Uganda’s electricity regulator rated best in Africa
Uganda has for the third year running emerged as the top performer in Africa’s Electricity Regulatory Index Report published by the African Development Bank.The East African country, along with Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Kenya, the other top performers, have regulators with the authority to exert the necessary oversight on the...
How to stop restaurants, gyms from driving up coronavirus infections
In cities worldwide, coronavirus outbreaks have been linked to restaurants, cafes and gyms. Now, a new model using mobile-phone data to map people’s movements suggests that these venues could account for most Covid-19 infections in US cities.The model, published this week, also reveals how reducing occupancy in venues can significantly...
Game-changer: New drug more effective in preventing HIV infection in women
A single shot given every two months has proved to be more effective than a daily pill at preventing HIV in women, researchers reported this week, an advance that medical experts hailed as ground-breaking in the fight against the deadly virus that causes AIDS.The finding that the long-acting drug would...
Kenya tops Africa as East Africa dominates World Travel Awards
Kenya and South Africa won multiple awards in this year’s prestigious World Travel Awards (WTA), with Africa’s leading tourist destination in 2020 being reserved for the East African nation.While and South Africa basked in the glory of being picked as Africa’s destinations of choice, Ethiopia took pride in being Africa’s...
Fund launches business competition in refugee hosting areas
The Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) and its partners International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, the United Nations High Commission for Refugee (UNHCR) and the Turkana County government have launched a global competition for private sector and social enterprise projects to support investment, development and...
Environment: Lives of activists in South Africa under serious threat
While environmental activists in South Africa are hunted and killed like common thieves, the government remains tight-lipped, timid not to dabble with the wealth that is scooped out of the bowels of the harmless earth.As mining companies decimate the environment, in the process the lives of indigenous people, in the...
Kenya: Kakamega on cusp of commercial fish farming as arable land shrinks
Endowed with rainfall all-year-round and a population big enough to constitute a huge market for fish, Kakamega county has for generations looked to Lake Victoria for this important food resource rich in protein.Things are changing fast, and as the world explores ways and means of scaling up supply, Kakamega county...
Cheap and rapid coronavirus testing to be available soon
The imminent large-scale rollout of rapid coronavirus tests promises to aid public health responses to Covid-19 — but a rapid home test remains elusive.New SARS-CoV-2 rapid tests, which can deliver results in a matter of minutes in the field rather than taking days in clinical diagnostic laboratories, are starting to...
Need to redesign open science for Asia, Africa and Latin America
Last year, my colleagues and I organised a webinar on open science with a focus on Indonesia. One participating university experienced blackouts owing to a faulty electricity grid. At another, a generator exploded. At a third, political riots had damaged buildings.Perhaps most people reading this article would find such constraints...
Reports: Realign eastern Africa without Kenyan leadership
Forever in a state political flux, Kenya risks being isolated unless its leadership finds a way of accommodating all shades of opinion.As the critical phase of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) gets underway, the determined isolation of Deputy President William Ruto has brought to the fore the undercurrents that preceded...
