In the heart of Empash village, a fragmented community nestled in Suswa, Narok County, some 62 miles northwest of Nairobi, Naomy Kolian's story unfolds like a gripping saga of pain, resilience, and unyielding determination.
It was here, amidst the familiar surroundings of her home, that she was subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), a brutal tradition that left her with physical and emotional scars. This hidden trauma would linger, haunting her well into adulthood.
Droughts, cyclones, floods and extreme temperatures – these are the ‘new abnormal’ of a world in which weather-related events are becoming increasingly prolonged, intense and frequent.
“A person shall not contract marriage with a child,” Sierra Leone’s landmark Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2024 says, outlawing, in no uncertain terms, child marriage, giving consent to and attempted child marriage, officiating, attending and promoting child marriage, and use of force or ill-treatment of a child.
In June, the Namibian High Court struck down two sections of the country’s Sexual Offences Act that criminalised consensual sexual relations between men, finding them unconstitutional. While hardly anyone has been convicted for decades, the fact that their relationships were criminalised forced gay men to live in fear, perpetuated stigma and denied them recognition as rights holders, enabling discrimination, harassment and abuse.
The recent Kenyan protests are a warning that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is failing. The public does not think it is helping its member countries manage their economic and financial problems, which are being exacerbated by a rapidly changing global political economy.
Climate-related disasters have battered Kenya for years.
Five failed rainy seasons resulted in a drought, the worst in 40 years, affecting at least 4,5 million people who require food assistance. Then came months of heavy rain, which led to riverine and flash flooding that impacted more than 306,520 (61,304 families) between March 1 and June 18, 2024, with an estimated 315 people killed, 188 injured, and 38 missing, while more than 293,200 people (about 58,641 families) were displaced, according to
Reliefweb and Kenya’s National Disaster Operations Centre (NDOC).
Investing in teachers and school leaders in Africa is the most important factor in promoting educational opportunities for girls, keeping them in school and ending child marriage, ultimately reducing gender inequality through education.
In Zambia, over 6.5 million people need humanitarian assistance because of the drought. 3.5 million of them are children.
In a historic first, Kenya's youth have mobilized in large-scale protests to demand that the political establishment listen to them. The Finance Bill 2024, which proposed new taxes across several sectors, was the catalyst for the protests, igniting outrage among a youth demographic that feels betrayed by decades of political promises. These protests, driven by economic and social grievances, escalated dramatically, culminating in clashes with police that led to numerous deaths and widespread unrest.
After El Niño-induced floods and devastating drought, roughly
two in five people in Malawi – a country of some 20 million people – are now facing the looming prospect of acute hunger by the end of the year.
Authoritarian overreach is re-defining itself across West Africa, fuelled by armed conflicts, military coups, and electoral manipulation and violence, as the region experiences a decline in democracy.
Lami Kwasu, a farmer in the village of Kafanchan in Kaduna State, north-central Nigeria, was at home one evening in October 2020 when the sound of sporadic gunshots filled the air.
Gunmen, suspected to be Fulani nomadic herders, had surrounded the village, shooting from different angles.
All news is local, they say. The same is true of innovations—those many new technologies, policies, and practices that steadily stream from research to enhance our lives.
As the technical session of the global climate negotiations enters the final stretch in Bonn, Germany, climate activists from Africa have expressed fears that negotiators from the developed world are dragging their feet in a way to avoid paying their fair share to tackle the climate crisis.
“I think we will be unfair to the snail if we say that the Bonn talks have all along moved at a snail pace,” quipped Mohammed Adow, the Director, Power Shift Africa.
There is a rapid realization that climate change is impacting health, which is why the recently adopted World Health Organization's Climate Change and Health Resolution is considered pivotal.
As the planet groans under record-breaking temperatures and extreme weather events, Africa, which is responsible for only two to three percent of global emissions, stands out disproportionately as the most vulnerable region in the world.
António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General’s special address on climate action titled ‘A Moment of Truth’ said 2024 was the hottest May in recorded history, and that this marks twelve straight months of the hottest months ever. For the past year, every turn of the calendar has turned up the heat.
In the expansive field of groundwater resource management, a pressing question often emerges: are we truly equipping women with the necessary tools and opportunities to thrive, or are we simply attempting to fill in the gender gap without tackling the root causes?
Technology and innovation are at the center of the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s strategy to fulfill its global mission to eradicate poverty and hunger in the developing world, IFAD’s President Alvaro Lario told IPS in an exclusive interview.
Kaponde Likando does not know how his family will survive until the next farming season. “We are not going to have anything (to harvest),” said the 60-year-old from Chingobe village in southern Zambia after his maize, sorghum, groundnut and sweet potato crops failed. “This has been the very opposite of what we expected.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has
called on countries to conclude by 2026 negotiations on a legally binding instrument to prohibit Autonomous Weapons Systems (AWS).
On 6 May, people went to the polls in Chad, ostensibly to elect a president who’d usher in democratic civilian rule. Ten days later, the Constitutional Council
confirmed there’d be no change: the elected president was the leader of the military-backed
transitional government supposedly handing over power, Mahamat Idriss Déby.