Anyang Nyong’o is credited with behind-the-scenes manoeuvring to get ministers to support reform plans.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala seizes every opportunity to enthusiastically sell Nigeria’s reform story.

Successive presidents’ willingness to retain Trevor Manuel allowed time for harsh policies to bear fruit.

The policymakers of the African continent face some of the toughest challenges in the world today. James Eedes lists the eight most noteworthy figures who have worked to stabilise, reform and improve their respective economies.
UK chancellor Gordon Brown has emerged as champion of Africa’s cause, arguing for a better dispensation for the continent. UK prime minister Tony Blair is getting in on the act. And ageing rocker Bono of the band U2 is also a campaigner. In all this, it’s easy to overlook the fact that even with debt relief, more aid and fairer trade, Africans themselves have to implement the right policies, justify often tough measures to uneasy electorates and resist fierce opposition from reluctant or corrupt elites. It is a job requiring leadership, tenacity and political nous.

Enrique García, president and CEO of Corporación Andina de Fomento, sees social consensus as key to breathing new life into LatAm reform programmes.

Austria’s Raiffeisen International (RZB) is in exclusive takeover talks with Ukraine’s second-largest commercial bank, Aval. “We are in talks that we have agreed will be mutual until May,” said the chief executive of Raiffeisen International, Herbert Stepic. “We want to take over the bank entirely.”

New regulations for foreign banks in India have ended hopes of unrestrained growth in the expanding retail finance market. Foreign banks cannot acquire a local private bank except in the case of a weak bank, identified by the regulator. Additionally, local subsidiaries set up by foreign banks will not be able to open branches freely.
These restrictions will stay in place until 2009, when fuller deregulation is expected, including allowing market acquisitions of local private banks.

ARGENTINA could re-open its debt exchange to the 24% of investors who rejected it, once the country’s Congressional elections in October are over.

Hansabank Group has announced the successful completion of the acquisition of the Moscow-based Kvest bank.

The Italian banking market looks on the verge of being blasted open by twin bids from the Netherlands’ ABN AMRO and Spain’s BBVA.