Top 5 Pick: Rural Africa Weekly Report
It’s the beginning of a new week and as part of our tradition, Rural Reporters collates a weekly report on development in rural Africa and its environs. The reports include are some of our top picks of recent must-read research, interviews, reports, blogs and in-depth articles to help you keep on top of global crises.
Here are top updates from the previous week.
South Africa: Xenophobic Violence And The Rest Of Us
In April 2008, I remember asking a young South African about the Xenophobic violence in his country. The response I got shocked me. He justified the killings of foreigners. He could have as well said, we will kill all of them because they are taking our jobs. I was short of words. And for the rest of the conference, I avoided the young man like a plague because his mind was made up. No other view made sense to him
Garissa Attack: We Shall Not Forget
When 147 young people die in a single day, there is a problem. When these people are shot to their deaths, there is an even bigger problem. This is what happened in Garissa University College where militants broke into the university, injured and killed students. To start with, regardless of what may have provoked this heinous act, young lives were cut short in the most brutal way and in the most improbable place. This can’t be allowed to continue. We have to stop gambling with people’s lives.
IFC Supports Rural Employment in Ethiopia with Investment in Afriflora
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, will lend up to €90 million to support Afriflora Group, one of the leading large-scale rose grower and distributors based in Ethiopia that employs more than 9,000 workers, more than 80 percent of them women.
The funding will support Afriflora’s plan to expand production by 60 percent, install water recycling systems, and increase employment by more than 50 percent. Afriflora is founded and run by the Barnhoorn family, according to IFC.
Could a ‘Miracle Tree’ Help End Malnutrition in Zambia?
If you take the only road north out of Zambia’s capital Lusaka, the bustle of roadside street vendors and concrete bungalows soon fades into fields of turmeric-tinted bush land, dotted with the occasional mango tree.
You’d be forgiven for missing the tiny dirt track that veers off toward the Westgate farm in Chisamba, which grows moringa trees.
There is a humble entrance to a modest plot of land, but it houses a project with huge aspirations.
“I personally think we can wipe out malnutrition in Zambia, in sub-Saharan Africa or anywhere else there is a malnutrition problem” says Steven Putter, executive director of the Imagine Rural Development Initiative, which has been planting moringa trees on this site in Zambia since 2013.
Sub-Saharan Africa Falls Behind In Fight Against Extreme Poverty: World Bank Report
Economic development has lifted more than a billion people from extreme poverty in the last 25 years, and the number of citizens living on less than $1.25 per day has declined in every region of the globe except one: sub-Saharan Africa.
Data from the World Bank say that developing countries in East Asia, Latin America and South Asia have seen the number of citizens in extreme poverty — that is, living on less than $1.25 per day — on the decline. But in sub-Saharan Africa, these rates are increasing despite the region’s fast-paced economic development in recent years.
