#see africa

[demigoddessqueens]

[gibsalotdoodles]

portraits of the guys <3

prints now available on my redbubble!

[reasonsforhope]

African poverty is partly a consequence of energy poverty. In every other continent the vast majority of people have access to electricity. In Africa 600m people, 43% of the total, cannot readily light their homes or charge their phones. And those who nominally have grid electricity find it as reliable as a Scottish summer. More than three-quarters of African firms experience outages; two-fifths say electricity is the main constraint on their business.

If other sub-Saharan African countries had enjoyed power as reliable as South Africa’s from 1995 to 2007, then the continent’s rate of real GDP growth per person would have been two percentage points higher, more than doubling the actual rate, according to one academic paper. Since then South Africa has also had erratic electricity. So-called “load-shedding” is probably the main reason why the economy has shrunk in four of the past eight quarters.

Solar power is increasingly seen as the solution. Last year Africa installed a record amount of photovoltaic (PV) capacity (though this still made up just 1% of the total added worldwide), notes the African Solar Industry Association (AFSIA), a trade group. Globally most solar PV is built by utilities, but in Africa 65% of new capacity over the past two years has come from large firms contracting directly with developers. These deals are part of a decentralised revolution that could be of huge benefit to African economies.

Ground zero for the revolution is South Africa. Last year saw a record number of blackouts imposed by Eskom, the state-run utility, whose dysfunctional coal-fired power stations regularly break down or operate at far below capacity. Fortunately, as load-shedding was peaking, the costs of solar systems were plummeting.

Between 2019 and 2023 the cost of panels fell by 15%, having already declined by almost 90% in the 2010s. Meanwhile battery storage systems now cost about half as much as five years ago. Industrial users pay 20-40% less per unit when buying electricity from private project developers than on the cheapest Eskom tariff.

In the past two calendar years the amount of solar capacity in South Africa rose from 2.8GW to 7.8GW, notes AFSIA, excluding that installed on the roofs of suburban homes. All together South Africa’s solar capacity could now be almost a fifth of that of Eskom’s coal-fired power stations (albeit those still have a higher “capacity factor”, or ability to produce electricity around the clock). The growth of solar is a key reason why there has been less load-shedding in 2024...

Over the past decade the number of startups providing “distributed renewable energy” (DRE) has grown at a clip. Industry estimates suggest that more than 400m Africans get electricity from solar home systems and that more than ten times as many “mini-grids”, most of which use solar, were built in 2016-20 than in the preceding five years. In Kenya DRE firms employ more than six times as many people as the largest utility. In Nigeria they have created almost as many jobs as the oil and gas industry.

“The future is an extremely distributed system to an extent that people haven’t fully grasped,” argues Matthew Tilleard of CrossBoundary Group, a firm whose customers range from large businesses to hitherto unconnected consumers. “It’s going to happen here in Africa first and most consequentially.”

Ignite, which operates in nine African countries, has products that include a basic panel that powers three light bulbs and a phone charger, as well as solar-powered irrigation pumps, stoves and internet routers, and industrial systems. Customers use mobile money to “unlock” a pay-as-you-go meter.

Yariv Cohen, Ignite’s CEO, reckons that the typical $3 per month spent by consumers is less than what they previously paid for kerosene and at phone-charging kiosks. He describes how farmers are more productive because they do not have to get home before dark and children are getting better test scores because they study under bulbs. One family in Rwanda used to keep their two cows in their house because they feared rustlers might come in the dark; now the cattle snooze al fresco under an outside lamp and the family gets more sleep.

...That is one eye-catching aspect of Africa’s solar revolution. But most of the continent is undergoing a more subtle—and significant—experiment in decentralised, commercially driven solar power. It is a trend that could both transform African economies and offer lessons to the rest of the world."

-via The Economist, June 18, 2024. Paragraph breaks added.

[pxregoth]

in order for dates to be added with new locations/regions we need to join together & let dnp know that there’s a demand for their show in LATAM, Asia, & Africa !!!!! we need to continue commenting & making posts about this !! we already know dnp see our posts especially on Twitter so please do not let the phannies from LATAM, Asia, & Africa be ignored!!! they are just as important as us phannies from Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, & New Zealand !!!!!

!!!!!! WE CANNOT CLAIM TO BE AN INCLUSIVE AND LOVING COMMUNITY WHEN WE WONT EVEN DO THE BARE MINIMUM FOR OUR FELLOW PHANNIES IN OTHER REGIONS OF THE WORLD !!!!!!

[loveisinthebat]

The TEEFS

[visitheworld]

Cape Town /South Africa (by Jan Keller).

[feyburner]

I fucking hate DC lol. His race is Villain

[freewatermelon0]

They are killing the dreams before the people.

[fashionsfromhistory]

Ensemble

Maxwell Boko and Mmuso Potsane for Mmusomaxwell

Spring/Summer 2021

Mmusomaxwell is a ready-to-wear womenswear fashion brand based in Johannesburg, South Africa, founded in 2016 by Maxwell Boko and Mmuso Potsane. Boko and Potsane met as contestants on the TV show The Intern, run by designer David Tlale, where they competed to present at South Africa Fashion week. Mmusomaxwell are known for their tailored, minimalist designs, aimed at cosmopolitan working women.

This ensemble is from the Imbokodo collection, released for Spring/Summer 2021. Through this collection Boko and Potsane wanted to critique notions of a woman’s place in society, especially in traditional African cultures. The collection featured 27 pieces in a mixture of bold shapes and colours (mainly yellow, blue, red and black). Many of the designs drew on elements of a man’s suit, with the designers exploring power dressing, and the power suit, as a tool for female empowerment.

Victoria & Albert (Accession number: T.118:1,2-2021)

[irungu]

Continuation of my Master Weaver portraits. c/o  Amsha Studio.

Ukambani Kenya.

[entropyvoid]

Golden Hour (+ lineart below cut)

I took a picture of the lines for once and did some basic crappy photo editing on my phone, so you could probably print this out and use it as a coloring page or something if you so wish lol. Do with it what you will.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

close enough welcome back yuta okkotsu!!

[orionsangel86]

How cool is it that so many people across both hemispheres got to witness something usually reserved for a much smaller area all because the sun is throwing a huge tantrum right now. Just throwing out huuuge amounts of energy and our planet is like cool lets make pretty colours in the sky with that. Thats called turning a negative into a positive on a celestial scale 😌. We should be more like Earth lmao

[lyss-sketchbox]

God I really hope they change the designs. We don't even need a lore reason, they aren't officially in the game yet. Just fuckin give the characters some melanin. And even if it wasn't just the cultural disrespect isn't everyone tired of the same pale character design at this point. And also you're definitely right about the character design in general. Some of the outfits and characters look like bad genshin ocs they shoved into the game.

I'm not even talking about the skin color at this point. I've accepted that hyv is a chinese company and wont do shit unless the CN community riots.

CASE in point. Spin-to-win Neuvi nerf was mass reported by the CN community as consumer fraud and I bet they're gonna fix that immediately.

It's just... idk common sense??? It may be a fictional world but it does take inspirations from Latin America / African that has... idk hot climates!! Therefore darker skin!! And for some reason you drop this pasty ass vampire cowboy lady???? In NATLAN???? Like they wouldn't get this much of a backlash if most of these characters we as black as Iansan atleast.

My gripe now is just the designs itself. The first 3 characters don't look that bad, i can get behind that. They're cute and colorwise very complimentary. Even the pyro archon(?) even though she looks like she doesn't even belong in Natlan, red black and yellow goes well together.

The cowboy and leopard lady tho...

ESPECIALLY the vampire cowboy goth lady. She literally is just beta clorinde they lazily put in Natlan for a bigger roster. I just hate how messy and out of place she looks even by Natlan's messy standards.

Feathery (?) strandy hat, very convoluted shirt (?), the long coat tails attacked to the short revealing shirt gimmick, pants that only has one leggings (????)

What is this? Genuinely. It's asymetry for the sake of asymetry. I hate it. Theres no purpose in this, this outfit highlights nothing. I see her and its just a blotch of black-purple-red with super contasting pasty pale skin. Worst of all she doesn't even look like she's from Natlan, she looks like a messy ruffed up travelling cowboy with none of those Natlan symbols or tattoos or patterns or anything. Just normal leather and straps.

It is ugly. It doesnt work. Its not nice to look at. I hope she doesnt play a role where she shows up on screen alot. Im sorry.

Same point for the leopard lady. Doesn't look Natlan at all. Just a leopard lady with revealing clothes. SHORT JEANS TOO MIGHT I ADD. Something you probably don't see in Natlan. She is less hated by me because atleast her color palette works.

Its facking Acheron again but I can excuse Archeron because ITS SPACE.

[real-odark]

noel and elder mckinley meeting

sure you can have one but theres nowhere to plug it in :(

[loveisinthebat]

Itty Bitty