News stories by Isaiah Esipisu

MORPUS, Kenya, May 18 (IPS) - For generations, communities in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) have viewed girls through the lens of marriage, with some being married at 11 in exchange for livestock or soon after secondary school, denying them opportunity for further education and skills training.

NAIROBI, April 14 (IPS) - Over 800 households in Ikolomani Constituency in Kakamega County, Western Kenya, fear eviction to pave the way for a British firm, Shanta Gold Limited, to begin extracting gold valued at Sh683 billion ($5.29 billion) on an estimated 337 acres of residential and agricultural land.

NAIROBI, March 3 (IPS) - As the global community marks 2026 World Wildlife Day today (March 3), this year’s focus is on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants: Conserving Health, Heritage and Livelihoods. However, beneath these celebrations, a difficult question emerges: who will bear the cost of conservation when traditional donor funding becomes uncertain and in the face of climate change?

CHONGWE, Zambia, January 23 (IPS) - In a quiet village known as Nkhondola, in Chongwe District, Eastern Zambia, Royd Michelo and his wife, Adasila Kanyanga, have transformed their five-acre piece of land into a self-sustaining agroecological landscape. With healthy soils built over time, the farm teems with diverse food crops, fruit trees, livestock and birds, nourishing their family and the surrounding community.

ADDIS ABABA, November 19 (IPS) - As the COP30 negotiations intensify in Belém, Brazil, civil society organizations and research experts have called out major financial institutions for promoting foreign interests in controlling Africa’s land by formalizing land tenure and seeking to convert Africa’s land into industrial farms or carbon markets.

ADDIS ABABA, September 12 (IPS) - African climate negotiators and civil society organizations at the second Africa Climate Summit (ACS 2) have called on governments to include sustainable farming approaches and other Africa-led solutions in their revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and National Adaptation Plans (NAP) ahead of COP 30, as the only way to have their priorities on the global climate negotiation agenda.

KERICHO, Kenya, Mar 27 (IPS) - On the outskirts of Kericho town within Kenya’s Rift Valley region, Kaptepeswet tea farm, an organic tea estate sprawling on a 50-acre piece of land, is a testament that organic fertilizers can be used on mature tea bushes and still produce the desired quantity and quality of premium leaves.

ADDIS ABABA, Feb 27 (IPS) - Renewable energy and climate change activists have challenged African heads of state to take a united stance to safeguard essential mineral resources, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and other parts of the continent, which are selfishly exploited by foreign miners with disregard for poverty-stricken local communities.

BAKU, Nov 16 (IPS) - African environmental activists at the ongoing climate summit (COP29) in Baku have called on climate financiers to stop suffocating poor countries with unbearable loans in the name of financing climate adaptation and mitigation on the continent.

HARARE, Oct 04 (IPS) - African policymakers, local leaders and the private sector have been asked to create an enabling environment that will help African traders and farmer folks build reliable systems for food security and resilience through territorial markets.