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In 2015, the United Nations (UN) launched an ambitious set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Achieving these far-reaching goals requires effective tracking of progress across 169 targets and over 230 indicators. Furthermore, adopted in 2015, Africa Agenda 2063 is a strategic framework developed by the African Union (AU) to optimize the use of the continent’s resources for sustainable and inclusive growth. It aims to deliver on key aspirations shared by African nations including a high standard of living, well-educated citizens, good governance, strong cultural identity, and Africa’s strong voice in global affairs. Built around 20 goals and seven priority areas, Agenda 2063 provides a shared vision and roadmap for socioeconomic transformation in Africa over the next 50 years. However, numerous countries in Africa face considerable challenges in collecting, timely, granular, high-quality data to adequately monitor SDG metrics. Traditional data sources like surveys and administrative records often have gaps, especially at subnational levels. As a result, national statistics offices, particularly in Africa, lack the data needed to properly inform SDG-related policies and interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Target 3.4 of the third Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly proposes to reduce premature mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by one-third. Epidemiological data presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2016 show that out of a total of 57 million deaths worldwide, approximately 41 million deaths occurred due to NCDs, with 78% of such deaths occurring in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs). The majority of investigations on NCDs agree that the leading risk factor for mortality worldwide is hypertension. Over 75% of the world's mobile phone subscriptions reside in LMICs, hence making the mobile phone particularly relevant to mHealth deployment in Africa. This study is aimed at determining the scope of the literature available on hypertension diagnosis and management in Africa, with particular emphasis on determining the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of interventions based on the use of mobile phones. The bulk of the evidence considered overwhelmingly shows that SMS technology is yet the most used medium for executing interventions in Africa. Consequently, the need to define novel and superior ways of providing effective and low-cost monitoring, diagnosis, and management of hypertension-related NCDs delivered through artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques is clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land-based transport corridors serving landlocked developing countries experience cargo delays that are much longer than global benchmarks, reducing the competitiveness of the affected countries within an increasingly globalized economy. Improving the efficiency of such corridors is complicated by the inefficient management of border crossings. Factors contributing to long border delays include the variability of vehicle processing times and lack of sufficient capacity at service desks during peak traffic periods. We use a simulation approach to investigate improvements to current border management systems by modeling each important aspect of the cross-border process. The simulator was calibrated against data collected during cross-border surveys. This article is the first to quantify the potential for reduction in border delays through the reduced variability of process times. A dynamic adjustment model was developed to enable an optimal compromise between the number of service desks for each process; utilization levels of the available capacity; and average delay time. The novelty of our approach lies in the fact that service capacity adjustments are based on data that are collected inside the border area, rather than data that are collected from traffic in transit to the border, which is much easier to implement in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New and emerging technologies have recently taken center stage in public policy debates around the world. From the European Union’s (EU) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act and the Council of Europe’s (CoE) treaty process to soft laws introduced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and a proposal for a bill of rights in the United States , new and emerging technologies have galvanized policymaking at various levels. An overarching objective in such legislative initiatives is upholding human rights not only in the operationalization, but also in the conception and design of new and emerging technologies. But much of the recent legislative and policy initiatives are occurring in the Global North. Partly due to the low uptake of new and emerging technologies, similar initiatives are yet to proliferate in the Global South. In the few jurisdictions where such initiatives exist, one sees clear marks of the regulatory initiatives in the Global North. In Egypt, for instance, a national AI strategy developed based on the international benchmarks mentioned above has recently been tabled. Other countries in Africa have introduced rather generic digital transformation strategies. At the regional level, the African Union appears to pursue two parallel processes aimed at developing a continental AI strategy for Africa in which the influence of AI initiatives from the Global North is inevitable ,. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a brief background of the personal computer boom in Lagos, including the early history of computing and the rise of technology entrepreneurship in Nigeria. I then discuss the impact of Nigeria's structural adjustment program on the expansion of the local computing industry. Next, I detail the landscape of Nigerian personal computer boom in late 1980s and 1990s and discuss how innovative technologists drove the industrial and societal expansion of computer use in Nigeria by responding to the demands of global capital and state economic policies. Finally, I explore the reasons behind the eventual decline of the personal computer boom and examine its impact on Nigerian information technology, particularly focusing on relationships between the political and socioeconomic environment and broader industry changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, the importance of sustainable development is recognized due to a number of interconnected social, environmental, and economic challenges. One of the key tenets of sustainable development is the introduction of clean energy, and specifically renewable energy technologies (RETs). To accelerate the adoption of RETs, however, requires the rate of commercialization of such technologies to increase; classified as multitechnology renewable energy systems (MTRESs) due to the hierarchical nature of such systems, with differing commercialization-based needs. A strategic management framework was subsequently developed as a means to support the establishment of strategies for increasing the commercialization rate of MTRESs, and applied to the case of concentrating solar power in South Africa. The framework serves as a proof-of-concept, given the current industry constraints due to political uncertainties in the energy sector of the country, as well as the type of validation process followed, with the framework yet to be practically implemented. This article encourages dialogue on how different stakeholders may be mobilized in the interests of a given technology, while continuing a recent trend in literature, which seeks to move the conversation from energy analysis to practical measures, aimed at hastening efforts towards a sustainable energy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]