tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/east-africa-5517/articles
East Africa – The Conversation
2023-12-12T09:10:47Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218097
2023-12-12T09:10:47Z
2023-12-12T09:10:47Z
What’s east Africa’s position on the Israel-Hamas war? An expert unpacks the reactions of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda
<p>The reactions of some east African countries to the ongoing conflict in Gaza have been less dramatic than South Africa’s. South Africa’s parliament has passed a resolution calling for the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safrican-lawmakers-vote-suspend-diplomatic-ties-with-israel-shut-embassy-2023-11-21/">closure</a> of its embassy in Tel Aviv. Algeria and South Africa have been the most supportive of the Palestinians. Thus far only South Africa and Chad have withdrawn their representatives from Tel Aviv.</p>
<p>In contrast, the reactions from east African capitals have been less dramatic. At the outset of the current conflict in Gaza, Kenya’s President William Ruto <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2023-10-08-kenya-stands-with-israel-ruto-says-amidst-war-with-palestine/">expressed solidarity</a> with Israel and condemned</p>
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<p>terrorism and attacks on innocent civilians in the country.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/museveni-reacts-as-hamas-attack-on-israel-spirals-4393308">Uganda</a> and <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/national/tanzania-calls-for-peace-as-israel-palestine-war-intensifies-4394110">Tanzania</a> condemned all forms of violence and called for</p>
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<p>restraint to stem further loss of human life.</p>
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<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Michael+Bishku+research&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart">scholar</a> of Middle Eastern and African history, I have researched the relationship between Israel and African countries including those in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312006990_Israel's_Relations_with_the_East_African_States_of_Kenya_Uganda_and_Tanzania_-_From_Independence_to_the_Present">east Africa</a>. </p>
<p>It is my conclusion that the reactions of the east African states to the conflict in the Middle East are shaped by two things: the perceived national threat of terrorism by Islamist factions and, for those states with democratic institutions, domestic public opinion.</p>
<p>In my view these three countries are unlikely to change their stance unless the current conflict escalates. On the one hand they will continue to limit their actions to voting in the United Nations for resolutions in support of the Palestinians. On the other they will continue to solicit technical assistance – especially in agriculture and security – from Israel.</p>
<h2>The history</h2>
<p>Relations between African countries and Israel have been tested before. For example, in 1973, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20455585">25 independent African states</a> cut diplomatic relations with Israel after its occupation of Egyptian territory. These included east African states, such as Kenya, which had enjoyed particularly <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/a-history-of-africa-israel-relations/a-43395892">close relations</a> with Israel since its independence from Britain in 1963.</p>
<p>East African countries colonised by Britain <a href="https://studies.aljazeera.net/en/reports/2016/09/israeli-penetration-east-africa-objectives-risks-160929102604246.html">sought</a> technical assistance after independence. This was particularly true in agriculture. They viewed Israel as complementary or an alternative to having to seek assistance from the big powers.</p>
<p>When African states cut off the diplomatic ties with Israel in 1973, Kenya was reluctant but had to act in solidarity with other independent African nations. It kept its cooperation with Israel even before the formal ties were restored in 1988. It facilitated Israel’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Entebbe-raid">1974 rescue operation</a> at Uganda’s Entebbe airport. The operation was meant to rescue passengers of a French jet airliner that was hijacked on its way from Israel to France, and flown to Entebbe. </p>
<p>Tanzania, on the other hand, sought a more neutral course after independence. It found the socialist character of the Israeli Labour governments appealing but Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories following the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Six-Day-War">1967 Six-Day War</a> complicated relations. </p>
<p>Tanzania was one of the last African states to <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1481841?ln=en">renew</a> relations with Israel in 1994. That was a year after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Oslo-Accords">Oslo Accords</a> between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Tanzania was also the <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200605-palestine-julius-nyerere-and-international-solidarity/">first African country</a> to recognise the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in 1973 and to host a representative office in its capital. </p>
<p>Uganda has had the most tempestuous relationship with Israel. Under the erratic <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Idi-Amin">Idi Amin</a> the country broke off relations with Israel and embraced Libya. Israel and Uganda have had good relations under President Yoweri Museveni. Israeli companies <a href="https://embassies.gov.il/nairobi/bilateral-relations/Pages/Israel-and-Uganda.aspx">currently operate</a> in Uganda’s construction, infrastructure, agriculture and water management, communications and technology sectors.</p>
<p>Uganda joined most other African countries in <a href="https://truman.huji.ac.il/publications/uganda-and-israel-history-complex-relationship">renewing</a> relations with Israel just after the end of the Cold War.</p>
<p>Uganda, along with Kenya, has militarily intervened in Somalia as part of an African Union mission. </p>
<p>The ebbs and flows of these relationships have to be seen against the backdrop of the hard work Israel has put in to building <a href="https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/israel-hebrew/benjamin-netanyahu-resetting-israel-africa-relations/">diplomatic relations</a> with a range of other African countries too. By 2023 it had ties with 46 of the <a href="https://au.int/">55 African Union member states</a>.</p>
<h2>National security threat</h2>
<p>Kenya has been affected by instability in neighbouring Somalia and has been the victim of terror attacks. </p>
<p>In 1998, al Qaeda attacks <a href="https://press.un.org/en/1998/19980813.sc6559.html">targeted</a> the US embassy in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The Nairobi attack <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/kenya-victims-of-1998-us-embassy-bombing-demand-compensation-/7215264.html">resulted</a> in over 200 deaths and thousands of people were injured. Since then, Israel <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/23/nairobi-attack-israel-advising-kenyan-forces">has taken the lead</a> among foreign countries in aiding and advising Kenyan security.</p>
<p>Kenya has suffered attacks since then by al-Shabaab – across its <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-reasons-why-militants-are-targeting-kenyas-lamu-county-176519">border</a> as well as in <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2019/kenya/">Nairobi</a> in 2019. </p>
<p>Tanzania’s security situation has been different. Unlike Kenya, Tanzania has not militarily intervened in Somalia as part of an African Union mission (Amisom). The mission has been operating since 2007 to provide security in that country in the Horn of Africa.</p>
<p>Uganda has its own set of security problems. A terrorist bombing in Uganda’s capital Kampala in 2010 was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2010/7/13/al-shabab-claims-uganda-bombings">attributed</a> to al-Shabaab. But a bigger threat to Uganda’s security has come from Islamist rebels known as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/tracking-the-drcs-allied-democratic-forces-and-its-links-to-isis-116439">Allied Democratic Forces</a> based in the Democratic Republic of Congo. </p>
<h2>Domestic institutions and public opinion</h2>
<p>There is one other factor that explains east Africa’s relations with Israel: the religious composition of populations in the region. </p>
<p>Israel is <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/truth-many-evangelical-christians-support-israel-rcna121481">popular</a> with many devout Christians in east Africa, as is the case throughout the continent. If given the opportunity, these Christians would make a pilgrimage to the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.23.1.09">Holy Land</a>. This factor obviously affects <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/israel-in-africa-9781786995056/">public opinion</a>. </p>
<p>Conversely, Muslims in east Africa have a greater concern for the situation of the Palestinians. All three countries – Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – have populations adhering to these two religions. </p>
<p>Given the democratic characters of Kenya and Tanzania, where there have been peaceful transfers of power, public opinion has more of an impact. This explains Ruto’s <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/president-ruto-changes-tune-on-israel-hamas-conflict-4431560">change of tone</a> after the initial statement strongly critical of Hamas.</p>
<p>Tanzania has remained consistent in condemning all forms of violence. That country calls for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as do the other east African states. </p>
<p>Public pressure is less important in Uganda, where Museveni is quite autocratic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael B. Bishku 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>
East Africa’s reaction to the war in Gaza appears shaped by history, affinity to the policies of the west and the threat of terrorism.
Michael B. Bishku, Professor of Middle Eastern and African History, Augusta University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217453
2023-11-13T13:57:19Z
2023-11-13T13:57:19Z
India to Africa to the UK: Diasporas don’t influence politics in predictable ways
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558834/original/file-20231110-17-7nkgue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former UK home secretary Suella Braverman (left) with prime minister Rishi Sunak. Both are of Indian-African descent.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">WPA Pool/Pool</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Leading politicians in the UK, including the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, are of African Indian descent. Other high profile examples include the country’s two most recent home secretaries – Priti Patel, who served from 2019 to 2022, and her successor Suella Braverman, whose tenure ended abruptly on 13 November when she was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/13/suella-braverman-sacked-home-secretary">fired by Sunak</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/secretary-of-state-for-the-home-department">home secretary</a> is responsible for law enforcement in England and Wales, national security and immigration. </p>
<p>Sunak’s grandparents <a href="https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/trends/story/rishi-sunak-the-unifier-british-pms-origins-maybe-both-indian-and-pakistani-350751-2022-10-25">left the Punjab</a> in northern India for east Africa in the 1930s. His mother was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rishi-Sunak">born</a> in Tanzania and his father in Kenya. </p>
<p>Patel’s parents were <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/priti-patel-immigration-laws-parents-home-office-brexit-a9343571.html">immigrants</a> from Uganda; she was born in the UK and cherishes her “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/priti-patel-son-sees-put-tell-turn-news/">deeply held British values</a>.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/braverman">Braverman</a>, too, was born in Britain. Her mother <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/commons/the-speaker/speakers-initiatives/roots-to-parliament/commonwealth-connections/africa2/suella-braverman-mp---mauritius/">grew up in Mauritius</a>, a former French colony, and her father is of Kenyan Indian origin. Braverman calls herself “a child of the British Empire”. </p>
<p>All three are part of the <a href="https://www.policycenter.ma/opinion/indian-diaspora-africa-instrument-new-delhi-soft-power-continent">African Indian diaspora</a>. Do they tell us anything about the cohort of people who have had the same experiences as the children of migrants and as part of a diaspora? </p>
<p>I have <a href="https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/diaspora.20.2.001">researched</a> the Indian and African diasporas and found that, in fact, members of diasporas have supple and dynamic political positions. Sunak, Braverman and Patel, among others, provide real life examples of how diasporic people exhibit a <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/45683693.pdf">wide range</a> of political affiliations, outlooks and opinions.</p>
<p>Some researchers used to believe that diasporic and immigrant communities would function as a “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41262886">unified polity</a>” – they might all <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737440">vote the same way</a>. This thinking holds true for many whose work focuses on diasporas and politics – but for those, like me, who research diasporas and migration, there’s been a shift in the last decade or so towards <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-04941-6_22-1">more complex understandings</a>. My research is qualitative, allowing me to delve more deeply into the complexity and idiosyncrasy of diasporic communities.</p>
<h2>Diasporas on the move</h2>
<p>An <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254936963_Indian_Ocean_Cosmopolitanism_MG_Vassanji%27s_Hybrid_Parables_of_Kenyan_Nationalism">African Indian</a> is a member of the Indian diaspora whose family is or has recently been Africa-based. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/minority-ethnic-politicians-are-pushing-harsh-immigration-policies-why-representation-doesnt-always-mean-racial-justice-206885">Minority ethnic politicians are pushing harsh immigration policies – why representation doesn't always mean racial justice</a>
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<p>In the early 1970s, former Ugandan president Idi Amin implemented several hostile, xenophobic policies. In 1972 he ordered all Indian Ugandans to <a href="https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/ugandan-asians-50-years-since-their-expulsion-from-uganda/">leave</a> the country. Many East African Indians, including those from Tanzania and Kenya, emigrated because of <a href="https://microform.digital/boa/posts/category/articles/629/from-the-archive-the-indian-diaspora-in-british-colonial-africa">open discrimination</a> against them, heading to countries like Canada and the UK in greater numbers.</p>
<p>It wasn’t just Amin who drove those of Indian descent from the continent. Throughout the 20th century, and especially <a href="https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/2014/how-has-britains-post-war-experience-of-immigration-shaped-the-contemporary-debate-on-integration/">after the second world war</a>, Britain’s colonial subjects started arriving in the UK. In prior centuries, British imperialism and settler colonialism also <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/PubMaterials/978-0-8223-7102-1_601.pdf">spurred</a> many waves of migration, including some of those of the African Indian diaspora.</p>
<p>A diasporic group lives in a geographical location other than their original homeland. Researchers have long been interested in whether members of ethnic or religious diasporas would act as a bloc of unified political actors in influencing their <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3594834">homeland politics</a> or the political climate in their <a href="https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/47647461/c6681.pdf">new adoptive countries</a>. </p>
<h2>Dynamic, discursive identity</h2>
<p>Researchers have <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13527258.2019.1570543">highlighted</a> how diasporas can “rediasporise” as children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren move to new locations. Members of diasporas may choose to identify with multiple homelands and host countries over time. </p>
<p>But they may choose to identify with one more than the other or do something else entirely. Take Braverman: although a member of the Indian and African diasporas, she has been outspoken about tightening the UK’s immigration policy. She’s on record as having <a href="https://theprint.in/opinion/sunak-braverman-priti-patel-are-twice-migrants-its-why-they-close-the-door-behind-them/1185299/">said</a>: </p>
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<p>Look at migration in this country – the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants.</p>
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<p>Expecting her to have an automatic affiliation with her past isn’t reasonable. Recent scholarly work on diasporic identity has sought to understand identity not as static and “essentialist” but dynamic and <a href="https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/17818/1/New%20Orientations%20to%20Identity%20in%20Mobility%20Final%20.pdf">discursive</a>. It is also co-constructed, created as an interplay between the individual and the structures – of race, ethnicity, religion, national context and so on – in which she finds herself. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/idi-amins-economic-war-victimised-ugandas-africans-and-asians-alike-188841">Idi Amin's 'economic war' victimised Uganda's Africans and Asians alike</a>
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<p>Real-life examples like those of Patel, Braverman and Sunak can help diaspora scholars like myself sharpen our analysis of diasporic communities. As scholars, we cannot presume to know how members of diasporas will identify themselves and what their politics will be without doing extensive research. This will build a better understanding of the complex ways that diasporic communities will contribute to society in their new homes. </p>
<p>All we can say for sure is that diasporic identities and identifications are fluid, mobile and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449057.2023.2199610">creative</a>. Diasporic people cannot be pigeon-holed or put in a box.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217453/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Tandiwe Myambo 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>
Members of diasporas may choose to identify with multiple homelands and host countries over time.
Melissa Tandiwe Myambo, Research Associate, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213779
2023-10-09T13:32:18Z
2023-10-09T13:32:18Z
Climate hazards aren’t restricted by borders – African countries have taken a big step to address this
<p>Climate risks can be complex to deal with because they don’t respect country borders. Hazards in one region can have negative repercussions in another. These are known as transboundary climate risks, and they’re a growing concern. They require coordinated, multinational responses, which can be a challenge given the different priorities and capabilities of each country.</p>
<p>A transboundary climate risk could be due to a shared ecosystem, such as a river basin. For instance the Nile river, which flows through 11 countries, can experience variations in water availability due to changes in the weather. This will affect the millions who depend on it. </p>
<p>Transboundary climate risks can also cross continents and oceans and <a href="https://adaptationwithoutborders.org/knowledge-base/adaptation-without-borders/an-african-perspective-on-transboundary-and-cascading-climate-risks">spawn crises</a> on the other side of the world. These could range from <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/situations/drought-food-insecurity-greater-horn-of-africa">food and water shortages</a> to threats to <a href="https://www.sei.org/publications/impacts-on-global-food-trade-networks/">trade</a> and <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20221106-crisis-on-the-nile-global-warming-and-overuse-threaten-africa-s-longest-river">energy</a>, widening <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2021/09/climate-change-and-inequality-guivarch-mejean-taconet">inequalities</a>, forced <a href="https://adaptationwithoutborders.org/knowledge-base/human-mobility/addressing-the-land-degradation-migration-nexus">migrations</a> and even <a href="https://www.mistra-geopolitics.se/publications/climate-change-trade-and-global-food-security/">geopolitical conflicts</a>. </p>
<p>For instance a drought in East Africa could affect tea production in Kenya. This would lead to an increase in prices for tea drinkers in importing countries, like the UK. Likewise, a typhoon could affect manufacturers in south-east Asia. This could disrupt the supply of electronics to African markets and lead to price hikes or shortages.</p>
<p>Africa is particularly vulnerable. Trade routes, supply chains and shared ecosystems span across the continent. A climate-induced disruption in one country can easily ripple into cascading effects in its neighbours. The coordinated management of transboundary climate risks is both a challenge and a necessity.</p>
<p>At the recent <a href="https://africaclimatesummit.org/">Africa climate summit</a> in Kenya, the African Union and other African stakeholders presented the <a href="https://adaptationwithoutborders.org/knowledge-base/adaptation-without-borders/a-roadmap-for-african-resilience">Roadmap for African Resilience</a> to address this.</p>
<p>The roadmap contains a series of actions meant to enhance coordination between the regional economic communities and member states in addressing and managing transboundary and cascading climate risks. This is an objective of the African Union’s <a href="https://au.int/en/documents/20220628/african-union-climate-change-and-resilient-development-strategy-and-action-plan">Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan 2022–2032</a>.</p>
<p>Historically, adaptation efforts have largely addressed localised impacts, such as rising sea levels and coastal communities or frequent droughts and their impact on agricultural yields.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.sei.org/people/richard-j-t-klein/">expert</a> on adaptation to climate change, I believe that the significance of this roadmap lies in its comprehensive, continent-wide approach. It recognises that shared challenges require shared solutions. And it underscores Africa’s commitment to taking charge of its climate destiny. This makes the roadmap valuable in the evolving discourse on global climate resilience.</p>
<h2>Unified front</h2>
<p>The Roadmap for African Resilience outlines 25 crucial actions to fortify Africa’s resilience against transboundary climate risks. It has a focus on the risks posed to global supply chains, energy and food markets. </p>
<p>The roadmap’s actions can be grouped into four general plans:</p>
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<li><p>Recognise the risks: this includes a pan-African transboundary climate risk assessment and the development of risk indicators.</p></li>
<li><p>Govern together: identify the transboundary risks that each country considers most important. These will be included in different areas of policy.</p></li>
<li><p>Implement Africa-wide adaptation: create a plan to find the best ways to strengthen communities against transboundary climate risks. Just resilience principles are embedded into this, such as prioritising the needs of the most vulnerable people and upholding human rights and cultural values. The roadmap also kickstarts a programme to put these ideas into action.</p></li>
<li><p>Mobilise resources for resilience: getting more money from multiple countries to support climate action, making sure private investments match public goals by emphasising systemic resilience, and building capacity to invest together.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The Roadmap for African Resilience thus offers a holistic, pan-African vision. It not only identifies transboundary climate risks but also proposes a structured approach for collective action. </p>
<p>Implementing the roadmap requires the active involvement of a range of African organisations. These include the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Union Commission, the African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa’s Development, the African Group of Negotiators Expert Support and the Regional Economic Communities in Africa. In addition, national governments, the private sector, civil society and academia play crucial roles.</p>
<p>The challenge will lie in ensuring cohesive action among these entities. Especially when adaptation to climate risks is a relatively new endeavour for some of the above organisations.</p>
<h2>Significant step</h2>
<p>The inaugural Africa Climate Summit marked a significant step for Africa’s collective commitment to resilience. The roadmap acknowledges the reality of Africa’s intertwined destinies and the need for collaborative solutions to cross-border climate risks.</p>
<p>Given the borderless nature of climate risks, global cooperation must be at the heart of adaptation initiatives.</p>
<p><em>Brenda Ochola, communications and impact officer with the Stockholm Environment Institute, contributed to the writing of this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213779/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard J.T. Klein receives funding from the European Commission's Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA) and the Swedish research council for sustainable development Formas. He is a member of the steering committee of Adaptation Without Borders—a global partnership working to strengthen systemic resilience to cross-border climate impacts. </span></em></p>
Transboundary climate risks can cross borders, continents and oceans to affect communities on the other side of the world. Africa’s new roadmap seeks to address this.
Richard J.T. Klein, Senior Research Fellow and Team Leader, International Climate Risk and Adaptation, Stockholm Environment Institute
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212979
2023-09-26T13:44:03Z
2023-09-26T13:44:03Z
Environmental disasters and climate change force people to cross borders, but they’re not recognised as refugees – they should be
<p>As our planet warms, we’re experiencing <a href="https://www.c2es.org/content/extreme-weather-and-climate-change/">more frequent</a> and severe weather events, rising sea levels, prolonged droughts and altered ecosystems. These environmental shifts directly affect people’s livelihoods by destroying crops and depleting water sources. They make once-inhabitable areas uninhabitable. </p>
<p>In response to these challenges, many individuals and communities have no choice but to abandon their homes and seek safety elsewhere. The vast majority will remain within their country borders – it’s predicted that by 2050 up to <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/10/27/climate-change-could-further-impact-africa-s-recovery-pushing-86-million-africans-to-migrate-within-their-own-countries">86 million Africans</a> will migrate within their own countries due to weather shocks. But some will cross borders, triggering the need for international protection. </p>
<p>The challenge, however, is that people crossing borders due to weather don’t qualify as refugees under key laws and conventions. This displacement could be due to sudden-onset events, such as volcanic eruptions or flooding, which may pose an immediate threat to life. Or it could be due to slow-onset events, such as desertification or rising sea levels, which may eventually make life untenable. </p>
<p>It’s hard to say exactly how many people this affects because it’s a <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/06/lets-talk-about-climate-migrants-not-climate-refugees/">complex topic</a>. However, we do know that cross-border migration affects <a href="https://www.savethechildren.net/news/drought-and-conflict-drive-highest-number-somalis-kenya-refugee-camps-decade">tens of thousands of people</a> every year. For instance <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/horn-africa-drought-enters-sixth-failed-rainy-season-unhcr-calls-urgent-assistance">drought conditions</a> in 2022, exacerbated by political insecurity and instability, forced at least 180,000 refugees from Somalia and South Sudan into parts of Kenya and Ethiopia.</p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/367965451_African_Shifts_The_Africa_Climate_Mobility_Report_Addressing_Climate-Forced_Migration_Displacement#page=85">predicted</a> that the number of people displaced due to weather shifts or disasters will reach as many as 1.2 million people by 2050. This figure will depend on how changes in the climate unfold. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-will-force-up-to-113m-people-to-relocate-within-africa-by-2050-new-report-193633">Climate change will force up to 113m people to relocate within Africa by 2050 - new report</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Without refugee status, those forced to move across borders due to weather events may not receive valuable support. Depending on the individual country, support can include the right to live and work, access to health or education services and the right to move freely. </p>
<p>I study the legal protection of asylum seekers, refugees, migrants and internally displaced people in Africa. I recommend that international laws and conventions be amended to explicitly include people forced by weather shocks to move across borders. They need full refugee protection. </p>
<h2>Lack of protection</h2>
<p>A variety of laws ensure refugees’ basic human rights are protected. The core of “refugee law” is constituted by the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-are/1951-refugee-convention">1951 Geneva Refugee Convention</a> – a United Nations multilateral treaty that defines who a refugee is – and its 1967 <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/protocol-relating-status-refugees">New York Protocol</a>. Refugees in Africa are also protected by the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/media/oau-convention-governing-specific-aspects-refugee-problems-africa-adopted-assembly-heads">1969 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Convention</a>. </p>
<p>These laws provide them with a safe haven, access to fair asylum procedures and protection from discrimination. The domestic laws of many African countries incorporate these international principles. This offers legal safeguards and support to refugees, helping them seek safety and rebuild their lives.</p>
<p>As I mention in a <a href="https://www.academia.edu/79451051/Climate_induced_displacement_in_the_Sahel_A_question_of_classification">recent study</a>, the challenge with the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/afr/publications/legal/5ddfcdc47/handbook-procedures-criteria-determining-refugee-status-under-1951-convention.html">Refugee Convention</a> is that it rules out people who are “victims of famine or natural disaster” unless they also have a “well‑founded fear of persecution”. For instance, people fleeing Ethiopia between 1983 and 1985 due to drought would be considered refugees because they also feared persecution by the Mengistu Haile Mariam-led military dictatorship (Derg) which was <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/Ethiopia919.pdf">deliberately restricting food supplies</a> in parts of the country. </p>
<p>The United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR), follows the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/afr/publications/legal/5ddfcdc47/handbook-procedures-criteria-determining-refugee-status-under-1951-convention.html">definition</a> provided by the Refugee Convention. As does the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-are/global-compact-refugees">Global Compact on Refugees</a>, a UN-driven blueprint for governments, international organisations and other stakeholders.</p>
<p>This means that people forcibly displaced only by environmental disasters are not entitled to refugee status, although deserving of temporary protection. </p>
<p>Within Africa, there’s a debate about whether the 1969 <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/oau-convention-governing-specific-aspects-refugee-problems-africa">Organisation for the African Unity (OAU) Refugee Convention</a> originally included people displaced by natural disasters in its definition of “refugees”. Some practitioners believe it does, though this <a href="https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/reviews-pdf/2022-05/climate-induced-displacement-in-the-sahel-classification-918.pdf">stance</a> appears limited to human-made disasters.</p>
<p>When it comes to domestic laws, as of now, there’s no African country that recognises people fleeing natural disasters as a “refugee”. </p>
<p>There is, however, some movement. People fleeing environmental disasters are increasingly being recognised by international organisations. </p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/press-releases/unhcr-commits-climate-action-africa-protect-displaced-populations-and-foster">UNHCR</a> recognises them as a vulnerable category of persons to be protected. It has <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/press-releases/unhcr-commits-climate-action-africa-protect-displaced-populations-and-foster">raised awareness</a> of climate change as a driver of displacement and the need to address protection for people displaced in the context of disasters. UNHCR is also <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/legacy-pdf/5975e6cf7.pdf">working on</a> addressing legal gaps related to cross-border disaster-displacement. </p>
<p>But there’s still more to be done.</p>
<h2>What needs to change</h2>
<p>People displaced by adverse weather developments should be given more than temporary protection. This will require changes to international regulations and national laws. </p>
<p>For instance, a protocol regarding climate-induced displacement should be added to the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/media/oau-convention-governing-specific-aspects-refugee-problems-africa-adopted-assembly-heads">1969 OAU convention</a> so that displaced people who cross international borders are legally covered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cristiano d'Orsi 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>
Without refugee status people aren’t able to receive valuable support, like the right to live and work in a country.
Cristiano d'Orsi, Lecturer and Senior Research Fellow at the South African Research Chair in International Law (SARCIL), University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/209422
2023-07-17T15:06:46Z
2023-07-17T15:06:46Z
What does it mean to be ‘educated’? In Uganda it’s not just schooling that counts
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537064/original/file-20230712-25-lfnlkb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The experience of schooling matters as much as the practices it teaches.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Juilliart/Shutterstock (Editorial use only)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How do you gauge whether someone is educated or not? In many parts of the world, the answer relates to the level of formal qualifications they achieve when they are young – do they have a university degree? In what subject and from what institution?</p>
<p>This appeals to the sense that education is something earned and to the belief that schools and universities have the authority to say who is (and who is not) educated. It’s also how economists and social scientists define someone’s education level and link that to what their health and social outcomes might be later in life.</p>
<p>However, as journalist Vanessa Friedman <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/style/george-santos-style.html">has written</a> in the New York Times, educational status can change because of the clothes you wear. She uses two examples – a jacket worn by the fictional protagonist of the 1999 film <a href="https://www.gentlemansgazette.com/talented-mr-ripley-menswear-review/">The Talented Mr Ripley</a> and the outfits worn by <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/george-santos-news-arrested-indicted-mug-shot-clothes.html">disgraced US politician George Santos</a>, a look she calls the “uniform of preppy private-school boys everywhere”. He worked hard, she argues, to appear more credentialed than he was.</p>
<p>These characters, one fictional and one real, are con artists. But they make an important point about the way being educated is not a settled status. It is something that can be worked on in various ways, including through the clothes one wears.</p>
<p>We are researchers involved in <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/projects/youth-futures-challenging-categories-educated-unemployed-institutional-innovators-rural-uganda/">a project</a> exploring young people’s futures in rural Uganda. As part of this, Ben – an anthropologist – conducted <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/amet.13151?casa_token=CA3eZvGKf_AAAAAA:42WXwWMZJ24jJf3Avpa8P1royeN9TFTpYVl2wmUR-PnpUMHH5_asQdKpc6guxNycCt2hO7-GbfdCz2P-">a study</a> to understand what young men and women do with their education in the absence of white collar jobs.</p>
<p>We found many women and men, of different ages, continuing to work on their claims to an educated identity throughout their lives. They do this by wearing the right clothes, but also by joining committees, being active in church, speaking what is considered the right sort of English, and presenting their arguments in the “logical” way that those with a good education have been trained in. </p>
<p>These people are not Tom Ripleys or George Santoses. They are doing what they do because being seen as educated has benefits. In this part of Uganda, educated people tend to prevail in disputes and fare better with various authorities; they are also more likely to benefit from government and NGO schemes.</p>
<p>This shows that people can work on their educational status throughout life, and that much of the work of being educated is only indirectly tied to the schooling experience. Policymakers miss this point. They assume that formal qualifications are the best measure of educational status. But “being educated” is not only about the credentials you have: it is also about how others credential you.</p>
<h2>Ivan and Florence</h2>
<p>Oledai is a rural sub-parish of about 180 households near the trading centre of Ngora, in eastern Uganda. Though English is the language of instruction from the late stages of primary school, Ateso is the most spoken language. Residents engage in a mix of farm work and petty trading; some run businesses to make a living. A small number have salaried employment, typically as school teachers.<br>
There is a difference in how young and older people work on their educational status that reflects the fact that very few older people had the opportunity to go to secondary school.</p>
<p>If you ask a resident in the village to take you to the home of an educated person, you might we be directed to Ivan Onai’s grass thatched house. Ivan is in his late 20s; a born-again Christian who is fluent in English. He listens to the BBC World Service to cultivate his vocabulary. </p>
<p>Always well turned out, Ivan serves as a youth counsellor at the sub-county and runs a youth group in the village. Though Ivan dropped out of school after his A-levels, he has cultivated the identity of a university graduate through his manners, political career and committee work. Many feel he is more educated than some of his better-credentialed peers.</p>
<p>Florence Akol, meanwhile, is in her early 40s and went to school at a time when educating daughters was less of a priority in Uganda than <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540253.2010.499854?casa_token=JBrBgmtddDEAAAAA%3Aut9qBetr1Dn0hKmIWTtdqwNT4QpPGx-NQHc0iYYXW0lEttNmZvFmgpDfHNPx2ky5knn-85mc-As9ig">it is today</a>. She completed only two years of primary education, but went on to raise two daughters who both attended university. Through them she has learned English. She is also treasurer of the village council and treasurer of her clan.</p>
<p>These stories illustrate how schools and universities throughout Uganda are important not only as places where certificates are handed out but also as referents against which ideas of “being educated” circulate more widely in society. </p>
<p>The experience of schooling matters as much as the practices it teaches – committee skills, competence in English, the carrying of books and pens. Committee work requires an understanding of procedure, an ability to do bookwork and, often, a degree of confidence in spoken English. </p>
<h2>The benefit of perceptions</h2>
<p>The wider community often discussed what made someone educated. One older woman, part of a group trying to raise money for school fees, told us that education “trims your manners and helps you think differently” and that “being educated” helped in managing disputes and getting a favourable outcome in the village court. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of 7 women, two children and a man sit on a mat, talking with someone out of the frame" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537065/original/file-20230712-25-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537065/original/file-20230712-25-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537065/original/file-20230712-25-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537065/original/file-20230712-25-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537065/original/file-20230712-25-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537065/original/file-20230712-25-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537065/original/file-20230712-25-bkba5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&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">Women in Oledai reflect on what it means to be ‘educated’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ben Jones</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This could be observed as the community mobilised around the “parish fund”, a new government initiative meant to help its citizens, or the president’s <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/how-emyooga-scheme-works-3415992">Emyooga scheme</a> targeting youth. Those appointed to positions of influence were more educated than the average, and those in committee positions had the capacity to monopolise how the funds would be allocated.</p>
<h2>Policy implications</h2>
<p>We believe that understanding these dynamics is key for policymakers and researchers, who (in Uganda and many other parts of the continent) define educational status through the formal qualifications a person has. They focus on the health or social benefits that come from “human capital”. </p>
<p>We would encourage policymakers to rethink how education is understood so that it comes to be defined as an accredited status – how people evaluate you – as well as a credentialed one – the papers you carry in your pocket. </p>
<p>Investing in areas that shape accreditation would be a way of helping more people access opportunities. In Oledai this might mean offering evening classes to help adults improve their skills in spoken English, or giving people access to training in the sort of bookwork that committees value.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fieldwork was funded by a Mid-Career Fellowship from the British Academy (MD170053) and a further grant also from the British Academy (YF190162). I would like to thank Stella Aguti, Joseph Ochana, Sarah Amongin, and Joel Ekaun Hannington for their support in collecting data and debating the research findings.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Njogu 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>
In this area, much of the work of being educated is only indirectly tied to the schooling experience.
Ben Jones, Senior Lecturer, University of East Anglia
Lucy Njogu, PhD student, University of East Anglia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208251
2023-07-06T10:38:19Z
2023-07-06T10:38:19Z
Kiswahili: how a standard version of the east African language was formed – and spread across the world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534332/original/file-20230627-17-hl1r78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jasmin Merdan/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Kiswahili originated in east Africa, spreading around the continent and the globe. It’s been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60333796">adopted</a> as a working language at the African Union and there’s a push for it to become Africa’s lingua franca or common language. Morgan J. Robinson is a <a href="https://www.history.msstate.edu/directory/mjr530">historian</a> of east Africa with a research focus on language who has published a <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/A+Language+for+the+World">book</a> on Kiswahili called A Language for the World. We asked her how today’s accepted standard version of Kiswahili came into being.</em></p>
<h2>Where is Kiswahili spoken?</h2>
<p>Kiswahili is spoken across eastern and central Africa. Mother-tongue speakers are found mainly along the coast, but Kiswahili is spoken as a second or third language by people around the world. According to Unesco, which in 2021 proclaimed 7 July as <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/7-july-2023-edition-world-kiswahili-language-day#:%7E:text=7%20July%3A%20The%202023%20Edition%20of%20the%20World%20Kiswahili%20Language%20Day">World Kiswahili Language Day</a>, it’s <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/kiswahili-language-day">spoken</a> by 200 million people.</p>
<h2>What led to it becoming so prominent?</h2>
<p>Kiswahili’s role as a prominent symbolic and practical language in Africa is the result of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-how-swahili-became-africas-most-spoken-language-177259">multiple factors</a>. These range from political and economic to cultural and historical. Already by the 1800s Kiswahili was being used all along the caravan trade network that crisscrossed east-central Africa. In the centuries before this, the language had been used to formulate legal, philosophical and poetic contributions that influenced the entire Indian Ocean world.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534279/original/file-20230627-15-p2dmk2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with a black and white photo of a man in a library, holding some books in one hand and reading from a book in the other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534279/original/file-20230627-15-p2dmk2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534279/original/file-20230627-15-p2dmk2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534279/original/file-20230627-15-p2dmk2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534279/original/file-20230627-15-p2dmk2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534279/original/file-20230627-15-p2dmk2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534279/original/file-20230627-15-p2dmk2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534279/original/file-20230627-15-p2dmk2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ohio University Press</span></span>
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<p>But one of the arguments of my book is that the creation of a standardised version of the language resulted by the mid-1900s in a version of Kiswahili that was more portable than ever before. A standard language is a uniform written version that is generally recognised as the “official” form. This comes with the creation of dictionaries, grammars and literature that allow this version to travel further. </p>
<p>Another important part of the story of the standardisation of Kiswahili is that it was central to a variety of community-building projects across the course of a century. It was used by formerly enslaved students and missionaries alongside native speakers on Zanzibar and was central as a language of administration in Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Kenya and parts of Uganda during the colonial period. Kiswahili also played a political role in the anti-colonial movements of eastern Africa and among southern African freedom fighters who trained in Tanzania in the 1960s and 1970s. It was even embraced by some US civil rights activists. </p>
<p>All these communities used the language at various times to strengthen ties and communicate across barriers that otherwise might have kept people apart. This led not only to an increase in the number of people speaking and writing Kiswahili, but also to its reputation as a potential pan-African and even global connecting language.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-how-swahili-became-africas-most-spoken-language-177259">The story of how Swahili became Africa's most spoken language</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Many, including literary heavyweights <a href="https://udadisi.com/kiswahili-urithi-wetu-afrika/?fbclid=IwAR1g4MY3MvaTMdMuTVner-_Sfo3M5_KDQ-wNTvI2ZiLO4lv40vtp2BMcus0">Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o</a> from Kenya and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/23/books/wole-soyinka-writing-africa-and-politics.html">Wole Soyinka</a> from Nigeria, have advocated for the embracing of Kiswahili as a pan-African language of communication. </p>
<p>But there’s legitimate concern that the expanded use of Kiswahili in official and unofficial realms could endanger the linguistic diversity of east Africa.</p>
<p>It’s a problem for which I don’t have an answer. Perhaps multilingualism is the key. As Ngũgĩ encouraged in a 2021 <a href="https://udadisi.com/kiswahili-urithi-wetu-afrika/?fbclid=IwAR1g4MY3MvaTMdMuTVner-_Sfo3M5_KDQ-wNTvI2ZiLO4lv40vtp2BMcus0">speech</a> in Mombasa: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Therefore let us be proud of our mother tongues; let us be proud of Kiswahili as the national language; and on top of that let us add the knowledge of English or Mandarin or French or Yoruba, etcetera. These will only give strength to our proficiency and communication. But our foundation is made of our mother tongues and the language of the entire nation, that is Kiswahili.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>What exactly is standardised Kiswahili?</h2>
<p>Just as there are many “Englishes” spoken around the world, so are there multiple “Kiswahilis”. That’s to say, Kiswahili is a language of multiple dialects – the Kimvita spoken at Mombasa, for instance, or the Kiamu of Lamu – of which Standard Swahili is just one. It is the version that shapes the textbooks and curricula with which Kiswahili is taught around the world, so that most students learning Kiswahili in classrooms are learning Standard Swahili.</p>
<p>Its history is a long one that did not follow a single, straight path. However, broadly speaking, Standard Swahili is based on Kiunguja, the Zanzibari dialect of the language. It’s also important to note that while Standard Swahili is written in the Latin script – the alphabet used to write English, French, Italian etcetera – Kiswahili has a much longer history of being written in the Arabic script, a tradition that lives on in some communities.</p>
<h2>What were the key moments in the standardisation of the language?</h2>
<p>One of my main arguments is that the standardisation of Kiswahili was a long-term and, by necessity, collaborative process. The standard version was neither wholly imposed by the British colonial regime in the 1920s, nor was it a “naturally” developed tool of anti-colonial resistance. Starting in 1864 with the arrival of Anglican missionaries on Zanzibar, through the independence and early post-colonial eras, multiple communities participated in the process. They all used the language to create their own diverse communities.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-kiswahili-science-fiction-award-charts-a-path-for-african-languages-163876">New Kiswahili science fiction award charts a path for African languages</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One of my favourite examples to describe this process is the figure of Owen Makanyassa. He was enslaved as a young man, but before arriving at its destination the ship carrying him was captured by the British Royal Navy and, in the late 1860s or early 1870s, Makanyassa was placed under the care of a missionary society on Zanzibar. He attended the mission’s school and became an invaluable worker at its printing press, producing some of the translations that would go on to form the basis of Standard Swahili. Though Makanyassa and his fellow students and workers spoke a variety of mother tongues, their language of communication very quickly became Kiswahili, and they all participated in this early stage of its standardisation – though they haven’t always been credited for their contributions. </p>
<p>In my book I zoom in on moments like this, moments in which freedom and unfreedom, oppression and empowerment, official and unofficial knowledge production combined, slowly creating a written version of Swahili that would be exported around the world, creating a truly global language.</p>
<p><em>Download a <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/A+Language+for+the+World">free copy</a> of the book at Ohio University Press</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208251/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgan J. Robinson 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>
By the 1950s a standard version of the language emerged, today spoken by an estimated 200 million people.
Morgan J. Robinson, Assistant Professor, Mississippi State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/205310
2023-05-23T13:57:46Z
2023-05-23T13:57:46Z
World’s oldest ‘Homo sapiens’ footprint identified on South Africa’s Cape south coast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526199/original/file-20230515-12409-7oogjm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The oldest known footprint of our species, lightly ringed with chalk. It appears long and narrow because the trackmaker dragged their heel.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charles Helm</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Just over two decades ago, as the new millennium began, it seemed that tracks left by our ancient human ancestors dating back more than about 50,000 years were excessively rare. </p>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/worlds-oldest-homo-sapiens-footprint-identified-on-south-africas-cape-south-coast-205310&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p>Only four sites had been reported in the whole of Africa at that time. Two were from East Africa: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/278317a0">Laetoli in Tanzania</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/289167a0">Koobi Fora in Kenya</a>; two were from South Africa (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10420940802470482">Nahoon and Langebaan</a>). In fact the Nahoon site, reported in 1966, was the first hominin tracksite ever to be described.</p>
<p>In 2023 the situation is very different. It appears that people were not looking hard enough or were not looking in the right places. Today the African tally for dated hominin ichnosites (a term that includes both tracks and other traces) older than 50,000 years stands at 14. These can conveniently be divided into an East African cluster (five sites) and a South African cluster from the Cape coast (nine sites). There are a further ten sites elsewhere in the world including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088329">the UK</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba8940">Arabian Peninsula</a>.</p>
<p>Given that relatively few skeletal hominin remains have been found on the Cape coast, the traces left by our human ancestors as they moved about ancient landscapes are a useful way to complement and enhance our understanding of ancient hominins in Africa.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10420940.2023.2204231">recently published article</a> in <em>Ichnos</em>, the international journal of trace fossils, we provided the ages of seven newly dated hominin ichnosites that we have identified in the past five years on South Africa’s Cape south coast. These sites now form part of the “South African cluster” of nine sites. </p>
<p>We found that the sites ranged in age; the most recent dates back about 71,000 years. The oldest, which dates back 153,000 years, is one of the more remarkable finds recorded in this study: it is the oldest footprint thus far attributed to our species, <em>Homo sapiens</em>.</p>
<p>The new dates corroborate the archaeological record. Along with other evidence from the area and time period, including the development of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11660">sophisticated stone tools</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.01.005">art</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2004.09.002">jewellery</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.07.011">harvesting of shellfish</a>, it confirms that the Cape south coast was an area in which early anatomically modern humans survived, evolved and thrived, before spreading out of Africa to other continents.</p>
<h2>Very different sites</h2>
<p>There are significant differences between the East African and South African tracksite clusters. The East African sites are much older: Laetoli, the oldest, is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9956-3_4">3.66 million years old</a> and the youngest is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21158-7">0.7 million years old</a>. The tracks were not made by <em>Homo sapiens</em>, but by earlier species such as australopithecines, <em>Homo heidelbergensis</em> and <em>Homo erectus</em>. For the most part, the surfaces on which the East African tracks occur have had to be laboriously and meticulously excavated and exposed. </p>
<p>The South African sites on the Cape coast, by contrast, are substantially younger. All have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22059-5%20https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2020/8156">been attributed</a> to <em>Homo sapiens</em>. And the tracks tend to be fully exposed when they’re discovered, in rocks known as aeolianites, which are the cemented versions of ancient dunes. </p>
<p>Excavation is therefore not usually considered – and because of the sites’ exposure to the elements and the relatively coarse nature of dune sand, they aren’t usually as well preserved as the East African sites. They are also vulnerable to erosion, so we often have to work fast to record and analyse them before they are destroyed by the ocean and the wind.</p>
<p>While this limits the potential for detailed interpretation, we can have the deposits dated. That’s where optically stimulated luminescence comes in.</p>
<h2>An illuminating method</h2>
<p>A key challenge when studying the palaeo-record – trackways, fossils, or any other kind of ancient sediment – is determining how old the materials are. </p>
<p>Without this it is difficult to evaluate the wider significance of a find, or to interpret the climatic changes that create the geological record. In the case of the Cape south coast aeolianites, the dating method of choice is often <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-earth-040610-133425">optically stimulated luminescence</a>.</p>
<p>This method of dating shows how long ago a grain of sand was exposed to sunlight; in other words, how long that section of sediment has been buried. Given how the tracks in this study were formed – impressions made on wet sand, followed by burial with new blowing sand – it is a good method as we can be reasonably confident that the dating “clock” started at about the same time the trackway was created. </p>
<p>The Cape south coast is a great place to apply optically stimulated luminescence. Firstly, the sediments are rich in quartz grains, which produce lots of luminescence. Secondly, the abundant sunshine, wide beaches and ready wind transport of sand to form coastal dunes mean any pre-existing luminescence signals are fully removed prior to the burial event of interest, making for reliable age estimates. This method has underpinned much of the dating of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.07.032">previous finds</a> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248410001375?via%3Dihub">in the area</a>. </p>
<p>The overall date range of our findings for the hominin ichnosites - about 153,000 to 71,000 years in age – is consistent with ages in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.10.003">previously reported studies</a> from similar geological deposits in the region. </p>
<p>The 153,000 year old track was found in the Garden Route National Park, west of the coastal town of Knysna on the Cape south coast. The two previously dated South African sites, Nahoon and Langebaan, have yielded ages of about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10420940802470482">124,000 years and 117,000 years respectively</a>.</p>
<h2>Increased understanding</h2>
<p>The work of our research team, based in the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, is not done. </p>
<p>We suspect that further hominin ichnosites are waiting to be discovered on the Cape south coast and elsewhere on the coast. The search also needs to be extended to older deposits in the region, ranging in age from 400,000 years to more than 2 million years.</p>
<p>A decade from now, we expect the list of ancient hominin ichnosites to be a lot longer than it is at present – and that scientists will be able to learn a great deal more about our ancient ancestors and the landscapes they occupied.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205310/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>
This was an area in which early anatomically modern humans survived, evolved and thrived, before spreading out of Africa to other continents.
Charles Helm, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University
Andrew Carr, Senior Lecturer, University of Leicester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/205673
2023-05-18T06:49:33Z
2023-05-18T06:49:33Z
Baboon bonds: new study reveals that friendships make up for a bad start in life
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526176/original/file-20230515-12435-66xt42.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two juvenile baboons passively share information about a food source when one sniffs the other’s muzzle while feeding.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Susan C. Alberts</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Childhoods can predict a great deal about how adult lives might play out. For instance, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749379798000178?via%3Dihub">research</a> has shown that people whose childhoods involve poverty, abuse and neglect have poorer health and shorter lives than those who have happy, stable childhoods.</p>
<p>Is there a way to overcome a bad start? The <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax9553">evidence</a> suggests that strong social ties may be one way to make up for adversity in early life. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25910392/">People</a> (and other animals such as <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.1313">killer whales</a>, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0022375">hyraxes</a> and <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2014.1261">baboons</a>) with strong adult friendships are healthier and live longer than those without such bonds.</p>
<p>I am a biologist working on how social environments affect development and lifespan. I <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade7172">recently collaborated</a> with statisticians and other biologists to understand whether harsh conditions in early life led to weak social relationships and poor health, or if close friendships could develop in adulthood in spite of a tough childhood. We also wondered if having close friends could potentially even make up for a poor early life. </p>
<p>To answer these questions, we studied a population of wild baboons in Kenya. Scientists often use <a href="https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2017/1/162/4835137">animal models</a> to test hypotheses that are difficult to study in humans. <a href="https://elifesciences.org/articles/50989">Baboons are a useful proxy for humans</a> because they are similar in their life cycle, social relationships, physiology and behaviour. And research has shown that the effects of early adversity and social bonds on lifespan in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213419303047">humans</a> are <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2015162117">paralleled</a> in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11181">baboons</a>.</p>
<p>The most important result of <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade7172">our research</a> is that early life adversity and adult social relationships have independent effects on survival. That is, both early life environments and adult social bonds have strong effects, but they don’t depend on each other. </p>
<p>This has been an important question for social scientists, because one possibility is that the effects of adult social bonds on survival are solely a result of the fact that early life adversity tends to lead to poor social bonds in adulthood and also to poor survival. In that scenario, the two effects are not independent. Everything is driven by early life adversity. </p>
<p>But our data shows that both effects matter. What’s more, our results suggest that strong social bonds can make up for some of the negative effects of early adversity for baboons. If that’s true for human too – we don’t know that yet – interventions early in life and in adulthood could improve human health.</p>
<h2>Baboons’ lives</h2>
<p>Baboons live in social groups with many <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.12887">complex relationships and interactions</a>. They have an accelerated life cycle compared to humans (they mature at around 4.5 years and females live about 18 years). Like humans, they evolved in a savannah environment and are highly adaptable and behaviourally flexible. These traits make them an ideal species for exploring our research questions and linking results to humans.</p>
<p>We study the baboons of the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya. The lives of these baboons have been documented since 1971 as part of the <a href="https://amboselibaboons.nd.edu/">Amboseli Baboon Research Project</a>. We have complete lifespan data for many individuals and can track families across generations. Direct observation also offers a complete picture of their development and behaviour.</p>
<p>We used data collected by the <a href="https://amboselibaboons.nd.edu/people/">senior field team of biologists</a> in Amboseli between 1983 and 2019 and examined six sources of early life adversity in the baboons: </p>
<ul>
<li>experiencing a drought in the first year of life</li>
<li>being born into an unusually large social group (“crowding”)</li>
<li>having a low-ranking mother</li>
<li>having a socially isolated mother</li>
<li>having a younger sibling born soon after them</li>
<li>losing their mother when they are young. </li>
</ul>
<p>These events are like adverse childhood experiences in humans that are associated with poverty or family trauma.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="One baboon grooms another with its hands" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526739/original/file-20230517-23-na6y4i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526739/original/file-20230517-23-na6y4i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526739/original/file-20230517-23-na6y4i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526739/original/file-20230517-23-na6y4i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526739/original/file-20230517-23-na6y4i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526739/original/file-20230517-23-na6y4i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526739/original/file-20230517-23-na6y4i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mother grooms her infant daughter during a nursing bout. The mother is wearing a radio collar, which researchers use to locate the study groups.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Susan C. Alberts</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/thriving-in-the-face-of-adversity-resilient-gorillas-reveal-clues-about-overcoming-childhood-misfortune-205184">Thriving in the face of adversity: Resilient gorillas reveal clues about overcoming childhood misfortune</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Once the study subjects grew up, we measured their social bonds and their survival as adults.</p>
<h2>Independent effects</h2>
<p>Our results showed that the effects of early life adversity and adult social relationships on survival were largely independent. Early life environments and adult social bonds both had strong effects on survival, but adult social bonds were not as heavily influenced by early life adversity as we’d thought. And the effect of bonds on survival didn’t depend in any way on whether the baboon experienced early life adversity. </p>
<p>This rules out the possibility that being born into a poor environment destines a baboon to both poor social relationships and poor survival.</p>
<p>Our results also suggest that strong social bonds in baboon adulthood can buffer some negative effects of early adversity: friends can make up for a bad start. </p>
<p>For the baboons, this is especially true if a female loses her mother but can maintain strong social ties to other members of the group after she grows up. Because <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Baboon_Mothers_and_Infants/7x6i9RAgSGAC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=mother+baboons&pg=PR15&printsec=frontcover">mothers</a> are an important source of resources, learning and social support in baboons, maternal loss is a particularly strong source of adversity. </p>
<p>If this result holds for humans, it means that interventions early in life and in adulthood could help improve lifespan.</p>
<h2>Human adversity</h2>
<p>Our results raise the possibility that human health and survival could be improved if people with adverse childhood experiences were identified and helped to improve their social relationships in adulthood. </p>
<p>Researchers working with humans are asking similar questions to determine whether early life adversity and social bonds affect survival in the same way as in baboons. Future work should also ask if there are other links between a poor early life environment and survival. For example, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01668/full">genetics</a>, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2004524117">physiology</a>, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.0902971106">immune responses</a>, and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352154615001588">other behaviours</a> likely play a role.</p>
<p>Our study also shows that some of our most important human traits – including the importance of social relationships for survival – evolved long ago. Looking to the animals can help us learn about ourselves. </p>
<p><em>Shuxi Zeng, Fernando Campos, Fan Li, Jenny Tung, Beth Archie and Susan Alberts co-authored the research and collaborated on the project on which this article is based.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This work was supported by NIH grant R01AG053308 (S.C.A.), NSF Integrative Organismal Systems grant 1456832 (S.C.A.), NIH grant P01AG031719 (S.C.A.), NIH grant R01AG053330 (E.A.A.), NIH grant R01AG071684 (E.A.A.), NIH grant R01HD088558
(J.T.), and NIH grant R01AG075914 (J.T.).</span></em></p>
Early life environments and adult social bonds both have strong effects on survival.
Elizabeth Lange, Assistant Professor, State University of New York Oswego
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/200861
2023-05-14T06:11:57Z
2023-05-14T06:11:57Z
Most east African refugees are hosted close to borders – it’s a deliberate war strategy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523812/original/file-20230502-20-ymiyh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Burundian flag flies at the head of a convoy of buses moving refugees back home from Tanzania in 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tchandrou Nitanga/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are close to <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/">4 million</a> people living in refugee camps across Africa. Of the more than 300 camps, nearly 70% are situated within 30km-50km of an international border. They include some of the largest camps in the continent, such as Kakuma in northern Kenya, Nyarugusu in western Tanzania and Bidibidi in north-western Uganda. </p>
<p>The closer the camp is to an international border, the easier it is for people on both sides of the border to interact. </p>
<p>What this means is that healthy refugees in Kakuma, for example, can walk across the Kenyan border and get to Uganda or South Sudan within a day or two. It also means that rebel groups operating in any of these countries can access the refugee camp. This easy access to refugees benefits rebel groups across the border. And asylum countries like Tanzania and Kenya may choose refugee policies that help rebel groups in this fashion. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/99.397.601">Exploitation by armed groups</a> is one of the many threats refugees in border camps face. Often refugees are not allowed to <a href="https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/472896f50.pdf">leave camps to seek work</a>, making them dependent on aid. Young refugees, particularly men, are vulnerable to armed rebel groups that recruit people to their causes. These groups also informally tax refugees by taking a share of the aid they receive or demanding contributions. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt7z6bx">Researchers</a> and <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/central-african-republic/central-african-republic-anatomy-phantom-state">aid groups</a> have suggested that rebel groups take advantage of refugees because host countries <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501700392/dangerous-sanctuaries">cannot or will not stop them</a>. This logic focuses on the lack of will or capacity of such host countries as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chad-sudan-displaced/chad-failing-to-protect-civilians-refugee-group-idUSL1269730520070712">Chad</a> or the <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/central-african-republic/central-african-republic-anatomy-phantom-state">Central African Republic</a>. But this ignores their strategy. </p>
<p>Even governments of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/205014/why-nations-fail-by-daron-acemoglu-and-james-a-robinson/">poor countries choose where to allocate resources</a>. For example, rather than being inept or incapable of protection, <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2008/02/12/chad-demands-removal-sudanese-refugees/23619034007/">Chad’s approach to refugees has been consistent</a> with a broader approach to its <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2008/02/making-sense-of-chad/">relations with Sudan</a>. </p>
<p>I set out on my <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/kara_ross_camarena/files/krc_camplocation.pdf">research</a> project in east Africa to develop an <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691001296/analytic-narratives">analytic narrative</a> of refugee policy selection in the region. Using in-depth case studies and formal theory, I expected to find that foreign policy informed refugee policy in some ways, including interactions with humanitarian aid and donor countries. I sought to investigate the extent to which these tempered the domestic drivers of refugee policy. </p>
<p>What I found is that countries’ policies for hosting refugees are more strategic than expected. Host countries choose their refugee policy to influence the war from which the refugees fled. When <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/EJC111780">Tanzania</a> and Kenya chose the <a href="https://www.fmreview.org/fmr-3/crisp-jacobsen">location</a> of camps and the restrictions on work and movement, influencing war informed their policies. Camp location and restrictions, along with maintaining dense refugee settlements, give rebel groups valuable access to refugee camps for exploitation.</p>
<p>My study demonstrates that east African host countries can follow a foreign policy logic for setting refugees up to be exploited. Domestic considerations can matter as well. </p>
<p>My research can help aid organisations identify whether domestic or foreign policy interests drive border camps in east Africa and elsewhere. When domestic rather than foreign policy considerations drive border camp location, humanitarian agencies can negotiate alternatives that make camps less crowded, move refugees further from the border or provide options for integrating elsewhere. </p>
<p>Each of these make refugee camps safer for refugees but less valuable to a rebel group. However, aid agencies will be less successful in negotiating alternatives when foreign policy drives the border camps because the alternatives undermine the goal of helping the rebel group.</p>
<h2>Proxy intervention aims</h2>
<p>Tanzania’s refugee policy in the 1990s is a good example of how geopolitics can inform refugee policy. <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/united-republic-tanzania/tanzania-refugee-situation-report">Tanzania hosted hundreds of thousands of Burundian refugees</a>. They began arriving in 1993 because of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/10/30/tribal-massacres-ravage-burundi/2ce12135-2139-4b78-a89b-f9bcf19b0992/">political violence</a> and then a <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/burundi/burundian-refugees-tanzania-key-factor-burundi-peace-process">civil war</a>. Densely populated camps were set up for arriving Burundian refugees as close as 15km to the common border. </p>
<p>The location, dense population and movement restrictions ensured that aid groups could serve the refugees. But the refugees were also ideal targets for recruitment and taxation, unable to work and with aid that could be taken away as efficiently as it was distributed. </p>
<p>Tanzania need not have established crowded camps on the border but this favoured its goals. Tanzania’s aim was to create pressure to return Burundi to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x15000324">a government consistent with the 1993 constitution</a>. Tanzania hoped that by Burundi holding multiparty elections and selecting a government backed by the majority of its citizens, Burundi would gain some stability. </p>
<p>At the same time, Tanzania sought to avoid a domestic backlash from the host population in the north-west who were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/21.1_and_2.12">growing weary</a> of hosting refugees. </p>
<p>For Burundian rebel groups, the policy created a constant flow of resources and people from the camps to the front lines, which put the rebel groups in a better position to fight. Tanzania, which also hosted the peace accords, used a variety of tools of statecraft to end the war, and refugee policy was one of them. The better position to fight gave the rebel group more bargaining power. Since the rebel group also supported the 1993 constitution, a negotiated settlement where the rebel group had a pathway to elections would achieve this goal. </p>
<p>East Africa offers another example of the foreign policy logic. Following the <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a6b414.html">fall of the Mengistu Haile Mariam regime</a> in Ethiopia in 1990, refugees from southern Sudan left Ethiopia for Kenya. Kenya established camps for the Sudanese at Kakuma near the border with Sudan. This was in line with Kenya’s support for the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army’s fight for autonomy. Like Tanzania, Kenya used multiple tools to sway the civil war outcome in their northern neighbour. Its combined efforts were instrumental in securing a pathway to independence for South Sudan. </p>
<h2>Non-intervention as a policy goal</h2>
<p>Tanzania and Kenya also offer a lesson in advancing foreign policy aims by not intervening. </p>
<p>At roughly the same time as Burundian refugees were being placed into crowded camps, Tanzania was also <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/research/evalreports/3ae6bcf90/evaluation-unhcrs-repatriation-operation-mozambique.html">hosting</a> between 70,000 and 300,000 Mozambicans. Many of them fled or could not return home because of civil war in Mozambique.</p>
<p>The Tanzanian and Mozambican governments have a long <a href="https://www.mz.tzembassy.go.tz/resources/view/mozambique-tanzania-relations">history of cooperation</a>. Tanzania was also strongly opposed to the apartheid-backed rebel group, Mozambican National Resistance, or Renamo, which was battling the government. </p>
<p>Unlike refugees from Burundi, Mozambican arrivals were not housed in camps. Most Mozambicans <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/research/evalreports/3ae6bcf90/evaluation-unhcrs-repatriation-operation-mozambique.html">were allowed to settle across the southern regions of Tanzania</a>, where they integrated with their co-ethnics in rural villages. Their shared way of life made the experience more like the regular cross-border migration that has occurred for generations.</p>
<p>By dispersing refugees throughout the countryside, refusing aid and allowing Mozambicans to integrate, Tanzania’s strategy followed a logic of non-intervention. This ensured that the migrant population was not easily targeted by Renamo in keeping with its political backing of the Mozambique administration.</p>
<p>In Kenya’s case with Somalia, the tide turned from indifference to non-intervention within a span of six years. </p>
<p>After the United Nations pulled out of Somalia in <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/somalia-fall-of-siad-barre-civil-war/">1995</a>, Kenya shifted the policy for Somalis away from intervention while building a relationship with what would became the transitional government in Somalia. Kenya <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/12.1.54">consolidated existing refugee camps</a> and eliminated camps that were close to the border with Somalia and along the coast. Somali refugees were subsequently moved <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/12.1.54">across the country</a> to Kakuma in the north. Settlements in Nairobi were allowed to expand, which reinforced an informal pathway to make Dadaab – the remaining camp near the Somali border – less attractive for recruiting.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Most wars end in negotiated settlements. Rebel groups need to extract sufficient assurances to negotiate. If not, <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/24/1/127/11637/Designing-Transitions-from-Civil-War">they are unwilling to take the risk of giving up the fight</a>. Providing a rebel group with a stronger bargaining position could help along negotiations and bring about a peace agreement. </p>
<p>Giving a rebel group bargaining power by helping it fight a war can inform refugee policy. Alternatively, host countries might avoid camps specifically to prevent helping a rebel group.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200861/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kara Ross Camarena received funding from the Harvard University Committee on African Studies and
the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs for this project. She is also a faculty affiliate of the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. </span></em></p>
Tanzania’s refugee policy in the 1990s is a good example of how geopolitics affects ordinary refugees.
Kara Ross Camarena, Assistant Professor, Loyola University Chicago
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204287
2023-05-07T08:30:01Z
2023-05-07T08:30:01Z
Children’s book revolution: how East African women took on colonialism after independence
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524145/original/file-20230503-27-t4c7oy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from the cover of the children's book Kayo's House by Ugandan author Barbara Kimenye.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Macmillan/Mactracks Series</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As independence from British colonial rule swept across East Africa in the early 1960s and freedom was won in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/uganda-gains-independence">Uganda</a>, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/kenya-granted-independence">Kenya</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/tanzania-gains-independence">Tanzania</a>, parents and teachers worried about what their children were reading.</p>
<p>Most children’s books on the market were dominated by European writers like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Enid-Blyton">Enid Blyton</a>. One of Kenyan writer <a href="https://ngugiwathiongo.com/about/">Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo’s</a> most stringent criticisms of colonialism was the explosive effect of this “cultural bomb” in the classroom, as missionaries taught African students western cultures and foreign histories. This, according to Kenyan publisher Henry Chakava, <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/publishing-in-africa">was producing</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>a new breed of black Europeans, who began to despise their own skin and background. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Publishers and African writers were quick to realise the gap in the market for literature that was suitable for a new generation growing up in independence. From the mid-1960s onwards, publishing houses began a concerted effort to produce such literature. What’s particularly noteworthy is that most of these authors of children’s books in this period were women. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-an-african-childrens-book-that-explains-the-science-of-skin-colour-164324">The story of an African children's book that explains the science of skin colour</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As an historian of East Africa, these women writers and their children’s books formed part of my <a href="https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/31493/1/Adima_205057140_CorrectedThesisClean.pdf#page=107">doctoral research</a>. Not only have they been largely ignored by history, but their voices matter because through them we receive a unique insight into this period of East African history.</p>
<h2>The women writers of independence</h2>
<p>In the 1960s, ideas of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/decolonization">decolonisation</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Afrocentrism">Afrocentrism</a> dominated East African culture and academia. The <a href="https://www.vestiges-journal.info/Abbia/Abbia_1_1963/Abbiav1n7.pdf">1962 African Writers Conference</a> was convened at Uganda’s Makerere College (today Makerere University). The University of Nairobi’s English Department was dissolved in a 1968 <a href="https://literature.uonbi.ac.ke/basic-page/our-history">revolution</a> led by East African writers and thinkers. It was replaced by a department of literature, and a department of linguistics and African languages. But such discourse happened mainly inside elite intellectual spaces and small circles. </p>
<p>We mainly know of male voices in East African literature from this period – the likes of Ngūgī, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Okot-pBitek">Okot p'Bitek</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Taban-lo-Liyong">Taban lo Liyong</a>. As men, they had more educational and professional opportunities, and better access to publishing networks. Women writers were seldom published and often dismissed or even ridiculed.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524419/original/file-20230504-27-szm0nf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A children's book cover with an illustration showing a classroom of school pupils in uniform, alarmed and recoiling at the sight of a green snake emerging from the shirt of a boy." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524419/original/file-20230504-27-szm0nf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524419/original/file-20230504-27-szm0nf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524419/original/file-20230504-27-szm0nf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524419/original/file-20230504-27-szm0nf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524419/original/file-20230504-27-szm0nf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524419/original/file-20230504-27-szm0nf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524419/original/file-20230504-27-szm0nf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Oxford University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They found a gap in children’s literature. Women writers took it upon themselves to educate children about independence and the meaning of decolonisation. They did this outside of the academy’s ivory tower, with popular work that trickled down to all levels of society.</p>
<p>These authors included <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/18/barbara-kimenye">Barbara Kimenye</a>, <a href="https://www.asenathboleodaga.com/her-story">Asenath Bole Odaga</a>, <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/life-and-style/lifestyle/the-making-of-prof-miriam-were-africa-s-2022-nobel-peace-prize-nominee-3777092">Miriam Khamadi Were</a>, <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/kola-pamela">Pamela Kola</a>, <a href="https://peoplepill.com/people/anne-matindi">Anne Matindi</a>, <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/zirimu-elvania-namukwaya-1938-1979">Elvania Namukwaya Zirimu</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/31/marjorie-oludhe-macgoye">Marjorie Macgoye</a>. </p>
<p>They wrote for children of all ages, creating fiction, folk tales, and works used in school textbooks. With their words, the women imparted lessons they believed were important for the post-independence generation to learn in order to undo colonialism’s “cultural bomb”. These were works of transformative potential that foregrounded African settings and lessons.</p>
<h2>The Moses series</h2>
<p>Some of the best known African children’s books of the 1960s and 1970s included the Moses series by Ugandan author <a href="https://globaleastafrica.org/global-lives/barbara-kimenye-1929-2012">Barbara Kimenye</a>, one of East Africa’s most celebrated children’s book writers. The series follows the adventures and misdemeanours of Moses and his friends at the ficitional Ugandan boarding school, Mukibi’s Educational Institute for the Sons of African Gentlemen. The Moses series was published between 1968 and 1987 by Oxford University Press.</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Moses_in_Trouble.html?id=GUYQAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">Moses in Trouble</a>, the fifth in the series, centres on an upheaval at Mukibi’s due to poor school meals. Moses and his friend King Kong “sneak off to the village duka (shop) to buy a packet of biscuits” and are later forced to go to nearby farms to steal food. Eventually, Moses is hospitalised with malnutrition. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524423/original/file-20230504-17-53qf0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A children's book cover with an illustration of a boy falling to the ground as he's hit by a coconut from a tree." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524423/original/file-20230504-17-53qf0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524423/original/file-20230504-17-53qf0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524423/original/file-20230504-17-53qf0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524423/original/file-20230504-17-53qf0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524423/original/file-20230504-17-53qf0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524423/original/file-20230504-17-53qf0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524423/original/file-20230504-17-53qf0b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Oxford University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the seriousness of the topic, the narrative is humorous, and the Moses series remained popular for decades. The book contains subtle criticism of post-colonial political oppression. Mukibi’s can be seen as a replication of the (post) colonial state: it restricts the boys’ movements and demands complete obedience to authority, but fails to provide basic necessities. </p>
<p>With Moses in Trouble, Kimenye encourages even young readers to remain critical of authority, especially in a time when then-president <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Milton-Obote">Milton Obote</a>’s rule in Uganda was becoming increasingly authoritarian. </p>
<h2>Folk tales</h2>
<p>African folk tales were another popular literary genre for children. African publishers encouraged that these be written and distributed across East Africa. One example is the collection <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/east-african-why-stories">East African Why Stories</a> by Kenyan author Kola. It was published by East African Publishing House in 1966. </p>
<p>The stories recount the origins of the habits and characteristics of animals native to Kenya, with titles such as Why the Hippo Has No Hair or Why Baby Chickens Follow Their Mothers. As an educator, Kola understood the need for African stories to be read by African children. She wrote down the stories as they were told to her by her grandmother in the local Luo language before translating them into English. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524422/original/file-20230504-25-oq48q3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A children's book cover with an illustration of a buck leaping up at a bat in an African hut." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524422/original/file-20230504-25-oq48q3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524422/original/file-20230504-25-oq48q3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524422/original/file-20230504-25-oq48q3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524422/original/file-20230504-25-oq48q3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524422/original/file-20230504-25-oq48q3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524422/original/file-20230504-25-oq48q3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524422/original/file-20230504-25-oq48q3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">East African Publishing House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The oral origins of the stories are reflected in the entertaining, conversational style in which they are written. Reading traditional folk stories was a way for African children to remain in touch with their heritage, which the colonial education system effectively eradicated.</p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>The works of male authors continue to be celebrated today for their contributions to the East African literary canon. Fewer remember the role children’s book authors played in the Africanisation of written literature in the 1960s and 1970s – probably because most of them were <a href="https://africainwords.com/2020/08/18/where-were-the-women-east-african-writing-and-the-1962-makerere-conference/">women</a>.</p>
<p>Looking beyond the texts discussed here, the women critiqued colonialism and neocolonialism, inequality, oppression, patriarchy and state authoritarianism, often representing marginalised communities. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-you-should-know-about-ngugi-wa-thiongo-one-of-africas-greatest-living-writers-67009">Five things you should know about Ngugi wa Thiong'o, one of Africa's greatest living writers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In writing for young readers, these writers imparted their hopes for independence to them. Their texts reached all echelons of society, exposing children to ideas that allowed them to understand their changing world while serving as an antidote to Eurocentric education.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Adima received funding from the Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>
At independence, adults were reading decolonial classics - but children were reading Enid Blyton. A generation of unsung women writers changed that.
Anna Adima, Post-Doctoral Research Associate in History, The University of Edinburgh
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201154
2023-03-29T15:02:28Z
2023-03-29T15:02:28Z
Ancient DNA is restoring the origin story of the Swahili people of the East African coast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516781/original/file-20230321-2514-xlebqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=278%2C16%2C2537%2C1926&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How are people today related to those who lived centuries ago in the Swahili civilization? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/eQ6o77">The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The legacy of the medieval Swahili civilization is a source of extraordinary pride in East Africa, as reflected in its language being the official tongue of Kenya, Tanzania and even inland countries like Uganda and Rwanda, far from the Indian Ocean shore where the culture developed nearly two millennia ago.</p>
<p>Its ornate stone and coral towns hugged 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) of the coast, and its merchants played a linchpin role in the lucrative trade between Africa and lands across the ocean: Arabia, Persia, India, Southeast Asia and China.</p>
<p>By the turn of the second millennium, Swahili people embraced Islam, and some of their grand mosques still stand at the UNESCO World Heritage sites of <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1055/">Lamu in Kenya</a> and <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/144">Kilwa in Tanzania</a>.</p>
<p>Self-governance ended following Portuguese colonization in the 1500s, with control later shifting to the Omanis (1730-1964), Germans in Tanganyika (1884-1918) and British in Kenya and Uganda (1884-1963). Following independence, coastal peoples were absorbed into the modern nation-states of Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Madagascar.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516769/original/file-20230321-2560-1pocur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="old color map of a hilly island with a town on one side" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516769/original/file-20230321-2560-1pocur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516769/original/file-20230321-2560-1pocur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516769/original/file-20230321-2560-1pocur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516769/original/file-20230321-2560-1pocur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516769/original/file-20230321-2560-1pocur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516769/original/file-20230321-2560-1pocur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516769/original/file-20230321-2560-1pocur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Swahili island settlement of Kilwa, in present-day Tanzania, grew over centuries to be a major coastal city and trading center.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-the-11th-century-the-island-of-kilwa-kisiwani-was-sold-news-photo/1354431211">Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So who were the Swahili people, and where did their ancestors originally come from?</p>
<p>Ironically, the story of Swahili origins has been molded almost entirely by non-Swahili people, a challenge shared with many other marginalized and colonized peoples who are the modern descendants of cultures of the past with extraordinary achievements.</p>
<p>Working with a team of 42 colleagues, including 17 African scholars and multiple members of the Swahili community, we’ve now published the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05754-w">first ancient DNA sequences from peoples of the Swahili civilization</a>. Our results do not provide simple validation for the narratives previously advanced in archaeological, historical or political circles. Instead, they contradict and complicate all of them.</p>
<h2>Colonization affected how the story was told</h2>
<p>Western archaeologists in the mid-20th century emphasized the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1174314">connections of the medieval Swahili to Persia and Arabia</a>, sometimes suggesting that <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1672964">their impressive achievements</a> could not have been <a href="https://www.publicmedievalist.com/recovering-medieval-africa/">attained by Africans</a>.</p>
<p>Post-colonial scholars, including one of us (<a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5NehBh4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Kusimba</a>), pushed back against that view. Earlier researchers had inflated the importance of non-African influences by focusing on imported objects at Swahili sites. They minimized the vast majority of locally made materials and what they <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/905641508?oclcNum=905641508">revealed about African industry and innovation</a>.</p>
<p>But viewing Swahili heritage as primarily African or non-African is too simplistic. In fact, both perspectives are byproducts of colonialist biases.</p>
<p>The truth is that colonization of the East African coast did not end with the departure of the British in the middle of the 20th century. Many colonial institutions were <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Plundering_Africa_s_Past/qCBxNhZxSPMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Destruction+of+Swahili+Heritage&pg=PA201&printsec=frontcover">inherited and perpetuated by Africans</a>. As modern nation-states formed, with governments controlled by inland peoples, <a href="https://africaworldpressbooks.com/the-swahili-idiom-and-identity-of-an-african-people-by-alamin-m-mazuri-and-ibrahim-noor-shariff/">Swahili people continued</a> <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253210548/plundering-africas-past/">to be undermined</a> politically and economically, in some cases as much as they had been under foreign rule.</p>
<p>Decades of archaeological research in consultation with local people aimed to address the marginalization of communities of Swahili descent. Our team consulted oral traditions and used ethnoarchaeology and systematic surveys, along with targeted excavations of residential, industrial and cemetery locations. Working with local scholars and elders, we unearthed materials such as pottery, metal and beads; food, house and industrial remains; and imported objects such as porcelain, glass, glass beads and more. Together they revealed the complexity of Swahili everyday life and the peoples’ cosmopolitan Indian Ocean heritage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516767/original/file-20230321-3114-lin1g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woodsy setting with a stone wall enclosing an area with grave stones" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516767/original/file-20230321-3114-lin1g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516767/original/file-20230321-3114-lin1g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516767/original/file-20230321-3114-lin1g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516767/original/file-20230321-3114-lin1g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516767/original/file-20230321-3114-lin1g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516767/original/file-20230321-3114-lin1g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516767/original/file-20230321-3114-lin1g3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For generations, Swahilis have maintained matrilineal family burial gardens such as this one in Faza town, Lamu County.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chapurukha Kusimba, 2012</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ancient DNA analysis was always one of the most exciting prospects. It offered the hope of using scientific methods to obtain answers to the question of how medieval people are related to earlier groups and to people today, providing a counterweight to narratives imposed from outside. Until a few years ago, this kind of analysis was a dream. But because of a <a href="https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/why-i-wrote-book">technological revolution in 2010</a>, the number of ancient humans with published genome-scale data has risen from nothing to <a href="https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/allen-ancient-dna-resource-aadr-downloadable-genotypes-present-day-and-ancient-dna-data">more than 10,000 today</a>.</p>
<h2>Surprises in the ancient DNA</h2>
<p>We worked with local communities to determine the best practices for treating human remains in line with traditional Muslim religious sensitivities. Cemetery excavations, sampling and reburial of human remains were carried out in one season, rather than dragging on indefinitely.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516773/original/file-20230321-2318-sfwzc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="black and white drawing of a skeleton on its side" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516773/original/file-20230321-2318-sfwzc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516773/original/file-20230321-2318-sfwzc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=236&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516773/original/file-20230321-2318-sfwzc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=236&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516773/original/file-20230321-2318-sfwzc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=236&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516773/original/file-20230321-2318-sfwzc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516773/original/file-20230321-2318-sfwzc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516773/original/file-20230321-2318-sfwzc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A detailed line drawing captures the way one person’s remains were discovered during cemetery excavation at Mtwapa in 1996.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eric Wert, 2001</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Our team generated data from more than 80 people, mostly elite individuals buried in the rich centers of the stone towns. We will need to wait for future work to understand whether their genetic inheritance differed from people without their high status. </p>
<p>Contradicting what we had expected, the ancestry of the people we analyzed was not largely African or Asian. Instead, these backgrounds were intertwined, each contributing about half of the DNA of the people we analyzed.</p>
<p>We found that Asian ancestry in the medieval individuals came largely from Persia (modern-day Iran), and that Asians and African ancestors began mixing at least 1,000 years ago. This picture is almost a perfect match to the <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/kilwa-chronicle-sultan-list-swahili-culture-171631">Kilwa Chronicle</a>, the oldest narrative told by the Swahili people themselves, and one almost all <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3171745">earlier scholars had dismissed</a> as a kind of fairy tale.</p>
<p>Another surprise was that, mixed in with the Persians, Indians were a significant proportion of the earliest migrants. Patterns in the DNA also suggest that, after the transition to Omani control in the 18th century, Asian immigrants became increasingly Arabian. Later, there was intermarriage with people whose DNA was similar to others in Africa. As a result, some modern people who identify as Swahili have inherited relatively little DNA from medieval peoples like those we analyzed, while others have more.</p>
<p>One of the most revealing patterns our genetic analysis identified was that the overwhelming majority of male-line ancestors came from Asia, while female-line ancestors came from Africa. This finding must reflect a history of Persian males traveling to the coast and having children with local women.</p>
<p>One of us (<a href="https://reich.hms.harvard.edu">Reich</a>) initially hypothesized that these patterns might reflect Asian men forcibly marrying African women because similar genetic signatures in other populations are known to <a href="https://nautil.us/social-inequality-leaves-a-genetic-mark-237027/">reflect such violent histories</a>. But this theory does not account for what is known about the culture, and there is a more likely explanation.</p>
<p>Traditional Swahili society is similar to many other East African Bantu cultures <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45341518">in being substantially matriarchal</a> – it places much economic and social power in the hands of women. In traditional Swahili societies even today, ownership of stone houses <a href="http://www.siupress.com/books/978-0-8093-3397-4">often passes down the female line</a>. And there is a long recorded history of female rulers, beginning with Mwana Mkisi, ruler of Mombasa, as recorded by the Portuguese as early as the 1500s, down to Sabani binti Ngumi, ruler of Mikindani in Tanzania as late as 1886.</p>
<p>Our best guess is that Persian men allied with and married into elite families and adopted local customs to enable them to be more successful traders. The fact that their children passed down the language of their mothers, and that encounters with traditionally patriarchal Persians and Arabians and conversion to Islam did not change the coast’s African matriarchal traditions, confirms that this was not a simple history of African women being exploited. African women retained critical aspects of their culture and passed it down for many generations.</p>
<p>How do these results gleaned from ancient DNA restore heritage for the Swahili? Objective knowledge about the past has great potential to help marginalized peoples. By making it possible to challenge and overturn narratives imposed from the outside for political or economic ends, scientific research provides a meaningful and underappreciated tool for righting colonial wrongs.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: We removed an archival photo that was not representative of Swahili dress.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201154/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chapurukha M. Kusimba received funding for this research from the Field Museum of Natural History, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Scholars Program, and the National Geographic Society.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Reich received funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the John Templeton Foundation and the Allen Discovery Center program, a Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group advised program of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.</span></em></p>
The first ancient DNA sequences from peoples of the medieval Swahili civilization push aside colonialist stories and reveal genetic connections from the past.
Chapurukha Kusimba, Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida
David Reich, Professor of Genetics and of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201677
2023-03-20T14:08:47Z
2023-03-20T14:08:47Z
Kenya’s police are violent, unaccountable and make most citizens feel less safe – should they be abolished?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515187/original/file-20230314-1506-fjivlu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kenyans protest against police extrajudicial killings in Nairobi in December 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A world without the police is inconceivable to many people. The police are viewed as part of modern society’s foundation, ensuring democracy and keeping people safe. </p>
<p>In practice, however, police around the world sometimes repress <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy">social movements</a>, stifle <a href="https://sociologytwynham.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/policing-the-crisis.pdf">democracy</a>, and exacerbate social and racial <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/06/10/ruth-wilson-gilmore-makes-the-case-for-abolition/">injustice</a>. Across the African continent, they often use force to prop up repressive regimes. And in Kenya in particular, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-bribery-a-closeup-look-at-how-traffic-officers-operate-on-kenyas-roads-185551">extortion</a> and <a href="https://www.matharesocialjustice.org/who-is-next/">extrajudicial killings</a> by the police are <a href="http://parliament.go.ke/sites/default/files/2021-11/Report%20on%20Inquiry%20into%20Extrajudicial%20Killings%20and%20Enforced%20Disappearance%20in%20Kenya_.pdf">rampant</a>. </p>
<p>Kenya is unusual for its extensive attempts to reform the police. Reform efforts began in earnest in 2008, when the police were found to be <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=tjrc-gov">complicit in post-election violence</a>. And yet, after 15 years and <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/kenya-police-reforms-to-cost-sh81-4bn--746284">billions of shillings spent</a>, the police reform project has <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/features/2017/06/01/set-up-to-fail-police-reforms-in-kenya/">largely failed</a>. </p>
<p>The Kenyan police remain repressive, unaccountable and effectively unreformable. Many citizens complain about how the police treat them <a href="https://theworld.org/stories/2016-05-23/police-officers-treat-nairobi-neighborhood-atm-machine-residents-say">like ATMs</a> – a source of cash. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the police <a href="https://www.citizen.digital/news/kenya-police-have-killed-15-people-injured-31-in-covid-19-curfew-enforcement-ipoa-334522">killed tens of Kenyans</a> while enforcing curfew measures. </p>
<p>Given such failures, we posed the question: are the Kenya police <a href="https://www.akpress.org/areprisonsobsolete.html">obsolete</a>? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-police-killings-point-to-systemic-rot-and-a-failed-justice-system-193468">Kenya: police killings point to systemic rot and a failed justice system</a>
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<p>We’ve conducted hundreds of interviews, discussion groups and over a decade of ethnographic research into how <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1463499617729295">counter-terrorist policing</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1463499617729229">securitisation</a> have shaped <a href="https://www.african-cities.org/safety-and-security/">Nairobi</a>. And in turn, how local residents <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/culture/police-violence-kenya/">respond to police violence</a> and build their own <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0078-8">practices of care</a>, mutual aid and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098018789059">security</a>. </p>
<p>We have come to the conclusion that the police make most people feel less safe. Many residents told us they don’t depend on the police for their safety: they keep each other safe. Given the impasse of police reform – and citizen responses to this – there is a strong argument to be made for the abolition of the Kenyan police altogether. </p>
<h2>Policing at an impasse</h2>
<p>Modern police institutions made their first appearances on the African continent as part of colonisation and the expansion of European capitalist interests.</p>
<p>In Kenya, the roots of policing lie in early colonial “<a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/unhappy+valley">conquest</a>”. The Imperial British East African Company developed security forces to protect its expanding economic interests in the 1890s, and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Kenya/The-East-Africa-Protectorate#ref419085">Kenya-Uganda Railroad</a> developed its own police force in 1902. </p>
<p>After Kenya’s independence in 1963, the police were “Africanised” but retained much of their <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137558305_4">colonial character</a>. Under <a href="https://theconversation.com/daniel-arap-moi-the-making-of-a-kenyan-big-man-127177">Daniel arap Moi’s authoritarian regime</a> (1978-2002), the police continued to play a key role in repressing dissent. </p>
<p>There have been calls to reform the Kenyan police for decades. But the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2009/10/un-human-rights-team-issues-report-post-election-violence-kenya">2007-08 post-election violence</a>, in which police were complicit in widespread ethnic violence, accelerated attempts at reform.</p>
<p>Over the past 15 years, police reform has been enshrined in the <a href="https://www.klrc.go.ke/index.php/constitution-of-kenya/158-chapter-fourteen-national-security/part-4-the-national-police-service/413-244-objects-and-functions-of-the-national-police-service">2010 constitution</a> and actualised in numerous acts of parliament. It’s been supported internationally with <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/evaluation/Briefs/2018/KENZ04_Final_Evaluation_Brief_June_2018.pdf">funding and technical expertise</a> from the UN, the US and the EU, among others. It prompted the <a href="https://www.nationalpolice.go.ke/pages/search.html">reorganisation of the police service</a> and the establishment of <a href="https://www.ipoa.go.ke/#">civil oversight mechanisms</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, despite all of these efforts, the Kenyan police <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-police-killings-point-to-systemic-rot-and-a-failed-justice-system-193468">remain corrupt, violent and unaccountable</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-has-tried-to-reform-its-police-force-but-its-left-gaps-for-abuse-176044">Kenya has tried to reform its police force, but it's left gaps for abuse</a>
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<p>Civilian oversight over the police has proved ineffectual. The Independent Policing Oversight Agency has managed to bring only <a href="http://www.parliament.go.ke/sites/default/files/2022-03/Report%20of%20Independent%20Policing%20Oversight%20Authority%20on%20Performance%20for%20January%20%E2%80%93%20June%202021.pdf">12 cases of police violence to conviction</a> out of more than 20,000 complaints received between 2012 and 2021. That is only one out of every 1,667 complaints. The under-resourced agency simply can’t grapple with the immense volume of reported police abuses.</p>
<h2>The case for abolition</h2>
<p>Police reform <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/features/2017/06/01/set-up-to-fail-police-reforms-in-kenya/">has failed</a>. Is it time to consider abolition?</p>
<p>Abolition is not about simply tearing things down, but rather asking what should exist in place of outdated and violent systems that no longer serve people. Abolition is a <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/mariame-kaba-interview-til-we-free-us/">creative</a> and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/06/10/ruth-wilson-gilmore-makes-the-case-for-abolition/">constructive project</a> with deep <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwYik8nn63U">philosophical roots</a>. </p>
<p>So why abolish the Kenya police?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The police are functionally obsolete for most Kenyans. In many low-income neighbourhoods, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098018789059">our research shows</a> that people avoid calling the police to respond to crises or crimes. For many, experience shows that the police can <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-64509793">make matters worse</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>The police often exacerbate insecurity, violence and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-bribery-a-closeup-look-at-how-traffic-officers-operate-on-kenyas-roads-185551">corruption</a>. To provide for their own safety, residents increasingly <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publishing/journal-british-academy/10s3/to-retreat-or-to-confront-grassroots-activists-navigating-everyday-torture-in-kenya/">organise themselves into networks</a> of friends, family and neighbours for basic safety. For instance, women in Mathare, Nairobi, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098018789059">organise their own security practices</a>, which include conflict resolution, de-escalation of violence and <a href="https://www.matharesocialjustice.org/mothers-of-victims-and-survivors-network-from-victims-to-community-defenders/">support for survivors</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>In more affluent neighbourhoods, residents increasingly rely on private companies to provide <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1463499617729295">security in their compounds</a>. Police are seen as one among <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0263775820923374">many security services</a> available for hire. In our research, the few positive experiences with the Kenyan police were reported (predominantly) by such affluent residents.</p></li>
<li><p>The remaining function of the police is “<a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Enforcing+Order:+An+Ethnography+of+Urban+Policing-p-9780745664804">enforcing order</a>” and protecting the state against society. Officers uphold and protect a rarefied governing class and political elite against the population. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Police abolition, therefore, would mean dismantling ineffective and repressive institutions and replacing them with <a href="https://www.akpress.org/we-do-this-til-we-free-us.html">systems of actual safety</a>, systems that enable society to thrive.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/many-kenyans-have-embraced-vigilante-cops-an-ineffective-police-force-is-to-blame-196449">Many Kenyans have embraced vigilante cops – an ineffective police force is to blame</a>
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<h2>What should replace the police?</h2>
<p>When confronted with the idea of “abolition” for the first time, many people often respond: “but who will keep us safe?” </p>
<p>In Nairobi, the answer is to be found in existing social practices. The problem is that there’s a lack of resources to support alternatives to punitive security. We call for defunding the police and investing these resources in such alternatives.</p>
<p><strong>1. Invest in communities.</strong> When we ask about local security problems, residents often answer that the lack of schools, food, land, quality housing, <a href="https://www.matharesocialjustice.org/category/maji-ni-haki-water-campaign/">water</a>, electricity, toilets, healthcare and safe places for kids to play are what cause “insecurity”. Reinvestment in community means funding such social infrastructure to allow people to thrive. This reduces <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/want-to-reduce-violence-invest-in-place/">crime and violence</a>. </p>
<p><strong>2. Invest in alternative safety mechanisms.</strong> This means strengthening dispute-resolution mechanisms that help resolve conflicts without violence. The government needs to support existing <a href="https://www.matharesocialjustice.org">social justice centres</a>, <a href="https://africa.unwomen.org/en/news-and-events/stories/2021/08/inside-kenyas-social-justice-centres">networks</a> and movements fighting for change. </p>
<p>When these forms of social reinvestment are pursued, the need for the police is greatly diminished.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wangui Kimari is the participatory action research coordinator for the Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC) </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zoltán Glück received research funding from the Social Science Research Council, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Fulbright IIE, and the African Cities Research Consortium. The views expressed in this article are solely the authors' and do not represent the positions of any of these funding organizations. </span></em></p>
Alternatives to violent policing already exist in the daily practices of Nairobi residents who don’t depend on the police for safety.
Wangui Kimari, Anthropologist, University of Cape Town
Zoltán Glück, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, American University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199656
2023-02-16T14:35:57Z
2023-02-16T14:35:57Z
Ilemi Triangle spat: how resources fuel East Africa’s border conflicts
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509768/original/file-20230213-19-nq08wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kenyan fishermen demand a say in the country's border conflict with Somalia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kenyan-coastal-fishermen-carry-placards-during-a-news-photo/1231734423?phrase=Geographical%20Border%20east%20africa&adppopup=true">Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Peacebuilding</p>
<p>For decades, African states have grappled with numerous interstate <a href="https://theconversation.com/drafts/44264/edit">border disputes</a>, especially in resource-rich regions. In east Africa, most of these conflicts are as old as independence. The disputes flare up every so often despite interventions by agencies of the African Union and the United Nations. A <a href="https://nation.africa/africa/news/kenya-south-sudan-locked-in-border-dispute-4117296">fresh war of words</a> has erupted between Kenya and South Sudan over the water- and oil-rich Ilemi Triangle border, which was first drawn up in 1914. We asked Al Chukwuma Okoli, a defence strategy scholar, four key questions._</p>
<h2>Why do boundaries matter for nation states?</h2>
<p>The term “boundary” refers to a cartographic (mapped out) line that marks and defines the confines of a state, distinguishing its <a href="https://study.com/academy/lesson/international-internal-boundaries-definition-function.html">sovereign territory from that of others</a>. It is mutually agreed upon and jointly owned by the countries involved. </p>
<p>Boundaries matter because they determine the area that a country rules. They also assign national identity. </p>
<p>Boundaries are both a bridge and a barrier to international peace and stability. As a bridge, international boundaries have a role in legitimate activities, especially in trade and migration. But as a barrier, they can be a site for criminality and violence. More importantly, boundaries provide a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/boundary-dispute">“fault-line” for international conflicts</a>.</p>
<h2>Which are some of east Africa’s boundary conflicts?</h2>
<p>I took part in a <a href="https://cejiss.org/borderlines-natural-resources-and-conflicts-towards-a-territorial-materialism-of-boundary-disputes-in-east-africa">recent study</a> of several instances of boundary conflicts in east Africa. These include the conflicts between Somalia and Ethiopia (ongoing since 1960); Kenya and South Sudan (ongoing since 1963); and Kenya and Somalia (1963-1981). Others are Ethiopia and Sudan (from 1966 to 2002), Tanzania and Malawi (ongoing since 1967) and Uganda-Tanzania (1974–1979). </p>
<p>The various boundary conflicts in the region originated and evolved in different historical and political contexts. But they have been complicated by the changing dictates of international politics. </p>
<p>Some of these conflicts have been protracted and intractable. A case in point is the Kenya–South Sudan conflict, which seems to have become more complicated in recent years. It began in 1963 when Kenya claimed the Ilemi Triangle. Ilemi is a region rich in oil and water, lying to the north of a straight border that was drawn in 1914. Kenya’s claim, and de facto control, extends beyond the limit marked in 1938. </p>
<p>Several bilateral and multilateral measures have been taken over the years to resolve the conflict. These include continental initiatives anchored by the African Union. In 2019 Kenya and South Sudan agreed to talks. They have demonstrated commitment to finding a solution by creating a joint boundary commission. But flare-ups and skirmishes still erupt on the disputed borderlines.</p>
<h2>What generally fuels Africa’s boundary disputes?</h2>
<p>A dominant view by scholars holds that boundary disputes are inevitable creations of colonialism. Via the <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780195337709.001.0001/acref-9780195337709-e-0467">Berlin Conference diplomacy</a> of 1884 to 1885, European imperial powers took control of African territories and carved them up. European maps defined African state boundaries. </p>
<p>This perspective suggests that the imperialist scramble for Africa was a sort of crude territorial grabbing, leading to arbitrary and artificial partitioning of Africa into slices of colonial spheres of interest. By slicing up similar cultural groups and lumping together culturally divergent groups, colonialism created long-lasting disputes.</p>
<p>Other scholars have questioned this view. They say colonial interference cannot fully explain the nature and dynamics of the current boundary conflicts in Africa. These “realist” scholars believe that states fight for <a href="https://cejiss.org/borderlines-natural-resources-and-conflicts-towards-a-territorial-materialism-of-boundary-disputes-in-east-africa">territory for material advantage</a>. The fight is largely about the ownership, access or control of natural resources like oil and water. This implies that the motive behind most present-day boundary conflicts is states’ pursuit of material advantages along their common territorial frontiers. </p>
<p>My view is that what is crucially at issue in most current border-related disputes in Africa is the quest for resources.</p>
<p>Apart from the Ilemi Triangle spat, South Sudan is currently feuding with Sudan over the oil-rich Abiyei region. Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo are locked in a dispute over the ownership of parts of Lake Albert. The disputed spot has potential for crude oil alongside minerals like diamonds, gold and coltan.</p>
<p>Similarly, Tanzania and Malawi are at loggerheads over the oil-rich area around Lake Malawi (Nyasaland), while Kenya and Uganda have been quarrelling over the waters, fish and possible crude oil of Lake Victoria’s Migingo Island.</p>
<h2>How can these border conflicts be resolved?</h2>
<p>Modern boundary disputes in east Africa have often been largely driven by declared or disguised claims, stakes, motives and interests that are material or economic in essence. Understanding boundary disputes in Africa should go beyond the idea of “colonial causation” and come to terms with strategic and material interests.</p>
<p>Solutions to such conflicts depend on a diplomatic approach that recognises the colonially inherited boundary system and also mediates the interests of affected states.</p>
<p>It is necessary to evolve a regional border management mechanism that can proactively and multilaterally address border-related issues to find an enduring resolution. The joint border commission between Kenya and South Sudan is a step in the right direction.</p>
<p>The spate of boundary conflicts in east Africa poses a huge challenge to regional politics and diplomacy. Apart from creating diplomatic tension among states, the situation has resulted in a loss of lives and livelihoods. It has also destabilised the region – a setback to regional integration. A lasting solution is needed to sustain peace and stability of the region.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199656/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Al Chukwuma Okoli teaches Political Science at Federal University of Lafia, Nigeria. He has consulted for the UN-Women, African Union, Centre for Democracy and Development, and Open University of Nigeria. He has received funding from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Nigeria. He is a Member of Amnesty international and CORN West Africa. </span></em></p>
The joint border commission between Kenya and South Sudan is a step in the right direction.
Al Chukwuma Okoli, Reader (Associate Professor), Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Federal University of Lafia, Nigeria, Federal University Lafia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198412
2023-02-03T10:58:00Z
2023-02-03T10:58:00Z
The incredible story of how East African culture shaped the music of a state in India
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507583/original/file-20230201-18-ejchji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Siddi children performing Dance Dhamaal in Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Sayan Dey</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The term <a href="https://minorityrights.org/minorities/siddi/">Siddi</a> refers to Afro-Indians – Africans who mixed with Indians through marriage and relationships. Africans crossed the Indian Ocean and arrived in India during the 1200s, 1300s and 1400s. They were transported by Islamic invaders and Portuguese colonisers as enslaved people, palace guards, army chiefs, harem keepers, spiritual leaders, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sufism">Sufi</a> singers, dancers and treasurers. </p>
<p>Today, the majority of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003111962-9/killing-kindness-sayan-dey">Siddis</a> are found in the west and south-west of India, in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana states. As they settled, they preserved and practised their African ancestral sociocultural traditions – and also adopted local Indian traditions. </p>
<p>This interweaving of African and Indian cultural values gave birth to various <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/creolisation">creolised</a> (mixed) food, music and spiritual practices.</p>
<p>As a diversity studies scholar, I have been <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003111962-9/killing-kindness-sayan-dey">researching</a> Siddi culture for some time. Working within this community in Gujarat and Karnataka, I found that their creolised cultural practices emerged as a resistance to colonisation, racialisation and victimisation in postcolonial India. </p>
<p>My most recent research – which can also be seen in a new <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaEnwQoGFzE">documentary</a> – has focused on the music and dance performances of the Siddi community in Gujarat, called Dhamaals. </p>
<p>The story of Dhamaal performance traditions reveals the rich and complex mixing of cultures in a world shaped by human movement and history.</p>
<h2>What are Dhamaals?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4098523">Dhamaal</a> is a mix of Sufi and African (mostly East African) musical and dance traditions. It refers particularly to the spiritual practices of the Siddis of Gujarat. </p>
<p>The Siddis begin almost every Dhamaal song by blowing into a conch shell. This is often followed by the slow playing of East African percussion instruments like the musindo and the slow thumping of feet that marks the onset of the singing and dancing Dhamaals. The ritual of foot thumping is a crucial part of spiritual East African dance and musical traditions.</p>
<p>The Siddis are followers of Islam and arrived in India from Muslim communities in East and Central Africa. Dhamaals are performed in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25472979">memory</a> of their spiritual leaders, among them Bava Gor, Mai Misra, Baba Habash and Sidi Nabi Sultan. According to Siddi <a href="https://cogentoa.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10999940802523836?journalCode=usou20">folklore</a> they arrived from Ethiopia through the Nubian Valley, Syria and the Indian Ocean to the coast of Kuda in the Bhavnagar district of Gujarat. </p>
<iframe title="" aria-label="Locator maps" id="datawrapper-chart-ESxU8" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ESxU8/2/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="width: 0; min-width: 100% !important; border: none;" height="650" data-external="1" width="100%"></iframe>
<p>Usually, Dhamaal songs and dances are performed to celebrate the anniversary of the birth and death of spiritual leaders. They are performed in two ways – Dance Dhamaal and Baithaaki Dhamaal. The <a href="https://youtu.be/1tw2hokk7DM">Baithaaki Dhamaal</a> is performed in the sitting position and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enJnkfqjS9I&t=12s">Dance Dhamaal</a> is performed in both sitting and dance positions. </p>
<p>During the performance of Baithaaki Dhamaal the focus is more on the lyrics and less on the musical instruments. During Dance Dhamaal the focus is more on the sounds of the instruments. These are often played in a frenzied manner and accompanied by frenzied dance movements. The spiritual songs that are sung during the Dhamaals are known as zikrs.</p>
<h2>A mixing of cultures</h2>
<p>The creole cultural aspects of Dhamaals are broadly reflected through the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-how-swahili-became-africas-most-spoken-language-177259">Swahili</a> Creole language used to sing the zikrs, the Indian and African musical instruments used to perform them and the Afro-Indian body movements of Dance Dhamaals. </p>
<p>Historically, the Swahili Creole language in India emerged among the Siddis through the mixing of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-how-swahili-became-africas-most-spoken-language-177259">Kiswahili</a> from East Africa with Gujarati, Hindi and Urdu languages from India. As an example, these are the lyrics of one <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHPAOw4_JRs">zikr</a>:</p>
<p>Ya bolo sabaya hua wey</p>
<p>Ya bolo sabaya hua wey</p>
<p>Hu sabaya</p>
<p>Salwale Nabi Sultan</p>
<p>This zikr is sung in the praise of Siddi spiritual leader Nabi Sultan, believed to have arrived in Gujarat from the Nubian Valley. The Swahili words that have been used are “hu” (a common expression of consent) and “sabaya” (meaning that everything is alright). The zikr means that with the blessings of Nabi Sultan no evil can befall the Siddis of Gujarat.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people sit in a circle, some drumming on large drums. The doorway to the room is crowded with young observers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Siddis performing Baithaaki (sitting) Dhamaal in a shrine in Gujarat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Sayan Dey</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The musical instruments used to perform the zikrs are East African percussion instruments. The musindo, for example, is a cylinder-shaped, two-sided drum from Kenya. The misr kanga is a small, funnel-shaped instrument from Ethiopia, containing small stones. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404cN3HjrVg">mugarman</a> is a large, cylinder-shaped, one-sided drum from Tanzania. These are played along with traditional Indian musical instruments. These include the harmonium (a keyboard instrument) and the dholak (a two-headed hand drum). The intermingling of Indian and African musical instruments generates creole rhythmscapes which are traditionally African and Indian at the same time.</p>
<p>During the Dance Dhamaal, the hand and the body movements of the Dhamaal dancers in Gujarat are very similar to the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/20951308/Ngoma_Memories_A_History_of_Competitive_Music_and_Dance_Performance_on_the_Kenya_Coast">Ngoma</a> dancers of East Africa. The Ngoma dancers thump their feet and swing their arms sideways to the rhythm of drums. The Dhamaal dancers also swing their arms sideways, but the thumping of feet depends on the context of their dance. During religious occasions, for example, the foot thumping is slow. This is because the Siddis follow many spiritual aspects of the <a href="https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/pi.1.1.73_1">Sufi tradition</a>. For Sufis, heavy and frenzied feet thumping is prohibited when worshipping spiritual leaders.</p>
<h2>Transoceanic roots</h2>
<p>These creolised musical and dance performances allow the Siddis in Gujarat to maintain their African ancestral practices. They do so in collaboration with Indian practices so that they do not forget their historical roots yet can respect local traditions at the same time. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DaEnwQoGFzE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The author’s documentary Afro-Indian Creole Rhythms: Siddi Dhamaals of Gujarat.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These creole practices have allowed the community to build a transoceanic identity (one which crosses the oceans). This is done in a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366838188_The_Creolizing_Turn_and_Its_Archipelagic_Directions">collaborative, reciprocal and diverse</a> way. </p>
<p>The Dhamaal tradition of the Siddis has socially, culturally and economically empowered the community as well. Several community members, through the assistance of government and private organisations, travel across India and the world to perform at cultural festivals. This encourages the Siddis to share their creolised cultural values across the globe.</p>
<p>This in turn invites audiences to consider history through an interracial and intercultural lens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198412/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sayan Dey receives funding from NRF SarChi Chair of Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of Witwatersrand. He is also a Faculty Fellow at Harriet Tubman Research Institute, York University, Canada. </span></em></p>
Dhamaal music and dance reveals a rich and complex mixing of cultures that is shaped by history.
Sayan Dey, Postdoctoral Fellow at Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198458
2023-01-30T14:27:27Z
2023-01-30T14:27:27Z
Kampala, Kigali and Addis Ababa are changing fast: new book follows their distinct paths
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506296/original/file-20230125-22-fk3erh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kampala is one of the three Eastern African cities that transformed with little historical precedence</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kampala, the Ugandan capital where I live, is naturally the city I have studied and worked on the most as an urban economist. Yet even with this background, reading <a href="https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/usp/people/academic-staff/tom-goodfellow">Tom Goodfellow’s</a> recently published book, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/44624">Politics and the Urban Frontier: Transformation and Divergence in Late Urbanizing East Africa</a>, I learned astonishing new facts about Kampala. </p>
<p>I also learnt a great deal about the urbanisation processes of two other major East African cities – Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. </p>
<p>Goodfellow is <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/tom-goodfellow-119040">professor of urban studies and international development</a> at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on the political economy of urban development and change in Africa. He has also worked with universities across Africa.</p>
<p>In this review I provide a glimpse of the comparative analytical journey Goodfellow takes across these three cities. I also make the case that anyone interested in East Africa’s dynamic urbanisation process should have this book as a core part of their reading list. </p>
<h2>Three cities</h2>
<p>At the start of the 2000s, Addis Ababa, Kampala and Kigali were some of the least urbanised cities in the region. And, for different reasons, they didn’t command much attention from national policy makers. </p>
<p>Fast forward to 2023, and all three cities are undergoing an urban transformation that has little historical precedence in terms of speed or scale. They have become, for differing reasons, central to national, regional and in some senses even global, policy making. </p>
<p>Based simply on this fact, the cities are unique. </p>
<p>The histories that shaped them include their colonial pasts, or resistance to it in the case of Ethiopia, their struggles for independence and post independence political and economic policies. </p>
<p>Take the varied approaches that Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Uganda adopted to the World Bank’s structural adjustment programmes in the 1980s and 1990s. The Bank’s misguided neoliberal approach continues to have lingering after-effects on each of them. This is particularly true when it comes to the composition of their urban economies. In particular, the increased privatisation promoted by the programmes led to cuts in formal employment opportunities in the public sector as well industry, pushing people into informality. </p>
<p>Another consequence was the sharp decline in public service provision, particularly in urban areas.</p>
<p>They have also been influenced by external economic forces. East Africa, as a global latecomer to the urbanisation process, is urbanising at a time when globalisation has resulted in significant flows of capital. For example, East Africa as a region receives one of the <a href="https://repository.hanyang.ac.kr/bitstream/20.500.11754/114286/1/Official%20Development%20Assistance%20and%20Economic%20Growth%20in%20East%20African%20Countries.pdf">largest shares of development assistance</a>. It is also a central focus for China’s Belt and Road Strategy. </p>
<p>As Goodfellow illustrates, these forces of globalisation are continuously reshaping East Africa’s cities in terms of the infrastructure investments that are currently taking place. Influence can also be seen in the new patterns of commerce, employment and entrepreneurialism within them.</p>
<h2>A granular comparison</h2>
<p>Goodfellow’s most formidable achievement in the book is that he has been able to draw clear comparisons between three very different cities. At the same time he hasn’t lost critical details that have shaped each one of their unique and complex systems. </p>
<p>To do this, he employs a comparative framework with four dimensions. They are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>each city’s urban planning vision, including major infrastructure projects, which has affected political outcomes </p></li>
<li><p>changing patterns of urban property development (propertyscapes) and how these interacted with and have been shaped by the underlying institutions</p></li>
<li><p>the diverse and powerful forces of the urban marketplace, generically termed “the informal sector”, as centres of urban working lives and livelihoods</p></li>
<li><p>the forms political mobilisation has taken in each of these contexts and how these have been institutionalised and therefore generally resisted change.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Throughout Goodfellow’s book he keeps drawing on the theme of infrastructure creating property value, while property, shaped by several prevailing forces, creates the demand and need for infrastructure.</p>
<p>For example, he illustrates how the affordable housing crisis has played out in each city. There are differences of course, which can clearly be seen in Addis Ababa’s immense public condominium construction project compared to Kampala’s near lack of government engagement in the housing space.</p>
<p>But there are also similarities. For example, across all three cities construction costs are substantial and much of the housing finance being provided is coming from the domestic and diaspora elites. This partially reflects constraints across the banking systems in the three countries. </p>
<p>A further similarity is the prevalence of expensive international aid worker housing resulting from substantial inflows of development assistance. This has skewed property markets in all three cities to an oversupply of high-end properties. The extent of this is huge. For example, the average rent for someone working in the diplomatic corps or an international institution in Kigali is usually upwards of US$4,000 a month. In contrast the annual GDP per capita of Rwanda is currently about <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=RW">US$822</a>. </p>
<h2>New and dynamic forms of urbanism</h2>
<p>Over the past years all three cities have been experimenting with new forms of urban visioning. This has shaped, and been shaped by, property, infrastructure and the underlying state-society relations in highly contested political spaces. </p>
<p>Perhaps this is most aptly illustrated by the Kigali Urban Master Plan that was developed by <a href="https://surbanajurong.com/sector/kigali-city-master-plan/">Singaporean firm Surbana Jurong</a>. The plan aspires to transform Kigali into a type of Singapore of Africa – essentially proposing to replace the existing city with something entirely new. </p>
<p>In Addis Ababa, the vision is epitomised by a major infrastructure investment, namely the light rail train system. A Chinese company constructed the rail system at a cost of <a href="http://www.china.org.cn/business/2019-04/25/content_74720232.htm">US$475 million for 34km</a>. This was an expensive undertaking that has reorganised the economic form of the city.</p>
<p>Similar spatial disruption has occurred in Kampala through the Chinese constructed expressway that connects it to the airport in Entebbe. This is now the <a href="https://www.thevaluechainng.com/the-most-expensive-road-in-the-world-is-located-in-east-africa/">most expensive road per kilometre in the world</a>. </p>
<h2>The devil is in the complex details</h2>
<p>Goodfellow’s book is a must-read for those who are working in policy or project development within any of these cities. </p>
<p>It manages to show why attempting to supplant models from urban development elsewhere, including “best practices”, will not work. Rather we need to understand local contexts and complex systems.</p>
<p>The imperative for this is clear: East Africa is one of the fastest urbanising regions in the world, but it’s still in the early phases of this process. There’s a major opportunity to get the region’s cities right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Astrid R.N. Haas 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>
East Africa is one of the fastest urbanising regions in the world, but it’s still in the early phases. There’s a big opportunity to get the region’s cities right.
Astrid R.N. Haas, Fellow, Infrastructure Institute, School of Cities, University of Toronto
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197457
2023-01-26T13:33:25Z
2023-01-26T13:33:25Z
A major new exhibition in Nairobi reveals the history of East African art traditions
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506434/original/file-20230125-16-fwa05m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Untitled by Ugandan artist Peter Mulindwa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Muriuki courtesy Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.ncai254.com/exhibition-mwili-akili-na-roho">Mwili, Akili na Roho</a> (Body, Mind and Spirit) – on in Nairobi, Kenya – is a major international exhibition presenting East African painters who are key players in the modernist art of the region. <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/modernism">Modernism</a> in the fine arts refers to a period of experimentation from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s, a break from the realism of the past and a search for new forms of expression.</p>
<p>The exhibition features a group of artists from different generations who vary in backgrounds, as well as in the themes and forms of their art. They represent 50 years of East African art – from 1950 to 2000. They are: <a href="https://lakelandarts.org.uk/items/sam-joseph-ntiro/">Sam Joseph Ntiro</a> (1923-1990), <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/lifestyle/art/elimo-njau-father-of-many-artists-clocks-90-3934134">Elimo Njau</a> (1932-), <a href="https://asaphngethe.com">Asaph Ng’ethe Macua</a> (1930-), <a href="https://www.africancontemporary.com/Jak%20Katarikawe.htm">Jak Katarikawe</a> (1940-2018), <a href="https://contemporaryand.com/magazines/theresa-musoke-a-lifetime-dedicated-to-art-in-east-africa/">Theresa Musoke</a> (1942-), <a href="https://makerereartgallery.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/object-of-the-month-2/">Peter Mulindwa</a> (1943-), <a href="https://www.frieze.com/article/sane-wadu-nairobi-contemporary-art-institute-2022-review">Sane Wadu</a> (1954-), <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/lifestyle/society/artist-paints-his-way-to-big-cash-with-return-of-gallery-1983182">John Njenga</a> (1966-1997), <a href="https://www.urbanafricans.com/documentaries/chelenge-van-rampelberg/">Chelenge van Rampelberg</a> (1961-) and <a href="http://www.redhillartgallery.com/meek-gichugu.html">Meek Gichugu</a> (1968-). </p>
<p>Together they form an important cross-section of <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/f/figurative-art">figurative</a> paintings from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Figurative art draws from the real world, especially human figures.</p>
<p>While modernism is most commonly associated with the western world – think Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse or Marc Chagal – these African modernist artists often critique western stereotypes about “primitive” colonised peoples at the same time as they yearn to recover pre-colonial modes of experience. This is one of the aspects that makes the exhibition so powerful. But it contains many more themes to consider that remain relevant today.</p>
<h2>A growing showcase</h2>
<p>The first showcase of Mwili, Akili na Roho <a href="https://www.hausderkunst.de/en/blog/mwiliakilinaroho">took place</a> in Germany in 2020. It was part of the larger context of a solo exhibition by its originator, the celebrated Kenyan-British artist <a href="https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/michael-armitage-beginners-guide">Michael Armitage</a>. Armitage is the founder of Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute – where the exhibition is currently on show. In 2021, Mwili, Akili na Roho moved to London as a continuation of <a href="https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/michael-armitage">Michael Armitage: Paradise Edict</a>.</p>
<p>This third iteration in Nairobi expands on the first two. The initial exhibition had seven artists (with the exclusion of Njenga from Kenya, Mulindwa from Uganda and Ntiro from Tanzania). The Nairobi edition boasts a total of 54 artworks, presenting additional works from collections around the world. Notably, artworks are also borrowed from the artists’ own collections.</p>
<p>The exhibition focuses entirely on painting as one of the most prominent mediums of expression in art, representing a sort of history of the painting of East Africa. It’s an entry point for a <a href="https://contemporaryand.com/exhibition/mwili-akili-na-roho-group-show/">deeper engagement</a> with this history, and the enduring influence of creative ideas and art institutions from the region.</p>
<h2>Faith and religion</h2>
<p>For example, the idea of faith and religion is represented by works such as Ntiro’s Agony in the Garden (1950), an African representation of the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506528/original/file-20230126-20410-y3svci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A darkened landscape where a black man in white robes stands on a rock in prayer, his arms outstretched and two men in red traditional African robes sleep under a bush." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506528/original/file-20230126-20410-y3svci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506528/original/file-20230126-20410-y3svci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506528/original/file-20230126-20410-y3svci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506528/original/file-20230126-20410-y3svci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506528/original/file-20230126-20410-y3svci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506528/original/file-20230126-20410-y3svci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506528/original/file-20230126-20410-y3svci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Agony in the Garden by Sam Ntiro.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Muriuki courtesy Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In the 1980s, Wadu took a different approach to the same subject. He paints himself as Jesus in Walking on the Water and in Give us Our Daily Bread. He tells his personal story of faith through his paintings. He attributes his success in life to God, having had tuberculosis as a young man but healing as a result of his faith.</p>
<p>There are also artists who have approached religion in the form of African mythology about humanity. Mulindwa did a great deal of research into the myths of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Toro-people">Toro people</a> of Uganda, which influenced his art.</p>
<h2>Land and politics</h2>
<p>Katarikawe’s works feature cattle as symbols of life, borrowing directly from his and other people’s everyday lives. Nature and landscapes also feature prominently.</p>
<p>Ideas about land and politics offer social commentary throughout, about colonialism and the theft of the land.</p>
<p>Landscapes are also touched on by artists such as Musoke, who sought refuge in Kenya, leaving Uganda during the reign of dictator <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Idi-Amin">Idi Amin</a>. Mulindwa’s large, chaotic landscapes depict a subtle social commentary on the oppression in Uganda. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506529/original/file-20230126-20-9qcbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A simple painting of three people walking over rocks through a landscape." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506529/original/file-20230126-20-9qcbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506529/original/file-20230126-20-9qcbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506529/original/file-20230126-20-9qcbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506529/original/file-20230126-20-9qcbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506529/original/file-20230126-20-9qcbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506529/original/file-20230126-20-9qcbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506529/original/file-20230126-20-9qcbfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">As People Walk Before Gouache by Jak Katarikawe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Muriuki courtesy Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute</span></span>
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<h2>East African art structures</h2>
<p>It is useful, when looking at the exhibition, to also reflect on the artists’ backgrounds. Five were educated at <a href="https://www.mak.ac.ug">Makerere University</a> in Uganda, creating a school of thought of huge significance in East Africa. </p>
<p>These interconnected backgrounds allow reflection on the art structures and spaces that have existed in East Africa. After independence in the region, there was a short period when Makerere University, the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and the University of Nairobi (Kenya) were part of a single art school, <a href="https://90.mak.ac.ug/timeline/margaret-trowell-school-industrial-and-fine-arts-mtsifa-opens">Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Art</a>. There was an exchange of knowledge and influences that can be traced in the body of works in the exhibition.</p>
<p>The other five did not receive any formal training in art. Among them, Njau was the founder of the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PaaYaPaaArtsCentre/">Paa ya Paa Arts Centre</a> in Nairobi and Musoke taught art at universities for about 25 years. Wadu was one of the founding members of the Ng’echa Arts Collective in Kenya (established in 1955 and commonly referred as the “village of artists”) and rose to prominence at <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/6578/kenya-nairobis-great-art-heist/">Gallery Watatu</a> in Nairobi, where Gichugu had his first solo exhibition.</p>
<p>So, the exhibition also demonstrates how visual art can be used as a tool to educate about history. </p>
<h2>Creating a new space</h2>
<p>As much as the Nairobi contemporary art scene is vibrant, with galleries selling and showcasing work, there is no museum or other space dedicated to tracking the history of the region’s art, recording it, and building content that can be viewed and reviewed over time. </p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-importance-of-remembering-kenyan-artist-rosemary-karuga-155777">The importance of remembering Kenyan artist Rosemary Karuga</a>
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<p>The Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute has rightfully claimed this space and Mwili, Akili na Roho is an example of some important choices the gallery is making in furthering the art of the region. The exhibition is educative and – importantly – is open to schools and universities in Kenya for students to learn more.</p>
<p><em>Mwili, Akili na Roho will run at the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute until 18 February 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Mwiti 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>
Mwili, Akili na Roho represents 50 years of art from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – from 1950 to 2000.
Anne Mwiti, Lecturer, Kenyatta University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/194924
2022-11-21T13:10:17Z
2022-11-21T13:10:17Z
Ebola: Uganda’s schools were closed for two years during COVID, now they face more closures – something must change
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496121/original/file-20221118-24-tji913.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Extended school closures during the pandemic set Ugandan children far behind their peers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BADRU KATUMBA/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Children in Uganda missed out on more school because of the COVID pandemic than their peers anywhere else in the world. An estimated <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/10/ugandan-children-back-to-school-after-nearly-2-year-covid-closure">15 million pupils</a> in the East African nation did not attend school for 83 weeks – that’s almost two years. Statistical models predict a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S073805932100050X?via%3Dihub">learning deficit of 2.8 years</a> in Uganda because of the time lost through COVID-related closures.</p>
<p>Now the education system has been hit by another public health emergency. In early November the government <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/11/10/1135619132/uganda-ends-school-year-early-as-it-tries-to-contain-growing-ebola-outbreak">announced</a> that preschools, primary and secondary schools must close their doors for the year ten days earlier than planned. This is part of its attempt to contain an <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2022-DON421">Ebola outbreak</a> which had, by 16 November, <a href="https://africacdc.org/disease-outbreak/outbreak-brief-8-sudan-ebola-virus-disease-evd-in-uganda/">killed 55 people</a>; <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/ebola-kills-8-children-as-infections-rise-in-schools-4013716">eight were children</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s crucial for Uganda to try and stop Ebola from spreading. The disease has a far higher fatality rate than COVID. The country’s packed classrooms and poor school infrastructure, such as poor ventilation and sanitation, make students highly vulnerable to infections.</p>
<p>But young Ugandans have already fallen <a href="https://theconversation.com/uganda-closed-schools-for-two-years-the-impact-is-deep-and-uneven-176726">far behind</a> in their learning because of COVID. And, as the effects of climate change worsen, Africa is becoming increasingly vulnerable to health emergencies, including a number of infectious diseases. </p>
<p>That makes it incredibly important for Uganda to find a way to balance the realities of public health emergencies with children’s right to education. This is a particularly pressing issue in low-income contexts where many children struggle to complete their schooling even outside emergency situations.</p>
<h2>Kids are already far behind</h2>
<p>In a previous <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/chso.12627">study</a> emerging from a larger project called <a href="https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-7654-8">CoVAC</a>(led by Karen Devries, Jenny Parkes and Dipak Naker), we outlined the many harms and losses Ugandan children and youth faced due to the prolonged closure of schools. </p>
<p>When schools finally reopened in January 2022, one in ten students <a href="https://www.unicef.org/uganda/press-releases/23-countries-yet-fully-reopen-schools-education-risks-becoming-greatest-divider">did not report back</a> to school. Some schools had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/14/term-starts-in-uganda-but-worlds-longest-shutdown-has-left-schools-in-crisis">closed for good</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/uganda-closed-schools-for-two-years-the-impact-is-deep-and-uneven-176726">Uganda closed schools for two years – the impact is deep and uneven</a>
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<p>The government tried to support distance learning through TV, radio, newspapers, downloadable curricula or, in some instances, via mobile phones. However, most interventions, in particular those that required access to a mobile phone or computer only benefited urban elites with the means to send their children to expensive private schools.</p>
<p>Almost all of the participants in our study had no or limited access to the resources needed to effectively engage with these materials. Girls in remote areas were especially disadvantaged, as they tended to have less access to mobile phones than boys.</p>
<p>Most of our study participants were not able to continue their schooling via distance learning. They eventually gave up on their education.</p>
<p>Homeschooling became a common practice in wealthier countries. But in Uganda it was a privilege reserved for only a few children from higher socio-economic backgrounds and expensive schools. The majority of Ugandan caregivers have to make an income in any way they can and often lack the time, space and resources to learn with their children at home.</p>
<p>Although schools will be only closed for a relatively short time, losing another ten days of learning may weaken the trust among Ugandans in the functioning of their educational institutions. Many Ugandans <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738059321000237?via%3Dihub">struggle to pay</a> for their children’s school fees and will question the real value of education in light of current and potentially more interruptions. </p>
<h2>Overhauling current model</h2>
<p>Uganda’s education sector needs to be strengthened so that disruptions caused by future health emergencies do not leave children even further behind in their schooling.</p>
<p>This will require an overhaul of how education is governed, implemented and made accessible during emergency situations. Uganda inherited its education system from its former British colonial administration. The appropriation of western and former colonial education systems by countries in sub-Saharan Africa has been questioned and critiqued by many, particularly <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11159-016-9547-8">African scholars</a>. </p>
<p>Schooling, it is argued, was initially used as a tool by former colonisers to “<a href="https://ngugiwathiongo.com/decolonising-the-mind/">conquer the African mind</a>”. It ignored local culture and context with the intention to sustain colonial administration and nurture exploitative economic structures. </p>
<p>Today, part of the problem with adopting a universal model of schooling is that the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002030?via%3Dihub">many flaws inherent in western-style education</a> are exacerbated in times of crisis. For instance, the model champions a form of schooling that is time and location bound. It does not easily adapt to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13533312.2016.1214073">alternative forms of education</a> that allow for a more flexible mode of learning in the absence of a functioning school. </p>
<p>If adequately resourced and well implemented, alternative modes of learning during school closures can help the most vulnerable children and youth in their educational trajectories and overall well-being. This could be in the form of supporting distance learning in a different manner, such as the potential of outdoors teaching and learning where there is enough space for social distancing. Nearby teachers could be engaged to support locally organised, small learning groups of children in their respective communities. </p>
<p>Another option could be to ensure safe and continuous access to education in a staggered manner under strict hygienic measures. Investments in partnerships with local agencies and community-based organisations could help to facilitate radio, TV or internet-based learning spaces for children and youth with no access to learning technology.</p>
<h2>Urgent</h2>
<p>Some Ugandans told us that they fear schools will be closed for far longer than initially announced. This happened repeatedly during the COVID pandemic. It is also sadly likely that Ebola will not be the last epidemic the country must manage. </p>
<p>That’s why novel strategies and more resources are urgently needed to finally address deeply rooted social injustices in and outside education that arise before, during and after public health emergencies. Otherwise, children will be continuously at a high risk of dropping out of school, making them vulnerable to child labour or teenage pregnancies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simone Datzberger received funding for work referenced in this article from the European Commission Horizon 2020 programme (grant number 702880).
Funding for CoVAC research, referenced in this article, is provided by the Medical Research Council (grant number: MR/R002827/1).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Musenze Junior Brian 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>
Young Ugandans have already fallen far behind in their learning because of COVID.
Simone Datzberger, Assistant Professor in Education and International Development, UCL
Musenze Junior Brian, PhD Fellow, Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/193865
2022-11-07T11:02:50Z
2022-11-07T11:02:50Z
Armed conflict and climate change: how these two threats play out in Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493782/original/file-20221107-17-9nbzq2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eric Lafforgue/Art in All of Us/Corbis via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world is falling miserably short of reducing carbon emissions in line with the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">Paris Agreement</a>, a 2015 treaty to keep global warming well below 2°C. </p>
<p>The results of this failure are a greater increase in the prevalence and severity of extreme weather events, more rapid sea-level rises and an elevated risk of triggering irreversible <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950">climate tipping points</a>, like the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet or the loss of the Amazon rainforest. </p>
<p>The speed and magnitude of these changes have immediate consequences for <a href="https://ipbes.net/global-assessment">ecosystem health and biodiversity</a>. Further, sustained climate change threatens fundamental dimensions of <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/2022/02/28/pr-wgii-ar6/">human wellbeing</a>. </p>
<p>There are also frequent claims about looming “<a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-jp/Climate+Wars:+What+People+Will+Be+Killed+For+in+the+21st+Century-p-9780745651453">climate wars</a>”. These depict a chaotic world with unsustainable mass migrations, devastating weather-related disasters and violent clashes for survival in an era of rapidly diminishing resources. </p>
<p>However, the link between climate change and conflict is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1300-6">weak</a> when compared to the main drivers of conflict, notably poverty, inequality and weak governance. </p>
<p>Instead, violent conflict in the context of a warming planet plays another and far more prominent role: it’s a critical driver of vulnerability, which makes adverse impacts from weather extremes more likely and more severe. In other words, violent conflict weakens communities and countries so that they are not in a position to adapt to the changing world around them.</p>
<p>Although it may be possible to maintain peace without successful climate adaptation, successful climate adaptation is impossible in the absence of peace. </p>
<h2>How climate change affects conflict</h2>
<p>Climate change is commonly framed as a <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2021/sgsm21074.doc.htm">risk multiplier</a> that worsens conditions known to increase conflict risk, such as poverty and inequality. </p>
<p>Research shows that adverse climate conditions may lead to more <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002720923400">support for violence</a>. These conditions can also contribute to <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1411899111">escalating or prolonging conflict</a>. This is particularly the case in places marked by climate-sensitive economic activities, political marginalisation and a history of violence. </p>
<p>Typical hotspots of such dynamics are found in the Sahel and rural East Africa. However, the true role of climate change in causing conflict in these settings remains <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022343311427343?casa_token=lTbQ0Nx_fJ8AAAAA%3AbQ0Z73f9lmAQUIjTpPAhbuQQobplFoaP2p7PqRSzgaNpw-DXgK14yPGif5BDItIbfqLiqp8hRnWgEUM">disputed</a>. How climate shapes peace and security depends on how societies respond to climate change. </p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.722">journal article</a>, my colleague and I outline several potential ways climate policy can be linked to drivers of conflict. These could, for example, be by way of addressing energy insecurity, financial vulnerabilities from altered tourism patterns or loss of oil revenues, and land-use competition related to environmental conservation projects.</p>
<p>These links have attracted little systematic study to date and remain a key priority for <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343320984210">future research</a>.</p>
<h2>How conflict affects climate risk</h2>
<p>The link from climate to conflict seems to be modest. But the reverse – from conflict to climate vulnerability – is very strong. </p>
<p>Armed conflict ruins economic activity and livelihoods. It threatens food security, obstructs markets and public goods provision, damages critical infrastructure and triggers forced displacement. All of these erode local capacity to cope and adapt to environmental hazards. </p>
<p>Put simply, armed conflict is <a href="https://blogs.prio.org/2015/09/war-is-development-in-reverse/">development in reverse</a>. The consequence of the war in Ukraine on the <a href="https://www.wfp.org/publications/war-ukraine-drives-global-food-crisis">food crisis</a> in developing countries today is evidence that armed conflict can affect social vulnerability and human security at a global scale. </p>
<p>Given the devastating effect of conflict on coping capacity, it’s extremely worrying that violent conflict is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00223433221108428">on the rise</a> in Africa. The continent is already judged to be the <a href="https://gain.nd.edu/our-work/country-index/">most vulnerable</a> to the impacts of climate change. </p>
<p>Conflict, alongside the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, has also been identified as a major cause of <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2022/">recent reversals</a> in sustainable development. The most severe <a href="https://www.rescue.org/article/top-10-crises-world-cant-ignore-2022">humanitarian crises</a> today are all found in countries suffering from major conflicts and wars.</p>
<h2>A vicious circle</h2>
<p>Each of the processes outlined above challenges sustainable development:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>violent conflict deters long-term growth and ruins local capacity to manage climate-driven risks</p></li>
<li><p>climate impacts threaten human security in vulnerable societies, thereby increasing conflict risk. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Together, they may result in a <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-014708">vicious circle</a> of destructive effects.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493229/original/file-20221103-14-9pz9py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493229/original/file-20221103-14-9pz9py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493229/original/file-20221103-14-9pz9py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493229/original/file-20221103-14-9pz9py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493229/original/file-20221103-14-9pz9py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493229/original/file-20221103-14-9pz9py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493229/original/file-20221103-14-9pz9py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493229/original/file-20221103-14-9pz9py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The vicious circle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Halvard Buhaug</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The solution is peace</h2>
<p>The ways in which climate change and extreme weather events challenge peace and security are widely acknowledged and increasingly well understood. This is why the likes of the <a href="https://www.unssc.org/news-and-insights/blog/joint-efforts-sustaining-peace-meet-un-climate-security-mechanism">UN’s Climate Security Mechanism</a> exist. The UN Development Programme also plans to “<a href="https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/publications/UNDP-Typology-and-Analysis-of-Climate-Related-Security-Risks-First-Round-of-NDC_0.pdf">climate proof</a>” peace-keeping and stability in regions that have experienced conflict. </p>
<p>Climate security has additionally been the subject of <a href="https://climate-security-expert-network.org/unsc-engagement">nine open debates</a> at the UN Security Council since 2007, seven of which have been held in the past four years. </p>
<p>Successful climate adaptation allows for sustainable development and has <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31202-w">important benefits</a> for peace. However, it should not replace traditional conflict resolution and peacebuilding programmes. And it is important to be aware of the <a href="https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2020/01/beware-dark-side-environmental-peacebuilding/">dark sides</a> of environmental peacebuilding. </p>
<p>Less attention has been paid to “conflict proofing” climate adaptation programming. Instead, adaptation plans often <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X20305118">assume peaceful settings</a> and fail to consider political contexts that may underpin local conflicts and be a major source of vulnerability. </p>
<p>Yet, without peace on the ground, actions to address climate risks will be restrained, ineffective and possibly counterproductive.</p>
<p>From this follows a key insight: in violent contexts, peacebuilding should be seen as the first and most crucial step toward addressing complex climate risks. </p>
<p>Resolving conflict is no replacement for effective climate adaptation. But climate action without a safe environment with functioning governance structures is unlikely to solve structural sources of vulnerability. As has been <a href="https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/no-peace-no-sustainable-development-vicious-cycle-we-can-break">said elsewhere</a>: no peace, no sustainable development.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193865/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Halvard Buhaug receives funding from the European Research Council (grant no. 101055133). </span></em></p>
In the absence of peace, efforts to address climate risks will be restrained, ineffective and counterproductive.
Halvard Buhaug, Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192067
2022-10-26T15:06:09Z
2022-10-26T15:06:09Z
Somalia: four lessons from past experience of dealing with famine
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491090/original/file-20221021-15-i74h7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Experts are warning that millions of people are at risk as a famine hits Somalia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mehmet ali poyraz/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since 1990 the world’s famines have been classified as small – with the glaring exceptions of Somalia in 1991-92 and 2010-12. Now the UN’s <a href="https://www.wfp.org/publications/hunger-hotspots-fao-wfp-early-warnings-acute-food-insecurity-october-2022-january-2023">World Food Programme</a> says that nearly seven million Somalis face not being able to find enough food in the last months of 2022.</p>
<p>Baidoa and Burhakaba districts in Somalia’s Bay region face the highest level of famine, unless adequate food aid arrives. Southern Somalia’s crisis threatens to replicate what happened in 1991-92 and 2010-12, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691165356/eating-people-is-wrong-and-other-essays-on-famine-its-past-and-its">when famine caused hundreds of thousands of deaths</a>. There are lessons we can learn from what happened before.</p>
<h2>1. International help is vital</h2>
<p>Information about levels of poverty is limited. A report on the demographic toll of <a href="https://www.alnap.org/help-library/lives-lost-lives-saved">the 1991-92 famine</a> said: “Somalia’s total population is perhaps the least accurately known of any in the world.” Since 2013 Somalia’s economy has been either the third or fourth poorest in the world, according to the World Bank. International humanitarian aid will be essential in alleviating future crises. But for aid to be effective there must be peace. One hopeful sign is the security situation currently is better than a decade ago, and that the international community is committed to helping the government restore law and order. This has helped increase the flow of international humanitarian and development aid in recent years. The UN has already collected $1.4 billion for Somalia (about one-fifth of Somalia’s current GDP) in a recent appeal but believes it needs another $1 billion to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/at-least-1-billion-needed-to-avert-famine-in-somalia-u-n-says">stave off famine</a>.</p>
<h2>2. War makes delivering aid difficult</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/famine-in-european-history/E6AB1066582BD6EAD6C6E5721D3EA921">Historical experience</a> showing war can lead to famine also applies to modern day Somalia. Since 1990 civil war has constrained Somalia’s economy, disrupted healthcare and educational services and impeded the distribution of humanitarian relief from abroad many times, including during the 1991-92 and 2010-12 famines. The war made it difficult to transfer aid to where it was needed most. And for the employees of NGOs and others, it was a highly dangerous task. The health NGO Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) halted its Somali operations at the height of the 2010-12 famine, ending 22 years of continued activity in the country. This decision was taken after some of its aid workers were <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/doctors-without-borders-to-end-mission-in-somalia-after-22-years/a-17021651">killed and others kidnapped </a>. MSF returned to Somalia in 2017 after deciding they could operate safely and effectively again. Today an additional war-related factor can be expected to play a role: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which compromises the food production and export of two leading cereal producers, <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/famine-war-and-climate-change-middle-ages-russia-ukraine-war">potentially with global consequences</a> from which Somalia might just be the first to suffer.</p>
<h2>3. Long-term illnesses for survivors</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/famine-in-european-history/E6AB1066582BD6EAD6C6E5721D3EA921">Historically large-scale famines</a> cost hundreds of thousands of deaths, with the worst costing several million, but what is often underestimated is the long-term illnesses for survivors. <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/somalia/mortality-among-populations-southern-and-central-somalia-affected-severe-food">A widely cited 2013 inquiry</a> put Somalia’s death toll in 2010-12 at 260,000. Earlier estimates of 50,000-100,000 are perhaps more plausible, because the higher figure is difficult to reconcile with the valuable narrative testimony collected in the wake of the famine. A key question to answer, is whether that famine was deadlier than its predecessor of 1991-92. </p>
<p>The number of people who survived the famine but were permanently scarred, physically and psychologically, was much higher than the number of deaths: today, about one-third of the Somali population suffers from a <a href="https://www.emro.who.int/somalia/news/making-mental-health-care-for-all-a-reality-in-somalia-united-nations-and-the-government-join-forces-to-scale-up-quality-mental-health-services-at-all-levels-of-care.html">mental health condition</a>. Treating damage to the mental health of adults and children caused by the traumatic experience of famine is an area which should attract greater attention than in the past, as <a href="https://www.emro.who.int/somalia/news/urgent-need-to-scale-up-mental-health-services-in-somalia.html">according to the World Health Organization</a> mental health services hardly exist in Somalia. International help could do much to redress this situation. </p>
<h2>4. Migration and relatives abroad can help</h2>
<p>Migration in search of help is an age-old consequence of famine. Typically, most migrants are expected to return home after the worst is over, and do so. During the Somali famine of 2012, over one million Somalis crossed the borders to Kenya and Ethiopia. A refugee complex at Dadaab in eastern Kenya became the world’s biggest for a time. But, due to Somalia’s problems with drought and insecurity, many of the refugees from a decade ago have still <a href="https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/return-somalia-not-solution-refugees-dadaab-kenya">not returned home,</a> to the frustration of the Kenyan authorities. In these circumstances, clearly, whether migration could provide a similar safety valve in the event of another Somali famine is moot. The experience highlights both the benefits and limitations of mass migration. Open borders are needed to provide a safety valve for those at risk from famine, but neighbouring countries often incur <a href="https://www.g20-insights.org/policy_briefs/financial-burden-sharing-developing-countries-host-refugees/">a huge financial cost</a> when providing a refuge for those fleeing famine. It is vital that the international community acknowledge and support their contribution.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/famine-should-not-exist-in-2022-yet-somalia-faces-its-worst-yet-wealthy-countries-pay-your-dues-191952">Famine should not exist in 2022, yet Somalia faces its worst yet. Wealthy countries, pay your dues</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Somalians living in Europe and the US often try to help their families at home. At the height of the famine of 2010-12 having even distant relatives abroad <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/somalia/remittances-and-vulnerability-somalia">was a distinct advantage</a>. Money sent back to Somalia allowed some households to remain in their villages. The remittances managed to get through when other means of relief could not. The mechanism used to transfer funds from families abroad must <a href="https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/633401530870281332/pdf/Remittances-and-Vulnerability-in-Somalia-Resubmission.pdf">be secured and strengthened</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491089/original/file-20221021-12-9hr26i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A yellow and blue map of the Horn of Africa." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491089/original/file-20221021-12-9hr26i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491089/original/file-20221021-12-9hr26i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491089/original/file-20221021-12-9hr26i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491089/original/file-20221021-12-9hr26i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491089/original/file-20221021-12-9hr26i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491089/original/file-20221021-12-9hr26i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491089/original/file-20221021-12-9hr26i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rainer Lesniewski/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Across history the most frequent immediate cause of famine has been <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/famine-war-and-climate-change-middle-ages-russia-ukraine-war">severe weather</a>, caused by rapid climate change. <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1124472">Years of drought</a> and other climate extremes have compromised Somalia’s ability to grow food – and this is likely to remain <a href="https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/somalia/climate-data-projections">a recurring problem</a>. </p>
<p>These threats were hardly mentioned in 2010-12 or 1991-92. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the looming Somalian famine is that it might just be the first in a string of back-to-back catastrophes. Global warming is expected to continue to cause meteorological instability for many decades to come. Worldwide we need to recognise that our ability to cope with the threat of famine is inadequate and, <a href="http://www.fightfoodcrises.net/resources/all-publications/en/">as recently highlighted</a> by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, steadily worsening.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guido Alfani receives funding from European Research Council (ERC) . </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cormac Ó Gráda 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>
The looming Somalian famine might be the first in a string of back-to-back catastrophes, says an expert.
Guido Alfani, Professor of Economic History, Bocconi University
Cormac Ó Gráda, Emeritus professor, University College Dublin
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/189804
2022-09-23T10:11:40Z
2022-09-23T10:11:40Z
Uhuru Kenyatta failed to turn Kenya into as big an international player as he could – here’s why
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482493/original/file-20220902-3755-hm5l3f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Uhuru Kenyatta signs a treaty integrating DRC into the East African Community in June 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the notable achievements of Uhuru Kenyatta’s nine-year tenure as president was that he invigorated Kenya’s foreign policy. </p>
<p>A year after his 2013 inauguration, his government launched a <a href="https://www.kenyaembassy.org.tr/uploads/Kenya_Foreign_Policy.pdf">document</a> that outlined Kenya’s diplomatic engagements and foreign relations. It was the country’s first written foreign policy since independence.</p>
<p>Its themes can be distilled into four objectives and practices: regional and continental cooperation; promoting Kenya’s economic interests; revival of pan-Africanism; and an aggressive approach to foreign policy, including a plethora of high-level visits. </p>
<p>It was indeed a dynamic performance. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, in my view, based on the country’s mixed outcomes and foreign policy losses, it’s evident that the Kenyatta government’s foreign policy was not focused, consistent or effectively coordinated. Consequently, it failed to create a regional balance of power favourable to Kenya’s interests. </p>
<p>And while the country became more visible globally and actively engaged in international matters, the returns from this visibility have been dismal – save for an <a href="https://theconversation.com/uhuru-kenyattas-economic-legacy-big-on-promises-but-weak-on-delivery-188698">increased debt burden</a>. </p>
<h2>Regional and continental cooperation</h2>
<p>In the 2014 <a href="https://www.kenyaembassy.org.tr/uploads/Kenya_Foreign_Policy.pdf">Kenya Foreign Policy</a> document, Kenyatta affirmed that Kenya would seek to promote sub-regional and regional integration. </p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/134839269/H-E-President-Uhuru-Kenyatta-Inaugural-Address">inauguration speech</a> in 2013, he said his government would strengthen regional ties through the free movement of people, goods and investment. He underscored the importance of deepening relations with the <a href="https://www.eac.int/">East African Community</a> and Africa as a whole to: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>deliver on the promise of independence and liberation from our colonial past.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, critics faulted Kenyatta for using a pan-African approach to overcome the initial global isolation and non-receptiveness Kenya faced from traditional allies like Britain and the US. This chilly reception from the UK and US followed Kenyatta’s election as president despite his facing <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/kenya/kenyatta">an International Criminal Court (ICC) case</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, the president’s policy on global politics retracted to operating through the continental body, the African Union. </p>
<p>Kenya became an active contributor to the union’s programmes. In 2014, the country gave <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/counties/article/2000103662/kenya-pledges-sh130m-to-africas-heritage-preservation">US$1.1 million</a> to support the <a href="https://awhf.net/">African World Heritage Fund</a>. </p>
<p>In 2015, Kenyatta was elected the chairperson of the <a href="https://au.int/en/organs/aprm">African Peer Review Mechanism</a>. This is a voluntary assessment and monitoring system that evaluates and advises African Union member states on their progress in achieving good governance. </p>
<p>Moreover, Kenya was among the countries that contributed troops to the <a href="https://amisom-au.org/kenya-kdf/">African Union Mission in Somalia</a>.</p>
<p>Despite all this activity, Kenyatta failed to effectively exert influence and drive regional integration to Kenya’s advantage.</p>
<h2>Pan-Africanism</h2>
<p>A notable element in Kenya’s foreign policy under Kenyatta was the renaissance of pan-Africanism. In his first address to the African Union Summit in 2013, he <a href="https://www.kenyaembassyaddis.org/wp-content/uploads/speeches/presidential/INAUGURAL_STATEMENT_BY_HIS_EXCELLENCY_HON_UHURU_KENYATTA_PRESIDENT_OF_THE_REPUBLIC_OF_KENYA.pdf">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Pan-Africanism has sparked a Kenyan renaissance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The president said he had received tutelage on pan-Africanism from his father, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president. </p>
<p>Arguably, this pan-African reinvigoration into Kenya’s foreign policy was motivated by the existential threats of global sanctions that the regime faced. Yet, Kenyatta’s election against the backdrop of the cases at The Hague turned Kenya into an icon of resistance following what was perceived as the unfair targeting of Africa by the ICC.</p>
<p>During Kenyatta’s inauguration, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/09/controversy-kenya-uhuru-kenyatta-uganda">praised Kenyans</a> for rejecting western neo-colonialism. This was in reference to calls by diplomats that Kenyans should not elect people with cases to answer at the ICC. </p>
<p>The African Union convened an extraordinary summit that <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/kenya-leads-push-for-immunity-for-leaders-at-world-court-1399762">declared support</a> for Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto, who was also facing charges at The Hague. </p>
<h2>Economic interests</h2>
<p>Kenyatta’s foreign policy of economic prosperity was pursued and achieved via a triple approach. </p>
<p>First was through encouraging trade ties with traditional allies like the UK, US and some countries in western Europe. Second was through a diversification of economic relations to include new markets in the form of a “look east” policy. </p>
<p>Third was through emphasising intra-African trade. Kenya signed trade agreements with states not considered traditional allies, such as Nigeria and Ghana. Additionally, the country quickly signed the <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20180321/au-member-countries-create-history-massively-signing-afcfta-agreement-kigali">African Continental Free Trade Area agreement</a> in March 2018. </p>
<p>But questions have arisen on whether Kenya has the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uhuru-kenyattas-economic-legacy-big-on-promises-but-weak-on-delivery-188698">financial capacity</a> to meet present and future economic obligations. </p>
<h2>Assertive foreign policy</h2>
<p>Kenya hosted a wide range of high-level international meetings. Subjects ranged from climate change to trade. Kenyatta also received high-level delegations <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-moi-put-foreign-policy-at-the-centre-of-his-presidency-134048">reminiscent of former president Daniel Moi’s era</a>. His guests included the pope and leaders of India, Israel, US, UK, China and Japan. </p>
<p>From Africa, Kenyatta hosted leaders from Ghana, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda and Rwanda, among many others. </p>
<p>By July 2022, a month to the election that would end his term in office, Kenyatta had made <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/how-uhuru-kenyatta-won-over-world-leaders-charm-offensive-3866492">158 official foreign trips</a>. In contrast, his predecessor Mwai Kibaki made just 33 foreign trips over 10 years of leadership. </p>
<p>The country’s foreign policy during Kenyatta’s second term, which began in 2017, is what I would describe as aggressive or assertive. The country took advantage of any international opportunity that arose to make its mark. </p>
<p>In February 2022, Kenya addressed a UN Security Council meeting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Its envoy to the UN, Martin Kimani, <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/national/article/2001438419/amb-martin-kimanis-full-speech-on-russia-ukraine-tension">came out strongly</a> in defence of Ukraine. He stated that the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter">Charter of the United Nations</a> was fading due to “the relentless assault of the powerful”. Kimani compared Ukraine’s plight to Africa’s colonial legacy. </p>
<p>Kenya’s aggressive foreign policy direction earned Kenya a <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/kenya-wins-un-security-council-seat-1443488">seat at the UN Security Council</a> as a non-permanent member. </p>
<p>But this aggressive foreign policy also portrayed Kenya as a nation that “wants everything”. This earned it some opposition regionally. For instance, states like Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti and Tanzania <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001227877/details-of-how-amina-mohamed-lost-african-union-commission-election">didn’t vote for Kenya</a> in its bid to chair the African Union Commission.</p>
<p>Kenyatta should have streamlined his priorities and made his foreign objectives sharper so as not to appear to be a “Jack of all trades” in foreign affairs. Many foreign interests were projected with little coordination; few were accomplished. </p>
<p>In some cases, the country’s goodwill was squandered in the pursuit of self-interest. </p>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p>The post-Kenyatta government needs to fast-track the realisation of East African Community objectives. It needs to support South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s active participation in regional integration. The new Ruto regime should also maintain a non-disruptive relationship with Rwanda and Tanzania. </p>
<p>In the Horn of Africa, Kenya needs to diplomatically endeavour to reduce Ethiopia’s growing influence in the leadership of the <a href="https://igad.int/">Intergovernmental Authority on Development</a>. </p>
<p>Under Kenyatta, Kenya’s foreign policy practice within the African Union was more “lone ranger”. The Ruto regime will need to forge closer ties with regional powers like Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa to make it easier for Kenya to push through its agenda at the African Union. </p>
<p>It will also need to renegotiate its foreign debts and re-examine <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/kenya-s-debt-repayments-to-china-shoot-to-sh73-5-billion-3821246">Kenya-China agreements</a> to re-organise debt repayments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wilfred Nasong'o Muliro received funding from the African Leadership Centre, London and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). He is affiliated with the International Relations Society of Kenya (IRSK). He teaches International Relations and Diplomacy at the Technical University of Kenya</span></em></p>
Kenya’s new president needs to forge closer ties with regional heavyweights to create a balance of power that favours his country.
Wilfred Nasong'o Muliro, Lecturer International Relations and Security, Technical University of Kenya
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/187373
2022-07-28T14:38:02Z
2022-07-28T14:38:02Z
Zambia can meet growing food demand: how to fix what’s standing in its way
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475418/original/file-20220721-10361-ayd9br.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lorries blocked at the border between DRC and Zambia. Poor roads are a major stumbling block to trade.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lucien Kahozi/AFP via Getty Images)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>African countries face great challenges in adapting to climate change to meet growing demand for food. The current <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/africa-drought-food-starvation/">drought in East Africa</a> is the latest manifestation of changing weather patterns.</p>
<p>But countries such as Zambia, where there is <a href="https://www.ifad.org/en/web/operations/w/country/zambia">good land and water</a>, have major opportunities to meet food demand by growing agriculture exports and processing their produce. Zambian farmers can earn substantial returns from increased production. Their production can also alleviate the pressures in countries such as Kenya.</p>
<p>To realise these opportunities, Zambian products have to reach export markets at good prices. For this, Zambia needs competitive cross-border markets and efficient transport and logistics services. However, regional grain and oilseeds trade is not working for producers in Zambia or for buyers in East Africa, with huge variances in agricultural commodity prices in Kenya and in Zambia.</p>
<p><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52246331e4b0a46e5f1b8ce5/t/627b83c72818b8346e9227a0/1652261854313/WP+Assessing+agriculture+food+markets+in+Eastern+and+Southern+Africa+an+agenda+for+regional+competition+enforcement.pdf">Our reality check</a> on the workings of cross-border markets points to regional integration being the key to unlocking massive potential for Zambia to anchor sustainable agricultural growth in Africa. But effective regional integration remains a dream, undermining Zambia’s potential. </p>
<h2>How are markets really working for Zambia?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341904098_Agriculture_as_a_Determinant_of_Zambian_Economic_Sustainability">Zambian agriculture</a> has been a growth story with expanding net exports in important products such as <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52246331e4b0a46e5f1b8ce5/t/627b83c72818b8346e9227a0/1652261854313/WP+Assessing+agriculture+food+markets+in+Eastern+and+Southern+Africa+an+agenda+for+regional+competition+enforcement.pdf">soybeans</a>. However, this performance is very short of where it should be. Zambia should be the grain basket for the whole region. Malawi has shown what is possible in <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52246331e4b0a46e5f1b8ce5/t/620fb231a08ee67644acc686/1645195827213/Price+tracker+9+DRAFT+14022022.pdf">soybeans</a>. It almost doubled production in 2019/2020, to <a href="https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data">421,000 tonnes</a>, <a href="https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data">more than Zambia</a> in that year.</p>
<p>A major issue is how cross-border markets are working, or not working. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335912204_Soya_Beans_Production_in_Zambia_Opportunities_and_Challenges">Zambian suppliers report</a> having substantial volumes of soybeans which can meet the huge regional demand. </p>
<p>Market prices for maize in Nairobi climbed to over <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52246331e4b0a46e5f1b8ce5/t/62cd4f8496b1364d48c7548e/1657622405695/AMO_Price+tracker+14_12072022.pdf">US$500/Mt in June 2022</a>, reaching similar levels in Kampala, Uganda (Figure 1). In early July, prices were reported to have climbed well above <a href="http://kamis.kilimo.go.ke/">US$750/Mt</a> in Kenya. Meanwhile prices in <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52246331e4b0a46e5f1b8ce5/t/62cd4f8496b1364d48c7548e/1657622405695/AMO_Price+tracker+14_12072022.pdf">Zambia</a> were around US$220/Mt or 3,700 kwacha/Mt.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475123/original/file-20220720-24-jxsqfz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475123/original/file-20220720-24-jxsqfz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475123/original/file-20220720-24-jxsqfz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475123/original/file-20220720-24-jxsqfz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475123/original/file-20220720-24-jxsqfz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475123/original/file-20220720-24-jxsqfz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475123/original/file-20220720-24-jxsqfz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though lower than Kenya’s, Zambian maize prices are still substantially higher than last year’s. This is in line with <a href="https://www.sagis.org.za/swb_2022.html">global trends</a>. With higher input costs, farmers need higher output prices to incentivise production.</p>
<p>The gap between prices in Zambia and those in Nairobi and Kampala is close to US$300/Mt. This is double what would be explained by the efficient cost of transporting maize from Zambia to these countries. Efficient transport costs take account of reasonable trucking, logistics and border costs.</p>
<p>Even with the higher fuel costs, grain should cost around US$150/Mt to be transported from Lusaka to Kampala and Nairobi. Of course, quoted transport rates may be much higher, but this reflects the many problems in cross-border transport which need to be addressed.</p>
<p>The situation is even more extreme in soybeans, which are a much higher value commodity. Zambia’s bumper soybean harvest in 2022 was being sold at prices around US$550/Mt in June, with prices even being quoted as low as US$439/Mt at the end of the month. Prices in East Africa were well over US$1,000/Mt, some US$500-700/Mt above those in Zambia. This is three to four times the transport costs. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475124/original/file-20220720-9522-pk6d40.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475124/original/file-20220720-9522-pk6d40.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475124/original/file-20220720-9522-pk6d40.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475124/original/file-20220720-9522-pk6d40.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475124/original/file-20220720-9522-pk6d40.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475124/original/file-20220720-9522-pk6d40.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475124/original/file-20220720-9522-pk6d40.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other words, producers in Zambia should be getting more for their crops and buyers in East Africa should be paying less, alleviating the food price spikes there. </p>
<h2>How can this be and what is to be done?</h2>
<p>A combination of factors is undermining the growth of Zambia. </p>
<p>First, reliable market information is required to link buyers and suppliers, and to enable markets to work. In the absence of information, it’s risky to export. This lack of information affects small and medium sized farmers and businesses. Large-scale traders who have operations across the region have an advantage over smaller businesses and farmers because they have private information. </p>
<p>Second, the market players require clear trade policy signals to take advantage of export opportunities. Any hesitation or mixed signals tend to undermine the ability to make deals with confidence. It is therefore important for Zambia’s new government not to impose ad hoc trade restrictions, for example, as the previous government did in August 2021 to restrict maize exports. Such restrictions, imposed and lifted from month to month, mean deals cannot be made with the confidence that they can be fulfilled. </p>
<p>Third, the market opportunities in East Africa require urgent regional co-operation to improve transport corridors on the ground rather than in rhetoric.</p>
<p>Malawian soybean suppliers have shown the value. Small suppliers have already been using the <a href="https://www.competition.org.za/africanmarketobservatory">African Market Observatory data</a> on East African prices in 2022 to negotiate better prices for their exports. This increased realised prices by around <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52246331e4b0a46e5f1b8ce5/t/62cd4f8496b1364d48c7548e/1657622405695/AMO_Price+tracker+14_12072022.pdf">$200/Mt</a> more than they would otherwise have accepted.</p>
<p>Zambian farmers could reap similar benefits too. This would support a big push in production, enabling Zambian farmers to invest in improved agricultural systems. This is even more essential as next year is likely to be another <a href="https://gro-intelligence.com/insights/la-nina-is-forecast-to-impact-global-agriculture-for-a-third-year-in-a-row">La Niña</a> weather pattern which sees good rains in Zambia and poor rains in parts of East Africa and the Horn of Africa. </p>
<p>The ongoing effects of climate change mean more investment is required to make agriculture resilient. This involves investments in water management, irrigation, storage facilities, advice and information systems. </p>
<p>The vulnerability of the whole of Southern and East Africa as a climate “hotspot” means urgent and coordinated regional action is required. </p>
<p>But Zambia doesn’t have to wait for this action. </p>
<p>It can lead in championing sustainable agricultural growth in the knowledge that this is essential for resilient food supplies across the region. This requires good policies with a longer-term vision. The country needs, without any reservations, to fully back regional integration and competitive regional markets. Excessive margins cannot be captured by connected so-called “middlemen”. </p>
<p>Greater certainty for businesses needs to be accompanied by enforcement of clear rules for company power. Regional competition enforcement by the <a href="https://globalcompetitionreview.com/insight/enforcer-hub/2021/organization-profile/zambia-competition-and-consumer-protection-commission">Competition and Consumer Protection Commission of Zambia</a> together with the <a href="https://www.comesacompetition.org/">COMESA Competition Commission</a> is a key part of fair and competitive markets which work for all.</p>
<p>Investment is required in critical infrastructure such as storage for smaller market participants to use on fair terms. Finance can be mobilised, such as that being made available by the <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/press-releases/african-development-bank-board-approves-15-billion-facility-avert-food-crisis-51716">African Development Bank</a>.</p>
<p>It is essential to support regional research networks, such as those led by the <a href="https://www.devex.com/organizations/indaba-agricultural-policy-research-institute-iapri-115251">Indaba Agricultural Policy Institute</a> and the <a href="https://www.competition.org.za/africanmarketobservatory">African Market Observatory</a> of the <a href="https://www.competition.org.za/home">Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development</a> and partners.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187373/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development at the University of Johannesburg has received funding for related work from the COMESA Competition Commission and the South African Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Antony Chapoto and Ntombifuthi Tshabalala 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>
Producers in Zambia should be getting more for their crops, and buyers in East Africa should be paying less, alleviating food price spikes.
Antony Chapoto, Research Director, Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI)
Ntombifuthi Tshabalala, Economist at Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development, University of Johannesburg
Simon Roberts, Professor of Economics and Lead Researcher, Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development, UJ, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183844
2022-07-21T14:04:13Z
2022-07-21T14:04:13Z
Saving East Africa’s wildlife from recurring drought
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467438/original/file-20220607-14-lkfhsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A giraffe lies dead in the road near Matanaha village on December 9, 2021 in Wajir County, Kenya. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ed Ram/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825218303519">two decades</a>, the Horn of Africa – specifically Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya – has experienced more <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004896971935291X">intense</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825218303519">frequent</a> droughts. </p>
<p>The affected areas in the three countries include vast rangelands, home to millions of people, livestock and wildlife. These areas are classified as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/arid-land">arid and semi-arid lands</a>. </p>
<p>These drylands also constitute a <a href="https://www.cepf.net/our-work/biodiversity-hotspots/horn-africa/species">biodiversity hotspot</a>. They harbour endangered species like the hirola antelope, African wild dog, <a href="https://somaligiraffe.org/">Somali giraffe</a> and Grevy’s zebra. But these species face an uncertain future due to severe and recurring droughts.</p>
<p>I’m a Kenyan <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q2pK4O8AAAAJ&hl=en">scientist</a> and <a href="https://www.hirolaconservation.org/founder-dr-ali/#page-content">conservationist</a>. One of the hats I wear is as the founder and director of Kenya’s <a href="https://www.hirolaconservation.org/">Hirola Conservation Programme</a>. I have over 15 years of experience working with communities and wildlife in remote areas along the volatile Kenya-Somalia border region. I’ve seen at <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2664.12856">first hand</a> the devastating effect that these droughts have on wildlife and the habitat around them. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1527596418717954050"}"></div></p>
<p>For example, from my observations over the past year, I’ve estimated that 30 endangered hirola (about 6% of the global population) have died as a direct consequence of drought. This is based on <a href="https://www.hirolaconservation.org/">our monitoring</a> of the herds. Hirola live in a small area and we are able to monitor nearly every herd across their range.</p>
<p>Similarly, and during the same period, the deaths of more than 200 giraffes (mostly young and female adults) were reported by members of the <a href="http://www.neca.or.ke/">Northeastern Kenya wildlife Conservancies Association</a> and by the <a href="https://somaligiraffe.org/">Somali giraffe project</a>. This data is estimated from community scout monitoring across conservancies.</p>
<p>There have also been <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-61170219?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=628679984259031cb5a24803%26Drought%20killed%2070%20Kenyan%20elephants%20in%20one%20year%262022-05-19T17%3A29%3A55%2B00%3A00&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:e40df882-fe6d-45c0-a2b4-5782f94cf02d&pinned_post_asset_id=628679984259031cb5a24803&pinned_post_type=share">recent reports</a> that about 70 elephants have died over the past year due to drought in the Tsavo area.</p>
<p>The good news is that there are steps that can be taken towards conserving wildlife, which I’ll unpack later.</p>
<h2>Impacts of drought</h2>
<p>Rangelands are already dry areas. Drought <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343520300804">adds to</a> the pressure on resources like water and pasture. This makes livestock and wildlife <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10661-021-09222-8">more susceptible</a> to malnutrition, disease, mass mortalities and competition with each other over resources. </p>
<p><a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2664.12856">In a study</a> in eastern Kenya, I found that between 1970 and 2009, increased drought caused a decline in the area of land covered by grass. Hirola depend entirely on grasses. As a consequence there was a 98% decline in hirola. Elephant populations were similarly affected and there was also a 74% decline in cattle.</p>
<p>Drought also means pastoralists will look for grazing and water closer to, or in, wildlife areas. Livestock diseases <a href="https://www.shh.mpg.de/310600/Janzen-Wildebeest-Mobility">could potentially</a> spill over into wildlife populations and cause mass mortalities. </p>
<p>This has happened before. For instance, an <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2664.12856">outbreak</a> of rinderpest (morbillivirus) among cattle in the mid-1980s killed many hirola. And, in 1991, rinderpest struck in the Mara region and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Thomas-Butynski/publication/287391841_Independent_Evaluation_of_Hirola_Antelope_Beatragus_hunteri_Conservation_Status_and_Conservation_Action_in_Kenya/links/56763fe508ae125516e731ae/Independent-Evaluation-of-Hirola-Antelope-Beatragus-hunteri-Conservation-Status-and-Conservation-Action-in-Kenya.pdf?origin=publication_detail">wiped out</a> 95% of the buffalo and wildebeest population.</p>
<p>In fact, since 2021’s prolonged drought there has already <a href="https://www.ndma.go.ke/index.php/resource-center/send/5-garissa/6175-garissa-august-2021">been an increase</a> in the number of bovine trypanosomiasis (“sleeping sickness”) cases reported in parts of southern Garissa in Kenya. This is a worry because at least 24 hirola antelopes <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287391841_Independent_Evaluation_of_Hirola_Antelope_Beatragus_hunteri_Conservation_Status_and_Conservation_Action_in_Kenya">died from</a> cattle diseases in 1998. </p>
<p>Drought favours the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_CrossChapterPaper1.pdf">encroachment</a> of invasive woody plants. This <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228571211_The_Impact_of_Rangeland_Condition_and_Trend_to_the_Grazing_Resources_of_a_Semi-arid_Environment_in_Kenya">reduces</a> the habitats of wildlife species and increases the risk of local extinction. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2664.12856">hirola</a> and the endangered <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20964129.2018.1530054">Ethiopian wolf</a> are some of the species whose ranges have been reduced by <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00703-016-0462-0">warming trends</a> and the <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2664.12856">spread</a> of woody plants. </p>
<h2>Recurring droughts</h2>
<p>The wildlife in these regions live alongside people who are struggling to survive and keep their livestock alive. Poaching has <a href="https://ke.opera.news/ke/en/environment/3507b27ea1e91a6621439c570296cd7a">increased</a> in the conservation areas where we work. </p>
<p>Drought conditions have therefore become a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825218303519">major threat</a> to all wildlife species. </p>
<p>Their increased frequency means there’s <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/horn-africa-drought-humanitarian-key-messages-23-march-2022">little or no time</a> to recover before the next drought occurs. </p>
<p>This is what we’re experiencing now. A prolonged drought was declared a <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/national/article/2001422964/president-uhuru-declares-drought-a-national-disaster">national disaster</a> in Kenya in September 2021. A little rainfall in December gave only temporary reprieve. New forage lasted about a month. Partially recharged water sources quickly deteriorated during the hot month of January. Crops did not germinate and wilted without moisture. It is estimated that farmers produced only about <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/100/6/bams-d-17-0233.1.xml">30%</a> of the norm. </p>
<p>People and animals migrated into core wildlife areas which have more undisturbed vegetation compared to open communual areas. On 23 March 2022, the Kenyan government <a href="https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/74201-uhuru-declares-curfew-these-areas">imposed</a> a dusk to dawn curfew in some parts of the region because of increasing resource-based conflicts. </p>
<h2>No capacity to deal with changes</h2>
<p>The countries in the Horn of Africa are <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/16/5917/htm">highly vulnerable</a> to prolonged droughts, erratic rains and increased temperatures, but they don’t really have the capacity to cope with these climatic changes. The governments rely on <a href="https://catalogue.unccd.int/725_White_paper_second_draft_Namibia_Drought_2016.pdf">crisis management</a> and the responses tend to be humanitarian, forgetting wildlife.</p>
<p>As I mentioned before, I established and work with the <a href="https://www.hirolaconservation.org/">Hirola Conservation Programme</a>. The hirola antelope – classified as critically endangered by the <a href="https://www.iucn.org/">International Union for Conservation of Nature</a> – is among the 10 species most at risk of imminent extinction. The population has fallen by 95% in the last four decades. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475510/original/file-20220721-9523-hb1h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475510/original/file-20220721-9523-hb1h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475510/original/file-20220721-9523-hb1h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475510/original/file-20220721-9523-hb1h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475510/original/file-20220721-9523-hb1h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475510/original/file-20220721-9523-hb1h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475510/original/file-20220721-9523-hb1h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hirola antelope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">OliverZeid/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The programme includes both long-term climate-change resilience measures and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2awvGJut8Mc">short-term emergency initiatives</a> to ensure wildlife, local communities and their livestock survive during drought periods.</p>
<p>We offer some experiences for policymakers to draw on.</p>
<h2>Solid solutions</h2>
<p>Well-managed protected areas are the key in biodiversity conservation. Because wildlife species <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ecog.00967">shift</a> their geographic ranges in response to climate change, it makes sense to create <a href="https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/article/115/3/718/2440232?login=true">a network</a> of protected areas within a region to <a href="https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/1540-9295%282007%295%5B131%3APANIAC%5D2.0.CO%3B2">accommodate movement</a>. This can also be good for tourism, local employment and incomes.</p>
<p>In line with this, we have a <a href="https://www.ser.org/news/553105/www.hirolaconservation.org">10-year rangelands project</a> which aims to restore 10,000 acres of grasslands in the Horn of Africa. It creates corridors to connect wildlife habitats.</p>
<p>We have also established two protected areas within the hirola’s native range. Here, elephants are making a comeback and we’ve had increased sightings of African wild dogs, Somali giraffes, lions and Grevy’s zebra.</p>
<p>The national and county governments could build on these efforts. </p>
<p>Our emergency initiatives to cushion wildlife and communities against drought include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>trucking in water and fuel to communities</p></li>
<li><p>supplying food to wildlife and supplements to livestock</p></li>
<li><p>conduct regular patrols to identify and rescue vulnerable animals </p></li>
<li><p>opening wildlife water access corridors by thinning invasive thickets and mapping all natural water access points for long-term protection </p></li>
<li><p>vaccinating livestock and treating wildlife to reduce the chances of disease spillover and improve animal health.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In addition to expanding on these measures, policymakers must invest in water resource management and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969717337324?via%3Dihub">maintain</a> infrastructure. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/groundwater-can-prevent-drought-emergencies-in-the-horn-of-africa-heres-how-124837">Groundwater can prevent drought emergencies in the Horn of Africa. Here's how</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As droughts become more frequent, much can be done to reduce their impact. It requires a multi-agency approach which brings communities, government and conservationists together.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abdullahi Ali is affiliated with the Society for Conservation Biology, Kenya Chapter as the President </span></em></p>
Many wildlife species face an uncertain future due to recurring, severe drought.
Abdullahi Ali, Fellow, Zoological Society of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/186954
2022-07-19T13:48:08Z
2022-07-19T13:48:08Z
Why sexual and reproductive law for east African countries is being resisted
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474625/original/file-20220718-76655-yr3tdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Six of the countries of the East African Community – Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania – recently concluded public hearings on a new sexual and reproductive health bill. Proponents of the bill argue that it will improve access to sexual and reproductive health which, in turn, will improve other public health and development indicators such as maternal mortality and HIV infection rates. But the bill has faced fierce opposition since it was first tabled in 2017. The Conversation Africa’s Ina Skosana spoke to researchers Anthony Ajayi and Nicholas Etyang to unpack what the bill covers and where the sticking points are.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Is a regional response practical? Has it worked anywhere else?</h2>
<p>Article 118 of the <a href="https://www.eacj.org/?page_id=33">Treaty for the Establishment of East African Community</a> mandates partner states to cooperate around health issues, and to develop policies for the region. </p>
<p>Regional responses can help fast-track progress, harmonise laws and create a uniform front for addressing sexual and reproductive health issues. The development of regional frameworks is not new on the continent. Other examples include the South Africa Development Community sexual and reproductive health strategy 2019-2030, South Africa Development Community model law on gender-based violence, and the regional body’s model law on eradicating child marriage and protecting children already in marriage. </p>
<p>Regional frameworks help citizens hold their governments to account. The East Africa region is pushing for integration on many fronts. These include immigration policies, trade, and security. Remarkable progress has been made in the areas of <a href="https://www.eac.int/trade">trade</a> and <a href="https://www.eac.int/immigration">immigration</a>. This could be repeated with health cooperation.</p>
<p>But getting regional laws through is hard. In the case of East Africa, seven countries are part of the East Africa Community. Getting everyone on board is a tough ask especially when it comes to contentious issues like sexual and reproductive healthcare.</p>
<p>The first attempt to pass an East African sexual and reproductive health bill was in 2017, with the 3rd Legislative Assembly. But <a href="https://www.eac.int/press-releases/1933-eala-withdraws-bill-on-sexual-and-reproductive-health-rights">numerous concerns were raised by stakeholders</a>. And limited time for consultation before the end of their term meant the bill could not move forward. </p>
<p>The 4th Legislative Assembly began working on a revised bill in January 2020 and has conducted a series of stakeholder consultations. But resistance continues.</p>
<h2>Why does the bill matter?</h2>
<p>The 2021 version of the bill is a progressive legislation. It has huge potential to address the sexual and reproductive health challenges of East Africans. Adolescent girls are disproportionately affected by sexual and reproductive health issues. The bill addresses these disparities substantively. </p>
<p>In East Africa, complications arising from early pregnancy and child birth are among the leading causes of death among girls aged <a href="https://apps.who.int/adolescent/second-decade/section3/page2/mortality.html">15 to 19 years</a>. Young girls are also disproportionately exposed to new HIV infections and sexual violence. If passed, the bill will address adolescent pregnancy and protect the right of young mothers to return to school. </p>
<p>Unsafe abortions are also among the leading causes of maternal death. These account for <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214109X1470227X">about 10%</a> of maternal mortality. By expanding access to safe abortion, more lives would be saved. If passed, the bill will be a huge win for women’s and girls’ reproductive rights in the region.</p>
<h2>What’s in the Bill?</h2>
<p>The sexual and reproductive health Bill lays out five ambitious objectives. These are: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>to protect and facilitate the fulfilment of all persons’ sexual and reproductive health and rights across the life course;</p></li>
<li><p>to promote and provide age-appropriate sexual and reproductive health information and services for all persons, including adolescents and young people</p></li>
<li><p>to facilitate and promote the prevention of newborn, child mortality, maternal mortality, and morbidity from preventable causes;</p></li>
<li><p>to facilitate and promote the reduction and elimination of unsafe abortions, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, early and unintended pregnancies; and</p></li>
<li><p>to prohibit and facilitate the elimination of harmful practices. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The Bill has 29 clauses covering a range of issues. These include integration of sexual and reproductive health services into universal health coverage, sexuality education, continuation of education after pregnancy, menstrual health as well as family planning. </p>
<p>In addition, the Bill makes provisions to safeguard the sexual and reproductive health and rights of people with disabilities. </p>
<p>Section 16 provides limited access to abortion on the grounds that, in the opinion of a health worker, the pregnancy can endanger the mental or physical health or life of the woman. Additionally, in case of sexual assault, rape, and incest. </p>
<p>Section 17 protects the right of women and girls to post-abortion care irrespective of the legality of the abortion. It also shields health workers from prosecution for providing post-abortion care.</p>
<p>Section 21 recommends restricting the use of assisted reproductive technology such as surrogacy for only those medically diagnosed as unable to bear children. In addition, it recommends that partner states give special licenses to designated providers and protect surrogate mothers from exploitation. </p>
<p>Section 22 prohibits harmful cultural practices such as child marriage, forced sterilisation, and female genital mutilation. </p>
<p>Lastly, the Bill mandates partner states to develop and implement common strategies for detecting, preventing and reporting sexual and gender-based violence.</p>
<h2>What’s the hold-up in passing it?</h2>
<p>The Bill faced opposition at the public hearings held on June 27-30. Some oppose the Bill entirely, while others want specific provisions removed. </p>
<p>Resistance is primarily from religious and conservative groups, who maintain that some provisions of the Bill are part of the Western agenda, and against East African cultural values. </p>
<p>Three sections of the Bill remain contentious despite the revisions made after the first reading and stakeholder consultations.</p>
<p>First is the provision for comprehensive sexuality education for young people, which they oppose because they believe it will expose children to early sex. Some question why the government should be responsible for providing sex education to children instead of parents. They also oppose contraceptive access for young people and argue that abstinence-only messages should be provided to young people. This is despite <a href="https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(07)00426-0/fulltext">scientific evidence</a> to the contrary.</p>
<p>A representative of the ministry of education in Uganda wants the word “comprehensive” removed because it is inconsistent with the language approved nationally. </p>
<p>Advocates for the Bill maintain that sexuality education is not all about sex but encompasses information on menstrual health, decision making, body awareness, social skills (family, respect, and kindness), sexual consent, healthy relationship, gender-based violence, HIV testing, and pregnancy.</p>
<p>The provision on abortion faces the most opposition. Opponents take issue with the definition of abortion in the Bill and argue that it does not reflect African values. They claim that, if passed, the Bill would make abortion services available on-demand. </p>
<p>Partner states have ratified the <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/protocol-african-charter-human-and-peoples-rights-rights-women-africa">Maputo protocol</a>, which allows for the termination of pregnancy on the grounds provided for in the proposed Bill. But opponents reject the provision that allows for pregnancy termination in cases of rape, incest and sexual assault. Stakeholders from the Burundi government claim the bill promotes immorality and voluntary termination of pregnancy, contrary to divine principles, the national constitution, and culture.</p>
<p>Lastly, critics oppose the section on surrogacy, claiming it deviates from the order of creation and allows for LGBT individuals to have children. A few Muslim leaders in Kenya and Tanzania reject the ban on child marriage and argue that once menstruation starts, regardless of age, a girl can be married.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Idowu Ajayi is affiliated with the African Population and Health Research Center. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Okapu Etyang is affiliated with the African Population and Health Research Center. </span></em></p>
Adolescent girls are disproportionately affected by sexual and reproductive health issues. These proposed law substantively addresses these disparities.
Anthony Idowu Ajayi, Associate research scientist, African Population and Health Research Center
Nicholas Okapu Etyang, Policy officer, African Population and Health Research Center
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183065
2022-05-25T13:26:04Z
2022-05-25T13:26:04Z
Kenya’s push for a purely formal seed system could be bad for farmers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463312/original/file-20220516-15-x942bb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Maize grown in a small-scale farm.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexander Joe/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Kenya’s government wants farmers to grow crops from <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/farmers-turn-to-indigenous-seed-banks-as-kenya-restricts-informal-trade-102945">licensed seeds</a> only. These are hybrid seeds that are certified free of various seed-borne pests and diseases. The <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Acts/SeedsandPlantVarietiesActCap326.pdf">Seeds and Plant Varieties Act</a> makes it a crime to plant and exchange uncertified seeds. But many small-scale farmers rely on informal exchanges of seeds with their neighbours to secure their food supply. We spoke to Oliver Kirui, whose research focuses on agricultural and economic transformation policies, for insights into the implications of banning informal seed exchanges in Kenya.</em></p>
<h2>What are formal and informal seed exchanges?</h2>
<p>In the formal channel of seed exchanges, a registered seed company manages the production, processing and packaging – and sometimes even distribution – of seeds. This channel provides an idea of what to expect from harvests. </p>
<p>Kenya has about <a href="https://www.accesstoseeds.org/index/eastern-southern-africa/country-profile/kenya/#:%7E:text=Kenya%E2%80%99s%20seed%20industry%20is%20guided%20by%20its%20National,and%20Plant%20Varieties%20Act%20%28Cap%20326%29%20from%202016">26 registered seed companies</a> – 23 are local and three are multinational. The three are Syngenta, Monsanto and the East African Seed Company. The country’s oldest registered company is Kenya Seed Company, a state corporation established in 1956. </p>
<p>The aim of these companies is to produce and distribute superior seeds for commercial and domestic use.</p>
<p>It’s estimated that <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306919213001413?via%3Dihub">two-thirds</a> of the maize seeds planted in Kenyan farms are from formal sources. Maize is a staple food for over <a href="https://www.tegemeo.org/images/_tegemeo_institute/downloads/publications/policy_briefs/policy_brief18.pdf#:%7E:text=Maize%20is%20the%20staple%20food%20in%20Kenya%20with,for%20about%2070%20percent%20of%20the%20total%20production.">85% of the country’s population</a>. </p>
<p>The yield – or productivity – from improved or hybrid maize seeds is often <a href="https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/191055/1/104571111X.pdf">significantly higher</a> than from traditional varieties. Farmers can expect an average 87% higher yield from hybrid seeds.</p>
<p>Kenya is one of the <a href="https://tasai.org/wp-content/uploads/ken_2020_en_country_report_pub_web.pdf">leading countries in Africa</a> when it comes to formal seed distribution. </p>
<p>The second seed distribution channel is informal. This largely involves the production and exchange of seeds among small-scale farmers. This system is characterised by a lack of seed testing, formal registration or quality control. </p>
<p>Informality makes it difficult to assess the quality of seeds in farms and their harvest potential. It can potentially spread contaminated seeds and plant diseases. It could also mean that farmers are continually planting seeds that have consistently low yields. </p>
<h2>Why do informal seed exchanges exist?</h2>
<p>Informal seed exchanges exist because farmers don’t have access to quality seeds. This is because they are too costly, are unavailable in remote areas or are not available at the right time. </p>
<p>This has been an issue for generations. As a result, farmers often store a portion of their seeds after harvest, which they then plant or share with their neighbours. Sometimes this doesn’t involve an exchange of money. </p>
<p>Seed shortages in the formal system are particularly hard hitting during planting seasons. This is a reality across many small-scale farms in Kenya every year. So informality has thrived, not just because farmers prefer to share seeds, but also because of the distribution challenges they face. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-changed-when-ugandan-farmers-rated-input-quality-and-local-vendor-services-177750">What changed when Ugandan farmers rated input quality and local vendor services</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>With informal systems, farmers are sure they can get the seeds they need and when they need them.</p>
<p>Informality has other advantages. For example, it allows farmers to preserve some of the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369848615001284">genetic traits</a> they would like in a seed. </p>
<h2>What does the Kenyan law seek to address?</h2>
<p>This isn’t the first time the government has tried to use the law to fully formalise Kenya’s seed systems. </p>
<p>In 2010, the <a href="https://repository.kippra.or.ke/bitstream/handle/123456789/1102/Kenya-Seed-Policy-2010-1-1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">National Seed Policy</a> was published and launched. It was aimed at enhancing the seed sector’s ability to provide farmers with high quality seeds. </p>
<p>In 2016, the <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Acts/SeedsandPlantVarietiesActCap326.pdf">Seeds and Plant Varieties Act</a> came into effect. It aims to develop, promote and regulate a <a href="https://www.accesstoseeds.org/index/eastern-southern-africa/country-profile/kenya/#:%7E:text=Kenya%E2%80%99s%20seed%20industry%20is%20guided%20by%20its%20National,and%20Plant%20Varieties%20Act%20%28Cap%20326%29%20from%202016">modern and competitive</a> seed industry.</p>
<p>Licensed seeds and companies are supposed to ensure that farmers have access to quality seeds, especially for maize and legumes, which are critical Kenyan food staples. </p>
<p>So the concern for the government, as I see it, is that the formal system can assure the country that quality seeds are circulating in the market. With informality, it’s impossible to know exactly what farmers are exchanging and planting. </p>
<h2>Implications of the push for a fully formal seed system?</h2>
<p>I think the big fear with a fully formal system is that it would lead to the rise of monopolistic seed companies. </p>
<p>The heated debates that followed the development of genetically modified and bioengineered seeds included concerns that major producers like Bayer and Corteva <a href="https://grain.org/fr/article/entries/5142-seed-laws-that-criminalise-farmers-resistance-and-fightback#1%20making%20seeds%20illegal">would limit</a> how farmers can use the varieties they sell. </p>
<p>Usually, buyers of these seeds sign agreements that prohibit them from saving seeds from their crops to exchange or resow. Yet, if these companies ran into distribution challenges, household food security would suffer. </p>
<p>Consider maize, for instance. More than 75% of Kenya’s total maize output is produced by <a href="https://basis.ucdavis.edu/publication/policy-brief-maize-technology-bundles-and-food-security-kenya">smallholder farmers</a>. If they were unable to secure maize seed, plant and harvest it, there would be <a href="https://agricultureandfoodsecurity.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2048-7010-1-S1-S6">chaos</a> in the market.</p>
<p>To avoid this scenario, many farmers have over the years seen the need to save some seeds to grow the following cropping season. It gives them some control.</p>
<p>Aside from dealing with distribution challenges, farmers would also be required to make upfront financial investments in a fully formal system. They will need money to buy certified seeds and fertiliser. While there are microcredit facilities available, they are <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w22686">inaccessible to a majority</a> of small-scale farmers.</p>
<p>If farmers cannot afford to buy superior varieties and have no access to an alternative, it means that in six or seven months, the country can expect a harvest shortage. This has huge implications for food security at the household level.</p>
<h2>Is a fully formal system feasible?</h2>
<p>I think formalising seed systems is a good thing because it makes harvests more predictable. But banning the informal system is not the way to go. </p>
<p>In my opinion, the country should work towards a decentralised system that offers a mix of formal and informal seed distribution systems. The government should encourage seed improvements and support local communities to establish seed businesses. But farmers should have a choice. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-more-ugandan-farmers-arent-adopting-drought-tolerant-maize-144583">Why more Ugandan farmers aren't adopting drought tolerant maize</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If the government can ensure that there is enough certified seed and the costs make sense, informality will naturally reduce in the long run.</p>
<p>The other question to consider is how the government will implement this policy. It’s a very difficult thing to put into operation and monitor, and the government is unlikely to have the infrastructure to do so. This move is reminiscent of the country’s 2013 effort to ban the hawking of raw milk. The government was unable to implement the ban and it was <a href="https://www.citizen.digital/business/kenya-dairy-board-suspends-controversial-plan-to-ban-milk-hawking-237603">eventually suspended</a>. Today, 85% of the milk consumed in Kenya is raw and hawked informally.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183065/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oliver Kiptoo Kirui 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>
If small-scale farmers can’t afford to grow certified seeds – or can’t find them – food shortages would follow.
Oliver Kiptoo Kirui, Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183142
2022-05-25T13:23:25Z
2022-05-25T13:23:25Z
Rwandan researchers are finally being centred in scholarship about their own country
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463570/original/file-20220517-12-v215pz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aegis Trust/Flickr/All rights reserved©</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is widely known that African researchers are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-it-is-crucial-to-locate-the-african-in-african-studies-60807">dramatically underrepresented</a> in academic journals. But it’s still astonishing to see this reality starkly represented in numbers.</p>
<p>For the past eight years we have run the <a href="https://www.aegistrust.org/aegis-launches-research-policy-higher-education-programme-in-kigali/">Research, Policy and Higher Education</a> (RPHE) programme, a research and peer-support scheme with Rwandan scholars, through the Aegis Trust. As part of our work, we’ve analysed 12 leading journals in disciplines relevant to our researcher cohort. We found that from 1994 until 2019, of the 398 articles focusing on Rwanda that appeared in these journals, only 13 were authored or co-authored by Rwandan scholars. That’s just 3.3%. This amounts to 25 years of post-genocide literature almost entirely devoid of Rwandan voices.</p>
<p>In 2019, the flagship area studies journal <em>African Affairs</em> published its <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Ideology-and-interests-in-the-Rwandan-patriotic-front-singing-the-struggle-in-pre-genocide-Rwanda.pdf">first-ever article</a> by a Rwandan. The author, Assumpta Mugiraneza (writing with Benjamin Chemouni) is supported by the RPHE programme. Four of the journals we examined – <em>Journal of Modern African Studies, Journal of Conflict and Security Law, Journal of Peace Research, and Conflict, Security and Development</em> – regularly publish articles on Rwanda. But they are yet to publish a single Rwandan writing on their country.</p>
<p>What explains this level of exclusion? One factor is prejudice on the part of journal editors and peer reviewers, which Rwandan colleagues have encountered for years. It was the need to overcome systemic biases and to amplify the voices of Rwandan scholars in global academic and policy debates that led us to establish the RPHE programme in 2014. </p>
<p>Since we launched, experienced Rwandan and non-Rwandan researchers have worked closely with 44 Rwandan authors selected through four competitive calls that generated more than 400 research proposals. The programme has also organised regular theory, methods, writing and publishing workshops for hundreds of participants in Kigali, supporting the wider Rwandan research community.</p>
<p>It is starting to bear fruit.</p>
<h2>A body of scholarly work</h2>
<p>Our website, the Genocide Research Hub, has just posted the <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/published_journal/">21 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters</a> that have so far emerged from the programme. It is a rigorous process to reach this point. The authors first produced <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/research/aegis-working-papers/?fwp_document_categories=aegis-working-papers">working papers</a> and <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/research/aegis-policy-briefs/?fwp_document_categories=aegis-policy-briefs">policy briefs</a>. These were honed through discussions with their programme colleagues and at <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/news/newsitem132711.html">public events in Kigali and London</a>. Only then were they submitted to peer-reviewed journals. Over the next year, these working papers will generate a further tranche of academic publications.</p>
<p>Collectively, these pieces represent an important body of scholarly work on various themes. These include ethnicity, indigeneity, migration, citizenship, gender relations and language politics. Authors also delve into debates over younger generations’ inherited responsibility for the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. </p>
<p>The publications highlight the impressive research being conducted by Rwandan authors, who for too long have been sidelined in debates about Rwanda and other conflict-affected societies.</p>
<h2>Numerous barriers</h2>
<p>Rwandan authors face numerous barriers. Some are domestic and widely acknowledged. The country aims to become a regional high-tech hub. So, the Rwandan government <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/featured-govt-invests-heavily-stem-education-rwandan-schools">emphasises</a> science, technology, engineering and maths subjects. This has led to the chronic <a href="https://www.chronicles.rw/2019/07/25/would-be-a-mistake-for-govt-to-stop-funding-social-science-university-courses/">under-funding</a> of the social sciences. </p>
<p>Like their colleagues across East Africa, Rwandan academics’ <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/industry/poor-quality-of-varsity-education-slows-eac-growth-1972372">enormous teaching and administrative loads</a> leave little space for research and writing. </p>
<p>Less recognised, however, are the power dynamics in global academic and policy circles. International journal editors, peer reviewers and research funders routinely exclude Rwandan voices. This is driven by a pervasive view that Rwandan authors based in Rwanda cannot produce independent and rigorous research in such a repressive political environment. </p>
<p>These structural biases need to be systematically addressed if institutions and publications based in the global north are serious about the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/9/6/africas-next-decolonisation-battle-should-be-about-knowledge">“decolonising knowledge” agenda</a>.</p>
<p>The significance of the academic publications produced through the RPHE programme, though, is not simply that they were written by Rwandans. Crucially, these authors have begun to reorient the substance of scholarly debates about Rwanda and broader peace and conflict issues. </p>
<p>Our calls for proposals asked Rwandan researchers to independently determine the themes and methods of their research, reflecting their deep knowledge of the political, social, cultural, historical and linguistic context. By doing so, they’ve introduced new themes, angles and insights that greatly enrich the academic literature.</p>
<h2>New insights</h2>
<p>To take one example, two <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Becoming-Historically-Marginalized-Peoples-examining-Twa-perceptions-of-boundary-shifting-and-re-categorization-in-post-genocide-Rwanda.pdf">journal</a> <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/One-Rwanda-For-All-Rwandans-Uncovering-the-Twa-in-Post-Genocide-Rwanda.pdf">articles</a> by Richard Ntakirutimana – a member of the Rwandan Batwa community – highlight the challenges the Batwa have faced since the Rwandan government placed them under its “Historically Marginalised Peoples” banner in 2007. This category includes guaranteed parliamentary representation for women, people with disabilities, Muslims and the Batwa. But it conflates Batwa concerns with those of other marginalised communities in Rwanda. </p>
<p>Many Batwa are highly wary of researchers. But Ntakirutimana was able to conduct extensive interviews with members of the community near the forests bordering Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. His respondents roundly criticised the “Historically Marginalised Peoples” framework. They demanded government policies tailored more specifically to the plight of the Batwa.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers explore perspectives beyond the capital city, Kigali, giving voice to various Rwandan communities’ experiences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phil Clark</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Ntakirutimana presented his research <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/202165">at an RPHE conference in Kigali</a>, his findings generated vociferous push-back from Rwandan policymakers. His work, and that of other authors from the programme who have presented at public events, challenges a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ssqu.12346">widespread perception of Rwanda</a> as a closed political system in which independent research and public debate on politically sensitive topics are almost impossible.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The RPHE’s conferences bring together scholars, journalists and policymakers to discuss research and scholarship about Rwanda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aegis Trust/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, across a wide range of topics and disciplines, <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/published_journal/">the articles published by other RPHE researchers</a> explore an overarching theme largely ignored by non-Rwandan authors: the prevalence of intra-family and inter-generational conflicts since 1994. </p>
<p>These researchers focus on genocidal legacies and the impact of post-genocide social transformation in intimate family spaces, which are difficult for non-Rwandan researchers to access. Their work thus provides vital perspectives on less visible features of Rwandan society.</p>
<h2>A gradual shift</h2>
<p>The highly talented Rwandan social science research community is beginning to gain the global platform it deserves. This shift is vital for Rwandan researchers. It benefits others, too, by producing fresh insights and challenging the structures that for years stymied these critical voices. More initiatives of this kind are essential if calls to decolonise knowledge are to become more than comforting blandishments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicola Palmer receives funding from the British Academy and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda, Jason Mosley, Phil Clark, and Sandra Shenge 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>
Rwandan authors have long been sidelined in debates about Rwanda and other conflict-affected societies.
Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda, Honorary Associate Professor, College of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Rwanda
Jason Mosley, Research Associate, African Studies Centre, University of Oxford
Nicola Palmer, Reader in Law, King's College London
Phil Clark, Professor of International Politics, SOAS, University of London
Sandra Shenge, Director of Programs, Aegis Trust
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.