West Africa: science paves the way by Christopher Pala Each day scores of lorries laden with tomatoes, onions and other fresh vegetables start the 1,000 km trip from landlocked Burkina Faso to Accra, Ghana’s capital on the Atlantic coast. This journey — along smooth and tarred roads in the north and bumpy and unpaved roads in the south — should take between seven and 12 hours. The typical open 18-tonne truck crosses only one border, but stops up to 20 times as officials check documents and collect bribes. On the last 40 km stretch, the lorry sways precariously from side…
Christopher Pala
Africa’s growth and foreign investment resist the world recession by Christopher Pala Sub-Saharan Africa has weathered the current global recession. Its growth remains resilient with increasingly diversified flows of foreign investment, according to economists and academics. “The recent crisis that impacted Europe and the United States so hard has largely spared Africa,” says Punam Chuhan-Pole, lead economist for Africa at the World Bank. “We expect the growth rate for Africa excluding South Africa will be 6% in 2012,” she adds. “With South Africa, that would be only 4.7%.” (FDI) in Africa soared from $9.7 billion in 2000 to $57.8 billion in…
