So I have been working on coming up with alternative ways (i.e. non-“development aid) of solving some of the challenges facing Africa, I’m still hooked on the prize/competition idea as a way to spurn innovation, especially if combined with a mentoring element. I just came across Google’s Summer of Code page and thought it was such a great idea. I hope they will be running it again.
On an unrelated note, Kenya is in desperate need of something like this. The standards of journalism have truly gone down…even the weekend op-eds are crappy. Kinda strange that this is happening at a time when the press have more freedom than ever.
Count me in on this mentoring thing that comes along with the competition idea.
Your point about the decline in quality in op-eds has been bothering me for a while. I heard last month about pressure on opinion writers who were taking the governement to task on the M.O.U, the manifesto (remember that!) and other pledges. Our media has freedom, now it needs courage.
Hadn’t heard about the pressure on opinion writers…only Philip Ochieng seems to be holding strong (even though I don’t know what he is talking about half the time).
It just shows you how wrong you can be when your ‘issues’ are defined for you – we remain a society made up of individuals who are primarily motivated by short term gains, usually cash or favours (which ultimately have a financial implication). This cuts across the public and private sector, as well as the media. There are pockets of people and organizations that are doing some positive stuff, today’s comments on poverty by ex Barclays MD Malcolm Hewitt at the Eskom Leadership Conference in JHB talked about some of those things – such as Barclays’ s work with SMEs in East Africa and some innovative Aids work in Gaborone.
Any links to Hewitts comments by any chance?
I think a number of AFrican countries need this Ory. Apart from Elendu Reports there is little of any substance. Journalists are still being harassed by those in power on a weekly basis so there is an atmosphere of fear amongst the profession.
I think there’s also a element of corruption to it with journalists being paid not to run certain stories.
Sadly there aren’t any updated links to the specific comments from Hewitt, but you will find the key themes and debates on their site… http://www.businessinafrica.net/conferences_events/eablf/debates/
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