tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/dar-es-salaam-34048/articlesDar es Salaam – La Conversation2023-06-04T07:46:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2065082023-06-04T07:46:28Z2023-06-04T07:46:28ZTanzania has moved its capital from Dar after a 50-year wait - but is Dodoma ready?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529324/original/file-20230531-17-d3kbys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tanzania designated Dodoma as it’s new capital following a public referendum 50 years ago.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Tanzania designated Dodoma as its new capital in place of the seaside city of Dar es Salaam following a public referendum 50 years ago. Since then, the country has made small steps towards this goal – including the relocation of Parliament in 2017 – but Dodoma remained the national capital only in name. With the inauguration of the new presidential offices in Dodoma in May 2023, the transition to the capital is now all but complete. Ambrose Kessy, a public administration expert, answers the key questions</em>. </p>
<h2>What’s the background to Tanzania’s capital city relocation?</h2>
<p>The history of Tanzania’s capital city is lengthy and complex. It stretches back to the German colonial era. To take advantage of Dar es Salaam’s protected harbour, the German government chose Dar es Salaam as the capital of German East Africa rather than the well-established port of Bagamoyo a mere 60km north. </p>
<p>The first president of Tanzania, Julius Kambarage Nyerere, announced the planned move from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma in 1973. A state agency and ministry were established to oversee the implementation of the plan. It was decided that Dar es Salaam would continue to serve as the nation’s principal port and commercial capital. This choice posed a difficult development challenge. Government services and resources had to be relocated and infrastructure had to be built. A comprehensive array of administrative functions were needed in Dodoma.</p>
<p>Several observers of Tanzania’s social, economic, and political environment wondered why such a step was taken in the context of Tanzania’s development philosophy of socialism and self-reliance. Dodoma was a capital nobody desired, and some called it a political hoax or a white elephant project.</p>
<p>I recently published <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358995614_The_Long_Waiting_for_Relocating_Capital_City_in_Tanzania_The_Continuity_of_the_Game_Changer_and_the_Challenges_Ahead">a paper</a> outlining the pivotal role played by President John Pombe Magufuli (2015-2021) and his successor President Samia Suluhu Hassan to make the move a reality. It took Magufuli’s bold actions and Suluhu’s persistence to end decades of apathy. </p>
<h2>Why was the relocation necessary?</h2>
<p>The reasons are complex. The following are some of the most important factors that informed the decision: </p>
<p><strong>Overcrowding and strain on infrastructure:</strong> Dar es Salaam has a <a href="https://www.nbs.go.tz/nbs/takwimu/Census2022/matokeomwanzooktoba2022.pdf#page=17">population</a> of 5,383,728 people and is suffering from <a href="https://theconversation.com/heat-and-health-dar-es-salaams-informal-settlements-need-help-181816">overcrowding</a> and infrastructural strain. Moving the capital aimed to redistribute some of the population and ease pressure on resources and public services in Dar es Salaam. The rate of population growth in Dar es Salaam region <a href="https://www.nbs.go.tz/nbs/takwimu/Census2022/matokeomwanzooktoba2022.pdf#page=21">has decreased</a> from 5.6% in 2012 to 2.1% in 2022. </p>
<p><strong>Uneven development:</strong> Tanzania’s development was heavily concentrated in Dar es Salaam and other coastal regions. The move aimed to stimulate economic activity in previously neglected regions. </p>
<p><strong>Accessibility and national unity:</strong> By relocating the capital to a more central location, the government aimed to make it more accessible to all and foster national unity and inclusiveness. </p>
<p><strong>Efficiency of government operations:</strong> The idea was to reduce the cost and time associated with travel between Dar es Salaam and other parts of the country for government officials. </p>
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<img alt="Aerial view of Dar es Salaam city" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528794/original/file-20230529-23-n1uxyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Dar es Salaam has experienced congestion and strain on infrastructure.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MOIZ HUSEIN STORYTELLER / Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Why has it taken so long?</h2>
<p>Despite the clear benefits, the relocation process has been slow due to a combination of political, economic, and logistical factors. The national leadership lacked the commitment. Successive governments delayed the move owing to competing priorities like developing education and health.</p>
<p>Economic challenges have also played a role, as Tanzania has had to carefully allocate its limited budget. Moving an entire capital city also poses logistical challenges.</p>
<p>But the 50-year journey culminated on 20 May 2023, with the opening of the new State House building in Chamwino, Dodoma. The building will hold presidential offices and the official home of the president.</p>
<h2>What challenges does Dodoma face as the new capital?</h2>
<p>The city must develop the necessary infrastructure, including transport systems, water supply and housing, to accommodate government workers and residents. </p>
<p>Two districts in Dodoma region, <a href="https://www.nbs.go.tz/nbs/takwimu/Census2022/Administrative_units_Population_Distribution_Report_Tanzania_volume1a.pdf#page=54">Dodoma and Chamwino</a>, comprise the new capital city with roughly 765,179 and 486,176 people respectively. Service provision in Dodoma has been improving but still lags behind Dar es Salaam. It is <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/national/challenges-galore-as-dodoma-reclaims-capital-city-status-2606528">anticipated</a> that by the end of 2023, more than 1,500 officials will have moved to Dodoma as part of the relocation. </p>
<p>The new city has a deficiency in utilities and community infrastructure to meet rapidly rising demand, notably in solid and liquid waste management, education, healthcare, and integrated public transport.<a href="https://dodomacc.go.tz/storage/app/uploads/public/5e4/d3c/7ee/5e4d3c7ee3181202034761.pdf#page=74"> For example</a>, only 6% of the Dodoma city population is linked to the sewage system, with the other 94% relying on various methods of waste water disposal.</p>
<p>The government has made some good efforts to address these challenges. Detailed design work for the <a href="https://www.jica.go.jp/english/our_work/social_environmental/id/africa/tanzania/c8h0vm0000f5xmir.html">construction</a> of 63 <a href="https://projectsportal.afdb.org/dataportal/VProject/show/P-TZ-DB0-025%20">ring roads</a> in Dodoma city has been completed. And the city council has built several commuter transport routes within the region to serve residents in new areas. The government has also started work on <a href="https://unitedrepublicoftanzania.com/economy-of-tanzania/infrastructure-in-tanzania/airports-in-tanzania/overview-the-msalato-international-airport-new-dodoma-construction-project-design/">a new international airport at Msalato</a>, Dodoma. The new airport will have a three-storey terminal for departing and arriving passengers, with a capacity of 1,500,000 persons per year.</p>
<p>Healthcare facilities in Dodoma <a href="https://www.nbs.go.tz/nbs/takwimu/Census2022/matokeomwanzooktoba2022.pdf#page=31">have increased</a> from 429 in the year starting June 2020 to 467 in the year ending June 2023. Water supply has increased over the period from 61.5 million litres per day on average to 67.8 million litres per day. </p>
<p>Despite these efforts by the government, Dodoma might not be fully ready to handle a massive population influx from other regions. It must attract businesses and investors to create a self-sustaining economy. The city will need to address potential social issues, such as the need for more accommodation and recreational facilities, as the population grows. It will also need a strong services sector. </p>
<h2>What can Tanzania learn from other African countries?</h2>
<p>Nigeria’s change of capital from Lagos to Abuja in the 1990s can provide <a href="https://www.scirp.org/html/6-1150402_95128.htm">insights</a> into the planning and execution of such a relocation. Abuja was a purpose-built city. </p>
<p>Key takeaways include the importance of involving stakeholders in the planning process, ensuring adequate infrastructure development, and promoting the new capital as a business hub to attract investment. </p>
<p>Proper planning and financial management are crucial. The relocation process can be costly, as seen in Nigeria. Tanzania should budget carefully for the move while ensuring transparency and accountability in financial management. </p>
<p>The country can also learn from South Africa’s approach of developing more than one city as a capital. Tanzania should continue to invest in the development of Dar es Salaam as an economic hub and maximise its growth potential. </p>
<p>By considering these lessons, Tanzania can ensure a successful transition, and promote long-term growth and development in Dodoma and the whole country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206508/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ambrose T. Kessy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dodoma will need to address social issues such as increased accommodation and recreational facilities as population growsAmbrose T. Kessy, Professor of Public Administration , University of DodomaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2024482023-04-03T13:57:39Z2023-04-03T13:57:39ZTanzania-South Africa: deep ties evoke Africa’s sacrifices for freedom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517946/original/file-20230328-16-hrrcio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, left, hosts his Tanzanian counterpart during a state visit in March 2023.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan recently paid a <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/opening-remarks-president-cyril-ramaphosa-during-official-talks-state-visit-tanzanian-president-samia-suluhu-hassan%2C-union-buildings%2C-tshwane">state visit to South Africa</a> aimed at strengthening bilateral political and trade relations. As the South African presidency <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-host-her-excellency-president-hassan-tanzania-state-visit">noted</a>, ties between the two nations date back to Tanzania’s solidarity with the anti-apartheid struggle. </p>
<p>This history is an important reminder of the anti-colonial and pan-African bonds underpinning international solidarity with southern African liberation struggles. It’s also a reminder of the sacrifices many African countries made to realise continental freedom.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Tanganyika">Tanganyika</a>, as Tanzania was known before independence in 1961, was the first safe post for South Africans fleeing in the aftermath of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville massacre</a> on 21 March 1960, when apartheid police shot dead 69 peaceful protesters. The apartheid regime <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/origins-formation-sharpeville-and-banning-1959-1960">banned liberation movements</a> shortly thereafter. </p>
<p>Among those who left South Africa to rally international support for the liberation struggle were then African National Congress deputy president <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-is-celebrating-the-year-of-or-tambo-who-was-he-85838">Oliver Reginald Tambo</a>, Communist Party and Indian Congress leader <a href="https://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/people.php?kid=163-574-661">Yusuf Mohammed Dadoo</a>, and the Pan Africanist Congress’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/nelson-nana-mahomo">Nana Mahomo</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/peter-hlaole-molotsi">Peter Molotsi</a>.</p>
<p>Not many people will know that on 26 June 1959 <a href="https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-128;jsessionid=5715EBDE3CC6DEEF837F2753FC3A4D39">Julius Nyerere</a>, the future president of Tanzania, was among the speakers at a meeting in London where the first boycott of South African goods in Britain was launched. Out of this campaign, the <a href="https://www.aamarchives.org/">British Anti-Apartheid Movement</a> was born a year later. It spearheaded the international solidarity movement in western countries over the next three decades.</p>
<h2>Liberation struggle bonds</h2>
<p>Tanzania’s support for South Africa’s liberation struggle needs to be understood as part of its broader opposition to colonialism, and commitment to the achievement of independence in the entire African continent. In 1958, Nyerere <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/panafrican-freedom-movement-of-east-and-central-africa-pafmeca/A08CAFDC63C736384E47D52AA94191E2">helped establish</a> the Pan African Freedom Movement of Eastern and Central Africa to coordinate activities in this regard. This was extended to the Pan African Freedom Movement of Eastern and Central and Southern Africa at a conference in Addis Ababa in 1962. Nelson Mandela <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/1962-nelson-mandela-address-conference-pan-african-freedom-movement-east-and-central-africa/">addressed the conference</a> with the aim of arranging support for the armed struggle in South Africa. These efforts eventually led to the creation of the <a href="https://www.africanunion-un.org/history">Organisation for African Unity (OAU) in 1963</a>.</p>
<p>In February 1961, James Hadebe for the ANC and Gaur Radebe for the PAC opened an office in Dar es Salaam representing the <a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sections/sacp/1962/pac.html">South African United Front</a>. It was the first external structure set up by the two liberation movements. Their unity was short-lived. But, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s capital, grew into a centre of anti-colonial activity after independence from Britain in December 1961. </p>
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<img alt="A man with a serious look on his face rests his chin on his left shoulder. His watch shows." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518130/original/file-20230329-20-z2y2c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The late Julius Nyerere was a staunch supporter of the movement for Africa’s independence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">William F. Campbell/Getty Images)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>At independence, Tanzania faced a shortage of nurses as British nurses left in droves rather than work for an African government. On President Nyerere’s request, Tambo arranged the underground recruitment of 20 South African nurses (“the 20 Nightingales”) to <a href="https://www.jamboafrica.online/clarence-kwinana-the-untold-story-of-the-20-nightingales-a-contribution-never-to-be-forgotten/">work in Tanzanian hospitals</a>. The remains of one of them, Kholeka Tunyiswa, who died on 5 March 2023 in Dar es Salaam, were repatriated to South Africa for reburial in <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/news/remains-sa-nurse-tunyiswa-repatriated/">her home city of Gqeberha</a>, Eastern Cape.</p>
<p>In the early 1960s, Tanzania was the southernmost independent African country from which armed operations could be carried out into unliberated territories in southern Africa. Its capital was chosen as the operational base of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41394216">OAU’s Liberation Committee</a>. The committee provided financial and material assistance to liberation movements. Its archives remain in Tanzania. </p>
<p>In 1963, the ANC officially established its Tanzania mission, with headquarters in Dar es Salaam. A military camp for guerrillas of its armed wing, <a href="https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1098?rskey=uSBACj&result=1">uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK)</a>
, who had returned from training in other African and socialist countries, was opened in Kongwa. The Tanzanian government donated the land. </p>
<p>Also stationed there were the armies of other southern African liberation movements – <a href="https://www.saha.org.za/collections/the_mafela_trust_collection_7.htm">ZAPU</a>, <a href="https://www.aluka.org/struggles/partner/XSTFRELIMO">Frelimo</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41502445">SWAPO</a> and the <a href="https://www.tchiweka.org/">MPLA</a>.</p>
<p>In 1964, the PAC also moved its external headquarters to Dar es Salaam after it was pushed out of Lesotho. It <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0018-229X2015000200002">established military camps</a> near Mbeya and later in Mgagao, and a settlement in Ruvu. Both the PAC and the ANC held important conferences in Tanzania, in Moshi in 1967 and in Morogoro in 1969, respectively. These led to internal reorganisation and new <a href="https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/anc/1969/strategy-tactics.htm">strategic positions</a>.</p>
<h2>Hitches in the relationship</h2>
<p>In spite of Tanzania’s support for the liberation movements, their relationship was not without its contradictions or moments of ambivalence. </p>
<p>In 1965, for example, the ANC had to move its headquarters from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, a small upcountry town far from international connections. The Tanzanian government had decided that only four members of each liberation movement would be allowed to maintain an office in the capital. This reflected Tanzania’s anxiety over the growing numbers of revolutionaries and trained guerrillas it hosted. </p>
<p>In 1969 Tanzania, Zambia and 12 other African countries issued the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45312264">Lusaka manifesto</a>, which was also adopted by the OAU. It expressed preference for a peaceful solution to the conflict in South Africa over armed struggle. There were also rumours of ANC involvement in an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/13/archives/tanzanian-treason-trial-entering-third-week.html">attempted coup against Nyerere</a>. In this climate, the ANC had to evacuate its entire army to the Soviet Union. Its soldiers were allowed back in the country a couple of years later.</p>
<h2>Lived spaces of solidarity</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, ANC headquarters moved to Lusaka, in Zambia, and uMkhonto we Sizwe operations <a href="https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1098?rskey=uSBACj&result=1">moved</a> to newly independent Angola and Mozambique. But Tanzania remained a significant place of settlement for South African exiles. </p>
<p>In the late 1970s and 1980s, additional land donations from the Tanzanian government enabled the ANC to open a school and a vocational centre near Morogoro. The Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Mazimbu and the Dakawa Development Centre were set up <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/education-in-exile">to address the outflow of young people</a> from South Africa following the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">June 1976 Soweto uprising</a>. Its other aim was to counter the effects of <a href="https://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/sidebar.php?kid=163-581-2">Bantu education</a>, a segregated and inferior education system for black South Africans. </p>
<p>These became unique spaces of lived solidarity between the ANC and its international supporters. They accommodated up to 5,000 South Africans. Some of them died before they could see a liberated South Africa. Their graves are in Mazimbu. Besides educational facilities, the camps included an hospital, a productive farm, workshops and factories. They were all developed with donor funding.</p>
<p>Tanzanians, too, contributed to these projects through their labour. Many Tanzanian women became entangled in South Africa’s liberation struggle through intimate relationships, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2014.886476">marriage and children</a>. Thanks to these everyday social interactions, Tanzania became “home” for many South African exiles. The ANC handed over the facilities at Somafco and Dakawa <a href="https://www.conas.sua.ac.tz/historical-sites">to the Tanzanian government</a> on the eve of the first democratic elections in 1994. But these personal and affective connections live on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arianna Lissoni does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ties between the two nations date back to Tanzania’s solidarity with the anti-apartheid struggle.Arianna Lissoni, Researcher at History Workshop, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1984362023-01-26T11:33:35Z2023-01-26T11:33:35ZTanzania: opposition rallies are finally unbanned – but this doesn’t mean democratic reform is coming<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506142/original/file-20230124-12-e1tmt0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of Tanzania's main opposition party Chadema wave during a rally in Mwanza. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Jamson/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Tanzania, the political rally is back. Chadema, Tanzania’s leading opposition party, <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/national/chadema-paint-mwanza-blue-red-and-white-on-first-rally-since-ban-lifted-4093998">held mass rallies</a> outside the official election campaign for the first time in six and a half years on 21 January 2023. </p>
<p>It could do so because three weeks earlier, President Samia Suluhu Hassan <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/tanzania-president-lifts-ban-on-opposition-political-rallies-4074510">lifted the ban</a> on public rallies. Assassination-attempt survivor and opposition politician <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54484609">Tundu Lissu</a> returned to Tanzania on 25 January to take part in them.</p>
<p>The ban on rallies was introduced in June 2016 by the late President John Magufuli. It became a central plank of an <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/tanzania-the-authoritarian-landslide/">authoritarian turn</a> initiated by the ruling party, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), but ultimately propelled by Magufuli. The ban, however, appeared to affect only the opposition – CCM continued to convene rallies with impunity throughout. </p>
<p>Magufuli’s death on 17 March 2021 raised the dual possibilities that the CCM regime might loosen its iron grip, and that in such a context, the opposition might rebuild. The end of the ban on rallies has implications for both these possibilities.</p>
<p>I have spent 10 years researching <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/ady061">Chadema’s grassroots organising</a> and what it calls <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2022.2150759">the struggle for democracy</a>. I am writing a book on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219847952">rallies in Tanzania</a>.</p>
<p>In my view, the unbanning of rallies will tremendously alter the space in which the opposition has to operate. However, this doesn’t set Tanzania on any path of democratic reform. The timing and wider context still leaves the opposition with a big task ahead. </p>
<p>The very real possibility remains that Hassan has unbanned rallies to <em>signal</em> that she plans future democratic reforms – without actually enacting any.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-hassan-has-put-out-positive-signals-deeper-change-is-yet-to-come-180704">Tanzania's Hassan has put out positive signals: deeper change is yet to come</a>
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<h2>A culture of rallies</h2>
<p>It’s easy to underestimate the importance of the rally in Tanzania. In much of the global north, political rallies are things seen on TV and attended by ultra-partisans. But not in Tanzania.</p>
<p>In 2015, I oversaw the collection of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219847952">nationally representative survey in Tanzania</a>. It showed that in the last month of the country’s election campaign, 69% of all people attended rallies. This figure dwarfs its equivalents in the global north. In the 2016 US campaign, just <a href="https://electionstudies.org/data-center/">7% of people</a> attended public meetings.</p>
<p>Not only did a large proportion of Tanzanians attend rallies. They also attended them frequently. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219847952">same survey data</a> showed that the average person attended seven such rallies in the last month of the campaign, or just under one every four days. </p>
<p>In Tanzania, the rally is, or in political campaigning becomes, a medium of mass communication, just as it does across <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219847952">much of the global south</a>. Indefinitely banning rallies does to public communication in Tanzania what indefinitely banning television, or the internet, would do in the global north. </p>
<p>Tanzania’s <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/magufuli-criticised-as-tanzania-bans-rallies--1351138">ban on rallies</a> was doubly painful for the opposition. First, it was a ban, in effect, only on opposition rallies. </p>
<p>Second, the opposition needs rallies in a way that the ruling party does not. In the shadow of state coercion, media outlets offer the opposition scarce and hostile coverage. The rally offers the opposition a way to reach the <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/publication/summary-results-afrobarometer-round-8-survey-tanzania-2021/">73% of Tanzanians</a> who say they don’t (directly) get news via social media. </p>
<h2>Rallies and grassroots organising</h2>
<p>The ban on rallies was lifted for the election campaign in 2020, but the opposition needs rallies between elections too – this is when they organise.</p>
<p>Chadema leaders and activists <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13540688211041034">told me</a> that between 2007 and 2015, they founded party branches across much of Tanzania. Their work paid off. The <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/118/473/692/5250960">survey data I collected</a> showed that in the 2015 campaign, Chadema’s ground campaign was so strong that it made at least as many house-to-house visits as the ruling party, perhaps more.</p>
<p>They achieved this party-building feat in large part through rallies. Teams of party leaders toured the country convening rallies. They imparted their messages and recruited attendees. Follow-up teams organised these new recruits into branches.</p>
<p>In parallel, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688211041034">lone organisers</a> ran their own solo party-building initiatives. These local leaders, among them the 2020 presidential candidate <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54484609">Tundu Lissu</a>, held public meetings in villages. Incrementally, they recruited local activists who became the leaders of new branches. </p>
<p>Today, though, it’s hard to know how well these structures have endured. Opposition activists were subjected to everyday oppression. It peaked during <a href="https://democracyinafrica.org/remembering-not-to-forget-tanzanias-2020-general-elections/">the violence of the 2020 election</a>, and was designed to <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/tanzania-the-authoritarian-landslide/">demoralise and demobilise them</a>.</p>
<p>This means that opposition parties have their work cut out. They have to re-join public debates after years of censorship, and reorganise and remotivate their supporters all at once.</p>
<p>This makes the timing of the end of the ban important. </p>
<p>Chadema’s grassroots organising for the 2015 election began just months after the 2010 election. Revoking the ban now, just over two and a half years before the October 2025 election, leaves opposition parties with a greater task than they have faced before – and less time in which to do it.</p>
<h2>President Hassan: reforming or gaslighting?</h2>
<p>Unbanning the rally is perhaps the most concrete opening of political space that <a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-hassan-has-put-out-positive-signals-deeper-change-is-yet-to-come-180704">Hassan has introduced</a> since she was sworn in as president.</p>
<p>Some will be tempted to read the unbanning of the rally as a sign of things to come. But that would be unduly optimistic.</p>
<p>It <em>may</em> be that Hassan plans to enact a wider programme of democratic reforms. Or it may be that she lifted the ban precisely so that it <em>looks</em> like that’s her plan.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tanzanias-hassan-faces-her-first-political-test-constitutional-reform-165088">Tanzania's Hassan faces her first political test: constitutional reform</a>
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<p>Ultimately, either reading could turn out to be right. Interpreting the intentions of the often inscrutable Hassan is a matter of guesswork. But there are reasons to be sceptical. </p>
<p>First, the rally ban was part of an authoritarian architecture. The ban is gone, but the architecture remains. This leaves the regime with means aplenty to preserve its dominance. </p>
<p>Second, with the exception of the Magufuli years, the regime has long maintained the appearance of being the sort that would oversee democratic reforms – while implementing few of them.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/oped/of-political-rallies-and-a-new-constitution-4087284">significance</a> of the rally’s return may not be in what the regime will grant. Instead, it may be in what the opposition can demand. Chadema used its first rally to call again for a new constitution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198436/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Paget does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After years of censorship, opposition parties have to – all at once – rejoin public debates, reorganise and remotivate demoralised supporters.Dan Paget, Lecturer in Politics, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1818162022-05-16T14:29:54Z2022-05-16T14:29:54ZHeat and health: Dar es Salaam’s informal settlements need help<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462261/original/file-20220510-12-eohgf5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tanzania, Dar es Salaam: increasing temperatures under climate change are likely to be a significant risk to human health in informal settlements.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdinet/14433005629">Flickr/Slum Dwellers International</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the coming decades, heat will become one of the most significant and visible impacts of climate change, particularly in Africa, <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_FinalDraft_Chapter09.pdf">where temperatures are expected to increase faster than the global average</a>. Heat is linked to both increases in <a href="https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1476-069X-8-40">deaths and disease</a>.</p>
<p>The African continent has received far less attention than <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/10/12577">high-income countries</a> in research on heat’s effects on health. Little is known about how vulnerable people are to heat, and there seem to be few heat-related policies, warning and action systems established to ensure <a href="http://theconversation.com/why-african-countries-need-to-make-plans-to-cope-with-rising-temperatures-51588">public health and safety</a>.</p>
<p>Cities are recognised as areas particularly vulnerable to effects of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18031221/">heat on health</a>. This is because urbanised areas experience higher temperatures than less-urbanised or rural areas. Research has also shown that marginalised groups, such as the poor, or minorities, seem to suffer the most from <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2900329/">heat-related deaths and disease</a>. </p>
<p>I conducted <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969720348841?via%3Dihub">research in Dar es Salaam</a> between September 2016 to February 2018. It included interviews with urban decision-makers from the public sector, informal settlement residents and health sector actors. It also included literature reviews, climate analyses and a stakeholder engagement workshop.</p>
<p>My findings showed that informal settlements in Dar es Salaam are highly vulnerable to the health effects of heat. While Dar es Salaam has a tropical climate, and therefore one that isn’t generally exposed to “extreme” temperatures, informal settlement residents reported that the levels of heat in the city were already too much for them.</p>
<h2>Significant risks</h2>
<p>The results of the study suggest that increasing temperatures under climate change are likely to be a significant risk to human health in Africa because many cities are likely to have the same features as Dar es Salaam that increase the vulnerability of informal settlements to heat. </p>
<p>These include being located in areas where temperatures are high for much of the year, experiencing rapid urban population growth that outstrips service delivery, housing and infrastructure provision, and losing green spaces and vegetation cover to urban sprawl.</p>
<p>Dar es Salaam is a city of about <a href="https://www.giz.de/en/downloads/GIZ_Fact_Sheet_Arbeiten_in_Tansania_en.pdf">4.5 million people</a>. It is located on the coast in the eastern part of the Tanzanian mainland. While not the national capital, it is Tanzania’s economic hub and largest city. Its population is projected to reach <a href="https://population.un.org/wup/Publications/">“megacity” status</a> – 10 million residents or more – by the early 2030s. As shown by the climate analyses, the city has a tropical climate with relatively warm temperatures and high humidity.</p>
<p>About 75% of households in the city live in structures that are unplanned or informal. These have features that either increase temperatures or lack features that would cool them down. For example, think of the hot sun beating down on tin roofs or tin shacks. </p>
<p>In addition, inadequate or absent planning means that housing is too densely packed so that air can’t circulate. And the rapid growth of informal settlements is causing green spaces to disappear. This means that the cooling (and shading) effects of vegetation are lacking. </p>
<p>On top of that, the health of people living in informal settlements is already worn down by other stressors, making them more vulnerable to heat-related death and disease.</p>
<p>Finally, informal settlement residents have little capacity to adapt to heat, because they lack resources. For instance, a fan, and the electricity to power it, is a luxury. </p>
<p>Added to that, residents have very little knowledge of heat-health interactions, and very little access to information on heat-health impacts and what adaptation measures they could take. </p>
<h2>What can be done</h2>
<p>At the the time of my study the city did not yet have a strategy or action plans for managing heat-health effects.</p>
<p>But there’s a great deal that can be done.</p>
<p>Cities can develop measures to mitigate high vulnerability to effects of heat on health by developing action plans. For example, one simple measure is to communicate the risks of hot weather and heatwaves, and to provide advice to citizens.</p>
<p>Interventions like this have typically been developed in high-income countries and would need to be adapted to the realities of low-income countries. For example, communicating a heat-health information plan will need both formal and informal systems in African countries. Some commonly used warning channels, such as the TV, may not reach informal settlement residents. Using community leaders to share messages would be better.</p>
<p>Similarly, certain measures to keep indoor temperatures low during times of high heat exposure might be very difficult to put in place given the reality of African cities. Heat-resistant buildings can reduce vulnerability to heat, for instance, but are not very feasible in informal settlements.</p>
<p>But urban authorities could create “cooling centres” in places such as schools, churches or clinics in areas where residents have few resources to escape the heat. And, given that vegetation strongly contributes to heat resistance, more <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29149680/">more vegetated areas</a> could be developed. </p>
<p>Urban planning approaches can focus on protecting and restoring vegetated open space, or increasing the levels of native vegetation and tree cover. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, more “visible” problems like drought and water scarcity (think of Cape Town’s famous “Day Zero” crisis) can overshadow the significance of heat as a health issue, in part because heat can be thought of as a “silent killer” – its contribution to death and disease is only obvious in times of extreme heatwaves. </p>
<p>The Dar es Salaam example shows that heat is already a problem for residents, and that the heat-health issue is under-prioritised.</p>
<p>Policy-makers and practitioners urgently need to give attention to the effects of heat on the health of people, particularly those living in vulnerable conditions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181816/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorena Pasquini's work is based upon research supported by the Urban Africa: Risk Knowledge (Urban ARK) programme, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and Department for International Development (grant number ES/L008777/1). She is currently affiliated also with Just Share. </span></em></p>Informal settlements in Dar es Salaam are highly vulnerable to the health effects of heat.Lorena Pasquini, Associate Researcher, African Climate & Development Initiative and Climate System Analysis Group, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1814862022-05-12T14:02:44Z2022-05-12T14:02:44ZDar es Salaam’s bus rapid transit: why it’s been a long, bumpy ride<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460513/original/file-20220429-14-vmfrxi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"> Dar's rapid bus transit system is expected to be faster to build and cheaper to operate than railways. SAID KHALFAN/AFP via </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-picture-taken-on-august-18-2016-shows-a-dart-bus-news-photo/591875410?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Infrastructure projects are often subject to political aspirations. But when they are not realised as promised or their costs multiply over the years, the projects turn into public controversies. After a while, the aspirations, promises and controversies settle as the infrastructure system becomes an <a href="https://theconversation.com/megaprojects-in-addis-ababa-raise-questions-about-spatial-justice-141067">integral</a> part of the environment and society. </p>
<p>Dar es Salaam Bus Rapid Transit is such a project. It was planned to improve urban transport by gradually replacing minibuses in Tanzania’s largest city.</p>
<p>Various challenges, like unclear construction plans, residents’ protests and unexpected costs, led to several years of delay in constructing and implementing the transport system. Planning started in the early 2000s and it began to operate in 2016. </p>
<p>One out of six construction phases is complete, offering more than 300,000 trips daily. The second phase is under construction and funding has been secured for its third to fifth phases. Phase six is still under discussion.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Assembling-Bus-Rapid-Transit-in-the-Global-South-Translating-Global-Models/Jacobsen/p/book/9780367894771">research</a> shows how the Dar es Salaam Bus Rapid Transit is both political and deeply embedded into global and local social structures. It also looks at what these entanglements mean for the implementation of a bus rapid transit model in a specific context.</p>
<p>Despite concrete plans and binding contracts that framed the infrastructural project over decades, local social and political conditions still shape its development.</p>
<h2>Pioneer project</h2>
<p>This transport project has played a central role in Tanzania’s national politics. The government set a strong focus on infrastructural development, and the project served as a pioneer of urban transport innovations and large infrastructure systems. It was mainly promoted by the late President John Magufuli while he served as minister for works.</p>
<p>Dar es Salaam <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/national/rapid-buses-to-bring-relief-2510284">experiences</a> heavy congestion. Minibuses, called “daladala”, are the main mode of urban transport. They are reliable and efficient, but they cannot handle the city’s rapid population growth. This is mainly because they do not have their own physical infrastructure like the rail and bus rapid transit systems do. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dar-es-salaams-new-rapid-bus-system-won-international-acclaim-but-it-excludes-the-poor-109987">Dar es Salaam's new rapid bus system won international acclaim – but it excludes the poor</a>
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<p>A bus rapid transit system has designated lanes and high-capacity buses that call at stations every few minutes. It also <a href="https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/the-bus-rapid-transit-standard/what-is-brt/">features</a> off-board fare collection, enclosed stations and access for pedestrians and cycles. Compared to rail-based systems, the rapid bus transit is expected to be faster and cheaper in terms of planning, construction and operation. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Dar’s bus rapid transit system is beset by lack of operational schedules and infrastructure delays but is in high demand.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Policymakers – international NGOs, development corporations and consultancies, local governments and transport businesses – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/aug/27/buses-future-of-urban-transport-brt-bus-rapid-transit">say</a> that these bus systems make for high-quality transport available to the people. They have become a trend in cities of the global South for the last two decades. The Transmilenio system of Bogotá was used as a model of the concept that has been spreading to the African continent. </p>
<p>In 2003, international consultants picked Dar es Salaam’s system as the best practice model for urban Africa. Cities like Addis Ababa, Kampala and Nairobi are following suit, trying the Dar es Salaam model. Professional and personal networks around former Bogotá mayor <a href="https://www.pps.org/article/epenalosa-2">Enrique Penalosa</a> and the New York-headquartered <a href="https://www.itdp.org/about/">Institute for Transportation and Development Policy</a> have made the Tanzanian metropolis the point of reference for African technocrats instead of <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/anti.12135">South African cities</a>, which implemented the Transmilenio bus rapid transit model earlier.</p>
<p>But there is no guarantee that African cities will learn better from Dar es Salaam than they would from a Latin American or Asian city. Contexts like the attitude towards public-private partnerships or the structure and political power of the minibus industry differ from city to city, between and within continents.</p>
<h2>Plans and reality</h2>
<p>Since it began, Dar es Salaam’s project has been under pressure to succeed and act as a model. Its promoters tend to <a href="https://www.itdp.org/2018/06/01/webinar-dart-transforming-mobility/">portray</a> it as the way it was planned rather than how it actually operates. </p>
<p>On the ground, the system is grappling with overcrowded buses, lack of operational schedules and long delays in constructing and operating bus corridors and stations. The delays and changes of plans point to controversies and power struggles. </p>
<p>Controversies are nothing unusual in large-scale planning processes. They often have productive moments as they reveal uncertainties and enable renegotiation. </p>
<p>In contrast to the strong political will at international and national levels, not all Tanzanian politicians are in favour of the project. Some would have preferred a rail-based solution while others are part of the minibus industry.</p>
<p>In addition, the largest bus company — the state-controlled Shirika la Usafiri Dar es Salaam (UDA) — has been vying for a monopoly. The bus company tried to frustrate the contract between the Tanzanian government and the World Bank, which financed the first phase of the project. Under the agreement, the system was to run through a public-private partnership consortium, which would consist of Tanzanians and international operators.</p>
<p>The bus company used three tactics to render the international partnership impossible:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>It merged with the Dar es Salaam Commuter Bus Owners Association to form a new company: UDA Rapid Transit.</p></li>
<li><p>It lobbied politicians to support its joint venture as the interim operator of the rapid transit system pending the international public private partnership procurement.</p></li>
<li><p>It made huge investments that were inconsistent with its status as an interim operator. It installed an automated fare collection system and bought more than 200 buses. The investments made it appear irreplaceable. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>To ensure that the only available option for rapid transit operations did not become insolvent, the UDA Rapid Transit was allowed to earn revenue from its buses and fare collection system. </p>
<p>UDA Rapid Transit continues to be the single operator of the Dar es Salaam Rapid Transit System. Whether other operators might come on board in future phases is still uncertain. </p>
<p>Social practice, personal relations and political negotiations direct the system’s development. Infrastructure projects are political, controversial and permanently under transformation. They tell us about global models, national development agendas and sociopolitical negotiations on the ground.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malve Jacobsen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Local realities shape the transport system, making it less directly applicable as a model elsewhere.Malve Jacobsen, Post-doctoral researcher, Johannes Gutenberg University of MainzLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1602842021-05-23T10:43:13Z2021-05-23T10:43:13ZTanzania’s ‘forgotten’ cyclones and concerns for the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401575/original/file-20210519-23-chbwo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cyclone Kenneth caused significant damage to Mozambique, the Comoros Islands and Tanzania in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EMIDIO JOZINE/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A cyclone, known as Jobo, <a href="https://www.garda.com/crisis24/news-alerts/471166/tanzania-tropical-depression-jobo-makes-landfall-and-continues-tracking-west-update-4">made landfall</a> near Dar es Salaam in late April. By this point it had weakened to a tropical depression and impacts were, thankfully, minimal. </p>
<p>Land-falling tropical cyclones are rare in Tanzania so past events are outside the memory of most. It had even been suggested that Cyclone Kenneth, which occurred in 2019, was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-indian-ocean-is-spawning-strong-and-deadly-tropical-cyclones-116559">first tropical cyclone to make landfall in Tanzania</a>. The largest impacts of cyclone Kenneth were felt further south where at least <a href="https://reliefweb.int/disaster/tc-2019-000038-moz">38 lives were lost and almost 35,000 homes were damaged or destroyed</a>.</p>
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<p>However, we recently published <a href="https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wea.3921">research</a> which recounts the events of two tropical cyclones which made land-fall in Tanzania, in 1872 and 1952. Using eyewitness accounts from <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8926435">news articles</a>, the <a href="https://microform.digital/boa/collections/72/volumes/495/miscellaneous-1907-1964">British Online Archives</a> and meteorological observations, we show what a devastating impact these storms had.</p>
<p>We hope that by documenting these cyclones in Tanzania, it will encourage further investigation into the drivers of tropical cyclones in the southwest Indian Ocean which, to date, have received little research attention. </p>
<p>Our concern is that, with a changing climate, these events could become more intense.</p>
<h2>Rare cyclones</h2>
<p>Tropical cyclones – also known as hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the Pacific – typically form over the ocean when the sea surface temperature is at least 26.5°C and where there is a sufficiently strong Coriolis effect. The Coriolis effect arises because of the earth’s spin around its axis. It <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/coriolis-effect/">drives the circular rotation of winds in a cyclone</a>. </p>
<p>Countries closer to the equator, north of Tanzania, won’t experience tropical cyclones directly. The Coriolis effect is too weak to sustain them, though there can be complex indirect effects of tropical cyclones occurring further south. This can range from delaying onset of rainy seasons, as with <a href="https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wea.3824">Cyclone Idai in 2019</a>, to actually increasing the chance of heavy rainfall, as with <a href="https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/qj.3698">cyclones during 2018</a>.</p>
<p>Around Tanzania, tropical cyclones are rare, but they’ve happened before. In 1872 and 1952 the country was hit by devastating cyclones that made landfall in the far north and south respectively. </p>
<p>Meteorological records of these events are limited, but there are eyewitness accounts which provide interesting and important information on tropical cyclones along the coast of Tanzania.</p>
<p>In 1872, a tropical cyclone <a href="https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wea.3921">tracked across</a> Zanzibar and Bagamoyo, a town to the north of Dar es Salaam. The storm destroyed all of the Sultan’s boats in Zanzibar harbour, the Catholic Mission Hospital at Bagamoyo, and two thirds of coconut and clove crops on Zanzibar. </p>
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<img alt="A sketch of the effects of the hurricane at Zanzibar, Tanzania" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401281/original/file-20210518-17-h12mqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401281/original/file-20210518-17-h12mqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401281/original/file-20210518-17-h12mqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401281/original/file-20210518-17-h12mqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401281/original/file-20210518-17-h12mqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401281/original/file-20210518-17-h12mqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401281/original/file-20210518-17-h12mqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Effects of the cyclone at Zanzibar, Tanzania, from a sketch by Henn, illustration from the magazine The Illustrated London News, volume LX, June 1, 1872.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DEA / BIBLIOTECA AMBROSIANA / Contributor/GettyImages</span></span>
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<p>An eye-witness account from Zanzibar describes how his window shutters were blasted open as “torrents of water swept in. It was salt water and sand carried by the hurricane”.</p>
<p>In 1952 another <a href="https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wea.3921">cyclone hit</a>, this time further south, over Lindi. This was reported by the East African Meteorological Department. It caused over US$100 million of damage in today’s terms. This included half the buildings in Lindi losing their roof. An account by a ship captain caught in the storm says there were “gusts of well-nigh indescribable fury” with “limited visibility to about 20 metres”.</p>
<p>There are concerns that changes in the weather could make these events even more intense.</p>
<h2>More intense?</h2>
<p>With the warming of sea surface temperatures, <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-4327-2_10">especially</a> the rapidly warming Indian Ocean, intense cyclones are expected to become more prevalent. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/southern-africa-must-brace-itself-for-more-tropical-cyclones-in-future-103641">Southern Africa must brace itself for more tropical cyclones in future</a>
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<p>With rising sea levels, storm surges (resulting from the strong winds of cyclones) will cause more wide spread damage. Once-a-century extreme sea-level events, which can result from these storm surges, <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/summary-for-policymakers/">could</a> strike the East African coastline every year by 2050. </p>
<p>In addition, as the air over the ocean warms, <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/33/7/jcli-d-19-0328.1.xml">more moisture can be transported</a> with storms such as tropical cyclones, driving an increase in maximum rainfall intensity. </p>
<h2>Forecasting</h2>
<p>Once a cyclone is on its way, there is no changing where it will hit, nor how it could intensify, but we can see it coming and take precautions to greatly reduce the harm that it does.</p>
<p>With satellite imagery and modern weather forecasting, cyclones are often observed many days in advance of landfall. Even before a cyclone is present there are activities which can either increase or decrease the ability of locations to cope with impacts. For example, the destruction of mangroves <a href="https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/tanzania-locals-and-officials-band-together-save-mangroves">decreases</a> the natural protection against ocean storm surges.</p>
<p>The severity of past events should give impetus to build knowledge of the potential impacts of extreme weather amongst decision-makers, disaster management authorities and the general public.</p>
<p><em>Dr Caroline Wainwright (Post-Doctoral Research Assistant, University of Reading) and Dr Sam Hardy (Research Fellow, University of Leeds) contributed to the research in this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160284/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Declan Finney works for the University of Edinburgh. He previously received funding from the Natural Environment Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hellen Msemo receives funding from the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) African SWIFT Project (NE/P021077/1). She is also affiliated with Tanzania Meteorological Authority</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Marsham receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council, the Weather and Climate Science for Service Partnership Programme, the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office and UK Research and Innovation as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund. He is Met Office joint chair at the University of Leeds, a position part funded by the Met Office. </span></em></p>Land-falling tropical cyclones are rare in Tanzania so past events are outside the memory of most.Declan Finney, Project Manager of Climate Research, The University of EdinburghHellen Msemo, PhD candidate, University of LeedsJohn Marsham, Academic Research Fellow, Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science (ICAS), University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1553792021-03-01T14:26:28Z2021-03-01T14:26:28ZWhy fines and jail time won’t change the behaviour of Ghana’s minibus drivers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384424/original/file-20210216-17-2wec7c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C886%2C5271%2C2627&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A bus and tro-tro station in Accra, Ghana.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">nicolasdecorte/Shutterstock/Editorial use only</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://medium.com/impact-engineered/the-african-commute-city-transport-trends-cf369e5106bd">Millions of people</a> in Africa’s cities rely on public transport to get around. Minibuses are especially common, whether you’re in Accra, Dar es Salaam, Lagos or Nairobi. In Accra, the ubiquitous minibuses are known as <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/09/29/report-from-the-field-the-tro-tro-an-essential-mode-of-transport-in-accra-ghana/">tro-tro</a>, in Dar es Salaam as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dala_dala">daladalas</a>, in Lagos as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/lagos-nigeria-yellow-danfo-bus-593596">danfos</a> and in Nairobi as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matatu">matatus</a>.</p>
<p>These vehicles offer flexible, generally affordable services. They also, unfortunately, contribute significantly to the continent’s well documented <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/death-rates-from-traffic-accidents-are-higher-in-africa-than-anywhere-else/">road safety problems</a>. </p>
<p>In Kenya’s capital city Nairobi, it is estimated that minibus crashes account for some <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327074758_Transport_Transgression_and_Politics_in_African_Cities_The_Rhythm_of_Chaos">95% of road deaths</a>. In Ghana, accidents involving tro-tro vehicles <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eS-rzJKkbY&fbclid=IwAR3weDsnfgMHk6v2vtnthH9DTB2fNaN0OTeuHR2BYCs_9xxgdFXtNG0Bolo">killed 300 and injured nearly 2,000 people</a> in the first quarter of 2019. </p>
<p>This stands to reason, since minibuses carry numerous passengers and so there’s a risk of higher fatalities in a crash. Many minibus drivers often speed and overtake recklessly. They are also likely to spend long hours behind the wheel. Authorities often accuse them of “<a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Indiscipline-leading-cause-of-road-accidents-Road-Safety-Commission-reveals-732820">indiscipline</a>”. <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201908290419.html">Governments</a> impose hefty fines and <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201908290419.html">threaten long prison sentences</a>, insisting this will make Africa’s roads safer.</p>
<p>But why do minibus drivers operate so recklessly? I set out to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0502-8">answer this question</a>, focusing on tro-tro drivers in Ghana. </p>
<p>My research shows how a range of structural factors including exploitative labour relations between car owners and drivers and police corruption compel and solicit dangerous driving behaviour. Given this, I argue that fines and prison sentences are not suited for inducing safer driving behaviour among tro-tro drivers. These interventions don’t tackle the range of political-economic causes, motivations and constraints that result in dangerous driving. </p>
<p>Hopefully, these findings can contribute to developing better policies that make roads safer in Ghana and other African countries.</p>
<h2>A daily struggle</h2>
<p>As in most other African countries, Ghana’s tro-tro industry emerged from the lack of organised public transport. Tro-tros use just about 30% of Ghana’s road space, but convey over 70% of person-trips <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280879959_Order_out_of_chaos_Self-management_and_public_control_of_the_paratransit_sector_case_Ghana">in the country</a>.</p>
<p>The industry is organised around a target system. The driver, almost always a man, and his assistant – Ghanaians call them “mates” – operate the bus as a sort of daily franchise. In return the owner demands a daily fee, popularly called “sales”. The driver and the mate take home what remains once the “sales” target is reached. They also have to pay for the day’s fuel; the car owner doesn’t contribute to this.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15389588.2018.1556792?journalCode=gcpi20">Research</a> has shown that tro-tro owners do well, financially, from this arrangement. They are able to impose high “sales” because, as <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01726.x">with other African countries</a>, unemployment is <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/09/29/addressing-youth-unemployment-in-ghana-needs-urgent-action#:%7E:text=Ghana%20is%20faced%20with%2012,if%20job%20opportunities%20remain%20limited">high</a> in Ghana. The passenger transport sector, therefore, attracts plenty of young people looking for work. The oversupply of job-seekers tilts the balance of power in favour of vehicle owners.</p>
<p>In Tanzania, where a similar set-up exists, one driver complained in a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01726.x">study</a> that: </p>
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<p>(Bus owners) can ask you whatever (daily sales or fees) they want and you have to accept it.</p>
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<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-2427.12440">Studies</a> have shown that minibus drivers in other parts of Africa face <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Paratransit-in-African-Cities-Operations-Regulation-and-Reform/Behrens-McCormick-Mfinanga/p/book/9780415870337">similar challenges</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fixing-south-africas-minibus-taxi-industry-is-proving-hard-tracing-its-history-shows-why-143008">Fixing South Africa's minibus taxi industry is proving hard: tracing its history shows why</a>
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<p>The power imbalance between the drivers and car owners and the lack of labour protection condemn the drivers to great occupational uncertainty, extremely harsh working conditions and meagre returns. </p>
<p>They are also frequently harassed by corrupt police officers who use threats of arrest to extort bribes.</p>
<p>The drivers can make enough revenue to cover operational costs and police bribes and pay their owners, themselves and their mates only by increasing the number of trips or passengers per trip. This compels them to drive for long hours, resort to dangerous overtaking and overloading and drive at dangerously high speeds. </p>
<p>This shows that dangerous driving by tro-tro drivers is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-00695-5">connected to the precarious conditions associated</a> with their work systems and the broader commercial passenger transport industry in which they operate.</p>
<p>This, however, is not how the Ghanaian public, media, police, road safety practitioners and researchers frame and explain the tro-tro safety problem in the country. </p>
<p>They often blame the problems on the drivers’ personal <a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Indiscipline-leading-cause-of-road-accidents-Road-Safety-Commission-reveals-732820">indiscipline and unruliness</a>. This has legitimised punitive action against the drivers marked by police harassment and declaration of <a href="https://police.gov.gh/en/index.php/news-release-police-administration-collaborates-with-citi-news-to-check-indiscipline-on-the-roads/">‘wars’</a> on them. In turn, this has led to frequent physical <a href="https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/fight-with-policeman-was-for-self-defence-trotro-driver-tells-court.html">abuse</a> as well as the imposition of <a href="https://citinewsroom.com/2019/07/govt-makes-ghc258000-from-citi-tvs-war-against-indiscipline-campaign/">long prison sentences and hefty fines</a> on them.</p>
<h2>Changing systems</h2>
<p>It has been shown that tro-tro drivers in Ghana operate within a precarious work climate marked by cut-throat competition; low wages; job insecurity; non-negotiable daily fees by car owners and harassment from corrupt police officers. These numerous financial and other demands are what push the drivers to undertake the dangerous driving behaviour that earn them public opprobrium. </p>
<p>Thus, contrary to popular opinion, tro-tro divers in Ghana drive dangerously not because they are inherently bad or morally bankrupt people, but because their work systems and conditions compel or incentivise them to do so.</p>
<p>This analysis is not intended to shield any drivers from personal responsibility or accountability. The point, simply, is that much of their dangerous behaviour is driven by systems and structures beyond their control. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fatalistic-beliefs-influence-risky-driving-in-ghana-and-what-needs-to-be-done-140576">How fatalistic beliefs influence risky driving in Ghana. And what needs to be done</a>
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<p>This means that targeting the drivers <em>themselves</em> won’t stop the behaviour. What need addressing are the work-related and system-level constraints they operate under.</p>
<p>For instance, authorities need to address structural unemployment and police corruption. They need to create and enforce labour protection policies that improve commercial passenger drivers’ working conditions. Interventions like these could yield widespread and sustainable road safety benefits – far more than is achieved by the present public policy of declaring <a href="https://police.gov.gh/en/index.php/news-release-police-administration-collaborates-with-citi-news-to-check-indiscipline-on-the-roads/">‘wars’</a> on the drivers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155379/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Festival Godwin Boateng does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A range of factors influence the behaviour of minibus drivers in Ghana. This involves a complex web of factors, motivations and constraints.Festival Godwin Boateng, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Sustainable Urban Development, The Earth Institute, Columbia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1143402019-04-09T13:24:38Z2019-04-09T13:24:38ZWorkers in Tanzania’s noisy factories are at risk of hearing damage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268129/original/file-20190408-2905-qms01u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Manufacturing sites are high noise working areas.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Israel Paul Nyarubeli</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Excessive exposure to noise can cause permanent hearing loss. It’s estimated that a <a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/deafness-and-hearing-loss">third</a> of disabling hearing problems in the world are caused by excessive exposure to noise among adults who are older than 65. Some noise workplaces include mining, manufacturing, agriculture and construction sites.</p>
<p>The number of people with hearing loss in the world has <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/deafness-and-hearing-loss">increased</a> over the past two decades, from <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12689363">120 million</a> people in 1995 to 466 million in 2018. Estimates of hearing loss caused by working in noisy environments are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4007124/">higher</a> in low- and middle-income countries including sub-Saharan Africa than high-income countries. This may be due to ongoing economic investments in industrialisation as well as inadequate public health policies, lack of industrial regulation and limited resources spent on preventive measures. </p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28685503">efforts</a> such as engineering and administrative controls, and mandating the use of hearing protection devices at workplaces by governments and health and research organisations, this problem isn’t going away.</p>
<p>People who work in really noisy places such as construction sites, military sites, mines and factories are particularly at an increased risk of hearing damage or loss.</p>
<p>We conducted a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/annweh/article/62/9/1109/5064905">study</a> looking at workers in high noise environments in Tanzania. We wanted to determine if these workers knew the effect of working in noisy environments and if they had access to noise protection devices. We found that most of the workers didn’t have any protection against potential hearing loss and didn’t know that the negative effects of working in a noisy environment were irreversible. This sort of <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/177884/WHO_NMH_NVI_15.2_eng.pdf">damage</a> affects the inner part of the human ear and can’t be effectively treated with existing technology. </p>
<p>Hearing loss like this is preventable. Measures to control or reduce workplace noise exposure are critical to protect the health and safety of these workers. </p>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>We surveyed workers in large steel manufacturing factories in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. We asked if they knew that exposure to high noise levels might cause hearing problems. Only 45% of participants did. And only 33% understood that this damage was permanent. </p>
<p>We were shocked to find that workers in iron and steel factories were exposed to an average noise level of 92 decibels. This level is higher than the <a href="http://www.tbs.go.tz/index.php/standards/">national regulatory limit</a> for noise exposure at work, which is 85 decibels. This is similar to standing next to an operating jackhammer without hearing protection or standing next to a landing aircraft without protection for your ears. </p>
<p>Additionally, 86% of the factory workers we studied had never been provided with nor used hearing protection devices. This was unexpected in such large and well-organised factories.</p>
<p>We believe the situation is probably the same in factories in other low and middle income countries. It’s also likely to be worse in small and unorganised workplaces in many other countries in the world, among them places like <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19672017">India</a>.</p>
<h2>Tackling the problem</h2>
<p>Our research shows that many factory workers are exposed to hazardous noise levels and aren’t provided with hearing protection gear. </p>
<p>This situation calls for government and industry to promote and implement control measures in workplaces with high noise levels such as factories and construction sites. </p>
<p>Industry must provide workers with hearing protection devices. Government needs to ensure that operational safety guidelines are followed. And workers must learn about the dangers of noise exposure and received training on measure they can take to protect themselves. </p>
<p>This is important because deafness has biological, physical and psychological and economic <a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/deafness-and-hearing-loss">effects</a> on individuals, families and societies. With the right protection and care, hearing loss in the workplace can be avoided.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114340/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This work is part of the PhD project ‘occupational noise exposure and hearing loss among factory workers in Tanzania’ led by Professors Bente E. Moen and Magne Bråtveit from Univesity of Bergen, Norway with close collaboration with Dr. Alexander M. Tungu (co supervisor) from Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The project was financially supported by the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund (Lånekassen) and equipment provided by the Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research for Development (NORHED). </span></em></p>Measures to control or reduce workplace noise exposure are critical to reducing hearing loss in workers.Israel Paul Nyarubeli, PhD candidate, University of BergenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/900262018-01-29T17:26:43Z2018-01-29T17:26:43ZProtecting cassava from disease? There’s an app for that<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201754/original/file-20180112-101492-3xpuf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cassava leaves at a market in the Democratic Republic of Congo.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/James Akena</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://plantvillage.org/topics/cassava-manioc/infos">Cassava</a> is one of the developing world’s most important crops. Its starchy roots and leaves are a staple food for more than 500 million people in Africa each day. And Africa produces half of the world’s total cassava output; the continent’s main growers are the Congo, Côte d'lvoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.</p>
<p>It’s also climate resilient, as it is predicted to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12042-012-9096-7">improve yield</a> in higher temperatures. Its role as a staple food will become ever more important, then, as climate change continues to take hold. </p>
<p>But cassava, like many other crops, is vulnerable to viruses and other plant diseases. These diseases can affect cassava yields, cost farmers money, and threaten food security in sub-Saharan Africa. Two diseases, cassava mosaic disease and cassava brown streak disease, have become the largest constraints to cassava production and food security in sub-Saharan Africa resulting in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5663696/">losses of over US$1 billion</a> every year.</p>
<p>These plant diseases are not new to Africa and have been causing losses for many decades. However, a lack of infrastructure and engagement by trained plant disease experts with farmers means the farmers are not trained to recognise them in their early stages. That’s why we set out to create a disease-recognition app for smartphones. We tested the ability of an image recognition model, called a convolutional neural network, to accurately identify up to five different cassava diseases. </p>
<p>The model is deployed using a mobile device’s camera. What’s novel about it is that it can run entirely on a smartphone without the need for a wireless connection, or access to large processing power. Once farmers have identified the disease using the app, we provide the necessary information so they can go ahead and treat their plants.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2017.01852/full">Our results</a>, based on research conducted in Tanzania, show that the image recognition model had up to 98% accuracy in identifying cassava diseases in the field. </p>
<p>These results are promising as our method is much simpler to implement than traditional computer vision models. The model was also trained on a desktop with vastly smaller computing power than the typical supercomputer used in training image recognition models. These results highlight our method’s potential to be a reliable, fast, affordable and easily deployable strategy for digital plant disease detection. </p>
<p>We were also able to deploy the model on a smartphone without an Internet connection, something no other mobile app for plant disease diagnosis has been able to do. For the continent of Africa where data costs are high for smallholder farmers the ability to provide a diagnosis offline is critical. </p>
<h2>Creating a dataset</h2>
<p>Traditional disease identification approaches rely on the support of agricultural experts visiting a field and checking on crops. But these approaches are limited in countries with low logistical and human infrastructure capacity, and are expensive to scale up. </p>
<p>In such areas, smartphones offer new tools for in-field plant disease detection based on automated image recognition that can aid in large scale early detection. This is a viable tool for Africa: smartphone adoption is <a href="https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=3bc21ea879a5b217b64d62fa24c55bdf&download">growing rapidly</a> on the continent. </p>
<p>Our technique is suitable for providing help to smallholder farmers, for several reasons. Firstly, it is fast: a disease can be identified with the model in less than one second. Because the app is on a mobile device, it is also easily deployed over large areas – farmers no longer need to wait for an agricultural expert to visit them and check their plants </p>
<p>We put the model, which works on Android phones, to the test in collaboration with research staff at the <a href="http://www.iita.org/">International Institute for Tropical Agriculture</a> in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Putting the app to work in the field.</span></figcaption>
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<p>There were six class labels for the model: three disease classes, two mite damage classes and one healthy class (that is, a lack of disease or mite damage on the leaf.) </p>
<p>We then trained our model to identify the three diseases and two types of pest damage, or lack thereof. After training the model and loading it on to a phone app, researchers went out to test the app in the field. Staff from the institute would walk around fields holding the phone up to different cassava plants to see how the app responds. If no disease is recognised the app says the leaf is healthy. </p>
<p>The model was able to identify diseases, pest damage and healthy plants with a high degree of accuracy – up to 98% in some classes.</p>
<p>This particular model is now being used by researchers at the institute. Planned steps in 2018 include designing the app to make it suitable for farmers in East Africa, especially female farmers. For example, the app is currently being designed in English and Swahili, with both text and voice features. Our app is linked to <a href="http://plantvillage.psu.edu">PlantVillage</a> which is the largest source of free knowledge on crop health in the world. </p>
<h2>Huge chance for change</h2>
<p>This kind of technology can be transformative for smallholder farmers, who <a href="https://www.globalagriculture.org/fileadmin/files/weltagrarbericht/IAASTDBerichte/SubglobalReportSubSaharanAfrica.pdf">produce 70%</a> of Africa’s food supply. With access to information about diseases in their fields, this tool is an efficient extension system that can reach smallholder farmers with targeted diagnoses and advice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90026/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Technology is changing how plant diseases are recognised and dealt with by small scale farmers in Africa.Amanda Ramcharan, Postdoctoral Researcher, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/873822017-11-16T18:13:41Z2017-11-16T18:13:41ZJobs and paid-for schooling can keep Tanzanian girls from early marriages<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194351/original/file-20171113-27616-w73f5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many girls in Dar es Salaam's slums drop out of school because of the costs involved.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ICT4D.at/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sub-Saharan Africa is home to <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/files/Child_Marriage_Report_7_17_LR..pdf">four of the top five countries</a> in early marriage – or child marriage – rates: Niger, Chad, Mali and Central African Republic. Despite decades of campaigning to restrict or forbid early marriage, little has changed for the world’s poorest women. The percentage of these particularly poor women who were in a conjugal union by the age of 18 <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/files/UNICEF-Child-Marriage-Brochure-low-Single(1).pdf">has remained unchanged</a> for the continent as a whole since 1990 – and has <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/files/UNICEF-Child-Marriage-Brochure-low-Single(1).pdf">actually risen in East Africa</a>.</p>
<p>Early marriage appears to have absolutely no benefits. It <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15570274.2015.1075757">accelerates population growth</a> and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15570274.2015.1075757">decreases women’s participation in the labour force</a>. It also reduces <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/530891498511398503/Economic-impacts-of-child-marriage-global-synthesis-report">a country’s overall national earnings</a>. Girls who marry before they turn 18 are at <a href="http://www.unfpa.org/press/state-world-population-2013-motherhood-childhood">greater risk</a> of childbirth-related complications that are the leading cause of death worldwide for girls aged 15 to 19. </p>
<p>But what’s not often reported in the media is that some girls themselves want to marry early. I discovered this when I <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2017.1390162">conducted interviews</a> with 171 people, most of them Muslim women, in two low-income neighbourhoods in Tanzania’s capital city Dar es Salaam. </p>
<p>The poorest girls and women see themselves as having few possibilities to earn an income for themselves. Even before they marry, girls from poor families must often resort to premarital sexual relations with their boyfriends who provide food and money. For many low-income Tanzanians, it’s also normal to start thinking about marriage at roughly age 15. Established cultural expectations in many ethnic groups suggest that adulthood begins at age 15 or 16. </p>
<p>Yet even those girls and parents who would like to delay marriage often have little choice because of poverty and the fact that women in slum neighbourhoods have fewer opportunities to earn an income than men do. Creating more opportunities for young women and girls to work and earn money is one possible solution to early marriages. Subsidising secondary education to keep poorer girls in school for longer is another.</p>
<h2>Choices</h2>
<p>One factor that pushes some girls into early marriage is the hidden costs associated with education. Many Tanzanian girls <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR243/FR243%5B24June2011%5D.pdf">drop out</a> after primary school. Primary education in the country is mandatory by law and is nominally free of charge. But numerous hidden costs exist: additional fees, uniforms, books and transportation. </p>
<p>Only a small percentage of students achieve good enough exam scores to be accepted to low-priced government secondary schools. This forces the rest into private secondary schools, which are usually too expensive for the poorest urban residents. Parents recognise the value of education and want to school their daughters. They just can’t afford to do so.</p>
<p>Sometimes the girls themselves wish to discontinue their studies. They perceive the transactional intimacy provided through marriage as offering a more secure future than an expensive secondary education.</p>
<p>After age 15, girls are expected to be self-sufficient to gain respect in the eyes of others. Marriage is viewed as a more likely way to gain that respect than through years of education with its high costs and uncertain rewards.</p>
<p>The people <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2017.1390162">I interviewed</a> felt that premarital sex was seen as shameful in their neighbourhoods. Relying on a husband or fiancé for money, though, is a respectable means of displaying independence. </p>
<p>When girls drop out of school, cannot find work and don’t have enough starting capital to sell food or other goods in their neighbourhoods, early marriage is often the only culturally approved way to be a productive adult. It can be seen as a sign of “success” for a girl: it means she has a good <em>tabia</em>; a good character.</p>
<h2>Employment could help</h2>
<p>Cultural traditions are a popular scapegoat for policymakers. But these should not be blamed for what are perceived elsewhere in the world as “backward” practices. Trying to eradicate cultural attitudes when these are grounded in economic and educational realities does little to change people’s behaviour. </p>
<p>Women living in the poorest parts of any city need policies that create employment opportunities. This would offer girls who might otherwise choose early marriage other choices.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wiego.org/sites/default/files/publications/files/Skinner_WIEGO_WP5.pdf">Tanzania was a leader in the 1990s</a> in Africa when it came to inclusive policies towards informal and street traders. But a rapidly growing population and competition among traders means many women cannot afford the licenses and permits needed to set up a business in a busy area with many customers. They may also not have sufficient capital or may need to stay close to home to care for family members.</p>
<p>Ultra-low interest micro loan programmes serving the poorest areas of the city could be organised for women who have no option but to obtain income from the smallest and least visible vending niches in the city. </p>
<h2>Making education more attractive</h2>
<p>Another option, or one that could run in parallel with improved access to work opportunities, could centre on education. Tanzania could consider employment-oriented education policies and subsidising secondary education for the poorest students. This would provide motivation for girls and their families to continue girls’ studies. These are issues over which poor families themselves have little control: structural change needs to come from above. </p>
<p>As long as girls and their families see the most viable – and morally acceptable – option for a girl’s economic survival to be early marriage with a male partner whose earning opportunities are greater than hers, the practice of early marriage is unlikely to decline among the urban poor.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87382/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Stark received funding from the Academy of Finland for this research. </span></em></p>Creating more opportunities for young women and girls to work and earn money is a possible solution to early marriages. Subsidising secondary education to keep poorer girls in school is another.Laura Stark, Professor of Ethnology, University of JyväskyläLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/859422017-11-01T13:19:51Z2017-11-01T13:19:51ZWhy the private sector’s hype about the African middle class isn’t helpful<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192424/original/file-20171030-18683-10ovx28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Oluwole Urban Market near Marina in Lagos. Being middle class is more than just being a consumer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The African middle class is of huge interest to business. This was confirmed again recently by well attended seminars in South Africa’s big cities to discuss
<a href="http://www.uctunileverinstitute.co.za/">“African Lions: groundbreaking study on the middle class in sub-Saharan Africa”</a>. </p>
<p>The study was motivated by the African Development Bank’s <a href="http://www.uctunileverinstitute.co.za/research/africa/">diagnosis</a> that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>(the African middle class) has grown by over 240% in just over a decade, and the bank defines 15 million households as now being middle class.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The narrow focus of the study is guided by a particular interest and echoes a poorly informed narrative about the structure of societies in Africa. It is void of any class related analysis and offers little bearing on reality. People are seen only as consumers with no political relevance. </p>
<p>The study was done by the University of Cape Town’s Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing and the global market research company <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en">IPSOS</a> over 18 months in ten cities – Abidjan, Accra, Addis Ababa, Douala, Dar es Salaam, Kano, Lagos, Nairobi, Luanda and Lusaka. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/english-releases/sub-saharan-middle-class-worth-over-400-million-per-day-300467335.html">It defines</a> as middle class someone who has a daily income of between USD$4 and USD$70. He or she also has a disposable income; is employed or is running a business or studying at college; and has some secondary school education. According to this criteria, a whopping 60% of the urban population surveyed fall into this definition of middle class. </p>
<p>The researchers conclude that those who qualify as middle class have an average income of USD$12 a day and an average household income of USD$17 a day. Of these, a third had a full time job, while many ran mainly informal businesses.</p>
<p>According to the study, an estimated 100 million people outside South Africa have an aggregated spending power of more than USD$400 million a day. </p>
<p>It’s clear that the research is motivated by economic interests, targeting the so-called middle class as the object of desire for retailers. As the head of the institute <a href="http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/print-version/sub-saharan-africa-middle-class-represents-r13tr-a-month-market-2017-05-19">explained</a>, the core of the interest in the estimated ZAR1.3 trillion-a-month market was</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a better understanding of the consumer landscape on the continent, (by exploring) aspirations, media consumption, buying patterns, brand relationships and much more (of such middle class).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Similar interests by the private sector exist in business circles beyond the continent. Large companies paid US$1160 and small ones US$510 to gain insights into the investment opportunities at a recent <a href="http://marketing.business-sweden.se/acton/media/28818/mea-summit-september-2017">“Middle East and Africa Summit”</a> in Stockholm. The second day was devoted to sub-Saharan Africa, which was described as having</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a bulging middle class hungry for inclusion and more sophisticated consumer demands.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such approaches perpetuate the original hype over the discovery of the emerging middle classes in the global South, defined in terms of higher living standards. They are measured on consumption and lifestyle related to Western products and status symbols. But no insights are offered into how being middle class could be understood in a social context. This would include status and awareness as well as the political choices people make. </p>
<p>This would require a different, analytically much more ambitious grasp of the economic and political realities in African cities and indeed wider societies.</p>
<h2>The fight back</h2>
<p>In the meantime, scholars in a variety of academic disciplines have started to critically explore the middle class notion. They properly investigate its meaning and definition. This is important because a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2016.1245183">middle class debate</a> reduced purely to the exploration of consumer habits can only be used for self-serving purposes. </p>
<p>In contrast, the new scholarly efforts put an African middle class debate into more meaningful perspectives. They offer a deeper analysis of cultural factors and identities, consciousness, social positioning and relations to other groups as well as institutions and the state. They are on their way to a proper class analysis and the policy options and implications by the social group or groups in formation. </p>
<p>The challenge is to look beyond the superficial number crunching that defines a middle class in purely income and expenditure figures, void of any further analysis of other <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/the-rise-of-africas-middle-class/">relevant factors</a>.</p>
<p>Such apolitical perspectives tend to put an ideological smokescreen around socio-economic processes. These rest on the assumption that relatively high economic growth rates suggest “progress” and “development”. Meanwhile, little changes in the daily lives of most people. Crumbs from the table of the haves don’t lift them out of a fragile socio-economic habitat bordering on poverty. Many urban and rural people continue to exist in utter destitution.</p>
<h2>Social change</h2>
<p>Engaging with such challenges, exploring how being middle class could be understood and mobilised for social change, would require a different analytical grasp of the socio-economic and political realities in African societies.</p>
<p>Presumably, such different research findings would most likely not be of interest to the business. But, the more socio-politically motivated analyses might contribute towards raising awareness of the class structures perpetuated. These are not fundamentally changed by a growing number of consumers, who are able to buy goods in the shopping malls and enjoy a “Western” lifestyle.</p>
<p>Rather, the advocacy and promotion of social justice and equality based on truly transformative social policies with deeper redistributive effects, could in the long run create a much larger and more sustainable market.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85942/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber is the editor of The Rise of Africa’s Middle Class: <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/the-rise-of-africas-middle-class/">http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/the-rise-of-africas-middle-class/</a></span></em></p>Scholars have started to investigate what it really means to be middle class in Africa.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/700032016-12-07T13:31:51Z2016-12-07T13:31:51ZThe UK won’t easily find post-Brexit trade partners in the Commonwealth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149055/original/image-20161207-25742-1iphe6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UK Prime Minister Theresa May can't rely on her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and others in the Commonwealth for unfettered trade support.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Adnan Abidi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the so-called <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-is-on-britain-votes-to-leave-the-eu-experts-respond-61576">Brexit</a>, there has been a resurgence in the importance of the Commonwealth to the UK. This comes as the country <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/business/news/hammond-travels-to-africa-for-post-brexit-trade-7118071">begins to seek</a> direct trade relationships with the outside world while it prepares to leave the <a href="https://europa.eu/european-union/index_en">European Union</a> (EU).</p>
<p>Recently, British prime minister Theresa May spoke with confidence about the “<a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/707560/Brexit-Australia-Singapore-China-Commonwealth-nations-free-trade-deals-Britain">desperate</a>” desire by Commonwealth countries to form new trade deals with Britain. </p>
<p>The Commonwealth is a <a href="http://thecommonwealth.org/member-countries">52 member-state</a> intergovernmental organisation with roots in the early 20th century, arising from the decolonisation of the British Empire. While not a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-commonwealth-endures-despite-being-written-off-by-the-left-and-the-right-47142">legal union</a>, member states unite voluntarily on the basis of their shared values, such as democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Importantly, these are supposedly underpinned by a shared history, culture and the English language.</p>
<p>Like May, her foreign secretary Boris Johnson sees a “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/29/a-bright-future-awaits-britain-post-brexit-in-the-commonwealth-m/">bright future</a>” in the Commonwealth. He argues that the UK can be a “force for good” through a renewal of trade relations after Brexit, in a world in which “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/02/boris-johnson-democracy-retreat-across-world-chatham-house">democracy is in retreat</a>”. </p>
<p>Others went as far as calling the Commonwealth the potential “<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjXqfSQz9zQAhXLAMAKHX-kAHEQFggwMAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fopinion%2Fcommonwealth-may-yet-be-a-saviour-for-the-united-kingdom-1.2750570&usg=AFQjCNGoT34DbfEwYwJ6yHMQ6TMqG719QQ">saviour</a>” for the United Kingdom, given the prospects of the new international reality it faces. </p>
<p>This optimism may be shared by the likes of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/27/australian-support-for-monarchy-has-grown-as-debate-for-republic-revived">Australia</a> and <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/7-in-10-canadians-still-support-ties-to-monarchy-nanos-survey-1.2902716">Canada</a>, which are big players in the Commonwealth and where the monarchy still looms large in the public imagination. But it is not shared globally. </p>
<p>In India and other nations such as in the Caribbean and Africa, for example, memory of the old empire is fading. The British Empire is also at times an emotive and controversial notion for some of these countries and their citizens. </p>
<h2>All not well in the Commonwealth</h2>
<p>The flurry of social media voices rejecting Britain’s Prince Harry on his recent visit to the Caribbean, using the hashtag <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/20/prince-harrys-popularity-to-be-tested-as-notmyprince-trends-as-h/">#NotMyPrince</a>, was a telling signal of a change in tone towards the Commonwealth.</p>
<p>Africa, some argue, has “moved on” from its countries being loyal members of the Commonwealth, and the road ahead for the UK in these relations will be a <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000225100/does-the-road-from-brexit-end-in-the-commonwealth">“bumpy” one</a>.</p>
<p>The simple problem is that the Commonwealth’s various cultural expressions, even in the often unifying arena of sport, <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201611240193.html">have become ripe for criticism</a> because of historic injustices and legacy issues. </p>
<p>More seriously, members of the emergent populist left in South Africa are <a href="http://buzzsouthafrica.com/blacks-are-illiterates-unemployed-and-dying-because-of-whites/">boycotting</a> the <a href="http://www.cpahq.org/cpahq/Main/Annual_Conference/United_Kingdom_2016/CPC_London_2016.aspx">62nd</a> Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference for 2016 in London. This is in protest in the memory of historic wrongdoing by the British colonial power. </p>
<p>The UK will increasingly face a symbolic and cultural obstacle in Africa: one of reputation. It faces the challenge of positioning the Commonwealth brand in a way that will not be viewed as paternalistic amid a rising tide of <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-02-27-robert-sobukwes-dream-unrealised-21-years-into-democracy">African nationalism with strong anti-imperialist</a> undertones. </p>
<p>The scramble by the UK to reset trade relations will be met with suspicion. It is likely to be greeted by superficial and often ambiguous friendship or even indifference. This, of course, will not be the case with business elites. They have historic ties to London. But the UK can expect a frosty reaction from Commonwealth politicians exercising a new found sense of post-colonial confidence. </p>
<p>Interestingly, most of the Commonwealth had preferred the UK to <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-brexit-means-for-the-commonwealth-61941">stay in the EU</a>. </p>
<h2>Trade and investment, not paternalism</h2>
<p>The UK can play an important role as a new strategic partner for Africa’s development through investment, not aid. But this will necessitate patient diplomacy. There are, for instance, opportunities for <a href="http://www.cityam.com/254732/exporting-commonwealth-opportunity-small-businesses-britain">small and medium sized businesses</a> in for example Lagos, Dar es Salaam and Johannesburg to connect and trade with the UK. But, the economic diplomacy required to realise this possibly ranks too low on the Foreign Office’s cost-benefit-analysis as it now crafts its post-Brexit agenda. </p>
<p>Africa needs investment and broad-based development, but this will not be easily tradeable for political alignment on the basis of some imaginary “commonwealth”. Africans cannot continue to live in the commons while Britain gets the wealth. </p>
<p>In its envisioned new developmental role, the UK will be competing with the likes of Germany, France and increasingly with China and India. Importantly, the latter two are already entrenched in the more recent <a href="http://www.bricsforum.com/">(BRICS)</a> -– Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – bloc. </p>
<p>The UK will need more than historic familial ties to forge new trade deals. It will need to bring considerable resources and authentic friendship to the negotiation table.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marius Oosthuizen has previously received funding from faith-based Foundations such as the Maclellan Foundation, agencies such as the British High Commission and a variety of research grants. He is affiliated with SEFSA, the Socio-Economic Future of South Africa, a civil society dialogue initiative to secure the future of South Africa.</span></em></p>The UK political elite is overestimating the power of the Commonwealth’s brand in Africa as it seeks new partners in the wake of Brexit.Marius Oosthuizen, Full time faculty, Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.