Centerstage Africa

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS! (100 SPOTS AVAILABLE) President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) The Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) was launched by President of the United States Barack Obama as a signature effort to invest in the next generation of African leaders. The need to invest in grooming strong, results-oriented leaders comes out of the statistics: nearly 1 in 3 Africans are between the ages of 10 and 24, and approximately 60% of Africa’s total population is below the age of 35. Who will empower and lead these young Africans? Who will shape the future of business and entrepreneurship, civil society leadership, and public sector management? In order to answer these questions, YALI promotes three models designed to identify and empower young leaders: the YALI Mandela Washington Fellowship, YALI Network and now the establishment of Regional Leadership Centres across Africa. Supporting this progress, the YALI Regional Leadership Centre (RLC) West Africa, Accra, ...

The recent power outage in most part of Ghana which is described by many as ‘Dumsor’ has been the major problem affecting Ghanaians. Over the past couple of months the recent on and off of power supply in the capital Accra by the Electricity Company of Ghana ECG has affected lots of businesses negatively and left some people jobless. Ghana which is seen as a good example to other countries, due to its regular and stable power supply until the past couple of months is gradually losing its good image in terms of power supply. Many Ghanaians including well known Celebrities have took to the social media to express their disappointment in the National Democratic Congress Administration lead by President John Dramani Mahama due to its inability to stabilize the power supply. Now it seems all is set for the mega #DumsorMustStop Demo after a pertition to the police was leaked on social media in the early hours of Tuesday, 5th May. Our news desk chanced on a beautiful art by ‘The Black N...

Source: Mobile Web Ghana We had an interview with a budding female game developer in Ghana by name Diana Senakey. She is a graduate of the Ghana Technology University College, where she pursued a degree program in Information Technology. Diana as a child found learning rather stressful hence she wasn’t one of the brightest students in class. Her education in the university now gives her the opportunity to ease the burden of children who have the same problem as she, when she was their age. Therefore she has developed a game, which can be of tremendous help to any child who is struggling academically. Children learn best when they are having fun. That is the philosophy behind this video game; that while they play they end up sharpening their skills and learning something new which will benefit them greatly. Excerpts from the interview: Kindly tell us briefly about your games. The brain game has been categorized into three main cognitive areas thus memory, attention and spe...

President John Mahama has stated that the economy is in good shape despite the power crisis facing the country. Speaking at the 2015 National May Day parade held at the Independence Square in Accra, President Mahama said the economy was still creating jobs. Amid reports that some companies had laid off workers due to the power crisis, the President said smart businesses were not laying off workers, but were rather investing to improve their production capacities. This, he said, was because those companies had faith in the ability of the government to end the power crisis and end the country’s generation shortfalls. He made reference to Accra Brewery Limited (ABL), which recently procured a new production plant worth $100 million to double the company’s production capacity. The President acknowledged, however, that the power crisis was adversely affecting businesses in the country. He said small businesses, especially, need adequate and reliable power to thrive and grow. ...

OccupyGhana has received formal communication from one of its founding leaders, Nenyi George Andah, of his decision to contest parliamentary primaries, and hopefully, the parliamentary elections. This comes at a time when Ghanaians have to grapple with extreme discomfort, lowered productivity, the ever-rising rate of inflation, absolutely inexplicable power cuts, a continuous loss of their purchasing power, limited access to essential services such as quality education and healthcare, and poor quality of service provided by utility companies among others, and with many companies and entrepreneurs being driven out of business. OccupyGhana has, since its inception, been fighting for good governance, good leadership direction and proper economic management to ensure that Ghana develops to its true social and economic potentials. OccupyGhana firmly believes a lack of good leadership is Ghana's biggest problem. Good institutions are important, but we need strong leaders to build ...

Côte d’Ivoire’s victory against Ghana during the 2015 African Cup of Nations final was widely unexpected and regarded as a historic victory. The Elephants, the Ivorian national football team, were certainly not the favourite team, but they surprised most observers with a repeat of their victory against Ghana 23 years ago, a match again won on penalty kicks. As an economist and a football fan, I cannot resist drawing a certainly non-linear correlation between soccer and economic growth, and revisiting a compelling comparison between the different economic trajectories the two countries have taken in the last decade, and their performance in the most popular sport in the world. The relationship between soccer performance and economic performance has never been confirmed, although Goldman Sachs found an interesting relationship between World Cup victories and equity markets. According to their study, the victory outperforms the global market by 3.5% in the first month, yet such enthu...

Gervais Djondo Gervais Djondo, chairman, Asky Airlines / co-founder, Ecobank 1. What was your first job? I worked for the Social Security and National Pension Trust of Togo in 1964. 2. Who has had the biggest impact on your career and why? My father had a significant impact on my career. He was a successful businessman and instilled good business practice in me from an early age. 3. What parts of your job keep you awake at night? My main concern used to be about passengers’ safety and potential major flight delays but fortunately there haven’t been any accidents over the years. 4. What are the top reasons why you have been successful in business? I believe clear direction, bold execution and more importantly the people that you surround yourself with are critical elements for success. 5. What are the best things about your country? Togo  is an open and very welcoming country and is known for its peaceful environment. The country has a private sector fri...