Africa: A Growing Gap Between Principle and Implementation - 20 Years of Responsibility to Protect

United Nations member states this week reiterated their commitment to the prevention of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity--at a time when world… Read more »

Zimbabwe: A New Solar Power Plant Powers Progress in Zimbabwe's Renewable Energy Sector

When load shedding was introduced over the past two years, Jose Tenete Domingos Lumboa had to deal with learning disruptions worsened by the backup generators in the eastern part… Read more »

Africa: How Many Developing Countries Are Forging Paths to Climate Accountability At Sb62

A packed conference room buzzing with the energy of over 300 national experts, negotiators, and implementers discussed their submissions of the First Biennial Transparency Reports… Read more »

Africa: Less Investment, Less Aid - How FDI Shortfalls Are Hurting Global Relief Efforts

The world is losing interest in investing in others, especially when it comes to humanitarian aid. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has slowed to critical levels, weakening emerging… Read more »

Malawi: Saving Children's Lives Through Drones

The first successful test-flight of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone was an unhindered 10 km journey from a community health centre to the Kamuzu central hospital… Read more »

Africa: Activists Urge Obama to Act On Extractive Industries Law

As the three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit got underway here Monday, anti-corruption activists urged President Barack Obama to prod a key U.S. agency to issue long-awaited… Read more »

Ethiopia: The Rise of Ethiopia's Sole Rebels

Innovative Ethiopian footwear manufacturer Sole Rebels will open its second retail outlet in Taiwan this year. With ambitions to open 30 more franchise stores across the world in… Read more »

Kenya: Kenya's Water Wars Kill Scores

Water scarcity is fuelling deadly inter-ethnic wars that continue to claim lives in Kenya, according to government officials. And if nothing is done to educate communities on how… Read more »

Congo-Kinshasa: Getting a Grip On Food Security in DR Congo

The Association for Integrated Rural Development is one of a number of rural organisations on the periphery of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which are… Read more »

Congo-Kinshasa: Mechanisation Fails for Farmers

Mechanisation was expected to transform agriculture in the Democratic Republic of Congo's central province of East Kasaï. But a project to offer tractors for ploughing land… Read more »

Africa: World's Biggest Hydropower Scheme Will Leave Africans in the Dark

South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo have signed an agreement to build a major hydroelectric power project, which is said to bring electricity to more than half of the… Read more »

Congo-Kinshasa: Fresh Start for Coffee Producers

Long years of civil war and instability set off a crippling decline in coffee production in the Democratic Republic of Congo: the country's output in 2010 was less than a tenth the… Read more »

Southern Africa: Customs Union Eyeing the Money, Not Development

A new revenue sharing formula in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) could boost development but has met with resistance from the governments of poorer states in the… Read more »

Africa: Scientists Focus On Male Mosquitoes in Bid to Control Malaria

After successfully suppressing scourges of fruit, tsetse and screwworm flies in the Americas, researchers are exploring whether the same sterilised insect technique can be used to… Read more »

Congo-Kinshasa: DRC Farmers Welcome Support

Farmers in the southwestern Democratic Republic of Congo are looking forward to increased production after 16 tractors and 200 ox-drawn carts were distributed across three regions… Read more »

Kenya: Deadly Cactus Good for Animal Feed

Joseph Ole Morijo is baffled by research findings that cactus plants can be used as animal fodder during drought. Not after he lost his entire herd of 152 goats and sheep to the… Read more »

Mauritania: Women Struggle for Equality, Says Rights Lawyer

 Mauritania formally adopted the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in 2001, but in the eight years since, it has had limited effect on the status… Read more »

Equatorial Guinea: Human Rights Drowning in Oil

The oil interests of Angola, Brazil and Portugal could pave the way for former Spanish colony Equatorial Guinea to become the ninth member of the Community of Portuguese Language… Read more »

Chad: 'Africa's Pinochet' Still Eluding Justice

Two years after the African Union mandated Senegal to conduct the trial of Chadian dictator Hissenè Habré, who is accused of thousands of political murders during his… Read more »

Ethiopia: 'The Death Sentence Was Used As a Tool of Intimidation'

Journalism in Ethiopia has become an increasingly hazardous trade over recent years. A clampdown on the media in the wake of disputed elections in 2005 continues to resonate in the… Read more »

South Africa: Government Set to Reach Sanitation Target, But is It Enough?

The South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry has narrowly missed one of its most important targets, aimed at improving sanitation for the country's poorest people -… Read more »

Congo-Kinshasa: World Bank Confronts Challenge Over Logging

The World Bank is scrambling to respond to complaints that it broke its own rules to support commercial logging at the expense of Pygmy lands and livelihoods in the war-wrecked… Read more »

Guinea Bissau: African Paradise for South American Traffickers

Guinea-Bissau has become the first African narco-state, where South American traffickers have set up their headquarters and hideouts for large-scale cocaine smuggling operations… Read more »

Sierra Leone: Women As an Antidote to Corruption?

Sierra Leone will hold general elections Saturday with a number of significant achievements in hand, not least maintaining peace for five years. Read more »

Sierra Leone: Women Confront Obstacles in Politics

When Iyesha Josiah told people last year that after the August 2007 general elections, she would stand before them as a new member of parliament for Sierra Leone, they thought she… Read more »