Category Archives: Africa

The evolving oil & gas landscape in West Africa

This paper considers the bi-regional relations between Europe and West  Africa in the field of energy. As its point of departure, the paper begins by  acknowledging the ferocity with which today’s energy landscape is changing.  As important producers and consumers within this landscape, Europe and West  Africa are subject to change, both intra- and inter-regionally.… Read More »

Barriers to trade between Ghana and Nigeria

Actually, the full title of the note is: “Removing Barriers to Trade between Ghana and Nigeria: Strengthening Regional Integration by Implementing ECOWAS Commitments”: This note assesses the challenges that goods exporters within the region face when trying to benefit from the ECOWAS-wide Free Trade Area. It focuses on the experience of 30 exporting companies in… Read More »

On Nigeria’s GDP Rebasing – Plus Links I Find Interesting, Rebasing Edition

There really is nothing much to the rebasing/re-benchmarking exercise. That it has not been done in such a long period, hence making the updated figures sound so huge, says more about governance in Nigeria than anything else. And any serious Nigeria analyst or private sector player is not really surprised by the figures. The point… Read More »

*African Development in the 21st Century*

A sizable chunk from a lengthy piece by the ever insightful Keith Hart: Every person of African descent, whatever their actual history and experience – they could be Barack Obama, for example — suffers the practical consequences of being stigmatized by colour in a world built on racial difference. This situation will only be ended… Read More »

So the Chinese are benefiting from AGOA

Of course they are: A paper from the Centre for the Study of African Economies suggests that savvy Chinese companies have set up shop in Africa as a route to get their products into the US, with the added incentive of all those juicy AGOA benefits. The logic is impeccable. Not only does an Africa platform get… Read More »

Who is funding infrastructure projects in Africa?

From a new report by the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa on external funding of infrastructure projects in Africa: In 2011 total external financial commitments/investments in African Infrastructure declined to 2009 levels. Overall commitments totalled US$41.5billion – a decline of 26% compared with 2010 figures. Commitments from ICA Members declined by 56% to US$11.9billion as compared to 2010… Read More »

A fascinating research I look forward to reading

LSE PhD student Zahrah Nesbitt-Ahmed  researches domestic workers, a.k.a. househelp/housemaid/houseboy, in Lagos: My research is an account of the lives of male and female domestic workers in Lagos, Nigeria. It looks at the forms of control they experience in their daily interactions with their employers, as well as the multiple ways they respond to such… Read More »

A Framework For Discussing ‘Africa Rising’

  Jolyon Ford of Oxford Analytica: I wonder if we should perhaps think of sub-Saharan Africa as a collection not so much of jointly emerging markets, but of diverging ones. Last week I was privileged, under the umbrella of the commendable ‘Invest in Africa’ initiative, to join experienced businesspeople in London discussing endemic inaccurate negative perceptions by outsiders of… Read More »