Africa in the Spotlight

Several of the children in Abala camp are visibly malnourished, and NGO workers are concerned about potential epidemics. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

Mali – Barely Surviving As One Country, Let Alone Two

It was the middle of the day when Tabisou, 72, suddenly saw people from her town of Amderamboukane in Mali fleeing for their lives. Her family had no time to pack their things; the fighting had already begun.

About 60 percent of Kenya’s power is hydroelectric, however, the supply is unsteady.  Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

Kenya “Becoming Economic Heartbeat of Africa”

When Kenya’s newly announced geothermal power generation project comes online, it will turn the East African country into an economic powerhouse in the region.

Increasing numbers of Malian women are being raped by Tuareg rebels and armed groups that have swept across the north of Mali since January. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

Armed Groups in Northern Mali Raping Women

Increasing numbers of Malian women are being raped by Tuareg rebels and armed groups that have swept across the north of Mali since the beginning of year, expelling all government troops from the region.

Olivier Forgha Koumbou’s son waters his thriving farm in Santa, in Cameroon’s North West region.  Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom/IPS

Cameroonian Farmer Won’t Let Low Rainfall Defeat Him

Olivier Forgha Koumbou washes some freshly picked carrots in a small brook and eats them with relish. His thriving farm in Santa, in Cameroon’s North West region, looks like a miracle in the midst of surrounding farms where carrots, lettuce, potatoes and leeks have withered and died.

Valentine Rugwabiza, deputy director-general of the WTO, says Africa needs to strengthen domestic markets and integrate into the world market Credit:  World Trade Organisation

Intra-African Trade or Global Integration: A Chicken-and-Egg Dilemma?

Though the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has long held that trade between African countries is too low, experts at the South Centre, an inter-governmental think tank of developing countries, say intra-continental trade is already significant in manufactured goods and promises a new path to industrialisation.

Farmer Selinah Mncwango is proud of her traditional sorghum seeds.  Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

South Africa’s Smallholders Lose Battle for Seed Security

In an almost ceremonial manner, Selinah Mncwango opens her big plastic bag and pulls out several smaller packets, each filled with different types of seeds: sorghum, bean, pumpkin, and maize. They are her pride, her wealth, the "pillar of my family," says the farmer from a village in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.

Guinea-Bissau Junta Presents ECOWAS With a Fait Accompli

Six West African heads of state will attend a regional summit in Guinea on Monday, to discuss the situation in neighbouring Guinea Bissau, where an Apr. 12 coup d'état aborted presidential elections.

Hundreds of residents in Diepsloot queue for hours to access clean, safe water. Credit: Siphosethu Stuurman

South African Township Desperate for Safe Drinking Water

Thousands of residents in Diepsloot, a large township north of Johannesburg, South Africa, are queuing for hours to access clean, safe water a week after their supply was contaminated by sewage.

 Zimbabwe’s challenge is to change people’s attitudes about sanitation and hygiene.  Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

More Toilets in Zimbabwe, Better Livelihoods

Government and sanitation experts say Zimbabwe needs to increase efforts to promote good hygiene and invest in toilets and clean water provision, as the country grapples with a typhoid outbreak.

Ken Menkhaus, political science professor at Davidson College in North Carolina, blames the USA Patriot Act for blocking aid to Somali famine victims Credit:  Linus Atarah/IPS

U.S. Patriot Act Kept Somalia Starving

When war-torn Somalia was also ravaged by a drought-induced famine last year, which killed tens of thousands and displaced over a million people, international media was quick to blame the Islamist Al-Shabaab for blocking humanitarian assistance from reaching its zone of control in southern Somalia.

Thomas Essuman says Ghanaian fisherfolk know that using poison, dynamite and illegal nets to catch fish is doing long-term damage.  Credit: Jessica McDiarmid/IPS

Ghanaian Fisherfolk Blasting Their Way to Finding Fish

Explosives, high-watt light bulbs, monofilament nets, and poison: these are a few methods fisherfolk are using to catch ever-dwindling fish stocks off Ghana’s shores.

Sam Kojo, chief fisherman of a village in western Ghana, says an influx of seaweed has crippled the fishing industry for months. Credit: Jessica McDiarmid/IPS

Western Ghana’s Fisherfolk Starve Amid Algae Infestation

Sam Kojo stands in a thigh-high pile of brown seaweed that blankets a beach in western Ghana. Behind him, a decomposing mound of Sargassum stretches down the shore past the fishing village of Beyin.

Johannesburg Stock Exchange CEO Nicky Newton-King.  Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Q&A: Increasing Investment Opportunities in Africa

More than three years after the start of the global economic crisis, which has had a considerable impact on African trade, investments and gross domestic product, investment prospects on the continent are increasing.

Bulawayo only has a 20-month supply of water left if the seasonal rains do not come.  Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Steady Water Supply for Zimbabwean City Still a Pipe Dream

Residents of Zimbabwe's water-scarce city, Bulawayo, are concerned about the government’s slow response to finding a permanent source of water to cover their needs.

‘The Land is Never Wrong’, Says Togolese Farmer

Awuissa Walla has no regrets over choosing farming as a profession. He earned a degree in agronomy a decade ago, and borrowing money from friends, set himself up on an 18-hectare plot at Badja, some 50 kilometres from Lomé, the Togolese capital.

Tired of Odd Jobs in the City, He Is Farming in His Old Guinean Village

Like many rural youth, Abdoulaye Soumah spent a few years in Conakry, trying his hand at various jobs in the big city. But he has since returned to his home village, transforming a seven-hectare plot of land inherited from his parents into a model of success.

Southern Sudanese soldiers from the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army. Militia groups affiliated with the army still recruit child soldiers.  Credit: Peter Martell/IRIN

Returning Sudanese Child Soldiers Their Childhood

As the process of reintegrating South Sudan’s child soldiers into their old lives begins soon, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army renewal of its lapsed commitment to release all child soldiers from its ranks in March could mean that within two years children will no longer constitute part of the country’s militia groups.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world: 74 percent of the population here lives on less than 1.25 dollars a day. Credit: Claire Ngozo/IPS

Banda Gives New Lease on Life to Malawi

She has been in office for less than a week but Malawi’s, and the region’s, first female president, Joyce Banda, has given many people in this poor southern African country hope that its social and economic woes will soon end.

On Jul. 20, 2011, the peaceful country of Malawi broke out into nationwide anti-government protests. Credit: Katie Lin/IPS

Social Media Activism Takes Root in Malawi

As Malawians celebrate Joyce Banda’s appointment as president on sites, like Facebook and Twitter, the increased use of social media in Malawi comes full circle as her new government takes office.

Recycling cooperative member Andiswa Konco sorts garbage.  Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

The Business of South Africa’s Garbage

Nokwanda Sotyantya sits among heaps of garbage and patiently sorts through it, separating cardboard, plastic, glass, paper and metal, piece by piece. The recycled piles of trash are then weighed and sold to packaging manufacturers in South Africa that reuse the materials to create new products.

Onion producers in Niger face huge problems selling their crop because the market is saturated.  Credit: Sustainable Sanitation/CC BY 2.0

Niger Onion Producers in Tears Over Market Glut

Bitterness is written all over Boureïma Hamado's face as he prepares to return home after selling his onion crop at the Katako market in the Nigerien capital, Niamey. He's taken a big loss on the harvest.

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