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Schools serve as dynamic platforms for promoting the consumption of nutritious food, with activities such as nutrition campaigns and cooking demonstrations reinforcing lessons drawn from the Competency-Based Curriculum. These initiatives are designed to positively influence children's nutrition behaviours while indirectly shaping broader family dietary habits, recognising the pivotal role learners play as agents of change within their households. Following a survey conducted

Fishing is an important component of rural livelihood in communities along major rivers, lakes, and the coast. The role of women in the value chain has been culturally prescribed, limiting them to processing and marketing, making their livelihoods reliant on the availability of fish. Women's access to fish for processing and marketing is reported to depend on their ability to invest in fishermen's businesses, have a fisherman husband, or access credit to buy fish. These fact

Dr Judith Falola-Olusankanmi participated in an intensive Systems Analysis Course facilitated by Professor Mary Scholes from the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. The workshop was convened by the ARUA Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Food Systems at the University of Pretoria and hosted at the Future Africa Campus. The four-day programme brought together emerging scholars and researchers from diverse disciplines to e

Dr Jabulani Nyengere was recently appointed as a mentor within the Emerging Adaptation Professionals (EAP) Knowledge Catalyst Fellowship. For the next four months, he will focus on helping students from African Universities strengthen their academic writing skills and expand their knowledge, ensuring their manuscripts are improved and ready for publication in high-impact journals. As part of this, he recently did a virtual presentation on "Advanced Spatial Modelling for Acade

In Murang'a County, Kenya, farmers increasingly depended on indigenous weather forecasting practices to predict weather patterns to inform their agricultural practices and decisions. For several years, Murang'a farmers did not need weather apps or seasonal forecasts to decide when to plant. Nature spoke, and they listened. They watched animal behaviours, the emergence and disappearance of insects and birds' flight patterns as their weather forecasting tools. Moreover, they ob

There is a pressing need for integrated, context-specific evidence that incorporates localised climate projections, drought-resistant coffee varieties under climatic stress, and gender-differentiated vulnerabilities and adaptive strategies. Keffa Zone, widely recognised as the centre of origin for Arabica coffee, remains critically important to Ethiopia’s coffee sector and the livelihoods of the smallholder farmers who rely on it. However, the region is increasingly vulnerabl

Protecting Plants, Securing Futures: International Day of Plant Health 2026 Every meal begins with a plant From the maize fields of Southern Africa to the cassava farms of West Africa, plants sustain economies, nourish communities, create livelihoods, and support ecosystems. Yet across Africa, the very foundation of food security is increasingly under threat. Climate change, invasive pests, crop diseases, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and unsustainable agricultural pra

The tomato value chain is a complex system that involves multiple actors. These actors are vulnerable to the impact of climate change, which is affecting their livelihoods. Further challenges in the tomato value chain include the poor storage system. There is a need to develop the adaptive capacity of tomato value chain actors to enhance their resilience to climate change. This study seeks to empirically measure the climate change vulnerability and adaptive capacity of tomato

Dr Cheboi's research adopts a participatory approach to meaningfully engage women, men, and youth at both household and community levels, ensuring inclusive involvement in decision-making and equitable control over resources. Tailored climate-smart agriculture interventions are designed to address the unique skills, resources, and opportunities of each gender group, recognising that targeted, context-sensitive support is essential for sustainable impact. A mixed-methods appro

29 April 2026 | WATER WEDNESDAYS INTERVIEW Dr Tafadzwa Maramura speaking on Responses to Climate Change Impacts on Portable Water StarFM 102.9MHz is a South African community radio station based in Klerksdorp, City of Matlosana, Dr KK District Municipality, DC40 (formerly Southern District Municipality), named after Dr Kenneth Kaunda, the first President of Zambia, one of the four districts of the North West Province of the Republic of South Africa. Water Wednesday is brought

Malaria is caused by Plasmodium parasites and transmitted between humans by mosquitoes. Despite being a preventable and treatable disease, malaria was estimated by the 2025 WHO World Malaria Report to have caused 82 million cases and 610,000 deaths globally in 2024. Of these, the WHO African region is disproportionately burdened, accounting for up to 95% of reported cases. Although malaria control interventions led to a marked decline in disease incidence across the continent

FAR-Leaf Fellows have used a transdisciplinary research approach that speaks to the trust and transparency needed to ensure community ownership (through skills development and training), incorporate indigenous knowledge systems and local practices, and respect religious practices where necessary. Trust and transparency remain significant challenges for researchers working in rural African communities. Local and regional communities were the primary stakeholders – rural commun

Climate change is not just about rising temperatures or unpredictable rainfall; it is about how these changes affect everyday lives. In the Upper West Region of Ghana, communities are seeing firsthand how shifts in rainfall and hotter dry seasons are changing the patterns of malaria, one of the country’s most persistent health challenges. To advance malaria control, especially in northern Ghana, it is essential to comprehensively integrate climate and environmental variation

This report presents a comprehensive account of a six-week intensive research residency conducted under the FAR-LeaF Fellowship at the University of Pretoria. The primary objective of the residency was to design, implement, and validate a scalable machine learning framework for adaptive malaria forecasting in the Upper West Region of Ghana, a setting characterised by climatic variability and complex epidemiological dynamics. The research moved beyond conventional predictive m

World Creativity and Innovation Day | 21 April 2026 April 21 marks World Creativity and Innovation Day , a celebration of human ingenuity, problem-solving, and the power of ideas to transform our world. While this day often highlights breakthroughs in science, technology, and art, sometimes the most inspiring examples of creativity are quietly unfolding in rural communities, far from labs and innovation hubs. In the water-scarce community I visited, the radio broadcast create

International Plant Appreciation Day | 13 April 2026 Every year on April 13th, the world marks International Plant Appreciation Day, a time to reflect on the plants that sustain life, livelihoods, and ecosystems. While attention often goes to forests, flowers, and rare species, one plant quietly continues to power rural economies across Africa: Napier grass. Scientifically known as Cenchrus purpureus , Napier grass is the backbone of smallholder dairy farming systems in count

Dr Jacob Agyekum is a Research Scientist (Climate) at the CSIR-Water Research Institute in Ghana and a Fellow at Future Africa Research Leadership Fellowship (FAR-LeaF II) at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. With a PhD in Meteorology and Climate Science from KNUST, his work sits at the critical intersection of hydro-meteorology and public health. Currently a Research Resident at the University of Pretoria’s Data Science for Social Impact (DSFSI) lab, Dr Agyekum is pi