The World Health Organisation has marked significant improvements in some aspects of adolescent sexual and reproductive health. Young people are having their first sexual encounters at a later age and are more…
Ethiopia’s Tigray Region Has Seen Famine Before: Why It Could Happen Again
A new military conflict is sadly unfolding in the Horn of Africa. On November 4th, 2020, a military conflict erupted between the forces of the federal government of Ethiopia and the regional…
Satellite Data Provides Fresh Insights into the Amount of Water in the Nile Basin
Flowing through 11 African countries, the Nile River plays an important role in the lives of more than 24% of Africa’s population. To both upstream and downstream countries, the Nile waters are…
New Coalition Plans to Tackle Africa’s Growing Burden of Stroke
Africa is currently experiencing a changing pattern of diseases and deaths. The continent faces a double burden of infectious diseases and rapid escalation of non-communicable diseases such as stroke and heart disease.…
Millions of People Are on Treatment for HIV: Why Are So Many Still Dying?
Twenty years ago treatment for HIV was a rare luxury in South Africa. Exorbitant costs and President Thabo Mbeki’s government’s fierce opposition to providing antiretroviral treatment (ART) kept it out of the…
Massive Project on African DNA Sets Out to Close the Knowledge Gap on Mental Illness
In July 2009, a woman brought her husband to the hospital where our colleagues work in western Kenya. She reported that for several years he had been behaving abnormally, sleeping poorly, hearing…
How Popular Is China in Africa? New Survey Sheds Light on What Ordinary People Think
It’s been 20 years since the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was first held. Another summit is planned for September 2021 in Dakar, Senegal. Meanwhile, Chinese and African officials are reviewing and reflecting…
Nigeria’s Federal System Still Isn’t Working: What Should Change
Nigeria is a troubled federation. Its federal character has been a subject of debate since the return to democratic rule in 1999. Various groups have claimed to be marginalised and not sufficiently…
Growing Turbulence in DRC’s Ruling Coalition Points to an Early Divorce
The rickety coalition that has governed the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for 20 months, forged by President Félix Tshisekedi and his predecessor Joseph Kabila, appears to be falling apart. In 2019,…
A Cost-Effective Program to Fight COVID-19 in Resource-Challenged Countries
A public health strategy that combines contact tracing and community-based screening with isolation and quarantine centers can substantially reduce infections, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 while being cost-effective in low-and-middle-income countries like…
