MOSES ALOBO, Programme Manager for Grand Challenges Africa, African Academy of Sciences IN APRIL 2020, about two months after the African continent recorded its first case of COVID-19, the African Academy of Sciences undertook an extensive survey of its members. This allowed hundreds of scientists in African countries to identify COVID-19 related research priorities across a range of disciplines. The Conversation Africa’s Natasha Joseph asked Dr Moses Alobo, who is heading the Academy’s COVID-19 response efforts, to explain the survey’s findings and how they can be applied. What was the purpose of the survey, and who took part? The COVID-19…

MENNA A.FAROUK THE DESERT buildings Atef Azzazy and his team of farm workers once lived and toiled in were hot in the summer, cold in the winter and leaky enough they sometimes let in snakes, he remembers. Three years ago, however, the team working in Bahariya Oasis, in Egypt's Western Desert, got an upgrade: Well-insulated homes and work buildings designed to shed Egypt's increasingly searing summer heat and hold down climate-changing emissions. ECOnsult, an Egyptian architecture firm that specialises in green, energy-efficient and affordable buildings, designed the structures for 120 workers in the Saharan oasis village, from farmers and engineers…

THIN LEI WIN, NELLIE PEYTON AND FARAI MATAISHE GHANAIAN pilot Eric Acquah started a drone company in 2017 to spray crops with pesticides, but when coronavirus hit the West African country he found a new mission: saving lives. The company has used 20 drones to disinfect 38 open-air markets in Ghana - spraying a couple of acres in minutes, a job that would take a dozen people several hours - and also plans to use them to disinfect classrooms, said Acquah. "We targeted the market areas because in Africa they are open-air and always overpopulated. So we thought if the virus…