ZAMBIA: THE STRATEGICALLY LOCATED BUT LARGELY UNEXPLOITED LUAPULA PROVINCE A ROAD CONNECTION TO THE RICH COPPERBELT… The first time I went to Luapula Province in north-eastern Zambia was in 2014. I had heard that it was the ‘province of the future’, with much…
SENEGAL SETS THE EXAMPLE FOR AFRICA WITH EFFICIENT WATER SUPPLY DELIVERY IN A SEMI-ARID AREA OF THE CONTINENT A WATER-STRESSED REGION… At over three million square kilometres, the Sahel region stretches from Senegal to Sudan, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, traversing the…
Tanzania’s Natural Gas Resources A Major New Project to Re-ignite Investment THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF NATURAL GAS… Natural gas is viewed by many analysts as an important ‘transition fuel’ for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions as countries wrestle…
KENYA: THE AFRICAN ICT HUB ASPIRES TO GLOBAL STATUS WHILE ITS DYNAMIC ICT START-UPS PROLIFERATE SO MANY ICT PROJECTS AND INITIATIVES… Here I am sitting at my desk, preparing a blog on Kenya’s remarkable information and communication technologies (ICT) sector. And I’m sitting…
Zimbabwe: Can the Government Succeed in Beneficiating its Vast Lithium Resource? AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT In December 2022, the Zimbabwean Minister of Mines and Mining Development issued the following government notice: “No lithium-bearing ores, or un-beneficiated lithium whatsoever, shall be exported from Zimbabwe to another country.”…
MAURITIUS: CAN THE ISLAND BECOME A MAJOR LOGISTICS PLATFORM FOR RELIEF AID SUPPLY IN AFRICA? AN IMPORTANT MISSION I’m sitting in an Air Mauritius aircraft on my way to the island. The plane is full of tourists and honeymoon couples in casual attire…
WHY IS GABON SO RICH? Easy question to answer: It has plenty of oil and gas and also huge rainforests covering nearly 90% of its total land area delivering some of the best hardwoods in the world. And then there…
Nigeria: A Massive Electricity Supply Problem, Brave Decisions & Small but Innovative Successes A more than daunting power supply problem Let’s start with the facts. There are various estimates of Nigeria’s true population count, but it must be around 220 million…
RWANDA: THE ‘SINGAPORE’ OF EAST AFRICA? A COUNTRY EMERGING FROM THE DEEP DARK It’s the late nineties and I’m visiting Rwanda for the first time. I’m attending a COMESA conference and I tell the Rwandan delegate next to me how excited I am to be…
Côte d’Ivoire: The ‘Jewel of West Africa’ Makes a Major Move from Agriculture to Mining ONCE THE ‘JEWEL OF WEST AFRICA’ I first visited Côte d’Ivoire way back in 1982. It was my first foray into West Africa and I was alone without any…