Every week, Rural Reporters collate reports on development in rural Africa and its environs. The reports include some of our top picks from recent must-read research, interviews, reports, blogs and in-depth articles which have been carefully selected to help you keep up with global issues. Here are some of the updates you may have missed from the previous week:
Here’s a rundown of the top stories making headlines in rural Africa this week.
Mrs Buhari Alerts On Extortionists Defrauding Rural Women Over Loan
The wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari, has alerted rural women not to pay for forms being distributed for inclusion in the women empowerment programme under the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs.
Mrs Buhari decried reports of extortion of the women by some unscrupulous Nigerians who were collecting money for the forms.
She expressed sadness that some unscrupulous individuals were using her name to collect monies ranging from N1, 500 to N5,000 from unsuspecting members of the public.
NYSC free healthcare service for rural dwellers
The National Youth Service Corps has taken free medical service to communities throughout the 774 Local Government Areas of Nigeria.
The 2016 edition of the annual national event, titled, ‘Health Initiative for Rural Dwellers’ (HIRD), was flagged off in Odonoko community in Ijebu – Ode Local Government Area of Ogun State by the Governor Ibikunle Amosun.
Amosun pledged to promote all genuine approaches towards improving on the lives of the people. “I must say that this particular programme is in tanderm with the efficient health care delivery programme as a focal point of our 5 cardinal programme contained in our mission to rebuild Ogun State”, he said.
Malawi urges women to push for land rights
Malawi’s Ministry of Gender principal secretary Mary Shaba has called on women on the African continent to push and fight hard for their access to land.
Speaking at Mwami border on Monday when she welcomed a caravan of Zambian and Zimbabwean women on a journey to Tanzania to join other African women in climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, to symbolise the challenges that women face in accessing land, Shaba urged women to ensure that their desires were adequately met by their leaders.
“It gives me great pleasure to welcome the caravan here in Mchinji on behalf of the government of Malawi. The Mount Kilimanjaro woman’s land rights initiative is therefore a unique and exciting process that will mobilise rural women from across Africa to an iconic moment of climbing the Mount Kilimanjaro this October. I want to call on our leaders on the continent to ensure that they revise the land Acts and ensure a 50/50 access to land for both men and women in their countries,” Shaba said.
Rural women in Liberia have expressed serious disappointment in concession companies operating in their respective counties. The women are from Sinoe, Margibi, Lofa, Grand Cape Mount, Nimba, Maryland, Rivercess and other parts of Liberia.
According to them, concession companies have caused them to lose their land and forest, among others. They made the claim over the weekend at the launch of a report highlighting plight of rural women in concession areas.
The report, captioned “Women: The Least Secure Tenure” Assessing the impact of Liberia’s large scale concession land development on women’s land and natural resources tenure rights was launched under the auspices of Green Advocates, Alliance for Rural Democracy and Natural Resource Women Platform.
UNSG Wants Rural Women Given Access to Information
Outgoing UN Secretary General (UNSG) Ban Ki-moon has called on the world to provide the support and information needed by rural women so that they can fulfill their potential without leaving their communities.
Ban said this must be done in order to deliver on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as it promises to leave no one behind, according to a statement issued here by the UN office.
“Rural women make up nearly half the agricultural labor force around the world, they grow, process and prepare much of our food, they are the backbone of rural communities,” Ban observed Thursday in his official message to the world ahead of the commemoration of International Day of Rural Women.
Nigeria may lose N69tr to climate change — FAO
Nigeria may lose the sum of N69 trillion to climate change leading to a reduction in the National GDP by 11percent in 2020 and 30 percent by 2050, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has revealed.
The Minister of State Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri ,who stated this yesterday in Abuja during the 2016 World Food Day adding that the increase in droughts, floods, erosion, land degradation in the coming decades would significantly impact on the food security, hence affecting the nation’s GDP.
Africa welcomes drones to carry medicines, blood
At first, the drone took some explaining. Anxious villagers buzzed with rumors of a new blood-sucking thing that would fly above their homes. Witchcraft, some said.
The truth was more practical: A United Nations project would explore whether a small drone aerial vehicle, or UAV, could deliver HIV test samples more efficiently than land transport in rural Malawi.
Once understanding dawned and work began, young students and their teachers would spill out of the nearby school, cheering, each time they heard the drone approaching. “It was very exciting,” UNICEF official Judith Sherman said.
Rural People Must Be Educated About Breast Cancer
The Inkatha Freedom Party calls for more education on breast cancer to be focused in rural areas as breast examinations on patients and late detection is the biggest problem facing treatment of breast cancer.
“As October is observed as Breast Cancer Awareness Month we believe that is it important to call for more awareness about breast cancer and encourage people to check their status on time. Rural cancer patients always complaint about the pain and discomfort of regular and lengthy journeys to remote treatment centres and the high travel costs that they face. Those living in sparsely populated rural areas suffer the greatest isolation and more needs to be done to help them,” said IFP KZN Provincial Spokesperson on Health, Mrs Ncamisile Nkwanyana, MPL.
Rural Banks urged to fund cash-crop cultivation
Dr. Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan, Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture has urged the rural banks to release start-up funding for the country’s youth to enable them venture into the production of oil palm on a large scale as the commodity holds great potential for economic growth.
“It is time for our financial institutions to institutionalise agricultural financing to help promote the agricultural sector. The rural banks must release start-up funding for the youth to go into oil palm production,” he said.