Isaac Twumasi Quantus's Blog (52)

The Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) leads the way in helping Ghana to achieve a green revolution by boosting small-scale farming in the country.





With a vision to make Africa food-secured, AGRA is moving agricultural products from input suppliers to farmers’ fields and ultimately to consumers’ tables, thereby contributing to…

The Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank today approved a US$200 million credit from the International Development Association (IDA*) to the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) to increase rural coverage and to provide access to affordable, modern, cost-effective electricity services to its citizens.



Over the past 5 years, GoE has made some commendable strides in improving access to…

Page through any Africa section in the global press and you’re likely to be introduced to tech-savvy graduates in hip offices, stock traders checking commodity prices on mobile phones, or African “lions” picking up where Asia’s “tigers” left off. By now everyone has heard that six of the world’s fastest growing economies are African.



Welcome…

African Development Bank President Donald Kaberuka capped a visit to Washington with a landmark meeting at the Group of Eight (G8) Summit on Saturday.



The special session focused on agriculture policy in Africa, and in particular, a fresh initiative called the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.



The meeting was hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama at Camp David near Washington, where this year’s G8 Summit of the world’s largest economies took…

African agricultural projects and products in the next few years will get a boost of $150 million from a group of U.S. seed, chemical and equipment companies.

The investments pledged by DuPont, Monsanto, Cargill and others are part of an overall $3 billion effort by companies around the world announced by President Barack Obama.

Along with companies from India, Israel, Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom, and 20 companies from Africa, the corporations have committed some…

In its first year of operation, FOXit, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and service provider focused on Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) in business, has gained ground within the enterprise solution development and application space and demonstrated why agility means everything in business today.



The company, along with several industry partners including EOH Consulting, Microsoft, Nintex and PWC Exordia, recently celebrated the business’ first birthday.



Since…

Kenya’s Business Daily reports that Kenya Power has begun recruiting staff to manage its planned nuclear energy project



The company has called for applications for a project feasibility team leader, internal auditor, financial accountant, procurement officer, legal assistant, audit assistant and an ICT officer related to plans to build a nuclear energy project.



The…

Eskom's funding plan to 2017 has been finalised and the electricity generation group will spend R201.6 billion over the period with R65 billion budgeted for this year, says Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba.



Presenting his budget vote speech in Parliament on Wednesday, Gigaba said that government had approved the increase of Eskom's domestic borrowing programme from R65 billion…

Ghana is working assiduously to explore the feasibility of nuclear energy in its power mix, as it strives to become a major net exporter of energy to other West Africa States.



Thus, government’s intervention geared towards increasing the total installation capacity of electricity generation, currently at 2000 megawatt, to 5000 megawatt in 2015, has targeted the utilisation of nuclear power to supply…

The 4th Africa Carbon Forum (ACF), this year in Addis Ababa, opened its doors today to over 1,000 registered participants from across the globe to foster a discussion on climate change and carbon finance in Africa.

 

The message resonating this year from Addis is that Africa represents a golden opportunity for a green future.



“The vast potential represented by African countries in the fight against climate change cannot be underestimated,” said Christiana Figueres,…

Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa remains strong and is poised for lift-off after growing at 4.9 percent in 2011, just shy of the pre-crisis average of 5 percent. Excluding South Africa, which accounts for over a third of the region’s GDP, growth in the rest of region was 5.9 percent, making it one of the fastest growing developing regions, according to a new World Bank report on Africa’s economy.  



 

Over a third of countries in the region attained growth rates of at least…

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight objectives agreed by all 193 members of the United Nations and 23 international organisations. With 2015 set as the deadline, the global goals include eradicating extreme poverty, fighting disease epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, achieving universal primary education and developing a global partnership for development.



Originally set out at the Millennium Summit in 2000, progress towards achieving the goals has been mixed with advancement…

Equatorial Guinea is now part of a Global Environment Facility (GEF) project titled ‘A Regional Focus on Sustainable Timber Management in the Congo Basin’, an initiative backed by international development organizations, national NGOs, and government officials. One of three pilot countries, Equatorial Guinea will begin a series of regional activities in which all GEF participants will collaborate closely to address illegal logging and ensure the sustainability of forest…

Ghana and Canada will cooperate on expanding the Aboadze thermal plant in Takoradi.

President John Evans Atta Mills, who held discussions on the plant with the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) last November in Canada, met this month with executives of the Corporation in Ghana.

The CCC is the main investment grouping in Canada, and the executives led by Marc Whittington, are in the country to sign an agreement with the Government of Ghana to support the expansion of the…

The last decade has shown that in the race to claim the 21st century, Africa will give Asia and a rising Latin America a run for its money. McKinsey global recently published a ground breaking publication named ?Lions on the Move: the progress and potential of African Economies. 

Drawing a direct parallel to the economic emergence of the Asian Tiger Economies, the study fixed impressive numbers against the impending rise of the African Lion economies. 

There is no more…

One of Nigeria’s leading economists and management consultants, Foluso Phillips, will speak at Ghana Economic Forum scheduled for May 3, 2012 at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel.







The Ghana Economic Forum will assemble key industry chieftains, senior- level decision-makers in public & private sector organisations in the country and development partners to engage in discussions centred on the how Ghana can sustain the macroeconomic gains made in recent…

ARB Apex bank will soon start disbursing low interest loans, up to the tune of US$8million under the Rural Finance Wholesale Fund to rural commercial farmers in the country.





The revolving and medium-term loan facility will be made available to Rural Commercial Banks (RCB) for on-lending to specific commercial farmers as well as micro, medium and small enterprises.





The fund, which is a compact agreement between the Danish and Ghanaian governments, will help…

Hydropower could supply all of Africa's electricity needs if cross-border cooperation was stepped up, according to a UN report launched last week (12 March) at the World Water Forum in Marseilles, France.



Africa currently generates just one third of its electricity from hydropower, but could learn from cooperation and training programmes with India and some Western countries, according to Ulcay Unver, coordinator of the UN World Water Assessment Programme, which produced its…

By Isaac Twumasi-Quantus in Accra, Ghana.

It now pleasant to know that Africa is counted among the wealthiest continents and it will take a few to describe Africa so. Even though many families in Africa get their food from their own unirrigated one plot of land and walk distances to retrieve water. That does not mean…

West Africa has the potential to become one of the top five gold-producing regions in the world, according to Wood Mackenzie mining industry analyst Jonathan Leng.

Numerous new gold-mining projects are being developed in West Africa, particularly in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Liberia and Sierra Leone, but none of them are big enough to threaten the top gold producer, China, he adds.

“The recent boom in the industry is the result of two main factors: first, the…