Forbes Africa

SURELY, WE ARE NOT THE SAME PEOPLE we were two years ago. We learned to make work work from remote corners and stepped into a permeable hybrid, distributed world where even the bedroom can morph into an impromptu boardroom on Zoom. We felt wretched and distraught when the sick squirmed and friends and family died of Covid-19. We caught the bug too, and understood the true value of breath. Every single fleeting breath. We have lived through furloughs and retrenchments enough to know that life does not give you a choice. We learned to bring empathy to work, and understand that sometimes compassion can be more important than currency. But have we really? Have we really untangled the morass of crossed wires and synapses in our heads? The war in Ukraine, the images of women giving birth…

THE WAR IN Ukraine has dominated the news over the last few weeks. There are no winners in war; sadly, as always, it is people who will suffer. The colossal migration of people, the irreparable loss of life and accompanied suffering, the destruction of infrastructure and the economic disaster ahead all point to the futility of decisions made by leaders who have all lost sight of the greater good. At the core of all irrational decisions lies man’s eternal desire to look for material benefit beyond what one needs. History has a convoluted mechanism of being documented; regardless of the outcomes, this sad human catastrophe will go down as one of life’s greatest regrets. I am a global citizen today and believe strongly that life’s solutions can never be found in…

IN MARCH, AFRICAN PHILANTHROPIST AND SOCIAL entrepreneur, Tsitsi Masiyiwa, and other world philanthropists came together to raise $1 billion to advance gender equality and women’s leadership. The organization, Co-Impact, launched The Gender Fund to bring significant resources into a grossly underfunded space and address “gendered systems” – the underlying norms, laws, practices, sanctions, and decision-making processes that lead to systematic barriers and persistent discrimination against women and girls. According to the organization, “while funding for gender equality has been rising over the last decade, only 1% of that funding has reached women’s organizations”. Masiyiwa spoke to FORBES AFRICA about the fund stating that what attracted her to the initiative is the big focus on women. “I believe that the world is made a better place when there’s justice and inclusivity. In the world,…

THE FIRST TIME I WENT TO UKRAINE was in 1992. The country had just declared independence from the Soviet Union and flying there from South Africa, I could not help but make comparisons. Whereas Africa was alive with greenery and warmth, the dullness of Europe’s second-largest country after Russia, was suffocating. The strongest memory I have was the lack of color. It was summertime and people were dressed in lackluster greys and browns. The once-elegant, wide avenues of the capital city, Kyiv, belied a former glory. Fast track 22 years and the country was unrecognizable. Kyiv had transformed into a modern, vibrant city living up to its reputation as the hidden jewel of Europe. Cobblestone streets and ancient churches charmed the Old City while elsewhere tourists flocked to museums and state-of-the-art theaters. But those…

DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE ARE FIVE DEBRIS islands – just waste – in our seas worldwide? For example, there is an entire floating island of trash, The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, somewhere in the North Pacific Ocean, now greater in size than South Africa, at 1.6 million square kilometers. And how not? Only 9% of polymer ever gets recycled, the UN Environment Program reports, so this is not surprising. After disposal, plastic gets exposed to water, sunlight, wind, and various elements causing it to degrade into smaller particles, or ‘microplastics’, a word thought to be used first in Africa by Ryan & Moloney in their research on South African beaches in 1990. So how is Africa doing in this regard? Greenpeace says out of 54 African countries, 34 have either passed a law…

IN APRIL 2021, 23-YEAR-OLD social media marketer, Aviella Frankel, reconnected with someone she considered a very close friend. She had met him years ago at the local church in her hometown in Cape Town. Because they lived in the same area and she had known him for what seemed like most of her life, she had no problem with his invitation to “come over and watch a movie”. “It was meant to be just a friendly hangout, we were just going to spend the afternoon together as this person had mentioned he had an off day,” Frankel tells FORBES AFRICA. On arriving at his house, Frankel recalls his roommates being present, so any inkling about anything untoward happening was the furthest from her mind. “But when we sat down in his room and…