Sub-Saharan Africa has natural resources that aids the development of renewable energy, it has lots of sun, plentiful wind, and much potentially sustainable biomass. With the development of small-scale affordable renewable energy technologies, such systems have been promoted by major aid agencies keen to prevent deforestation and excessive reliance on fossil fuels, that – even where they are plentiful, have not usually led to widespread economic development.

The under-developed system of higher education of African archipelago country São Tomé & Príncipe is growing slowly amidst expanding demand, being assisted by international projects and funds.
One major potential initiative that may cause significant progress, however, involves this Lusophone country being chosen by the Pan African Institute for Development (PAID) to host a future International University of Development Sciences.…

Academics at Uganda’s Makerere University appear to have taken advantage of the lull in face-to-face teaching caused by Covid-19 to increase their research output, a self-assessment study has suggested. Research publications from Kampala-based Makerere, one of Africa’s oldest universities, rose from 992 papers in 2019 to 1,301 in 2020. …

BRITISH and European Union (EU) confectioners must take care to ensure their products meet new origin rules if they want them covered by the duty free goods provisions of the new EU/UK trade agreement struck on Christmas Eve.

The 1,256-page deal includes complex and comprehensive origin rules, such as for chocolate, which can be deemed made in the EU and Britain if all dairy, eggs and honey used are sourced locally, as well as at least 40% of grains, malt, starches and wheat, (which must also not exceed 30% of costs).…

AFRICA is commonly hailed as the world’s next big focus of economic growth, but for the civil aviation industry, this prospect will require significant investment in new intra-African routes and related airport and ATC infrastructure. It will also require governments to remove immigration barriers preventing African air travellers flying to other countries on their home continent.…

Kenya will start to grow genetically modified cotton this year, becoming the first country to do so in Eastern Africa. The move is significant as it is likely to inspire other counties in the region start to grow Bt cotton hybrids that are resistant to African bollworm and other pests.…

Universities and other institutions of higher learning should incorporate well-structured capacity building programmes that target women at all levels of the academic life within strategic policies to promote gender inclusivity in science, technology and innovation (STI), an African HE conference has been told.…

IT is now two years since the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) headquarters moved from London to Abidjan, in Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) in July 2017, a move ICCO called a “turning point that will bear fruit in the years to come.”…

IN a world increasingly hungry for natural gas, recent foreign investment in liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects has raised the likelihood that the substantial gas reserves of some sub-Saharan African nations will make it into global markets in the decade ahead.…

THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) Disputes Settlement Body (DSB) has approved establishing disputes settlement panels ruling sought by the USA on whether retaliatory duties imposed by the European Union (EU), Canada, China, and Mexico on US confectionery and sweet bakery and associated ingredient exports, imposed in response to America’s controversial steel and aluminium tariffs, break WTO rules.…