Power for refugees: Electricity Audio bhorton.drupal 16 May 2022

A new podcast special explores an often-overlooked aspect of humanitarian assistance: access to energy.

From Afghanistan to Ukraine to Sudan - the world is grappling with the consequences that emerge when people are forced to flee from their homes. One factor that does not usually make the headlines is that many people displaced by conflict or natural disasters lack access to the energy services that are necessary for forging dignified lives and livelihoods. 

This first episode of a two-part Undercurrents special examines efforts to electrify refugee settlements in Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda, shedding light on what has worked and what has not. Approximately 94% of forcibly displaced people living in these settlements do not have access to electricity to heat or cool hospitals, schools and dwellings, or to light streets.

Since 2015, Chatham House has been researching this issue and convening dialogues to spur action by humanitarians, energy companies and others. Our seminal Heat, Light and Power report provided the first ever comprehensive assessment of access to energy in refugee camps and urban areas with high numbers of refugees.

This two-part podcast is part of the Renewable Energy for Refugees project. Led by Practical Action, the project provides access to affordable and sustainable sources of renewable energy, and improves the health, wellbeing and security of refugees and neighbouring communities.

Towards just transition in Africa: Green financing for urban energy solutions and job creation 9 June 2022 — 7:30AM TO 11:00AM Anonymous (not verified) 18 May 2022 Nairobi and online

This event explores the major openings and potential impediments to the development of a just transition policy in Africa.

Global climate policies towards a ‘just transition’ under the Paris Agreement should also align with and support African states’ national sustainable development priorities. In particular, the need for decent and fair job creation and the establishment of sufficient, resilient and sustainable power supply, accessible to all, and efficient energy use.

Achieving green growth requires innovative and more accessible financing models, especially as wealthy nations’ financial pledges have fallen short. Ahead of the ‘African COP27’ set to take place in Egypt in November 2022, there is a need for transformational strategic thinking and context-specific action from African governments, civil society, businesses and financiers in their green financing demands and national implementation plans.

Sustainable urban energy solutions represent a critical zone of opportunity for the development of new and more reliable green finance pathways. Africa’s rapidly expanding cities present a significant economic opportunity and source of growth. However, urban centres are also where income and energy inequalities are at their starkest. The acceleration of sustainable energy generation and use could have a transformative impact on SMEs and livelihoods across value chains.

At this event, participants will discuss the major openings and potential impediments to the development of a credible ‘just transition’ policy in Africa towards net zero goals, with a particular focus on establishing and enhancing links between green financing innovation, employment creation, sustainable power supply and generation, and sustainable energy usage and consumption in an urban environment.

This event is held in partnership with the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA). It is part of a series on Towards Just Transition: Connecting Green Financing and Sustainable Job Creation in Africa, supported by the Chatham House Sustainability Accelerator.

This event will be held in English and French with simultaneous interpretation.

Climate migration: Ways ahead from the next generation The World Today rsoppelsa.drupal 25 May 2022

Ella Dennis and Mike Higgins talk to young activists seeking solutions as global warming wreaks havoc in sub-Saharan Africa

Africa has the lowest carbon emissions per capita yet the highest rate of temperature increase in the world. Rising levels of desertification, drought and flooding are already forcing millions of Africans to relocate to find more stable livelihoods. 

The continent’s youth will bear the brunt of this climate migration problem. It is estimated that by 2050, Africa will be home to 86 million internal climate migrants.

How is climate migration already affecting sub-Saharan Africa and what frameworks could tackle it? To begin to answer those questions, five young activists from across the region, who are members of Chatham House’s Common Futures Conversations, took part in a panel discussion at the world’s first youth-led Conference on Climate Migration, convened in April by the Alliance for Citizen Engagement, a nonpartisan think tank based in the US. 

The conversation and follow-up discussions focused on a common problem – climate migration brings people into conflict and puts pressure on infrastructure. 

In Kenya, droughts have left 3.5 million people hungry and the chronic flooding of several lakes in the Rift Valley has displaced hundreds of thousands, said Gerald Muchiri, 29, a social scientist from Kenya. One result has been outbreaks of violence between pastoralists such as the Orma people and the farmers of the Pokomo community, said Laura Mukhwana, 33, a PhD student in Kenya. She believes this violence is likely to worsen. ‘Inter-group conflicts will pose even larger security concerns for surrounding communities as climate migration intensifies,’ she said.

Suleman Nuhu, 24, a farmer and veterinary student from Nigeria, said farmer-herder conflicts were his country’s most significant climate-migration issue. The movement of nomadic tribes from the north had affected him personally: ‘Nomads have trespassed on [my family’s] farms many times while moving with their livestock, destroying our crops.’ 

Changes in climate also force people to move from rural to urban areas. Nigeria, for instance, struggles with the so-called ‘Lagos problem’, said Temiloluwa Lawal, 25, a lawyer and researcher from Nigeria. An estimated 22 million people, a number that is rising fast, are crammed into a city smaller than Greater London. While not on the same scale, Zimbabwe experiences comparable challenges, said Tinotenda Dube, 29, a Zimbabwean finance director. Thanks to drought, unemployed rural migrants arriving in cities ‘put excessive pressure on service delivery against a low tax base,’ he said. ‘People, including close family members of mine, are crowded in dilapidated homes because they cannot afford to pay rent for decent housing.’ 

But there is hope, say the activists. Dube believes that affordable housing is an ‘integral component of [tackling] the climate migration crisis’. 

In Zimbabwe, he has developed a low-cost home finance model that, he said, has helped more than 250 low-income households find good-quality accommodation. Alongside this initiative, Dube has co-founded a property and construction company, Solinfra Zimbabwe Private Ltd, to provide low-cost housing. 

Muchiri is taking action in Kenya, founding an NGO called Social Assistance Welfare to tackle public health issues, he said: ‘As climate migration becomes more intense, I expect preventable health issues to increase throughout the region, and thus see Social Assistance Welfare as an important mitigation.’

In Nigeria, Nuhu noted that to help reduce conflict between farmers and herders social-media campaigns are encouraging pastoralists to move from nomadic livestock farming to more efficient intensive systems, using ranching and grazing reserves. ‘As for food security problems, the best mitigation is to reduce reliance on rain-fed agriculture through irrigation schemes,’ he said. 

All five agreed that, in their experience, the youth of sub-Saharan Africa could be better informed about climate migration. But they took encouragement from the fact the young are passionate about tackling issues arising from the broader climate crisis. 

In Kenya, Mukhwana pointed to successful youth projects around agro-forestry and tree-planting. She added that there is ‘a growing movement of urban youth who are advocating for climate justice, such as the Kenyan Youth Environmental Network and Fridays for the Future Kenya’. It was pleasing too, she said, that when the Kenyan government revised its contributions to the Paris Climate Accords it staged a week-long youth conference to include their opinions.

‘Overall, I am quite hopeful about how the youth are mobilizing themselves in Kenya,’ she added.

Find out more about Chatham House’s Common Futures Conversations
 

Why Ethiopia must close its political gender gap The World Today mhiggins.drupal 29 July 2022

Women urgently need to gain access to high office if the country hopes to survive, say Hilina Berhanu Degefa and Emebet Getachew.

At the end of 2021, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government announced the formation of a three-year national dialogue to address Ethiopia’s political crisis, looking at the ongoing civil war and conflict, inflation, unemployment, drought and other urgent domestic issues. 

But, while efforts have been made to ensure the participation of women in this dialogue, it must be more than symbolic otherwise gaps in meaningful gender inclusion could have significant implications on the very survival of the country.
 
One of the challenges for meaningful inclusion is that Ethiopia is a highly patriarchal society. Patriarchal norms and practices permeate all aspects of the country’s social, economic and political life. Women constitute over half of the Ethiopian population and represent 41 per cent of the national parliament.

Nevertheless, most political parties, including those with liberal credentials, are exclusively governed by men, with women taking almost no part in key decision-making processes. As a result, women are relegated to the margins of political and economic activities. 

Though there has been little systematic study of the structural challenges faced by Ethiopian women in politics, women members of political parties encounter many barriers, including political violence, male-coded norms and sexist discourses across Ethiopian society.
 
The nature and scale of political violence perpetrated against women is particularly disempowering and affects their ability to participate in political spaces.

While attitudes to gender equality, sexual violence and gender discrimination are often trivialized, they remain ever-present threats in women’s lives. As late as 2016, a significant minority of men still believed wife-beating to be justified in certain situations. Even when women overcome social pressure to pursue their political ambitions, patriarchal views and practices within political party structures about the role of women significantly undermine their active participation and engagement. 

The political space is even more inaccessible to women with disabilities and in conflict and climate-related crises such as among internally displaced people and in pastoral communities. Male-coded norms ingrained at both party and community levels remain a significant concern. Specifically, sex in exchange for candidacy, inconsiderate working schedules affecting women with children and denial of access to equal information and financial resources are frequently reported as major internal hurdles among political parties.

Closing the gender gap could offer Ethiopia a new beginning

Many political initiatives designed to tackle these gender imbalances often have been driven by short-term political considerations without proper gender-gap assessment and policy analysis. In most cases, the authorities have viewed gender-targeted reforms as acts of benevolence, dispensed by the government, without adopting the legal and financial measures necessary to ensure sustainability and impact.
 
Take, for example, Abiy’s appointment of a 50:50 gender-balanced cabinet in 2018. At the time, much was made about its transformative potential, with the prime minister attracting widespread global approval. Yet, a cabinet reshuffle in 2021 reduced female representation to 36.3 per cent, with far less scrutiny or accountability.

This indicates that gender equality in Ethiopia is not considered a priority but rather an endeavour for more opportune, ‘stable’ times. Without thorough measures that create the conditions for real change, the aspiration of having a gender-balanced cabinet will always be challenging to translate into lasting equal representation.
 
The proposed national dialogue presents an ideal opportunity for Ethiopian women to begin reshaping attitudes and closing the gender gap through their inclusion and participation in the political process. To do so, three issues must be addressed.
 
First, the varying rights of women need to be consolidated, including on identity, constitutional reform and economic issues .

Second, gender equality considerations must be absorbed into mainstream political discourse at all levels.

Third, the experiences of women in the recent war, other ongoing conflicts and past and lingering legacies of political violence targeting women from specific communities, must be acknowledged and remedied. 

If Ethiopia is indeed serious about addressing its asymmetric gender power dynamics, this national dialogue provides an excellent opportunity to begin the process. Genuine participation of women as independent actors, with their own agency, could offer Ethiopia a new beginning.

Will Africans’ calls for better democracy be met? The World Today mhiggins.drupal 29 July 2022

Voters want the continent’s ageing leaders to step aside to usher in a new age of political engagement and robust democracy, say the experts of Afrobarometer.

Across Africa, recent years have been marked by both encouraging democratic highs and troubling anti-democratic lows. Notable advances from last year include the Gambia’s successful presidential election, a ruling-party transition in Zambia and the first democratic transfer of power in Niger. In the lead up to this, add Malawi’s retake of its flawed presidential election in 2020 and an earlier succession of oustings of long-serving autocrats in Sudan, Zimbabwe and the Gambia. 

Contrast these gains, though, with setbacks elsewhere, including increasing restrictions on opposition parties in Benin, Senegal and Tanzania; the use of violence and intimidation during elections in Côte d’Ivoire and Uganda; and military coups, with the latest in Burkina Faso this year and last year in Chad, Mali, Sudan and Guinea.

These contradictory developments join dire warnings from experts that democracy is losing ground on the continent. But what can we learn about the state of democracy on the continent from Africans themselves?

Afrobarometer, a pan-African, non-partisan research network, has been surveying people about their views on democracy, governance and quality of life for more than 20 years. After interviewing nearly 50,000 citizens across 34 countries during Afrobarometer Round 8, which spans 2019-2021, we find that despite the efforts of some leaders to undermine democratic norms, Africans remain committed to democracy and democratic institutions.

They believe that the military should stay out of politics, that political parties should freely compete for power, that elections are an imperfect but essential tool for choosing their leaders, and that it is time for the old men who cling to power to step aside.

But their political reality falls short of these expectations. The perception of widespread and worsening corruption is particularly corrosive, leaving people increasingly dissatisfied with political systems that are yet to deliver on their aspirations to live in societies that are democratically and accountably governed. And although citizens find myriad ways to voice their concerns, they feel that their governments are not listening.

Simply put, Africans want more democratic and accountable governance than they think they are getting.

Africans’ democratic aspirations

Over the past decade, democracy watchers have been alarmed by declining trends in Africa. Concerns have been exacerbated in the past two years as some governments have taken advantage of the Covid pandemic to limit freedoms, restrict fair campaigning or postpone elections. Activists fear that supposedly temporary rollbacks in hard-won governance reforms could become permanent.

But for the most part, African citizens remain committed to democracy and democratic institutions. Across 30 countries that Afrobarometer has surveyed consistently since Round 5 (2011–2013), most indicators are strong and quite steady.

For example, seven in 10 Africans say that ‘democracy is preferable to any other kind of government’. While this is down modestly from 73 per cent a decade ago, more specific indicators seem to affirm popular commitment to democracy. Large and steady majorities consistently reject authoritarian alternatives, including one-person or ‘strongman’ rule (82 per cent), one-party rule (77 per cent) and military rule (75 per cent), which is clearly rejected even in many of the countries rocked by recent military coups.

Africans also express strong support for a limit to presidential terms, a feature of democratic governance that researchers and activists argue nurtures political participation, demonstrates that change via the ballot box is possible, and reduces the risk of personality cults, authoritarianism, corruption and coups. Across 34 countries, an average of 76 per cent favour limiting their presidents to two terms, including a majority (54 per cent) who ‘strongly’ support this rule. Term limits enjoy majority support in every surveyed country. 

The public’s democratic commitment is undergirded by strong and in some cases growing support for core democratic institutions. Support for multiparty competition and parliamentary oversight of leaders remains steady, while expectations that governments should be accountable to the courts have increased significantly over the past decade.

In addition, growing numbers of people say it is more important to have a government that is accountable to the people rather than one that just ‘gets things done’, an especially strong indicator of deepening commitment to democratic norms among citizens. 

Trouble at the polling booth

Elections remain a central, though controversial, institution of democracy for Africans. They have served as the foundation for real change, as in Zambia last year. But in other cases, such as Uganda’s January 2021 poll, they have been marred by violence and human rights abuses, as well as the weaponization of Covid to justify restrictions on campaigning.

The public is also sceptical about the capacity of elections to bring about real change: fully 50 per cent say they do not think elections are effective in enabling voters ‘to remove from office leaders who do not do what the people want’.

At the same time, large majorities report positively on their country’s election environment. Asked about their most recent election, at least eight in 10 say they did not observe intimidation (87 per cent) or interference (81 per cent) by security forces and did not fear violence (80 per cent).

We must keep in mind that these encouraging averages can obscure deep problems in some countries. For example, while only 3 per cent of Namibians say votes are ‘often’ not counted fairly, between a quarter and one-third cite inaccurate counts as a frequent problem in Zimbabwe, Sudan and Gabon. 

In addition, confidence in the fairness of the media environment is drastically lower, on average just 36 per cent.

But perhaps most importantly, almost nine in 10 Africans (87 per cent) say they are free to vote as they choose, including sizeable majorities in every surveyed country. And a solid majority of 63 per cent rate their most recent election as completely or mostly free and fair. 

All of this may help to explain still-strong support for competitive elections as the best system for selecting leaders. A robust three-quarters confirm their commitment to elections, though this has fallen slightly over the past decade, probably reflecting disillusionment with electoral processes that are too often torn by violence and produce contested results. 

A growing number of people may also be recognizing that elections, especially poor-quality ones, are not enough to guarantee democracy and better governance, and that a healthy democracy must include such other features as government accountability, respect for the rule of law, responsiveness and citizen participation.

The ‘democratic disappointment’ gap

To what extent does political reality align with Africans’ democratic aspirations? Our findings suggest that it is falling well short of expectations.

While a slim majority has steadily reported that their country is a ‘full democracy’ or one ‘with minor problems’ over the past decade, satisfaction, however, has dropped to 43 per cent in that time. 

What explains this growing dissatisfaction? Other indicators of democratic supply offer some clues. While ratings of election quality have held steady, favourable public assessments of presidential accountability to parliament and to the courts have both declined.

The rising scourge of corruption

But one of the most significant driving factors may be burgeoning corruption, a trend that appears to parallel declining democratic satisfaction. On average across 34 countries, around six in 10 say both that corruption in their country increased over the past year, and that their government is doing a poor job of controlling it.

These perceptions matter. Over time, when perceptions of corruption rise or fall, levels of dissatisfaction with democracy tend to follow suit. 

In South Africa, dissatisfaction with democracy grew steadily alongside scandals involving President Jacob Zuma, and has continued to rise under his successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, whose office has been tainted by ‘Farmgate’ and a major Covid-relief scandal. The ‘Fishrot’ scandal in Namibia has had similar consequences.

Are governments listening?

African citizens are raising their voices, calling on their governments to fulfil their democratic aspirations. Since April 2017, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has recorded more than 70 episodes in 35 African countries of protests focused on issues ranging from demands for democracy in eSwatini to resisting police brutality, presidential third-term attempts and Covid restrictions. 

Citizen participation and government responsiveness are cornerstones of democracy. But are governments listening?

Voting is the most obvious and popular way for citizens to express themselves, and Africans take advantage of this opportunity. Two-thirds said they voted in their most recent national election. But elections occur only occasionally, and they force individuals to compress a wide array of views into very few choices. How do Africans find their voice during the long intervals between elections?

Many invest in personal efforts to act as agents of change. In fact, nearly half say they joined with others to raise an issue at least once in the past year, and a third contacted a political leader. A quarter report they acted with others to request government action. Less common but still important modes of engagement include asking for help from or lodging a complaint with government, contacting the media, and joining a demonstration.

These robust levels of citizen engagement suggest that people feel they can make a difference. Unfortunately, decision-makers aren’t always receptive or responsive to citizen voices. Less than a quarter of people think local government officials listen to them – and even fewer think their members of parliament do. 

What is more troubling is that fully two-thirds say they are at risk of retaliation or some form of negative consequences if they take action by reporting incidents of corruption. 

Lack of government responsiveness and respect for popular voices may have direct implications for both citizen engagement and citizen satisfaction. For example, we find that people are more likely to contact leaders or take other actions to solve problems if they believe that government officials respect and listen to them; that they will get a response if they raise an issue; and if they do not need to fear retaliation. 

Similarly, when we compare country averages for government responsiveness to the percentage of citizens who are satisfied with democracy, we again find positive associations. 

When governments are responsive, citizens are more likely to engage in addressing community needs and to be satisfied with their political system and optimistic about the future. Respectful and responsive governance has the potential to spur citizen action to solve critical development challenges – and may be the cure for what ails democracy.

Now is the moment to launch an African vaccine industry The World Today mhiggins.drupal 31 July 2022

The continent plans to make 60 per cent of its vaccines by 2040. After the failure of the world to help in the pandemic, it’s high time, says Ngozi Erondu.

The lack of an African vaccine industry has been a glaring concern for decades. Before the pandemic, 99 per cent of Africa’s vaccines were manufactured outside the continent. As well as endangering the lives of millions, this situation has inhibited social and economic progress on the continent.

In response, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has undertaken an ambitious plan, outlined in the Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM) Framework for Action, to develop the nascent African vaccine manufacturing sector into an end-to-end industry by 2040. The framework aims to raise the share of African-manufactured vaccines used across the continent to 60 per cent by 2040, or the equivalent to up to 1.7 billion doses annually.

Seven of every 10 vaccines used in Africa are currently donated through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Most are administered within childhood immunization programmes and are largely manufactured either in India, or by  multinational vaccine manufacturers in North America or Japan.

Vaccine donations have inhibited the development in Africa of vaccines and other countermeasures against diseases.

Though the Ebola virus was discovered in Central Africa in 1976, vaccine development was not adequately funded until it emerged in Europe in 2014. Human monkeypox resurfaced in Nigeria in 2017, yet the global Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations only targeted it for vaccine development in July this year.

The pandemic highlighted Africa’s fatal dependency on imported vaccines. Only 20 per cent of Africans are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, due to the failure of countries in the Global North to ensure the equitable distribution of vaccines via the COVAX facility to 40 per cent of the world’s most vulnerable people. 

The pandemic also confirmed that Africa could not rely on fellow states of the Global South. At the height of the Delta variant outbreak in early 2021, India halted vaccine exports to Africa, where only 1.5 per cent of the population had at that time received any vaccine doses.

After decades of discussions, there are signs that Africa could soon succeed in creating its own vaccine industry. First, the 55-member African Union is in the process of establishing the African Medicines Agency, a regional regulatory body. 
 

‘The new public health order’

Additionally, the African Export-Import Bank and African Development Bank (AfDB) have established a foundation to provide financial and strategic support for the development of the pharmaceutical industry and the consolidation of regional vaccination programmes in Africa (the foundation would potentially negotiate intellectual property rights and licensing issues but that remains to be seen).

Second, studies show there is an emerging middle class in Africa. In a 2011 report by the AfDB, this was estimated at some 56 million households. Potentially, this means many people will be able to buy vaccines and medicines made in Africa.

About a third of African countries currently pay for their vaccine needs. According to PAVM forecasts, the value of the total African market could reach between $3 billion and $17 billion by 2040.

The recent entry into effect of the African Continental Free Trade Area should also prove conducive to African vaccine development. Through economic integration, free movement and harmonized regional standards, countries that invest in their biopharmaceutical and medical technology sectors may attract employees, regional and international businesses, and investment. Further, the pandemic has encouraged people to relocate to countries with, or planning for, universal healthcare.

Building an African pharmaceutical industry from the ground up could take much longer than two decades and cost tens of billions of dollars. Nevertheless, the moment seems ripe, and timely support has been forthcoming from influential regional actors, including Rwandan President Paul Kagame, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, and private sector business executives, including the Zimbabwean-born billionaire Strive Masiyiwa.

With a pandemic treaty embedding equity in prevention, preparedness and response some way off, and given the limitations surrounding the recent World Trade Organization compromise on the TRIPS waiver – which temporarily waives Covid-19 vaccine patent protections for poorer countries – it is doubly important for Africa to build up its own pharmaceutical industry and emergency systems. 

In 2021, John Nkengasong, then director of Africa CDC, wrote of the necessity of a post-pandemic ‘new public health order’ for Africa. Such a change may threaten the global health organizations, industries and institutes who derive payment from ‘saving Africa’ during emergencies. Additionally, through strengthening Africa CDC, other actors such as the World Health Organization may find that they have a diminished strategic role on the continent.
 
While Africa should not dismiss these valuable and long-standing partnerships, it must take the opportunity to advance its interests and to assume leadership in this important area.

Why Africa needs to be in space The World Today mhiggins.drupal 1 August 2022

From agriculture and navigation to banking and tele-education, satellite technology can have a huge impact on rapidly developing societies, says Val Munsami.

Africa’s socio-economic and environmental development is widely acknowledged as being crucial to its growth and long-term sustainability – and the prosperity of its more than one billion residents. 

Increasingly, though, attention is also turning to the contribution that the space industry can make to progress on the continent. Space-based products and services have a critical role to play in meeting national and continental priorities, as underpinned by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 – the bloc’s strategic framework for development, democracy and peace. 

With this in the mind of policymakers, the African Union’s space policy and strategy is embedded in Agenda 2063 as one of its 15 key programmes. It guides the sector’s development and the nascent African Space Agency, to become operational later this year from its headquarters in Egypt.

The continental agency is expected to leverage the benefits of space science and technology for socio-economic and environmental development. It will lead on bridging the space divide, especially for those countries that do not have a focus on, or activities in, space science and technology – and simultaneously inject some momentum into improving capabilities of existing national space programmes.

The African Union’s commitment to space has accelerated the growth of the African space industry. More than 20 national space agencies or space-related institutions have been established on the continent over the past five or so years. 

Our modern lifestyles are intimately dependent on space products and services. Meteorological and communication satellites are placed in geostationary orbits at an altitude of 36,000km above the equator. At this point above the Earth, they complete one orbit every 24 hours in the direction of the planet’s rotation, appearing, essentially, motionless – and providing a constant gaze on the same geographic location.

They provide a wealth of information that fuels the everyday services we take for granted, but that are essential for our everyday lives, from health to education to the economy.

From their vantage point, geostationary orbit satellites provide our daily weather reports, monitor climate-related cycles and offer a platform for near-instantaneous communications across the globe to relay multimedia, live sporting events and up-to-the-minute global news. 

This lightning-fast communication is also indispensable for tele-education and tele-medicine, by which professionals in urban areas can deliver educational content and health services to rural schools and clinics, respectively. Banking transactions also rely on telecommunication satellites to communicate between an automated teller machine and the data servers located at the bank. 

How satellites can detect disease

Other satellites are placed in low Earth orbits. These complete on average one polar orbit around the Earth every 100 minutes. Because the planet rotates across the plane of the orbit, such a satellite eventually covers the whole Earth, which is immensely useful for remote sensing and navigation and positioning applications. 

Remote sensing applications provide a myriad of products and services, including monitoring the state of our natural resources, observing ship traffic in our coastal economic zones and providing information for precision farming that can help a farmer decide, for example, when to irrigate and how much fertilizer to use.

They can also detect changes that might indicate encroaching water-borne diseases, aid peacekeeping missions and help ensure public safety and security. Navigation applications are vital for aviation and marine navigation, whereas positioning applications are important for safety-of-life services. 

Another way that positioning applications in developing countries are put to good use is the assignment of geolocation addresses to dwellings in informal settlements where postbox addresses do not exist. This then allows the overlaying of key vector data about populations on to geophysical base maps. This type of data is vital for town planning in terms of how many schools and clinics are needed to serve the population, and the extent of the road, water, sanitation and electrical infrastructure needed.

The rich source of information derived from satellites, overlaid with in-situ data, is vital for evidence-based decision and policymaking. Datasets accessed from historical archives can be used to observe the time evolution of environmental and statistical data. 

When policy decisions are taken, we can utilize the same satellite and in-situ platforms to monitor progress after their implementation. The utility of data to inform decision-making is being enhanced through the adoption of AI and big-data analytics, which is placing key information at our disposal in near real time. 

It is therefore not surprising to notice the increasing focus on space science and technology activities on the continent. However, to ensure the effective uptake and utilization of space products and services, certain building blocks are needed to establish robust national and regional space ecosystems. 

Africa’s route into space

These ecosystems must include four primary elements to function: the human capital required to establish and operate the space initiatives; a significant industry base to capitalize on the commercial aspects of the space sector; the requisite infrastructure needed to support the space value chain; and international cooperation to ensure knowledge transfer and diffusion – so that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

The applications and problem-solving innovations provided by space products and services are endless. To take advantage of this, Africa needs strong governance and institutional architectures. 

The evolution of the space ecosystem on the continent must be premised on key instruments such as a space policy – which areas to focus on and why – and a space strategy that outlines which programmes and performance indicators to pursue. 

The conceptualization of a space ecosystem is by no means a simple endeavour and there is certainly a dearth of skills and experience on the African continent to establish effective and relevant space ecosystems. 

There are many institutions leading efforts to build space capacity and skills on the continent, such as the International Space University in France, which offers programmes that provide a holistic overview of the complex global space sector, and the African Space Leadership Institute, which has been recently created to develop capacity in space policy, law and strategy. 

With the right approach, commitment and investment, Africa can rapidly change the fate of its citizens by effectively using space science and technology to support and drive its developmental agenda.

Eight ways to build better African cities The World Today mhiggins.drupal 2 August 2022

Young professionals from across the continent tell Emmanuel Adegboye how city life could be improved: from high-speed rail to people-centred urban planning.

Ahmed Elsawy, 33, Director of Talent
Cairo, Egypt
We must amend employment law in Egypt to support individual contractors to match with the global demand for short-term and project-based assignments within the tech and service industries. While we have a new, decent education system, I think we should care more about foreign languages to have a higher rank when it comes to the global competition of skilled workers.

Iman Abubaker, 31, Urban Mobility Project Manager, WRI Africa
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Rapid urbanization and increased motorization have exacerbated the city’s urban challenges. Addis Ababa would benefit from safer street design and people-centred city planning. Urban amenities should be located within walking and cycling distances. For longer trips, the city needs to invest in improving the accessibility, safety, integration and multimodality of its public transport system. I would love to see more pockets of green spaces and parks all around the city. 

Bree, 31, Project Manager
Nairobi, Kenya
I have a love-hate relationship with Nairobi. I spent four years smack in the middle of the city while attending the University of Nairobi. Being in the middle of all the hustle and bustle made the transition to a sleepy-ish coastal town easy. I would happily trade matatus [shared taxis] for tuktuks any day. I do miss the conveniences that come with a big city like a 24-hour grocery store and delivery services on those lazy days.

Mfon Bassey, 30, Co-Founder, TalentX Africa
Lagos, Nigeria
The government should improve the road networks and public transport systems, because the common challenge most Lagosians face is commuting from point A to B without traffic. There are so many private cars on the road because the public transport system isn’t optimally efficient yet. Once you take away the commute time most workers spend just to get work done, we’ll surely have happier Lagosians.

Olga Kiconco, 32, Innovation Strategist
Kampala, Uganda
As one of Africa’s fastest-growing cities with a projected 112 per cent population growth by 2035, there are a number of critical changes that need to be made in preparation for this. Our leaders should embrace coherent policies that will catalyze socio-economic transformation. We need to hold them accountable for better infrastructure and delivery of public services, while taking personal responsibility to protect our environment against the prevalent threat of climate change.

Etienne Amougou, 30, Curator/Arts Project Manager
Yaounde, Cameroon
What would make Yaounde better would be a good ecosystem that provides more opportunities for young people. If it was possible, I would like to see the creation of more cultural spaces, like parks, zoos, cinemas and sport areas. Also, we could use a more effective approach to waste management – sometimes we have trash everywhere in the ’hood.

Valentino Fernandez, 23, Writer
Johannesburg, South Africa
 We need better transportation to bridge the inequality gap and allow the youth to access spaces to be inspired and create change. Apartheid spatial planning is still affecting us. People of colour were relegated to the outskirts of the city, and very little has changed. It’s virtually impossible to move out of your childhood home, which means you’re looking at a two-hour commute every morning and two more hours to get home. I would like a reliable, affordable, high-speed rail system.

Jean-Louis Mbaka, 34, Co-Founder and Director, Education at Kinshasa Digital
Kinshasa, DRC
Our youth must receive a sufficient education that is in line with the strategic requirements of their future workplaces. By 2030, more than 130 million jobs in Africa will require digital skills, according to the International Finance Corporation. To close the gap between the conventional educational system and the labour market, our organisation is providing training for digital jobs. Initiatives like ours must be supported if the current and next generations are to have the means for their economic and social advancement. Scaling up investments in vital facilities like the internet is also necessary.

Not the same old African story The World Today mhiggins.drupal 2 August 2022

Nollywood studio boss Mo Abudu and author Dipo Faloyin discuss how Africans are redefining how the world sees them.

Mo Abudu
EbonyLife’s latest TV drama series, Blood Sisters, was in Netflix’s global top 10. It’s a thriller and it may be slightly melodramatic because we Nigerians are melodramatic. But it deals with universal themes. Nigerians are no different to anyone else. I want EbonyLife productions increasingly to appeal to anyone in the world, even if it’s in our language. Oloture, one of our films, was about human trafficking. It was all done in pidgin English and subtitled. I watch a lot of Korean dramas and Spanish dramas that are subtitled. A good story is a good story.

Dipo Faloyin
The influence that African countries have had on the West, from music, food and film to literature, science and technology, is something people find difficult to take seriously. So, it’s good to see Netflix and other production companies take it more seriously. How has your discussion with them changed since the early days?

Mo Abudu
I have been going to an entertainment market in Cannes called Mipcom for about 12 years, and at first no one had any interest in African content. So, we focused on doing local content for local markets. Now, different communities around the world want representation in content that speaks to them. Specific countries are also saying to streamers: ‘What’s your local content strategy?’ 

Netflix was the first of the streamers to come into Africa, and it now has an Africa office. Amazon has also made inroads recently. Disney is arriving. In the United States and Britain, they just need to maintain subscriber numbers, but real growth for them is going to be in Asia and Africa. 

I’m not telling broadcasters or distributors to commission original African content as a charity project – they can make money from this. Within five days of launch, Blood Sisters registered 11 million hours of viewing on Netflix around the world. It was made on a budget five times smaller than productions outside Africa. But we need to be among the gatekeepers, too. 

Moving beyond Hollywood

Dipo Faloyin
The challenge that many creatives across Africa have is that people [elsewhere] don’t necessarily feel like they relate to this continent. They see ‘Africa’ and its cultures as very distant. Instead of intricate, specific stories, simple stories of simple people have been pushed about the continent. 

I still get asked questions like, ‘But, what should we do about Africa’s problems?’ My response is, ‘Stop seeing Africa as just a problem.’ 

Mo Abudu
I was speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum recently and the panel started off talking about the ‘problems of Africa’ – and I had to jump in and say, ‘I get you guys talking about the problems, I’m not an economist, I’m just an entrepreneur, but from an entrepreneurial perspective, we have resources – like cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo that’s in all of our mobile phones.’ 

The problem is, we ship out all our resources and by the time they come back to us, they are 10-times more expensive than we can afford. I keep saying that they need to know they need us as much as we need them.
 
Dipo Faloyin
There are certainly issues within the continent like there are everywhere else; but more accurate stories will help people have a better sense of the context in which so many communities and their lives have been built up. 

Mo Abudu
The West doesn’t seem to have any interest in making films about Africa unless it’s about the worst of Africa: the slave trade, the Rwandan genocide, blood diamonds. That seems to be what has defined us. 

Dipo Faloyin
If you ask most people around the world to close their eyes and picture Africa, two images will come up: safari, and poverty and strife. Until the age of 12, I grew up in Lagos, a metropolis with no wild animals running around. There are slums, of course, but also traffic, shopping centres and overpriced restaurants. 

Writers who pitch ideas to Vice.com where I work often still don’t differentiate African countries. They’ll say, ‘There’s been a coup in Mali. Why can’t Africa get its head around democracy?’, and I remind them a small minority of countries on the continent is under any form of authoritarian rule. 

It’s frustrating that this perception hasn’t changed. For us to break through we need big cultural institutions – Hollywood, museums, literature – to allow people from across the regions to tell these stories. We are rarely portrayed as protagonists and forward thinkers. But I’m excited for the future.

Youth innovation can help shape the future of African cities Expert comment LToremark 16 August 2022

To meet the challenges of rapid urbanization, African governments must harness the potential of young innovators to help shape the future of African cities.

It is projected that 1.3 billion people will be living in Africa’s cities by 2050, an increase of almost 1 billion from today, and largely driven by young people migrating to urban centres in search of work. As the continent’s urban population grows, cities will need to adapt by nurturing new economic ecosystems to create jobs, while managing the environmental, social and political pressures that urbanization brings.

The evolution of Africa’s cities is critical for meeting the demands of its youth population and must be co-created with them. Africa’s young innovators are already proving to be an asset in shaping the future of African cities and, if they are allowed to flourish, they could be at the forefront of finding much-needed solutions to the continent’s vast urban challenges.

Growing tech hubs

African countries are increasingly benefitting from growth in technology ecosystems, which are often clustered within cities. There are currently more than 600 tech hubs helping to incubate innovative solutions across cities in Africa. Between 2015 and 2020, the number of start-ups receiving funding grew six times faster than the global average. In 2021 alone, start-ups raised over $4billion in funding – twice as much as in 2020.

But significant challenges remain. While the number of new start-ups is an encouraging indication of the entrepreneurialism and creativity of Africa’s youth, job creation on the level required will demand that they grow and scale up to generate more and higher quality jobs. Research on scaling up in Africa is sparse but research by Endeavor suggests that in Nairobi – one of Africa’s top tech ecosystems – only 5 per cent of companies are able to sustain growth of 20 per cent or more each year, yet they created 72 per cent of new jobs in the previous three years. For Africa to fully harness the potential of digital innovation, making cities the best place for young people to launch ideas and grow them into thriving businesses must become a priority policy for African governments. 

Barriers to scale

On the most basic level, business growth needs access to the services that make cities more liveable and help both urban residents and firms become more productive, such as healthcare, transport, water and sanitation. African cities already struggle to provide their residents – in particular the poorest and most vulnerable – with equitable, reliable, affordable and quality access to these services, in a sustainable manner. And these challenges will only get more acute as urban populations rise rapidly, often without any kind of integrated planning.

For example, an estimated 70-80 per cent of municipal solid waste in Africa is recyclable, yet only about 4 per cent is currently recycled, with more than 90 per cent of waste ending up in uncontrolled dumpsites and landfills. As Africa’s urban population grows, these conditions are likely to worsen – unless there is urgent action. New technology has the potential to help by creating a positive feedback loop between innovation, service delivery and growth. For example, to bridge the waste management gap, innovators are exploring various tech-enabled circular economy models. These solutions are often ground-breaking and have the potential to leapfrog traditional waste management infrastructure. Crucially, they are also formalizing a largely informal sector and creating new jobs.

Across the continent, start-ups like Kaltani, Mr Green Africa and Freetown Waste Transformers build processing facilities to turn waste into energy or reusable products, such as construction materials. Others, like Scrapays, Regenize and Soso Care, are helping households and businesses sell off their recycled materials for cash and virtual currencies or exchange them for critical services, such as micro health insurance premiums. Such start-ups help empower informal waste pickers or agents with tech-enabled tools and target low-income urban communities that would not normally prioritize recycling.

Help or hindrance from the top?

But Africa’s young people cannot do this alone – government decision-makers must become catalysts for entrepreneurial leadership. This requires nurturing a mindset that sees young innovators as Africa’s biggest resource, not a threat. While the importance of young people to Africa’s development is acknowledged in various high-level regional treaties, patterns of inhibition and outright hostility from political ‘elites’ suggest that the disruptive nature of technology start-ups and their access to significant capital through venture capital funding models – unlike existing rent-seeking business models with government control – threatens the political establishment.

The growing use of tech solutions also leads to increased transparency and efficiency of service delivery, which in turn leads to increased demand for government accountability and pressure to adopt more liberal policies. Until there is a shift towards catalysing entrepreneurial leadership, there is a stronger incentive for political elites to leverage their powers to co-opt successful technology businesses, or otherwise try to control them for political gain, than let them flourish. This shift in mindset will be critical to unlocking the full potential of Africa’s young innovators.

The Climate Briefing: The nexus of water security and climate policy Audio NCapeling 22 August 2022

Examining the crossover between water security and climate change with the next two COPs taking place in regions with a history of being water stressed.

What should policymakers and negotiators from the Middle East and Africa working on water security focus on at COP27?

What does it mean to achieve water security? What are the main barriers or challenges? How is water security relevant to climate change?

This podcast was produced in collaboration with the UK Aid-funded Knowledge, Evidence and Learning for Development (K4D) programme which facilitates the use of evidence and learning in international development policy and programming.

Towards democracy in Sudan: Reflections on the transitional period 20 September 2022 — 2:00PM TO 4:00PM Anonymous (not verified) 31 August 2022 Online

In this webinar, panellists discuss the key outcomes of the evaluation workshop and reflect on how the experience of the transition to date should inform the realization of Sudan’s democratic aspirations going forward.

The military coup on 25 October 2021 halted Sudan’s transition to democracy and prospects for sustainable peace. Since then, members of the former regime have regained political influence, with many reinstated to senior positions.

The coup has provoked a strong reaction from the country’s pro-democracy movement and youth-led resistance committees who have led continuous peaceful protests demanding civilian democratic transition, despite a brutal crackdown by state security forces.

Those supportive of the coup have blamed the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), a wide coalition of pro-democracy political and civilian groups, for the mistakes of the transitional government.

However, the country’s political, security and economic situation has sharply deteriorated since the military’s action, and the progress achieved by the transitional government has been reversed, leading to an accelerating economic crisis, increased food insecurity and political instability.

The FFC, which played a key role in appointing the transitional government, has acknowledged its errors. In July 2022, it held a workshop in Khartoum, which was broadcast on social media, to evaluate its performance and identify lessons learned, in discussion with civil society actors and activists.

In this webinar, leading pro-democracy movement figures and independent experts discuss the key outcomes of the evaluation workshop and reflect on how the experience of the transition to date should inform the realization of Sudan’s democratic aspirations going forward.

This event is part of a Chatham House Africa programme project on supporting Sudan’s civilian-led democratic transition.

A natural climate change priority for Africa Expert comment LJefferson 28 September 2022

Nature-based solutions can protect African nations’ shared natural endowment and meet the needs of their people.

Africa’s principal climate change negotiators have long understood the important contribution of ‘nature-based solutions’ (NBS) in delivering land (and sea) based options as part of the goals of the Paris Agreement. Limiting temperature rises to only 1.5°C by 2050 will demand finding innovative ways to protect Africa’s vast natural endowment that also meets the equally acute needs of its people. Nature-based solutions may do both.

The urgency for Africa cannot be overstated. At a Chatham House conference in Libreville, the Gabonese minister for the environment highlighted that if global warming surges by 2.5° or 3°C the impact would be at least 6°C for Africa. Decision-makers on the continent and across the world need to understand that ‘business as usual’ cannot be an option given the potential for loss of life, conflict and chaos.

Adaption, mitigation, or both?

Although adaptation to climate change has hitherto tended to be the continent’s main concern, there has also been growing recognition of the ways that Africa’s natural environments, from forests and grasslands, to peatlands and coastal and marine ecosystems, all also mitigate its impacts by sequestering carbon. The Congo Basin alone is said to store upwards of 4 per cent of global emissions annually.

These environments are under increasing pressure. Deforestation is a sad reality, caused mostly by unsustainable and extensive agricultural practices focused on cash crops for export more than food production to feed local populations. And arguing that African states and peoples should slow the development of their economies and infrastructure in response to a crisis born of the already-industrialized world does not find a responsive audience in a continent hungry for jobs and opportunity.

Nature-based solutions offer an answer to this conundrum. There is growing evidence that natural habitats both help avoid losses from climate change-related disasters and can drive economic growth. There is thus potential for NBS to tackle both adaptation and mitigation challenges at relatively low cost.

NBS – the rocky road from commitment to policy

It was logical therefore for Africa and like-minded countries to work to integrate NBS more strongly into the climate change agenda at COP26. The final Glasgow Climate Pact duly emphasized the importance of protecting ecosystems. The Global Forest Finance Pledge signed in the margins was also significant. African focus, with COP 27 in Egypt soon to take place, is now on domestic implementation and delivery of these pledges. The new African Union Climate Change and Resilient Development strategy (2022-2032) sets out many of the challenges and opportunities.

Choosing the right development pathway is tough, requiring political will and inclusive governance. Besides the challenge of securing alternative national revenue if a country moves away from fossil-intensive fuels – particularly acute for Africa’s resource-producing states – there is a dizzying array of policy decisions to be taken. African governments need to choose the most appropriate renewable energy sources, secure alternative livelihoods and continue to meet basic needs of the most vulnerable in the context of radical restructuring.  

Towards African solutions

There can be no one-size-fits-all answer to these questions – it is sadly still necessary to underline the enormous geographic, cultural and political diversity of the continent – but African experts have begun to draw together some emerging common themes from work already underway.  

Maintaining the ‘status quo’ in agricultural practices is no longer an option. Emphasis on sustainable agriculture is urgently needed andthat includes the elaboration of a ‘new deal’ between nature and people.  

Conservation also needs to be reframed as an economic opportunity, particularly in the elaboration and development of ecosystem services that deliver the true value of Africa’s forests, and that involve, value and reward local communities, respecting their rights and livelihoods.

Regional cooperation is likewise key, including on the management of forest, wildlife and water resources – Africa’s ecosystems do not respect arbitrary political boundaries, and accomplishing the dual feat of protecting cross-border systems at the same time as realizing their economic potential will demand effective collaboration, as well as training, education and communication at all levels.

The imperative of finance

A further imperative will be securing sufficient developed country financing – whether that be to secure value for net sequestration and effective forest management or for models of context-appropriate ‘smarter’ sustainable rural conservation and ecosystem resilience.

A new vision for African agency in sustainable development Expert comment LJefferson 18 October 2022

Change is necessary not only in global economic structures and attitudes – but in African governance too.

The conventional notion that Africa is mostly a consumer of norms and practices designed by the Global North has been repeatedly challenged and is increasingly being debunked. Increased African agency in international affairs is today a well-established and documented reality. But Africa’s influence still does not match the scale of the challenges that it faces on its pathway to sustainable development. 

Pushing for African agency in sustainable development also warrants a critical assessment of how ‘sustainable development’ should be defined, and how it can be achieved in terms of actual poverty reduction and real improvement in the lives of local poor Africans. Sustainable development has been a political catchphrase for over 30 years – but a genuine transition towards sustainability has yet to begin.

African agency today

Historically, there have been structural limitations on the agency of African stakeholders to shape development pathways. Chief among them, donor-recipient power dynamics have persistently promoted dependency and sustained institutional corruption. Many African countries are also challenged by economic incentives and infrastructure that have favoured the market demands and supply chains of former colonial powers, which largely remain reliant on natural resource extraction, and are marked by limited investment in value-addition activities and technology development.

Today, however, African agency is being exerted in a more assertive fashion. The African Union (AU), individual African states, civil society, the private sector and eminent and ordinary persons are all displaying Africa’s agency in steering global sustainable development priorities, namely by proposing their own development agenda, The African Union Agenda 2063, adopted in 2013. This was followed by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030), which in many ways mirror Agenda 2063 – a clear demonstration of the influence of Africa in the global arena. 

Agenda 2063 is a strategic roadmap for Africa ‘to build an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven and managed by its own citizens and development goals representing a dynamic force in the international arena’. Prepared following a broad-based participatory consultation, it advocates for inclusion and empowerment and provides an excellent vision for African countries and African people. The SDGs address several of the key shortcomings of their predecessor – the MDGs – and incorporate a broader and more transformative agenda that more adequately reflects the complex challenges of the 21st century and the need for structural reforms in the global economy and governance norms.

In international forums on sustainable development, African countries are increasingly using their collective voice to change the discourse on how development can and should be done. For instance, by championing innovative solutions for carbon markets, African policy leaders are enabling access to climate finance for development while preserving Africa’s natural wealth.

In the post-COVID era, championing investments in and leadership of Africa’s global health architecture demonstrates a desire that in the next pandemic, Africa CDC, AMA and continental manufacturers will play leading roles in determining Africa’s public health strategy and implementation.

In trade, building on the groundwork led by the regional economic commissions, the AfCFTA will catalyse and scale regional integration, trade and cooperation, leading to promising new modes of supply chain and self-sufficiency.

Encouraging signs, but persistent shortcomings

Encouraging signs that African agency is gaining momentum cannot disguise the fact that Africa has yet to move from rhetoric to implementation in the realm of sustainable development. Continental visions often fail to go beyond declarations of intent, and have only limited influence on governance systems or national structural transformation, and African states remain vulnerable to economic shocks emanating from the global system.

Change will require governance systems that are coordinated, transparent, efficient, and inclusive, as well as tools, processes, and means (material, technical, and human) for successful implementation. There is an urgent need for a new governance paradigm in Africa and internationally, dealing with long-term social change.

Notably, African agency should not be only seen as emanating from government, but also as being exerted by independent civil society organizations and committed ordinary individuals. Effective agency needs to be multi-faceted and multi-actor, and depends on the inclusiveness of African governments and their willingness to work with civil society in their strategic engagements with external partners.

Both Agenda 2063 and the SDGs hold the potential for transformation, but implementation will depend on continued advocacy to hold authorities to account and change the dominant discourse, logic and rules of engagement at global, regional, national, and local levels. There is a need for a dynamic new model of African ‘development’.

Time for a new vision

Africa’s economic landscape is changing rapidly, with new regional and local value chains, and integrated regional economic corridors to link countries, minimize the burden of high-cost production and logistics, and boost real incomes and international competitiveness. But Africa continues to face structural challenges, including the need for large investment projects – at a time when Africa remains a net exporter of capital.

Donors and development partners must reflect upon their prior modes of engagement and commit to genuine and equitable relationships with African states. Such partnerships must reflect mutual respect of ideas and accountability, and commit to making space in international forums and multi-lateral arrangements for African people and countries to realize their own visions for progress.

But African leaders and actors must also recognize that with the advent of resources and agency comes responsibility for results and outcomes, notably the need to improve governance. Gaps in accountability, widespread corruption, and lack of successful implementation and sustainability of projects must be addressed.

Africa’s maritime agency cannot be overlooked Expert comment LJefferson 3 November 2022

Increasing maritime awareness has already delivered impact, but consistency and continental leadership are needed to realize the sector’s full potential.

Africa’s 48,000 kilometres of coastline, shared among 38 coastal states, are resource rich and hold some of the world’s most strategic sea lanes, including the approaches to the Suez Canal, which carries 12 per cent of worldwide trade, and the Gulf of Guinea, a critical route for global energy. But despite the vast potential this represents, piracy and maritime insecurity have dominated the narrative of Africa’s coasts, and further propagated the image of African states as beholden to external intervention.

Yet African agency is established and evolving in the sector, with African littoral states enhancing their capacity to face collective security threats and exercising increasing autonomy in responding to the recent rush of external actors looking for port facilities and military bases. Enhanced continental coordination, consistency and leadership can help Africa’s maritime endowment become a resource that can bring sustainable benefit across the continent.  

Agency beyond piracy: the Gulf of Aden and Western Indian Ocean

Piracy became the dominant frame of reference for the East African maritime space as a result of the crisis off the coast of Somalia, which peaked between 2008 and 2012. In 2008, the UN Security Council (UNSC) took the unprecedented step of authorizing international naval operations in Somali territorial waters, contributing to a gradual reduction in attacks. There have been no successful hijackings reported since 2017.

But progress has not just been down to international assistance. Somalia is prioritizing increased domestic enforcement capacity – as demonstrated in the establishment of  a new specialized maritime unit and the wider region enhanced collaboration and information sharing through the Djibouti Code of Conduct of 2009, amended in 2017.

South Africa’s recent admission as a new signatory demonstrates its continued relevance. In March 2022, the UNSC authorization lapsed, following pressure from the Somali government. Although it is not yet clear whether Somali efforts will be sufficient to repress piracy in the long term, this reverse was a clear statement of Somalia’s agency at a level unthinkable during the outset of the crisis.

As the immediate threat of piracy has quietened, broader geopolitical dynamics have come to the fore, notably in a surge by external actors to establish strategic ports and military bases. Here too, African states have demonstrated enhanced agency, for better or worse. Consider Djibouti’s unilateral seizure of a container terminal from an Emirati firm, Sudan’s review of Russian and Turkish deals for maritime facilities, Tanzania’s rejection of a Chinese-led port investment, or the Seychelles withdrawing agreement for an Indian naval base.

Such examples point to a growing awareness of the value of maritime resources within African states, alongside a willingness and ability to push back against external imposition – and indeed to innovate in finding solutions beyond infrastructure and ‘hard’ security. In 2018, the Seychelles launched the world’s first sovereign blue bond to fund sustainable marine projects. That other countries are seeking to replicate this model points to the potentially global impact of African leadership on maritime issues.

Regional cooperation or competition in the Gulf of Guinea?

The Gulf of Guinea is likewise resource rich and geographically strategic, and has faced diverse maritime security threats including piracy, smuggling, illegal fishing, oil theft and pollution. Gulf of Guinea states put in place several initiatives to promote security, including the Yaoundé Code of Conduct (YCoC), signed by 25 states in 2013, that led to information-sharing and cooperation on interdiction, investigation and prosecution. But crime in the Gulf of Guinea nonetheless reached an all-time high in 2020, suffering 130 of the 135 maritime kidnappings recorded worldwide, due to the non-binding nature of the YCoC and gaps in capacity and finance.

Though external actors have become increasingly engaged, including the EU, US, France, Denmark, and the G7++ Group of Friends of the Gulf of Guinea (FOGG), states within the region, especially those most affected by piracy and armed robbery, have nonetheless demonstrated leadership. Nigeria, Ghana, and Cote D’Ivoire have all developed maritime security strategies; Nigeria launched its Deep Blue Project to secure Nigerian waters; Ghana has strengthened its navy; and Togo has changed its laws and judicial system to allow the arrest and prosecution of ships and persons. Maritime security incidents have consequently reduced in 2022.

Independent Thinking: War in Tigray, Zaporizhzhia under fire Audio NCapeling 24 November 2022

Episode six of our new weekly podcast examines the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia and the international response to further attacks on Europe’s largest nuclear plant in Ukraine.

In Tigray, the world’s largest armed conflict rages between Ethiopian federal government troops and the Tigray Defence Forces. With estimates placing those killed in the fighting at 600,000, how did Ethiopia, one of Africa’s great success stories, descend into civil war, and what hopes are there for recent peace initiatives?

Meanwhile in Ukraine, all eyes are on Zaporizhzhia, as Europe’s largest nuclear plant continues to be occupied by Russian forces. With fresh reports of explosions near the reactors, how is the international community responding?

Finally, what role does Turkey, a middle power country with great power ambitions, play in both conflicts?

Joining guest host John Kampfner on the podcast this week are Dr Patricia Lewis, director of the International Security programme at Chatham House, Ahmed Soliman, senior research fellow with our Africa programme, and Galip Dalay, associate fellow with our Middle East and North Africa programme.

Africa in 2023: Continuing political and economic volatility Expert comment NCapeling 6 January 2023

Despite few African trade and financial links with Russia and Ukraine, the war in Ukraine will cause civil strife in Africa due to food and energy inflation.

Africa’s economy was recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022 when a range of internal and external shocks struck such as adverse weather conditions, a devastating locust invasion, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – all of which worsened already rapidly-rising rates of inflation and borrowing costs.

Although the direct trade and financial linkages of Africa with Russia and Ukraine are small, the war has damaged the continent’s economies through higher commodity prices, higher food, fuel, and headline inflation.

The main impact is on the increasing likelihood of civil strife because of food and energy-fuelled inflation amid an environment of heightened political instability.

Key African economies such as South Africa and Nigeria were already stuck with low growth and many African governments have seen their debt burdens increase – some such as Ethiopia and Ghana now have dollar debt trading at distressed levels – and more countries will follow in 2023.

On average the public sector debt-to-GDP ratio of African countries stood at above 60 per cent in 2022. The era of Chinese state-backed big loans and mega-projects which started 20 years ago in Angola after the end of its civil war may be coming to an end but Chinese private sector investments on the continent will continue through its Belt and Road Initiative and dual circulation model of development.

Great and middle powers building influence

Geopolitical competition in Africa has intensified in 2022, particularly among great powers such as China, Russia, the US, and the EU but also by middle powers such as Turkey, Japan, and the Gulf states.

The sixth AU-EU summit held in Brussels in February 2022 agreed on the principles for a new partnership, although the Russian invasion of Ukraine which followed disrupted these ambitions. Japan’s pledge of $30 billion in aid for Africa at TICAD 8 in August 2022 was clearly made due to the $40 billion pledged at the China–Africa summit in November 2021.

The US also launched a new strategy to strengthen its partnership and held a second US-Africa Leaders’ summit in Washington in December, the first since 2014. Russia’s ambition has been curtailed by its invasion of Ukraine, postponing its second summit with African states to 2023.

The imposition of international sanctions complicated its trade and investments, and military support such as that provided by Russian paramilitary group Wagner focused on Mali, Libya and the Central African Republic (CAR) has been curtailed.

The strategic importance of Africa has resulted in all the UN P5 members calling on the G20 to make the African Union (AU) its 21st member in 2023 under India’s presidency.

International competition to secure Africa’s critical and strategic minerals and energy products intensified in 2022 and, in the energy sector, European countries are seeking to diversify away from Russian oil and gas with alternative supplies, such as those from Africa.

Western mining companies and commodity traders are also increasingly seeking alternative supplies from Africa. Decarbonization is becoming a driver of resource nationalism and geopolitical competition in certain African mining markets, home to large deposits of critical ‘transition minerals’ such as copper, cobalt, graphite, lithium, or nickel.

COP27 was hosted in Egypt in November and gave African leaders an opportunity to shape climate discussions by pushing priority areas such as loss and damage, stranded assets, access to climate finance, adaptation, and desertification. Climate adaptation in Africa is a key condition to preserving economic growth and maintaining social cohesion.

The Horn of Africa, particularly Somalia, is suffering from one of the worst droughts in memory. The geopolitical and geoeconomic ramifications of the war in Ukraine has directly impacted the African continent by contributing to food and cooking oil inflation and humanitarian aid delivery.

Thoughout 2022 the AU was undergoing intensive reform and it struggled to respond to the growing number of security crises across the continent. Hotspots in 2023 will be in the western Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, eastern DRC, and northern Mozambique, all of them crossing state borders.

In Mozambique, a 2019 peace deal assisted by the United Nations (UN) will see the last ex-guerrillas from Renamo demobilized in 2023 to reintegrate into civilian life – some having been recruited in 1978.

In eastern Congo, M23 – one of around 120 armed groups – resumed its conflict against the central government. After lying dormant for several years, it took up arms again in 2021 and has been leading an offensive in eastern DRC against the Congolese army.

According to the UN, Rwanda has been supporting M23, and Kenya’s parliament approved in November the deployment of about 900 soldiers to the DRC as part of a joint military force from the East African Community (EAC) bloc – DRC joined the EAC in March.

In the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia saw an uneasy ceasefire agreed between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Islamist militant groups in Africa further expanded their territorial reach in 2022, particularly in the western Sahel where al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates are competing for influence and continued to make inroads.

The drawdown and exit of western forces from Mali, both the French Operation Barkane and international contributions for the UN’s MINUSMA mission there, adds new dimensions to regional security challenges.

Mali’s decision in May to withdraw from the G5 Sahel has also eroded the regional security architecture. Jihadist activity may spread further into coastal states which has resulted in international partners such as France and the UK redesigning their security assistance strategies for the region.

Coups on the increase again

Since 2020, there have been successful military coups in Burkina Faso (twice), Chad, Guinea, Mali (twice), and Sudan, and failed ones in the CAR, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Niger, and possibly Gambia and São Tomé and Príncipe.

Three national elections illustrate the state of African democracy in 2022. In Angola’s August elections, the ruling MPLA lost its absolute majority with the opposition UNITA winning the majority in Luanda for the first time.

Silencing the Guns in Africa by 2030: Lessons from Mozambique 17 February 2023 — 7:00AM TO 9:00AM Anonymous (not verified) 7 February 2023 Addis Ababa and online

A hybrid event in Addis Ababa reflecting on Mozambique’s 2019 peace agreement and the lessons it offers for the African Union’s ‘Silencing the Guns’ agenda by 2030.

This event will explore opportunities for furthering the AU’s Silencing the Guns agenda by 2030 to assist Africa’s transformative development, highlighting lessons learnt from Mozambique’s experience.

The ‘Silencing the Guns in Africa’ agenda, a flagship initiative of the African Union’s (AU) Agenda 2063, aspires to end all wars and conflict, prevent genocide, and stop gender-based violence.

The 2019 peace agreement in Mozambique and the subsequent disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process supported by the United Nations (UN) but implemented by Mozambique’s government and institutions, provides experience and learning for other continental conflicts that have recently ended or resumed.

Mozambique is seeking to break from the cyclical ‘conflict trap’ where once a country experiences one civil war, it is significantly more likely to experience additional episodes of violence.

Since the end of Mozambique’s civil war in 1992, targeted armed conflict by RENAMO resumed in 2013 and ended through the new agreement in August 2019. The final reintegration into civilian life of former Mozambican combatants of opposition RENAMO will be completed in 2023.

Mozambique and Switzerland – a key supporter of successive Mozambican peace processes – have become non-permanent members of the UN Security Council for the first time in their respective histories.

At a moment when old vulnerabilities and new threats are apparent on the African continent, this seminar, held by Chatham House in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), explores opportunities to furthering the AU’s Silencing the Guns agenda by 2030 to assist Africa’s transformative development, as outlined by the UNDP in a report published in February 2022.

This hybrid event is held in partnership with the African Union Commission and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

This event will also be broadcast live via the Africa Programme Facebook page.

Africa Aware: Supply chains, land contestation, conflict Audio NCapeling 30 March 2023

This episode examines relations between Ethiopia and Sudan as part of an XCEPT project mini-series.

The war in northern Ethiopia since November 2020, and subsequent conquest of disputed farmlands in Al-Fashaga by the Sudanese army on the Ethiopia-Sudan border, has brought into focus the importance of agricultural commodities such as sesame as a potential driver of land contestation and conflict. 

The panel discusses the interrelation of commodity and conflict supply chains, land contestation, and boundary disputes in the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on the regions of Wolkait/Western Tigray in northwest Ethiopia and Al Fashaga in eastern Sudan.

This podcast was produced with support from the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) project, funded by UK Aid from the UK government.

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Researchers use dynamic PET imaging with target-selective tracer molecules to probe molecular processes. Kinetic models have been developed to describe these processes. The models are typically fitted to the measured PET data with the assumption that the brain is in a steady-state condition for the duration of the scan. The end results are quantitative parameters that characterize the molecular processes. The most common kinetic modeling endpoints are estimates of volume of distribution or the binding potential of a tracer. If the steady state is violated during the scanning period, the standard kinetic models may not apply. To address this issue, time-variant kinetic models have been developed for the characterization of dynamic PET data acquired while significant changes (e.g., short-lived neurotransmitter changes) are occurring in brain processes. These models are intended to extract a transient signal from data. This work in the PET field dates back at least to the 1990s. As interest has grown in imaging nonsteady events, development and refinement of time-variant models has accelerated. These new models, which we classify as belonging to the first, second, or third generation according to their innovation, have used the latest progress in mathematics, image processing, artificial intelligence, and statistics to improve the sensitivity and performance of the earliest practical time-variant models to detect and describe nonsteady phenomena. This review provides a detailed overview of the history of time-variant models in PET. It puts key advancements in the field into historical and scientific context. The sum total of the methods is an ongoing attempt to better understand the nature and implications of neurotransmitter fluctuations and other brief neurochemical phenomena.

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On October 24 and 25, SophosAI presents ideas on how to use models large and small—and defend against malignant ones.

Decades of obsolete and unpatched hardware and software endanger us all

Thirty-five years after the first great cat-and-mouse infosecurity story, here we are again