South African businesses which have endured on-off rolling blackouts for the past 12 years are not alone in their power supply woes.ByShamilah Grimwood-Norley
The importance of the currently available Covid-19 vaccines in Africa cannot be underestimated, but it is vaccination production that is the key to pandemic-proofing the continent.
The UN Security Council on Wednesday, 15 September, urged Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan to resume African Union-led talks to reach a binding deal "within a reasonable timeframe" over the operation of a giant hydropower dam on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia.ByMichelle Nichols
In July, the United Nations sounded alarms with its 2020 hunger report, which documented a 25% increase from 2019 to 2020 in the number of severely undernourished people in the world. Sub-Saharan Africa saw a similar spike with an estimated 44 million more people suffering severe hunger. Covid-19 and climate change were the proximate causes, but lagging productivity growth in agriculture contributed as well.ByTimothy A. Wise
Angolan state oil giant Sonangol registered a $4.1bn net loss in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic hollowed out sales and the company struggles to lighten its large debt with asset sales, according to its annual results published this week.ByNoah Browning
