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 – flowery shirts, short pants, sandals – and I’m stuck at the back wearing longs and a white shirt, clearly at odds with the passengers’ pervasive holiday […]
Gabon: An ‘Old’ Oil Country Finds Other Resources A Rich Country Getting Richer
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 is also its well-developed manganese mining sector. But oil has been the country’s wealth mainstay. […]
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 – the largest market by population by far in sub-Saharan Africa. An installed electricity supply capacity of some 12 500 megawatts but production that varies between 4 000 MW […]
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 in his intriguing country and I mention that I will be visiting the Genocide Museum […]
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 bookings and feeling pretty nervous. My anxiety was heightened by the chaos on my arrival at Abidjan airport – young ragged touts pulling at my […]
