Islam is not the real issue we are facing in Africa

Eliza Griswold

Christians and Muslims have co-existed here for centuries. Corruption and climate change are much more pressing problems

Stretching from west to east across Africa – from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea – the Sahel today is a militant's dream. Despite the French military's recent routing of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and its allies in northern Mali, the threat of safe haven for the west's enemies is not going to end there any time soon.

Although, for the moment, the militia have melted from sight, the latest battles in Algeria and Mali are harbingers of a larger catastrophe: the Sahel, the vast grassland north of the equator, has become the latest battleground in the west's war against Islamist militants.

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How to teach... World Food Day

Emily Drabble

A little girl receives free food from a

distribution point on World Food Day

 in 2010 in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Photograph: Anjum Naveed/AP

Nearly one is six people around the world do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life – most of them living in developing countries.

It is World Food Day on 16 October as well as harvest festival assembly time, so the Guardian Teacher Network has a bounty of resources to share that introduce and delve deeper into the challenges and injustices that people face over food.

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Turkish aid foundations working to resolve water problem in Africa

Numerous Turkish aid foundations are working to resolve Africa's long-standing water supply problem by digging wells in various countries across the continent, with over 1,500 sunk so far.

Africa suffers from a lack of drinking water due to drought, which is common across the continent. Research being conducted into the issue shows that 4,900 children die every day in Africa due to a lack of drinking water or diseases caused by drinking contaminated water.

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