Africa Defense Forum - Africa Defense Forum

THE STAR, Kenya Kenya is working with France on a project to give communities around Lake Victoria access to clean water and improve security in some of the nation’s slums. France has given Kenya a $43 million grant that will cover 27.5…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Zimasa Mabela grew up under apartheid in a South African village just two hours’ drive from the ocean, but it wasn’t until age 18 that she first saw the sea. Now 38, she is the first black woman to command a South…

DEFENCEWEB Sierra Leone commissioned a new patrol boat to monitor fishing vessels and poachers in its territorial waters. President Ernest Bai Koroma presided over the ceremony on November 11, 2015, in Freetown. The boat, Fisheries…

VOICE OF AMERICA A senior official at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said the group’s policies to combat violent extremism in the region are worth replicating elsewhere. Remi Ajibewa, ECOWAS director for…

THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE The Nigerian Navy is using an Israeli-designed, United Arab Emirates-built Falcon Eye mass surveillance system to track activity in the Gulf of Guinea. The waters off the coast of Nigeria are notorious for…

VOICE OF AMERICA Scientists may have hit on a way to prevent the transmission of malaria with a drug originally developed to treat parasitic illnesses. The drug, whose creators were honored with a Nobel Prize, is called ivermectin, and…

VOICE OF AMERICA Confidence was just 14 when her aunt married her off to a 42-year-old man. The now-22-year-old Zimbabwean says the experience shattered her. Her husband was abusive, as were his other wives. “After two years of…

VOICE OF AMERICA Tanzanian President John Magufuli is going full throttle in the fight against waste and corruption. Tanzanians say they like his take-charge approach, though it is not new for him. Magufuli was nicknamed “The…

UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE Noting the significant impact climatic activities have on Africa, the World Bank Group announced a plan to increase climate resilience and low-carbon development. “The consequences of climate change for…

Story and photo by AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE A Ghanaian inventor and church leader who started out trying to make voice-controlled television sets is telling the world’s auto giants to move over. Kwadwo Safo Kantanka — nicknamed “Apostle”…