Africa is contending with a climate crisis it did not create without sufficient recognition for the unique rights and needs of the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population. Not only is the continent least responsible for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, having historically produced just a
tiny fraction, but it is also disproportionately impacted by the consequences of emissions generated elsewhere.
A record-breaking drought is unfolding in the Horn of Africa, where millions of people are trapped in the world’s worst acute food insecurity emergency. Food insecurity and malnutrition in West and Central Africa are on track to reach a 10-year high as coastal countries edge even closer to the debilitating effects of climate change.
Although long profiled as the face of climate change, a high-risk continent with a pipeline of unbankable green projects, there are areas where Africa is leading the world. The 1987 accidental discovery of the first deposit of natural hydrogen during a water drilling campaign in Bourakebougou village, Mali, is today proving that Africa can export viable green solutions.
Across the African continent, many first-born children in poor and vulnerable households do not go to school as they spend their school days collecting biomass fuel. The regional average of the amount of time spent collecting firewood is 2.1 hours, robbing women and girls in particular of hundreds of hours in a year and crippling their capacities to engage in learning and productive activities.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has announced the release of USD 100 million at the ongoing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 28th Conference of Parties (COP 28) in Dubai, UAE, to support 10 African countries in adapting food loss reduction solutions.
Students of St Denis Libolina Primary have used agroecology farming techniques to transform the entire school garden and any free space into food forests and gardens for different vegetable varieties, legumes, and herbs.
Now the students, who are physically challenged, have challenged their parents, villagers, and farmers in the outskirts of Myanga Township, in Kenya’s Bungoma County, in the Western region, to do the same.
With the ongoing national tree-planting campaign, Rwanda seeks to replace its degraded forest resulting from charcoal production and firewood and increase the need for construction materials with new indigenous trees to combat climate change.
By using the power of carbon markets to fight climate change, Rwanda aims to reduce 4.6 million metric tons of carbon emissions across different key sectors, including forest, through its ambitious climate action agenda that features a 38 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared to business-as-usual by 2030.
A catastrophic surge in the frequency, intensity, and severity of extreme weather events has placed children on the frontlines of climate emergencies. Nearly half of the world’s children, or one billion, live in countries at extremely high risk from the effects of the climate crisis. Most of these children face multiple vulnerabilities.
A rising Afropop musician, Garikai Mapanzure, popularly known by his stage name Garry, has become the latest high-profile victim of Zimbabwe’s deteriorating health facilities.
Garry, who was 25, died in mid-October after sustaining grave injuries in a horrific accident near his home in Masvingo, 295 kilometres from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.
A just transition should be viewed as an opportunity to rectify some of the wrongs where women are not prioritised in the energy mix, yet their experience of the impact of climate change is massive, says Thandile Chinyavanhu, a young South African-based climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Africa.
The politics of global food consumption remain contentious, with the upcoming COP28 taking place against the backdrop of worsening food deficits in the Global South.
In a groundbreaking development, indigenous farmer communities are poised to bring the spotlight onto food systems at the upcoming UN Climate Conference (COP28) in Dubai.
’Going Green’ seems to Dr Jacquline Kisato's favorite catchphrase as she passionately explains her eco-friendly sanitary towel, a product she expects will help empower women and young girls while also putting money into farmers’ pockets.
Smallholder farmers from the Global South benefit from a grossly disproportionate 0.3% of international climate finance despite producing a third of the world's food and despite holding the key to climate-proofing food systems.
In a newly established Centre of Excellence located in Masaka, a suburb of the Rwandan capital city, Kigali, an expanded lab, complete with innovative facilities and specialized instruments, is now giving surgeons a conducive environment to simulate how to perform minimally invasive surgeries.
Somalia, Syria, DRC Congo, Afghanistan, Yemen, Chad, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Nigeria, and Ethiopia are the 10 countries at greatest risk of climate disaster globally despite collectively contributing just 0.28 percent of global CO2 emissions. A climate-induced humanitarian crisis continues to unfold across these countries and many others in the global South, including Kenya, which declared drought a national disaster in September 2021.
Of the many things one might associate with a modern teenager, passion for wholegrain food is probably not the first that comes to mind. An innovative school-meals project in Rwanda, however, has young people singing its praises.
Zimbabwe’s recent election has exposed weak gender policies both at the political party and governmental levels as women were sidelined despite the fact that they make up more than half of the 6.5 million electorate.
Thirty-three years ago, Bala Amerasekaran – a Sri Lankan by birth – visited Freetown, Sierra Leone. Since then, the West African nation has been his home, where Amerasekaran has dedicated his life to conserving the chimpanzee – Sierra Leone’s national animal.
As we approach the forest in the village to appreciate Andrew Mbewe’s beekeeping enterprise, a bee from a hive close to the edge of the natural woodland stings him on the cheek.
Although women account for more than three-quarters of the agricultural labour force and manage 40 percent of small-scale farms, historically, they neither owned nor controlled the land because land rights were passed down to male relatives. It is a historic gender injustice whereby women could only access land through close male relatives.