‘When you talk about women’s empowerment… it’s going to be affected by what is happening right now.’
Read my latest on the systemic challenges – including lack of funding for reproductive health services and a lack of comprehensive sexuality education in Kenyan schools – contributing to a long history of high teenage pregnancy rates in the country.
With no date set for religious buildings to reopen, an innovative priest brings his own brand of musical service to apartment complexes.
The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a global recession that threatens the colossal international loan program that is a symbol of China’s growing prestige and a centerpiece of President Xi Jinping’s reign. The Belt and Road Initiative — China’s effort to finance nearly half a trillion dollars in new infrastructure across Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America — took flight during a period of global expansion and easy travel that has now slammed into a sober reckoning. Beijing faces mounting calls to reschedule loans for shipping hubs, electrical plants and transport links that look unsustainable as economies struggle and globalization slows.
The collapse of medical supply chains has been a catastrophe for women in developing countries. Lockdowns have made matters worse.
Uganda is concerned that East African truck drivers carrying essential goods from Kenya and Tanzania may also being transmitting Covid-19 along their routes and between borders. My latest on the pandemic for Quartz.
As Kenya prepares for a rise in novel coronavirus cases, 3D printing companies are designing and printing personal protective equipment (PPEs) and parts for medical devices to address the expected deficit in the country. Read my latest for Quartz Africa here.
An infestation of desert locusts first arrived in East Africa last June, feeding on hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops and pastureland and chomping a path of destruction through at least eight countries. Scientists say these devastating insects never left East Africa: in fact, favorable wet conditions due to above average rainfall this season means they are likely to achieve two generations of new breeding by June this year, increasing their population size up to 400 times. Read my latest for Quartz Africa here.
Ibado Mohammed Abdulle is a counsellor, friend and campaigner for women who have been made refugees in their own country by the impact of the climate crisis. Read my story from Somaliland here.
Read my contribution to this Quartz collaboration about the impact of COVID-19 on informal workers here.
Schistocerca gregaria, better known as the desert locust, has smitten East Africa like a plague from the Bible. Read my report from Somaliland about how the pests have devastated farmers and pastoralists in East Africa.