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We can donate water to people who will give it to them

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Lack Of Clean Water In Africa Documentary

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Kids learn about the history of apartheid in South Africa including the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela, the Soweto Uprising, and bringing apartheid law to an end.

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Africa Natural Resources - Environment for Kids

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or the past two years, crop failure in Africa has led to devastating food shortages; across the continent, nearly 50 million people now need emergency aid. Seven countries have declared a state of disaster, and Ethiopia is facing its worst drought in 50 years. Meanwhile, southern Africa is having one of its driest seasons in more than 35 years.

The immediate cause of the world's biggest food crisis in many years has been El Niño, the natural phenomenon that occurs every few years, disrupting weather patterns across the world. What began in 2014 and continued through this year has led to record temperatures and widespread droughts followed by floods. The human fallout has been extreme malnutrition and disease.

But this food crisis cannot be attributed entirely to natural causes. Many African and western countries have encouraged farmers to grow and eat a single staple crop, maize, which is not suited to drought or to warmer temperatures.

The food crisis is expected to peak over the next two months, but governments around the world have pledged only half the money needed to feed everyone. While few people are expected to die of starvation, millions of children will be malnourished, and this will adversely affect their education and long-term health.

Last month, I visited three of the countries on the frontline of the crisis - Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia - to share maize and other meals with their farmers, humanitarians, villagers, politicians and traders. This is what they told me.
Elvas Munthali, a Malawian aid worker, with her meal of nsima [made from maize flour and water], chicken, beans and spinach. She works for Concern Worldwide. We ate at a restaurant in Njale, near the border with Mozambique.
I cover villages in the very south of Malawi. I am shocked at what I am seeing. When I visit people, they say, "We have no seeds, no food." But we cannot reach everyone. I went to one house this week where the woman's husband had died and she had four children to feed. She hadn't eaten all day. She had HIV and no strength, but because she had to find food, she had to work in the fields.

I am very proud to be an aid worker in my own country. People tell me about their lives, and I feel I am helping. I sit down and eat what they are eating. For me, it is a small thing, but for them, it is something big.

People don't have a nutritious diet; they find it hard to get hold of meat and oils. It is expensive to eat properly. The climate is changing: now, we plant maize at the end of December or even January; we used to do that in November.
Alufufasi Yalu lives in Nkhundi, southern Malawi. We meet at a house she has been lent by a family in the village. She has no food.
Like most people in Malawi, I know what it is to go hungry. My family depended on farming; in the hungry season, we would take tea and have very little to eat. I am supporting my brother through school now, because my parents have no money.

I like my nsima. I eat it every day, even Christmas Day - I far prefer the taste and texture to anything else.

There are five of us in my household. I have only one child who is four years old, but my sister is here with her two children. Other people in the village receive food aid, but I have to beg because I was missed off the list when they were taking names. I was asleep at the time. I sleep a lot because I have HIV. The drugs, which I take every night, make me extra weak and hungry.
Nelson Mudzingwa is a small farmer in central Zimbabwe. We meet for lunch in a suburb of Harare.
My child is also very weak. We have had some water today, but I don't know what we will eat. Someone might give us a sweet potato. There are mangoes in the trees, but someone needs to go up there for them, and I can't.

I've been told I cannot be put on to a feeding programme until March, and I don't think I will live that long. Sometimes a neighbour gives me porridge. The children depend on a school feeding programme; they help each other.

I am one of the 400,000 people who benefited from Robert Mugabe 's land reform. The land I farm, eight hectares [19.76 acres] near Masvingo, is about 300km from Harare; it used to be part of a 15,000-hectare estate occupied by just three British farmers. They were good, but they exported all their crops to Europe. There are now 500 families here, growing food for Zimbabweans.

It is good land. I grow maize, sorghum, cow peas, fruit and millet, and raise livestock. This year we got a little rain in February, but had our worst drought in years and I lost some cattle. Still, my family never went short of food. Most of what we eat comes from the farm.

We practise agro-ecological farming and are part of a farmers' group called Zimsoff. We host the secretariat of La Via Campesina, the global peasants' movement, which has 300 million members around the world. On the farm, we collect every drop of water; we have dug canals and made dams from earth. We look after the soil to prevent erosion, and we store the seed. We feed the soil with organic manure, not with poisons.

When we came here in 2000, we had no infrastructure, and we had to build our houses. We have learned to focus on growing small grains such as sorghum and millet rather than maize, because we cannot be sure of the changing climate. What we have learned is that if you go for monocultures, you are vulnerable to disaster. Diversity is a weapon to protect farmers and provide food.

Zimbabwe has declared a food disaster and appealed for $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to feed 4 million people. With good ecological practice, this could have been mostly averted. The areas that diversified the most this year have survived the best. But the government is still obsessed with the conventional agriculture model, and is influenced by the seed breeders and big chemical companies; they concentrate on maize and tobacco and hybrid seeds.
Farmer Lucia Bello lives in the village of Aloufasi in Malawi; she is pictured above with some of her children and her sister's orphans. She received food aid for the first time in November.
The hunger in southern Africa this year goes back to the "green revolution" of the 1960s, when everyone was encouraged to grow food with chemicals. It wasn't green at all. Maize became the only crop in southern Africa. But if you go deep into rural areas, you find people eating different foods.

What are the lessons of this drought? That we must avoid food miles, chemicals, genetically modified crops. Is it possible for our kind of agro-ecological farming to feed all of Zimbabwe? Yes. And the message is getting through.

I am the head of a household of nine. I lost my husband 10 years ago and I have eight children to feed, including four orphans, my eldest sister's children. I depend on farming, but there was a total crop failure this year.

I was given a 50kg sack of sorghum in November, enough for two and a half weeks; it was supposed to last a month. We eat just one meal a day. Last month I was so hungry, I had no option but to eat water lilies. I walked about six hours to the Mozambique border to find them. Ugh - they are really bitter. Children who cannot eat do not go to school. I've thought of putting salt in hot water, but they won't drink it.
Coco Ushiyama heads the World Food Programme in Malawi. We have lunch at her offices in Lilongwe.
What is it like to be hungry? Your sight is affected. Your heart runs fast. Your stomach hurts, your head hurts. You are confused and it consumes you. When the food came, it was such a relief. Without it, we would all have died.

I have prepared my land to grow maize. It is all ready for the rains, but I have no seeds. Even if I can plant in December, it will be April before we have any food. Until then, we will need help.

The numbers who need food are rising fast. In November, 5.7 million Malawians needed food; in December, it has reached 6.2 million. By January, we will have 6.5 million hungry people, almost one in three people in this country, and it will last at least until March.

We are all on overdrive. I sleep at night, but there is just so much to do. We plan for the worst and hope for the best. We should have enough maize, but we do not have enough pulses, or vegetable oil, or vitamins and nutritious foods.
Carrington Mwanda buys and sells maize. We met him in his storeroom in Nsanje market, Malawi.
We are contracting ships; government money is being reallocated from other budgets. Meanwhile, there is talk of speculation, of traders waiting to make a killing. The prices might be stabilising, but they are still abnormally high. We are appealing for 15 more trucks and three helicopters; hopefully, we won't need them.

Malawi has been very unlucky. Last year, we had massive floods; this year, it has been drought. Now the rains are coming and the roads will be damaged, which makes it harder to distribute food.

Is there enough money for this crisis? No - there are too many fires around the world that need extinguishing. The seven worst-hit countries in Africa are appealing for $2.9bn, but it's not all there yet. The Chinese have sent 6,500 tonnes of rice; the US has given cash and food; more food has come from Zambia and Mexico.
David Gordon is one of Zambia's biggest farmers. We meet for lunch on his estate, 40km from Lusaka.
This crisis is not about food production. Two years ago, Malawi was having bumper harvests, yet we were still doing handouts. You can have a surplus and still have pockets of hunger. It's the same around the world. Of Malawi's population of 17 million, 9 million are poor and have to spend 50%-70% of their income on food. Crop diversification is needed, but it takes time.

I sell 50kg sacks of maize for 14,000 kwacha (£15.50). The price has gone up a lot and I make a profit, but not much. Lots of other big buyers have stored food and they are waiting to sell but I don't think the price will go much higher.

I have about 600 sacks. I bought them last month for 10,000 kwacha. Lots of people cannot afford to buy it but that is how the market works. If a hungry woman or a disabled person came to me and asked for food, I would give them one or two kilogrammes.

Food shortage like this is business for me. It is unpredictable. It's 50:50 whether we make a profit. We can't afford to let stock run out, so when we are down to 50 bags we will buy more.

I used to feed Zambia: I was the biggest maize grower in the country. We grew about 2,000 hectares of maize and yields were good. We could produce up to 16,000 tonnes a year. I own six farms, more than 29,000 hectares. We have 2,500 cattle and 2,500 game, and we grow 600 hectares of soya beans, tobacco, wheat and maize for the animals.

The government says there is enough maize for everyone, but people don't have enough to eat. The food situation is quite desperate in some places. The lean period has been much longer this year, and the climate shocks are more regular.

The problem is that 70% of people are smallholders. They grow maize with subsidies, but then the government pays them peanuts to buy it. Who makes the Zambian smallholder the poorest farmer in the world? The Zambian government.
Farai Munyanyi is head of global seed and chemical company Bayer Crop Science in Zimbabwe. We have breakfast at a hotel in Harare. He is pictured with a full English breakfast. Kristof Nordin is a farmer and co-founder of Never Ending Food, an organisation that teaches local farmers about diversifying crops. We meet early evening at his house near Lilongwe, Malawi.
I just cannot compete with the small guys who pay one quarter of what we do for fertiliser. We commercial farmers get no subsidies. Small farmers are given subsidies for fertiliser and the government buys their maize, but if the subsidy system was reformed, Zambia could grow food for the whole of Africa. It is big, well-watered and has good soils. There is a hell of a lot of potential. We could grow a million tonnes of maize, just like that.

This country cannot subsidise farmers all the time. The guy working with a hoe and oxen is still struggling, and will stay struggling. Meanwhile, commercial farming production has gone down from 400,000 tonnes of maize a year to 30,000.

I have to make a big profit because I need big machines. I spent $500,000 on a combine harvester last year. It's a John Deere, all computerised: precision farming. I employ 150 men and 80 women for between six and eight months of the year, mainly for packing and grading tobacco. The tobacco buyers are thugs and swindlers.

Genetically modified crops would be a disaster here. They would not produce more food, and they use so much herbicide that the roots burn. I am totally against Monsanto, which will hold farmers by the neck. You can't put genetically modified trout genes into a cabbage. They are playing God and will destroy the world.

We are a global crop science company [which has offered $65bn to buy out Monsanto], but we don't profit from droughts like this. We lose money: crops fail and farmers buy fewer chemicals and seeds.
Keith Domleo is agriculture manager of Illovo Sugar, Africa's leading sugar producer. We met for coffee at the mill in Nchalo, Malawi.

We argue that if people in southern Africa had used our technologies, this food crisis would have been reduced. All the indications are that climate change is here for real, so farmers need drought-tolerant, early-maturing, better seed varieties. They need to know the best time to plant, and how to deal with new pests. We show them that if they use our products on their vegetables, they can do 100% better. But the gap between big and small-scale farms here is very wide. The big ones get eight tonnes of maize per hectare; the small ones just 800kg. They need to change.

Look what we dug up today - a 21.8kg yam. This is meant to be a drought and the hungry season, but we are growing 200 different foods here - oranges, pineapples, tomatoes, blackjack, maize, sweet potatoes, cassava, millet, you name it. People are begging for food, but we can feed three families throughout the year on next to no land, and have enough left over to sell in the markets.

My wife Stacia is a nutritionist and I am a social worker. We have been in Malawi since 1997, when we came from the US to do HIV-prevention work with the US Peace Corps. We realised we couldn't address a disease that attacks the immune system without addressing the fact that those immune systems were badly compromised by malnutrition.
Felix Pensulo-Phiri is Malawi's director of nutrition, HIV and Aids in the health ministry. We met for a morning coffee, in Lilongwe.

There is absolutely no reason for these food crises. The problem is that everyone is focused on growing and eating maize. Malawi has spent 60 years trying to get this Central American food to grow in Africa, and there has been a deliberate stigmatisation of African food. Everything in the west is said to be best; everything from Africa bad.

So we set up our organisation Never Ending Food, and we do internships. We try to show people how to get the most out of their resources, how they can save money and heal the soil. Malawi has a 12-month growing season, access to water and almost 600 local food crops. Yet Malawian farmers are growing only one crop: maize.

This is a tropical country. We should be sending food everywhere. Instead, the US and others are spending millions of dollars on "humanitarian" food aid. It is crazy.

We have 13,000 hectares of land but we contract more so we are now growing food on 18,200 hectares. We send sugar to Sainsbury's, to Europe, to the US, all over.

We usually grow about 60 hectares of maize a year and donate it to orphanages. But this year the government asked us to grow 2,000 tonnes to help with food supplies. They undertook to supply us with seeds, chemicals and fertilisers.
David Phiri is chief of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in southern Africa. We met for lunch at the Harare sports club, Zimbabwe.
We grew it on 450 hectares. The crop was good but they still haven't paid us. We had an unhappy meeting with them so we won't give them the maize until they give us the money. I am sure it will be resolved.

You can't feed a country using smallholder farmers. You have to have large commercial farmers. We irrigate everything so we are protected. The small farmers get wiped out in a drought like this.

We are already seeing increases in the numbers of children with acute malnutrition, and as we approach January, February and March these numbers will double. Lives will be in danger.

[The crisis] will have an enormous long-term impact. Pregnant women won't meet their dietary requirements. Malnutrition can compromise the development of children, affect their brain development. Almost 1 million under-five-year-olds are at risk of stunting, which cannot be reversed.

The social effects will be important, too. At times like this, there is lots of abuse of women. People become desperate. They want food. To access food, men may require women to sleep with them.

It affects school attendance, too. A family with no food will not send children to school. If they do go to school hungry, their performance will be compromised.

This crisis shows that we eat too much nsima - therefore we don't meet our dietary needs. If we go into irrigation, the country has the potential to feed itself - and other countries, too. The government could supply mechanised, irrigated farming. There are other good foods. Sweet potatoes are easy to store, cassava is drought-resistant, there are places to grow rice. We absolutely must diversify.

This article was amended on Wednesday 21 December to reflect that Phiri's meal included sadza, rather than nsima

This is a huge catastrophe. A great shock to the system. Hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of famine. We may see deaths in some places from starvation. The cost of inaction or further delaying our response is too ghastly to contemplate.

We reckon 40 million people across the whole of southern Africa are affected. The worst places are Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi and Zimbabwe, but there are other countries in trouble.

This is the strongest El Niño in 35 years. Smaller droughts in the 1950s resulted in many deaths. The situation could have been much worse, but the biggest risk is in Madagascar. It needs immediate action.

I think the total cost will be $2.9bn, but we are only about 40% funded. We expected more money to have been pledged by now but we understand donor budgets are limited.

Our fear is not a widespread famine, but hotspots of dire hunger. People have exhausted all their reserves now and their coping mechanisms. If food does not arrive, it will lead to serious issues, like childhood stunting, which have lifelong impacts. Even if people recover, they will be prone to cardiovascular diseases.

The relief effort could all go very wrong. I get scared that the rains will come and seeds will not have been distributed. Donors want to do things but it takes them months to act. People give money very close to the rainy season so we must pre-position the food before the money comes in.

We have to start thinking differently about food in Africa. This region was the breadbasket of Africa, but I think we will have more and more crises like this. As temperatures increase, we will see more diseases. We should start to assume there is going to be a disaster every year.

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'I was so hungry I ate water lilies': southern Africa's food crisis in a dozen dishes | John Vidal

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or the past two years, crop failure in Africa has led to devastating food shortages; across the continent, nearly 50 million people now need emergency aid. Seven countries have declared a state of disaster, and Ethiopia is facing its worst drought in 50 years.

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Understanding the developing civilizations of Africa means understanding the interplay between geography and human experience. In spite of, or indeed sometimes because of, the often inhospitable land they inhabited, African people adapted their cultures to their surroundings. Jungles, mountains, plains, and deserts each demanded different sacrifices of Africans and provided varying rewards and opportunities. Interactions with people of the Mediterranean, Egypt, and Persia that came with trade also influenced the development of African civilization, but the basic culture of this vast continent evolved in direct response to the environment. People from the north moved south in waves for a thousand years. Each group brought ideas and skills of their own and developed and learned new ones as they moved on, thereby bringing new ideas to successive settlements and generations.

Changes in climate between 5000 B.C. and 2000 B.C. created the Sahara Desert out of a region that was once lush and green. The desert created a barrier between the lands to the south-called sub-Saharan Africa-and the peoples in the north and east. This barrier would eventually be bridged by trade routes and other cultures would be absorbed into existing cultures of sub-Saharan Africa. But during an initial period of relative isolation, local traditions became deeply rooted and resistant to change. In addition, the vast space open for migration south of the Sahara decreased conflict over land. Such a quantity of available land created a prosperity for many peoples; thus, the need to conquer land to survive did not motivate Africans the way it did Europeans.

Geography strongly influenced where and how people lived in ancient Africa. It also determined when and where civilizations and cities grew. Proximity to rivers, farmland, the ocean, or the sea was the overriding factor in determining a society's occupations, trade goods, building materials, and crops.

Although many people think of Africa as only a dense jungle or a continent of desert, there are five different vegetation zones in the continent that boast a varied topography. Northern Africa is dominated by the vast Sahara Desert, but sub-Saharan Africa is a grassy plain known as savanna. The northern savanna, sometimes called the Sudan, stretches across the continent just south of the Sahara. Other patches of savanna are interspersed with mountains in East Africa. Another belt of grassland runs east and west across the southern half of the continent, north of the Kalahari Desert. Between the northern and southern savannas, in the region of the equator, is the jungle. Here, heavy rainfall permitted the cultivation of some nutritious crops, but soils were not very fertile. The rain forests also produced many dangers for humans and animals. Generally, the most habitable and hospitable regions have been the savannas, where both agriculture and transportation have flourished.

The Spread of Agriculture

Until recently, most scholars believed that early Bantu peoples acquired agriculture from the upper Nile via the northern savanna. More recent linguistic and archaeological investigations suggest that plant domestication began independently in Ethiopia, the central Sudan, and in the upper Niger region centuries before the Sahara became a desert. Regardless of which theory is correct, it is clear that by 1600 B.C. a number of native crops--including millet, sorghum and rice--were cultivated in the western savannah. These crops eventually diffused south, where they were augmented by the African yam.

With the advent of farming in Africa, food gatherers settled into permanent homelands as they had in other regions. Farmers came together to farm villages. Herders enlarged their flocks and grazed them in the outlying fields of the villages. As farmers and herders produced an abundance of food, other villagers were free to learn and practice trades. With enough food and relative security, populations grew. Explorers and adventurers would leave settled villages and move south and east. In this way, farming practices, tribal customs, and specialized crafts spread throughout Africa.

After the lush Sahara was transformed into a desert region, the most prominent peoples consisted of several groups that spoke similar languages and were known collectively as the Bantu. Originating in west central Africa, between the savanna and the forest, the Bantu began migrating south and east around 1200 B.C., ultimately spreading along the east coast. By A.D. 1000 they had reached central Natal, in what is now the country of South Africa. During their migrations, the Bantu absorbed or displaced other peoples of eastern and southern Africa. They drove Pygmies, Bushmen, and Khosian-speaking pastoralists into the southern jungle, the Kalahari Desert, or the extreme southwestern savanna. Thus Bantu migrants provided most of the sub-Saharan Africa with a common cultural identity.

The Bantu migrations were closely related to agriculture and iron working. Developing agriculture expanded populations and allowed individuals to learn specialized trades. Products like iron tools and weapons made it possible to acquire new lands. Continuing migrations dispersed both technologies through the whole sub-Sahara region. As the Bantu moved east and south, they improved their gardening skills. They also began herding cattle, sheep, and goats.

With the Bantu migration iron-working knowledge and techniques spread rapidly. This technological revolution reached the western Sudan around 5000 B.C., apparently aided by Berber travelers from Phoenicia or Carthaginia. African ironmasters became very proficient and were highly respected. In some areas of west central Africa, their craft assumed such ritualistic and religious importance that their furnaces were hidden in secluded places.

Bantu Society and Culture

Although Bantu-speaking societies were very diverse, their institutions and values shared many similarities. Authority was strongest in the village, where it was held and exercised by the elders of extended families. Both custom and religion supported this system. Traditional rules governed an individual's social roles and activities. Respect for the community was of utmost importance and selfish behavior was discouraged or punished.

Most of the basic handicrafts were well developed in Bantu villages, including spinning, weaving, pottery making, and carpentry. African miners procured iron, copper, and gold ores. Highly skilled craftsmen attempted to protect their trade secrets by organizing their families into tightly knit groups. Trade was usually carried out by the craftsmen, but merchants and traders began a third-party system. Generally Bantu economies depended on individual skills, utilized within the community and maintained by families.

The kinship principle was fundamental to social organization throughout Africa. Loyalties to a clan, including all members of an extended family, living and dead, were the most important ties and obligations. Sometimes clans were combined into tribal units. Tribal chiefdoms were often hereditary, but they also had to be approved by clan elders. Individuals were placed into age groups-children, apprentice warriors, and elders-which helped increase loyalty and reduce divisiveness. Secret societies, including members drawn from mature age groups, were also encouraged in order to create and strengthen personal bonds.

Kinship societies were typical of Bantu peoples, but they began to change with the onset of productive economies and more frequent warfare. Ancient matrilineal clans, where family lines were traced through women, gave way to patrilineal groups, where men were in control. Within patrilineal societies a minority of male elders governed while women did most of the work, including agricultural labor.

The most lasting tradition of the Bantu was their value systems. Customary beliefs lay at the root of all social and political institutions. Most common to these beliefs was a profound awareness of human interdependence. Appreciation for community, family, and law was taught to children from birth. Such values are common to most tribal societies, but nowhere else have they endured so intact into advanced stages of civilization. Hundreds of oral myths and stories, as well as works of music and art, reflect this communal perspective.

Religion touched every phase of human experience in sub-Sahara Africa. Specific beliefs varied from tribe to tribe, but some general tenets were common to all. Most Bantu-speaking people believed that the dead continued to influence the lives of the survivors. Ancestors were believed to remain in spirit, deserving respect and concern from the living, who might welcome them at meals or soothe them when they were angry. Sub-Saharan Africans also recognized many spirits identified with natural forces, both kind and dangerous. Most of these societies also believed in a supreme being as the highest power, the source of all excellence and virtue, but far removed from human understanding.

Sub-Saharan Africans were remarkably skilled and sensitive artists, particularly in sculpture. Ancient sculptors carved wood, ivory, or soapstone, cast in bronze, and worked with baked clay. Statuary and sculptured architectural decorations were often used to record historical events. Despite a realism that is characteristic of much art of the period, ancient African sculpture often included religious symbols.

Symbolism, religious and otherwise, was also typical of African music, especially of drum rhythms and dance. Like law and religion, music was a part of everyday life. Bantu songs recounted real-life experiences such as hunting, planting, cattle trading, courtship, and the adventures of famous heroes. All individuals present at a performance tended to participate. African audiences in traditional Bantu societies usually became involved by clapping or dancing. Such active participation well illustrates the prevailing adherence to communal values.

The vitality of the early Bantu agricultural society is embodied by the Nok culture that flourished in central Nigeria after 1000 B.C. Its skilled gardeners and farmers provided economic support for great artists, who produced beautiful terra cotta (baked clay) sculptures. Often these sculptures were life-size figurines with clothing made by Nok weavers. Surviving figurines also give some evidence that the Nok herded cattle as well as growing grain. Figurines of animals, including monkeys and elephants, have also been discovered at Nok archaeological sites. Beads of tin and quartz have been found that resemble those in the necklaces and bracelets that the human figurines wear.

There is little archaeological evidence on which to base conclusions about the population or standard of living of the Nok culture. Yet, the many specimens of high-quality art created over a long period of time indicate the high value that the Nok placed on art. They could afford to spend time creating and presumably enjoying beauty. The influences of the Nok culture would be seen in other Western African art work for at least a thousand years.

Another African society of note is that of the Kushites of Nubia, an area in the upper Nile region. The evolution of the kingdom of Kush is closely linked to Egypt's influence; the two civilizations conquered and fought each other, with Egypt dominating and influencing Kush, then Kush overrunning Egypt. Eventually the Kushites were forced back to their capital city of Napata and its surrounding lands. Around 1700 B.C. Napata was invaded and destroyed. The Kushite royal family moved up the Nile and established the city of Meroe as their new capital. It was here that the culture of the Kush, formerly largely dominated by Egyptian influence, began to gain its unique character.

A particularly notable achievement of the Kush was the formulation of their own written language. At first, Kushites used standard Egyptian hieroglyphic writing for their records, but in about 300 B.C. they invented their own cursive script. Merotic script has been deciphered by comparing it to hieroglyphic records describing the same event. However, the language of Meroe has never been fully translated.

The artists and craftsmen of Meroe showed great skill and high productivity. Pottery, which is found in great abundance in all the ruins, was of especially high standard. The more refined pots, evidently made to adorn the homes of the wealthy, are beautifully finished and decorated with drawings done in ochre (iron ore pigment). Merotic pottery was technically and artistically the equal of any in the ancient world. Lovely ornaments in gold, silver, and copper, often studded with semiprecious stones, show the artistry of Meroe's metal craftsmen and jewelers.

From Meroe, the Kushites also carried on a lively trade with Egypt, Arabia, and India through the Red Sea ports. The ruins of a large stone dock on the banks of the Nile indicate barge and boat traffic. Numerous glass bottles, pieces of jewelry, pots, and other objects from Greece, Rome, Egypt, Arabia, and India have been found in Kush ruins. Kush was also a major exporter of elephants, ivory, ostrich feathers, and hides. Such trade brought wealth and ideas into Meroe. Many luxury goods were imported from the Mediterranean area and from as far as India. Out of Meroe and into the Sudan poured glass bottles, exotic jewelry, bowls, lamps of silver and bronze, and other goods. Trade was vital to the prosperity of Meroe because of the relatively limited productivity of the land, which was insufficient to support a centralized state for long.

As the Merotic civilization developed its own quality and style, the Egyptian cultural influence gradually waned. At Meroe the Kush blended ideas from many sources into its own unique traditions. The peak period of Meroe's greatness seems to have been between 250 B.C. and A.D. 150. Secure in its distinctive identity, yet in contact with the outside world, its powers and culture spread over an area stretching nearly a thousand miles up and down the Nile.

When Meroe began to decline in the second century A.D., it was probably because its trading preeminence was deteriorating. The rival state of Aksum in the Ethiopian highlands was gaining strength and was in a more favorable location for trade. Aksum was located nearer the seaports and just as near sources of African goods. Moreover, Sudanic western Africa, a rich source of goods, was beginning to trade across the Sahara to North Africa.

In about A.D. 325 King Ezana of Aksum initiated a war against the Kushites. In this war Ezana destroyed Meroe and a number of other towns of the kingdom. Aksum rose to prominence as a trading center but never equaled the Kushites in cultural achievements.

King Ezana was converted to Christianity around A.D. 325 by two Syrian youth who had been shipwrecked in Aksum. Christianity became the official religion of Aksum under Ezana's rule, spreading throughout the Nubian region and south through central Africa.

Trade in West and Northern Africa

Not all trade was limited to the east coast of Africa. Western Africa traded its gold for goods brought from Carthage. Salt was a precious commodity in sub-Saharan Africa, where it was a requirement for physical health in the tropical climate. Gold, ivory, and slaves were traded for this valuable product. Trade across the Sahara was facilitated by use of chariots and camels. Camels were able to carry heavy loads and needed very little water. This ability to travel across the desert opened up new and varied trade routes in northern and western Africa. As trade in these areas expanded, new empires began to develop in Ghana and Mali.

Source Citation

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Ancient Civilizations in Africa, 3500 B.C.-500 B.C.

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Understanding the developing civilizations of Africa means understanding the interplay between geography and human experience. In spite of, or indeed sometimes because of, the often inhospitable land they inhabited, African people adapted their cultures to their surroundings. Jungles, mountains, plains, and deserts each demanded different sacrifices of Africans and provided varying rewards and opportunities.

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Is South Africa’s education system really ‘in crisis’?

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South Africa’s minister of education openly admits that the country’s schools are in a state of crisis. The BBC’s MIlton Nkosi asks how did we get here and what needs to be done?

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Students can play an interactive game that involves some aspects of colonial imperialism to further their understanding on how it worked. http://www.history.com/games/action-adventure/expedition/play This link provides students with visual maps and political cartoons about the Scramble for Africa. http://wfps.k12.mt.us/teachers/carmichaelg/new_page_34.htm If students are looking for more in depth information on the British during the Scramble for Africa, then this link would be perfect! http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/scramble_for_africa_article_01.shtml

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Students can play an interactive game that involves some aspects of colonial imperialism to further their understanding on how it worked. http://www.history.com/games/action-adventure/expedition/play This link provides students with visual maps and political cartoons about the Scramble for Africa. http://wfps.k12.mt.us/teachers/carmichaelg/new_page_34.htm If students are looking for more in depth information on the British during the Scramble for Africa, then this link would be perfect!

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By the end of the 19th century, Africans and peoples of African descent-except Ethiopians, Haitians, and Liberians-were living under some form of European colonial domination. The history of Africa and its Diaspora was dismissed as insignificant at best, inexistent at worse. Black cultures were ridiculed, stereotyped, and scorned.

But over the course of the last 100 years black peoples the world over launched epic struggles for freedom, civil rights, and independence.

As a result European colonial regimes have collapsed, independent African and Caribbean nations have emerged, racial segregation in the U.S. has been overthrown, and apartheid in South Africa is a thing of the past.

In their exuberant dynamism and creativity, African and African Diasporan cultures have emerged as dominant artistic expressions around the globe.

The social, political, economic, and cultural transformations that took place in the 20th century have paved the way for major positive developments in the post-colonial, post-segregation, post-apartheid first decade of the 21st century.

Africana Age retraces this turbulent history of challenges, tragedies, and triumphs.

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By the end of the 19th century, Africans and peoples of African descent-except Ethiopians, Haitians, and Liberians-were living under some form of European colonial domination. The history of Africa and its Diaspora was dismissed as insignificant at best, inexistent at worse. Black cultures were ridiculed, stereotyped, and scorned.

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Author and Page information

This page: https://www.globalissues.org/issue/83/conflicts-in-africa.

To print all information (e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links), use the print version:

There have been over 9 million refugees and internally displaced people from conflicts in Africa. Hundreds and thousands of people have been slaughtered from a number of conflicts and civil wars. If this scale of destruction and fighting was in Europe, then people would be calling it World War III with the entire world rushing to report, provide aid, mediate and otherwise try to diffuse the situation. This article explores why Africa has been largely ignored and what some of the root causes of the problems are.

Read " Conflicts in Africa-Introduction " to learn more.

Into mid-2011, the world's worst food crisis is being felt in East Africa, in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya.

Despite successive failed rains, the crisis has been criticized as avoidable and man-made. This is because the situation had been predicted many months before by an international early warning system. Both the international community and governments in the region have been accused of doing very little in the lead up to this crisis. In addition, high food prices have forced food out of the reach of many people, while local conflicts exacerbate the situation.

As the international organization Oxfam describes: 12 million people are in dire need of food, clean water, and basic sanitation. Loss of life on a massive scale is a very real risk, and the crisis is set to worsen over the coming months, particularly for pastoralist communities.

This page also presents news coverage from Inter Press Service on this crisis.

Read " East Africa Food Crisis 2011 " to learn more.

A wave of protests has erupted throughout the Middle East and North Africa. A combination of the global financial crisis, rising costs of living, high unemployment - especially of educated youth, frustration from decades of living under authoritarian and corrupt regimes, various document leaks revealing more details about how governments around the world are dealing and viewing each other, have all combined in different ways in various countries, leading to a wave of rising anger.

Some protests have become revolutions as governments such as those in Tunisia and Egypt have been overthrown. Others have not got that far but have sometimes been peaceful, other times met with very brutal repression.

Is this a wave of democracy that cannot be stopped, and will forever change the region, and the global power politics?

Read " Middle East and North Africa Unrest " to learn more.

The crisis in Libya comes in the context of wider unrest throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The surge of what looks like spontaneous and ground up pro-democracy protests has been spreading throughout a region long controlled by authoritarian regimes from left and right of the political spectrum, and both pro and anti-West.

Peaceful protests against the long-running oppressive Qadhafi regime in February resulted in a violent crackdown. As the situation quickly escalated ordinary citizens took up arms to help free themselves from Qadhafi's brutal regime. Despite some military defections, the opposition has generally been a disorganized and out-gunned rebel force.

As Qadhafi's forces increasingly targeted civilians the opposition appealed to the international community for a no-fly zone to limit or prevent the bloodbath that Qadhafi threatened.

The West appears to have responded with what looks like a genuine humanitarian intervention attempt. Yet, when looked at a bit more deeply, there are many murky - often contradictory - issues coming to the fore that complicate the picture.

These mixed messages make the future for Libya uncertain. Civil war is how some commentators have already started to describe the conflict, which would imply a long drawn out conflict, not a quick fix that the West hoped for.

Read " Crisis in Libya " to learn more.

Following elections in Cote d'Ivoire in October 2010, both President Laurent Gbagbo and opposition candidate, Alassane Ouattara, claimed victory. International observers agreed that the Ouattara had won, but Gbagbo refused to accept this.

Negotiations failed and while the world's attention was elsewhere, the situation became volatile and violent outbursts turned into the country's second civil war. Forces supporting Ouattara have swept through the country and Gbagbo's position looks precarious while he remains defiant.

At the same time, possibly a million people are thought to have fled their homes, about 100,000 of which have crossed over into neighboring Liberia. Thousands of civilians have been killed in what observers have found to be mass human rights violations. There have also been reports of massacres and mass graves. UN personnel on the ground have been targeted. There are accusations of violence by both sides.

This situation had been brewing for a long time, and yet, the international community has been comparatively silent compared to how they have reacted to the situation in Libya.

This page presents news coverage from Inter Press Service on this crisis.

Read " Cote d'Ivoire Crisis " to learn more.

AIDS in Africa is said to be killing more people than conflicts.

It causes social disruption as children become orphaned and it affects many already-struggling economies as workforces are reduced.

As an enormous continent, various regions are seeing different results as they attempt to tackle the problem. Numerous local, regional and global initiatives are slowly helping, despite significant obstacles (such as poverty, local social and cultural norms/taboos, concerns from drug companies about providing affordable medicines, and limited health resources of many countries that are now also caught up in the global financial crisis).

Read " AIDS in Africa " to learn more.

An overview of the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa that has been described by the World Health Organization as the largest, most severe and most complex outbreak in the history of the disease.

The epidemic began at the end of 2013, in Guinea. From there it spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. Many of the affected countries face enormous challenges in stopping its spread and providing care for all patients.

Thousands of people have died and many are at risk as the fatality rate from this virus is very high. As the crisis worsens, as well as the enormous health challenges involved, the social and economic consequences may set these countries back, reversing some gains a number of these countries have made in recent years.

Read " Ebola Outbreak in West Africa " to learn more.

Read " Africa Links for more information " to learn more.

Read " Geopolitics " to learn more.

Author and Page Information

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This part of the globalissues.org web site looks at some of the conflicts occurring in Africa. There is hardly any media coverage and yet there have been millions of refugees and hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.

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Author and Page information

This page: https://www.globalissues.org/article/796/east-africa-food-crisis.

To print all information (e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links), use the print version:

On this page:

1. Introduction

2. Early warning systems had predicted this months earlier

3. Massive funding shortfall - assuming anyone cares

4. One of the worst crises in recent history

5. Media coverage

Introduction

Into mid-2011, the world's worst food crisis is being felt in East Africa, in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya.

Despite successive failed rains, the crisis has been criticized as avoidable and man-made. This is because the situation had been predicted many months before by an international early warning system. Both the international community and governments in the region have been accused of doing very little in the lead up to this crisis. In addition, high food prices have forced food out of the reach of many people, while conflict in Somalia has exacerbated the situation.

As the international organization Oxfam describes: 12 million people are in dire need of food, clean water, and basic sanitation. Loss of life on a massive scale is a very real risk, and the crisis is set to worsen over the coming months, particularly for pastoralist communities.

Early warning systems had predicted this months earlier

As Inter Press Service (IPS) reported, despite the conflicts in the region,

The world had an opportunity to save thousands of lives that are being lost in parts of Somalia due to the famine, if only the donor community had paid attention to the early warning systems that predicted it eight months ago.

...

There has been a catastrophic breakdown of the world's collective responsibility to act. 3,500 people a day are fleeing Somalia and arriving in parts of Ethiopia and Kenya that are suffering one of the driest years in six decades. Food, water and emergency aid are desperately needed. By the time the U.N. calls it a famine it is already a signal of large scale loss of life, Oxfam said.

Isaiah Esipisu, Horn Of Africa: Poor Attention to Forecasts to Blame for Famine in Somalia, Inter Press Service, July 21, 2011

Knowing about these things in advance is significant in terms of lives, costs and preparedness. The US government agency USAID's Famine Early Warning System Network had predicted the crisis in November 2010, noting that

food security outcomes are likely to worsen, particularly among the poorest households whose coping capacity is the most limited.

In areas at‐risk of worsening food security, households may require livelihood support to prevent asset loss, household food deficits, and negative coping. Potential interventions in pastoral areas include rehabilitation of water points (boreholes), increased veterinary services targeting the dry season grazing areas, commercial off‐take programs, and nutrition support programs targeting poorer households. In the cropping southwest marginal areas of Kenya, and in Rwanda and Burundi, the scale‐up of resource transfer programs may be required to minimize the food security impacts of the La Niña event [that was observed at the end of 2010].

Pre-emptive livelihood support could mitigate likely La Niña impacts in the eastern Horn , East Africa Food Security Alert, FEWS.net, November 2, 2010

Massive funding shortfall - assuming anyone cares

As international humanitarian and development organization Oxfam explained, many (often simple) preventative actions could have been taken, assuming funds were available earlier:

Whenever there is an indicator of such a disaster, we must not only sit and wait for the emergency response. We can conveniently invest the funds by putting irrigation systems in place, vaccinating people, especially children, against anticipated diseases, and creating proper infrastructure to be used in case there is need for food supply, said [Anna Ridout, Oxfam's spokesperson]

Isaiah Esipisu, Horn Of Africa: Poor Attention to Forecasts to Blame for Famine in Somalia, Inter Press Service, July 21, 2011

But, as Oxfam notes in another article, donors and governments fail to deliver on East Africa aid effort:

The overall humanitarian requirements for the region this year, according to the UN appeals, are $1.87 billion. These are so far 45 percent funded, leaving a gap of over $1 billion still remaining: gaps of $332m and $296m for the Kenya and Somalia UN appeals respectively, and $398m for the government-run appeal in Ethiopia

In the last two weeks there have been new pledges of $205m, leaving a gap of $800m still remaining.

The UK has pledged an estimated $145m in the past two weeks - almost 15 percent of what is needed. The EU has pledged around $8m so far, with more expected in the coming days. Spain has pledged nearly $10m, Germany around $8.5m. France has so far not pledged any new money, and Denmark and Italy have said no significant new sums are available.

Donors and governments fail to deliver on East Africa aid effort, Oxfam, July 20, 2011

But it is not just the international community. Various actors in the region also face criticism and question. For example, as the above IPS article had also noted, the effects of the drought were made worse by the Al Shabaab militia group in Somalia, which had blocked donor agencies from operating within its territories in 2009 - now the famine zones. Admittedly, the extremist group recently lifted its ban, as IPS also noted.

Another example is the governments of the affected countries as well as the African Union. Ugandan journalist, Rosebell Kagumire, writing for Oxfam, noted that the African Union had complained about lack of funds because governments have not put enough money in. Although Kenya opened its borders for an influx of Somalian refugees, Kagumire criticized the response as lacking urgency and not being effective.

One of the worst crises in recent history

The crisis is one of the worst in recent history:

Compared to previous famines, the current situation in Somalia compares or exceeds those reported during recent years in Niger (2005), Ethiopia (2001), Sudan (1998) and Somalia (1992). However, this is the most severe food security crisis in Africa since the 1991/92 Somalia famine, according to the U.N. Between January and June this year, 300,000 people in Mogadishu were given food assistance by humanitarian agencies on a monthly basis. Approximately 100,000 malnourished children were treated through some 418 nutrition centres in south Somalia from January to May 2011.

...

The current crisis in Somalia is expected to have an increasingly devastating effect on other countries in the region. However, generally, the Horn of Africa has 11.5 million people in crisis, including the 3.7 million in Somalia.

Isaiah Esipisu, Horn Of Africa: Poor Attention to Forecasts to Blame for Famine in Somalia, Inter Press Service, July 21, 2011

Somewhat predictably, media coverage seems spotty. At times there are detailed reports, often responding to government and other large international agency pushes to address the crises. Other times, the coverage vanishes from mainstream headlines and prime time viewing almost as soon as reporting has started.

On the morning of Sunday, July 31, during a review of British Sunday newspapers by the BBC, commentators noted how only one paper had a front page story about this crisis while almost all of them had something about a second Royal wedding. (It wasn't necessarily ignoring Africa, either, as the also important story about the US debt crisis also barely featured on any papers headlines!)

And of course, most of the reporting has followed after the crisis has happened.

It is also interesting to note how quickly the international community mobilized against Libya with military and other actions, when far less people (in number) were affected.

More information

For more about the issues from other organizations, here are some starting points:

News stories from IPS

Below is a list of stories from Inter Press Service as they cover this event. Revisit this page frequently to see newer stories as the crisis unfolds:

1. BHUBANESWAR, India, Jun 17 (IPS) - June 17 is World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. A new report shows that climate change, overuse and conversion for agriculture, cities and infrastructure, which also drive drought and desertification, have already degraded one fifth of the planet's land area.

"Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic and there is no vaccine to cure it."

2. UNITED NATIONS, Oct 24 (IPS) - A partnership between United Nations and African Union (AU) agencies will help African economies insure themselves against the droughts and other extreme weather events that plague the continent, organisers say.

3. DES MOINES, United States, Oct 21 (IPS) - Experts vaunted new strains of seeds, drone aircraft and other technological breakthroughs as solutions-in-the-making for farmers in Africa, where hunger, drought and food price hikes are continent-wide problems.

4. ILLINOIS, United States, Mar 15 (IPS) - The latest UN Food and Agriculture Organization's annual Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition Report highlighted drought as one of the key factors contributing to the continuing rise in the number of hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa. And in South Africa, the Government's Crop Estimates Committee announced that the country would harvest 20 percent less maize in 2019 because of drought conditions.

Where next?

Related articles

1. Conflicts in Africa-Introduction

2. East Africa Food Crisis 2011

3. Middle East and North Africa Unrest

4. Crisis in Libya

5. Cote d'Ivoire Crisis

6. The Democratic Republic of Congo

7. Nigeria and Oil

8. Sierra Leone

9. Conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea

See more related articles

Author and Page Information

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About the terrible famine in the Horn of Africa or East Africa - Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia in particular. A combination of drought and poor local and international governance has created an avoidable situation, without thousands if not millions of lives at stake.

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A look at the issues around the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa

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Ideas and Insight From National Geographic

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Our Africa Facts for Kids provide 20 interesting and fun facts on the African continent.

Africa is second largest continent in size and the second largest continent in population.

The African continent is located mainly in the Eastern Hemisphere and to the major part in the Northern Hemisphere.

Did you know that Africa is bigger than the USA, Canada and India together? Africa covers an area larger than 30 million square kilometres/ 11.7 million square miles!

Top 20 Africa Facts

1. There are 54 countries in Africa - and 9 dependent territories. M ore than 1.3 billion people live on the African continent. This means about 15% of the world's total population live in Africa!

Click on the flags to learn more about these countries:

2. Largest Country: Algeria. This country is among the ten largest countries in the world.

The most populous country in Africa, however, is Nigeria, with more than 219 million people, but the country is only a third of the size of Algeria.

3. Largest City: Lagos in Nigeria. With more than 22 million inhabitants, Lagos is also one of the biggest metropolitan cities in the world and is estimated to become the world's largest city by 2100 with more than 100 million inhabitants!

4. Smallest Country: Seychelles, which is an archipelago (nation of islands) in the Indian Ocean. On the African mainland, the smallest country is The Gambia. Read our Seychelles Facts here.

5. Biggest Island: Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world - after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo.

6. Longest River: Nile (6,852 km/ 4,258 miles). The Nile is the longest river in the world and passes through eleven countries. The Nile has two sources: The White Nile coming from Lake Victoria in Tanzania and the Blue Nile coming from Lake Tana in Ethiopia. The river mouth is in Egypt. The confluence in Khartoum/Sudan.

7. Highest Mountain: Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Mount Kilimanjaro has three volcanic cones and the highest volcanic cone of them is called 'Kibo'. The highest peak is called 'Uhuru Peak' with 5,895 m/ 19,340 ft. The mountain is located in the Tanzanian highlands at the border to Kenya. Mount Kilimanjaro can only be climbed from the Tanzanian side but can even be seen from Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

8. Biggest Lake: Lake Victoria (bordering Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya) is also the world's second largest freshwater lake. Only Lake Superior in North America is bigger!

9. Driest Place: The Sahara in northern Africa is the largest hot desert in the world. The climate is extremely dry (arid) in this region. Read more about the world's deserts here.

10. There are sixteen landlocked countries in Africa. These countries are all located in the interior of the continent and have neither access to the Atlantic Ocean nor to the Indian Ocean. Two of these landlocked countries, the tiny countries of Eswatini and Lesotho, are located within South Africa.

More Africa Facts

11. History: Africa is the 'cradle of humankind', the place where the first hominids, human beings and their closest relatives the gorilla and chimpanzees, evolved. Fossils found in Africa, show that the modern human evolved there about 5 to 10 million years ago and spread from this continent. One of the earliest evidences of human life were found in South Africa. 'Mrs Ples and the Taung Child are among the most important fossils.

Many powerful kingdoms existed on the African continent in the early history and the Middle Ages. Between the 5th and 15th century, African slaves were traded mainly by Arab traders and later sent overseas. In the late 19th century Europeans started conquering Africa which was then colonised in the 19th and 20th century mainly from Portugal, Britain and France, but also from the Dutch, Italian, Germans and Belgians.

12. People of Africa: There are more than 3,000 different groups of indigenous people living in Africa. They all have their own language and culture. As Africa was colonised and suppressed until the last century, the majority of Africans is still poor. Most African countries only gained independence after World War II in the 1950s and 1960s. The poorest countries in Africa are Malawi, the Central African Republic and Burundi. Among the most developed and richest countries are the Seychelles, Libya, Mauritius, Algeria, Egypt, Botswana, South Africa and Nigeria.

13. Languages in Africa: It is estimated that about 2,000 different languages are spoken on the African continent! Many Africans speak several African languages and also often another 'European' language. In many countries, people speak English, French or Portuguese as an additional language, as these languages are often used in official communication and business. English is widely spoken in Africa as many countries were formerly British colonies. Arabic, spoken in northern Africa, is also used in many North African countries as official language. Swahili, spoken in many East African countries has the most native speakers in Africa.

14. Religion: Most of the African people are either Christians or Muslims. In North Africa and many West African countries, people follow mainly the Islam, while in southern and eastern Africa the Christian faith dominates. About 10% of the African people follow traditional religious rituals which means they have traditional healing rituals such as bone-throwing, herbal medicine and celebrating the spirit of the ancestors.

15. Tourist attractions in Africa: The most popular African tourist attractions are:

Table Mountain in Cape Town in South Africa

Pyramids of Egypt

Masai Mara National Park in Kenya

Kruger National Park in South Africa

Victoria Falls in Zambia/Zimbabwe

Namib Desert and Etosha National Park/Namibia

Mauritius and the Indian Ocean Islands

Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania

Morocco - Markets, Deserts and Mountains

More Interesting Africa Facts

16. Biggest Cities: The most populous city in Africa is Lagos with more than 22 million people (2021). Cairo in Egypt is the second largest city in Africa with 21 million people.

Other large cities in Africa are:

Algiers (Algeria)

Kinshasa-Brazzaville (DR Congo)

Johannesburg (South Africa)

Casablanca (Morocco)

Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania)

Nairobi (Kenya)

Cape Town (South Africa)

Africa Facts - Did you know? The southernmost city on the African continent is Cape Town in South Africa. With about 5 million inhabitants it is also one of the most populous cities in the world.

The southernmost point of the African continent is Cape Agulhas, which is roughly 170 km/ 100 miles southeast from Cape Town.

17. Animals: In Africa, you will find some of the largest mammals on this planet. Among them are the largest land mammal, the African elephant, the tallest mammal, the giraffe, and the fastest mammal, the cheetah, which can run with speeds up to 113 km/ hour or 70 miles/ hour!

Africa is also home to many endangered animals such as the White and Black Rhinoceros. Kruger National Park where one can admire the beautiful African wildlife is one of the biggest national parks and wildlife conservation areas in the world.

18. Main natural resources in Africa are minerals such as oil, copper, gold, diamonds, platinum and agricultural produce such as corn, coffee, wheat and fruits. Almost 65% of all Africans work in the agricultural sector.

19. Nature superlatives:

Sahara desert is the driest hot desert on earth

The Nile is the world's longest river

Tugela Falls in South Africa are Africa's highest waterfalls

Blyde River Canyon in South Africa is the world's largest green canyon

20. Geography: More than half of the African continent is covered by grassland or savannah. Northern Africa is dominated by the vast Sahara desert and the semi-arid Sahel zone which also includes fertile land in the Nile delta. Central Africa has rainforests, coastal plains and the continents highest mountains and lakes. Southern Africa lies mainly on a high plateau and only has a small coastal band.

And one more interesting fact: The Cape Floral Region in South Africa has the most plant varieties in the world!

Have fun with our Africa Facts Quiz

Popular Pages - More Africa Facts

Useful Resources for Africa Facts

Nations Online. Political Map of Africa. Last accessed 16 February 2021

Jeff Desjardins. "By 2100 none of the world's biggest cities will be in China, the US or Europe."20 July 2018. Last accessed 16 February 2021

Kabous Le Roux. "Lagos - To Become The World's Largest City." Cape Talk. 4 June 2019. Last accessed 16 February 2021

National Geographic. "World Atlas for Young Explorers". Washington: 2010

"Earth Condensed". The World Atlas by Millennium House. London: 2009

Image Credits on Africa Facts page: Shutterstock.com, wikipedia commons and own Return from Africa Facts to Kids-World-Travel-Guide Homepage

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Africa Facts for Kids | Africa for Kids | Geography | Travel | People

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Our Africa Facts for Kids provide 20 interesting and fun facts on the African continent. Africa is second largest continent in size and the second largest continent in population. The African continent is located mainly in the Eastern Hemisphere and to the major part in the Northern Hemisphere.

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Africa, the second-largest continent, is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is divided in half almost equally by the Equator.

Africas physical geography, environment and resources, and human geography can be considered separately.

Africa has eight major physical regions: the Sahara, the Sahel, the Ethiopian Highlands, the savanna, the Swahili Coast, the rain forest, the African Great Lakes, and Southern Africa. Some of these regions cover large bands of the continent, such as the Sahara and Sahel, while others are isolated areas, such as the Ethiopian Highlands and the Great Lakes. Each of these regions has unique animal and plant communities.

Sahara

The Sahara is the worlds largest hot desert, covering 8.5 million square kilometers (3.3 million square miles), about the size of the South American country of Brazil. Defining Africa's northern bulge, the Sahara makes up 25 percent of the continent.

The Sahara has a number of distinct physical features, including ergs, regs, hamadas, and oases. Ergs, which cover 20 percent of the Sahara, are sand dunes that stretch for hundreds of kilometers at heights of more than 300 meters (1,000 feet). Ergs cover most of Algeria and Libya and parts of Mali and Nigeria. Ergs can contain large quantities of salt, which is sold for industrial and food use.

Regs are plains of sand and gravel that make up 70 percent of the Sahara. The gravel can be black, red, or white. Regs are the remains of prehistoric seabeds and riverbeds, but are now nearly waterless.

Hamadas are elevated plateaus of rock and stone that reach heights of 3,353 meters (11,000 feet). They include the Atlas Mountains, which stretch from southwestern Morocco to northeastern Tunisia; the Tibesti Mountains of southern Libya and northern Chad; and the Ahaggar Mountains in southern Algeria.

An oasis is a hub of water in the desert, often in the form of springs, wells, or irrigation systems. About 75 percent of the Saharas population lives in oases, which make up only 2,071 square kilometers (800 square miles) of the deserts vast area.

The Saharas animal and plant communities have adapted to the regions extremely dry conditions. The kidneys of the jerboa, a type of rodent, produce highly concentrated urine that minimizes water loss. A dromedary camel conserves water by changing its body temperature so it doesn't sweat as the day gets hotter. The scorpion limits its activities to night, burrowing into the cooler sands beneath the surface during the day. The scorpion, a predator, also absorbs water from the flesh of its prey.

Saharan plants survive thanks to root systems that plunge as far as 24 meters (80 feet) underground. In parts of the Sahara, plants cannot take root at all. In the southern Libyan Desert, for instance, no greenery exists for more than 195 kilometers (120 miles).

Sahel

The Sahel is a narrow band of semi- arid land that forms a transition zone between the Sahara to the north and the savannas to the south. It is made up of flat, barren plains that stretch roughly 5,400 kilometers (3,300 miles) across Africa, from Senegal to Sudan.

The Sahel contains the fertile delta of the Niger, one of Africas longest rivers. Unfortunately, the Sahels fertile land is rapidly becoming desert as a result of drought, deforestation, and intensive agriculture. This process is known as desertification.

The Sahel's animal communities are constantly scavenging for scarce water and vegetation resources. The Senegal gerbil, the most common mammal in the Sahel and measuring only a few centimeters, consumes as much as 10 percent of the Sahel's plants.

The Sahel's green vegetation only emerges during the rainy season, but is often quickly harvested by farmers or consumed by animals. Baobabs are drought- and fire-resistant trees with trunks that are often 15 meters (50 feet) wide and as tall as 26 meters (85 feet). Acacia, whose deep root systems are ideal for semi-arid climates, are among the most common trees found in the Sahel. Cram-cram, a prickly grass, is the primary fodder for Sahel herds such as zebu cattle.

Ethiopian Highlands

The Ethiopian Highlands began to rise 75 million years ago, as magma from Earths mantle uplifted a broad dome of ancient rock. This dome was later split as Africa's continental crust pulled apart, creating the Great Rift Valley system. Today, this valley cuts through the Ethiopian Highlands from the southwest to the northeast. The Ethiopian Highlands are home to 80 percent of Africas tallest mountains.

The highlands craggy landscape is perfect for nimble animal species. Native species such as the Walia ibex, an endangered wild goat, and the gelada baboon live in the ledges and rocky outposts of the Simien Mountains. The most emblematic highlands species is probably the Ethiopian wolf, which is now on the brink of extinction.

Important plant species native to the Ethiopian Highlands include the Ethiopian rose, Africas only native rose, and the ensete, a tall, thick, rubbery plant that is a close relative of the banana.

Savanna

Savannas, or grasslands, cover almost half of Africa, more than 13 million square kilometers (5 million square miles). These grasslands make up most of central Africa, beginning south of the Sahara and the Sahel and ending north of the continents southern tip.

Among Africas many savanna regions, the Serengeti (or Serengeti Plains) is the most well-known. The Serengeti is a vast, undulating plain that stretches 30,000 square kilometers (11,583 square miles) from Kenya's Maasai-Mara game reserve to Tanzania's Serengeti National Park.

The Serengeti is home to one of the continents highest concentrations of large mammal species, including lions, hyenas, zebras, giraffes, and elephants. Each year, more than 1 million wildebeest travel in a circular migration, following seasonal rains, across the Serengeti Plains. Their grazing and trampling of grass allows new grasses to grow, while their waste helps fertilize the soil.

Swahili Coast

The Swahili Coast stretches about 1,610 kilometers (1,000 miles) along the Indian Ocean, from Somalia to Mozambique. The nearby coral reefs and barrier islands protect the coast from severe weather.

There is not a lot of animal life on the sandy Swahili Coast. The golden-rumped elephant shrew, an insect-eating rodent with a long snout, is common. A small, primitive species of primate known as the bush baby inhabits vegetated areas of the Swahili Coast. Bush babies, which have enormous eyes for hunting at night, feed primarily on insects, fruit, and leaves.

These more vegetated areas are located on a narrow strip just inland from the coastal sands. Heavy cultivation has diminished the diversity of plant species in this interior area of the Swahili Coast. Mangrove forests are the most common vegetation. Mangroves have exposed root systems. This allows the trees to absorb oxygen directly from the air, as well as from the nutrient-poor soil.

Rain Forest

Most of Africas native rain forest has been destroyed by development, agriculture, and forestry. Today, 80 percent of Africas rain forest is concentrated in central Africa, along the Congo River basin.

Africas rain forests have a rich variety of animal life; a 6-kilometer (4-mile) patch could contain up to 400 bird species, 150 butterfly species, and 60 species of amphibians. Important mammals include African forest elephants, gorillas, the black colobus monkey, and the okapi, a donkey-like giraffe.

The driver ant is one of Africas most aggressive rain forest species. Driver ants move in columns of up to 20 million across the rain forest floor, and will eat anything from toxic millipedes to reptiles and small mammals.

The African rain forests plant community is even more diverse, with an estimated 8,000 plant species documented. More than 1,100 of these species are endemic, or found nowhere else on Earth. Only 10 percent of the plants in the African rain forest have been identified.

African Great Lakes

The Great Lakes are located in nine countries that surround the Great Rift Valley. As the African continent separated from Saudi Arabia, large, deep cracks were created in the Earths surface. These cracks were later filled with water. This geologic process created some of the largest and deepest lakes in the world.

There are seven major African Great Lakes: Lake Albert, Lake Edward, Lake Kivu, Lake Malawi, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Turkana, and Lake Victoria. Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa, is the southern source of the Nile River, the longest river in the world.

The African Great Lakes region has a diverse range of aquatic and terrestrial animal life. Fish include the 45-kilogram (100-pound) Nile perch and the 2.5-centimeter (1-inch) cichlid. Migrating savanna animals, such as wildebeest, use the lakes as watering holes. Hippos and crocodiles call the region their home.

The Great Lakes abut everything from rain forest to savanna plant communities. However, invasive species like the water hyacinth and papyrus have begun to take over entire shorelines, endangering animals and plants.

Southern Africa

The region of Southern Africa is dominated by the Kaapvaal craton, a shelf of bedrock that is more than 2.6 billion years old. Rocky features of Southern Africa include plateaus and mountains, such as the Drakensberg range.

Southern Africa is the epicenter of Africas well-known reserves, which protect animal species such as lions, elephants, baboons, white rhinos, and Burchells zebras. Other important animal species include the impala, a type of deer, and the springbok, a type of gazelle that can spring several feet into the air to avoid predators.

Southern Africas Cape Floral Region is one of the richest areas for plants in the world. While the Cape Floral Region covers less than 0.5 percent of Africa, it is home to nearly 20 percent of the continents flora. The giant protea, South Africas national flower, is found in the Cape Floral Region.

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Writers

Diane Boudreau
Melissa McDaniel
Erin Sprout
Andrew Turgeon

Illustrators

Mary Crooks, National Geographic Society
Tim Gunther, Illustrator

Editors

Jeannie Evers, Emdash Editing
Kara West

Educator Reviewer

Nancy Wynne

Producer

Caryl-Sue, National Geographic Society

Sources

Dunn, Margery G. (Editor). (1989, 1993). "Exploring Your World: The Adventure of Geography." Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society.

Last Updated

Jan. 4, 2012

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Africa, the second-largest continent, is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is divided in half almost equally by the Equator. Africas physical geography, environment and resources, and human geography can be considered separately.

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What is happening in Africa in 1215CE

Ethiopia and North Africa

Ethiopia is now experiencing something of a Golden Age. Powerful and prosperous, its Christian culture, though isolated, is flourishing and giving rise to the great rock-cut churches of king Lalibela.

In North Africa, a series of Islamic movements, the Almoravids and the Almohads have conquered large areas, at one point even stretching into West Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa

These movements have given the Islamic religion a huge boost in the West African kingdoms, and by this date their ruling classes are mostly Muslim, at least nominally. By this period, also, extensive trade networks criss-cross the region. Several large trading cities, such as Timbuktu and Jenne, flourish, and to the east of the river Niger, the Hausa people have founded their own powerful city states. Trade routes are also penetrating into the southern rainforest region, leading to the rise of the first kingdoms there, especially the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo.

Trade is also playing a decisive role in Central and East Africa. Here, the Indian Ocean trade between Africa, Arabia and India has resulted in the rise of coastal city-states. Trade routes have spread inland, leading to the appearance of the wealthy and powerful Shona kingdom, centered on the famous urban center of Great Zimbabwe.
Next map, Africa 1453 The Islamic Caliphate African Kingdoms

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Map of Africa, 1215: Swahii Trading States in East Africa | TimeMaps

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Ethiopia and North Africa Ethiopia is now experiencing something of a Golden Age. Powerful and prosperous, its Christian culture, though isolated, is flourishing and giving rise to the great rock-cut churches of king Lalibela. In North Africa, a series of Islamic movements, the Almoravids and the Almohads have conquered large areas, at one point even stretching into West Africa.

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Improving the Issues Facing Africa with 30 People

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Improving the Issues Facing Africa with 30 People

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Quartz has chosen 30 innovators in Africa for their creative approaches to local problems in business, politics, culture and health and more. They will be honored on Monday (Sep. 14) at the Quartz Africa Innovators summit. Yinka Adegoke, Quartz Africa editor, says:

The narrative in Africa has moved from seeking foreign-solutions-for-African-problems, to discussing African-solutions-to-African-problems. And, as our coverage (and the efforts many of these innovators) shows, it's now moving toward a narrative of African-solutions-to-global-problems...Africa's future is as promising and rewarding as we often hear, but not just because of oft-cited factors like abundant natural mineral resources and increasing political stability. The countries of the continent have great promise because of their people.

Here are 30 of the people who are helping the continent take major strides forward.

Abass's company, M-Farm, gives small, subsistence farmers vital market information via SMS on their mobile phones and helps them reach buyers. It is also helping to remake the role of traditional middlemen into that of aggregators and enablers, rather than mere conduits to markets.

Abass' interest in rural development stems from her own childhood on a farm, where she grew and sold coriander and kale. She now aims to bring M-Farm to other emerging countries. She has also worked on other tech projects, and has been a leader of AkiraChix, a group of hackers and developers.

Adeyemi, founder of NLÉ, an Amsterdam-based architecture, design and urbanism practice, gained global attention in 2013 by building a three-storey floating school on a lagoon in Lagos, serving the slum of Makoko. It was an innovative solution to several problems, all familiar to urban planners in the developing world: overflowing slums, the lack of education infrastructure, and the need for low-cost housing. Adeyemi also built a waterfront radio station, not far from Makoko, that will serve 500,000 people. Adeyemi has now turned his attention to another interesting issue: how to secure land tenure to people living on water.

Follow him: @NLEWORKS on Twitter

One of the continent's most celebrated authors, Adichie's novels 'Purple Hibiscus,' 'Half of A Yellow Sun' and 'Americanah'-and her collection of short stories, 'The Thing Around Your Neck'-have reached an global audience, introducing millions to modern Africa, and especially to her native Nigeria. But she's likely even better known for her essay and TED talk, "We Should All Be Feminists," which challenges feminism to be a more inclusive space; it was also sampled in the Beyoncé anthem, 'Flawless.'

Read more about Adichie here, here and here. Read some of her writing here, here and here. Watch her TED talks here and here.

Follow her on Facebook, here.

Kunle Afolayan's 2015 got off to a great start when his award-winning drama 'October 1' became one of the first-ever Nollywood movies to get signed up for distribution on Netflix, the world's largest Internet-based video on-demand platform. October 1, had one of the biggest ever budgets for a Nollywood movie as Afolayan tries to lead his counterparts to raise production standards across the Nigerian movie business.

Afolayan started acting in 2005 and later transitioned into directing. His Yoruba and English language film "The Figurine" won multiple awards at the 2010 "African Oscars," or the African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), including best picture. His films have been featured in various festivals including the London Film Festival, Pan African Film Festival and the New York African Film Festival.

Follow Afolayan @kunleafolayan on Twitter

Akon, who has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and worked with artists including Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani, is reinventing himself beyond American pop music.

He is returning to his African roots by lending his name and media brand to a groundbreaking 'Lighting Africa' initiative. It has the ambitious target to bring solar power to 600 million people who currently do not have access to reliable power. The Sengalese-American also opened Solar Academy in Mali, to train engineers who will develop innovative electricity solutions. Lighting Africa says it already has operations in Mali, the Republic of Guinea, Benin, Senegal, Niger, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo-Brazzaville, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Madagascar, and Namibia.

Follow Akon @Akon on Twitter

Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu started soleRebels in her country Ethiopia back in 2005. The shoe company, which works with local artisans, is now a global brand with exports to over 30 countries. A huge part of the attraction is that soleRebels uses old rubber from truck tires to make its shoes giving it a unique eco-friendly twist on fashion.

"We selected shoes because we saw that footwear was an excellent platform to begin to share many of the indigenous eco-sensible craft heritages and artisan talents that we have here in Ethiopia with the world!" Alemu also created The Republic of Leather, which produces bespoke goods. Alemu is re-imagining style in Africa. But more importantly, she's having an impact on the local economy by channeling the talents of artisans into job opportunities.

Follow Alemu @BethlehemAlemu on Twitter

A singer, songwriter and producer, he's one of the most talented musicians in Nigeria with hits such as Ordinary People. Asuquo was born blind but has never let that dissuade him from being ambitious. While the phenomenal rise in the popularity of the Nigerian pop sound 'Afrobeats' has encouraged many producers to veer further down a path of ersatz American hip hop in search of crossover success, Asuquo has been one of the few to stand firm and encourage a new generation of African musicians to retain an "African" sound in their music. He has done this most notably as a judge on the American Idol-like TV show Project Fame.

Follow Asuquo @cobhamsasuquo on Twitter.

His eponymous company, Charas LDA, invests in young Mozambican entrepreneurs, especially those from the poorest sections of society. It also develops affordable housing. Arguably his most important investment, however, is Verdade, a free newspaper with a strong focus on governance issues: with a readership of more than 600,000, it's the largest newspaper in the country. Charas is also an outspoken advocate for access to information and freedom of expression.

Follow him: @echaras on Twitter

One of the world's best-known footballers, Drogba has graced the colors of Marseille, Chelsea, Galatasaray-and of course the national team. He currently plays for Montreal Impact. His goal-scoring exploits are legendary. When he led the national team to qualification for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Drogba called for a halt to the civil war then raging in Cote d'Ivoire: a cease-fire was soon announced. In 2007, Drogba was appointed a global goodwill ambassador for the UNDP.

More recently, his eponymous foundation has pledged to open five hospitals in Cote d'Ivoire. The first, which opened in April in the Abidjan region, will be able to take 50,000 patients a year. The hospitals will specialize in women and children's health.

Read more about Drogba here, here and here. Watch him here and here.

Follow him: @DidierDrogba on Twitter

Born in Cameroon, educated in Nigeria and currently resident in South Africa, Edjabe brings an omnivorous, heterodox literary and musical appetite to his role as the continent's preeminent curator of African thought and sound. His cultural impact is showcased on two platforms: the Pan African Space Station, a music platform that brings together diverse African genres both online and in venues across the continent; and Chimurenga, a literary magazine that also publishes investigative journalism.

Follow him: @Chimurenga_SA on Twitter

Dr. Mosoka Fallah is a Harvard-trained epidemiologist and immunologist. He was one of the leading health officials fighting the spread of Ebola in Liberia. He grew up in Monrovia, which helped him build trust within communities that were struggling to deal with the disease that ravaged his hometown. As one resident of the city told the New York Times, "We can say openly: Had he not been here, things would have gotten far worse."

At a difficult time in Liberia's history Fallah showed creative leadership in a devastated public health system and demonstrated his commitment to his country and the continent. Even before the Ebola outbreak, Dr. Fallah had intended to return to Liberia after Harvard to open a maternal care clinic.

Read more about Dr. Fallah here, here and here. Watch him here.

Follow Fallah @mfallah1969 on Twitter

Gaba trained in Amsterdam, and spends much of his time in Rotterdam, but his art speaks the language of Africa. His breakthrough on the international scene, in 2002, came with a conceptual masterwork entitled, 'The Museum of Contemporary African Art,' installed in 12 rooms. It was playful, provocative, and very personal-one room is a record of Gaba's own marriage.

The work, in its entirety, was featured at London's Tate Modern in 2013. Since then, Gaba's work-some of it featuring such unconventional materials as sugar and hair-has been displayed in the world's finest museums and galleries, and he has cemented his status as the continent's most influential artist. Gaba currently has a solo exhibition called Architectures Sculptures in Paris.

An ineluctable presence on Kigali's tech scene, Iribagiza is founder and CEO of the mobile-solutions company HeHe Labs, which connects businesses-including high-profile clients like MTN-with customers. Having started the company while still in college, Iribagiza is now helping Rwandan schoolkids build mobile apps. Building on the prominence she gained in 2012, when she won $50,000 on the reality-TV show Inspire Africa, Iribagiza's entrepreneurship and social outreach have made her an inspiration, especially to women in technology.

Read more about Iribagiza here, and here.

Follow her: @clairyce on Twitter

While still at university, Esther Kunda helped create Sarura, an app that provides SMS-based weather updates and agricultural advice to Rwandan farmers. She got $5,000 as a startup grant from IndieGoGo, and co-founded OSCA Connect, which develops mobile and web applications. It is also developing a virtual marketplace online for farmers.

Kunda is also involved in mentoring programs for young women through the MsGeek competition, where young women are able to showcase new technology.

Read more about Kunda here, here and here. Watch her here.

Follow her: @estherkunda on Twitter

A medical doctor and a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, Mabaso is the founder of Transitions Foundation, an organization that works in the area of youth unemployment. But she's better known for her writing, which she has described as a hobby: her books 'Coconut,' and 'Spilt Milk' have won her a raft of international and African awards. Critics have hailed her as one of the defining voices of South Africa's "born free" generation-people who didn't experience Apartheid. She's now working on her third novel, and on a PhD on population health.

Follow her: @kopanomabaso on Twitter

Mabika's organization, Development Reality Institute, aims to mitigate the effects of climate change in Africa, not only by generating awareness and pressuring governments and companies, but by helping to train activists across the continent. DRI's Climate Change Virtual School is an e-learning tool that offers courses on climate change and responses, and encourages students to start their own, local movements. Mabika is also a bitcoin evangelist: he co-founded BitFinance, which aims to create an exchange to buy and sell bitcoin.

Follow him: @VerengaiMabika on Twitter

One of the leading haematology experts in Africa, Makani's work on anaemia and Sickle Cell Disease-a major cause of infant mortality on the continent-has led to new understanding of the disease and won her international acclaim, including the 2011 Royal Society Pfizer Award. She founded the Sickle Cell Foundation of Tanzania, to work on the prevention and management of the disease.

Follow her: @juliemakani on Twitter

If Sara Menker's philosophy was a bumper sticker, it would say, 'It's the data, stupid.' A former Wall Street commodities trader, the Ethiopian-born entrepreneur founded Gro Intelligence, to provide customers with data insights into anything from weather patterns to pricing dynamics. Many times, African businesses and, even governments, can not get access to capital because there is a dearth of reliable data on information as basic as GDP inputs or how much corn is produced in a country. Menker wants to change that.

Her business is split between New York and Nairobi and has started out focused on the African continent. But Menker tells Quartz that Gro Intelligence is now looking into offering its proprietary data platform globally as the business has identified a challenge which is not completely unique to Africa.

Follow Menker @SaraMenker on Twitter

With over 15 years in law and corporate experience, Musonda wanted to make affordable food from local products. She created Java Foods. She previously worked with Aliko Dangote as the director of legal and corporate affairs at Dangote Group. Here, she led a project to build a cement plant in Zambia.

Her challenge with Java Foods has been to market noodles to Africans. But she was prepared for the challenge and saw the opportunity in a fast-urbanizing and young continent. At least one study predicting that demand for processed or packaged food on the continent will increase seven times by 2040. "I wanted to develop a product for the youth market that was affordable and nutritious," says Musonda.

Follow Musonda @monicamusonda on Twitter

An award-winning photographer, Mwangi became an activist after documenting Kenya's post-election violence in 2008. Now he's on the front pages as much for his eye-catching campaigns against corruption and violence as for his photographs. Mwangi is also founder of Pawa254, a hub for creative people working on projects geared for social change, and of Picha Mtaani (Photos of the Streets), a street exhibition that has traveled around the world.

Read more about Mwangi here, here and here. Watch his TED talk here.

Follow him: @bonifacemwangi on Twitter and Instagram

Noah's nomination as successor to Jon Stewart as host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show may have surprised Americans, but Africans have long known-and laughed at-the young funnyman. If you hadn't watched him on his own show, "Tonight with Trevor Noah," chances are you caught YouTube clips of his one-man show, "The Racist," at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe.

He was also featured in the documentary "You Laugh But It's True" about his career in post-apartheid South Africa. Much of his early work revolved around his mixed parentage: his mother is Black South African, and his father is Swiss, and white. But his sharply drawn observational comedy has evolved into a wider range, covering the personal, the social and the political.

Follow him: @Trevornoah on Twitter

Njoku founder of iRokoTV, the so-called "Netflix of Africa" describes his business as "arguably one of the most awesome internet companies in Africa." The four-year old business now has distribution deals with Dailymotion, iTunes, Amazon, and Vimeo. Barely 18 months after launching iRoko, Njoku started Spark, an investment firm which will support budding technologists and has backed the likes of Hotels.ng the travel website.

Capitalizing on the fact that Nigeria has the world's third largest movie industry, Njoku brought a creative solution for movie-lovers to access the country's film. He was able to raise millions of dollars of investment from seasoned international investors like Tiger Global. Njoku describes himself as an "Igbo-Kung Fu Samurai Warrior Geek."

Follow Njoku: @JasonNjoku on Twitter.

The first African to win an Oscar, and one of Hollywood's brightest stars of the moment, Nyong'o is best known for her powerful performance in the 2013 film, 12 Years a Slave. Even greater stardom awaits: she will appear in the next Star Wars movie this winter. More recently, Nyong'o has been using her stardom to draw global attention to the protection of African elephants, and the preservation of their habitat.

Follow her: @Lupita_Nyongo on Twitter

Okolloh is co-founder of Ushahidi, a crowd-mapping platform that gained international prominence during Kenya's 2008 post-election violence. She also co-founded mzalendo.com, an online platform that aims to "keep an eye on the Kenyan parliament." Okolloh was also behind the #147notanumber campaign in response to the Garissa University tragedy earlier this year. She is currently director of investments for Omidyar Network, an impact investor that has backed the likes of Sahara Reporters, Hotels.ng, JoziHub, and BudgIT.

Read more about Okolloh

,

and

.

Follow her:
@kenyanpundit
on Twitter

Nigeria's politics isn't exactly known for transparency but no one has done more to take advantage of web-based software and social media plus a dash of sheer effrontery to hold government players to account than Oluseun Onigbinde. He's the co-founder of BudgIT, a web-based public data visualization platform which works to educate the public about Nigeria's funds. Onigbinde says on a state's pecuniary matters, "I believe in a just, transparent and fair society where every citizen within a community has equal access of information about the fiscal position of their society."

BudgIT's #OpenNASS campaign for greater transparency by Nigeria's National Assembly led to the famous headline, "Nigeria's legislators will get $43 million of taxpayers' money for a wardrobe allowance".

Follow Onigbinde @seunonigbinde on Twitter.

Uche Pedro is founder of Bella Naija, one of the fastest-growing digital media businesses on the continent covering entertainment, fashion and lifestyle. Pedro started the Bella Naija blog in 2006 as a hobby while a student in Canada. She returned home to build it into one of the most influential, trend-watching media brands online with over one million unique visitors a month. Today the BellaNaija Wedding page, which features fashion shots from high society weddings is a phenomenon on the Web and social media, particularly Instagram.

Pedro has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN and won numerous individual and media awards in recognition for her contributions to fashion, media, and entrepreneurship.

Follow Pedro @bellanaija on Twitter

Widely acknowledged as one of Kenya's most successful entrepreneurs, Rionge was co-founder of multi-million dollar Wananchi Online, which made the Internet affordable for Kenyans. She got her start in business at just 20 years old by selling yogurt from a friend's car while being a hairdresser.

Passionate for the global and the local, Rionge has worked in Greece, the UK and Spain among other countries. On success, she says, "I believe that success is defined by increased value-not simply financial rewards." Rionge is an icon of African web entrepreneurialism and recently featured in a Cadillac commercial that celebrated global achievers

Follow Rionge @njeririonge on Twitter

Seeing that fake pharmaceuticals ran rampant in his country Ghana, Simons decided to solve the problem by founding mPedigree, which lets customers verify the authenticity of drugs with a simple text message code. Trained as an astrophysicist, Simons' first attempt at being a change-maker was in 2005 when he developed technology for consumers to track their produce to ensure it was organic. He then shifted the idea to drugs when realizing the farmers of the produce would have to learn how to code.

Now in 2015, mPedigree's codes are on hundreds of millions of drug packaging in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and India with more pilots in other countries. Simons and mPedigree are now turning their sights to other industries with counterfeit, marketing and logistics challenges including seeds, cosmetics, and other businesses.

Read more about Simons here and here.

Follow Simons @BBSimons on Twitter

Binyavanga Wainaina broke into mainstream pan-African consciousness with his groundbreaking satirical essay How To Write About Africa". It has become the definitive critique of foreign coverage of the continent. He also wrote the memoir "One Day I Will Write About This Place." His extensive career in writing includes everything from freelancing as a food and travel writer in South Africa to winning the Caine prize for his short story "Discovering Home." In 2014, he publicly announced that he is gay and has since become a vocal advocate for LGBT rights.

Wainaina's use of language, irony, worldliness and an agnostic approach to media formats help him break down barriers that are often used to define and limit what is supposed to be 'African writing'.

You read more about Wainaina here, here and here and watch him here:

Follow Wainaina @BinyavangaW on Twitter

Siya Xuza is a Harvard-educated engineer who invented a homemade rocket fuel. The invention won him the Intel Science Prize. MIT's Lincoln Laboratory named a minor planet in his honor, "Siyaxuza," found near the Jupiter asteroid belt.

Xuza is now focusing his attention on earth by founding Galactic Energy Ventures, which will help the energy industry in his home country of South Africa. He wants to develop solutions to address Africa's energy needs focusing in on the 620 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live without access to electricity.

Follow Xuza @SiyaXuza on Twitter

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Meet 30 innovators finding African solutions for African problems

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Quartz has chosen 30 innovators in Africa for their creative approaches to local problems in business, politics, culture and health and more. They will be honored on Monday (Sep. 14) at the Quartz Africa Innovators summit.