Gani Taiwo is a 41-year-old artist and social activist who paints colourful murals on public toilets in the Ijora Badia slum of Lagos to help improve the settlement’s profile and its inhabitants’ quality of life.
The year 2008 remains a dark memory for the outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa. Now, 10 years later, there has been yet another resurgence in anti-immigrant rhetoric and sentiment.
As Addis Ababa develops into a modern city, beggars are increasingly being treated like public nuisances and criminals.
Semi-permanent homes or thatched houses are a staple in African villages but leave dwellers open to the elements and without necessary amenities, Rwanda’s model villages seeks to change that. Rwanda’s Vision 2020, says at least 70 per cent of Rwandans in rural areas will be living in planned settlements by the year 2020.
In Nigeria, 10,5 million children are not in school. Those who live in slums are at greater risk of growing up uneducated. While one non-profit social development organisation is working to solve the problem by taking education to their doorstep, the government shows little sign of following suit.
A new study from the World Bank has revealed that ending child marriage would reduce population growth, boost girls’ educational achievements and increase their earnings. Each year more than 15 million girls worldwide are married before they turn 18 and experts say these child brides are more likely to be victims of sexual and domestic abuse and become teenage mothers.
South Africa held a consultative Indaba on The Draft National Policy Framework on Sanitary Dignity that looks to provide free sanitary towels for young women and girls. In South Africa having a period is an expense that many cannot afford, and millions of girls miss school each month due to lack of sanitary pads.
In Lagos, Nigeria, over 30 000 citizens living in the waterfront settlement of Otodo Gbame, Lekki, were rendered homeless when the state government’s task force demolished the settlement on 9 April 2017. Ever since, life has taken a turn for the worst for the evicted people. Most of them have found refuge in other slum settlements across Lagos state and are surviving on donations. This essay looks at the present living and economic situation of the Otodo Gbame evictees.
Standing between Africa and the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the lion of youth unemployment. This challenge, if left unaddressed, could have more dramatic consequences than climate change, disease and even poverty.
The African Region is set to receive $57 billion from the World Bank Group to finance life-saving and life changing projects over the next three fiscal years. The financing will benefit the most fragile countries in the region. These projects include health, access to water, education, agriculture, among other life-saving and life changing operations.
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