The Water-Free South African Bathing Solution

As the world’s population grows from its current 7 billion to a projected 9 billion in 2050 (UN), competition for access to the Earth’s resources will become fiercer. The most essential resource for life on the planet – and an increasingly precious resource – is water. Water is necessary for the very survival of humans, animals and plants, and is also used in vast quantities by industries and farms.

As demand increases, water resources will need to be conserved more and more, while clever ways will have to be developed to use less water. And there is also another factor to consider for the world’s poor: many millions live in very constrained conditions in urban and rural areas. For their health and dignity, the ability to wash every day is critical. Being clean is vital to being able to economically advance in life: it is something that sounds obvious but is often not a possibility for many millions of people living in slums.

Many will face lives where water is an uncertain resource that will be either expensive to purchase or will require lots of labour to obtain.

Anyone who can come up with a way to help bring the dignity of being clean and healthy while also saving water is onto a winner.

A clever South African, Ludwick Marishane, has developed a clear gel that works like soap and water but doesn’t need H2O to get a person clean.

The product is called DryBath (http://headboy.org/drybath/) and uses a “proprietary blend of a biocide, bioflavonoids and moisturisers.” It differs from common liquid hand anti-bacterial cleanser products that people use to sterilize hands. Those products use alcohol to simultaneously sterilize germs and evaporate the liquid.

DryBath works in a different way by not requiring water or alcohol to complete the washing. The liquid gel is odourless, biodegradable and moisturises and does not need to be rinsed off. It instead leaves users smelling fresh and “tackles the hygiene and water consumption problems in a manner that has never been used before.”

It also comes in a special package developed in South Africa. EasySnap™ sachets allow users to quickly snap the package and dispense the solution on to their hands to have a wash. EasySnap is a rectangular sachet that is snapped in the middle to open.

Marishane, a 22-year-old student at the University of Cape Town, told Reuters that the idea for DryBath came to him when he was a teenager living in his rural home. It was wintertime and his friend didn’t want to bother washing because there was no hot water available.

“He was lazy and he happened to say, ‘why doesn’t somebody invent something that you can just put on your skin and you don’t have to bathe’,” Marishane said.

That was when the light bulb went off in his head.

Intrigued, he started doing research on his web-enabled mobile phone. He trawled through the search engine Google and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to find what would work as a water-free wash. After six months of research, he came up with the formula for DryBath and acquired a patent.

Now the strategy of Headboy Industries Inc. (headboy.org) – the company set up by Marishane – is to sell DryBath to corporate clients and in turn donate a free sachet for each sale to DryBath’s global charity partners, who will distribute DryBath to poor communities either for free or at a subsidized cost.

Marishane believes his product will be particularly popular with certain industries: flight crews and passengers on airlines; hotels looking to save on water usage; the military for soldiers serving in the field; and NGOs and charities providing services to poor communities, in particular during emergency situations when it is difficult to provide a reliable water supply.

Marishane has won several awards for his invention, including Global Champion of the Global Student Entrepreneurs Awards 2011, and is considered South Africa’s youngest patent holder.

“DryBath will go a long way in helping communities,” he believes.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: September 2012

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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Shopping and Flying in Africa’s Boom Towns

As economies across Africa grow, the continent still has a long way to go to create infrastructure to match people’s rising expectations of what a modern, prosperous life looks like.

Africa’s current economic growth has mainly been driven by commodities and oil and gas exports. Critics say this boom has failed to bring tangible benefits to many of Africa’s poor, who feel left out of the prosperity.

Trade has been flourishing not only because of exports to traditional markets in Europe and North America but also because of explosive growth in trade and investment between China and Africa.

Two trends now underway are set to transform people’s wealth and living standards despite the many obstacles caused by the inequalities of current economic growth. The first is the rise and rise of retail shopping options

looking to meet a strong appetite for consumer goods. And the second is the expansion of flying options on a continent notorious for its poor air links. Increasing investment in retail and flight networks will be a source of jobs, careers and wealth for the coming decade.

The aviation sector supports 6.7 million jobs on the continent, according to TradeMark Southern Africa (http://www.trademarksa.org), and makes a US $67.8 billion contribution to Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP).

But the woeful state of Africa’s air networks means that it is often cheaper for people to fly to other parts of Africa via European airports. And Africa has a long way to go to match air safety standards found elsewhere: there was one accident for every 305,000 flights involving Western-built jets in Africa last year (IATA) – nine times the global average.

But Africa is now receiving the attention of the global airline industry. The Abuja Declaration (http://nigerianaviationnews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/aviation-safety-in-africa-abuja.html) aims to bring the African accident rate in line with the global average by 2015. And it is hoped the added competition and introduction of more global players will also raise standards and make flying in Africa safer, more convenient and cheaper.

The experience of Europe and North America shows that increased air traffic brings a boost to economic growth.

With more frequent, safer and more reliable air routes, business people will be able to move around and strike deals, tourists can get around and traders can cross borders without the hassle of navigating poor road networks.

Airlines are lining up to compete on improving air links in Africa to capitalize on rising incomes and economic dynamism.

The competition to serve the air passengers has heated up with the announcement of numerous new airlines, as well as well-established global carriers making plans to expand routes across Africa. Kenya Airways (http://www.kenya-airways.com/) has pledged to reach all of Africa’s countries by 2017 while also launching its own budget airline called Jambo Jet (http://www.ventures-africa.com/2012/06/kenya-airways-tolaunch-low-cost-airline-as-it-prepares-for-competition/).

State-owned South African Airways (SAA) (http://www.flysaa.com/gb/en/) is also starting to expand its network to include every capital city in Africa. SAA will start by adding flights to Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo, making it able to serve 26 African destinations. In the short term, it is doing this by halting flights between Cape Town and London, leaving that route to Virgin Atlantic and British Airways.

Operating out of bases in Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Angola, a new African discount airline, FastJet (http://www.fastjet.com/) – with EasyJet (http://www.easyjet.com/en) founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou as its backer – is taking over Fly540 (http://www.fly540.com/) and adding 15 leased Airbus aircraft. It will launch flights to Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Angola. According to Kenya’s Nation newspaper, the plan is to replicate the success of EasyJet connecting Europe and North Africa with cheap flights in sub-Saharan Africa.

Analysts believe the entry of an aggressive and experienced player like Haji-Ioannou will shake up competition within African aviation.

Other global players lining up to expand in Africa include Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and Korea Air, which has already started flying between South Korea and Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. This is being seen as a boost to the trade in electronics goods between the two countries.

The added excitement in the African air industry has also prompted Air Uganda (http://www.air-uganda.com/) and RwandaAir (http://www.rwandair.com/) to increase their destinations. Qatar Airways (http://www.qatarairways.com/uk/en/homepage.page) will start flying in November 2012 to Maputo, Mozambique three times a week, increasing to 20 the number of destinations the airline serves, according to the Nation.

And while Emirates has a 41 per cent share of the African market, African player Ethiopian Airlines (http://www.flyethiopian.com/en/default.aspx) ambitiously wants to become Africa’s largest airline by 2025.

For shoppers, West Africa is experiencing a boom in new retail spaces being developed, according to a report from Euromonitor International (http://www.euromonitor.com) (http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/ghana-%E2%80%93-africas-new-retail-hotspot/18544/). The advantages of creating and developing modern retail spaces are numerous: hygienic shopping environments with greater safety and security attract multinational and global brands, which tend to create lots of long-term jobs.

Euromonitor International has identified Ghana as the next hotspot for retailers. The country is seen to have the right business environment in place that is attractive to foreign investors. It also has the right mix of political stability, cultural tolerance and rising prosperity.

The country is now being seen as the gateway to West Africa’s market of 250 million consumers. Ghana is able to leverage its position as a gateway into landlocked nations and on its strong ties with English-speaking powerhouses like Britain and the United States.

On top of these strategic advantages, the country has focused on upgrading retail spaces in the capital, Accra. The Accra Mall (http://www.accramall.com/), opened in 2007, is considered the most modern shopping mall in Ghana.

Euromonitor found Ghana’s retail industry grew by 14 per cent between 2006 and 2011.

Euromonitor found companies like multinational Unilever and PZ Cussons believed basing their operations in Ghana was a big advantage.

“The presence of such manufacturers provides a good opportunity for retailers as they can source these manufacturers’ products cheaper locally rather than importing them,” it said.

Euromonitor identified three other African countries as potential retail marketplaces. This includes Zambia, a potential agribusiness powerhouse. It is already developing a strong reputation in beef through its Zambeef (http://www.zambeefplc.com/) operation. South African companies have done well in Zambia, including Shoprite, Pick n Pay, Mr Price and the Foschini Group. Much of the action is around the capital, Lusaka.

Rwanda is known for its ease of doing business and there is activity going on in residential areas, roads, hotels, offices and retail spaces. The capital, Kigali, has a new modern, shopping mall, The Union Trade Centre, with a 24-hour store.

Angola has been benefiting from peace since the end of its civil war in 2002. Foreign companies have been attracted to Angola from South Africa, Portugal and Brazil. The Belas Shopping Mall (http://belasshopping.com/website/) opened in 2007 in the capital, Luanda, followed by the Ginga Shopping Mall on the city’s outskirts in 2011.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: August 2012

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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African Fuel Pioneer Uses Crisis to Innovate

Crisis, as the old saying goes, is also a window of opportunity. And there is one African entrepreneur who knows this better than most. Daniel Mugenga has been on a journey of innovation that has led him to become a pioneer in the emerging new field of algae technologies. The story of how he got there is a testament to the power of using business to both solve problems and make profits.

Kenyan entrepreneur Daniel Mugenga has found a solution to the problem of high fuel costs for the transport sector in his country. He has been making money from turning waste cooking oil and inedible vegetable oil into biodiesel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel). He then discovered that he could boost his production of biodiesel by using marine algae as a source for oil.

According to the body that represents the algae fuel industry, Oilgae (oilgae.com), algae are “plant-like organisms that are usually photosynthetic and aquatic, but do not have true roots, stems, leaves, vascular tissue and have simple reproductive structures. They are distributed worldwide in the sea, in freshwater and in wastewater. Most are microscopic, but some are quite large, e.g. some marine seaweeds that can exceed 50 m in length.”

The U.S. Department of Energy has been investigating algae as a fuel source since 1978, and it is being investigated as a potentially transformative fuel source around the world. His business, Pure Fuels Ltd. (http://www.purefuels.co.ke/), is currently seeking venture capital funding for expansion and innovation. Pure Fuels is “a commercial producer of biodiesel and also manufactures biodiesel processors, which we sell to budding entrepreneurs,” says Mugenga.

The Pure Fuels website educates readers on biodiesel as well as offering opportunities for investors and news updates. Pure Fuels was registered as a business in Kenya in 2010.

The business was born out of crisis: in 2008 there were frequent fuel shortages in Kenya and prices were volatile. That was bad news for Daniel Mugenga’s job, working for a transport company with a fleet of trucks. Rising or volatile fuel prices can destroy businesses in areas like trucking, where the biggest expense is fuel.

Mugenga began to do research into fuel alternatives in the crisis and came upon biodiesel. He then set about training in how to produce biodiesel. A period of testing, trials and research ensued between 2008 and 2010, which enabled Pure Fuels to build confidence they had something that was high  quality. The company started producing 120,000 litres of biodiesel in 2010 and increased production to 360,000 litres in 2011 and 700,000 so far in 2012. In 2011, Pure Fuels had revenue of US $230,000 from selling biodiesel.

“We started off using jatropha oil, but when its price went up it was no longer profitable,” Mugenga told the VC4Africa website blog. “Having invested in the machinery, we switched to the next quickest alternative which is used cooking oil. We source it from several of the tourist hotels along the Kenyan coast.”

Turning to cooking oil for biodiesel at first was a good idea. The company was able to get enough waste cooking oil from Kenya hotels and tourist resorts to meet demand. But as demand rose, the thorny problem of Kenya’s tourism business being seasonal arose.

“For about five months of the year, many hotels in Mombasa temporarily shut down or operate at lower capacity. Of course this is affecting the amount of waste cooking oil,” Mugenga said. This is where algae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae) comes in.

Pure Fuels found a biotechnologist in Kenya to help develop a solution using algae as a source for fuel. While the company is keeping details of its innovation secret, it is currently hunting for investors to help increase the quantity of biodiesel it can make – and in turn, revenues.

Investor funds would be used to import non-edible vegetable oil and also to continue the company’s work on extracting oil from marine algae.

Pure Fuels make a bold statement on algae fuel development: it “may actually be Kenya’s next cash crop.”

Pure Fuels sells several products: there is the biodiesel itself, as well as a processing machine called the GXP-200, which can turn customers into biodiesel manufacturers themselves. The company also builds large, industrial-scale processors that can produce between 1,000 litres and 5,000 litres a day.

Pure Fuels currently sells fuel to truck, bus and tuk-tuk companies, and also operates biofuel stations.

The firm has patented its biodiesel and makes all its fuel go through seven quality checks for purity. An in-house laboratory ensures adherence to international standards, and the company is certified by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (http://www.kebs.org/).

Mugenga is a passionate advocate of biodiesel’s advantages: he believes it is cheaper, and better for engines and for the environment. He admits it does have a disadvantage: it gels below 13 degrees Celsius and must be mixed 50-50 with conventional diesel to stay fluid.

Pure Fuels encourages others to use biofuels for business, throwing in a home training kit with the biodiesel processors it manufactures and sells, complete with DVDs, manuals and a business plan. The GXP-200 biodiesel processor was developed after years of experience, and Pure Fuels hopes it will be bought by people who then set up businesses – especially youth, women and the disabled. As a further incentive, Pure Fuels promises to buy the biodiesel produced. The GXP-200 was recently awarded “Most Innovative Product 2012″ at a small and medium business entrepreneurs event in Nairobi.

In Israel, there are a number of pioneers working on further developing algae as a biofuel source too. Isaac Berzin of Seambiotic (seambiotic.com) sees algae as a good source for biofuel because it does not compete with food crops like other biofuel sources (sugar, potatoes, corn etc.). Algae is among a group of so-called second-generation biofuels that includes jatropha, wood and castor plants.

The disadvantage of plant-based fuel sources is they need arable land and water. This seriously holds back their ability to meet the world’s demand for fuel since they would just take up too much land and water. Algae takes up less space and produces a higher yield per acre than conventional crops.

Seambiotic makes marine microalgae using the CO2 from electric power plant flue gas. It pioneered making large quantities of fuel algae in the United States, creating the first gallons of bio-diesel and bio-ethanol from marine microalgae.

Seambiotic is also working on a US $10 million commercial microalgae farm in China, partnering with China Guodian (http://www.cgdc.com.cn/), one of the country’s largest power companies. Another Israeli company in this field is UniVerve (http://www.univervebiofuel.com/). Its CEO, Ohad Zuckerman, runs the10-person company in Tel Aviv, Israel. It is developing a new biofuel from a special strain of algae that can grow quickly in a wider range of temperatures.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: July 2012

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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Turning Human Waste to Fertilizer: An African Solution

While South Africa has been free of the racist Apartheid regime since the mid-1990s, the expected boost to living standards for the majority black population has not been as widespread and as quick as many had expected.

One important aspect of lifting living standards is making sure the entire population has access to adequate sanitation and hygiene services. Another is making sure they have access to adequate and healthy food sources. A bright idea based on intensive research is meeting both goals in an innovative way.

According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (http://www.csir.co.za/), some 11 million South Africans have received access to basic sanitation services since 1994 – but 13.3 million still lacked basic sanitation services by 2008.

The Water Research Commission (WRC) (http://www.wrc.org.za/) believes there is a crisis with South Africa’s toilet pit latrines, which are quickly filling up past their original design capacity. WRC’s solution is to turn the human faeces or faecal sludge deposited in pit latrines into fertilizer for farming and agriculture. The Water Research Commission is advocating using the fertilizer either for fruit trees or for trees that will be turned to income sources like paper and fuel.

The WRC’s project and series of experiments are called “What happens when pit latrines get full?”

“Only one third of municipalities have a budget to maintain on-site sanitation,” WRC researcher and scientist David Still told Inter Press Service (IPS). “If pits fill up, all the hard work that was done to address the sanitation backlog will be wasted. Why not use faecal sludge to address the growing problem of food insecurity by planting fruit trees? Or use the sludge to cultivate trees for fuel or paper production?”

Human faecal sludge contains a variety of nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphates and potassium. The WRC estimates the average person excretes enough human faecal sludge per year to fertilize 300 to 400 square metres of crops.

The big reason people are reluctant to use human waste as fertilizer is because of the pathogens it contains. Spreading this on edible crops is dangerous and it is also a risk to groundwater when it leaches in to the soil.

The WRC conducted research on two sites: Umlazi and Karkloof, both in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. They used property owned by the South African Paper and Pulp Industry (SAPPI) and the local municipality.

The first step in the experiments was to bury the sludge in pits and plant crops on top of it. The pathogens were contained using this method and in time died off.

The test trenches were 0.75 metres in depth and filled with different quantities of sludge. Two control sites did not use faecal sludge. The scientists found the sites where the human waste was used saw plant growth and volume increase by “as much as 80 per cent.”

They then tested for pathogens in the soil. This included looking for the eggs of the large roundworm (http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Roundworm/Pages/Introduction.aspx), a parasite whose presence would be harmful to humans. The site was tested over a period of 30 months, but none could be found.

Tests for microbes at the Umlazi site also found none. The plants were found to have healthy dark green leaves and the trees grew larger with the sludge present.

Researchers also monitored the groundwater around the sites. They found in flat ground and sandy soil there was no impact. In the site with sloping and shallow soil, small increases in nitrate were observed in the groundwater after rainfall.

They concluded the best place to apply this technique is in places that are flat and where the soil is deep.

One local resident, Lindiwe Khoza, was selected to be part of the test. Citrus and peach trees were planted on top of the buried sludge.

She told IPS: “The fruit grows much faster and it seems to be tastier and juicier than fruit bought at supermarkets. We now enjoy fruit from our own garden.”

WRC’s clever solution to these twin problems could help make life much more pleasant in communities still grappling with poor hygiene services, while dramatically improving the health of crops and their yields.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: July 2012

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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New Journal Celebrates Vibrancy of Modern Africa

Africa has seen huge changes to its communications and media in the past five years. The rise and rise of mobile phones, the expansion of the Internet and the explosion in African blogging and social media, on top of flourishing print and broadcast media, all bring an increasing range of options for telling African stories and increasing dialogue.

With all this new media creating new communications channels – and all the turmoil and change affecting millions as economies and countries change – people need the ability to make sense of it all. One magazine is trying to play that role.

An entrepreneur and multimedia innovator has created a unique publication that is capturing the spirit, ideas and stories of modern Africa. It is a high-quality product, has gathered together talented writers and photographers and is gaining a growing global audience. Chimurenga Magazine (http://www.chimurenga.co.za/) based in Cape Town, South Africa, calls itself a “pan African publication of writing, art and politics.” Named for the Zimbabwean Shona word for “revolutionary struggle,” it is published three times a year. Editor Ntone Edjabe is from Cameroon and came to Cape Town in the 1990s after the end of South Africa’s racist Apartheid regime.

With more than 100 contributors, the magazine offers insight into contemporary Africa, what occupies people’s thoughts and how their lives are actually lived.

It is involved in a wide range of other activities, including co-curating a Global South Dialogue Series. And its readership is truly diverse.

“We have readers who are long-term prisoners at Pretoria Central Prison, who have subscriptions that they get to us in coins, and readers who are successful businessmen,” Edjabe said to The Financial Times Magazine.

Chimurenga is out to challenge perceptions of Africa. Practicing the art of long-form journalism more associated with established high-end publications like The New Yorker (newyorker.com), the magazine sets out to challenge perceptions about Africa.

“Discourse on Africa is geared towards simplicity,” Edjabe told CNN. “Everything must be simple – ‘he’s a poor black man, he’s a victim’ – like there has to be a simple story, in a way this is what signifies Africa and global consciousness.

“The moment you bring a degree of complexity to it, it kind of throws people off, they just don’t know where to look anymore. It’s like, ‘what’s going on?’ So Chimurenga in a way does not try to maintain the superficiality of this narrative – we engage with life, we try to present life as complex as it really is.”

Stories in the journal include Billy Kahora writing on the decay of a neighbourhood in Nairobi, Kenya, Michael Abrahams writing about his time in the Cape Town mental hospital after a suicide attempt, and Sean O’Toole following a Zimbabwean immigrant on his journey into South Africa.

The magazine’s website carries back issues of the journal, along with a shop selling magazines, books and t-shirts and the “Chimurenga Library,” an archive of pan-African, independent periodicals. There’s also live online streaming of music – “from ancient techno to future roots” – through the Pan African Space Station radio station, there is a biennial publication of urban life it calls “Africa-style,” and the writings of 14 African writers who visited 14 African cities to check-up on life in urban areas.

As an example of the creativity of Chimurenga’s talent, a special issue of the magazine tried to better understand the impact of violence in South Africa in May 2008 that led to the deaths of 62 people. It did this by creating a fictitious newspaper called The Chimurenga Chronic (http://www.chimurenga.co.za/chimurenga-magazine/current-issue) set during the violence.

The writers are a mix of Anglophones and Francophones, all based in Africa. Common subjects focus on the world of lower-middle class Africa. Examples of past issues show the variety of its content: Conversations With Poets Who Refuse To Speak, Futbol, Politricks & Ostentatious Cripples, Conversations in Luanda and Other Graphic Stories, *We’re all Nigerian!

Well-travelled editor Edjabe has studied and lived in Lagos, Nigeria and Johannesburg, South Africa. He has worked as a disc jockey, music writer and basketball coach. He launched Chimurenga in 2002. He told The Financial Times Magazine “I printed 1,000 copies, which I carried around in my bag. I sold it mainly to friends.”

It was supposed to be a one-off publication but became a journal, initially written mostly by his friends.

“I found out later that this is how most journals actually begin,” he said. “At the time I thought it was unique.”

He aspired to get Africans writing about the Africa they saw and lived in. The challenge was changing the dynamic he found of writers only considering something worth writing about if it had been featured in non-African media.

Edjabe had already made his mark with an innovative initiative to show the diversity of what Africa has to offer. Three years after arriving in South Africa he started the Pan African Market (PAM) in Cape Town. An African cultural centre, it began as a craft market with various traders able to run their individual businesses and leasing stall space from the market. PAM became very successful because it brought together Africans from across the continent and offered a vibrant mix of artists, small businesses and food. It now has 33 stores and stalls from 14 countries of Africa. Shoppers can find arts and crafts, hair dressing, tailoring, holistic healing and catering.

Hard copies of Chimurenga are distributed around Africa and sent to Europe, the United States and India.

“There’s a feeling about writing something, sharing something that is beautiful and truthful from one’s perspective,” Edjabe told CNN.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: June 2012

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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