Africa has a real challenge when it comes to using academic research and evidence to design policies.
Tobacco leaves dry on a farm in Africa. Big tobacco companies exploit impoverished African farmers, particularly in Malawi. On World No Tobacco Day, it’s time to focus on the tactics of Big Tobacco in Africa.
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On World No Tobacco Day, the focus is usually on the health risks of cigarettes. But what about the way Big Tobacco exploits impoverished farmers in Malawi?
There’s more and more good science news coming from Africa.
Romolo Tavani/Shutterstock
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.
For some, the mobile phone revolution has produced new work opportunities.
Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye
The extent to which mobile phones can support and sustain real improvement in young lives is depressingly finite unless significant interventions occur.
Somaliland’s shift to use iris recognition in a presidential election stems from distrust in the voting system.
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In a remarkable extension of technological leapfrogging, Somaliland will become the first country in the world to use iris recognition in a presidential election.
Madonna with her adopted son, David Banda, at an orphanage, 40 km from the capital Lilongwe April 19, 2007.
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
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.
Country superstar Dolly Parton has a huge following across Africa.
Cathal McNaughton/Reuters
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.
Research of ancient DNA has tended to ignore previous studies about the bones themselves.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
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.
According to a Global Adolescent Study boys are given more freedom and independence than girls.
Reuters
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.
Witchcraft related beliefs pose serious human rights violations for people with Albinism.
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.
Associate Professor, Department of Environmental and Geographical Science and African Climate and Development Initiative Research Chair, University of Cape Town