All publications and documents

This week's UK-Africa Investment Summit will provide a welcome business-focused forum for leaders to assess the challenges and opportunities for African countries. Throughout the summit, I will stress the importance – and difficulty – of transformational improvements in economic programs. Faster, more sustained and broad-based growth is the only path to creating the jobs and stability needed for…

A key priority for Africa over the next decade should be to address a deteriorating food security situation that is compounded by the effects of climate change, declining agricultural productivity, and rapid population and urbanization growth. Encouragingly, this priority is reflected in initiatives shared by Africa and the world. Already, the African Union member states are committed to ending…

One of the less frequently heard aspects of global warming is the change to the planet's soil. Desertification has been a problem for Mediterranean countries such as Spain and Greece for some time, but it is now affecting some unexpected parts of Europe, like Hungary. Mónika Lakatos is a Hungarian Meteorologist: "The negative effect of climate change can be seen on the extreme…

Next Thursday, January 30, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will debut an exhibition entitled “Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara,” a sprawling survey of a region on the southern tip of the Sahara desert that included the formidable empires of Ghana (300–1200), Mali (1230–1600), Songhay (1464–1591), and Segu (1640–1861). Exhibition dates : January 30–May 10, 2020 (https://www…

If ensuring plant health is not successful against threats such as climate change, pesticides and degraded ecosystems, the world may face total desertification, according to a biodiversity expert. "Animals and humans can’t live without plants in an ecosystem ... the final result can be ecosystem collapse, total desertification," Nele Marien, forest and biodiversity coordinator at…

Morocco - For the last six years, Herrah and her family have gone against tradition by remaining in the Erg Chigaga region of the Western Sahara Desert. Despite it being one of the most untouched parts of the Sahara—a place that is vast and wild, a place where nature still rules—climate change is causing a life-altering problem for nomadic people like Herrah. The region has long been…