Benin entrepreneur transforms plant waste into charcoal

Olarinde Ayanfeoluwa is a 22-year-old self-taught artist who makes unconventional portraits by scribbling on canvases in Nigeria.

Collapsed buildings, unexploded munitions in the streets, shell craters: the self-proclaimed capital of Nagorno-Karabakh is now disfigured and has been turned into a ghost town after days of shelling.

With restaurants and cafés closed due to the pandemic, an alternative is emerging among Brussels hoteliers: transforming bedrooms into private dining rooms, so guests can enjoy an evening "as if at a restaurant" but in compliance with the law.

In Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, women produce mushrooms from corn and bean waste. The farming protects the women from going into the field, where danger lures.

Adunni Abdul says using charcoal and firewood causes her chest pain - but amid a price rises for liquified petroleum gas, she has little choice to go back to such fuels despite the environmental and health risks.

Maize husks, cassava peelings, coconut shells and other organic waste are the untraditional raw materials of Roland Adjovi's charcoal business that he hopes will help slow the destruction of Benin's trees for cooking fuel.

In Kenya, some industrial fishing techniques are banned in a bid to counteract damage suffered by coastal communities that have seen their fish stocks plummet. Also, as Africa continues to wrangle with the dilemma of how to keep economic growth on track whilst tackling the climate emergency, we hear from the president of the African Development Bank about the choices ahead. And in Uganda, efforts to roll back the production of charcoal are met with resistance.