Category: English

Source: APO

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The youth-focused “Opportunities are Here” project premiered season two of its reality TV show, alongside the thriller, “You May Kiss the Bride Goodbye”

The TV reality series follows the personal and professional journeys of young creatives as they learn, collaborate and navigate the high-pressure demands of film production. The series captures the reality of building a career in Uganda’s film sector, from brainstorming and budgeting to late-night edits and final screening.

With mentors including actor and broadcaster Gaetano Kaggwa, filmmaker and scriptwriter Nana Kagga, actress and writer Cleopatra Koheirwe, and actor Michael Wawuyo Jr., the series is airing on NTV every Thursday at 8:30 pm.

Supported by the Geneva-based UN small business agency, the International Trade Centre (ITC), and the European Union (EU), “Opportunities are Here” season two builds on the momentum of its acclaimed first season, which featured creative minds from across the continent, including Nollywood star Dakore Egbuson-Akande and Ugandan actors Gaetano Kaggwa, Nana Kagga and Cleopatra Koheirwe.

H.E. Jan Sadek, the European Union Ambassador to Uganda, expressed his admiration for the work achieved through the programme, saying, “We see huge potential in Uganda’s creative industries. Projects like OAH (Opportunities are Here) are a chance to build skills, connect with others, and get your work seen. Young Ugandan creatives should not be afraid to aim for international platforms. Their unique perspective is what the world is looking for.”

Since its inception, the “Opportunities are Here” project has reached over seven million people through media and campaigns, with over 11,140 creatives trained. This has further resulted in 13,595+ jobs created, with 135+ youth-led productions completed.

Chief of “Youth, Women and Vulnerable Communities” at ITC, Raimund Moser says: “Over the last three years, we’ve seen that with the right skills, mentorship and platforms, youth can lead the way in redefining African cinema. This is not just about storytelling—it’s about job creation and raising the visibility of creative services as a sector with great growth potential.” 

The premiere night also featured a new film, “You May Kiss the Bride Goodbye”, a psychological thriller featuring Hellen Lukoma, Mbabazi Catherine Uwera, Fidel Sankara, Allan Kutos Katongole and Nuwa Wamala Nnyanzi, among other Ugandan actors. 

The film was written, co-directed and produced by seven young filmmakers who participated in seasons one and two. The team includes Kahbuya Vanessa (Kvan), Kavuma Vieri, Nodryn Evanci Kabuye, Elly E. Debuni, Illungole Emmanuel, Nsiima Chloe and Manirahari Colline. 

This project brought together writers, actors and producers to create their first commercially viable film using a team-based approach, mirroring real-life production, guided by industry professionals, including Joel Tugaineyo (co-producer), Drake Steven Makanga (director), Loukman Ali (creative director) and Alex Ireeta (director of photography), among others. 

In close collaboration with international film distributors, it was decided the film would be a thriller, a genre with high commercial potential. The filmmakers have been screening the movie in cinemas throughout Uganda in the past several weeks. 

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of International Trade Centre.

Source: APO

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The Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities has noted the appointment of the new Board of the National Youth Development Youth Agency (NYDA) by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The Chairperson of the committee, Ms Liezl van der Merwe, said that the committee welcomes the new Board which replaces an interim one that has been in place since November 2024. She expressed the optimism of the committee on the new Board with members who have relevant skills and knowledge that will add a meaningful value to the NYDA and take it to the new heights.

Ms van der Merwe said the committee expressed its faith in the new leadership of the NYDA, which is led by a new Chief Executive Officer. The committee wished the new Board well and trust that it will rise to the occasion.

The Chairperson said the committee is looking forward to working together with the new Board and hopes that it will provide innovative solutions that will address the complex and vast challenges that currently face the young people.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Republic of South Africa: The Parliament.

Source: APO

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Members of the House of Representatives and senior military and security officials gathered in the Tunisian capital this week for a two-day forum aimed at bolstering the role of legislators in shaping Libya’s national security legislations.  

Organized and facilitated by the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, the event was attended by the Defense and National Security Committee, the Interior Committee, the Legislative Committee, and the Women and Children Committee of the Libyan House of Representatives. The UN Security Sector Reform Standing Capacity also participated. 

Participants conducted a deep dive into shortcomings in the current legislation, emphasizing the need for comprehensive reforms that reflect Libya’s evolving security landscape. Key priorities included strengthening border security and enhancing the legislative authority’s capacity to modernize relevant laws. 

The forum also spotlighted successful national initiatives, such as the development of a code of conduct for military and security personnel, raising the minimum age for recruitment, updating the police law, and intensifying efforts to secure Libya’s land borders. These measures were presented as foundational steps toward building more professional, effective, and responsive security and military institutions. 

On the second day, discussions turned to election security. Participants stressed the importance of updating the legislation pertaining to elections security to ensure a safe and transparent electoral process—regardless of the type of elections. UNSMIL presented categories of misinformation, disinformation and malinformation, outlining its risks to electoral integrity. The session underscored the urgent need to update relevant legislation to keep pace with rapid developments in the digital information space. 

In the context of Libya’s ongoing transitional phase, participants and UNSMIL experts reviewed a proposed action plan aimed at strengthening the role of the House of Representatives in security sector reform. The plan calls for the creation of specialized parliamentary sub-committees tasked with reviewing and updating security legislation, in collaboration with national and international experts and under UNSMIL’s technical guidance. 

The plan, which received broad consensus, places citizen protection and human rights at the core of any future security legislation. It also calls for adherence to international standards and a stronger role for civil society in delivering security services. 

“This dialogue between key Libyan institutions is a vital step toward strengthening the rule of law and fostering constructive engagement between the executive and legislative branches,” said Badreddine El Harti, Chief of Security Institution Services at UNSMIL. “It lays the foundation for sustainable peace and long-term state-building.”  

The next meeting is scheduled for the second half of September, with UNSMIL set to coordinate preparations and mobilize international support to advance the implementation of the action plan.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).

Source: APO

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A new dam in the Dirfo administrative area, Central Region, constructed at a cost of over 15 million Nakfa with a capacity to hold more than 200 thousand cubic meters of water, was inaugurated on 22 July.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by Mr. Fesehaye Haile, Governor of the Central Region; General Filipos Woldeyohannes, Chief of Staff of the Eritrean Defense Forces; as well as senior commanders of the Central Command and Popular Force.

Eng. Abraham Daniel, head of agricultural infrastructure in the Central Region, stated that construction of the dam began in December 2023 and was completed in April 2025 with strong participation from the public and members of the Defense Forces.

Commending the initiative as a lasting solution to the potable water supply problem of the residents, Mr. Omar Ibrahim, administrator of the area, expressed readiness to conduct regular follow-up for the sustainability of the dam.

Noting that the project provided valuable hands-on experience, the Commander of the Defense Forces involved in the construction said it would significantly contribute to their future participation in similar national development projects.

Mr. Fesehaye Haile, for his part, noted that in the past two years, new dams have been constructed in the administrative areas of Gul-i, Temameo, Adi-Qe, and Arbe Robu, and that the Dirfo dam is a continuation of the same initiative.

Certificates of recognition were awarded to individuals and groups who contributed to the project.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Ministry of Information, Eritrea.

Source: APO – Report:

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Ambassador Abdella Musa, Governor of the Anseba Region, conducted a meeting with residents of Keren city on 22 July focusing on the implementation of planned development programs.

At the meeting, Ambassador Abdella said that the progress registered over the past few years in water and soil conservation and dam construction was the result of strong public participation and involvement of the Defense Forces. He noted that this experience will be vital for the implementation of future development programs.

Ambassador Abdella also highlighted that the implemented programs have made significant contributions to food security efforts and called for continued public engagement in upcoming initiatives.

He further stated that the dams constructed so far have played a critical role in ensuring water supply for both the public and livestock, as well as in supporting irrigation farming. He called for reinforced participation to sustain these efforts and urged the public to ensure that school-aged children attend regular education.

The participants conducted extensive discussions on the issues raised during the meeting and adopted various recommendations.

– on behalf of Ministry of Information, Eritrea.

Source: APO

• Program will turn job seekers into job creators – Liberian President Boakai
• The future of Liberia’s youth cannot be left to hustling – Dr. Adesina

Liberia has become the first country to launch an African Development Bank Group initiative (www.AfDB.org) that will help tackle youth unemployment among African youth.

President of the Republic of Liberia, Joseph Nyuma Boakai Sr was joined in the capital Monrovia by the Bank Group’s President, Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina for the official launch of the first Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank (YEIB) (https://apo-opa.co/413UWzR), on Tuesday 22 July.

The Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks will promote private sector-led inclusive economic development, by creating entrepreneurship opportunities for young Africans aged 18-35. According to the Bank’s Country Focus Report 2025 (https://apo-opa.co/3GRnm9E), for Liberia, underemployment and informal employment have long undermined the country’s ability to harness a key demographic strength. 

To address these challenges, Liberia’s Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank is expected to finance 30,000 youth-led businesses, create 120,000 direct and indirect jobs, contribute $80 million to government revenues through taxes, and unlock up to $500 million in additional lending to youth-owned businesses across the country.

The Youth Bank is being jointly financed by the African Development Fund—the concessional lending arm of the African Development Bank Group ($15.9 million)—and the Government of Liberia ($1.2 million in in-kind contributions).

“[The YEIB] speaks directly to the heart of our future because over sixty percent of our population is under the age of thirty. This program gives hope to our young people by turning them from job seekers into job creators,” said President Boakai. “It will provide financing, mentorship, and the skills they need to succeed in agriculture, technology, the knowledge based economy, and other emerging sectors.”

“Liberia must not watch as its best assets—its youth—falter,” Adesina said. “The future of Liberia’s youth cannot be left to ‘hustling.’” He added that with recruitment ongoing, and licensing expected to be completed shortly, the Liberian YEIB is scheduled to commence operations in early 2026, with a focus on “critical sectors with immense opportunities for the youth, including agriculture, value addition with agribusiness, digital services, mining and tourism.”

Youth entrepreneurship banks have also been approved for Nigeria (https://apo-opa.co/4kQEeeF), Ethiopia (https://apo-opa.co/417MuzC), and Cote d’Ivoire (https://apo-opa.co/3H1eA8W), representing a growing commitment to enhancing private sector development through improved financing for entrepreneurs, on a continent where three-quarters of the population are below the age of 35.   

The Bank has since 1967 invested more than $1.02 billion in 72 projects in Liberia, and as of February 2024, it had an active portfolio of 18 sovereign operations worth $314.77 million, focusing primarily on transport infrastructure, energy development (https://apo-opa.co/45ev1Il), and agricultural transformation. These investments include the Mano River Union road network (https://apo-opa.co/44WwNfW) connecting Liberia with neighbouring countries, regional power interconnection initiatives, and programs supporting smallholder farmers across the country.

The Bank’s operations in Liberia are funded through multiple sources, with the African Development Fund—the concessional lending arm of the Bank Group—providing most of the financing, supplemented by the Transition Support Facility (https://apo-opa.co/4nZiwrH) and various specialized funds including the Nigeria Trust Fund (https://apo-opa.co/3UtSnn2).

Read President Boakai’s speech at the YEIB launch here (https://apo-opa.co/4m7qBbI).

Read Dr. Adesina’s speech here (https://apo-opa.co/3H11fNR).

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

Media Contacts:
Natalie Nkembuh and Tolu Ogunlesi
Communication and Media Relations Department
media@afdb.org

About the African Development Bank Group:
The African Development Bank Group is Africa’s leading development finance institution. It comprises three distinct entities: the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). Represented in 41 African countries, with an external office in Japan, the Bank contributes to the economic development and social progress of its 54 regional member countries. For more information: www.AfDB.org

Source: APO – Report:

RESPECT™ (https://Respect.World), a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for Education, was announced today during the STEMtastic Adventures! Africa symposium. RESPECT was developed by the Spix Foundation to make it easy for Africa’s EdTech stakeholders to embrace AUDA NEPAD’s Africa EdTech 2030 Vision and Plan (https://apo-opa.co/4kYulLY), announced earlier this month. AUDA NEPAD’s Vision proposes that, by 2030, “every African student should have access to the world’s best interactive digital courseware—developed in Africa by Africans—on smartphones already present in their pockets, households, and/or schools”.

With today’s release of RESPECT Version 1, Africa has gained a multi-year head start over the rest of the world. The United Nations has only this year started talking seriously about the need for a DPI for Education (https://apo-opa.co/4m5Xm9h). Africa has already released it. Africa is already ahead. To accomplish the Vision, Africa need only leverage its new advantage to the hilt.

Speaking at the launch, John Kimotho, EdTech Consultant, Spix Foundation and Head of RESPECT Africa Office, said: “Much of EdTech is pilot-driven and disconnected from education systems, leaving developers without clear growth pathways and teachers with tools that don’t last. RESPECT makes it easy for policymakers, educators, and developers, to build solutions that align with real classroom needs and can grow and last.”

The launch coincides with AUDA-NEPAD’s release of sobering statistics (https://apo-opa.co/3UfrwLH): only 40% of African primary schools have internet access, an estimated 30 million primary-age children remain out of school, and the continent will need 17 million additional teachers by 2030 just to maintain universal access. Meanwhile, billions in education technology investment have resulted in fragmented, unsustainable pilot projects rather than scalable solutions.

“Africa has a unique opportunity to simultaneously drive access to free localised edtech solutions that can reach all parts of the education ecosystem, even those offline, while making it profitable and sustainable to develop the world’s best interactive digital courseware, right here in Africa;” said John Kimotho. “The system has been failing the innovators, not the other way around, and RESPECT makes it easy for those innovators to deliver the education technology solutions that Africa’s children need.”

The scale of market fragmentation

Recent analysis by the mEducation Alliance (https://apo-opa.co/46VaNEG) revealed that developers must navigate different rules, requirements, and procurement protocols in nearly every African country, resulting in what researchers term “small-batch deployment” – a Kenya pilot here, a Senegal district project there, with each requiring complete retooling.

The consequence is a paradox: whilst Africa has produced world-class educational technology – from Kenya’s classroom management systems to Senegal’s Wolof-language XamXam platform serving 1.2 million users – these innovations remain largely isolated within their countries of origin.

“Teachers are experiencing ‘tool fatigue’ from juggling multiple siloed applications with no central access or data integration,” notes the mEducation Alliance’s 2024 report on digital courseware in low- and middle-income countries. “This discourages adoption, even when individual apps are excellent.”

Key problems – and solutions

AUDA NEPAD’s Vision and Plan notes two key problems: (1) the lack of real-time, reliable data about what digital courseware works best for different learners, and (2) barriers to scale including policy, commercial, and technological obstacles.

“AUDA-NEPAD observes that if Africa solves these two problems—by making it easy for courseware to generate real-time data for ranking and research, and by lowering policy, technical, and commercial barriers—then market forces will do the rest,” according to the Vision and Plan.

All RESPECT Compatible™ apps send data on every learner-app interaction to the relevant authority – within the bounds of the jurisdiction’s data privacy, security, and sovereignty laws – enabling that authority to implement data-dependent techniques such as Teaching at the Right Level and Structured Pedagogy. This data, federated at the continental level, enables courseware ranking and research.

RESPECT lowers the aforementioned policy barriers by implementing AUDA-NEPAD’s new Policy Framework for Standards-Based, Vendor-Neutral EdTech, a draft of which was released for public comment today.

RESPECT lowers the technical barriers through the implementation of a range of on-device technologies from data compression, web caching, proxy servers, and mesh networking to make it easy for courseware app developers to write a single app that works online, offline, and intermittently online. Likewise, it has early support for systematic text localization and, eventually, curriculum standards mapping, that are expected to provide easy technological fixes for complex scaling problems. Also, RESPECT enforces interoperability through internationally-standardized APIs such as xAPI, OneRoster, and OAuth.

RESPECT lowers the commercial barriers by providing all RESPECT Compatible™ apps for free to all students and intermediaries, while paying the developers and localizers of said apps based on those apps’ usage (and later, impact). RESPECT’s revenue, derived from sponsorships, will go primarily to these developers and localizers. Think of it as “YouTube meets PBS Kids” (https://apo-opa.co/3IJTrAC) for EdTech apps.

Looking ahead

“The opportunity is historic, but time is short,” concluded Kimotho. “We need to stop lamenting the barriers and start dismantling them systematically.”

– on behalf of Africa Practice Ltd.

Note to editors:
RESPECT and RESPECT Compatible are trademarks of the Spix Foundation.
RESPECT: https://Respect.World
Full African EdTech 2030: Vision & Plan: https://apo-opa.co/3UfrwLH
mEducation Alliance Report – Leading Perspectives on the State of Digital Courseware in Low Resource Countries: https://apo-opa.co/4195XzU

For interviews, please contact:
Joslyne Muthoni
Africa Practice
jmuthoni@africapractice.com

Follow RESPECT:
Website: https://Respect.World
LinkedIn: https://apo-opa.co/4kQiD5N

About RESPECT:
RESPECT is an open source digital library for EdTech apps. It makes it easier for educators to discover and use high-quality apps in all settings, while giving developers the platform they need to grow their impact globally.

RESPECT sets strong interoperable technical standards, while enabling developers to monetise their tools through a simple sponsor supported revenue model.

What RESPECT offers:
By aligning incentives across policy, pedagogy, and technology, RESPECT makes it easier to access,  build, scale and sustain resilient edtech innovations.

At its core, RESPECT connects the needs of developers and educators, supporting high quality, locally contextualised tools that reflect real classroom conditions and align with local languages and curriculum goals. It’s about building EdTech that lasts, where it matters most.

About AUDA-NEPAD:
The African Union Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) is the continental development agency of the African Union, established to coordinate and execute priority regional and continental development projects to promote regional integration towards the accelerated achievement of Agenda 2063.

Full African EdTech 2030: Vision & Plan: https://apo-opa.co/3UfrwLH 

About STEMtastic Adventures! Africa:
STEMtastic Adventures! Africa is hosted by the Centre for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA) from July 22-25, 2025, bringing together leading thinkers, activists, and implementers to advance STEM education across the continent.

mEducation Alliance Report – Leading Perspectives on the State of Digital Courseware in Low Resource Countries: https://apo-opa.co/4195XzU