In Case You Missed It: 1/04/16 — 1/10/16

The most impor­tant in this week’s head­lines out of and con­cern­ing Africa, for those who need help catch­ing up.

In this week’s news, Net­flix expands to Africa,  the IMF address­es falling oil prices and eco­nom­ic hard­ships in Nige­ria and Cameroon, and Egyp­t’s new par­lia­ment gets to work.

Net­flix

Video stream­ing ser­vice Net­flix is now avail­able in all 54 African countries.

1. Net­flix Offi­cial­ly Launch­es in Africa

Net­flix announced this week that it is now avail­able in 130 addi­tion­al coun­tries, includ­ing all African countries.

Many peo­ple in these nations took to Twit­ter to express their excite­ment and their crit­i­cisms. The move high­lights the grow­ing eco­nom­ic inter­est in Africa, but it might be a threat to local pro­gram­ming and stream­ing alternatives.

Many users on Twit­ter did­n’t seem to mind, how­ev­er, say­ing that Net­flix is more afford­able and has a wider range of pro­grams avail­able. Oth­ers are wor­ried about inter­net speeds, say­ing that only those who can afford unlim­it­ed data will be able to actu­al­ly use the service.

2. IMF Urges African Coun­tries To Diver­si­fy Their Economies

Chris­tine Lagarde, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund(IMF), vis­it­ed Cameroon this week to urge Cen­tral African coun­tries to diver­si­fy their economies.

Legarde’s vis­it comes fol­low­ing a drop in oil prices around the world, ter­ror­ism, and polit­i­cal unrest. Cameroon was hit hard by these issues, but has fared bet­ter than it’s neigh­bors because it has already diver­si­fied it’s econ­o­my by branch­ing out into agri­cul­ture, con­struc­tion, and energy.

Legarde urged the oth­er Cen­tral African states to fol­low Cameroon’s exam­ple, and to work togeth­er in order to do so.

3. Egypt Holds First Par­lia­ment In Three Years

Egyp­t’s first par­lia­ment in three years met this week . The pre­vi­ous par­lia­ment was dis­solved in 2012, when protests lead to the over throw of Pres­i­dent Mohamed Morsi.

The Par­lia­ment has 15 days to rat­i­fy the 300 laws that have been passed by Inter­im Pres­i­dent Adly Man­sour and cur­rent Pres­i­dent Abdel Fat­tah el-Sisi since 2012. The par­lia­ment is pre­dom­i­nate­ly made up of MP’s who sup­port  Sisi, but the ses­sions have so far not been with­out ten­sion and debate.