Nigeria, Senegal and Cape Verde dominate the West African Hotel Pipeline with 77% of the Total Planned Hotel Rooms

PRESS RELEASE

Nigeria, Senegal and Cape Verde dominate the West African Hotel Pipeline with 77% of the Total Planned Hotel Rooms
W Hospitality Group’s 2017 Hotel Chains Pipeline report shows that hotel groups need to tackle lengthy development periods in West Africa

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, November 14, 2017/ -- West Africa has been at the heart of the continent’s growth and economic transformation in recent years. Notwithstanding the sharp slowdown experienced in 2016 and 2017, the region’s economy is expected to rebound in 2017 onwards. Commodity-based economies, like Nigeria, are slowly recovering from the fall in oil prices and oil production, while countries like Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal have shown economic resilience and sustained growth. As many of the countries continue to stabilize - politically and economically - the region will be better integrated from a local and international context. This increased integration raises the need for quality travel and accommodation infrastructure.

Shared Value Movement Founder and Business Icon Mark Kramer To Headline 2018 Africa Shared Value Summit

PRESS RELEASE

Shared Value Movement Founder and Business Icon Mark Kramer To Headline 2018 Africa Shared Value Summit

The Summit will focus on the implementation and impact of Shared Value, as well as how the private sector, government and civil society across the continent can work together using Shared Value to tackle the Goals

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, November 14, 2017/ -- The Shared Value business model enables business to contribute towards the achievement of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the betterment of society to the long-term benefit of their bottom line. In 2018, the Africa Shared Value Summit (www.AfricaSharedValueSummit.com) – taking place on 24 and 25 May at The Maslow in Sandton, Johannesburg – will be showcasing how businesses from across Africa and around the world are “Meeting the Challenge” through creating Shared Value. The Summit will focus on the implementation and impact of Shared Value, as well as how the private sector, government and civil society across the continent can work together using Shared Value to tackle the Goals. Its aim is to highlight the importance of not only embracing Shared Value as a concept but also taking action to implement it as a business strategy.

Headlining the Summit in 2018 is Mark Kramer, co-author (with Prof. Michael Porter) of the seminal Harvard Business Review articles that catapulted the concept of Creating Shared Value to global renown. As co-founder and MD of FSG Social Impact Advisors, he has continued to educate businesses about the vital strategic shift that must be made to ensure a better future not only for business, but for society as well. He is also a Senior Fellow in the CSR Initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “What people don’t often realise is, Shared Value is really about competitive strategy,” he has noted. “It’s about how you find new ways to position your company and to differentiate it from other companies because of the social impact that your company is having.”

Andela Raises $40M To Connect Africa's Engineering Talent With Global Technology Companies

Andela Raises $40M To Connect Africa's Engineering Talent With Global Technology Companies

NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Andela, the company that builds high-performing engineering teams with Africa's most talented software developers, today announced that the company has secured $40M in Series C funding. The investment was led by pan-African venture firm CRE Venture Capital with participation from DBL Partners, Amplo, Salesforce Ventures, and Africa-focused TLcom Capital. Existing investors, including Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, GV, and Spark Capital, also participated. The round, which marks one of the largest investments ever led by an African venture firm into an Africa-based company, brings Andela's total venture funding to just over $80M.

First BBM Messenger Digital and Mobile Innovation Summit in Nigeria

First BBM Messenger Digital and Mobile Innovation Summit in Nigeria

Johnny Amoo, Nigeria Country Manager of Mobi Hunter, Sarah Nolte, Senior Business Development Manager, BBM Content and Marketing, Timothy Lambrechts, CEO/Co-Founder of Mobi Hunter and John Butler, Africa Regional Director of BBM at the first BBM Messenger Digital and Mobile Innovation Event on Friday, November 10, 2017 at the Protea Hotel Ikeja, Isaac John Street, Ikeja GRA, Lagos, Nigeria.

The first BBM Messenger Digital and Mobile Innovation Summit in Nigeria was held Friday afternoon at the Protea Hotel Ikeja, Isaac John Street, Ikeja GRA, Lagos.
The event was attended by journalists, techies and leading digital innovators; including Adam Pattison, BBM Messenger, VP Americas and EMEA, Timothy Lambrechts, ‎CEO-Co Founder of Mobi Hunter, Elsie Oluku, CRO of Ariiyatickets.com, Simeon Ononobi, Founder and CEO of SimplePay and Charles Ifedi, Divisional CEO of Interswitch among others.

Nigeria Ranked 31 in EF English Proficiency Index 2017

Nigerian woman at the British Council office. Photo Credit: British Council.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country of more than 180 million people and the largest democracy in the continent where English is the official language has been ranked 31st among 80 countries in the EF English Proficiency Index 2017. 
South Africa is the only African country ranked in the top 10 countries.

EF's Global Ranking of English Skills Shows Netherlands Still on Top 

ZURICH, November 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Global survey of over one million adults maps worldwide trends in English proficiency

The Netherlands still has the world's best non-native English speakers, according to the EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) released today by EF Education First. This year's EF EPI results were first announced at a reception in the U.K.'s House of Commons.

The Best Performing State Governor in Nigeria

The best performing state governor in Nigeria, Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, on Tuesday added another feat to his administration’s achievements in the education sector with the commissioning of another Elementary school, St. Augustine’s Government Elementary School, Ipetumodu, in Ife North Local Government Area of the state.

Read more on
http://www.nairaland.com/4166750/aregbesola-commissions-st-augustines-government.

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Video: About 151,000 Migrants Crossed the Mediterranean to Europe, 2,800 Died

The trip across the Mediterranean is deadly — about 58 percent of the refugees who have died this year during their cross-border migration have drowned in the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration.

A top Salerno official, Salvatore Malfi, called the discovery a tragedy and told AFP authorities will “need to see whether there are suspects to concentrate on or whether the murder inquiry will proceed against persons unknown.”

Malfi said the girls may have been thrown off their rubber dinghy into the waters of the Mediterranean, according to NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli. “The cause of death appears to be by drowning.”

Women are more likely to drown because they cannot swim as well as men or because they sit on the lower levels of the vessels carrying them, away from life jackets, according to a 2012 study published in SAGE. Women might also try to rescue their children from drowning, putting them at greater risk of death.

The Spanish ship managed Sunday to rescue 90 women and 52 minors, including a newborn, officials told CNN. The rescue was one of four that altogether saved about 400 people over the course of the weekend.

So far this year through Nov. 1, about 151,000 migrants survived the journey across the Mediterranean to Europe, according to the International Organization for Migration. Almost 75 percent of those migrants — about 111,500 people — landed in Italy, with the rest reaching the shores of Greece, Cyprus and Spain. More than 2,800 migrants have died attempting the journey.
Click here to read the complete report.

President Kagame and Tony Elumelu to headline Young Entrepreneurship Day at the Africa 2017 Forum

President Kagame and Tony Elumelu to headline Young Entrepreneurship Day at the Africa 2017 Forum
The Young Entrepreneurship Day will bring together some of Africa’s most promising entrepreneurs with investors and new partners to help them scale up their ideas and businesses and the most successful start-ups will gain access to a deal room and also a one week tailored course at Stanford

H. E. Paul Kagame President, Republic of Rwanda.

Tony O. Elumelu, CON. Chairman and Founder, Heirs Holdings and Tony Elumelu Foundation.

CAIRO, Egypt, November 8, 2017/APO Group/ -- HE Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda and chairman of Smart Africa, and Tony Elumelu, Founder of the $100m Entrepreneurship Programme, will be headlining the Young Entrepreneurship Day (YED) at the Africa 2017 Forum (www.BusinessForAfricaForum.com).
The YED is a new addition to the Forum and will take place on the eve of Africa 2017, on the 7th December. It has been designed to connect some of Africa’s most promising entrepreneurs and also give them exposure to investors, incubators and accelerators as well as to partake in workshops that will give them the skills and tools to scale up their businesses.

World Bank’s Praise of Nigeria’s Economic Reforms

World Bank’s Praise of Nigeria’s Economic Reforms
Nigeria’s recent ranking by World Bank, evidence of productive collaboration anchored by FG's ease of doing business initiative

ABUJA, Nigeria, November 8, 2017/APO Group/ -- Remarks by the Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo San at the Ease of Doing Business Stakeholders’ Engagement Forum at the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) Hall, Abuja on November 7, 2017:
Protocols

I must congratulate the PEBEC team and the reform leaders in particular for this important milestone in the journey to making Nigeria one of the most attractive destinations for business in the world.

Nollywood and the French Connection

Nollywood and the French Connection

The emergence of Nollywood, the phenomenal Nigerian video film industry which is the largest in the world by the production of home videos has generated diverse interests and pursuits in many reports and studies since the New York Times coined the name “Nollywood” in 2002. But many people are ignorant of the important and significant role played by the French government before the support of other foreign governments and even before the financial support of the Nigerian government in the sustainable development of Nollywood.

The leading filmmakers whose films have contributed to the global phenomenon of Nollywood have been supported with grants from the Fonds Images Afrique of the Cooperation and Cultural Action Department in the French Embassy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France.
Majority of them are notable members of the Independent Television Producers Association of Nigeria (ITPAN) when Monsieur Pierre Barrot was the Regional Cultural Attaché in charge of audiovisual media in the French Embassy in Nigeria (2002-2006). He had a good official rapport with the association and got the financial support of the French government. He saw the making of Nollywood which he gave his eyewitness accounts in Nollywood: The Video Phenomenon in Nigeria, one of the first books on Nollywood he coauthored and co edited, published by the Indiana University Press in February 16, 2009.

Monsieur Pierre Barrot.

“Excellent, attractive, and valuable . . . the phenomenon has become so huge and the videos have spread so widely in Africa and elsewhere that they have begun to attract a good deal of attention. This book is a superb introduction to the subject.”
~ Prof. Jonathan Haynes, Long Island University.