Africa Update Vol. 4
Welcome to this week's edition of Africa Update! We've got striking judges, the Nigerian auto industry, political poetry, Ethiopian superheroes, and more.
West Africa: The Archive of Malian Photography is in the process of digitizing more than 100,000 images from Malian photographers. Seidik Abba déambule dans Diffa, la ville de son enfance au sud-est du Niger, meurtrie par la secte islamiste nigériane. Life is difficult for widows in Nigeria. Can the Nigerian designer of the Chevy Volt revitalize his country's auto industry? Here's an interesting interview on the state of transport systems in Ghana. Police in Accra spend half their time dealing with disputes related to land and chieftaincy.
Central Africa: Diane Rwigara, a 35-year old Rwandan businesswoman, is the most recent entrant into the country's 2017 presidential race. Ugandan lawyer Nicholas Opiyo has won the German Africa Prize for his work defending human rights. Improvements in cotton production in Uganda might revitalize the country's textile manufacturing sector. Congo-Brazzaville's crackdown on the Ninja militia is backfiring. This was a very interesting report on the DRC's Mangrove Marine Park, which is a bulwark against rising sea levels. Cities like Kinshasa are urbanizing without globalizing.
Sammy Baloji and Filip de Boeck have produced a great new photo series on daily life in Kinshasa, featuring photos like this one of an urban land chief and his sister
East Africa: South Sudan's judges are striking to ask for higher wages and the resignation of the country's chief justice. More than 75% of girls in South Sudan aren't attending school due to the ongoing civil war. The Italian mafia has apparently been trafficking drugs through eastern Kenya for decades. Satellite-based rainfall insurance in Kenya is helping pastoralists who are affected by drought. In a good sign for upcoming Kenyan elections, demand for political risk insurance remains low. Watch this interesting short video on the policewomen of Mogadishu.
Conflict: Here are five factors driving renewed fighting in South Sudan's Upper Nile region. Paul Staniland argues that African civil wars should be analyzed separately from civil wars in South Asia. The slump in global commodity prices is reducing military budgets across Africa.
Public health: A new app is tackling food insecurity in Nigeria. Deaths from traffic collisions are one of the most underdiscussed public health problems in low income countries. A new paper finds that conflict minerals legislation in the US led to worse public health outcomes in eastern DRC, where many mines were forced to close.
Energy: The president of Equatorial Guinea is acting as a matchmaker for oil companies across the continent. Rwanda and the DRC have signed an agreement to explore for oil in Lake Kivu. La pénurie du carburant déstabilise la capitale du Burundi. Ethiopia's petrol shortages are driven by its failure to liberalize the fuel market.
Map via Carlos Lopes
Academia: The International Centre for Tax and Development has a new call for proposals on property tax in Africa. PhD and MA scholarships are available at Pan African University Institutes across Africa. African economists are much more interested in employment policy than their non-African colleagues. Musawenkosi Saurombe from Botswana might be the youngest African woman to earn a PhD at only 23 years old.
Literature: Congratulations to Romeo Oriogun, winner of the 2017 Brunel International African Poetry Prize. Sudanese poets are speaking out against censorship. Five African novelists pick ten essential African novels. Check out Sophie Bósèdé Oluwole's new book putting Nigerian and ancient Greek philophers in conversation. FEMRITE has a new residency opportunity for female writers in Africa.
Film: If you're in New York, don't miss the African Film Festival (running till 9 May). Get a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of new superheroes for Ethiopian girls. Here's how Dilman Dila made a feature-length sci-fi film in Uganda. Africa's video game industry is on the rise.
Twitter: I got a lot of great recomendations this week from the Quartz Africa Innovators list. Favorites include Carlos Lopes (Guinea-Bissau), Lillian Makoi (Tanzania), Ilwad Elman (Somalia), Christian Benimana (Rwanda), Catherine Amayi (Kenya), Nanjira Sambuli (Kenya), and Joel Macharia (Kenya).
Cheers,
Rachel