African

While the South African upper market is well-served by quick commerce delivery services such as Checkers Sixty60 and PicknPay ASAP, Yebo Fresh is among the few players exclusively focused on the township market and successfully working with a rapidly growing network of spaza shops, prepared food outlets and other township businesses.

Growing access to township market

According to Yebo Fresh, its service offers investors, suppliers and partners a unique opportunity to tap into the multi-billion South African township market. The company aims to make it easier for independent businesses to purchase groceries and other essential items. Orders are placed via WhatsApp or through the Yebo Fresh team of field sales agents, resulting in a streamlined purchasing process.

Source: Supplied

Using a dark store-based fulfilment model, Yebo Fresh is able to deliver orders within 24 hours, eliminating the cost and hassle of shopping trips to wholesalers. Additionally, Yebo Fresh offers a buy-now-pay-later option. This process is guided by customer insights and algorithms and opens the door to informal…

TikTok has announced the 2023 Black Visionary Voices list, and it contains several movers and shakers who are have been driving content, discussions and more on the app.

According to TikTok, the list “honors Black creatives, small business owners and culture disruptors on TikTok who are making an impact in their industries and raising the bar across culture and entertainment. Our honorees reflect backgrounds in beauty, education, fashion, food, music, dance, activism and more.”

The list includes creators like Kahlil Greene, industry disruptors such as musician Ice Spice and food influencer Keith Lee, as well as business owners like Danessa Myrick and Brandon Blackwood.

The post Kahlil Greene, Ice Spice, Keith Lee And More Lead TikTok’s 2023 Black Visionary Voices List appeared first on Blavity.

Additionally, TikTok has announced several other programming initiatives for Black History Month.

This includes an in-app #BlackTikTok hub which will have powerful stories from creators and spotlight Black-owned businesses, a month-long spotlight on Black music, a series of #BlackTikTok LIVES on Feb. 24, a series of in-person events to celebrate #BlackTikTok, and recognition of TikTok’s employee resource

Learn more about the Visionary Voices honorees below via their official descriptions provided by TikTok:

Creators

• @_itzpsyiconic_ (Houston, TX) – Kelon has created an entire universe (aka “Terriverse”) of utter chaos on…

Deadline: 3-Mar-23

The European Commission (EC) is offering Grants to Support the Harmonization of Pan-African Electoral Capacities.

Also, the ongoing reform of the AU, in particular at the Political Affairs Peace and Security Department (PAPS) of the AU Commission (AUC), offers an opportunity to develop cooperation mechanisms that bring together a diversity of electoral practitioners under a common set of principles and objectives. To this end, it is important to engage more systematically with the RECs that also conduct electoral observation and to promote the harmonization of their electoral practices with those of the AU. The objective is to encourage the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity that could result in a more efficient division of labour between the continental and regional levels. For this purpose a Continental Community of Electoral Practitioners should be established and strengthened to engaged with various AU organs, RECs and a variety of other electoral stakeholders (civil society, national electoral management bodies – EMBs, academia, experts, etc.) in a structured and collaborative fashion to offer a space for the exchange of knowledge and best practices, as well as for the collective analysis of lessons learned resulting from electoral operations.

In this context and based on the findings of the evaluation of the AUCapEO project, the EU designed a new intervention to “Support the Harmonization of pan-African Electoral Capacities”….

Representing Black Truth, iOne Digital will illuminate Black Voices Through Innovative Storytelling and Experiences.

NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — iONE Digital (formally known as Interactive One), the leading digital media company creating and distributing premium content for Black and urban lifestyle enthusiasts, is proud to announce the dawn of a new era in its consistent evolution. iOne Digital’s dynamic portfolio of media brands deliver entertaining, engaging, culturally and socially aware original content from a fresh perspective connecting with over 24 million unique monthly visitors. This year, Urban One has rallied around the relaunch of the iONE Digital brand to integrate and maximize synergies across the digital portfolio fully. The relaunch brings a fresh perspective and bold storytelling serving the needs of a diverse audience while continuing to illuminate Black voices.

“For over 42 years, Urban One has understood the need for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, especially in sharing our varied experiences. We are proud to be a leader with the largest African American footprint in the media space,” said Alfred C. Liggins III, CEO at Urban One. “As the needs and concerns constantly evolve, we are dedicated to helping brands understand, connect, and best translate to Black and Brown communities. In our next iteration, iONE Digital will continue to be a catalytic force in media.”

Since its launch in 2008 by Urban One, iONE Digital’s news,…

Introduction

The need to defend democratic values from violent attack was the dominant theme of 2022. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February made democracy’s defense a priority of the highest geopolitical as well as normative order. It propelled commitments to protect democracy to the top of the agenda for Europe, internally as well as in foreign and security policy. European powers responded and a common line gained currency that the war had pulled them through a watershed conversion in their strategic outlook. However, in a year dominated by the imperative of defending democracy, European policies specifically aimed at supporting democracy evolved in only understated fashion. While these policies were adjusted in important ways to the new context, Europe shifted gear much less in this area than in others.

In 2021, the European Democracy Hub published the first annual review of European democracy support.¹ This second review aims to provide an empirical overview of European democracy support policies in 2022. The review covers policies, strategies, and initiatives at the level of the European Union (EU) as well as those of its member states and of non-EU European countries active in democracy support (Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom). It presents information on European efforts to defend and strengthen democracy around the world while highlighting their…

The marketplaces of Accra, with their clashes of colours and symphonic bustle, serve as potent inspiration to Larry Amponsah’s paintings — less in terms of subject matter, perhaps, than his overall collage-like approach to the art form, which has him splicing figures from old fashion magazines as well as from the barbershops of London.

The Ghanaian artist is marking his first UAE solo show at Lawrie Shabibi gallery at Alserkal Avenue. The exhibition, The Soil From Which We Came, is running until February 17, and features large-scale paintings brimming with mixed imagery that are collated like collages. The works focus on contemporary black culture and identity with an awareness of global interconnectivity.

Collages of brambles, flowers in bloom and vegetables form backdrops to people modelled with features seemingly ripped from advertisements and other media. From a distance, the works seem to be just that — scraps of overlaid images from fashion magazines.

As viewers draw closer, however, Amponsah’s technical prowess as a painter shines. His process revolves around meticulously arranging the compositions from smaller collages, before digitally manipulating them, enlarging them and painting them on canvas.

Amponsah earned degrees in painting from the Royal College of Art in London, Jiangsu University in China and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in…

Human rights and environmental activist turned author Kumi Naidoo’s life descended into sudden darkness one day when he was a mere 15 years old. 

After the unthinkable tragedy of losing his mother to suicide, Naidoo’s life took a direction that may have saved his own life. Ironically, to save himself from a heartbreak, he plunged into the struggle against apartheid, which exposed him to possibly greater risk. 

The pain and anger he felt after losing his mother may very well be the kind of recklessness and idealism that was necessary for him to commit himself to a life of fighting a brutal system, for justice to triumph.

“In the weeks after Ma’s death, I struggled to make sense of her choice to end her life. I felt profound grief, rage and a deep sense of loss,” Naidoo writes in a chapter titled The Deep Anger of Loss from his memoir, Letters To My Mother: The Making of a Troublemaker.

Naidoo writes in intimate detail about the most difficult day of a 15-year-old boy’s life — learning of his mother’s death from a younger sibling. He also writes with incredible honesty about the pain his siblings and the rest of the family endured in the aftermath. 

There is a particular type of reckoning that comes with losing a loved one to suicide. Beyond the pain and loss, there is always pondering whether or not those who are left behind could have done anything to save that loved one. In this book, Naidoo shares with careful consideration and…

JASON ROY scored a brilliant, barnstorming century that could save his career – but England still contrived to lose against South Africa.

Roy plundered 113 from just 91 balls but it was not enough to prevent England collapsing to a 27-run defeat in the opener of a three-match 50-over series.

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It was a collapse of epic proportions after Roy and fellow opener Dawid Malan raced to 146-0 inside 20 overs in pursuit of South Africa’s 298-7.

Fine bowling by white hot speedster Anrich Nortje and burly trundler Sisanda Magala – aided by a string of poor dismissals – turned the match at Bloemfontein on its head.

Roy’s departure to a catch on the boundary was a big moment and half of England’s batsmen departed to flat-footed wafts or mis-cued attempted pull shots.

Ben Duckett, playing his first one-dayers for six years, was caught behind for just three and Harry Brook, another star of England’s Test win in Pakistan in December, was out for a duck on his ODI debut.

Captain Jos Buttler made 36 but England’s chances started to evaporate when he was caught behind. Sam Curran departed in similar fashion.

The final wicket came when No.11 Olly Stone was caught and bowled by left-arm wrist-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi.

Buttler said: “We played some excellent cricket for the majority of the game. After…