OUR PARTNERS

Newsdesk: Business Africa was made possible by contributions from a wide variety of partners by way of time, images, video clips, interviewees, advice and technical expertise. These include, though not exclusively, Media4Change, Africa Report, Camerapix, Africa investor, Care International, Tearfund, Television Trust for the Environment, and Voluntary Service Overseas. The project was completed with the support of Diageo, technical development provided by Mediafour and Pollard Productions, and distribution through the networks of our distribution partners in Africa and the UK which include African Virtual University, Association of African Universities, Teach First, Gemin-I, and the Oracle eSchools Consortium.

www.africapractice.com

africapractice group provides strategic communications and investment publishing services to support our clients in the management and communication of professional, ethical business. Through our sister organisation, African Investment Advisory, the group also provides project advisory services.

Operating at the intersect of business, government, international organisations and the media, africapractice group has a growing network of clients across Africa serviced from regional hub offices in Nairobi, Lagos and Johannesburg, affiliate offices across the continent and a coordinating office in London. The group offers clients consistent quality of service across each of these territories and additional representation in Cairo, Brussels and Washington.

The africapractice group publishes the continent's premier investment title Africa investor - www.africa-investor.com. 

www.PollardProductions.com

Pollard Productions develops and produces Virtual Learning Environments for education, training and corporate communication. Their products, such as Newsdesk, feel like immersive computer games, but are  actually very carefully designed to create the best possible learning experience and the most valuable outcome - whether this is in a training course for senior executives or a lesson for school students.

Pollard Productions began in 2000 by creating President for a Day - a one-off educational computer game for use in secondary schools. Immediately upon release this was selected by BETT as one of the top five secondary school products of the year and it continues to sell well for its publisher.

Pollard Productions will still create one-off products like President for a Day, but has since specialised in the creation of much more complex "engines" for Virtual Learning Environment products.  These can be used, cost-effectively, to create uniquely customised product that is tailored to a client's specific requirements.  NewsdeskMaker is one of these - it was this engine that was used to create Newsdesk: Business Africa.

www.mediafour.co.uk

Mediafour is a production company that creates communications which achieve impact and change. Through a combination of experience, imagination and technical capability we produce projects and campaigns that meet and exceed our clients’ business objectives.
With extensive experience producing video/DVD, multimedia, web content, design and print, we work with many clients including:

• Astra Zeneca
• Adidas
• BBC
• Centrica / British Gas
• The Co-operative Group
• HBOS
• John Lewis Partnership
• JCB
• Tearfund
• Wateraid

Many of these companies have been long term clients for whom we have produced a large range of communication, marketing and training projects.

Our creative approach and highly experienced in-house studio team enables us to produce communications, which are memorable and create impact for the audience they were designed for. Our long-term client relationships demonstrate that we have been able to achieve this time after time.

www.diageo.com

Diageo is the world's leading premium drinks business with an outstanding collection of beverage brands. It is a global company, trading in over 180 markets around the world. The company is listed on both the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and the New York Stock Exchange (DEO).

Diageo employs over 20,000 people worldwide with offices in around 80 countries. Diageo has a number of long-standing and successful investments in Africa. Diageo Africa is the second largest Diageo market by volume (after North America), and with 5,000 employees accounts for around 20% of Diageo workforce worldwide. Diageo believes that ‘enriching communities’ is an important part of business and through its corporate citizenship agenda aims to spend 1% of operating profit on projects that deliver real social benefits. During the past year, Diageo invested around £1.5 million in projects in focus areas of water and conservation, skills development and education, health and local community.

Newsdesk: Business Africa will be distributed through the networks of our distribution partners in Africa and the UK:

www.avu.org

Established in 1997 as a World Bank project, the African Virtual University (AVU) is an African educational network, aimed at serving the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Since 2002 the AVU has become an intergovernmental organization, with its Charter affirmed by 5 African countries: Kenya, Senegal, Mauritania, Cote d’Ivoire and Mali. It is currently funded by the Australian Agency for International Development, the World Bank, the Canadian International Development Agency and the Department for International Development. The African Development Bank is also a strategic partner and supports the AVU by funding a teacher education project in ten African countries.

The main objective of the AVU is to support economic development by leveraging the power of modern telecommunications technology to provide world-class quality education and training programs for students and academic professionals in Africa.

The AVU runs its programs in 53 established learning centers in 27 African countries across the network. Members of the AVU network benefit from the AVU programs, the Digital Library with access to thousands of learning resources worldwide, and the opportunity to improve their connectivity. The AVU intends to be the leading continental and virtual education organization collaborating with, and supporting African higher education and training institutions through the enhancement of their capacities to utilize open, distance and e-learning methodologies (ODeL) so as to effectively increase access to local and global demand-driven graduate and undergraduate programs.

www.aau.org

The Association of African Universities is an international non-governmental organisation set up by the universities in Africa to promote cooperation among themselves and between them and the international Academic community. 

The AAU, whose headquarters is in Accra, Ghana, was formed in November 1967 at a founding conference in Rabat, Morocco, attended by representatives of 34 universities who adopted the constitution of the Association. This followed earlier consultations among executive heads of African universities at a UNESCO conference on higher education in Africa in Antananarivo, Madagascar, in 1962 and at a conference of heads of African universities in 1963 in Khartoum, Sudan. 

The AAU is the apex organisation and principal forum for consultation, exchange of information and cooperation among the universities in Africa.  

www.oracle.com/global/za/e-schools

The Oracle eSchools Consortium is one of five similar public-private partnerships from the private sector taking part in the first of three phases in the NEPAD E-Schools initiative. This program aims to provide computers and internet access to all schools in Africa within 10 years. The project was launched in 2003 at the African Economic Summit in Durban. The aim is to cover all high schools within 5 years of the start of implementation and all primary schools within 10 years, a total of some 600,000 schools.

www.teachfirst.org.uk

Launched in 2002, Teach First is an independent charity set up by London First, Business in the Community, McKinsey & Company, and dozens of other businesses and educational organisations. Its goal is to attract the UK’s most successful graduates to teach for two years in challenging London secondary schools, while preparing them to succeed as long-term leaders in high flying careers both inside and outside of education. The programme includes the bespoke Foundations of Leadership course, run in cooperation with Tanaka Business School and other leading employers.

Over 500 graduates have been recruited over the last three years and placed in challenging London secondary schools.  The teaching profession and worlds of business, policy, non-profit and industry have received an influx of Teach First ambassadors - leaders equipped and strategically positioned to address the causes of poverty throughout their lives.

www.gemin-i.org

Formerly known as Africa Bookcase, founded in 1997, Gemin-I is a UK registered charity that specialises in developing innovative web-based solutions to empower, educate and inspire people across the world. The charity was founded with the core aims of facilitating education in the developing world and providing a basis for continued multilateral & bilateral aid through the promotion of development awareness in UK schools. As an organisation, they believe in the capacity of innovative ICT usage to empower, enthuse, educate and bridge the digital divide.

www.nepad.org

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is the flagship socio-economic programme of the African Union and offers a vision and strategic framework for Africa’s renewal. NEPAD is designed to address the current challenges facing the African continent, including issues such as the escalating poverty levels, underdevelopment and the continued marginalisation of Africa, which need a new radical intervention, spearheaded by African leaders.

NEPAD’s objectives are:

1. To eradicate poverty;
2. To place African countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development;
3. To halt the marginalisation of Africa in the globalisation process and enhance its full and beneficial integration into the global economy;
4. To accelerate the empowerment of women.

Newsdesk offers an innovative solution to address NEPAD’s third objective, outlined above. Improving young people’s understanding and increasing media coverage of the business opportunities available in Africa and the positive impact this can have on African development will play a key role in halting Africa’s marginalisation in the globalisation process and enhance its full and beneficial integration into the global economy.

NEPAD is a strategic partner for Newsdesk as Professor Firmino Mucavele, NEPAD CEO, highlighted during his speech at the Newsdesk launch: “Newsdesk is a best practice of what a corporate response to the vision outlined by Nepad should look like. Indeed, Newsdesk could be called a NEPAD private sector initiative”.

He emphasised that communications and information provision is central to achieving NEPAD objectives, as is skills development and stressed the importance of making African youth technologically savvy. Finally, he suggested that Newsdesk would make a strong contribution to increasing Africa's investment profile, promoting the continent’s exports and securing for Africa a fair share of voice in the global community.