My Ghana Electronic Desk

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications company in Africa, has announced a partnership with Sproxil, a venture-backed, social enterprise that provides world-class brand protection services in emerging markets, to combat the counterfeit drug market in Africa. Stating what informed its decision to go into the partnership, Andre Beyers, Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel, Africa, commented, “Our goal is to bring affordable and easily accessible health services to over 450 million people. The battle against counterfeit drugs is a huge step towards this goal.”  “Whilst this agreement is a step in the right direction, I also believe that collaboration between all the stakeholders in the mobile health ecosystem is key to a successful and sustainable future,” he added. Also commenting on the benefits they stand to gain from the partnership, Dr. Ashifi Gogo, Sproxil CEO, said; “Building relationships with individual telecom companies and acquiri

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Tanzania’s Minister of Agriculture, Food and Cooperatives, Christopher Chiza and President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Jane Karuku, have jointly announced that Tanzania will host an African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) from  September 26 to 28, 2012.  The three-day meeting is the next milestone in developing African-led food security solutions, agreed at the recently held G8 summit in May at Camp David, USA. At that summit, global leaders including 21 African countries and 27 private sector companies committed $3 billion to a New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, launching the next phase of the global food security effort to raise 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years. AGRF 2012, thus  sets the stage for Africa’s leaders to drive the initiative, by promoting investments and policy support to increase agricultural productivity and income growth for African farmers, says a press release issued

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE In its bid to review the work of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), since its establishment a decade ago, an expert group meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has extolled the achievements chalked by African governments through the initiative. The review was prompted by the production of a landmark report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), on how the continental initiative has fared 10 years after its establishment. Urging the group of experts from Africa who had gathered in the Ethiopian capital, Tuesday, August 14, 2012 to examine the UN report, Prof. Emmanuel Nnadozie, Director of the Economic Development and NEPAD Division of ECA, told officials and experts working on the implementation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), that they owe the public clear explanations on what the initiative has achieved in the 10 years of its existence. He added that the report and the Ten-Year Capacity

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE France Telecom-Orange, a leading telecommunications operator with sales of 45.3 billion euros for 2011 and 170,000 employees worldwide as at 30 June 2012,  has suffered a major mishap on its cable-ship, the Chamarel, a press release distributed by the African Press Organisation on its behalf has disclosed. The release issued in Paris, France August 10, 2012, said  a fire broke out on the ship late afternoon on 8 August while returning from a repair operation on the Sat3-Safe cable off the coast of Namibia in the Atlantic Ocean, and that despite the crew's efforts to control the fire, the decision was made to abandon the ship at around 8pm local time. All 56 crew members were safely recovered by a Namibian fishing vessel without injury or incident and is currently located at the Namibian port, Walvis Bay awaiting repatriation in the coming days, the release added.  Although cause of the fire has not yet been established, France Telecom-Orange say

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Cooked orange sweet potato. Credit Harvestplus A study published Wednesday, August 8, 2012 by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in the   Journal of Nutrition,  has established that orange sweet potato (OSP) given to malnourished Ugandan and Mozambican children and women, has resulted in significant increases of vitamin A and that a modest improvement in vitamin A levels in the body was measurable in some cases. According to the study, Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a major public health concern in poorer countries and accounts for more than 600,000 deaths a year among children under five years of age, adding, in Africa, VAD prevalence is estimated at 42% among children under five. Uganda, it says, is among the African countries reported to be at high risk, with 28% of children and 23% of women estimated to be vitamin A deficient, hence the embarking on a project by HarvestPlus and its partners to stem the tide. IFPRI says

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) , has developed a new tool in collaboration with Sophic Systems Alliance Inc.  (Sophic Intelligence), to analy s e daily media coverage to examine the extent to which current expectations regarding food prices, agricultural markets, and food stocks may also impact food prices and increase price volatility. Known as the Food Security Media Analysis System, the tool scans international media outlets to identify the factors and events that the media consider to have an impact on food prices. These results can then be compared to other variables, such as global agricultural production and food stocks, to determine if media coverage is consistent with these other variables or if it is in fact contributing to an information gap. The tool also utilises Sophic Intelligence to generate daily Wiki reports and heatmaps that track terms and phrases found in global food- and commodity-related news articles

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE SkyVision Global Networks Ltd., a leading global provider of IP connectivity over satellite and fibre optic networks throughout Africa, has announced its acquisition of Afinis Communication SA (“Afinis”) from Monaco Telecom SAM (“Monaco Telecom”), a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (“CWC”).   With this purchase, SkyVision will own all Afinis’ local offices and licensing in Burkina Faso, Guinea and Senegal, which will from henceforth carry the SkyVision brand.    Announcing the deal Monday, August 6, 2012, through a press release issued in Hertfordshire, United-Kingdom,  SkyVision said Afinis will bring complementary and valuable capabilities to the company, providing immediate benefits to its potential and existing customer base. “Afinis’ strong presence in Africa’s French speaking countries is complementary to SkyVision’s market leading position in Nigeria, East, Central and Southern Africa,” the company stated. It is envis

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Shenggen Fan The United States is currently experiencing the severest drought to plague the country since the 1950s, says International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Director General, Shenggen Fan. According to him, this has been largely due to below-normal rainfall and above-normal temperatures and has serious implications for the world’s food security. Stating these in a press release issued Monday August 6, 2012, the IFPRI director general said the severity of the conditions which span half the country, “ increased dramatically since early July, adversely affecting the production of maize (yellow corn) and soybeans, thus driving up agricultural prices, and increasing the volatility of those prices to excessive levels. He cautioned that rising maize and soybean prices can cause an increase in other commodity prices as the livestock industry switches from maize to wheat for animal feed and consumers are forced to shift their consumpt

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE A new report published by the African Development Bank (AfDB) indicates that in spite of the constraints of political differences as well as diversity in economic performance, pace of reforms and openness, and disparities in legal and regulatory frameworks working against integration in Northern Africa, there appears to be a glimmer of hope. The flicker of hope, it points out, stems from recent political developments in that part of Africa. Commenting on the new report  - "Unlocking North Africa’s potential through regional integration", released in Tunis Tuesday, August 7, 2012, Jacob Kolster, AfDB Regional Department Director for North Africa stated; "Despite these challenges, in the wake of the Arab Spring, the emerging political landscape in North Africa promises to give new impetus to regional integration efforts." He opined that the diversity of resource endowments in the region, coupled with the existing physical infrastru