Covid-19 has proved to be a game-changer for East African businesses. Among the hardest hit is the region’s alternative energy sector. The sector, responsible for providing many remote communities with off-grid energy services, started the year on a high. However, the pandemic, and the recession it motivated, quickly reversed fortunes. FORBES AFRICA examines how the sector is responding, and coping, to some of these shocks.&nbsp;



Over the last decade, East Africa’s off-grid energy companies have been the unsung heroes of the region’s wider energy industry. According to GOGLA, the global association for the off-grid solar energy sector, these businesses have collectively provided at least 470 million people, many of them in remote communities, and cut off from the national grid, with alternative energy access.



The industry, working to reduce energy poverty across East Africa, was arguably on a high at the start of 2020 but the onset of Covid-19, and the reactionary public policies that followed, have worked to reverse a lot of growth that the sector was previously experiencing.



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/The-Marinyn-Elgon-village-part-of-the-Finlays-Tea-Estate-in-Kericho-Kenya-is-electrified-thanks-to-a-mini-grid-system-installed-by-PowerGen-in-1024x571.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48358" width="637" height="353"/><figcaption>The Marinyn-Elgon village, part of the Finlays Tea Estate in Kericho, Kenya, is electrified thanks to a mini-grid system installed by PowerGen. </figcaption></figure></div>



Looking at the off-grid solar sector, GOGLA’s East Africa representative, Patrick Tonui, says that while the impact of the pandemic has been grave for the industry, Covid-19 remains a universal shock for the region and sector businesses had to react with that in mind.&nbsp;



“Coming into the beginning of this year, this industry was really on a solid growth path and the outlook was looking good. [In] January, we began to hear about Covid-19 and what was happening [especially after] China shut down for the month. We [anticipated] there were going to be impacts on the supply chain and on the manufacturers who were producing these products. As we went into March, when Covid-19 reached Africa, and we saw various government responses to it, one thing was abundantly clear was that we [were] going through a global health crisis and it wasn’t necessarily about us [as an industry],” he says.



Ensuing public health measures to contain the virus including lockdowns, curfews, and travel bans hampered the industry and severely impacted trading for many of these businesses. In fact, according to a survey by EnDev, an international energy access partnership working in a number of developing countries, East Africa’s off-grid energy firms were among the hardest hit, globally, with 35% of these businesses going into hibernation as a direct result of the pandemic. To an extent, says Tonui, this couldn’t be helped.



“We asked ourselves [as GOGLA], we asked our partners, and our members if it would have been responsible for us, as an industry, to go to [our] government and say ‘you are hurting my business by shutting my stores down or by shutting the ability of customers to come to us’. This is a global health crisis and [right now], it&#8217;s a question of how we [as an industry] are going to protect our communities and our workforce.”



While the direct impact of Covid-19 policies have played a major role in declining sales for sector businesses, investment in the industry has also been strained in the fallout.&nbsp;



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="883" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GOGLAs-East-Africa-Representative-Patrick-Tonui-image-supplied-scaled-e1602598344349-1024x883.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48355" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GOGLAs-East-Africa-Representative-Patrick-Tonui-image-supplied-scaled-e1602598344349-1024x883.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GOGLAs-East-Africa-Representative-Patrick-Tonui-image-supplied-scaled-e1602598344349-300x259.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GOGLAs-East-Africa-Representative-Patrick-Tonui-image-supplied-scaled-e1602598344349-768x662.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GOGLAs-East-Africa-Representative-Patrick-Tonui-image-supplied-scaled-e1602598344349-1536x1325.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GOGLAs-East-Africa-Representative-Patrick-Tonui-image-supplied-scaled-e1602598344349-600x517.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GOGLAs-East-Africa-Representative-Patrick-Tonui-image-supplied-scaled-e1602598344349.jpg 1707w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Coming into the beginning of this year, this industry was really on a solid growth path and the outlook was looking good.”<cite>– Patrick Tonui of GOGLA</cite></blockquote>
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This is already apparent on the ground. A number of relief funds have been set up to help East African off-grid energy businesses through this crisis including the Energy Access Relief Fund&nbsp; pioneered by Acumen, the multinational not-for-profit impact investment fund, which provides bridge loans as an avenue for emergency funding to eligible businesses.&nbsp;



The realities of this moment are all too real for entrepreneurs like Aaron Cheng, President of renewable energy firm, PowerGen, operating in five countries across the region including Kenya and Ethiopia.



“In general, Covid-19 has impacted some investors from what we’ve seen. Some investors have completely pulled out or put [a] pause on new investments and that’s really damaged projects in the sector. We’ve certainly been affected by that, we’ve been lucky enough to have some investors step in who have been supportive through this time,” says Cheng.



Nevertheless, Cheng notes that his company has had to minimize all possible costs while waiting on emergency funds to get through the crisis.



“We have done our best to preserve our team and keep that together. In terms of relief funding, we have been in discussion with some of these programs but they have been a lot slower than intended&#8230; and so there hasn’t actually been any final stage notices around any of the funding [that we’re seeking]. For the most part, we have done our best to reduce non-personnel costs to be able to retain our team&#8230; that’s been really important to us to keep the business going,” he says.



Delayed financing has had an impact not only on operations but on new projects as well.



“We’ve actually seen a greater demand for large-scale solar battery solutions and I think that’s because grid reliability has been hit by Covid-19 and, generally, corporate ‘greenness’ is a sentiment that’s increasing around the world and [the pandemic] has helped accelerate that discussion and dialogue [globally] so we’re seeing a lot of commercial-scale interest but projects themselves are taking a while to close because financing has been slow.”



The pandemic is also affecting one of the off-grid sector’s innovative service provisions; mini-grids. Independent from the national grid, these installations provide reliable and consistent off-grid electricity for small-scale electricity generation projects usually for communities or businesses.&nbsp;



According to Aaron Leopold, CEO of the Africa Mini-grid Developers Association (AMDA), an industry association initiated by mini-grid companies across the continent, based in Nairobi, even before Covid-19, the sub-sector faced constraints due to its idiosyncrasies.



“The issue with mini-grids is that energy policy, around public sector support, subsidies and also regulation has traditionally been built around approving and monitoring a very small number of very large projects whereas mini-grids are a huge number of very small projects. The burden, the complexity, and the detail of the regulatory requirements are overly burdensome on these small projects. It will be physically impossible to achieve universal energy access on any reasonable time scale without significant improvement in the regulatory environment,” explains Leopold.&nbsp;



As a result, these shortfalls in policy have restricted the region’s mini-grid sub-sector’s access to investment, posits Leopold.



“[It’s] that very same regulatory environment hampers investment. We have investors saying, ‘What? It takes you one year to get approval to electrify a village of 1,000 people? I’d rather put my money somewhere else’! We are really looking to help governments [through our work] think creatively about keeping their citizens safe, because that’s what regulations are for, and also enabling the progress that they are trying to see in technology and rural service provision.”&nbsp;



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/President-of-renewable-energy-firm-PowerGen-Aaron-Cheng-image-supplied-1024x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48356" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/President-of-renewable-energy-firm-PowerGen-Aaron-Cheng-image-supplied-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/President-of-renewable-energy-firm-PowerGen-Aaron-Cheng-image-supplied-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/President-of-renewable-energy-firm-PowerGen-Aaron-Cheng-image-supplied-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/President-of-renewable-energy-firm-PowerGen-Aaron-Cheng-image-supplied-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/President-of-renewable-energy-firm-PowerGen-Aaron-Cheng-image-supplied-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/President-of-renewable-energy-firm-PowerGen-Aaron-Cheng-image-supplied-2048x2048.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/President-of-renewable-energy-firm-PowerGen-Aaron-Cheng-image-supplied-80x80.jpg 80w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/President-of-renewable-energy-firm-PowerGen-Aaron-Cheng-image-supplied-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/President-of-renewable-energy-firm-PowerGen-Aaron-Cheng-image-supplied-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Corporate ‘greenness’ is a sentiment that’s increasing around the world and [the pandemic] has helped accelerate that discussion…” <cite>– Aaron Cheng, President, PowerGen</cite></blockquote>
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However, despite the policy blindspots, Leopold does note that there is a crucial part this kind of off-grid technology can play during the present pandemic, particularly for the remote communities the sub-sector serves.&nbsp;



“This year, looking at the Covid-19 situation, mini-grids are the technology that will allow us to electrify thousands of un-electrified health centers across sub-Saharan Africa. There is a huge risk [that] every single city in Africa [may be] overrun because [of the pandemic] with people who need medical care, [who] should have received medical care [within] their rural communities, but there are not adequate facilities. The decentralized nature of mini-grids is going to show its value this year,” he noted at an interview at Future Energy East Africa, in June, considered the largest conference and trade exhibition for the region’s energy sector.&nbsp;



Taking a broader view, Lighting Africa, an initiative of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has been working on market development for off-grid technologies including solar products and mini-grids in the region for the last 12 years. Program lead, Itotia Njagi, from Kenya, believes that major African alternative energy markets have been severely affected by Covid-19, comparing market performance between 2019 and 2020.



“Across Africa, we’re seeing almost a 30% drop in sales if we compare the first half of this year to the first half of last year. It varies; some [regional] markets have been hit harder than others, but that’s the general pattern we’re seeing. In fact, this is the lowest half year sales we’ve seen since 2014,” he says.



Despite the startling statistics, Njagi is of the mind that government responses have a lot to do with how their corresponding off-grid energy markets fared, particularly in terms of sales volumes.&nbsp;



“Covid-19 has impacted [regional] markets very differently. As an example, the numbers in Kenya were not down so much, maybe at about 15%-20%. Tanzania, much less, because they never really had a lockdown [period]. However, if you look at countries like Uganda that had proper lockdown [measures] then you start seeing those 30% numbers and, I think, with Ethiopia, it’s significantly more than 30%. So, it varies from country to country.”



As in the mini-grid sub-sector, the wider industry has been hindered by reactionary policy measures, across the region, during the pandemic and beyond.



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="694" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/A-street-vendor-uses-a-PayGo-solar-lighting-system-for-his-stall-image-by-Baobab-1024x694.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48354" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/A-street-vendor-uses-a-PayGo-solar-lighting-system-for-his-stall-image-by-Baobab-1024x694.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/A-street-vendor-uses-a-PayGo-solar-lighting-system-for-his-stall-image-by-Baobab-300x203.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/A-street-vendor-uses-a-PayGo-solar-lighting-system-for-his-stall-image-by-Baobab-768x521.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/A-street-vendor-uses-a-PayGo-solar-lighting-system-for-his-stall-image-by-Baobab-1536x1041.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/A-street-vendor-uses-a-PayGo-solar-lighting-system-for-his-stall-image-by-Baobab-2048x1389.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/A-street-vendor-uses-a-PayGo-solar-lighting-system-for-his-stall-image-by-Baobab-600x407.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption>A street vendor uses a PayGo solar lighting system for his stall</figcaption></figure></div>



“Two things have happened in the last six months from the policy-side that have affected the industry. One is that VAT was re-introduced on solar products. On top of that, [excise] duty was introduced. I can relate with the fact that governments have been affected and they are trying to shore up whatever revenues they can and so some of the exemptions that were provided in [the past], they are [currently] revisiting Duty as a common target within East Africa and [at the same time] VAT is being applied. Basically, these products are now more expensive, at a time when disposable incomes are shrinking. We expect that this will have an impact on sales for the second half of 2020 and so that recovery process [for sector businesses] will take much longer,” he explains.



While tidings for the East African energy sector may seem bleak, for now, there is a silver lining for entrepreneurs in the sector. Turning back to Cheng of PowerGen, despite present difficulties, he believes the outlook remains positive for businesses like his, across the region.



“There still remains about 600 million people without power, and that hasn’t changed. Through Covid-19, and the slump of 2020, there still isn’t a much cheaper grid extension model and there hasn’t been a radical improvement in energy access. You still have high diesel costs and high grid unreliability and that’s actually driven commercial clients to alternative energy solutions. Now, it’s just a matter of continuing to execute and using good economics in these projects and ultimately using the end of 2020 or 2021, if Covid-19 ever slows down, to rebuild investor confidence and get back to the levels we were at in 2019 but we do believe we can get there because the fundamentals remain in the market.”&nbsp;



-By Marie Shabaya

A rural classroom uses a solar powered light, a key product of East Africa’s off-grid energy sector; image by FINCA International [A. Wright]

Powering Through The Pandemic: East Africa’s Energy Sector

The unpalatable truth is an unfair distribution of profits in the global cocoa trade, of which West Africa has substantive market share. Thankfully, entrepreneurial disruptors and a new initiative in Ghana seek a sweeter ending for farmers.



BEFORE IT REACHED THE fashionable parlors of early modern Europe, where it was imbibed as an expensive accessory to gossip and gambling, chocolate had already enjoyed a long, intoxicating life. The aphrodisiac beverage cacahuatl, favored by ancient South American cultures such as the Mayans and the Aztecs, was brewed, with chillies, from the cacao bean, a local currency so valuable it quickly caught the avaricious attention of the Spanish Conquistadors. The rest is history – and a narrative tainted with the bitterness of greed and exploitation. But there are signs at last that this story may be headed to a sweeter ending.



The World Cocoa Foundation has calculated that 4.5 million tons of cocoa beans are now consumed annually: as cocoa butter, widely used in cosmetics as well as chocolate products; cocoa powder, a staple in chocolate flavorings; and cocoa liquor, a paste of cocoa butter and solids essential in the production of solid chocolate. The juice of the bean (sweatings) can also be found in soft drinks and alcoholic beverages such as brandy, with the bean husk burned into potash for soaps and fertilizers.



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_06-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48195" width="444" height="295" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_06-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_06-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_06-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_06-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_06-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_06-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 444px) 100vw, 444px" /><figcaption>Photo Supplied</figcaption></figure></div>



The humble cocoa bean is thus a versatile, repeatedly monetizable commodity: in a 2019 Allied Market Research report, the global cocoa products market was valued at $24.5 billion, and is expected to garner $30.2 billion by 2026. But like many of the planet’s most coveted exports, such as tea and iron ore, the crop’s rich dividends are often not trickling down to the mouths that need them most.



The International Cocoa Organization reports that 60% of the world’s cocoa is produced by 2.5 million farming families in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire (the populations of the two countries are 29 million and 25 million respectively). But according to the Walk Free Foundation’s 2018 Global Slavery Index, this figure includes an estimated 2.1 million children working under illegal conditions, and at least 30,000 people entrapped in modern slavery. The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines child labor as “mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children, and [that which] interferes with their schooling”, and modern slavery as “exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, and/or abuse of power”. The unpalatable truth is that most of the chocolate that reaches our shelves handsomely rewards a giant multinational handful of liquid chocolate manufacturers and cocoa traders, but pays cocoa farmers in West Africa an average of less than $1 a day (Fairtrade Foundation report, 2019).



Professor Genevieve LeBaron, Director of the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI), and author of the Global Business of Forced Labour report of 2018, has identified “widespread labor exploitation” within the global cocoa supply chain. “This is rooted in the industry’s business model and supply chain dynamics, which concentrate profits and value at the top of the chain and involves incredibly thin margins and low income for actors at the bottom,” she says. “I also found that ethical certification schemes covering the cocoa industry are failing to create worksites that are free from exploitation.”



LeBaron warns that stickers and symbols on cocoa products glibly advertising guarantees of ‘fair’ conditions for their producers are not what they purport to be. “Consumers need to be sceptical of ‘ethical’ and ‘fair trade’ marketing,” she says. “Labor exploitation takes place even in ethically certified supply chains. There is a need for much stronger accountability over ethical and fair trade certification and auditing. A major overhaul of these programs is needed, especially in terms of how they create and distribute value and are ‘enforced’ – both of which are highly flawed and lacking.”



Until recently, the status quo in the market had remained undisrupted, favoring the industry superpowers who could source cheaply from multiple suppliers and buy in large amounts. “Cocoa is unique in that West Africa contributes such a substantive proportion of market share,” she says. “And the confectionary industry is heavily reliant on sourcing from the region to secure supply and maintain profits.”



New investment in the West African cocoa industry may go some way to improving conditions on the ground. In November 2019, Ghana’s cocoa regulator, COCOBOD, finalized a $600 million loan at the Africa Investment Forum “to finance new warehouses, rehabilitate plantations and support the processing sector”, including $250 million from development finance institutions led by the African Development Bank (AfDB). “Proceeds of the facility will be used to finance key components of COCOBOD’s productivity enhancement programs – a set of interventions aimed at improving Ghana’s cocoa productivity per hectare and increasing overall cocoa production levels,” says Dr Jennifer Blanke, the AfDB’s Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development. “The financing of new warehouses will provide more opportunity to store beans longer and create buffer stocks. This will also allow COCOBOD to have more influence on the volume of beans on the market, as well as the associated price.” She maintains there is a framework already in place for safeguarding farmers against exploitation. “The bank applies integrated environmental and social safeguard systems into business practices with all clients with whom we work, including COCOBOD.” Blanke believes these investments in the cocoa production infrastructure will in turn have a positive effect on the lives of the industry’s vulnerable farming communities. “The idea is that the bank-funded productivity enhancement programs will increase farmer incomes, as well as modernize farming methods,” she says. “This combination should serve as a disincentive to participating in the cocoa trade under illegal or unethical conditions.”



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_03-copy-1024x703.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48197" width="555" height="381" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_03-copy-1024x703.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_03-copy-300x206.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_03-copy-768x527.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_03-copy-1536x1054.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_03-copy-2048x1406.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_03-copy-600x412.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 555px) 100vw, 555px" /><figcaption>Photo Supplied</figcaption></figure></div>



With a mission to make chocolate “100% slave free”, the entrepreneurial disruptor at the sharp end of the industry is Dutch chocolate company Tony’s Chocolonely. The brand was founded in 2005 by investigative journalist Teun (Tony) van de Keuken, who set out on a (lonely) quest to create a chocolate bar from cocoa beans produced in West Africa by fairly-compensated farmers instead of slave labor. Tony’s Chocolonely advocates five game-changing ‘sourcing principles’: traceable beans, a higher premium paid to farmers, investment in cooperatives and farmer training, a minimum five-year business relationship, and improved productivity (from 300kg to 800kg per hectare). Paul Schoenmakers, the company’s Head of Impact, says that efforts to completely eradicate slavery from its supply chain are vigilant and ongoing. “In the past year, 6,624 cocoa partners supplied to us,” he says. “We found 259 new cases of illegal child labor, which we are working to remediate. More than 25,000 people participated in our awareness-raising sessions. For the second year in a row, 100% of the 5,465 metric tons of cocoa beans Tony’s purchased through its partners were traceable. Seventy one percent of people who buy chocolate in the Netherlands (where the brand is the market leader) now know about the issues. That’s important for us, because our roadmap starts with trading awareness.” The company has pushed hard for two years for the Dutch parliament to enact legislation similar to the UK’s 2015 Modern Slavery Act, and a bill has now passed which will require companies legally domiciled in the Netherlands to “conduct investigative research to determine whether child labor is occurring in their supply chains and establish a concrete course of action for rectifying it”.



Schoenmakers believes that any company, big or small, can and should apply the same due diligence. “The framework of our five sourcing principles fits very well to other commodity sectors too,” he says. “Especially coffee and tea, but also cotton. What we are currently working on is making the framework easier for other companies to implement, and we are actively helping them to use that model.”



He says the company’s aim is for all its suppliers to become independent – even from Tony’s. “We used to be the only buyer from a particular cooperative in Ghana. But two years ago, we helped them successfully represent themselves in the international market, and they got access to seven other premium customers. We’re a well-paying customer, so cooperatives like to work with us, but we want them to find other customers too. That also helps us grow.”



A fair premium for cocoa beans – last year, Tony’s paid a 20% premium on the farm gate price – can have a radical and long-lasting impact on the lives of local farmers. “One of the most positive concrete changes is simply paying more money to the farmer. Fighting poverty is a very complicated thing to do, but if you don’t pay more for cocoa, all the other efforts will fail.”



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="alignright size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_01-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48198" width="329" height="218" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_01-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_01-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_01-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_01-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Tonys_Chocolonely_Ghana_cocoa_drying_01-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 329px) 100vw, 329px" /><figcaption>Photo Supplied </figcaption></figure></div>



Within a complex chain from producer to consumer that reaches far across the globe from the bean’s origin, are there ever opportunities for the farmers to try the final product (a chunky chocolate bar quirkily divided into unequal pieces, a metaphor for the unfair distribution of profits in the cocoa trade)?



“We take two cases full of chocolate every time we go there,” Schoenmakers says. “It’s ridiculous so many cocoa farmers have never tasted chocolate in their lives. It’s a luxury they will normally never taste. More than four and a half billion dollars get sucked up by the big chocolate companies every year. Chocolate is a treat, a gift. It’s absolute madness that for a gift that no one really needs, so many people suffer.



-By Alastair Hagger

Reis Ghana, van 23 tot 27 januari 2017

‘Cocoa Farmers Who Have Never Tasted Chocolate In Their Lives’

With only four months to go this year, what is the inevitable uncertainty that awaits us? With a still-increasing Covid caseload, how must Africa and its battered economies learn to co-exist with the virus? A half-year report. 



With the world attempting to return to normalcy in the second half of the year, global experts suggest the worst is not over yet.



Mid-year, globally, there had been over 15 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 with more than 600,000 deaths. 



Speaking from Geneva, in June, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted we’re not out of the woods yet.



“Although the situation in Europe is improving, globally, it is worsening,” he warned.



With North America having, cumulatively, the highest incidence of Covid-19, globally, with over six million infections mid-year, Africa was at the bottom of the ranks, comparatively, with almost 600,000 confirmed cases as of July. But with fast-surging figures, the impact of the virus on the continent continues to have dire effects.



“Looks like the month of August will be the most devastating in terms of new cases and deaths,” says Dr Titus Divala, a medical doctor and epidemiologist based in Malawi.



This spike in cases will no doubt worsen the current burden on Africa’s already ailing public health systems, and in particular, will limit the attention on all other diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.



As a result, this may lead to an unprecedented increase in preventable death, which Divala calls “Covid-19 collateral damage”.



In July, WHO acknowledged there was evidence emerging that Covid-19 is airborne. However, the organization emphasized that more research was “urgently needed”. Airborne transmission means that new infections could accelerate farther and faster.



“Until now, airborne transmission has never been on the cards. Our understanding from Chinese Covid-19 transmission dynamics data, supported by a body [of] evidence from SARS, MERS, and [previous] coronaviruses has always been that the virus spreads [via] droplets which are way bigger than aerosols [necessary for airborne transmission],” Divala says.



Experts like him caution that the emerging evidence must be taken seriously to re-orient prevention messaging before it’s too late. Particularly in Africa, where many socio-economic issues exist.



The Africa Covid-19 Community Vulnerability Index (Africa CCVI), developed by American development body, Surgo Foundation, outlines the 10 most vulnerable regions across the continent, identifying hotspots in six countries. They include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has four of Africa’s most vulnerable regions, and then, Malawi, with two, along with Ethiopia, Uganda, Cameroon, and Madagascar. 



South Africa has emerged as one of the world’s top hotspots for the virus.



By the third week of July, the country recorded well over 350,000 cases and 5,000 deaths with 180,000 recoveries. The continent’s second biggest economy is currently on Level 2 of lockdown restrictions.



And then, there are the myriad unanswered questions: how long before a vaccine is developed?



At the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Shabir Madhi, Professor of Vaccinology, says Africa may likely see a Covid-19 vaccine in the first quarter of 2021.



In July, Madhi, who is also leading a vaccine trial at the university, told Reuters that the ‘ChAdOx1 nCoV-19’ experimental vaccine is one of 19 currently being tested on humans, globally. The vaccine is also being trial-ed in Brazil by scientists from Oxford University in the United Kingdom.



While trials are still in the early stages, business must go on. The second half of 2020 may see more firms attempting to return to normal operations. In terms of the education sector, South Africa has decided to continue with the academic year with some pupils going back to school as others continue classes online.



In July, via Presidential Address, Kenya announced that the 2020 academic year has been completely lost. Schools are expected to resume only in early 2021.



In terms of industry, the challenge that remains is how to rebuild business over the next few months. All businesses will need to become more agile while adopting new technology and online marketplaces. But there are opportunities in the chaos and Covid-19 has accelerated change in building a new reality and navigating the risks as the pandemic rages on.



Undoubtedly, Covid-19 may be with us longer than we anticipate. However, there is hope that African experts will offer new solutions on how to co-exist with the virus, minimize transmissions, and keep our economies and societies running. For now, corporate Africa is preparing itself.



Tshandu Ramusetheli, a Senior Specialized Finance Transactor at Investec in Johannesburg, reiterates that to co-exist with the virus, businesses will need to re-engineer their offerings and adapt to new ways of doing work.



“Most companies (in the services sector) are realizing that their employees can work effectively from home. The downtime that employees would have spent traveling to and from work, coffee breaks in the office, lunches, and general ‘chats around the floor’ have all been replaced by employees spending more uninterrupted time in front of their computers in the comfort of their homes,” he says. “The effect of this is that employees tend to be more productive working from home. Smart employers will capitalize on this and introduce employee incentives for productivity, such as flexi-work where employees work four business days out of five.”



With more focus on the home, hospitals are also now gearing towards the home-based model of treatment for milder cases. FORBES AFRICA 30 Under 30 entrepreneur and list-maker Ogutu Okudo from Kenya resorted to exercising and making her own home-based treatments when she tested positive for Covid-19. She ate foods such as onion soup, wasabi, fruits, and took Vitamin C. In five days, she had fully recovered and got tested again with negative results.



“They say corona isn’t ‘real’ until you know someone who has gone through it, and in my case, that person happened to be me,” she tells FORBES AFRICA. With nations exiting lockdowns and lifting restrictions around the world and Covid-19 continuing on its unwavering rampage, the second wave of the pandemic may soon be upon us. The question is: how much longer before a well-conceived tested cure that is available to all?



&#8211; By Karen Mwendera

IMG_7010

The Corona Conundrum

<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="590" height="393" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/SG-Afganistan.2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-45096" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/SG-Afganistan.2.jpg 590w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/SG-Afganistan.2-300x200.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 590px) 100vw, 590px" /><figcaption>UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls on President Ashraf Ghani during a visit to Afghanistan’s capital Kabul to show solidarity with the Afghan people. Photo UNAMA / Fardin Waezi/June 2017.</figcaption></figure></div>



The world commemorated the 75th Anniversary to mark the end of the 2nd World War also called VE Day on May 08, 2020. 



With her nation, and much of the world still in lockdown, due to COVID 19, England’s Queen marked 75 years since the allied victory in Europe with a poignant televised address. From Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth said, “ the wartime generation knew that the best way to honour those who did not come back from the war, was to ensure that it didn’t happen again”.



But the world is still at war. Proxy wars or localised conflicts are wrecking havoc on human development and humanity in virtually every corner of the world. By the end of 2018, <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2019/6/5d08b6614/global-forced-displacement-tops-70-million.html">wars, violence and persecution have driven record numbers of over 70 million people</a> from their homes worldwide, according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. This is the largest ever displacement of humanity, post 2nd World War.



Never has the appeal by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres been more pertinent: “<a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2017/09/repair-world-in-pieces-and-create-world-at-peace-un-chief-guterres-urges-global-leaders/">The world is in pieces; we need world peace</a>.”&nbsp;



The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/world/asia/us-taliban-deal.html">United States signed a historic deal with Afghanistan</a> that outlines a timetable and exit plan for American troops, setting the stage for the potential end to nearly 18 years of war in Afghanistan.  The UN Secretary General <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1058371">welcomed the US-Taliban peace agreement</a> on February 29, 2020.  The United States also won the<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1059161"> unanimous backing of the UN Security Council</a> to this ambitious peace deal on March 10, 2020.



The implementation of the peace agreement will need leadership, courage and resolve and there will be spoilers who will attempt to upend the peace process. The road to peace will be characterized by violence, set-backs and numerous false starts, but it will need diplomacy, determination and drive to keep the peace process on track. 



Hubris must not prolong the agony of this appalling war. 



The war has cost over $2 trillion and killed more than&nbsp;<a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Human%20Costs%2C%20Nov%208%202018%20CoW.pdf">2,400 American soldiers and&nbsp;</a><a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Human%20Costs,%20Nov%208%202018%20CoW.pdf">38,000</a><a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Human%20Costs%2C%20Nov%208%202018%20CoW.pdf">&nbsp;Afghan civilians</a>. Casualties among Afghan security forces are estimated to have reached around 40,000 between 2007 and 2017.



Wars are appalling. As a combat veteran,&nbsp;<a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20161101105441-eli9d/">I have witnessed first-hand how armed conflicts</a>&nbsp;have transformed some of our finest soldiers into shells of the people I once knew. Combat is savage, it is brutal, it is reckless, it diminishes us as human beings and jeopardizes our humanity.



General William Sherman once said, “It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, and more desolation. War is hell.”



There are no winners in Afghanistan, but let’s consider the consequences on all the women and men who fought in it.



Today, research backs up what soldiers have described for decades, and what was once called shell shock or combat fatigue. We have terms like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), chronic depression, cognitive impairment, and traumatic brain injury to help explain the symptoms suffered by active and returning soldiers.  



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="700" height="467" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/US-Army-soldiers-security-duty-province-Paktika-2010.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-45062" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/US-Army-soldiers-security-duty-province-Paktika-2010.jpg 700w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/US-Army-soldiers-security-duty-province-Paktika-2010-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/US-Army-soldiers-security-duty-province-Paktika-2010-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /><figcaption>U.S. Army soldiers on security duty in Paktīkā province, Afghanistan, 2010. Sgt. Derec Pierson/U.S. Department of Defense</figcaption></figure></div>



For a long time, many of the grim statistics about war centred on fatalities and did not include the conflicts’ deep mental wounds. Today we have a better understanding of the kind of moral and psychological toll wars take on soldiers, their families, and communities.



The United States is a leader in the understanding of psychological and emotional damage to soldiers and has taken some steps to address their mental health. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have left between&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/common/common_veterans.asp">11% and 20%</a>&nbsp;of military personnel suffering from PTSD. As many as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dav.org/veterans/resources/traumatic-brain-injury-tbi/">375,000 US veterans</a>&nbsp;have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries between 2000 and 2017, mostly caused by explosions.&nbsp;



But suicides in the&nbsp;US armed forces have continued to rise in recent years, reaching&nbsp;<a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/09/26/military-suicide-rates-hit-record-high-2018.html">record levels in 2018</a>&nbsp;when there were 25 deaths per 100,000 service members. Former defence secretary Leon Panetta once said that the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/war-wounds.html">epidemic” of military suicide</a>&nbsp;was “one of the most frustrating problems” he had faced.



<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-war-cost.html">More than $350 billion has already gone to medical and disability care for veterans</a>&nbsp;of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Experts say that more than half of that spending belongs to the Afghanistan effort.



Homelessness among veterans is pervasive, and soldiers still struggle to access benefits and healthcare if they suffer from&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/war-wounds.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=2&amp;">mental health</a>&nbsp;issues rather than from physical wounds. At any given time in the US, more than 40,000 veterans are homeless, constituting around&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usich.gov/resources/uploads/asset_library/Homelessness_in_America._Focus_on_Veterans.pdf">9% of all homeless adults</a>&nbsp;in the country.&nbsp;



In the United Kingdom, spurred by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-veteran-soldiers-afghanistan-suicides-deaths-a9367856.html">a dozen suicides</a>&nbsp;among Afghan war veterans in just two months, the government expedited new mental health programs to help deal with former military members’ PTSD and addiction.&nbsp;



What does this now mean for the Afghan security forces? They and their families do not have the same support structures.



All this ‘hell’, but to what end? Afghanistan remains one of the world’s largest sources of refugees and migrants. Since 2004 alone, more than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.giz.de/en/ourservices/55909.html">1.8 million Afghans have become internally displaced.</a>&nbsp;Afghanistan’s&nbsp;human development and progress has been set back by decades.&nbsp;Women and children have suffered the most and countless are emotionally and psychologically scarred for life.



While we like to see soldiers as stoic and heroic, we must open our eyes to the fact that wars scar minds as well as bodies, often in ways medical science cannot yet comprehend.



Just like the world is desperately seeking a cure to end the coronavirus pandemic which has killed over 275,000 people so far and leaving a trail of human, economic and social misery, the world too must find a way to end wars, or else we may be defeated as a civilization.



Siddharth Chatterjee, is the United Nations resident coordinator to Kenya. He has served with the UN and the Red Cross Movement in various parts of the world affected by conflicts and humanitarian crisis. He is also a decorated Special Forces veteran and a Princeton University alumnus. Follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/sidchat1?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">@sidchat1</a>



The views expressed in this article are the author&#8217;s own.​​​​​

VE DAY MARKS THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR-BUT THE WORLD IS STILL AT WAR

There is a new shift to agriculture in Nigeria, but in its semi-arid rural parts, the feud for land and resources between farmers and nomadic herdsmen continues to threaten its future.



IN 2018, DANIEL JAMES WAS seated in St. Augustine’s Church in the rural middle belt of Nigeria. By his side in the congregation were his two sisters, and a handful of family members. They were mourning the demise of his father, Paul James, a 70-year-old farmer who was shot in the head in the dead of night when Fulani herdsmen attacked his village. 



“We woke up in the middle of the night to gun shots. They entered my father’s hut and we heard multiple shots and we immediately hid under the bed and waited until they left the area,” says James. 



His father fought for his life in intensive care for two weeks before succumbing to his wounds. The clashes between armed herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria have been escalating for years. The increasingly violent episodes are as a result of a battle for scarce resources that have invariably stirred up long-held tensions over religion and ethnicity. 



The alleged disputes between mostly Christian farmers and Muslim herdsmen have been exacerbated by climate change and desertification, which have caused herdsmen to migrate south in search of resources to feed their cattle and livestock. 



Their quest for survival has in turn angered the local population, leading to attacks and reprisals. Jonathan Ajioko, a local churchgoer, also mourned his mother and brother in a similar attack in 2018 in Mbalom, Benue State. 



“My village is a quiet village and nobody thought something like this would ever happen. They were in church when the attack happened. About 30 people died that day including women and children,” remembers Ajioko. 



Two days later, a group of men from his village, armed with guns, set up road blocks and gunned down anyone they suspected of being “Muslim or Fulani”. A total of 10 people died, according to Ajioko. The conflict is reportedly getting worse by the day. 



“This has become very rampant in local villages and it is still ongoing. These people are living in fear of attacks every day. The clashes have taken over 500 lives across various villages in Nigeria,” says Malo Usman, a leader of the Adara ethnic group. 



The competition for land is intense. On the one hand, herdsmen believe that the available grazing land has shrunk because farmers have settled on land that they have used for hundreds of years as grazing routes to move their cattle seasonally. 



On the other hand, farmers want swift and severe punishment to Fulani trespassers who trample on their soil with their herds of cattle. Even though agriculture still remains the largest sector of the Nigerian economy and employs two-thirds of the entire labor force according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the ensuing conflicts have led to major production hurdles for Africa’s most populous economy. 



According to the President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, the African continent is spending about $35 billion on food imports alone resulting in a significant loss of jobs. By 2030, the size of the food and agriculture business in Africa will be worth a whopping $1 trillion. 



The sector has been hyped as Nigeria’s new salvation, ushering in a new era away from oil and embracing the power of its land resources. But therein lies the problem. The massive expansion of farming in Nigeria’s middle belt to meet this growing demand for food has cut access to grazing land for nomadic herders.



 “Land is always going to be static and will not increase, therefore, the competition is only growing bigger. So, the importance of raising grazing reserves and encouraging these herdsmen to settle down in them cannot be overemphasized,” says Ibrahim Abdullahi, Communications Manager for the Nigerian Association of Miyetti. 



The practice he refers to dates back to colonial times where areas of land were preserved for exclusive use by livestock. The Nigerian government’s Grazing Reserve Act of 1964 was aimed at tackling the problem of alienation of grazing land being faced by the pastoral population at the time. Under this act, an area would be created mainly in the northern part of Nigeria, exclusively for the Fulani herdsmen to graze their cattle. 



However, desertification of these rich lands led to encroachment by the Sahara Desert, leading to a scarcity of grazing pastures. Experts believe that in spite of these challenges, there needs to be federal and local government participation to map out a coherent policy to find new areas running throughout the country, exclusively for grazing. 



Thus, a new explanation for the violent clashes began to emerge. The growing violence, once traditionally blamed on religious or ethnic divisions, was now seen as a simple clash over resources, which according to Amnesty International, has claimed the lives of more than 3,600 people since 2016.



“We lived very well with the Christian community before but after the 2011 elections, the Fulani villages were attacked. They killed the Fulanis and destroyed our huts and cattle,” says a Fulani herdsman named Abdullahi.



 FORBES AFRICA reached out to Nigerian government sources but they were unavailable to comment on the issue. 



“The shift towards farming not only reflects Nigeria’s rapid population growth, but also successive governments’ efforts to diversify the economy away from its heavy reliance on oil,” says Adesina.



Furthermore, the plunge in oil prices, which sent the country into recession in 2016, means Nigeria has no choice but to return to the land and make agriculture the driver of economic diversification. But with nearly 200 million inhabitants, Nigeria’s population boom is putting pressure on its natural resources.



According to the Armed Conflict Location &amp; Event Data Project, clashes between herding and farming communities in 2018 have killed more people than the conflict involving the Islamist insurgent group, Boko Haram. This rural conflict is a raging issue that still awaits resolution. Without any apparent political will, the reconciliation between herders and farmers remains a distant prospect.

Men seen on a farm close to the bank of River Benue in Makurdi

Cattle, Crops, And Killings

<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"> How much climate change is natural? How much is man made?</blockquote>



As someone who has been working on climate change detection and its causes for over 20 years I was both surprised and not surprised that I was asked to write on this topic by&nbsp;The Conversation. For&nbsp;nearly all&nbsp;climate scientists, the case is proven that humans are the overwhelming cause of the long-term changes in the climate that we are observing. And that this case should be closed.



Despite this, climate denialists continue to receive&nbsp;prominence&nbsp;in some media which can lead people into thinking that man-made climate change is still in question. So it’s worth going back over the science to remind ourselves just how much has already been established.



Successive reports by the&nbsp;Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change&nbsp;– mandated by the United Nations to assess scientific evidence on climate change – have evaluated the causes of climate change. The most recent&nbsp;special report on global warming of 1.5 degrees&nbsp;confirms that the observed changes in global and regional climate over the last 50 or so years are almost entirely due to human influence on the climate system and not due to natural causes.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What is climate change?</h2>



First we should perhaps ask what we mean by climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change&nbsp;defines climate change as:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">a change in the state of the climate that can be identified by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer.</blockquote>



The causes of climate change can be any combination of:



<ul><li>Internal variability in the climate system,&nbsp;when various&nbsp;components of the climate system – like the atmosphere and ocean – vary on their own to cause fluctuations in climatic conditions, such as temperature or rainfall. These internally-driven changes generally happen over decades or longer; shorter variations such as those related to El Niño fall in the bracket of climate variability, not climate change.</li><li>Natural external causes such as increases or decreases in volcanic activity or solar radiation. For example, every 11 years or so, the Sun’s magnetic field&nbsp;completely flips&nbsp;and this can cause small fluctuations in global temperature, up to about 0.2 degrees. On longer time scales – tens to hundreds of millions of years – geological processes can drive changes in the climate, due to shifting continents and mountain building.</li><li>Human influence through greenhouse gases (gases that trap heat in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide and methane), other particles released into the air (which absorb or reflect sunlight such as soot and aerosols) and land-use change (which affects how much sunlight is absorbed on land surfaces and also how much carbon dioxide and methane is absorbed and released by vegetation and soils).</li></ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What changes have been detected?</h2>



The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s&nbsp;recent report&nbsp;showed that, on average, the global surface air temperature has risen by 1°C since the beginning of significant industrialisation (which roughly started in the 1850s). And it is increasing at ever faster rates, currently 0.2°C per decade, because the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have themselves been increasing ever faster.



The oceans are warming as well. In fact,&nbsp;about&nbsp;90% of the extra heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases is being absorbed by the oceans.



A warmer atmosphere and oceans are causing dramatic changes, including&nbsp;steep decreases in Arctic summer sea ice&nbsp;which is profoundly impacting arctic marine ecosystems, increasing sea level rise which is inundating low lying coastal areas such as Pacific island atolls, and an&nbsp;increasing frequency of many climate extremes&nbsp;such as drought and heavy rain, as well as disasters where climate is an important driver, such as wildfire, flooding and landslides.



Multiple&nbsp;lines of evidence, using different methods, show that&nbsp;human influence is the only plausible explanation&nbsp;for the patterns and magnitude of changes that have been detected.



This human influence is largely due to our activities that release greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, as well sunlight absorbing soot. The&nbsp;main sources of these warming gases and particles&nbsp;are fossil fuel burning, cement production, land cover change (especially deforestation) and agriculture.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Weather attribution</h2>



Most of us will struggle to pick up slow changes in the climate. We feel climate change largely through how it affects weather from day-to-day, season-to-season and year-to-year.



The weather we experience arises from dynamic processes in the atmosphere, and interactions between the atmosphere, the oceans and the land surface. Human influence on the broader climate system acts on these processes so that the weather today is different in many ways from how it would have been.



One way we can more clearly see climate change is by looking at severe weather events. A branch of climate science, called extreme event or weather attribution, looks at memorable weather events and estimates the extent of human influence on the severity of these events. It&nbsp;uses weather models&nbsp;run with and without measured greenhouse gases to estimate how individual weather events would have been different in a world without climate change.



As of early 2019, nearly 70% of weather events that have been assessed in this way were shown to have had their likelihood and/or magnitude increased by human influence on climate. In a world without global warming, these events would have been less severe. Some 10% of the studies showed a reduction in likelihood, while for the remaining 20% global warming has not had a discernible effect. For example,&nbsp;one study showed&nbsp;that human influence on climate had increased the likelihood of the 2015-2018 drought that afflicted Cape Town in South Africa by a factor of three.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Adapting to a changing climate</h2>



Weather extremes underlie many of the hazards that damage society and the natural environment we depend upon. As global warming has progressed, so have the frequency and intensity of these hazards, and the damage they cause.



Minimising the impacts of these hazards, and having mechanisms in place to recover quickly from the impacts, is the aim of climate adaptation, as&nbsp;recently reported by the Global Commission on Adaptation.



As the Commission explains, investing in adaptation makes sense from economic, social and ethical perspectives. And as we know that climate change is caused by humans, society cannot use “lack of evidence” on its cause as an excuse for inaction any more.

gettyimages-158765371-170667a

Climate Explained: How Much Of Climate Change Is Natural? How Much Is Man-made?

Snapshots of the outrage against foreign nationals and
protests against sexual offenders in South Africa in recent weeks, captured by
FORBES AFRICA photojournalist Motlabana Monnakgotla.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



As the continent’s second-biggest economy, South Africa
attracts migrants from the rest of Africa. But mired in its own problems of
unemployment and political instability, September saw a serious outbreak of
attacks by South Africans on foreign nationals and foreign-owned businesses.
And they have been ugly.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 



The spark that fueled the raging fire was in Pretoria, the
country’s capital, when a taxi driver was shot dead by a foreign national who
was selling drugs to a youngster in the central business district (CBD).



The altercation caused a riot and the taxi industry brought
the CBD to a standstill, blocking intersections. It did not stop there; a week
later, about 60 kilometers from the capital in Malvern, a suburb east of the
Johannesburg CBD, a hijacked building caught fire, leaving three dead. As
emergency services were putting out the fire, the residents took advantage and
looted foreign-owned shops and burned car dealerships overnight on Jules
Street. 



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="924" height="617" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest2.png" alt="" data-id="42001" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=42001" class="wp-image-42001" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest2.png 924w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest2-300x200.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest2-600x401.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest2-768x513.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px" /><figcaption> A burned shop on Jules Street is one of the many shops that were looted. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="922" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest1-1.png" alt="" data-id="42002" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=42002" class="wp-image-42002" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest1-1.png 922w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest1-1-300x200.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest1-1-600x401.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest1-1-768x513.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 922px) 100vw, 922px" /><figcaption> A cashier’s window smashed during a looting spree in Katlehong. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure></li></ul>



The lootings extended to the CBD and other parts of
Johannesburg.



To capture this embarrassing moment in South African
history, I visited Katlehong, a township 35 kilometers east of Johannesburg,
where the residents blocked roads leading to Sontonga Mall on a mission to loot
the mall and the foreign-owned shops therein overnight. 



Shop-owners and workers were shocked to wake up to no
business.



Mfundo Maljingolo, a worker at Fish And Chips, was among the
distressed.



“This thing started last night, people started looting and
broke into the mall and did what they wanted to do. I couldn’t go to work today
because there’s nothing to do; now, we are not going to get paid. The shop will
be losing close to R10,000 ($677) today. It’s messed up,” said Maljingolo.



But South African businesses were affected too.



Among the shops at the mall is Webbers, a clothing and
footwear store. Looters could not enter the shop and it was one of the few that
escaped the vandalism.



Dineo Nyembe, the store’s manager, said she was in disbelief
when she saw people could not enter the mall. 



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-2 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="926" height="614" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest5-2.png" alt="" data-id="42004" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=42004" class="wp-image-42004" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest5-2.png 926w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest5-2-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest5-2-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest5-2-768x509.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" /><figcaption> A worker cleans up after a liqour store was looted by Katlehong residents overnight. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="921" height="611" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/protest6.png" alt="" data-id="42005" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=42005" class="wp-image-42005" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/protest6.png 921w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/protest6-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/protest6-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/protest6-768x509.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 921px) 100vw, 921px" /><figcaption> Car dealerships were among the businesses set alight on Jules Street. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure></li></ul>



“We got here this morning and the ceiling was wrecked but
there was no sign that the shop was entered, everything was just as we left it.
Now, we are packing stock back to the warehouse, because we don’t know if they
are coming back tonight,” lamented Nyembe, unsure if they would make their
daily target or if they would be trading again.



 Across the now-wrecked mall are small businesses that were not as fortunate as Webbers, and it was not only the shop-owners that were affected.  



Emmanuel Nhlane’s home was robbed even as attackers were
looting the shop outside.



“They broke into my house, I was threatened with a petrol
bomb and I had to stand outside to give them a chance; they took my fridge,
bed, cash and my VHS,” said Nhlane.



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="929" height="614" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest11-1.png" alt="" data-id="42007" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=42007" class="wp-image-42007" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest11-1.png 929w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest11-1-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest11-1-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest11-1-768x508.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 929px) 100vw, 929px" /><figcaption> Rubble and dust on the streets of Katlehong after a night of looting at a local mall and its foreign-owned shops. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure></li></ul>



Nhlane had rented out his yard to foreign nationals to
operate a shop. He does not comprehend why his belongings were taken because he
doesn’t own a shop. Now, it means that the unemployed Nhlane will not be
getting his monthly rental fee of R3,700 ($250).



Far away, the coastal KwaZulu-Natal province of South
Africa, was also affected as trucks burned and a driver was killed because of
his nationality. This was part of a logistics and transport industry national
strike.



Back in Johannesburg, I visited the car dealerships that were
a part of the burning spree on Jules Street. 



The streets were still ashy and the air still smoky, two
days after the unfortunate turn of events.



Muhamed Haffejee, one of the distraught businessmen there,
said: “Currently, we are still not trading.”&nbsp;




Cape Town, in the Western Cape province of South Africa,
which hosted the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa from September 4 to 6,
was also witness to protests by women and girls from all walks of life outside
the Cape Town International Convention Centre, demanding that the leadership
take action to end the spate of gender-based violence (GBV) in the country. 



There were protests also outside Parliament. What set off
the nationwide outcry was the shocking rape and murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana, a
19-year-old film and media student at the University of Cape Town, inside a
post office by a 42-year-old employee at the post office. 



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-4 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="926" height="610" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest4.png" alt="" data-id="42010" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=42010" class="wp-image-42010" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest4.png 926w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest4-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest4-600x395.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest4-768x506.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" /><figcaption> According to Stats SA, there has been a drastic increase of women-based violence in South Africa. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="929" height="615" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest8.png" alt="" data-id="42011" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=42011" class="wp-image-42011" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest8.png 929w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest8-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest8-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest8-768x508.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 929px) 100vw, 929px" /><figcaption> Leader of the African National Congress Women’s League, Bathabile Dlamini, was also present outside the JSE. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure></li></ul>



There was anger against the ghastly crimes and wave of GBV
in the country that continues unabated. According to Stats SA, there has been a
drastic increase of women-based violence in South Africa; sexual offences are
up by 4.6%, from 50,108 in 2018 to 52,420 in 2019. 



A week later, on a Friday, Sandton, Africa’s richest square
mile and one of the biggest economic hubs, was shut down by hundreds of angry
women and members of advocacy groups from across Johannesburg. They congregated
by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), the cynosure of business, singing and
chanting, to demand “a 2% levy on profits of all listed entities to help fund
the fight against GBV and femicide”.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 



Among the protesters was Cebi Ngqinanbi, holding a placard
that read: “I’m not your punching bag.” 



“We came here to disrupt Sandton as the heart of
Johannesburg’s economic hub. We want to make everyone aware that women and
children are being killed every day in South Africa and they [Sandton] continue
with business as usual, sitting in their offices with air-conditioners and the
stock exchange whilst people on the ground making them rich are dying. That is
why we are here, to speak to those that have economic power,” said Ngqinanbi.



She added that if women can be given economic power, they
will be able to fend for themselves and won’t fall prey to abusive men, since
most women stay in abusive relationships because men are more financially
stable. 



Amid the chanting and singing of struggle songs, Nobuhle
Ajiti addressed the crowd and shared her own haunting experience as a migrant
in South Africa and survivor of GBV. She spoke in isiZulu, a South African
language.



“I survived a gang rape; I was thrown out of a moving car
and stabbed several times. I survived it, but am I going to survive xenophobia
that is looming around in South Africa? Will I able to share my xenophobia
story like I can share my GBV story?” questioned Ajiti.



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-5 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="928" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest9.png" alt="" data-id="42013" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=42013" class="wp-image-42013" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest9.png 928w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest9-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest9-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest9-768x510.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 928px) 100vw, 928px" /><figcaption> Addressing the resolute women outside was the JSE CEO Nicky Newton-King who received the memorandum demanding business take their plight seriously. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="922" height="615" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest12.png" alt="" data-id="42014" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=42014" class="wp-image-42014" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest12.png 922w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest12-300x200.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest12-600x400.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest12-768x512.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 922px) 100vw, 922px" /><figcaption> Women hold up placards stating their grievences against GBV. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure></li></ul>



She said as migrants, they did not wake up in the morning
and decide to come to South Africa, but because of the hardships faced in their
home countries, they were forced to come to what they perceived as the city of
opportunities. And as a foreign national, she had to deal with both xenophobia
and GBV. 



“We experience institutionalized xenophobia in hospitals; we
are forced to pay huge amounts for consultation. I am raped and I need medical
attention and I am told I need to pay R5,000 ($250). 



“As a mere migrant, where am I going to get R5,000? I get
abused at home and the police officer would ask me where I’m from because of my
accent, I sound Zimbabwean. What does my nationality have to do with my husband
beating me at home or with the man that just raped me?” she asked.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="922" height="615" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest10-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-42018" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest10-1.png 922w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest10-1-300x200.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest10-1-600x400.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest10-1-768x512.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 922px) 100vw, 922px" /><figcaption> Women stop traffic while they hold up placards stating their grievences against GBV. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure>



Addressing the resolute women outside was the JSE CEO Nicky Newton-King who received the memorandum demanding business take their plight seriously, from a civil society group representing over 70 civil society organizations and individuals. 



The list of demands include that at all JSE-listed companies contribute to a fund to resource the National Strategy Plan on GBV and femicide, to be launched in November; transport for employees who work night shifts or work after hours; establish workplace mechanisms to provide support to GBV survivors as part of employee wellness, and prevention programs that help make workplaces safe spaces for all women. 



Newton-King assured the protestors she would address their demands in seven days. But a lot can happen in seven days. Will there be more crimes in the meantime? How many more will be raped and killed in South Africa by then?



<ul class="wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-6 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="928" height="614" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest13.png" alt="" data-id="42016" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=42016" class="wp-image-42016" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest13.png 928w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest13-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest13-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest13-768x508.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 928px) 100vw, 928px" /><figcaption> Nationwide outcry was setoff by shocking rape and murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure></li><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="928" height="612" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest14-1.png" alt="" data-id="42017" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=42017" class="wp-image-42017" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest14-1.png 928w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest14-1-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest14-1-600x396.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Protest14-1-768x506.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 928px) 100vw, 928px" /><figcaption> What set off the nationwide outcry was the shocking rape and murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana, a 19-year-old film and media student at the University of Cape Town Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure></li></ul>

Protest5

The Rage And Tears That Tore A Nation

When people talk about quality education, they’re often referring to the kind of education that gives students the knowledge and skills they need for the job market. But there’s a view that quality education has wider benefits: it develops individuals in ways that help develop society more broadly.



In Zimbabwe, for example, the higher education policy emphasises student employability and the alleviation of labour shortages. But, as my research found, this isn’t happening in practice.



University education needs to do more than produce a graduate who can get a job. It should also give graduates a sense of right and wrong. And it should instil graduates with an appreciation for other people’s development.



Tertiary education should also give students opportunities, choices and a voice when it comes to work safety, job satisfaction, security, growth and dignity. Higher education is a space where they can learn to be critical. It must prepare them for participating in the economy and broader society.



This isn’t happening in Zimbabwe. Graduate unemployment is high and employers and policy makers are blaming this largely on the mismatch between graduate skills and market requirements.



Investigating Zimbabwe’s universities My research sought to examine how a human development lens could add to what was valued as higher education, and the kind of graduate outcomes produced in Zimbabwe. I investigated 10 of the universities in Zimbabwe (there were 15 at the time of the research). Four were private and six public.



I reviewed policy documents, interviewed representatives of institutions and held discussions with students. Members of Zimbabwe’s higher education quality assurance body and university teaching staff were also included.



I found that in practice, higher education in Zimbabwe was influenced by the country’s socio-political and economic climate. Decisions and appointments of key university administrators in public universities and the minister of higher education were largely political.



In addition, resources were limited and staff turnover was high. Universities just couldn’t finance themselves through tuition fees.



Different players in the higher education system – employers, the government, academics, students and their families – have different ideas about what “quality” means in higher education. The Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education understands quality as meeting set standards and benchmarks that emphasise the graduates’ knowledge and skills.



To some extent, academics and university administrators see quality as teaching and learning that gives students a mixture of skills and values such as social responsibility.



But lecturers must comply with the largely top-down approach to quality. They tend to do whatever will enhance students’ prospects of getting employment in a particular market.



The educators and students I interviewed acknowledged that developing the ability to work and to think critically were both central to higher education. But they admitted that these goals were hard to attain. This was because of the country’s constrained socio-political and economic environment. Academics and students felt that they couldn’t express themselves freely and critical thinking was suppressed.



Stuck on a road to nowhere The study illustrates how an over-emphasis on creating human capital – skilled and knowledgeable graduates – limits higher education’s potential to foster broader human and social development.



University education should do more, especially in developing countries such as Zimbabwe that face not just economic, but also socio-political challenges. Before building more universities and enrolling more students, authorities and citizens should consider what quality education means in relation to the kind of society they want.



It’s possible to take a broader view of development, quality and the role of higher education. This broader approach – one that appreciates social justice – can equip graduates to address the country’s problems.



The road ahead Universities can’t change a society on their own. But their teaching and learning practices can make an important difference.



Because quality teaching and learning means different things to different people, people need to talk about it democratically. Institutional and national policies must be informed by broad consultations to identify the knowledge, skills and values they want graduates to have.



University teaching and learning should emphasise freedom of expression and participation so that students can think and act critically beyond university.



Also, academics don’t automatically know how to teach just because they have a PhD. Universities should therefore ensure that academics learn how to teach and communicate their knowledge. Curriculum design, student assessment and feedback, as well as training of lecturers should all support this goal of human development.



When universities see quality in terms of human development, their role becomes more than production of workers in an economy. It gives them a mandate to nurture ethically responsible graduates. These more rounded graduates are better equipped to imagine an alternative future in pursuit of a better society, economically, politically and socially.



&#8211;Patience Mukwambo: Researcher, University of the Free State



The Conversation



<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122820/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important" />

Cropped shot of a graduate receiving their certificate

Quality Higher Education Means More Than Learning How To Work

As the job market has evolved, so too have the skills required of seekers. But when 75% of human resources professionals say a skills shortage has made recruiting particularly challenging in recent months, it would appear as though the workforce hasn’t quite kept pace. Now LinkedIn is stepping in to help close the gap.



On Tuesday, the professional social network announced the launch of a “Skills Assessments” tool, through which users can put their knowledge to the test. Those who pass are given the opportunity to display a badge that reads “passed” next to the skill on their profile pages, a validation of sorts that LinkedIn hopes will encourage skills development among its users and help better match potential employees with the right employers. &nbsp;



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“We see an evolving labor market and much more sophistication in how recruiters and hiring managers look for skills. &#8230; We also see a changing learning market,” says Hari Srinivasan, senior director of product management at LinkedIn Learning. “The combination of those two made us excited about changing our opportunity marketplace to make the hiring side and the learning side work better together.” 



So how exactly does it work? Let’s say a user wants to showcase her proficiency in Microsoft Excel. Rather than simply listing “Excel” in the skills section of her profile, she can take a multiple-choice test to demonstrate the extent to which she is an expert. 



If she aces the test, not only will a badge verifying her aptitude will appear on her profile, but she will be more likely to surface in searches by recruiters, who can search for candidates by skill in the same way they might do so by college or employer. If she fails, she can take the test again, but she’ll have to wait a few months—plenty of time to develop her skillset. &nbsp;&nbsp;



The tool has been in beta mode since March, and while just 2 million people have used it—a mere fraction of LinkedIn’s 630 million members—early results seem promising. According to LinkedIn, members who’ve completed skills assessments have been nearly 30% more likely to land jobs than their counterparts who did not take the tests.



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“This has been a really good way for members to represent what they know, what they are good at,” says Emrecan Dogan, LinkedIn group product manager.



While new to LinkedIn, the practice of assessing candidates’ skills has been a standard among hiring managers for decades. But when research commissioned by LinkedIn revealed that 69% of employees feel that skills have become more important to recruiters than education, LinkedIn felt as though this was the time to give job seekers the opportunity to prove themselves from the get-go.



As important as the hard skills that members can put to the test through LinkedIn’s new tool may be, Dawn Fay, senior district president at recruiting firm Robert Half, encourages those on both side of the job search not to forget the importance of soft skills. “You wouldn’t want to rule somebody in or out just based on how they did on one particular skill assessment,” she says. 



“Have another data point that you can use, question people about how they did on something and see if it’s something that can feed into the puzzle to find out if somebody is going to be a good fit.”



-Samantha Todd; Forbes

gettyimages-1084168538-170667a

How LinkedIn Is Looking To Help Close The Ever-Growing Skills Gap

While recession fears may be looming in the minds of some, new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the economy and job market may actually be strengthening. 



The quits rate—or the percentage of all employees who quit during a given month—rose to 2.4% in July, according to the BLS’s Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover report, released Tuesday. That translates to 3.6 million people who voluntarily left their jobs in July.



This is the highest the quits rate has been since April 2001, just five months after the Labor Department began tracking it. According to Nick Bunker, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, the quits rate tends to be a reflection of the state of the economy. 



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“The level of the quits rate really is a sign of how strong the labor market is,” he says. “If you look at the quits rate over time, it really drops quite a bit when the labor market gets weak. During the recession it was quite low, and now it’s picked up.”



The monthly jobs report, released last week, revealed that the economy gained 130,000 jobs in August, which is 20,000 less than expected, and just a few weeks earlier, the BLS issued a correction stating that it had overestimated by 501,000 how many jobs had been added to the market in 2018 and the first quarter of 2019. Yet despite all that, employees still seem to have confidence in the job market.Today In: Leadership



The quits level, according to the BLS, increased in the private sector by 127,000 for July but was little changed in government. Healthcare and social assistance saw an uptick in departures to the tune of 54,000 workers, while the federal government saw a rise of 3,000.



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The July quits rate in construction was 2.4%, while the number in trade, professional and business services, and leisure and hospitality were 2.6%, 3.1% and 4.8%, respectively. Bunker of Indeed says that the industries that tend to see the highest rate of departuresare those where pay is relatively low, such as leisure and hospitality. An unknown is whether employees are quitting these jobs to go to a new industry or whether they’re leaving for another job in the same industry. Either could be the case, says Bunker.



In a recently published article on the industries seeing the most worker departures, Bunker attributes the uptick to two factors—the strong labor market and faster wage growth in the industries concerned: “A stronger labor market means employers must fill more openings from the ranks of the already employed, who have to quit their jobs, instead of hiring jobless workers. Similarly, faster wage growth in an industry signals workers that opportunities abound and they might get higher pay by taking a new job.”



Even so, recession fears still dominate headlines. According to Bunker, the data shows that when a recession hits, employers pull back on hiring and workers don’t have the opportunity to find new jobs. Thus, workers feel less confident and are less likely to quit. 



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/economy/2019/04/08/south-africas-informal-sector-why-people-get-stuck-in-precarious-jobs/">South Africa’s Informal Sector: Why People Get Stuck In Precarious Jobs</a>



“As the labor market gets stronger, there’s more opportunities for workers who already have jobs. So they quit to go to new jobs or they quit in the hopes of getting new jobs again,” Bunker says. He also notes that recession fears may have little to do with the job market, instead stemming from what is happening in the financial markets, international relations or Washington, D.C.



So what does the BLS report say about the job market? “Taking this report as a whole, it’s indicating that the labor market is still quite strong, but then we lost momentum,” Bunker says. While workers are quitting their jobs, he says that employers are pulling back on the pace at which they’re adding jobs. “While things are quite good right now and workers are taking advantage of that,” he notes, “those opportunities moving forward might be fewer and fewer if the trend keeps up.”



-Samantha Todd; Forbes

gettyimages-74579974-170667a

Why The High Number Of Employees Quitting Reveals A Strong Job Market

Gastronomic tourism based on African food could easily
increase and create new value chains that unlock billions in untapped wealth
for the continent, but what is stopping us?



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Food and tourism are an integral part of most economies,
globally. Food is undeniably a core part of all cultures and an increasingly
important attraction for tourists. To satisfy their wanderlust, contemporary
tourists require an array of experiences that include elements of education,
entertainment, picturesque scenery and culinary wonders.&nbsp; The link between food and tourism allows
destinations to develop local economies; and food experiences help to brand and
market them, as well as supporting the local culture and knowledge systems.



&nbsp;This is particularly
important for rural communities, where 61% of sub-Saharan Africans live,
according to the World Bank last year. These communities have often felt the
brunt of urbanization, which has resulted in a shift away from rural economies.
If implemented effectively, Africa could get a piece of the gastronomic tourism
pie, which was worth $8.8 trillion last year, according to the World Travel
&amp; Tourism Council. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="407" height="602" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African10.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41790" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African10.png 407w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African10-300x444.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African10-203x300.png 203w" sizes="(max-width: 407px) 100vw, 407px" /><figcaption> World-renowned chef Nompumelelo Mqwebu and author of her self-published cookbook, Through the Eyes Of An African Chef. Picture: Motlaban Monnakgotla</figcaption></figure></div>



However, there is currently very little public information to pique the interest of tourists about African food. World-renowned South African chef Nompumelelo Mqwebu sought to remedy this with her self-published cookbook, Through the Eyes Of An African Chef. 



“I think where it was very clear to me that I needed to do
something was when I went to cooking school. I trained at Christina Martin
School of Food and Wine. I thought I was actually going to get training on
South African food and, somehow, I assumed we were talking indigenous food.



&nbsp;“I was shocked that
we went through the whole year’s curriculum and we didn’t cover anything that I
ate at home; we didn’t cover anything that my first cousins, who are Sotho, ate
in Nelspruit (in South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province); we didn’t cover anything
that would come from eSwatini, which is where my mother is from,” Mqwebu says.



By self-publishing, she has ultimately contributed to a
value chain that has linked local food producers and suppliers, which includes
agriculture, food production, country branding and cultural and creative
industries. 



“I am a member of Proudly South African, not only my
business, but the book as well. Part of the reason is that the cookbook was
100% published in South Africa. So, everybody who worked on the cookbook, and
printing, was all in South Africa, which is something quite rare these days
because authors have their books published abroad.” 



The Proudly South African campaign is a South African ‘buy
local’ initiative that sells her cookbook on their online platform as its
production adheres to the initiative’s campaign standards. Self-publishing has
allowed Mqwebu to promote her book for two years and to directly communicate
with her audience in a way she thought was best, while exposing her to a vast
community of local networks. She recalls her first step towards creating her
own body of work. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="467" height="615" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African7.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41791" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African7.png 467w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African7-300x395.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African7-228x300.png 228w" sizes="(max-width: 467px) 100vw, 467px" /><figcaption>Amadumbe gnocchi. Picture: Nompumelelo Mqwebu and Nicole Louw Photography </figcaption></figure></div>



“I was in culinary school when I wrote the recipe for amadumbe (potato of the tropics) gnocchi. We were making gnocchi and I thought, ‘so why aren’t we using amadumbe because it’s a starch?’ and when I tasted it, I thought, ‘this could definitely work’. I started doing my recipes then.



&nbsp;“And there was talk about, ‘we don’t have desserts as Africans’. I did some research and found we ate berries, we were never big on sugar to begin with. That’s why I took the same isidudu (soft porridge made from ground corn) with pumpkin that my grandmother used to make and that became my dessert. “I also found that when I went to libraries looking for indigenous recipes, I couldn’t really find something that spoke to me as a chef. I found content that looked like history books. It was not appealing. It was not something, as a chef, I could proudly present to another chef from a different part of the world, so I knew I had to write my book,” Mqwebu says about the award-winning recipe book that chronicles African cuisine. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="467" height="611" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African9.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41792" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African9.png 467w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African9-300x393.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African9-229x300.png 229w" sizes="(max-width: 467px) 100vw, 467px" /><figcaption> Isidudu (soft porridge made from ground corn) with pumpkin. Picture: Nompumelelo Mqwebu and Nicole Louw Photography </figcaption></figure></div>



Financial and health benefits 



According to the World Travel &amp; Tourism Council, in
2018, the tourism sector “contributed 319 million jobs, representing one in 10
of all jobs globally and is responsible for one in five of all new jobs created
in the world over the last five years. It has increased its share of leisure
spending to 78.5%, meaning 21.5% of spending was on business.”



To narrow in on how lucrative food can be, the World Food
Travel Association estimates that visitors spend approximately 25% of their
travel budget on food and beverages. The figure can get as high as 35% in
expensive destinations, and as low as 15% in more affordable destinations.
“Confirmed food lovers also spend a bit more than the average of 25% spent by
travelers in general.”



However, there is a widely-held view that the African
continent is not doing enough to maximize its potential to also position itself
as a gastronomic tourism destination, using its unique edge of indigenous
knowledge systems (IKS). 



“We are not a culinary destination and we will never be
while we are still offering pasta as the attraction for our tourists,” Mqwebu
says.



Dr George Sedupane, who is the Coordinator of the Bachelor
of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems program in South Africa’s North-West
University, echoes Mqwebu’s sentiments. 



“I often cringe when I go to conferences and there are guests from all over the world and we serve them pasta. Why would they come from Brazil to eat pasta here? They can have pasta in Italy. Why don’t we serve them umngqusho (samp and beans)?



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="463" height="617" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African8.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41793" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African8.png 463w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African8-300x400.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African8-225x300.png 225w" sizes="(max-width: 463px) 100vw, 463px" /><figcaption> Umngqusho (samp and beans). Picture: Nompumelelo Mqwebu and Nicole Louw Photography </figcaption></figure></div>



“We need to be creating those experiences around our
culture. We are failing to capitalize on our strengths. There is a lack of
drive to celebrate what we have,” says Sedupane, who also teaches modules and
supervises research in indigenous health and nutrition. 



Writer and historian Sibusiso Mnyanda says current
innovations in African food technology are born out of necessity, rather
tourism and cultural ambitions.



“Food security is becoming an issue that is leading to IKS
around farming being prioritized. In Nigeria, they are innovating dry season
farming, because of deforestation and soil being de-cultivated.&nbsp; 



“So those indigenous knowledge strategies are being used in
countries where it is a necessity and where there are enough advances related
to the fourth industrial revolution. The traditional ways of producing food are
not only much more organic, they are also crop-efficient,” Mnyanda says. 



Nigeria may have inadvertently innovated a health solution
related to colon cancer through its diet. Sedupane tells FORBES AFRICA an
anecdote.



“There was a study where the colons of an African country
that did not consume a lot of meat was compared to Europeans. The Africans had
a much better profile as a result and there are people who want to buy African
stool to get that kind of rich bacteria, that you get on an African plant-based
diet.”



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="402" height="613" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/african2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41794" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/african2.png 402w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/african2-300x457.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/african2-197x300.png 197w" sizes="(max-width: 402px) 100vw, 402px" /><figcaption> Dr George Sedupane, who is the Coordinator of the Bachelor of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure></div>



The study Sedupane is referring to was conducted in Nigeria
and it states that: “Nigeria showed the average annual incidence of colorectal
cancer was 27 patients per year. This shows that even if it seems that
incidence rates are increasing in Nigeria, such rates are still about one-tenth
of what is seen in the truly developed countries.”



In a bid to find reasons for this rarity of colon and rectal
cancer, the study concluded that, among other reasons, the protective effects
of Nigeria’s starch-based, vegetable-based, fruit-based, and spicy, peppery
diet, and geographical location which ensures sunshine all year round, played a
role in the country’s colon health.



Interestingly, it seems the potential value of African food
could not only be based on what goes in but what also comes out as healthy
faecal matter is big business globally. In 2015, The Washington Post published
that one could potentially earn $13,000 a year selling their poop.&nbsp; 



The American-based company OpenBiome has been processing and
shipping frozen stool to patients who are very sick with infections of a
bacteria called C.difficile. It causes diarrhea and inflammation of the colon,
leaving some sufferers house-bound. “Antibiotics often help, but sometimes, the
bacteria rears back as soon as treatment stops. By introducing healthy faecal
matter into the gut of a patient (by way of endoscopy, nasal tubes, or
swallowed capsules), doctors can abolish C. difficile for good… And yes, they
pay for healthy poop: $40 a sample, with a $50 bonus if you come in five days a
week. That’s $250 for a week of donations, or $13,000 a year,” the publication
stated.



Sedupane is of the view that a diet which includes indigenous
foods could vastly improve one’s quality of life. 



He says small changes could be made, such as including more
of indigenous greens, namely sorghum and millet, to breakfast. The grains are
gluten-free and produce alkaline which boosts the pH level of fluids in the
body and reduces acidity.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="926" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African6.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41797" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African6.png 926w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African6-300x200.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African6-600x399.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African6-768x511.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" /><figcaption>Moringa fruit which is an African superfood. Picture: Getty Images </figcaption></figure>



“Moving to our legumes, we have indlubu (Bambara groundnut) which is very rich and helps in the secretion of serotonin in the brain. This so important nowadays with the increase of depression. It’s easy to digest, and is great for cholesterol and moderating blood sugar,” Sedupane says.



&nbsp;Mnyanda is also of
the view that food is imperative to health and medicinal properties. He says
traditional healers primarily use natural herbs in their practice. “These are
used in pain relief and healing. Things like cannabis, camphor, African potatao
and red carrots. So, food is not just used for nutritional purposes.”



Other African superfoods include, Baobab fruit, Hibiscus,
Tamarind, Kenkiliba, Amaranth, Moringa and pumpkin leaves.&nbsp; 



Cultural and historical benefits 



Gastronomic tourism also includes the promotion of heritage
sites that are known to revolve around dishes that are of historic importance.
They enhance the travel experience, they encourage the acquisition of knowledge
and a cultural exchange.



There is a unanimous view that vast amounts of knowledge
have been lost to history and there is a huge knowledge gap in African
societies as a result of colonization and urbanization.



“Part of the colonial agenda was to make sure food security
did not belong to indigenous groups. Therefore, archiving of these knowledge
systems was not a priority. Especially during industrialization, where people
moved from their villages to the city you found that the knowledge got left
behind,” Mnyanda says. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="930" height="611" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African-6.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41795" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African-6.png 930w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African-6-300x197.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African-6-600x394.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African-6-768x505.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 930px) 100vw, 930px" /><figcaption> Abathwa (the San people) hunting. Picture: Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



He offers a contemporary example of how modernization continues to push African practices to the fringes: “To this day, abathwa (the San people) hunt their meat, but you find that because of changing agricultural practices and land reform on the Kruger National Park, they are being forced to move into the cities and industrial areas, therefore they are no longer able to practice their culture of hunting. As a result, their diet is changing.” Sedupane shares the view that the fundamentals of farming and astrology have also been exiled from public knowledge. 



“The fundamentals of IKS were based on the understanding of
the laws of nature – how and when things were done. Harvest cycles were linked
with understanding astrology. They would not harvest until certain stars were
visible in the sky. There was a dependence on nature. 



“With industrialization, rather than working with nature,
humans are seen as being above, as controlling, as directing it. The natural
cycle is often tempered with rather than trying to work with it.”



Not all is lost however. There are historical practices that have stood the test of time and continue to be a part the few foods that are internationally associated with South Africa. Mqwebu says that, “historically, we ate more plants than meat because our ancestors had to hunt and the game back then was not tame. So, there were no guarantees that you would return with meat. And that’s where things like umqwayiba (biltong) come from. They had to preserve the meat, because wasting was not part of the culture”.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="926" height="617" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African3.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41796" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African3.png 926w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African3-300x200.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African3-600x400.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/African3-768x512.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" /><figcaption> Umqwayiba (biltong). Picture: Getty Images </figcaption></figure>



According to a 2015 exploratory research project conducted
under the guidance of research institute Tourism Research in Economic Environs
and Society director Professor Melville Saayman, biltong contributes more than
R2.5 billion ($163 million) to the South African economy.



Perhaps, like the faecal transporting company, Africa will
soon realize the ‘wasted’ opportunity and that there is loads of money to be
made in gastronomic tourism for all its inhabitants, whether they are rural or
urban, technological or indigenous.

African1

No Seat At The Global Table  For Indigenous African Cuisine

The economy is changing, and so also the way people work. A
singular income is not enough, and employees are finding creative, lucrative
ways to work for themselves beyond the nine-to-five.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



A bearded man, wearing a pin-striped grey duckbill cap,
stands behind a bar counter. 



To his right adorning the counter is an array of empty
cylindrical canisters. To his left, a contrasting set-up presents glass bottles
filled with a transparent, salmon pink liquid. Next to them are gin chalices
filled with a cornucopia of berries that are to be served to connoisseurs of
the popular spirit.



Queen Nandi Pink Gin and Zulu Dry Gin are experimentally
infused spirits distilled by Gologo Spirits, a business venture that merges
African tradition with a contemporary outlook on alcohol brewing. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="926" height="609" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side3.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41761" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side3.png 926w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side3-300x197.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side3-600x395.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side3-768x505.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" /><figcaption> Queen Nandi Pink Gin and Zulu Dry Gin are experimentally infused spirits distilled by Gologo Spirits owned by Mzwandile Xaba. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure>



Mzwandile Xaba, an accountant by day and distiller by night,
is the founder of the experimental distillery. 



Nine years ago, the entrepreneur and employee would not have
imagined that a childhood pastime would one day become a secondary source of
income. 



At 5PM, when most South African corporates are closing off
the business of the day, Xaba’s two-hour journey to the warehouse begins, where
he often spends hours losing himself in the craft. 



Once the boiler goes on, it is down to work. 



Cleaning distillation columns, labeling, bottling and
blending various infusions until the odd hours of the morning, ironically,
rarely feels tedious for the hustler who, in the next few hours, needs to make
his way back to his assigned office cubicle. 



How does an accountant&nbsp;
from the East Rand, in the Gauteng province of South Africa, end up, not
only distilling spirits for commercial use, but juggling two jobs in industries
that are worlds apart?



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="959" height="611" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side4.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41762" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side4.png 959w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side4-300x191.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side4-600x382.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side4-768x489.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 959px) 100vw, 959px" /><figcaption> Mzwandile Xaba says umqombothi distillation also taught him to recognize the various cultural environments and the greater role his practice played in ensuring the success of those events. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure>



&nbsp;Growing up in a
household with a father who pursued two careers; one in music and the other as
a mechanic, influenced Xaba’s work ethic.&nbsp;&nbsp;




Xaba, who was good at mathematics and accounting, pursued a
career in the financial sector. However, his childhood preoccupation of
distillation has remained with him through the various stages of transitioning
into adulthood, and recognizing that he needed a stable income. 



Brewing umqombothi (African beer), in time for the weekend
traditional celebrations with his father, is what he owes the success of Gologo
Spirits to. 



Although the process of brewing and fermenting the African
beer is predominantly done by women, without a matriarch in the household, the
men used to distill the beer themselves. 



Xaba says umqombothi distillation also taught him to
recognize the various cultural environments and the greater role his practice
played in ensuring the success of those events. 



Xaba expands on the use of spirits in celebrations.&nbsp; 



“You normally have those when you go to traditional
ceremonies. At home, it is also used during lobola (traditional engagement)
negotiations, and when young men come back from initiation school in the
mountains. Spirits are used for different functions and purposes from a
cultural point of view.”



Xaba’s fascination with biochemistry and spirits was
unrelenting, so in 2010, while working as an accountant, he decided to teach
himself the delicate balance of creating the drinks that were impactful to
him.&nbsp;&nbsp; 



Within three years, the first drops of alcohol were ready
for commercial use. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="923" height="613" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41766" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side2.png 923w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side2-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side2-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side2-768x510.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 923px) 100vw, 923px" /><figcaption> Mzwandile Xaba, an accountant by day and distiller by night, is the founder of the experimental distillery Gologo Spirits. Picture: Gypseenia Lion</figcaption></figure>



“It was just something I wanted to do. I thought it was
quite interesting and I was really passionate about it. 



“I don’t know why because I have never set foot in a physics
or science class but I was drawn to it,” he says. 



He started with vodka, experimented with brandy and whiskey,
and at a later stage he tried gin distillation. 



“For the past five or six years, almost every day there is
something that I am doing that is in line with Gologo. If I am not literally
making something I am reading on up on something.” 



Finding a balance



Xaba views his side job as an enhancement rather than his
primary source of income or a necessity.



“The day job is something I understand and something that I
need to do in order to do what I want to do. It covers some of my operational
costs. The business is something that I funded from my pocket.



&nbsp;“Some of the loans I
have taken to set Gologo up are what I am paying off through Gologo,” he
says.&nbsp; 



“As the projection is, there comes a point where I am really
making money to expand the distillery and cover some of my personal costs. It
is a blend of both, a blending and a calling and it is financially viable.
Doing both, keeping the day job and operating Gologo as a side-hustle is
probably one of the best decisions that I may have taken financially, and also
in terms of testing myself.” 



When presented with the burden of choosing one job over the
other, he is quite clear that financial stability is an imperative. 



“I would only quit my day job once it starts costing me more
money,” Xaba states decidedly. 



An online platform, Hustle South Africa, is an ongoing
project managed by Dana, who is in marketing, and her husband, Justin Arnoldi,
also the Head of Digital Transformation at Blue Turtle Technologies.



The Facebook page was created in response to the high
unemployment rate in South Africa which currently is peaking at 29% in the
second quarter of 2019. 



According to StatsSA, this is the highest unemployment rate
recorded since the first quarter of 2003, the number of unemployed citizens
rose by 455,000 to 6.65 million.



A problem Hustle South Africa hopes to decrease with this
challenge is by providing a platform for users to promote and acquire side-hustles.
Through the platform, hustlers are able to upload the services or products they
have on offer, whether it is through text, video or images. 



“The way of working has changed, people want autonomy and
flexibility. They do not necessarily want to be tied into one job; they want a
couple of jobs so that they can do different things.



“We wanted to create a central platform where people can
interact and sign up for side work relatively easy,” Dana says. 



Hustle South Africa defines the gig economy as a series of
freelance or part-time work assignments. 



On the platform, hustlers now can not only advertise their
business, but build a public data-base. Is it safe? 



“From a security perspective, we are going to have a
checking system where people can put their ID number in and they will be
checked for a criminal record; if they are a South African citizen; or if they
can be employed,” Dana says. 



Credibility is built through references, and referrals. 



This model has proven effective with Uber as they provide clients
with a driver-rating system. 



If Bryan Davey, a diesel mechanic and baker, chose to use
the Hustle South Africa page to market his side job, he would not only receive
the deserved exposure for his business but would also add to the database. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="927" height="609" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side5.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41763" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side5.png 927w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side5-300x197.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side5-600x394.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side5-768x505.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 927px) 100vw, 927px" /><figcaption> Bryan Davey, a diesel mechanic and baker. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure>



The self-taught baker, who has been a mechanic for seven
years, decided to bake on the side to take his mind off the noise at the
workshop. 



Doing something completely different takes the pressure off
when he is not at his nine-to-five as a power generation field technician at
Cummins South Africa. The balance between the two is a tightrope walk for
Davey. 



“I do try and go straight home and start baking, hopefully
if I have an order for the week. It does take a toll on you, I won’t lie it is
difficult but if you want to make something work, you will do it,” he says.



&nbsp;“It does have an
impact on your mental and physical health, but it also depends on how you are
managing it, so if what you are doing is a form of stress-reliever for you, it
will not impact you negatively but if you are doing it in a way where you just
want income, it will affect you.” 



Davey, nonetheless, does both jobs with a smile.



Based on research published by Henley Business School
Africa, nine of 10 people in Africa have taken on extra work to survive.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="920" height="588" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side7.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41764" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side7.png 920w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side7-300x192.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side7-600x383.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side7-768x491.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 920px) 100vw, 920px" /><figcaption> Cupcakes created self-taught baker Bryan Davey, who has been a mechanic for seven year Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure>



The South African study uses the Henley Business School UK
in 2018 as a framework to explore local trends, which shows that&nbsp; 71.3% of the 1,158 respondents in their
African network have side-hustles for additional income. 



According to the study, the top three side-hustles in their
South African networks are professional business services at 25. 7%, real
estate at 20.1%; teaching, lecturing and tutoring at 13.3%. 



The lowest three being providing building/DIY services,
running a shop/tuck-shop/food truck, and waiting/bartending/ hosting. 



Jon Foster-Pedley, Dean of Henley Business School Africa,
says the demands for the highest three industries are caused by the job
descriptions. 



Side-hustling as a real estate agent would not require as
much time and attention as a food truck. The time and effort required,
according to respondents on the network, would demand them to learn a new
skill, which would take up too much time. 



“The bottom ones mean that you have to be good with your
hands, they are skills-based. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="924" height="613" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side8.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41765" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side8.png 924w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side8-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side8-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Side8-768x510.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px" /><figcaption> Bryan Davey, a diesel mechanic, bakes cakes on the side. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure>



“Running a shop or a tuck-shop, you need to adapt to a lot
of the things which take a lot of your time. 



“You need to do that with your hands, you can’t scale
waiting and bartending,” he says. 



With the top three, on the other hand, a hustler can employ
other people to manage the operations of the business while focusing on their
day job. 



The economy is changing and so also the way people are
making money. 



Side-hustles can be as lucrative as the hustler wants it to
be, but finding a balance on the tightrope, is the ultimate challenge.&nbsp;

Side1

Side Hustles: The Entrepreneur Employees

In a world that’s embracing new technology, inspiration is
being found in bug behaviour. The hard-bodied dung beetle is now key to
robotics research, in Africa too.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Under a scorching African sun in the Kalahari Desert, 70kms
outside Vryburg, a town situated in the North West Province of South Africa,
researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits in South Africa) and
Lund University, Sweden, monitor the movements of a dung beetle in windy
conditions.



The insect, with a rotund body and metallic luster,
resembling a miniature cyborg, is expertly rolling away a ball of dung,
oblivious to the gaze of science.



The researchers aim to explore more about what influences
the dung beetle’s movements.



They find that it uses visual cues such as the sun,
polarized light, color gradients, intensity gradients in the sky, and even the
Milky Way, as external reference points.



The insect uses the sun as a direction tool but what happens
after dusk? The researchers find that in windy conditions, the dung beetle
switches from using the sun as a navigator to using the wind.



Astounded by this discovery early this year is Marcus Byrne,
one of the researchers from Wits.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="932" height="618" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/marcus.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41746" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/marcus.png 932w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/marcus-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/marcus-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/marcus-768x509.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 932px) 100vw, 932px" /><figcaption> Marcus Byrne, one of the researchers from Wits. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



Having studied dung beetles for over 20 years, he believes
that this new knowledge from a tiny being could influence the bigger world of
artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics.



“We have gone from massively complicated to as simple as
possible, using insects as a model,” he says.



In Byrne’s office at Wits, dozens of dung beetle replicas
sit on his bookshelf that’s also heaving with thick volumes and encyclopedias
on entomology.



A large poster of a dung beetle, almost in flight, hangs on a wall. To tech geeks and film buffs used to the sci-fi genre, this would look more like a still from the Transformers movie series.



Byrne excitedly scavenges for an apparatus used to
illustrate how the dung beetle’s brain works.



The insect has a navigation feature, such as switching from
the sun to the wind, and an orientation feature that Byrne explains in detail.



Orientation means the dung beetle is able to maintain its
body in a straight line to a specific direction, whilst navigation means that
it is able to know where it is, relative to something else. 



Being able to switch between the two is an amazing skill for
insect life to have, according to Byrne.



Some dung beetles can operate with one of the systems while
others can operate with both.



For Byrne, the dung beetle species the researchers worked on
was only able to use its system of orientation.



“What makes this feature of the dung beetle key to
researchers and robotics, is that unlike other insects such as the bee, the
dung beetle does not need to be trained to do an experiment,” he says.



“She will just roll the ball if you put the dung ball down.
And if she is in the mood, she will roll that ball,” he says. 



When a dung beetle is in searching mode, it uses its sense
of smell to find the dung.



After the dung is found, it rolls it up into a ball and then switches to a visual system to recognize the ball. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“It switches its brain from smell to vision. And we think that that’s because it has a very limited set of neurons. It probably has less than a million neurons in its brain.”</blockquote>



The dung beetle, despite the size of its brain, can process
information and decide which sensor to use.



“They are scanning the horizon to look for a large dark
object against the horizon and that’s probably a ball, and you could teach a
robot to do that,” adds Byrne.



“What you have is a compass with a fallback system that if one
cue is not available, another one can be incorporated and if all of the visual
cues fail, it still has a mechanical cue,” he says.



In this way, Byrne suggests, it could aid in the development
of robots and AI.



“This is the sort of thing that the air force, GPS and
anyone who wants to orientate across the planet, [would] want their machines to
be able to do,” he says.



“What if the power goes off and what if the battery goes
flat or someone shoots down the satellite? Now, you have a natural full-proof system
that does not require any external energy inputs, it just uses the signals in
nature.



“This is what we can learn from insects, you can solve what
appears to be a complex problem by actually having a very simple set of rules,”
he says.



Learning from the beetle brain



The dung beetle has a miniscule brain, with less than a
million neurons, when compared to the brain of a human being which has over 100
billion neurons. 



But despite this, the beetle is still able to use its
neurons to process two different sets of inputs at the same time, and can pick
from a wide array of inputs to complete a task at any given time.



“It can choose between the polarized light input and the sun
input using the same neuron, it just codes the information in a different way,”
Byrne says.



When it reads polarized light, the spikes in the neurons are
a different pattern from when it reads sunlight.



“This is also dead cool because you have limited computing
power and you don’t have to build a new transistor or a new wire or a new gateway
for this information. 



“You can use the same communicating system. You just code
the information differently.



“It is very difficult to convince even an intelligent
computer what is the most important piece of information it needs to deal with
at any given time,” he says.



After learning about Byrne and his work on dung beetles from
an online article, another professor from Wits was interested to see how they
could collaborate.



Benjamin Rosman is a principal researcher at Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa’s capital Pretoria
with a focus on machine learning, AI, robotics and automation.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="928" height="615" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Benjamin1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41747" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Benjamin1.png 928w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Benjamin1-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Benjamin1-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Benjamin1-768x509.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 928px) 100vw, 928px" /><figcaption> Benjamin Rosman principal researcher at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



He also spends his time lecturing at Wits teaching
bright-eyed students about the world of robotics, something he is passionate
about.



“Robotics and AI have a long history and relationship with
understanding living organisms,” Rosman says. 



He grew up interested in making computer games but later
found AI and robotics much more intriguing.



Now, he believes that the world of robotics has a thing or
two to learn from insects. 



“On the one hand, you can look at insects to solve robotics’
problems and it’s a general thing we do in AI because there’s already a proof
of concept. Living creatures can do intelligent things,” Rosman says.



Robots can be built from understanding the way the insect
brain works,&nbsp; for example, the artificial
neuron networks Byrne mentioned earlier.



But the roles too can be reversed where these robots can
help humans understand insects.



“So you can study these natural phenomena to get a better
idea of how to build robots or systems or solve problems, and the flip side of
that is you can build robots that help you understand the natural phenomena,”
Rosman says. 



Insects saving lives? 



With modern inventions such as self-driving cars at the cusp
of commodification, the word ‘autonomous’ is on everyone’s minds.



Byrne believes that insects such as the dung beetle also
have a say in this.



But, forget self-driving cars, Byrne believes learning from
the dung beetle could also potentially save lives.



He explains how this could work in a life-threatening
situation.



If a robot is programmed to navigate and orientate like the
dung beetle, it could do so autonomously if sent into a building that is
burning.



The robot would be able to maneuver around the building,
find people and alert where the humans are trapped in the building even without
being programmed.



“It’s a life-saving device that even if it gets burned in
the building, it is not a big deal,” Byrne says.



On another continent, a researcher from Scotland created
robots inspired by insects.



&nbsp;Barbara Webb, a
professor of robotics at the University of Edinburgh, has been studying insect
behavior to build robots for over 10 years.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="388" height="597" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Barbara.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41751" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Barbara.png 388w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Barbara-300x462.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Barbara-195x300.png 195w" sizes="(max-width: 388px) 100vw, 388px" /><figcaption> Barbara Webb, a professor of robotics at the University of Edinburgh. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure></div>



“Recently, we focused on navigation behavior in insects; so
how ants and bees are able to get back to their nests. They started by keeping
track of how fast they have moved in each direction and so we have a few
hypotheses on how they do that and what brain mechanism is behind that,” she
tells FORBES AFRICA.



By studying the insects’ brains, she and her team were able
to implement and test out the theories they had and built a robot that used a
similar mechanism.



One of the robots they built was made of wheels, a mobile
phone and mirrors to keep track of their navigation and recognize a route to
detect familiarity.



“Insects typically have 360-degree vision and so we try to
copy that by having a mirror near the camera to have that kind of 360-degree
view,” she says.



“The main reason we are interested in looking at them is
because they have managed to do this kind of behavior such as navigation with
very small brains, and if you compare that to self-driving cars, which has had
very successful research now, but they depend on having very complicated, very
detailed sensing, lots of information about the maps of the world that they are
moving in and very high degrees of computing, and yet none of them are
available to the insect but they still manage to get around very well,” she
says.



Is it a bug, robot or cyborg?



The material environment has always taken inspiration from
insects and animals.



Biomimicry, as it is called, is an innovative approach to
the design and production of materials, structures and systems modeled on
biological entities. 



Some examples can be seen in modern-day inventions such as
the bullet train, inspired by the kingfisher, or wind turbines modeled after
humpback whales, and the list goes on.



But an entrepreneur and multi-disciplinary artist in the
United States has taken biomimicry to a whole new level.



Ever seen a cyborg-looking-beetle with machine-made parts
looking like something out of a sci-fi film?



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="866" height="435" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/beetle7.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41749" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/beetle7.png 866w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/beetle7-300x151.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/beetle7-600x301.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/beetle7-768x386.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 866px) 100vw, 866px" /><figcaption> Cyborg-looking-beetle by Mike Libby. Picture: Supplied </figcaption></figure>



Well, Mike Libby, founder of Insect Lab Studio in Maine,
incorporates this form of aesthetics to his contemporary designs.



He customizes preserved insect specimens with mechanical
components, to create art that illustrates science-fiction.



His journey began when he found a dead beetle, dissected it and incorporated into it with watch parts and gears making it look like something out of a Transformers film. 



“There are a lot of different things in science fiction and
there are a lot of things in real science that create context for this type of
work to develop,” he tells FORBES AFRICA. 



He collects beetles from licensed dealers all over the
world, including Africa.



One of the beetles he has collected is the African flower beetle that feeds from the pollen and nectar of flowers. Its biological name is Cetonidae/Eudicella Gralli Orientalis and is 3.5 inches wide.



Libby customized this beetle with his own idea of an
exoskeleton, giving it brass and steel parts, gears, a crown, springs, screws,
watch jewel, pulley and belt.



Today, he sells these pieces for $500 to over $8,500 to
clients all over the world.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="615" height="578" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Beetle6.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41748" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Beetle6.png 615w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Beetle6-300x282.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Beetle6-600x564.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px" /><figcaption> Cetonidae/Eudicella Gralli Orientalis created by Mike Libby. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



“Just a couple of weeks ago, I sold a small beetle to a
gentleman in France whose wife’s birthday was coming up and I think that’s
where 50% to 60% of the gifts end up, as special gifts,” he says.



He has also created art using crabs and lobsters.



If he can do this using dead bugs and broken technology,
imagine what the next few years could be with moving AI, robotics and living
insects?



Perhaps we are closer than we think to living in a world with one of the Transformers’ contraptions next door.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Africa’s dung idea</h4>



There are about 800 species of dung beetles in South Africa
alone, and a wider variety of them on the rest of the continent.



With all this wealth of insects and diversity on our
content, it is safe to say that Africa is at a higher advantage than most to
develop technological solutions from the natural environment.



With AI and the fourth industrial revolution on the rise,
Africa should have clear advantage to merge AI, robotics and insects.



Rosman believes the same.



“I think we have a lot of opportunity here. In the research
space, we are always looking for what are the advantages of being in Africa.
And I think one of the things we can think about is this kind of natural
diversity,” he says.



“The diversity of animals we have here is another big
strength which can come into the way we think about machines doing intelligent
things.”



Therefore, for Africa to get ahead, ideally, we need to
leapfrog into such technologies. 



However, there are challenges.



“There’s the technical challenges of how do we build these
systems that can work in those kind of ways. Then there are questions around
how it interacts with our politics, particularly the unemployment situation,”
Rosman says.



The big question, Rosman says is: “Should we be spending
government money on building autonomous dung beetles?”



However, the plus side of such innovative tech is the
potential it has to encourage young Africans to get involved in STEM (science,
technology, engineering and math) fields.



It is important to educate and inform the masses on such
trends and how it could enhance our daily lives. 



As tech advances, it is possible that we will live in an
autonomous world where we don’t have to tell our tech what to do, it will
already know what to do and when.



“That’s the world we want to live in, that our technology
helps us without us even having to think about it… and I think that’s the kind
of thing we could get more easily by studying how animals and insects interact
in these kinds of ways,” Rosman says. 



Dung may be the currency for the beetle, but maybe the
beetle can be the currency for our technology.



With the natural environment at our finger tips, Africa may
just have the potential the world has never seen before, thanks to a small,
unassuming, rotund insect with a steely resolve.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



The Power Of Rolling Stones



In the
1960s, dung beetles from South Africa were introduced in Australia to help
improve the quality and fertility of cattle and reduce the population of flies
that feed off cattle dung.



The African
dung beetle was also introduced in North and South America for the same reason.



Dung
beetles assist with nutrient recycling, aeration, soil penetration and pest
control.



“They are
massively important in any agricultural economy,” Byrne says, adding that the
value of dung beetles is in the billions as they play a crucial role in natural
and agricultural ecosystems.

Marcus1

A Step Closer To Transformer Insects

Online auctions are gaining popularity, but the
traditionalists are still sold on the idea of live auctions that guarantee a
good show, with emotions and bids running high.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



In an industrialized area approximately 30 minutes from
Sandton, the commercial hub of Johannesburg, is a shining fleet of trucks,
parked and ready to be sold to the highest bidder. 



The sun reflects off the windshields in the direction of the
registered bidders as they sit under red outdoor umbrellas at the entrance of
the property.&nbsp; 



Some opt for refreshments, while others make small talk with
their competition.



A man uses this time to make phone calls to a mechanic, who
discourages him from making a regrettable bid on a “non-runner”.



He runs towards the towering fleet of trucks, where he joins
the eager buyers as they take a final peek before the auction begins. 



We are at Aucor Auctioneers’ popular commercial auction, at
their head office in Midrand.



After spending four hours traveling to Johannesburg from
Nelspruit (in South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province), for the auction, Charles
Malibe gets into a heated bidding war that lasts no longer than a minute but is
packed with plenty of fervent action.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="930" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc7.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41344" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc7.png 930w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc7-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc7-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc7-768x509.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 930px) 100vw, 930px" /><figcaption>Charles Malibe in a heated bidding war for a truck. Picture: Gypseenia Lion</figcaption></figure></div>



It is noon and an overjoyed Malibe has just won a R465,000
($32,401) bid on a second-hand truck. 



“I attended my first auction three years ago. Sometimes you
get it wrong and sometimes you get the right stuff at the right price. It is
good to be exposed to new things. I went to Durban once, but I did not get
anything there. It was not a waste. It is not only about getting things, it
gives you exposure,” he says. 



As Malibe heads back to Nelspruit, the auctioneer remains
chanting until the last vehicle is sold, with the crowd getting smaller with
each purchase.



Wasim Babamia, Aucor Auctioneers’ multimedia consultant,
manages the national marketing for the 51-year-old auctioneering company. 



Digitalization has disrupted traditional norms of
advertising, and has made the industry more accessible for both buyers and
sellers.&nbsp; 



“Selling any asset boils down to supply and demand. The
advantage of buying in an auction is cutting out the middleman, saving that
money and getting something of real top value,” he says. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="927" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc5.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41345" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc5.png 927w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc5-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc5-600x399.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc5-768x510.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 927px) 100vw, 927px" /><figcaption> Wasim Babamia, Aucor Auctioneers’ multimedia consultant. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure></div>



&nbsp;Marketing the call to
action remains a vital component for the business.&nbsp; 



“Social media has to be on point when we market a particular
auction,” Babamia says.



Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn are some of the biggest
platforms, apart from the traditional pamphlets and website advertising
strategies. 



According to Babamia, online bidding has pulled in more
numbers over the past four years. 



He sees a rapid transformation in the auctions landscape in
the foreseeable future. 



According to a South African Institute of Auctioneers (SAIA)
report, Gauteng is the highest province of interest with over 6,000 potential
buyers (for all kinds of auctions including residential properties, retail
vehicles, jewelry and collectables) on its website, while the Northern Cape is
the lowest with just over 1,000 buyers. 



The traditional means of auctioning have had to make way for
digital platforms that have been steadily increasing over the last decade. 



SAIA records close to 100,000 visitors to online auctions in
2010; the first half of 2019 is already at 400,000 visitors. 



Last year’s record 600,000 visitors reflect that the online market could be just as lucrative as the live auctions. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="‘Stolen’ Tutankhamun Bust Puts Britain’s Museums And Auctioneers Back Under the Spotlight (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/arts/2019/07/08/stolen-tutankhamun-bust-puts-britains-museums-and-auctioneers-back-under-the-spotlight/" target="_blank">‘Stolen’ Tutankhamun Bust Puts Britain’s Museums And Auctioneers Back Under the Spotlight</a>



As the state of the South African economy remains uncertain,
Babamia suggests that auctioneering will always provide a cheaper option to
consumers. 



An industry that has been in existence for more than 2,000
years continues to grow despite its many iterations over the years. 



Ancient Greek records on auctions dating as far back as
500BC show women were auctioned off to become wives. 



Auctions were popular for family estates and the selling of
war plunder in Rome. 



As a result of the great depression in the 1900s, the United
States opened auction schools to generate income as businesses and individuals needed
to liquidate assets to withstand the economic crisis.



In recent times, market trends have changed dramatically to
adapt to socioeconomic norms. 



A shift to online auctioneering has been a great development
and contributor to the fluid industry.



&nbsp;Orbis Research
reports that the global online auction market is expected to grow during the
period 2018-2022 with a 7.2% compound annual growth rate. 



“Another major trend witnessed in the online auction is the
immense impact of artificial intelligence (AI). AI’s main role in an online
auction is to perform different tasks such as processing internal operations,
customer-service inquiries, delivery and product packaging. In the last years,
AI has instigated a gradual shift, from conventional auction to online auction,”
the report states. 



The increase in sales of art-based goods through online
auctions is a key market driver. 



Traditional live auctions, however, are still a preferred
option for bargain-hunters, despite the global steer towards digitalization. 



This is according to fine art specialist Luke Crossley who
manages Stephan Welz &amp; Co. in the affluent northern suburb of Johannesburg,
Houghton Estate.&nbsp;&nbsp; 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="416" height="617" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc4.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41346" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc4.png 416w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc4-300x445.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc4-202x300.png 202w" sizes="(max-width: 416px) 100vw, 416px" /><figcaption> Fine art specialist Luke Crossley who manages Stephan Welz &amp; Co. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure></div>



Moving to simpler models will improve the industry by
providing a greater competitive edge, he says. &nbsp;



“There is a growing interest and understanding of auctions
across a broad section of people where, maybe, a couple of decades ago it was
seen as just for the very rich people doing very rich things. 



“People are realizing that it is a great way of finding
weird and beautiful objects, artwork and furniture at quite reasonable prices,”
he says. 



The increase of auction houses in South Africa offers a
variety to buyers and sellers, with SAIA having 80,546 members registered by
April 2019. As a result, the art and design market is at an advantage. 



“The South African art market on auction is always evolving
and broadening. The importance to history and art history is being realized and
there is a growing interest and demand for these. It is encouraging a lot of
the younger artists working with galleries to look at the history and heritage
of artistic practice in this country,” Crossley says. 



“With growing appreciation for South African and African art
overseas, a couple of international houses based in England regularly do sales
of more historical work. The audience overseas means a lot for the artists, the
country and the future.” 



Selling or buying art on auction engages the audience as
well as the creator. 



“The gallery, thus, becomes the primary market where young
artists can build their careers; whereas auctions and private individuals with
a passion for art can sell work they own, re-invest in other artists, or buy. 







“It creates a second life for an artist once they have had
their exhibition. With an auction house, you can reach a broader audience.
Auctioneering is a great way of indirectly promoting the artist,” says the art
specialist.&nbsp; 



A mobile museum acts as a platform that simplifies the
process and eases access to the market for artists and admirers. 



A world of opportunity, at the click of a button, gives
upcoming artists a chance to compete in the art market. 



Art lovers can sit in the comfort of their homes, evaluate the work before-hand, request for condition reports and place a bid while monitoring the action on screen.



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“Auction houses, historically, would work with physical
catalogues. We still do catalogues but with the possibility now to create an
app for the auction house to allow interaction directly with the audience. 



“It seems simple now with email, but previously, you would
write a letter and take a photograph and get it delivered. Now, there is an
ease of communication,” Crossley says. 



On the other end, Jerry Horn from AuctionInc. argues that
despite the digital migration in South Africa, live auctions are still the
safest and simplest way for auctions to take place. 



Online platforms also lack interpersonal interaction. 



At the moment, live auctions are still more popular, he
says. 



“Online auctions are impersonal, you wait till the time is
up and if you get it, you get it, if you don’t, then you don’t. There is no
emotion attached to it. Live auctions still create the hype… humans are
emotional creatures,” Horn says. 



We meet Horn and fellow broker Disa Smuts at a three-bedroom
house which is being auctioned for R1.5 million ($105,301) at an upmarket
security estate in Pretoria called The Wilds Security Estate.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="927" height="615" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc6.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41347" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc6.png 927w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc6-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc6-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc6-768x510.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 927px) 100vw, 927px" /><figcaption> Disa Smuts. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure></div>



Buyers meander in and out of the house as they assess the
property. They pry further as they look through windows, open cupboards and
check light fixtures, along with all the other fittings of the house. 



Bidding begins as the amount crescendos to the millions. 



Finally, a buyer who is pleased with the finishing of the
house, makes the highest bid at R1.5 million and this bid concludes the auction
for the home, as the final hammer drops.



This is a success for the auctioneer and a gloomy moment for
latecomers who only have the luxury to dawdle in the empty rooms they could
have owned. 



Hennie Swart arrived at the double-storeyed home just after
the conclusion of the auction, and he was not going to let this bargain slip
through his fingers. 



A counter bid amounting to R1.8 million ($130,654) makes him
next in line if the first deal does not take place for any reason.&nbsp;&nbsp; 



Swart, who is a property developer, says purchasing on auction offers a discount of 10% to 20% less than market value. 



Today’s offer is a cheaper buy than Swart’s most expensive
purchase of R2.1 million ($147,428) for a three-bedroom home. 



“I have got a property portfolio and I try to expand my
portfolio by buying property on auction. I normally look at simplexes that are
normally safer because the possibility of getting a tenant is higher,” he says.




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Attending live auctions gives him a first-hand experience of
the area, the property and the potential return on investment.&nbsp; 



A common practice Horn encourages. 



Online bidding may be convenient but competition on the
floor is good for business, and it puts on a good show. 



Bids increase by the second. 



Four figures speedily turn into six figures. 



The auctioneer chants vigorously while his focus is fixed on
the audience. 



Sweat drips from his nose, and all the attention is directed
to a woman at the back of the room. 



The room falls dead silent.



“And sold to the woman in the far right!” 



The audience cheers on, as she graciously leaves the room.



It is this fervent excitement that people enjoy.



Time and competition are the most important factors to
prioritize in this business.&nbsp; 



The aim is to spend less while encouraging
competitiveness.&nbsp; 



“You don’t have ‘show days’ that take up time, and with a
six-week [administrative] process before the auction date, people come and bid
and the property is sold on the day. 



“People bid against each other to get what they want. Most
of the time you get more money than what you are asking for,” Horn says.



South Africa’s market, promising as it is, has room for
development. 



“If you go to countries like Australia and New Zealand,
there are no ‘show days’, there are no real estate agents, everything is done
by the auction basis,” Horn says. 



This cuts out the middleman, and thus minimizing costs,
making the purchase more lucrative for the buyer. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="927" height="616" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41348" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc2.png 927w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc2-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc2-600x399.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Auc2-768x510.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 927px) 100vw, 927px" /><figcaption>A bidder places a bid for an item on auction. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure></div>



Whereas in South Africa, there are other factors to
consider, such as real estate agent commissions, bonds and prime lending rates
which make the process arduous and more expensive for the buyer.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 



Horn frequently travels to Angola, Tanzania, Zambia and
Kenya for business. 



“Property is a lot more expensive up there because it is
dollar-related,” he says. 



The economic climate of a particular region or area
determines the value of property. 



Property auctioning depends largely on adequate research and
comprehension of the landscape. 



Buyers often become sellers after acquiring an understanding
of the industry. 



Smuts, who sold her 18-year-old business on auction, decided
to become an auctioneer herself.&nbsp;&nbsp; 



The uncomplicated nature of transactions is what attracted
her, she says. 



However, clients usually call when their property has been
on the market for too long and the asking price becomes too high for the
market. 



“The owner will give a sole mandate to give a right for the
sale of the property and make sure that it goes to the market correctly. The
auction is done on the day, and make sure it gets the highest price. The
auctioneer’s job is to protect the property’s value,” she says. 



Protecting the interests of all parties involved should be
the auctioneer’s priority, Smuts adds.



&nbsp;Whether you’re buying
from the comfort of your home while basking in the sun by your swimming pool,
or you just lost out at a live bid, chances are, it can’t get any cheaper than
at an auction.&nbsp;

auc8

Going Once, Going Twice! The Evolution Of Auctions

The first 100 days of any presidency are often harshly
scrutinized as they set the tone for what citizens expect. South Africa’s Cyril
Ramaphosa is under the magnifying glass as all await his next tactical move.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



At the end of May, South Africa’s sixth
democratically-elected president, Cyril Ramaphosa, took an oath of office at
Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria. In his speech, he touched on many issues
that resonate with South Africans, including corruption, poverty, equality and
youth unemployment. 



These burning matters prelude what is to be expected from
him in his first 100 days in office. 



Ramaphosa’s period at the helm of power (before the elections) has been typified by repeated calls for a ‘New Dawn’. It seems the man who made it to the 2019 Time magazine list of 100 Most Influential in the world has a laundry list of issues to attend to if he is to set the tone for the rest of his presidency. 



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The challenge that has deeply affected how South Africans
and investors view the country is that of corruption.



“Let us forge a compact for an efficient, capable and
ethical state, a state that is free of corruption, for companies that generate
social value and propel human development… We must be a society that values
excellence, rewards effort and rejects mediocrity,” Ramaphosa said at his
inauguration on May 25.



&nbsp;In the first 100
days, analysts say he needs to demonstrate he is a proactive leader; one who
takes decisive action to address the plight of those who live in a society as
unequal as South Africa. The gaping chasm between the richest and poorest has
widened since the end of apartheid 25 years ago. This information is not lost
on citizens whose lived experiences and disenchantment were in evidence during
the elections.



A specialist in social economic development and political commentator, Kim Heller, is of the view that Ramaphosa has some way to go to address the resolutions of his party, the African National Congress (ANC).



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&nbsp;“There are critical social maladies that need to be treated with the urgency they deserve… One of the key things people are looking for is a decisive man and decisive leadership,” she says.</blockquote>



Political analyst, Prince Mashele, ventures: “He is yet to
act on resolutions because he is navigating complex political infighting in the
ANC, which is why he can’t move boldly and faster…” 



Economic transformation has been seen to also imply
redistribution of the means of production, which currently has been reiterated
in the call for land redistribution without compensation. This is among the
duties citizens and investors will keep a close eye on as it is a contentious
matter.



Leading up to the elections, Ramaphosa said to apprehensive
farmers, “the land reform process is something we should never fear. It is
going to be done in terms of the constitution”. 



Heller says that, “the question of land is unresolved,
despite very solid ANC resolutions from branches, and despite extensive
consultation”. 



The president will to have to choose whether he wants to be investor-friendly or whether he wants the interests of his own political party to find expression in policy. 



“The investors have become the supreme branch of the ANC. So
Ramaphosa certainly, is spending a lot of time on their concerns rather than
ordinary people&#8230;,” Heller says.



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Mashele echoes: “He has been a market-friendly president. He
has railed against his comrades calling for the nationalization of the [South
African] Reserve Bank”.



Another matter influencing investment into the country is
red tape that inhibits instead of encouraging business. South Africa dropped
from 34 out of 181 countries on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking
in 2009 to 82 out of 192 countries last year, leaving the country trailing its
African peers, including Mauritius (20), Rwanda (29) and Kenya (61).



In his address to the nation, Ramaphosa continued with the
mantra thuma mina (which means ‘send me’) and committed to continue to build
South Africa. In his rebuilding, he will have to take a closer look at the factors
that infringe on those looking to conduct business while straddling the line in
ensuring that (natural) resources are not further depleted while failing to
trickle down to those who need it the most. 



Heller is of the view that the expectations created by the
president serve as a double-edged sword: “Some quarters have built him up to be
the Messiah we have all been waiting for. He may have embraced that but it’s
actually going to damage him. Because there is no individual who can save this
country without looking at doing serious things in terms of economic
restructuring… Until we address structural issues in this country, shifting the
economy to favor ordinary people, not markets, we actually aren’t very
benevolent.”



Also affecting business has been the view that South Africa is amongst the most corrupt on the continent and viewed as one of the murder capitals of the world. The Zondo Commission has illustrated the stark reality of the malfeasance the president will have to address to change these perceptions and in so doing, hold high-profile individuals accountable.



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&nbsp;In line with building
an equal society, the president made mention of the prevalence of violence
against women at his inauguration. 



“Let us end the dominion that men claim over women, the
denial of opportunity, the abuse and the violence, the neglect, and the
disregard of each person’s equal rights. Let us build a truly non-racial
society, one that belongs to all South Africans, and in which all South
Africans belong. Let us build a society that protects and values those who are
vulnerable and who for too long have been rendered marginal,” Ramaphosa said.



Leading up to the resolution of the president’s first 100
days in office, the public is watching with bated breath.&nbsp; 



“I pity him. He’s made big promises on housing and
unemployment. Those are not going to magically change overnight. The problem
with South Africa is that we love martyrs and here we have a president that we
have martyred and who is actually going to fall on that. To replace one man
with another, is not going to replace problematic policies, poor implementation
and poor conceptualization of economic solutions. So I think in the next 100
days, I don’t expect to see anything unless the fundamentals are changed,”
Heller says.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



No doubt, it is going to take a concerted effort from all
institutions, including those that have been revealed to be compromised. The
first 100 days will certainly determine the rest of the president’s term in
office.

Category: Focus

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