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You should know by now that African economies are growing. Almost every continental analysis leads with impressive data: economic growth rates hover at an impressive 6%; combined GDP will hit $2.6-trillion by 2020; foreign direct investment is flocking in to areas that were once no-go zones for the average international investor. It’s a compelling, feel-good story – and it just might be true. This week, the Institute for International Finance...

Africa’s emergence is the new consensus. For the second time in a just few months, a major international journal has run a cover illustrating new found optimism about the continent. After The  Economist’s mea culpa (correcting its previous assessment of a “hopeless continent”), TIME magazine just re-ran an earlier title: “Africa rising”. This is no fluke: Africa’s economies are growing and the continent is much wealthier today than it ever...

In his book, Civilisation: The West and the Rest, economic historian Niall Ferguson contended that Western Europe was able to out-develop other regions of the world because it developed what he described as six killer applications that others lacked. These were competition, consumerism, democracy, medicine, science and work ethic. There is no doubt that in the period leading to the industrial revolution European countries exceeded in these areas, at least...

President Goodluck Jonathan’s chief economic adviser, Nwanze Okidegbe, late last year refuted a claim credited to the World Bank Country Director in Nigeria that 100 million Nigerians lived in extreme poverty. Okidegbe rightly described the proposition and its implication that impoverishment is deepening in Africa’s most populous nation as spurious and astonishing. What was interesting in Okidegbe’s response was his argument that 100m Nigerians could not be living on less...

Evolutionary biologists have long argued that competition over scarce natural resources is one of the key drivers of violent conflict within and across species. The competition in Africa appears to be over the revenue generated from scarce natural resources which often leads to violent conflict. Chilling examples of conflict in Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sudan and other resource rich regions of Africa often tempts scholars into arguing that...

The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) has allowed local and foreign private companies to engage in one of the more modern businesses in the financial sector, the capital goods leasing business, The Reporter learnt. Governor of NBE, Teklewold Atnafu, told The Reporter in an exclusive interview that any Ethiopian or foreign citizens who seek to engage in the capital goods leasing business can take part after fulfilling the requirements, as...