African Technology Development Forum

Geldof seeks to raise $1bn for African investment plan

2010-09-07T13:54:23Z

Bob Geldof, the singer and campaigner for aid to Africa, is seeking to raise $1bn from institutional investors for a private equity venture on the continent. Among other pledges towards the fund, the African Development Bank has earmarked $50m. The International Finance Corporation, the World Bank's private sector arm, has offered a similar amount. Mr Geldof also committed an undisclosed amount of his own money. The fund, called 8 Miles, would be run by Mark Florman, a former executive at UK buy-out house Doughty Hanson, who has recruited experienced Africans to work on the venture. It intends to make about 20 investments of between $15m and $80m in agribusinesses, financial services and telecommunications. Mr Geldof hoped to launch the venture as early as two years ago but plans have been delayed by the global financial crisis and the fund has yet to hold a first close, which would secure money to start investing. Among others that Mr Geldof has approached for advice on the venture are Mo Ibrahim, the Sudanese-born telecoms tycoon turned philanthropist, and Arki Busson, the founder of hedge fund EIM. He has also discussed his plans with Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who sits with Mr Geldof on the Africa Progress Panel, monitoring donor commitments towards increased aid to Africa. .Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools.

African Parliamentarians Back Call To Action For Green Revolution

2010-09-04T11:35:28Z

Accra, Ghana, 4 September 2010 – A group of senior African parliamentarians has supported former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call to action at the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF).

“The AGRF is the most bold and holistic approach to getting Africa's agriculture really on course,” said Dr Alhassan Ahmed Yakubu, Chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Food and Cocoa Affairs, in the Parliament of Ghana.

“It has identified all stakeholders without exception to come on board to share their experiences,” said Dr Yakubu.

H.E. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture at the African Union Commission, echoed the sentiment in a speech summarising the second day at the AGRF: “Parliaments must lead the way and help spearhead the achievement of the green revolution at country levels.”

Mr Annan challenged the group: “if politicians don't lead, the people will make them lead.”

He heard views from influential parliamentary committee chairs, including the Hon. John M. Mututho, Chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperatives, Parliament of Kenya.

The Hon. Ms. Wonekha Oliver, Chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Livestock Industries and Fisheries, Parliament of Uganda and Patricia Hajabakiga, Member of the East African Legislative Assembly, and a former Environment Minister in Rwanda, were also at the panel session.

The parliamentarians lauded the efforts of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa (AWEPA) to launch a capacity building initiative in support of agricultural parliamentary committees in Africa.

“African governments must see agriculture at the top of their development agenda,” added Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Multi-media broadcast and video supporting this press release, click here

ECA launches an African technology network to generate value from research and development

2010-06-21T15:19:36Z

Addis Ababa, 22 June 2010 (ECA) - The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has launched a network of community of experts and institutions involved in technology development and transfer in Africa, composed of leading African agencies responsible for technology development, adaptation, diffusion and transfer.

African Technology Development and Transfer Network, as the initiative is called, aims to “generate economic and social value” from Research and Development (R&D) outputs; facilitate technology adaptation, diffusion and commercialization; and encourage investment in R&D.

Its core function will be to provide a platform, supported by ECA, where small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and institutions in Africa can have their technological and non-technological challenges solved by the collective power of the skills within its membership. Dubbed the “Innovation Workshop”, the platform will combine the advantage of open innovation with those of physical centres of excellence to offer virtual and on-site solutions.

The Network will promote learning, exchange of experiences and collaboration across countries and institutions. It is also expected to facilitate cross-border coaching and mentoring of emerging techno-entrepreneurs on the continent – opening up new frontiers and opportunities in science-based businesses.

Among its key activities, the Network will embark on training programmes and awareness workshops on intellectual property protection and management, as well as technology commercialization and exhibitions. In addition, it will offer online platforms, databases and knowledge resources for managers and technology transfer officers, as well as support technology transfer initiatives within firms and SMEs.

For further information click here or contact: UNECA, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Telephone: 251-11 5511167, Email: aopoku-mensah@uneca.org

Science with Africa conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, to be held in Addis Ababa from 23- 25 June 2010

2010-06-08T12:17:44Z

The conference will explore policies, measures and mechanisms to meet Africa's development goals and aspirations by harnessing the potential of entrepreneurship and innovation to transform ideas and technologies into new or improved products, processes and business.

The main objective of the conference is to promote innovation and entrepreneurships to meet development challenge. Specifically, the conference seeks to:

1. Improve linkages between scientific and business communities;

2. Promote private sector investment in science, innovation and enterprise development;

3. Strengthen STI policy-making and the legal and regulatory frameworks;

4. Encourage SMEs and scientists to exploit global knowledge resources and,

5. Increase innovation financing mechanisms.

For this reason, the conference will pay special attention to the development of innovative policy tools and measures to build the necessary human capital, STI infrastructure and financial instruments, strategies that target underrepresented groups (e.g. youth women) and create international collaborations.

The conference will offer:

1. Patent Fair where individual researchers and inventors will get tips and advice on and, if needed, simulation of the various stages of obtaining a patent or a utility model. This is co-organized with the African Regional Intellectual Property Rights Organisation (ARIPO).

2. STI Investment Forum will involve a brainstorming session with international venture capitalists and African bankers to discuss the key criteria for funding STI and preparation of projects for funding.

3. Technology transfer and Intellectual Property Rights Clinic will address preparation, structure and assessment of technology transfer agreements, and assessment of the value of intellectual property rights and selection process of the best way to commercialize technological assets.

4. S&T Exhibition

5. Product lunches will include the following:

a. The African Science, Technology and Innovation Framework

b. The Network of Technology Development and Transfer

Cell Phones: Attitudes change to Business

2010-06-04T18:27:46Z

Africa as a whole has been the fastest growing market in the world over the past decade. Between 2002 and 2007, the mobile phone market in Africa grew by 49.3 per cent. By comparison, Asia grew at 27.4 per cent.

Analysts from HSBC wrote in January that "with competition increasing in most sub-Saharan African markets, operators will see market shares, average revenues per user and margins come under pressure in their traditional voice market". Providers will seek to burnish returns by pushing mobile broadband and mobile payments services, the bank predicted.

Clean Energy: Developing Nations count up the opportunities

2010-06-03T22:00:00Z

Leading developing countries for the first time made commitments to limit or curb their greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Copenhagen accords at the end of last year.

To assist them, developed countries have pledged technical and financial assistance. Loans such as the World Bank's climate investment funds (CIFs) have been put in place to help finance projects in emerging markets that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

While there is much talk of technology transfer to assist less developed nations, in some areas those countries are emerging as leaders. In Brazil, for example, the government has set deforestation reduction targets. Meanwhile, the country has forged ahead with sugarcane-based ethanol production, with most of its new vehicles able to switch between petrol and ethanol.

“The best opportunities are in emerging markets,” says Joao Geraldo Ferreira, president and chief executive of GE Brazil, citing the January launch in Brazil by GE and Petrobras of the first power plant able to generate electricity based on ethanol.

“Brazil plays a crucial role in developing green technologies,” he says.

As in mature markets, regulation plays a big role. In India, government subsidies have supported the growth of a wind power industry, with Suzlon Energy, a former textile business, emerging as the world's third-largest wind turbine supplier.

At the same time, small-scale initiatives can make a difference. In Ghana and Kenya, the World Bank is financing a project called Lighting Africa to make light-emitting diode (LED) lanterns available in rural areas that are not connected to the electricity grid, providing an affordable, non-polluting alternative to kerosene lamps.

“The use of kerosene in rural parts of developing countries is a surprisingly large market,” says Alan Miller, climate change specialist at the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group.

“And if you can get the price low enough, [LED lighting] is something that doesn't need a big subsidy because people are already paying $1 to $2 a month for a kerosene lamp,” he says.

However, while progressive policy commitments, technology innovations and carbon reduction strategies are starting to be seen in emerging markets, climate change strategies come against a pressing need to accelerate growth in gross domestic product, particularly in countries such as India and China.

Moreover, in some countries – notably China – industrial expansion has been supported by power generated in large part by highly polluting coal-fired power stations.

For this reason, Mr Yarnold says, developing countries need to do more. “It's terrific that for the first time these countries have made commitments,” he says.

“But those commitments are like sales targets that you know you can achieve. It's a net plus – but I wouldn't get carried away with the potential impact.”

Innovation is the chief engine of economic development according to OECD

2010-05-31T22:00:00Z

The OECD tells governments how to unleash business's creative potential. But the best way to boost innovation is not just to invest in the invention of new products and services but also creating the incentives to commercialize them on a large (...) - KNOWLEDGE ESSENTIALS

Initiating work on a "Green Development Mechanism" to deliver economic development opportunities by engaging the private sector

2010-05-16T16:25:24Z

What is the green development mechanism (gdm)?

The gdm is the working name of a proposed innovative financial mechanism that seeks to mobilize private sector finance to mitigate biodiversity loss, much as the CDM has done to mitigate climate change. It would create enabling conditions for increased private sector support for the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Whereas biodiversity finance has traditionally come from official development assistance and philanthropic grants, a gdm would mobilise private finance by creating a market mechanism to link biodiversity supply with biodiversity demand. By establishing a standard and accrediting process to certify the supply of biodiversity-protected areas and by facilitating a functional market, a gdm would enable the sale of certified biodiversity conservation to willing buyers, including businesses and consumers.

For answers to other frequently asked questions about the gdm, please see the GDM FAQs document

This month the gdm is being discussed at the CBD meetings in Nairobi. For more details, see here

The aim is to secure the support of the CBD Parties at their 10th Conference taking place in October in Nagoya, Japan.

The Next Empire? China's Impact in Africa

2010-05-15T11:48:20Z

All across Africa, new tracks are being laid, highways built,ports deepened, commercial contracts signed—all on an unprecedented scale, and led by China, whose appetite for commodities seems insatiable. In its recent approach to Africa, China could not be more different from the West. It has focused on trade and commercially justified investment, rather than aid grants and heavily subsidized loans. It has declined to tell African governments how they should run their countries, or to make its investments contingent on government reform. And it has moved quickly and decisively, especially in comparison to many Western aid establishments.

China in $23bn Nigeria oil deal

2010-05-15T11:42:32Z

China has agreed to spend up to $23bn (€19bn, £16bn) to build oil refineries and other petroleum infrastructure in Nigeria, potentially strengthening its hand in the country as it seeks to secure 6bn barrels of crude reserves.

Mr Egbogah said that as a result of the agreement, the Chinese construction group will raise finance from Export-Import Bank of China and other state-backed lenders that have underwritten infrastructure ventures across Africa.

It could also strengthen China's hand in separate negotiations by Cnooc, one of China's three big energy groups, to secure one-sixth of Nigeria's 36bn barrels of oil reserves. Mr Egbogah said that there had been little movement on that front since October but that the Chinese groups had mentioned building refineries as part of its initial proposals.

China has struck infrastructure-for-resources bargains across Africa over the past decade as it seeks crude, minerals and metals to fuel its breakneck economic expansion.

Previous Chinese offers to build or renovate Nigerian refineries as part of haggling over oil blocks between 2005 and 2007 have run aground. Beijing's emissaries have had far less success navigating Nigeria's perilous political terrain than they have in Angola or Sudan, both of which have emerged as crude suppliers to China.

The new accord might represent a breakthrough, however.

Coupled with its chronic lack of electricity, Nigeria's dependence on imported fuel is seen as one of the most obstinate impediments to Africa's most populous nation realising its full economic potential.

AfDB Approves USD 50 Million Investment in Africa Capitalization Fund

2010-05-05T12:01:31Z

Tunis, 28 April 2010 - The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, through its private sector window, approved on Wednesday, 28 April 2010 in Tunis an equity investment equivalent to USD 50 million in the Africa Capitalization Fund (ACF).

The ACF is an 8-year, pan-African investment fund, with a targeted investment level of USD 200 million. ACF is focused on investing capital and subordinated debt in commercially viable, systemically important banks to strengthen their lending ability.

The Fund is expected to deliver strong development impact by:

Stabilizing portfolio banks, maintaining and/or creating jobs in their respective countries; (Strengthening private sector development through the provision to portfolio banks of advisory services aimed at improving their economic and financial performance; Catalyzing private sector investments into emerging financial markets; Focusing on smaller countries due to diversification requirements and the relative sizes of banking systems in emerging markets. The ACF may make investments directly or indirectly, through holding companies, subsidiaries, or otherwise. It offers an opportunity for governments to privatize the relevant banks in their country, and for family-owned banks to diversify their ownership and expand their operations regionally, which will result in better capitalized, more resilient banks and stronger financial markets on the continent.

The Fund adopts a pan-African perspective and will strengthen regional banks, in line with the AfDB's Regional Integration Strategy. It aligns well with the Bank's Private Sector Operation Strategy which aims to improve the enabling environment for private sector development, by providing assistance in “soft infrastructure” (e.g. financial sector development, trade liberalization).

The ACF is an efficient tool to help strengthen systemic banks in RMCs, allowing them to increase lending to the private sector, thereby improving livelihoods and Africa's economic growth. The Bank's participation will have a demonstration effect, helping to catalyze funding from other investors. It also leverages key partnerships with other DFIs, such as the IFC, creating synergies and maximizing the strengths and experience of different players.

Building National Capacity for Integrated Agricultural Research for Development in Kenya

2010-05-03T13:54:22Z

In 2004, the Kenyan government launched its 2004-2014 Strategy for Revitalising Agriculture (SRA), which has the objective "to provide a policy and institutional environment that is conducive to increasing agricultural productivity, promoting investments, encouraging private sector involvement in agricultural enterprises and agribusiness". Objectives The resulting “Integrated Agricultural Research for Development” (IAR4D) initiative, aims to:

• Build a critical mass of agricultural research, extension and education/training personnel in IAR4D concepts, approaches and methods (training of trainers);

• Facilitate integration of IAR4D concepts, approaches and methods into the national agricultural research, extension and education systems;

• Promote national and regional networking of IAR4D actors.

Find out more on

Africa's Eastern Promise

2010-05-03T07:27:05Z

Over the past few decades, China has managed to move hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty by combining state intervention with economic incentives to attract private investment — the kind of experimentation that the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping once described as "crossing the river by feeling the stones." Today, China is feeling the stones again but this time in its economic engagement across Africa. Its current experiment in Africa mixes a hard-nosed but clear-eyed self-interest with the lessons of China's own successful development and of decades of its failed aid projects in Africa.

Attention Whole Foods Shoppers

2010-05-01T17:40:48Z

Poverty — caused by the low income productivity of farmers' labor — is the primary source of hunger in Africa, and the problem is only getting worse. The number of "food insecure" people in Africa (those consuming less than 2,100 calories a day) will increase 30 percent over the next decade without significant reforms, to 645 million, the U.S. Agriculture Department projects.

What's so tragic about this is that we know from experience how to fix the problem. Wherever the rural poor have gained access to improved roads, modern seeds, less expensive fertilizer, electrical power, and better schools and clinics, their productivity and their income have increased. But recent efforts to deliver such essentials have been undercut by deeply misguided (if sometimes well-meaning) advocacy against agricultural modernization and foreign aid.

A Worm Rewrites the Start-Up Rules

2010-04-26T08:11:17Z

This is hardly Silicon Valley or Wall Street, but I am in Coalmont to interview a captain of industry, one of the county's biggest employers, someone you might even call a visionary – the owner of what must be the world's only vertically integrated worm factory. Silver Bait LLC produces fishing worms by the millions. But that's only the beginning of what it produces. The walls of the 170,000sq ft worm factory are made of giant concrete blocks that the company produces onsite. Likewise, the pre-stressed concrete columns and beams in the building. Silver Bait also produces its own corrugated metal roofing on a machine the company's founder, Bruno Durant, designed and built

Stiglitz and Sulston put a persuasive argument against the widely held idea that "patents are a necessary incentive".

2010-04-23T08:45:23Z

By Joseph Stiglitz and John Sulston

Joseph Stiglitz argued earlier that the present crisis should lay to rest any belief in ‘rational' markets. Welcoming a federal court ruling which handed victory to science and medical innovation, Stiglitz and Sulston put a persuasive argument that undercuts the "patents are a necessary incentive". The key argument is that patents for genes do not serve basic economic interests; rather, the monopoly power of the patent actually hinders both competitive development and the additional research that is necessary to understand more fully the roles that these genes play.

Under the patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Myriad had total control over the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes since the 1990s. No other companies have been able to do research on the genes without Myriad's permission.

The court held that genes and human genetic sequences are naturally occurring things, not inventions. They are a part of all of our bodies and contain the most fundamental information about humanity—information that should be available to everyone. The researchers and private companies that applied for these gene patents did not invent the genes; they only identified what was already there.

Patents are also not necessary for ensuring that genetic tests come to market. Currently, Myriad does not allow any other lab in the United States to perform full diagnostic testing on patients in order to tell them whether they are at increased risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Because of this monopoly, Myriad is able to charge more than $3,000 to perform the test, a prohibitively high amount that keeps some women from being tested and making informed health decisions.

Like basic mathematical theorems, genes are an example of "basic knowledge"—the kind of knowledge that typically cannot and should not be patented. Had Alan Turing's mathematical insights been patented, the development of the modern computer might have been greatly delayed. It's true that knowledge cannot be produced without cost, but there is a proven alternative: government- and foundation-supported research in universities and research laboratories.

Mr. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University, won the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics. Mr. Sulston, chair of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester, won the 2002 Nobel Prize in medicine.

Read the full story

Innovation in emerging markets

2010-04-19T19:34:54Z

Why are countries that were until recently associated with cheap hands now becoming leaders in innovation? A new published special report in The Economist argues that the most obvious reason is that the local companies are dreaming bigger dreams. Driven by a mixture of ambition and fear—ambition to bestride the world stage and fear of even cheaper competitors in, say, Vietnam or Cambodia—they are relentlessly climbing up the value chain. Emerging-market champions have not only proved highly competitive in their own backyards, they are also going global themselves.

A New Biology for the 21st Century

2010-04-16T07:54:55Z

Expert Report published by the US National Research Council to delineate the potential of scientific and technological advances in the science of biology to promote sustainable development - DID YOU KNOW?

ETHiopia Summer School for Architecture and Entrepreneurship

2010-04-14T19:52:45Z

The ETHiopia Summer School will bring together interdisciplinary faculty members and students from ETH Zurich and the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development (EiABC) to teach and apply sustainable, collaborative and innovative architecture. The Summer (...) - DID YOU KNOW? / Entrepreneurship

The rights approach: India's rights-based activism is bound to yield less than it promises

2010-03-22T10:05:42Z

India-wide, more than 43% of Indian children under five are malnourished, a third of the world's total. Over 35% of Indians are illiterate and over 20m children out of school. For all its successes, including six decades of elections and a constitution that introduced the notion of equal rights to an inequitable society, India's abiding failure is its inability to provide aid and economic opportunity to millions of its impoverished citizens.