Where is the trickle down?

For those interested in Africa's economic future, and the growing influence of China on the continent, I recommend "Untapped: The scramble for Africa's oil," by John Ghazvinian. His research shows it is naive to assume that the citizens, as opposed to the ruling elite, will see any benefit whatsoever from finding oil in their country. Only five per cent of all spending on developing a local oil industry occurs within the country in question, and African governments almost always negotiate a terrible deal for themselves. Sadly the vast majority of rulers seem concerned only with their own personal slice of the revenues, and Ghazvinian's book has plenty of depressing stories about their greed, corruption and vanity. Yet more proof that the tragedy of Africa is the ghastly people holding all the power, so often propped up by Western governments for our own geo-political reasons.

Beating poverty one cupcake at a time

Our Wanda Bakery project in Kigali, Rwanda has had an order for 250 cupcakes from the Dutch Embassy. The cupcakes will be iced in orange, and they will be consumed at a party to celebrate the World Cup final. Our thanks to the Dutch Embassy, and our congratulations to the Wanda bakery team for getting such a significant order. Wanda Bakery is a project of Women Developing Rwanda, which is in turn part of our Rwanda Multi Learning Centre. It is run by genocide survivors who are rebuilding their lives. Our thanks to those who have helped make this project a reality.

Who We Are - Network4Africa.org

Welcome to Network for Africa. We're a London-based charity that helps to rebuild lives and communities destroyed by war and genocide.

• We train people with skills that will help them get a job.
• We equip poor and vulnerable people with the skills to help themselves.
• We partner with small local African projects, producing tangible results.
• We respond to what locals tell us they need to break the cycle of poverty.
• We tackle the long-term consequences of war and genocide that remain after the emergency aid agencies have moved on.

Our Approach:Network for Africa has projects in Rwanda, Northern Uganda and Eastern Chad. Our aim is to benefit all people in the communities where we work, regardless of race or religion. We work with small projects, started by local people responding to local needs.