Columnist / Kingsley ighobor
One year of free trading in Africa calls for celebration despite teething problems
Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General AfCFTA Secretariat, says significant progress expected in 2022.Free trading under the auspices of the African Continent...Published: 19 Feb 2022 at 08:41hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Africa's quest for a cashless economy gains momentum
Insufficient financial inclusion, unbanked masses and financial literacy are increasingly attracting investors When she needed to transfer money to a f...Published: 30 May 2017 at 21:28hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Africa's jobless youth cast a shadow over economic growth
Leaders put job-creation programmes on the front burner African governments are confronting unemployment in many different ways. In Senegal, with 200,0...Published: 02 May 2017 at 16:25hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Youth can help achieve SDGs
In 2015, Samuel Malinga, at age 26, founded Sanitation Africa - a company engaged in turning human waste into briquettes for cooking and agricultural manure. For his innovative approach to waste manag...Published: 05 Apr 2017 at 23:16hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Diagnosing Africa's medical brain drain
Higher wages and modern facilities are magnets for Africa's health workers Dressed in full medical gear and clutching a folder, Folu Songonuga, a physi...Published: 13 Jan 2017 at 21:59hrs | 1 | by Kingsley Ighobor
Commodity prices crash hits Africa
Volatile global financial markets and weaknesses in global growth to blame Just three years ago, most of the world's fastest-growing economies were in ...Published: 13 Jan 2017 at 21:52hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
A green path to industrialization
The only viable option for Africa's continued development For environmentalists and development experts, green is not just a colour; it also refers to ...Published: 08 Nov 2016 at 17:23hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Unleashing the power of Africa's civil society
A Liberian women's peace movement led by 31-year-old Leymah Gbowee did something extraordinary in July 2003 to force Liberian warlords to sign a peace agreement that ended 10 years of a bloody civil w...Published: 13 Aug 2016 at 09:11hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Lagos now wears a new look
City transforming from chaos of traffic congestion, rickety buses and pickpockets An oft-told tale of Lagos's once-notorious traffic jams is that ...Published: 15 Apr 2016 at 21:33hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
'I foresee a world without poverty'
Amina Mohammed is the United Nations secretary-general's former special adviser on post-2015 development planning. She was heavily involved in planning the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a new ...Published: 05 Dec 2015 at 08:28hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Sustainable Development Goals are in sync with Africa's priorities
Newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals could transform the continentOn 26 September, a day after world leaders adopted the new development age...Published: 20 Nov 2015 at 21:55hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
African leaders pledge to fight for a deal on climate change
An opportunity to emphasize the link between climate and development As African leaders, climate change experts and scholars understand it, the climate...Published: 20 Nov 2015 at 21:50hrs | | by Dan Shepard and Kingsley Ighobor
Billions now required to save depleted healthcare systems
Ebola's most affected countries lobby for funding for hospital infrastructure On 10 May 2015, a day after the World Health Organization declared Li...Published: 17 Jun 2015 at 17:48hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Financing Africa's massive projects
Innovative bankrolling gains popularity and raises high hopes among key countries It is an audacious $4.8 billion project undertaken by one of the ...Published: 28 Feb 2015 at 08:14hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor and Busani Bafana
Africa wants equal partners
Interview with Maged Abdelaziz, UN secretary-general's special adviser on AfricaIn 2012 the United Nations General Assembly created a mechanism to monito...Published: 26 Sep 2014 at 07:11hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
No longer a curse? - African leaders take action that may transform the mining
The Hollywood blockbuster movie, Blood Diamond, tells a gripping story of how diamonds fuelled Sierra Leone's 11-year civil war which erupted in 1991. It depicts kidnappings, use of child so...Published: 17 May 2014 at 07:39hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Light at the end of the tunnel
Much ado over Africa's power sector Apapa is the industrial hub of Lagos, Nigeria's bustling commercial capital that's home to some 17 million peo...Published: 03 May 2014 at 07:41hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
All eyes on $1 trillion
African agribusiness is set for a huge leap, according to a World Bank report Imagine for a moment the impact of a $1 trillion African agribusiness...Published: 12 Apr 2014 at 06:39hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor and Aissata Haidara
African philanthropists push for prosperity
Last July, US President Barack Obama set the spark for his Power Africa programme that will help sub-Saharan African countries build power production and transmission projects and double their el...Published: 14 Dec 2013 at 02:34hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Uprooting the causes of conflicts
Momentum in post-conflict peacebuilding in Africa On 11 July 2011, when South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and his 8.3 million compatriots celebrate...Published: 07 Sep 2013 at 05:59hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
African youths demand involvement in governance
Ask members of the African political elite, civil society activists or anyone else about the role of youths in national development and you will hear a lot of profound, if trite, catchphrases, suc...Published: 17 Jun 2013 at 16:22hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Youth unemployment in Africa: a ticking time bomb or an opportunity?
Leaders awakening to the need for job-creation programmes Senegalese opposition politicians denounced the country's high unemploy...Published: 17 Jun 2013 at 16:22hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
To be forever free!
Renewed focus on modern slavery on anniversaries of the transatlantic slave trade Every day sees visitors breaking down in tears while touring 97,0...Published: 22 Mar 2013 at 17:12hrs | 2 | by Kingsley Ighobor
Politics of succession: coping African when leaders die
In December 2008, a Guinean newspaper published a photo of a frail and ailing President Lansana Conté, who appeared to be struggling to stand up. The photo stoked rumours of the president...Published: 21 Mar 2013 at 16:24hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
China in the heart of Africa
"China's gift to Africa." The new headquarters of the African Union, a towering 20-storey building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is so called because China picked up the $200 million tab for the stat...Published: 21 Mar 2013 at 16:21hrs | 1 | by Kingsley Ighobor
Africa's natural resources must benefit the African people
In May 2012, Maged Abdelaziz was appointed as the UN's new special adviser on Africa, at the level ...Published: 26 Jan 2013 at 05:22hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Tourism in Africa is slowly coming of age
Jet-lagged, 500 delegates from around the world arrived in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, in May to deliberate on the path to Africa's tourism future. To unwind, Zimbabwe's Tourism Authority, host of the c...Published: 18 Aug 2012 at 07:31hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor and Aissata Haidara
Mobile phones are getting smarter in rural Africa
Imagine you are in Yokadouma, a rural community in eastern Cameroon with little electricity and inaccessible roads. You have an old, inexpensive mobile phone with which you can only make and receive ...Published: 03 Apr 2012 at 21:35hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor I Africa Renewal
Africa's famine response - too little, perhaps too late
Jerry Rawlings, a former president of Ghana and now the high representative for Somalia for the African Union (AU), visited a number of African capitals in July and August to drum up support for a pan...Published: 24 Dec 2011 at 00:20hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Kenyans use social media to mobilize support for drought victims
Julie Gichuru is an award-winning Kenyan television journalist rated by Forbes business magazine in 2011 as one of "20 youngest powerful women in Africa." Ms. Gichuru has a reputation as an engaging T...Published: 13 Dec 2011 at 16:31hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
UN in post-war reconstruction: Sierra Leone's success story
"The war is over, go and enjoy life," Sierra Leone's former president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, declared at a January 2002 symbolic burning of weapons and ammunition to mark the end of the country's civil ...Published: 10 Nov 2011 at 20:26hrs | 1 | by Kingsley Ighobor and Michael Fleshman
Wangari Maathai, the woman of trees, dies
Kenya's Wangari Muta Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, environmentalist and human rights activist, died 25 September at age 71. A mother of three, she devoted her life to promoting the envir...Published: 09 Oct 2011 at 06:20hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Tackling the evil of famine in the Horn of Africa
Images of starving Somalis have shaken the conscience of the world: stomachs flattened by hunger, sagging flesh and noses dripping in mucus, fed on by opportunistic toilet flies. And death is lurking....Published: 16 Sep 2011 at 19:14hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
Africa's economy rebounds without jobs
The 2011 Economic Report on Africa predicts a steady growth of African economies. Indeed, the report announces a 5% increase rate for the continent this year compared to the 4.7% recorded in 2010....Published: 28 Jun 2011 at 16:53hrs | | by Kingsley Ighobor
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