The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa

(Paperback)

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For years Dayo Olopade struggled to reconcile the media's image of Africa as warring, impoverished and pitiful with the Africa she's known since childhood: resilient, joyful and innovative, a continent of impassioned community leaders. She reports first -hand on the explosion of commercial opportunities and technological innovations that are improving outcomes for families, children and the environment.
The Bright Continent joins the conversation started by authors such as Jeffrey Sachs, Nicholas Kristof and Dambisa Moyo. Olopade rejects stale and ineffectual foreign interventions, arguing that the increasingly globalised challenges the continent faces can and must be addressed with the tools Africans are already using to solve these problems themselves. In many ways, Africa's model of doing more with less - of working around dysfunctional institutions to establish strong informal networks - can be a powerful model for the rest of the world. Behind the dire headlines, Olopade discovers many convincing rays of hope.

Reviews

'The Bright Continent will change your view of Africa. It's that simple. A lively and enjoyable read'Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO of the New America Foundation

'A book that bracingly lives up to its title. An Africa we are all too unaccustomed to seeing comes vividly to life thanks to Olopade's restless eye and keen curiosity'Howard French, author of A Continent for the Taking

'A long overdue and much needed corrective to the dominant perception of Africa'Dinaw Mengestu, author of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears and All Our Names

Author Bio

Dayo Olopade is a Nigerian-American journalist covering global politics and development policy. She has reported for the The New York Times, Daily Beast, Root, New Republic and many other publications. Dayo is currently a Knight Law and Media Scholar at Yale University.