It is only by investing in both water and sanitation that the full health benefits of these services will be realised for the world's poorest people. We know that diarrhoea is the single biggest killer of children in sub-Saharan Africa and on current trends it will be around 200 years before Africa has universal access to both water and sanitation.

A mysterious stone age people, a species of human distinct from our own, may have lived in China as recently as 11,500 years ago, Fossil remains w...

While "modern Africa" created diverse pathways to betterment, survivalist economies litter the landscape. Its paradox of "subsistence with many faces" coexists amidst the tiny middle class, growing rich, and many more poor expected in the future.

A group of passengers travelling on an ill-fated plane may not have known when it began to nose-dive and then crashed into a swamp in Cameroon, an inq...

Well, here I am in Zimbabwe. We've had two days in the Gutu region now. Here's how it's gone so far...

If our President is to be believed, then Sierra Leone is booming. Supported by Tony Blair and international lobbyists, he has taken this message around the world. But good PR is no substitute for the truth. When Colonel Gaddafi gifted honorary membership of the Sierra Leonean parliament, there is so clearly much that is rotten.

Robert Mugabe, leader of Zimbabwe, dismissed persistent rumours that he is dying of cancer by comparing himself to Jesus Christ during an interview on...

Djibouti is home to a large French military base. It is also home to an expanding multi-agency US base, 'Camp Lemonnier', about to undergo its next phase of development in the wake of events in Iran, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Africa's growth has averaged just below 6% over the last decade. And with the world economy slowing including China's, one is tempted to ask if this g...

The General Assembly of the UN has provided Africans from Africa and from the Diaspora with a stage to make their voices heard; now the opportunity needs to be taken.

We cannot abandon the people of South Sudan at such a moment of renewed need, whatever our frustrations. They have suffered so long for their prized independence and deserve so much better. But even if the present crisis is mitigated by some kind of agreement after even worse north-south brinkmanship than we are used to, the international community will have to demand much more and better from the government in Juba, as well as pressing Khartoum. The message may be unwelcome. But accepting responsibility is part of independence too.

Ten years ago today, at a small press conference in New York, Bono and Bill Gates launched an activist entity called DATA, with start-up funds from Mr Gates, George Soros and Ed Scott.