World Cup

Sixty-two games have been played at the 2010 World Cup, which has been marvelously hosted by South Africa.  Only two games remain; one tomorrow for third place, and then Sunday’s much awaited World Cup Final between Spain and the Netherlands.  In a couple of days, we will have a brand new world soccer champion.  But its international governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), will still be stuck in the past.  FIFA has monopoly control over international soccer, and as this tournament has shown, faces enormous challenges: subpar corporate governance, leadership and transparency. These challenges partly undermine the development objectives of member countries.

As some of you know, in honor of World Cup fever, we’ve been highlighting ways that soccer projects around the world are changing lives.

Seminal Pan-African workshop about policies to support renewable energies. 

Accra, June 23, 2010. “The solar radiation Africa receives could make this continent the Saudi-Arabia of the future”. With this bold statement, Hafsat Abiola, daughter of Nigeria’s late President Elect Moshood Abiola, summarized the results of “Power Kick for Africa”, a two-day strategy workshop on renewable energy policies. The gathering was organised by the World Future Council Foundation, based in Hamburg, Germany, in cooperation with the Energy Commission of Ghana. It brought together representatives from utilities, regulators, industry and civil society from ten African countries who are determined to expand their cooperation under the umbrella of the African Renewable Energy Alliance (AREA). Their main point of discussion was how policy-makers can support the harvesting of abundant renewable energy and thus open the door for sustainable African development.

“If we repeat the mistakes of the developed world by realising African development mainly on the burning of fossil fuels, climate change will have a disastrous effect on our countries”, said the Executive Director of the Regional Centre for Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency of ECOWAS, Mahama Kappiah, at a press briefing in the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel, Accra. On the other hand, decentralised energy production through solar systems and wind farms could bring power to many remote regions, thus allowing development, creating jobs and benefitting health. Kappiah: “Solar power is reliable and can be installed easily and without the need to connect to the national electricity grid.”

As the World Cup unfolds, the buzz goes beyond the vuvuzelas. South Africa has been both hailed and criticized for the way it is hosting the event but the fact that the tournament is taking place in Africa is an undoubted source of pride across the continent.

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For the next few weeks, the world will hold its breath and dive into a universe where countries compete on level playing fields, where the rules are clear and the results visible. But that bubble will break and beyond the satisfying accomplishment of hosting such a mega-event, what will be left for Africa after the World Cup?