Who will feed Africa?

“Does Africa care about it's image? Do we care about our dignity as Africans? Or are we comfortable with what is out there? Are we okay with the pictures that come out of Africa with hungry children whose ribs are like guitar strings? Because if we did care about that the world perceives of us, then we would do something about it.”

Those were the words of Mr Oby Obyerodhiambo at the just concluded meeting on Food Security in Nairobi. The meeting organized by Society for International Development [SID] with support from the Rockefeller Foundation is one of the first in the Africa Speaker series that is aimed at creating dialogue about the future of Africa as a continent and its people.

Youth get adapted into the Africa for results conversation

 It’s been over a month since I was here. I got overtaken by the events of life I guess. Which sometimes is never a good thing, I must be quick to add. But I have been able to witness so many great things as well.  One of which I get to share on here.

14^th to 17^th May 2013 went down in history as very important days in the progression of youth matters in the continent. For the first time youth were invited and allowed to be a part of the deliberations at the AfCop [Africa Community of Practice] and COMESA [Common Market for East and Southern Africa]. The meeting was held in Lusaka, Zambia. There were 150 delegates from about 19 countries in Africa. About 20 of them were youth. 

AfCop was first instituted in 2007 as a result of the Paris Declaration.  It started out as a forum where practitioners met to develop and expand their capacity to manage development results. It later on transitioned into becoming a change agent. As a change agent, it would then seek to improve the development processes through supporting and advocating for result oriented policies and programs through regional and national Communities of Practice. The former took place between 2007 and 2009 while the latter is ongoing having started in 2010.

Warid Telecom gets bought by Airtel : the before and after!

Last week on Saturday the town was abuzz with talk of how Warid Telecom Uganda, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi based  Essar group had been bought out by the second largest telecom and market  challenger Airtel, subsidiary of Bharti Airtel from India. It was confirmed later in the week with a Presser from Airtel. Most people were surprised that for the first time Airtel was not on the receiving end of a re-brand having gone through a series of 5 re-brands since its start back in 1995. That in itself has been an arduous journey which has brought them many fortunes and quite many misfortunes as they struggled to erase the bitter taste the very first brand had left in people’s mouths. And no, I will not go off on a tangent.

National Quotas for Girls in ICT. Is that the answer?

25^th April is the #GirlsinICT Day. The ICT sector all over the world has changed a lot since the early days of computing.  There is today what we call the ‘knowledge economy’. ICT has taken on a lot of new magnitudes. Communication technologies have started to become the forces of social change. Social media and its participatory platforms are as much about the technologies as they are about their applications. We now have a space where the virtual and physical worlds are able to closely co-exist in active and vibrant ways across several platforms. Women are yet to tap into this. They have, but not so fully. There are so many opportunities that come ICT that if girls said yes, they would be able to not just stand out, but also flourish.

ICT employment opportunities for women today include high-speed internet, cloud computing, green ICT goods and services and “smart” applications. In some countries the applications as those promoted by governments as a strategic response to the needs that need to be met by society. In a country like Uganda though, the smart applications and innovations are mainly out of interest and concern by young brains that see the need for change in society.