Africa – 16 July 2015

Groups press Obama to meet activists on Africa trip
Washington – More than 50 African and global human rights groups on Tuesday called on US President Barack Obama to publicly meet democracy activists when he visits Ethiopia and Kenya later this month.
In a letter delivered to the White House, groups welcomed Obama’s planned visit but voiced concerns about “grave and worsening human rights challenges” in his host countries.
News24

WHO calls for African emergency centre
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a central national emergency operations centre to be established that will be on stand-by to deal with future disease outbreaks and related emergencies.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, made the call when addressing a meeting of about 200 high-level experts from governments, development agencies, civil society and international organisations at the Building Health Security Beyond Ebola conference at the Westin Hotel in Cape Town yesterday.
South Africa.info

1000 African Entrepreneurs Gather In Nigeria For Tony Elumelu Foundation Boot Camp
1000 entrepreneurs from across Africa gathered in Ota, Southwest Nigeria, between Friday and Saturday for an intensive two-day boot camp hosted by the Tony Elumelu Foundation.
The 1000 entrepreneurs were all part of the inaugural class of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP), a multi-year programme of training, funding, and mentoring, designed to empower the next generation of African entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs traveled from across Africa – from Lusaka to Lomé and Cape Town to Casablanca for the event which was one of the largest gatherings of African entrepreneurs in recent times.
Forbes

The most powerful African you’ve never heard of
Dr Ayo Ajayi is probably the most important African that you’ve never heard of. The genial Nigerian physician is head of the Africa Team at the Gates Foundation, which puts him in charge of the Foundation’s work on policy, advocacy and government relations on the continent.
What’s so special about that, you might think – sounds like typical NGO fluff.
But this isn’t any old NGO. The Gates Foundation has an annual budget of $5 billion, most of which goes to developing countries – and most of these are in Africa. To put that in perspective: if the Foundation were a country, its budget would be only marginally less than Ethiopia’s, a country of 94.1 million people; and considerably more than the likes of Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique.
Daily Mavericks