Nigeria

African communities are becoming increasingly mobile-centric. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/70292973@N07/7192931934/">The Reboot (flickr)</a>

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Youth Skills

Windows to the world: Why Microsoft's $75 million mobile drop matters

Microsoft will spend $75 million to put tens of millions of smart devices into the hands of African youth by 2016, the company announced Monday.

The agricultural sector accounts for a significant portion of Nigeria's GDP, but youth don't find it an attractive job. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalarchives/5418217343/">The National Archives UK (Flickr)</a>

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Youth Skills

Waiting for a white-collar job: a sure way to extend unemployment in Nigeria

The Kwara state government in Nigeria is promoting traditional vocations in an effort
to change young minds uninterested in any position outside the glamorous white-collar
realm.

A farmer in Manthralaya, India plows his field. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58925091@N00/136310496/">Ananth BS (Flickr)</a>

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Value Chains

Farmers invest 50 times more in farms than their countries get in aid

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Mobile, solar schools literally bring power to the powerless

Beep beep! For some students, hopping on the school bus is hopping into the classroom. Four communities are using solar-powered mobile classrooms to overcome inaccessibility to the power grid.

An office tower (built by a Chinese construction firm) rises in Kigali's growing financial district. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/15231093@N00/7667519730/">Thomas Stellmach (Flickr)</a>

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As Europe turns inward, new pan-African banks grab for growth

Africa is booming. The West is obsessed with Europe's financial roil. For African banks, it's a major business opportunity.

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Quotable: Graca Machel wants women to play a leading role in Africa's growth story

In her keynote address at the second African Women Economic Summit in Lagos last week, Dr.

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The mobile phone is the bank of choice in Africa

A new Gallup Poll from Sub-Saharan Africa shows that the mobile phone is the most popular way to transfer money in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

A Riders healthcare worker. Photo: <a href="http://www.riders.org">Riders for Health</a>

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The missing link in African health systems? The auto mechanic

Twenty-four years ago, Barry and Andrea Coleman saw women in labor being carted to hospital in wheelbarrows. Today their organisation, Riders for Health, mobilizes 3000 health workers with reliable transportation and ensures 12 million Africans have access to health care.

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To find tomorrow's jobs, the Middle East looks beyond oil

More than 15 million young people will need jobs in the Middle East and North Africa over the coming 10 years.

In the search for funding, many startups are finding a home in the U.S. before operating abroad. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lalunablanca/1058204843/sizes/m/in/photostream/">lalunablanca (Flickr)</a>

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Does every tech startup need an office in the United States?

For tech startups in emerging markets, does success mean an HQ address in the U.S.?

Nigerian farmers will soon be receiving vouchers for seeds and fertilizer on their mobile phones. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/32348003@N02/5348965590/">IICD (Flickr)</a>

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Nigeria uses mobile phones to fight corruption in farm subsidies

Farmers of Nigeria, check your phones: You've got ... subsidies.

Women farmers in Africa produce over 60 percent of all food crops. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cimmyt/5352940723/in/photostream/">CIMMYT (flickr)</a>

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In Africa, female scientists should power female farmers, group says

Women comprise 43 percent of the world’s farmers. In Africa, it’s 80 percent. Women plant, harvest, process and sell their crops, but men continue to dominate agricultural science and research. This may be about to change.

An informal worker sells mobile phones from a street stand. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blyth/152662056/sizes/m/in/photostream/">MikeBlyth (Flickr)</a>

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‘Economy of resourcefulness’ breeds prosperity worldwide: informal economy goes global

A man selling toys on Sao Paulo’s streets, a woman grilling fish in crowded markets of Lagos and a handbag maker in Guangzhou might not seem to have much in common. But they are all part of the global informal economy, now estimated to be worth about $10 trillion a year.

African leaders discuss the state of the African economy at the 2010 IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings. Photo: <a href="http://bit.ly/igpQNw">International Monetary Fund (flickr)</a>

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Oh, My! On Economic Growth, Africa's Lions Keep Pace with Asia's tigers

Since 2001, the budding economies of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have dominated global financial headlines. But looking back, it turns out some of the so-called “African lion” economies (Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique and Rwanda) were just as fierce.

Poster for a Nollywood film. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nollywoodforever/4941468802/in/photostream/"> Nollywoodforever (flickr)</a>

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Hollywood, Bollywood and Now...Nollywood?!

Nollywood is Nigeria's answer to California's Hollywood, and India's Bollywood. What began with a single film in the late 1990s, now dominates the African film market.