Linda van der Nest, chief commercial officer at iStore South Africa. iStore says it is expanding its retail footprint across South Africa, as part of its broader retail strategy. The Apple reseller opened its 40th store in SA last year and is planning to open more stores during the course of this year. The move…
Matt Balcomb, Sales Director SA, Smarsh. Organisations across regulated industries are managing increasing complexity across multiple communication vendors. What began as a practical use of point solutions has evolved into fragmented systems and workflows. As channels expand and regulations tighten, maintaining visibility and oversight is becoming more difficult. This can slow operations and limit access…
Every minute your kidneys are hard at work, filtering around 200 litres of blood, removing waste, balancing salts and fluids, and regulating blood pressure. This happens without any conscious effort on your part. But when your kidneys begin to fail, the consequences are devastating, including fatigue, fluid buildup and heart complications. Some people eventually need…
Dengue, a mosquito-borne disease, affects millions of people every year across Asia, Africa and Latin America. And it’s expanding geographically as warmer temperatures and urban growth allow mosquito populations to thrive in new regions. At first glance, dengue seems like an obvious candidate for vaccination. It is caused by a virus. Infection triggers an immune…
A new paper by the Reserve Bank argues that South Africa’s market-driven approach to open banking is limited in its reach. In fact, it risks entrenching the same socioeconomic barriers that have locked large sections of the population out of the financial system. The newly published working paper (PDF) argues that a regulated approach is…
Digital transformation outpaces talent supply, forcing local companies to upskill internally. (Image created via ChatGPT) The South African education system’s inability to sufficiently equip students for a technology-driven economy is among the key factors that have intensified the country’s IT skills crisis. This is the sentiment shared by industry pundits from training providers and business…
Shea butter has become a highly sought-after ingredient in cosmetics and food manufacturing worldwide. Since the early 2000s its use as a substitute for cocoa butter has driven a dramatic rise in international demand. The shea butter industry has grown by more than 600% over the last 20 years. The shea tree is semi-domesticated across…
Across Africa, a third of children under the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition, according to Unicef, while in recent years the baby food industry has been rocked by a series of scandals, many involving major multinationals. But a growing number of local agri-food companies are moving into the baby food market. Ivorian Marie-Ange…
Climate change is no longer just about melting ice or hotter summers. It is also a financial problem. Droughts, floods, storms and heatwaves damage crops, factories and infrastructure. At the same time, the global push to cut greenhouse gas emissions creates risks for countries that depend on oil, gas or coal. These pressures can destabilise…
FAJ and its affiliated journalist unions and associations continue to document intimidation, arbitrary detention, online harassment, censorship and physical attacks against journalists across the continent. These violations do not only endanger individual media professionals. They also undermine the public’s right to information, which is central to human rights and democratic accountability. When journalists are silenced,…
