Africa Update Vol. 39
Welcome to the latest edition of Africa Update! We’ve got Nigerian danfo slogans, the ghost railways of East Africa, political consolidation in Somalia, the inaugural African Humanities Association conference, and more.
West Africa: In Ghana, policymakers have banned many used car imports but are still carrying on with urban planning which incentivizes car use, leading older cars to stay on the road for longer. The colorful slogans painted on danfos in Nigeria help “operators [to] sustain a sense of agency in the face of disempowering circumstances.” In Senegal, “informal, or rather informalized, invisibilized [domestic] workers live in precarious conditions and are sometimes subjected to terrible abuse and mistreatment … in the homes they work in.”
Central Africa: A new World Bank report suggests that 80% of children in West and Central Africa can’t read a simple text by the age of 10. Uganda Airlines wants to invest $500 million in new aircraft, despite the fact that the company has been losing money steadily since its relaunch in 2019. Almost twenty years after the end of the civil war, Burundi’s ethnic power-sharing agreements for top political posts have proven surprisingly durable.
East Africa: Ken Opalo has written a great summary of the competition between Kenya and Tanzania to be the gateway for rail access to east and central Africa. New research from Kenya shows that the death penalty doesn’t deter people from committing serious crimes. 80 years after slavery was outlawed in Ethiopia, little has been done to commemorate or honor formerly enslaved people. The federal government of Somalia finally appears to be making some progress in consolidating political power.
Southern Africa: In Cape Town, “two million people live in informal settlements or in overcrowded township housing…in a city that builds between 11,000-16,000 low cost units a year.” Eskom’s electricity failures in South Africa are now leading to water failures, as the batteries which power water pumps are running dry. New research suggests that the government in Malawi targets humanitarian aid to try to mobilize swing voters - but the strategy doesn’t usually work.
Politics + economics: This looks like a great deep dive into the economics of moto-taxis across Africa. Water providers in Nairobi are increasingly adapting new technologies to make people pay for water, but residents of informal settlements frequently resist by finding ways around the meters. Which African countries are ready for nuclear power? The Ghanaian government provided a range of cash transfers and utility subsidies to cushion citizens during the pandemic, but new research suggests most of these schemes didn’t benefit the poorest and most vulnerable households.
Gender: Don’t miss the NAWI Africa podcast providing feminist analysis of legal and economic issues across the continent. Sierra Leone has finally passed a progressive legal framework which allows women to own land and be made paramount chiefs. This looks like a fantastic new book on digital organizing by African feminist groups.
Research + conferences: I’d love to see more abstracts like this one written in Sheng (Nairobi’s urban Swahili dialect)! The Uganda Studies Group has a wonderful lineup of public lectures running through May 10. If you’re an African researcher, consider taking APHRC’s African Research Culture survey about research environments across the continent. The African Humanities Association will hold its inaugural conference in Cape Town in November 2023, and panel submissions are due by April 28.
Cheers,
Rachel