Africa Science Focus

Episode 13  Did you listen to our previous episode on how women in Sub-Saharan Africa access abortions? On Africa Science Focus this week, we explore apps young people in Sub-Saharan Africa can access to get information on sexual reproductive health in a bid to reduce unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection, including HIV-AIDS.  Want to know more about what’s happening in science i...

Episode 12  Following our popular episode, ‘ Where are Africa’s women in STEM? ’, Africa Science Focus this week hears from female scientists who are launching their careers.  From Janelisa Musaya in Malawi, to Violet Kayamba in Zambia and Martha Zewdie Gebeyehu in Ethiopia, some of the most important research on the continent is being led by women.  Want to know more about what’s happening in sci...

Episode 11  Africa has the youngest population in the world, and the billion-dollar market for digital learning and education technologies is on the rise.  Locally developed e-learning solutions will be the future of education in Africa, says Given Edward, the head of edtech venture Mtabe, as this year’s lockdowns have shown that learning happens beyond the classroom.  “It’s not a matter of if, it...

Episode 10   Africa Science Focus takes time this week to reflect on the impact that conflict has had on research and development across the continent.  Science is an easily forgotten victim of war, natural disaster and public health crises.  “Research, for the most part, is done in an enabling environment. With conflict … and bullets flying all over the place, that might not be the best environme...

Episode 9  This week’s Africa Science Focus is on malaria, one of the biggest killers on the continent.  “Malaria is so common you can get it anywhere, anyhow, any time,” Jessica, a malaria sufferer in Liberia, tells the programme.  This is because Africa’s mosquitoes are “supremely efficient vectors of malaria disease”, says the World Health Organization’s David Schellenberg.   And from Malawi, C...

Episode 8  Locust swarms spanning up to 2400 square kilometres — the largest for a century — have been ravaging East Africa’s croplands over the past year. Yet could efforts to control the insects also be threatening buffalo breeding, tourism, national parks — and lions?  The average swarm consumes more food in one day than 30,000 people. As the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization predicts new...

Episode 7  Africa Science Focus is back with another exciting episode looking at how the COVID-19 pandemic is inspiring health and education innovations. Young developers in Africa are changing the face of innovation with new ventilators, face masks and gloves, as well as digital learning.  “These new innovations are pushing us towards the new normal, the new trend in the world that is towards tec...

Episode 6  The focus of today’s show: women in science. The number of women pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — known as STEM — is discouragingly low, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.  “Traditionally, women grow up thinking that those difficult subjects are for men,” Grace Nambatya Kyeyune, director of research at Uganda’s Natural Chemotherapeutics Research In...

Episode 5  Africa Science Focus this week looks at whether African institutions are free to take independent decisions on research in the continent. African governments have not given research the attention it deserves, according to Alhaji Njai, a professor of infectious diseases and toxicology at the University of Sierra Leone and research fellow at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, USA. “A...

Episode 4  On this week’s show, we explore how climate change and COVID-19 are impacting farmers in Malawi, while contactless innovations are changing the way people live in Rwanda. Malawi’s economy is driven by the agricultural sector, which accounts for nearly 80 per cent of employment. The country is experiencing a food crisis brought on by recent droughts and flooding. We hear from the agricul...

Episode 3  On this week’s show, we speak to the entrepreneurs and innovators revolutionising Zambia. With youth unemployment in Zambia above 20 per cent, young people are looking for alternative ways to make their mark. We hear how information and communication technologies are playing a central role. And, we learn about the difficulties faced by smallholders. More than 70 per cent of Zambians rel...

Episode 2  This week, a closer look at how women in Sub-Saharan Africa access abortions.  Malawi’s maternal mortality rate remains one of the highest in the world, with complications from unsafe abortion estimated to account for up to 18 per cent of maternal deaths.  “This current law now is killing people, it’s killing women, it’s killing girls, because it’s not safe, it’s not accommodative,” a w...

Episode 1   In our first episode, presenter Selly Amutabi brings you stories about how health services have been coping with disruptions caused by efforts to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.  We look into how COVID-19 has affected the prioritisation of resources, such as reproductive health services.   In Tanzania, young women and men feel discouraged from collecting contraception from health facili...