Africa’s urban challenges are increasingly well known and documented. But the amount of data produced on urban Africa still pales in comparison to other parts of the world.
The black cherries of Coffea stenophylla.
E. Couturon/IRD
Nigeria and China should work more on the relationship between their citizens so that the two countries can continue to have good bilateral relations.
Modern computing allows to spot isolated trees and shrubs in semi-arid areas, facilitating research on the evolution of vegetation cover.
Martin Brandt
Advanced techniques allowed our research team to build an open database of billions of individual trees and challenge some common perceptions about vegetation in arid and semi-arid zones.
New evidence affirms that significant, long-standing inter-group cultural differences shaped the later stages of human evolution in Africa.
Workers pack syringes at India’s biggest syringe manufacturer. Government support has been key to developing this capacity.
Photo by Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images
African governments, firms and donor agencies should align their efforts to support the local manufacture of vaccines and other health equipment in African countries.
A lorry trailer carries the coffins of the victims of a munitions explosion in Brazzaville, the Congolese capital, in 2012.
Junior D. Kannah/AFP via Getty Images
Whether they are winemakers, winery owners, cellar managers or sommeliers, women entrepreneurs are evolving in the wine industry - a traditional men’s world.
Maker spaces give engineers and designers the tools to build low-cost medical equipment using locally available materials.
Brandon Martin, Rice University
Engineering students in Malawi and Tanzania have used the materials and tools available to them to build ventilators, personal protective equipment and UV disinfection systems.
Demolition of uninhabited shacks in Bloekombos, Kraaifontein, Cape Town, August 6, 2020. The land, which was to be developed as a community facility for neighbouring communities, has been illegally occupied by people who have been demarcating plots and building informal settlements.
Rodger Bosch/AFP
Despite millions of free homes built since 1994, spatial inequality in South Africa remains high. A study evaluating a programme to boost rentals in well-located areas found mixed results, however.
A flock of birds flies near Lake Manyara, Tanzania.
Luc Janssens de Bisthoven
Biosphere reserves are the living labs in which people and nature learn how to live and thrive together. Four pilot sites in Africa show the programme’s promise.
The golden ratio, which has been a key tenet of modernist design, may have origins in Africa.
tatadonets via Getty Images
Long thought to have originated in Ancient Greece, the golden ratio that forms the basis of the Swiss design style may have first emerged in Africa.
Zimbabwe leaders welcome Chinese COVID-19 experts at the Robert Mugabe International Airport in Harare on May 11, 2020.
Jekesai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images
China is providing masks, vaccines, medical equipment and personnel to African countries ignored by the U.S. in recent years, positioning itself as an essential partner to the region.
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa (right) shakes hands with Rwandan President Paul Kagame (left) at the Commonwealth summit in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2013.
Sri Lankan Government/Getty Images
Philip Murphy, School of Advanced Study, University of London
Despite its Imperial origins, the Commonwealth has a strong radical tradition. If it wants to remain relevant to Africa in the 21st Century, that radicalism needs to be rediscovered.
A young Ethiopian refugee carries water containers at the Um Raquba camp in Sudan in November 2020.
Ashraf Shazly/AFP via Getty Images
Adolescent girls can contribute to social change, economic growth, sustainable development and peaceful societies. They should be able to live their lives free from violence.
Three nestlings beg for food, but the right-hand one is an imposter, an indigobird masquerading as a firefinch.
Claire N. Spottiswoode
Rather than constructing a nest, incubating eggs and feeding young, some birds deposit their eggs in the nests of other birds and trick them into doing the child rearing.
Masai giraffes in northern Tanzania.
Sonja Metzger
Debates centred on the role of recreational hunting in supporting nature conservation and local people’s livelihoods are among the most polarising in conservation today.
Anthropologue et démographe, professeur émérite au Muséum national d’histoire naturelle et conseiller de la direction de l'INED, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (MNHN)