This Week in Africa
July 29, 2022
It was great to be reunited with Phil. We had fun discussing all the progress we have made on the newsletter in 6+ years. Here is the Week in Africa:
Quote of the week
“Our priority is not to save the planet.” –Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, DR Congo’s lead representative on climate issues
Kenya’s election
The election is nearing, and this is what is at stake. The Conversation has a lot of great articles to get up to speed. William Ruto debated himself at the latest debate. Nico Mende previews campaign posters across the country. Narrelle Gilchrist, Amanda Edgell, and Sebastian Elischer explain the ethnic politics trap. Corruption does not stop politicians from running for office. Mercy Corps says hate speech is spreading in the led up to the polls. Ethnic politics is playing a lesser role in the elections this time around. Is this election really about anything?
Russia and Africa
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov tours Africa to rally support. They is why they are on a charm offensive. These are five essential reads on China-Russia relations. Mvemba Dizolele testifies before Congress on Russia’s influence in Africa.
Ghana’s economic challenges
Learn more about Ghana’s economic challenges. Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta wants to reintroduce road tolls. This is how costly political challenges threaten electrification. Howard French explains how Ghana’s “success” exposes the West’s toxic development model.
Governing South Africa
The UN warns that South Africa is “on the precipice of explosive xenophobic violence.” The ANC will reconsider its immigration laws in its upcoming conference. Does South Africa face an "Arab Spring"? What does it have to do with Marikana?
Anti-UN protests in Goma
At least 15 people, including 3 UN peacekeepers, are dead in anti-UN protests in Goma, DR Congo. Protesters are demanding that the UN peacekeeping force leave the country. Elites are to blame for the violence. This is how intertwined conflicts destabilize the country. A rights group alleges that Burundi secretly sent troops to DR Congo.
Security and instability
Michael Shurkin explains how to strengthen Sahelian counterinsurgency strategy. Some thoughts on the stigmatization and violence that Fulani face in northern Ghana. The US is questioning Rwanda’s role in violence in DR Congo. Ethiopia kills 85 Al Shabaab fighters near Somalia. Jules Duhamel provides this helpful visualization of recent coordinated attacks in Mali.
Challenges of democratization
King Mswati should heed the advice of his great-grandmother’s support of a free press. In Nigeria, Labour Party’s Peter Obi is electrifying young voters. This is all you need to know about Liberia’s dual citizenship law. Here are some insights into halting the kleptocratic capture of local governments in Nigeria.
Here are some good Afrobarometer graphics into the state of democracy on the continent. I love its new website. And watch the release of Round 9 of the survey.
Struggle for rights and freedom
The Seychelles recently overtook Namibia as Africa’s press freedom leader. Tanzania’s is reliving Kenya’s mistakes in dealing with the Maasai. Take an inside look at the corruption and lies within a refugee agency in Uganda. Ex-Burkina President Blaise Compaore apologizes to Thomas Sankara’s family. Angola’s Eduardo dos Santos was a divisive figure in life and in death. Check out this new video investigation about justice for victims of extra-judicial killings. Read Meta’s first annual human rights report.
Do the rock-cut churches of Lalibela make up Africa’s new Jerusalem? Will Sierra Leone become the latest African nation to expand abortion rights? And Women are leading a feminist revolution in Ghana.
Africa’s rapid urbanization
Check out Susan Parnell’s chapter on SDG localization in African cities. Uber and Africa. This article spatially models inequalities of environmental noise in Accra, Ghana. This paper examines urban-rural geographies of political violence in North and West Africa. This is what the ACRC learned at their first gathering in Nairobi. Occupiers in Ekurhuleni threaten violence and bloodshed if evicted from homes. Free trade zones need investments for them to help urban Africa. Rwanda converts degraded urban wetland into eco-tourism park. Johannesburg is going after its informal traders. What will it take for monthly rent payment to work in Nigeria? Is Nairobi becoming a concrete jungle?
This looks good: Contested Sustainability: The Political Ecology of Conservation and Development in Tanzania. Green spaces can play an important role in cities’ resilience to climate change.
Research corner
This is an interesting article about land formalization in Tanzania. Check out David Myer Temin’s article “Development in Decolonization: Walter Rodney, Third World Developmentalism, and “Decolonizing Political Theory’” (summary thread here). Check out these high resolution poverty maps of Africa. Learn more about the expansion of Christian missions in Africa. This article examines useful consumption. Check out these inspiring publications on social movements. Does gridded population sampling work?
What a trio for this triple book party! Delivery as Dispossession, A Man Among Other Men, and Fractured Militancy. Zainab Usman discusses her book Economic Diversification in Nigeria on the Into Africa podcast. “Taking note of violence” reviews Lee Ann Fujii’s book Show Time: The Logic and Power of Violent Display. Check out Itamar Dubinsky’s Entrepreneurial Goals: Development and Africapitalism in Ghanaian Soccer Academies. Daniel Agbiboa talks about his book They Eat Our Sweat: Transport Labor, Corruption, and Everyday Survival in Nigeria. I am here for it: Amartya Sen’s memoir Home in the World. Get your copy of Everyday State and Democracy in Africa: Ethnographic Encounters. Queer and Trans African Mobilities is out. This looks great: Migration, Crisis and Temporality at the Zimbabwe-South Africa Border: Governing Immobilities. Wish I could have been at the Patchwork Leviathan book launch!
Paul Musgrave has a one-stop shop for information on journals in international relations and political science. Sign up for Josef Woldense’s “Job Talk as Storytelling” Workshop. Congrats to the new USIP Peace Fellows!
The week in development
This is what the UK aid cut means for one South Sudan hospital. Schools can be a great resource for mental health in South Africa. The Belt and Road Initiative in Africa. USAID provides $476 million in urgent food aid to Somalia. Samantha Power explains the situation. Kiswahili will be compulsory in Uganda’s primary and secondary schools. Migration and the multiverse. Learn more about the role of impact evaluation in global development. This is a cool terrain map of the journey from Marsabit to Nairobi. Can Ethiopia’s textile industry get back on track? How do Africans view China’s influence?
Africa and the environment
DR Congo will begin auctioning off vast amounts of land to oil companies, which could have huge implications for the environment and climate change. Gabon has a potential solution: carbon credits. This article maps peat thickness in the Congo Basin. This is a fascinating article about climate debt. Alex Thurston provides a roundup of the floods in the Sahel. Climate and collectors are blamed for South Africa’s decline in succulents. Climate change is drowning the West African coastline. Hunger is still rising across East Africa. And this is why blackouts are crippling South Africa.
African Politics Conference Group
APCG’s Online Colloquium is now accepting applications for papers to workshop in Sepember, October, November, and December 2022. Please apply by August 8, 2022 here.
Daily life
What does France’s endorsement mean for writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr? All hail Sadio Mane. I am very sorry to have missed the Ghana Studies Association conference in Tamale, where participants visited Ibrahim Mahama’s incredible studio gallery. Testosterone testing provides new challenges for women’s AFCON. Racing and fun in Senegal.
All the best,
Jeff and Phil