Do you know about FEWS NET, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network?

Organisation:

FEWS NET, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network

 

From the About Us webpage:

FEWS NET, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, is a leading provider of early warning and analysis on acute food insecurity around the world.  

 

Created in 1985 by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in response to devastating famines in East and West Africa, FEWS NET provides unbiased, evidence-based analysis to governments and relief agencies who plan for and respond to humanitarian crises. FEWS NET analyses support resilience and development programming as well. FEWS NET analysts and specialists work with scientists, government ministries, international agencies, and NGOs to track and publicly report on conditions in the world’s most food-insecure countries.

 

This organisation reports on:

* Monthly reports and maps detailing current and projected food insecurity 

 

* Alerts on emerging or likely crises 

 

* Special reports on factors that contribute to or mitigate food insecurity, including weather and climate, markets and trade, agricultural production, conflict, livelihoods, nutrition, and humanitarian assistance 

 

* Access to data, learning, and analysis of the underlying dynamics of recurrent and chronic food insecurity and poor nutritional outcomes, to improve early warning and better inform response and program design 

Click here for the FEWS NET website

 

AFRICA - 10 poorest countries in Africa; how do they live and what needs to be done?

Title:

10 poorest countries in Africa; how do they live and what needs to be done?

 

Author:

Emmanuel Abara Benson

 

Published:

Business Insider Africa, 16 October 2021

https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/top-10-poorest-countries-in-africa-in-2021/qrsbhj9

 

From the article:

* Most of the world's poorest people are concentrated in Africa. These people live in abject poverty, many of them on less than a dollar per day. 

 

* The ten poorest African countries are scattered across West Africa, Southern Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean. 

 

* There are two common characteristics similar to them all – man-made and natural disasters.

 

NEW BOOK (November 2020) - Sky Guide Africa South 2021: Astronomical Handbook for Southern Africa

Title:

Sky Guide Africa South 2021: Astronomical Handbook for Southern Africa

 

Year of publication:

November 2020

ISBN:

9781775847243

About:

This is an annual publication is an invaluable guide for anyone with an interest in the night skies of southern Africa, from beginner through to professional.

For more information, go to Penguin Random House:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/sky-guide-africa-south-2021-astronomical-handbook-southern-africa/9781775847243

SOUTH AFRICA - New fossil tracks belonging to human ancestors found in South Africa

Title:

New fossil tracks belonging to human ancestors found in South Africa

 

Author:

Charles helm, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University

 

Published:

The Conversation, 22 October 2020

https://theconversation.com/new-fossil-tracks-belonging-to-human-ancestors-found-in-south-africa-148187

 

From the article:

* Around a hundred thousand years ago, South Africa’s Cape south coast was a busy place. Giraffes, crocodiles, hatchling sea turtles and large bird species populated the landscape. Early humans were there, too.  

 

We know all of this because of fossil tracksites that today dot the Cape south coast, which is about 400km east of Cape Town. These sites date to between 400,000 years and 35,000 years ago, to a geological epoch known as the Pleistocene. 

* Now we’ve found three further hominin tracksites – and possibly a fourth. The sites are described in a recently published article in the South African Journal of Science.