(Guest Post)* SAWIP – Driving the African Century: Youth, Technology, and Entrepreneurship

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Africa Rising, African youth, entrepreneurship in Africa, impact investing in Africa, SAWIP, South Africa, technology in Africa, Wilson Center

* Guest Post by Sharon Czarnek

On June 26th, the Wilson Center hosted the South African Washington International Program (SAWIP) event.  While I wasn’t able to attend all 3 of the speaker series’, I did make it to two out of three. The first was entitled Business, Technology and Entrepreneurship in Africa.  The moderator was Tom Wheeler, the Managing Director of Core Capital Partners and the two panelists included Andile Ngcaba the Executive Chair of Dimension Data and David Frankel the Managing Director of Founder Collective.

A South African History Lesson for the Office of Rep. Bass

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Africa fact check, Africa Rising, African growth, criticism of US Africa policy, Karen Bass, Obama Africa trip, South Africa independence, Tanzania

I recently gave Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) kudos for her Africa Policy Breakfast series. I do however, have to comment on a recent email that I received from her office, ‘Africa Update: African Growth, POTUS Travels.’

There are brief country profiles on South Africa and Tanzania (two of Obama’s three destinations on his Africa trip), obviously intended for businesspeople with little knowledge of Africa.

South Africa is described as being “ruled by a white minority from independence in 1948 to the end of apartheid in 1994.”  While the National Party, which formally implemented the Apartheid system came to power in 1948, I am not aware of any means by which South African ‘independence’ can be traced to that year.

The profile on Tanzania reads as if it was lifted from a tourist magazine: “Known for its spectacular landscapes, coastal plains and highlands, Tanzania has the largest land area among its East African neighbors. Situated between Kenya and Mozambique, Tanzania is bordered by the Indian Ocean and boasts pristine sandy beaches and Africa’s highest and snow-capped mountain, Kilimanjaro.”

It may just be small errors and romantic talk like this that leaves the US with a small share of the ‘Africa rising’ pie.

The French Embassy Tackles ‘Africa Rising’

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Africa Rising, BRICS, French Embassy DC, James Traub, Le Monde Diplomatique, Mwangi Kimenyi

I’ve been receiving a rather frequent barrage of cultural e-mails from the French embassy (La Maison Francaise) for awhile now.  I’ve noted that the Embassy has been involved in a fair number of events involving artists from various Francophone countries in Africa.

However, my inbox this morning served notice of an Africa related event with a very different flavor.  The Embassy’s next Le Monde Diplomatique Debate (these are held four times a year) will discuss “Rising Africa and the BRICs: Is Africa truly rising or are the positive developments we observed deteriorating?” on May 16.

The event will feature the head of the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution, journalists from Le Monde Diplomatique (Anne Cecile-Robert) and Foreign Policy (James Traub) and a senior official at the IMF (Amadou Sy).

I’m betting that this will be a very big picture discussion in which the BRICS (the embassy communications uses a lowercase ‘s’) will figure more prominently than any developments in Africa.  Nonetheless, it’s good to see that the French Embassy is addressing African issues in such a prominent way.

A cursory review of Francophone countries seems to indicate that their political situations are deteriorating.  A BRICS country, South Africa, recently suffered a disastrous setback in the Central African Republic, there are opaque reports of an attempted coup in Chad, and I’d suggest that the political process in Guinea and the Ivory Coast is not getting back on track.  If any readers attend, I’d be very curious to hear what topics come up and to what extent China in Africa and Mali dominate the conversation.

 

 

 

The ‘Home of the Humanities’ Examines Africa’s Landscape Heritage

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Africa Rising, African landscapes, Dumbarton Oaks

Dumbarton Oaks, which although I’ve never heard of it, supports research and learning in Byzantine, Garden and Landscape, and Pre-Columbian studies is hosting a two day conference on “Cultural Landscape Heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Befitting an institution run by the Trustees of Harvard University, the event, scheduled for May 10 -11 attracts an impressive mix of scholars from US, UK, and South African universities and comes with a $60 price tag.

Recently, much has been made of the Africa Rising narrative.  The promotional flier for the event even acknowledges that Dumbarton Oaks has paid scant attention to Africa over the past 40 years.

I’d chalk this up as a great example of the Africa Rising theme in DC.