Africa Update Vol. 48
Welcome to the latest edition of Africa Update! We’ve got the implicit social contract of vote-buying in Ghana, donations to the Sudan Solidarity Collective, universal suffrage in Somalia, and more.
West Africa: In Mali, the RobotsMali project is using AI to help create primary school books in local languages like Bambara. Two decades of US- and French-led counterterrorism work in the Sahel have significantly worsened local conflicts and led to the current “coup belt.” Ghana has welcomed a number of refugees from Burkina Faso, but has forcibly expelled some belonging to the cross-border Fulani community, which often faces discrimination. This is a useful analysis of vote-buying in Ghana, noting that it replicates some of the social welfare functions the state is failing to fulfil.
Central Africa: Leaked documents show that the 2014 oil-backed loan which plunged Chad into economic crisis was corruptly negotiated by the oil company Glencore. Data from Uganda suggests that only 0.1% of residents are registered for income taxes in the formal sector. This is a vividly written long read about the violent birth of Kampala. Why have so many peacekeeping troops, most recently including South Africa’s, struggled in the fight against the M23 militia in the DRC?
East Africa: Kenya is putting its 90% renewable energy grid to use with an agreements to host a new UAE-backed data centre. Donate to the Sudan Solidarity Collective to support ongoing relief efforts in Sudan. This was an insightful long read on the geopolitics of Djibouti, which is a key waystation for Ethiopian immigrants trying to get to Saudi Arabia. Somalia’s cabinet has finally approved a bill allowing universal suffrage, which would replace the current clan-based voting system.
Southern Africa: The absolute monarchy in eSwatini is under pressure from youth protestors who are calling for a transition to democracy. In Zimbabwe, the water system of opposition-controlled Bulawayo has been badly underfunded by the national government, leading to shortages and the spread of waterborne diseases. Another interesting set of articles on Zimbabwe examines how people maintain connections to rural land in the face of forced resettlement and urbanisation.
Environment + resources: New research in six shows that the yields of smallholder farms in six African countries are consistently declining as people opt for work in cities rather than on farms. Kenya’s herding communities are switching to drought-resistant camels instead of cows. In Sierra Leone, young children are frequently set to work at the many sand mining sites which provide material for construction in the capital. The DRC’s cobalt mines are generating toxic waste which is harming agricultural productivity and health for people who live nearby.
Health: Hospital-acquired infections are costing African countries $8.4 billion per year - and half of them could be averted simply with better sanitation. A trial in the Gambia shows that a simple patch could help to protect children against measles. Moderna has paused its plans for an mRNA vaccine plant in Kenya as demand for COVID-19 vaccines has slowed. Uganda and the DRC are getting donations of a vaccine against mpox from vaccine manufacturer Emergent BioSolutions.
Politics + economics: Political parties in Africa have stronger ideological commitments than often assumed - but study of them is constrained by an analytical commitment to Eurocentric ideas of left-wing and right-wing ideology. A new modelling approach called TI-City has shown promise in modelling the expansion of informal settlements in African cities. Research from Kenya shows that informal businesses often cluster together in order to provide mutual support through savings associations, and mitigate some of the information and reputational challenges of operating in the informal sector.
Cheers,
Rachel