South Sudan: South Sudan Is Unstable - How a Weak State Benefits the Ruling Elite

Salva Kiir, the president of South Sudan, met with then US president Barack Obama at the White House in 2011 to discuss the future of the newly independent state. Read more »

Egypt: Trump's Dip Into the Nile Waters Dispute Didn't Settle the Conflict - in Fact, It May Have Caused More Ripples

President Donald Trump chided the United Nations on Sept. 23, 2025, for failing to resolve dangerous international conflicts around the world. "All they seem to do," he groused… Read more »

Tanzania: Mushrooms May Have Been Part of Early Human Diets - Primate Study Explores Who Eats What and When

Mushrooms may not be the first food that comes to mind when we imagine the diets of wild primates - or our early human ancestors. We tend to think of fruits and green leaves as the… Read more »

Tanzania: Tanzania's Social Media Clampdown and the Elections - What's At Risk

Social media platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and X have transformed political dialogue and activism in Tanzania. The democratisation of political expression has… Read more »

Ethiopia: Ethiopia's Two Bids At Democracy Have Failed - What It Will Take to Succeed

Ethiopia has attempted to transition to democracy twice. First in 1991, when a new government overthrew a dictatorial military regime. Second in 2018, when Abiy Ahmed took over as… Read more »

Uganda: Uganda Has Signed a Deal With the U.S. to Take Asylum Seekers - What's Behind It and What's At Stake

A new deal to deport asylum seekers from the US to Uganda was announced in August 2025. The full agreement, already signed by the ambassadors of the two countries at the end of… Read more »

Egypt: Refugee Protection in Egypt - What's Behind the Return Train to Sudan

A special train left the Egyptian capital of Cairo for Aswan, a town close to the border with southern neighbour Sudan, in July 2025. The train, publicised by the Egyptian… Read more »

Kenya: Muslim Ritual Meets Swahili Culture At Kenya's Unique Annual Maulidi Festival

Lamu is a historic Swahili port town on an island off the northern coast of Kenya. Each year it hosts the famous Lamu Maulidi Festival, a sacred Muslim celebration, planned this… Read more »

Kenya: We Created a Support Programme for Schools in Nairobi's Informal Settlements - What We Learned

Access to school is considered to be better for children who live in urban areas than in rural areas in countries such as Kenya. But research shows that this access doesn't… Read more »

Africa: Should African Countries Lower the Voting Age to 16?

The UK is moving to lower its voting age from 18 to 16. The new legislation takes effect ahead of the country's next general election in 2029, and is aimed at boosting its… Read more »

East Africa: Baby Turtles Vanish Into the Indian Ocean for Years - Now a Model Shows Where They Might Go

All sea turtle species are threatened worldwide. They migrate long distances in the oceans - often thousands of kilometres - and so fall under multiple countries' laws and… Read more »

Ethiopia: Ethiopia's Mega Dam Has Taken 14 Years to Build - What It Means for the Nile's 11 River States and Why It's So Controversial

In April 2011, Ethiopia began construction of Africa's largest hydroelectric dam, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), on the Blue Nile river. The dam is expected to… Read more »

Kenya: Kenya Has Introduced New Banking Policies. an Economist Weighs Them Up

The Central Bank of Kenya has made two significant changes in the country's banking sector. The first is to lift a decade-long moratorium on licensing new banks. Second is to raise… Read more »

Ethiopia: Ethiopia's Emergency Medical Response System Is Up and Running - What Other Countries Can Learn From It

Ethiopia has built a national emergency medical team and hosts Africa's first World Health Organization (WHO)-certified regional training hub. It offers a robust, African-led model… Read more »

South Africa: HIV Is On the Rise Among Older Africans, but Care and Research Overlook This Group - Lessons From Kenya and South Africa

For decades, public health efforts across sub-Saharan Africa have focused on HIV prevention, testing and treatment campaigns on children, and women of reproductive age, overlooking… Read more »

Kenya: Christians and the British Empire - How a Church NGO Got Entangled in Colonial Violence in Kenya

In the 1950s, Kenyans fought against colonial control in what came to be known as the Mau Mau rebellion. In response, the British government announced a state of emergency in 1952… Read more »

Ethiopia: 250,000 Ethiopians Migrate Every Year - What Drives Them and What Needs to Change

Migration is increasingly replacing the traditional, education-focused life paths that shaped previous generations in Ethiopia. In the past, becoming a civil servant after… Read more »

Madagascar: Our Primate Ancestors Evolved in the Cold - Not the Tropics

Most people imagine our early primate ancestors swinging through lush tropical forests. But new research shows that they were braving the cold. Read more »

Nigeria: How Nollywood Films Help Kenyan Housemaids Make Sense of Their Lives

Nollywood, Nigeria's prolific video-film industry, has been popular in Kenya since it was introduced to east Africa at around the turn of the century. Read more »

Tanzania: Abdulrazak Gurnah - Searching for Signs of Zanzibar's Most Famous Writer, All I Found Was Trinkets and Tourists

Zanzibar has long been an island of arrivals for traders, sailors, slaves and, more recently, waves of tourists. I arrived as a wedding guest and a reader of the Zanzibar born… Read more »

Tanzania: Tanzania's Independence Leader Julius Nyerere Built a New Army Fit for African Liberation - How He Did It

Tanzania has long enjoyed a reputation as a peaceful country. In contrast to most of its neighbours, this east African nation of 67 million people has largely avoided large-scale… Read more »

Kenya: Kenya's 1950 Kolloa Massacre - Britain Won't Own Up to Its Colonial Violence but Communities Need Closure

In 1950, British forces killed at least 29 civilians in one of the deadliest, but least chronicled, episodes of colonial violence in Kenya. Read more »

Africa: Are African Countries Aware of Their Own Mineral Wealth? Ghana and Rwanda Offer Two Very Different Answers

Imagine running a business for over a century without knowing what's in your warehouse. That's essentially what many African countries are doing with their mineral wealth.… Read more »

South Sudan: South Sudan's New Chief Justice Has a Chance to Reform the Judiciary - If He's Allowed to Do His Job

South Sudan's chief justice, Chan Reec Madut, was sacked in late May 2025 after more than 13 years on the bench. Madut leaves behind a legacy of inefficiency and accusations of… Read more »

Somalia: Somalia's Education Crisis - Why So Few Children Attend School and What Could Be Done to Change That

Around 98 million children and youth in sub-Saharan Africa are out of school, accounting for nearly 40% of the global out-of-school population. This is disproportionately high,… Read more »