Tag: Commentary
Three lessons from Nigeria on how to boost youth entrepreneurship
Youth unemployment is one of Africa’s biggest challenges, but compulsory entrepreneurship training can turn the continent’s job-seekers into job creators, writes Abiodun Egbetokun. Africa faces a huge unemployment burden, particularly among its youth. The African Development Bank estimates that almost one-third of the continent’s 420 million inhabitants aged 15 to 35 years are jobless and […]
Build bridges between Africa’s research islands
Small African countries are often overlooked by big international research funders, but pooling resources could give them a leg-up, writes Simiso Mkhonta. It takes a village to raise a child. This was so real during my childhood years at Makhewu village near Siteki town in eastern Eswatini. Parenthood was a collective responsibility for all the […]
Brains by the sea: Computational neuroscience gains a foothold in Africa
The rich waters of False Bay, near Cape Town in South Africa, have sustained nomadic human tribes for tens of thousands of years. But over the last three years it has also become the starting point of an African journey to answer one of humanity’s great unsolved questions: how does the brain work? Computational neuroscience […]
Let’s teach our children science in their own languages
African governments and scientists should agree to a two-generation plan to move away from European-language science teaching on the continent, writes Rafiou Agoro. I remember the day I learnt about cell biology at my school in Kougnohou, the tiny Togolese village where I grew up. I was 15 years old, and it was my first […]
Five ways to help young researchers succeed in Africa
A practical guide for research directors on how to improve institutional ecosystems for the benefit of the next generation of scientists. Herry Mapesi is a young physician researcher based in Ifakara, some 450km from the Tanzanian economic capital of Dar es Salaam. He has the loudest laughter in town, and apart from being occasionally perceived […]
Educating children displaced by Boko Haram is vital for Nigeria’s future
‘People dumps’ that house children displaced by Boko Haram could become breeding grounds for extremism unless the educational provision in them improves drastically, writes David Mba. Perhaps Nobel-prize winning author Wole Soyinka put it best when he wrote: “One’s own self-worth is tied to the worth of the community to which one belongs.” It’s a useful […]
How young Tunisians revitalised science in their homeland
Tunisia has increased its investment in education and science, but many professionals leave the country, representing a loss on that investment. Now, a global network of young Tunisian scientists is feeding diaspora expertise back into the country. Since gaining independence from France in 1956, Tunisia has made a lot of investments in education and science. […]
On Science and Homecoming: A diaspora African’s view
Neither guilt nor sentimentalism should drive an African diaspora scientist’s choice to return home, writes Sara Suliman, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University in the United States. Africa’s global diaspora harbours a disproportionate share of the continent’s top scholars and thought leaders. In 2014, the United States Census Bureau reported that Africa-born immigrants had the […]
Embedding traditional birth attendants in clinics and hospitals in Ghana could save mothers
Despite government efforts to boost access to maternal health services in Ghana, many women still choose to go to traditional birth attendants, rather than midwives, nurses, or doctors. The University for Development Studies’ Leander Allou tells Sarah Wild about his research into the birth practices of women in a remote district of Ghana and what […]
Moving from goodwill to action : A call for a Coordinated Vision for Africa’s Digital Economy
In 2016, during the World Economic Forum, world and business leaders agreed that the Fourth Industrial Revolution had arrived, and that it would fundamentally change the world as we know it. Africa has been missing in action in the previous three industrial revolutions. The Fourth Industrial Revolution provides Africa the opportunity to jumpstart out of […]