Africa is beginning to win its battle against the terrible parasitic river blindness infection, thanks in no small part to the painstaking work of villagers who catch the flies responsible…
Though Malagasies are likely to remember 2013 as the year of the long-awaited presidential elections, it will also stay in the annales as the year when the country started producing…
The African diaspora in the UK could play a key role in malaria prevention awareness in countries where the disease is endemic. Read the full story here. Published in the…
On 15 January, Madagascar’s transitional leader, Andry Rajoelina, announced that he wouldn’t be standing in the 8 May presidential elections. His decision follows that of his arch rival, Marc Ravalomana,…
Tour operators used to sell Burkina Faso as a joint trip to Mali. With Mali now off-limits following the north’s takeover by Islamist militants, the bottom has fallen out of regional tourism. Read the full story here.
Published on Baobab, The Economist, 19 December 2012.
In 2009, a minor revolution took place at the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC): with new evidence emerging about the feasibility of eliminating onchocerciasis (better known as river blindness), the organisation decided to change its focus from control to elimination of the disease by 2025, with major implications for all stakeholders. Read the full story here.
Published in The Guardian’s Global Development Professionals’ Network, 17 December 2012.
Domestic visitors used to make up 40% of visitors at Cape Coast Castle, Ghana’s famous slave fort. Now it’s 70%. Domestic tourism, like everything else in Ghana, is booming. Hitting the road is now the thing to do amongst young Ghanaians: find out more about those I recently met during a trip in Ghana in this piece for the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent. You can listen to it here.
First broadcast on BBC World Service, 11 December 2012.
The development community is finally talking about how best to fight NTDs but more consensus and practical action is needed. Read the full story here.
Published in The Guardian, 27 November 2012.
It’s been a tough couple of years for Malian artisans: since security started deteriorating in the north, tourists and professional buyers have stopped coming. But Burkina Faso’s arts & crafts fair SIAO is providing a lifeline for struggling craftspeople. Read the full story here.
Published in Think Africa Press, 12 November 2012.
Up to three million women in sub-Saharan African and South Asia could soon benefit from a simplified, more accessible contraceptive injection, it was announced at the Family Planning Summit in London on 11 July.
The new contraceptive, depo SubQ Provera 104, was developed by a partnership comprising of the UK Department for International Development (DFID), US aid agency USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, international health NGO PATH and pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Read the whole story here.
Article published in Science & Development Network on 17 July 2012.
Photo courtesy of Russell Watkins/Department for International Development
Nearly 19 million people are short of food in the Sahel. This is the third major food crisis to hit the region in seven years: there must be better ways of keeping famine at bay. Read the full story here.
Article published in The Economist on 6 July 2012.
As water becomes scarcer in Morocco, authorities are turning to desalination not just for drinking water but for industry and agriculture too. Read the full story here.
Published in The Africa Report, April 2012.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London has just launched a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene in east Africa. Incredibly, it is the first of its kind on the continent outside of South Africa; about time, say its new graduates. Read the full story here.
Published in Economist.com.
Photo courtesy of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Madagascar is well-known for its biodiversity; 5% of all animal and plant species known to man live here and only here (70% of the fauna and 90% of the flora are endemic). For travellers, admiring this modern-day Noah’s Ark is a highlight of a trip to the Red Island. Here are 10 of our wildlife highlights and the best time and place to find them. Read the full story here.
Published on lonelyplanet.com.
