“West Africa lags behind in major education outcomes, especially enrollment of the girl child. [Therefore] Nigeria launched a Conditional Cash Transfer program called ‘In Care of the Poor (COPE)’ to provide cash transfers as well as skills training and micro-enterprise start-up funding. Beneficiaries get monthly payments for one year only, on condition that they send their children to school and get them vaccinated. If they satisfy the conditions for the year, they receive a further one-off grant to help them start up a small business.

“Led by the francophone bloc, West Africa has been a world pace setter in financial integration. For half a century before the euro was launched, 60% of West African countries had been successfully sharing a common currency—the CFA under West Africa Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) with a central bank located in Abijan, Ivory Coast. The ambition, over the next decade is to create a second common currency for the five non-francophone countries (Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Gambia), and to merge the two currencies into a single currency for the region by 2020.”

African nations are seeing the highest rate of urbanization throughout the globe. Much of this is due to rural urban migration patterns as people seek jobs and better lives.

There is an increasing push to ensure ethical mining practices around the world—from diamonds, to copper, to cobalt, and so on—, however most of these movements have been focused on the labor regulations and wages of the miners. ACET brings our attention to tax codes that prevent FDI from being the economic boon that many say it is.

“South American countries are signing several bilateral and multilateral agreements for the exploration, exploitation, sale, and purchase of energy resources—an interesting trend toward a joint regional management of their energy resources. For example, Paraguay will shortly start selling electricity to Argentina and Uruguay. These two countries are signing an agreement to build a regasification plant with shared administration, which will provide power to both countries starting in 2013.

Due to poor infrastructure and declining economies, many West African countries have seen a large rise in Moped transportation.

“The moped revolution is one of the most evident expressions of informality in contemporary West Africa. It economics is straightforward. The Chinese economy is capable of delivering motor-cycles at affordable prices so people buy and use them. The conditions under which they do so are however very problematic.

Socialstructing, defined as the movement to bring the social back into our economy and our institutions is becoming a buzz word or movement. People are increasingly feeling inundated with consumerism and big business, feeling the eternal hunt for GDP growth is overshadowing our social processes and needs.

Where in the world might we have the best ingredients to get socialstructing off the ground? LATNAM provides a useful mix of relatively productive economic sectors with a political environment geared towards the left.

A Ghanaian SME, Easyerrands combines knowledge work with errands to be a full stop shop. Easyerrands offers market research services to help you sell your products as best as possible. Easyerrands also offers simple errand services from grocery shopping to office supplies and even bringing condolences to loved ones in the hospital so you can free up your time in order to make your business successful.

Nigeria is creating the framework to be a regional leader in producing modified cotton, and other agricultural biotechnology products.
“Federal lawmakers conclude work on a bill on biosafety law, as part of efforts to create a legal framework to ensure safe practice of biotechnology in agriculture. The bill has been passed at the House and the representatives are now waiting for the Senate to pass a similar one to have a harmonized copy of the bill.”

NISTPASS writes,

"Ea Kar District, Dak Lak is the inhabitation of around 16 ethnic minorities coming from all regions of Vietnam. Local E’De ethnic minority earn their living mainly on agricultural activities. Therefore, the knowledge of how to manage and use land resource in a sustainable way plays a vital role in their lives.