U.N. Peacekeeping Goes on the Offensive

As U.N. peacekeeping operations assume a more agressive role in conflict zones, the first concrete results came last week when the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) defeated the M23 rebel group after a 20-month-long insurgency.

Rwandans Poised to Take on African Fashion

When Rwandan designer Colombe Ituze Ndutiye began drawing at the age of six, she thought she would grow up to be a cartoonist.

Gaps Threaten Conflict Minerals Certification

Countries in Africa’s Great Lakes region are moving too slowly on an international plan to certify the sourcing of “conflict minerals”, researchers here are warning, a failure that could threaten the entire certification process.

Ethiopia’s Indigenous Excluded from Rapid Growth

As the construction of a major transmission line to export electricity generated from one of Ethiopia’s major hydropower projects gets underway, there are growing concerns that pastoralist communities living in the region are under threat.

A Shortage of ARVs and a Surplus of Stigma in Côte d’Ivoire

At the Cocody-Anono community health centre, south-east of the Ivorian economic capital of Abidjan, Bertine Bahi* regularly attends awareness sessions on Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) for women living with HIV.

Uganda Needs to Exploit its Own Mineral Riches

This year, as Uganda gears up to start producing the nearly two billion barrels in oil reserves that were discovered near its western border, critics say that little is being done to exploit the rich mineral resources located in some of the country’s poorest areas.

OP-ED: Act Now, Act Big to End Sexual Violence in DRC

Imagine an orphanage where over 300 children born out of rape have been abandoned because of the shame and stigma associated with sexual violence. Imagine a town where, in the last year, 11 infants between the ages of six months and one year, and 59 small children from one to three years old, have been raped.

Insuring Cows and Goats Improves Kenyan Lives

“That is the sound I love the most in the whole world,” Hussein Ahmed says as the bells tied to his cattle begin clinking as they return home. Ahmed, a pastoralist in Marsabit district in arid and semi-arid northern Kenya, lost all his animals in 2011 during one of the worst droughts in the region for over 60 years.

DRC Conflict Hinders East African Integration

As the majority of East African Community countries signed an agreement paving the way for a single tourist visa in the region from 2014, some believe that Tanzania’s hesitance to agree to this integration is largely due to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Zimbabweans Left Worse Off by Local Mining Companies

Ranganai Zimbeva, from the rural village of Mutoko, which lies about 200 km northeast of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, plugs his ears with his fingers and shakes his head as he watches miners close to his village blast the hard rock to extract the black granite within.

Ivoirians Face an Incomplete Justice

“We are sad. We want our president back,” Yao Amandine told IPS from a street corner in the Ivorian economic metropolis, Abidjan, after the International Criminal Court ruled against granting former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo a conditional release on Tuesday. 

Caught Between Two Sudans

When Chris Bak returned two weeks ago to the disputed border town of Abyei, which voted this week on whether to join Sudan or South Sudan, he barely recognised it as the place where he grew up. “Everything is dirty,” he told IPS. “We were just going around and around, but we didn’t [recognise] this place.”

Cameroon’s HIV Message Misses Pregnant Teens

With a wide smile Beatrice M.* says that she lives by the motto “life is short and beautiful — live it to the full.” The 20-year-old, HIV-positive mother refuses to be defeated by her new circumstances.

Zimbabwe’s Battered Old Cars Worsening Air Pollution

It is a common sight in Zimbabwe’s rural areas – dilapidated old cars making their way from one district to the next overloaded with chickens, maize, luggage and people.

Power Struggle Rises Over Tanzania’s Pangani River

As farmers and herders fight over dwindling water levels in the Pangani River Basin in northeastern Tanzania, a new dispute is emerging between farmers and the state-run power utility firm over this precious resource.

‘Civil War’ Breaks Out Within Al-Shabaab

For years the Islamist extremist group Al-Shabaab was seen as the most cohesive, united and powerful force in the failed state of Somalia. But it is now disintegrating like a house of cards because of internal divisions and power struggles within its leadership, according to Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamad, a history and political science professor at Kenya’s Kenyatta University.

Tanzania’s Coastal Communities Forced to Drink Seawater

The freshwater drinking supply of the coastal town of Pangani in northeast Tanzania is becoming increasingly contaminated as salt water steadily seeps in from the Indian Ocean.

Al-Shabaab Takes ‘Last Gasps’ in Ethiopia

The explosion went off at 2:40 on a Sunday afternoon, on a tree-lined side street in Ethiopia's capital city of Addis Ababa. The area was a quiet one - home to foreign diplomats, domestic civil servants and several embassies - and the blast was strong enough to kill two men, startle the neighbours, and demolish a small home.

Conflicts Over Water Rise in Tanzania

Conflicts over water are increasing in the sprawling Pangani River Basin in northeastern Tanzania as farmers and herders jostle for dwindling water resources in the face of climate change.

When Poverty Quietly Morphs into Catastrophe

Wambui Karunyu, 72, and her seven-year-old grandson are the only surviving members of their immediate family.  Karunyu’s husband and five children all succumbed to the hardships of living in the semi-arid area of lower Mukurweini district in central Kenya.

Finding Land for Cameroon’s Pastoralist Nomads

Adamou Harouna’s herd of cattle grazes leisurely on lush green vegetation in Ndop, a small village in Cameroon’s North West Region.