Innovation for Growth in Africa

...there are a number of areas where Africa must quickly focus its energy to improve its productivity and accelerate growth; agriculture, health, information technology and the arts. 

Access the full speech by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director, World Bank here

BRICS’ to Discuss Economic Coordination

and some politics as well....

Leaders from five of the world’s top emerging economies will discuss a coordinated stance on economic issues such as commodity price fluctuation (however, the yuan’s exchange rate is off the agenda).

The mid-April ‘BRICS’ summit will gather leaders from China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa in the southern Chinese beach resort of Sanya.  The summit will give the world’s big rising economies a venue to coordinate views on global financial reforms, commodity prices and other shared concerns since the BRICS countries have similar concerns on important questions like the global economy, international finance and development, reform of the international currency system, commodity price fluctuations, climate change and sustainable development. 

See full report here.

Lamy Warns on WTO DDA Negotiations

At a meeting in Kenya last week, Mr Pascal Lamy said the risk of failure of the talks — commonly referred to as Doha Development Agenda (DDA) after the Qatari city that first hosted them — is higher today than it was a few years ago. 'Should the talks fail, this could lock exports from poor countries out of major world markets'. See full report here.