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As Africa prepares to host the World Cup, ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service is launching an exploratory journey across the continent's "football factory" in West Africa, the home of four of the six African nations in the finals and the region that has produced the highest number of international footballers.

In Africa Kicks, from Monday 31 May to Wednesday 9 June, the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s team of journalists will be travelling across Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Togo, examining, in a series of multimedia and multi-language reports, the political, economic and football hopes, dreams and challenges of this region.

The 1,200km journey, across five countries, will seek to uncover some of the untold stories about the region – on radio, TV and online.

Africa Kicks will feature on ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service's flagship English-language programmes for Africa – Africa Have Your Say, Network Africa and Focus On Africa – the ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service English news and current affairs programme, The World Today, as well as ´óÏó´«Ã½ Afrique, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Arabic, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hausa, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Persian and ´óÏó´«Ã½ Swahili.

Blogs from the trip by ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service's writer in residence, Hamid Ismailov, will appear on bbcworldservice.com/writerinresidence, as well as on bbcazeri.com and bbcuzbek.com.

Hamid will also be sharing his views and observations with the audiences of The World Today.

Joseph Warungu, editor of Network Africa and Focus On Africa, says: "Names like Didier Drogba of Ivory Coast, Emmanuel Adebayor of Togo, Michael Essien of Ghana and Nwankwo Kanu of Nigeria are known to fans everywhere.

"But does the world understand the countries they come from? And, as Africa revels in the football frenzy, we also ask what opportunities really exist in a continent where security, the economy and corruption are day-to-day issues.

"Africa Kicks is a great opportunity to reflect the importance of football to the whole of the continent – and to look at how people there want to change the view the world has of Africa."

Travelling across the five nations where football plays a key role in culture and politics, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ will explore pertinent issues, including unity in Ivory Coast and the "healing powers" of football; how Ghana is preparing for the challenges of becoming Africa's newest oil producer; the viability of small states such as Togo and Benin; and a look at Nigeria's desire to re-brand itself.

Africa Kicks will highlight the following themes at each location:

Ivory Coast
Gagnoa – hometown of Didier Drogba
Abidjan – the "Paris of West Africa"

Ghana
Takoradi – will oil transform the city's fortunes?
Cape Coast – should government regulate churches?
Accra – can Africa sort its electricity problems?

Togo
Lomé, the "pearl" of Africa

Benin
Ouidah – home of voodoo, with links to Brazil
Cotonou – a cosmopolitan city with a huge Nigerian community

Nigeria
Lagos – is Nollywood destroying Africa's film industry?
Ibadan – how is Africa reshaping its global image?

Africa Kicks engages the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s 150 re-broadcasting partner FM stations in the region.

Notes to Editors

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ attracts a global audience of 241 million people to its international news services like ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ World News television channel.

´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service is an international multimedia broadcaster delivering 32 language and regional services, including: Albanian, Arabic, Azeri, Bengali, Burmese, Cantonese, English, English for Africa, English for the Caribbean, French for Africa, Hausa, Hindi, Indonesian, Kinyarwanda/Kirundi, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mandarin, Nepali, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese for Africa, Portuguese for Brazil, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Somali, Spanish for Latin America, Swahili, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.

It uses multiple platforms to reach its weekly audience of 180 million globally, including shortwave, AM, FM, digital satellite and cable channels.

Its news sites, which received 4.7 million weekly visitors in September 2009, include audio and video content and offer opportunities to join the global debate.

It has around 2,000 partner radio stations which take ´óÏó´«Ã½ content, and numerous partnerships supplying content to mobile phones and other wireless handheld devices.

For more information, visit bbcworldservice.com.

For a weekly alert about ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service programmes, sign up for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Agenda e-guide at bbcworldservice.com/eguide.

´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service International Publicity