Kalasinga is a boda boda driver who earns a living by ferrying people and goods. Before he carries his first passenger, the 25-year-old stops at a gas station and pours $4.64 worth of fuel into his tank (all figures in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted), money he earned the previous day. “On a bad day I spend up to 1,000 shillings [$7.70] on fuel, and with the current surging fuel prices, things are getting worse,” he says.

In April 2026, petrol and diesel prices in Kenya jumped sharply, hitting some of the highest levels in the country’s history. Based on recent reports from the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA), a Kenyan government agency, petrol was selling for between $1.52 and $1.59 per litre, and diesel was about the same. EPRA attributed the increase in local pump prices to the rising cost of imported petroleum products as a result of the Iran war. Kenya’s Ministry of Energy has since trimmed taxes, enabling prices to dip by a few cents. But this reduction has done little to improve the economic picture for many boda boda riders. “Things are usually bad, but even with the rising fuel prices, we cannot hike the fares we charge because we will lose clients,” Kalasinga explains.

Kalasinga’s story is echoed by hundreds of thousands of motorcycle riders across Kenya. Motorcycles have become the backbone of last-mile transport, supporting livelihoods, small businesses and urban mobility. But behind this economic engine lies a costly dependence on fossil fuels that is squeezing incomes and, in the process, locking riders into a cycle of poverty.

Kenyan boda boda riders spend up to 60% of their daily earnings on fuel, according to research by the asset-financing company Mogo. In Nairobi, where congestion forces riders to idle in traffic, fuel consumption is even higher.

“Fuel is our biggest enemy,” Kalasinga says. “You work the whole day, but at the end what remains is very little.”

The electric advantage

To improve their margins, boda boda drivers are turning to electrified transportation. The past few years have seen an increase in the number of electric motorcycles, especially among those providing taxi services. Data from Kenya’s transport sector show that total EV registrations rose from 65 in 2018 to 4,047 in 2023 across vehicle categories, including motorcycles.

Electric boda bodas have a clear advantage for drivers – lower fuel costs – while offering wider social benefits in the form of increased energy security and lowered pollution. In Nairobi, road transport is responsible for about 40% of fine particulate matter, which has been linked to respiratory illness, heart disease and premature deaths.

“[Electric vehicles] present environmental benefits because they produce zero tailpipe emissions and align with Kenya’s largely renewable electricity mix, which is over 90% green, driven by geothermal, hydro and wind,” explains Paul Mabonga, managing director of Sentimental Energy Ltd., a solar solutions company.

Drivers have doubts

But barriers have slowed the uptake of electric motorcycles. The high cost of batteries combined with lack of accessible and affordable charging infrastructure have prompted some riders to question the product. “There have been concerns about battery range, durability and service continuity affecting adoption, especially for those whose livelihoods rely on consistent daily uptime,” explains Winnie Miranyi, operations and research associate at Africa E-Mobility Alliance, an organization focused on accelerating the transition to electric and sustainable transport across Africa.

“Interest is there, but infrastructure is not,” says Joseph Mwangi, a Nairobi-based boda boda rider who last year abandoned his electric motorcycle and returned to a petrol-powered one. “Riders ask: Where will I charge? How long will it take? What happens if the battery fails?”

These are valid concerns. “Today, lack of accessible and affordable charging infrastructure is a major barrier to electric motorcycle adoption among boda boda riders in Kenya,” Mabonga says. “Most EV solutions target middle- and high-income consumers, leaving boda boda riders, who form the largest transport workforce, locked out.”

The rise of battery swapping

Spiro Kenya, an electric mobility company, believes it has a fix for poor charging infrastructure: battery swapping. Spiro offers a service where riders visit swap stations and exchange their batteries, keeping them on the road continuously. “Rather than waiting hours to charge, riders simply exchange a depleted battery for a fully charged one in under two minutes,” explains Raymond Robert Kitunga, deputy country head at Spiro Kenya.

According to Kitunga, a full charge costs approximately $2.23 if the battery is completely depleted. “If a rider swaps at 50%, they only pay half, about [$1.12],” he adds. Spiro’s battery-swapping service can save a rider roughly $23 compared to petrol over the course of a month, Kitunga says.

The model appears to be taking root. Currently, Spiro operates in 35 counties in Kenya, with more than 22,000 electric motorbikes on the road and more than 460 battery swap stations nationwide. Across Africa, the company has roughly 95,000 bikes.

Joel Musungu, a boda boda rider from Kimilili constituency, in the western part of Kenya, uses the service. He got his motorcycle in 2022 and hasn’t regretted it. “Now, I take home up to [$4.62] a day, compared to initially where I could only make a fraction of that.”

Not a panacea

There are certainly advantages, but there are also challenges. According to Miranyi with Africa E-Mobility Alliance, infrastructure availability and reliability continue to be a major barrier. The swap stations and charging points are largely confined to urban areas, she says. In Kimilili, a rural town, there is a single swapping station, for example. That can make for long queues, especially during blackouts or if the electrical grid is sluggish, Musungu explains.

It is a genuine challenge, Kitunga admits. The company has concentrated its infrastructure in urban areas, where the demand is highest. “Setting up a swapping station is capital-intensive. It involves both civil works [real estate] and electrical infrastructure, including coordination with partners like Kenya Power,” he explains. Spiro has also tried to address range anxiety through an app that shows users the availability and traffic of swap stations in real time. But the biggest challenges continue to be financing and affordability, according to Miranyi. “Although battery-swapping models help lower battery expenses, many riders still encounter difficulties in securing credit for the motorcycle itself, with prices remaining prohibitively high.”

Pauline Ongaji is an award-winning science journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya.

This story was jointly produced by Corporate Knights and The Energy Mix.

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But like many other developing nations that are feeling the increasing burden of climate change, the main challenge is finding the money. To assemble the financing, Nigeria is turning more and more to a tool that is already yielding results: the green bond. Late last year, the government issued its third and fourth tranche of sovereign green bonds totalling 300 billion naira (US$220 million).

Nigeria started down this path back in 2017 when it became the first African country – and the fourth worldwide – to issue a sovereign green bond, valued at ₦10.69 billion (US$7.85 million). Certified by the London-based nongovernmental organization Climate Bonds Initiative, investor demand outstripped the offer and the bond was oversubscribed.

Two years later, the West African nation issued another sovereign green bond valued at ₦15 billion (US$11.16 million). Like the first, the 2019 sovereign green bond saw a 220% oversubscription, bringing the total value of subscriptions to ₦32.93 billion ($23.57 million).

Like regular bonds, green bonds pay a fixed rate of interest to investors, but they keep the focus on raising capital for environmental and climate-related projects, from renewable-energy and clean-transportation to afforestation and climate-change-adaptation projects. The success of the inaugural 2017 green bond and the subsequent tranche in 2019 “signals growing investor appetite for green assets even in emerging markets,” says Dare Ogunbona, chief executive officer at Green Advisors Limited..

Green bonds gaining traction

Launched in 2007 by the European Investment Bank, the market for green bonds is growing steadily worldwide, reaching US$2,625 billion as of December 2024. In that year alone, $522 billion of new green bonds were issued, up from $135 billion the previous year, according to French asset manager Amundi’s 2024 Green Bond Impact Report. However, Africa is yet to fully tap into this potential. The continent accounts for about US$5.1 billion – less than 1% – of the total $2.2 trillion green bond market. But in recent years, the market on the continent is making major gains. For example, green bond issuances grew by 125%, from $600 million in 2022 to $1.4 billion in 2023.

Other countries on the continent are also picking up on the trend. In 2020, Egypt became the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to issue a sovereign green bond. That bond, too, was oversubscribed, leading the government to increase its initial offering from $500 million to $750 million.

Back in Nigeria, Ogunbona credits green bonds with “meaningful structural progress.” Proceeds from green bonds issuances have helped the Nigerian government to fund projects such as afforestation programs, the 10-megawatt Katsina wind farm power project, and off-grid solar power plants. However, these projects have been severely challenged, including by inadequate monitoring and weak sustainability frameworks. An investigation by a local newspaper also found that green-bond-financed afforestation projects failed largely because of poor implementation.

Given that so many climate projects still need to be funded, Ogunbona believes that green bonds will remain a viable option for the Nigerian government, especially as investors show increasing commitment to sustainability. “As of March 2025, 95.44% of proceeds from the 2019 green bond had been deployed to approved green projects,” he says. “For investors with a medium to long horizon and appetite for emerging market risk, Nigeria’s green space is very much in play.”

Saint Ekpali is a Nigeria-based journalist who covers the environment, health and energy in Africa.

The post A wave of green bonds is reshaping climate finance in Africa appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Husk’s expansion is an example of the solar boom taking off across Africa. The continent holds 60% of the world’s best solar resources; while it accounts for just 1% of global installed solar photovoltaic capacity, the tides are gradually turning.

Africa added 54% more solar capacity in 2025 than the previous year, according to the latest Africa Market Outlook for Solar PV released by the Global Solar Council. This is the highest annual deployment Africa has ever recorded, led by South Africa, which added 1.6 gigawatts of new solar capacity. Nigeria followed with 803 megawatts, and Egypt with 500 megawatts.

The immense potential that solar holds has “hit everybody” on the continent, says professor Chiso Ndukwe-Okafor, executive director of Consumer Advocacy and Empowerment Foundation, an advocacy organization that works on the energy problem in Nigeria.

Ndukwe-Okafor contends that African countries are looking for ways to increase the productivity of their economies and recognize affordable energy as essential to that goal. “To have a productive society, there [must] be an enabling environment,” she explains. “And an enabling environment means you have to have constant and affordable power.”

The Global Solar Council report found that solar installations on the continent are being driven by both large utility-scale projects, which feed electricity directly into national grids, and distributed solar systems, which include rooftop installations and mini-grids to meet the energy demands of households and businesses.

Distributed systems are rapidly increasing even in off-grid African communities. Last year, for example, Ghana and Switzerland jointly launched a $200-million National Clean Energy Programme to develop 137 megawatts of rooftop solar photovoltaic capacity across approximately 4,000 installations.

Solar power “reduces the cost [of energy] to the community while improving their ability to become more productive,” Ndukwe-Okafor says.

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Meanwhile, investments in solar power are increasing on the continent. Between 2020 and 2025, Africa invested US$34 billion in clean power technologies, out of which 52% was allocated to solar energy, according to the State of African Energy 2026 Outlook Report. These investments were also possible because of policy reforms and the support of governments, including in Nigeria, where its Nigeria Electrification Programme initiative deploys mini-grids, rooftop solar and other solar solutions to people without access to electricity. Since 2018, the private-sector-driven program has helped at least 5.9 million Nigerians access electricity services, in part through the commissioning of 180 mini-grids.

Despite the boom, Africa still lacks adequate financing and investment, which could limit the continent’s potential to generate at least 300 gigawatts by 2030, a goal set by the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative. Besides, the capital costs for solar projects in Africa are three to seven times higher than in developed countries.

This financing gap widened after U.S. President Donald Trump ended Power Africa in February 2025. The Power Africa program was launched during the Obama-led administration in 2013 and aimed at providing electricity to millions of households in Africa. Before it ended, the program “contributed to 14,300 megawatts of capacity reaching financial close”  and “facilitated over 41 million new or improved connections for homes and businesses.”

Nevertheless, Ndukwe-Okafor believes that “Africa is a huge [solar] market” with existing policies that can attract the right investment to the solar sector.

Saint Ekpali is a Nigeria-based journalist who covers the environment, health and energy in Africa.

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Africa’s markets have been pressure-testing what the rest of the world mostly theorizes about: resilience through proximity. The vocabulary is “short food supply chains,” but the practice is older than policy and smarter than jargon: farmer to local aggregator or market to consumer or institution, with 1,000-kilometre detours and very few gatekeepers. A 2025 synthesis of 69 studies across 25 African countries comes to the same conclusion: short chains don’t just move food; they move power, especially when paired with simple digital tools. This isn’t about romanticizing open-air markets; it’s about bargaining power. The shorter the path, the less room for someone far away to set the terms.

“Cash in 24 hours changes everything,” a Kiambu farmer told me, leaning on his pickup as porters shouldered crates toward the scales. “You can buy inputs, pay workers, and you don’t panic-sell.” A platform operator in Nairobi put it even plainer: “We didn’t replace the market – we ride on it.” The digital skin: WhatsApp orders, simple inventory apps, business-to-business produce platforms and mobile money. These tools don’t erase the local chain. They speed it up and make it legible, compressing time between harvest and payment so volatility has less surface area to bite.

Follow the logic south to northern Tanzania and the system looks different but moves with the same cadence. In Arusha and Moshi, women-led stalls and microprocessors grind maize, smoke fish, blend spices and portion dairy for neighbourhood buyers and institutional kitchens. These aren’t side hustles clipped onto a formal chain; they are the chain that feeds cities. When a truck is late or a road washes out, “five handcarts fill the gap,” a market association leader said. “We don’t wait for permission.” Contingency plans aren’t found in a consultant’s diagram; it’s the woman who keeps a neighbour’s number and a spare cart in case the usual supplier’s son is sick.

Cash in 24 hours changes everything. You can buy inputs, pay workers, and you don’t panic-sell.

— Kiambu farmer

If you want to see why these short chains don’t just endure shocks but metabolize them, watch what happens when everyday demand becomes predictable. Across the region, government-led, home-grown school feeding has turned local purchasing into a weekday ritual rather than a promise: sub-Saharan Africa has added about 20 million children to national programs since 2022, with countries like Benin channelling public orders directly to nearby producers. A school places an order every weekday; upstream, farmers plant to that rhythm, transporters plan routes, microprocessors justify the small capital outlays that make the whole machine hum. A shaded sorting area here, a clean-water tap there, a used chiller bought on instalments. “That daily order turned our stall into a business,” a vendor told me in Moshi. “We hired two more women and finally bought a fridge that doesn’t die on Fridays.”

The objection, predictably, is scale. Where are the volumes? Hidden in plain sight. Day after day, these markets move hundreds of tonnes – some of it visible through platform dashboards, most of it still travelling by phone call and habit. Scale is not a monolith rolling down a highway; it’s accretion: another school on contract, another hotel switching to local suppliers, another ward installing clean water, another women’s group adding a fridge, another pickup joining the dawn queue.

The world keeps searching for resilience in the language of grand designs and silver bullets. Africa’s city-region food systems have been building it in smaller, nearer, more democratic units. Keep the path short. Pay fast. Share the margin with the people who do the work. Give the system a reliable customer. And then, when the shipment doesn’t come, watch the market open anyway.

Shilpa Tiwari is the founder of NoWomen No Spice and Isenzo Group.

The post A blueprint for shockproof food chains appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The urgency is clear. More than 70% of Ethiopia’s territory faces desertification, threatening more than 40 million people. Launched in 2019, the Green Legacy Initiative (GLI) is the country’s audacious response: a bid to plant 50 billion trees by 2026. But more than a reforestation drive, the GLI is ecological statecraft – an attempt to braid the environment, economy and national identity through trees.

“The Green Legacy is not a campaign,” says Eliane Ubalijoro, CEO of the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry, a Nairobi-based research institute that has worked closely with Ethiopia on restoration. “It is a reimagining of how a country can build ecological infrastructure as a foundation for economic renewal.”

Mass mobilization as policy

Each year, more than 20 million Ethiopians take part in the GLI. Schools integrate tree planting into lessons. Churches and mosques turn holy days into planting days. Ministries coordinate calendars to maximize labour around the rainy season. Across the country, 120,000 nurseries raise seedlings and train communities in their care.

The effort has already generated 767,000 jobs – nursery managers, forestry agents and seasonal workers – linking ecological recovery directly to livelihoods. In rural Ethiopia, where incomes are fragile, these jobs carry real weight. Restoration has become not an external aid project but a national civic duty.

This model breaks with Ethiopia’s past. For decades, the country was one of the world’s largest per-capita recipients of foreign aid – more than US$4 billion annually between 2018 and 2022. The GLI asserts an alternative: ecological sovereignty rooted in local agency. “We are not planting trees to meet donor metrics,” Ubalijoro emphasizes. “We are planting to anchor food systems, water cycles and national dignity.”

That vision is now enshrined in law. In 2024, Ethiopia passed Proclamation No. 1361, dedicating 0.5% to 1% of federal revenue (US$40 to $80 million annually) to a Green Legacy and Landscape Restoration Special Fund. Few countries have gone this far in legally binding restoration to national budgets.

Planting is only the beginning. What matters is survival, governance and care.

– Eliane Ubalijoro, CEO, Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry

Ethiopia’s land degradation is not just ecological; it is political. Centuries of imperial expansion, Cold War–era coups, and cycles of authoritarianism and reform shaped how land is owned and managed. Famines of the 1980s were worsened by degraded soil, mismanaged agriculture and civil conflict. For decades, land was both a symbol and casualty of contested authority.

Against this backdrop, the GLI marks a departure. It channels Ethiopia’s long tradition of state-led mobilization but reorients it from dependency toward sovereignty. Instead of donor-driven projects, the state itself defines success: not just trees planted, but ecosystems restored, livelihoods created and national identity renewed.

Forests are essential infrastructure

Where Global North programs often reduce forests to carbon math, Ethiopia resists such flattening. Here, trees are framed as ecological infrastructure – living systems that stabilize soil, recharge aquifers, buffer droughts and anchor food security.

The initiative is not without challenge. Seedling survival rates sometimes fall below 60% as a result of drought, grazing or limited follow-up. Forest ecologist Tadesse Habtamu from Jimma University, in Jimma, Ethiopia, cautions against the pace imposed by the program. In an interview, he identifies issues related to “lack of technical oversight, concerns over biodiversity from mixing plant species and the absence of data on seedling survival.”

Failures here are treated as lessons, not footnotes. Government agencies track survival rates, adjust planting schedules and invest in training – an adaptive approach that strengthens the program each season. By contrast, donor-funded projects typically have their own review and audit cycles, but political and institutional incentives can slow response to negative findings. Ethiopia’s Green Legacy avoids this inertia because its success is defined, measured and corrected from within. 

For farmers like Bercele Bayisa, the stakes are personal. He recalls how his district was once “very forested and full of wildlife,” until poverty forced families to clear trees for firewood. For him, GLI is about repairing the rupture between survival and stewardship.

National cohesion through trees

Planting days are more than labour – they are pedagogy. As public offices close and classrooms move outdoors, citizens are drawn into the narrative of national regeneration. These rituals help spark ecological curiosity and cultural ownership, especially among youth and rural communities.

At the same time, GLI has produced tangible environmental returns that reinforce civic pride. In reforested areas, project evidence shows that planting a single species has triggered the return of more than 10 other kinds of trees. The replanting effort has restored water cycles, bolstered soil and even coaxed migratory wildlife like colobus monkeys back into former habitats. Recent monitoring shows that annual soil erosion plunged from 1.9 billion tonnes to 208 million tonnes, shielding farmland and safeguarding dam infrastructure. 

The outcome? Communities that are environmentally aware and emotionally invested. According to a 2023 policy brief by the Ethiopian Economics Association, many farm households report that they recognize the benefits of the GLI and are willing to allocate part of their own budget for future tree-planting initiatives.

This is how the GLI builds genuine cohesion: by inviting Ethiopia’s 80-plus ethnic groups into a co-created act of belonging, one rooted not only in memory and hope but in restored water, soil and life.

“Planting is only the beginning,” Ubalijoro warns. “What matters is survival, governance and care.”

Canada’s fragmented approach

Contrast this with Canada, home to vast forests and world-class institutions. In 2019, the federal government launched its 2 Billion Trees (2BT) program, aiming to plant that number of saplings by 2031. The government hoped to leverage the power of tree carbon capture in pursuit of net-zero emissions targets. But in its first two years, just 2.3% of the two billion trees were planted, according to the auditor general. In 2023, it warned that Canada not only risked missing its tree-planting ambitions, but that the expected emission reductions would occur much later. 

Following that scathing assessment, the government picked up the pace. In August, it reported that the program had secured agreements to plant nearly one billion trees since its launch in 2021 and that to date, more than 228 million were in the ground. Its tree-planting agreements extend across 11 provinces and territories, 58 Indigenous partners, 30 municipalities and 88 non-governmental organizations. 

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But critics say implementation is divided among the various stakeholders, sometimes with little coordination. Even established actors such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Canada – managing forests with attention to soil, water, wildlife and people – have had limited involvement. “Planting a tree is an important act, but stewardship is about the entire ecosystem,” says Monika Patel, FSC Canada’s CEO. “That’s where resilience comes from.” Without integration, she warns, the program risks being just numbers on a page.

More fundamentally, I would argue, Canada has not asked what a tree is for. Policy often frames trees as carbon sinks or timber. What’s missing is the cultural reverence I see on display in Ethiopia. 

Some Indigenous Nations have led the way. The Tŝilhqot’in Nation in British Columbia has established its own forest law, grounded in relational stewardship rather than yield targets. Others, like the Innu Nation, have used modern treaties to reclaim control over forest lands.

But these models remain exceptions, not norms.

Ethiopia’s Green Legacy shows that climate solutions need not be Global North–designed to be legitimate. It is not charity-adjacent; it is sovereign. Trees are treated as both cultural anchors and ecological infrastructure. Citizens are invited not just to plant, but to belong.

As former Canadian member of Parliament Monte Solberg put it, “Planting a tree is a bet on the future . . . a labour of love.” Without that intimate connection, even the best-funded reforestation effort struggles to take root.

Ethiopia’s lesson is simple, but profound: before planting another tree, plant a vision. One that binds ecological survival to sovereignty, livelihoods and legacy.

Shilpa Tiwari is the founder of No Women No Spice and Isenzo Group. She is based in Canada and Tanzania.

The post How a bid to plant 50 billion trees transformed Ethiopia appeared first on Corporate Knights.

In East Africa, a quieter crisis is unfolding – one that reveals how deeply global food systems are interconnected. In Kenya, the price of a tray of 30 eggs has nearly doubled since early 2023.

For families where eggs are a primary, affordable source of nutrition, this isn’t just economic turbulence. It’s a direct blow to food security.

Let’s follow the trail.

Unlike Canada, where a regulated poultry supply management system has helped keep prices relatively stable for both farmers and consumers, East Africa operates in a far more volatile environment. Poultry feed in the region is deeply tied to global commodity markets, especially for maize and soy – crops that have been battered by drought in southern Africa, conflict in Ukraine and fluctuating international demand.

In Kenya, feed costs account for up to 80% of total poultry production expenses. Between January 2023 and early 2024, the price of soybean meal rose from 86 to 113 shillings per kilogram – a jump of more than 31%. Yellow maize, another critical feed component, surged from 40 to 60 shillings per kilo in the same period. For smallholder farmers, these price swings are not just inconvenient; they are existential threats.

Part of the problem lies in how East Africa has been integrated into global supply chains under the banner of food security. Kenya imports around 90% of its soybean needs, much of it from the United States. This dependence isn’t accidental: it reflects decades of donor-driven policy choices. U.S. foreign assistance, particularly through the U.S. Agency for International Development, has historically prioritized food aid in the form of surplus U.S. grain and oilseed exports, reinforcing global trade flows rather than investing in local production ecosystems that could reduce such dependencies.

In 2022 alone, USAID (whose funding has been gutted under President Donald Trump) and partners provided nearly $2 billion in emergency food aid to sub-Saharan Africa – much of it as imported commodities. While crucial in humanitarian crises, these flows have had an unintended side effect: crowding out investment in regional feed production, processing infrastructure and local supply chain development. The result is a chronic dependence on volatile global markets that leave farmers vulnerable to external shocks.

The consequences are visible across the region. As feed prices climbed, many commercial poultry farmers were forced to reduce flock sizes, creating a supply shortfall that drove egg prices even higher. Consumers, especially in lower-income households where eggs are often the most accessible source of protein, have borne the brunt of these price surges.

Yet, amid this volatility, something remarkable is happening.

The collective economy steps in

Across East Africa, women-led poultry cooperatives are demonstrating an alternative. Far from being passive victims of global market failures, these co-ops are building local resilience – one egg at a time.

Take the Kuku Women’s Poultry Cooperative in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Confronted with skyrocketing feed prices, the members of Kuku shifted to sourcing alternative local ingredients such as sunflower seedcake and cassava peels, reducing dependence on expensive imports. By pooling their resources, they negotiated bulk purchases of essential feed components and invested in small-scale feed mills owned by the co-op itself. “We couldn’t wait for traders or donors to rescue us,” co-op leader Ruth Wanjiku says. “We had to create our own safety net.”

In Tanzania, the Building a Better Tomorrow for Livestock and Fisheries (BBT-LIFE) program has been instrumental in empowering women and youth in the poultry sector. Launched by the Tanzanian government in 2023, this initiative aims to modernize the poultry industry by providing training, resources and support to small-scale farmers. The program has facilitated the formation of cooperatives and encouraged the adoption of innovative practices to enhance productivity and sustainability. Women have established mini feed-production systems, sourcing maize locally and experimenting with protein-rich moringa leaves and black soldier fly larvae as feed supplements.

We couldn’t wait for traders or donors to rescue us. We had to create our own safety net.

—Ruth Wanjiku, Kuku Women’s Poultry Cooperative

Building a Better Tomorrow has garnered significant attention from international organizations. Notably, the African Development Bank approved a US$129.71-million loan to support the program, covering more than half of its total budget. The Tanzanian government contributes the remaining funds, demonstrating a strong public–private partnership model.

These stories aren’t outliers; they reflect a broader shift. Across Africa, women account for 60% to 80% of food producers, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, and poultry farming remains one of the most accessible economic activities for women in rural areas because of its low capital and land requirements.

Lessons from the Global South

This pattern echoes globally. During Argentina’s economic collapse in the early 2000s, smallholder farmers in the Federación Agraria banded together to pool resources, secure better prices and access international markets. Spain’s Mondragon Corporation – a federation of worker cooperatives – navigated the 2008 global financial crisis without mass layoffs, sustaining both employment and community stability. Even in the United States, the Organic Valley cooperative kept its supply chains steady during COVID-19 disruptions, while many industrial agribusinesses struggled.

There’s a deeper reckoning underway in global food systems. For decades, factory farming in the Global North has obscured the real cost of food production, propped up by government subsidies for feed crops like corn and soy, lax environmental regulations, and low-wage, precarious labour. According to FoodPrint, a food awareness project, these subsidies artificially depress the price of key inputs, masking the environmental damage and labour exploitation embedded in industrial agriculture.

In the United States, egg prices surged from an average of $1.49 per dozen in 2021 to more than $4.25 in 2023, largely driven by avian flu outbreaks and supply chain disruptions. Yet, sustainable production models – those that ensure fair labour, animal welfare and environmental stewardship – suggest that the true cost of a dozen eggs could range from $8 to $10, aligning with the prices seen for pasture-raised or certified humane eggs. This disparity highlights how deeply externalized costs have been embedded in the industrial food system, leaving consumers disconnected from the actual price of ethical, sustainable food.

As global prices inch closer to reflecting these real costs, East Africa’s co-ops offer a powerful lesson: resilience is local, cooperative and community-driven.

A global wake-up call

This is not going unnoticed. According to a 2023 report from the FAIRR Initiative, a coalition of investors that monitors risks and opportunities in the livestock sector, 84% of institutional investors now see intensive animal agriculture as a material financial risk, and 78% consider sustainable proteins critical to their environmental, social and governance strategies. Funds like AgDevCo and RSF Social Finance are beginning to direct capital toward African co-ops, recognizing the value of shorter, more resilient supply chains.

However, investment alone won’t be enough. Agribusiness giants still dominate, spending more than US$793 million between 2019 and 2023 on lobbying to entrench their market positions. For collective economies to scale, policy support is essential. Governments can level the playing field with tax incentives for cooperative formation, grants for feed innovation and public procurement policies that prioritize community-based producers.

Donor agencies like USAID, in whatever form it continues, also have a role to play. Moving from a reactive model of food aid to proactive investment in local production ecosystems would build long-term resilience. Supporting regional feed production, farmer training and agroecological research can unlock the full potential of local supply chains.

Because when the next crisis strikes – and it will – it won’t be multinational corporations that keep food on our tables. It will be local producers, neighbours and communities bound by trust and mutual obligation.

Shilpa Tiwari is the founder of No Women No Spice and Isenzo Group. She is based in Canada and Tanzania.

The post As egg prices soar, African women lead solutions appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Off-grid solar power does what national grids have failed to do. It delivers energy directly to the people who need it most. Built around solar panels, battery storage, charge controllers and inverters, these systems operate autonomously, free from state-run utilities or failing transmission lines. Financing models have accelerated the shift, making solar power affordable even for low-income households. With pay-as-you-go plans, families can make small daily or weekly payments through mobile money services, gaining access to power for as little as 50 cents a day. “If you treat low-income people as customers, not charity cases, you can change the world,” Jesse Moore, co-founder and CEO of M-KOPA, a leading provider of pay-as-you-go solar home systems, told Bloomberg.  

This isn’t just about keeping the lights on at home. Off-grid solar is powering small businesses, health clinics and farms, turning energy access into economic growth. In Tanzania, solar-powered irrigation systems are increasing agricultural yields and reducing reliance on expensive diesel-powered pumps. In Uganda, solar microgrids are electrifying entire marketplaces, allowing businesses to stay open after dark. In Kenya, off-grid solar is fuelling the continent’s mobile banking revolution, enabling people to power their phones and participate in the digital economy. 

This transformation isn’t the result of charity or government handouts. It’s a market-driven revolution. Companies like M-KOPA, Bboxx and d.light have built thriving businesses around providing off-grid solar to households and small enterprises. While upfront costs of installation still present a barrier to widespread adoption, the uptake is escalating. Off-grid solar solutions now serve more than 400 million people worldwide. In Africa, mini-grids are expanding rapidly – 62 are fully operational, with another 28 under construction – as part of a push to close the energy-access gap. The World Bank projects that mini-grids – localized, independent power networks capable of supplying entire villages – could provide electricity to 380 million Africans by 2030. 

Countries like Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania are showing that mini-grid technology isn’t just viable – it’s better. “While Africa remains the least electrified continent, it also has the biggest potential for solar mini-grid deployment,” said Gabriela Elizondo Azuela, manager of the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program, in a World Bank press release. That potential is being realized, but to scale further it requires investment and commitment from both the private and public sectors. 

Kenya’s Lake Turkana Wind Power project, the largest wind farm in Africa, exemplifies the continent’s ability to scale renewable-energy solutions. It provides nearly 15% of Kenya’s electricity, proving that renewables aren’t a niche technology – they’re the backbone of a modern energy economy. Meanwhile, Kenya’s geothermal sector quietly powers more than 40% of the country’s electricity. 

Despite the momentum, Africa remains critically underfunded in its energy transition. In 2022, the continent received a paltry 2% of global clean energy investment, despite having some of the world’s most promising solar and wind potential. The International Energy Agency estimates that Africa needs at least US $190 billion annually from 2026 to 2030 to meet its energy and climate goals. Yet investors continue to pour billions into fossil-fuel-based projects around the world while ignoring the world’s fastest-growing clean energy market. 

While policymakers in Washington and Brussels argue over subsidies and carbon credits, Africa is proving that a decentralized, renewable-first energy system isn’t just possible – it’s preferable.  

The post Off-grid solar is redefining energy in Africa  appeared first on Corporate Knights.

“It’s critical for students to engage with case studies that reflect local conditions, offer context-specific solutions and link them to global discourse,” explains professor Manoj Chiba, GIBS’ MBA director at GIBS.

This shift, he says, reflects a growing recognition of the continent’s unique business landscape, “giving students a deeper understanding of the complexities and opportunities they’ll encounter in their own markets.”

Across the continent,  business schools are embracing local narratives, turning the classroom into a space where African ingenuity and global relevance meet and changing how students see themselves – not just as participants but as creators of a more sustainable and equitable global economy.

“African business students are no longer simply inheriting frameworks from Western institutions; they are now developing the tools to shape them,” says Chiba.

Addressing climate change impacts in Africa

Europe’s colonial rule in Africa may have largely ended by the 1960s, but its legacy has profoundly influenced the continent’s modern education system. Historically, African education, from primary to post-secondary levels, has mirrored Western models while often sidelining Indigenous knowledge and local contexts. But now, African business schools are developing programs that move beyond colonial influences toward a more inclusive and relevant future. This involves not just revising curricula but also integrating African perspectives and addressing local challenges directly – including the impacts of climate change on the continent.

Despite contributing only 3.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Africa suffers some of the most severe consequences of global warming. From erratic prolonged droughts in the Sahel region and East Africa to devastating floods in countries like Mozambique and Nigeria, these climatic shifts are catalysts for broader socio-economic issues, including migration, health crises and conflicts over dwindling resources.

By 2050, up to 86 million Africans could become internal climate migrants due to deteriorating living conditions, according to the World Bank. And Africa’s youth – 60% of the continent’s population is below the age of 25 – say they want business to respond. According to a 2023 World Economic Forum report, 65% of African youth are interested in sustainable business practices. In this challenging landscape, African institutions have an opportunity to develop sustainable solutions tailored to the continent’s specific needs.

And more are stepping into the spotlight for doing just that.

Today, the shift towards sustainability is not only timely but essential. It goes beyond business ethics to encompass broader challenges relevant to both African and global markets.

– Jackson Omondi, graduate of Strathmore University Business School 

Fostering entrepreneurship and sustainable development

This year, Corporate Knights’ 2024 Better World MBA ranking of the top 40 business schools for sustainability shines a light on this progress, with two MBA programs from African institutions making the cut: GIBS and the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business (UCT), ranked 25th and 7th, respectively.

Since becoming a signatory of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education in 2009, GIBS has woven the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) deeply into its curriculum, Chiba explains. This commitment “is central to GIBS’s mission to drive businesses to contribute positively to healthier economies and communities,” he says. Post-graduate diploma students, for instance, are required to incorporate at least one of the 17 SDGs into their first-year business projects, ensuring that real-world impact is woven into academic rigour.

The school also offers specialty programs tailor-made for changemakers, including its social entrepreneurship program as well as its Corteva Women Agripreneurs program. In the CWA program, women entrepreneurs in farming engage in a blended curriculum that combines theory, workshops, field immersions and mentorship, all aimed at fostering sustainable business skills. Chiba notes that in a world of rapid change, “business education must be as dynamic and forward-thinking as the environments it seeks to serve.”

UCT’s Graduate School of Business has similarly put local realities at the heart of its curriculum by incorporating in themes like water management and transportation. The university’s Centre for Transport Studies is developing solutions such as electric bus networks to tackle the challenges of growing pollution, a warming climate and rapid urbanization in African cities. MBA students can work directly on projects such as these, using local case studies to understand and address real-world issues.

GIBS and UCT are far from the only African business schools reimagining business education that is rooted in local context while connected to global discourse. While not part of Corporate Knights Top 40, Lagos Business School in southwestern Nigeria is homing in on entrepreneurship and sustainable development in the region’s dynamic tech ecosystem, fields critical to the continent’s growth trajectory. In North Africa, the American University in Cairo is making strides in research on economic development and governance, further cementing the university’s role as a key player in addressing regional challenges.

Jackson Omondi, an East African supply chain expert who graduated from Strathmore University Business School’s leadership program, in Kenya, more than a decade ago, notes how much it has evolved. “Ten years ago, sustainability wasn’t part of the conversation, and the program was built around a narrow curriculum. The focus was squarely on business ethics and leadership, and most participants were sponsored by Kenyan corporations like Kenya Airways,” he says. “Today, the shift towards sustainability is not only timely but essential. It goes beyond business ethics to encompass broader challenges relevant to both African and global markets.”

MBAs serving African climate priorities

African universities are also gaining ground as climate leaders on the global stage, thanks in part to initiatives like Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL) Africa, which emerged from last year’s COP27 in Egypt. Launched by PRME Chapter Africa (whose goal is to develop the Principles for Responsible Management Education) and BS4CL Europe, this collaboration promises to redefine business education across the continent by putting climate action at its core.

“BS4CL Africa gives voice, advocacy and action to Africa’s unique requirements as we craft our fit-for-purpose responses to what is fast being recognised as a climate catastrophe bearing down on Africa and the world,” GIBS professor Roze Phillips told University World News in 2022. She noted that it’s in line with the saying “Nothing about us without us.”

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The six founding schools will collaborate on joint courses and research that serve African climate priorities, as well as student competitions and corporate partnerships, all focused on accelerating impact and fostering future business leaders who actively contribute to a more climate-resilient future.

The pan-African collaboration exemplifies the drive toward reclaiming agency and ensuring that African voices dominate discussions on sustainability and development. African business schools are now focusing on outcomes that benefit a diverse range of stakeholders, beyond corporate shareholders. To truly decolonize the curriculum, schools are going beyond diversifying reading lists. They are taking tangible steps to incorporate diverse knowledge sources and educational methodologies from various cultural and philosophical backgrounds.

It’s a sizeable task, as Phillips said in 2022: “We will need to question the very basis of business school education and what business schools stand for.”

Howard Thomas, professor extraordinaire with GIBS, argues that business schools around the world have deviated from their mission of creating public value, becoming too aligned with business interests and maximizing shareholder returns. That also creates an opportunity for African business schools that are redefining responsible leadership.

In rapidly evolving climate emergency, it’s a something more African youth are demanding – and more schools are beginning to deliver.

Shilpa Tiwari is an ESG strategy and communications consultant, and the founder of No Women No Spice. She lives in Tanzania and Toronto.

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Every year, millions of animals move across the land in search of fresh grass and water, creating an incredible spectacle known as the Great Migration. This migration sustains hundreds of predators and scavengers like vultures. The wildlife is also important for local governments and communities that rely on funds from tourism and conservation efforts.

All this activity – the well-being of wildlife, the water they drink and the vegetation they feed on – depends on weather patterns. Extreme weather phenomena, therefore, can wreak havoc on the workings of the ecosystem.

I’m part of a team from the universities of Hohenheim and Groningen, Free University of Berlin, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Indian Institute of Management in Udaipur and the Kenya Meteorological Department, which has been studying weather patterns in the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem since 1913. Our new study has found that it has been experiencing major changes.

Over the past six decades, rainfall has been above average and there have also been recurrent severe droughts, erratic extremely wet conditions and a temperature rise of 4.8°C to 5.8°C.

These events are having a significant impact on wildlife populations and biodiversity in the area. Vegetation and water are gradually drying. Competition between wildlife, livestock and people for resources is increasing. Wildlife numbers are falling, and there are changes in patterns of migration and breeding.

Key findings

We have found that the Mara-Serengeti is rapidly warming.

The average monthly minimum temperatures (taken in Narok Town, bordering the Maasai Mara ecosystem) between 1960 and 2024 increased significantly – an overall rise of 5.3°C. The minimum temperature increased from 7.9°C in May 1960, reaching 13.2°C in 2024.

Rainfall in both the Maasai Mara and Serengeti increased over time. Severe droughts are becoming more frequent and intense. And though extreme floods are relatively rare, they’re also increasing in frequency and intensity over time.

What’s driving these changes

By analyzing patterns in rainfall and temperature alongside global oceanic and atmospheric climate systems, we connect the weather changes in the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem to climate change. The global climate systems are changing because of global warming.

Specifically, we examined the Southern Oscillation Index and the Indian Ocean Dipole between 1913 and 2024. These are the most significant oceanic and atmospheric patterns affecting climate in East Africa.

The Southern Oscillation Index measures the difference in air pressure between two places, Tahiti in the South Pacific and Darwin in Australia. When the sea-level pressure difference is big it signals changes – like El Niño (warm phase of the oscillation) or La Niña (cold phase) – which can affect weather patterns around the world. El Niño is linked to more rainfall in East Africa and La Niña to droughts.

The Indian Ocean Dipole is a climate pattern that is like a seesaw for the ocean temperatures in the Indian Ocean. Sometimes, one side of the ocean near Africa gets warmer, while the side near Indonesia gets cooler. Other times it flips, with Indonesia being warmer and Africa cooler. This changing pattern affects the weather, causing more rain when the ocean near East Africa is warmer and droughts when the ocean is cooler.

Our study of the Southern Oscillation Index found that around 1970 the shifts in oceanic and atmospheric conditions that cause El Niño and La Niña were becoming more extreme. As a result, these events – and the droughts and floods they bring – are happening more often and with greater intensity.

Meanwhile, between 1913 and 2024, the Indian Ocean Dipole has slowly increased due to steady ocean warming. And there are two repeating cycles that happen every 4.1 and 5.4 years. These cycles change in strength and timing, but they keep coming back regularly. The steady strengthening of the dipole is a sign of global warming and altered atmospheric circulation. The increased frequency and intensity of dipole events, when there are warmer sea surface temperatures in the western Indian Ocean, are linked to more frequent and severe floods and droughts in the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem.

Implications of weather changes

The droughts, floods and temperature rise are affecting wildlife populations and biodiversity in the ecosystem.

We’ve seen this through field observations in annual reports by Kenya’s Game Department and its successor, the Wildlife Conservation and Management Department, and from local district documents in the Kenya National Archives, and there are also more contemporary observations.

We analyzed this observational data to identify trends and patterns in wildlife populations over time and the timing, scale and location of changes. We then linked these to changes in the weather and specific anomalies, such as droughts.

We also systematically ruled out other potential causes, such as disease outbreaks, habitat destruction, pollution or overexploitation, such as through poaching.

These are some of the impacts from the ecosystem’s changing weather patterns:

• Droughts kill wildlife through starvation, thirst and dehydration and the increased predation and poaching of weakened animals.
• Drought is linked to increased human-wildlife conflict because wild animals raid crops, kill livestock and injure or kill people.
• Droughts intensify the competition for scarce resources among wildlife, pastoralists and their livestock.
• Droughts temporarily increase carcass availability, boosting predator numbers, but as prey numbers decline, predators face starvation and their numbers decrease.
• Heavy rainfall replenishes drinking water sources and promotes plant growth, but it also causes wildlife drownings and destruction of habitats.
• Heavy rainfall after droughts can kill wildlife because sudden severe temperature drops following the onset of rains can be fatal to weakened animals. The rapid growth of young grass can further endanger vulnerable animals due to nutritional imbalance, sudden dietary change and dehydration.
• Heavy rainfall increases grass biomass and fibre accumulation, thereby depressing nutritional quality for ungulates that thrive best at intermediate biomass levels.
• Droughts bring diseases, such as anthrax or rinderpest outbreaks, and pathogens, such as parasitic lungworm.
• Droughts shrink the area of wetlands critical for herbivores during droughts.
• Heavy rainfall increases the risk of fires by promoting lush grass growth. The excessive biomass dries, ignites and burns.
• Abundant rainfall can boost breeding but may also increase wildlife death due to diseases and predation in lush conditions.
• Droughts force wildlife to migrate over longer distances in search of food and water, leading to early departures, delayed arrivals or movement into dangerous areas, such as near poachers.
• Heavy rainfall causes animals to roam further from their usual ranges and reduces the number of animals that migrate.
• Unpredictable rainfall makes animal migrations more erratic, and often mistimed with periods of peak resource availability.
• Extended droughts suppress reproduction, reducing birth rates, milk availability and successful mating. This leads to unseasonal calving, reproductive pauses or failures, and high mortality among young animals.
• Droughts delay the onset of births and timing of birth peaks, while good rains advance it.
• Droughts decrease the number of females that breed and reduce the likelihood of synchronized breeding among females, while high rainfall increases synchrony of births and females that give birth.

Joseph Ogutu is a senior researcher and statistician at the University of Hohenheim.

The post How climate change is hitting the iconic Serengeti and Maasai Mara appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The legacy of “waste colonialism” in the fashion sector is undeniable. Marketed as economic aid, the export of second-hand clothing also allows Western nations to shed their surplus production and consumption. This practice dates to when Western attire was introduced to colonies under British rule and was later commercialized by American businessmen post-independence in the late 1950s, providing them a new revenue stream while offloading excess inventory. 

Today, the appeal of second-hand clothing in sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly 34% of the world’s second-hand garments were shipped in 2021, is unmistakable. It offers millions of people affordable wardrobe options and underpins a vibrant informal sector that’s crucial for economic resilience. Research by Kenya’s Institute of Economic Affairs found that for the vast majority of Kenyan families, affordability is a key factor in their widespread preference for second-hand clothing. But it’s not just about cost savings. “They’re not only cheaper but also better quality than many new clothes made in China – and definitely more stylish,” says Josephina Mwasi, a shopper at the Memorial second-hand market in Moshi, Tanzania. 

Yet this influx of Western garments – worth US$1.7 billion in shipments to sub-Saharan Africa in 2021 alone – presents a formidable paradox: while it energizes retail sectors, it’s widely believed to simultaneously suffocate local textile industries. A 2008 report by economist Garth Frazer highlights a stark decline of roughly 40% in local apparel production from 1981 to 2000 and correlates this with the rise of imported second-hand clothes. 

While it’s tempting to attribute the drop solely to these imports, the reality is more nuanced. The crux of the matter lies in the domestic market, where higher production costs, coupled with persistent inflation, make locally produced clothes increasingly less attractive compared to second-hand ones and cheap new imports. Despite the challenges facing local manufacturing industries, Africa’s upcycled apparel exports – made with refashioned second-hand textiles – have shown remarkable resilience and growth.

“We’re not just the dumping ground. We have the potential to produce, we have the potential to create,” Ugandan fashion designer Bobby Kolade said in 2022. “Our capacity to redesign, reuse, upcycle and remake has developed into a culture and a visual language.”

Having interned for Balenciaga and Margiela in Paris and launched his own brand in Berlin, Kolade found himself disillusioned with the luxury fashion industry in Europe and returned to Uganda’s capital, Kampala. He founded his own clothing line, Buzigahill, taking second-hand garments imported into Uganda and transforming them into upcycled garments sold back to the Global North. Buzigahill’s slogan: Return to sender.

Meanwhile, innovators like Khumo Morojele and Klein Muis in South Africa and Rummage Studio in Nairobi are turning second-hand treasures into expressions of African identity, bridging the gap between tradition and avant-garde fashion. And in Ethiopia, SoleRebels, founded by Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu in 2004, crafts fair-trade-certified and vegan shoes from recycled materials like tires as well as indigenous plant fibres. Notably, their footwear is inspired by selate and barabasso shoes – traditional Ethiopian footwear with recycled tire soles historically worn by rebel fighters resisting Western colonization. “We’re not green because some bloke in marketing told us it was a good idea,” Tilahun Alemu told Le Monde, “but because this is how we make shoes in Ethiopia.”

Today SoleRebels is considered the Nike of Africa, employing almost 200 people.

Tilahun Alemu told Le Monde that the practice of circularity is deeply ingrained in African communities, predating its current trendy status. However, it’s hard to ignore that these innovators may be able to tackle only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the mounds of second-hand imports flooding their countries.

Environmental impact and the shadow of waste colonization

Launched in 2015, advocacy group Clean Up Kenya was initially focused on the environmental impact of single-use plastic bottles and packaging, but its advocacy has now broadened. “We’ve also delved into textile waste – specifically, the role of plastics in second-hand clothing,” founder Betterman Musasia says. In 2023, Clean Up Kenya teamed up with the Changing Market Foundation to release Trashion: The Stealth Export of Waste Plastic Clothes to Kenya. The report casts a spotlight on how the global trade in used clothing often doubles as a conduit for plastic waste, dumping burdens on communities and ecosystems in recipient nations.

Despite international restrictions on plastic waste exports under the Basel Convention – and impending bans in the European Union – Musasia reveals a troubling finding: “Our research showed that over a third of the used clothing sent to Kenya is so low in quality that it essentially arrives as immediate waste.” Between 55,500 and 74,000 tonnes of textile waste a year (roughly 150 to 200 tonnes daily) end up in landfill, and many of these garments contain up to 69% synthetic petroleum-derived fibres, like polyester. When discarded in landfills, these materials degrade into microplastic particles that end up polluting the air and waterways. 

“The Global North is using the trade of used clothing as a pressure-release valve to deal with fast fashion’s enormous waste problem. Clearing up the mess that the fashion industry has created and ensuring the sector is pulled onto a more sustainable track will require comprehensive legislation,” the report’s authors say. 

Navigating the future 

The debate over the fate of the second-hand clothing trade encapsulates the broader challenges of sustainable development and industrial evolution in Africa. The East African Community, an intergovernmental organization with six partner countries, has recommended banning second-hand clothing since 2016, originally aiming to phase out the trade by 2019. Rwanda took decisive action in 2018 by imposing high taxes on imports to deter trade, and in August 2023, Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, announced a ban on all imports of used clothing. 

Ugandan designer Kolada has pushed back against his government’s call for an immediate ban. “Painful as it is to acknowledge, second-hand textiles are a valuable source of tax revenue for our country. A ban is a vote for economic suicide,” Kolade wrote in The Guardian last year. Instead, he suggests making the Global North “accountable for its fast-fashion waste through the extended producer responsibility fund.”

Clean Up Kenya also says that “producers must be made financially responsible for the management and cost of end-of-life treatments of the products they place on the market.”

An integrated approach is required – one that includes government subsidies, infrastructural improvements, and investment in technology and education to strengthen the domestic textile-and-clothing-manufacturing industry. 

As Africa navigates this landscape, it is clear that solutions must be as multifaceted as the challenges they aim to address, weaving together considerations of economy, culture and environment in a balanced and sustainable tapestry.

Shilpa Tiwari is the co-founder of Isenzo, a boutique firm that takes a systems approach to ESG, and the founder of No Women No Spice. She lives in Tanzania and Toronto.

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