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Global fast fashion brands are pumping out new clothes every two weeks, shipped off around the world to be sold. But this disposable culture leads to waste and environmental damage. The solution, of course, is slower fashion - a culture where clothes are made as needed and last longer. West Africa is well known as a dumping ground for secondhand clothing from the west. It should also be known, writes Adwoa Owusuaa Bobie, for its creative and culturally aware
model of sustainable clothing production.
Next time a bat swoops past you or takes to the evening skies as you watch, share this cool fact with your fellow bat-watchers: Africa is home to more than 200 species of the only mammal that’s capable of true flight, and hosts over 20% of the world’s bat population. You might, then, expect the continent’s fossil record to be packed with bat bones. But that’s not the case. Mariëtte Pretorius explains why, and outlines the value that fossils can play in
modern bat conservation.
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Charl Blignaut
Arts, Culture and Society Editor
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Adwoa Owusuaa Bobie, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)
West African designers produce only the clothes that are needed, preventing waste and allowing space for creativity.
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Mariëtte Pretorius, University of the Witwatersrand
The scarcity of bat fossils is more than a palaeontological puzzle: it has implications for bat conservation strategies today.
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Environment + Energy
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Joseph Ogutu, University of Hohenheim
Africa’s great wildebeest migrations are being disrupted by roads, cities and agriculture.
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Joshua Matanzima, The University of Queensland
Lake Kariba stretches between Zimbabwe and Zambia. Its residents are bearing the brunt of a climate change-induced drought, with fish supplies dwindling and human-wildlife conflict occurring.
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Mark Swilling, Stellenbosch University
After 30 years of democracy, South Africa is in a deep electricity crisis which can only be solved if the government moves speedily to set up solar and wind plants.
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Business + Economy
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Odongo Kodongo, University of the Witwatersrand
Kenya wants to keep the shilling’s value artificially high, but it will soon realise that foreign currency reserves, used for intervention, are not limitless
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Health + Medicine
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Alessandra Prioreschi, University of the Witwatersrand
Children who play a lot learn skills such as sitting, crawling and standing quicker. Play also leads to better health and wellbeing as they grow older.
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De Wet Swanepoel, University of Pretoria
There is only one audiologist for every million people in Africa. Pioneering digital devices help close the gap.
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Niccolo Francesco Meriggi, University of Oxford
For villagers in remote areas in Sierra Leone it takes a lot of time and money to get to a clinic. So the COVID-19 vaccine came to the people.
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Arts, Culture + Society
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Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, University of Warwick
Sammy Baloji’s work allows us to revisit the DRC’s past and explore how art can help us understand decolonisation.
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Politics
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Patrick Hajayandi, University of Pretoria
The RED-Tabara armed group operates out of the DRC’s volatile eastern region, which shares a porous 243km border with Burundi.
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Gemma Ware, The Conversation; Thabo Leshilo, The Conversation
The second episode of What happened to Nelson Mandela’s South Africa?, a three-part podcast series on The Conversation Weekly. Featuring interviews with Mashupye Maserumule and Michael Sachs.
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Nicodemus Minde, United States International University
Political reforms and Magufuli loyalists within Tanzania’s ruling party could shape Samia Suluhu Hassan’s candidature for the 2025 elections.
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Science + Technology
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Mary Carman, University of the Witwatersrand; Uwe Peters, Utrecht University
Many existing explainable artificial intelligence systems produce explanations that are tailored to individualist, typically western, populations.
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19 April 2024
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Cape Town
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19 April 2024
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Cape Town
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25 April 2024
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Cape Town
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4 May - 22 June 2024
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Cape Town
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