Africa

Photo: UNIDO Director General | Credit: UNIDO

UNIDO Focuses on Africa and LDCs in 2017

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK | VIENNA (IDN) - "Africa is by no means destined to lag behind the rest of the world economy. On the contrary, it could easily become a global economic powerhouse – and within the next decade. But, to fulfil its economic potential, Africa must industrialize," says Director General LI Yong of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

This has been stressed repeatedly at recent international forums, including the Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI) in August 2016, and the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, the following month, he adds. For the first time, the G20 placed industrialization in Africa – and all of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) – on its agenda. The African Union’s Agenda 2063 also supports this drive.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 11 February 2017

Photo: Dr. Alex Magufwa examines a child suffering from severe malaria at Bahi hospital in Dodoma. Cedit: Kizito Makoye Shigela | IDN-INPS

Blood-Delivering Drones to Save Mothers, Babies in Tanzania

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.”

: IDN-INPS Middle East & Africa Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 08 February 2017

Photo: Secretary-General António Guterres (3rd right, front row) with African Union leaders at the opening of AU Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on January 30. Credit: UN Photo/Antonio Fiorente

UN Chief Pleads for High-level Interaction with Africa

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) - The United Nations and the African Union (AU) have agreed to establish regular, high-level interaction between the two organizations in the interest of "enhanced energies and avenues of cooperation", according to UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

“We have agreed that Agenda 2063 (the development agenda of the African Union) and the 2030 Agenda (for sustainable development) will be aligned,” Guterres said at a press encounter at the UN Headquarters, in New York on February 1 after his return from Africa and his participation at the African Union Summit on January 30-31.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 01 February 2017

Photo: “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." - Outgoing AU Commissioner Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

African Union Denounces US Ban on Muslim Immigrants

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.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 01 February 2017

Photo: A Virgin Active gym in Soweto, Johannesburg South Africa. Credit: Africa Renewal | AMO | Robert Tshabalala

'Lifestyle Diseases' Pose Grave Challenges To Africa

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.

: Africa Renewal; THE WORLD; Africa; 30 January 2017

Photo: With incessant droughts owing to climate change effects, many women in Southern Africa have turned to alternative agricultural ways such as goat breeding as they battle to survive the growing impacts of climate change here. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo | IDN-INPS

Southern Africa’s Women Wrestle Climate Change On Their Own

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.

: Jeffrey Moyo; THE WORLD; Africa; 22 January 2017

Photo: President Obama during his 2013 Africa trip. Credit: whitehouse.gov

Concern About U.S. Africa Policy Under Trump

By Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Long-time Africa specialists who have looked at a four-page list of Africa-related questions from the Trump transition staff say they are seeing an American retreat from development and humanitarian goals while business opportunities will be getting an extra push.

The four-page list has been making the rounds at the State Department and Pentagon, according to the New York Times.

Of priority interest to the new administration is the prospect of dollars to be made in this “new” frontier. One of the first questions on the list went straight to the point: “How does U.S. business compete with other nations in Africa? Are we losing out to the Chinese?”

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 17 January 2017

Photo: Zaituni Lekiza whom community volunteers working for Hakiardhi – a Dar es Salaam-based land rights resources institute – helped go through the legal process to regain her matrimonial property which was on the verge of being seized. Credit: Kizito Makoye Shigela | IDN-INPS

Community Volunteers Help Tanzanian Widows Access Land Rights

By Kizito Makoye Shigela

MUFINDI, Tanzania (ACP-IDN) – At Kiyowela village in Tanzania’s southern highlands, every widow has a story to tell about how community volunteers have helped them solve property disputes with their relatives.

Zaituni Lekiza still remembers the suffering she went through when her father-in-law kicked her out of her matrimonial home after her husband died two years ago. “He asked me to leave because I no longer belonged to the family,” she told IDN.

The 39-year-old mother of two, who lives in Mufindi district, had been married for eight years but was thrown out of her home after her father-in-law accused her of being behind the death of his son.

: IDN-INPS Middle East & Africa Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 11 January 2017

Photo: Senegalese street sellers in Fez. Credit: Fabiola Ortiz | IDN-INPS

Moroccan Campaign Not Dampening Some Migrants' Dreams

By Fabíola Ortiz

FEZ, OUJDA and NADOR, Morocco (IDN) – Morocco, traditionally a pathway for sub-Saharan Africans wanting to reach Europe, is now enforcing a national strategy to contain the flow of migrants towards the EU and stifle the aspirations of those still wanting to cross.

There are many reasons that lead people to depart from their countries and become a migrant, often risking their lives on dangerous routes in search of a better life.

Abdoul Karime is a 19-year-old Ivorian who first came to Morocco in 2013 when he was still a teenager and since then has been living amid improvised tents in an informal settlement next to the main train station in the city of Fez.

: Fabiola Ortiz; THE WORLD; Africa; 08 January 2017

Photo: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with DRC President Joseph Kabila during a brief bilateral meeting after they signed the COP21 Climate Change Agreement on Earth Day, April 22, 2016, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, N.Y. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

The Fate of The New Congo Deal Is Anybody's Guess

By Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - The West African state of the Congo has always been taking one step forward, two steps back. This goes back to the days when Congo became independent from Belgian rule in 1960.

Now we see it again. There were supposed to be elections at the end of last year. But President Joseph Kabila has clung to power. After months of negotiations led by the Catholic bishops a deal has been agreed on December 31. If Kabila is given one more year in office then he will call elections in a year’s time.