Full Coverage: West Africa

05.05.2012 Ade Solanke's new play, Pandora's Box, is about British-born Africans taking their children back to Africa. "One of my close friends took her son, who was going off the rails, to Nigeria," she says. "He came back transformed. What do they get in Africa and the Caribbean that they don’t get here?"

05.05.2012 Migration is a worldwide phenomenon that's always in the news. But what happens when descendants of migrants visit the country of origin of their parents or grandparents?

04.05.2012 DAKAR/OUAGADOUGOU, 4 May (IRIN) - Sahelian governments and local and international aid groups are struggling to cope with both the continual arrivals of people fleeing the regions of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal in northern Mali, and the mounting number of hungry people across the region as the lean season gets underway.

24.04.2012 "In Britain I feel that the colour of my skin is constantly scrutinised. Like I feel like I’m constantly reminded that I’m a woman and I’m black, and I’m like 'I know that!'” An interview with playwright Bola Agbaje.

18.04.2012 A couple of years ago the International Organisation of Migration estimated that at least one million men, mostly West Africans, were living in the Libyan capital, hoping to meet a “connection man” who could get them to Europe. The Crossing is the story of three of them – and of hundreds of thousands of others around the world who leave their homeland in search of a better life.

13.04.2012 The Crossing is the story of three Ghanaian men who journey thousands of miles across Africa – in search of the new EUtopia.

24.03.2012 ‘Supporters keh. Forget this country. How many year have you lived here…? Your English is better than the Queen’s and they still call you…’

09.03.2012 DAKAR/PORT HARCOURT, 8 March (IRIN) - Despite longstanding laws against gas flaring - the burning of natural gas during oil extraction - in Nigeria, and shifting deadlines to end the practice, the activity continues, with serious health consequences for people living nearby.

24.02.2012 DAKAR, Feb 23 (IPS) - There are two women among the 14 candidates contesting the first round of Senegalese presidential elections that will be held on Feb. 26. But according to several analysts, this overwhelmingly Muslim West African country is not ready to be governed by a woman.

15.02.2012 NOUAKCHOTT, Feb 15 (IPS) - Seven out of the eight governments in the Sahel – the arid zone between the Sahara desert in North Africa and Sudan’s Savannas in the south – have taken the unprecedented step of declaring emergencies as 12 million people in the region are threatened by hunger.

07.02.2012 DAKAR, Feb 6 (IPS) - The friends of slain Senegalese student protester, Mamadou Diop, say that the 32-year-old master’s student was against injustice and that is why he was protesting against President Abdoulaye Wade’s bid for a third term of office.

02.02.2012 DAKAR, Feb 1 (IPS) - It was stones against tear gas in the Senegalese capital this morning as students protested the killing of one of their own on Tuesday evening. At least four people have died since Jan. 27, in wider demonstrations against the controversial validation of President Abdoulaye Wade's candidacy for re-election for a third term.

31.01.2012 Visitors to the Life without Lights will be handed a solar lamp to light their way through a darkened gallery, giving them a sense of what it’s like to live without electricity.

21.11.2011 Forget AIDS, corruption, dictatorship – the staples of reporting about Africa. Instead, watch An African Election, a success story.

08.08.2011 Recent years of encouraging economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa could unravel in the aftermath of the US credit rating downgrade. A flagging world economy might drag down commodity prices, dismantling the foundation of Africa's recovery.

26.06.2011 Chuks used to be a fixer, a go-between for foreign journalists and local groups. When militants attack a new oil pipeline in northern Nigeria, British journalists and corporate spin doctors rush to the scene: everyone wants the inside story. As more players get involved, the stakes get higher. They’ll make it worth his while, but if Chuks joins the game, will he make a small fortune – or be crushed between conflicting interests?

10.06.2011 DAKAR, Jun 10 (IRIN) - The Ivoirian government has extended a special period of free health care to help a population reeling from months of turmoil. But in a country where cost recovery for health services has long been the policy, an abrupt change to free care is posing challenges.

25.05.2011 ABIDJAN, May 24 (IRIN) - While outright conflict has abated in Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital, Abidjan, many of the thousands of displaced people there are still too fearful to return to once conflict-ridden neighbourhoods.

28.04.2011 Senegal's finance ministry has published an excellent progress review of its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, as input to a national plan for the remainder of the MDG period 2011-2015. There's one major shortcoming: not a single reference in 77 pages to the risks posed by climate change in one of the world's most vulnerable countries. Almost every heading of the report should be looking over its shoulder, especially poverty reduction, food security, agricultural water, health (malaria) and disaster management. Maybe the subject was lost in translation from the French original.

18.04.2011 From the streets of Hackney to the English countryside; from the mansions of the Lagos elite to the oil pipelines of Northern Nigeria - three plays burst with the stories of the diaspora.