Africa: Strictly Business, The Steady March To Prosperity
by Rosalind Kilkenny McLymont

Africa: Strictly Business is a collection of the author s award-winning Africa Focus columns published in The Network Journal magazine over the past five years, and five of her annual Trade With Africa reports published in Shipping Digest, a publication of The Journal of Commerce Group. It is an informed discussion of efforts being made by African governments and private individuals to achieve economic prosperity, countering more widespread images of Africa as the home of poverty, disease, corruption and combat. Through its ten chapters, titled Capital Markets; Creative Industries; Diaspora Relations; Global Trade; Health; Economic and Industrial Development; Foreign Investment; Science and Technology; Women and Development; and U.S. Trade with Africa, readers learn, for example, of Nigeria s satellite launch; of stock markets outperforming those of developed countries; the thirty-plus percent return on investment; the sixty-four-year-old entrepreneur who enrolled in elementary school; the pool of techies that has become a magnet for Google and Facebook ventures; home-grown medical students who ride a train into remote corners to deliver health care; women whose financial clout is forcing commercial banks to create wealth-generating instruments just for them; war widows whose hand-woven baskets landed at Macy s; the grandmother of 10 who has a diploma in hotel management from Tadmora Hotel in Israel; industrial research in alternative fuels, grains, pharmaceuticals; infrastructure projects offering huge investment potential; and of a tourism sector that capitalizes on the continent s rich culture and creative industries.