Region: East Africa
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Revival of traditional foods dominates food celebrations in Kabarole
The call for the revival of indigenous traditional foods dominated the World Food Day celebrations in Kabarole district, Uganda. The celebrations, organised by Hivos and Kabarole Research and Resource Centre, were held under the theme ‘Reviving the production and consumption of traditional and indigenous food varieties for better health, food security and rural development’. Local…
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A new era for bio-digester technology in Africa
Declaration of Ouagadougou endorsed by 11 West and Central African Countries The International Conference on Biodigester Technology concluded on 12 October 2017 in Ouagadougou with the President of Burkina Faso, His Excellency Roch Marc Christian Kaboré presiding over the public reading of the “Declaration of Ouagadougou” concerning the promotion and dissemination of biodigester technologies in…
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100 Days of Learning – final edition of Age of Wonderland
100 DAYS OF LEARNING is the 2017 programme – and final edition – of knowledge platform Age of Wonderland, a global learning programme initiated by Hivos and Baltan Laboratories in 2014. This year, innovators, scientists, engineers, artists, designers, social entrepreneurs and thinkers from around the world were invited to share stories and ideas gained from…
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World Food Day
Uganda’s food production has been on a steady decline owing to climate change coupled with a growing population. The shifting scale of food production has brought with it extremities such as malnutrition and hunger in sub-regions such as Karamoja, Teso and Lango. As we commemorate World Food Day (WFD), the Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) states…
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Biogas: an alternative ‘powering’ lives
Globally, it’s estimated around 1.3 billion people lack access to electricity; Africa’s population alone accounts for almost half of that figure. Sadly, the use of traditional biomass as fuel for cooking and a reliance on expensive diesel-powered, polluting generators have been the norm in Africa. While it’s been argued that access to energy propels socio-economic…
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Today we speak as one
On September 22, websites of international NGOs and regional and local organizations all over the world turned their home pages blank. So did Hivos. We were protesting against the oppression of active citizens and organizations who want their voices to be heard, who want to gather or demonstrate peacefully. We went silent in solidarity with those…
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Freedom of expression under siege in Uganda
Hivos East Africa condemns the recent police raids on Action Aid Uganda, Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies (GLISS) and Solidarity Uganda. Ahead of the age limit debate in parliament, a series of raids, arrests, threats and intimidation of citizens and civil society organisations have continued to escalate the shrinking civic space in Uganda. The…
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Energy that meets the needs of everyone
Even with the expansion of national grid systems and tapping into renewable energy, it’s been argued that Africa’s energy systems are not meeting the needs of the poor. In Ethiopia, the argument is not too far-fetched, against a population of 104 million people, how do you meet the energy needs of everyone especially for those…
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Food choices and diversity: From the farm to the plate
Healthy eating habits and practices have been replaced by unhealthy and consumption of less diverse and less nutritious foods. The compromised eating trends are incidentally an occurence among both low and high income populations. Among the latter it is attribued to among other reasons climate change which has affected agricultural productivity amidst competing households economic…
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Out of work and into school
‘Gold from children’s hands.’ Sounds nice, even poetic, but what kind of reaction does this statement elicit when you connect it with child labour? It is estimated that up to two million Ugandan children have been forced into child labour, mostly through conflicts often leading to internal displacement. On the 2017 World Day against Child…
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Voice: insights from one year of grant-making
There are a few critical moments in the lifespan of a grant-making programme: Those moments in which you need to press pause, contemplate the journey so far, and look back at your achievements and challenges. After one year of grant-making, filled with work on designing and refining four different types of calls for proposals, reviewing…
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Towards living wages in African horticulture value chains
On August 24 2017, the Hivos Women @ Work Campaign in Southern Africa convened its stakeholders from the horticulture sector in Malawi for the first time to discuss the issue of living wages. Low wages are a persistent problem in many global supply chains, so this is a key issue for the Women @ Work…