Africa: Open for business like never before

Here is an excerpt of an article from Africa - The Good News, a website I have found to be a great resource over the years. It was written by Carol Pineau, a film producer, director and journalist. She talks about various entrepreneurs - including our own Ken and Keli! - and how they have contributed to the African society. You can have a look at the whole article here (although it is slightly repetitive, it's worth the read).

Africa's new generation of entrepreneurs show extraordinary ingenuity. They are determined visionaries who find solutions to seemingly impossible challenges and strive to succeed against all odds. Not only are they pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. They are pulling up an entire continent as well.

The stories of Africa's entrepreneurs are the stories of Africa's heroes. While the media focuses on adversity, they are missing another great story: that of Africa's entrepreneurs who are busy getting down to business.

Take for example Ken Ofori-Atta and Keli Gadzekpo, founders of Databank, an investment group in Accra. The two are ivy-league educated Ghanaians, had top jobs on Wall Street [and with KPMG], but left in the early 1990's to return to Ghana and be part of building the nation. A few years later they launched Epack, Ghana's first mutual fund, which invests in more than half of Africa's stock markets and averaged a whopping 60% annual returns since the fund started.

One of their friends, Hermen Chinery Hesse, a software developer creates software specifically produced to withstand hot and humid climates. He is now launching a new business, Black Star Line, an African version of Paypal, and already has several million dollars backing his venture.

Nearby is Kingsly Awuah-Darko, who came up with new wire transfer technology that is faster and more versatile than existing services. The company, Money Systems International is giving Western Union and Money Gram a serious run for their money. Awuah-Darko explains that with newer technology he was able to leapfrog past long-established competitors to a far more functional and versatile system. The company started in 2002 with about $700,000 transferred that year. Within five years, the total in transferred was over $140 million. Awuah-Darko predicts within the next few years his company will be transferring over a billion a year.

These aren't just Africans solving African problems. Databank's E-pack and other investment services have helped Africans invest in Africa's markets, but also allowed international investors to get into the high-growth phase of Africa's nascent markets. Chinery Hesse's software is good for computer users in Africa, but also for those in any hot and humid climate. Black Star Line will help Africans to buy and sell products [and] also facilitate individuals and companies from all over the world to trade with Africa. Money Systems International doesn't just help Ghanaians in the diaspora to send remittances back home, it also helps Pakistani diaspora, Afghani diaspora, and more.

What is most impressive about today's entrepreneurs in Africa is their determination not to be stopped by even the most insurmountable road block. Ask most people to put a nail into a plank of wood and they will ask for a hammer. If there is no hammer, most will give up. Ask these entrepreneurs and they will say, "Here is a rock, there's a brick, I have my shoe."

Read the entire article here.

Off-grid power solutions in rural Kenya: Pt 2

Here's a great article from the New York Times. It's a bit long so I've posted it in two separate parts like they did. It's a great read though!

**Update: Check out the corresponding picture slideshow here!

“There are many small islands of success, but they need to go to scale,” said Minoru Takada, chief of the United Nations Development Program’s sustainable energy program. “Off-grid is the answer for the poor. But people who control funding need to see this as a viable option.”

Even United Nations programs and United States government funds that promote climate-friendly energy in developing countries hew to large projects like giant wind farms or industrial-scale solar plants that feed into the grid. A $300 million solar project is much easier to finance and monitor than 10 million home-scale solar systems in mud huts spread across a continent.

As a result, money does not flow to the poorest areas. Of the $162 billion invested in renewable energy last year, according to the United Nations, experts estimate that $44 billion was spent in China, India and Brazil collectively, and $7.5 billion in the many poorer countries.

Only 6 to 7 percent of solar panels are manufactured to produce electricity that does not feed into the grid; that includes systems like Ms. Ruto’s and solar panels that light American parking lots and football stadiums.

Still, some new models are emerging. Husk Power Systems, a young company supported by a mix of private investment and nonprofit funds, has built 60 village power plants in rural India that make electricity from rice husks for 250 hamlets since 2007.

In Nepal and Indonesia, the United Nations Development Program has helped finance the construction of very small hydroelectric plants that have brought electricity to remote mountain communities. Morocco provides subsidized solar home systems at a cost of $100 each to remote rural areas where expanding the national grid is not cost-effective.

What has most surprised some experts in the field is the recent emergence of a true market in Africa for home-scale renewable energy and for appliances that consume less energy. As the cost of reliable equipment decreases, families have proved ever more willing to buy it by selling a goat or borrowing money from a relative overseas, for example.

The explosion of cellphone use in rural Africa has been an enormous motivating factor. Because rural regions of many African countries lack banks, the cellphone has been embraced as a tool for commercial transactions as well as personal communications, adding an incentive to electrify for the sake of recharging.

Off-grid power solutions in rural Kenya: Pt 1

Here's a great article from the New York Times. It's a bit long so I've posted it in two separate parts like they did. It's a great read though!

**Update: Check out the corresponding picture slideshow here!

For Sara Ruto, the desperate yearning for electricity began last year with the purchase of her first cellphone, a lifeline for receiving small money transfers, contacting relatives in the city or checking chicken prices at the nearest market.

Charging the phone was no simple matter in this farming village far from Kenya’s electric grid.

Every week, Ms. Ruto walked two miles to hire a motorcycle taxi for the three-hour ride to Mogotio, the nearest town with electricity. There, she dropped off her cellphone at a store that recharges phones for 30 cents. Yet the service was in such demand that she had to leave it behind for three full days before returning.

That wearying routine ended in February when the family sold some animals to buy a small Chinese-made solar power system for about $80. Now balanced precariously atop their tin roof, a lone solar panel provides enough electricity to charge the phone and run four bright overhead lights with switches.

"My main motivation was the phone, but this has changed so many other things," Ms. Ruto said on a recent evening as she relaxed on a bench in the mud-walled shack she shares with her husband and six children.

As small-scale renewable energy becomes cheaper, more reliable and more efficient, it is providing the first drops of modern power to people who live far from slow-growing electricity grids and fuel pipelines in developing countries. Although dwarfed by the big renewable energy projects that many industrialized countries are embracing to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, these tiny systems are playing an epic, transformative role.

Since Ms. Ruto hooked up the system, her teenagers’ grades have improved because they have light for studying. The toddlers no longer risk burns from the smoky kerosene lamp. And each month, she saves $15 in kerosene and battery costs — and the $20 she used to spend on travel.

In fact, neighbors now pay her 20 cents to charge their phones, although that business may soon evaporate: 63 families in Kiptusuri have recently installed their own solar power systems.

Video: Fighting illiteracy with innovation*

An innovative $25 projector by Design the Matters in collaboration with three universities makes it easier for several adults and children to learn to read, especially those limited to learning by night. To date, the Kinkajou^® Microfilm Projector has supported the learning of over 3000 adults. More details in the video:

Literacy can be the difference between life and death. Using an example from the video, being able to read means mothers are able to read prescriptions and administer medicine correctly to their children. It's that simple and that profound. In the fight against poverty, it is essential that we are able to combat illiteracy. It was recently announced that the Ghanaian government is planning on spending about a third of its budget on education. This is a huge step (provided it's managed properly), and hopefully we'll soon be able to stamp out illiteracy completely.

*Flash player required.

Lewis Hamilton: The drive to succeed

If you know me, you'll know that I love Formula 1. The last race of the season will be taking place this weekend in Abu Dhabi. The first practice session's already over in fact (sniff sniff). You might be wondering what this has to do with anything, and rightly so. Well, I'd like to share something with you about my favourite driver, Lewis Hamilton. I stumbled on an article that, I think, speaks volumes on the kind of message we try to get across here at Databank Foundation. Here's an edited excerpt:

When Lewis Hamilton first met Ron Dennis, then the team principal of the McLaren Formula One team, he told him, "I want to race for you one day. I want to race for McLaren." Dennis was so impressed with the young man he gave him his telephone number and said, "Call me."

This wasn't in 2007, just before Hamilton joined the hugely successful F1 team. It was in December 1995, when Hamilton was just 10 years old.

"I guess I knew what I wanted early on," he says during a telephone interview from Sao Paulo, where he was racing in the Brazilian Grand Prix before flying to Abu Dhabi this week for the capital's Formula One event, which closes out the season. Hamilton finished fourth in Brazil, and has an outside chance of winning the F1 title this year.

His career as a racing driver began with remote-control cars.

"My dad thought that I had such good hand-to-eye coordination that he thought I might be able to race properly. So he bought me a kart for Christmas when I was eight years old."

Hamilton's desire to drive for McLaren was, he admits, more down to the look of the team than anything else. "Young kids are generally attracted to colours first," he says. "They don't know the people's names or the teams' names... Then I got to know more about them and started following Ayrton Senna."

He names Senna - a Brazilian Formula One driver who died in a crash in 1994 and is considered to be one of the greatest drivers of all time - as one of his role models; Nelson Mandela, whom he refers to as a "kind of friend," is another.


"He [Mandela] has been a huge inspiration to me, I read about him so much, and to finally meet him was probably one of the most fantastic moments of my life outside of racing," he says.

Obviously, the most fantastic moment in his racing career came in 2008, when, at the age of 23, he became the youngest ever (and the first black) driver to be crowned F1 World Champion. He won the title ahead of the Brazilian driver Felipe Massa by a single point. [He also missed out on becoming the first person to be crowned World Champion in their first year by one point in 2007.]

"It's very surreal, I have to say," he says. "... I don't walk around thinking I'm some kind of superstar, I walk around generally the same person as I was growing up and I know that if I don't do a good enough job at what I'm doing I'm going to lose my job. It's exactly like anyone else, that's the way I approach my work, and I work my backside off."

Hamilton loves music, and often travels with a guitar. He is also trying to read more.

"I go and look in a bookstore and don't know what on earth to pick up," he says. "But I like to learn something when I read rather than just reading a story. The last book I read was A Thousand Splendid Suns, I thought it was a beautiful story."

_________

Not all of us are fortunate enough to know exactly what we want to do from a young age. But if you do (and even of you don't), I'd like to encourage you to go for it with everything you have. Never let anyone tell you what you can or can't do. With determination and hard work, half the battle has already been won - so go ahead and believe in yourself!

You can read the article in full here - part one, part two.

And the winner is...

On Monday, history was made. At the International Association of Political Consultants' (IAPC) conference in Paris, Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai became the first person ever to receive the IAPC Democracy Medal twice. According to the IAPC, "No other world leader, past or present, can lay claim to receiving the IAPC's Democracy Award on two separate occasions".

It is a remarkable achievement for a person who, despite numerous arrests, accusations of treason and even being beaten, continued his pursuit of democracy and political justice for his country. He is a true example that hard work and persistence really do pay off. More from africagoodnews.com:

"[He] joins an impressive group of world leaders including Nelson Mandela, Boris Yeltsin, Margaret Thatcher and, more recently, Dr Mir Hossein Mousavi of Iran who was awarded the medal in 2009."

Tsvangirai was first awarded the medal in 2002, but was unable to accept it in person at the time because he was not permitted to leave Zimbabwe.

The IAPC started presenting its Democracy Award in 1982 to individuals or organisations who had worked "courageously to foster, promote and sustain the democratic process throughout the world".

In his address to the conference Tsvangirai was quoted saying: "In my darkest moments I am inspired by the hope and courage of the people. At times when I am tempted to feel proud, I am humbled by the commitment of millions of ordinary Zimbabweans to stand up for their rights and in times of anger and frustration I am consoled by the absolute dedication to peaceful, democratic change demonstrated by the great people of Zimbabwe.

"We are all committed to fostering democracy and democratic processes. While I am focused on fulfilling this mission in Zimbabwe, I know that there is much to be learnt from the knowledge and lessons that you bring to this conference."

Our heartfelt congratulations go out to Mr. Tsvangirai. This an important step in the transformation of the image of African leadership; we hope there will be many similar announcements to follow.

Innovative problem solving in Namibia

Here's a great post I picked up from What Gives 365 a by a lady who has decided to donate $100 everyday to worthy causes. In this entry, she talks about a the Bicycling Empowerment Network (BEN). Enjoy the read! (Click here for the full article)

How far can a bike go to transform an underdeveloped community? Well, as it turns out, pretty darn far when it’s in the hands of a true bike believer like Michael Linke.

In 2005, Aussie Linke and his wife Clarisse started the Bicycle Empowerment Network to get the population of Namibia on the road to positive change. Bikes can carry five times more weight than a single person and go five times as far, five times as fast as walking – which means that with a bike, rural poor people can be about ten times more productive. They can ride to school, get access to health care, transport goods, or zip back and forth to work more quickly and easily.

But Linke quickly discovered that even the process of getting bikes into the hands of people created a virtuous cycle of progress. When BEN started its bicycle distribution program of second hand bikes that had been donated from other countries through international partner Bicycles for Humanity, Linke realized that every container of bikes could literally become a bicycle shop. And he started pedaling that idea far and wide.

For about $25,000, communities in Canada, Australia and America will send a container filled with hundreds of donated bikes, tools, spare parts, and even soccer balls and school supplies to Namibia – and the container itself can then be transformed into a bike shop that brings employment and economic opportunity to small towns in the countryside. BEN technicians train village women and men to maintain, sell, and repair the bikes, creating Bicycle Empowerment Centres. Since 2005, 25 BECs have opened in rural towns in Namibia and one in Zambia, employing 100 men and women and providing 17,477 bikes to those who want to put mettle to the pedal.

But bikes are more than an economic stimulus package, they’re also a health care plan. By outfitting bicycles with steel frames and stretchers, BEN Namibia has created 70 bicycle ambulances for rural communities where emergency transportation does not exist. Bikes are also used by hundreds of Namibian home health care workers, 90% of them women, who have been given bikes that make it easier to deliver supplies, medication and critical care to HIV/AIDS patients– at the lowest operating cost of any transportation mode.And strictly for sport, Team BENN fields a team of expert cyclists to race across the country, while BEN’s Spin for Life program uses the athletes in AIDS awareness events in rural towns – where prize bikes are awarded among those who get tested, prevention strategies and condoms are distributed, and health issues are discussed.

In a country that only achieved its independence from South Africa in 1990 and where most of the 2.1 million people live in rural poverty, bikes can steer an entire nation towards a better future. And if Bicycle Empowerment Network has anything to do with it, they’ll make sure what goes around, comes around for the people of Namibia. To join me in donating to BEN, a Women, Tools & Technology Ashoka Changemaker, click here!

An inspiring youth story from Yemen

I've just read an uplifting story of five Yemeni youth who have rejected stereotypes typical of those around them and are actively participating in ensuring a better life for themselves and others. Enjoy!

In three years and nearly a dozen visits, yesterday was the most inspiring day I’ve had in Yemen. I saw something that made me truly optimistic for the future of the country, in the form of five teenage guys that are competing in a regional competition for the Best New Business. They’ve already developed their own company, Port Mokha, exporting genuine Mokha Coffee from Yemen; what was even more surprising was the variety of their talents beyond business acumen.

INJAZ, the organization running the competition, is a regional organization that supports young entrepreneurs throughout the Arab world, and this team representing Yemen was headed to Morocco for the competition. Their enthusiasm was contagious – they were bright, ambitious, motivated and confident.

They developed Port Mokha coffee company with training and guidance from INJAZ. Here’s their sales pitch: “We offer the world top-notch Yemeni coffee from the high mountains of the Southern Arabian Peninsula…With every sip of this authentic brew, we offer our customers a unique and satisfactory cultural and sensory experience.”

Their product isn’t just about the coffee (which I’m sure is the best) because part of their business model is a commitment to give back to the community and a sense of civic responsibility. The coffee comes in a cloth bag made from traditional Yemeni fabric that is made by an income-generating association employing the mentally disabled; part of their profits will be donated to the association.

To everyone’s surprise, two of them started beat boxing and rapping in mix of Spanish, English and Arabic. The song spoke of cross-culture acceptance, the mixing of language and tradition, and a sense of strong pride in their country. I was speechless. In a country where the dropout rate for kids 8 -14 years old is more than 80 percent, where illiteracy rates are among the highest in the world, and where chewing qat (a mild narcotic leaf) is the national pastime, it was inspiring to see their creativity and initiative.

They may not win the competition in Morocco, but I know they won’t be discouraged and will continue to invest in themselves and their country. I walked out with two bags of coffee and an undeniable sense of hope.

(Source: CIPE blog - Danya Greenfield)

Ghana leads the way on MGD 1!!!

Here's a fantastic post from the Gates Foundation blog by Melinda Gates. You might have already heard - news of this development made the front page of today's Daily Graphic. Hope you enjoy the read nonetheless:

"In the fight to reduce hunger and poverty around the world — part of the ambitious set of development targets known as the Millennium Development Goals — one country that really stands out for me is the West African nation of Ghana.

Ghana’s progress has been remarkable. Between 1990 and 2004, Ghana outperformed all countries globally in reducing hunger by 75 percent. It’s also making great strides to reduce the number of people living in poverty. In fact, Ghana is on track to become the first country in Africa to achieve the MDG goal for halving poverty and hunger from 1990 levels by 2015. That’s remarkable, especially when you consider the devastating drought, dwindling harvests and rising poverty that Ghana experienced in the mid-1980s.

How did they do it? In Ghana, as in many parts of the developing world, the poorest people get their income by farming small plots of land. So finding ways to help these farmers produce more food and get it to market is a critical element in reducing poverty and hunger. That’s also the goal of the foundation’s agricultural development initiative, which we launched in 2006.

And that’s just what Ghana has done. During the past 25 years, Ghana’s increased government investments in agriculture have led to some amazing results. Ghana commits nearly 10 percent of its budget to improving agriculture, putting it among the top investors in the sector in Africa. It’s experienced steady growth in agricultural productivity, almost 5 percent a year since 1985, making it one of the world’s top performers in agricultural growth. A dramatic increase in cocoa production has helped to increase exports. And child malnutrition in Ghana has almost been cut in half since the end of the 1980s.

There is still work to be done in Ghana – only half of the land suitable for agriculture is currently under cultivation and there are still complaints from farmers that the market for some crops is underdeveloped. But there is no disputing the fact that Ghana is on the right path: just two decades ago, Ghana was a country that struggled to feed its own people; now it has ambitions to become the breadbasket for West Africa.

I invite you to take a look at this photo gallery — featuring the story of Ghanaian cocoa farmer Peter Owoahene Acheampong — on Ghana’s progress."

This is fantastic news; hopefully progress in the seven remaining goals will follow soon!

Ghana lowest ranking African country on 2010 FSI

The recently published Failed States Index* for 2010 reveals that Ghana (ranked 122nd from the top) has the most stable government in Africa. Unfortunately on the other end of the scale, seven out of the top 10 states are African. It seems bad governance and corruption (amongst other things) are leaving the governments of our brothers an sisters in a chronically sorry state of affairs; a mere 15 states - 10 of which are African - have shared the top 10 slots since records first began in 2004. More from Foreign Policy:

"This year's index draws on 90,000 publicly available sources to analyze 177 countries and rate them on 12 metrics of state decay - from refugee flows to economic implosion, human rights violations to security threats. Taken together, a country's performance on this battery of indicators tells us how stable - or unstable - it is.

At the top of the list, Somalia saw yet another year plagued by lawlessness and chaos, with pirates plying the coast while radical Islamist militias tightened their grip on the streets of Mogadishu. Across the Gulf of Aden, long-ignored Yemen leapt into the news when a would-be suicide bomber who had trained there tried to blow up a commercial flight bound for Detroit. Afghanistan and Iraq traded places on the index as both states contemplated the exit of U.S. combat troops, while already isolated Sudan saw its dictator, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, defy an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court and the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of the Congo once again proved itself a country in little more than name."

It is heartbreaking to see our leaders continue hold on to power with such gusto that they forget what true leadership is all about. I decided to focus on Ghana's position on the list early in the article so as not to characterize the whole post on the unfortunate crisis of leadership Africa seems to be battling with. I hope that we're successful in training and encouraging our next generation of leaders to be more responsible.


*This Foreign Policy site is very Flash-heavy and can take a long time to load. For a simpler version of the Index, click here.

Success stories

I know you are all aware of the benefits of mentoring, especially if you work with the YLMP. This being the case, you will also know that mentoring can be challenging at times. I found a few quotes - 'success stories' from various mentoring programmes - that I want to share to encourage you to push through the tough times. Hope you enjoy the read! :)

By mentors:

"Over the past 3 years of serving as a mentor, I have enjoyed myself tremendously. I feel that my fellow mentors and I have made a significant impact in the lives of our students. What I have enjoyed most about the program has been interacting and getting to know my mentee. For an hour each week, I get to escape from my world and return to simpler times of elementary school. Whether talking about music class, field trips, or the latest book report...it is refreshing to see life from a different perspective."

"I have enjoyed being a positive role model. Greeted with enthusiasm every visit, it is warming to see that my presence is so greatly appreciated and that simply by being there to talk and help with homework, I can make such a large impact...I have enjoyed the simple pleasure of taking time out of my hectic schedule to interact with my mentee on a personal level."

"At first I was very nervous and I didn't really think it would be very rewarding, and didn't really think I could be effective. However, now I realize how little it really takes for these kids to get something from me, and now I look forward to it every week and try to encourage all my co-workers to get involved."

"While it is a great feeling to give back to my community, it is even more rewarding to see the direct impact mentoring has on individual lives, mentors and mentees alike. To be able to be a positive role model in a child's life, who may not have one otherwise, is a feeling unparalleled for everyone involved. My experience mentoring has inspired me to dedicate the rest of my life to helping and educating others, who I hope in turn will continue to pay forward the wonderful gift of mentoring in the future."

A Library Success Story: 'The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind'

After a discussion between Elinam Adadevoh (YLMP Programme Manager) and Adobea Akuffo (Senior Mentor), I've decided to post an amazing story of a boy who was inspired to do great things by a book in his local library. Here is a short review:

"William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi... a country plagued by AIDS and poverty. Like most people in his village, his family subsisted on the meager crops they could grow, living without the luxuries — consider necessities in the West — of electricity or running water. Already living on the edge, the situation became dire when, in 2002, Malawi experienced the worst famine in 50 years. Struggling to survive, 14-year-old William was forced to drop out of school because his family could not afford the $80-a-year tuition.

Though he was not in a classroom, William continued to think, learn — and dream. Armed with curiosity, determination, and a book he discovered in a nearby library, he embarked on a daring plan — to build a windmill that could bring his family the electricity only two percent of Malawians could afford. Using scrap metal, tractor parts, and blue-gum trees, William forged a crude yet working windmill, an unlikely hand-built contraption that would successfully power four light bulbs and two radios in his family’s compound. Soon, news of his invention spread, attracting interest and offers of help from around the world. Not only did William return to school but he was offered the opportunity to visit wind farms in the United States, much like the ones he hopes to build across Africa.

A moving tale of one boy’s struggle to create a better life, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is William's amazing story — a journey that offers hope for the lives of other Africans — and the whole world, irrefutably demonstrating that one individual can make a difference." (SOURCE)

Kudos to William Kamkwamba for his courage, innovative spirit and determination to see this project through from start to finish. It is encouraging to see that young people are interested in learning, and can (and do) get information from books. It makes the work we're doing at Kinbu seem all the more relevant... who knows how many budding 'Williams' we have amongst us?

You can read an article on this story (including details of how William created water pumps and introduced solar power to his community) here. Aside from the book, a documentary and a Foundation have been created in William's honour.