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The need for community radio licences In response to the Ebola virus disease, the WHO emergency committee is considering whether the unfolding threat amounts to an international public health emergency. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention EOC has moved its activation to the highest level, an action it last took during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, while the Nigerian Government has also declared a red alert. With this unfolding scenario, we need to consider all measures to contain the disease. Nigeria should no longer delay the approval of licences for community radios. The importance of local information Recently,...

This was first published (August 27, 2010) as an open letter on posterous. I'm reposting a (slighly shortened) version here as posterous no longer exists and I need to refer to it. Hi Kellie. (snip) A year or two back, I was involved in a workshop relevant to your interest in 21st century organisations. It was organised by a group connected to the RSA, and the day involved exploring issues related to the formal, long-established, RSA and a complementary informal network. It was definitely not a typical talking shop. I think it would have appealed to you. We were divided...

Senior Citizens Commission for Nigeria The Senior Citizens Care Foundation, SCCF, is one of the few organisations in Nigeria whose primary focus is the care of the elderly. SCCF hosted a national workshop in Abeokuta, on Wednesday 9 th July 2014. In attendance were the State Governors of Osun, Ekiti and Edo, several senior citizens and also members of the Nigerian Society for Geriatrics and Gerontology. Alongside his Excellency Prince Bola Ajibola, Dr Fayemi of Ekiti State and Bishop Matthew Kukah of the Sokoto Catholic Diocese, John Dada from Fantsuam was on the panel of speakers. The workshop observed that...

I was at AFFORD's Annual event AD3 (Africa Diaspora and Development Day) which took the theme "Africa's Population Growth and Youth Unemployment" (AFFORD is the African Foundation for Development). During a conversation afterwards I was asked for more information about Dadamac and our related interests, which I share below: Dadamac connects people to each other and helps them to communicate and collaborate. It started with some friendships. Thanks to the Internet it's possible for friendships, and practical collaborations, to be sustained at a distance. Dadamac emerged through a combination of UK-Africa connections - personal connections and Internet-enabled ones. My personal...

Dave Pollard, like me, was at Dark Mountain last week. He's written about it - Through the Dark Mountain: A Harvest of Myths": I spent last week at a Dark Mountain retreat at Schumacher College in Dartington just outside Totnes, UK..... (we) explored our shared worldview of the coming collapse of civilization, the myths of our culture and the possibility of creating new stories that might be of better service to us in the challenging decades ahead..... A myth is a story that many people believe to be true. It may or may not be true. The danger with myths...