GENDER-KENYA: Renewed Campaign to Protect Women's Land Rights

Pressure is mounting to include a National Land Policy that ensures equal access to land between women and men in Kenya's new constitution.

AGRICULTURE-ETHIOPIA: Can Foreign-Owned Farms Solve Food Crisis?

Tola Melka was planning to throw a traditional party at his shanty home in rural central Ethiopia, anticipating a bumper harvest. He was grief-stricken in late October when unexpected rains totally destroyed his almost ripened teff, a native staple crop used to make spongy bread.

EAST AFRICA: Plan to Integrate Bourses Despite Hesitant Tanzania

Despite Tanzania’s resistance to cross-border investment, a position that contradicts the East African Community Customs Management Act, plans are going ahead to integrate the three major bourses within the region, namely the Dar es Salaam stock exchange, the Nairobi stock exchange and the Uganda securities exchange, plus the stock exchange in Burundi.

TANZANIA: Poverty Reduction Slow Despite Economic Growth

Tanzania is lagging behind on key development goals for safe water, income and health, even though the east African nation has benefited from a growing economy over the last few years, according a newly released household budget survey.

EAST AFRICA: Branded Coffee Yet To Boost Farmers’ Incomes

The Windsor Golf and Country Club is a swanky five-star hotel, widely believed to possess the best 18-hole golf course in the East and Central Africa region. Its origin, dating back to 1992, marked the death knell of a golden era when coffee as a cash crop stood out as the top foreign exchange earner in Kenya.

POLITICS-KENYA: Taking Up a Women's Agenda

The first woman from the Muslim majority island constituency of East Lamu to contest for a seat in Kenyan parliament, Shakila Abdalla is determined to give voice to the country's poor and marginalised.

DEVELOPMENT: Change Comes To Villages in Uganda

In her village they call her ‘councillor’. But Jenipher Namugwere is no ordinary councillor elected by the people to represent them in the local council.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Breaking the Cycle of HIV Transmission

According to the United Nations Children's Fund, early diagnosis and treatment greatly increase survival rates for HIV-positive newborns. but fewer than one in ten infants born to HIV-positive mothers in 2007 was tested for HIV within two months of birth.

Q&A: "How Are We Going to Sustain Gender Approaches?"

The negative aspects of Africa's experience with structural adjustment programmes beginning in the 1990s have been well-documented - facing high debt loads, African governments agreed to liberalise their economies, privatise public enterprises, and sharply reduce social spending with often painful effects on the most vulnerable.

UGANDA: On the Global Market Track to Prosperity

Uganda's finance ministry has ambitious plans to reduce the country’s donor dependence. With foreign funds accounting for almost 50 percent of the national budget, officials believe a slew of measures announced in the 2008/09 budget could bring that down to about 30 percent.

AFRICA: Keen on Democracy, Despite Mixed Results

Over the last twenty years, the ballot box has replaced military coups as a means of political change across Africa, says Professor Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, a political scientist from the University of Ghana. However the results of democratic practices are a mixed bag of sand and sim-sim.

POLITICS-ETHIOPIA: Disappointed But Not Defeated

She fought alongside men in the Ethiopian liberation struggle. She fought for a free and fair society. But today, Yewubmar Asfaw feels that Ethiopia's revolution has failed to deliver a fair share of political power to women.

POLITICS-EAST AFRICA: Love Thy Neighbour

Khartoum has long maintained a studious silence over its suspicions that the Kenyan government was assisting the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which governs the semi-autonomous south of Sudan to replenish its armament.

TRADE: Kibuzi Bananas Follow Ugandans to London

‘‘We have lots of orders for apple banana. There is a ready market for kibuzi in London. It is eaten from Monday to Monday. But how to get it there is the issue. Almost 60 percent of the cost goes to freight.’’

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Gender Budgeting Still Finding Its Feet

With the world slightly past the halfway mark to the Millennium Development Goal deadline of 2015, pressure is mounting to promote gender equality. Goal Three is to promote gender equality and empower women - but in fact, every goal relates directly to women's rights.

ECONOMY-SOMALIA: Walking The Line Between Business and War

A doctor in Mogadishu gives medicine to a man complaining of an upset stomach. ‘‘This medicine won't work,’’ groans the patient, ‘‘I got sick after eating expired food; only an expired medicine will cure it.’’

TRADE-CAMEROON: Borders – Where Two Economies Meet

No one pays full price for petrol in northern Cameroon, not when there's cheaper Nigerian contraband available. In Garoua town for example, there are about 4,000 commercial motorcycles which all depend on "zoa zoa" or "federale" as this highly cherished liquid is generally referred to.

SOMALIA: Women 'Keep Life Going' in Violent Streets of Mogadishu

On the fifth day of every month a group of women entrepreneurs gather to share their experiences and discuss matters of trade. What makes this exceptional is that the women are from south-central Somalia and they meet in Mogadishu, one of the world's most devastated and dangerous cities.

MEDIA-SOUTH SUDAN: Battle on Two Fronts

A recent presentation at parliament by the South's Finance Minister gave a few cursory details of how the South's army managed to spend 99.6 percent of its budget by June. At the end of the public session, the South's Parliamentary Affairs Minister Martin Elia told journalists not to write about the presentation for security reasons.

ECONOMY: Kenya Flush With Money From Expatriates

As your plane taxis along the runway at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, a first-time visitor to Kenya will marvel at the world class status of the major entry-point to east Africa’s premier economy.

TRADE-EAST AFRICA: Tanzania Still Torn Between Two Blocs

There were six of them – esteemed Kenyan nationals working at east and central Africa’s largest media house, the Nation Media Group. They were supposed to demonstrate the value of the East African Community (EAC) by being allowed to ply their profession in neighbouring Tanzania. The year was 2005.