Dear Reader,
Greetings. Today Africa is in a hurry to catch up with development. A sustained annual growth rate of around 5.5 percent ensures that the Millennium Development Goals that include eradication of poverty are achievable. Towards this end, various African institutions are striving to chalk out their own agendas and strategies. The Heads of governments of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), who met recently in Abuja, have adopted ECOWAS Strategic Vision 2020. The vision seeks to convert West Africa into a borderless region, which enables its people to conduct business on an expanded scale. The cover story of the current issue of Indo-African Business delves deep into ECOWAS concerns, the challenges the institution has been facing and the opportunities that it is creating for the West Africans. A prime reason for Africa's growing prosperity is the rising trend in the prices of oil, gas and mineral-based products, in which the continent is very rich. We carry an analytical write-up on factors that have contributed to Africa's sustained economic growth in recent years. The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) has been a powerful catalyst for economic growth. NEPAD has rightly identified infrastructure as the key factor that could change the face of Africa for the better and forever. At a recent Pan African Parliament Session, NEPAD presented its strategy for developing infrastructure, which in turn could spur in its wake large scale economic activity. NEPAD believes that such a strategy could eventually help reduce poverty across the African continent. We carry a write-up on NEPAD's plans in our Focus section. Then there is a report on the emerging trends in global economic growth. An in-depth report indicates that South-South trade zoomed to a record high in recent years, propelling developing nations as engines of growth. We carry it. As a time when women across the globe have been crying hoarse about gender bias, a female rural commissioner, working in the rural economy and agricultural projects of the African Union has been conferred the Global Agribusiness Award 2007 by a prestigious Rome-based organization. We carry the report. Our news section includes a write-up on the joint efforts of Britain, South Africa and Sierra Leone in spreading the fruits of agricultural research across Africa, aimed at creating an awareness about the best farm practices. India's external Affirms Minister Pranab Mukherjee visited Ethiopia recently to boost this country's age-old bond with the African nation by signing a number of pacts on economic cooperation. We report this diplomatic triumph. The issue carries the annual results of Export Import Bank of India, during its silver jubilee year as also its Commencement Day annual lecture by Prof. David Hulme. Besides all this interesting fare, the magazine as usual carries its regular features.

Satya Swaroop
Managing Editor
satya@newmediacomm.biz