dialogue among legislators.
“Getting women into key positions is critical,” Ms. Goetz points out. “If you have women in public office — though not always the case — they tend to be more sensitive to the needs of female citizens.” The ability of women deputies to bring about real change, however, depends on the stance of their parties and the calibre of the representatives themselves.
Occupying top government posts does not necessarily translate to influence. It is disappointing, the IPU reports, that women are still less likely than men to hold an economic portfolio or to be a country’s top foreign affairs representative.
“The question of women keeps coming back,” notes Augustin Wambo, an agriculture policy expert at the NEPAD Secretariat. He argues that noble goals will be meaningless unless those in positions of power are made aware of women’s needs.
“No matter how many pledges are made,” Mr. Wambo stresses, “unless we empower law-makers to unblock resources from national budgets and put in place the necessary means and policies to support women, the initiative is not going to fly.”
Producers and entrepreneurs
NEPAD’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), completed in 2003, argues that “special attention must be given to the vital food-producing and entrepreneurial roles of women in rural and urban African communities.” The CAADP adds, “African women account for substantial amounts of production in both the informal and formal sectors,” while women entrepreneurs “not only invest in their business but also place high value on social investments in their communities.”
It is estimated that women produce more than half the food crops in most African countries. Studies by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have found, however, that despite women’s dominant role in food security, contemporary laws and traditional customs make it difficult for them to own land or acquire credit. Women also get only a tiny fraction of the professional training provided by agricultural institutions.
In March 2007, the NEPAD Secretariat organized a Southern African regional conference to brief members of parliament on the role they can play in their constituencies to achieve NEPAD’s agriculture goals. The conference emphasized the significance of gender and what can be done to support women farmers.
Networks and think tanks
To ensure that issues affecting women are better reflected in policies and programmes, the NEPAD Secretariat consults with pools of experts across all sectors. In 2005, for example, at a meeting organized by the Kenya-based African Women’s Development Communication Network (FEMNET), representatives from over 40 countries called for a mechanism to respond to gender and civil society matters.
As a result of further consultations, the Civil Society Organizations Think Tank, comprising 60 gender experts from all regions of Africa, was created that same year. Its members are experts in NEPAD’s various priority themes, such as agriculture, education, transportation and health. These experts work with women on the ground, and thus have a good understanding of what ordinary women most need.
Such willingness to consult gender experts, notes Roselynn Musa, a member of the think tank, shows that African leaders now realize that NEPAD’s goals cannot be achieved unless women and girls are able to participate to the best of their abilities. Ms. Musa, a programme officer at FEMNET, believes this is the beginning of a new type of partnership between NEPAD and African women.
“The think tank shows that the NEPAD leaders are aware there was a gap in how they initially planned to do business,” Ms. Musa told Africa Renewal. “They are now trying to fill that gap.” By having a positive impact on daily lives, Ms. Musa adds, NEPAD will become more credible and relevant to African women.
Just a week after defending his doctoral thesis, Hailay Teklehaimanot boarded a flight out of the United States, back to Ethiopia. The 36-year-old physician is one of the few African emigrants who take that journey back home. Many more remain abroad.
More Africans living abroad are keen to use their skills for Africa’s development.
“I defended my thesis on the 7th of August 2004 and flew out on the 15th. I didn’t even go back for the ceremony,” Dr. Teklehaimanot said. “If all the people with skills permanently migrate to the developed world, Africa will go down. America is what it is because of Americans. If we don’t do something for Africa, who will do it for us?”
Some 20,000 professionals migrate out of Africa each year, estimates the International Organization for Migration (IOM), based in Switzerland. This loss of skilled manpower, termed the “brain drain,” is one of the greatest obstacles to Africa’s development.
The vision to lead the continent out of poverty has gathered momentum, spearheaded by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Governments are calling on all Africans, including those in the diaspora, to help claim the 21st century for Africa. More and more professionals are heeding the NEPAD call, leaving thriving careers overseas to bolster a middle class that can help accelerate development in Africa.
The power of an idea
“There is no greater power than an idea whose time has come,” said Mr. Blessing Rugara, a prominent 35-year-old lawyer who left a large law firm in the US and headed to South Africa after 15 years abroad. “I couldn’t think of a better place to be than home at this point in history,” he told Africa Renewal. “The African renaissance vision got hold of leaders across Africa and they, through NEPAD, are insisting on good governance amongst themselves. You see the same vision in that 10-year-old child orphaned by AIDS, but stubbornly insisting on going to school, hoping for something better.”
It is a rare pleasure, Mr. Rugara said, to be part of this developmental transformation. Africa’s future lies in its people, he pointed out, emphasizing that “unless empowered by the people of Africa, the renaissance is largely empty.” In South Africa, he co-founded Cicap Global, a venture that invests additional capital and management into fledgling companies, among them a pharmaceutical firm that manufactures essential drugs.
“The pharmaceutical company will enable an extraordinarily gifted African scientist, Collen Masimirembwa, who returned to Africa from Sweden, to put his medical degree and two PhDs to work for his people. We invested in him, he will invest in others and so the circle grows,” says Mr. Rugara.
Speaking of his own expatriation, Mr. Emeagwali, Nigerian-born but now a US resident, said his American wife and son are his primary reasons for not returning to Africa. “It would be inconsiderate of me to disrupt my wife’s career and my son’s education. Second, I never received invitations from government officials.”
African leaders have already planted the seed for change, Mr. Rugara argues, but that seed has to take root in each individual. He said whether the reasons are purely economic or include other personal factors, the decision comes down to values.
Financing agencies have provided more than $2 mn for NEPAD road, power and other infrastructure projects, and programmes are under way across Africa to improve farm productivity, better protect the environment and strengthen social services. On the external front, Africa’s greatest gain has been in debt relief.
Note to readers:
Plan for a changing Africa
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is still not widely known or well understood across the continent or internationally. With this publication, we hope that you will learn more about NEPAD’s vision and course. We also hope that such knowledge will make it easier for you to join in the efforts to make that vision a reality.
At the turn of the millennium, African leaders and their citizens started looking to the future with renewed hope. The continent had come through decades of economic stagnation, poverty, corruption, authoritarian rule and devastating wars. But the end of the 1990s brought the first signs of a new turn. Some of the region’s most protracted conflicts had begun to wind down. Economic growth rates picked up. And in country after country, pro-democracy movements succeeded in replacing repressive regimes with elected governments. Those positive trends gave rise to a heightened sense of purpose as well: for Africans to take charge of their own future.
Such aspirations for a continent-wide renewal found expression in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Adopted at a July 2001 summit meeting of African heads of state, the plan for the region’s long-term development expressed the determination of African peoples “to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalizing world.” It called for a new relationship between Africa and the international community, in which the non-African partners would seek to complement the region’s own efforts. The United Nations, the major industrialized nations and various donor agencies pledged to extend their support.
Several years after NEPAD’s launch, the plan has registered some notable advances. The articles in this special reprint edition of Africa Renewal provide a glimpse of the changes that NEPAD has introduced and the actions it has promoted, from agriculture and roads to nutrition and education. In line with NEPAD’s principles, African governments have also sought to improve the way they govern and to engage with foreign donors and investors on a more equal footing. Through their continental political organization, the African Union, they are also acting more energetically to try to resolve Africa’s continuing armed conflicts.
The African Union and the NEPAD Secretariat also launched a plan of action for science and technology, to draw on and further develop the knowledge of Africa’s researchers, students, business leaders and villagers. Some of the practical benefits of NEPAD initiatives are already visible, including:
* greater use of digital technologies in the classroom
* the introduction of improved rice and cassava varieties
* enhancements in the nutritional level of school feeding programmes
* the promotion of solar power to lessen reliance on environmentally harmful carbon-based sources of energy.
Self-reliance
Since one of NEPAD’s goals is to bring African countries closer together and promote trade and other exchanges among them, plans to develop regional road, power and other infrastructure networks have been a high priority. But concrete projects have been slow to get off the ground. Not only are the sums needed to build them large, but securing agreement among multiple African governments and foreign financial institutions is a complex undertaking. African planners note that some regional highway projects in Europe have taken years, even decades, to develop and build. But an important aspect of NEPAD is its emphasis on self-reliance. As much as possible, African countries are expected to mobilize more of their own domestic resources, by fighting corruption and waste, promoting local entrepreneurial activities and widening the tax base.
quote:Originally posted by kenndo: African marine cable construction under way TEAMS undersea fiber optic project will link east Africa to the Middle East and the rest of
the world.
By Michael Malakata , IDG News Service
Construction began this week on the 4,500-kilometer East African Marine System (TEAMS) undersea fiber optic project that will link east Africa to the Middle East and the rest of the world, according to government officials.
Alcatel-Lucent will construct the cable, which should be operational in next year's second quarter, for $82 million. The vendor won a tender for the project last year. The cable will provide affordable international broadband connectivity to several countries in east Africa, said Kenyan Minister of Information and Communication
Samuel Paghisio. The cable, Paghisio said, will initially have a capacity of 40GB but will
later be upgraded to 640GB.
"The cable will bring competition on the pricing of bandwidth, which means that
the cost of communication in the region will come down," Paghisio said.
The project is a joint venture between the Kenyan government and the United Arab Emirates government through Etisalat Telecommunication. The two governments own
20 percent shares each in the project. Eighty percent of project shares have been
opened to the private sector.
The cable will run from Mombasa in Kenya to a global network of fiber-optic cables at
Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. The East African region includes Rwanda, Uganda,
Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia.
Kenya is a member of the east African submarine cable system (EASSY), another
submarine cable project that will run parallel to TEAMS project under the Indian Ocean
from Durban, South Africa, to Port Sudan in Sudan and provide high speed Internet
connectivity. The EASSY project will connect 21 countries in the eastern and southern
The multi-lingual computer keyboard, invented by a Nigerian engineer, Mr. Walter Oluwole, has started selling in the United States.
According to Oluwole, based in the U.S., the product, named "Konyin"--meaning honey drops in Yoruba--has attracted encouraging patronage in the
U.S. where a marketing company has bought the right to market it.
"D&H, one of the largest national distributors of computer products in the U.S. has signed an agreement with the management of the Lagos Analysis Corp. (LANCOR) Technologies to market the product in the US," he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the keyboard was unveiled in Nigeria in April last year its commercial sales started in September, 2005. The wireless and multimedia model of the keyboard sells for about $199, while the basic model goes for about $55, according to the company's price list
"We expect the Konyin keyboard to become the de facto standard in PC keyboard in Nigeria and around the globe," Oluwole said. He said that the keyboard was the first complete computer keyboard technology designed to accommodate combined character-sets for multiple language groups on a single keyboard layout.
Oluwole, a native of Sagamu in Ogun State said that he was excited that his invention had gained international acceptance after what he described as several years of disappointments. He said that he had started developing a version of the keyboard to be used in South American and European countries, including Germany, Italy and
France.
The keyboard inventor said that the device had been equipped with characters and tonal marks to type various languages ranging from English,
Spanish, Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba.
"Now that this Nigerian invention is affirmed in the global computer market place, our government should move swiftly to standardise all computer
keyboards imported into Nigeria around the Konyin keyboard," Oluwole added.
He said that the Konyin keyboard was formally presented to the federal government in January this year to popularise it among government agencies.
quote:Originally posted by Myra Wysinger: Entrepreneurship in Africa
Econet Wireless Mobile Phone
Strive Masiyiwa, founder
Econet Wireless (Private) Limited, was established by the Zimbabwean businessman, Strive Masiyiwa, is the cellular network operator and main subsidiary of Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed Econet Wireless Holdings Limited (EWH), a company with interests in telecommunications and other sectors of the Zimbabwean economy.
Econet is the largest telecommunications company in Zimbabwe, with an overall market share of over 61% total mobile sector, and a cellular subscriber base of to 647,652, with revenue of Z$1.8 trillion as of 31st August 2007, the latest published figures available. Econet's market share of the total telecommunications and mobile markets closed the period at 45% and 61% respectively.
Econet is currently upgrading its network capacity from the current 800,000 to over 1.2 million by the end of 2008 and also expects to have launched 3-G services for the first time in Zimbabwe by the end of 2007. Econet Wireless is a diversified telecommunications group with operations in nine countries in Africa, Europe and the East Asia Pacific Rim, offering products and services in the core areas of mobile and fixed telephony services, internet and satellite. With its Ecoweb, the largest independent internet service provider in Zimbabwe, serving both corporate and individual dial-up customers, as well as operating internet cafes across the country and at Econet retail outlets.
Econet will soon introduce the GPRS for all mobile phone users which will allows the mobile subscriber to access data (such as accessing the internet) and transfer data (such as sending a picture message or downloading music) with their mobile phones.
"YourFone" pay phones operators
This is Econet’s pay phone service in Zimbabwe. "YourFone" has community pay phones and also phone shops for individuals to run. The phone shops bring convenience to customers who are not able to own their own handset and line for daily communication. The pay phone offers an opportunity for individuals to financially empower themselves by running their own payphone. These are convenient to the public as they can be found almost everywhere, which brings revenue for the operator.
In line with its Christian-based vision and mission, Econet has a broad strategy for social and community development called "Econet in the Community" through which the company supports diverse range of charitable causes, which include children orphaned by AIDS/HIV, religious and church organizations, as well as an annual scholarship program that provides financial assistance to the brightest students selected from schools in the country's 10 provinces under the Joshua Nkomo Scholarship Fund (JNSF).
The Trust administers a scholarship programme for orphaned children in Zimbabwe. Currently, the Trust is paying school fees and providing other support for over 25,000 orphans across the country.
History
When Strive Masiyiwa returned to newly independent Zimbabwe in 1984, he took a job with the state-owned telephone company. But he grew frustrated with the bureaucracy and formed his own engineering company. He applied to his old bosses for the country's first mobile-phone license yet had to fight them all the way to the supreme court before he could connect his first subscribers in 1998. Two months after its launch, Econet's network had a 45% market share. For beating the establishment, he became a national hero, especially among opposition politicians, who today use cell phones to summon supporters to rallies and alert radio stations to fraud at polling places. His introduction of wireless technology has profited not only Masiyiwa—but also Africa's progress toward democracy.
.
quote:Originally posted by kenndo: Other important industries included sawmills, cigarette factories, breweries, sugar refining, rubber, paper, soap and detergent factories, footwear factories, pharmaceutical plants, tire factories, paint factories, and assembly plants for radios, record
players, and television sets. Nigeria had five state-owned motor-vehicle assembly plants for Volkswagen, Peugeot, and
Mercedes products. Nigeria's motor vehicle production rate increased by 10% in 2000–01.
The cinema of Nigeria is a developing industry that has become increasingly productive in recent years. Although Nigerian films have been produced since the 1960s, the rise of digital cinema has resulted in a growing video film industry. The Nigerian video feature film industry is sometimes colloquially known as
Nollywood. The term is of uncertain date and origin, but is derived from Hollywood in the same manner as Bollywood. According to Hala Gorani and Jeff
Koinange formerly of CNN, Nigeria has a multi-billion dollar movie industry, churning out some 200 "home videos" every month to become the third largest in the world after the United States and India .
Nigeria's financial services
industry is booming
About $2B flowed into the stock exchange last year, drawn by returns
By Deborah Nason
February 18, 2008
Nigeria's capital markets are exploding, thanks to the confluence of foreign and
domestic demand, and a determined governmental focus on reform over the
past five years.
Last year, the Central Bank of Nigeria launched an ambitious
"engineer Nigeria's evolution into an international financial center "Nigeria has Dubai-like ambitions," said Marc Zeepvat,
research director for
Trans-National Research
Corp. in Ramsey, N.J., a
macro research firm for hedge
funds and institutions. His
company led a delegation of portfolio managers that visited Nigeria in
made Helicopter October 27, 2007 Early this year, twas Aliyu Jelani, originally from Sokoto state Nigeria that did Nigeria Proud with his state of the art electric Chevy Volt car, in the USA news This time, its a 24-year old Physics student. His name is Mubarak Muhammad
Abdullahi
KANO (AFP) - Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi, a 24-year-old physics
undergraduate in northern Nigeria, takes old cars and motorbikes to pieces in
the back yard at home and builds his own helicopters from the parts.
The cockpit consists of a push-button ignition, an accelerator lever between the seats which controls vertical thrust, a joystick that provides balance and bearing.----
Arms Procurement and Defense Industries
On its silver anniversary April 22, 1989, the air force unveiled and conducted a test flight of a prototype of Nigeria's first domestically built aircraft, the Air Beetle. Jointly built over two years by the NAF and a West German Kaduna-based firm from the design of the United States Van RV-6 sport aircraft, the Air Beetle had the unique feature of being able to fly on standard automobile fuel. This two-seat,
single engine airplane was intended to be the primary trainer for the NAF, replacing the aging British Bulldog trainers. The production program called for sixty units by 1992 and eventual development of an improved version, the Super Air Beetle. In early 1990, the first export orders were reported, and forty aircraft of the first production run were scheduled for delivery to foreign customers.
Punch press with operators Courtesy Embassy of Nigeria, Washington
Nigeria MANUFACTURING
While agriculture's relative share of GDP was falling, manufacturing's contribution rose from 4.4 percent in FY 1959 to 9.4 percent in 1970, before falling during the oil boom to 7.0 percent in 1973, increasing
to 11.4 percent in 1981, and declining to 10.0 percent in 1988. Whereas manufacturing increased rapidly during the 1970s, tariff manipulations encouraged the expansion of assembly activities dependent on
imported inputs; these activities contributed little to indigenous value added or to employment, and reduced subsequent industrial growth. The manufacturing sector produced a range of goods that included
products, tires, tubes, plastics, cement, glass, bricks, tiles, metal goods, agricultural machinery, household electrical appliances, radios, motor vehicles, and jewelry.
The Nigerian Enterprises Promotion decrees of 1972, 1977, and 1981, by limiting foreign ownership shares in various industries, shifted the manufacturing sector from foreign majority ownership in the 1960s
to indigenous majority ownership in the mid-1970s and late 1970s. Businesspeople participated in economic policymaking, influencing the government's implementation of indigenization. "Nigerianization," in
which foreigners were obligated to sell ownership shares to Nigerians, became an instrument by which a few civil servants, military leaders, businesspeople, and professionals amassed considerable wealth. In
1985 the government selectively relaxed the indigenization decrees to encourage foreign investment in neglected areas, such as large-scale agrobusiness and manufacturing that used local resources. After
March 1988, foreign investors were allowed to increase their holdings in a number of other sectors.
Data as of June 1991
is this old info.
from ayanfe from nairaland.com quote-
However, you overlook the fact that there are Nigerian high tech companies who were allowed to prosper in Nigeria. Take for example the Nigerian
Computer Manufacturing companies, which recently unveiled a plasma TV. Yes we are short sighted and narrow minded as a nation. However,
sometimes the feasibility of some products just scares potential investors away. Robotics is the way of the future. Japan is pumping billions to
monopolise an industry that is being likened to the PC revolution of the 80s. I still believe that there is a future for robotics in Nigeria, and robotics
rather car manufacturing will bring us more prestige.
ayanfe (m) nairaland.com
quote:Originally posted by kenndo: i said some of it.nigeria is making cars,they have a ship building industry,electronic and computer industry,etc.
quote:Originally posted by kenndo: African marine cable construction under way TEAMS undersea fiber optic project will link east Africa to the Middle East and the rest of
the world.
By Michael Malakata , IDG News Service
Construction began this week on the 4,500-kilometer East African Marine System (TEAMS) undersea fiber optic project that will link east Africa to the Middle East and the rest of the world, according to government officials.
Alcatel-Lucent will construct the cable, which should be operational in next year's second quarter, for $82 million. The vendor won a tender for the project last year. The cable will provide affordable international broadband connectivity to several countries in east Africa, said Kenyan Minister of Information and Communication
Samuel Paghisio. The cable, Paghisio said, will initially have a capacity of 40GB but will
later be upgraded to 640GB.
"The cable will bring competition on the pricing of bandwidth, which means that
the cost of communication in the region will come down," Paghisio said.
The project is a joint venture between the Kenyan government and the United Arab Emirates government through Etisalat Telecommunication. The two governments own
20 percent shares each in the project. Eighty percent of project shares have been
opened to the private sector.
The cable will run from Mombasa in Kenya to a global network of fiber-optic cables at
Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. The East African region includes Rwanda, Uganda,
Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia.
Kenya is a member of the east African submarine cable system (EASSY), another
submarine cable project that will run parallel to TEAMS project under the Indian Ocean
from Durban, South Africa, to Port Sudan in Sudan and provide high speed Internet
connectivity. The EASSY project will connect 21 countries in the eastern and southern
The multi-lingual computer keyboard, invented by a Nigerian engineer, Mr. Walter Oluwole, has started selling in the United States.
According to Oluwole, based in the U.S., the product, named "Konyin"--meaning honey drops in Yoruba--has attracted encouraging patronage in the
U.S. where a marketing company has bought the right to market it.
"D&H, one of the largest national distributors of computer products in the U.S. has signed an agreement with the management of the Lagos Analysis Corp. (LANCOR) Technologies to market the product in the US," he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the keyboard was unveiled in Nigeria in April last year its commercial sales started in September, 2005. The wireless and multimedia model of the keyboard sells for about $199, while the basic model goes for about $55, according to the company's price list
"We expect the Konyin keyboard to become the de facto standard in PC keyboard in Nigeria and around the globe," Oluwole said. He said that the keyboard was the first complete computer keyboard technology designed to accommodate combined character-sets for multiple language groups on a single keyboard layout.
Oluwole, a native of Sagamu in Ogun State said that he was excited that his invention had gained international acceptance after what he described as several years of disappointments. He said that he had started developing a version of the keyboard to be used in South American and European countries, including Germany, Italy and
France.
The keyboard inventor said that the device had been equipped with characters and tonal marks to type various languages ranging from English,
Spanish, Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba.
"Now that this Nigerian invention is affirmed in the global computer market place, our government should move swiftly to standardise all computer
keyboards imported into Nigeria around the Konyin keyboard," Oluwole added.
He said that the Konyin keyboard was formally presented to the federal government in January this year to popularise it among government agencies.
there is a book series that i got from the library a few times and they explain that most industries are controlled by africans in africa.i can't rememebr the titlen ow but i did post it beforebut it is a book dealing with mostly modern africa.
posted
the post above and here are for those who want to read a more balance and truthful picture of africa.i am done with the unfaithful and those who tell lies.this is for those who are newto this forum and want to get a more balance view.this is really it and after this i am gone.i been up all night finding this info,so i am done and not reading anymore comments.
this is a good article on what i have been trying to say all along. if folks do not believe,than believe what this man is saying.if you still do not believe then thier is nothing for here because my mind is made up with the facts. this is it.so don't bother to reply because i had it and i will not come back to this thread.i have books to read now an work to do.bye.
What Bono doesn't say about Africa By William Easterly, WILLIAM EASTERLY is a professor of economics at New York University, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of "The White Man's Burden: How the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have July 6, 2007
JUST WHEN IT SEEMED that Western images of Africa could not get any weirder, the July 2007 special Africa issue of Vanity Fair was published, complete with a feature article on "Madonna's Malawi." At the same time, the memoirs of an African child soldier are on sale at your local Starbucks, and celebrity activist Bob Geldof is touring Africa yet again, followed by TV cameras, to document that "War, Famine, Plague & Death are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and these days they're riding hard through the back roads of Africa." It's a dark and scary picture of a helpless, backward continent that's being offered up to TV watchers and coffee drinkers. But in fact, the real Africa is quite a bit different. And the problem with all this Western stereotyping is that it manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of some current victories, fueling support for patronizing Western policies designed to rescue the allegedly helpless African people while often discouraging those policies that might actually help.
Let's begin with those rampaging Four Horsemen. Do they really explain Africa today? What percentage of the African population would you say dies in war every year? What share of male children, age 10 to 17, are child soldiers? How many Africans are afflicted by famine or died of AIDS last year or are living as refugees?
In each case, the answer is one-half of 1% of the population or less. In some cases it's much less; for example, annual war deaths have averaged 1 out of every 10,800 Africans for the last four decades. That doesn't lessen the tragedy, of course, of those who are such victims, and maybe there are things the West can do to help them. But the typical African is a long way from being a starving, AIDS-stricken refugee at the mercy of child soldiers. The reality is that many more Africans need latrines than need Western peacekeepers — but that doesn't play so well on TV.
Further distortions of Africa emanate from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's star-studded Africa Progress Panel (which includes the ubiquitous Geldof). The panel laments in its 2007 news release that Africa remains "far short" of its goal of making "substantial inroads into poverty reduction." But this doesn't quite square with the sub-Saharan Africa that in 2006 registered its third straight year of good GDP growth — about 6%, well above historic averages for either today's rich countries or all developing countries. Growth of living standards in the last five years is the highest in Africa's history.
The real Africa also has seen cellphone and Internet use double every year for the last seven years. Foreign private capital inflows into Africa hit $38 billion in 2006 — more than foreign aid. Africans are saving a higher percentage of their incomes than Americans are (so much for the "poverty trap" of being "too poor to save" endlessly repeated in aid reports). I agree that it's too soon to conclude that Africa is on a stable growth track, but why not celebrate what Africans have already achieved?
Instead, the international development establishment is rigging the game to make Africa — which is, of course, still very poor — look even worse than it really is. It announces, for instance, that Africa is the only region that is failing to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs in aid-speak) set out by the United Nations. Well, it takes extraordinary growth to cut extreme poverty rates in half by 2015 (the first goal) when a near-majority of the population is poor, as is the case in Africa. (Latin America, by contrast, requires only modest growth to halve its extreme poverty rate from 10% to 5%.) This is how Blair's panel managed to call Africa's recent growth successes a failure. But the reality is that virtually all other countries that have escaped extreme poverty did so through the kind of respectable growth that Africa is enjoying — not the kind of extraordinary growth that would have been required to meet the arbitrary Millennium Development Goals.
Africa will also fail to meet the second goal of universal primary education by 2015. But this goal is also rigged against Africa, because Africa started with an unusually low percentage of children enrolled in elementary school. As economist Michael Clemens points out, most African countries have actually expanded enrollments far more rapidly over the last five decades than Western countries did during their development, but Africans still won't reach the arbitrary aid target of universal enrollment by 2015. For example, the World Bank condemned Burkina Faso in 2003 as "seriously off track" to meet the second MDG, yet the country has expanded elementary education at more than twice the rate of Western historical experience, and it is even far above the faster educational expansions of all other developing countries in recent decades.
Why do aid organizations and their celebrity backers want to make African successes look like failures? One can only speculate, but it certainly helps aid agencies get more publicity and more money if problems seem greater than they are. As for the stars — well, could Africa be saving celebrity careers more than celebrities are saving Africa?
In truth, Africans are and will be escaping poverty the same way everybody else did: through the efforts of resourceful entrepreneurs, democratic reformers and ordinary citizens at home, not through PR extravaganzas of ill-informed outsiders.
The real Africa needs increased trade from the West more than it needs more aid handouts. A respected Ugandan journalist, Andrew Mwenda, made this point at a recent African conference despite the fact that the world's most famous celebrity activist — Bono — was attempting to shout him down. Mwenda was suffering from too much reality for Bono's taste: "What man or nation has ever become rich by holding out a begging bowl?" asked Mwenda.
Perhaps Bono was grouchy because his celebrity-laden "Red" campaign to promote Western brands to finance begging bowls for Africa has spent $100 million on marketing and generated sales of only $18 million, according to a recent report. But the fact remains that the West shows a lot more interest in begging bowls than in, say, letting African cotton growers compete fairly in Western markets (see the recent collapse of world trade talks).
Today, as I sip my Rwandan gourmet coffee and wear my Nigerian shirt here in New York, and as European men eat fresh Ghanaian pineapple for breakfast and bring Kenyan flowers home to their wives, I wonder what it will take for Western consumers to learn even more about the products of self-sufficient, hardworking, dignified Africans. Perhaps they should spend less time consuming Africa disaster stereotypes from television and Vanity Fair.
-------------------------------------------------
my comments- overall very good article. one point however,in terms of gnp ppp most african nations are middle-income now but most being in low-middle income camp for now.so most will still be poor but not poor like thier were before.they would be poor with more money some are high middle income today,some are low income and a few are rich like gabon and a few others. this is proof that poverty is being reduce and progress is happening overall.
posted
Kenndo, you post all this stuff about mines and industries. I never said there were NO mines or industries in Africa. I said that FEW of them are OWNED or CONTROLLED by blacks. ALL THOSE POSTS only confirm what I said.
I asked you to show me ONE large industrial company OWNED by blacks. ONE. And you still haven't. You have posted ALL THAT and still haven't provided the answer. You are happy with statistics that HIDE the fact that BLACKS do not control the ECONOMY of Africa and that therefore MOST of the increase in GDP and PROFITS is going to FOREIGNERS not Africans.
I still am waiting for you to provide ONE LARGE INDUSTRIAL COMPANY owned by blacks in Africa. JUST ONE.
Then show me ONE large resort owned by blacks. Not part owned, not MANAGED and not invested in, OWNED by blacks, meaning over 60% ownership. Not 15%, 30%, or some other PORTION.
Just list those TWO things. It doesn't require 8 posts to do it.
Agriculture dominates the economy, providing more than 60% of GDP and 80% of employment.
[edit] Agriculture
Agriculture dominates the economy, providing more than 60% of GDP and 80% of employment.
[edit] Industry
Accounting for only about 10% of GDP, Tanzania's industrial sector is one of the smallest in
Africa.
SO SEE THE ECONOMY IS DOMINATED STILL BY AGRICULTURE AND IT'S IN THE HANDS OF AFRICANS.NOT CONTROL OR OWNED BY OUTSIDERS. GIVE ME STATE SOURCES AND FACTS ,NOT opinions from outsiders or just writers who write in newspapers.
How does that REFUTE what I said? The thread you are responding to SAYS THE SAME THING:
quote: Tanzania is a rich resource country with almost every God given natural resources, raw materials, mining and sources of water. Tanzania is rich in gold, diamond, and the only country blessed for the most valuable stone in the Hollywood nowadays, Tanzanite.
Tanzania is not a landlocked country, which cuts cost for export and import of goods through our sources of water; the Indian ocean, the second world largest fresh water body, lake Victoria, and the second world deepest body of water, lake Tanganyika.
Forty five years after independence, Tanzania continues to depend heavily on agriculture, which accounts for about half of the GDP, about 82 percent of country export and 80 percent of the work force.
In this 21st century of science and technology, Tanzanians still lack any form of agricultural revolution, revolution that would have improved farming tools and introduced new farming technologies and hence increase productivity.
Local farmers continue to depend on a simple structure to cultivate the land, a hoe.
So WHAT are you showing as being incorrect? Are you DESPERATE to believe a fantasy? 10% of Tanzanias economy is industrial and that 10% is controlled by whites and foreigners.
FACT:
The largest gold producer in Tanzania IS NOT RUN BY BLACKS.
The same goes for Tanzanite, Platinum and the other resources in Tanzania. So WHAT on earth are you talking about?
MOST of Tanzania's MINING sector is RUN BY FOREIGNERS, who make MOST of the profits.
I posted the data on these companies.
Now SHOW ME how these facts are incorrect.
Stop hiding behind statistics and DEAL with the facts.
Tanzania Mainland celebrated its 44th Independence Anniversary on 9th December, 2005. The press, including The Guardian, published success history of various sectors of the economy.
Ernest C. Ambali, gives, in a nutshell, development in the mining sector since the German era, through the British to date.
Tanzania’s minerals boom continues to grow fast, with gold production leading, moving the country towards a place in the world league of gold producers.
This means awakening one of the economic sleeping giants in Africa, although it has ’’come lately.’’ Yet, within a period of 10 years of vigorous performance of eight large mining firms, the giant known as Tanzania, is becoming an economic power to reckon with on the continent.
It is an obvious truth that these mines are spoiling the natural beauty of areas that are producing the precious minerals like gold, diamonds leaving ’’canyons’’ or quarries.
But how else do you eat the yellow yolk of an egg if you do not break its shell? You cannot eat the nitrous yolk by singing good songs. You must, break its shell - the earth - to get the precious minerals.
For many years Tanzania has been singing good songs that ’’we have gold, diamonds and other minerals’’ yet we could not break the shell - the earth - to produce the precious minerals.
And indeed, are we not aware of the fact that the country’s flag has a diagonal strip of yellow, representing minerals?.
We forget that when we pray fervently for the rains, we should tolerate the heavy mud as said in Kiswahili ’’ukililia mvua vumilia matope’’.
Already Tanzania is placed third after Ghana with South Africa taking the first place in Africa in gold production.
Gold production in Tanzania is led by the Geita Gold Mine (GGM) nestling in Mwanza Region. The GGM has an annual production of 650,000 ounces from its open cast mine, which commenced production in the year 2000.
The GGM is rated not only as the country’s biggest gold mine but is also one of the biggest gold producers in Africa.
The runnerup in mineral production is the famous open cast Williamson Diamonds Limited in Shinyanga Region which has an annual yield of 221,000 carats of diamonds.
Some of the gold mining companies which have invested in mineral production are the underground Kahama Mining Corporation which has an annual yield of 400,000 ounces, the open cast North Mara Gold Mine producing about 300,000 ounces of gold annually; the open cast Buhemba Gold Mine with a yearly production of 80,000 ounces.
The other is the Tulawaka Gold Project which produces about 100,000 ounces every year from its open cast mine.
While these mines are producing JOBS for blacks, they are not providing REAL WEALTH for the blacks. WEALTH comes from PROFITS, not just jobs. So yes, the blacks get jobs, but that is nothing more than menial labor that the WHITES have ALWAYS INTENDED for the blacks to do. The whole goal is to get the PROFITS from the sale of gold, diamonds and other minerals and to USE those profits to further EXPAND and GROW WHITE OWNED industrial and MINING conglomerates world wide and INCREASE the wealth of those WHITES who control such operations. BLACKS have to come up with the SAME strategy for their OWN resources and stop letting every one else get AHEAD off their labor, land and resources, while BLACKS stay poor and NOT in control of their OWN large scale mining and industrial interests, generating WEALTH for blacks and GROWING black industries.
The corporate "family tree" of the TanzaniteOne corporation, which is the PRIMARY producer of Tanzanite in Tanzania.
It reflects the fact that it is a WEB of related industries controlled by SOUTH AFRICAN WHITES, Arabs, Israelis and others who are BEHIND the international trade in gemstones. BLACKS do the hard work and sell their RAW stones at an UNFAIR PRICE at the BOTTOM of the pyramid, while these OTHER entities make ALL THE MONEY off the trade and sale of "processed" minerals. Blacks DO NOT get the fair market price as listed on the commodity exchange for these minerals. This is the same situation THROUGHOUT Africa. It is all about Africans getting FAIR MARKET PRICE for the RAW ORE and RAW MINERALS they extract versus FOREIGNERS getting all the money in TRADING these products, at MUCH HIGHER PRICES than what they paid to the Africans.
Note how these people are ALL BASED OUTSIDE of Tanzania. What does that mean? The MONEY is going OUTSIDE Tanzania and that Tanzanian BLACKS have LITTLE control over this MONEY.
Look at the following description of one of the principles:
quote: Involved right from the outset of Kilimanjaro Mining Company, Heidi Kalenuik has an extensive background in the precious mineral industry. This includes seven years experience in the diamond industry in South Africa. Owning and operating a multi-million dollar diamond company and cutting works, taking diamonds from rough to polished precious stones and finally into the marketplace. Vast experience in travel through Africa to develop business relations and manage African business interests. Trading of African precious stones and gold with European and Asian entities. Three years administrative experience, working with over 150 private and public companies in British Columbia, Canada. The companies ranged from start up to Fortune 500 including a number of resource companies.
WHITE South African who is pushing gems to Asia and Europe and MAKING BIG MONEY. Same thing they have been doing for the last 100 years. NO BLACKS in this picture. BLACKS should be pushing THEIR OWN gems and minerals to the rest of the world MAKING THE MONEY FOR THEMSELVES. But this is EXACTLY what the folks behind DeBeers and other such RACIST firms have intended ALL ALONG. This is NOTHING DIFFERENT.
THAT is why AFRICANS STAY POOR, because the WHOLE MINERAL and MINING sector is BASED AROUND INTERNATIONAL trade of AFRICAN minerals that DOES NOT INVOLVE BLACKS MAKING ANY MONEY off the trade OF THEIR OWN RESOURCES. A WHOLE INDUSTRY based on making PROFITS off BLACK RESOURCES while BLACKS get little or NOTHING. It is nothing BUT WELFARE for WHITES, INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE WELFARE for everybody BUT blacks.
Almost ALL of these mining and industrial interests have ties to the WHITE political and economic establishment of the West, from the United States and Canada to Britain, France and Belgium. ALL of them are tied to the same international system of banking and commerce that is BASED ON the exploitation of BLACKS and other natives AROUND THE WORLD. This is all part of the network of white ECONOMIC supremacy that is the basis for the wars and destruction of MILLIONS of lives over the last few hundred years. It is this SAME system that has you believing in the WHITE corporate, cultural, religious system of POWER and CONTROL as your SAVIOR when it isn't. It is time for a REAL CHANGE and for blacks to put themselves FIRST and stop believing that by taking a BACKSEAT to everyone ELSE'S well being, they are somehow being RIGHTEOUS. Being RIGHTEOUS means STANDING UP for those who are being oppressed, not the oppressor. This means that instead of Africans BEGGING for the SAME INTERNATIONAL system of industry to come in AND CONTINUE EXPLOITING THEM, they need to start having a goal of BUILDING THEIR OWN CORPORATE AND INDUSTRIAL sector, with the AIM of INCREASING the WEALTH and POWER of BLACK OWNED companies and the PROSPERITY of BLACK COMMUNITIES and NATIONS through a GREATER control of the WEALTH from their OWN RESOURCES.
Posts: 8896 | Registered: May 2005
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WRONG.HOWCOULD THE OUTSIDERS GET ALL THE MONEY IF THE ECONOMY IS GETTING LARGER IN TAZNZANIA AND ALL OTHER AFRICAN STATES.YOU DO NOT MAKE ANY SENSE DUDE. THERE ARE MANY OTHER BUSINESS AND INDUSTRIES NOT CONTROL BY OUTSIDES IN TANZANIA AND THE REST OF AFRICA.I THOUGHT ZIMBABWE TOOK OVER THOSE INDUSTRIES FROM THE WHITE.YOU KEEP FORGETTING THAT ONE TOO,YOU AND YOUR BLANKET INCORRECT STATEMENTS.YOU ARE A SELF HATING BLACKMAN.YOU WANT WHITES TO STILL CONTROL SO YOU COULD COMPLAIN.YOU LIE,YOU ARE LIKE HILLARY.YOU CAN'T HELP IT. I GAVE YOU FACTS OVER THE MONTHS AND YEARS AND YOU STILL CAN'T PROCESS THE INFO THAT IS CORRECT AND UPDATED.YOU ARE A LOSS CAUSE AND I CAN'T HELP YOU ANYMORE LEX LUTHOR.WHEN IT COME TO HISTORY I COULD AGREE WITH YOU TO A CERTAIN EXTENT SO STICK WITH HISTORY.
YOU WANT ONE LARGE INDUSTRY OWN AND CONTROLLED BY BLACKS OR MOSTLY -
HERE ONE The cinema of Nigeria is a developing industry that has become increasingly productive in recent years. -OWN BY BLACKS PERIOD AND IT IS THE 3RD LARGEST FILM INDUSTRY IN THE WORLD.
HERE TWO-
"D&H, one of the largest national distributors of computer products in the U.S. has signed an agreement with the management of the Lagos Analysis-- The multi-lingual computer keyboard, invented by a Nigerian engineer, Mr. Walter Oluwole, has started selling in the United States.
HERE THREE- Econet largest
telecommunications company
NIGERIAN COMPUTER AND CHIPS INDUSTRY/ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY.
IVORY COAST ELECTRONIC INDUSTRY. THESE LARGE CORPARATIONS ARE OWNED AND CONTROL BY BLACKS. --------------------------- FOR NIGERIA THERE IS A LOT FOR AN EXAMPLE-CONTROL BY BLACKS PERIOD-
Other important industries included sawmills, cigarette factories, breweries, sugar refining, rubber, paper, soap and detergent Nigeria had five state-owned motor-vehicle assembly plants for Volkswagen, Peugeot, and Mercedes products. Nigeria's motor vehicle production rate increased by 10% in 2000–01.
factories, footwear factories, pharmaceutical plants, tire factories, paint factories, and assembly plants for radios, record
Nigeria has a space agency: CONTROL BY BLACKS PERIOD
nigerian bus Industry -CONTROL BY BLACKS
Automobile Industry of Zimbabwe-CONTROL BY BLACKS
SORRY I GOT CARRIED AWAY,YOU JUST WANT ONE BUT I GAVE YOU SOME IN SOME AFRICAN STATES.I AM NOT GOING TO POST EVERY STATE AND EVERY CORPORATION BECAUSE YOU NEED TO READ ALL OTHER POST CAREFULLY FROM BEFORE .YOU KEEP TELLING LIES,STRAIGHT UP ANF I KEEP RESPONDING AND IT SEEMS NOT TO HELP YOU BUT ONLY MAKES YOU MORE WORSE AND I AM NOT FALLING FOR IT ANYMORE.
CONTACT THE COUNTRIES YOURSELF MAN YOU HAVE FINGERS.GET THE INFO FROM THERE EMBASSIES AND STOP BOTHERING ME.YOU ARE BECOMING A PESS NOW.
IN MOST AFRICAN COUNTRIES AFRICANS OWN OR MOSTLY OWN THE INDUSTRIESOR BOTH.LOOK UP THEIR MAJOR CORPORATIONS CONTACT THEM AND FIND OUT WHO OWNS IT FOR YOURSELF BECAUSE THERE ARE MANY BUSINESS AND I AM NOT YOUR SLAVE.YOU HAVE AN AGENDA AND EVEN IF I SHOW YOU THE PICTURES OF THE PEOPLE THAT OWN THESE CORPORATIONS YOU WILL STILL WILL DENY THEY ARE OWNED BY BLACKS OR MOSTLY BY THEM OR BOTH I POSTED SOME PICTURES BEFORE AND YOU CHOSE TO DENY THEM.SOMETHING IS REALLY WRONG WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU DO NOT LISTEN.I REALLY DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY TO YOU ANYMORE ON THIS .YOU ARE TRULY A BITTER MAN GO VISIT SOME OF THESE PLACES IF YOU EVER HAVE TIME.BYE
THIS LINK YOU POST DOES NOT PROVE THAT OUTSIDERS CONTROL MOST OF THE INDUSTRIES.STOP ALREADY.AND THIS IS NOT DATA.POST DATA FROM THE COUNTRY ITSELF.NOT JUST NEWPAPERS LIKE I DID.
the post above and here are for those who want to read a more balance and truthful picture of africa.i am done with the unfaithful and those who tell lies.this is for those who are newto this forum and want to get a more balance view.this is really it and after this i am gone.i been up all night finding this info,so i am done and not reading anymore comments.
this is a good article on what i have been trying to say all along. if folks do not believe,than believe what this man is saying.if you still do not believe then thier is nothing for here because my mind is made up with the facts. this is it.so don't bother to reply because i had it and i will not come back to this thread.i have books to read now an work to do.bye.
What Bono doesn't say about Africa By William Easterly, WILLIAM EASTERLY is a professor of economics at New York University, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of "The White Man's Burden: How the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have July 6, 2007
JUST WHEN IT SEEMED that Western images of Africa could not get any weirder, the July 2007 special Africa issue of Vanity Fair was published, complete with a feature article on "Madonna's Malawi." At the same time, the memoirs of an African child soldier are on sale at your local Starbucks, and celebrity activist Bob Geldof is touring Africa yet again, followed by TV cameras, to document that "War, Famine, Plague & Death are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and these days they're riding hard through the back roads of Africa." It's a dark and scary picture of a helpless, backward continent that's being offered up to TV watchers and coffee drinkers. But in fact, the real Africa is quite a bit different. And the problem with all this Western stereotyping is that it manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of some current victories, fueling support for patronizing Western policies designed to rescue the allegedly helpless African people while often discouraging those policies that might actually help.
Let's begin with those rampaging Four Horsemen. Do they really explain Africa today? What percentage of the African population would you say dies in war every year? What share of male children, age 10 to 17, are child soldiers? How many Africans are afflicted by famine or died of AIDS last year or are living as refugees?
In each case, the answer is one-half of 1% of the population or less. In some cases it's much less; for example, annual war deaths have averaged 1 out of every 10,800 Africans for the last four decades. That doesn't lessen the tragedy, of course, of those who are such victims, and maybe there are things the West can do to help them. But the typical African is a long way from being a starving, AIDS-stricken refugee at the mercy of child soldiers. The reality is that many more Africans need latrines than need Western peacekeepers — but that doesn't play so well on TV.
Further distortions of Africa emanate from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's star-studded Africa Progress Panel (which includes the ubiquitous Geldof). The panel laments in its 2007 news release that Africa remains "far short" of its goal of making "substantial inroads into poverty reduction." But this doesn't quite square with the sub-Saharan Africa that in 2006 registered its third straight year of good GDP growth — about 6%, well above historic averages for either today's rich countries or all developing countries. Growth of living standards in the last five years is the highest in Africa's history.
The real Africa also has seen cellphone and Internet use double every year for the last seven years. Foreign private capital inflows into Africa hit $38 billion in 2006 — more than foreign aid. Africans are saving a higher percentage of their incomes than Americans are (so much for the "poverty trap" of being "too poor to save" endlessly repeated in aid reports). I agree that it's too soon to conclude that Africa is on a stable growth track, but why not celebrate what Africans have already achieved?
Instead, the international development establishment is rigging the game to make Africa — which is, of course, still very poor — look even worse than it really is. It announces, for instance, that Africa is the only region that is failing to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs in aid-speak) set out by the United Nations. Well, it takes extraordinary growth to cut extreme poverty rates in half by 2015 (the first goal) when a near-majority of the population is poor, as is the case in Africa. (Latin America, by contrast, requires only modest growth to halve its extreme poverty rate from 10% to 5%.) This is how Blair's panel managed to call Africa's recent growth successes a failure. But the reality is that virtually all other countries that have escaped extreme poverty did so through the kind of respectable growth that Africa is enjoying — not the kind of extraordinary growth that would have been required to meet the arbitrary Millennium Development Goals.
Africa will also fail to meet the second goal of universal primary education by 2015. But this goal is also rigged against Africa, because Africa started with an unusually low percentage of children enrolled in elementary school. As economist Michael Clemens points out, most African countries have actually expanded enrollments far more rapidly over the last five decades than Western countries did during their development, but Africans still won't reach the arbitrary aid target of universal enrollment by 2015. For example, the World Bank condemned Burkina Faso in 2003 as "seriously off track" to meet the second MDG, yet the country has expanded elementary education at more than twice the rate of Western historical experience, and it is even far above the faster educational expansions of all other developing countries in recent decades.
Why do aid organizations and their celebrity backers want to make African successes look like failures? One can only speculate, but it certainly helps aid agencies get more publicity and more money if problems seem greater than they are. As for the stars — well, could Africa be saving celebrity careers more than celebrities are saving Africa?
In truth, Africans are and will be escaping poverty the same way everybody else did: through the efforts of resourceful entrepreneurs, democratic reformers and ordinary citizens at home, not through PR extravaganzas of ill-informed outsiders.
The real Africa needs increased trade from the West more than it needs more aid handouts. A respected Ugandan journalist, Andrew Mwenda, made this point at a recent African conference despite the fact that the world's most famous celebrity activist — Bono — was attempting to shout him down. Mwenda was suffering from too much reality for Bono's taste: "What man or nation has ever become rich by holding out a begging bowl?" asked Mwenda.
Perhaps Bono was grouchy because his celebrity-laden "Red" campaign to promote Western brands to finance begging bowls for Africa has spent $100 million on marketing and generated sales of only $18 million, according to a recent report. But the fact remains that the West shows a lot more interest in begging bowls than in, say, letting African cotton growers compete fairly in Western markets (see the recent collapse of world trade talks).
Today, as I sip my Rwandan gourmet coffee and wear my Nigerian shirt here in New York, and as European men eat fresh Ghanaian pineapple for breakfast and bring Kenyan flowers home to their wives, I wonder what it will take for Western consumers to learn even more about the products of self-sufficient, hardworking, dignified Africans. Perhaps they should spend less time consuming Africa disaster stereotypes from television and Vanity Fair.
-------------------------------------------------
my comments- overall very good article. one point however,in terms of gnp ppp most african nations are middle-income now but most being in low-middle income camp for now.so most will still be poor but not poor like thier were before.they would be poor with more money some are high middle income today,some are low income and a few are rich like gabon and a few others. this is proof that poverty is being reduce and progress is happening overall.
posted
I did post the data Kenndo. The gold and mineral sector of Tanzania is run by whites. YOU just see blacks WORKING there and think that they RUN the companies. THEY DONT. Just because blacks are in the GOVERNMENT don't mean they OWN the companies.
Stop DENYING and IGNORING the facts.
You STILL haven't posted one MAJOR INDUSTRIAL COMPANY owned and controlled by blacks. I don't want statistics. NAME THE COMPANY and PROVIDE A LINK to the COMPANY.
I can PROVIDE links to the MAJOR MINING companies in Tanzania and they ARE NOT RUN BY BLACKS.
YOU just keep denying it.
Here is the link again since you keep ignoring it:
The GOVERNMENT of Tanzania is ENCOURAGING foreigners to COME to Tanzania and MAKE MONEY. It is NOT encouraging BLACKS to MAKE MONEY through OWNERSHIP, CONTROL, PROCESSING and SALE of THEIR OWN resources.
The MINING and GEMSTONE industry is an INTERNATIONAL industry OWNED AND CONTROLLED by WHITES, ASIANS and to some degree Arabs. BLACKS both in Africa, India and ELSEWHERE make up the BULK of the LOW PAGE LABORERS.
quote: Cobuy, a renowned house of jewelry based in South Korea, has fallen in love with tanzanite.
They are now in the country to asses the possibility of investing in the blue gemstones, which are mined at Mererani in Manyara Region.
A five-man delegation from the Seoul-based firm was in Mererani over the weekend in order to negotiate with a local firm on plans to transfer modern lapidary technology, among other wide potential investment items.
`We are here to see whether we can set up a modern lapidary plant on joint venture basis with a local firm,` said Cobuy President Jae-Hyung Kwon at Mererani.
If all goes well, the project will end the concern of small-scale tanzanite miners about the exportation of raw Tanzanite gemstones because they lose a lot of money through the process.
The Korean firm`s delegation has signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Dar es Salaam with Interstate Mining Tanzania�s Chief Executive Officer Henry Nyiti.
They later they paid a visit to Mererani to check the possibility of working together with local miners in buying, polishing and marketing of tanzanite gemstone.
The Cobuy management has heeded a call made by President Jakaya Kikwete for South Korean giant investors to come to Tanzania and seek for possibilities of investing in various sectors.
President Kikwete visited South Korea towards the end of last year. The President was accompanied by a group of local miners and mineral dealers.
The Cobuy chief said that his company planned to train local Tanzanite miners on how to cut and polish tanzanite at internationally recognized standards.
`Having held a wide range of talks with Prime Minister Edward Lowassa and some ministers, we were informed of tax procedures followed by investors. We are convinced that we shall come back to invest in Tanzania,` Kwon said.
Tanzanite was first discovered in 1967 in north of the country. As one of the newest and most exotically colored gemstones, it is part of the zoisite mineral species and is only found in East Africa.
The government announced in 2003 that it would ensure that all tanzanite gemstones would be locally processed before being exported come 2005.
`However, two years and half down the line, the government has done nothing to enforce its decision,` said the Chairman of Tanzania Mineral Dealers Association, Sammy Mollel.
Mollel said at the moment, 80 per cent of licensed tanzanite dealers owned two or three cutting and polishing machineries.
`We are prepared and are capable of adding value to our products,` he said.
He observed that cutting tanzanite locally would minimize smuggling, create employment for local people and make the industry contribute immensely to the government in terms of revenue.
According to Mollel, the tanzanite sub-sector employs about 250,000 people in Jaypur India; where the unprocessed gemstone is cut and polished for re-export.
The Africans MINE the gems but is the DEALERS and TRADERS who make all the money, because they pay VERY LITTLE to the Africans, then turn around and sell these gems at HIGHER PRICES on the international market, for both PROCESSED and UNPROCESSED gems.
Posts: 8896 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
YOU WANT ONE LARGE INDUSTRY OWN AND CONTROLLED BY BLACKS OR MOSTLY -
HERE ONE The cinema of Nigeria is a developing industry that has become increasingly productive in recent years. -OWN BY BLACKS PERIOD AND IT IS THE 3RD LARGEST FILM INDUSTRY IN THE WORLD.
HERE TWO-
"D&H, one of the largest national distributors of computer products in the U.S. has signed an agreement with the management of the Lagos Analysis-- The multi-lingual computer keyboard, invented by a Nigerian engineer, Mr. Walter Oluwole, has started selling in the United States.
HERE THREE- Econet largest
telecommunications company
NIGERIAN COMPUTER AND CHIPS INDUSTRY/ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY.
IVORY COAST ELECTRONIC INDUSTRY. THESE LARGE CORPARATIONS ARE OWNED AND CONTROL BY BLACKS. --------------------------- FOR NIGERIA THERE IS A LOT FOR AN EXAMPLE-CONTROL BY BLACKS PERIOD-
Other important industries included sawmills, cigarette factories, breweries, sugar refining, rubber, paper, soap and detergent Nigeria had five state-owned motor-vehicle assembly plants for Volkswagen, Peugeot, and Mercedes products. Nigeria's motor vehicle production rate increased by 10% in 2000–01.
factories, footwear factories, pharmaceutical plants, tire factories, paint factories, and assembly plants for radios, record
Nigeria has a space agency: CONTROL BY BLACKS PERIOD
nigerian bus Industry -CONTROL BY BLACKS
Automobile Industry of Zimbabwe-CONTROL BY BLACKS
SORRY I GOT CARRIED AWAY,YOU JUST WANT ONE BUT I GAVE YOU SOME IN SOME AFRICAN STATES.I AM NOT GOING TO POST EVERY STATE BECAUSE YOU NEED TO READ ALL OTHER POST CAREFULLY
CONTACT THE COUNTRIES YOURSELF MAN YOU HAVE FINGERS.GET THE INFO FROM THERE EMBASSIES AND STOP BOTHERING ME.YOU ARE BECOMING A PESS NOW.
IN MOST AFRICAN COUNTRIES AFRICAN OWN OR MOSTLY OWN THE INDUSTRIES.LOOK UP THERE MAJOR CORPORATIONS CONTACT THEM AND FIND OUT WHO OWNS IT FOR YOURSELF BECAUSE THERE ARE MANY BUSINESS AND IA M NOT YOUR SLAVE.YOU HAVE AN AGENDA AND EVEN IF I SHOW YOU THE PICTURES THE PEOPLE THAT OWN THESE CORPORATIONS YOU WILL STILL DENY THEY ARE OWNED BY BLACKS OR MOSTLY BY THEM OR BOTH. I POSTED SOME PICTURES BEFORE AND YOU CHOSE TO DENY THEM.SOMETHING IS REALLY WRONG WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU DO NOT LISTEN.THAT IT NO MORE.BYE
THIS LINK YOU POST DOES NOT PROVE THAT OUTSIDERS CONTROL MOST OF THE INDUSTRIES.STOP ALREADY.AND THIS IS NOT DATA.POST DATA FROM THE COUNTRY ITSELF.NOT JUST NEWPAPERS LIKE I DID. http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2005/12/31/56886.html
quote:Originally posted by kenndo: the post above and here are for those who want to read a more balance and truthful picture of africa.i am done with the unfaithful and those who tell lies.this is for those who are newto this forum and want to get a more balance view.this is really it and after this i am gone.i been up all night finding this info,so i am done and not reading anymore comments.
this is a good article on what i have been trying to say all along. if folks do not believe,than believe what this man is saying.if you still do not believe then thier is nothing for here because my mind is made up with the facts. this is it.so don't bother to reply because i had it and i will not come back to this thread.i have books to read now an work to do.bye.
What Bono doesn't say about Africa By William Easterly, WILLIAM EASTERLY is a professor of economics at New York University, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of "The White Man's Burden: How the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have July 6, 2007
JUST WHEN IT SEEMED that Western images of Africa could not get any weirder, the July 2007 special Africa issue of Vanity Fair was published, complete with a feature article on "Madonna's Malawi." At the same time, the memoirs of an African child soldier are on sale at your local Starbucks, and celebrity activist Bob Geldof is touring Africa yet again, followed by TV cameras, to document that "War, Famine, Plague & Death are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and these days they're riding hard through the back roads of Africa." It's a dark and scary picture of a helpless, backward continent that's being offered up to TV watchers and coffee drinkers. But in fact, the real Africa is quite a bit different. And the problem with all this Western stereotyping is that it manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of some current victories, fueling support for patronizing Western policies designed to rescue the allegedly helpless African people while often discouraging those policies that might actually help.
Let's begin with those rampaging Four Horsemen. Do they really explain Africa today? What percentage of the African population would you say dies in war every year? What share of male children, age 10 to 17, are child soldiers? How many Africans are afflicted by famine or died of AIDS last year or are living as refugees?
In each case, the answer is one-half of 1% of the population or less. In some cases it's much less; for example, annual war deaths have averaged 1 out of every 10,800 Africans for the last four decades. That doesn't lessen the tragedy, of course, of those who are such victims, and maybe there are things the West can do to help them. But the typical African is a long way from being a starving, AIDS-stricken refugee at the mercy of child soldiers. The reality is that many more Africans need latrines than need Western peacekeepers — but that doesn't play so well on TV.
Further distortions of Africa emanate from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's star-studded Africa Progress Panel (which includes the ubiquitous Geldof). The panel laments in its 2007 news release that Africa remains "far short" of its goal of making "substantial inroads into poverty reduction." But this doesn't quite square with the sub-Saharan Africa that in 2006 registered its third straight year of good GDP growth — about 6%, well above historic averages for either today's rich countries or all developing countries. Growth of living standards in the last five years is the highest in Africa's history.
The real Africa also has seen cellphone and Internet use double every year for the last seven years. Foreign private capital inflows into Africa hit $38 billion in 2006 — more than foreign aid. Africans are saving a higher percentage of their incomes than Americans are (so much for the "poverty trap" of being "too poor to save" endlessly repeated in aid reports). I agree that it's too soon to conclude that Africa is on a stable growth track, but why not celebrate what Africans have already achieved?
Instead, the international development establishment is rigging the game to make Africa — which is, of course, still very poor — look even worse than it really is. It announces, for instance, that Africa is the only region that is failing to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs in aid-speak) set out by the United Nations. Well, it takes extraordinary growth to cut extreme poverty rates in half by 2015 (the first goal) when a near-majority of the population is poor, as is the case in Africa. (Latin America, by contrast, requires only modest growth to halve its extreme poverty rate from 10% to 5%.) This is how Blair's panel managed to call Africa's recent growth successes a failure. But the reality is that virtually all other countries that have escaped extreme poverty did so through the kind of respectable growth that Africa is enjoying — not the kind of extraordinary growth that would have been required to meet the arbitrary Millennium Development Goals.
Africa will also fail to meet the second goal of universal primary education by 2015. But this goal is also rigged against Africa, because Africa started with an unusually low percentage of children enrolled in elementary school. As economist Michael Clemens points out, most African countries have actually expanded enrollments far more rapidly over the last five decades than Western countries did during their development, but Africans still won't reach the arbitrary aid target of universal enrollment by 2015. For example, the World Bank condemned Burkina Faso in 2003 as "seriously off track" to meet the second MDG, yet the country has expanded elementary education at more than twice the rate of Western historical experience, and it is even far above the faster educational expansions of all other developing countries in recent decades.
Why do aid organizations and their celebrity backers want to make African successes look like failures? One can only speculate, but it certainly helps aid agencies get more publicity and more money if problems seem greater than they are. As for the stars — well, could Africa be saving celebrity careers more than celebrities are saving Africa?
In truth, Africans are and will be escaping poverty the same way everybody else did: through the efforts of resourceful entrepreneurs, democratic reformers and ordinary citizens at home, not through PR extravaganzas of ill-informed outsiders.
The real Africa needs increased trade from the West more than it needs more aid handouts. A respected Ugandan journalist, Andrew Mwenda, made this point at a recent African conference despite the fact that the world's most famous celebrity activist — Bono — was attempting to shout him down. Mwenda was suffering from too much reality for Bono's taste: "What man or nation has ever become rich by holding out a begging bowl?" asked Mwenda.
Perhaps Bono was grouchy because his celebrity-laden "Red" campaign to promote Western brands to finance begging bowls for Africa has spent $100 million on marketing and generated sales of only $18 million, according to a recent report. But the fact remains that the West shows a lot more interest in begging bowls than in, say, letting African cotton growers compete fairly in Western markets (see the recent collapse of world trade talks).
Today, as I sip my Rwandan gourmet coffee and wear my Nigerian shirt here in New York, and as European men eat fresh Ghanaian pineapple for breakfast and bring Kenyan flowers home to their wives, I wonder what it will take for Western consumers to learn even more about the products of self-sufficient, hardworking, dignified Africans. Perhaps they should spend less time consuming Africa disaster stereotypes from television and Vanity Fair.
-------------------------------------------------
my comments- overall very good article. one point however,in terms of gnp ppp most african nations are middle-income now but most being in low-middle income camp for now.so most will still be poor but not poor like thier were before.they would be poor with more money some are high middle income today,some are low income and a few are rich like gabon and a few others. this is proof that poverty is being reduce and progress is happening overall.
YOU WANT ONE LARGE INDUSTRY OWN AND CONTROLLED BY BLACKS OR MOSTLY -
HERE ONE The cinema of Nigeria is a developing industry that has become increasingly productive in recent years. -OWN BY BLACKS PERIOD AND IT IS THE 3RD LARGEST FILM INDUSTRY IN THE WORLD.
HERE TWO-
"D&H, one of the largest national distributors of computer products in the U.S. has signed an agreement with the management of the Lagos Analysis-- The multi-lingual computer keyboard, invented by a Nigerian engineer, Mr. Walter Oluwole, has started selling in the United States.
HERE THREE- Econet largest
telecommunications company
NIGERIAN COMPUTER AND CHIPS INDUSTRY/ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY.
IVORY COAST ELECTRONIC INDUSTRY. THESE LARGE CORPARATIONS ARE OWNED AND CONTROL BY BLACKS.
Can you read? I said ONE LARGE INDUSTRIAL COMPANY and ONE LARGE RESORT/HOTEL.
D&H is NOT OWNED by BLACKS. It is an AMERICAN company. Or can't you read?
Econet is one. Thanks. That is a good one.
Now name ONE large resort/hotel owned and controlled by blacks.
NAME A COMPANY. I don't want statistics. NAME THE COMPANIES and provide LINKS to ONE COMPANY.
You keep providing STATISTICS. I don't want STATISTICS. NAME A COMPANY.
Posts: 8896 | Registered: May 2005
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Like I said, I never said there was NO black owned business in Africa, but a large percentage is STILL owned and operated by whites and other foreigners.
But you should know where those Africans are who are doing things in Africa:
A big one is Mohammed Al Amoudi, Ethiopia's richest man:
quote: Ethiopia - Mohammed Al Amoudi is the 86th Richest Person in the World
The Richest Black Man in the world is Ethiopia Born Mohammed Al Amoudi, now a Saudi citizen, with a net worth of 8 Billion US Dollar according to Forbes Magazine March 2007 issue.
And he is the 4th richest man in Africa.
2008 list of richest men in Africa (3 blacks on the list):
quote: is year welcomes two new faces to the list of the richest men in Africa as well as one omission from last year. It will however be most memorable for début of the first black Africans to join the esteemed company on the list. Not surprisingly the two, Aliko Dangote and Patrice Motsepe are from Nigeria and South Africa the two countries on which most of the hope for African economic renaissance lies and they join at position 6 and 9 respectively.
They say the first million is the hardest so one would guess by the time you get to a billion it is positively child’s play to make money, and so it would seem as all the entrants from 2007 remain on the with most having increased their wealth despite torrid global economic conditions
. Here is how they pan out:
Patrice Motsepe (South Africa) African Rank No.9 – World Rank No.503 – Wealth $2.4 billion It has been fourteen years since the end of Apartheid and Africa’s largest economy South Africa has finally produced its first black billionaire, Patrice Motsepe. The Pretoria raised lawyer was born into a relatively well off black family for the time, his father ABC Motsepe was one of the wealthiest black business men in the country. Motsepe specialised as a mining lawyer and this paved his way into the industry that was too make his fortune. His company African Rainbow Mineral is today one the largest mining concerns in South Africa. Motsepe is also the owner of one of South Africa’s most successful football clubs Mamelodi Sundowns FC
Samih Sawiris (Egypt) African Rank No.8 – World Rank No.396 – Wealth $2.9 billion Samih Sawiris is the first of the four Sawiris family members we meet in this list. It has been a good year for Samih as his interests in tourism and leisure have seen his wealth rise from $1.6 billion to $2.9billion. Probably his most significant investment over the year was his commitment to invest $500 million in a luxury alpine resort in Andermatt, Switzerland his first venture outside the Middle East. The resort will comprise a 5-star hotel, apartment and villa, an ice rink all spread over 37 acres.
Aliko Dangote (Nigeria) African Rank No.7 – World Rank No.334 – Wealth $3.3 billion Another débutante on the list and the first from Africa’s most populous nation. While the average man on the street in Nigeria would insist that the country has produced many billionaires’, mostly former heads of state and their cronies, Dangote represents a break from this tradition as a man who has created his wealth in a comparatively transparent manner. His interests in sugar,cement and food have propelled Dangote to the top of the pile in Nigeria. His close relationship with former Nigerian President Obasanjo some argue has fuelled his wealth and Obasanjo’s exit from power last year saw Dangote’s influence wane somewhat typified by the revocation of his purchase of former-state owned refineries by the new government.
Johann Rupert & family (South Africa) African Rank No.6 – World Rank No.284 – Wealth $3.8 billion Johann Ruperts and family have seen their total wealth slip by about $500 million and drop three places down the list of Africa’s richest on the back of challenging global economic conditions and downturn in the luxury goods sector where his Richemont group is a major player. The tough economic conditions had not stopped rumours of Rupert looking to pay millions to purchase the English football team Blackburn Rovers, a deal Rupert has categorically denied.
Nicky Oppenheimer & family (South Africa) African Rank No.5 – World Rank No.173 – Wealth $5.7 billion The Oppenheimer fortune is facing challenging times as investment pours into Russian extensive mineral resources fuelling competition, resource hungry representatives of China and India scour Africa looking to secure their supply lines and back home the Black Empowerment policy has meant changes in Anglo American Corporation the mining giant founded by the Oppenheimer family. Despite these challenges the family fortune has grown but not enough to keep their position in last year’s list as they drop three places to No’5.
Mohammed Al Amoudi (Ethiopia) African Rank No.4 – World Rank No.97 – Wealth $9.0 billion Last year year’s list omitted Mohammed Al Amoudi but this year the Ethiopian born billionaire takes his rightful place. Al Amoudi migrated to Saudi Arabia from Ethiopia in 1965 and made his fortune in property before diversifying into petroleum interests. Al-Amoudi was one the biggest sponsors of celebrations earlier this year to mark the the start of the millennium in Ethiopia. The centre piece of his sponsorship was the construction of the multimillion dollar Millennium Central Hall in Addis Ababa.
Onsi Sawiris (Egypt) African Rank No.3 – World Rank No.96 – Wealth $9.1 billion The list has already seen the first of the Sawiris family and the top three positions are all taken up by family members, the Sawiris father and his other two sons. Onsi Sawiris despite being in retirement and having divested most of the Orascom Empire he built to his three sons has seen his wealth almost double from $5 billion in 2007 to $9.2 billion today. Interestingly the combined Sawiris fortune of $34.7 billion would see the family at No.7 amongst the world’s richest.
Nassef Sawiris (Egypt) African Rank No.2 – World Rank No.68 – Wealth $11.0 billion Of all those who made this list Nassef Sawiris has had the most spectacular rise in his wealth, last year his wealth was estimated at $3.9 billion but he starts this year with three times that fortune at $11 billion. Nassef Sawiris runs the construction arm of the Orascom empire and soaring oil prices have ensured his target market of the Middle East is awash with development funds. Orascom Construction signed some big deals last year including building a $1.8 billion fertiliser plant in Algeria, a $110 million Solar Plant in Egypt and part of a consortium building Cairo’s new metro.
Naguib Sawiris (Egypt) African Rank No.1 – World Rank No.60 – Wealth $12.7 billion In gloomy world economy the growth of telecommunications, the internet and the media have been one of the few bright spots. In the emerging market it has been no difference and Naguib Sawiris has benefited tremendously from this. In particular the mobile telephony part of his empire has shown strong growth although not without controversy as investments in North Korea and investigations into the purchase of an Italian Teleco have proved. Despite these hiccups Naguib Sawiris retains his spot as Africa’s richest man.
So yes, things are improving and everything isn't doom and gloom, but there is still more that lays ahead.
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posted
a large % is different than most.i still maintain most business/industries are controlled and mostly controlled by black africans,there are some joint ownship and there are business or industries where hafrican have large control but the most of it.it's kind of a mix bag but most control is in the hands of black africans.but there are outside who control something things just like they do in the u.s. or anywhere else.that my point.
here are some black own hotels and others i can't list to much because there is a lot of stuff and it will take to much of my time like what is happening now and i am tired.are there major problems still?of course but things are not standing still and i want to give a better vision of what is truly happening there and of course there is much to do.here is a example of black own hotels and other stuff in the u.s.,africa and other areas. lets leave on a good note please because i do not want to argue anymore.this is my last time reading anything here, really . peace.
Suncoast Fact Sheet
General - About Tsogo Sun
Tsogo Investments is a broad-based black empowerment focused group whose shareholding will benefit organised black business and labour movements, together with women's groups, black business interests and individual black promoters.
Tsogo Sun currently holds five casino licenses: Emnotweni Casino (Nelspruit), The Ridge Casino and Entertainment Resort (Witbank), Montecasino (Fourways, Johannesburg), Hemingways Casino and Hotel (East London), Suncoast Casino & Entertainment World (Durban).
Suncoast Casino & Entertainment World is a joint development between Tsogo Sun and Durban Add-Ventures. The Suncoast Casino & Entertainment World is the biggest single investment to have ever been undertaken on Durban's beachfront. The project is an integral part of the drive to rejuvenate the Golden Mile. It is one apex of the Golden Triangle with the International Convention Centre and uShaka Island project being the other two.
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Statistics
*
Total development cost: R1,4 billion *
Size of site: 26 hectares *
Phases: o
Phase 1: Opened 27 November 2002: Casino, retail, restaurants, fast food, East Coast Radio, related infrastructure, Suncoast Waterworld o
Phase 2: Opened 25 June 2003: Sundeck, Cinemas, Food Court, Restaurants, Function & Conference Rooms, Amphitheatre and Boardwalk with foot access to the beach o
Phase 3: Opening TBC: Hotel, high adrenaline rides
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Theming & Décor
Art Deco was seen in Durban for the first time in 1931 in the form of the Enterprise Building. Finished in stucco, as all Durban Art Deco buildings are, it was rich in angular geometric relief, with stylized Mayan heads and a superb eagle form over the entrance, it boasted all the motifs that were later to be labeled classic Art Deco. In the mid thirties a 'new' form appeared in the form of Surrey Mansions on the Berea - sub-tropical Deco!
Today you will find numerous buildings in and around Durban whose style complies with the basic tenets of Art Deco, or sub-Tropical Deco. The elements so popular then, have survived and continue to develop in new ways. The creation of new themes and topics consistent with the approaches and methods that have made Art Deco such a comprehensive and vital design language in the past, is the inspiration behind the style and design of the Suncoast Casino & Entertainment World today. The complex will take its place beside the 51 other Art Deco style buildings that still stand proudly along the Durban beachfront for the future.
A total of 6 km of neon tubing has been used on the building - 2,5 km outside & 3,5 km inside making it one of the largest installations of neon tube lighting in the country. The colours, used in the external paintwork (over 45 in all) together with the vibrant lighting gives the modern tropical Art Deco building a larger than life appearance, which will be visible for miles around when fully illuminated.
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Landmark Features: Phase 1
* Casino * Restaurants / Fast food: Spur/Panarotti's Pizza Pasta, John Dory's Fish & Grill, Centre Court Buffet & Grill, Circus Circus Coffee Shop & Cocktail, 2 Go Take Away * Retail: Teshar Gallery (Gifts), Cosmic Candy (Sweets & Tobacconist), Magic Company (Games) * East Coast Radio * Suncoast Waterworld * Crèche
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Landmark Features: Phase 2
* Restaurants and Food Court * Conference Rooms * Cinemas * Sundeck * Boardwalk to the beach * Mini Amphitheatre (outdoor): 300 seats * Maxi landscaped Amphitheatre (outdoor): to accommodate 3000 people * Garden paths with feet access to the beach and will be available to runners, cyclists and roller bladers utilizing the beachfront
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Phase 2 Details
Cinemas
* Luxury 8 theatre NuMetro CineCentre * Unique cinema offering 1500 luxury seats with additional legroom. * Lounge for exclusive use by cinema members. * Digital Dolby screens * Hospitality area capable of accommodating 200 people for functions prior to screenings * Supernova - Cinema 2 equipped with a satellite link * Ticket Prices: All shows: R22 Tuesday Special: R15 Children (under 12 yrs) and Pensioners: R15 * Telephone: 031 - 368 2007
Retail Area
* Total square meterage: 2747 m²
* Food Court: - Fast Food Nandos Steers To Go Wimpy Mozart's Ice Cream Kentucky Fried Chicken Mimmo's
* Restaurants: Cape Town Fish Market Jaipur Palace (Indian Cuisine) Café Vacca Matta (Restaurant /Dance bar) News Café Havanna Grill and Wine Bar
* Other Retail: Afrokwazi (Jewellery)
* Conference Facilities: Colony Room: 60 -170 people depending on seating style Delano Room: 80 - 350 people depending on seating style
Gaming
The 7000 m² is divided into three sections viz. the main or general gaming area, smoking casino, the Salon Prive and a private gaming suite
* 1250 Slot Machines: Main floor: 747 Smoking Casino: 419 Salon Privé: 84 Denomination from 10c to R100 21 progressive jackpots including the R1 Sunstruck, which never pays less than R1 million. Denomination of progressives: ranging from 25c to R25
* 50 Tables:
23 Roulette tables
Min R5
Max R1 000
23 Blackjack tables
Min R25
Max R5 000
2 Poker tables
Min R25
Max R250
1 Punto Banco table
Min R100
Max R10 000
1 Craps / Dice table
Min R1
Min R12 000
* Salon Privé: Finishes: Gilded frames, crystal decanters, antique shaving brushes Food and Beverage facilities: 1 bar and buffet
* Casino operated facilities: 3 bars and one snack bar
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General - About Suncoast Casino & Entertainment World
Key Players
* Developer: Tsogo Sun Kwazulu-Natal (Pty) Ltd * Development managers: Tsogo Sun (in-house) and Mirage Leisure & Development * Casino operator: Tsogo Sun * Gaming board monitors: Gobodo Forensic Accounting * Project managers: Bovell Freeman Holley in association with Diagonal Projects-Africa * Concept architect: Creative Kingdom (International) * Architects: MDS Architects in association with Langa Makhanya & Associates * Quantity surveyors: Brian Heineberg & Associates in association with Dhliwayo, Ravhura, Pholafudi & Soomar * Leasing: Broll Property Management * Interior design concept: Dougal Design Associates Inc. (International) * Interior design: Blacksmith Africa in association with Moago Interior Architectural Design * Landscape architects: Landmark Studios in association with Urban Architects * Civil engineers: BKS Engineering & Management * Structural engineers: LC Consulting in association with Ndodana Becker & Associates * Electrical engineers: BFBA Consultants (Pty) Ltd in a joint venture with Magubane Isibonelo Projects * Mechanical and fire protection engineer: Richard Pierce & Partners in association with S'bahle projects * Wet services engineers: SJ Franklin & Associates * Kitchen consultant: Caterpro * Empowerment consultants: Thekweni Business Development Centre * Acoustic consultant: Steve Moss & Associate * Main contractor: Grinaker-LTA Sivukile Joint Venture * External security: Securicor * Lighting consultant: Paul Pamboukian & Associates * Landscape rehabilitation consultant: Geoff Nichol * Public Relations consultants: Tumbleweed Communications
The above-mentioned firms indicate Tsogo Sun's commitment to black economic empowerment and the employment, wherever possible, of local professionals and contractors. 85% of the people employed are from KwaZulu-Natal, with many small and empowered businesses working in partnership with established companies. Further empowerment initiatives extend to the pre-opening phase with the creation of a training centre for gaming personnel.
Retail
* Branding of individual outlets appears behind the Art Deco themed facades * ATMs - 4 in the promenade, 6 in the casino * Minimum Trading Hours: 10h00 - 22h00 (Monday - Thursday) 10h00 - 23h00 (Friday) 09h00 - 23h00 (Saturday) 09h00 - 22h00 (Sunday)
Parking & Access
*
Capacity: 2124 parking bays *
Parking Tollgate Fees: (Pay-on-entry system) o
Pedestrians: Free o
Cars: R5.00 Motorbikes are treated as vehicles and bicycles as pedestrians o
Taxis: R80.00 o
Buses: R350.00
Help Facilities
*
24 Hour Call Centre *
Information Desk *
City Paramedic 24 hour Service Telephone: (031) 328-3272
Facilities for the Physically Challenged
*
Parking: Open Car Park: 11 bays VIP Parking: 04 bays * Toilets: Promenade: 03 Smoking Casino: 01 Non-smoking: 01 Prive: 01 * Wheelchair Ramps: Entrances to main casino Centre Court - Main casino Circus Circus - Smoking casino Food Court - Amphitheatre
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Contact Details
Address (physical): Suncoast Boulevard, Durban's Golden Mile, Durban Address (postal): P. O. Box 10132 Marine Parade, Durban, 4056 Telephone: (031) 328-3000 Fax: (031) 328-3001 e-mail: suncoast@tsogosun.com
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Fact Sheet Quick Links
* General: About Tsogo Sun * Statistics * Theming & Décor * Landmark Features: Phase 1 * Landmark Features: Phase 2 * Phase 2 Details * General: About Suncoast Casino & Entertainment World * Contact Details
The most notable leisure industry transaction by SAB was Tsogo Investments in early 2003. The transaction, which had an implied value of approximately R1.9-billion, meant that empowerment group Tsogo Investments acquired control of the largest hotel group in southern Africa, Southern Sun Hotels, as well as Tsogo Sun, a leading casino operator in South Africa.
Tsogo Sun Gaming is one of two companies owned by Tsogo Sun Holdings, the largest black empowerment company in the leisure industry in South Africa. Tsogo Sun Holdings has controlling interests in Tsogo Sun Gaming, which consists of five strategically located properties, and the largest hotel and
entertainment group in South Africa - Southern Sun Hotels.
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Thursday, January 25, 2007 Black Owned Hotels In Nation's Richest Black County Integrated Capital, LLC is an African American real estate group and is the lead owner of the 162-room Residence Inn currently being built at National Harbor in Prince George's County, Maryland. The Residence Hotel is 100 percent minority-owned and is scheduled to open in March 2008. The construction and ownership package is part of Marriott's Diversity Ownership Initiative (DOI). DOI is designed to educate and provide assistance to minorities with significant business experience and an interest in hotel ownership.
In 2005, Marriott made a pledge to have 500 minority- and woman-owned hotels by 2010. To date, Marriott has 30 minority- and woman-owned hotels open or under development in the Washington-Baltimore area. The Residence Inn at National Harbor, above left, will make the eigth minority-owned Marriott in the State of Maryland. The Residence Inn will make the fourth minority-owned Marriott hotel open or under development in Prince George’s County. National Harbor is a $2 billion, 300-acre project that is anchored by the 2,000-luxury hotel room Gaylord National Hotel Resort and Convention Center, It will include residential, hotel, convention, retail, dining, entertainment and office space.
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Largest African American Owned Resort in the US
Projects Under Development
The Crosstown Center Development.....a 175-room Hampton Inn & Suites The Crosstown Center development, linking Roxbury and downtown, has been a dream of Mayor Thomas M. Menino and developer Kirk Sykes for half a decade. Yesterday, they stuck shovels into the ground.
Boosted by $17 million in public funding, the first phase - a 175-room Hampton Inn & Suites hotel, restaurant and retail space, and a 650-car parking garage - is now underway at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard. It is scheduled to be completed by May 2004, just in time for the Democratic National Convention that summer.
''This is the largest minority-owned development, we believe, anywhere in the country,'' Menino said. ''Today's another day of victory in Boston's neighborhoods.''
Sykes, who is teaming up with partners including Corcoran Jennison on the $140 million project, said it is one of the largest projects controlled by a minority group in any empowerment zone. Full Story....
Time Extended For Bids On Baltimore Convention Hotel....RLJ has emerged as the front-runner. The Baltimore Development Corp. has extended the deadline for developers to submit proposals for a long-awaited convention headquarters hotel. Approximately eight developers have called Baltimore's leading economic development agency for the request for proposals, which outlines the need for a hotel next to the expanded Baltimore City Convention Center by 2006.
However, the BDC cautioned all those calls may not translate into hotel plans for the city-owned site bound by Paca, Pratt, Howard and Camden streets, since several developers could be working together, narrowing the field.
So far, RLJ Development LLC, the Bethesda-based company led by Black Entertainment Television Founder and CEO Robert Johnson, has emerged as the front-runner. The company's proposal for a 750-room Hilton � in conjunction with Quadrangle Development Corp. of Washington, D.C. � was showcased during a November news conference at City Hall. Full Story....
Johnson Unveils Grand Plans For Salamander Inn & Spa Jun 20, 2003 -- Sheila Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television, entertained a few hundred of her friends and admirers yesterday morning to celebrate the groundbreaking of her newest dream, the 58-room Salamander Inn and Spa located on 350 acres just outside Middleburg. Luxury ruled the day as guests filed past a scale model of one of the inn�s suites featuring everything from plasma screen television to a well stocked mini-bar. Each bed will be covered in exclusive linens designed by Johnson that she guarantees will be an experience unto itself. Full Story....
Black-owned hotel going up near Stonecrest mall, near Atlanta, GA Thursday, April 24, 2003
In another sign of the economic power of DeKalb County's black middle class, a group of investors has broken ground on what is believed to be DeKalb's first black-owned hotel.
Three of the hotel's owners are black businessmen from south DeKalb.
The Microtel Inn & Suites franchise in Lithonia will be about a mile from the Mall at Stonecrest, but its owners were attracted more by comments from south DeKalb families who live in one of the country's most affluent predominantly black areas. Full Story....
First African American-owned casino in the U.S. Virgin Islands set for groundbreaking in St. Croix Luck seems to be on Curtis Robinson's side these days. His East Granby, Connecticut-based C&R Development Company is getting ready to begin construction on his dream: Seven Hills Beach Resort and Casino in St. Croix, the first African American-owned casino in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The St. Croix senate voted unanimously, approving a re-zoning of St. Croix's Robin Bay area where the $536 million resort and casino will be built. The project will be handled by Robin Bay Associates L.L.C., a division of C&R, which was awarded a casino license in December of 2001. Full Story....
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Largest African American Owned Resort in the US
Home First And Only African American Wholly Own Casino Company Goes National !!!!! MAJESTIC STAR COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF THREE FITZGERALDS CASINOS
First And Only African American To Wholly Own A Casino Company Goes National
GARY, Ind., December 6, 2001 -- Majestic Star Casino ("Majestic Star") announced today that its indirectly wholly owned subsidiary Majestic Investor Holdings, LLC, has completed its acquisition of three Fitzgeralds casinos located in Tunica, Miss., Black Hawk, Colo., and Las Vegas, Nev. Majestic Star and its affiliates now officially own and operate four casinos including its first casino, the Majestic Star Casino in Gary. Majestic Star purchased the three Fitzgeralds casinos for approximately $149 million in cash plus the assumption of certain liabilities.
Majestic Star and its affiliates are wholly owned by Detroit businessman Don H. Barden who, with the acquisition of Fitzgeralds, becomes the country's first African American to wholly own a national casino company. Majestic Star is one of only a handful of privately held casino companies in the United States.
"It's exciting to be making history with this endeavor," Barden said. "Our success in Gary has made this acquisition possible. Fitzgeralds is a perfect match for our company and I look forward to growing this new company beyond what it is today."
Majestic Star and Fitzgeralds cater primarily to the value conscious middle-market drive-in slot customer. Majestic Star plans to retain the Fitzgeralds brand name and will continue to market to its core customer by offering great service, the most popular slots and table games as well as top-notch food and accommodations all at an affordable price.
"With the addition of these three casinos, Majestic Star will operate in three of the top five gaming markets in the country," Barden said. "The Fitzgeralds purchase is the first step in our plan to grow Majestic Star beyond our home in Indiana. I want to thank my team for bringing this project to fruition and making this exciting opportunity a reality. I look forward to working with the many fine employees at these three great Fitzgeralds properties. Together we're going to build a highly competitive national casino brand with approximately 4,300 slots, 110 table games, 1,100 hotel rooms, and 3,800 employees."
The Majestic Star Casino began operations on June 7, 1996 at Buffington Harbor in Gary. Majestic Investor Holdings, LLC was formed solely for the purpose of acquiring substantially all the assets of Fitzgeralds Tunica, Fitzgeralds Black Hawk and Fitzgeralds Las Vegas. Majestic Investor Holdings, LLC is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of The Majestic Star Casino, LLC.
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Gigi's Resort is an African American owned, Art Deco, Boutique Resort located between the
Intercoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean. We are the ultimate beach vacation spot and offer
a quiet, relaxing atmosphere that is only a 2-minute walk to the famous Fort Lauderdale Beach.
set for groundbreaking in St. Croix By Ann Brown Luck seems to be on Curtis Robinson's side these daBeach Resort and Casino in St. Croix, the C&R Development Company is getting ready to begin construction on his dream: Seven Hills Beach Resort and Casino in St. Croix, the first
African American-owned casino in the U.S. Virgin Islands
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Content provided in partnership with ProQuest Miami boycott yields luxury black-owned hotel New Crisis, The, Jul/Aug 2002 by Robertson, Tatsha
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The newest luxury hotel in Miami Beach sprawls along a strip of art deco resorts on South Beach's Collins Avenue. The hotel's young valets, all African American and Hispanic men, greet guests as they step out of expensive cars.
The ease with which employees at the Royal Palm Crowne Plaza perform their tasks gives little hint that the resort was born out of controversy. Plans for the hotel, which opened on May 15, ended a 1993 boycott which ensued after Greater Miami-area business and government leaders snubbed Nelson Mandela in 1990.
The 422-room hotel is the first Black-developed and -owned luxury resort in the nation. It has already snagged a number of prominent African American conventions and is among the hotels the NAACP will patronize during its annual gathering in summer 2003.
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"We are having our [nationall convention here because strides have been made," says Adora Obi Nweze, president of the Florida State Conference of the NAACP. "It doesn't mean everything is over. It simply means we [have taken] a step in the right direction."
R. Donahue Peebles, the 42-year-old developer and majority owner of the Royal Palm, says the hotel's opening proves African Americans are willing and able to be players. Peebles, president and CEO of Peebles Atlantic Development Corp., says he doesn't want his hotel to be known as a "Black hotel." He hopes to capture a large chunk of the overall convention and business market. Still, he is actively seeking African American tourists who spend more than $40 billion a year in the U.S, according to the National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators and Developers (NABHOOD). advertisement Click Here
"It's not just a hotel geared to African Americans. What distinguishes us from others is that there is no glass ceiling, and we actively promote and expand career opportunities for African Americans, and African Americans will be welcomed and prized," he says.
At least 70 percent of the hotel's top executives are Black, a fact unheard of in the tourism business. Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based NABHOOD says there are fewer than 100 Black executives in the nation's 30,000 full-service hotels. Many in this small group are striking out on their own. According to NABHOOD, there are currently 32 majority Black-owned hotels in development or already being built around the country.
The construction of a Black-owned luxury resort in Miami Beach was central to the 20-point agreement between activists and business leaders to end the protest in 1993. During negotiations, the city of Miami Beach agreed to provide a $10 million loan toward a Black-owned hotel. Peebles spent $6 million of his own money, $2 million came from a group of African American partners, Crowne Plaza put up $11 million and the balance - $52 million - came from Union Pacific Bank and Ocean Bank. Crowne Plaza, which is part of the Six Continents Hotels, manages the resort.
The 1,000-day boycott was sparked after city officials and business leaders in Miami-Dade County refused to visit with Mandela during his tour in the area. His support for Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat angered local Cuban American and Jewish leaders. Their decision to snub Mandela cost tourism in Miami an estimated $52 million, according to lawyer H. T. Smith, one of the organizers of the protest.
Today, the hotel - which includes two historic art deco buildings and a prominent new structure painted yellow and surrounded by palm trees - is a standout. Passersby stop to admire the water fountain and the terrazzo floors, and guests can sit in their rooms and gaze out at the Atlantic Ocean.
- Tatsha Robertson is a national reporter for the Boston Globe
Copyright Crisis Publishing Company, Incorporated Jul/Aug 2002 Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
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Tsogo Sun is an interesting concept, but black Empowerment companies have proven to be a mixed bag historically. Some large black empowerment companies have dissolved or lost their majority black ownership. And in most cases it means that the stock is issued to blacks, which therefore means that blacks "own" a majority of the company, even if it is only 51%. But ownership of the stock doesn't really mean ownership of the company. Many times the top executives of these companies are former ANC officials who wind up losing the majority black ownership due to various scandals. Yes, there are black empowerment activities afoot in South Africa and hopefully they will produce results. But you have to remember stock shares is a fluid affair and the 51% black owned stock in a company today, could easily turn in to 30% black owned tomorrow, due to sale of stock and transfers. Technically, it is really not what you think it is.
But what I was talking about is a BLACK OWNED company, meaning black controlled from top to bottom and not because of shares of stock.
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