Africa Update Vol. 44
Welcome to the latest edition of Africa Update! We’ve got the economics of document forgery in Uganda, Kenya’s last surviving tropical rainforest, legal conflicts over multigenerational home ownership in South Africa, and more.
West Africa: Here’s how political elites in Guinea-Bissau hollowed out civil society in order to keep power after independence. In Ghana, people who are the victims of anti-LBGTQI+ violence rarely have their cases taken up by the police. How did Ghana manage to escape the coup trap after the 1980s? In Nigeria, protests about government services can increase local government spending, but only if the local administration is politically aligned with the national government.
Central Africa: In Uganda, members of the Banyarwanda ethnic group are struggling to claim their citizenship rights despite being recognized as one of the country’s 65 indigenous groups. This is a fascinating article on the economics of document forgery in Kampala. “The Lumumba Plot” reassesses the CIA’s role in assassinating the DRC’s first prime minister in 1961. Burundi’s latest hydroelectric dam is 94% complete, but lack of funding to finish the project is preventing it from contributing to the country’s electricity generation needs.
East Africa: Landlocked Ethiopia is alternating between negotiations and threats of force in its attempts to expand access to Eritrean ports along the Red Sea. A year after Ethiopia’s conflict in the Tigray region ended, 86% of healthcare facilities are still damaged. Here’s an insightful long read about how the collapse of al-Bashir’s government in 2019 led to the current civil war in Sudan. “Almost half (44%) of the total volume of pesticides used in Kenya are already banned in Europe due to their unacceptable risk to human health and the environment.”
Southern Africa: In South Africa, legal regulations around inheritance don’t match up with the idea of the family home as a shared, multigenerational space. This was an insightful piece about the experience of male domestic workers in South Africa, who are often immigrants from nearby countries like Malawi or Zimbabwe. Meet the third-generation feminists working for women’s rights in Zimbabwe.
Politics + economics: Term limits are still hotly contested in many African countries, with the leaders of 14 countries currently holding onto power in defiance of two-term limits. Russia’s political and economic influence in Africa seems to be widely overstated. Many African governments are interested in encouraging investment and decongesting their capitals by building new cities, but this is a risky approach unless the new cities can provide enough infrastructure and amenities to actually attract residents. This is an interesting history of religious and diplomatic outreach from African kingdoms to Asia and Europe from the medieval period onwards.
Environment: Kenya’s last tropical rainforest is under threat from deforestation and land use change. Africa’s first carbon capture plant in Kenya raises questions about whether this energy-intensive method of removing emissions is effective or just greenwashing. Less than 1% of funding for research on global climate change is going to African scientists, even though 18% of the world’s population lives on this continent which is particularly vulnerable to global warming.
Art + culture: Meet Susan Murabana, the Kenyan astronomer whose Travelling Telescope program is bringing the stars to the people. Why are the African accents in Western films still so awful? Ibua Publishing is offering a fellowship providing East African novelists with editorial and publication support, deadline 26 January 2024. If you’re in London, don’t miss Ghanaian artist El Anatsui’s cascading metal sculptures, on display at the Tate Modern until 14 April 2024.
Cheers,
Rachel