FROM McKinsey Quarterly:

Africa faces many challenges, particularly in health care, water, and climate. Yet what is surprising is that these issues can all be ameliorated or even controlled. This package of articles explains practical ideas for making the continent a better place to live.

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Three practical steps to better health for Africans
A new model to make care more accessible to Africa’s people is not only possible but affordable.

Saving mothers’ lives in Namibia
Namibia’s ongoing efforts offer lessons for other countries seeking to improve maternal health, as well as for health programs tackling HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, or other conditions. [includes a video about several initiatives described in the article]

Closing the R&D gap in African health care
A system governed by Africans in Africa is needed to provide a sustainable funding mechanism that would encourage African scientists to collaborate on common health concerns, share expertise, and build capacity.

Strengthening sub-Saharan Africa’s health systems: A practical approach
Systemwide barriers impede health care delivery in sub-Saharan Africa. A comprehensive approach that strengthens key elements of national health systems is required to save lives.

Extreme climate conditions: How Africa can adapt
Africa’s climate already poses grave risks to the continent’s people and economies, and global warming promises to intensify the problem. A factual risk-management solution can help.

Confronting South Africa’s water challenge
South Africa faces a growing gap between water supply and demand. The most effective solutions will cater to the specific agricultural, industrial, and domestic needs of the country’s different basins.

Helping Africans to jump-start their industries
A nonprofit’s work in Mozambique and other developing countries shows how businesses there can break the cycle of poverty.

More on Africa:
This alert concludes our month-long series exploring the future of Africa. To read other selections from the complete package, please visit our Africa topics page.

FOR once an investment fad seems justified: the 21st century is shaping up to be that of the emerging markets, just as the 20th was America’s century and the 19th Britain’s. But that leaves open the question of which countries, exactly, will emerge. Will Asia and Latin America mark the limits of the spreading prosperity? Or will the boom reach the perennial laggard, Africa? Will a new pride of economic lions take their place beside the Chinese dragon and the Indian tiger?

Ten years ago The Economist dubbed Africa “the hopeless continent”. Since then its progress has been remarkably hopeful. In 2000-08 Africa’s annual output grew by 4.9% (adjusted for purchasing-power parity), twice as fast as in the 1980s and 1990s and faster than the global average of 3.8%. Foreign direct investment increased from $10 billion to $88 billion—more than India ($42 billion) and, even more remarkably, catching up with China ($108 billion). The Boston Consulting Group notes that, since 1998, the revenues of Africa’s 500 largest companies (excluding banks) have grown at an average of 8.3% a year.

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The world’s most valuable individual prize is not being awarded for a second year because no-one is deemed worthy of winning it.

Sudanese businessman Mo Ibrahim set up the $5m (£3m) prize for African ex-leaders to encourage good governance on the continent.

“The standards set for the prize-winner are high,” he said, adding that no new candidates had emerged since last year.

Winners must have been democratically elected and agreed to leave office.

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More appalling is the fact that France guarantees the CFA franc’s free convertibility into hard currency, originally on the condition that all 15 Franc Zone countries surrender 100% of their foreign reserves to the French Treasury. The amount was reduced to 65%, and then 50%, in 2005, but France still deducts its share directly from these countries’ export earnings.

Moreover, the mandatory 20% foreign exchange cover stipulated in the convention signed with France in 1962 now stands at 110%. And a foreign-exchange control enacted in 1993 ensures that only France benefits from this capital drain by limiting the free flow of capital to France alone. The ensuing massive capital flight has bled the region’s economies and eroded their competitiveness.

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Again and again, at every level, people told me: “Don’t give us aid – trade with us fairly. Stop ripping us off.” Of course, most of them don’t mean that literally; they simply want a relationship with the rest of the world that is grounded in greater respect and understanding. Well-meaning sound bites like Tony Blair’s “Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world” inadvertently label as “victims” hundreds of millions of energetic and hard-working individuals who are resilient, inventive and enterprising – and who live in vibrant and peaceable communities that have much to teach our own dysfunctional societies

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The new syllabus is to be based on the book entitled “General History of Africa”, an eight-volume series written from the African perspective and published by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). It will be the first such programme designed for an entire continent.

The project is to be discussed at a seven-day conference organised by UNESCO and dubbed “Regional Conference on the Pedagogical Use of the General History of Africa in African Schools” that began today in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

“UNESCO’s publication of the General History of Africa, launched in 1964 and completed in 1999, marked a revolution in the recognition of Africa’s cultural heritage,” said the leader of the UN agency Irina Bokova.

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For a description of this 8-volume history, see: HERE

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The Ireland-based company Tullow Oil has reported yet another oil discovery on the Jubilee field off Ghana. The hired Atwood Hunter rig had “encountered oil in four out of five wells in the exploration and appraisal programme in the area immediately to the southeast of the Jubilee Field,” Tullow’s Angus McCoss said in a statement.

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The deal, first announced in March, has seen Bharti acquire Zain’s mobile operations in Africa, which serve more than 42 million customers in 15 countries, Reuters noted.

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