Helen Grange

Among the highest salaries in the world are those of public servants, many of them in African countries struggling with grinding poverty, underdevelopment and stagnant economies. At the pinnacle of every public service are elected officials topped by presidents, whose remuneration packages are eye-watering in some cases, and explain the lavish lifestyles for which some, like Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and his son, Vice-President Teodoro Nguema Obiang, have gained notoriety. According to a May 2022 report by Business Insider, which scoured data from country websites and organisations like the International Monetary Fund and CIA World Factbook, Cameroonian president…

As electioneering ramps up ahead of the national election later this year, we can expect a marked increase in the proliferation of disinformation, misinformation, and fake news, aided by evolving artificial intelligence (AI) tools that make the discernment between true and false ever more difficult.  In the run-up to an election, it can not only fuel unrest but also compromise the credibility of the election itself. If voters are misinformed, for instance, about what political parties stand for or are unable to verify the claims made by parties about their track record in government, voting itself becomes redundant. The Electoral…

Radio: power to the people Terrestrial radio remains the most popular means of accessing news and entertainment in Africa, even with the advent of the internet Of all the media platforms, radio is still, by far, the most pervasive form of media across Africa. It covers a greater geography than any other media form, reaching at least 75% of households in Africa, according to UNESCO’s Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report in 2012. At the end of 2018, South Africa, which has more than 100 radio stations, was estimated by Radio Audience Measurements to have 89% radio reach of…

Democratic Republic of the Congo: tourism A privately-funded initiative in this central African country is helping to protect a pristine environment By Helen Grange The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is home to the second largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon, but commercial logging and farming have also caused it to be one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. The rapid deforestation of this enormous green lung, spanning approximately 1.5 million square miles, is also a threat to the hundreds of mammalian species living there. Some 39 of them are found nowhere else on earth, including…

Democratic Republic of the Congo: tourism A privately-funded initiative in this central African country is helping to protect a pristine environment By Helen Grange The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is home to the second largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon, but commercial logging and farming have also caused it to be one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. The rapid deforestation of this enormous green lung, spanning approximately 1.5 million square miles, is also a threat to the hundreds of mammalian species living there. Some 39 of them are found nowhere else on earth, including…

SDG 5: gender equality Higher levels of political representation for women in Africa have not necessarily advanced gender equality, with this disparity most acutely experienced at the grassroots level By Helen Grange Gender equality is arguably one of the most elusive of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Most African countries have embraced progressive legislation addressing gender disparity, but the reality is that women remain disenfranchised on a wide scale, with some countries actually regressing in respect of women’s empowerment. Research findings exemplify this vexing situation. The World Economic Forum’s 2018 Global Gender Gap index assessed 149 countries according to…