Month: December 2023

Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) (www.AfricaFC.org), the continent’s leading infrastructure solutions provider, today announced an equity investment from Turk Eximbank on behalf of the Republic of Türkiye, marking a historic milestone in onboarding the Corporation’s first non-African sovereign shareholder. The equity subscription from Türkiye’s official export credit agency advances AFC’s mission to be the bridge between Africa and global stakeholders wishing to play a key role in the continent’s development and […]

His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE President, has conferred the Medal of Independence of the First Order to His Excellency Mohammed Dansanta Rimi, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, on the occasion of his tenure’s end as an ambassador to the UAE. During a meeting that took place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ headquarters in Abu Dhabi, His Excellency Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan Al Nahyan, […]

Travelling over 100,000 nautical miles during a 235-day voyage, Ma Liang, captain of the Chinese navy frigate Jingzhou, arrived in China earlier this month after successfully completing his latest escort mission in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia. Ma is a member of the 44th fleet dispatched by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy to carry out escort operations in the two areas. During the mission, […]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk today expressed concern about increased repression of media freedom in the Republic of Guinea and urged the transitional authorities there to change course. “Journalists have been harassed and intimidated, assaulted and arrested, equipment seized and dismantled, broadcast transmissions blocked, and media channels jammed, suspended or shut down. Access to several social media sites has been blocked and access to the internet restricted,” […]

Unless our public health policy, programmes and systems integrate gender, equity, and human rights, realizing the vision of sustainable development goals will be far-fetched. Gender equality must be addressed in its own right and as a catalyst of progress across the SDGs. Echoing the vision of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 13th General Programme of Work (GPW 13) and […]

Childhood is meant to be a time of joy, growth, and development, free from violence, abuse, and exploitation. This is however not the case for over 39.6% of Namibian girls and 45.0% of Namibian boys experiencing physical, sexual, or emotional violence in their childhood according to the 2019 Violence against Children and Youth Survey. Addressing violence against children remains high the Namibian Government’s agenda. The Country is one of 38 […]

The Namibian government’s commitment to improving public health efforts in the last 33 years has yielded positive outcomes resulting in an increase in the country’s life expectancy by 12 years since 2001. In 2001, the average lifespan of a Namibia was 51 years but in 2020 this increased to 63 years. Furthermore, investment in HIV pandemic control has also paid off significantly with a 65 percent decline in new infections. […]

A joint report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission emphasized the need to implement all components of transitional justice equally. These include criminal accountability, truth-seeking, reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence, involving effective remedies for victims, legal reforms, and reconciliation. One of the recommendations stemming from the November 2022 Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, signed between the Government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, […]

I am deeply alarmed by the series of attacks by gunmen on multiple rural communities in Plateau State, north-central Nigeria, on Christmas Eve, that left at least 150 people dead and many injured. I call on the Nigerian authorities to investigate this incident promptly, thoroughly and independently, consistent with international human rights law, and to hold those responsible to account in fair trials. The cycle of impunity fuelling recurrent violence […]