tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/africa-878/articlesAfrica – The Conversation2024-03-27T16:13:22Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2226222024-03-27T16:13:22Z2024-03-27T16:13:22ZNew TB skin test could offer cheaper and easier way to detect the disease<p>Detecting tuberculosis early could play a significant role in eradicating the world’s most deadly infectious disease. The World Health Organization says <a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/tuberculosis#tab=tab_1">1.5 million people</a> die from this devastating disease each year. </p>
<p>People infected with <em>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</em>, the TB bacteria that attack the lungs, often do not know that they have it until their symptoms become severe. <a href="https://lunginstitute.co.za/2020/01/20/community-based-intervention-to-identify-undiagnosed-tb-cases/">Two out of every five cases</a> of TB remain undiagnosed or hidden.</p>
<p>One of the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6593585/">dangers</a> of this is unknowingly infecting others.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tuberculosis/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20351256">Current diagnostic methods</a> are <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00087-8">slow, often expensive, sometimes difficult to administer</a> and not easily accessible in the low-income regions where TB is most prevalent. </p>
<p>The oldest test, the <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/sputum-stain-for-mycobacteria">sputum smear</a>, has been used for 100 years to detect TB. It is outdated, clumsy and can take three days to process. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nhls.ac.za/priority-programmes/tb-genexpert/">GeneXpert</a> technology, the current gold standard for TB diagnosis, can detect the disease in an hour but is expensive and not available in remote areas.</p>
<p>Improvements in screening and diagnosis could help eradicate this curable disease. </p>
<p>One of the new routes to better diagnosis may be through detecting TB on the skin.</p>
<h2>Diagnosing a sickness</h2>
<p>Diseases have tell-tale chemical signatures. </p>
<p>Some cancers, for example, produce <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323620#:%7E:text=be%20most%20effective.-,Summary,%2C%20bodily%20fluids%2C%20or%20breath">signs</a> which dogs, with a sense of smell anywhere from <a href="https://www.uaf.edu/news/a-nose-1000-times-better-than-ours.php#:%7E:text=Lurking%20behind%20those%20textured%2C%20damp,thousand%20times%20better%20than%20humans.">1,000</a> to 10,000 times better than that of humans, can be trained to detect. </p>
<p>Our team at the University of Pretoria looked at whether a silicone rubber sampler could help us identify the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570023223003471">chemical signatures of TB</a>.</p>
<p>We developed a patch, similar to a plaster (adhesive bandage), that could detect some of the chemicals from the TB bacteria. </p>
<p>We found we were able to distinguish between TB-positive and TB-negative individuals. </p>
<p>Our research holds promise for an inexpensive test that could be easy to transport and simple enough so that it would not need a healthcare worker to administer. </p>
<h2>It all started with the mosquito</h2>
<p>In 2021 we looked into why <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-a-step-closer-to-figuring-out-why-mosquitoes-bite-some-people-and-not-others-160038">mosquitoes bite some people and not others</a>. </p>
<p>We investigated whether there was a chemical difference to the skin surface between individuals who perceived themselves as being attractive to mosquitoes and those who were not. </p>
<p>Using a silicone rubber sampler, we were able to test the skin surface of 20 individuals. These samplers were specially developed and could be worn as a bracelet or an anklet.</p>
<p>We found chemical differences between the volunteers who were attractive to mosquitoes and those who were not.</p>
<h2>Turning to the TB test</h2>
<p>We built on the mosquito test to develop our research into TB detection. Could the deadly respiratory disease be diagnosed by attaching a plaster to a patient’s skin?</p>
<p>Skin patches, similar to a plaster, equipped with small silicone rubber bands were attached to the wrists of 15 TB-positive individuals at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital and the Tshwane District Hospital in Pretoria. Likewise, the rubber bands were attached to 23 TB-negative individuals at the University of Pretoria. </p>
<p>The silicone rubber bands served as effective traps for semi-volatile and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18449462/#:%7E:text=Skin%20produces%20volatile%20organic%20compounds,pathways%20have%20a%20volatile%20potential.">volatile organic compounds</a> emitted by the body during the sampling period. </p>
<p>The bands were comfortable and non-restrictive and were worn for between 30 and 60 minutes. During this sampling period participants were free to go about their routines.</p>
<p>The bands were easily removed and sent to the laboratory.</p>
<p>In the laboratory we were able to separate the large number of chemical compounds found in the silicone rubber and were able to detect 27 compounds associated with TB. </p>
<h2>Promise of easy, inexpensive results</h2>
<p>As we refine and expand our findings, the human skin test for TB holds promise as a non-invasive screening tool in the fight against this infectious disease. </p>
<p>Our findings showed that:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>it is feasible to detect TB through skin emanations </p></li>
<li><p>the small and lightweight rubber band sample would be particularly suitable for use in rural and remote regions </p></li>
<li><p>individuals would not have to travel to a clinic or a hospital for testing as the patches could be applied at schools, households and gatherings </p></li>
<li><p>no special arrangements would be needed to transport the bands.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>This exciting breakthrough is not restricted to TB, but can also be repurposed to help detect other diseases such as malaria.</p>
<p><em>*Portia Makhubela and Egmont Rohwer co-authored the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570023223003471">research</a> on which this article was based.</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/medical-science-has-made-great-strides-in-fighting-tb-but-reducing-poverty-is-the-best-way-to-end-this-disease-226136">Medical science has made great strides in fighting TB, but reducing poverty is the best way to end this disease</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvette Naudé 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>Two out of five cases of TB remain undiagnosed. A test using a skin patch could help change that.Yvette Naudé, Manager and NRF-rated researcher: Chromatography Mass Spectrometry - University of Pretoria and UP Institute for Sustainable Malaria Control (UP-ISMC), University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2265302024-03-27T09:52:04Z2024-03-27T09:52:04ZWhy EU information campaigns are failing to deter migrants from leaving<p>It was everywhere on the news and social media. In September 2023, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230918-italy-extends-detention-period-to-deter-migrant-crossings-after-lampedusa-surge">10,000 migrants arrived on the island of Lampedusa</a>, more than doubling the island’s population of 6,000 and overwhelming its resources. The migrants – mostly men from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East – had to sleep outside, with the island’s reception centre only designed for 400 people.</p>
<p>Days after, Italy’s Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni, visited the island with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who presented a <a href="https://cyprus.representation.ec.europa.eu/news/10-point-plan-lampedusa-2023-09-18_en">ten-point plan</a> to stem the migrant flow. These included calls to “increase awareness and communication campaigns to disincentivise the Mediterranean crossings” and to “step up cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM)”.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding the fanfare with which these announcements were made, their methods were hardly new.</p>
<p>A leading actor in the field, the IOM has been organising <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230294882_9">such campaigns</a> for decades. One of the most notable ones was <a href="https://www.migrantsasmessengers.org/">“Migrants as Messengers”</a>, which took place across Senegal, Guinea and Nigeria from December 2017 to March 2019. Throughout the campaign, town halls screened video testimonies of migrant returnees, followed by Q&As with migrants who would act as “messengers” to deter them from embarking onto the perilous journey.</p>
<p>In 2022, the UNHCR also launched the <a href="https://www.tellingtherealstory.org/en/">“Telling the Real Story” campaign</a> across a number of African countries. Drawing mainly on a website and a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/tellingtherealstory/">Facebook page</a>, the campaign aims at “telling the real story” by emphasising the terrible ordeals that await would-be irregular immigrants, such as human smuggling and trafficking.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">“Telling the Real Story”, a video aimed at dissuading would-be emigrants.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The argument is always the same: would-be emigrants in Africa are unaware of the risks and must be informed so that they make the right decision – which is to stay at home or migrate only if they have the right to do so. This message is complemented by information on the opportunities in the country of origin and on Africans’ duty to contribute to the development of their country.</p>
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À lire aussi :
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sauvetage-des-migrants-naufrages-en-mediterranee-comment-la-politique-de-lue-doit-evoluer-222453">Sauvetage des migrants-naufragés en Méditerranée : comment la politique de l’UE doit évoluer</a>
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<h2>Hundreds of campaigns</h2>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.bridges-migration.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/EU-funded-information-campaigns-targeting-potential-migrants.pdf">report</a> from the <a href="https://www.bridges-migration.eu/">European research programme “Bridges”</a>, the EU has spent more than €23 million since 2015 to organise nearly 130 information campaigns.</p>
<p>While Europe is at the forefront of such initiatives, it is not alone. Australia has distinguished itself with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/11/government-launches-new-graphic-campaign-to-deter-asylum-seekers">particularly biting messages</a>, with a 2014 <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/foi/files/2019/fa-190801764-document-released-p4.PDF">campaign</a> directly addressing people tempted by irregular immigration in stark terms: “NO WAY. You will not make Australia home”. Years later, in 2019, the strategy was enthusiastically touted by the then US president, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7186189/Trump-praises-Aust-asylum-seeker-policy.html">Donald Trump</a>.</p>
<p>Campaigns can also be organised by private companies or NGOs. For example, the social enterprise <a href="https://seefar.org/">Seefar</a> carried out an extensive information campaign on the risks of migration in Senegal in 2021, reaching 1,987 young people across the country, according to the organisation. In addition to its rescue missions in the Mediterranean, the Spanish association Proactiva Open Arms also ran an awareness campaign in the same country, the <a href="https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2020/04/ngos-dilemma">“Origin” project</a>.</p>
<p>However, all these initiatives and players are faced with a major problem: no one is able to demonstrate the effectiveness of these campaigns.</p>
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À lire aussi :
<a href="https://theconversation.com/le-sauvetage-en-mer-au-defi-de-la-securisation-des-frontieres-le-cas-de-la-manche-170238">Le sauvetage en mer au défi de la sécurisation des frontières : le cas de la Manche</a>
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<h2>Difficult to assess effectiveness</h2>
<p>As the budgets devoted to them increase, however, some studies have begun to take a serious look at the impact of campaigns.</p>
<p>In 2018, an <a href="https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/evaluating_the_impact.pdf">IOM study</a> pointed out that campaigns are difficult to evaluate because they have a dual objective: to slash irregular immigration, but also to provide information.</p>
<p>Sometimes only one of the two objectives is achieved: in 2023, a <a href="https://publications.iom.int/books/irregular-migration-west-africa-robust-evaluation-peer-peer-awareness-raising-activities-four">study</a> devoted to the IOM’s “Migrants as Messengers” showed that this campaign did increase the level of information, while failing to reduce departures.</p>
<p>Overall, although it has been organising such campaigns for 30 years, the IOM has carried out only a few, belated impact studies. This is because seriously gauging campaigns’ effectiveness is expensive – but it also appears that European states prefer to multiply campaigns rather than fund evaluations.</p>
<p>The situation is even more confusing with other actors. Seefar, for example, <a href="https://seefar.org/the-migrant-project/#salamat-article">claims that</a>, in follow-up interviews, 58% of its campaign viewers reported having given up their migration project. But in the absence of basic information regarding this finding, like the number of interviews or the timeline over which interviewees were followed, it is difficult to know whether this is more than a wet-finger approach to justify the funds received by this private company.</p>
<p>In terms of independent research, a <a href="https://www.udi.no/globalassets/global/forskning-fou_i/rapport_11_19_web.pdf">study by the Institute for Social Research in Oslo</a> in 2019 looked at migrants from Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia in transit through Sudan with the intention of continuing on to Europe.</p>
<p>The aim was to evaluate a campaign launched in 2015 by Norway, entitled <a href="https://www.sciencenorway.no/forskningno-immigration-policy-norway/social-media-campaign-for-asylum-seekers-draws-angry-trolls/1448896">“Stricter asylum regulations in Norway”</a>, which used Facebook to inform potential migrants of the slim chances of obtaining asylum in that country. As with any advertisement, Facebook’s algorithm was designed to identify Internet users searching for information on immigration, Europe or visas, and to offer them targeted deterrent messages.</p>
<p>The study confirmed that migrants are connected and use social networks to obtain information and organise their migration. But while they have sometimes heard of European campaigns, most have not seen them. They know about the terrible living conditions of migrants in Libya, for example, but this does not dissuade them from leaving to escape the impasse of their situation.</p>
<h2>Migrants deported from Europe called to testify</h2>
<p>In 2023, a <a href="https://www.bridges-migration.eu/publications/why-information-campaigns-struggle-to-dissuade-migrants-from-coming-to-europe/">team of political scientists from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel</a> analysed the information available to young people tempted to emigrate from the Gambia to Europe, and how the campaigns affected their decision to leave. As in Sudan, the information on the risks of irregular immigration happened to correspond to what these young people already know. But in the absence of prospects at home, they will leave anyway, fully aware of the facts.</p>
<p>Another study carried out <a href="https://www.bridges-migration.eu/publications/a-comparative-study-on-the-role-of-narratives-in-migratory-decision-making/">with Afghans in transit through Turkey</a> came to similar conclusions.</p>
<p>However, this work also revealed another problem: the recipients of these campaigns do not take them seriously because they believe them to be biased by Europe’s political objectives – and so they prefer to get their information from relatives, or even smugglers.</p>
<p>This result has prompted new strategies. Following the example of “Migrants as Messengers”, campaigns known as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08865655.2022.2108111">“peer to peer”</a> (“de pair-à-pair”) ask migrants expelled from Europe to talk about their experience to <a href="https://jaspertjaden.com/policy/2019_migrants-as-messengers_the-impact-of-peer-to-peer-communication-on-potential-migrants-in-senegal/">those who might be tempted to imitate them</a>. This is part of a technique known as <a href="https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles/2611/">“unbranding”</a>, a marketing concept that refers to the omission of the brand name on a product in order to sell it better. In the case of the campaigns, this amounts to concealing the European and international institutions <a href="https://migrantprotection.iom.int/en/spotlight/articles/initiative/constantly-evolving-awareness-raising-campaign-aware-migrants">that fund them</a>.</p>
<p>Another strategy is not to target potential migrants, but the local actors who influence perceptions of migration, starting with the media and artists. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) works with <a href="https://theconversation.com/quand-la-lutte-contre-limmigration-irreguliere-devient-une-question-de-culture-112200">musicians popular with young Africans</a>, as well as with journalists.</p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://www.unesco.org/fr/articles/un-forum-dechanges-avec-des-journalistes-et-managers-de-medias-pour-une-narrative-diversifiee-et-de">Unesco</a> trains Senegalese journalists to talk about migration.</p>
<h2>Trade-offs with freedom of expression</h2>
<p>Against a backdrop of precariousness for media and cultural professionals, the support of international organisations is welcome, but raises the question of freedom of expression and freedom of the press on this politically sensitive subject.</p>
<p>In Morocco, the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RMJMigrations/">Network of Moroccan Journalists on Migration</a> has been set up to deal with migration issues independently, although this does not prevent these journalists from taking part in training activities organised by international organisations and supported by European funding.</p>
<p>In Gambia, a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08865655.2022.2156375">recent study</a> highlighted the dilemmas faced by local journalists who are asked to spread messages about the dangers of immigration while trying to maintain their independence.</p>
<p>In the eyes of their advocates, these campaigns are justified on the grounds that the migrants who die in the Mediterranean are the victims of misleading information from smugglers. Providing information would therefore save lives. But there are no studies to support this hypothesis: on the contrary, it appears that migrants leave in the full knowledge of the risks they are exposing themselves to.</p>
<p>Faced with this uncomfortable reality, it is possible that information campaigns only serve to give European leaders the feeling that they are acting to prevent the tragedies that result from their own policies. After all, it is partly <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116516633299">due to a lack of opportunities to migrate</a> legally that many migrants try their luck irregularly, with all the risks that this entails.</p>
<p>The scarcity of available evaluations shows that the effectiveness of the campaigns is not a priority for European states. This migration policy tool would therefore have primarily symbolic value – as proof that Europe is concerned about the fate of the many people it does not want on its soil.</p>
<p>But this political strategy nonetheless has very real effects on local players, and on the ability of societies in the South to debate independently the major political issues raised by international migration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226530/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mélodie Beaujeu is a member of Désinfox-Migrations, an association fighting disinformation around migration. The latter has received funding from the Porticus foundation as well as the Foundation for France.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Antoine Pécoud ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The argument is a familiar one: African citizens are unaware of the risks tied to the perilous journey across the Mediterranean and the West must therefore enlighten them.Antoine Pécoud, Professeur de sociologie, Université Sorbonne Paris NordMélodie Beaujeu, Consultante et chercheuse, affiliée à l'Institut Convergences Migrations, Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2255822024-03-24T08:50:02Z2024-03-24T08:50:02ZWhy do identical informal businesses set up side by side? It’s a survival tactic – Kenya study<p>The population on the African continent will have <a href="https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population">nearly doubled</a> by 2050, according to UN projections. About <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/reimagining-economic-growth-in-africa-turning-diversity-into-opportunity">800 million</a> more young Africans will enter the job market by then. Combine this forecast with the <a href="https://ilostat.ilo.org/african-youth-face-pressing-challenges-in-the-transition-from-school-to-work/#:%7E:text=True%2C%20nearly%2013%20million%20young,for%20and%2For%20obtaining%20jobs.">high youth unemployment rate</a> in many African countries today, then the pressing question is: who will create stable jobs at mass scale?</p>
<p>Many policies to create new employment at scale focus on solution templates that have worked elsewhere, often outside Africa. These include enabling entrepreneurship to create high-growth start-up ventures, bringing in technological advances to potentially unlock new industries, or the establishment of outsourcing hubs for low-cost labour.</p>
<p>Few policies directly support homegrown solutions that already have a track record of creating large-scale stable employment.</p>
<p>Together with my coauthors, I looked for answers in a seemingly unlikely place. <a href="https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/orsc.2023.17644">We studied</a> how car repair businesses were organised. Specifically, we studied the neighbourhood of Dagoretti Corner in Nairobi, Kenya. </p>
<p>Here, 105 largely identical car repair businesses set up shop close to one another. Imagine corrugated iron sheets as fences to demarcate businesses which offer exactly the same service in the same location. </p>
<p>This phenomenon <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/african-markets-and-the-2028utu-buntu-business-model">is common</a> in major African cities. Thousands of different traders – from fruit sellers to furniture makers – set up next door to each other and co-locate. This doesn’t make sense as a competitive strategy, so why do it?</p>
<p>We found that these businesses do this in part because it generates an informal welfare system. In our study, the car repair businesses mutually supported each other in a variety of ways to ensure they survived and thrived. </p>
<p>Our findings make a case that policymakers should focus on supporting these informal welfare systems. They abound in urban areas and create employment at scale. Yet, policies tend to support individuals, as opposed to groups, in informal economies. This could risk eroding these welfare systems, putting livelihoods at risk.</p>
<h2>Informal welfare system</h2>
<p>Over the past two decades, car repair businesses in Dagoretti Corner grew from 11 to 105 identical businesses. As the satellite images in the video below show (car repair businesses shaded in yellow), they have massively expanded and are now fully integrated into the urban infrastructure. </p>
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<p>The agglomeration of businesses in this way is often seen as a sign of failed economic and urban development policy by industry analysts, development practitioners and policy makers. They tend to believe that agglomerated businesses should reach higher levels of efficiency, competitiveness, specialisation and innovation. </p>
<p>Yet, many businesses continue to operate the same way they did a decade ago with little change or upgrading. What benefit are these businesses reaping?</p>
<p>Through our fieldwork in Dagoretti Corner, visiting car repair businesses and conducting interviews with 45 owners, we identified five ways in which business owners create their own welfare system: </p>
<p>First, they save and invest money together. This is often done in small scale, informal rotating savings and investment associations. In Kenya these are known as chamas and Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (Saccos) and are akin to credit unions and cooperatives. Saving money together enables owners to get a loan and enables business owners to make investments together. Rather than being competitors, businesses are interdependent and trust each other to grow together.</p>
<p>Second, businesses offer apprenticeship opportunities, enabling the youth from rural Kenya to get trained and equipping them with the knowledge and resources to start their own car repair businesses. Through apprenticeships, mechanics become familiar with the welfare system and continue its upkeep into the future.</p>
<p>Third, trust is fragile and business owners come up with ways to self-police against free riding and theft. They address competitive behaviour through self-organised committees. Poaching customers from a peer business is seen as theft and is policed. Repeated shoddy repair work and alcohol abuse among mechanics is also policed. Particularly exploitative customers are blacklisted. After all, the owners want to make sure that customers perceive Dagoretti Corner as a safe place for customers to entrust their valuable cars.</p>
<p>Fourth, businesses support each other in times of crisis when nearing bankruptcy to ensure survival. Chamas and Saccos make emergency money available to smooth over gaps. Businesses temporarily loan out their employees to other businesses to ease the financial burden of paying a wage. And businesses sub-contract repair work to distressed businesses, ensuring at least some cash flow until business picks up again.</p>
<p>Fifth, in times of personal crises when livelihoods are at stake, due to high medical bills or funeral costs, peer businesses step in and provide a type of insurance policy. Owners, employees and apprentices collectively contribute funds to support those in dire need and prevent them from slipping into destitution. This informal insurance scheme even extends to family members.</p>
<p>This informal social welfare system is critical because it provides stable employment, saving and investment opportunities and insurance at considerable scale. </p>
<p>Policies that support the growth of individual entrepreneurs in these areas – such as through training and cash infusions geared towards business differentiation – are likely to introduce competitive behaviours among identical businesses. This risks the collapse of welfare systems and thus also employment at scale.</p>
<h2>Policies must strengthen informal welfare systems</h2>
<p>We concluded from our research that policies need to further enable, strengthen and then leverage the existing welfare systems of co-locating businesses to engender firm and employment growth. These are strongholds of cooperative behaviour that need to be protected rather than transformed or displaced. </p>
<p>One way this can be done is through the creation of transparent cooperative structures and exit pathways for individual businesses to grow. This would strengthen the welfare system and needs to be the starting point of policy discussions. </p>
<p>For example, targeted governance interventions could make chamas and Saccos more robust to safeguard them against fraud and enhance their self-organising capacity. Digital technologies can play a role here to bring these saving and investment schemes into the modern age. Once made robust, cash infusions by the government to support firms in the informal economy can then happen through these rather than through separate, government-run entities. </p>
<p>We do not rule out the potential for policy interventions seeking to support individual firms. Yet, these need to be context-sensitive so that they can enable businesses to scale without eroding the social order. </p>
<p>This is just a starting point. In light of the pressing challenge to bring about labour-intensive growth in African societies, it is paramount to not only focus on importing solutions from elsewhere but to be intentional about enabling and supporting homegrown solutions that already work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Weiss 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>Identical informal businesses set up next to each other because they’ve created an informal welfare system.Tim Weiss, Assistant Professor, Department of Management and Entrepreneurship, Imperial College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2245452024-03-06T13:23:20Z2024-03-06T13:23:20ZNigeria: botched economic reforms plunge the country into crisis<p>Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, is facing an economic crisis. From a botched currency redesign to the removal of fuel subsidies and a currency float, the nation has been plunged into spiralling inflation and a currency crisis with far-reaching consequences. The question now is: how long before the inferno consumes everything?</p>
<p>On October 26, 2022, the Central Bank of Nigeria announced a <a href="https://www.thecable.ng/breaking-buhari-unveils-redesigned-naira-notes">bold move</a> – that it had redesigned the country’s highest denomination notes (₦200, ₦500 and ₦1000) and would be removing all old notes from circulation. People were given a deadline of January 31, 2023 (a couple of weeks before a national election) to make this exchange, or all of the old notes would cease to be valid legal tender.</p>
<p>This initiative ostensibly aimed to curb counterfeiting, encourage cashless transactions, and limit the buying of votes during the elections. But, while the intention may have been sound, the execution proved disastrous. </p>
<p>Short deadlines, limited availability of new notes, and inadequate communication created widespread panic. It led to long queues at banks, frustration among citizens, and a <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2024/01/18/why-nigeria-s-controversial-naira-redesign-policy-hasn-t-met-its-objectives-pub-91405">thriving black market</a> for the new notes. </p>
<p>The confusion surrounding the currency redesign had an unintended consequence: the beginnings of a loss of confidence in the naira. People began to look to other mediums as a store of value and as a medium of exchange. The obvious choices were foreign currency like the US dollar and the British pound, as well as more stable cryptocurrencies like <a href="https://businessday.ng/business-economy/article/weak-naira-cross-border-payments-drive-nigerians-into-cryptos/">Tether’s USDT</a>.</p>
<p>The currency redesign was criticised at the time by the then-presidential candidate of the ruling party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who saw it as a move to <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2023/01/2023-fuel-scarcity-naira-redesign-ploy-to-sabotage-my-chances-tinubu/">derail his presidential campaign</a>. However, Tinubu won the contested election and, once in power, set out to reshape the economy immediately. </p>
<p>In his inaugural address in May 2023, Tinubu <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/601239-fuel-subsidy-is-gone-tinubu-declares.html">announced</a> that the “fuel subsidy is gone”, referring to the government’s longstanding subsidised petrol policy that ensured Nigerians enjoyed some of the lowest petrol prices in the world. Over the coming days, he would also announce the reversal of the currency redesign policy and the <a href="https://leadership.ng/tinubu-begins-monetary-policy-reforms-floats-naira/">floating of the Nigerian naira</a> on the foreign exchange market.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A compilation of Nigerian naira bank notes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579202/original/file-20240301-28-sej1lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579202/original/file-20240301-28-sej1lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579202/original/file-20240301-28-sej1lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579202/original/file-20240301-28-sej1lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579202/original/file-20240301-28-sej1lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579202/original/file-20240301-28-sej1lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579202/original/file-20240301-28-sej1lc.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">When in office, Tinubu reversed the currency redesign policy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/naira-currency-nigeria-200751113">Pavel Shlykov/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fuelling the flames</h2>
<p>Other underlying economic conditions around the time of Tinubu’s inauguration included a large amount of foreign debt, dwindling foreign reserves and global economic headwinds. When the removal of the fuel subsidy was announced, it was met with a mix of surprise and elation by many Nigerians, and in particular by international donor agencies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, who had long been <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/nigeria-should-end-fuel-subsidy-speed-reforms-boost-growth-world-bank-says-2021-11-23/">advocating</a> for the removal.</p>
<p>But this was all before the effects began to bite. And bite hard they did. The price of Premium Motor Spirit (also known as gasoline or petrol), which used to retail for ₦189 (US$0.12) per litre, increased by 196% practically overnight and began to retail for <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/nigeria-triple-petrol-prices-after-president-says-subsidy-end-2023-05-31/">₦557 per litre</a>. </p>
<p>One challenge with developing economies like Nigeria is that a rise in fuel price tends to cause the price of everything else to rise. Many industries, particularly those in manufacturing and agriculture, tend to rely heavily on fuel for powering machinery and equipment due to the poor supply of grid electricity nationwide.</p>
<p>Many Nigerian households were significantly affected by the increased prices. But they saw an opportunity in that the savings from the fuel subsidy regime would be redistributed to improve education, healthcare provision and the general welfare of the people, as was promised during the electioneering. The regime cost the country an estimated <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/582724-fuel-subsidy-now-above-n400bn-monthly-nnpcl.html">₦400 billion</a> a month at its height, after all. </p>
<h2>Enter currency devaluation</h2>
<p>Then, on June 14, 2023, the Tinubu government ended the policy of pegging the naira to the US dollar, allowing it to float and find its true market value based on supply and demand. The idea was to stop corruption and reduce arbitrage opportunities due to the difference between official and black-market foreign exchange prices. </p>
<p>Currency arbitrage happens when people buy a currency at the lower official exchange rate and immediately sell it at the higher black market rate for a profit. This practice often occurs where there are strict currency controls and black markets offer a truer reflection of a currency’s value based on supply and demand.</p>
<p>However, this was one policy change too many. The naira lost a staggering <a href="https://www.focus-economics.com/countries/nigeria/news/exchange-rate/central-bank-sets-the-naira-free-to-fall/">25% of its value</a> in one day, and the cascading effects now push the country to the brink.</p>
<p>Nigeria depends heavily on imported commodities, including essential goods like food, fuel and medicine. So the policy escalated the inflationary crisis, pushing inflation to almost 30% (the major driver being food inflation, which <a href="https://leadership.ng/food-headline-inflation-spike-to-35-4-29-9/">reached 35.4%</a>). </p>
<p>Imports in general have become significantly more expensive, and Nigerians are finding their purchasing power being eroded. Wages in Nigeria are pretty fixed. The current minimum wage in the country is <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1119133/monthly-minimum-wage-in-nigeria/">₦30,000</a> per month and the average monthly income is <a href="https://wagecentre.com/work/work-in-africa/salary-in-nigeria">₦71,185</a>. </p>
<p>Businesses are also feeling the pinch, facing difficulties accessing the <a href="https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/nigeria-market-challenges">foreign exchange</a> critical for importing raw materials and equipment. </p>
<h2>Pheonix or ash?</h2>
<p>The Central Bank of Nigeria has implemented measures to counter the crisis. It recently raised interest rates from <a href="https://punchng.com/just-in-cbn-raises-interest-rate-to-22-75/">18.75% to 22.75%</a> and is selling US dollars through auctions. </p>
<p>Recovery is a possibility and there are already signs of appreciation in the currency. The <a href="https://businessday.ng/news/article/naira-records-first-gain-at-official-market-after-rate-hike/">naira appreciated</a> by 6.89% a day after interest rates were raised. But it will be a long, hard road. </p>
<p>These strategies often come with trade-offs. Higher interest rates can stifle already struggling economic growth, while currency interventions might deplete already strained reserves of foreign currency. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that if the current cost of living crisis continues, civil unrest is likely. Should this happen, who knows what – if anything – will be left behind when the flames are done.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224545/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kunal Sen has received funding from ESRC and DFID. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chisom Ubabukoh 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>Africa’s largest economy is in crisis, and unrest is growing.Chisom Ubabukoh, Assistant Professor of Economics, O.P. Jindal Global UniversityKunal Sen, Professor and Director, World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), United Nations UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2243802024-03-04T13:28:02Z2024-03-04T13:28:02ZCost-of-living crisis: experts share 3 survival tips<p>The price increases for essential goods such as food, petrol and household utilities are a global concern, but the region most hurt by the <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/ar/2023/in-focus/cost-of-living-crisis/#:%7E:text=The%20IMF%20heightened%20its%20efforts,the%202008%20global%20financial%20crisis.">surge in food prices</a> is sub-Saharan Africa. The knock-on effect from the supply chain disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, climate disasters that resulted in food insecurity and energy shortages have driven prices through the roof.</p>
<p>A report by <a href="https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp?title=2024&region=002">Numbeo</a>, which contains the world’s largest database on costs of living, found that South Africa is the ninth most expensive African country to live in and the most expensive in cost of living (in terms of groceries, transport, utilities and restaurants) in southern Africa. The index shows Côte d'Ivoire is the African country with the highest cost of living, followed by Senegal, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Mauritius. </p>
<p>Consumers have had to cope with food prices by meal planning or buying in bulk to save money. Unilever’s food group <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/bi-archive/south-african-consumer-go-on-tight-budgets-to-keep-meat-on-their-plate-2022-5">Knorr</a> found that the average South African was also skipping breakfast and eating two meals on weekdays, and only having breakfast during the weekend. </p>
<p>After years of researching <a href="https://researchprofiles.canberra.edu.au/en/persons/bomikazi-zeka/publications/">personal finance</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=f2301MMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">development finance</a>, we have taken a keen interest in understanding how consumers manage their resources to overcome economic challenges, such as the cost-of-living crisis. Now is a good time to be financially prudent and plan for how you can keep afloat during these tough times. </p>
<p>It’s important to know how to manage the cost-of-living crisis, whether it’s by getting out of debt, being strategic about how you save or tracking the expenses that consume a big chunk of your income. Keeping an eye out for where you can boost your savings or reduce expenses can make a significant difference to your financial wellbeing. </p>
<p>Since everyone’s financial situation is different, none of this should be taken as financial advice. It’s always best to speak to an authorised financial service provider. Some of these suggestions may only be helpful to individuals with access to banking services and those earning a regular income. With these provisos in mind, we unpack three areas to consider when managing the cost-of-living crisis.</p>
<h2>1. Consolidate your expenses</h2>
<p>Review where you’re paying for the same expense twice. A good example is bank fees. If you’re banking with more than one bank, then chances are you’re paying bank fees for similar transactions across different banks. By housing your finances with one bank, you can reduce bank fees. </p>
<p>Another example is subscriptions for streaming services. Consider how many accounts like Netflix, YouTube Premium, AppleTV and Showmax you have, and ask yourself: how many of them do you really spend time watching? All the fees add up. As Benjamin Franklin, the former US statesman, once put it: “Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship.”</p>
<h2>2. Clear debt</h2>
<p>Since the cost-of-living crisis plunged more South African households into indebtedness, Nedbank’s Financial Health <a href="https://moneyedge.co.za/content/dam/moneyedge-2-0/money-conversations/NEDFIN-Health-Monitor-Report.pdf">Report</a> found that almost 50% of South Africans believe it is okay to take on debt to cover household expenses such as groceries, clothing, furniture, appliances, electricity and water. In <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2dbc240e-328a-452b-9347-5091d74f4003">Nigeria</a>, too, consumers are turning to loans to cover daily expenses as inflation rates rise. </p>
<p>Taking on more debt when living expenses are on the rise can easily sink you deeper into the debt hole. Instead, coming up with a plan to pay off debts will eventually free up your cash flows. </p>
<p>There are two strategies to try: the debt snowball approach or the debt avalanche method. </p>
<p>The debt snowball approach prioritises paying off your smallest debts first, before moving on to larger loans. Seeing your debt clearing up motivates you.</p>
<p>The debt avalanche approach tackles the debts with the highest interest rate first and will thus save you the most money as your high interest repayments are eliminated. </p>
<p>Whichever approach you decide to use, seek the opinion of a professional financial advisor. </p>
<h2>3. Compartmentalise your savings</h2>
<p>Saving provides financial security and a buffer for unplanned financial expenses. And it helps you reach your financial goals. While households with intermittent income are more likely to struggle with building up savings, opportunities to save may come in the form of reducing shopping costs, like switching to supermarket brands (which tend to be cheaper) or buying refills for household cleaning products. </p>
<p>In general, most people who actively save keep their savings for holidays, emergency funds, future purchases and long-term goals all in the same account. The problem with this approach is that when you need to withdraw from the savings account, you don’t know which part of your savings you’re withdrawing from. </p>
<p>One way to organise your savings is by separating them into the categories you are saving for. This could be done in a spreadsheet that shows how much you have saved for each category. You can clearly see how your savings for each goal are growing, which encourages you to keep the savings momentum going. </p>
<p>If you’re interested in taking this a step further, budgeting apps such as <a href="https://www.22seven.com/">22seven</a> create personalised budgets based on your actual spending patterns. This free app allows you to set limits for what you want to spend and tracks how much you’ve already spent.</p>
<p>For example, you can decide what you plan to spend for lifestyle expenses (such as dining out or shopping) and receive a notification when you are close to reaching your spending limit. But it’s important to practise some self-discipline and not overspend once those funds are depleted. And while this may seem like yet another app that needs to be installed, think of how easy it is to tap your debit card when going about your day and spending more than you had planned. </p>
<p>Sometimes we need to put measures in place to save ourselves from ourselves, and this is one of them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224380/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>Keeping an eye out for where you can boost your savings or reduce expenses when times are tough can improve your financial wellbeing.Bomikazi Zeka, Assistant Professor in Finance and Financial Planning, University of CanberraAbdul Latif Alhassan, Professor of Development Finance & Insurance, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2230782024-02-28T13:31:51Z2024-02-28T13:31:51ZNigeria’s security problems deepen as Anglophone insurgency in Cameroon spills across border<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576415/original/file-20240219-30-q5d1lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C0%2C8575%2C5729&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Grieving for the 140 victims of a January 2024 attack in north-central Nigeria.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NigeriaArmedViolence/744fff9339094b5c858f3235bb986cf4/photo?Query=nigeria%20violence&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1261&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Sunday Alamba</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past two decades, Nigeria has grappled with multiple and complex national <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/world/nigeria-mulls-state-policing-to-combat-growing-insecurity">security threats</a>, each posing a significant challenge to its stability.</p>
<p>The nation finds itself fighting a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2017/02/13/oil-and-violence-in-the-niger-delta-isnt-talked-about-much-but-it-has-a-global-impact/?sh=532d63f54dc6">violent militancy in the Niger Delta</a>, <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/farmers-herders-conflicts-in-nigeria-a-role-for-fbos">conflicts between farmers and herders</a> across multiple regions, terrorism and insurgency in the northeast, banditry in the northwest and secessionist campaigns by groups such as the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/us-should-not-designate-nigerias-ipob-terrorist-group">Indigenous People of Biafra</a> in the southeast.</p>
<p>Now a new layer of complexity has emerged in the form of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/cameroons-anglophone-conflict-has-lasted-for-six-years-what-citizens-say-about-how-to-end-it-208381">Ambazonian secessionist group</a> from Cameroon. This group’s growing threat, most recently seen in the December 2023 violent invasion of the Nigerian <a href="https://dailypost.ng/2023/12/11/ambazonia-rebels-control-belegete-community-block-nigerian-troops/">borderline village of Belegete</a>, adds to the strain on Nigeria’s national security capabilities.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KhygkzYAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar specializing in</a> radicalization, violent extremism and counterterrorism in West and Central Africa, I believe the latest threat raises concerns about Nigeria’s strategic preparedness and ability to confront growing challenges.</p>
<p><iframe id="Cwek2" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Cwek2/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>How the country responds could have far-reaching consequences. Nigeria is Africa’s <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1120999/gdp-of-african-countries-by-country/">largest economy</a> and <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/population/countries-in-africa-by-population/">most populous country</a>. Since its independence in 1960, Nigeria has played a crucial role in regional stability and security. It remains an <a href="https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-and-nigeria-partnering-for-prosperity">important diplomatic partner for the United States</a>, which provides support to the Nigerian government in its efforts to combat extremism in the region.</p>
<h2>Rise of a violent campaign</h2>
<p>Ambazonian separatists, seeking independence from the Republic of Cameroon, are mounting a bloody civil war that stems from the <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/cameroon/b188-second-look-cameroons-anglophone-special-status">Anglophone crisis</a>, a protracted conflict rooted in the colonization of Cameroon by both the French and British governments.</p>
<p>Separatists from Camaroon’s two English-speaking regions declared independence from the French-speaking majority in 2017, and war has been raging between the separatists and Cameroon government forces ever since.</p>
<p>The Ambazonian secessionist movement, fueled by grievances that include <a href="https://theconversation.com/cameroon-how-language-plunged-a-country-into-deadly-conflict-with-no-end-in-sight-179027">the perceived dominance of Francophone Cameroonians</a>, seeks to secede and establish an <a href="https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/cameroon-anglophone-crisis/">independent Federal Republic of Ambazonia</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Grievance over perceived Francophone bias is fueling Camaroon insurgency." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576417/original/file-20240219-16-blke3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576417/original/file-20240219-16-blke3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576417/original/file-20240219-16-blke3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576417/original/file-20240219-16-blke3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576417/original/file-20240219-16-blke3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576417/original/file-20240219-16-blke3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576417/original/file-20240219-16-blke3m.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">A sign saying ‘Speak English and French for a bilingual Cameroon’ outside an abandoned school in a rural part of southwest Cameroon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-saying-speak-english-or-french-for-a-bilingual-news-photo/1154062017?adppopup=true%5C">Photo by Giles Clarke/UNOCHA via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Agitation over the past seven years has resulted in <a href="https://www.globalr2p.org/countries/cameroon/">violence and widespread human rights violations</a>. </p>
<p>Estimates by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reveal that over <a href="https://reports.unocha.org/en/country/cameroon/">1.7 million</a> people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Furthermore, the Anglophone crisis has <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/cameroon">resulted in</a> over 6,000 deaths and displaced 765,000 people. About 70,000 of these refugees are in Nigeria, including a few in the village of Belegete. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://humanglemedia.com/survivors-of-ambazonia-militant-attack-in-nigeria-are-experiencing-the-festive-season-differently/">attack in Belegete</a> in December left two dead, including the traditional leader, Chief Francis Ogweshi, and 20 others kidnapped. </p>
<h2>Nigeria’s national security</h2>
<p>As Cameroon’s clash with separatists worsens in southwestern Cameroon, the Ambazonian insurgents have moved into Nigeria. </p>
<p>The violent attack on the Belegete community, which followed earlier incursions in Nigeria such as the <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/11/ambazonia-attack-death-toll-rises-to-12/">Manga village attack</a> of November 2021, suggests a growing cross-border element to Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis.</p>
<p>As well as presenting a violation of territorial integrity, the incident also suggests collaboration with Nigeria’s own secessionist groups, with evidence of <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/20/separatists-nigeria-cameroon-biafra-ipob-ambazonia-anglophone-joining-forces/">links between Ambazonian secessionists</a> and the Indigenous People of Biafra.</p>
<p>Ambazonian insurgents are also <a href="https://doi.org//10.4236/aasoci.2021.111001">engaged in drugs, arms and human trafficking</a> and have brought that illegal trade across the border into Nigeria.</p>
<p>The incursion of Ambazonian activities has not only added to Nigeria’s security challenges. It has also intensified an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Nigeria’s border region, displacing thousands of people and straining the capacity of authorities to care for its internally displaced persons and refugees from neighboring countries, including Cameroon.</p>
<p>As of June 2023, Nigeria has an estimated <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/operational/operations/nigeria">2.3 million internally displaced persons</a> and <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/nigeria/urban-refugees-nigeria-operational-update-may-2023-issue-2">93,130 refugees and asylum seekers</a>. The Belegete attack added to this by displacing the entire village of over 2,000 people, who took refuge in the neighboring village of Becheve.</p>
<h2>Confronting the emerging threat</h2>
<p>Nigeria’s capacity to confront the emerging Ambazonian threat is questionable, given multiple strategic, operational and tactical limitations. </p>
<p>The 2022 Afrobarometer <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/migrated/files/publications/Working%20papers/wp190-mapping_state_capacity_in_africa-professionalism_and_reach-afrobarometer_working_paper-22jan22.pdf">working paper</a>, which mapped states’ capacity to prepare for or respond to security threats, concludes that Nigeria – like several African states – “is widely seen to lack the necessary capacity for the physical and material security of its citizens or to command legitimacy.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in fatigues holding a gun Nigerian police officer stands guard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576422/original/file-20240219-23-kh7yv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576422/original/file-20240219-23-kh7yv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576422/original/file-20240219-23-kh7yv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576422/original/file-20240219-23-kh7yv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576422/original/file-20240219-23-kh7yv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576422/original/file-20240219-23-kh7yv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576422/original/file-20240219-23-kh7yv5.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">
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<span class="caption">A police officer in Yola, Nigeria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/police-officer-sits-inside-the-armoured-personnel-carrier-news-photo/1247496889?adppopup=true">Photo by PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Ambazonian separatist insurgency poses a threat not only to Cameroon and Nigeria but risks further degrading the security situation in West Africa.</p>
<p>The Nigerian government, undoubtedly, understands the magnitude of the security threats it faces, and its apparent limitations, and has called for assistance. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in a January 2024 letter to the outgoing French ambassador to Nigeria, Emmanuelle Blatmann, <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/more-news/658605-tinubu-wants-greater-cooperation-between-nigeria-france.html">stressed the need for strengthened cooperation</a>. “On regional security, we want you to remind Paris at every opportunity that it is necessary to upgrade our technical cooperation,” he wrote.</p>
<p>The United States has said it remains committed to assisting Nigeria. In January 2024, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with his Nigerian counterpart, Nuhu Ribadu, and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/01/18/readout-of-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivans-meeting-with-nigerian-national-security-adviser-nuhu-ribadu/">underscored the need</a> for continuous bilateral security cooperation.</p>
<p>And while Nigeria has in recent years partnered with Cameroon to ensure regional stability, the latest attack suggests a need to increase strategic cooperation between the neighboring countries to stem the growing threat. </p>
<p>However, countering the Ambazonian separatists and other internal security threats will remain a challenge for the Nigerian government. With a vast population and territory, security personnel are already stretched thin. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the existing security apparatus in the country is compromised. The military is beset by problems, including <a href="https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/documentary-reveals-low-morale-in-nigerian-army">low morale</a> <a href="https://mg.co.za/africa/2023-02-16-nigerias-military-is-broken/">and corruption</a>, and the national police force is perceived as largely <a href="https://www.afrobarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/AD715-Nigerians-fault-police-for-corruption-and-lack-of-professionalism-Afrobarometer-10oct23.pdf">unprofessional and corrupt</a>. </p>
<p>These issues hamper Nigeria’s capacity to respond, and they undermine any attempt to counter the spiraling security threats faced by Nigeria, including the Ambazonian separatists.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Augustine Aboh works for the University of Calabar, Nigeria. He is affiliated with the Office for Strategic Preparedness and Resilience - National Early Warning Centre, Nigeria. </span></em></p>Nigeria is beset with security threats. Confronting them will take regional and international cooperation.Augustine Aboh, Ph.D. candidate in Global Governance and Human Security, University of MassachusettsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2229052024-02-27T14:08:45Z2024-02-27T14:08:45ZAfrica needs China for its digital development – but at what price?<p>Digital technologies have many potential benefits for people in African countries. They can support the delivery of healthcare services, promote access to education and lifelong learning, and enhance financial inclusion. </p>
<p>But there are obstacles to realising these benefits. The backbone infrastructure needed to connect communities is missing in places. Technology and finance are lacking too. </p>
<p>In 2023, only <a href="https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ITU_regional_global_Key_ICT_indicator_aggregates_Nov_2023.xlsx">83%</a> of the population of sub-Saharan Africa was covered by at least a 3G mobile network. In all other regions the coverage was more than 95%. In the same year, <a href="https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ITU_regional_global_Key_ICT_indicator_aggregates_Nov_2023.xlsx">less than half of Africa’s population</a> had an active mobile broadband subscription, lagging behind Arab states (75%) and the Asia-Pacific region (88%). Therefore, Africans made up a substantial share of the estimated <a href="https://www.itu.int/en/mediacentre/Pages/PR-2023-09-12-universal-and-meaningful-connectivity-by-2030.aspx#:%7E:text=The%20number%20of%20people%20worldwide,global%20population%20unconnected%20in%202023.">2.6 billion</a> people globally who remained offline in 2023.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://gga.org/china-expands-its-digital-sovereignty-to-africa/">key partner</a> in Africa in unclogging this bottleneck is China. Several African countries depend on China as their main technology provider and sponsor of large digital infrastructural projects.</p>
<p>This relationship is the subject of a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2023.2297363">study</a> I published recently. The study showed that at least 38 countries worked closely with Chinese companies to advance their domestic fibre-optic network and data centre infrastructure or their technological know-how. </p>
<p>China’s involvement was critical as African countries made great strides in digital development. Despite the persisting digital divide between Africa and other regions, 3G network coverage <a href="https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ITU_regional_global_Key_ICT_indicator_aggregates_Nov_2023.xlsx">increased from 22% to 83%</a> between 2010 and 2023. Active mobile broadband subscriptions increased <a href="https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ITU_regional_global_Key_ICT_indicator_aggregates_Nov_2023.xlsx">from less than 2% in 2010 to 48% in 2023</a>. </p>
<p>For governments, however, there is a risk that foreign-driven digital development will keep existing dependence structures in place.</p>
<h2>Reasons for dependence on foreign technology and finance</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2023.2297363">global market</a> for information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure is controlled by a handful of producers. For instance, the main suppliers of fibre-optic cables, a network component that enables high-speed internet, are China-based Huawei and ZTE and the Swedish company Ericsson. </p>
<p>Many African countries, with limited internal revenues, can’t afford these network components. Infrastructure investments depend on foreign finance, including concessional loans, commercial credits, or public-private partnerships. These may also <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596124000107">influence a state’s choice of infrastructure provider</a>.</p>
<p>The African continent’s terrain adds to the technological and financial difficulties. Vast lands and challenging topographies make the roll-out of infrastructure very expensive. Private investors avoid sparsely populated areas because it doesn’t pay them to deliver a service there. </p>
<p>Landlocked states depend on the infrastructure and goodwill of coastal countries to connect to international fibre-optic landing stations.</p>
<h2>A full-package solution</h2>
<p>It is sometimes assumed that African leaders choose Chinese providers because they offer the cheapest technology. <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/uganda-orders-probe-into-huaweis-fiber-project/">Anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise</a>. Chinese contractors are attractive partners because they can offer full-package solutions that include finance. </p>
<p>Under the so-called <a href="https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00TN5G.pdf">“EPC+F”</a> (Engineer, Procure, Construct + Fund/Finance) scheme, Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE oversee the engineering, procurement and construction while Chinese banks provide state-backed finance. Angola, Uganda and Zambia are just some of the countries which seem to have benefited from this type of deal.</p>
<p>All-round solutions like this appeal to African countries. </p>
<h2>What is in it for China?</h2>
<p>As part of its <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-137-57813-6_6">“go-global”</a> strategy, the Chinese government encourages Chinese companies to invest and operate overseas. The government offers financial backing and expects companies to raise the global competitiveness of Chinese products and the national economy. </p>
<p>In the long term, Beijing seeks to establish and promote Chinese digital standards and norms. Research partnerships and training opportunities expose a growing number of students to Chinese technology. The Chinese government’s expectation is that mobile applications and startups in Africa will increasingly reflect Beijing’s technological and ideological principles. That includes China’s interpretation of human rights, data privacy and freedom of speech. </p>
<p>This aligns with the vision of China’s “<a href="https://www.orfonline.org/research/the-digital-silk-road-in-the-indo-pacific-mapping-china-s-vision-for-global-tech-expansion">Digital Silk Road</a>”, which complements its <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative">Belt and Road Initiative</a>, creating new trade routes. </p>
<p>In the digital realm, the goal is technological primacy and greater autonomy from western suppliers. The government is striving for a more <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/chinas-digital-silk-road-and-the-global-digital-order/">Sino-centric global digital order</a>. Infrastructure investments and training partnerships in African countries offer a starting point. </p>
<h2>Long-term implications</h2>
<p>From a technological perspective, over-reliance on a single infrastructure supplier makes the client state more vulnerable. When a customer depends heavily on a particular supplier, it’s difficult and costly to switch to a different provider. African countries could become locked into the Chinese digital ecosystem.</p>
<p>Researchers like <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Arthur-Gwagwa">Arthur Gwagwa</a> from the Ethics Institute at Utrecht University (Netherlands) believe that China’s export of critical infrastructure components will <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/africa-embraces-huawei-technology-despite-security-concerns/a-60665700">enable military and industrial espionage</a>. These claims assert that Chinese-made equipment is designed in a way that could facilitate cyber attacks. </p>
<p>Human Rights Watch, an international NGO that conducts research and advocacy on human rights, has <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/05/09/future-technology-lessons-china-and-us">raised concerns</a> that Chinese infrastructure increases the risk of technology-enabled authoritarianism. In particular, Huawei has been <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-technicians-helped-african-governments-spy-on-political-opponents-11565793017">accused</a> of colluding with governments to spy on political opponents in Uganda and Zambia. Huawei has <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3023215/huawei-denies-helping-governments-uganda-and-zambia-spy">denied</a> the allegations. </p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>Chinese involvement provides a rapid path to digital progress for African nations. It also exposes African states to the risk of long-term dependence. The remedy is to diversify infrastructure supply, training opportunities and partnerships. </p>
<p>There is also a need to call for interoperability in international forums such as the <a href="https://www.itu.int/en/Pages/default.aspx">International Telecommunications Union</a>, a UN agency responsible for issues related to information and communication technologies. Interoperability allows a product or system to interact with other products and systems. It means clients can buy technological components from different providers and switch to other technological solutions. It favours market competition and higher quality solutions by preventing users from being locked in to one vendor. </p>
<p>Finally, in the long term African countries should produce their own infrastructure and become less dependent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Arnold 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 sub-Saharan Africa, most governments welcome China’s investment in digital infrastructure.Stephanie Arnold, PhD Candidate, Università di BolognaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2239822024-02-22T07:45:37Z2024-02-22T07:45:37ZAfrica’s debt crisis needs a bold new approach: expert outlines a way forward<p>It hasn’t been easy for African states to finance their developmental and environmental policy objectives over the past few years.</p>
<p>Recent events suggest that the situation may be improving. For the first time in two years, three African states have been able <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2024/02/15/african-governments-return-to-international-bond-markets">to access international financial markets, albeit at high interest rates.</a> Kenya, for example, is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-12/kenya-said-to-tap-eurobond-market-at-exorbitant-rate-for-buyback?sref=UnSQjRxb">now paying over 10%</a> compared to about 7% in 2014. </p>
<p>Many African countries continue to face challenging sovereign debt situations.</p>
<p>Total external debts as a share of Africa’s export earnings increased from <a href="https://unctad.org/publication/world-of-debt/regional-stories">74.5% in 2010 to 140% in 2022</a>. In 2022, African governments had to <a href="https://data.one.org/topics/african-debt/">allocate about 12% of their revenues to servicing their debt</a>. Between 2019 and 2022, <a href="https://unctad.org/publication/world-of-debt/regional-stories">25 African governments</a> allocated more resources to servicing their total debts than to the health of their citizens. And in late 2023 the <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2023/09/26/cf-how-to-avoid-a-debt-crisis-in-sub-saharan-africa">International Monetary Fund estimated</a> that over half the low income African countries were either potentially or actually experiencing difficulties paying their debts. </p>
<p>This suggests that it will be very difficult for Africa to raise the US$1.6 trillion that <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/3269532b-en/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/3269532b-en#:%7E:text=Africa's%20sustainable%20financing%20gap%20until,Sustainable%20Development%20Goals%20by%202030">the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates</a> it needs to reach the sustainable development goals by 2030.</p>
<p>One of the lessons of the COVID pandemic and the climate negotiations is that Africa can’t count on the global community to provide it with sufficient new funds or with debt relief to deal with either its development needs or the consequences of crises such as pandemics or extreme weather events. </p>
<p>Its official bilateral creditors appear more focused on their own needs and on other parts of the world than on Africa. Commercial creditors are happy to provide financing when conditions are favourable and African debt can help them satisfy their investment mandates. But they are less forthcoming when the going gets tough and the risks associated with the transaction – and for which they have been compensated – actually materialise.</p>
<p>This suggests that Africa needs to advocate more aggressively for its own interests. </p>
<p>This year offers some good opportunities to promote a more effective approach to African debt. </p>
<h2>Careful planning needed</h2>
<p>There are two <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/financing-for-development/">international</a> <a href="https://www.un.org/en/summit-of-the-future#:%7E:text=22%2D23%20September%202024,Solutions%20for%20a%20Better%20Tomorrow">conferences</a> where global economic governance will be on the agenda. This is also the first year that the African Union participates as a full member in the G20. In addition, South Africa, the G20 chair in 2025, currently serves on the troika that manages the G20 process. </p>
<p>Debt and development finance will be an important topic in all these forums. African representatives can use their participation to advocate for a new approach to sovereign debt that is more responsive to African needs and concerns. They can also lobby other participating states and non-state actors for their support.</p>
<p>But African states will need to plan carefully. Their starting point should be the well recognised fact that the current sovereign debt restructuring process is not working for anyone. The G20 agreed a <a href="https://clubdeparis.org/sites/default/files/annex_common_framework_for_debt_treatments_beyond_the_dssi.pdf">Common Framework</a> that was supposed to help resolve the sovereign debt crises in low income countries. <a href="https://saiia.org.za/research/africas-debt-priorities-a-sustainability-perspective-required-support-from-the-g20/#:%7E:text=The%20Common%20Framework%20was%20established,applied%20include%20Ethiopia%20and%20Ghana.">Four African countries</a> applied to have their debts restructured through the framework. Despite years of negotiations, it has failed to fully resolve the debt crisis in three of them. </p>
<p>Countries outside the Common Framework, such as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/sri-lanka-bondholders-raise-concerns-over-debt-deal-transparency-2023-12-01/">Sri Lanka</a>, have not managed to fully resolve their debt crises either. This is costly for both debtors and creditors. It is therefore in everyone’s interest to look for a new approach.</p>
<p>This requires all parties to be willing to entertain new ideas and to experiment with new approaches to old problems. African states should offer their own innovative proposals. They should also state that they are willing to take on new responsibilities if their creditors are willing to do the same.</p>
<p>They can remind their creditors that these experiments would not be taking place in a vacuum. They can be guided by the many existing, but underutilised, international norms and standards applicable to responsible sovereign debt transactions, for example the Unctad principles on <a href="https://unctad.org/publication/principles-promoting-responsible-sovereign-lending-and-borrowing#:%7E:text=Sovereign%20lending%20and%20borrowing%20conducted,neighbors%20and%20its%20trading%20partners.">responsible sovereign debt transactions</a>. Some of these relate to the conduct of sovereign borrowers. Others focus on responsible lending behaviour and are often cited by creditors in their own policies dealing with environmental and social issues, social responsibility or human rights. </p>
<p>By basing any new approach on these international norms and standards, both debtors and creditors will merely be agreeing to implement principles that they have already accepted. </p>
<p>Working from this starting point, African states should make three specific proposals. </p>
<h2>Concrete proposals</h2>
<p>First, they should commit to making both the process for incurring debts and the terms of all their public debt transactions transparent. </p>
<p>This will ensure that their own citizens understand what obligations their governments are assuming on their behalf. It will encourage governments to adopt responsible borrowing and debt management practices. They should also agree that they can be held accountable for their failure to comply with these transparent and responsible sovereign debt practices and procedures.</p>
<p>Second, African states should point out that there is a fundamental problem with a sovereign debt restructuring process that only focuses on the contractual obligations that the debtor state owes its creditors. This focus means, in effect, that servicing its debt obligations will trump the debtor state’s efforts to deal with the country’s vulnerability to climate change and the loss of biodiversity, and with its poverty, inequality and unemployment challenges. This follows from the fact that their creditors can use the restructuring process to force sovereign borrowers in difficulty, unlike corporations in bankruptcy, to pay those who lend them money without regard, for example, to the impact on their obligations to pensioners, public sector employees or the welfare of their citizens. </p>
<p>This exclusive focus on debt contracts is inconsistent with the international community’s interest in addressing global challenges like climate and inequality. </p>
<p>This problem can be resolved if both creditors and debtors agree that they will adopt an approach to debt negotiations that incorporates the financial, economic, social, environmental, human rights and governance dimensions of sovereign debt crises.</p>
<p>Third, African states should propose that their creditors publicly commit to base the new approach to sovereign debt on an agreed list of international norms and standards relevant to responsible international financial practices. These will include those dealing with transparency, climate and environmental issues, and social matters, including human rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danny Bradlow previously had a grant from ther Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa to work on issues relating to sovereign debt. </span></em></p>Africa needs to advocate more aggressively for its own interests when it comes to negotiating debt terms.Danny Bradlow, Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2232532024-02-14T14:26:07Z2024-02-14T14:26:07ZWagner Group is now Africa Corps. What this means for Russia’s operations on the continent<p><em>In August 2023, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/05/hand-grenade-explosion-caused-plane-crash-that-killed-wagner-boss-says-putin">his private jet crashed</a> about an hour after taking off in Moscow. He had been Russia’s pointman in Africa since the Wagner Group <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-russias-wagner-group-doing-africa">began operating on the continent in 2017</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>The group is known for <a href="https://theconversation.com/wagner-group-in-africa-russias-presence-on-the-continent-increasingly-relies-on-mercenaries-198600">deploying paramilitary forces, running disinformation campaigns and propping up influential political leaders</a>. It has had a destabilising effect. Prigozhin’s death – and his <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/24/timeline-how-wagner-groups-revolt-against-russia-unfolded">aborted mutiny</a> against Russian military commanders two months earlier – has led to a shift in Wagner Group’s activities.</em></p>
<p><em>What does this mean for Africa? <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=fvXhZxQAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">Alessandro Arduino’s research</a> includes mapping the evolution of <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538170311/Money-for-Mayhem-Mercenaries-Private-Military-Companies-Drones-and-the-Future-of-War">mercenaries</a> and private military companies across Africa. He provides some answers.</em></p>
<h2>What is the current status of the Wagner Group?</h2>
<p>Following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death, the Russian ministries of foreign affairs and defence quickly reassured Middle Eastern and African states that it would be <a href="https://jamestown.org/program/the-wagner-group-evolves-after-the-death-of-prigozhin/">business as usual</a> – meaning unofficial Russian boots on the ground would keep operating in these regions.</p>
<p><a href="https://adf-magazine.com/2024/01/with-new-name-same-russian-mercenaries-plague-africa/">Recent reports</a> on the Wagner Group suggest a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/12/russias-wagner-group-expands-into-africas-sahel-with-a-new-brand.html#:%7E:text=Wagner%20Group%20has%20been%20replaced,its%20new%20leader%20has%20confirmed.">transformation</a> is underway. </p>
<p>The group’s activities in Africa are now under the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-is-the-fallout-of-russias-wagner-rebellion/">direct supervision</a> of the Russian ministry of defence. </p>
<p>Wagner commands an estimated force of <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-russias-wagner-group-doing-africa#:%7E:text=Rather%20than%20a%20single%20entity%2C%20Wagner%20is%20a,of%20former%20Russian%20soldiers%2C%20convicts%2C%20and%20foreign%20nationals.">5,000 operatives</a> deployed throughout Africa, from Libya to Sudan. As part of the transformation, the defence ministry has renamed it the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-01-30/russia-raises-the-stakes-in-tussle-over-africa">Africa Corps</a>. </p>
<p>The choice of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-russian-military-unit-recruiting-former-wagner-fighters-ukraine-veterans-2023-12?r=US&IR=T">name</a> could be an attempt to add a layer of obfuscation to cover what has been in plain sight for a long time. That Russian mercenaries in Africa <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canadian-owned-mine-seized-by-russian-mercenaries-in-africa-is-helping/">serve one master</a> – the Kremlin. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the direct link to Russia’s ministry of defence will make it difficult for Russia to argue that a foreign government has requested the services of a Russian private military company without the Kremlin’s involvement. The head of the Russian ministry of foreign affairs <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/mali-asked-private-russian-military-firm-help-against-insurgents-ifx-2021-09-25/">attempted to use this defence in Mali</a>.</p>
<p>The notion of transforming the group into the Africa Corps may have been inspired by World War II German field marshal <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/afrika-korps">Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps</a>. Nazi Germany wove myths around his <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/115/4/1243/35179?redirectedFrom=fulltext">strategic and tactical successes in north Africa</a>.</p>
<p>But will the Wagner Group under new leadership uphold the <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/wagner-group-africa-where-rubber-meets-road-206202">distinctive modus operandi</a> that propelled it to infamy during Prigozhin’s reign? This included the intertwining of boots on the ground with propaganda and disinformation. It also leveraged technologies and a sophisticated network of financing to enhance combat capabilities.</p>
<h2>What will happen to Wagner’s modus operandi now?</h2>
<p>In my recent book, <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538170311/Money-for-Mayhem-Mercenaries-Private-Military-Companies-Drones-and-the-Future-of-War">Money for Mayhem: Mercenaries, Private Military Companies, Drones and the Future of War</a>, I record Prigozhin’s adept weaving of disinformation and misinformation. </p>
<p>Numerous meticulously orchestrated campaigns flooded Africa’s online social platforms <a href="https://www.state.gov/disarming-disinformation/yevgeniy-prigozhins-africa-wide-disinformation-campaign/">promoting</a> the removal of French and western influence across the Sahel. </p>
<p>Prigozhin oversaw the creation of the Internet Research Agency, which operated as the propaganda arm of the group. It supported Russian disinformation campaigns and was sanctioned in 2018 by the US government for meddling in American elections. Prigozhin <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/14/europe/russia-yevgeny-prigozhin-internet-research-agency-intl/index.html">admitted</a> to founding the so-called troll farm: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve never just been the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I invented it, I created it, I managed it for a long time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From a financial perspective, Prigozhin’s approach involved establishing a <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1581">convoluted network of lucrative natural resources mining operations</a>. These spanned gold mines in the Central African Republic to diamond mines in Sudan. </p>
<p>This strategy was complemented by significant cash infusions from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/09/how-russia-recruiting-wagner-fighters-continue-war-ukraine">Russian state</a> to support the Wagner Group’s direct involvement in hostilities. This extended from Syria to Ukraine, and across north and west Africa.</p>
<p>My research shows Prigozhin networks are solid enough to last. But only as long as the golden rule of the mercenary remains intact: guns for hire are getting paid.</p>
<p>In Libya and Mali, Russia is unlikely to yield ground due to enduring geopolitical objectives. These include generating revenue from oil fields, securing access to ports for its navy and securing its position as a kingmaker in the region. However, the Central African Republic may see less attention from Moscow. The Wagner Group’s involvement here was <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/07/africa-corps-wagner-group-russia-africa-burkina-faso/">primarily linked</a> to Prigozhin’s personal interests in goldmine revenues.</p>
<p>The Russian ministry of defence will no doubt seek to create a unified and loyal force dedicated to military action. But with the enduring legacy of Soviet-style bureaucracy, marked by excessive paperwork and procrastination in today’s Russian officials, one might surmise that greater allegiance to Moscow will likely come at the cost of reduced flexibility.</p>
<p>History has shown that Africa serves as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/wagner-group-mercenaries-in-africa-why-there-hasnt-been-any-effective-opposition-to-drive-them-out-207318">lucrative arena for mercenaries</a> due to various factors. These include: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>the prevalence of low-intensity conflicts reduces the risks to mercenaries’ lives compared to full-scale wars like in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/13/russia-ukraine-war-list-of-key-events-day-720">Ukraine</a></p></li>
<li><p>the continent’s abundant natural resources are prone to exploitation</p></li>
<li><p>pervasive instability allows mercenaries to operate with relative impunity.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>As it is, countries in Africa once considered allies of the west are looking for alternatives. Russia is increasingly looking like a <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-essential-reads-on-russia-africa-relations-187568">viable candidate</a>. In January 2024, Chad’s junta leader, Mahamat Idriss Deby, met with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow to “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/putin-meets-chad-junta-leader-russia-competes-with-france-africa-2024-01-24/">develop bilateral ties</a>”. Chad previously had taken a pro-western policy.</p>
<p>A month earlier, Russia’s deputy defence minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who’s been tasked with overseeing Wagner’s activities in the Middle East and north Africa, <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2023/12/04/russian-officials-visit-niger-to-strengthen-military-ties/">visited Niger</a>. The two countries <a href="https://theconversation.com/niger-and-russia-are-forming-military-ties-3-ways-this-could-upset-old-allies-221696">agreed to strengthen military ties</a>. Niger is currently led by the military after a <a href="https://www.iiss.org/en/publications/strategic-comments/2023/the-coup-in-niger/">coup in July 2023</a>.</p>
<h2>Where does it go from here?</h2>
<p>There are a number of paths that the newly named Africa Corps could take.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>It gets deployed by Moscow to fight in conflicts meeting Russia’s geopolitical ends. </p></li>
<li><p>It morphs into paramilitary units under the guise of Russian foreign military intelligence agencies.</p></li>
<li><p>It splinters into factions, acting as heavily armed personal guards for local warlords. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The propaganda machinery built by Prigozhin may falter during the transition. But this won’t signal the immediate disappearance of the Russian disinformation ecosystem. </p>
<p>Russian diplomatic efforts are already mobilising to preserve the status quo. This is clear from Moscows’s <a href="https://jamestown.org/program/brief-russia-deepens-counter-terrorism-ties-to-sahelian-post-coup-regimes/">backing</a> of the recent Alliance of Sahelian States encompassing Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. All three nations are led by military rulers who overthrew civilian governments a recently announced <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/niger-mali-burkina-faso-say-they-are-leaving-ecowas-regional-block-2024-01-28/">plans to exit</a> from the 15-member Economic Community of West African States.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223253/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alessandro Arduino is a member of the International Code of Conduct Advisory Group.</span></em></p>Will the Wagner Group under new leadership uphold the ruthless modus operandi that propelled it to the spotlight in Africa?Alessandro Arduino, Affiliate Lecturer, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2232172024-02-13T16:38:00Z2024-02-13T16:38:00ZDonkeys are unsung heroes in Ethiopia’s humanitarian crisis – and they could do even more with better support<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574951/original/file-20240212-28-w82tdy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C0%2C2560%2C1686&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The front cover of the Norwegian Refugee Council's Annual Report on Ethiopia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nrc.no/shorthand/stories/nrc-ethiopia-annual-report-2020/assets/8XbNZwavN5/dsc_6544-web-2560x1707.jpeg">Tinbit Amare Dejene / Norwegian Refugee Council</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Conflict and drought in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia has triggered a humanitarian crisis. The Ethiopian government says <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-68198484">16 million people</a> across the country are facing food shortages, with almost half of those suffering emergency or severe levels of food insecurity. </p>
<p>In response to the crisis, the UK has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-announces-100-million-of-new-aid-for-over-three-million-vulnerable-people-in-ethiopia-as-humanitarian-crisis-deepens">announced</a> £100 million in overseas development aid for essential healthcare services. More than 3 million Ethiopians, including vulnerable women and children, will receive lifesaving help through the programme.</p>
<p>For <a href="https://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-ramps-deliveries-vital-food-assistance-drought-and-conflict-affected-areas-ethiopia#:%7E:text=The%20Government%20of%20Ethiopia's%20most,insecurity%20and%20need%20emergency%20assistance.">overseas aid</a> to be deployed most effectively (reaching the goal of supporting the lives of women and children), it should be extended to support the care of donkeys. </p>
<p>In Ethiopia, donkeys are unrecognised humanitarian workers who provide vital support through their labour to ensure the survival of people, especially vulnerable women and children. But donkeys in Ethiopia are often overlooked, poorly cared for and overworked because of poverty and a constant reliance on their labour.</p>
<p>The strains of poverty, subsistence work and the effects of conflict are clearly not only experienced by humans. Animals <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-beasts-of-burden-how-to-reward-our-animals-for-their-work-92713">work for and with people</a> living in these circumstances and risk their lives in doing so.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-beasts-of-burden-how-to-reward-our-animals-for-their-work-92713">Beyond beasts of burden: How to reward our animals for their work</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A female donkey standing beside her foal in a rural village." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574925/original/file-20240212-26-3m18sb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574925/original/file-20240212-26-3m18sb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574925/original/file-20240212-26-3m18sb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574925/original/file-20240212-26-3m18sb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574925/original/file-20240212-26-3m18sb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574925/original/file-20240212-26-3m18sb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574925/original/file-20240212-26-3m18sb.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">A jenny (female donkey) and her foal stand nearby a group of homes in a rural village in central Ethiopia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martha Geiger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why donkeys matter</h2>
<p>The war formally ended in November 2022. But the Tigray region remains in ruins and 1 million people have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/05/we-must-act-on-ethiopia-food-crisis-says-uk-minister">displaced</a> from northern Ethiopia. Donkeys are key providers of aid to displaced families by enabling access to water, foodstuffs and firewood that people would otherwise not be able to reach on foot. </p>
<p>But many donkeys in Ethiopia die prematurely due to a lack of food and water, and because of the enormous strain their labour places on their bodies. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Endale-Teshome/publication/335201996_Study_on_the_Health_and_Welfare_of_Working_Donkeys_in_Mirab_Abaya_District_Southern_Ethiopia/links/5d565108a6fdccb7dc3fad01/Study-on-the-Health-and-Welfare-of-Working-Donkeys-in-Mirab-Abaya-District-Southern-Ethiopia.pdf">Research</a> from 2016 found that donkeys have a working life of only four to six years in Ethiopia. In contrast, donkeys can have working lives of up to 30 years where welfare standards are higher. </p>
<p>When a donkey dies, their human co-workers are left in need and without support. My <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/soan/aop/article-10.1163-15685306-bja10134/article-10.1163-15685306-bja10134.xml">own research</a>, which was published in July 2023, has shown that women in rural areas of Ethiopia (where <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10503176/#CR22">80% of the country’s population</a> live) are dependent upon and most affected by the loss of a donkey. </p>
<p>Women in central Ethiopia report that an enormous physical burden falls on them to carry livelihood materials on their backs and shoulders for long distances if they don’t have donkeys to work with. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman in a rural village walks with her donkeys who are carrying water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574792/original/file-20240211-28-aomsfo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4265%2C2845&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574792/original/file-20240211-28-aomsfo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574792/original/file-20240211-28-aomsfo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574792/original/file-20240211-28-aomsfo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574792/original/file-20240211-28-aomsfo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574792/original/file-20240211-28-aomsfo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574792/original/file-20240211-28-aomsfo.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">A woman in a rural village in central Ethiopia walks with her donkeys who are carrying water to her family’s homestead.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martha Geiger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Low status</h2>
<p>My more <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/13607804231213559">recent research</a> has revealed that donkeys, along with their women co-workers, are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Donkeys are associated with drudgery and women’s work, so a socio-cultural norm holds that the two groups are “the same”. </p>
<p>In fact, there are numerous common Ethiopian proverbs that compare women with donkeys. According to one proverb: “Women are commonly beaten by their husbands, but they are staying with their husbands to raise their children. And donkeys are often beaten by their owners, but they will not run away from their owners.” </p>
<p>Another is that: “The least of animals is the donkey, and the least of human beings is a woman. They are doing as they have been told by men.” This equivalency reinforces the marginalisation and subjugation of both groups, manifesting in domestic violence towards them.</p>
<p>A huge number of Ethiopian women have suffered physical and mental injuries during the war and the crisis that has followed. Health experts <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/8/7/e010270">estimate</a> that between 40% and 45% of women have suffered gender-based violence during the conflict. </p>
<p>Other studies <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10362876/">report</a> that more than one-third of women in Ethiopia experience gender-based violence in their lifetime. In reality, these figures are probably even higher owing to under-reporting because of a lack of access to healthcare services and the fear of stigmatisation.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/animal-welfare/article/comparison-of-the-socioeconomic-value-and-welfare-of-working-donkeys-in-rural-and-urban-ethiopia/1220694C5411787FA25CD9B2286461AF">research</a> on the welfare of donkeys in Ethiopia has also recorded instances of donkeys being hit by their human co-workers while working. The majority of donkey owners reported feeling justified in hitting their donkeys if they refuse to move forward or comply with human requests of them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A rural woman standing next to her donkey in a field." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574924/original/file-20240212-29-k252zt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574924/original/file-20240212-29-k252zt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574924/original/file-20240212-29-k252zt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574924/original/file-20240212-29-k252zt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574924/original/file-20240212-29-k252zt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574924/original/file-20240212-29-k252zt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574924/original/file-20240212-29-k252zt.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">A rural woman standing with her donkey co-worker as she prepares for the working day ahead.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martha Geiger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Recognising their work</h2>
<p>In light of my findings, and amid reports of <a href="https://www.refugeesinternational.org/statements-and-news/refugees-international-alarmed-by-humanitarian-crisis-in-tigray-effects-of-conflict-related-sexual-violence/">escalating violence</a> against women in the region, humanitarian programmes aimed at enhancing the status of women and dismantling oppressive systems should also include wellbeing support to their donkeys.</p>
<p>Addressing the needs of both women and donkeys through protection, healthcare and aid can help combat the normalisation of violence against both groups. This will convey the importance of both women and donkeys to Ethiopian society. </p>
<p>By ignoring the humanitarian labour of donkeys and their contribution to human wellbeing, we risk further exploiting and marginalising both donkeys and the millions of women and children who depend upon them for basic subsistence support.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223217/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martha Geiger has received funding from the Donkey Sanctuary UK for her data collection in Ethiopia. </span></em></p>Donkeys provide vital support to women but their lives are often cut short.Martha Geiger, PhD Candidate in Sociology, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2208322024-02-07T20:46:33Z2024-02-07T20:46:33ZDemography and reproductive rights are environmental issues: Insights from sub-Saharan Africa<p>Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is growing <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/wpp2022_summary_of_results.pdf">three times faster</a> than the rest of the world with an average of 4.6 births per woman in 2021. By comparison, <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/91f0015m/91f0015m2024001-eng.htm">the fertility rate in Canada was 1.3 births per woman in 2022</a>. </p>
<p>The region is projected to continue to be the fastest growing in the world, with a population increasing from 1.2 billion in 2021 to 2.1 billion in 2050. </p>
<p>Sustained and rapid population growth has deep implications for development, <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2022_policy_brief_population_growth.pdf">exacerbating social, economic and environmental challenges</a> from food insecurity and gender inequity to environmental degradation. </p>
<p>At the same time, Sub-Saharan Africa also has a <a href="https://www.populationinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Population-and-Climate-Change-Vulnerability.pdf">disproportionate vulnerability to climate change and environmental degradation</a>. </p>
<p>It is critical that population dynamics and reproductive health be at the forefront of ongoing environmental discussions.</p>
<h2>Population dynamics and environment</h2>
<p>There are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat8680">many just and humane ways to slow the pace of rapid population growth while also respecting human rights and the need for economic development</a>. Key to this goal is advancing reproductive rights, gender equity and education. </p>
<p>Advancing reproductive autonomy by ensuring that individuals have the means to choose the timing and frequency of childbearing carries significant benefits for climate change resilience and environmental sustainability. </p>
<p>As individuals are given the means to choose the number, timing and spacing of their children, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2470">they tend to have fewer children</a>. </p>
<hr>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-groundbreaking-womens-rights-treaty-turns-20-the-hits-and-misses-of-the-maputo-protocol-209607">Africa's groundbreaking women's rights treaty turns 20 - the hits and misses of the Maputo protocol</a>
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<p>It is estimated that if the United Nations’ <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/">Sustainable Development Goals</a> target for contraceptive use and education are met, global population size would decline from today’s 8 billion to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(20)30677-2">6.29 billion in 2100</a>. If not, then the United Nations medium <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/wpp2022_summary_of_results.pdf">projection of 10.3 billion appears more likely</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, despite their far-ranging implications for environmental sustainability, demographic trajectories are largely omitted or regarded as set in stone by the development and environmental communities. This makes for a missed opportunity for transformative change. </p>
<p>Discussions that highlight the negative impacts of global population growth are also often marginalized and perceived as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10042857.2016.1149296">unwarranted, alarmist, coercive and racist</a>. At the same time, it is important to remember that high birth rates should not carry the stigma of blame but instead be seen within the lens of wider socio-economic issues.</p>
<p>We live in a demographically divided world. Some regions of the planet are experiencing sustained population growth, while others are witnessing relative stability and even decline. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/drc-has-one-of-the-fastest-growing-populations-in-the-world-why-this-isnt-good-news-209420">DRC has one of the fastest growing populations in the world – why this isn't good news</a>
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<p>In this context concerns about population growth can appear to have limited global application, making it more challenging to express alarm over increasing human numbers in relation to population declines elsewhere </p>
<p>However, this does not mean that exponential human growth cannot pose concerns in some regions.</p>
<h2>Sub-Saharan perspectives</h2>
<p>As a <a href="https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/members/4481">researcher</a> in the emerging field of planetary health, I study the nexus of reproductive rights, population dynamics and environmental sustainability. </p>
<p>In collaboration with <a href="https://www.ug.edu.gh/economics/people/staff-faculty/nkechi-s-owoo">Nkechi S. Owoo</a>, from the University of Ghana, we set out to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3197/JPS.63772236595233">explore stakeholder perceptions</a> around these issues. We were surprised to learn that sub-Saharan Africans perspectives had not been individually documented, despite their unique relevance. </p>
<p>Our study included a survey and follow-up interviews with 402 participants from 42 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The results would surprise many observers who may doubt that population growth is a concern in Africa.</p>
<p>While there were geographic and gender limitations in our sample size — and more research will be required to further explore this topic — we nevertheless feel that <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/world4040048">our findings</a> provide useful insights into wide-ranging public concern for population growth. Respondents overwhelmingly perceived population growth as a phenomenon representing challenges to environmental sustainability, economic and social goals, peace and security. </p>
<p>Many participants expressed the view that population dynamics ought to be integrated in policies and discussions aimed at improving or preserving the quality of the environment. One respondent in particular stated that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“population dynamics should always be put at the forefront whenever climate and the environment are being discussed”. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A small number of participants argued that population growth was not a driver of environmental degradation and climate change, which was attributed to the excessive consumption habits and disproportionate responsibility of the Global North.</p>
<p>The large majority of our respondents, however, held a different view. They felt that the disproportionate role of consumption did not preclude acknowledging the role of population growth in generating environmental degradation. </p>
<p>A survey participant from South Africa, for example, stated that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The cumulative impact of 1 billion low per-capita footprints still equals a high impact. This is not to discount the high impact of people that may have lower fertility rates and higher per-capita footprints — who are as important to address.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Participants overwhelmingly felt reproductive health and rights, alongside education and women empowerment considerations, ought to be integrated in environmental sustainability discussions and policies. </p>
<p>They agreed with the notion that contraception and family planning services can have a positive impact on environmental sustainability. They also agreed that integrating family planning as an environmental policy would contribute to accelerating much needed progress on reproductive rights and sustainability. </p>
<h2>It is time to discuss demography</h2>
<p>This study presents surprising evidence that rebuts common assumptions about the sensitivity of discussing population trends in developing countries. </p>
<p>Our survey suggests that a majority of those working in a field that is related to economic, social, or environmental development in sub-Saharan Africa consider the topic of population growth important. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/enGJyhu6Xr0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘What will it take to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals?’ Produced by the United Nations.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our study also supports the importance of amplifying the voices of people among those most exposed to rapid population growth and most vulnerable to climate change and environmental degradation. These individuals, more often than not, live in places where gender equity and access to family planning face <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40834-022-00198-5">significant challenges</a>.</p>
<p>Most of our research respondents are concerned by population growth because of its negative environmental and social implications, and wish to integrate demographic and reproductive rights and gender equity considerations in environmental discourses and policies. </p>
<p><a href="https://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/biad080.pdf">Similar calls to stabilize and gradually decrease the human population by supporting reproductive autonomy and gender equity</a> are regularly issued by leading environmental scientists, and must be prioritized to achieve the transformative change needed for sustainability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220832/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Céline Delacroix is a Senior Fellow with the Population Institute (USA), which provided financial support to pursue this research project by offering a fellowship to its authors.</span></em></p>Environmental policymakers and scholars must listen to sub-Saharan Africans’ voices and recognize the importance of population for achieving sustainable development goals.Céline Delacroix, Adjunct Professor and Senior Fellow, School of Health Sciences, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2219532024-01-29T19:11:13Z2024-01-29T19:11:13ZAfcon 2023: Africa’s diaspora footballers are boosting the continent’s game – but they are also creating challenges<p>The Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) is approaching its conclusion in Ivory Coast and speculation is rife about which team will be the ultimate winner. It could be one of the continent’s footballing heavyweights such as Morocco or Senegal. Alternatively, a relative minnow like Angola or Cape Verde may emerge as the unexpected victor.</p>
<p>Last time out, at the 2021 edition in Algeria, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/feb/06/senegal-egypt-africa-cup-of-nations-final-match-report">Senegal captain</a> Kalidou Koulibaly lifted the trophy. Before that, Algeria’s 2019 triumph in Egypt saw Riyad Mahrez become the victorious captain. Significantly, neither player was born in Africa and there is a distinct possibility that the winning captain of this year’s tournament will also have been born elsewhere.</p>
<p>Of the <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/sports/the-allure-of-the-diaspora-at-afcon-2024-4491490#:%7E:text=2%20hours%20ago-,The%20number%20of%20Diaspora%20players%20in%20the%202024%20AFCON%20is,in%20the%20tournament%20this%20year">630 players</a> who were registered to play by teams competing in the 2023 edition, 200 weren’t born in Africa. The non-African country with the most players at the tournament is France, with 104. Second is Spain with 24, then England with 15. Even players born in Ireland and Saudi Arabia are competing in this year’s tournament. </p>
<p>The Moroccan national team has the largest number of diaspora players. Eighteen of its squad members were born outside of Morocco, with only nine born in the country. Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo have 17 and 16 diaspora squad members, respectively.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map of Africa showing the contribution of non-African countries to this year's Afcon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571856/original/file-20240129-21-d2jfov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&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 birthplaces of the African diaspora playing at 2023 Africa Cup of Nations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Widdop</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The phenomenon seems to be on the rise and has allowed some African teams (and several with very limited footballing history) to rise up the footballing ranks in recent years. But some people argue that diasporas are undermining the progression of African football, principally by engendering a culture of complacency.</p>
<h2>Bolstering their ranks</h2>
<p>The fact that African teams are increasingly relying on players born elsewhere is not a surprise. After all, there’s an <a href="https://football-observatory.com/Inflation-in-the-football-players-transfer-market">intense talent battle</a> taking place in world football. This often involves the <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/international-athletes-world-cup-nationality">naturalisation of individuals</a> who find themselves playing for one national team even though they may already have played for another, and the <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/fifa-world-cup-2022/2022/12/07/every-moroccan-is-moroccan-regraguis-fight-to-include-foreign-born-players-vindicated/">targeted recruitment</a> of players in countries around the world.</p>
<p>However, the case of Africa is particularly distinctive. It’s a reflection of both the continent’s <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2019/02/20/diaspora-diaries-and-football-politics/">colonial past and its global diasporas</a>. </p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/sep/12/leicester-city-riyad-mahrez-father-dream-algeria-world-cup">Mahrez was born</a> in Paris to parents of Algerian and Moroccan origin. The French capital is home to 331,000 Algerians and 254,000 Moroccans. <a href="https://onefootball.com/en/news/chelsea-defender-koulibaly-explains-choosing-senegal-over-france-35927795">Koulibaly</a> was also born in France to parents originally from Senegal. Figures suggest there are more than 100,000 Senegalese in France.</p>
<p>But this is not just a story about France. Nigeria’s <a href="https://dailypost.ng/2023/02/09/no-regrets-choosing-nigeria-over-england-lookman/">Ademola Lookman</a> was born in London, Ghana’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/africa/62549049">Iñaki Williams</a> comes from Bilbao in Spain, and Morocco’s <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2023/01/16/the-political-dimension-of-moroccos-success-in-the-world-cup/#:%7E:text=Similarly%2C%20Sofian%20Amrabat%20is%20known,from%20them%20and%20preferred%20Morocco.">Sofyan Amrabat and Hakim Ziyech</a> are of Dutch origin. </p>
<p>Self-identity and family dynamics are a couple of reasons why players choose to play for teams from the birthplaces of their parents rather than their own. In 2022, Ziyech <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/2022/12/10/hakim-ziyech-a-magician-at-the-heart-of-moroccan-love-story/">explained it thus</a>: “Choosing one’s national team is not done with the brain but with the heart. I have always felt Moroccan even though I was born in the Netherlands. Lots of people will never understand.” </p>
<p>Williams has <a href="https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/inaki-williams-made-right-choice-ghana-over-spain/blt005c8219a89b044e">spoken</a> of his grandparents’ influence, claiming that a decision is “easier when you see the [Ghanaian] people and your family support you to be a Black Star”. Such instances reveal a multidimensional sense of place. </p>
<p>Yet cynics argue that other such players are simply not good enough to play for the European nations in which they were born or in which they have been naturalised. For instance, former Arsenal starlet <a href="https://www.completesports.com/ex-everton-star-ball-iwobi-not-good-enough-to-play-for-toffees/">Alex Iwobi</a> has gone from being a potential future England star to a sometimes criticised Fulham midfielder and Nigerian international.</p>
<h2>But at what cost?</h2>
<p>Others express concerns about how diasporas are undermining African football. One concern is that bringing talent in from Europe and elsewhere is simply a fast-track strategy to success that is <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2018/09/11/is-africas-football-talent-finally-coming-back-home-football-planet/">eroding the long-term health</a> of football across the continent.</p>
<p>Even so, the approach seems to be working. At the Qatar World Cup in 2022, Morocco became the <a href="https://theconversation.com/morocco-at-the-2022-world-cup-6-forces-behind-a-history-making-performance-196359">first African nation</a> to reach the tournament’s semi-final stage. This has helped the country become the current highest-ranked team in Africa and the 13th-best team worldwide. </p>
<p>Senegal is also in the world’s top 20, while <a href="https://www.3addedminutes.com/international/cape-verde-mauritania-fairytale-afcon-match-stories-behind-it-4493235">Cape Verde’s</a> recent performance shows that even Africa’s traditionally less successful footballing nations can prosper. Cape Verde, a string of ten islands in the Atlantic Ocean with a population smaller than the city of Bristol, just finished top of a tough group, including Egypt and Ghana at the 2023 Afcon.</p>
<p>The likes of former Cameroon goalkeeper <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/sports/article/2022/11/25/world-cup-2022-the-problem-with-african-football-is-the-leaders_6005649_9.html">Joseph-Antoine Bell</a> remain less positive about such achievements. Bell claims that diaspora players make the job of African football’s leaders, managers and coaches too easy, which is engendering a culture of complacency. He also thinks it demotivates players born, brought up and living in Africa.</p>
<p>Though the practice of <a href="https://www.versus.uk.com/articles/diaspora-fc-why-its-time-for-this-generation-to-go-back-to-their-motherlands">diasporic talent recruitment</a> appears to be increasing (the effect of <a href="https://sports-chair.essec.edu/resources/research-reports/sport-and-national-eligibility-criteria-in-the-era-of-globalization">globalisation</a> must also be acknowledged as an influence), there are still some countries that rely more on players born and brought up domestically - Namibia and South Africa are examples of this.</p>
<p>Bell would no doubt approve, having previously called for Africa to develop its own solutions to talent identification and development. The problem is, this takes time, money and patience – precious commodities in football generally, not just in Africa.</p>
<p>Whatever happens when the tournament’s final game is staged at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa-cup-of-nations-showcases-the-continents-finest-footballers-and-chinas-economic-clout-220313">Alassane Ouattara Stadium</a> in Abidjan, it will be a proud moment for and a big celebration of African football. However, the birthplace of the captain who eventually lifts the trophy will probably fuel further debate about the importance of African football’s diasporas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221953/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>Around one-third of the players that have been called up to the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations were born outside of Africa.Simon Chadwick, Professor of Sport and Geopolitical Economy, SKEMA Business SchoolPaul Widdop, Associate Professor, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2217892024-01-29T12:51:00Z2024-01-29T12:51:00ZOver half of charity campaigns for international causes focus on Africa – here’s why that’s harmful<p>The images used by charities and NGOs can become deeply ingrained in the memories of supporters, donors, development partners and the “beneficiaries” themselves. These stories colour what is generally known about global poverty and the developing world. </p>
<p>One of the most notorious examples was the media and charity coverage of the <a href="http://www.imaging-famine.org/papers/UK_Report_Section_1.pdf">Ethiopian famine</a> in the early 1980s. Powerful and disturbing images brought the reality of the famine into the lives of millions of British people and fast became the currency of the media and NGOs.</p>
<p>But there’s a problem with this. The use of such imagery seems to confirm rather than challenge traditional perceptions that Africa is underdeveloped and not capable of dealing with its own problems.</p>
<p>In 2021, I purchased 17 national newspapers in the UK every weekend over a period of six months. The aim was to explore whether charity adverts have changed in recent years and what kinds of characters are represented in fundraising campaigns. </p>
<p>After analysing a total of 541 fundraising images, one of the <a href="https://charity-advertising.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/charity-representations-of-distant-others-report-2024.pdf">major findings</a> was that Africa continues to be over-represented in charity adverts supporting international causes. Over half of the images (56%) focused on countries in Africa. And almost none of these images contain whole family units – rather they are set in rural areas and feature women and children.</p>
<p>But there is also evidence that charities are actively responding to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2018/jan/12/charities-stop-poverty-porn-fundraising-ed-sheeran-comic-relief">previous critiques</a> of using shock tactics, dehumanisation and employing images to evoke emotions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571441/original/file-20240125-21-l248se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A charity advert in a newspaper with a picture of women and children in rural Ethiopia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571441/original/file-20240125-21-l248se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571441/original/file-20240125-21-l248se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571441/original/file-20240125-21-l248se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571441/original/file-20240125-21-l248se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571441/original/file-20240125-21-l248se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571441/original/file-20240125-21-l248se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571441/original/file-20240125-21-l248se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Example of an advert by EthiopiAid in the Guardian using images of women and children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Girling</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why does it matter?</h2>
<p>By constantly focusing the spotlight on African countries, charities reinforce historical stereotypes of underdevelopment that equate Africa with poverty. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/67684/public-attitudes-april10.pdf">report</a> from 2010 that was commissioned by the Department for International Development, for instance, found that the UK public view “developing countries” as synonymous with “Africa”. They associate Africa with poverty and misery, reflecting some of the representations used in charitable appeals. </p>
<p>The consistent portrayal of these depictions in various campaigns has promoted the view among the British public that there has been little to no progress in economic and social development across Africa since the 1980s. This has contributed to the belief that Africa is a “<a href="https://academicjournals.org/article/article1379931879_Andrews.pdf">bottomless pit</a>” in terms of charitable efforts and the constant need for foreign aid.</p>
<p>But, in reality, this is not the case. Africa is developing fast. It has the world’s <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/reimagining-economic-growth-in-africa-turning-diversity-into-opportunity">youngest and fastest-growing population</a> which, by the middle of this century, is expected to hit 2.5 billion.</p>
<h2>Addressing stereotypes</h2>
<p>Nevertheless, my findings do suggest that the sector is making strides towards decolonising narratives and addressing its use of damaging stereotypes. In 2016, a study found that 34% of all <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jid.3235">British charity adverts</a> used “pitiful images” that explicitly emphasised human suffering. </p>
<p>However, by 2021, only two out of the 27 charities that placed adverts used pitiful images in their fundraising appeals. This amounted to 11% of all adverts as these charities repeatedly used such imagery over the six month study period, but it still represents a significant decline.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571442/original/file-20240125-15-h61b6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A fundraising appeal by Sightsavers depicting an African child suffering from trachoma." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571442/original/file-20240125-15-h61b6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571442/original/file-20240125-15-h61b6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571442/original/file-20240125-15-h61b6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571442/original/file-20240125-15-h61b6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571442/original/file-20240125-15-h61b6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571442/original/file-20240125-15-h61b6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571442/original/file-20240125-15-h61b6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Image from a Sightsavers fundraising leaflet which was used 20 times during the six month period.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Girling</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women and children continued to be the most popular characters in newspaper adverts. But, compared to similar studies from <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/representations-of-global-poverty-9780857722492/">2013</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jid.3235">2016</a>, there was a significant reduction in the use of images of children. In 2021, 21% of charitable campaigns featured images of children, down from 42% in 2013.</p>
<p>By 2021, 20% of all the images used in charitable campaigns were also of people characterised as professionals or leaders from developing countries. These people included doctors, nurses and other development workers, offering a more realistic view of people from Africa.</p>
<p>Several factors have prompted charities into reconsidering the potential damage of the representation they use and the stories they tell in recent years. One of the main factors is the need to decolonise narratives by reducing the use of negative stereotypes.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Lives-Matter">Black Lives Matter</a> protests in 2020 were a significant catalyst in charities rapidly adopting or updating their ethical imagery policies. The protests alerted people and organisations to the injustices of colonial histories. </p>
<p>The COVID pandemic was also instrumental in charities being forced to employ local photographers and filmmakers in the countries where they deliver programmes. Travel restrictions that were imposed during the pandemic meant charities were unable to fly in their own staff.</p>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p>Images have the potential to inflict damage. So communications professionals in the charity sector must strive to diversify the characters they portray.</p>
<p>But the public has a level of responsibility too. We all need to be careful about making assumptions of other countries and cultures when viewing charity images in newspaper adverts. Photographs may not always provide a complete picture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Girling 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>Charity advertising often reinforces historical stereotypes of underdevelopment that equate Africa with poverty.David Girling, Associate Professor and Director of Research Communication in the School of Global Development, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2169262024-01-16T14:14:57Z2024-01-16T14:14:57ZAn ancient system that could bring water to dry areas<p>Some of Africa’s dry areas face serious water shortages due to minimal rainfall. An ancient system of drawing water from aquifers, the “qanat system”, could help. Gaathier Mahed, an environmental scientist and expert on the management of groundwater, has <a href="https://waqfacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/SaniBook_Draft_2Aug09_1c_Part2_chapter13.pdf#page=2">studied the feasibility</a> of these systems. He tells us more._</p>
<h2>How does the qanat system work?</h2>
<p>There are bodies of water underground known as aquifers, some of which can be found at the tops of valleys or near mountains. A qanat system taps these aquifers and, using underground tunnels, moves the water, using gravity, over many kilometres. The tunnel then exits at a lower-lying area. </p>
<p>When the water exits the tunnel, farmers can use it to irrigate their crops. People can also access the water along the stretch of the tunnel using wells.</p>
<p>It’s a system that’s managed by everyone, and its benefits are shared. Everybody has a vested interest and a role to play. Community bonds can be strengthened – in stark contrast to tensions we see over water resources today.</p>
<p>It’s a highly complex communal system to manage. Laws governing the system have existed since the <a href="https://www.ircwash.org/sites/default/files/English-1968-Origin.pdf">9th century</a>. These laws relate to the construction and proximity of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-00268-8_3">qanat tunnels</a> to each other. They also govern the exits of the qanats. For instance, land owners at the exits can use the water first and must aid in managing them. </p>
<h2>Where did it come from and where is it used?</h2>
<p>The qanats have been used <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1506/">for centuries</a> in arid and semi-arid parts of north Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where water supplies are limited. It’s known by a variety of names, “foggara” in north Africa, “falaj” in Oman and “qarez” in parts of Asia. </p>
<p>It’s thought to have been <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/harvesting-water-and-harnessing-cooperation-qanat-systems-middle-east-and-asia">developed</a> in Persia in the first millennium BC. As the Islamic Empire <a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldcivilization/chapter/islamic-conquest-of-the-maghreb/">spread</a> across the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, north Africa, and parts of Europe from 661 to 750 CE, so did knowledge about qanats.</p>
<p>Today, some of the region’s qanat systems, <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1506/">like those in Iran</a>, are protected under heritage status. Some of these qanats, although declining in number, are still used. They are <a href="https://environmentalsystemsresearch.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40068-015-0039-9">largely protected</a> for historical and cultural reasons.</p>
<h2>Why is it not being more widely used?</h2>
<p>There are several reasons why the tunnel system is not more widely used in Africa. </p>
<p>Qanats need to be built somewhere with the right geological formations. These generally seem to be fractured sandstones. The level of groundwater is also important for the flow of water in the qanat. The volume of water in the aquifer stems from the rainfall in the mountainous regions. </p>
<p>Qanats can only be built where there’s a slope, like a mountain or a valley. And the slope must have a <a href="https://www.livius.org/articles/misc/qanat/">specific angle</a>. If it’s too steep, erosion of the qanat will occur and it will collapse. If it’s not steep enough the water will not flow fast enough and could become chemically altered due to interaction with minerals in the ground. </p>
<p>The digging of the tunnel and development of the system over large areas of land is labour intensive and can take many years. The qanats cover many kilometres and need to be maintained every year, by cleaning out the silt build-up. </p>
<p>Knowledge of building qanats and maintaining them is being lost. People have migrated from rural areas to cities and adopted boreholes in certain areas instead. </p>
<p>Some qanats are drying up due to over exploitation of the water resource.</p>
<h2>Why should the system be used more widely?</h2>
<p>In most instances people in arid areas drill wells to access groundwater. These boreholes have a lifespan and eventually new wells have to be drilled. Pumps and materials don’t last forever, and wells can get clogged by microbial organisms and fine material in the subsurface.</p>
<p>First, the qanat is sustainable as it works with gravity and no electricity is needed. It can even be used to create clean energy. For instance, in Iran cold air that comes out of qanat tunnels is <a href="https://clubofmozambique.com/news/irans-ancient-wind-catchers-beat-the-heat-naturally-241589/">used to cool</a> the interior of large buildings. </p>
<p>Second, water lost to evaporation is minimal in comparison to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11269-011-9850-x">surface water</a> supplies.</p>
<p>Third, it can have a wide scale impact. Qanats are multiple kilometres long and once this water hits a floodplain, it can <a href="https://core.ac.uk/reader/82487040">irrigate multiple</a> hectares of land.</p>
<p>Fourth, it fosters social cohesion. Many people, with different skills, are involved in maintaining the system. </p>
<p>Fifth, the lifespan of the system <a href="https://environmentalsystemsresearch.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40068-015-0039-9">extends beyond</a> that of a deep water well, which is only about 20 years. Tunnels do not clog as easily as wells. </p>
<p>Finally, the quality of water coming from the mountains is much better than water on the plains. It’ll have lower salinity and be better for crops and people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216926/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gaathier Mahed 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>Qanats are an ancient system which could be a useful way of getting water to farms in arid areas.Gaathier Mahed, Senior lecturer, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2206172024-01-13T18:11:31Z2024-01-13T18:11:31ZEthiopia’s deal with Somaliland upends regional dynamics, risking strife across the Horn of Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569174/original/file-20240113-23-3brzua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C6000%2C3476&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Somali soldier controls the crowd at a protest in the capital Mogadishu on Jan.3, 2024.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SomaliaDemonstration/537cb16b632d4e2d9693cef382a1a274/photo?Query=somaliland&mediaType=photo&sortBy=creationdatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=184&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Horn of Africa ushered in the new year with news of a deal that would ensure that diplomatic relations in the region got off to a bumpy start in 2024. Ethiopia, it was announced on Jan. 1, had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/01/ethiopia-and-somaliland-reach-historic-agreement-over-access-to-red-sea-ports">signed a memorandum of understanding</a> with the breakaway region of Somaliland, opening the door to an agreement to exchange a stake in flagship carrier Ethiopian Airlines for access to the Gulf of Aden.</p>
<p>Such <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2706740?seq=1">transactions of economic reciprocity</a> are generally routine, as scholars of international relations and law <a href="https://ccd.indiana.edu/staff-boards-fellows/graduate-fellows.html">like myself</a> are aware. </p>
<p>But this deal has another element. It intertwined sea access with Ethiopia’s formal recognition of Somaliland – and this has sparked <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67911057">quite a diplomatic stir</a>. Ethiopia’s neighbor Somalia has demanded that the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f1a7ffa3-03d8-46e4-a009-3710b4abc27d">agreement be immediately retracted</a>. In Somaliland itself, the deal has been <a href="https://hornobserver.com/articles/2595/Protests-and-resignation-roil-Somaliland-over-Ethiopia-Red-Sea-deal">greeted by protest</a> and the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/somaliland-ethiopia-coast-deal-defense-minister-resigns-d8606e7221681e7adcd4a8219dae92c3">defense minister’s resignation</a>.</p>
<p>Prior to the memorandum of understanding with Somaliland, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had <a href="https://theconversation.com/ethiopias-abiy-takes-a-page-from-russia-china-in-asserting-the-right-to-restore-historical-claim-to-strategic-waters-216237">signaled his intention to gain Red Sea access</a> for his landlocked country – a bid observers warned could have a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/11/14/abiy-ahmeds-imperial-ambitions-are-bad-news-for-africa-and-the-world">destabilizing effect</a> in the region. </p>
<p>Ethiopia is reeling from an intense and bloody <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/ethiopia-tigray-conflict-explained.html">two-year war within its own borders</a>, coupled with ongoing strife <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/reflection-conflict-amhara-region-ethiopia">among different ethnic groups</a>. As a result of the violence, Ethiopia is currently experiencing <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/05/28/1100469734/ethiopia-set-a-world-record-for-displacements-in-a-single-year-5-1-million-in-20">massive internal displacement</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57791868">famine</a>. </p>
<p>Geopolitical tensions created by the pact with Somaliland could serve to exacerbate Ethiopia’s problems – and that of the region. But despite the risk, both sides know they have much to gain.</p>
<h2>Somaliland’s quest for recognition</h2>
<p>Since declaring independence from Somalia in 1991, Somaliland has operated as a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/05/30/530703639/somaliland-wants-to-make-one-thing-clear-it-is-not-somalia">fully functional de facto state</a>, boasting its own defined territory, population and government. </p>
<p><iframe id="qcR56" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/qcR56/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>However, it still lacks the international recognition that would allow Somaliland full participation in the global community, such as <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/about-un-membership">membership in the United Nations</a>. A formal nod would also <a href="https://carnegieeurope.eu/2018/12/03/introduction-strange-endurance-of-de-facto-states-pub-77841">unlock access to protections under international law and economic opportunities</a>. </p>
<p>The agreement with Ethiopia would be a step toward providing that critical missing link. </p>
<p>Recognition of a new state under international law requires established nations to acknowledge the sovereignty and legitimacy of the territory. This can be achieved through either expressed or implicit means.</p>
<p><a href="https://lawbhoomi.com/recognition-of-states-under-international-law/">Expressed recognition</a> takes the form of an official unequivocal declaration. In contrast, <a href="https://lawbhoomi.com/recognition-of-states-under-international-law/">implicit recognition can emerge</a> through bilateral treaties, alliances or diplomatic exchanges – essentially signaling acceptance of a country without making an official declaration of recognition. Implicit recognition often provides a strategic advantage, safeguarding a country’s interest without triggering regional discord. </p>
<p>Mastering the art of crafting treaties with implicit acknowledgments can be crucial to avoid overcommitting a country diplomatically. Abiy, a <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2019/summary/">Nobel Peace Prize winner</a>, was expected by the international community to navigate this diplomatic tightrope, balancing a degree of acknowledgment of Somaliland with restraint. Doing so might avoid rupturing relations with Somalia and imperiling regional security dynamics.</p>
<h2>An ambiguous deal</h2>
<p>The specific details of the memorandum of understanding <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67858566">remain unpublished</a>. So far, any insights gleaned stem mainly from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/landlocked-ethiopia-signs-pact-use-somalilands-red-sea-port-2024-01-01/">a joint press conference</a> held by Ethiopia’s and Somaliland’s two leaders in Addis Ababa and subsequent press releases.</p>
<p>Nuanced distinctions in each party’s priorities have emerged: Somaliland places emphasis on explicit recognition; Ethiopia directs its focus toward regional integration.</p>
<p>And some larger discrepancies in messaging pop out when you look closer. Both sides point to economic and security benefits. But Ethiopia’s Jan. 3 statement suggests only an “<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240103-ethiopia-defends-somaliland-deal-as-somalis-protest">in-depth assessment</a>” of the request for state recognition. This seems at odds with Somaliland’s claim of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/1/4/ambiguous-ethiopia-port-deal-fuels-uncertainty-over-somaliland-statehood#:%7E:text=The%20memorandum%20of%20understanding%20was,recognition%20as%20a%20sovereign%20state.">guaranteed recognition</a> in exchange for sea access. </p>
<p>But because the actual text of the agreement isn’t publicly available, its implications remain shrouded in secrecy – further adding to the unease in the region over the deal.</p>
<h2>Rising regional tensions</h2>
<p>In the days since the memorandum of understanding was inked, tensions have deepened between Somalia and both Ethiopia and Somaliland. Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-08/somalia-leader-warns-he-will-fight-against-ethiopia-red-sea-plan?srnd=undefined&embedded-checkout=true">issued a stern warning</a> against the agreement and threatened to defend Somalia through all available means. </p>
<p>He urged Somali civilians to stand united against potential incursions and cautioned Ethiopia against escalating the situation into armed conflict. </p>
<p>Mohamud has also been seeking support from allies. Already in 2024, he has <a href="https://www.trtafrika.com/africa/somali-leader-in-eritrea-after-annulling-somaliland-sea-deal-16585258">traveled to Eritrea</a> for security talks aimed at strengthening bilateral ties and addressing regional and international concerns. He also received an <a href="https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/129684/Somali-President-Hassan-Sheikh-thanks-Egypt-for-support-his-country">invitation from Egypt</a> in an apparent show of support.</p>
<h2>Ethiopia’s precarious situation</h2>
<p>In a further sign of growing tensions, Ethiopia’s army chief of staff <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67921447">has engaged in talks</a> with his Somaliland counterpart to discuss military cooperation. </p>
<p>Considering Ethiopia’s delicate situation with domestic secessionist forces, critics have been quick to note that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/02/world/africa/ethiopia-somaliland-port-deal.html">Ethiopia may not be best placed</a> to entertain the idea of recognizing Somaliland. Not only would it risk conflict with Somalia, doing so could also lead to the renewal of a breakaway push within Ethiopia itself.</p>
<p>Somaliland is situated to the south and east of Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State. The region is governed by the Somali branch of the Ethiopian Prosperity Party, whose legitimacy has long been contested by the Ogaden National Liberation Front, ONLF, a group demanding autonomy for Somalis in Ethiopia. </p>
<p>Until <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1MW0CT">a peace agreement</a> in October 2018, the ONLF had been engaged in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/africa/18ethiopia.html">decades-long secessionist war</a> with the Ethiopian government. More recently, in 2020, a push for independence in the Tigray region of Ethiopia resulted in a two-year armed conflict that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57791868">displaced millions</a> of people and forced <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57791868">hundreds of thousands</a> into famine. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Amhara – an indigenous ethnic group in Ethiopia – have been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66496137">resisting</a> the federal government’s attempt to disarm their militia and regional special forces. And the state of Oromia also <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ethiopia-oromo-militants-peace-talks-7252be5f8128dc931982f503180235ca">saw calls for independence</a> before an Oromo prime minister, Abiy, was elected by parliament in 2018.</p>
<p>A renewed push for autonomy from Ethiopia’s Somali community could serve to reignite any number of these simmering internal conflicts and Somali <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2023/12/08/the-demon-of-irredentism-is-back-with-a-vengeance">irredentism</a>.</p>
<h2>Uneasy international response</h2>
<p>Global attention to growing tensions in the Horn of Africa has been mounting: The U.S. has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWD2FWLX7_Q">expressed serious concern</a>, and the African Union has <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20230103/chairperson-commission-calls-mutual-respect-between-ethiopia-somalia">urged Ethiopia and Somalia to de-escalate</a> the tensions in the name of regional peace.</p>
<p>Similar statements have come from the <a href="https://igad.int/statement-of-the-igad-executive-secretary-on-the-recent-developments-in-relations-between-the-federal-democratic-republic-of-ethiopia-fdre-and-the-federal-government-of-somalia-fgs/">Intergovernmental Authority on Development</a> — an African trade bloc — the <a href="https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/ethiopiasomalia-statement-spokesperson-territorial-integrity-federal-republic-somalia_en">European Union</a> and the <a href="https://www.arabnews.com/node/2436356/middle-east">Arab League</a>. </p>
<h2>Widespread protests</h2>
<p>Djibouti, which neighbors Somaliland to the northwest, has <a href="https://twitter.com/HarunMaruf/status/1744451659852333199">called for dialogue</a> and a diplomatic solution.</p>
<p>But such calls – from both international and regional players – have done little to calm tensions.</p>
<p>In the days since the deal was announced, <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/africa/2024-01-04-watch-somalis-protest-against-ethiopia-somaliland-deal/">tens of thousands Somalis</a> have protested in the streets of Mogadishu, calling the move an <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/protest-against-ethiopia-s-red-sea-access-deal-rocks-somali-capital/3106328#">aggression against the nation’s sovereignty</a>.</p>
<p>And while residents of both Somaliland and Ethiopia have largely supported the memorandum – hopeful in turn that it would lead to international recognition and economic uplift – not everyone is behind the deal. In Somaliland, Defense Minister Abdiqani Mohamud Ateye <a href="https://apnews.com/article/somaliland-ethiopia-coast-deal-defense-minister-resigns-d8606e7221681e7adcd4a8219dae92c3">resigned on Jan. 8</a>, stating that the handing over of access to the coast to Ethiopia represented a threat to Somaliland’s sovereignty.</p>
<p>It would seem that the memorandum of understanding has served to reopen old wounds across the region.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alemayehu Weldemariam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Somalia has demanded that a memorandum of understanding – which would see Ethiopia gain access to the Red Sea via a Somaliland port – be ripped up.Alemayehu Weldemariam, Ph.D. Fellow, Center for Constitutional Democracy, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2162812023-12-27T11:11:04Z2023-12-27T11:11:04ZAn African history of cannabis offers fascinating and heartbreaking insights – an expert explains<p>When I tell people that I research cannabis, I sometimes receive a furtive gesture that implies and presumes: “We’re both stoners!”, as if two members of a secret society have met. </p>
<p>Other times, I receive looks of concern. “You don’t want to be known as the guy who studies marijuana,” a professional colleague once counselled. Lastly, some respond with blank stares: “Why do academics spend time on such frivolous topics?” </p>
<p>I’ve learned that all these attitudes reflect ignorance about the plant, which few people have learned about except through popular media or their own experiences with it.</p>
<p>I <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/PubMaterials/978-1-4780-0394-6_601.pdf">study cannabis</a>, but I’m more broadly interested in how people and plants interact. I’ve studied plants from perspectives ranging between ecology and cultural history, including <a href="https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=192935">obscure plants</a> and more widely known ones, such as the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2007.01751.x">African baobab</a>. </p>
<p>Cannabis is in another category, being one of the world’s most famous and widespread plants. Yet it’s the one for which people most commonly question my research motivations.</p>
<p>Cannabis has a truly global history associated with a wide range of uses and meanings. The plant evolved in central Asia millions of years ago. Across Eurasia, humans began using cannabis seeds and fibre more than 12,000 years ago, and by 5,000 years ago, people in south Asia had learned to use cannabis as an edible drug. It arrived in east Africa over 1,000 years ago. </p>
<p>Cannabis has been under global prohibition for most of the last century, which has stunted understanding of the people-plant relationship. Africa, Africans and people of the African diaspora have had crucial roles in the plant’s history that are mostly forgotten. </p>
<p>I want people to learn about cannabis history for four reasons. First, understanding its historical uses can help identify potential new uses. Second, understanding why people have valued cannabis can improve how current societies manage it. Third, understanding how people have used cannabis illuminates African influences on global culture. Finally, understanding how people are profiting from cannabis exposes inequities within the global economy.</p>
<h2>Medicinal potential</h2>
<p>The African history of cannabis highlights its medicinal potential, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-policy-changes-in-africa-are-welcome-but-small-producers-are-the-losers-179681">topic of growing interest</a>. </p>
<p>Advocates of medical cannabis often justify their interest by telling tales of the plant’s past. Yet the tales they tell – notably in medical journals – have been problematic. They are only about social <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1606635031000135604">elites</a> and are mostly untrue. </p>
<p>The African past is absent from this medical literature, even though historical observers reported how Africans used cannabis in contexts that justify current interest in its medicinal potential. </p>
<p>For instance, in the 1840s, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=oYUVAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA437&dq=great+promoter+of+exhilaration+of+spirits,+and+a+sovereign+remedy+against+all+complaints&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi65on7l4WCAxX0KFkFHbwjBb4Q6AF6BAgGEAI#v=onepage&q=exhilaration%20of%20spirits&f=false">a British physician reported</a> that central African people liberated from slave ships considered the plant drug </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a great promoter of exhilaration of spirits, and a sovereign remedy against all complaints. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>These were emaciated, traumatised survivors. Their experience justifies <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/can.2020.0056">exploring cannabis as a potential treatment</a> for post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and other conditions.</p>
<h2>Exploitative labour</h2>
<p>We need to understand why people value cannabis to identify and address <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395902000828">social processes that may produce drug use</a>. </p>
<p>Africans have <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-8822-5_10">valued cannabis</a> for centuries, though it’s difficult to know all the uses it had, because most weren’t documented. Despite its limits, the historical record clearly shows that people used cannabis as a stimulant and painkiller in association with hard labour. </p>
<p>Many European travellers observed their porters smoking cannabis before setting off each day. A <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IMwNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA257&dq=affirm+that+it+wakes+them+up+and+warms+their+bodies,+so+that+they+are+ready+to+start+up+with+alacrity&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlre3am4WCAxWVEGIAHfJZAmQQ6AF6BAgQEAI#v=onepage&q=alacrity&f=false">Portuguese in Angola stated</a> that the porters: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>affirm that it wakes them up and warms their bodies, so that they are ready to start up with alacrity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Because labourers valued cannabis, many overseers did too. </p>
<p>Cannabis drug use remains associated with social marginalisation in contexts from <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15332640.2017.1300972">Morocco</a> to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395918300124">Nigeria</a>. </p>
<p>The pan-African experience suggests using it is not a moral failing of users but is – at least in part – symptomatic of exploitation and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9566.13244">inequity</a>. </p>
<h2>Africa’s place in global culture</h2>
<p>I also study cannabis to understand how African knowledge has shaped global culture. Cannabis travelled as an <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/2568024731?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true">element of exploitative labour relationships</a> that carried people around the world, including chattel slavery, indentured service and wage slavery. There is strong evidence that <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-african-roots-of-marijuana">psychoactive cannabis crossed the Atlantic with Africans</a>. </p>
<p>Oral histories from Brazil, Jamaica, Liberia and Sierra Leone tell that enslaved central Africans carried cannabis. In 1840s Gabon, a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ewUBImRf6IMC&pg=PA420&dq=%22intending+to+plant+them+in+the+country+to+which+he+should+be+sold%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbzsOhn4WCAxW5F1kFHZw1Bv0Q6AF6BAgLEAI#v=onepage&q=%22intending%20to%20plant%20them%20in%20the%20country%20to%20which%20he%20should%20be%20sold%22&f=false">French-American traveller observed</a> a man </p>
<blockquote>
<p>carefully preserving (seeds), intending to plant them in the country to which he should be sold. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The people who transported seeds shaped our modern language. Around the Atlantic, many terms for cannabis trace to central Africa, including the global word marijuana, derived from Kimbundu <em>mariamba</em>. </p>
<p>Further, the most common modern use of cannabis – as a smoked drug – was an African innovation. Prehistoric people in eastern Africa <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/719224">invented smoking pipes</a>. After the plant arrived from south Asia, eastern Africans discovered that smoking was a more efficient way to consume cannabis compared with edible forms of the drug. Notably, all water pipes – hookahs, bongs, shishas and so on – trace ultimately to African precedents. </p>
<h2>Drug policy reforms</h2>
<p>Finally, understanding the plant’s African past illuminates inequities within the global economy. </p>
<p>Drug policy reforms worldwide have opened lucrative, legal markets for cannabis. Businesses are feverishly competing for wealth, and governments are eagerly seeking new revenue sources. The rush to profit has enabled businesses from wealthy countries <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/echogeo/17599">to gain power in poorer countries</a>. </p>
<p>Most African countries that have enacted drug-policy reforms – notable exceptions being South Africa and Morocco – did so only after foreign businesses paid for cannabis farming licences. These had always been possible under existing laws, though the governments had never made them available. </p>
<p>These drug-policy reforms don’t meaningfully extend to citizens of African countries. Licensing fees are either unknown or unaffordable for most citizens of the countries that have allowed commercial farming, including Zimbabwe, Uganda, Lesotho, Malawi, Eswatini and the Democratic Republic of Congo. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cannabis-policy-changes-in-africa-are-welcome-but-small-producers-are-the-losers-179681">Cannabis policy changes in Africa are welcome. But small producers are the losers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>The countries that have allowed licensed production <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/southerneye/2014/03/30/binga-villagers-want-freedom-use-mbanje">still prohibit</a> traditional cannabis uses. Even as export markets grow, African citizens <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46288374">face criminal consequences</a> for domestic production. </p>
<p>Cannabis-policy reforms in Africa have mostly benefited investors and consumers in wealthy countries, not Africans, a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48519445">textbook example of neocolonialism</a>. Further, profitable industries in Europe and North America <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13562576.2016.1138674">rely on seed taken from Africa</a>, where cannabis genetic diversity is high thanks to farmers’ plant-breeding skills. </p>
<p>Cannabis is the centre of industries that generate billions of dollars annually. Increasingly, this income is legal. History shows that African countries have competitive advantages for cannabis farming. Reforms should <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-8778-5_10">enable Africans to enjoy these advantages</a>.</p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>Globally, many societies are recognising that criminalising cannabis <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687637.2021.1972936">has produced problems and has not eliminated drug use</a>. Some African countries are <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/can.2021.0110">developing cannabis-policy reforms</a> that include decriminalisation and degrees of legalisation. African (and non-African) societies must address <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ediomo-Ubong-Nelson/publication/355507767_Between_Prohibition_and_Regulation_Narrative_Analysis_of_Cannabis_Policy_Debate_in_Africa/links/61767ccb0be8ec17a92a1ab6/Between-Prohibition-and-Regulation-Narrative-Analysis-of-Cannabis-Policy-Debate-in-Africa.pdf">complex questions in evaluating cannabis policies</a>. </p>
<p>In any case, the plant’s African past provides insight into both long-term and emerging issues in humanity’s interactions with cannabis. This is why I study African cannabis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216281/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris S. Duvall 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 plant’s African past provides insight into emerging issues in humanity’s interactions with cannabis.Chris S. Duvall, Professor of Geography, University of New MexicoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2165912023-12-11T13:14:25Z2023-12-11T13:14:25Z‘You reach a point where you have nothing. You will just die’ – in East African refugee camps, food scarcity is a mortal concern<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564320/original/file-20231207-19-l8y174.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C2526%2C1411&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Empty bowls at a refugee camp in Kenya.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For refugees living in settlements across Africa, life got more difficult in 2023. </p>
<p>Shortfalls <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/underfunded-report-implications-underfunding-unhcr%E2%80%99s-activities-2023">in the operating budget</a> of the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/chad/wfp-and-unhcr-call-urgent-funds-avert-more-ration-cuts-refugees-chad">and the World Food Program</a> have brought increased precarity into the daily lives of millions of displaced people across the continent.</p>
<p>Having fled <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/us/about-unhcr/where-we-work/africa">violence, famine and insecurity</a> in search of survival, many African refugees now find themselves faced with similar circumstances in the very spaces designed to protect them. Most notably, over the past year, refugees in Central and East Africa have watched as their food rations and living stipends – already meager – <a href="https://www.wfp.org/news/critical-funding-shortage-forces-wfp-slash-food-rations-refugees-tanzania">have been cut</a> to unsustainably low levels.</p>
<p>In Africa’s <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/operational/operations/uganda?year=2021">largest refugee-hosting country</a>, Uganda, the <a href="https://www.businessamlive.com/unhcr-warns-of-heightened-risks-to-refugees-as-funding-shortfall-hits-650m/">budget for UNHCR programs</a> is currently funded at only 39% of its needs. Burundi, which has experienced <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/burundi-funding-2023">a 35% increase in its refugee population</a> since 2018, as well as a large increase in the number of returned Burundian refugees, has seen its own budget increase by only 12% in that same period.</p>
<p>The reasons for these shortfalls are multifaceted, including the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/february-2023/one-year-later-impact-russian-conflict-ukraine-africa">Russia-Ukraine war</a>, which has affected food production and <a href="https://www.ifpri.org/blog/how-will-russias-invasion-ukraine-affect-global-food-security">resulted in an increase of prices</a>. Though refugees themselves say they are offered little explanation – “They just tell us that the order came from Geneva,” one refugee told us in reference to UNHCR’s headquarters in the Swiss capital.</p>
<p>The resulting cuts in food security programs have had <a href="https://doi.org//10.19088/K4D.2022.125">devastating effects</a> on refugee families and communities.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.shu.edu/profiles/alfaniro.html">We spent</a> <a href="https://history.utk.edu/people/nicole-eggers/">three months</a> in Africa this past summer interviewing over 200 refugees across seven refugee camps and urban refugee havens in Burundi, Uganda and Kenya. While we were there to primarily investigate the role of faith and religious community among refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, our interviews touched on many aspects of the refugee experience. All names used in this article have been changed to protect the interviewees identity.</p>
<p><iframe id="4MtaN" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/4MtaN/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>‘Just not enough’</h2>
<p>Cuts in food rations were on the minds of nearly all of the refugees whom we interviewed this summer.</p>
<p>In Burundi, for example, a number of refugees explained to us how 2023’s rations for their daily dietary staple – cornflour used to make a hard porridge known locally as “bukari” – had been cut from 10 kilograms (22 pounds) per month to three kilograms (6.6 pounds). One refugee in the Bwagiriza refugee settlement in Burundi, Jean-Claude, explained how if you try to divide that amount of food into 30 piles, one for each day, it’s “just not enough.” Ultimately, he said, “You worry because you have no idea how you will finish the month. Little by little, the quantity of food goes down at home.”</p>
<p>Stories like Jean Claude’s offer a glimpse of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2021.43">psychological stress</a> that refugees experience daily as they engage in an unending search for enough food to feed their families – a search that too frequently fails.</p>
<p>To make matters worse, <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/record-numbers-of-displaced-africans-face-worsening-prospects">rising inflation</a> has meant that the ability of refugees to draw on whatever modest resources they may possess to supplement their diets has been greatly undermined.</p>
<p>For parents, this leads to further trauma of explaining to their hungry children that there will be no food. One young mother in the Rwamwanja refugee settlement in Uganda told us how, in a desperate ploy to delay disappointment, she put an empty pot of water on the stove to boil just so that her children would go to bed with the hope that there would be food to eat in the morning.</p>
<h2>Hunger and exploitation</h2>
<p>Others resort to even more desperate ends, consuming inedible food that can sicken and even kill them.</p>
<p>“Whole families become sick. Some neighbors ate some roots because of hunger. All of them were vomiting,” a refugee mother named Mauwa explained to us in Burundi. “Mother, father, children … we are forced to eat food that doesn’t agree with us and makes us sick to our stomachs.” </p>
<p>Still others face the worst outcome imaginable.</p>
<p>Amina, a Congolese refugee living in Bwagiriza, described how, following days of not eating, her young child became violently ill after consuming some corn porridge, her severely malnourished body no longer able to digest it. The child’s condition should have been treatable, but because budget cuts had also recently ended medical transport assistance, they were unable to get to the hospital quickly enough and ultimately the child died.</p>
<p>“There is no food. There is no health care,” she said. “We are being trampled. You reach a point where you have nothing. You will just die.”</p>
<p>Other refugees emphasized how ration cuts contribute directly and indirectly to <a href="http://doi.org//10.1186/s13031-020-00336-3">heightening insecurity</a> in the settlements.</p>
<p>“Famine in the camp is torturing us,” said Amani, a father of seven. “Lack of food is causing our children to become thieves. The moment it is dusk, they break into homes seeking the food they saw you bringing into the house. They don’t look for anything else – just food.”</p>
<p>Refugees in Kyaka II and other settlements in Uganda described being exploited by local communities and how women and youths were <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/refugee-camps-in-northern-uganda-choke-on-sexual-abuse-cases-1749666">exposed to sexual violence</a>.</p>
<p>Vumilia, a mother from a Burundian camp, explained how young girls, including her own, were sexually exploited by adults in return for food: “These camps are harming our children. A child as young as 12 is getting pregnant. And it’s because of hunger that she is forced to consent so that she can get some food … and she is raped and she gets pregnant.”</p>
<p>Refugees also observed that ration cuts and food scarcity threaten to turn cordial relationships with local communities into ones defined by conflict.</p>
<p>“We will now be fighting with the [Ugandan host communities] and each other,” explained Furah, a Congolese woman in one of the Ugandan camps, “because you have brought insecurity in the camp. … This will then lead to conflicts. If they don’t kill me, I will kill them.”</p>
<h2>What chance self-reliance?</h2>
<p>In response to these cuts, the UNHCR is increasingly promoting <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/media/handbook-self-reliance-complete-publication">self-reliance</a> programs, but ration cuts <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13698249.2023.2209485">undermine such programs</a>. </p>
<p>Refugees are told that they must learn to depend on themselves and are taught various skills such as gardening, weaving and animal husbandry. But the strain on their resources leaves them unable to invest. </p>
<p>Marceline in the Kavumu settlement explained, “On this question of self-reliance, you ask yourself: With what resources are you supposed to become self-reliant? … If you’re going to tell someone to be self-reliant, you have to give them the materials to start with.”</p>
<p>We’ve seen that refugees work hard to help themselves and each other. But when resources are so minimal, it is impossible for them to bear the burden themselves.</p>
<p>Time and again, we’ve found that refugees are keen observers of the world around them and they can offer critical insight into the conditions that have been created on the ground, particularly in this context of increasing ration cuts. Listening to them reminds us that behind every budget cut is a human story.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger B. Alfani has received funding (Collaborative grant) from the National Endowment for the Humanities.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Eggers has received funding from the National Endowment for Humanities Collaborative Grant.</span></em></p>Budget cuts have resulted in increased hunger in camps in Uganda, Burundi and Kenya that house refugees from across the region.Roger B. Alfani, Core Fellow of Religious Studies and International Affairs, Seton Hall UniversityNicole Eggers, Assistant Professor of History, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2191752023-12-06T17:25:05Z2023-12-06T17:25:05ZHow agriculture can make the most of one of the world’s biggest carbon stocks, soil<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563380/original/file-20231031-23-xvib7j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=150%2C30%2C3875%2C2987&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soil contains three times more carbon than the atmosphere. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rémi Cardinael</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s right under our feet. We barely notice as we go about our lives, yet it is nothing less than the largest carbon repository among all of Earth’s ecosystems. This distinction is awarded neither to forests, nor to the atmosphere, but to our <a href="https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/14/4811/2022/">soils</a>. There are around 2,400 billion tons of carbon in the first two metres below ground, which is three times as much as in the atmosphere.</p>
<p>In our era of climate disruption, there is much to be learned from soil’s impressive capacity for carbon storage. While soils on their own cannot drastically reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, they can still play a substantial role by keeping sizeable stocks of carbon underground, as well as through the restoration of degraded lands. Today, a number of farming practices are helping trap more carbon below the ground. Here’s how.</p>
<h2>How carbon enters soils</h2>
<p>It all begins with <a href="https://theconversation.com/fr/topics/photosynthese-63763">photosynthesis</a>, when plants absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) into their chloroplasts, those small cell organelles that are packed with chlorophyll. CO<sub>2</sub> then binds to water molecules (H<sub>2</sub>O) with the help of solar energy, producing carbohydrates (i.e., carbon-rich molecules) and oxygen (O<sub>2</sub>). A portion of this carbon captured by the plant enters the soil directly via new and existing roots.</p>
<p>Carbon can also enter soils when a plant sheds its leaves or crop residues are left in fields. This blanket of carbon-rich dead leaves decomposes and eventually ends up as the soil’s organic matter. Animals such as termites can also accelerate the process.</p>
<p>Some regions and ecosystems hold remarkably high carbon stocks in their soils. This is the case for the northernmost regions of the planet, where huge stocks of carbon are preserved in the permafrost, but these are now <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14338">threatened by global heating</a>. Significant stocks have also been found in <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aav0550">tropical ecosystems</a>, particularly rainforests.</p>
<p>The main challenge for carbon-rich ecosystems such as forests, wetlands and permanent pastures is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0738-8">maintaining these stocks</a>. To meet this challenge, we would have to put an end both to deforestation and to converting ecosystems into farmland. An average 25% of the carbon in the soil – and sometimes <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39338-z">much more</a> – is lost when forests or wetlands are turned into farmland. Still, certain agricultural practices can sequester additional carbon in the soil. Standardising these practices is one of the objectives of the initiative known as “4 per 1,000”, launched at COP21 in 2015.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ORncZnlKOZg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Presentation of the 4 per 1,000 initiative.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What are the agricultural practices that increase soil carbon stocks?</h2>
<p>There is a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39338-z">whole host of practices</a> to help boost carbon stocks in agricultural soils – from agroforestry to intermediate cover to organic soil enrichment – but three solutions come up more frequently than others:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>No-till or limited-tillage farming</strong>, which involves sowing crops without ploughing or tilling the entire field beforehand. The technique reduces soil erosion, slows down organic matter decomposition due to minimal soil oxygenation and preserves the soil’s biodiversity (worms, in particular).</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Permanent soil cover</strong>: This is either mulch from crop residues left in the field or living plant cover between different crops. This cover protects the soil against erosion, especially water erosion, and traps carbon, all while benefiting soil wildlife (bacteria, fungi, earthworms, etc.).</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Crop diversification</strong>, either through crop rotation or through intercropping. A more diverse crop means less development of bioaggressors and plant diseases, as well as increased productivity for the cultivated plots, owing in particular to the effects of previous crops. For example, a rotation crop of legumes (such as peas, beans, groundnuts, broad beans or lucerne) locks in nitrogen from the air and releases it into the soil, thereby favouring the growth of the next crop. Boosted productivity among crops helps keep more carbon in the plot. As such, a greater amount of carbon then enters the soil, specifically through crop roots.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Crop rotation in Cambodia: cassava on the left, corn on the right. Crops alternate on each plot from year to year." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556830/original/file-20231031-27-1medqs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556830/original/file-20231031-27-1medqs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556830/original/file-20231031-27-1medqs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556830/original/file-20231031-27-1medqs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556830/original/file-20231031-27-1medqs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556830/original/file-20231031-27-1medqs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556830/original/file-20231031-27-1medqs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crop rotation in Cambodia, with cassava to the left and corn to the right. The crops are alternated yearly on each plot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vira Leng</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These practices form what is defined as “conservation agriculture”, and combined, they present real benefits in terms of increasing soil carbon stocks – but only when used together. For example, no-till farming works in some contexts, but not in others. The scientific community was slow to realise this because initial research focused mainly on the first few centimetres of no-till soil, which did in fact show a higher carbon content. But this sometimes coincided with less carbon in the soil’s deeper layers compared to tilled soils, which tend to have a relatively uniform level of carbon at 20 or 30 centimetres deep. As such, there are cases whereby no-till practices can effectively redistribute carbon across the soil profile, but not necessarily bring about the <a href="https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2136/sssaj2007.0342">net increase</a>.</p>
<p>Recent research done in sub-Saharan Africa suggests that only by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167198718301296">combining the three principles</a> of conservation agriculture can we hope for any significant increase in soil carbon stocks.</p>
<h2>Results in Zimbabwe and Cambodia</h2>
<p>To understand the benefits from combining these three practices, it is crucial for us to carry out experiments over the long term. It would take an average of five to ten years to detect any significant variation in soil carbon stock.</p>
<p>Fourteen years ago, in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371875138_Soil_organic_carbon_and_nitrogen_dynamics_under_long-term_conservation_agriculture_systems_in_Cambodia">Cambodia</a>, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture began tests on cassava-based systems. This crop accounts for nearly 700,000 hectares in the country, grown primarily for exportation to produce flour for animal feeds.</p>
<p>By using a combination of no-till and direct sowing, permanent soil cover with plant cover, and crop rotation with corn, we were able to observe a considerable increase in soil carbon. Rates stood at around 0.7 to 0.8 tons per hectare per year at depths of up to 40 cm. The region’s hot, humid climate facilitated permanent soil cover with highly productive plant cover, including legumes (sunn hemp and cowpea) and grasses (millet) between the cassava and corn crops on plots where corn had been sown.</p>
<p>As a result, carbon could be stored all year long due to photosynthesis, while a remarkably deep root system was developed, increasing carbon stocks well below the initial soil layers. This additional carbon storage in the soil will continue until the system reaches a new balance. The plan is to conduct this trial over several decades to ascertain its long-term viability. Once a balance has been reached, the challenge will then be to preserve these carbon stocks by maintaining best practices for soil management.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Corn being grown directly under plant cover in Cambodia. It’s sown directly without the soil being tilled or ploughed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556832/original/file-20231031-19-o1m52h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556832/original/file-20231031-19-o1m52h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556832/original/file-20231031-19-o1m52h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556832/original/file-20231031-19-o1m52h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556832/original/file-20231031-19-o1m52h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556832/original/file-20231031-19-o1m52h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556832/original/file-20231031-19-o1m52h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Corn being grown directly under plant cover in Cambodia. It’s sown directly without the soil being tilled or ploughed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vira Leng</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These combined practices were also tested in Zimbabwe, which has a seven-month dry season and five-month rainy season. To do so, we had access to a trial that our fellow researchers at the <a href="https://www.cimmyt.org/about/">International Corn and Wheat Improvement Centre</a> set up <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167880922003565">ten years ago</a> in a low-input farming system whose primary crop was corn. Our experiments were carried out in tilled and no-till fields, with and without corn crop residue (mulch), and with and without rotation using a legume crop of cowpea.</p>
<p>Once again, the results showed little benefit from no-till practices used in isolation, which even revealed a <a href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2023/egusphere-2023-1233/">slight loss of soil carbon</a> compared to tillage. This happens because the soil becomes highly compacted when left untilled, restricting root development. In addition, the soil is less able to absorb rain, which ends up as run-off. Because of this, corn develops much less in these systems, resulting in less carbon being transferred into the soil through roots and, therefore, a loss of soil carbon.</p>
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<iframe src="https://embed.acast.com/$/654a3366cce18a0012315d73/carbon-capture-is-it-really-the-miracle-solution?feed=true" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="110px" allow="autoplay"></iframe>
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<p>On the other hand, the no-till fields that used a mulch from the previous season, as well as crop rotation, saw a rise in their carbon stocks, but this effect was <a href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2023/egusphere-2023-1233/">limited to the surface horizon only</a>[E3]. A net increase in the carbon stock was observed, however, as the results indicated no reduction in carbon at lower depths.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556833/original/file-20231031-19-pl3bb0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556833/original/file-20231031-19-pl3bb0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556833/original/file-20231031-19-pl3bb0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556833/original/file-20231031-19-pl3bb0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556833/original/file-20231031-19-pl3bb0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556833/original/file-20231031-19-pl3bb0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556833/original/file-20231031-19-pl3bb0.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soil core sampling in Zimbabwe as part of a long-term trial for conservation agriculture aimed at quantifying organic carbon stocks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rémi Cardinael</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What might hinder the development of these practices?</h2>
<p>Despite their promise, these practices are not always easy to implement. For instance, farming in Zimbabwe is based on a low-input, mixed crop-livestock system, which requires little mineral fertilisation and little or no machinery. At harvest time, only the ears of corn are picked by hand, leaving the stalks standing in the field. These stems are then used to feed livestock during the dry season, when cattle, having spent the wet season in forests and communal areas, are brought to fields to graze them.</p>
<p>Consequently, there is a dilemma around whether corn residues should be used to feed livestock or to cover soils. Some farmers erect fences to prevent livestock from eating them during the dry season, but this method has costs. Others harvest the residues, store them away from animals, then gather the mulch during the wet season. All this requires substantial organisation, time and energy, and an alternative source of livestock feed must also be found.</p>
<p>In these regions and elsewhere, the interest for farmers is not only soil carbon sequestration and its benefits for mitigating climate disruption. They also have a positive impact on soil fertility and the resulting crop productivity, which they achieve by reducing the risk of erosion and improving nutrient availability, and they can improve water conservation. Together, these are crucial benefits that are often priorities for farmers in the Global South, who are among those most affected by climate disruption.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is part of a project between The Conversation France and AFP Audio, supported financially by the European Journalism Centre, as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation “Solutions Journalism Accelerator” <a href="https://ejc.net/news/the-second-group-selected-in-the-solutions-journalism-accelerator-programme">“Solutions Journalism Accelerator”</a> initiative. AFP and The Conversation France have maintained their editorial independence at every stage of the project.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219175/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>For research work in Zimbabwe, Rémi Cardinael has received funding from the DSCATT project "Agricultural Intensification and Dynamics of Soil Carbon Sequestration in Tropical and Temperate Farming Systems" (<a href="https://dscatt.net/">https://dscatt.net/</a>) (N° AF 1802-001, N° FT C002181) financed by the Agropolis Foundation ("Programme d′Investissement d′Avenir" Labex Agro, ANR-10-LABX- 0001-01) and co-financed by the Total Foundation. In Cambodia, the work is funded by the ASSET project "Agroecology and Safe food System Transitions in Southeast Asia" (<a href="http://www.asset-project.org">www.asset-project.org</a>), financed by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the European Union (EU Contribution Agreement N° FOOD/2020/415-683), with the soil component financed by the Fonds Français pour l'Environnement Mondial (FFEM).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Armwell Shumba et Vira Leng ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur poste universitaire.</span></em></p>Soil contains three times more carbon than the atmosphere. As climate change has become a global threat, agriculture’s ability to store more or less carbon is under close scrutiny.Rémi Cardinael, Chercheur en Science du sol et Agronomie, CiradArmwell Shumba, Chercheur en agronomie, University of ZimbabweVira Leng, Doctoral student, Université de MontpellierLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2186132023-12-04T08:40:53Z2023-12-04T08:40:53ZTackling climate change can improve public health in Africa – new report highlights how<p>African countries can simultaneously address climate change and improve public health by reducing air pollution. In many cases these actions also have other <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-017-0012-x">societal, economic, environment or health benefits</a>. </p>
<p>Addressing these together is challenging because they are often the responsibility of different government departments. International climate change, health and development processes are often also separate discussions. However, for the first time, this year at COP28, a whole day will be devoted to discussing the linkages between climate change and health. </p>
<p>In September 2023, the African Union, United Nations Environment Programme, Climate and Clean Air Coalition and Stockholm Environment Institute released the technical report behind the <a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/resources/full-report-integrated-assessment-air-pollution-and-climate-change-sustainable-development-africa">Integrated Assessment of Air Pollution and Climate Change for Sustainable Development in Africa</a> at the African Climate Summit in Nairobi, Kenya. </p>
<p>The report identified actions that could be taken across Africa in the short, medium and long term to simultaneously address climate change and improve public health. The actions reduce exposure to toxic air pollution and achieve other development priorities outlined in the African Union’s <a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview">Agenda 2063 </a> – the Africa We Want.</p>
<p>It builds on <a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/content/ccac-assessments">strong evidence</a> that air pollution is a leading health risk; that the causes of air pollution strongly overlap with those of climate change; and that there are readily available <a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/resources/opportunities-increasing-ambition-nationally-determined-contributions-through-integrated-air-pollution-and-climate-change-planning-practical-guidance-document">policies and measures</a> that simultaneously benefit each issue. </p>
<p>We served as co-chairs, steering committee members and coordinators of the integrated assessment. We brought together expertise in climate change, air pollution, public health, energy and agriculture. We joined over 100 authors from 17 African countries, and representatives from climate change ministries in 35 countries, to produce the report. </p>
<p>At its heart, the report assesses how climate actions could be implemented across Africa, and the benefits of doing so. It shows that, through 37 priority actions, hundreds of thousands of premature deaths could be avoided yearly due to improved air quality. This will also reduce Africa’s climate change contribution. </p>
<p>The report highlights five key reasons why these actions should be a priority: </p>
<p>1) adverse impact of air pollution on health across Africa</p>
<p>2) projected increases in emissions without intervention </p>
<p>3) multiple benefits from their implementation</p>
<p>4) reduced climate impacts in Africa </p>
<p>5) demonstrated implementation in Africa. </p>
<h2>Air pollution is causing premature deaths</h2>
<p>A lack of action to check key emission sources is robbing Africans of their health. Africa is responsible for about <a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Chapter%205-%20Aligning%20Air%20Quality%2C%20Climate%20Change%20And%20Development%20Objectives%20to%20Promote%20Action%20in%20Africa.pdf#page=9">4%</a> of global carbon dioxide emissions causing climate change. The resultant air pollution has a strong impact on public health. </p>
<p>In 2019, air pollution <a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Chapter%201-%20Africa%E2%80%99s%20Development%20in%20the%20Context%20of%20Air%20Pollution%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf#page=18">caused</a> 1.1 million premature deaths on the continent. Deaths mainly occurred from cooking with wood and charcoal (<a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Chapter%201-%20Africa%E2%80%99s%20Development%20in%20the%20Context%20of%20Air%20Pollution%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf#page=20">almost 700,000 premature deaths</a>), and poor outdoor air quality (<a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Chapter%201-%20Africa%E2%80%99s%20Development%20in%20the%20Context%20of%20Air%20Pollution%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf#page=20">almost 400,000 premature deaths</a>).</p>
<p>Air pollution particularly affects children. About 56% of global air pollution-linked infant deaths occur in Africa (<a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Chapter%201-%20Africa%E2%80%99s%20Development%20in%20the%20Context%20of%20Air%20Pollution%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf#page=21">383,000 infant deaths</a>). </p>
<p>Sources of air pollution and emissions that cause climate change strongly overlap in Africa. They include fuels used for cooking, transportation, power generation and industries, agriculture, and waste management.</p>
<h2>Inaction will worsen impact of climate change</h2>
<p>Without action, Africa’s climate change contribution could <a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Chapter%202-%20Africa%E2%80%99s%20Future%20Under%20a%20Current%20Policy%20Trajectory.pdf#page=30">triple</a> by 2063. Health and climate change impacts could <a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Chapter%202-%20Africa%E2%80%99s%20Future%20Under%20a%20Current%20Policy%20Trajectory.pdf#page=30">worsen</a> because the impact of air pollution on health would more than double.</p>
<p>Without intervention, projected economic development, population and urbanisation would substantially <a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Chapter%202-%20Africa%E2%80%99s%20Future%20Under%20a%20Current%20Policy%20Trajectory.pdf#page=19">increase</a> fuel and electricity consumption and more than triple demand for transportation, food, and waste generation.</p>
<h2>Five focal areas for 37 climate actions</h2>
<p>Hundreds of thousands of premature deaths every year could be avoided through climate action in Africa. The <a href="https://www.ccacoalition.org/resources/full-report-integrated-assessment-air-pollution-and-climate-change-sustainable-development-africa">assessment</a> identified 37 specific actions across five areas that could check climate change and reduce air pollution. The five areas are</p>
<ul>
<li><p>transport</p></li>
<li><p>residential</p></li>
<li><p>energy and industry</p></li>
<li><p>agriculture</p></li>
<li><p>waste. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>If all 37 actions were to be implemented, the most health-damaging air pollutant emissions could be reduced by 35% by 2030, and 80% by 2063. This would save the lives of 180,000 people who could have died prematurely yearly by 2030, and 800,000 by 2063. The most effective actions include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>use of clean cooking fuels and technologies, especially transition to electricity as a primary source of cooking fuel </p></li>
<li><p>emission controls for vehicles and increased use of electric vehicles </p></li>
<li><p>renewable electricity deployment and energy efficiency measures in industry and businesses</p></li>
<li><p>transforming management practices in agriculture and reduced open burning of crop residues</p></li>
<li><p>best waste management practices, including avoiding open waste burning, and reducing waste generation.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The same 37 actions can reduce Africa’s contribution to climate change by 20% by 2030, and by 60% by 2063.</p>
<h2>Climate action can check rainfall and temperature extremes</h2>
<p>Climate change impacts that Africa will suffer are primarily determined by the future emission pathways of other continents that emit the majority of greenhouse gas emissions. It is therefore imperative for health protection in Africa that other regions rapidly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. </p>
<p>However, the assessment <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00382-7">shows</a> that implementing the 37 actions could limit the negative effects of regional climate change on rainfall and temperature. This is especially in the Sahel region. This could substantially reduce land degradation and safeguard food production.</p>
<h2>Scaling climate action</h2>
<p>Action is being taken, but needs to be rapidly scaled up. The assessment emphasises that all the recommended actions are currently being implemented in Africa. Scaling up across Africa requires a well-funded and resourced continent-wide programme on clean air. The report recommends that such a programme should cover development and enforcement of national regulations, regional standards, and transparent monitoring of progress. </p>
<p>The African Ministerial Conference on the Environment has <a href="https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/41324/AMCEN_English.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y#page=7">urged</a> that the <a href="https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/41324/AMCEN_English.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y#page=13">Clean Air Programme</a> should be coordinated by strong country-led initiatives, cascaded to the regional economic communities and higher levels of policy.</p>
<p>COP28 can be used to accelerate the recommendations from the report for sustainable development in Africa. Additional commitment to implement and monitor these measures, and new finance and investment to achieve scale, would help ensure that climate change actions benefit people across the continent. </p>
<p><em>Brian Mantlana, climate change lead at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa, and Caroline Tagwireyi, consultant, Ampelos International Consultancy, Harare, Zimbabwe, contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Malley receives funding from United Nations Environment Programme-convened Climate and Clean Air Coalition. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Akinyi Kaudia receives funding from United Nations Environment Programme-convened Climate and Clean Air Coalition. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andriannah Mbandi receives funding from the United Nations Environment Programme-convened Climate and Clean Air Coalition. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Hicks receives funding from the United Nations Environment Programme - convened Climate and Clean Air Coalition.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Osano receives funding from the United Nations Environment Programme - convened Climate and Clean Air Coalition</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Youba Sokona receives funding from the United Nations Environment Programme-convened Climate and Clean Air Coalition. </span></em></p>Africa can check climate impact on health by taking 37 actions endorsed by environment ministers.Chris Malley, Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute York Centre, University of YorkAlice Akinyi Kaudia, Associate Lecturer, University of NairobiAndriannah Mbandi, Lecturer, South Eastern Kenya UniversityKevin Hicks, Senior Research Fellow, University of YorkPhilip Osano, Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment InstituteYouba Sokona, Vice-président du GIEC et professeur honoraire, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170692023-12-01T13:40:04Z2023-12-01T13:40:04Z‘Wonka’ movie holds remnants of novel’s racist past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562787/original/file-20231130-25-2x451e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C4343%2C1774&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A storyline in the forthcoming 'Wonka' movie is that the central character can change a dutiful young girl's life.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warner Bros.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Several years ago, I made a visit to a local book sale and came across a rare 1964 edition of Roald Dahl’s “<a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/176964">Charlie and the Chocolate Factory</a>.” Popular in its own right, the novel has also served as the inspiration for a number of movies, including “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067992/">Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory</a>” – the classic 1971 movie starring the late Gene Wilder – <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367594/">a 2005 reboot</a> starring Johnny Depp, and “<a href="https://www.wonkamovie.com/">Wonka</a>,” the 2023 version.</p>
<p>As a child of the 1980s, I had voraciously consumed Dahl’s novels, so I knew the book well. But the illustrations in this particular edition looked unfamiliar.</p>
<p>Once I brought the worn and tattered book home and began to read it aloud to my kids, I realized that some passages looked unfamiliar as well. My voice faltered as the Oompa-Loompas – the pint-sized workers in Wonka’s chocolate factory – appeared and Charlie asked, “Are they really made out of chocolate, Mr. Wonka?”</p>
<p>To which Wonka replied: “Nonsense!”</p>
<p>“They belong to a tribe of tiny miniature pygmies known as Oompa-Loompas,” Wonka explains in this version of the book. “I discovered them myself. I brought them over from Africa myself – the whole tribe of them, three thousand in all. I found them in the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had ever been before.”</p>
<p>The accompanying black-and-white illustration of several dark-skinned Oompa-Loompas left me stunned.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562541/original/file-20231129-19-ndnz6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562541/original/file-20231129-19-ndnz6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562541/original/file-20231129-19-ndnz6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562541/original/file-20231129-19-ndnz6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562541/original/file-20231129-19-ndnz6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562541/original/file-20231129-19-ndnz6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562541/original/file-20231129-19-ndnz6p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration of dark-skinned Oompa-Loompas from the 1964 version of Roald Dahl’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562542/original/file-20231129-23-7ta15v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562542/original/file-20231129-23-7ta15v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562542/original/file-20231129-23-7ta15v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562542/original/file-20231129-23-7ta15v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562542/original/file-20231129-23-7ta15v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562542/original/file-20231129-23-7ta15v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562542/original/file-20231129-23-7ta15v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration of white Oompa-Loompas from a 2011 edition of Roald Dahl’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dahl’s book is part of a long history of children’s books that feature racist stereotypes – a list that includes <a href="https://apnews.com/article/dr-seuss-books-racist-images-d8ed18335c03319d72f443594c174513">six Dr. Seuss books that were removed from publication in 2021</a>. Other children’s classics, such as “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/racist-history-peter-pan-indian-tribe-180953500/">Peter Pan</a>” and “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/246055/pdf">Mary Poppins</a>,” have also been criticized for perpetuating racism.</p>
<p>As an English lecturer who <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-course-examines-the-dark-realities-behind-your-favorite-childrens-stories-210329">specializes in decoding some of the hidden meanings and dark realities in popular children’s stories</a>, I looked deeper into the blatant racism in the 1964 edition of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” comparing it to a more recent copy from 2011. </p>
<p>Notably, the description of the Oompa-Loompa’s skin had been changed from “almost black” to “rosy-white.” And rather than coming from Africa, they came from “Loompaland.” I learned that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26362342?mag=roald-dahls-anti-black-racism&seq=2">these changes were made by Dahl for the 1974 edition after criticism by the NAACP </a> and others. Dahl’s response was to remove the Black characters altogether.</p>
<p>Yet as philosophy lecturer Ron Novy <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/roald-dahl-and-philosophy-a-little-nonsense-now-and-then/oclc/884017017">points out</a>, even the latest editions of the book still perpetuate racist and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=eiCO730AAAAJ&citation_for_view=eiCO730AAAAJ:9yKSN-GCB0IC">imperialist ideologies</a>.</p>
<h2>Parallels with slavery</h2>
<p>When Wonka describes how he “smuggled” the Oompa-Loompas into the country in “large packing cases with holes in them,” the image clearly recalls slave ships navigating the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-middle-passage.htm#:%7E:text=The%20Middle%20Passage%20itself%20lasted,15%25%20grew%20sick%20and%20died.">Middle Passage</a>. Wonka’s promise to pay the Oompa-Loompas’ wages in cacao beans, and the admission that no one ever sees them come in or out of the factory, reinforces the Oompa-Loompas’ subjugation to Willy Wonka, who plays the role of their “Great White Father,” as fourth grade reading teacher <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20193551">Katherine Baxter noted in 1974</a>.</p>
<p>Historian Donald Yacovone <a href="https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/roald-dahl-the-caribbean-and-a-warning-from-his-chocolate-factory/">has pointed out</a> that, even in its revised form, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” has long contributed to the perpetuation of white supremacist ideology. Not only do the Oompa-Loompas immediately appear – ready to obey – whenever Wonka clicks his fingers, but Wonka is also repeatedly dismissive of them. He calls them “charming” but tells his visitors not to believe a word the Oompa-Loompas say. “It’s all nonsense, every bit of it!” </p>
<p>Wonka even uses the Oompa-Loompas as experimental subjects. He feeds them gum that turns them into blueberries and fizzy drinks that send one unfortunate man aloft until he “disappeared out of sight” and was never seen again. These experiments seem a grotesque parody of the myriad cases of enslaved and free Black Americans who have been <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/185986/medical-apartheid-by-harriet-a-washington/">subjected to experimental surgeries, treatments and medical neglect</a>. </p>
<p>In both the book’s current version and in the original, he smuggles them into his factory and pays them in cacao beans because they were “practically starving to death” and cacao was “the one food that they longed for more than any other … but they couldn’t get it” on their own. </p>
<p>It’s an absurd assertion that this community of people, originally located in the heart of Africa, cannot access a crop that, while native to the Amazon, <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/709715326#goodreads">is primarily grown in West African countries</a>. That they need Wonka to give them access to the resources of their own land is a damaging colonialist fantasy – one which, as Yacovone notes, has historically buoyed, rather than diminished, the popularity of the novel and the 1971 and 2005 films.</p>
<h2>Maintaining the status quo</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, the latest <a href="https://www.wonkamovie.com/">Wonka</a> movie also engages in the type of implicit racism that remains in the revised 1974 version of the novel. The most prominent Black character, a girl named Noodle, played by the talented <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7412362/">Calah Lane</a>, takes a back seat to Wonka in the major events of the film.</p>
<p>The new Wonka almost broke from the tradition of having Wonka played by white men. Early in the new film’s conception, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-glover-willy-wonka-movie-charlie-chocolate-factory-rumor-960382">Newsweek</a> reported that actor, comedian and musician <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Donald-Glover">Donald Glover</a> was under consideration for the lead role, a choice that could have at least begun to force a rewrite of the original novel’s racist narrative. </p>
<p>Instead, the film casts Noodle in the position of an unfortunate Black girl who can only hope for a ride on Wonka’s velvet coattails. </p>
<p>“I know things haven’t been easy for you,” Wonka says in the movie. “They’re going to get better.”</p>
<p>“You promise?” Noodle replies, hopefully, and he does promise, highlighting his role as her white savior. Another character in voice-over agrees: “You could change her life, Mr. Wonka. Change all their lives.” </p>
<p>I was initially hopeful about the prospect of a movie that moves away from the novel’s racist origins, yet still imparts the power of imagination on a new generation. Unfortunately, moviegoers may find themselves having to hold their breath and make a wish, as Gene Wilder <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVi3-PrQ0pY">stated in a song</a> from the 1971 movie, for a version that holds no remnants of its racist past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meisha Lohmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The original storyline for Road Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” contained some stunning parallels to the trans-Atlantic slave trade.Meisha Lohmann, Lecturer in English Literature, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2146262023-12-01T13:38:17Z2023-12-01T13:38:17ZColonized countries rarely ask for redress over past wrongs − the reasons can be complex<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562470/original/file-20231129-20-sljkib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C17%2C3901%2C2404&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indian visitors look at a painting depicting the Amritsar Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/indian-visitors-look-at-a-painting-depicting-the-amritsar-news-photo/120271580?adppopup=true">Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The king of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/01/1185647423/dutch-king-apologizes-for-the-monarchys-role-in-global-slave-trade">apologized in July 2023</a> for his ancestors’ role in the colonial slave trade. </p>
<p>He is not alone in expressing remorse for past wrongs. In 2021, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/style/article/benin-art-returned-scli-intl/index.html#:%7E:text=Twenty%2Dsix%20works%20of%20art,countries%20to%20recover%20looted%20artifacts.">France returned 26 works of art seized by French colonial soldiers</a> in Africa – the largest restitution France has ever made to a former colony. In the same year, Germany officially apologized for its 1904-08 genocide of the Herero and Nama people of Namibia <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/germany-officially-calls-colonial-era-killings-namibia-genocide-2021-05-28/">and agreed to fund reconstruction and development projects in Namibia.</a>.</p>
<p>This is, some political scientists have observed, the “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pPXpiXQ45osC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">age of apology</a>” for past wrongs. Reams of articles, particularly in Western media, are devoted to former colonizer countries and whether they have enacted redress – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/learning/should-museums-return-looted-artifacts-to-their-countries-of-origin.html">returned museum artifacts</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/world/americas/colonial-reparations.html">paid reparations</a> or <a href="https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/12/20/some-european-countries-have-apologised-for-their-colonial-past-is-it-enough">apologized for past wrongs</a>. </p>
<p>Yet this is rarely the result of official requests. In fact, very few former colonies have officially – that is, government to government – pressed perpetrators to redress past injustices. </p>
<p>My analysis found that governments <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiad118">in 78% of such cases</a> have not asked to be compensated for historical acts of injustice against them. As a <a href="https://www.bu.edu/pardeeschool/profile/manjari-chatterjee-miller/">scholar of international relations</a> who has studied the effect of <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=22642">colonialism on the present-day foreign policy of countries affected</a>, I found this puzzling. Why don’t more victim states press for intercountry redress? </p>
<p>The answer lies in the fact that colonial pasts and atoning for injustices are controversial – not just in what were perpetrator countries, but also in their victims. What to ask redress for, from whom and for whom are complicated questions with no easy answers. And there are often divergent narratives within victim countries about how to view past colonial history, further hampering redress. </p>
<h2>Focus on perpetrator country</h2>
<p>There is a disproportionate amount of attention paid to whether perpetrator countries – that is, former colonizers who established extractive and exploitative governments in colony states – offer redress. They are <a href="https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2015/summer/germany-japan-reconciliation/">lauded when they enact redress</a> and <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/japans-apologies-on-comfort-women-not-enough/">shamed when they do not</a>.</p>
<p>The processes pertaining to redress within victim countries – the former colonies – gets less attention. This, I believe, has the effect of making these countries peripheral to a conversation in which they should be central.</p>
<p>This matters – success or failure of redress can <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ia/article-abstract/99/4/1693/7198184">depend on whether victim countries officially push for it</a>.</p>
<p>Take the experiences of two formerly colonized countries that I studied in depth in relation to the question of redress: India and Namibia. </p>
<h2>The Indian experience: Different narratives</h2>
<p>It’s <a href="https://globalchallenges.ch/issue/10/decolonisation-and-international-law/">difficult for a country</a>, particularly a poor developing nation, to take a former colonizer, usually a much richer country, to the International Court of Justice to ask for redress for the entire experience of colonialism. </p>
<p>But most former colonies have never officially asked for some form of redress – be it apology, reparations or restitution, even for specific acts of injustice. </p>
<p>India is an example of the difficulty in building consensus for official redress. Take the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/opinion/1919-amrtisar-british-empire-india.html">Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919</a>, in which British troops killed hundreds of peaceful protesters, including women and children.</p>
<p>The Indian government has never officially <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/india-should-not-ask-britain-to-apologise-for-the-amritsar-massacre/">asked for an apology</a> from the United Kingdom over the incident. </p>
<p>Part of the problem is different groups within India have different narratives about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/29/british-empire-india-amartya-sen">the 200 years of British colonial rule</a>. No one disputes that the Raj was exploitative and violent. But which acts of violence to emphasize? How much responsibility should be assigned to the British? And should any positive attributes of the Raj be highlighted? These are all debated.</p>
<p>Such points of divergence are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiad118">reflected in India’s federal and state-issued history textbooks</a>, according to my analysis.</p>
<p>The bloody <a href="https://theconversation.com/global/topics/india-pakistan-75-125381">Partition of India in 1947</a> and the subsequent creation of Pakistan, for example, are blamed on the British in federal and many state textbooks. But it merits just a small paragraph in Gujarati textbooks, where it is blamed entirely on the Muslim League, the founding party of Pakistan. In the state of Tamil Nadu, Partition is mentioned without any description of either the horrors that followed or where responsibility lay.</p>
<p>Different narratives also appear in the Indian Parliament. When the issue of redress came up in 1997 – the 50th year of Indian independence and just before <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/interactive/immersive/queen_elizabeth_70_years_on_throne/">Queen Elizabeth II visited India</a> – politicians agreed that India’s emergence from what politician Somnath Chatterjee described as “<a href="https://eparlib.nic.in/handle/123456789/430">a strangulating and dehumanizing slavery under a colonial imperialist power</a>” was worth celebrating. But on the issue of whether Elizabeth should apologize for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, there was little agreement. Calls from some politicians for an apology were drowned out by others who jabbed at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, pointing out its allies had <a href="https://eparlib.nic.in/handle/123456789/479">never apologized for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi</a>.</p>
<p>As of this writing, the U.K. has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/10/theresa-may-expresses-regret-for-1919-amritsar-massacre">expressed regret for the massacre</a> but never apologized, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/world/asia/jallianwala-bagh-massacre-india-britain.html">infuriating many Indians</a>.</p>
<h2>The long journey for Namibian redress</h2>
<p>Namibia is an uncommon case of redress where the government has officially pushed for an apology and reparations from its former colonizer, Germany. But even then it was a painful, complex and <a href="https://theconversation.com/genocide-negotiations-between-germany-and-namibia-hit-stumbling-blocks-89697">time-consuming process</a> dogged by many of the themes that have prevented India and others from seeking formal redress.</p>
<p>Between 1884 and 1919, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/namibia-a-timeline-of-germanys-brutal-colonial-history/a-57729985">Namibia was a German colony</a>, with some communities systematically dispossessed of their traditional lands. In 1904, one of these communities, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/herero-revolt-1904-1907">the Herero</a>, rebelled, followed in 1905 by the Nama. In response, German troops slaughtered thousands in a bloodbath that is today <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2022/11/6/reckoning-with-genocide-in-namibia">widely acknowledged to be a genocide</a>. Survivors, including women and children, were herded into horrific concentration camps and subjected to forced labor and medical experiments. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of men stand with chains around their necks" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562474/original/file-20231129-17-m04tz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&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">Captured Herero fighters in 1904.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gefangene-hereros-1904-05identisch-mit-nr-in-lz-8-news-photo/545965213?adppopup=true">Ullstein Bild via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The struggle to hold Germany accountable began decades ago, with individuals from the Herero and Nama communities calling for accountability and reparations. Germany rebuffed them repeatedly, precisely because the Namibian government did not take up their call. Only in 2015, after the Namibian government officially requested redress, did Germany acquiesce.</p>
<p>In May 2021, Germany <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/germany-officially-calls-colonial-era-killings-namibia-genocide-2021-05-28/">finally agreed to recognize the genocide</a>, apologize and establish a fund of US$1.35 billion toward reconstruction and development projects in Herero- and Nama-dominated areas. </p>
<p>Why did it take so long? For the Herero and Nama, the genocide and loss of traditional lands were always forefront. But for others in Namibia – notably, the dominant political party, the South West Africa People’s Organization, or SWAPO, which consists largely of members of the Ovambo ethnic community – uniting Namibians to come together in a national, anti-colonial struggle for independence was <a href="https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article-abstract/26/3/394/575370?redirectedFrom=fulltext">deemed more important</a> than focusing on the wrongs suffered by any one community.</p>
<p>After independence, the ruling SWAPO <a href="https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/762/1/05029.pdf">prioritized nation-building and unity</a> and cultivated ties with the German government, hoping for foreign aid and economic development. Complicating matters, the Ovambo had not lost their own traditional lands to colonialism in the same way as the Herero and Nama.</p>
<p>For years, government-approved school history textbooks used in Namibian schools reflected the SWAPO narrative. One Ovambo former school history teacher told me that Namibian children learned about the “war of national resistance” and how exploitative colonialism had necessitated that war. But the word “genocide” was never used, and there were no mentions of the suffering of affected communities.</p>
<p>Around 2010, Namibian activists, NGO workers and government officials from all communities began to search for common ground to reconcile the different narratives. Some attempts failed. A 2014 museum exhibition on the genocide collapsed after its financier, the Finnish embassy, withdrew funding – allegedly under pressure, one Namibian expert told me, from the German government. But others succeeded. The <a href="https://nan.gov.na/home">National Archives of Namibia</a> launched a project to collect academic papers on divergent narratives of the liberation struggle and colonial history. </p>
<p>As reconciling narratives progressed, history textbooks were revised to honor not just SWAPO’s version of history, but also highlight the brutalities suffered by the Herero and Nama. They included frank discussions of genocide and colonial atrocities. Against this backdrop, the Namibian government officially initiated a request for redress from Germany. Both governments appointed teams to find a resolution, resulting in the 2021 reparation fund.</p>
<p>Redress between countries is rare. Successful redress even more so. But the example of Namibia shows that it can be done when the governments of victim countries initiate redress. By focusing only on perpetrator states, we miss an opportunity to examine their victims as agents of change, and thereby perpetuate redress as an unusual phenomenon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214626/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Manjari Chatterjee Miller is affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations.</span></em></p>Fewer than a quarter of once-colonized countries make official government-to-government requests for an apology or reparations.Manjari Chatterjee Miller, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations/Associate Professor of International Relations, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2179362023-11-27T14:20:53Z2023-11-27T14:20:53ZAfrica’s new online foreign exchange system will enable cross-border payments in local currencies – what you need to know<p><em>The <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/09/Digital-Journeys-Africa-freeing-foreign-exchange-wellisz">high cost</a> of making cross border payments on the African continent has driven governments on the continent to seek options of settling trade and other transactions in local currencies. This has given birth to the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System which was <a href="https://papss.com/events/commercial-launch-event/">formally launched</a> in Accra, Ghana, in January 2022.</em> </p>
<p><em>Development economist <a href="https://www.qeh.ox.ac.uk/people/christopher-adam">Christopher Adam</a>, who has studied the exchange rate policies of African countries, answers some key questions.</em></p>
<h2>Why are African countries exposed in the international currency market?</h2>
<p>Three main reasons. First, African economies are small and as such are highly dependent on trade with the rest of the world. Their exports are dominated by <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/commodities-vs-technology-in-africa-the-continents-needs-to-diversify-says-un/a-62465164">primary commodities</a> including oil and gas, minerals and cash crop agriculture. On the import side, they purchase <a href="https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/SSF/Year/2021/Summary">a whole range of goods</a> – from essential commodities not produced at home such as <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/09/26/africa-food-prices-are-soaring-amid-high-import-reliance">food</a>, <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/september-2020/how-africa-can-manufacture-meet-its-own-pharmaceutical-needs">drugs and medicines</a>, to <a href="https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/SSF/Year/2017/TradeFlow/Import/Partner/All/Product/UNCTAD-SoP4">capital goods</a> and <a href="https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/SSF/Year/LTST/TradeFlow/Import/Partner/by-country/Product/27-27_Fuels">energy</a>. A large proportion of these are sourced from <a href="https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Publications/REO/AFR/2023/October/English/china-note1.ashx#:%7E:text=Metals%2C%20mineral%20products%2C%20and%20fuel,supplying%20manufactured%20goods%20and%20machinery.">China</a> and other major economies of the global north. But because African countries are small relative to their trading partners they rarely have the power to determine the prices of imports and exports. They are “price takers” in world markets. And with world prices being set in the major reserve currencies of the world (the US dollar, euro, yen and renminbi), African countries are exposed to movements in these world prices.</p>
<p>Second, “intra-African” trade is still a relatively small proportion of the total trade of African countries. </p>
<p>Finally, since African countries’ currencies mostly can’t be directly exchanged in international transactions, the dollar remains the most widely used currency in trade, even between African countries.</p>
<h2>What’s required for the system to get off the ground?</h2>
<p>The basic idea of the system is to be able to settle trade between African countries without having to use the US dollar. </p>
<p>There are two major challenges with that. First, intra-African trade accounts for <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/january-2023/africa%E2%80%99s-free-trade-track-more-efforts-needed#:%7E:text=lies%20ahead%2C%20though.-,Presently%2C%20intra%20Africa%20trade%20stands%20low%20at%20just%2014.4%25%20of,day%2C%20according%20to%20UNCTAD">less than 15%</a> of Africa’s exports at present (although supporters of the African Continental Free Trade Area expect this to grow significantly over the coming decades). The African payment system therefore does not eliminate the role of the dollar (or other foreign currencies) in trade settlement entirely. </p>
<p>The second issue is that <a href="https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/webaldc2016d2_en.pdf">trade</a> is not balanced between African countries. For example, Kenya exports goods of higher total value to Ethiopia than it imports from Ethiopia. If Ethiopia paid in its own currency, Kenya would end up with Ethiopian currency that it didn’t need. Some form of settlement currency that is acceptable to all is required – most likely the US dollar.</p>
<h2>What are the challenges and potential risks?</h2>
<p>Since trade rarely occurs instantaneously, some institution in the trade financing chain carries the exchange rate risk. Because of the gap between placing an order for imports and receiving them to sell in the local economy, there is a risk that the value of local currency will change relative to the currency in which the import is denominated. </p>
<p>In the “old” system, this risk is borne by the trader because everything is priced in dollars. The local currency value of the income from exports or the local currency cost of imports will change with movements between the local currency and the dollar, but the banks and those counterparts pricing in the dollar are protected. </p>
<p>Under the new system the same allocation of risk will remain in “external trade”. This currency risk is also present for intra-African trade. </p>
<p>An important question for the new African payment system is: who bears the exchange risk if one African currency depreciates relative to another? Should the importer carry the risk, or the exporter? Can and should the African payment system bear this risk of exchange rate movements itself? Where both currencies are volatile, traders might still prefer the relative stability of settlement through the US dollar.</p>
<p>The success of this system also depends on scale. The more trade settlement is routed through it, the easier it will be to settle in local currencies. Large currency imbalances will be less common. But until the system achieves this scale, the African payment system will need a strong balance sheet so that traders and participants can have confidence that settlement will be swift and risk free. It is unclear at the moment how this is to be achieved.</p>
<h2>What is the best case scenario?</h2>
<p>If the system can address the trade imbalance problem, provide clarity on risk management and reach scale, it could be very successful. But this is all going to be driven by underlying economic performance. Improved settlement will help but what is really driving this is the structure of trade. The more the economies of Africa can develop intra-African trade and the less dependent they are on extra-African trade, the less will be dollar dependence in trade. This growth in trade depends to some degree on trade settlement and trade financing but much more on production, consumption, trade policy and fiscal policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217936/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Adam 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 system’s promoters must figure out how to compensate the African countries that run trade surpluses.Christopher Adam, Professor of Development Economics, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2176892023-11-20T14:35:51Z2023-11-20T14:35:51ZAntibiotic resistance causes more deaths than malaria and HIV/Aids combined. What Africa is doing to fight this silent epidemic<p><em>Each year <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance">antimicrobial resistance</a> – the ability of microbes to survive agents designed to kill them – claims more lives than malaria and HIV/Aids combined. Africa bears the brunt of this development, which thrives on inequality and poverty. Nadine Dreyer asked Tom Nyirenda, a research scientist with over 27 years’ experience in infectious diseases, what health organisations on the continent are doing to fight this threat to medical progress.</em></p>
<h2>What is antimicrobial resistance?</h2>
<p>Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines (including antibiotics). This makes infections harder to treat and increases the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death. </p>
<p>In Africa, drug resistance is already a documented problem for <a href="https://africacdc.org/document-tag/amr/#:%7E:text=In%20Africa%2C%20AMR%20has%20already,%2C%20meningitis%2C%20gonorrhoea%20and%20dysentery.">HIV, malaria, tuberculosis (TB), typhoid, cholera, meningitis, gonorrhoea and dysentery</a>.</p>
<h2>How big a problem is antimicrobial resistance?</h2>
<p>It is one of the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10317217/#:%7E:text=Antimicrobial%20resistance%20(AMR)%20has%20been,threats%20facing%20humanity%20%5B1%5D.">top 10</a> global public health threats, and threatens to undermine years of medical progress.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/antibiotic-resistance-microbiologists-turn-to-new-technologies-in-the-hunt-for-solutions-podcast-217615">Antibiotic resistance: microbiologists turn to new technologies in the hunt for solutions – podcast</a>
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<p>Nearly <a href="https://www.tropicalmedicine.ox.ac.uk/news/global-burden-of-bacterial-antimicrobial-resistance">5 million deaths</a> were associated with antimicrobial resistance in 2019. </p>
<p>The African continent bears the heaviest burden. </p>
<p>The first <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02724-0/fulltext">comprehensive assessment</a> of the global burden of antimicrobial resistance has estimated that in 2019 over 27 deaths per 100,000 were directly attributable to it in Africa. Over 114 deaths per 100,000 were associated with it. </p>
<p>In high-income countries, antimicrobial resistance led directly to 13 deaths per 100,000. It was associated with 56 deaths per 100,000 people.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02724-0/fulltext">study</a> showed that young children were particularly at risk. Half of the deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in 2019 were among children under the age of 5.</p>
<h2>How do inequality and poverty come into it?</h2>
<p>In many African countries, poverty and inequality propel the likelihood of antimicrobial resistance.</p>
<p>Access to clean running water, proper sanitation and safe water management is a big challenge in many hospitals and clinics in African countries. </p>
<p>And there is often a dire shortage of health workers. Wards are often overcrowded. As a result, infections spread faster. Some of these infections are resistant to antibiotics. </p>
<p>Inappropriate use of antibiotics, inadequate health resources and limited access to the right medicines has also fuelled antibiotic resistance in sub-Saharan Africa. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14787210.2023.2259106">Substandard and falsified</a> medicines, due to their inferior doses, can allow bacteria to adapt, persist, develop and spread. Studies show that the African continent is affected by such medical products. </p>
<p>Global antibiotic shortages also encourage the use of inferior medicines.</p>
<p>With weak regulation, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14787210.2023.2259106">over-the-counter</a> prescription of antibiotics is highly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. The highest rates of over-the-counter antibiotics have been found in Eritrea (up to 89.2%), Ethiopia (up to 87.9%), Nigeria (up to 86.5%) and Tanzania (up to 92.3%). In Zambia up to 100% of pharmacies dispensed antibiotics without a prescription. </p>
<h2>Is there any good news?</h2>
<p>While tackling antimicrobial resistance on the African continent may be tougher than in other regions, many deaths are preventable. </p>
<p>There have been some encouraging moves to protect health systems and communities against antimicrobial resistance.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The African Union has established the <a href="https://africacdc.org/download/african-union-framework-for-antimicrobial-resistance-control-2020-2025/">African Union Framework for Antimicrobial Resistance Control</a>. It aims to strengthen research; advocate for policies, laws and good governance; enhance awareness; and engage civil society organisations.</p></li>
<li><p>Fighting antimicrobial resistance involves developing new antibiotics and making sure they reach the people who need them. This is what organisations like the <a href="https://gardp.org/">Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership</a> were created to do. We are seeing encouraging progress for an antibiotic against drug-resistant gonorrhoea, a <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/22-06-2023-who-outlines-40-research-priorities-on-antimicrobial-resistance">high priority pathogen</a>. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Six South African sites were involved in the clinical trial.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Measuring and monitoring antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial use has an essential role. Here too there’s progress. The <a href="https://africacdc.org/download/mapping-antimicrobial-resistance-and-antimicrobial-use-partnership-maap-country-reports/">Mapping AMR and AMU Partnership</a> consortium has recently published 14 new country reports on the situation across Africa. </p></li>
<li><p>The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials <a href="https://www.edctp.org/">Partnership</a> is funding clinical research for medical tools to detect, treat and prevent poverty-related infectious diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. The vital field of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK531478/#:%7E:text=Neonatal%20sepsis%20refers%20to%20an,middle%20and%20lower%2Dincome%20countries">neonatal sepsis</a> is included.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s crucial to shift attitudes towards antibiotics so that they are used wisely. Organisations such as <a href="https://www.reactgroup.org/news-and-views/news-and-opinions/2023-2/react-africa-conference-2023/">ReAct Africa and the South Centre</a> have made good progress on this front. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>They advocate for responsible use of antibiotics as well as ways to prevent and control bacterial infections. </p>
<p>In Kenya and other African countries, antimicrobial resistance champions raise awareness in schools, universities, clinics and communities. </p>
<ol>
<li>A bold <a href="https://www.afro.who.int/regional-director/speeches-messages/strategic-imperative-boosting-local-pharmaceutical-production">move</a> by African countries to establish and expand local manufacturing of medical products requires strict regulation so that it does not fuel drug resistance with sub-standard or fake products. </li>
</ol>
<h2>What does the future hold?</h2>
<p>The antimicrobial resistance challenges in African countries are huge. But momentum to counter it is building. </p>
<p>Crucial steps include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>greater investment</p></li>
<li><p>expansion of infection, prevention and control programmes, including good clinical prescription practices</p></li>
<li><p>improving access to essential antibiotics and diagnostic tools</p></li>
<li><p>the development of new antibiotics that can treat infections that are multi-drug resistant. </p></li>
</ul>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-we-still-have-antibiotics-in-50-years-we-asked-7-global-experts-214950">Will we still have antibiotics in 50 years? We asked 7 global experts</a>
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<p><em>This article is part of a media partnership between The Conversation Africa and the 2023 Conference on Public Health in Africa. The author acknowledges valuable input from Carol Rufell of the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership Africa.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Nyirenda 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>Africa bears the heaviest burden of antimicrobial resistance, a phenomenon fuelled largely by poverty, But there are encouraging signs that the continent is taking action to fight it.Tom Nyirenda, Extraordinary Senior Lecture in the Department of Global Health, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2173052023-11-16T14:46:31Z2023-11-16T14:46:31ZThere are too few toilets in Africa and it’s a public health hazard – how to fix the problem<p>Imagine you are miles from the nearest restroom, and nature’s call is urgent – a situation that might raise a mild panic during a hike or at a music festival. Now, picture that same scenario, not as a one-off inconvenience, but as a daily reality. This is the case for about <a href="https://tropmedhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41182-022-00416-5">half a billion</a> people globally. </p>
<p>In African countries, the issue of open defecation often goes unaddressed by society and policymakers despite its negative impact on health, economic development, dignity and the environment. </p>
<p>Led from Queen’s University Belfast, a team of multidisciplinary researchers aimed to evaluate how prevalent the practice is in African countries and which social factors are driving it. We also aimed to establish which communities were in most urgent need of interventions. </p>
<p>We used demographic and health surveys, alongside World Bank data. In a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10668-023-03992-6">recent paper</a> we set out our findings. </p>
<p>Our main ones were that in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso and Chad, a large number of people engaged in open defecation. </p>
<p>We found that as few as ten countries could account for 247 million Africans defecating in the open by 2030 if critical and emergency actions are not taken.</p>
<p>The biggest driver is lack of access to proper sanitation facilities. The poorest individuals, particularly in rural areas, are more likely to resort to open defecation than people in urban areas. In regions with the most critical need, the poorest are 43 times more likely than the wealthy to resort to open toileting. </p>
<p>We recommend tackling poverty, and intervening in regions and communities that urgently need improved sanitation infrastructure and programmes. West Africa needs special attention since many of its communities are in the critical category.</p>
<h2>A systematic approach</h2>
<p>Sanitation has far-reaching implications for food safety. Contaminated water sources and unsanitary conditions can spread waterborne diseases, which can contaminate food and put millions at risk. Addressing open defecation is a step in ensuring the safety and hygiene of the food chain.</p>
<p>The link between poor sanitation and health is well <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/sanitation">documented</a>. But our study casts this relationship in a new, alarming light: the likely role of open defecation in antimicrobial resistance. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/antimicrobial-resistance">Antimicrobial resistance</a> is the ability of microbes, such as bacteria, viruses and fungi, to resist the effects of medications that were once used effectively against them. It is a looming crisis, threatening to make antibiotics ineffective. Common infections could once again become deadly. </p>
<p>Our research suggests a probable link between open defecation and antimicrobial resistance. When people defecate outdoors, resistant bacteria from human waste can contaminate water and food. This <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taad069">often leads</a> to faecal-oral diseases and urinary tract infections.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gutter-to-gut-how-antimicrobial-resistant-microbes-journey-from-environment-to-humans-189446">Gutter to gut: How antimicrobial-resistant microbes journey from environment to humans</a>
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<p>However, there is a need for more research to clarify the relationship, its implications and prevention. A clear recommendation from our research is that data about antimicrobial resistance should be integrated into health surveys.</p>
<p>While the full breadth of the study’s findings is huge, its conclusions are clear: open defecation is a challenge in Africa that requires actions. Our research doesn’t just ring the alarm bell; it provides a blueprint for change, identifying specific regions where the practice is most prevalent and where interventions could have the greatest impact.</p>
<h2>What needs to be done</h2>
<p>Addressing open defecation across a continent as vast and diverse as Africa is no small feat. We made a number of recommendations in the study.</p>
<p><strong>A pragmatic three-tier priority system</strong> </p>
<p>This will categorise regions based on the urgency of need for intervention: critical, high, and medium. Regions marked as critical are those with the highest prevalence of open defecation (more than 80% of the population) and the least access to sanitation facilities. These areas need immediate attention with the deployment of resources and sanitation infrastructure. The high priority regions have some access to sanitation. Here, the strategy is a combination of infrastructure development and community education. For medium priority areas (40%-59%), where some sanitation infrastructure may exist, the focus should be on sustainable practices, behavioural change and maintenance of existing facilities.</p>
<p>The system above is just to cut the high rates and inequalities among communities in a country. There is also a lot to do in communities with an open defecation rate of less than 40%. The goal is to reinforce positive behaviour and ensure facilities are maintained and improved. </p>
<p>Policy support, such as incentives for building private toilets or community sanitation blocks, may also help. This tiered strategy hinges on continuous assessment and reallocation of resources. Interventions should respond to the changing landscape as regions improve or decline. </p>
<p><strong>Support sanitation projects and policies</strong></p>
<p>Advocacy is important to increase awareness and donations to organisations that build toilets and provide sanitation programmes in affected areas. </p>
<p><strong>Educate and spread awareness</strong></p>
<p>Learning about the cultural and socio-economic factors that contribute to this practice must be encouraged and the knowledge shared with others. Campaigns that focus on the importance of sanitation for health and the environment are key.</p>
<p><strong>Encourage sustainable sanitation practices</strong></p>
<p>This includes using toilets properly, not littering, and understanding local challenges. The use of compostable toilets and other sustainable waste management practices where traditional toilets are not feasible must be encouraged.</p>
<p><strong>Foster global partnerships for sanitation</strong></p>
<p>Global partnerships can amplify efforts to end open defecation. Collaborations between governments, NGOs, private sector stakeholders and international organisations must be encouraged. Pooling resources and sharing knowledge can lead to more effective and sustainable solutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217305/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>The struggle with open defecation is a silent emergency, undermining the continent’s efforts towards sustainable development goals.Omololu Fagunwa, Research Fellow, Queen's University BelfastHelen Onyeaka, Associate Professor, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164502023-11-15T14:30:06Z2023-11-15T14:30:06ZHealth risks at home: a study in six African countries shows how healthy housing saves children’s lives<p>Housing is a critical social determinant of health. The World Health Organization (WHO) <a href="https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/276001/9789241550376-eng.pdf?sequence=22">defines healthy housing</a> as a shelter that supports physical, mental and social wellbeing. </p>
<p>The WHO has developed <a href="https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/276001/9789241550376-eng.pdf?sequence=1">guidelines</a> outlining the attributes of healthy housing. These include structural soundness, as well as access to a local community that enables social interactions. Healthy housing protects inhabitants from the effects of disasters, pollution, waste and extreme heat or cold. It provides a feeling of home, including a sense of belonging, security and privacy. </p>
<p>Health risks in the home environment are important to think about because of the amount of time people spend there. In countries where unemployment levels are high or where most work is home based, people spend <a href="https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/276001/9789241550376-eng.pdf?sequence=23">more than 70% of their time indoors</a>. Children especially spend a large amount of time at home, which exposes them to any health risks in the home environment.</p>
<p>We are researchers from the African Population and Health Research Center with an interest in urbanisation and population dynamics. We recently set out to <a href="https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-023-03992-5">study the link between housing and children’s health</a>. We found that healthy housing generally lowered the chances of children falling ill with three diseases that we tracked: diarrhoea, acute respiratory illnesses and fever. </p>
<p>The impacts of housing quality extend beyond health and can have significant implications for education and subsequent economic outcomes, particularly for children. </p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-rapid-urbanization-in-africa-reduce-poverty-causes-opportunities-and-policy-recommendations/">Rapid urbanisation and population growth</a> in Africa have pushed many people into informal settlements. Sub-Saharan Africa has <a href="https://blogs.afdb.org/fr/inclusive-growth/urbanization-africa-191">65%</a> of the world’s slum dwellers. This population generally lives in poor housing that lacks access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene services. The structures are overcrowded. They tend to have leaking roofs and damp walls, floors and foundations. They may also have indoor pollution, compromising the health of millions of people.</p>
<p>We set out to <a href="https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-023-03992-5">evaluate</a> the relationship between healthy housing and the likelihood of children falling sick across six African countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.</p>
<p>We studied the incidence of diarrhoea, acute respiratory illness and fever among children under the age of five. These three conditions can have severe consequences for child health and wellbeing. </p>
<p>Diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections are <a href="https://academic.oup.com/inthealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/inthealth/ihad046/7210800">leading causes</a> of disease and deaths in children aged below five worldwide. Diarrhoea accounted for <a href="https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-health/diarrhoeal-disease/">9%</a> of all deaths among children under five in 2019. Acute respiratory illnesses caused about <a href="https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/3147">20%</a> of deaths among children in this age group. The burden of under-five deaths linked to diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses like pneumonia is <a href="https://childmortality.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/UN-IGME-Child-Mortality-Report-2022.pdf#page=4">higher</a> for children in developing countries than those in developed regions. </p>
<p>We selected the six countries in our study because they provided data on the three diseases we tracked. They also allow for a comparative analysis across African countries. Our study used the latest available demographic and health survey data at the time of our research: Burkina Faso (2010), Cameroon (2011), Ghana (2014), Kenya (2014), Nigeria (2018) and South Africa (2016). We sampled data on 91,096 children aged under five.</p>
<h2>The findings</h2>
<p>Our study found that healthy housing was <a href="https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-023-03992-5/tables/2">generally associated with reduced odds</a> of contracting the three illnesses we considered: diarrhoea, acute respiratory illness and fever. Our definition of healthy housing considered several attributes, including sanitation, drinking water sources and housing characteristics. </p>
<p>Homes that protect occupants from the elements, ensure access to adequate space and reduce overcrowding help keep children healthy. Homes that use cleaner cooking and lighting fuels reduce household air pollution, which leads to lower chances of respiratory infections.</p>
<p>Children living in healthy housing had fewer incidences of fever in all countries apart from South Africa. Here, children living in the healthiest homes are twice as likely to have fever than those living in unhealthy homes.</p>
<p>Fever is an indication of an underlying infection that could be viral or bacterial. Such infections are common in South Africa. In addition, the main causes of fevers among children under five are <a href="https://www.hindawi.com/journals/grp/2023/1906782/">diarrhoea and acute respiratory illnesses</a>. Among the countries included in the analysis, South Africa had the highest proportion of young mothers (aged below 25) and never-married mothers. This increases the chances that these mothers are engaged in work outside the home, leading to the early introduction of complementary feeding. This has been shown to increase the incidence of diarrhoea. These results call for addressing the causes of diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses by, for instance, ensuring South African homes have access to clean drinking water, adequate sanitation and clean energy for cooking.</p>
<p>While healthy housing is crucial, it’s not the sole determinant of a child’s health. Other factors, such as a sense of community, environmental exposure, parental education, income levels, healthcare access, and maternal and child-level factors <a href="https://bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-023-03992-5/tables/3">also contribute to the overall health status of children</a>. For instance, we found that children in Burkina Faso who were not breastfed had higher chances of getting diarrhoea than those who were breastfed despite the condition of their housing. This tracks with studies that have documented that breastfeeding has a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2023.1086999">protective role</a> over gastrointestinal and respiratory tract infections among children. </p>
<h2>What next</h2>
<p>From our findings, parents can improve the wellbeing of their children by implementing simple strategies. This includes ensuring they use clean energy for cooking to reduce indoor air pollution and consequently reduce the incidence of acute respiratory illnesses. Similarly, using clean drinking water, hand washing and improving sanitation can help reduce cases of diarrhoea. </p>
<p>Bold but nuanced policy and programme government-level interventions can also help address the incidence of diseases affecting children under five in Africa. This requires efforts that go beyond just addressing the issue of housing to working with complementary sectors, like health, urban planning, environment and education.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216450/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hellen Gitau received funding from Wellcome Trust for this Complex Urban System for Sustainability and Health study. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blessing Mberu received funding from Wellcome Trust for this Complex Urban System for Sustainability and Health study. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kanyiva Muindi received funding from Wellcome Trust for this Complex Urban System for Sustainability and Health study. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Iddi received funding from Wellcome Trust for this Complex Urban System for Sustainability and Health study.</span></em></p>The impact of housing quality extends beyond health to education and subsequent economic outcomes, particularly for children.Hellen Gitau, Research officer, African Population and Health Research CenterBlessing Mberu, Head of Urbanisation and Wellbeing, African Population and Health Research Center, African Population and Health Research CenterKanyiva Muindi, Associate Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research CenterSamuel Iddi, Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research CenterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.