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- Volume 26, Issue 1, 2012
Africa Renewal - Volume 26, Issue 1, 2012
Volume 26, Issue 1, 2012
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Africa Renewal at 25: Keeping up with a dynamic continent
Author: Kingsley IghoborTwo Africa Emergency debut newsletters, neatly kept in the New York offices of the UN magazine Africa Renewal, provide a snapshot of Africa in 1985. That was before the internet, when many newsrooms were noisy with the clacking of typewriter keys. The 16-page newsletter was printed in black and white, except for the Emergency on the masthead, which appeared in green.
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Looking back after 25 years Interview: Salim Lone, the first editor of Africa Recovery, at his home in Kenya
Author: United NationsSalim Lone, who edited Africa Recovery during its first decade, looks back at the magazine’s early days. At his home in Nairobi, Kenya, he spoke with Africa Renewal’s managing editor, Ernest Harsch.
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Malian women create beauty — and profit
Authors: Kingsley Ighobor and Aissata HaidaraHand-dyed polished cotton — called bazin — is the mainstay of Malian fashion. The blind singers Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia extolled the fabric in a song released in 2005, “Beaux dimanches” (“Beautiful Sundays”). The song’s scintillating lyrics include the lines: “Sunday in Bamako is the wedding day / Men and women put on their best boubous / The bazins are waiting for you / This is the wedding day.” It became the hit song on an album that won two prestigious British Broadcasting Corporation awards the following year, including one for best “world music” album.
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Bid to end subsidy stirs protest in Nigeria
Author: Yemisi AkinbobolaNigerians have never been shy about public protest, even during the days of dictatorship. So when the government of President Goodluck Jonathan welcomed the country into 2012 by announcing the removal of a petrol subsidy — more than doubling costs at the fuel pump — the subsequent nationwide protests could have been anticipated.
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To Rio and beyond: Africa seeks sustainable solutions
Author: Masimba TafirenyikaIt is rare for a head of government to be greeted with applause at the very beginning of a speech before the United Nations General Assembly. But that’s what happened last September when Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley of Bhutan took the podium and signalled his intention to talk about “happiness.” The prime minister’s seeming change of subject from the discussion of global crises immediately provoked the audience’s curiosity.
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Africa’s priorities for sustainable development
Author: United NationsIn preparation for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio, African heads of state and ministers have been meeting on a consensus response. Africa’s priority areas — some highlighted below — show a mix of challenges and progress.
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‘Only our collective voice will be heard’ Interview: Kumi Naidoo, fighting for the environment, development and people’s empowerment
Author: United NationsFrom the struggle against apartheid and poverty in his native South Africa, to helping lead Greenpeace, one of the world’s foremost environmental advocacy groups, Kumi Naidoo sees less of a difference than a continuum. “An activist is an activist,” he explains to Africa Renewal. In advance of the June 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development — also known as “Rio+20” — we asked Mr. Naidoo, who became executive director of Greenpeace International in 2009, to reflect on a few of the more pressing issues affecting Africa. (For the full interview, see Africa Renewal online.)
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For sustainable cities, Africa needs planning Interview: Joan Clos, executive director of UN-Habitat, visiting the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya
Author: United NationsAfrica’s cities are growing very rapidly. By 2009 some 395 million Africans — nearly 40 per cent of the continent’s population — lived in urban areas. That number is projected to triple to more than 1.2 billion, or 60 per cent of all Africans, by 2050. For the United Nations Human Settlements Programme — known as UN-Habitat — that growth represents a dual challenge: helping Africans to better harness the productive potential of their cities, but also to cope with the increased demands for municipal services and decent housing, so that more and more people are not obliged to crowd into impoverished slum areas. Joan Clos, a former mayor of Barcelona, Spain, and since 2010 the executive director of UN-Habitat, believes that tackling those challenges will above all require more systematic urban planning. Africa Renewal’s managing editor, Ernest Harsch, spoke with him at UN-Habitat’s headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.
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Towards African cities without slums
Author: Kaci RacelmaMillions of Africans live in slums, and the rapid growth of African cities is compounding the problem. Africa faces the huge challenge of “improving the lives of slum dwellers, but also preventing the formation of new slums,” says Joan Clos, executive director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat).
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Community radio gives voice to shack dwellers
Author: Ernest HarschKorogocho, a slum in northeastern Nairobi, had many of the ingredients for a political explosion similar to those that rocked other parts of Kenya in early 2008. It is crowded and very poor and has a reputation for brutal crime. The future looks exceedingly bleak for most of its 100,000 residents. But when a contested election brought violent protests to Mathare and other nearby slums, with hundreds killed and many more displaced, Korogocho remained quiet.
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Africa’s vanishing Lake Chad
Author: Ahmad SalkidaAs you approach the Lake Chad basin from Maiduguri, in northeastern Nigeria, the atmosphere of despair is telling. The air is dusty, the wind is fierce and unrelenting, the plants are wilting and the earth is turning into sand dunes. The sparse vegetation is occasionally broken by withered trees and shrubs. The lives of herders, fisherfolk and farmers are teetering on the edge as the lake dries up before their eyes.
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Power from the wind in South Africa
Author: Liane GreeffThree blades — each the length of a tennis court — revolve atop a wind energy tower reaching 50 metres into the sky, equal in height to a 17-storey building. There are four such turbines whirling in the hot, dry and windy landscape near the town of Darling in South Africa’s Western Cape, generating 7 gigawatt hours per year of green energy. This first commercial wind farm in South Africa, reflecting the collaborative efforts of international donors, government agencies and the private sector, shows that wind energy is feasible
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Full steam ahead to sustainable energy
Author: Björk HakanssonThere is clean energy in the ground in Kenya — a lot of it — and Kenya has already moved to start tapping the Rift Valley’s vast steam reserves. The government hopes to generate about 27 per cent of the country’s electrical power from geothermal sources by 2031.
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Africa wired
Author: United NationsImagine you are in Yokadouma, a rural community in eastern Cameroon with little electricity and inaccessible roads. You have an old, inexpensive mobile phone with which you can only make and receive calls. The good news is that it is now possible for that phone to be smarter — to send and receive e-mails, check a Facebook account and chat online, even without internet access.
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