Here is where I give cause for celebration (and then in perentheses rain on the parade):
In Mozambique there are hopes that the country is going to be able to add 6,000 Megawatts of new capacity to the region’s power pool by 2014. (This seems optimistic. Infrastructure in Maputo, never mind much of the rest of the country, is not exactly top notch. I will be hoping for it to happen, and I believe in aiming high, but I think our optimism should be cautous.)
Rwandan troops will start leaving eastern Democratic Republic of Congo today and the process of full withdrawal should be done by the middle of this week. Given the destabilizing nature of foreign troops in the DRC for more than a decade, this certainly qualifies as good news. (Anyone want to place a bet on how long it will be before either Rwandan troops are back or some other country’s military fills the vacuum?)
Finally, the possibility of pending arrest warrants against Omar al-Bashir and an agreement of sorts between Khartoum and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) seem to signal good things ahead for Darfur. (Not so fast. Hat tip.)
If you have been reading me long enough you know that I generally fight the Afro-pessimist narrative. But that does not make me pollyanna.