Best of the Year

How Kenya’s Indigenous Ogiek are Using Modern Technology to Validate their Land Rights

By Isaiah Esipisu
The Ogiek community, indigenous peoples from Kenya’s Chepkitale National Reserve, are in the process of implementing a modern tool to inform and guide the conservation and management of the natural forest. The community has inhabited this area for many generations, long before Kenya was a republic. Through this process, they hope to get the government to formally recognise their customary tenure in line with the Community Land Act.

To Restore Forests, First Start With a Seed

By Emmanuel Hitimana
In 2011, when Rwanda committed to restoring 2 million hectares of land in a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested areas by 2020 — it seemed like a big ask. 

12 Years Behind a Stove—An Undocumented Immigrant in New York City

By Carmen Arroyo
One chilly afternoon in November 2005, Hilarino came by Pedro’s house in Oaxaca, Mexico, driving a shiny red car. “Pedro!” he shouted, “We are leaving in March. There is a route North to the U.S. that passes along the sea.”

This is What Happened to the 18,000 People Forcefully Relocated to an Arid Zimbabwean Government Farm

By Davison Mudzingwa
When the Tokwe-Mukosi dam’s wall breached, so started the long, painful and disorienting journey for almost 18,000 people who had lived in the 50-kilometre radius of Chivi basin in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo province as even those not affected by the flood were removed from their homes.

Zimbabwe’s Unfolding Humanitarian Disaster – We Visit the 18,000 People Forcibly Relocated to Ruling Party Farm

By Davison Mudzingwa and Francis Hweshe
As the villagers sit around the flickering fire on a pitch-black night lit only by the blurry moon, they speak, recounting how it all began. They take turns, sometimes talking over each other to have their own experiences heard. When the old man speaks, everyone listens. “It was my first time riding a helicopter,” John Moyo* remembers.

Ethiopian Scribes Try to Preserve Dying 4th Century Art

By James Jeffrey
Misganew Andeurgay changes his bamboo-made pen for another, dips it in a tiny pot of viscous liquid and, on a parchment page filled with black script, begins to trace in scarlet-red ink the Amharic word for god. 

Unravelling the Civil War Propaganda

By Lal Aqa Sherin
Western fears of a civil war in Afghanistan are growing ahead of the scheduled pullout of international troops in 2014. However, experts here say the situation on the ground is not comparable to either 1988, when the Soviets withdrew from the country, or the mujahideen’s rise to power in 1992, which plunged the country into civil war.

Africa Cashes in on Mineral Wealth

By Ed McKenna

Many of the fastest-growing countries in the world are in Africa, the poorest continent on the planet, but the potential for recently-discovered resources to generate broad-based inclusive development opportunities is massive and remains under-exploited.

Ceasefire Means ‘Nothing’ to Gaza Fishers

By Eva Bartlett
Shortly after Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement on Nov. 21, the Israeli navy abducted 30 Palestinian fishers from Gaza's waters, destroyed and sank a Palestinian fishing vessel, and confiscated nine fishing boats in the space of four days.

Detained at the Eastern Border – Part 1

By Claudia Ciobanu
A recent hunger strike, involving over 70 migrants detained in heavily guarded centers across Poland, is forcing the country to face its new responsibilities as a migration hub within the European Union.

War Widows Struggle in a ‘Man’s World’

By Amantha Perera
Sita Tamang’s husband went missing sometime in 2004, two years before Nepal’s civil war came to an end. A native of Dharan, a town about 600 kilometres southeast of Kathmandu, Tamang waited seven years after his disappearance before she tried to claim compensation offered by the government after a 2006 peace deal ended this country’s bloodshed.

Dreams of a ‘Green Utopia’ Wither in the Maghreb

By Julio Godoy
When the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII), an alliance of 21 major European corporations, first unveiled plans to install a network of solar thermal, photovoltaic, and wind plants across the North African Maghreb region to generate electricity, the project was greeted as a ‘green utopia’.

Longer Lives, Lower Incomes for Japanese Women

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
When Hiroko Taguchi retired this past April, at the age of 64, from her job as an insurance sales agent, she joined the rapidly growing ranks of Japan’s aging women who now outnumber their male counterparts.

Somaliland Rising from the Ruins of Somalia

By Matthew Newsome
As Somalia starts to emerge from its quagmire of instability and chaos, 20 years of relative peace and stability are starting to pay dividends for its close neighbour Somaliland, as this November it struck its first major oil deal since seceding from Somalia in 1991.

The Price of Ignoring the Sexuality of Kenya’s HIV-Positive Youth

By Miriam Gathigah

It all started with a fight, one that would change his life forever.

/UPDATE*/ Africa – Calling for a GMO-Free Continent

By Busani Bafana
South African smallholder farmer Motlasi Musi is not happy with the African Centre for Biosafety’s call for his country and Africa to ban the cultivation, import and export of all genetically modified maize. "I eat genetically modified maize, which I have been growing on my farm for more than seven years, and I am still alive," he declared.

Taking the Knowledge of Doha Back to Kenya’s Rural Communities

By Mantoe Phakathi
The skyscraper Qatari capital city of Doha is a far cry from Cecilia Kibe’s home in Turkana district, a remote area in Kenya inhabited by mostly nomadic communities and pastoralists hit hard by the effects of climate change.

Chinese and Brazilian Firms Building the New Angola

By Mario Osava
"In Luanda there are no matches." This was the first line of a report written by Nobel Literature laureate Gabriel García Márquez in the Angolan capital in 1977.

Children Face the Fallout of Gaza War

By Mel Frykberg
As Israel and Hamas separately celebrate the ceasefire and their “victory” over the other following Israel’s blistering eight-day military assault on the Gaza strip, civilians continue to pay the price.

War Tourism Skips Reality

By Amantha Perera
The tour guide’s voice echoes around the dark, musty room, three stories underground. Fifty visitors – among them mothers holding infants, youths snapping pictures on mobile phones and grandparents leaning against the walls – are crammed into the narrow stairwell that leads down into the chamber, listening attentively to his every word.

Mental Health, Another Victim of Climate Change

By Patricia Grogg
"The city looked as if it had been bombed. On the way to my office, I passed people who had the same shocked look on their faces as I did. We would look at each other, and even though we were strangers, we’d ask ‘How did things go for you? Did anything happen to your house?’ It was a kind of warm solidarity that did me a lot of good.”
Next Page »