NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Celtel International BV, Africa’s third-largest mobile-services provider, has agreed to buy 65% of Nigeria’s Vmobile for just over $1 billion, Celtel’s Kuwaiti parent said. Mobile Telecommunications Co. said in a statement on the Kuwaiti stock-exchange Web site that the deal includes an option for the purchase of the remaining 35% of Nigeria’s third-largest mobile-phone operator. The deal would be the latest for fast-expanding MT...

Source

Wall Street Journal (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

City Poor Can’t Afford Electricity

A FEASIBILITY study has found that the majority of around 14 000 households in Windhoek’s informal settlements will not be able to pay for either electricity connections or consumption if this were to be provided to them. The study commissioned by the City in 46 informal settlements found that the residents wanted a high level of electrical infrastructure, which was beyond their means to pay for. The analysis of the households’ income revealed that most households...

Source

The Namibian (Windhoek), Lindsay Dentlinger (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Fair Trade program helps small farmers benefit from global markets.

Thousands of Africans can escape poverty without a penny being given to charity, industry experts were told yesterday. Surging demand for organic cotton is giving farmers in the developing world the chance to enter into fair trade arrangements with western companies. Farmers in Tanzania are supplying cotton for Abaca, an organic mattress and bed specialist based in T Croes, near Ammanford. The relationship will allow farmers who have previously battled poverty ...

Source

IC Wales (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Local entrepreneurs drive a major West African water program.

A set of water and sanitation projects implemented by a well-funded water and sanitation program in Ghana, Mali and Niger has gone far beyond boreholes and pit latrines to improve public health. The efforts of 12 entities that have formed the West African Water Initiative broadened their community health goals with a variety of projects. Farmers are selling cat-sized rodents that are popular fare in big-city restaurants; women in fashionable boubous stand guard over standpipes along the roadsid...

Source

WorldView Magazine (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Mobile Phone: A Tool For Modern Fishermen In Ghana

by Mawutodzi K. Abissath It is prudent to be guided by some of the thought-provoking African proverbs like this simple one: ?A child who has never traveled before tends to think that only his mother knows how to cook delicious soup.? --------- Long, long ago; and long before the Pyramids of Egypt were built and before Amenhotep IV a.k.a Akhenaton who was the first human being to proclaim monotheism or the concept of One God, passed through transition in 1350 B.C., traditional fi...

Source

mobile africa (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Indigenous Trees Feed Rural Families

Nicola Jenvey Durban Hundreds of rural families, many of whom are child-headed households, are securing sound incomes by growing indigenous trees from the seeds found in local forests and using the saplings as currency. The project, which aims to help people out of poverty, got a boost yesterday when 100 new bicycles, food, clothing and building materials became the anchor products for a range of stores that will barter trees for...

Source

All Africa (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

85bn Cedis Micro-Credit For Rural Poor

The government has channelled ?85 billion (approx US$9.4 million) through the rural banks for lending as micro-credit to the economically active but poor in the rural areas for them to improve the quality of their lives. The Vice- President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, announce...

Source

graphic ghana (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Cisco Systems Sees Massive Potential in Developing World

Many African governments were beginning to spend heavily on telecommunications networks, seeing them as a platform through which to connect communities and start to challenge poverty. Two problems were how Cisco could penetrate so many countries, and the shortage of skills to support its technologies. Networking company Cisco Systems expects to sustain annual growth of 10%-15% for the next few years as the volume of traffic carried on global networks surge...

Source

Business Day (Johannesburg), Lesley Stones (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa