The 2010 World Cup is the first major international sporting event ever hosted by an African country. It is estimated that 373, 000 visitors will have traveled to South Africa for the month-long event and millions more are already tuning in around the world to watch the televised matches. As the eyes of the world are focused on sub-Saharan and South Africa, several major questions have arisen, including:

• Will the World Cup establish South Africa as the region’s economic and political leader, even as the country continues to struggle with lasting effects of apartheid policy?
• Will it shed light on humanitarian issues in Africa, such as the ongoing conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe and Darfur, or mask them?
• Fifty percent of the South African population is living in poverty, and thousands of South Africans recently marched in protest against their government’s excessive spending for the World Cup. What will be the lasting economic impact of the World Cup on the region?

Tune in to Global I.Q. with The Economist and hear Council President Jim Falk and Jonathan Ledgard, East Africa Correspondent and U.S. Technology Correspondent forThe Economist, discuss these issues and more in an online audiocast conversation. Listen and submit questions live as Ledgrad shares his thoughts on the World Cup and future of Sub-Saharan and South Africa.

Jonathan Ledgard is Eastern Africa correspondent of The Economist and a senior contributing writer to Intelligent Life. He joined the paper in Los Angeles in 1996 and has been Texas correspondent, Eastern Europe correspondent and Afghanistan correspondent based in Kabul. Ledgard has reported on several wars, most recently in Somalia. He was among the first foreign correspondents to travel with George W. Bush. In addition to politics, he has written and lectured on environmental sustainability, emerging markets and literature. Jonathan is author of Giraffe, a novel set in former Czechoslovakia, published by Penguin Press and widely translated.