Africa

Visa-free regimes to bolster African tourism growth in 2024

By Conrad Onyango via bird African countries are set to record an increase in tourism numbers in 2024, as more countries continue to open their borders to other African countries by abolishing visa requirements. In 2023, most African countries made significant strides to liberalize their visa regimes, with Rwanda and Kenya being the latest to completely remove visa requirements for all African travellers, joining Gambia, Benin, and Seychelles. Kenya's transition […]

9 January, 2024

Sport

African female running greats are empowering young women to ‘Achieve’

Stephen Granger, SPNA via bird Running greats, Mary Keitany and Elana van Zyl with Rhonda Vetere, Nolene Conrad and the Achieve Team at Makupula Secondary School in Kayamandi, Stellenbosch. Photo - Stephen Granger. Derartu Tulu, the first African athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in female competition and now president of Ethiopia’s Athletics Federation; Kenyan marathon super-stars and former world record holders, Tegla Leroupe and Mary Keitany; and former […]

9 January, 2024

Africa

Africans discovered dinosaur fossils long before the term ‘palaeontology’ existed

By Julien Benoit, University of the Witwatersrand; Cameron Penn-Clarke, University of the Witwatersrand, and Charles Helm, Nelson Mandela University Credit for discovering the first dinosaur bones usually goes to British gentlemen for their finds between the 17th and 19th centuries in England. Robert Plot, an English natural history scholar, was the first of these to describe a dinosaur bone, in his 1676 book The Natural History of Oxfordshire. Over […]

8 January, 2024

Africa

Young Africans could disrupt authoritarian states but they don’t – here’s why

By Lovise Aalen, Chr. Michelsen Institute and Marjoke Oosterom, Institute of Development Studies Africa has the world’s largest youth population. By 2030, 75% of the African population will be under the age of 35. The number of young Africans aged 15-24 is projected to reach 500 million in 2080. While population dynamics vary across the continent, most sub-Saharan countries have a median age below 19. Niger is the youngest country […]

8 January, 2024