Africa Update Vol. 2
Welcome to this week's edition of Africa Update! We've got ex-presidents, drone photos, innovative mental health programs, human rights fellowships, and more.
West Africa: As Ghana cracks down on Chinese involvement in illegal mining, some Ghanaian businesspeople in China say they're being harrassed by the government in retaliation. One region in Niger is quietly piloting an amnesty program for Boko Haram fighters. High school girls in Cameroon have designed a new app to connect women kidnapped by Boko Haram to social support services. After five years, state authorities are returning to northern Mali. In Gambia, Adama Barrow's government is starting to prosecute former officials under Yahya Jammeh for the imprisonment and torture of opposition activists.
A great photo of four of Ghana's last five presidents from Solo Niaré, who comments, "the number of former presidents says a lot about the state of democracy in a country"
Central Africa: Thousands of Congolese citizens have fled to Angola following renewed violence in Kasaï province. I'm not sure about the source of these images, but Kinshasaweb has a remarkable series of photos outlining the Kabila family's connections to various businesses around the DRC.
East Africa: Kenya's high court has ruled that Parliament has 60 days to pass a law ensuring that women have more representation in the legislature. TEDxMogadishu is over, but you can still watch an archived version of the livestream.
Loved this aerial photo of Mogadishu, taken with a drone by Mukhtar Nuur
Southern Africa: This was some very good investigative reporting linking a new Chinese-funded dam in Angola to the president's daughter. Angolan police have also used dogs to break up a peaceful march of people with disabilities advocating for better treatment. Swaziland has just banned divorce. Zimbabwe's cash crisis is so bad that banks are allowing clients to use livestock as collateral. The political situation in Zambia is getting increasingly tense, as the president has threatened to declare a state of emergency the week after accusing the opposition leader of treason.
Economics: Weapons sales and smuggling in Africa are helping to keep North Korea afloat. In Kenya, women in poor households are more likely to earn more money than their husbands, compared with women in rich households. Cross-national drought insurance in west Africa meant that almost no one died during a recent drought, compared to the hundreds of thousands of deaths that are likely to occur without insurance during the current Somali drought.
Politics: Vote buying in Africa is often more about signaling a politican's interest in their constituents, and less about the monetary value of the bribe. African governments are subtly undermining freedom of the media by withholding advertising revenues from newspapers. Africa Check has a fantastic new flow chart for fact checking the media.
There's a great deal of diversity in whether African leaders abide by term limits
Public Health: Kenya's oldest family planning provider stands to lose 60% of its funding due to the Trump administration's reinstatement of the global gag rule. Some remarkable reporting here on the informal park bench counselors providing mental health services in Harare. African countries are overtreating malaria and underproviding caesarean sections. Uganda allocated more money to treat 140 officials abroad last year than it did to keep its flagship hospital running.
Academia: Enrolment in African universities has increased 300% over the last 25 years, but government funding has only gone up 73%. The World Bank's new Focus: Sub-Saharan African portal is a repository for all of their recent reports on the continent. Sign this petition to ask the Ugandan government to #FreeStellaNyanzi.
Literature: BuyReadLove is a new online bookstore in Ghana, launching on 23 April. Keep an eye out for works by the up and coming writers who just met at the Caine Prize's 2017 Tanzania workshop. Regardez ces recommendations de #8heroineslitteraires par @AbidjanLit. This was a beautiful historical overview of the literature of Hausa women.
Scholarships: I just learned about Zawadi Africa, which offers scholarships to young women who'd like to go to university abroad. If you're a woman working on human rights in East Africa, check out this fellowship for online safety. Here's an interesting opportunity with the UN's annual human rights fellowship for people of African descent.
Twitter: Interesting people I followed this week include Yotam Gidron (South Sudan), Stephanie Schwartz (Burundi), Jennifer Musisi (Uganda), Andréa Ngombet (Congo - Brazza), and Brett Carter (Gabon and Congo - Brazza).
Cheers,
Rachel