Are foreigners ‘bleeding’ South Africa’s Road Accident Fund ‘dry’? Numbers don’t back the claim Collins Letsoalo, then RAF chief executive, made the claim initially and it was repeated by fund spokesperson McIntosh Polela before spreading widely, but the fund itself told Africa Check it had “no information” about the origin of the figure. The amount…
Africa’s trade ambitions hinge on a simple truth often obscured by headlines about ports, power and tariffs. Trade expands rapidly when exporters, financiers and insurers have frameworks to identify, price and transfer the underlying risks. Specialty insurance – the bespoke, technically sophisticated cover that protects complex, high-value and high-frequency commercial activity – is not a…
Africa’s health sector is facing an unprecedented funding crisis, driven in part by a sharp decline in external health aid, which has fallen by 70% between 2021 and 2025. This shortfall is made worse by a rapidly expanding debt burden in African countries. In 2025, African countries are projected to spend about USD 81 billion…
Nairobi — EAST Africa faces the worsening climate extremes, where recent droughts and floods are said to have wiped out about 10 million livestock worth 2bn US Dollars, crippling livelihoods from 2020 to 2022. A climate scientist who is also coordinating projects at Delivering Climate Services to Eastern Africa (ICPAC), Titike Bahaga, made the revelation…
Nairobi — Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama has urged African nations to shift from exporting raw materials to producing high-value finished goods, calling for a new era of economic independence to match the political liberation achieved by earlier generations. Speaking as Chief Guest at Kenya’s 62nd Jamhuri Day celebrations at Nyayo Stadium on Friday, Mahama…
Africa’s Internet pioneer, Professor Nii Narku Quaynor, has underscored the urgent need for the continent’s internet institutions and governments to shift focus from what he described as excessive attention to governance theories to strengthening operational and technical capacity. He warned that Africa risked undermining the sustainability of its critical digital infrastructure if it continued to…
Excitement builds up as Morocco welcomes the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) scheduled for December 21 to January 18, 2026. The Atlas Lions are currently top of African rankings and playing before their home crowd positions them among the hot favourites to win the tournament they last won in 1976. But who else are…
As 2025 draws to a close, geopolitical divides are deepening – North and South, East and West. Against this backdrop, the UN Alliance of Civilizations marks two decades of bridging divides as its Riyadh Forum takes on intolerance, hate speech, and the fight for mutual respect in a multipolar world. On 14-15 December, the Suadi…
Addressing the terrorist threat should not justify dismantling the governance architecture the AU has painstakingly built over two decades. Responding to growing terror threats and prioritising the restoration of constitutional order are often competing imperatives in countries going through transitions. African Union (AU) Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf raised this point at a 30 September…
COP30 will be remembered less for what it achieved and more for what it avoided. The summit closed without a single new commitment to phase out fossil fuels, the very issue driving global heating. The BBC called it “one of the most divisive COPs in three decades,” and rightly so. Yet beneath the diplomatic failures…
