East Africa has seen the worst invasion of desert locusts for decades and there are warnings of even larger swarms to come. Millions of people across the region, who are already feeling the impact of coronavirus and floods, will now face increased hunger and poverty. Just an average swarm can eat the same in a day as 2,500 people for a year.

For Assignment, the BBC’s Senior Africa Correspondent Anne Soy joins Albert the Samburu herdsman turned locust hunter as he struggles to track the pests who have been decimating crops and pastures across his native northern Kenya. It is a race against time to exterminate this generation before they breed another, larger, more voracious generation.

Producer: Charlotte Atwood Editor: Bridget Harney

(Image: Man chasing away a swarm of desert locusts in Samburu County, Kenya. Credit: Fredrik Lerneryd/Getty Images)

When a name very similar to journalist Michelle Madsen’s was used as the cover for a fake news hatchet job on a Senegalese politician, she found herself entangled in a web of deception that she is seeking to unravel.

Mark Coles profiles Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was the first African to be elected Director-General of the World Health Organisation. Three years on, he finds himself at the centre of a political storm. Some say he has been too soft on China - where the coronavirus began. Others accuse the WHO of being too slow to declare a global public health emergency and US President, Donald Trump, has threatened to withdraw funding. Now one of the most recognisable faces in the world due to the pandemic yet little is known about Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Producer: Jim Frank Researcher: Vivien Jones Editor: Penny Murphy

leading writers share their secrets of places of inner sanctuary 10.Aida Edemariam

Where can we go when we feel cooped up, shut in, locked down? To mark and alleviate these strange times, Radio 3 has commissioned leading writers to share the secrets of a place of refuge, real or imaginary, to which they escape in times of crisis.

10. Aida Edemariam's father is Ethiopian, her mother Canadian and she lives now in the Oxford, but it is to Addis Ababa that she returns at the start of an evocative celebration of swimming and water;

"A honeycomb of rooms, filled with steam. Tiled steps up to long low baths that in their gracious lines still held remnants of luxury and ease. Stripping, wallowing in water that arrived so hot out of the ground the main job was to cool it, splashing, shouting, setting off echoes. Here where nearly a hundred years before an empress had pitched her tent on a lush plain and turning to her rheumatic husband asked, may I build a house, here? Another, there, under that mimosa tree? And a palace, too? Bathing, here where the city began, because while there was plenty of rain, and the hot springs seeped from the earth as they always had, in the taps in our houses there was no water."

Producer: Beaty Rubens

Ivan Larenjeira, in this second Road Trip, takes us on a journey through Mozambique.

Mo Abudu has been described as one of the most successful women in Africa. She made her name presenting the chat show Moments with Mo, that earnt her the title of Africa’s ‘first lady of chat.’

She is the CEO of Ebony Life Television, Africa's first global black entertainment and lifestyle network. In 2013 she set up Ebony Life Films and as Executive Producer is behind films such as the comedies The Wedding Party and its sequel, The Wedding Party 2, which became the highest-grossing Nigerian film in the country’s box office history.

In 2018 Anna Cunningham followed Mo onto the set of her film Chief Daddy – which tells the story of what happens when a flamboyant billionaire industrialist suddenly dies and his family and friends uncover hidden secrets and discover who’s getting the money.

With a star studded cast including Funke Akindele, Kate Henshaw, Folarin ‘Falz’ Falana, Mo hoped Chief Daddy would be a Christmas blockbuster in Nigeria. In this updated episode, find out if she got her wish.

Honey bees, cow dung and mulch; how a company in Zimbabwe is protecting forests in order to offset the carbon emissions of people around the world. Even though many flights are grounded at the moment, there is still a need to reduce the amount of carbon we pump into the atmosphere. But what happens when you can’t reduce it any further? You can offset it. Charlotte Ashton discovers a company based in Zimbabwe that runs one of the largest projects of its kind in the world and finds out where your money goes if you choose to offset your carbon emissions.

Carbon Green Africa’s project focuses on protecting Zimbabwe’s existing forests, rather than planting new trees and her journey takes her to some surprising places. In a programme recorded last November, Charlotte finds that preventing deforestation not only helps her assuage her flight shame, but helps give people in a remote part of Zimbabwe new jobs, more food and an oven powered by cow dung!

Presenter: Charlotte Ashton Producer: Phoebe Keane

(Image: Forests in Guruve district, Zimbabwe. Credit: BBC/Phoebe Keane)

The first episode includes concerns about the impact of a full lockdown in Ghana, the impact of the closure of public buildings on one man in Mississippi, there’s an insight from Hangzhou in China as the restrictions end and a woman in the UK explains how she felt as the symptoms of Covid 19 became clear.

UK based writer Belinda Zhawi creates a personalised selection of sounds, songs and reflections in dedication to her birth country.

After growing up in Zimbabwe, Belinda settled in London when she was 12. Much of her work as a poet, sound artist and educator explores her experience of shifting perspectives and identities, from rural to urban and between continents and cultures.

Zimbabwe gained independence from the United Kingdom in April 1980. Forty years on, Belinda reflects on the hopes and disappointments which followed for her generation, “Born Free,” into an independent Zimbabwe.

Belinda’s Mixtape for Zimbabwe includes the music of Bob Marley, Thomas Mapfumo and Ms Dynamite.

Bird Song (Live at Funkhaus) - Stella Chiweshe

Njema -Winky D

Chitekete - Leonard Dembo

The Folks who Live on the Hill - Maxine Sullivan

Zimbabwe - Oliver Mtkudzi

Zimbabwe - Bob Marley

Dy-Na-Mi-Tee - Miss Dynamite

Sing Along - Crazy Titch Chitekete - Leonard Dembo

I’ll Wait and Pray - John Coltrane

Home is Where the Hatred Is - Gil Scott Heron

Corruption - Thomas Mapfumo

Coming Home (Radio Edit) - Shingai

Kura Uone (Grow Up & you Will See) - Bongo Maffin

Chitekete - Leonard Dembo

Bird Song (Live in Funkhaus) - Stella Chiweshe

Produced by Femi Oriogun-Williams A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4

Documentary adventures that encourage you to take a closer listen.

The N'diaye Rose family of Senegal are masters of Sabar drumming. They are the descendants of the late Doudou Ndiaye Rose, the legendary griot drummer famous for sharing the deep and complex rhythms of Sabar with the rest of the world.

Today, in the capital, Dakar, electronic musicians Beatrice Dillon, Nkisi and LABOUR try to interpret and translate the encoded language of the drums.

With thanks to the N'diaye Rose family and Berlin Atonal Photo credit: Sandhya Ellis

Produced by Zakia Sewell A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

The rosewood tree is one of the most trafficked wild products on earth. When it is cut it bleeds a blood red sap. Having exhausted stocks elsewhere, Chinese traders have turned to West Africa to feed demand back home where the hardwood is prized for use in traditional Chinese furniture. In Senegal it is illegal to fell or export a rosewood tree. And yet they are being logged and smuggled at an alarming rate from the forests of Casamance, through the port of neighbouring Gambia and all the way to China. For Assignment, Umaru Fofana and BBC Africa Eye have been investigating the trade in trafficked rosewood worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Producer: Charlotte Attwood (Image: A "bleeding" rosewood tree. Credit: BBC/Maxime Le Hegarat)

In the third part of her series, the writer and journalist Madeleine Bunting explores what it means to have no place to call home. An estimated 70 million people around the world are believed to be homeless – and millions more live in such poor accommodation that in practical terms, they too fall into that category. Madeleine recalls her own experience of homelessness as a child and how her mother, trying to make a home for her children in someone else’s basement, was given new hope by a passing traveller woman.

As a teenager, Stephen K Amos’s family left London for Nigeria. There, for the first time, he saw television situation comedies, imported from America, about black families whose lives he recognised. Here were shows where the ethnicity of the lead characters was not central to the story or the punchline to a joke. One of his favourite shows was Sanford & Son, and for his essay Stephen has chosen one particular episode and its star, Redd Foxx, who took the lead part of Sanford. As he came to know more about Foxx’s life Stephen began to see the possibility of a life of his own in comedy.

Stephen K Amos started in stand up in 1994 taking his first shows to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1997. His work has taken him all round the world, and his striking ability to connect and talk with his audience, his charm, exuberance, intelligence and warmth have won him huge audiences. He has had his own ‘name above the title’ series on BBC Television, written several series for BBC Radio 4 including the semi-autobiographical What Does the K Stand For and now combines stand up with acting, presenting documentaries and writing. His documentary about homophobia in black communities, based on his own experiences of being a black gay man, won a Royal Television Society award and was nominated for a BAFTA. He took part in the recent BBC TV programme Pilgrimage: Road to Rome in which he got to meet the Pope and talk to him about how he feels that, as a gay man, he is not accepted within the Church.

Written and read by Stephen K Amos Produced by Caroline Raphael for Dora Productions

YolanDa Brown and her house band, the Band Jaminals, entertain an audience of children - the Band Jammers - with live music and special guests!

YolanDa gets everyone moving with the Clapping Song, encouraging everyone to clap and dance in a lively and fast way.

Joining YolanDa in this episode is singing superstar Shingai Shoniwa from the Noisettes. Shingai demonstrates some traditional African instruments made out of fruit – the Hosho and Mbira.

The Fact Jam then tells us more about these fascinating instruments - did you know that the Mbira is also known as the 'thumb piano'?

Shingai then performs Coming Home using these traditional African instruments and is then invited by YolanDa and the Band Jammers to take part in the Big Band Jam at the end of the programme.

YolanDa explains that the Big Band Jam in this episode will be based around things you can do on holiday, and a short film follows three Band Jammers as they explore possible lyric ideas for the Big Band Jam.

YolanDa and the Band Jammers are then ready for the Big Band Jam. YolanDa and the Band Jaminals join in as Shingai performs the Noisettes' hit song Never Forget You with new lyrics suggested by the Band Jammers!

Anna Della Subin takes a journey with a man once worshipped as a living god.

Anna Della has been writing a book about people inadvertently turned into gods, and in this bewitching talk she describes a journey across Morocco with one of them. She discusses what prompts people to regard others as gods, and what it might tell us about our society.

Producer: Giles Edwards

A joyful, beautiful, pain filled sound journey through South Africa - from a politically charged soundscape of the murder of striking miners, to the music of a living legend, Madosini, a Xhosa musician.

Singer and musician Nathaniel Mann, recent recipient of a Paul Hamlyn award for composition, travels to the Cape to find an irresistible blend of artists working with sound and music - reflecting both the joys and the pain of this conflicted and deeply unequal society.

Haroon Gunn-Sallie was born in prison - his parents under arrest for their part in the armed struggle against apartheid. Believing he was destined to be ‘an activist', he has channeled his activism into art, finding a surprising home in the mainstream fine art world - including London Frieze. Marikana is one of his most powerful works - an installation marking the anniversary of a massacre of striking miners in 2012. The audience enter a sealed black box, and experience a collage of sounds which take you from the mine shaft through a vivid soundscape of newsreel, loudhailers, demonstrations and bullets to the massacre. Moments later the sound gives way to a beautiful rendition of ‘Senzenina’ - a song asking ‘What have We Done?', reflecting the struggles South Africa has yet to overcome as a fledgling democracy.

Madonsini, a traditional Xhosa musician, is the first person to be recorded for the WOMAD Festival's Musical Elders Archive project, yet her fame remains limited within the world-music sphere, and the instruments she plays are in danger of being lost. "There is no-one playing this instrument now except for me and my friend. I want the instrument to live, not to die with me." Revered for her skills on two unique instruments, the uhadi (bow with calabash) and the umrumbhe (mouth bow), Madosini is also instrument maker, using specific wood she finds lying in the bush near her home. Nathaniel gets a lesson in playing the umrumbhe with mixed results...

Jenna Burchell was driving across the great Karoo - the desert also known as The Cradle of Mankind - when she noticed a white line running along the hillside next to the dusty road. It was a strata left behind after an ‘extinction event’, millennia ago, and so she began exploring the line - walking and gathering beautiful shattered rocks from the site. Using the Japanese technique of Kintsukuroi, repairing broken pottery with gold lacquer, she turned these ancient rocks into ‘Songsmiths’ working with recorded sound, to make the rocks sing of the land where they have existed for millennia triggered in each sculpture by the touch of a human hand. These ‘Songsmiths’ are both a visual and an aural treat - magically singing, as hands clutch stroke or just hover above the surface of each rock.

We also get the chance to listen in on a work in progress created by the artist Sikhumbuzo Makandula, who is fascinated by the sonic web bells cast over the South African landscape. His work explores the way that slave bells became church bells became school bells - in a sonically overwhelming show, asking the audience to join in with ringing a whole host of bells….

A sideways looks at an extraordinary sonic landscape.

Producer: Sara Jane Hall

Fatmata, Jamilatu and Alimamy all see themselves as failures. They’re young Sierra Leoneans who risked everything for the sake of a better life in Europe. Along the way, they were imprisoned and enslaved. They saw friends die. Eventually, they gave up. Now, they’re home again - facing the devastating consequences of what they did to their families before they left, actions that have left them ostracised by their nearest and dearest. Who will help them to survive back home? Can they rebuild their lives, and achieve any reconciliation with their parents? And if they can’t, will they be tempted to set off again, to seek their fortunes abroad?

Produced and presented by Tim Whewell Editor, Bridget Harney

BBC Arts Correspondent, Rebecca Jones, introduces the best new audio dramas from the New Creatives.

BBC Arts and Arts Council England have joined forces to give 500 emerging artists the chance to tell the stories they want to tell. New Creatives are aged between 16-30 - and their work is featuring on BBC TV, online and radio.

BBC Radio 4 Extra is the place to hear the very best dramas from these writers new to radio. And the writers themselves tell us what inspired them to explore the world of sound.

In this episode we first enter the slightly alarming world of Ivan Uncovers, written and starring Theo Watkins. After that, teenage pupil Samuel must come to grips with a new world of education in Ghana, in Dem Times written by Jacob Roberts- Mensah and Rhys Reed-Johnson.

Ivan Uncovers written by Theo Watkins. Ivan Gallows ... Theo Watkins; bin man/jingle announcer ... Tim Wells; Karen ... Sasha Bigwood; Razorthump ... Ben Young; Tom Barker ... Ed Drewitt; Steve Yabsley as...himself; voiceover recordist ... Noah Feasey-Kemp

A Calling the Shots production New Creatives which is supported by BBC Arts and Arts Council England.

Dem Times written by Jacob Roberts- Mensah and Rhys Reed-Johnson Samuel ... David Omor; Dad / Mr Anash ... Andy Sarfo; Mum/Mrs Ampofo ... Harriet Eshun; Belinda ... Wini Opoku; Tiwa ... Samuelle Durojaiye; Derrick ... Kobby Parker; Nll ... Julian Ossei-Gerning; Theme song written and performed by Joshua Kyeot

An ICA Production for New Creatives which is supported by BBC Arts and Arts Council England.

More information about the New Creatives can be found on the BBC Arts website.

New Creatives Dramas was presented by Rebecca Jones Producer: Peter McHugh for BBC Radio 4 Extra