Care for Economic Development, Then Care for Food Nutrition, Food Researcher Tells Africa’s Politicians

More than 2 billion people in the world are suffering from malnutrition. This is the result of diets lacking essential micronutrients such as vitamins, iron and zinc, which are vital for the body to function, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Nutrition – the Best Investment for a Developing Africa

There is evident correlation between countries with high levels of children under five years of age who are stunted or wasted and the existence of political instability and/or frequent exposure to natural calamities, experts say. But current food systems in Africa are not addressing nutrition because of the combination of poor investment in the agriculture value chain, inadequate policies and lack of accountability in addressing malnutrition.

Africa’s Mineral Wealth May Just have to Stay in the Ground to Protect a Changing Climate

As a result of climate change, resource extraction industries in Africa will be impacted by asset stranding, researchers say.

Q&A: Holistic Land Management – Only a Movement can Prevent Desertification

Desertification is not cheap. It has social, cultural, environmental and of course economic costs to reverse what it destroys.

African Development Bank Plans for a Self-sufficient, Integrated and Industrialised Continent

Arama Sire Camara, a fruit and vegetable seller in the province of Kindia, some 135 km from the Guinean capital of Conakry, feels safer trading well into the night thanks to the Rural Electrification Project, financed by 21-million-dollar investment by the African Development Bank. “With lighting on the road at night and illuminating our goods, it means we are safer, especially with all the cars on the road. You can work for longer after nightfall, and so we can make more of our products,” she says.

Dumping Fossil Fuels to Drive Green Development

Disinvestments in fossil fuels amounting to 11 trillion dollars – eight times the global GDP – have been recorded in the last six months of this year, according to a new report.

Zimbabwe’s ex-President Robert Mugabe Leaves a Mixed Legacy

Former Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe, who died this week, aged 95, leaves a mixed and divisive legacy.

Growing African Agriculture One Byte at a Time

Ella Mazani is a mobile phone farmer. “My mobile phone is part of my farming. It supports my farming and my family’s welfare through the services I get via the phone,” the smallholder maize farmer from Shurugwi in central Zimbabwe quips. 

Blockchain Releases Farmers From the Collateral Trap

A Jamaican start-up has an innovative solution to help smallholder farmers—many of whom do not have the collateral demanded by financial institutions to access loans—build a track record of their production that is proving better than collateral.

World’s Best Teacher Prize and One Million Dollars Awarded to Kenyan Teacher from Impoverished Community

A maths and physical science teacher from an impoverished  school in Kenya’s Rift Valley, Peter Tabichi, has won the one million dollar Global Teacher Prize, becoming the first teacher from Africa to clinch the prize established to honour the profession.

How One Kenyan Teacher is Lifting His Students Out of Poverty With Science

Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School in Nakuru County, situated in a remote, semi-arid part of Kenya’s Rift Valley, could pass for an ordinary secondary school in any part of Africa. But ordinary it is not.

Developing Agriprenuers to Save Nigeria’s Youth from Crime

When Lawrence Afere told his parents he was going into farming rather than getting a job in Nigeria’s lucrative oil and gas sector, they swore he was bewitched.

Wake Up and Smell the Organic Coffee

In 1992, the idea of replanting her father’s ruined coffee farm seemed foolhardy at the time. But in retrospect it was the best business decision that Dorienne Rowan-Campbell, an international development consultant and broadcast journalist, could have made.

Q&A: Jamaica Pushes Climate Smart Policies to Secure the Future of its Food Supply

The island state of Jamaica is vulnerable to climate change which has in turn threatened both its economy and food production. But the Caribbean nation is taking the threat seriously and it has constructed a robust policy framework to support national climate action, particularly when it comes to promoting climate-smart agriculture (CSA).

Farmers Secure Land and Food Thanks to ‘Eyes in the Skies’

Six years ago while wondering how best to use her engineering skills, Tanzanian ICT entrepreneur Rose Funja decided to enter an innovation competition. Years later she has turned a digital idea into a viable business that helps smallholder farmers across the East African nation access credit.   

Changing the Gender Bias in Agriculture

Women entrepreneurs are playing an important role in transforming global food security for economic growth, but they have to work twice as hard as men to succeed in agribusiness.

As Climate Change Pummels Agriculture, Irrigation Offers the Best Protection

The changing climate and extreme weather events are affecting agricultural productivity in Africa to such an extent that a panel of experts are urging governments to prioritise and invest in irrigation to ensure food security.

Marine Waste is Turning the Earth into a Plastic Planet

Africa risks being the worst plastic-polluted place on earth within three decades overtaking Asia, says a continental network calling for African contributions to solving the growing threat of marine waste.

‘What Fish Can Do for the WTO’

Fish will soon be off the menu, unless global leaders strike a deal ending multi-billion dollar harmful fisheries subsidies blamed for threatening world fish stocks and widening the inequitable use of marine resources.

Making Agriculture Cool

At every conference she has attended on the youth, Nawsheen Hosenally has been frustrated to hear that agriculture is not ‘cool’. The 29-year-old graduate in agricultural extension and information systems knew she wanted to do something to redeem the image of agriculture among young people.

Students Go Green to End Global Energy Poverty

In Africa, over 640 million people – almost double the population of United States – have no access to electricity, with many relying on dirty sources of energy sources for heating, cooking and lighting. While not offering a solution to the electricity gap in Africa, Brian Kakembo Galabuzi, a Ugandan economics student, can offer a cleaner and cheaper solution.