General news from across Africa
General
Women have made significant gains all around Africa: indeed, the most successful social movement in Africa in recent decades has been the women's movement, particularly in policy and legislation.
Malawi and Liberia have female heads of state, and earlier this month Senegal elected its first female prime minister, Aminata Touré.
Aug 2012: By Peter Hilton - "Three women won their case in the Namibian High Court after they were sterilised without consent. This case represents a turning point for human rights, women’s rights, and victims of similar circumstances..."
"Where women have less power than men do, nutrition suffers, household security weakens and access to healthcare lags," says the UNDP's first-ever Africa Human Development Report.
Roaring trade in often smuggled charity castoffs in African street markets risks ruining domestic textile industries.
Amid the horrors surrounding female genital mutilation (FGM) there is a quiet revolution, which experts hope could lead to the eradication of the practice.
Thousands of rural communities across Africa, which have practiced FGM for centuries, are starting to abandon the tradition in response to grass-roots education programmes.
Benin and the Republic of Congo have signed an accord aimed at stemming the trafficking of children between the two countries.
The two states believe some 1,800 children from Benin, mostly aged between 11 and 18, have been trafficked to neighbouring Congo.
The Global Women’s Water Initiative is a joint initiative that provides training for grassroots women and groups to implement water related-strategies through appropriate technologies, action planning, seed funding and leadership development so they can improve their communities health, self reliance, and resilience to climate change.
Successful entrepreneurial programme in the north of Namibia may serve as a model for other countries on the African continent
A woman tends to take an interest in topics like conservation farming and drip irrigation because for her it is vital to get as much food from her land as possible.