At NoVo we have partnered with BALLE to build the first and only fellowship dedicated solely to advancing the local...

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Il y a peu, je commentais le roman Soro de Gary Victor paru aux éditions Mémoires d'encrier. Chaque lecture de cet auteur haïtien bouscule, étonne, offre une plongée chaque fois plus déroutante au coeur de ce pays des Caraïbes où Gary Victor réside.

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Took this picture last week; I am trying to get my hair to grow. I have noticed since I've included avocadoes and cucumbers in my diet, my hair has become much softer. The problem with me is I am impatient when it comes to growth. I just feel like since 2007, it hasn't been the [...]

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The 'Growing IT Entrepreneurs Program' provides focussed support to help you turn great technical ideas into growing IT businesses. The application date has been extended to the 17th of August to allow applications from a broader spectrum of the technical community. This will also allow us to provide you with more details on the program [...]

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I did a mental backflip when I checked my email the other day and saw that the Town of Runners documentary will be screened at the World Bank's Africa Film Series in DC. For those who missed the chance to ... Continue reading →

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I'm trying not to be a crazy nutcase following the stats on my books at Amazon BUT I did come across this by accident- Murder for Profit is number one at Amazon today for books about Botswana. And Anything for Money and Claws of a Killer are in the top 20.

I'm really quite proud of this because I did it myself, it is so empowering. Often as an author you feel like you're at everyone's mercy. I try to make recommendations about how I think things might be done but it is up to the publisher to decide if they want to do it or not. In this case, I get to try everything I think might work and it seems like something is.

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That story of Albert from South Africa's First National Bank TV ad (above) feels inspired by the birthday story of a real African bus driver in Copenhagen called Mukhtar,  who was the very surprised subject of a flash mob back in 2009.      Mukhtar's flash mobbed birthday was also an ad - more here. 

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According to TeleGeography, Interesting Facts: WACS (West Africa Cable System) is a submarine communications cable linking South Africa with the United Kingdom along the west coast of Africa that was constructed by Alcatel-Lucent. The cable consists of four fibre pairs[1] and is 14,000 km in length, linking from Yzerfontein in the Western Cape of South [...]

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According to TeleGeography, Interesting Facts: WACS (West Africa Cable System) is a submarine communications cable linking South Africa with the United Kingdom along the west coast of Africa that was constructed by Alcatel-Lucent. The cable consists of four fibre pairs[1] and is 14,000 km in length, linking from Yzerfontein in the Western Cape of South [...]

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The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is well positioned to serve as a foundation for other global health programs, building on its health infrastructure, training, and systems. To fulfill that potential in the vital area of women's health will require integrating HIV/AIDS services with family planning and reproductive health services. I was recently in Tanzania, where the results of U.S. health investments indicate that this is a feasible and cost effective strategy to combat the AIDS epidemic and promote the health of women and girls, and through them their families and communities.

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Readers - I have had a very laissez-faire attitude towards comments on this blog, and I would like to keep it that way. Emotions, however, are running high, and some of the recent exchanges here have been pretty nasty. The last thing I would want is for this site to become a forum for insults or ethnic taunts. So please, stick to constructive and substantive feedback.

I have also made my email available so you can alert me to offensive comments: jason [dot] stearns [at] yale [dot] edu. I don't have time to read all of the comments - sometimes there are over a hundred for a post - so please help me elevate the discourse here.

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Nurses in Swaziland have joined the month-long strike, causing public hospitals to turn away all except critical patients. Teachers have been on strike for three weeks, students and taxi drivers joined them this week. The country's only university has shut down. The public service is the biggest employer in Swaziland. IMF recommendations last year pushed for the Swaziland to reduce what the IMF

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