Brought to its knees by the recklessness of the Zuma presidency, the South African economy needs a new deal. The ANC’s new leader Cyril Ramaphosa needs to act quickly if he’s going to make his mark.
New ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa, centre, with fellow top leaders elected at the party’s 54th national conference.
EPA-EFE/Cornell Tukiri
Cyril Ramaphosa has secured the leadership of South Africa’s governing ANC. But he may not be able to clean up the mess left by Jacob Zuma given the other members of the party’s leadership team.
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.
Extensive research has been done on poverty and inequality in South Africa but more is needed to better understand the status quo and mainly inter-sectional factors that drive inequality.
A strong judiciary isn’t enough to keep democracy in place. Kenya’s Supreme Court decision nullifying the re-election of Uhuru Kenyatta is a case in point.
Reuters/Baz Ratner
The past 12 months provided further evidence of the danger of democratic backsliding in Africa. But it also saw powerful presidents suffer embarrassing setbacks in a number of countries.
An image by MeerKAT shows hydrogen gas in M83, a famous spiral galaxy.
SKA SA
A precursor to the Square Kilometre Array- the MeerKAT telescope - is being built right now and remarkable progress has been made in the last 12 months.
Are calls for unity in the ANC an attempt to prevent Cyril Ramaphosa from cleaning out the stables if he wins the presidency.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
The ANC’s elective conference has very important implications for South Africa’s future. Whoever leads determines the kind of leader the country will get, and what policy trajectory will be taken.
Children must be taught to read for comprehension, not just to parrot what they hear.
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The problem in learners’ reading performance lies in how reading is taught in most South African schools. Learners are not taught to understand the written word and make sense of it for themselves.
Engineering can greatly bolster any country’s development and growth.
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock
Africa has recorded a tremendous growth in its output of academic engineering research over the past 20 years. Greater collaboration can increase this growth even more.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde at the “G20: Compact With Africa”.
Reuters/Mike Theiler
South Africa will be well advised to start preparing itself for an International Monetary Fund programme as the country faces a deepening economic crisis.
A Zenzeleni cooperative member carefully aligns some equipment in the village of Mankosi, Eastern Cape.
Bill Tucker
South Africa has some of the highest mobile voice and data costs in the world. A project to deliver affordable services and keep money in communities with high unemployment rates could be the answer.
Supporters of vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa, symbolized by a crocodile toy, celebrate the end of the Mugabe era in Harare on November 22.
Stefan Heunis/AFP
The political crisis in Zimbabwe reveals the shortcomings of African intergovernmental organisations and their (in)capacity to guarantee democratic functioning in the member states.
Guests and delegates attend the opening of the Pan African Parliament’s second sitting in Midrand, Johannesburg.
Reuters/Juda Ngwenya
The limited “consultative and advisory powers” of the Pan African Parliament hamper the African Union’s ability to achieve a prosperous and peaceful Africa as envisioned in its Agenda 2063.
New South African research supports evidence that urbanisation has a positive impact on people’s lives and must be managed appropriately for development.
Data should be open, shareable - but not at the expense of African researchers and communities.
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A focus on collaboration among African universities and research institutions is crucial in developing national policies that meet the principles of open data while keeping it safe from exploitation.
Carefully tracking the migration habits of birds like the Barn Swallow can help to conserve these species.
Shutterstock
If Europe is going to reap the benefits of conservation measures at home, its experts need an understanding of where “their” birds migrate to when they head off to Africa.
Farm dwellers like Zabalaza Mshengu live in extremely precarious conditions.
Association for Rural Advancement
Farm dwellers’ conclusion is that the politics associated with land is not about an organised emancipatory movement. Farm dwellers are mainly preoccupied with daily survival strategies.
Much more must be done to keep teachers in South Africa.
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Policy needs to focus on making the teaching profession stable and more appealing. South Africa must ensure its locally trained teachers have more reason to stay in the country.
Ukrainians mark the first anniversary of the Orange Revolution in 2005.
REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand