The lack of qualified professionals working in Africa presents one of the biggest development challenges facing the continent. Doctors, nurses, teachers, academics and businessmen have been streaming out of Africa in recent years, in search of better opportunities in the West. But from Paris, 38-year-old Didier Acouetey, a native of Togo, runs a company that is dedicated to luring African professionals back home.

He says he founded his company almost a decade ago to help address what he considers the main obstacle to African development: A dearth of qualified professionals.
Multinationals and other large companies operating in Africa clearly share Mr. Acouetey's assessment.  Dozens of them now use AfricSearch to hire talented African professionals for jobs on the continent.  "Ninety-five percent of our clients are international corporations like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Shell, Citibank, France Telecom," Mr. Acouetey says. “The others are large African companies or African institutions, like the West African Development Bank or the Central African Development Bank."

Today, AfricSearch has branches in the United States and Africa, along with its headquarters on the elegant Champs Elysees in Paris.
But Mr. Acouetey believes that creating a vibrant private sector, run by Africans, is one of the keys to Africa's development. And so in a small way, he believes, his agency is improving the lives of Africans.