Category: Africa

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – In Kenya, a high burden tuberculosis (TB) country, infants and young children are at very high risk of developing severe and often fatal strains of the disease, and are estimated to comprise 10-11 percent of all TB cases.

In order to combat the disease, primarily among children but also the population in general, the country is putting mechanisms in place, including better equipment for TB testing, and in 2016 became the first country in the world to roll out child-friendly TB medicines.

Overseen by TB Alliance, an international non-governmental organisation that supports the development of affordable tuberculosis drugs, the medicines are easier for caregivers to give and for children to take and are expected to help improve treatment and child survival.

By Ronald Joshua

BRUSSELS | MAPUTO, Mozambique (ACP-IDN) – Once neglected minerals and materials may hold the key to millions of jobs across Southern Africa at a time when oil and metal exporting countries are grappling with low commodity prices.

Mega infrastructure projects agreed by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Heads of State are projected to draw in 986 billion dollars in investments over the next ten years, ramping up the demand for construction materials exponentially. Estimates from the African Development Bank indicate that for each billion invested in African infrastructure, between 3-7 million jobs are created.

By Klara Smits

LEIDEN, The Netherlands (IDN) – The digital era brings opportunities for international cooperation and development, such as e-health and large-scale data sharing, but it also brings dangers. One of the prime examples of such dangers is the billion-dollar human trafficking business of Eritrean refugees by their own regime.

Modern technologies such as mobile money and mobile phones play a crucial role in this trade, according to a new book titled ‘Human Trafficking in the Digital Era: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Trade in Refugees from Eritrea’, edited by Prof. Mirjam van Reisen and Prof. Munyaradzi Mawere.

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (ACP-IDN) – Ndliso-Ndliso Sibanda, a descendant of Southern Africa’s ancient Khoisan tribe, still practises a semi-nomadic life style in Zimbabwe despite his 75 years, and is constantly on the move looking for wood to construct shelter, and wild fruits and tubers when they are in season.

Ndliso-Ndliso, who lives with his family in Tsholotsho, a district in Matabeleland North Province, has continued his life style despite the stringent rules enacted by the government country to protect the environment as it wages war against the impact of climate change.

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE, Zimbabwe (IDN) – Sitting in front of a heap of damaged shoes waiting to be mended, 32-year-old Evans Tirivangani, a graduate in accountancy but forced to work as a cobbler because of lack of job opportunities, is anything but convinced that the arrival of a new president in the White House will mark a change in his, and his country’s, prospects.

“We had always had hope since the time Barrack Obama came into power in the United States about a decade ago; we thought he was going to make so much noise about the dictatorship that has damaged our country, but 37 years after our country gained independence, we are still suffering and as you can see, I’m a cobbler even with my degree,” Tirivangani, who plies his trade in a makeshift shed by the roadside in Mabvuku, a high density suburb of Harare, told IDN.

By Kizito Makoye Shigela

DAR ES SALAAM (IDN) – The ringing of the bell marks the end of lessons at Hekima Primary School, and for 10-year-old Leila Kitwana and her classmates it signals time to tend the school’s vegetable gardens where students take turns to water vertical gardens through a drip irrigation system using rainwater stored in giant tanks.

“We grow different types of vegetables, they are an important part of our meal,” says Kitwana.

Until recently, most students at this school in the impoverished Tandale area of Kinonodoni district in Dar es Salaam Region had spent more time looking for water than attending lessons. “We had a borehole but the water there was too salty to drink,” explains Kitwana. “We only used it for cleaning toilets.”

By Kizito Makoye Shigela

BAHI, Tanzania (ACP-IDN) – In Bahi, a remote district west of Tanzania’s capital Dodoma, local residents have always expected to donate blood whenever they go to hospital.

“My daughter had acute malaria and she urgently needed blood, yet there was no blood available,” local resident Hawa Ambweni told IDN. She said she had to pay some money to order blood from the district hospital.

“I was quite nervous waiting for the blood to arrive,” she said. “My daughter’s life was in danger.”

By Global Information Network

NEW YORK | ADDIS ABABA (IDN) – An outraged African Union (AU) recalled the kidnapping of Black Africans as it considered the controversial new US anti-immigrant rules. After forcibly bringing Africans to the U.S. as slave labour, noted the AU, Washington now slams the door on Muslim immigrants entering the U.S.

“It is clear that globally we are entering very difficult times,” cautioned outgoing AU Commissioner Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, speaking at the January 30-31 summit of 53 member states in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

“The very country to which many of our people were taken as slaves during the transatlantic slave trade has now decided to ban refugees from some of our countries,” she said.

By Zipporah Musau*

NEW YORK (IDN | Africa Renewal) – Anxiety grips Jennifer Nakazi as her phone beeps for the third time since she arrived at a busy bank lobby in downtown New York. She’s going to wire money to her family in Uganda. Her brother is calling with the latest update on their critically ill mother.

After battling diabetes for almost a decade now, the 63-year-old matriarch has just been hospitalized after her blood sugar level hit a record high. Her blood pressure also shot up, raising fears she could also be hypertensive.

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (ACP-IDN) – From planting maize to trying tobacco and cotton on her fields, 44-year-old mother of four Silvia Hungwe says she has seen it all as she wrestles with effects of climate change which have caused her crops to fail each farming season.

Seated under a tree as she talks to IDN in Mbudzi on the outskirts of Harare, an area that has turned into a hive of goat trading activity over the years, Hungwe – who has now turned to keeping goats – is on the lookout for customers.

A number of other women like Hungwe are strolling nearby with their goats, eagerly approaching each passer-by in the hope of doing business.