The Zando Central Market redevelopment in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, designed by THINK TANK architecture, has been selected among the 20 winning projects of the 2025 Holcim Foundation Awards in the Middle East and Africa region. Originally designed for 3,500 traders and now accommodating more than 20,000 vendors, the market has long operated under conditions of severe overcrowding and infrastructural strain.
Gaza's unemployment rate has reached 80 percent, among the highest in the world, according to the United Nations. After more than two years of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, the daily unbearable churn of mass death and mourning, with homes, hospitals and schools destroyed, the besieged Palestinian territory also faces the fastest and most damaging economic collapse on record. That is according to the United Nations, which says Gaza's unemployment rate has reached 80 percent.
Fred and Desmond aren't in a salon. They're on the sidewalk outside the Kelly Cullen Community building on Leavenworth Street, a popular gathering area for Tenderloin residents during the day that on most days hosts an outdoor barbershop. Beneath the cape, Fred sits on a wooden diner chair. Others nearby chat or doze on overturned milk crates, wheelchairs, or the steps into the building, when they're not gated off to prevent loitering.
On a sweltering Saturday afternoon in Maputo, people line up at refreshment stands dotted around a conference venue hosting Mozambique's biggest annual trade fair. But zipping between them in jeans and a black T-shirt a tray of drinks in hand one young woman is trying a different tack. Ludmila Malambe, tasty and nutritious, announces the branding on her shirt, written in Portuguese below an illustration of a cup of baobab fruit juice.