Drums started to beat loudly, the sound ricocheting off the walls in a frenzy. A dancer, decked out in traditional, celebratory Zambian dress, moved to the beat as he danced his way to the front of the room. Small bells jingling with every step, he gradually approached the speakers waiting for him next to the […]
Zambia has one of the world’s highest rates of undernourishment: more than a third of children under five have stunted growth, and a quarter of adults are obese. The reason: the country’s over-dependence on maize. A new report looks at how to increase crop diversity, support better nutrition and support resilience at local and national level. […]
While calls for crop diversification are frequently heard from government and CSOs, there has been little systematic examination or agreement to date on how to do it. Hivos and Sustainable Diets for All (SD4ALL) partners Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR), Indaba Agriculture Policy Research Institute (IAPRI), Consumer Unit Trust Society (CUTS) and Civil Society […]
Let youth lead
When a 17-year-old girl in Zambia started a blog to discuss girls’ safety, she never imagined it would be read nearly 200,000 times in a few years. Esther Mwema started her blog to address the safety crisis she saw affecting girls. She soon found out she wasn’t alone.
The Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) has been appointed to sit on the Food Safety Coordinating Committee in Zambia. This development comes at a time when the Parliamentary Committee on Health, Community Development and Social Services is currently engaging in dialogue on the Food Safety Bill 2019 in Zambia. The objective of the Food […]
The Media Institute of Southern Africa Zimbabwe Chapter (MISA Zimbabwe), a Hivos Southern Africa partner under the Green and Inclusive Energy (GIE) program with technical support from Climate Tracker, conducted a two-day editors training on renewable energy and climate change in Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo. A total of 14 editors drawn from both the […]
Over 400 young women have been trained under the Anakazi Leaders project. A project under the Hivos’ Women empowered for Leadership program in Zambia implemented by Restless Development. Anakazi Leaders provides mentorship and pre-professional experience to young women through internships to potential employers / companies. What is the Anakazi Leadership project? The project is aimed at […]
“The Zambian Government is committed to the reduction of stunting among Zambian children by half by 2030,” stated the Zambian minister of agriculture, Hon. Michael Katambo, in his video message at the Global Citizen Live event in Berlin on May 21, 2019. He promised to put agriculture at the center of the government’s plans for […]
In a victory for the LGBT+ community in Botswana, the Gaborone High Court ruled on June 11, 2019, that the sections of Botswana’s Penal Code (Sec.164, 165 & 167) criminalizing same-sex sexual conduct are unconstitutional. The Botswana Penal Code, based on old English colonial law, describes homosexual acts as unnatural “acts against the order of […]
Zambia’s 2019 crop forecast report has revealed a decline in maize output from 2.4million tons from the previous season to 2,004,389 tons this year, representing a decline of 16 percent. According to Minister of Agriculture, the decline is due to poor rainfall that has resulted into poor crop yield in most parts of the country. […]
“Women usually juggle many tasks between the workplace and home, yet they are expected to cope with these different roles without complaining. Since I began working on WE4L in 2016, I have heard stories of how women have forgone opportunities for career advancement because they could not balance working life with the demands of their […]
On 30-31 May, UN-OHRLLS* and GEIDCO** organize the Global conference on Scaling-up Energy Access and Finance in Least Developed countries in Beijing, China. The conference will focus on concrete measures to accelerate energy access and enhance financing for sustainable and modern energy (SDG7). Together with civil society partners and journalists from Nepal, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and […]