Do twelve Africans die of hunger every minute? The claim was made recently by a senior food and nutrition adviser to Nepad, the African Union development programme. But the available data suggests the claim is exaggerated.
How many Zimbabwean nationals live in South Africa? Estimates range from one to three million. But as Africa Check discovered, the numbers cannot be substantiated and the data is unreliable.
Eggplant, brinjal or aubergine — the dark-purple fruit has many guises; but is it also a colon cancer-fighting superfood as a prominent dietician would have Nigerians believe? As Africa Check discovered, there is no proof to support the claim.
Jacob Zuma’s spokesman says the president’s controversial comments that South Africans shouldn’t “think like Africans generally” and that highways in Gauteng province are “not some national road in Malawi” were “taken out of context”. But an audio recording of Zuma’s remarks reveals that he was quoted accurately.
Can herbal remedies dissolve abnormal tissue growths in the uterus, known as fibroids? According to a recent article in Nigeria’s The Nation, there is proof they can. We found no evidence to support the claim.
Media and charity reports last month predicted that by 2015 road accidents will become the biggest killer of children aged 5 to 15 in sub-Saharan Africa. Wrong. The claim is based on old and faulty data.
Why was a professor from Canada who has produced a well-reviewed critique of African development statistics prevented from speaking to a UN conference in Addis Ababa?
South Africa’s former apartheid-era foreign affairs minister, Pik Botha, recently claimed that the country’s education system is the worst in Africa. How much does Botha know about education system rankings? Very little it turns out. Data shows that while South Africa lags behind a number of African countries, there are many with worse education systems.
A Time.com article recently claimed that “Africa has a drinking problem”. Do Africans drink too much? Data shows that the drinking habits of Africa’s 55 countries are extremely varied. And the majority of Africans don’t drink at all.
How trustworthy are Africa’s gross domestic product figures? These all-important statistics have taken on a “dangerously misleading air of accuracy”, writes economic historian Morten Jerven in his book, Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do About It.