A television game show in Nigeria’s commercial hub of Lagos has an unforgiving rule: Speak English and you lose. For a U.S.-born millennial in the audience and a student of her parents’ mother tongue, the high-stakes setting is a perfect classroom. Meanwhile, a 15-year-old Canadian speaks to a teacher about 13,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) away…
South Africa’s banks have lost the body through which they collectively governed the national payment system. On 2 September, the Reserve Bank’s recognition of the Payments Association of South Africa as the country’s payment system management body lapsed, ending a self-regulatory arrangement that had run for 27 years. Pasa’s functions, staff and intellectual property have…
Africa’s ambition to feed itself and unlock agriculture’s economic potential will depend largely on whether smallholder farmers, young entrepreneurs and women-led businesses can access the financing they need to expand, create jobs and withstand climate shocks, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Geraldine Mukeshimana, IFAD Vice President, said Africa has the land,…
Artificial intelligence, commonly called AI, and automated machines are no longer ideas for the distant future. In countries such as China and the United States, they are already changing how factories, hospitals, banks, supermarkets, warehouses and offices operate. Africa may not yet have reached the same level, but change is gradually setting in. I recently…
Nairobi — Kenya has stepped up its ambitions to become East Africa’s leading digital hub with the launch of the NBO2 data centre in Nairobi, expanding infrastructure needed to support artificial intelligence, cloud computing, financial technology and regional digital connectivity. The facility, operated by Digital Realty following its acquisition of iColo, is designed to provide…
Nairobi, Kenya — Across the Kenya-Tanzania rangelands, communities have long understood a reality that the global community is increasingly recognising: healthy rangelands support livelihoods, wildlife, water resources and local economies. They are among Africa’s most important natural assets and a foundation for resilience in a changing climate. That lesson is especially relevant today. As East…
Africa is facing its 17th Ebola outbreak, and this time the continent is meeting it with the most capable response architecture it has ever assembled. The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was declared on 15th May 2026, and both WHO and Africa CDC have classified it as a public health emergency. The…
Addis Ababa — The United Nations General Assembly has endorsed a resolution supporting the transition from the centuries-old Mercator projection to more accurate equal-area world maps, including the 2018 Equal Earth projection. The resolution was backed by 164 countries, with the United States voting against and six countries abstaining. Togo introduced the resolution to the…
ABUJA– Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Kingsley Moghalu, has welcomed a United Nations resolution encouraging the use of world maps that more accurately represent Africa’s size, but cautioned that a corrected map alone cannot drive the continent’s economic transformation. Moghalu, who disclosed this in a post on his X platform on…
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the weekend adopted a resolution promoting the wider use of equal-area world maps, including the Equal Earth projection, in a move aimed at addressing long-standing distortions in the representation of Africa and other equatorial regions. The resolution, titled: “Correct the Map: Rebalancing Global Cartographic Representation and Promoting Equitable…
