Interesting visualization by Stefan Einarsson on We Can End Poverty. I’m of two minds here — one that this is crazy creative and different than what we’re used to seeing, and the other that this communicates complete dependence on world leaders and passivity on the part of Africans. What do you think??

Malaria’s “defeatability” made the disease an attractive opponent for the Bush administration and scores of charities. Too many, in fact. When Mr. Chambers came along, he found them working at cross-purposes, throwing money (that all too often disappeared) at third-world governments.

Mr. Perry tells the story of how Mr. Chambers united the diverse efforts, brought in the White House to hold antimalaria conferences and then rallied the media. The most important media effort came from, of all sources, “American Idol,” whose “Idol Gives Back” specials did wonders to raise money and awareness.

“Ray approaches social issues like a C.E.O. approaches a company,” one aide tells Mr. Perry. “He breaks it down into supply chains, investment decisions, sales and marketing, accountancy.” Mr. Chambers was so effective that he was named a United Nations special envoy for malaria eradication. He set a goal: to eliminate malaria by 2015. Then he hired a small team of corporate and aid veterans to buy and distribute millions of mosquito nets to the seven African countries hit hardest by the disease.

Alex Perry’s new book Lifeblood: How to Change the World One Dead Mosquito at a Time gets a glowing review in this past Sunday’s New York Times. This sounds like a book that both explains an individual public health problem and sheds light on how different parties with different agendas do — and don’t — cooperate to try and create change.

As the situation in Libya continues to deteriorate, many people are questioning what will happen to Gadhafi’s many allies in Africa. Here’s a incomplete map that visualizes a bit of this. But really, Burkina Faso anyone? How about Uganda?

HT to Aaron Leaf.

Love this video! Fun song, and it’s kind of like a mini-Nollywood movie in the form of a music video. Which makes me wonder when we’ll be seeing a spate of Nollywood musicals.

 

(And if you ask me, the answer to that question is not soon enough!!!)

HT the always awesome afriPOP.

As all eyes are turned towards Libya, tomorrow is also an important day for Liberia. A vote taking place tomorrow about whether or not to shift the date of the election also will be a preview into how smoothly, or not smoothly, the actual election later this year will go.

Josh Keating has a dispatch from Monrovia up on Foreign Policy:

MONROVIA, Liberia — “Monkey still working, let baboon wait small,” reads a banner hanging prominently over bustling Broad Street in central Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. The message might seem opaque to outsiders, but in this politically obsessed country, the meaning is quite clear. The “monkey” — a traditionally clever animal in Liberian folklore — is President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, asking voters for another six-year term to continue the work of rebuilding this shattered West African state from the ravages of more than a quarter-century of dictatorship and civil war. The “baboon” — or, “ugly baboon” in some variations of the slogan — represents Liberia’s fractured opposition movement.*

He goes into a pretty detailed breakdown of who’s who in Liberian politics, and touches on why not all Liberians love Ma Ellen. Definitely worth a read. While she may be cozy with American leaders, most Liberians are not happy and this incongruity is seldom mentioned in press about Africa’s first female elected president.

*I wish I were in Monrovia to get a photo of the monkey/baboon sign — if anyone has one, please let me know! I’ll be back there to cover the elections in October/November.