Though mobile technology is making waves in Africa, airwaves still count.

With over 200 million people between the ages of 15 and 24–a figure that will double by 2045–Africa’s fast-growing population is the youngest in the world. In the coming decades, hundreds of millions of young Africans will pour on to the job labour market as they leave schools branding qualifications of various levels.

The OECD is cooperating with governments and companies to combat the scourge of conflict minerals and has issued a guidance that several African countries have endorsed. There are encouraging signs of progress.

In many African countries, where unemployment rates can run as high as 30%, there is strong potential for entrepreneurship and employment. Development must focus on bringing down the barriers to progress. 

There are signs of a new, more confident and self-affirming Africa taking shape. As the 2011 edition of the African Economic Outlook argues, this newness is also evident in the continent’s relationships with emerging economies.

Building tax administration capacity is needed to help spur development in Africa. A new survey shows that action is being taken, but more work is needed.

A new kitchen can raise the value of any home, but in developing countries it can also save lives. That is why in 2010 the OECD’s very own staff charity, the War on Hunger Group, decided to contribute funding to fitting a new kitchen in the headquarters of AFENA, an NGO dedicated to looking after abandoned women and children, and based in Niger’s second city, Maradi.

Is it really “Africa’s moment” (No 249, May 2005)? You mention conflict, but how can we help stop humanitarian disasters, like the one that seems inevitable in Darfur, where we cannot say we were not warned. Essentially, some 2 million people (mostly elderly, female or infants), currently “sheltered” in sometimes abysmal refugee camps, now risk being shoved onto what effectively will become death marches into Chad by the very people who created the problem in the first place.