Nollywood has talent!
Lights, camera, action! It’s a clichéd phrase that we more often associate with the movie business and not the World Bank. In the past the Bank has financed schools, hospitals, power stations but now we are looking for new areas to finance. So why the movie business? Nigeria’s movie industry, euphemistically known as “Nollywood” is the world’s most prolific, churning out more than 40 full-length feature films every week. It employs about 500,000 people directly and perhaps double that indirectly. And yet there is tremendous scope for growth.
Most of the movies are low budget affairs. Want to make a movie in Naija – it only takes $25,000 and a couple of days with local producers using gorilla film-making techniques. They make low budget movies filmed on site in cheap locations (hotel rooms and offices), with improvised sound and light. The result, sometimes grainy, sometimes inaudible, ham acting at its best – but for Nollywood fans it is totally watchable, gripping action that they can relate to. African stories for an African audience.
Despite the economic downturn and a general decline in tourism worldwide, tourism in Africa is growing faster than in the rest of the world. African tourism arrivals grew from 37 million in 2003 to 58 million in 2009. The continent receives more tourists than the Caribbean, Central America, and South America combined. For instance, in Nigeria-the most populous country in Africa-we welcome more than three million visitors annually, largely business men from neighboring countries and the Nigerian Diaspora visiting friends and relatives.
The recent democratic uprisings in the Middle East served as the backdrop for a major speech given by Bank President Robert Zoellick on the emerging role of civil society. The speech, 
