AFP Africa

As cuts by rich donors decimate aid budgets for the world’s most vulnerable, private financing has been touted as the sector’s saviour — but not everyone is convinced.The United Nations puts the annual funding deficit for aid at more than $4 trillion, with chilling consequences for health, education and humanitarian programmes in the poorest countries.The …

Public or private? Funding debate splits reeling aid sectorWed, 02 Jul 2025 11:38:00 GMT Read More »

In a small home in Uganda’s capital, Jane Mwesige, a nurse with a hospice that has transformed African end-of-life care, breaks into a gospel song about surrendering to God, a favourite of her patient Jonathan Luzige.These home visits, combining affordable medical care and spiritual support, are part of Mwesige’s routine with Hospice Africa Uganda.Founded in …

Legacy of Uganda’s end-of-life ‘grandmother’ lives onWed, 02 Jul 2025 06:05:02 GMT Read More »

In the 1997 action film “Dante’s Peak”, Pierce Brosnan plays the role of a volcanologist sent to investigate seismic activity beneath a long-dormant volcano. Years after its release, the story inspired South African Tebogo Makhubela to become a geologist, the 35-year-old told AFP in an interview. Recipient of one of the prestigious National Geographic 2025 Wayfinder Awards, …

The geologist uncovering Earth’s secrets in S.AfricaWed, 02 Jul 2025 06:00:20 GMT Read More »

A Zimbabwean court rejected Tuesday a bid by an opposition party to block government-called hearings into a 1980s massacre of thousands of people by elite troops during former president Robert Mugabe’s long and repressive rule.The court challenge to call off the process was led by a son of the late Joshua Nkomo, Mugabe’s bitter rival …

Zimbabwe party loses bid to block Mugabe-era massacre hearingsTue, 01 Jul 2025 17:25:40 GMT Read More »

The US foreign aid agency formally closed down Tuesday, with President Donald Trump’s administration trumpeting the end of the “charity-based model” despite predictions that millions of lives will be lost.Founded in 1961 as John F. Kennedy sought to leverage aid to win over the developing world in the Cold War, the US Agency for International …

Rubio hails end of USAID as Bush, Obama deplore cost in livesTue, 01 Jul 2025 17:22:14 GMT Read More »

The African Development Bank on Tuesday approved a $139 million loan to South Africa’s financial capital to upgrade its utilities, marking its first direct lending to a sub-sovereign entity. Johannesburg is home to Africa’s richest square mile but certain areas have fallen into disrepair, with the city coming under fire from President Cyril Ramaphosa as it …

African Development Bank gives $139 mln loan to JohannesburgTue, 01 Jul 2025 17:15:49 GMT Read More »

More than 100 nations attending a UN aid conference pledged this week to help defuse the ticking time bomb of developing countries’ ballooning debt, but deciding how is proving more divisive.”The debt burden is crippling the developing world,” UN chief Antonio Guterres told the conference in the Spanish city of Seville that reaffirmed support for …

UN aid meeting seeks end to Global South debt crisisTue, 01 Jul 2025 17:08:12 GMT Read More »

Jihadists waged attacks on military installations in several western Mali towns Tuesday, in a new series of assaults in the junta-led country amid resurging violence in the wider Sahel region.For more than a decade Mali has faced assaults from groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group as well as separatist movements and criminal …

Jihadists wage string of attacks on Mali military sitesTue, 01 Jul 2025 16:38:47 GMT Read More »

Democratic Republic of Congo-born flanker Vincent Tshituka will make his Test debut for world champions South Africa against Italy in Pretoria on Saturday.  The Sharks flanker debuted for the Springboks in a 54-7 non-cap exhibition match win over the Barbarians last weekend and capped an impressive performance by scoring two tries.  “Vincent has fitted into …

Tshituka to make Test debut as Springboks change fiveTue, 01 Jul 2025 14:32:05 GMT Read More »

More than 14 million of the world’s most vulnerable people, a third of them small children, could die by 2030 because of the Trump administration’s dismantling of US foreign aid, research projected on Tuesday.The study in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet was published as world and business leaders met at a United Nations conference …

Over 14 million people could die from US foreign aid cuts: studyTue, 01 Jul 2025 14:22:21 GMT Read More »