South Africa’s violence against women ranks as one of the worst in the world. As much as 40-50% of women in the country have suffered intimate partner violence.
Demand for housing in South Africa continues to outstrip supply despite the government having made more than three million houses to poor households.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The dismally slow provision of housing in South Africa is such that more than 2.2 million households live in 2700 informal settlements. Waiting is the norm and can take years, even decades.
Seabelo Senatla of South Africa scores a try against New Zealand during the gold medal match of the Rugby Sevens at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Reuters/Russell Cheyne
By investing in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, South Africa sacrifices investment in pressing societal needs. Instead, the country should be mobilised around the national goal of fixing schooling.
Leaders at the last Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November 2013. Malta will host the next one in November 2015.
Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte
The Commonwealth is politically fraught, with widely divergent members. But, instead of unravelling as some critics wish, it has instead inspired copycats and appears set to grow and endure.
Black students at University of Stellenbosch protest against the institutions’s language policy they say discriminates against them by favouring Afrikaans.
Times Media/Adrian de Kock
Black youth are grappling with the question of the meaning of freedom in post-apartheid South Africa. They seek an antidote to their reality wherein blackness continues to be mocked and marginalised.
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir signs a peace agreement in the capital Juba, on August 26, 2015.
Reuters/Jok Solomun
The Sudanese government and its armed opposition are both unhappy with the ceasefire they signed. Senior military officers have also publicly voiced their disapproval of the induced deal.
Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir addresses members of the UN Security Council in Khartoum in 2008.
Reuters/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
Omar al-Bashir’s planned trip to New York to address a summit on sustainable development at the UN General Assembly involves considerable reputational risk for the US.
The funeral of General Adolphe Nshimirimana, assassinated in August 2015.
Reuters
The fact that businesses cannot accurately calculate the cost of doing business in Nigeria because of corruption makes them jittery.But it doesn’t mean Nigeria is more corrupt than any other country.
What the increased ties between Russia, India, China and Brazil mean for Africa remains unclear.
Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin
The strategy of Brazil, Russia, India and China towards African development seems to be muddled with selfish national interests. Their focus is on areas critical to the growth of their economies.
Sierra Leone has made significant progress in the fight against ebola and is grappling with economic recovery.
Reuters/Baz Ratner
Although Sierra Leone is not yet officially ebola-free, there are significant improvements. Economic recovery discussions have also started. Care needs to be taken to ensure broader societal benefit.
For black women demands for equal dignity and fairness do not necessarily entail a desire to do away with male leadership in the home, community and country.
EPA/Jim Hollander
National Women’s Day in South Africa marks the historic protest in 1956 of women against apartheid policies. But, six decades on, black women have yet to fully embrace feminism as a discourse.
The island of Mauritius has a strong democratic tradition that has deepened over the past decades.
Reuters/Ally Soobye
History tells us that while elements of competition and inclusion strengthen multiparty systems, too much of either can be fatal to the process of democratisation.
Thomas Sankara remains a revered figure in Burkina Faso long after his death.
Reuters/Joe Penney
Many African countries continue to creep along a predetermined path that takes them away from any real possibility to defend their sovereignty and meet the needs of their people.
Buhari has a lot to prove after landslide election.
'STR/EPA'
Compared to other parts of the world, Africa is not a high-flyer in the area of election management. This can be attributed to the scourge of violence, fraud, corruption and intimidation.
The Union Buildings in Pretoria, home to South Africa’s government. Public confidence in civil servants has been severely eroded.
Thomas Mukoya/Reuters
Yarik Turianskyi is Manager of the Governance and African Peer Review Mechanism Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs and guest lecturer in African Governance and Eastern European Politics, University of Pretoria