The tobacco industry claims that tobacco- growing is essential to the livelihoods of millions of small-scale rural farmers in Malawi, Zambia and Kenya. Research shows that’s untrue.
The extent to which mobile phones can support and sustain real improvement in young lives is depressingly finite unless significant interventions occur.
In a remarkable extension of technological leapfrogging, Somaliland will become the first country in the world to use iris recognition in a presidential election.
Andrea Freidus, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
Voluntourists’ ability to change systems, alleviate poverty or provide support for vulnerable children is limited. They don’t have the skills and can perpetuate patronising and unhelpful ideas.
Gilles Pison, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (MNHN)
There’s no reason why small families shouldn’t become the norm in Africa. But this will depend on improving education opportunities for women and improving birth control policies.
A rush of ancient DNA projects in Africa has presented the curators of archaeological skeletons with ethical issues because research requires the destruction of human bone.
Do boys and girls from diverse cultural settings experience their transitions into adolescence? Their cultural differences don’t make a difference, but their genders do.
An upcoming UN meeting on witchcraft and human rights in Geneva is set to focus on the rising attacks on Albinos and the trade of body parts in sub-Saharan African.
Two of South Africa’s finest musicians, Johnny Mekoa and Ray Phiri, died recently. The permeable terrain between genres their careers negotiated, is being replaced by rigid marketing categories.
Malawi’s government wants schools to promote democratic principles. But there’s a contradiction between what students are taught and how they’re expected to behave.
Eight Tanzanians have been arrested in Malawi after looking into a uranium mine. They say the country has no right to flout the rule of law and to harass groups acting in the public interest.
The proposed change to Malawi’s electoral system is straightforward and makes logical sense. Yet it’s more complex and if adopted would revolutionise local politics.
Rhodesia’s white supremacists appealed to the white electorate by taking a stand against African liberation. Similarly, Donald Trump appealed to white Americans who feel overwhelmed by globalisation.
Associate Professor, Department of Environmental and Geographical Science and African Climate and Development Initiative Research Chair, University of Cape Town