Climate justice in Africa: floods, fossil fuels and the fightback

Issued on: 07/07/2026 
Play - 33:15  SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICA

This week in Spotlight on Africa, we look at climate change, environmental justice and the challenges of adaptation. While Europe's heatwaves make headlines, temperatures are also climbing across Africa, with parts of the Sahel approaching 50°C. West Africa is also experiencing severe flooding caused by climate change. Yet Africa is also a source of innovation and solutions, as we'll be discussing today.

One of eWaka's latest electric motorbike models, in Nairobi, Kenya, 7 May, 2026. © RFI / Melissa Chemam

Heatwaves in Europe are getting a lot of attention from the media, as they break records, but temperatures are also on the rise in Africa, with 50°C reported in the Sahel since March. And West Africa is facing unprecedentedly violent floods, especially in Ghana, parts of Nigeria and in Côte d'Ivoire. All due to global warming and climate change.

Severe flooding leaves a trail of death and destruction in West Africa

But if Africa is often seen as a victim of climate disasters - it’s also the source of solutions.

Climate change is directly linked to oil and other fossil fuel use, which also causes environmental pollution.

Somalis displaced by a drought, receive food distributions at makeshift camps in the Tabelaha area on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia on 30 March 2017. AP - Farah Abdi Warsameh

In May 2026, Shell and other major oil companies held their annual general meetings, a tense moment for the victims of decades-long pollution by the companies. In the case of Shell, it might be able to shed its duty to clean up the region by selling some of its assets to another group named Renaissance.

Ahead of and after the annual meeting, local communities in Nigeria organised to act, as they see a critical opportunity to amplify scrutiny of Shell's continued fossil fuel expansion. The goal is to show the company's failure on climate accountability and environmental justice.

The pollution also affects other parts of Africa, and many actors, investors and campaigners are organising to make their demands heard.

Fire burns on the Shell Petroleum Development Company Trans Niger pipeline at Mogho, Gokana, Rivers state, Nigeria, on 5 January, 2017 REUTERS - Afolabi Sotunde

A month after the Africa Forward summit in Nairobi, and ahead of the 11th Global Summit on Climate Change in Paris on 30-31 July 2026, this week we hear from three people building the future.

Does the Africa Forward summit signal a fresh start?

Emem Okon is the executive director of Kebetkache Women Development & Resource Centre – a frontline leader on gender, oil pollution and community rights in the Niger Delta. She tells us how the communities are fighting for accountability.

Yuma Sasaki, from Japan, is Dodai's CEO, working from Addis Ababa. Dodai is an electric mobility company based in Ethiopia. They recently raised $13 million (the largest fundraiser ever in Ethiopia) to scale up electric bikes.

Ethiopia, like Kenya, has emerged as a hub for electric vehicles given progressive government policy. It was the first country in the world to ban the import of fuel vehicles.

With abundant and cheap hydropower, Ethiopia could make e-bikes commercially advantageous as well as environmentally beneficial.

Meet the Kenyans on a roll, manufacturing the electric vehicles of the future

And Bim Adisa, CEO of Beacon Power Services, explains how artificial intelligence can help improve the reliability of electricity grids. Lagos-based BPS helps operators stabilise electricity grids – already impacting over 100 million people worldwide, including in West Africa.

This episode was mixed by Erwan Rome.

Kenya’s Rift Valley residents reach breaking point: 'The lake moved into my house’

With Kenya’s Lake Baringo and Lake Bogoria rising for months now, following above-average rainfall across the Rift Valley over recent years, this summer has seen them – and the communities around them – reach tipping point.


Issued on: 19/07/2026 - 

Kenya's Lake Baringo has been rising for several months, following above-average rainfall. © Environmental and Climate Change Group

By: Anne Macharia in Nairobi

Samuel Loruman points past the bow of his rowboat, toward a shifting green mat of water hyacinth.

His father's cattle boma – a livestock enclosure – once stood there. Now there is only water. Beneath it, he says, the fence posts are still standing.

"I did not move house," he says, as he rows over what used to be his family's grazing land near Kampi Samaki. "The lake moved into my house."

Since 2011, Lake Baringo and its smaller neighbour, Lake Bogoria, have risen dramatically, tied to above-average rainfall.


In May this year the situation reached tipping point, with the water swallowing up farms, schools, a health centre and long stretches of shoreline road.

Loruman, 43, grew up herding goats and growing sorghum on land his grandfather cleared. That land now sits roughly 4 metres underwater.

He earns his living differently these days, paddling a hand-built boat out to fish tilapia, the way lakeside families do.

"My father would not recognise me holding a net instead of a herding stick," he says. "At the beginning, it felt like becoming nobody."

He has since built a new home for himself. He also sits on a community committee allocating fishing zones, and has taught a dozen former farmers how to read the water.

"The lake has weather the way the sky has weather," he says. "Nobody taught me this. The lake taught me, usually by nearly killing me first."

'A hydrological puzzle'

Professor Simon Onywere, a geologist and spatial environmental planner at Kenyatta University who has studied the Rift Valley lakes for more than a decade, has documented the scale of the flooding in detail.

"The lakes are responding to several forces acting at the same time. Rainfall is only one piece of a much larger hydrological puzzle," he said.

Onywere's research points to a pattern rather than a single cause, which other scientists studying the lakes have also struggled to isolate.

"People often ask what caused the lakes to rise. The honest scientific answer is that no single factor explains what we're seeing," agrees Dr. Joyce Kimutai, a climate scientist at Kenya's Meteorological Department.

Part of the issue, researchers say, lies well beyond the lakes – in what's happening to the land that feeds them.

"The catchments have changed dramatically over the last few decades. When forests are cleared and soils are exposed, more sediment reaches the lakes, reducing their storage capacity," says Moses Macharia, chair of Friends of Nairobi National Park.

That loss of storage capacity is turning a naturally cyclical lake system into a fast-moving crisis for the people living beside it.

"These lakes have always fluctuated, but the speed and scale of recent changes have left communities with very little time to adapt," says Mbugua Githae, a structural geologist and mineral exploration consultant with Innercore Geoconsultants.

Behind all of it, scientists say, sits a broader climate signal that is making these swings more frequent and more extreme.

"Climate change doesn't act in isolation. It amplifies existing natural variability, making extreme wet periods more likely," said Professor Christopher Shisanya, an expert in agro-climatology at Kenyatta University.

The Kenya Meteorological Department is warning of an 80 percent probability that El Niño-related rains will develop later this year, peaking from October to December, raising fears the waters will rise more still.

'He will inherit water'

More than 40,000 people have been displaced across Baringo North, South and Tiaty sub-counties as the lakes have swollen, according to humanitarian agencies.

Some have rebuilt their homes three or four times as the shoreline continues to advance.

"You learn not to build anything you love too close to the water," Loruman says. "My mother's kitchen was rebuilt twice. She cried both times. By the third house, she just supervised the builders and didn't look back."

He rows on past the submerged boma without slowing, checking a line of nets, hauling up two silver tilapia that thrash in the bottom of the boat.

"People ask if I miss the cattle. I tell them the lake took my father's life and gave me my son's."

His son has never herded a goat and Loruman says, could swim before he could walk.

"He will inherit water, not land, and he doesn't grieve that the way I did," he says. "Maybe that's the difference between his generation and mine. He was never asked to mourn something he never had."

Greenpeace Africa demands halt to $17bn Kenya coastal oil refinery

Climate rights group Greenpeace Africa has called for a halt to a proposed oil refinery project by Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote, in Kenya's coastal region, warning of the environmental risks.


Issued on: 16/07/2026 - RFI

A mangrove forest near the resort town of Lamu, on Kenya's north coast. 

AFP - TONY KARUMBA

The east African oil refinery, with a planned capacity of 700,000 barrels per day, was confirmed earlier this month to be located at Kenya's Lamu port, ending months of speculation that Tanzania could host the project.

"This project threatens to damage one of East Africa's most fragile coastal ecosystems while locking Kenya into a risky fossil fuel future," Sherelee Odayar, Greenpeace Africa Oil and Gas campaigner, said in a statement.

The group said the oil refinery, which is expected to take about 30 months to build, will lead to "habitat destruction, marine degradation, oil spill risk and dangerous air pollution".

"Lamu's mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds are not expendable. They support fisheries, livelihoods and coastal protection," the NGO said.

Nigerian businessman and Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote attends the Africa Forward summit in Nairobi on 11 May. AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

Greenpeace Africa called for the $17 billion project to be suspended pending an independent environmental assessment before any approvals are granted.

"No approvals should move forward without a full, independent environmental and social impact assessment, genuine public participation and transparent scrutiny of the long-term economic, health and ecological risks," Odayar said.
Job creation

Kenyan President William Ruto has praised the project, arguing it will create jobs.

Around 800,000 Kenyans join the labour market each year, according to the World Bank.

But Greenpeace said the project will only "create temporary jobs while undermining existing livelihoods in fishing, tourism and small-scale local economies".

"This refinery also risks becoming a stranded asset as the world moves toward cleaner energy. It would also lock Kenya into decades of carbon-intensive development, worsening climate change and its impacts," it said.

Lamu was designated a World Heritage Site in 2001, as it includes the oldest and best preserved example of a Swahili settlement – lamb Old Town – as well as a number of marine protected areas surrounding the archipelago.

Lamu Old Town. © Unesco

The site was at the centre of previous disputes over fossil-fuel projects.

Last year, Kenya’s High Court halted plans for a proposed $2 billion coal-fired power plant, stating that the project "failed to meet public participation requirements," ending a six-year legal battle over the facility.

‘This Is a Fire’: WHO Says Ebola Outbreak in DR Congo Spreading Faster Than Any Ever Seen

“The scale of the outbreak is at least two to four times the number of cases that we have found,” said WHO emergencies director Chikwe Ihekweazu.


Health workers don personal protective equipment during training in Kenya on July 10, 2026 to fight the Ebola outbreak in the nearby Democratic Republic of Congo.
(Photo by Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Jul 14, 2026

COMMON DREAMS

The Ebola outbreak sweeping the Democratic Republic of Congo is the fastest-growing ever, the World Health Organization warned Tuesday, as a shortage of funding, strained health infrastructure, and a strike by frontline medical workers threaten efforts to contain the deadly virus.

“We’ve seen the fastest growth in a single month since the outbreak started, and of all the Ebola outbreaks that we have managed,” WHO Health Emergencies Program executive director Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu told reporters in Geneva. “Over the last few days, we’ve seen some of the highest numbers of new infections in a single day.”

“A few days ago, we saw over 80 cases confirmed in a single day,” he added.

Experts are particularly alarmed that the majority of new infections—roughly 80%—are coming from what the WHO called “unknown chains of transmission.”

“You have to imagine that this is a fire,” Ihekweazu said. “There’s something driving the fire in its heart, and it’s also expanding at the same time.”

The WHO said that 95% of all new Ebola cases are in Ituri province, where the outbreak started in May, but the virus is now spreading to two new provinces, Haut-Uele and Tshopo.

The Ebola virus causes widespread and often catastrophic damage to the body’s blood vessels, immune system, and organs and typically kills between 25% and 90% of infected people, depending upon the strain of the virus and quality of available medical care.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) government figures show nearly 2,000 confirmed infections and more than 700 deaths, but WHO officials say the true scale could be two to four times higher because many infections and deaths are going undetected.

Wessam Mankoula, an epidemiologist with the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Ethiopia, noted during a press briefing last week that 112 healthcare workers have been infected with Ebola in DRC, 32 of whom have died.

There have also been around 20 Ebola infections and at least two deaths during the current outbreak in neighboring Uganda.

“Perhaps the most alarming finding is that many newly reported cases are individuals who died in their communities, without ever reaching a health facility and receiving care,” Ihekweazu said.

There is some good news, with Ihekweazu noting that “treatment capacity now exceeds 700 beds and continues to increase each week; laboratory capacity has expanded dramatically... and contact follow-up rates are approaching 80%.”

However, frontline health workers at an Ebola treatment at Rwampara General Hospital in Ituri province have gone on strike over unpaid salaries and bonuses, poor working conditions, and shortages of protective equipment.

Congolese Health Minister Roger Kamba assured workers that the government has “the means to sort this out.”

Critics say US President Donald Trump’s ideologically driven decision to withdraw the US from the WHO, his administration’s dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and reduced funding for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s global public health efforts have also adversely affected the response to the current Ebola epidemic, compared with 2014 and 2019 outbreaks.

The current Ebola outbreak comes in a region already ravaged by armed conflict, displacement, and other challenges. Health officials stress that getting a grip on the outbreak will require not only medical intervention but also rebuilding trust with communities rife with fear and misinformation, and ensuring health workers are paid and protected.

“This outbreak requires resources that match the scale of the challenges that we are facing,” Ihekweazu stressed Tuesday. “And this is not a burden DRC can be allowed to carry alone.”

 

South Africa plans first strategic oil boost since Apartheid

Bloomberg News | July 13, 2026 |

Oil rig in Capetown. Image from archives.

South Africa plans to increase its strategic oil reserves for the first time since the apartheid government stockpiled crude, adding to measures across the continent to mitigate supply shocks.

The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources proposed that 60 days of demand be covered by reserves, of which about two-thirds will be crude and the remainder oil products, according to a draft policy document published July 9 for public consultation.

That would amount to about 36 million barrels, worth billions of dollars, based on US Energy Information Administration estimates that put South African demand at 600,000 barrels per day. Licensed wholesalers and importers would be required to keep 21 days of inventory under the plan. The reserves would be managed by the state-owned South African National Petroleum Co.

The National Treasury and the SANPC “will develop financing mechanisms and instruments for the financing and guaranteeing strategic petroleum stocks,” the department said.

South Africa last built up its emergency stocks in the 1970s, when the United Nations imposed sanctions on the state due to its policy of institutionalized racial segregation, leading to the construction of the 45 million-barrel Saldanha Bay storage hub on the Atlantic coast. Supply concerns and price hikes caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran war have revived the original purpose of the facility: to act as a buffer from extreme oil-supply shortages. 

Type of Reserves Proposed	Obligation Days of Cover	Responsibility
Strategic Stocks	60 days	70% crude and 30% products managed by SANPC
Private Stocks	21 days	Same proportion of crude to products; mandatory for all licensed wholesalers

The conflict in the Middle East triggered a surge in global fuel prices and a search for alternative suppliers. Some African governments cut taxes and dipped into their budgets to help cap prices.

More permanent measures aimed at bolstering infrastructure are emerging, aimed at giving governments greater control over oil supplies and reducing their reliance on trading companies. 

Morocco announced plans in June to invest $641 million to develop fuel-storage facilities, Uganda will expand a state-owned terminal to stabilize supply, while Ghana plans to use more domestic crude in its refineries.

Billionaire Aliko Dangote, whose Nigerian refinery ramped up output just as the Persian Gulf conflict started, has launched a number of projects across the continent, including building another plant of the same design in Kenya to storage facilities in The Gambia.

Reserves sold

In the three decades since South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, the government has wound down its strategic stocks, including the sale of 10 million barrels in 2015 when prices were at an eight-year low. That deal was eventually found to be unlawful.

South Africa has become increasingly dependent on fuel imports as about half of its refinery capacity shut down in recent years, with the approach of new low-sulfur fuel standards in July 2027 that require greater investment in aging plants.

South African lawmakers last year determined the state’s stockpiles to be insufficient — an official estimate in March put crude reserves at 8 million barrels. The country currently requires 10 million barrels to replenish sold or rotated stock, in addition to storage infrastructure costs, according to the draft policy.

Dependence on shipping supply chains and exposure to maritime chokepoints — such as the Strait of Hormuz, where traffic has slowed because of the Iran war — exposes South Africa’s economy to 1 billion rand ($61 million) in losses for every day that fuel is unavailable, according to the department that was previously known as the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy.

(By Paul Burkhardt)

 

Dementia risk factors look different around the world, large USC study finds

The differences were striking — but so were the similarities: Certain risk factors tended to cluster together in similar patterns worldwide, such as high cholesterol and hypertension, or smoking and drinking

University of Southern California

A major, USC-led study of more than 214,000 older adults across 14 countries and regions finds that the most common controllable risk factors for dementia — such as low education, high blood pressure and smoking — vary widely from country to country, meaning a one-size-fits-all approach to prevention won’t work everywhere.

The findings, presented today at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2026 in London, also appear in the journal The Lancet Healthy Longevity. AAIC is the world’s largest forum for the dementia research community.

Most of what scientists know about preventing dementia comes from research in wealthy countries such as the United States and those in Western Europe. But this study, led by researchers at USC along with colleagues at Brown University and Johns Hopkins University, set out to see whether those same patterns hold true in low- and middle-income countries.

The differences were striking — but so were the similarities:

• Differences: Low education affected 85.6% of older adults in China but only 12.0% in the United States, while high BMI (a measure of excess body weight) affected 44.9% of Americans compared to just 13.3% of people in India.
• Similarities: Certain risk factors tended to cluster together in similar patterns worldwide, such as cardiovascular risks (e.g., high cholesterol and hypertension) or risky behaviors (e.g., smoking and drinking).

Lead author Emma Nichols, a research scientist with the Center for Economic and Social Research at the USC Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service, says the consistency of these clusters was the most unexpected part of the findings.

“I was less surprised by the differences and more surprised by some of the similarities, particularly in the ways these risks are patterned across settings,” Nichols said. “That has real implications for how we design prevention strategies and interventions, because some things are more consistent across places than we might expect.”

• Click here for a graphic depicting differences and similarities in dementia risk across different countries.

For the study, researchers from the Gateway to Global Aging Data team combined harmonized survey data from long-running aging studies in 14 places — including the United States, England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, four regions of Europe, Korea, Mexico, China, Malaysia, Brazil and India — collected between 2009 and 2023. (Jinkook Lee of the Center for Economic and Social Research at the USC Schaeffer Institute is principal investigator of the Gateway to Global Aging Data project as well as the Longitudinal Aging Study in India.)

They analyzed 12 modifiable risk factors identified by the Lancet Commission on dementia (things such as hearing loss, depression, physical inactivity and social isolation), comparing how common each factor was; how they varied by age, gender and education level; and how often multiple risk factors showed up together in the same person.

The researchers say the findings should help guide decision-makers and health organizations in designing dementia-prevention strategies tailored to their own populations. For example, a program that connects people to care for diabetes could be redesigned to address the entire cluster of related cardiometabolic risks, such as high cholesterol and hypertension, at the same time.

For the average person, Nichols adds, the takeaway is that dementia risk is not fixed or fated: “Risk for these late-life outcomes isn’t predetermined. These are risk factors you experience over the life course, and you can have an impact on changing your own risk — while also recognizing the ways broader societal factors shape that risk, too.”

Future work may also expand to include newer risk factors such as poor sleep and additional countries as more harmonized data becomes available; new data collection is already underway in additional countries, including Kenya and Egypt.

About the study

In addition to Nichols, other authors include senior author Jinkook Lee, Michael Markot, Drystan Phillips and Jenny Wilkens, all of the Gateway to Global Aging Data team at the Center for Economic and Social Research at the USC Schaeffer Institute; co-first author Zachary Kunicki of the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University; and Alden Gross of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant R01AG030153).

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Journal

The Lancet Healthy Longevity

DOI

10.1016/j.lanhl.2026.100867 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Differences in the prevalence and patterns of dementia risk factors: a harmonized cross-national comparison of 14 geographies using data from the Gateway to Global Aging

Article Publication Date

12-Jul-2026

Dementia rising across Latino populations, multidecade study finds

Cases climbed in Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico over two decades, bucking a downward trend seen in many wealthy nations

Washington University in St. Louis

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A new study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Newcastle University in the U.K. finds that the share of adults living with dementia rose substantially across several Latin American and Caribbean sites over the past two decades. The research provides the first direct evidence that some parts of Latin America are moving in the opposite direction of dropping dementia rates in the U.S. and other wealthy nations.

The study appears July 13 in JAMA Neurology.

The researchers analyzed data from 16,950 adults ages 65 and older in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico, collected first in the early 2000s and then about 20 years later. Over that time, dementia prevalence in Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico rose significantly, from roughly one in 10 older adults to nearly one in six. Dementia rates held stable in Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

“For decades, almost everything we knew about whether dementia was becoming more or less common came from wealthy countries outside of Latin America,” said first author Jorge Llibre-Guerra, MD, an assistant professor of neurology at WashU Medicine. “We simply didn’t have that picture for Latinos, even as the region’s population is aging faster than almost anywhere else. What we found is sobering: The gains made elsewhere in the world are not reaching everyone, and it underscores how much the burden of dementia is shaped by the conditions people live in.”

Concerning regional trends

In many high-income countries, including the U.S., dementia prevalence — the share of older adults living with the neurodegenerative condition — has been holding steady or even falling in recent decades, likely thanks to improvements in access to education and healthier lifestyles, leading to better blood pressure control and heart and metabolic health.

To address the near-absence of evidence on dementia trends in Latin America, Llibre-Guerra; senior author Matthew Prina, PhD, a professor of aging and epidemiology at Newcastle University; and their colleagues drew on the 10/66 Dementia Research Group, a multinational effort established in the early 2000s to build population-based dementia data from low- and middle-income countries, including five sites in Latin America and the Caribbean. At each site, fieldworkers went door to door, surveying every consenting adult age 65 or older. The home-visit approach allows researchers to reach people who might never visit a health clinic or specialist and are therefore often excluded from data collected from hospitals or physician offices.

The survey was conducted in 2003–2006 and again in 2016–2020 to capture long-term trends in dementia prevalence. Dementia was diagnosed with a validated combination of cognitive testing, a clinical interview and an interview with a person close to the participant, designed to identify dementia fairly across different cultures and education levels.

The overall prevalence of dementia across the five sites climbed from 10.6% to 16.9% over two decades. When examining individual sites, the researchers found dementia prevalence rose significantly in Mexico (from 9.6% to 14.5%), Peru (from 7.6% to 11.7%) and Puerto Rico (from 10.7% to 15.7%), even after accounting for the aging of the population between the time points.

Dementia rates in the other two study sites, Cuba and Dominican Republic, remained stable. The authors suggest this may be because those populations have not undergone the same rapid surge in obesity, physical inactivity and unmanaged metabolic disease that has characterized other parts of the region over the past two decades. That stability gives reason for optimism, Llibre-Guerra said, because it suggests that if modifiable risk factors are kept under control, rising dementia prevalence is not inevitable.

Extrapolated nationally, the dementia rates in the study at the most recent time point translate to roughly 1.2 million people living with dementia in Mexico, 416,800 in Peru, 133,200 in Cuba, 100,400 in Puerto Rico and 111,200 in the Dominican Republic. These figures substantially exceed earlier estimates, which were based on statistical models rather than counting cases directly, and they indicate that dementia in Latin America and the Caribbean “has been systematically underestimated,” Llibre-Guerra said.

In Mexico and Puerto Rico, increases in dementia persisted even after the researchers accounted for differences in education, health behavior and risk factors such as diabetes and obesity — suggesting that deeper social and structural issues, such as poverty and lack of access to healthcare or other underexplored risk factors, are shaping dementia risk in these countries.

“The findings suggest that the declining trends in dementia observed in some high-income countries may not be replicated globally,” said co-author Ana Luisa Sosa, MD, PhD, a psychiatric epidemiologist at the National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery in Mexico City. “In fact, the data indicate that dementia prevalence may be rising in certain settings, highlighting important global inequalities and public health challenges.”

The authors say the findings point to a need for stronger surveillance, investment in dementia care, and population-level prevention strategies across the countries they studied — as well as more research to determine if the same trends exist in other, larger Latin American countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

“Many of the risk factors we suspect are driving these increases are things we know how to address,” Llibre-Guerra said. “Staying physically active, managing blood pressure and blood sugar, not smoking, seeking care promptly when symptoms arise and staying socially connected are all evidence-based ways to reduce risk. And at the policy level, our findings argue urgently for investing in dementia surveillance, prevention programs and care infrastructure. If we act now, there’s a real opportunity to change the trajectory for the next generation of older adults in the region.”

 

Llibre-Guerra JJ, Wu YT, Acosta I, Soria C, Sosa AL, Acosta D, Jiménez-Velázquez IZ, Guerra M, Salas A, Lu R, Llibre-Rodriguez JJ, Prina M. Trends in dementia prevalence across five Latin American and Caribbean sites: two decades of rising prevalence. JAMA Neurology. July 13, 2026. DOI:10.1001/jamaneurol.2026.2305

The 10/66 Dementia Research Group’s research has been supported by the Wellcome Trust Health Consequences of Population Change Programme (GR066133 for the prevalence phase in Cuba and Brazil; GR080002 for the incidence phase in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and China), the World Health Organization (India, Dominican Republic, and China), the Alzheimer’s Association (grants IIRG-04-1286; 24HPE-1287320; ALZSI-25-1464205), the Puerto Rico State Legislature (Puerto Rico), FONACIT/CDCH/UCV (Venezuela), the European Union (RC-2013-ADG 340755), Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC-GC-02230426.01), and National Institutes of Health (K01AG073526). These funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The corresponding author had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr. Llibre-Guerra’s reported receiving grants from the Alzheimer’s Association, the National Institutes of Health, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative outside the submitted work. Dr. Prina reported receiving grants from the Alzheimer’s Association during the conduct of the study and grants from the National Institute for Health and Care Research outside the submitted work. All other authors declare no competing interests directly relevant to this work.

About WashU Medicine

WashU Medicine is a global leader in academic medicine, including biomedical research, patient care and educational programs with 3,100 faculty. Its National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding portfolio is the second largest among U.S. medical schools and has grown 78% since 2016. Together with institutional investment, WashU Medicine commits over $1.6 billion annually to basic and clinical research innovation and training. Its faculty practice is consistently among the top five in the country, with more than 2,550 faculty physicians practicing at 200 locations. WashU Medicine physicians exclusively staff Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals — the academic hospitals of BJC HealthCare — and Siteman Cancer Center, a partnership between BJC HealthCare and WashU Medicine and the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in Missouri and southern Illinois. WashU Medicine physicians also treat patients at BJC’s community hospitals in our region. With a storied history in MD/PhD training, WashU Medicine recently dedicated $100 million to scholarships and curriculum renewal for its medical students, and is home to top-notch training programs in every medical subspecialty as well as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and audiology and communications sciences.

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Journal

JAMA Neurology

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Trends in dementia prevalence across five Latin American and Caribbean sites: two decades of rising prevalence

Article Publication Date

13-Jul-2026

COI Statement

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr. Llibre-Guerra’s reported receiving grants from the Alzheimer’s Association, the National Institutes of Health, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative outside the submitted work. Dr. Prina reported receiving grants from the Alzheimer’s Association during the conduct of the study and grants from the National Institute for Health and Care Research outside the submitted work. All other authors declare no competing interests directly relevant to this work.

US IMPERIALISM AS PRO SPORT

NFL seeks to break into Africa with Kenya competition

Nairobi (AFP) – American Football's NFL came to Kenya this weekend for its latest competition on the African continent as it seeks to win converts to the sport.


Issued on: 13/07/2026 - RFI

Recent days saw a third annual flag football competition staged by the National Football League (NFL) in Africa -- a non-contact version of the sport that has grown in popularity around the world and will make its Olympics debut at the 2028

 Los Angeles Games © Luis TATO / AFP

US sports have increasingly sought to break into the African market, with the NBA launching a high-profile Basketball Africa League in 2019, based in Rwanda.

Recent days saw a third annual flag football competition staged by the National Football League (NFL) in Africa -- a non-contact version of the sport that has grown in popularity around the world and will make its Olympics debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

The three-day competition saw Egypt emerge as winners of the men's contest against teams from Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, while the women's contest was won by Nigeria.

The competition also included a talent-spotting session with NFL scouts, looking for the next star to join the league © Luis TATO / AFP

The event also included a talent-spotting session with NFL scouts, looking for the next star to join the league.

"Flag football is very accessible, everybody can play it," said Osi Umenyiora, who won two Super Bowls with the New York Giants, and now heads NFL Africa.

"As the NFL looks to expand and keep on growing especially across the continent of Africa... participation is a huge part of it," he said.

"We all know what sport can do for people, it can allow them to escape whatever situation they're in, and give them hope, and that's what we're trying to do here," he added.

Nigeria has already earned itself a place at the flag football world championships in Dusseldorf, Germany in August -- where it hopes to qualify for the Olympics.

The NFL has expanded internationally in recent years, playing a handful of its games in Europe and South America © Luis TATO / AFP

"We have been playing NFL flag football for a long time -- since 2016 -- and the game has exploded to 40 teams (in Nigeria), which gives us the edge over other countries in Africa," said Nigerian coach Ephraim Faloughi.

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Seagrass meadows support more nutritious fisheries than nearby coral reefs

Stockholm University

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Rabbitfish in a market

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Credit: Benjamin Jones

Seagrass meadows play a major overlooked role in feeding and nourishing coastal communities, according to a new study published in Cell Reports Sustainability and led by researchers at the Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University.

Coral reefs are famous for supporting huge numbers of fish. But this study shows that seagrass meadows may be just as important, and in some cases even more important, for the fish that people actually catch and eat.

The research team studied fish from 20 seagrass meadows and 20 coral reefs along a 3,000-km stretch of coastline from Kenya to Mozambique. They looked at six key nutrients that people need to stay healthy like calcium, iron, zinc, selenium, vitamin A, and omega-3 fatty acids. Instead of looking at each nutrient one by one, the scientists treated fish more like natural multivitamins.

“Fish don’t nourish people one nutrient at a time,” says Benjamin Jones, doctor in marine ecology who carried out the research as a PhD student at Stockholm University and is now Chief Conservation Officer at Project Seagrass. “They come as a package. A single fish contains iron, zinc, calcium, selenium, vitamin A, and omega-3s. We wanted to understand which habitats produce fish with the best mix of these nutrients.”

After accounting for differences in fish biomass, the team found that for the top three most important food fish species, nutrient support was over 8 times higher in seagrass meadows than coral reefs. On average, seagrass fish communities were 1.6 times more nutritionally rich than coral reef fish communities.

Two important food fish prized in the region, rabbitfish and parrotfish, were also far more common in seagrass meadows. In terms of biomass, they were 5 times and 65 times more abundant in seagrass than on coral reefs.

“We know that coral reefs have more fish overall, but seagrass meadows had more of the fish that really matter for local food,” says Benjamin Jones. “This changes how we should think about these habitats. Seagrass isn’t just a fish nursery, nor just a carbon stock, it’s food infrastructure, nature’s own supermarket.”

The study also found that an average seagrass fish could provide around 5 per cent of a young child’s daily iron needs, 70 per cent of their selenium needs, and 21 per cent of their zinc needs.

These numbers don’t mean that every child eats this amount. The study measured the nutrients that could be available from fish, not what people consume. But the findings show that seagrass meadows play an overlooked role in supporting the health of coastal communities.

Millions of people in tropical coastal regions rely on fisheries for food and income, and many of these communities face poverty, limited livelihood options, and high risks of malnutrition.

The findings also challenge the way ocean conservation is often framed. Coral reefs attract global attention, and rightly so. They are rich in biodiversity and support major fisheries. But coral reefs are also under severe pressure from climate change, bleaching, ocean warming, acidification, and overfishing. Seagrass meadows are also declining, especially in tropical regions, because of poor water quality, sewage pollution, coastal development, sediment runoff, and physical damage. Yet they receive far less attention and funding.

The authors argue that this must change.

“Our results really underscore the need to protect seagrass meadows, which are often overlooked in the shadow of more well-known habitats such as coral reefs and mangrove forests, while at the same time avoiding fishery closures, as these could jeopardize one of the most important sources of nutritious food for local communities along tropical coastlines”, says Johan Eklöf, professor in marine ecology at Stockholm University, and co-author of the study.

The study argues that seagrass should not replace coral reefs in conservation priorities. Instead, it shows that the two habitats do different jobs and need equal attention.

Coral reefs support more fish biomass. Seagrass meadows provide reliable access to key food fish that can contain a powerful mix of nutrients.

“Reefs and seagrass meadows work together,” said Benjamin Jones. “If we want coastal fisheries to feed people, we need to protect the whole seascape.”

Key findings

• Seagrass fish communities were 1.6 times more nutritionally rich than coral reef fish communities after accounting for fish biomass and depth.
• For the top three regional food fish species, predicted nutrient support was 8.4 times higher in unfished seagrass meadows than unfished coral reefs.
• In fished areas, predicted nutrient support from these same species was 8.8 times higher in seagrass meadows than coral reefs.
• Two important food fish were far more common in seagrass: Siganus sutor was 5 times higher by biomass, and Leptoscarus vaigiensis was 65 times higher by biomass.
• An average seagrass-associated fish could provide around 5 per cent of a young child’s daily iron needs, 70 per cent of selenium needs, and 21 per cent of zinc needs.
• The study shows that seagrass meadows should be recognised as vital food-security habitats, not just biodiversity or carbon habitats.

Notes for editors

The study, “Seagrass meadows sustain fish communities vital for human nutrition,” is published in Cell Reports Sustainability.

The research was led by Dr Benjamin Jones who conducted the study during his PhD at the Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences (DEEP) at Stockholm University and is now Chief Conservation Officer at Project Seagrass. The study was co-authored by Professor Johan Eklöf (DEEP, Stockholm University), together with global collaborators from BEAR, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Eduardo Mondlane University, Zanzi Marine and Coastal Solutions, the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, and Södertörn University.

The study analysed fish communities from paired seagrass meadow and coral reef habitats across Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique. Fish survey data were combined with FishBase data to estimate the potential availability of calcium, iron, zinc, selenium, vitamin A, and omega-3 fatty acids.

 

Shoal of Parrotfish in seagrass

Credit

Benjamin Jones

Journal

Cell Reports Sustainability

DOI

10.1016/j.crsus.2026.100757 

Article Title

Seagrass meadows sustain fish communities vital for human nutrition

Article Publication Date

9-Jul-2026