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Close to 20,000 rural poor farmers across Africa will receive training and enterprise support following a decision by the Jersey Overseas Aid Commission (JOAC) to back three new Self Help Africa projects. JOAC has awarded almost £400,000 for development projects in in Togo, Kenya and Malawi.

A group of runners whose participation in Africa’s largest road race was cancelled at the weekend amid heightened security concerns responded by organising their own event. The 20-strong group had been scheduled to compete in the annual Great Ethiopia Run in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, but following international warnings that the event was a potential target for terrorist attack, they took to the countryside for a quickly organised alternative.

More than 250 guests from across print, broadcast and online media filled Dublin’s fashionable Guinness Storehouse for the second annual ‘Media Night’ benefit in support of Self Help Africa and Irish Motor Neurone Disease. The gala event attracted representatives from across a broad cross section of Irish journalism, with RTE, The Irish Times, Independent Newspapers, The Daily Mail, The Irish Star, Sunday Business Post, Today FM, TV3, The Irish News, Business Plus, The Irish Sun, Irish Examiner, Sunday Times and Storyful online platform amongst the attendance.

China continues to play a critical role in economic development in the 21st century across the African continent. The vital role that Asia’s fastest growing economy can play extends to agriculture too, as Self Help Africa’s Kenya director David Otieno learned when he attended a recent Africa agricultural conference, hosted in Beijing.

Africa was the winner in Manhattan recently, when almost 600 people gathered for a glittering event in Chelsea Piers to support entrepreneurship across the continent.

The event – held to support Self Help Africa – attracted a host of celebrities, including noted restaurateur and author Marcus Samuelsson (pictured), who was the inaugural recipient of the Spirit of Africa award at the event.

Top endurance athletes from the United States, Australia, South Africa, Canada and from across Europe are lined up to compete in ‘The Race’, the inaugural day-long 260km challenge in aid of Self Help Africa, next Spring. 80 of the world’s top competitors have signed up, including some of the world’s best known ultra-runners, ironmen, cyclists, marathon runners and triathletes.

Agricultural development programmes that succeed in achieving a fair share of resources for women will see food production and profits increase by up to 20%. That’s according to Self Help Africa’s inclusion advisor Mary Sweeney, who is developing systems to fully integrate gender equality into development projects across sub-Saharan Africa.

Up to 6,000 smallholder farmers are set to supply mango to a new processing plant being built on the shores of Lake Malawi, in an exciting new public-private partnership for Self Help Africa. The initiative, which sees Self Help Africa recruiting, training and supporting the organisational development of smallholder out-growers across Malawi’s Central Region, is projected to earn each farmer up to $600 per annum from the sale of fruit.

Self Help Africa commenced work late last year on a major new development programme designed to improve the livelihoods of 16,000 households in Zambia’s remote Northern Province. The Irish Aid funded project will establish an integrated livelihood programme that addresses agricultural production, crop diversification, production and marketing, as well as health and nutrition.