African governments are facing a deadline to match job growth with skills training for the youth COMMENT | CARL MANLAN | Africa is home to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population. With as many as 20 million young people poised to join the workforce every year for the next three decades, …
Read More »Is democracy dying?
Taking democratic temperature as a dozen countries prepare for polls Kampala, Uganda | JOHN J STREMLAU | Visiting Professor of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand More than a dozen national elections will be held across Africa next year. All 55 members of the African Union (AU) are obligated to hold …
Read More »Haunted by colonial past, Belgium’s Africa museum reopens after revamp
Tervuren, Belgium | AFP | Belgium’s Africa Museum reopened on Saturday after a five-year restoration to repackage its looted treasures with a critical view of the country’s brutal colonial past. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo hailed a “historic moment” and said it would open “a new chapter” in Belgian-African …
Read More »GLOBAL COMMENT: Uniting Africa for power
Integration is essential to scale and connect markets where lack of electricity is holding back progress GLOBAL COMMENT | Tony Blair | African countries are increasingly coming together. A landmark free-trade agreement was concluded earlier this year. East Africa has made great progress on free movement of people. And a commitment to …
Read More »Child marriage costs countries billions in lost earnings: World Bank
Accra, Ghana | AFP | Respect Ruvimbo Topodzi was 15 and walking home from school in her native Zimbabwe when a 22-year-old man asked her out. She turned him down but it was too late. Her father saw them and assumed they were already together. He told her she had …
Read More »Morocco launches Africa’s first high-speed train
Kampala, Uganda | AGENCIES | Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and French President Emmanuel Macron launched on Nov.15 the first high-speed train in Africa. The Moroccan king and Macron took the train from the northern city of Tangier to arrive in the capital Rabat, in a ride that lasted 80 minutes, compared …
Read More »Attack of the small screens: Africa eyes mobile gaming boom
Cape Town, South Africa | AFP | An army of humans laid waste to an alien colony as South African video game maker Simon Spreckley enthusiastically controlled the action using his phone’s touch screen. “The penetration of mobile devices in Africa is huge. People often have two or three phones, which …
Read More »Odds stacked against DRC Club, Ugandan in charge of security in CAF Cup final
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP & THE INDEPENDENT | Congolese side V Club admit it will be “very difficult” to overcome a 3-0 deficit against Raja Casablanca of Morocco Sunday when they host the CAF Confederation Cup final second leg. There have been 108 two-leg CAF club finals in four …
Read More »Senegal replace Tunisia as top-ranked African team, Uganda Cranes 16th
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | Senegal replaced Tunisia as the highest ranked African national team when the monthly statistics were released by FIFA Thursday. The Senegalese rose from second place on the back of a 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying victory in Equatorial Guinea during November. Tunisia lost …
Read More »GLOBAL COMMENT: Electrifying Africa’s labour
One-fifth of the 25 million new jobs AfD Btargets for youth in Africa could come from off-grid solar COMMENT | Mugo Kibatiand and Gilles Vermot Desroches | Africa is on the verge of an unemployment crisis portending profound economic, political, and social ramifications. But the crisis can be averted, and …
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