Busani Bafana

POVERTY-ZIMBABWE: Multiple Appeals to Support Zimbabweans

While food is readily available in shops and some political and economic stability is returning in Zimbabwe, vulnerable groups such as children and people living with HIV and AIDS still face a shortage of food.

AFRICA: Could Regulation Ease Fears Over Land Grabs?

By Busani Bafana

The 'land rush' across Africa by international investors should be regulated to protect smallholder farmers from deals that could leave them landless and hungry.

European Commission president Jose-Manuel Barroso at the first day of the European Development Days Credit: EC/CE

DEVELOPMENT: ‘Global Poverty Is Not Acceptable’

By Busani Bafana

The economic crisis is a fresh reason to meet Millennium Development Goal targets, not an excuse to miss them, said European Commission president Jose-Manuel Barroso, opening the dialogue at the fourth edition of the European Development Days (EDD).

Downtown Bulawayo: the city's dams are 64 percent full, but water use has spiked alarmingly. Credit: Radozw/Wikicommons

ZIMBABWE: Water Rationing Looms in Bulawayo

By Busani Bafana

Bulawayo city council is to tighten a water rationing programme relaxed last year because residents are rapidly pushing up the city's daily consumption by using municipal water supplies for non-domestic activities.

RIGHTS-ZIMBABWE: An Old Question Returns: What Peace Without Justice?

By Busani Bafana

Today is the first of three days dedicated to national healing in Zimbabwe. For the man charged with steering reconciliation in Zimbabwe after the recent bloody struggle for power, it is walk down a familiar path.

ZAMBIA: Conservation Agriculture Gaining Ground

By Busani Bafana

Not even the least alert of drivers can miss the sign along the busy road 30 kilometres south of Lusaka: "Look, Conservation Farming Pays!"

Lack of water, a large homeless urban population, and mushrooming informal settlements mean sanitation in Zimbabwe's cities is poor. Credit: IRIN

Q&A: Why Sanitation Is the Forgotten Sister

By Busani Bafana

As part of the International Year of Sanitation in 2008, Zimbabwe developed a national strategy for sanitation, launched in February 2008. Just five months later, a cholera outbreak that was to claim over 4,000 lives began.

MEDIA-ZIMBABWE: Promises But Little Action on Press Freedom

By Busani Bafana

While journalists welcomed a pledge by the government to reform the country’s closed media space, fears run deep over a horde of laws that continue to make Zimbabwe a media minefield where a ‘wrong’ story can land a journalist behind bars.

Keith Goddard: 'Rambling, vocal rhetoric against gay people does not constitute a policy... Human rights are inalienable and cannot be given or withdrawn.' Credit: PNTGM

ZIMBABWE: Recognise Rights of Gays and Lesbians

By Busani Bafana

Zimbabwe is trying to rebuild itself as a nation where rights to freedom of expression and association are protected. Amongst the chorus of voices raised in support of a new constitutional order are the country's gays and lesbians.

RIGHTS-ZIMBABWE: Journalists Spurn Govt Summit on Press Freedom

By Busani Bafana

Media organisations this week dug in their heels over boycotting a national media conference in the resort town of Kariba. State-owned media reported that the much-postponed conference finally opened on May 8, with information minister Webster Shamu lamenting the deep divisions within the media fraternity in Zimbabwe.

DEVELOPMENT-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Helping the Most Vulnerable Households

By Busani Bafana

A new tool to accurately measure the vulnerability of rural households to the impact of shocks such as the illness or death of a household member from AIDS has been developed by a Southern Africa regional policy network, the Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN).

Moringa flowers - the seeds of this versatile tree can be used to sterilise drinking water. Credit: J.M. Garg/Wiki Commons

ZIMBABWE: Researchers Developing New Ways to Purify Water

By Busani Bafana

Scientists at Bulawayo's National University of Science and Technology (NUST) have embarked on research to develop simple and affordable water purification methods, as more than a billion people live without safe drinking water in developing countries.

CLIMATE CHANGE-AFRICA: Trade Carbon for Food Security

By Busani Bafana

Forget the view of climate change as impending catastrophe for a moment: if negotiators can recognise sustainable agriculture by African smallholders and forests as mitigating factors in climate change, carbon trading could become an important support for Africa's food security.

Q&A: "I Smell A Fantastic Aroma"

By Busani Bafana

As Africa and the rest of the world seek to end the current food crisis - which could get worse with the flu sweeping across global financial markets - it is time Africa made gains from the food crisis.

Disease-free plantations are essential to the production of the five billion dollars of bananas sold annually. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

AGRICULTURE: A Better Banana For Africa

By Busani Bafana

With the eyes of a predator and attention to detail of a master craftsman, Benjamin Maina combs the 100-acre Khosla plantation for fallen banana trees. The good health of this crop is everything to the many people whose lives depend on trading banana -– the best selling fruit in the world.