One reason I enjoy visiting Africa is that I get what I call my “African shot”: despite difficulties, optimism transpires there. To me this is in sharp contrast to the gloomy attitude that many of us in Europe have developed over the last few years. In my post of last week (“Africa Rising” – Under…

This week, U.S. President, Barak Obama and the Republican candidates painted very different visions for the U.S. and the world with the former one based on hope and the other on fear.

“Do you really think Africa is going to take off?” This is a question I often get both from Africans and from people in the West. My answer: “It’s not going to happen tomorrow but I’m convinced it will happen.” At any typical introductory talk about the continent chances are that the speaker will show…

I recall when I first started out as an officer in the military, it took time and me making mistakes to figure out a healthy balance between flexibility and discipline. During one of my first training exercises, I sat back and gave up some of my autonomy, trusting my subordinate leaders to get the job…