African News
Nigeria and other African countries will push for a legally binding instrument on drought management and increased financing to tackle desertification, land degradation and drought at the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP17) in Mongolia. Nigerian delegates, alongside their counterparts from other African…
Cholera is spreading rapidly across West and Central Africa, with active outbreaks now in six countries and millions of children at growing risk, UN children’s agency UNICEF has said. Key facts Cholera outbreaks are active in six countries across West and Central Africa, spread along two major transmission corridors Nigeria has the region’s largest outbreak:…
Nairobi — Campaigners say anti-rights movements are increasingly using family law to challenge women’s rights to inheritance, property, divorce and child custody. Women’s rights advocates, judges and lawyers have launched a coordinated campaign to reform family laws that discriminate against women and girls in Africa. While the past decade has brought important legal advances in…
Current geopolitical tensions could be catastrophic for climate action, especially Africa’s renewable energy transition. Climate action, particularly the transition to renewables and low-carbon energy, is caught in the crossfire of the United States (US)-China geopolitical rivalry. This new cold war could accelerate global warming, with Africa potentially a victim – living out the old proverb,…
Africa grows plenty of cotton. It just does not make much of it into clothes. A new $5 billion plan aims to change that, turning a scattered collection of cotton producers into a regional textile industry. The road out of Koudougou in Burkina Faso is lined with cotton fields that stretch toward the horizon, broken only by…
In the period that followed decolonisation, Africa’s development landscape continued to be shaped by Western partnerships. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, this Western-facing architecture took the form of policy conditionality, governance agendas and institutional reform attached to rotating credit agreements. This approach rested, at least in part, on a simple reality: countries in…
When pastoralists, researchers, policymakers and development practitioners gathered in Marsabit this year to mark the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP-2026), the conversations went far beyond livestock, drought or humanitarian aid. Convened by the Centre for Research and Development in Drylands (CRDD), the dialogue challenged a deeply rooted assumption that has shaped development policy…
For centuries, useful metals have been developed by starting with one core element and adding small amounts of other elements. Steel, for example, is composed primarily of iron; carbon is added in varied amounts to produce different grades of steel. Bronze is made up of copper and tin. These mixtures are known as alloys. Africa…
Local football analyst Isack Hamata says the Confederation of African Football (CAF) is maintaining a ‘quiet diplomacy’ compared to other continental football bodies. This week three continental football bodies, the Union of European Football Associations (Uefa), the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf) and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), issued an…
Mombasa, Kenya — Imam Bukuru Elie Khalfan is very personal about the need for open conversations about sexuality. The Burundian faith leader recalled becoming a father while he and his wife were still young and knew little about sexual and reproductive health. Their limited knowledge left them unsure about contraception and what to do when…
