Kenya’s Electoral Opinion Polling Marred by Suspicion

When Kenya’s only female presidential candidate, Martha Karua, dismissed electoral opinion pollsters who claimed that she stood a mere one percent chance of being elected to office, many said she did so because the results had not favoured her. 

Green-Fingered Mauritian Farmers Go Green

By Kritanand Beeharry’s side are thousands of watermelon seedlings that he has grown in small pots without the use of chemical fertilisers. As the farmer prepares his half-hectare piece of land in Soreze, near Mauritius’ capital Port-Louis, to plant the two-week-old seedlings, he takes a minute to admire his achievement. “Look at these, they look solid and better grown -- it’s the compost,” he says.

Tourism Lies at the Heart of the BRICS

As tourism between the emerging nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa starts to increase, South Africa is determined to weld the iron while it is hot.

Q&A: Radio Gives Voices to South African Youth

Lesedi Mogoatlhe has dedicated her life to empowering African youth by helping them to find their voices through radio journalism.

Power Sharing a “Dangerous Concept” for Kenya’s Democracy

Days ahead of Kenya’s general elections, the country’s former deputy Minister of Information Koigi Wamwere has slammed calls for power-sharing among minority ethnic groups in the next government, calling it a “dangerous concept”.

Media Discover the Limits of Freedom in Somalia

Media advocates in Somalia worry that a recent case against a journalists who exposed the story of a gang rape involving members of the national security forces will serve as a deterrent to journalists countrywide.

Senegal Growing Up Over Marriage

When Abdoulaye Ba heard his local Imam in Dakar, Senegal, speaking out against child marriage, he found that the idea was not very palatable to him. As head of his family, he had intended to marry off his three teenage daughters.

Q&A: How to Create a South African Society that Rewards Hard Work

In his new book, “The Great African Society – A Plan for a Nation Gone Astray”, Hlumelo Biko, the son of late Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko, says that if nothing changes in South Africa, the country will become engulfed by corruption, crime, social decay, hopelessness and anger.

Malian Refugees Wanting to Return Home Face Difficult Choices

When northern Malian refugees fled their country for Niger in 2012, they expected they would be able to return home shortly afterwards. But despite the armed intervention by the French army in the West African nation, few of the 50,000 Niger-based refugees are ready to leave for home just yet.

Tuaregs and Arabs Not Ready to Return to Mali

Fatimata Wallet Haibala sits among a group of women and teenage girls under a tent, her handicapped boy on her lap. The scene could be a rural picture of a Tuareg gathering in the desert. But the mother mother of five resides in a refugee camp in Goudebo, Burkina Faso, almost 100 kilometres from their home in Mali.

Mozambican Farmers Fear Foreign Land Grabs

Mozambican farmers’ unions believe that soon land will become very scarce for locals as the government leases more and more of it to foreign agribusinesses – thus displacing thousands of rural communities and smallholder farmers with no official title deeds to their land.

Market Gardening Provides Livelihoods for Refugees in DR Congo

Standing behind her market stall in Masisu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which overflows with cabbages, carrots and onions, Marceline Dusabe does not fit the traditional profile of an internally displaced person. She, unlike many others displaced by the internal conflict in North Kivu, is not in need of food aid.

Timbuktu Reclaims Its Treasures

Despite uncertainty and the ongoing conflict, Mali will work to rebuild and safeguard its cultural heritage, says the West African country’s minister of culture Bruno Maïga.

‘Justice is Blind – But Not in the Case of Gender Violence’

On Tuesday, Feb. 19, famous South African paralympian Oscar Pistorius was charged with premeditated murder, with prosecutors arguing the athlete had "put on his prosthetic legs, walked seven metres and fired four shots through a locked bathroom door,” killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day.

Kenyan Media Magnifies Hate Speech – Again

With Kenyans set to go to the polls in just over two weeks, on Mar. 4, civil society has been closely monitoring the media’s coverage of the political campaigns in this East African nation – and they have found them wanting.

The Struggle to Keep Swaziland’s Primary Schools Free

As the Swazi government struggles to guarantee a no-cost nationwide primary school system, it finds itself sparring against school principals over the question if it is a lack of funds or an abundance of corruption that is standing in the way of its success. 

Crisis Group Urges Comprehensive Talks to End Sudan Conflicts

Amidst ongoing violence and continuing humanitarian emergencies in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, the International Crisis Group (ICG) called Thursday for a comprehensive solution to Sudan’s many regional conflicts.

BRICS Summit Means Business

African nations and other emerging countries are expected to soon outperform the developed world, and South Africa wants to take advantage.

Sahel Region Learning to Reap the Benefits of Shade

In Africa's Sahel region, agroforestry techniques using traditional plantings known as "fertiliser trees" to increase soil fertility, as well as harvesting and grazing regulations, are offering new solutions to both food and human security.

Water, Water Everywhere – and No Early Warning in Sight

Muzeka Muyeyekwa from Mapfekera Village in Zimbabwe’s  Manicaland Province wonders what he will feed his three children for lunch.

‘No Blue Skies Opportunities’ in South African Mining

A calamitous year in mining has left many wondering whether it should still have a part in South Africa’s future. Illegal strikes, including one that left 47 people dead near Marikana in the northwest of the country, soaring costs and depressed world commodity markets have left the industry in its worst crisis in years.