Columbia University’s SIPA Pan-African Network, African Business Club and African Law Students Association

Invite

The 7th Annual African Economic Forum

March 26th and 27th, 2010

Columbia University in the City of New York

Sessions:

African Hospitality: The Power Within| Infrastructure Development in Africa

African Fashion Going Global |China-Africa Trade and Investment

Aid vs. Investment| Brand Africa: Defining a Continent

Greasing the Wheel: Law, Corruption and the Economy

Niger Delta Investment Summit

Fashion Show | Movie Screening

Details: http://www.aef2010.com

Register: http://africaeconomicforum.com/aef2010/register

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnRPunzOZds

On Saturday Feb. 6, 52 people braved the winter to attend Solving Africa’s 2010 Kickoff event. Our vision is to have three or four events like this every year that follow this format:

1. Three Africans present their ideas for projects they’ve been thinking of launching in their communities in Africa. These ideas usually fall into education, health care, or the general pool of entrepreneurship.

2. Attendees choose a project to work on for the evening. They brainstorm, create project deliverables, and build a steering committee to get the idea up and running.

3. After the evening, participants meet offline and continue working on these projects, giving ongoing feedback to the larger group and asking for whatever help is necessary.

In this fashion, between 9 and 12 new small scale projects will be launched each year by people from the communities they want to serve.

photo: Jos Main Market. Courtesy PlateauStateGov.org.

Jos, the city I grew up in, is fighting. Again. No one is sure why the fighting started and already, 149 people have died. One story says the fighting started when residents opposed the rebuilding of a Mosque that had been destroyed in the 2008 riots. Another report says angry Muslims went to St. Michael’s church and started shooting people as they left church. None of these stories makes heads or tails. The Muslims I know are not angry people, so where exactly is this coming from?

Why is no one asking?

- How were people so readily armed? I know the parts of the city where this fighting is happening. Those guys can’t afford the kinds of specialized weapons and uniforms that all of a sudden appear as if on demand when a fight breaks out.

- Who is supplying the weapons being used to terrorize my city? One friend theorizes that it’s the surplus from army reserves being sold by dirty officers on the black market. That’s a theory. The truth would be nice.

- This started in 2001, again in 2006, and 2008. Why has the governor not investigated the previous riots and come to the bottom of it?

- Yes it’s a safer response to leave the city entirely. But what is the best response? When those who can afford to relocate do so and leave the city in the hands of people who don’t mind burning it down. What then?

Read the story here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100118/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_violence)

THISDAY NIGERIA NEWSPAPER REPORTS:

The young man, who yesterday night attempted to ignite an explosive device aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan in the United States has been identified as Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, former First Bank chairman. Mutallab, a former minister and prominent banker recently retired from the Bank’s board.

The older Mutallab, as at the time of filing this report, had just left his Katsina hometown for Abuja to speak with security agencies, family sources say. According to the family members, Mutallab has been uncomfortable with the boy’s extreme religious views and had six months ago reported his activities to United States’ Embassy, Abuja and Nigerian security agencies. Continue Reading

At least 30 people have been killed in clashes between herders and farmers in Nigeria’s central Nasarawa State, witnesses say.

Local people have described armed men driving from house to house shooting. Farms and homes have been destroyed in the remote village of Udenin Gida.

The fighting follows weeks of tensions between the two groups.

Nasarawa is in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt” where rival ethnic groups often clash over land and other resources.

To each person who sees that ordinary individuals have the potential to transform a village, city, country or continent, we invite you to be part of what we’ve loosely called the Solving Africa movement. Our goal is to showcase, inspire and mobilize young Africans and their friends involved in: thinking up, launching, and executing fantastic projects in their villages, cities, and countries.

We are a smattering of entrepreneurs, development professionals and skilled idealists from around the world interested in creating a new African dream. We think it’s possible that if one thousand people, say Cameroonians, decided to start hospitals that adhered to international standards and treated the diseases most common to their people, these 1000 individuals would have essentially transformed the healthcare sector of their country. Yes, there are many variables and unknowns but that’s how a country is changed – one daring individual effort after the other.

What is your Solving Africa initiative and how can our growing network of entrepreneurs, development professionals and eager-to-work idealists help?

Starting January 2, SolvingAfrica.com will be replaced with www.SolvingAfrica.org…