Women in Africa spend 40 billion hours a year walking to get water, according to the United Nations. The practice dates back generations, can be extremely dangerous and prevents communities from reaching any sort of gender parity. A world away, on her farm in Iowa, singer/songwriter Lissie is trying to do something about it.

President Paul Kagame has called on African nations to scale up investments in research to increase impact of science in development.The president was speaking at the opening session of the Next Einstein Forum (NEF) currently underway in Dakar, Senegal.

She was taken out of primary school at the age of 12 to marry a man in his 40s whom she had never met before. […] Today, that illiterate girl who didn't even know how to boil water and who [...] was finally sent back to her father's house in disgrace, has become one of northern Nigeria's most well-known writers and the first female Hausa-language author to be translated into English.

President Paul Kagame and his Djiboutian counterpart Ismael Omar Guelleh yesterday pledged to do more to advance trade between the two countries [...] The briefing was preceded by the signing of a General Cooperation Agreement between the two countries to provide a foundation for future technical agreements. 

Keen to strengthen relations with Africa, China will over the next three years train at least 200,000 African professionals in skills-based fields. Ambassador Lin Songtian [...] revealed on Tuesday that the offer was part of the Asian power's commitment to build the continent's capacity to achieve its development vision. 

Airbnb has upended the system. When the site launched in 2008, Africa was a minor part. That's changed, and now that more than 44,000 homes in Africa have been listed, the continent has become one of the company's fastest-growing regions.