Earlier this week, the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development wrapped up in Addis Ababa with an emphasis on how African nations can take action on climate change while developing their economies. Support for the evolving African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was high on the…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
African leaders are celebrating news of successful negotiations for a High Seas Treaty, the long-awaited United Nations agreement to protect global oceans and ecosystems through international cooperation. The treaty, approved by delegates to the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), follows years of talks that…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth of Mauritius says his recent trip to the United Kingdom included discussions on the residents of the Chagos Islands who were forced to leave decades ago, and he welcomed advances on returning the territory to his Indian Ocean island nation. “The Government of Mauritius has…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
African heads of state aren’t the only ones heading to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Young climate activists from across the continent, along with their global peers, are again calling for action on climate change through various events aligned with UNGA. The Youth4Climate initiative, along with other…
On the whole, communities on the African continent have made greater strides in life expectancy than in any other region of the world, according to a new assessment report from the World Health Organization (WHO). The life expectancy of Africans went up by an average 10 years per person between…
It was not a good year for improvements on corruption anywhere in the world, according to the 2021 annual report released by Transparency International on Tuesday. Overall, the Corruption Perceptions Index report shows that 86% of the world’s nations are either losing control in the fight against corruption or remain…
President Danny Faure of Seychelles underscored the challenges facing island nations as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic took center stage at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. Faure’s pre-recorded speech was among six such talks scheduled for African leaders, in a format that replaced in-person meetings for the…
There are now at least 229 positive cases of the novel coronavirus on the African continent, according to health officials, with the first confirmed cases in Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, Rwanda and Seychelles among them. The Department of Health on Seychelles said two of its citizens returned to the Indian Ocean…
The European Union has placed the Indian Ocean island nation of Seychelles on its “taxation blacklist,” which it says is meant to encourage good governance and help countries reform their tax-haven policies. The EU list of “non-cooperative jurisdictions” now includes 12 nations listed because of concern that their policy environments…
The United Nations General Assembly has voted in support of a motion to censure the decades-long UK occupation of the Chagos Islands, and it called Wednesday for a reunification of the Indian Ocean archipelago with the island nation of Mauritius within six months. There were 116 votes for the motion, with…
The International Court of Justice, the principal court of the United Nations, announced Monday a decision that calls on the UK to end its control over the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Prime Minister of Mauritius Pravind Jugnauth welcomed the decision as a “triumph for justice” and said he…
With all of the attention paid to United States President Donald Trump’s tirades on trade during the weekend G7 meeting in Canada, it might go unnoticed that a number of African heads of state were in Quebec too – and they were focused on environment and climate in a G7…
Officials in Seychelles are ramping up efforts to combat the island nation’s notorious heroin problem, which now effects more than 5 percent of the population age 15 or older. That’s according to survey results released earlier this month by the Agency for the Prevention of Drug Abuse and Rehabilitation, which…
The island nation of Seychelles has announced two new Marine Protected Areas covering 210,000 square kilometers as part of a novel debt-for-conservation deal designed by The Nature Conservancy. The deal allows the Indian Ocean island to pay off outstanding sovereign debt with $21 million raised by the conservancy, and is…
For an island nation like Seychelles, the loss of coral reefs has impacts in tourism and fishing, two of the country’s key economic sectors. Yet protecting coral is a priority because of climate implications too, and new research from SECORE International – a global network of scientists and coral conservationists…