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Jen Brea’s summmary of the TED conference, challenging people to listen to the hopes and dreams of Africans, rather than to the well-meaning Americans and Europeans who we allow to represent the continent.
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Nii blogs George Ayittey’s idea of a “cheetah fund”, to support young African entrepreneurs and connects it to traditional ways of raising money to support businesses in Africa
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Jonathan explains why Tanzania is expelling refugees from Burundi and DRC, and talks about possible economic implications, while recognizing that Tanzania has done more than its fair share to accomodate refugees from conflicts in central Africa
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Could newspapers with half their staff look more like newspapers from 1972, when great papers had much smaller staffs? Or will we end up with no hard news, and squishy papers that are little more than the style section?
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Evidently, I’ve been teaching the Brazilian ministry of culture about anonymity. Cool. Thanks, Jose.
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Which Africans are saying to Bono, “Please stop” ? I don’t think it’s the ones getting free ARVs thanks to the Clinton Foundation, nor the ones receiving WFP food, nor those whose kids are going to donor-subsidized schools. No, it’s the well-dressed intellectuals who don’t benefit from the aid anyway. (Actually, in this case, the author giving voice to the African voiceless is based in Beijing.)
The article makes some fair points, but honestly, can we have a little less melodrama? Why does all the press go to the extremists, either “Aid Will Fix Everything” or “Aid is the Root Of All Evil” ? Can we have a rational debate here?
It is very complicated to close refuge camps. It will affect the refuge as well as the country where refugees resettled. For example in Kenya , there is a refuge camp called Kakuma where there are more than 80,000 refuges for different countries.
Kakuma very dessert land and place. Kenyans how born that aria are nomad people just followed their goat. They also did not have food to eat because they did not know hot to farm they were also uneducated. But once the Kenyan government gave Kakuma for UNHCR to resettled refuges the town change very dramatically. Now in Kakuma there are mobile connections, restaurant, hotels, banks, schools and cinemas. I wander what will happen if refuge in kakuma forced to go back to their homeland. How will run those businesses and technology? Very complicated for all. I lived in Kakuma and I know every things about the town and people.
Henok, you should write about this article and about your experience in Kakuma – I think the perspective you just shared would be very useful for people to read. My experiences with refugee camps in Ghana are quite similar – the Liberian refugee camp outside of Accra has become quite a vibrant place and it’s difficult to know how that community will change as refugees return to Liberia.
Paul, Jen Brea’s article is a summary of discussions in Arusha, Tanzania a few weeks back. The viewpoints she’s articulating were quite widespread at that conference – her piece is at least as much reportage as it is advocacy. And while she’s generally based in Beijing, she was in Arusha for the conference, is in East Africa right now and knows the continent extremely well.
On questions of balance, I think it’s worth reading this article as part of a larger debate. Hold this article up against the entirity of the Bono-edited Vanity Fair issue and this looks more like a response than a one-sided piece…
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