Africa Update Vol. 34
Welcome to the latest edition of Africa update, which is living up to its description as a very occasional newsletter at the moment! This month we've got the challenges of regulating online commerce in Côte d'Ivoire, a new Sheng-language podcast about Kenyan freedom fighters, Mogadishu's architectural history, and more.
West Africa: In some good news from Guinea, the country has become the 10th African state to ban all corporal punishment of children. Businesspeople in Côte d'Ivoire are turning to digital sales to avoid the high rents and taxes charged on retail shops, but the government is striking back by imposing high licensing fees for the motorcycle delivery services used by online vendors. Are home health volunteers the right solution for providing support to elderly people in Ghana? While slavery has been outlawed in Mauritania since 1981, up to 20% of the population are still functionally enslaved as forced agricultural or domestic laborers.
Gorgeous Ghana, from Kelechi Ofoegbu
Central Africa: The DRC is planning to open tenders for 19 oil blocks in the Congo Basin forest, which would be a climate disaster as it would destroy forests and peat bogs which are efficient stores of carbon. In Uganda, at least 15 minority tribes are not officially recognized by the government, which means that their members can't access national IDs or many state services unless they claim to belong to other ethnic groups. Here are the challenges with enforcing property tax collection in Kampala. This is a gripping story by an opposition parliamentary candidate in Uganda about his experience being arbitrarily detained for a month after the country's January 2021 elections.
East Africa: If you speak Sheng, check out this amazing podcast about the history of Kenyan freedom fighter Pio Gama Pinto. This was a moving series of articles about daily life in one of Nairobi's poorest neighborhoods. Uganda and Tanzania have finalized arrangements for the East African Crude Oil Project Pipeline, which would carry oil from Uganda to the coast, amid criticism of the environmental impacts of the project. Ethiopia has launched the country's first mobile money platform on state-owned EthioTelecom.
Hargeisa by night, via Saddam Carab
Southern Africa: Angola has officially decriminalized same-sex relationships. Meet the women from South Africa and Zimbabwe who are leading research at regional space exploration programs. The pandemic has pushed many Zimbabweans towards formal money transfer systems rather than informal ones. In Namibia, the supermarket chain Shoprite has ignored workers' demands for a living wage and used scab workers to break strikes.
Urbanization: Two interesting articles on Kenyan urbanism: one about how Nakuru is literally and metaphorically perceived as a place to "escape the heat" of Nairobi, and one about how Nairobi neighborhoods end up with names like "Kosovo" and "Nigeria." Read about Mogadishu's long architectural and cultural history as "The Pearl of the Indian Ocean." Addis is growing rapidly, but will it be able to preserve its unique architectural history? Don't miss the newly launched Off To Magazine, with its first two issues about life in Accra and Kinshasa.
Nairobi in the cold season, by Omar Mohammed
Economics & politics: Interesting new research from WIEGO finds that even though 85% of African citizens work in the informal sector, only 15% of COVID-19 relief packages explicitly worked with organizations representing informal workers to deliver aid. Can East African countries find the right balance between supporting domestic industry and benefiting from regional trade? Being an MP in many African countries is quite expensive in part because politicians are expected to individually fill gaps in service provision by the state. Check out the online BREAD conference on the economics of Africa from June 7 - 9, organized by several institutions including the African School of Economics.
Gender: In Nigeria, the #ArewaMeToo movement has grown from a hashtag where women have shared experiences of sexual violence and discrimination into a series of protests and activist organizations. This article traces the colonial origins of some forms of gender discrimination in Nigeria. Check out the newly launched Nawi Africa portal on African women in macroeconomics, and download this free collection of essays on African women's experiences of gender equality from Agbowó.
Check out more portraits by Andrew Esiebo and other winners of the CAP Prize for African Photography
Health & science: This article examines why healthcare providers discriminate against low income women during childbirth in Kenya. Meet the Nigerian scientist leading a revolution in African genetics research, and five inspiring African women talking about their journeys into the sciences. New collections of historical data on the height of individuals across Africa capture the damaging effects of colonialism.
Arts & culture: Nigeria's fantastic magazine The Republic is now offering student subscriptions for just US$1.99 per month. If you'd like even more digital Nigerian history, check out The Tracking archiv.ng, which is digitizing newspapers from 1960 - 2010. Congrats to Dr Ignatius Mabasa for writing the first PhD thesis in ChiShona at Rhodes University in South Africa! In other (parodic) news, "three of Africa’s richest men [have] launched AmericAID, a new organization backed by the African Union and aimed at addressing the many woes of the United States of America, the declining global superpower..."
Finally, a PSA from Deafblind Eritrean disability advocate Haben Girma: don't forget to use alt-text to provide an image description when you're uploading photos online, so that people using screen readers can understand the image!
Cheers,
Rachel