Africa

Eager South African students in poor areas suffer from poor teaching, perhaps a legacy of apartheid

by Celia W. Dugger New York Times September 21, 2009

KHAYELITSHA, South Africa — Seniors here at Kwamfundo high school sang freedom songs and protested outside the staff room last year because their accounting teacher chronically failed to show up for class. With looming national examinations that would determine whether they were bound for a univer...

Rosaria Chimwaza, a health survey assistant, weighs a baby girl in a Malawi village as her 18-year-old mother looks on. The rate of decline in child mortality for Malawi and six other countries with the highest rates has been much steeper than the global average, according to an analysis by demographers. Perhaps Malawi’s most powerful weapon against child mortality has been its ranks of more than 10,000 high-school-educated village health workers.  Photo: Moises Saman/New York Times

Child mortality rate declines globally

by Celia W. Dugger New York Times September 9, 2009

MPATA, Malawi — The number of children dying before their fifth birthdays each year has fallen below nine million for the first time on record, a significant milestone in the global effort to improve children’s chances of survival, particularly in the developing world, according to data that Uni...

An elderly woman is given water in the Turkana region of Kenya. Many of the elderly are too weak and sick to feed themselves or drink. Photo: Jehad Nga/New York Times More Photos

Lush land dries up, withering Kenya’ s hopes

by Jeffrey Gettleman New York Times September 7, 2009

LOKORI, Kenya — The sun somehow feels closer here, more intense, more personal. As Philip Lolua waits under a tree for a scoop of food, heat waves dance up from the desert floor, blurring the dead animal carcasses sprawled in front of him....

Gabon protestors clash with security forces after poll result shows Ali Ben Bongo won presidency with 42 percent of the vote. Critics claim election ...

by BBC News September 3, 2009

Opposition activists have clashed with security forces in Gabon after election results confirmed Ali Ben Bongo as president with 42% of the vote....

Patients waited at a clinic in Khayelitsha, on the outskirts of Cape Town. South Africa has one of the world’s worst H.I.V. and tuberculosis epidemics. Photo: Joao Silva/New York Times

South African government embraces study very critical of its health policy

by Celia W. Dugger New York Times August 24, 2009

JOHANNESBURG — Leading South African scientists challenged the governing party on Monday to break with its deeply flawed record on AIDS and public health, spurring the country’s new health minister to say that he and his party shared their diagnosis of systemic problems and were determined to re...

One of the world’s biggest refugee camps lies on Kenya’s border with Somalia.  The Dadaab camp, designed to hold  90,000 refugees, now gives shelter to more than three times that number. Photo: BBC

In pictures: Kenya’s camp for Somali refugees

by BBC News August 5, 2009

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Nigeria in/near hunger crisis–agriculture is neglected, and 38 percent of children are moderately or severely malnourished

by David Hecht Washington Post August 2, 2009

KANO, Nigeria -- The nation blessed with Africa's largest oil reserves and some of its most fertile lands has a problem. It cannot feed its 140 million people, and relatively minor reductions in rainfall could set off a regional food catastrophe, experts say....

Striking South African municipal workers are monitored by police as they protest in Cape Town. Thousands of municipal workers across the country are into their third day of strikes following a breakdown in wage talks with the South African Local Government Assn. Photo: Nic Bothma / EPA

Fed-up South Africans lash out at Zuma’s government. Violent protests have erupted in about 20 townships as the urban poor who backed the ANC gr...

by Robyn Dixon Los Angeles Times July 30, 2009

TOKOZA, SOUTH AFRICA — When he was 13, Celi Xaba protested against South Africa's white-minority government over the lack of water in his township. Now 29, he's still protesting, and there's still no running water in Tokoza. But this time he's fighting the black-led government that promised salvat...

President Obama addressed the Ghanaian Parliament at the Accra International Conference Center on Saturday. Photo: Paul Loeb/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Obama gives a call for change to a rapt Africa

by Peter Baker New York Times July 7, 2009

CAPE COAST, Ghana — President Obama traveled in his father’s often-troubled home continent on Saturday, where he symbolized a new political era but brought a message of tough love: American aid must be matched by Africa’s responsibility for its own problems....

G8’s promise to Africa is likely to be broken–pledge to double aid by 2010 far behind schedule

by Kathryn Hopkins The Guardian June 11, 2009

The G8 group of leading industrial nations looks set to break its promise to eradicate poverty in Africa because of a poor performance by France and especially Italy, aid campaigners warned today. The One campaign group, which fights poverty and disease in Africa, said that the G8 had only delive...

  • World Hunger Education
    Service
    P.O. Box 29015
    Washington, D.C. 20017
  • For the past 50 years, since its founding in 1976, the mission of World Hunger Education Service is to undertake programs, including Hunger Notes, that
    • Educate the general public and target groups about the extent and causes of hunger and malnutrition in the United States and the world
    • Advance comprehension which integrates ethical, religious, social, economic, political, and scientific perspectives on the world food problem
    • Facilitate communication and networking among those who are working for solutions
    • Promote individual and collective commitments to sustainable hunger solutions.