PRETORIA – The South African government is facilitating opportunities for women in rural, peri-urban and informal settlements to participate in green economy projects such as solar energy, water purification, agriculture, construction, waste management and tourism.

KUMASI - Over 400 public and private sector players in agriculture will be participating in an international conference on agricultural value chains, holding in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, from 6-9 November 2012. Dubbed “Making the Connection: Value Chains for Transforming Smallholder Agriculture”, the conference will bring together government officials, development partners, private sector, civil society, farmer organizations and academics, to share experiences on value chain development. The event will also discuss how best smallholder farmers can be incorporated into value chains in order to promote agricultural and rural development.

JOHANNESBURG - The Connected Africa Forum which incorporates mobile money, mobile health and mobile agriculture takes place in Johannesburg in May and will showcase the evolution of mobile lifeline services and applications on the continent and highlight the evolving intersection between the different sectors.

After six successful editions, Growing SMEs will be held on 17-18 May 2012 in Kigali, Rwanda. This premium marketplace will highlight successful strategies and businesses to explore and activate the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) development in East Africa and beyond.

KAMPALA - Abdu Ssekalala, a third year student of Information Technology at the School of Computing and Informatics Technology (CIT), Makerere University has achieved more than what professionals struggle to attain in their careers. The whizzkid has developed nine innovative mobile phone applications available on the Nokia Ovi Store. One of these apps, the Uganda Theme – has attracted over 300,000 downloads making it the third most downloaded free application on the Nokia Ovi Store. The greatest number of these downloads was registered in the Asian countries of India and Thailand.