“Leadership is the key to unraveling the problems of Africa. With the right leadership good policies would be enacted that will create the right condition for economic growth, respect of the rule of law and a conducive atmosphere for business to thrive,” he said.

A statement signed by his Spokesperson Mr Frank Agyekum said Former President Kufuor was speaking at the world launch of ‘Why Africa is Poor and What Africans can do about it,’ a 400-page book written by Dr Greg Mills, the Executive Director of the Brenthurst Foundation of the Oppenheimer and Son Group.

The Former President, a member of the Board of Governors of the Foundation, said a major part of Africa’s problems was because people assumed leadership positions without being adequately prepared for it and therefore lacked the vision and drive to pursue policies that would inure to the benefit of their people.

“Studies of individual historic leaders exemplified in the likes of Biblical Moses, among others, would show conclusively that each one of them had come through relevant experiences to be imbued with epochal visions of great and abiding development of their nations.”

He said the time when people just jumped into leadership positions should be by-gone. Budding leaders must bide their time and go through the apprenticeship exposures and institutions to better prepare them to assume the rightful role expected of them.

Former President Kufuor said the African Union, in pursuit of Renaissance Africa, had launched the New Partnership for the African Peer Review Mechanism to hasten the adoption of good governance and leadership throughout the continent as the vehicle to hasten development to mainstream the continent into globalization.

“I believe Africa by these acts is taking the first steps to shake off poverty and must be supported to stay the course,” he said.

Former President Kufuor said the book would go a long way to enrich the literature on Africa’s development and recommend it for reading by policy analysts, academics, politicians, researchers and those interested in Africa’s development.

‘Why Africa is Poor and What Africans Can Do About’ is in three parts: The first part examines why African states have done comparatively badly. The book concludes that the overwhelming reason why this is so is because of bad policy decisions. Correspondingly, where African states have done much better, better policy and leadership, stronger and improved democracy have gone hand in hand.

The second aspect focuses on why some countries outside of Africa have done well in terms of human development and economic growth.

Third part looks at the tremendous opportunities in Africa in terms of demographic dividend and demand for its resources.

ACCRA, 3 June 2010 – Today, Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) launches the only nonstop service between Accra’s Kotoka International Airport and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the world’s largest airline hub. The flight operates four times per week* using a 243-seat Airbus A330-200 aircraft, complementing the airline’s existing five weekly nonstop services between Accra and New York-JFK.

“As the leading U.S. airline to Ghana for more than three years, we’re delighted to be adding a second nonstop service, boosting travel and tourism between our two nations and increasing travel choice for Ghanaians with flights to two U.S. gateways,” said Perry Cantarutti, Delta’s senior vice president Europe, Middle East and Africa. “At Atlanta, customers travelling to and from Accra will have convenient connections to more flights than any other hub in the world, to destinations across the United States – including Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco, Orlando and Washington D.C – and to points throughout the Americas.”

The new Atlanta service departs Ghana at 1 a.m., arriving into Atlanta at 8.45 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, whilst the return flight leaves Atlanta at 11.15 p.m, arriving back into Accra at 2.40pm the following day. Over the summer, Delta will operate nine weekly services between Ghana and the United States, providing passengers with a wide choice of travel dates, departure and arrival times.

The Airbus A330-200 is equipped with ample cargo space, providing significant opportunities for freight forwarders and cargo shippers in Ghana.

“Air Freight forwarders can expect up to eight tonnes of cargo capacity per departure to Atlanta, which is a popular destination for exporters from Ghana due to the extensive same-day onward connections,” added Danita Waterfall-Brizzi, Delta’s regional director cargo sales. “Commodities include everything from local fruit and vegetables, as well as handicrafts.”

Customers on the flight will have the opportunity to experience Delta’s award-winning BusinessElite service, including innovative food offerings from celebrity chef Michelle Bernstein and original wine selections chosen by Delta’s Master Sommelier Andrea Robinson. BusinessElite also features on-demand personal in-seat entertainment boasting more than 20 first-run and popular classic movies, a variety of television programs, thousands of music titles and a suite of video games. Passengers in economy will enjoy seat-back entertainment, as well as a complementary meal service and beverages.

Delta is the leading U.S. airline to Africa with service to six destinations across the continent. Delta has served Ghana since December 2006, during which time more than 250,000 passengers have flown with Delta between Ghana and the United States.

Building on its current position as the largest U.S. carrier operating flights to Africa, Delta will continue is expansion into fast growing Africa markets. As well as launching service between Accra and Atlanta, Delta will also launch nonstop service between Abuja, Nigeria and New York-JFK this summer, as well as direct service between Monrovia, Liberia and Atlanta via Accra. By the end of 2010, Delta intends to serve as many as eight African destinations from the United States including flights to Luanda, Angola, – pending U.S and foreign government approvals.

“He has died,” said the minister, Dora Akunyili, adding that Mr. Yar’Adua had expired at the presidential villa in the capital, Abuja.

Mr. Yar’Adua suffered from kidney and heart ailments, and his health had been one of the country’s top concerns for weeks, ever since he departed at the end of November for emergency treatment in Saudi Arabia.

He did not transfer power when he left. In the following months, Nigeria, already racked by low-level civil wars over oil and religion, was left in limbo. There was no center of authority, and a peace plan Mr. Yar’Adua had enacted for the violence-plagued oil-producing south seemed in danger of falling apart.

Mr. Yar’Adua, shielded by his wife and other supporters, did not appear in public and made no statements, apart from a few faltering words to the BBC in January from his hospital room. As public anger over the power vacuum grew amid fears that the country would revert to military dictatorship, the National Assembly reluctantly acted in February, handing power over to Mr. Yar’Adua’s vice president, Goodluck Jonathan.

Ever since, Mr. Jonathan has called himself merely the “acting president,” proceeding on the assumption — which few people among the country’s political class or media shared — that Mr. Yar’Adua would one day return to office. He was taken back to Nigeria in the middle of the night on Feb. 24, but was seen by no one outside his immediate circle. There were public demands that Mr. Jonathan meet with him, but there was no indication that he had done so.

Increasingly discounted as a political force, by virtue of his presence Mr. Yar’Adua placed an additional question mark over the presidency of Mr. Jonathan, a native of the rival southern half of Nigeria. That has now been removed.

Mr. Yar’Adua, a soft-spoken former governor from the country’s Muslim north, won a deeply flawed election in 2007 that included credible reports of fraud and ballot stuffing. Still, the election was seen as an advance in a vast, populous and resource-rich country that less than a decade before had been enduring a brutal military dictatorship.

Trained as a chemist, he was born Aug. 16, 1951, into a political family. His father became a minister soon after Nigeria gained independence, and his brother held a ranking post in a military government of the late 1970s.

Nigerians, keenly aware that their impoverished and wealth-stratified nation has not realized its potential, had hopes that Mr. Yar’Adua might help it do so. He promised to tackle a culture pervaded by corruption, improve the shaky to nonexistent electricity supply, and end the violence that crippled production of oil, Nigeria’s principal source of cash.

But his truncated presidency fell short on all three points. The leading anti-corruption official in the country was chased from office after vigorously pursuing high-level graft, including among Mr. Yar’Adua’s supporters. The lights continue to flicker on and off throughout the country. And the Niger Delta, although less incendiary than in some previous years, still experiences periodic flare-ups. The shadowy rebel groups in that region purport to fight under a banner that nonetheless remains as glaringly real as when Mr. Yar’Adua took office three years ago: Nigeria’s vast inequities in wealth.

Quite the athlete, he also represented Ghana in the West African Student Games in tennis.  Kwame took ski lessons when he got a job as a receptionist at a ski center.   In an interview with BBC, he stated that , “The only thing we [Africans] have to overcome is the cold.”  He credits his family and his faith in God for his success.

Dedicated to encouraging Ghanian youth to ski, he has set up the Ghanian Winter Olympic Association and is working on building an artificial ski slope in Akuapem Hills, Mamfe, Ghana.

He supports Sabre, a British charity that builds schools in deprived areas of Ghana, and donates his spare money to a charity that is working on help save the snow leopard from extinction.

To cheer him on watch the Winter Olympics on February 27, 2010 and let us see if he brings the Africa’s first gold in this year’s Winter Olympics

A Foreign social entrepreneur, Mr Maurizio de Franciscis, has introduced a new online system to help students in Ghana to realize and improve on their talents.

This was done in collaboration with the Association of International Students in Economics, Science and Commerce (AIESEC) Ghana, a student organization that promotes leadership development among the youth.

The website, ‘GlobalCampus’, is an online system that would enable students to get connected to universities and organizations worldwide. It is focused on helping individuals to improve upon their talents in every field.

It will also enable universities and organizations to know more about students during admission processes, as well as connecting the needs of universities to students across the world.

At a press conference in Accra to formally introduce the system in Ghana, Mr Maurizio de Franciscis, who is the founder and Chief Executive Office of GlobalCampus, explained that the GlobalCampus was a free online system that enabled students to get easy access and connection to universities and organizations worldwide for education and scholarships.

He said the system was focused on bringing opportunities for higher education and further development to talented young people around the world.

Mr Franciscis said the GlobalCampus provided information on universities and scholarships to interested persons who had an account with the website around the world.

“Every year around the world, there are 300,000 million dollars of scholarships but I find no one to apply due to lack of access to information,” he claimed.

He indicated that there were universities and organizations around the world which needed foreign talented persons for admission and to work with but could not have access to them due to the lack of information on programmes that would help connect to such people.

He explained that one could be a member of the system by creating an account through a personal profile on what one does and what one wants to do to improve on his life, adding, “It is similar to facebook but this connects you to institutions and organizations around the world, noting that “Rwanda, Egypt and Nigeria are African countries who are already part of the system.

The Vice-President of Talent Management and Outgoing Exchange of AIESEC Ghana, Miss Abena Owiredu-Nkansah, said AIESEC Ghana collaborated with GlobalCampus to ease the pressure on graduates and undergraduates when it comes to searching for universities and other institutions to further their education around the world.

“We supported this initiative on the basis of AIESEC’s goal to give leadership opportunities to the youth and promote cultural integration,” she said.