Our interim report, which we launched two weeks ago, is provoking debate and discussion in many quarters. The focus of the report is our association with AfrOx, a new organisation working to improve cancer prevention and control in Africa.
Download Language_is_Everything_interim_report_2008.pdf
One of the articles in our report asks "Can the private sector make a difference in Africa?". We've used this as the basis for the following ten things you didn't know about Africa...
- There are more land-locked countries in Africa (15) than on any other continent.
- Africa is the most linguistically diverse region in the world — most Africans grow up speaking two, three or four languages.
- Lesotho, in southern Africa, is the only country in the world that lies entirely above 1,000 metres.
- Although maps often show Africa as being similar in size to Greenland, Africa is in fact 14 times bigger ...
- ... and Greenland would rank as only Africa's fourth-largest country (just behind the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
- The capital of Algeria (Algiers) is closer to the capital of its former colonial power (Paris) than it is to its southernmost border.
- There are more than 2,000 different languages spoken in Africa.
- Passenger ferries cross between Europe and Africa in half the time it takes to travel from Dover to Calais.
- There are only 14 million telephone lines in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa — less than the number in Tokyo ...
- ... however Africa is the fastest-growing market in the world for mobile phones.