In the recent Nigerian election WhatsApp was used to mislead voters in increasingly sophisticated ways. But it also strengthened democracy in other areas.
Africa is data-rich and well connected. Therein lies the solution to many of its challenges.
S.Gvozd/Shutterstock
Andrew Gibbs, South African Medical Research Council
Poverty, traumatic experiences, and gender inequalities, directly increased HIV-risk behaviours such as having unprotected sex and having multiple sexual partners.
The practice of bride price has evolved.
MaxPixel/Wiki Commons
Bride price practice has both social and psychological implications for the men who pay and those women for whom it is paid.
Members of the NGO ‘SOS Mediterranee’ during the rescue of more than 250 migrants on a wooden boat off the Libyan coast.
EPA-EFE/Christophe Petit Tesson
A clandestine system of transfer payment, with roots in apartheid-era boycotts, has developed into routine behaviour on which many family budgets now depend.
Scientists and medical practitioners can help turn goals into reality, such as through vaccine programmes.
Rebecca Hall/CDC/CDC Connects
African countries need to take into account the effects environmental changes, like climate change, have on their ability to deal with food security, poverty reduction and lowering mortality rates.
Former President Jacob Zuma is fighting a batttle for political capital.
EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook/Pool
By positioning himself as a loveable granddad to supporters and the punchline of a joke to his opposition, Zuma adroitly defangs the very serious charges against him.
Deploying the army in the Cape Flats constitutes nothing more than simply sticking band aid on a festering wound.
Ground Up - Ashraf Hendricks
The dilemma for Zuma and his legal team is this: by putting him on the witness stand, there is a risk that he would be found wanting, especially in terms of the detail of any matter.
Health officer on the front-line in the DRC.
Flickr
Trump and Zuma seek to sell explanations of their misfortunes to the socially insecure and economically vulnerable. To an alarming extent they succeed.
South Africa’s agriculture and food production industries are exempt from the carbon tax - for now.
Shutterstock
South Africa’s recently introduced carbon tax may lead to financial losses in the short term, but it’s necessary and will be beneficial in the long term.
The IMF has increasingly turned its focus to growing inequality worldwide. Ironically, research shows that policy reforms it mandated exacerbated income inequalities.