Photo: Rob McDougall (flickr)

Access to cheap energy underpins modern societies. Finding enough to fuel industrialized economies and pull developing countries out of poverty without overheating the climate is a central challenge of the 21st century. — Michael Wines, New York Times

Sub-Saharan Africa is perilously close to an energy crisis.

Massive drought across Kenya and Ethiopia has slowed hydropower production to a trickle. Rickety electrical infrastructure in South Africa and elsewhere has led to huge rolling blackouts expected to go on for years in some regions, according to the International Herald Tribune. The World Bank says Africa's "lack of reliable power has already begun to hamper the region's development." The worst-hit African economies have seen economic growth slow by more than two percent.

Energy shortages impact a broad array of activities in these countries. In Uganda, for instance, power shortages are causing gas stations to run low on diesel. The environment suffers as well. For the 80 percent of sub-Saharan Africans who lack electricity, Inter Press Service News Agency says:

The destruction of natural vegetation could lead to desertification when there are no water catchment systems to feed rivers and streams. And when there is no water, the population in such an area suffers in many ways. They cannot plant crops and their animals die.

Solutions to the energy crisis still seem far off. India and China have begun funding new power generating facilities — in one instance providing Zambia's energy producer, Zesco, with $1.2 billion for upgrades and new capacity creation. But the sheer size of the problem suggests a multinational approach. "The best answer, most experts consulted agree, would be for nations to cooperate on regional power solutions," the New York Times reports. "One or two large regional plants, they say, could supply power more cheaply and efficiently than dozens of smaller ones."

To some the word "immigration" evokes an image of people standing in line at Western Union, waiting to wire money home to families for groceries and clothing. It happens thousands of times each day all over the world. All those remittances — the small amounts of cash wired across borders — add up to a whopping $300 billion a year.

Dilip Ratha believes this $300-billion industry can play an important role in international development. He's a World Bank employee who is working to make it easier for migrants to transfer money and direct the cost savings towards economic development in their own countries.

Skeptics argue that if remittances equaled development, Mexico would look like Switzerland. Ratha might argue that without remittances, Mexico's economy might look a whole lot worse. His new paper suggests that Africa could add as much as $3 billion to public coffers just by reducing the costs that migrants pay to send remittances. (Currently, charges on these cross-border money transfers can be as high as 10 percent.)

Ratha hopes to prove that hundreds of billions of remittance dollars can be funneled toward poverty alleviation by making simple policy changes.

His personal story has shaped his beliefs. In the U.S., he earns a salary that is 100 times what he could have earned in his birthplace of India, and his own remittances have helped build schools and pay medical bills there.

And while the negative impacts of immigration often make headlines, Ratha stresses that there are costs of not immigrating, too — costs borne by people living in poverty and by everyone in the global economy.

Photo: Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly

A controversial article in a recent Economist refers to further evidence of the advantages of genetically modified crops (GMOs).

"The Next Green Revolution" discusses long-standing opposition to GMOs in Europe — many on the continent "have yet to touch or taste them," the article reads — but points out that rising GMO production means it will become increasingly more expensive for Europe to avoid importing them.

I have long been concerned about the Europeans' stance on GMOs — not because Europeans are denying themselves more cost-effective food products, but because of the impact that their position has had on the poor, particularly in Africa. A number of African countries have followed Europe's lead by banning imports of GMOs. I find it to be very sad when the poor and sometimes starving are denied access to less-expensive food because of short-sighted logic in Europe.

The fact that GMOs can provide cheaper food has long been generally accepted. But critics have argued against GMOs on the basis that the crops might have long-term risks. But these risks are vague and unspecified, so to deny the advantages never seemed logical to me. Now that the possible disadvantage to GMOs has been put to rest in many parts of the world, I hope the poor and hungry in Africa and elsewhere can finally access this money-saving solution to an important problem.

Photo: JohnMMM (Flickr)

Typically, the discovery of “black gold” in African countries has led to conflict over land and overwhelms governments with more revenue than can be effectively managed. Brutal secessionist conflicts have been taking place for years in countries rich with oil, including Sudan, Nigeria and Angola. Ghana hopes to buck the trend. The country is one of the most stable on the continent and responsible development of its oil industry can provide a good model for other African nations.

"There’s no reason that oil should be a curse,” one government official told Financial Times, which recently published a special report on Africa's fossil-fuel resources. “We want to make sure we follow the example of countries like Canada or Norway who’ve used oil to their benefit."

Why can’t African countries – or any developing country, for that matter – use newfound oil wealth to raise living standards for all citizens? For starters, the oil market is vulnerable to price shocks, and the centralized revenues are susceptible to theft. Dependency on oil as a primary commodity can discourage economic diversification.

Another critical issue is the exploitation of indigenous populations near extraction sites, a prime example being the abuses felt by those in the Niger delta region of Nigeria. Governments frequently overlook the fundamental needs of communities adjacent to oil drilling sites. Ghana’s new oil find may not be very beneficial to communities that fish the waters where the discovery was made.

Can Ghana avoid these pitfalls? The government says it plans to use the oil wealth to turn Ghana into "a middle-income country" by 2015, and to invest in infrastructure, health care and education. That's reminiscent of rhetoric used by officials in Nigeria, Angola, and the Congo — all are failing to follow through with those promises.

Can Ghana succeed in turning the “black gold” into a blessing for its citizens, or will oil once again prove a curse?

Robert Mugabe with First Lady, Grace Mugabe. Photo: Pan-African News Wire

What happens when a dictator can't afford to pay the people who have ensured his rise to power? It looks like Zimbabwe's strong-man, Robert Mugabe, may be about to find out.

According to Time Magazine;

The only functioning part of the country is the security apparatus, but, aside from Mugabe's bodyguards, even that is now questionable, with consistent reports of no pay, sporadic mutinies and the apparent allying of some heavyweight military figures against Mugabe. "These guys have a bottom line," says Marengo, "and Mugabe is increasingly seen as an economic liability."

Malaria patient. Photo: Ashley Jonathan Clements (flickr)

Josh Ruxin, a community health expert who has spent the last several years living in Rwanda, explains that while the majority of tropical diseases seem archaic and too complex to think about for the average person, trachoma, river blindness, hookworm and the like are devastating over a billion people on the planet. Neglected Tropical Diseases, or NTD’s, are inexpensive to treat in comparison to HIV/AIDS, but don’t seem to carry the same social appeal.

“Together, the NTD’s produce just as much disability as the better known diseases and are a major reason why the poorest people in Africa cannot escape poverty…The great irony is that NTD’s can be effectively treated and controlled for a fraction of the cost of these other diseases.”

Today's Business Week reports that a disagreement between the EU and South Africa is threatening the unity of the Southern African Customs Union, the world's oldest customs union. Last year several countries broke rank with South Africa, signing a trade agreement with the EU. It is feared that South Africa may use this as a reason to disband the union entirely.

If South Africa does break ranks with other participating countries including Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho, tariffs protecting Namibian beer makers from European beer would not apply to countries like South Africa. The result would be the inability of Southern African countries to effectively protect certain industries (and in this case a significant loss to the global beer supply as well as domestic economies).

Photo: Richard Jacquot/Mercy Corps

Want to know a surprising statistic? Approximately 3 billion people (about half the world's population) own cell phones. Even more surprising? More than half of those subscribers live in poor countries. The Economist offers a look at the role technology plays in the lives of those living poverty and the future of the internet in the developing world. However, the question remains: will this trend in cellular telephones be mimicked in the internet industry?

The article concludes that the internet isn't likely to hold the same hope as the cell phone industry for providing a global connection to the world's poor. This is due to both high costs and the unlikelihood that private enterprise will undertake the task. I might argue that this article underestimates the speed of technological innovation. It may just be a matter of time for an internet infrastructure based on optical-fibre lines to develop in such places as Central Africa. Who would have guessed the current reach of cell phones fifty years ago?

Photo: Andrew Heavens (flickr)

One of the more critical and less talked about environmental changes occurring right now in several regions of the world, is a developing shortage of water. The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting has partnered with the Common Language Project to send journalists into East Africa in order to report on this growing crisis: According to the Pulitzer Center, "Water scarcity in East Africa is fueling conflict and thwarting development while growing in step with local populations and rising global temperatures."

The blog postings by these journalists, as they learn more about the politics of water in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, are worth reading, watching and listening to.

Youyouyouyouyou! Shout tiny little kids at our beat-up land rover as it races down the arrow-straight road from Yabello, slowing occasionally for dust devils and herds of annoyed camels.

We’re on our way to Dillo, to report on some of the most extreme water scarcity problems in the country. I’m trying to focus on my notes, all of the interviews and statistics I’ll need to contextualize the interviews we have set up and the long-distance water walk we’ll be participating in the following morning.

Problem is there are too many distractions.

Want to know the hot gossip in a small Rwandan village? It's not the latest developments in AIDS treatments. Instead, it's the recent $2000 foreign order for coasters and place mats.

Read The New York Times' guest columnist Josh Ruxin's great article about the importance of supporting business opportunities to combat AIDS and other health problems in Africa.

A BBC photo essay explores how some Ghanaians dream of boxing their way out of poverty.

Photo: J. Mark Bertrand (flickr)

"(Product)RED," a campaign started by U2 front man Bono, combines consumerism and altruism. In the year since its start, American consumers have generated over $22 million to fight HIV/AIDS through the purchase of "(Product)RED" branded ipods, t-shirts and other products. While the campaign has had a positive effect by providing much needed funds to health clinics in Rwanda, Ghana and Swaziland, critics of RED remain skeptical.

According to Rwandan officials, Red contributions have built 33 testing and treatment centers, supplied medicine for more than 6,000 women to keep them from transmitting H.I.V. to their babies, and financed counseling and testing for thousands more patients.

Ben Davis of San Francisco, who created a Red parody online that says “Buy(Less),” is encouraging consumers to give more directly to nonprofits that support AIDS programs in Africa. “I just think that increased consumption in America can’t be the only way to solve Africa’s problem,” Mr. Davis said.

As tensions continue to run high, Mercy Corps warns that further chaos and violence in Kenya, long a bastion of regional stability, could push neighboring East African countries toward new humanitarian crises.

Our colleague Matt Lovick states, "historically, Kenya has been the hub that allowed goods and assistance to reach these land-locked, war-torn places," said Matt Lovick, Mercy Corps’ Nairobi-based East Africa regional program director. "Its importance in fostering and maintaining stability in this region cannot be underestimated."

If hostilities escalate in Kenya, neighboring economies could suffer immediately from a shortage of critical resources. Markets, planting seasons and access to food could all be severely disrupted, increasing the risks for communities already on the brink of disaster.

Check out the latest update from IRIN News Agency.