June 05, 2017
South Africa: Easy Ways to Save Water Around the House
It's World Environment Day and the Western Cape continues to battle severe drought. Residents can do their part by employing these water-saving tips to help ease the strain on… Read more »
January 14, 2016
Africa: Mobile Phone Access Explodes Across Africa
The overwhelming majority of Africans - more than nine in every 10 people - now have access to mobile phones, says a new Afrobarometer survey of the continent's infrastructure. Read more »
May 22, 2014
South Africa: Solving the Poor's 'Poo' Problem
Access to toilets for Cape Town's growing urban poor is a regular flash-point, featuring angry demonstrations and hurled allegations by competing political factions. Read more »
January 06, 2014
Africa: Africans Give Govts Failing Marks On Power, Water Supplies
Although two of every three Africans believe their governments are performing well in the fight against HIV and Aids, fewer approve of their delivery of basic health services and… Read more »
April 19, 2013
Africa: Invest in Water Storage to Secure the Future
Water and energy are fundamental to poverty reduction and economic transformation on the African continent. When experts, policymakers and high-level representatives met this week… Read more »
November 19, 2012
South Africa: Chasing the Final Flush
There is no shortage of jokes and a long list of euphemisms when it comes to talking about toilets. Read more »
Liberia: Tapping Official and Grassroots Efforts On Water
In July 1990, as then-rebel leader Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia advanced on Monrovia, Taylor's guerrilla fighters attacked the White Plains water treatment… Read more »
Liberia: Pipe Dreams - Waiting for Water in Monrovia
"The hanging latrines" of West Point are not one of Liberia's most celebrated beauty spots. But this modest collection of elevated toilets, erected on the banks of the Mesurado… Read more »
South Africa: Dreams of Better Sanitation Go Down the Toilet
Gogo Sikhosana Ngcobo is 76 years old. Growing up, she says she had dreams of what her life would be like. They featured a brick house with a flushing toilet. Those dreams, like… Read more »
September 07, 2012
Kenya: Ngilu Pursues Presidency on Pro-Poor Platform
Kenya's water and irrigation minister, Charity Kaluki Ngilu announced her bid for the presidency this week as leader of the National Rainbow Coalition. She calls it the "party of… Read more »
August 30, 2012
Africa: Pumps, Policies and Private Investment
As World Water Week draws to a close, a new report highlights the promise of small-scale irrigation schemes. "Water for Wealth and Food Security" touts simple interventions, such… Read more »
August 15, 2012
Africa: Toilet Tales - Health Gains Without Wasting Water, or Excrement
Although there were no African prizewinners this week from a toilet challenge sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, South African Professor Chris Buckley doesn't… Read more »
March 13, 2012
Africa: Aiming for a Predictable Water Supply
As the Sixth World Water Forum is being held in Marseille, France, this week, AllAfrica looks at the lack of predictable water supplies and challenges to building infrastructure to… Read more »
November 18, 2011
Kenya: Breaking Toilet Taboos
Among members of the Mijikenda community of Kenya's Coastal Province, it is taboo for a father-in-law's faeces to mix with those of his daughter-in-law. Read more »
September 13, 2011
Kenya: Clean Water as a Life Force
The streets of Gatwekera village in Nairobi's Kibera slum throng with people on a recent Sunday afternoon. Small shops and kiosks line the dirt paths separating brightly colored… Read more »
July 22, 2011
Africa: Leapfrogging to the 'Mobile Phone' of Sanitation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been a major role-player at AfricaSan 3 in Rwanda, using the gathering to announce its new sanitation-focused global development… Read more »
July 19, 2011
Africa: New Approaches Needed on Sanitation
No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by the invention of the toilet. Read more »
Africa: South African University to Reinvent the Toilet
The next time you use the toilet, give a thought to what you would do if there weren't one. That's the challenge that faces 40 percent of the earth's population - 2.6 billion… Read more »
July 15, 2011
Africa: AfricaSan3 - Less About Goals Than Getting There
The 3rd African Conference on Sanitation Hygiene is set for 19-21 July in Kigali, Rwanda. AllAfrica's Julie Frederikse looks at what to expect from this important event. Read more »
July 12, 2011
South Africa: Award-Winning Sanitation Team Keen to Link to Fellow African Researchers
Chris Buckley, head of the Pollution Research Group at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, spoke to Julie Frederikse about the upcoming sanitation conference… Read more »
South Africa: Turning Human Waste into Fertilizer Pellet by Pellet
Recycling is increasingly popular in today's ecologically aware world, but in the field of sanitation the "yuk factor" tends to get in the way. Most people recoil from the notion… Read more »
June 28, 2011
South Africa: Harvesting Nutrients That Are Flushed Away
It might seem unusual for a waste utility to be concerned with the goal of ending world hunger, but that's part of the mission of the Water and Sanitation department in South… Read more »
April 06, 2011
Cote d'Ivoire: Sick, Wounded, Hungry Stranded in Homes
As the political stalemate drags on in Cote d'Ivoire, the humanitarian situation in the countryside and in the main city, Abidjan, continues to deteriorate. In Abidjan, especially,… Read more »
March 23, 2010
Africa: Chissano Calls On Politicians, Scientists to Co-operate Over Water
This week marks World Water Day, and I am personally endorsing a report by African scientists that examines our continent’s water resources and calls for our political… Read more »
February 26, 2009
Zimbabwe: Unity Govt Seeks U.S. $2 Billion in Aid
Zimbabwe's new unity government is appealing for U.S. $2 billion over the next 10 months to help it deal with emergencies and to kickstart the economy, South Africa's finance… Read more »
