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Originally published in GlobalPost: NAIROBI, Kenya — Investors are starting to realize there are business opportunities in Africa. Last year, Barron’s magazine published The Final Frontier, a cover story about investment in the continent. Consulting firm McKinsey published a report looking at African growth opportunities by sector. Boston Consulting Group published a report identifying the […]
January 5, 2011
Originally published in GlobalPost: NEW YORK — More than a month after its presidential election, Ivory Coast remains in political crisis. The incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, refuses to leave office, though the official vote count shows that he lost to opposition leader Alassane Ouattara. The country is teetering on the brink of civil war. Gbagbo […]
September 25, 2010
Originally published in GlobalPost: TAKORADI, Ghana — A digital sign in the lobby of Tullow Oil’s office here reads 61 days — a countdown to the country’s first first oil. In November, Ghana will begin producing from its estimated 1.6 billion barrels of oil reserves. As oil workers prepare pipes for deepwater installation at the […]
September 5, 2010
Originally published in GlobalPost: BUNGOMA, Kenya — These days, Somalia is known for two things: its pirates and its Islamic militants. When Al Shabaab, the extremist Islamic insurgents based in southern Somalia, claimed responsibility for the July bombings that killed 78 people in Kampala, international concern over the problem of Somalia spiked. Somalia’s transitional federal […]
August 14, 2010
Originally published in GlobalPost: KISUMU, Kenya — This pleasant city on the edge of Lake Victoria gives little evidence that it was the site of serious upheaval following Kenya’s disputed 2007 presidential election. Shops along the city’s main drag were vandalized, looted and burned, disrupting commerce for months. Across Kenya some 1,200 people were killed in […]
August 3, 2010
Originally published in GlobalPost: BUNGOMA, Kenya — Food security and agricultural development have become hot topics. U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has rolled out its “Feed the Future” initiative. The World Bank started a multi-donor trust fund for food security in April. Africa, with the world’s lowest crop yields and its greatest potential to produce […]
June 27, 2010
Originally published in GlobalPost: KIGALI, Rwanda — Next to the Sopetrade highway heading toward Kigali’s city center, construction workers are digging up the side of the road in preparation for adding an additional lane. In and around Kigali’s city center, similar road projects are in process. The project financier? China Eximbank, to the tune of […]
June 24, 2010
Originally published in GlobalPost: BUNGOMA, Kenya — Spring is the height of piracy season off the coast of Somalia. Since 2008, when attacks accelerated in the Gulf of Aden, every few months brings news of a big hijacking — from the oil supertanker Sirius Star in 2008 to the U.S.-manned Maersk Alabama in 2009 to […]
May 10, 2010
Originally published in GlobalPost: BUNGOMA, Kenya — Not much has changed politically in Kenya since the violent clashes that erupted after the December 2007 presidential election and the power-sharing agreement that ended them in February 2008. Most of the reforms the power-sharing government agreed to implement have yet to materialize. The two factions appear more interested in fighting over who should run things than in getting things done. This failure to govern is the subject of daily headlines in the Kenyan newspapers, but the slow unfurling of a country is not something that tends to receive much international attention, either from the media or diplomats — there always seem to be more immediate crises to deal with. However, there is one country watching Kenya closely.
March 24, 2010
Originally published in GlobalPost: BUNGOMA, Kenya — Travelers crossing from Kenya to Uganda by road face a daunting line of trucks and cars at the border post at Malaba. Kenyan businessman who want to do business in Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda must contend with buying goods and services in four different currencies with fluctuating exchange […]
Stephanie Hanson 
April 28, 2011
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