By Angie Tyler, Graduate Student at SAIS at Johns Hopkins
Kah Walla, entrepreneur, activist and former presidential candidate from Cameroon gave a short presentation on Thursday at Georgetown MSFS titled, “Africa is Rising. Are Africans?” and then spent most of the time on Q&A. She said that she chose her theme based on her recent trip to Ghana where she found that despite impressive statistics on economic growth her conversations with Ghanaian citizens revealed a different reality. Apart from a few exceptions, she argued, most African countries have not been able to translate their vast economic potential into health and wealth for their citizens, which led her to ask, “Why is there such a disparity between the potential and the reality?” In a word…GOVERNANCE. She says Africa is not poor, but poorly run and lacks visionary leaders and strong democratic institutions. Continue reading
