Q&A: Kenyan Women Set to Take on Men in Elections

As Kenya gets ready for voter registration this month, ahead of the country’s Mar. 4, 2013 polls, women’s rights organisations are hoping that the provisions for gender equality in the new constitution will mean significantly increased representation in the government.

Indigenous Seek Profits From Forests

Kenya’s Ogiek community, the indigenous group of hunter-gatherers who were evicted from the Mau Forest three years ago, say they will no longer sit by and watch logging companies profit from the resources of their traditional home while they live in poverty in tented camps around the forest without even the most basic of services, like sanitation.

Foreign Farmers Undermine Food Security in Zambia

Increased agricultural development in Zambia will actually compromise the country’s food security as peasant farmers continue to be driven off their customary land to pave the way for large-scale local and foreign agribusiness, according to the University of Zambia’s dean of the school of agriculture, Dr. Mickey Mwala.

Tribal Wars Threaten South Sudan Again

The huge Russian-made helicopter descended slowly towards conical mud huts clustered together and surrounded by endless grassland, lush and green with the season’s rains here in the South Sudanese village of Yuai.

What Price Rice May Do

Rice remains the most popular staple in Guinea, but the high price of imported rice is pushing many consumers in this West African country to change their diet. Farmers have responded by rapidly expanding the land area planted with an alternative food crop: cassava.

Students Torn Between School and Work in DR Congo

Hanging from the door of a mini-bus taxi as it jerks and jinks through traffic, 16-year-old Gires Manoka calls out the van's destination to potential passengers as it crosses Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Regional Trade Key to African Food Security, World Bank Says

The World Bank is urging African countries to strengthen regional food trade, suggesting that food security could be greatly enhanced simply by allowing farmers to trade more easily across the continent.

Conservationists Call for Ugandans to Stop Eating Chimps

Conservationists struggling to protect the remaining population of Ugandan chimpanzees have raised concerns that people around wildlife reserves in the west of the country have taken to eating the primates.

Entrepreneurs and Women: Keys to Growth in Africa

The international financial crash of the late 2000s created more than a global economic recession: it accentuated popular doubts about the paradigms on which our economies are built and prompted a closer look at two crucial drivers of economic growth: women and entrepreneurship.

Khartoum Fire Blamed on Israeli Bombing

Sudan has accused Israel of bombing a military arms factory, threatening retaliation after a resulting fire killed two people and injured a third.

Nile Powers Uganda Slowly

Uganda is facing the unwelcome possibility of increased costs for building a projected 600-megawatt hydropower plant at the Karuma Falls, on the Victoria Nile, owing to construction delays.

Congo Capital’s Schools Still Shattered From March Explosion

Three weeks after the new school year began in Brazzaville, many students in the capital of the Republic of the Congo have yet to attend a single class. The city is still trying to recover from a huge explosion at an arms dump in March.

Cooperatives Cushion the Blows of Hunger

“One in eight people goes to sleep hungry every day,” according to the ‘State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012’, a document released annually by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The Face of Food Security Is Female

In a major endorsement for investment in women - the bulk of food growers in the developing world - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said food security could not be achieved without women, and that the world's hungry also needed leaders to prioritise actions.

Cooperatives Help Women Farmers Tighten Ranks

It is a tried and tested truth that when women come together in groups they can address their issues more powerfully than they can as individuals.

Kenya Pushes Dubiously Against Islamists

A Kenyan military advance into Somali territory to push back Islamic militants has had some measured military success - but is not without controversy.

Senegal Finds the Cooperative Way to More Food

Over the past two years, millet production has reached record levels in Dya, a rural community in the Kaolack region of central Senegal, where the Agricultural Value Chains Support Project (PAFA) is supporting two farmers' collectives.

Malawi Considers Controversial EU Trade Deal

Malawi has opened up negotiations on the economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union, which have been deadlocked since 2002.

Caught Between Islamists and the Military

Locals in the city of Maiduguri in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno have intensified their calls for the military to withdraw from the town, the stronghold of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, after claims that they are being maltreated and abused.

Law Fails to Protect Malawi Children

Patrick Martin, 14, and his brother Mayeso, 15, are safely home for the moment with their mother and other siblings in Kasonya village, Phalombe District in southern Malawi, after they and 12 other children were rescued from being trafficked to neighbouring Mozambique last month by their father.

Giving Women Land, Giving them a Future

Clarisse Kimbi barely ekes out a living from a tiny parcel of land in Kom village in the North West Region of Cameroon. Today, the mother of six finds it hard to put food on the table for herself and her children. But five years ago she, her husband and children were considered well-off.