Africa Update Vol. 8
Welcome to this week's edition of Africa Update! We've got North Korea supporters in unlikely places, the rise of Eritrea, the fall of the Angolan construction sector, recommended summer reading, and more.
West Africa: Nigeria is implementing the country's first national welfare program, a cash transfer program with an annual price tag of US$2 billion. It would be easier to estimate the percentage of Nigerians below the poverty line if anyone knew exactly how many Nigerians there are. This looks like a fascinating paper on the way that residents of small towns in Nigeria refuse polio vaccination as a way of negotiating with the government for better local services. Don't miss this piece on the unlikely West African supporters of North Korea. Here's what Kenyan political parties can learn from Ghana's NPP about controlling electoral corruption.
Central Africa: Kris Berwouts has written a succinct overview of the various factions in Congolese politics. L’ONU a accusé les autorités de la RDC d’armer une milice dans le Kasaï. Here's how the DRC beat an Ebola outbreak in 42 days. This was a remarkable tour d'horizon of the last 30 years of Ugandan politics. Uganda has stopped issuing passports after running out of money to pay the UK firm which prints them.
East Africa: The crisis in Yemen is leading to an increase in Eritrea's political leverage. Could removing US sanctions on Sudan promote regional stability? Al-Shabaab remains a threat to the Somali government because they offer a credible alternative for local administration and dispute resolution. Here's why it's difficult to measure the performance of local governments in Tanzania. Presidential campaigns in Kenya may cost up to US$50 million per candidate. For all things related to the Kenyan election, check out the Otherwise? podcast.
The real winner of the Kenyan election is this tweet (about KPMG's audit of voter rolls)
Southern Africa: The DRC's Kabila is increasingly politically isolated at home, but his relationship with South Africa's Zuma remains strong. Angola's post-conflict building boom has ground to a halt as oil prices have fallen. In Zimbabwe, Mugabe continues playing various factions of ZANU-PF off each other to obscure questions of his succession.
Courts: Read this useful overview of the history of the Nigerian court system and the rise of alternate dispute resolution mechanisms. This was an excellent account of the complexities of reporting on local justice in northern Mali. Sophia Akuffo, Ghana's second female Chief Justice, has a difficult road ahead of her to reform the inefficient court system.
Infrastructure: Here's why building collapses are so common in Kenya. A drought in the hydroelectric-dependent DRC may cut the country's power output by 50% this year.
Bihoyiki Valantine is making strides in the Rwandan construction sector with her mostly-women team of employees (via Kigali Today)
Conflict: Audrey Gadzekpo has edited a new volume on conflict-sensitive reporting in West Africa. Israel has been secretly deporting African asylum-seekers back to other conflict-affected countries in Africa. Women living in refugee camps in Ethiopia and the DRC are far more likely to experience violence at the hands of a partner or family member than by an armed group. Most people displaced by conflict in Africa are receiving support from local citizens who live nearby, not from aid organizations. More than half the world's population now lives in countries with more private security guards than police officers -- and not just in the places you might expect. This is an insightful article on patterns of transnational organized crime in Africa.
Image via the Africa Center for Strategic Studies
Academia: Grieve Chelwa is editing a special edition of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies on "African perspectives on global corruption." The African Studies Association of Africa is accepting proposals until 31 July for its second biennial conference in Ghana in October. If you're going to ASAA, consider applying for the Pipeline for Emerging African Scholars workshop run by the African Studies Review. You could also go to China, which is now a more common destination for African scholars studying abroad than either the US or UK.
Society: The top 10 nominees for the 2017 Innovation Prize for Africa are doing very inspiring work. Did you know that nearly half of tourists in Africa are from Africa? We need to talk about the fact that 90% of venture capital funds in East Africa go to businesses with expat founders. Don't miss these 20 African novels to read this summer. Check out the news with a beat in Senegal's Journal Rappé.
Twitter: Interesting people I followed recently include Sekou Toure (Kenya + Ethiopia), Brenda Wambui (Kenya), Murithi Mutiga (Kenya), Rachel Mabala (Uganda), Varja Lipovsek (Tanzania), and Nii Kotei Nikoi (Ghana).
Cheers,
Rachel