The clocks will turn back an hour in Europe early this Sunday morning, and the US will follow next week on Sunday, 4 November. I was recently asked if African countries observe daylight savings time. Just a handful of countries in Africa set their clocks back, including Namibia (see below) and Morocco. Morocco already changed to daylight savings at the end of September. Egypt used to align their clocks with Europe, and followed daylight savings as well, but after trying to accommodate Ramadan a few years ago (2010) they ended up changing their clocks four times, confusing everyone and leading the government to declare the experiment over and done with.
Tunisia is one of several African countries that tried daylight savings for a few years, they stopped the whole nonsense in 2009. Locals thought it interfered with their sleep. Mauritius lasted just a year, they adopted daylight savings in 2008, only to stop in 2009. Obviously didn't do a lot for them either.
Namibia does practice daylight savings, they follow a similar calendar to Australia. Namibia's spring starts in September and they move their clocks forward an hour, and back again in April, at the start of their winter. The Namibian Time Act was signed in 1994, it was a statement of independence to observe DST, and despite being the only country to follow it in the region, it is sticking to it. Although those living in the Caprivi strip apparently did not change their clocks in 2010, will they this year?
Many African countries are close enough to the equator that they don't really experience a lot of variance with daylight hours. It gets light around 6am, and dark around 6pm. The one thing you really do notice is the sun seems to set in about 10 minutes flat. It goes from light to dark in no time at all. You can miss taking a photo of the gorgeous sunset by just finishing your beer before picking up a camera.
Read more about: Time in Africa