Women & Youth Key to Achieving Agenda 2030 in South-South Cooperation

By 2050 Africa will have 830 million young people. Many countries in the global south, India included are seeing a youth(men and women) bulge. To reap a demographic dividend countries in the global south need to share and exchange knowledge to leapfrog socio-economic transformation.

Helping Ethiopia Achieve Green Growth and Avoid Industrialised Nations’ Environmental Mistakes

As Ethiopia undergoes a period of unprecedented change and reform, the Global Green Growth Institute(GGGI) is partnering with the Ethiopian government to try and ensure this vital period of transition includes the country embracing sustainable growth and avoiding the environmental mistakes made by Western nations.

Students Go Green to End Global Energy Poverty

In Africa, over 640 million people – almost double the population of United States – have no access to electricity, with many relying on dirty sources of energy sources for heating, cooking and lighting. While not offering a solution to the electricity gap in Africa, Brian Kakembo Galabuzi, a Ugandan economics student, can offer a cleaner and cheaper solution.

Rwanda Leverages Green Climate Fund’s Opportunities to Fast-Track Sustainable Development

In a move to achieve its green growth aspirations by 2050, Rwanda has placed a major focus on promoting project proposals that shift away from "business as usual" and have a significant impact on curbing climate change while attracting private investment.

Kenyan Women Turning the Tables on Traditional Banking and Land Ownership

It was less than eight months ago that Mary Auma and her three children, from Ahero in Kenya’s Nyanza region, were living in a one-room house in an informal settlement. Ahero is largely agricultural and each day Auma would go and purchase large quantities of milk and resell it – earning only a 10 percent profit.

Transforming Food Systems for Resilience in Africa & Asia

Our food system requires fundamental transformation. Disasters and shocks, from extreme flooding to persistent drought, are occurring more frequently and lasting longer, threatening the food security and livelihoods of millions of small farmers across the globe.

Senegal’s Migrant Returnees Become Storytellers

Khoudia Ndiaye and Ndeye Fatou Sall set up a smartphone on a tripod to begin recording a video interview with Daro Thiam in Hann Bel-Air, a neighbourhood in Senegal’s capital Dakar. Hann Bel-Air is the departure point for many of the migrants who leave the city and country on irregular routes – boats to Spain, crossing the Sahara desert to the Mediterranean Sea, or to countries nearby.

Women as Influencers

The Migrants as Messengers awareness-raising campaign (MaM), developed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), uses innovative mobile technology to empower migrants to share their experiences and to provide a platform for others to do the same.

Conserving Africa’s Precious Resource Base While Fighting Hunger

Rosemary Chate’s seven children gather around the table inside their home in Malela, a village in Zambia’s remote Northern Province. They dig their spoons into bowls of food prepared by their mother – for the second time that day.

How to Green Uganda’s Cities

Locals in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, always have two or three things to say in a conversation about how the city is developing. Some say it is filthy because of the growing waste; others say it is a slum because of its unplanned settlements; and then there are those who say it is just plain inconvenient because of the traffic congestion created by the boda boda (motorcycle taxis) and commuter taxis that honk incessantly as they make their way along the streets.

The Growing Need for Democracy in Africa

Many scholars argue that democracy is not the answer to Africa's problems. To certain degree, I agree with such statements that democracy alone cannot guarantee African nations' happiness, prosperity, health, peace and stability. In fact, modern democracies also suffer greatly from many defects.

More Women Owning Agricultural Land in Africa Means Increased Food Security and Nutrition

Despite women being key figures in agriculture and food security, gender inequality is holding back progress towards ending hunger, poverty, and creating sustainable food systems. 

The Shrinking Space for Media Freedom in Uganda

Last month, a horrifying video circulated on social media in Uganda. It shows Reuters photographer, James Akena, surrounded by Uganda Peoples Defence Force soldiers who beat him as he raised his hands in the air in surrender. He was unarmed and held only his camera. 

Development of ICT Innovation Expected to Help in Fight Against Banana Disease in Rwanda

When Telesphore Ruzigamanzi, a smallholder banana farmer from a remote village in Eastern Rwanda, discovered a peculiar yellowish hue on his crop before it started to dry up, he did not give it the due consideration it deserved.

The Revolutionary Ambition of AGRF 2018 Must be Sustained

In early September 2018, about 2,800 delegates from 79 countries and high-level dignitaries, including current and former heads of states, international agencies, CEOs of global corporations and youth entrepreneurs, and techies involved in agriculture gathered in Kigali for this year’s African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF).

Seize the Opportunity Offered by Africa’s Continental Free Trade Area, says UNIDO Chief

Since the turn of the millennium, Africa has experienced a steady and unprecedented economic growth. However, poverty continues for people across the continent, especially in the sub-Saharan region. Unemployment and inequality have remained high. The rural population and the urban poor, women and youth, have not benefited from economic growth.

Ethiopia’s Struggle Against Climate Change Gets a Boost from Green Climate Fund

Faced with worsening droughts due to climate change, Ethiopia is joining an international initiative seeking to build global resilience against the problems caused by it, and enable developing countries to become part of a united solution to the ongoing problem. 

Recognising the Debilitating Nature Conflict Has on Food Security

Nyalen Kuong and her daughters fled to safety after an attack on their village in South Sudan in which Kuong's husband and two sons where killed and the family’s cattle lost. Kuong, her daughters and other families from their village fled to islands surrounded by swamp land. There, she had little to eat. And soon began suffering from diarrhoea, brought on by acute malnutrition.

In the Race to Achieve Zero Hunger and Mitigate Climate Change, We Must Look Down — to the Soil

Recently, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva urged countries, scientists, policymakers and stakeholders invested in building an equitable, sustainable, and thriving planet to pay attention to the soil. He further noted that the future of the planet depends on how healthy the soils of today are.

Africa Needs Strong Political Will to Transform Agriculture and Spur Economic Growth

Africa needs strong political commitment to accelerate the transformation of its agricultural sector. According to the 2018 Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR), Catalyzing State Capacity to Drive Agriculture Transformation, released this September by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), African states need political will to boost production and income on the millions of small, family farms that grow most of Africa’s food.

The Causes Behind Africa’s Digital Gender Divide

Systemic inequalities based on gender, race, income and geography are mirrored in the digital realm and leave many women, especially the poor and the rural, trailing behind Africa’s tech transformation.