- Senegalese-American singer and songwriter Akon to promote tourism in Africa
- Akon’s earlier initiative “Lighting Africa” helped electrification of many African villages
Tourism in Africa is getting endorsements not only from the governments and industry but also from artists and creative people. Its appeal more as an environment friendly industry –if plays within the safe limit-focus on maintaining ecological balance, which can motivate the continent to keep the rich bounty of natural settings intact, and employment opportunities it creates at all segments of the population are motivating more and more governments and individuals in Africa to invest in developing tourism.
A classic example is the effort of Senegalese-American singer and songwriter Akon’s relentless efforts to promote tourism in the continent. The singer, whose real name is Aliaum has many compositions and lyrics to his credit. He is also spearheaded the campaign –Lighting Africa- aimed at providing electricity to 600 million Africans.
Akon’s projects in Africa are many and varied. The Senegal’s state-owned tourism company – SAPCO –recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with him to create a sustainable tourism village that would campaign for the environment. The singer turned investor has a hard nose to smell where the money lies. The areas where the state and Akon would work together is still not clear. But his involvement in the project can send the right vibes across investors. Some of the unconfirmed reports suggest that Akon is drawing up plans to build a complex in the seaside village of Mbodiene, lying 120 kilometres south of the capital Dakar.
The singer and rapper had spent his early days in Senegal. Drafted into the US during his childhood itself, he soon achieved the super star position through musical compositions and style of singing and rapping. . His present association with the country, where he was born could be a good gesture of his attitude of gratitude.
Akon has an attribute to enter totally unrelated areas. His investments are of futuristic in nature. Akoin is not the name of a popular album, which he had released but the crypto currency that he had launched in 2018. Named after him, the digital cash currency is part of his plan to build a futuristic Crypto City on a 2,000-acre land gifted to him by the President of Senegal, Macky Sall.
Development works also engaged his attention in a significant manner. In 2015, along with a fellow Senegalese entrepreneur- Bathily- he started the Akon Lighting Africa initiative, with an objective of ‘bringing clean energy to millions of households in Africa’. The focus of the project is electrifying the rural areas and making power supply affordable by bringing down the cost of generation and transmission. The project raised US$ 1 billion in 2016 and has been implemented in several villages across Africa.
