One day this year, in all probability, the “billionth African” will have been born, a milestone that will only benefit the poorest continent if it can get its act together and unify its piecemeal markets.
   Nobody knows, of course, when or where in its 53 countries the child arrived to push Africa’s population into ten figures.
   The U.N. merely estimates that in mid-2008 there were 987 million people, and in mid-2009, 1,010 million.
   Given the difficulties of obtaining accurate data from the likes of Nigeria, where provincial population figures are often hostage to the ambitions of local politicians, or any data at all from the likes of Somalia, experts are reluctant to hazard any greater degree of accuracy.
   There is less doubt, however, about the underlying trend — that Africa’s population is set to grow faster than in any other part of the world in the coming decades, and to double by 2050.
   To some, the statistics from the U.N.’s population division will invite comparisons to the Asian giants, and inspire hopes of a flood of investment from Africans and outsiders to meet the needs of a continent likely to be home to one in five people by the middle of this century.
   By contrast, China’s projected population of 1.4 billion in 40 years will be shrinking, while India will only be adding an annual 3 million to its 1.6 billion people.
   To others, the numbers are stark reminders of the mammoth task Africa’s leaders face in providing the food, jobs, schools, housing and healthcare that are still so sorely lacking.
   UNFPA, the U.N.’s population arm, summarises by saying that sub-Saharan Africa faces “serious political, economic and social challenges” and points to the last two decades as evidence that more people does not mean more wealth.
   “Twenty years of almost three percent annual population growth has outpaced economic gains, leaving Africans, on average, 22 percent poorer than they were in the mid-1970s,” it says.
    Are Africa’s leaders ready and willing to create the truly unified common market needed to boost investment, trade and economic growth, or are short-term national interests likely to prevail, consigning Africa to a century of overpopulated poverty?

A project in Ethiopia that helps destitute women become self-reliant by providing them with paid employment has attracted a lot of attention from politicians visiting Addis Ababa for an international get-together.

Alem Abebe is a 14-year-old girl who left home three years ago and made her way to the capital. She now earns 50 US cents a day working at the Abebech Gobena project in one of the city’s slums. It’s not enough to send money home, but enough to survive — and to pay for night school.

But by the World Bank definition, Abebe and other women working at the project are still extremely poor: they earn much less than the daily income of $1.25 or roughly one euro that’s now used to measure poverty.

But the whole point isn’t to hand out money for free: but to help women who would be on the street get a job, an education - and a future.

It’s a departure from previous aid models, which saw large sums handed over by the West to African countries, a system that some say hasn’t really helped the world’s poorest continent.

“The model that’s coming up or that I’m proposing is essentially a model where Africa and Africans become equal partners with the rest of the world, not one where there’s a donor and a recipient where Africans are viewed as secondary citizens,” Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian author, told Reuters Africa Journal.

“This is really an environment where Africans are getting something, they’re getting paid for doing something, for being entrepreneurs, for generating something, for building products, for establishing infrastructure. It’s not the aid model where you get money for nothing,” said Moyo, whose book Dead Aid argues that Western generosity often doesn’t actually help in the long run.

Today the global financial crisis means that Western countries are trying to save their own economies and are no longer prepared to spend so much on aid. So is direct aid still a solution. Or are small projects that generate employment better at fighting poverty?

Africa is rich in natural resources like oil, gold, diamonds, platinum and yet millions of African people live in abject poverty. The global economic and climate crisis have made life even harder.

At the recent G8 meeting in Italy, African leaders and members of civil society voiced concerns over the promises made in previous G8 meetings of aid and assistance that have yet to materialise.

But should African leaders be taking greater responsibility for the plight of their people? Is the West to some extent being asked to bear the responsibilities of African governments that have failed their people through wars, rigged elections and spectacular self enrichment? Should Africans not be investing more in their own economies?

Many in the diaspora have stayed away from their countries of origin as a result of lack of progress, resources and infrastructure. But will that continue forever? Should Africans look to the West for handouts while some of its leaders live in luxury and some of their governments are ravaged by corruption?

The visit to Ghana by U.S. President Barack Obama is seen by many as an opportunity for a new era of engagement, respect and partnership with Africa.

But is Africa looking to the wrong man to be a saviour, simply because he has such a close connection to Africa through his Kenyan father?

Africa has clearly not been among his top priorities since he took office and that may be little surprise given the magnitude of the global financial crisis. There are certainly doubts over whether he will do much more to help Africa’s leaders get the aid and support they say the West should provide.

But should Africans in any case be looking to Obama - or anyone from outside - to solve the continent’s problems? Or is there more that Africans should be doing themselves to improve their lives?

Nigeria marks its first 10 years of unbroken civilian rule on Friday after emerging from nearly three decades of uninterrupted military dictatorship on May 29, 1999.

The political elite in Africa’s top oil producer are rolling out the drums to celebrate the milestone.  And why not?

Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military ruler who won elections in 1999, ended Nigeria’s pariah status and brought Africa’s most populous nation back into the international fold, helping secure an $18 billion debt write-off in 2005.

Power was then transferred to President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007 - the first successful transition from one civilian leader to another since independence from Britain in 1964 - although the election was condemned by observers for widespread rigging.

Soldiers have so far stayed put in their barracks during the historic decade, despite mounting frustrations among ordinary people - most of whom live on less than $2 a day - that their lives are not changing quickly enough for the better.

Cause for celebration, given Nigeria’s post-independence history, when the army exploited such frustrations to truncate the First Republic in 1966 and the Second Republic in 1983.

But while the great and the good celebrate, many ordinary Nigerians feel indifferent about the landmark.

The poorest say democracy has done little to change their standard of living. The huge earnings from Nigeria’s mainstay oil and gas industry are still not improving their lives.

There is much greater freedom of speech and of association, but some say the only tangible change in their daily lives over the past decade has been the arrival of the mobile phone.

Critics say Obasanjo’s high-profile campaign against corruption - the monster that had held Nigeria back for decades - was little more than a weapon against his enemies.

Initial optimism over his tenure gave way to a feeling that he was just as overbearing and kleptocratic as his predecessors.   

Yar’Adua’s assumption of power two years ago was seen as a breath of fresh air, but again Nigerians have been left wondering whether their optimism was misplaced.

 Economic reforms have slowed, infrastructure remains shambolic in large parts of the country and electricity supply remains as intermittent as it was a decade ago, despite Nigeria being the world’s eighth biggest exporter of crude oil.

In moments of desperation, some even wonder if the country was better off under military rule. So where does the truth lie?

How much has Nigeria really changed in the decade since military rule?  Has the country come too far for it to be conceivable that the military could one day take power again, or does democracy still have only a fragile hold on the giant of Africa?

It’s one of the biggest ironies in South African politics — the most loyal ANC voters are often those the party appears to have let down most bitterly.

For millions of poor, mostly black South Africans, life has barely changed since the African National Congress defeated apartheid under Nelson Mandela in 1994.

Year after year, they wait for the new house, the job, the running water and electricity, the decent education for their children that the ANC has promised. For many, that never comes. Yet most will still vote for ANC and its leader Jacob Zuma in an election next week.

The poorest residents of Munsieville, a township on the edge of Johannesburg, illustrate the contradiction.

Unemployed and tired of living crammed into one-room shacks with no running water or electricity, they are quick to list the ways their government has failed them.

Hundreds share one water tap, which sits next to a stinking mound of rubbish where dirt-smudged children play and stray dogs scavenge for food. They dig pits for toilets.

Many say they have languished for years at the bottom of waiting lists for decent housing. They were left behind while others enjoyed a decade of continuous economic growth that created a burgeoning black middle class.

Yet almost all recoiled in horror at any suggestion they vote against the ANC.

“Half a loaf of bread is better than no bread,” said 24-year-old single mother Rahab Modise, wringing out her family’s washing in front of her shack. “The ANC is going to help us. They are taking a long time, but I still hope they will come one day.”

It’s thanks to people like Modise that the ANC is virtually ensured of winning next week’s election despite a challenge from a new breakaway party and a string of corruption scandals.

But why do those who have gained so little display such unwavering loyalty?

Analysts say that until other parties such as the newly formed Congress of the People (COPE), formed by disgruntled ANC politicians, or the Democratic Alliance learn to identify with the poor, the ruling party will face little in the way of real opposition.

“Irrespective of how bad service delivery gets, the poor still think the ANC represents them,” said Ebrahim Fakir, a political analyst at the Electoral Institute of South Africa. “The ANC’s image fits with what they see when they look in the mirror.”

Part of the appeal lies in the ANC’s freedom-fighter credentials.

COPE’s presidential candidate Mvume Dandala put it in simple terms during a recent township walkabout in a township.

“It’s like an abused wife — you get beaten every day but you keep going back to this man. and deep in your mind there’s some thing that says, were it not for this man I would probably never have been married.”

Zuma, a polygamist who enlivens rallies by kicking his legs in the air and dancing on stage, has helped cultivate that image.

He sings struggle-era songs to remind voters of the time he spent in jail on Robben Island alongside Mandela and hails from a rural area of the nation’s poorest province.

Rising to president-in waiting despite having no formal education, Zuma’s own life embodies the rags-to-riches fairytale many dream of, and when he pledges new houses, many believe him.

“We like Zuma because he’s one of us,” said Vuyo Tsotso, 26, who makes about 10 rand ($1) a day selling scrap wiring. “Zuma will give us grants and build houses. The ANC saved our lives because of what they did in 1994,” he said.

But there are also hints of change in Munsieville that suggest the ANC’s grip on power will not last forever, with a few younger voters expressing a willingness to at least consider other parties.

One had already decided to vote for the DA, headed by a white woman, Helen Zille — an option he had previously dismissed because of South Africa’s troubled racial past.

“Since 1994 the ANC has been making empty promises,” said Philemon Rakuba, 23. “They say a better life for all, but they’re the only ones living better while we’re still stuck here, and still voting for them.”

What do you think? Why do the ANC and Zuma command such loyalty from South Africa’s poor? Will the party always be able to count on such unwavering support?

Before the G20 meeting, there was a lot of talk inside and outside Africa about making sure the continent did not get left out while the world’s richest and most powerful set out plans to save their own economies.

So how did Africa fare?

On the face of things, perhaps not too badly.

“Our global plan for recovery must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hard-working families, not just in developed countries but in emerging markets and the poorest countries of the world too,” the communique says in paragraph 3.

In concrete terms:

• Resources available to the IMF will be trebled to $750 billion.
•  There will be support for a new allocation of Special Drawing Rights of $250 billion – something that could help poor countries
• There will be support for $100 billion more lending by Multilateral Development Banks (those include the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank)
• There will be $250 billion support for trade finance.
• Use will be made of resources from IMF gold sales “for concessional finance for the poorest countries”.
• Global financial institutions will be strengthened and reformed, ensuring that emerging and developing economies, including the poorest, must have greater voice and representation.”

The point on the gold sales was something for which Africa, represented at the summit by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, had made a particular push.

But not all appeared so impressed. In East Africa based Business Daily, Allan Odhiambo’s piece was headlined “Africa thrown to back burner at G20 meeting.”

According to Nigeria’s ThisDay newspaper, President Umaru Yar’Adua’s main lament was the fact that Africa’s most populous country was not there (South Africa, with the continent’s biggest economy, was represented).

South Africa’s President Kgalema Motlanthe was quoted as saying he was “quite pleased” with the results of the summit.

How well do you think the G20 did for Africa? Will Africa really have a bigger say over the global financial system in future? Will that help?

Several hundred Africans have drowned off the coast of Libya in an attempt to escape to a better life in Europe.

The head of the United Nations refugee agency says the tragedy marks a grim start to what he calls the “smuggling season”, when the weather gets better and the perilous sea voyages pick up again after the winter.

But this smuggling season may be less promising than the last for the thousands of poverty-stricken Africans who arrive at their continent’s shores for the last leg of their journey by rickety boat to Europe.

Recession in Europe has brought with it rising unemployment and perhaps increasing resentment of foreigners taking jobs that the locals might now want to do. There are now 2.2 million more unemployed people in the European Union than a year ago, according to the latest EU figures.

It was hard enough for the African vendors of handbags and CDs on the streets of Europe at the best of times. How will it be at the worst of times?

American television audiences were treated on Sunday night for the first time to the show “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”, which is based on the best-selling series of novels set in Botswana by Alexander McCall Smith.

The series, being aired in the United States by HBO, has already been broadcast by the BBC in Britain. Like the novels, it follows the light-hearted adventures of Precious Ramotswe as she seeks to solve mysteries with her keen intuition and big heart.

My colleague Rebekah Kebede did an advance story on the U.S. premier which you can read here.

I have read most of the novels, and the TV premier seems to stick to the spirit of the books. African problems, such as AIDS or the use of body parts from kidnapped children to make traditional medicine, or “muti,” are not swept under the carpet. But many of the tales woven by McCall Smith are uplifting or deal with profound ethical dilemmas that his intrepid lady detective always resolves.

And it takes place in Botswana, a sparsely-populated land of great beauty and spectacular wilderness — I’ve seen elephant herds crossing the highway there — long regarded as a beacon of good governance and democracy in Africa.

It provides a pleasant change from the entertainment industry’s often negative portrayal of Africa. For example, the current season of the Fox thriller “24″ features terrorists from a genocidal African state taking over the White House and threatening the U.S. president.

Recent movies set in Africa, including “Blood Diamond” and “Hotel Rwanda,” also have dwelled on the sadder parts of the continent’s history.

Botswana, whose economy relies heavily on extensive diamond deposits, no doubt hopes to get a tourism boost from the series’ run in America. A global economic slowdown has slashed demand for diamonds, leading to output cuts in Botswana, the world’s biggest producer of the precious stones, and shrinking government revenues.

What do you think? Is it high time that Africa was shown in a better light? Or do “sunny” treatments of the continent need to be balanced with depictions of its grimmer realities?

(Photo Credit: Keith Bernstein, courtesy of HBO)

The reception would have done justice to royalty or a movie star when Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe paid a rare visit to his homeland recently, some 50 years after penning his book “Things Fall Apart”.

That book has a firm place on school syllabuses in much of Africa and is studied around the world. Achebe, now 79, has been acclaimed as the father of modern African literature and as the continent’s greatest living writer – his books being very accessible as well as giving a penetrating insight into the struggles of his people.

Achebe’s Igbo community in southeastern Nigeria wanted to mark his homecoming in style and Reuters Television’s Africa Journal programme was there to follow it.

Achebe delighted people with readings from his classic novel, which has sold more than 10 million copies and tells the story of Okonkwo, who finds himself and his traditions pitted against newly arrived British colonialists in the 19th century.

“Knowing that Chinua Achebe with his talent unsurpassed, in the literary world as far as I am concerned, certainly in Nigeria, unsurpassed certainly in Africa, knowing that he comes from my neck of the woods is actually an inspiration to me,” said musician Onyeka Owenu.

The region has a reputation for producing internationally acclaimed writers, including Ben Okri and more recently Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of the prize winning novel Half of a Yellow Sun.

Whether or not their success is also part of Achebe’s legacy, he hopes that he will continue to inspire more African writers to bring their stories from the continent.

But it can sometimes seem as though African writers find it easier to win recognition outside their countries than they do at home. Perhaps that should be no surprise given the state of the publishing industry in a continent where books are a luxury that can be afforded only by a minority - and where literacy rates are in some countries below 50 percent.

Those with the ambition and talent to become authors are in a tiny minority in any part of the world, but should we be doing more in Africa to encourage such aspirations and to pay more respect to our great writers?

Earlier this month, Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo argued that Africa needs Western countries to cut long term aid that has brought dependency, distorted economies and fuelled bureaucracy and corruption. The comments on the blog posting suggested that many readers agreed. In a response, Savio Carvalho, Uganda country director for aid agency Oxfam GB, says that aid can help the continent escape poverty - if done in the right way:

In early January, I travelled to war-ravaged northern Uganda to a dusty village in Pobura and Kal parish in Kitgum District. We were there to see the completion of a 16km dirt road constructed by the community with support from Oxfam under an EU-funded programme.

The road is bringing benefits in the form of access to markets, education and health care. Some parents say their daughters feel safer walking to school on the road instead of through the bushes. Many families have used the wages earned from construction work to pay for school fees and medical treatment. This is the impact of aid.

Having lived and worked in east Africa, I have witnessed the positive effects of aid. But done badly, it can be very limiting and even has the potential to create more harm. To avoid this, it must be provided within an enabling environment in which it is used as a catalyst for change and not as an end in itself. Governments must show leadership through an accountable system.

For individuals, access to resources – including aid - is like an investment. Aid can build up poor people’s assets, support good governance and enhance skills and capacities to bring about transformation. But it can become a bane when it makes communities dependent, lazy and hopeless. Governments, aid agencies and the United Nations need to ensure the delivery of aid is well planned and coordinated, leading to higher self-reliance among poor communities.

Aid is also beneficial when trade is fair. There are several examples in Africa, like the case of coffee farmers in Uganda, where aid has been used effectively to improve the overall quality of the coffee seeds, thereby giving farmers better prices for their produce. When they have access to markets at home and abroad, they generate income which is ploughed back into increased output, better access to health and education, and overall improvement in the quality of their lives. To make this happen, developed countries need to stop procrastinating and put in place fair trade practices.

Aid works well if governments are accountable – in other words, when they are responsible and encourage active citizenship. On this continent, civil society is still weak and needs to be nourished. But stopping aid will not resolve frustrations about poor governance, which is partly a result of weak public scrutiny. Aid should be used to help fight corruption and promote accountability through active input from ordinary people.

As I have argued here, receiving aid is not just an act of charity. It should be understood as the right of poor communities to a life of dignity. As stated in international conventions, people have a right to good health, food, water and education. We all need to ensure the planet’s resources are equitably distributed. As Mahatma Gandhi said, you must be the change you want to see in the world.

So what do you think? Which argument is most convincing?