AfricaBriefing - July - August 2023 Edition

EMPOWERING WOMEN IN KENYA AND NIGERIA News. Analysis. Comment.

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November-December 2023

Vol.6 No.29

Mozambique’s security conundrum How will China’s Digital Silk Road play out in Africa?

opportunities

for the future Eurozone 5 euros UK £3.00 North America $6.50 CFA Zone CFA2,600 Ethiopia R90 Ghana GHC12.00 Kenya KSh350 Rwanda RWF3,000 Sierra Leone LE20,000 South Africa R40.00 (inc. tax) Other Southern African Countries R35.10 (excl. tax) Tanzania TSh6,500 Uganda USh10,700 Zambia ZMK45

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE

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Africa's mineral bounty: paving the way for prosperity and responsibility

Publisher Jon Offei-Ansah

A

Editor

FRICA’S sitting on a goldmine, figuratively speaking. It's got about a third of the world's critical minerals needed for clean energy— imagine that! We're talking 85 percent of global manganese, 80 percent of platinum and chromium, nearly half of the cobalt, a good chunk of graphite, and a slice of the copper pie too.

Contributing Editors

Picture this: Mali's got lithium, Guinea's got bauxite, Gabon's the king of manganese, and Namibia's dishing out uranium. And the DRC? It's the cobalt capital, holding over 70 percent of the world's production, with untapped treasures valued at a jaw-dropping $24 trillion!

Contributors

But wait, here comes the million-dollar question: will Africa hit the jackpot or fall victim to the dreaded “resource curse”? This curse, it's all about mismanaging resources, inviting shady deals, and letting foreign companies run amok, which could spell disaster for the continent's growth.

Now, let's talk responsibility. Africa's got to mine smartly, keeping the environment safe and not bulldozing through precious ecosystems. They want to “beneficiate,” you know, turn raw stuff into high-value goodies, but it's not all smooth sailing yet.

One big hurdle? They're PUBLISHER’S NOTE often shipping off raw ores for processing elsewhere. Take

the DRC, for instance—sending most of its cobalt to China. But Namibia, Ghana, Publisher and Zimbabwe have put their foot down, banning the export of unprocessed critical Jon Offei-Ansah Africa bucks global minerals.

Editor

economic trend

Desmond Davies Still, there are speed bumps on this road. Power outages are messing up processing n 2018, six of the 10 fastest-growing DeputyaEditor plans in Guinea and Africa, and political unrest, well, that's throwing economies in the world wereSouth in Africa, according to the World Bank, Angela Cobbinah spanner in the works in places like Guinea and Mali too. with Ghana leading the pack. With

I

GDP growth for the continent projected to Contributing Editor Even with all these resources, Africa's not getting as much love in exploration accelerate to four per cent in 2019 and 4.1 Stephen Williams per cent in 2020, Africa’s economic growth budgets. So, big global players are swooping in, eyeing up Africa's treasures. story continues apace. Meanwhile, the World Bank’s 2019 Doing Business Index Director, But, that there's worryarethat relying too much on China could beSpecial risky.Projects reveals five of a thecatch—some 10 most-improved countries in Africa, and one-third of all reforms recorded globally were in sub-Saharan Africa.

Michael Orji

That's why the US and the European Union are all about pushing for “responsible”

What makes the story more impressive and heartening is that the growth –sourcing. projected to be broad-based – is being achieved in a challenging global environment, bucking the trend.

Contributors Justice Lee Adoboe

Now, here's the twist to the plot. While the US is making pals for mining, Africa's Chuks Iloegbunam In the Cover Story of this edition, Dr. Hippolyte Fofack, Chief Economist at the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), analyses theWestern factors underpinning this are hesitant because not getting invited to all the parties. countries Josephthey Kayira performance. Two factors, in my opinion, stand out in Dr. Hippolyte’s analysis: Ochieng worry about China, on the otherandhand, seems moreZachary interested in trade between Africagovernance and China and theissues. intra-African cross-border investment Olu Ojewale infrastructure development. the shiny stuff than who's running the show.

Oladipo Okubanjo

Much has been said and written about China’s ever-deepening economic foray into Corinne Soar Africa, especially

by Westernon analysts and commentators have been But this spotlight Africa's mineralswhocould besounding the ticket to a better future.

There's alarm bells about re-colonisation of Africa, this time by the Chinese. But empirical hope that resources could supercharge development, especially with everyone Designer evidence paints these a different picture.

Gloria Ansah talking about transitioning to cleaner Despite the decelerating global growth environment, trade energy. between Africa and China increased by 14.5 per cent in the first three quarters of 2018, surpassing Country Representatives the growth rate of world trade (11.6 per cent), reflecting the economic And, here's the deal—responsibility isdeepening key. Africa needs solid rules, making sure dependency between the two major trading partners.

South Africa the environment's protected, communities benefit, and the whole process is squeaky

Empirical evidence shows that China’s domestic investment has become highly Edward Walter Byerley linked with economic expansion in Africa. A one percentage point increase clean.

Top Dog Media, 5 Ascot Knights in China’s domestic investment growth is associated with an average of 0.6 47 Grand National Boulevard Royal Ascot, percentage increase in overall African exports.sustainably, And, the expectedAfrica's economic got to play it smart. They To pullpoint in investments and grow Milnerton 7441, South Africa development and trade impact of expanding Chinese investment on resource-rich Tel: +27 (0) 21and 555 0096 need countries, clear laws foroil-exporting mining countries, and strike balance between foreign investments African especially is evenamore important.

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The resilienceout of African economies can also be attributed to growing intra-African looking for themselves.

Email: ed@topdog-media.net cross-border investment and infrastructure development. A combination of the two factors is acceleratingthose the process of structural in a continent Ghana And remember ESG rules?transformation They're not just fancy letters. They're crucial where industrial output and services account for a growing share of GDP. African Nana Asiama Bekoe for making sure African mining upfootprint to global like getting corporations and industrialists which are expandingmatches their industrial across standards. It'sKingdom Concept Co. Africa and globally are leading the diversification from agriculture into higher everyone on the same page,sectors. fromThese theindustrial big mining to +233 the small-scale 243 393 943 / +233 303 967 470 value goods in manufacturing and service championscompaniesTel: kingsconceptsltd@gmail.com are carrying out transcontinental operations, with investment holdings around the diggers. globe, with a strong presence in Europe and Pacific Asia, together account for more Nigeria than 75 per cent of their combined activities outside Africa.

At the end of the day, it's not just about the money. It's about Africa leading the Taiwo Adedoyin

A survey of 30 leading emerging African corporations with global footprints and Noble, Press and House, 3rd Floor way inrevenue responsible mining.

Balancing growth taking careMV of the planet the combined of more than $118 billion shows that they are activewith in several 27 Acme Road, Ogba, Ikeja, Lagos industries, including manufacturing (e.g., Dangote Industries), basic materials, people—that's the winning combo.

Tel: +234 806 291 7100 telecommunications (e.g., Econet, Safaricom), finance (e.g., Ecobank) and oil taiadedoyin52@gmail.com and gas. In addition to mitigating risks highly correlated with African economies, Africa's got the goods for an economic boom, leading the charge in the global these emerging African global corporations are accelerating the diversification of Kenya sources of growth reducing the exposure of countries to adverse commodity energy shift.andIt's all about tackling challenges, doing things right, and teaming up Naima Farah terms of trade.

for a future that's bright, stable, and sustainable.

This makes me very bullish about Africa!

Room 22, 2nd Floor West Wing Royal Square, Ngong Road, Nairobi Tel: +254 729 381 561 naimafarah_m@yahoo.com Africa Briefing Ltd 2 Redruth Close, London N22 8RN United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 208 888 6693

Desmond Davies

Stephen Williams Prof. Toyin Falola Tikum Mbah Azonga

Justice Lee Adoboe Chief Chuks Iloegbunam Joseph Kayira Zachary Ochieng Olu Ojewale Oladipo Okubanjo Corinne Soar Kennedy Olilo Gorata Chepete Designer Simon Blemadzie Country Representatives South Africa Edward Walter Byerley Top Dog Media, 5 Ascot Knights 47 Grand National Boulevard Royal Ascot, Milnerton 7441, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 21 555 0096 Cell: +27 (0) 81 331 4887 Email: ed@topdog-media.net Ghana Nana Asiama Bekoe Kingdom Concept Co. Tel: +233 243 393 943 / +233 303 967 470 kingsconceptsltd@gmail.com Nigeria Nnenna Ogbu #4 Babatunde Oduse crescent Isheri Olowora - Isheri Berger, Lagos Tel: +234 803 670 4879 getnnenna.ogbu@gmail.com Kenya Patrick Mwangi Aquarius Media Ltd, PO Box 10668-11000 Nairobi, Kenya Tel: 0720 391 546/0773 35 41 Email: mwangi@aquariusmedia.co.ke ©Africa Briefing Ltd 2 Redruth Close, London N22 8RN United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 208 888 6693 publisher@africabriefing.org

Contents LEADER

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The state and African development

Vol.6 No.29 November-December 2023

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COMMENT

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Patrolling the rule of law in Africa

COVER STORY

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Mozambique’s security conundrum

After enduring a 15-year-long civil war from 1977 to 1992, followed by another country-dividing conflict between 2013 and 2019, the southern African country is now confronting a growing threat from Islamists who emerged in Cabo Delgado Province in 2017. Olinda Mabunda looks at the complex security challenges facing a country with deep Catholic foundations

ANALYSIS

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Pre-empting genocide

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The battle for women’s political empowerment in Kenya

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While the existence of an international or regional framework on the prevention of genocide is crucial, it is equally important to recognise that we can effectively address this issue by adopting preventive measures to stop genocide from taking place, argues Adama Dieng

Merceline Odhiambo gives an insight into how tedious it is for women to organise politically in the country but how rewarding it could be once things are in place to make a difference

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BUSINESS & ECONOMY

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How will China’s Digital Silk Road play out in Africa?

It is important that the countries on the continent enforce transparent relations, equal partnership and individual policies with China to ensure that holistic African development plans are not marginalised

by Sino interests, argues Shreya Dharmalingam

ENVIRONMENT

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Water, water everywhere…

In many places in Africa rainfall levels are high, and the continent is home to giant river systems including the Nile, Congo, Zambezi and Volta. Dams and lakes are plentiful. The challenge lies in getting water to where it is needed, writes Geoff Hill

AFRICA ABROAD

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Ghana’s Akyaaba Addai-Sebo on founding UK’s Black History Month

Explore the life story of Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, a global activist and influential figure behind the UK's Black History Month. His interview, recorded by the British Library, delves into his impactful journey across continents, from Ghana to the US, shaping cultural and political narratives

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LEADER

The state and African development I

N the early days after independence in Africa, many governments established businesses to produce or provide a wide range of goods and services.

The first president of Tanzania, Julius Kambarage Nyerere, famously commented on the advice given by

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“aid” was not designed to help build Africa’s industrial base

the former colonisers that the path to development should be reached only via capitalism and the private sector: “So what are we to do if, because of colonialism, we do not have a private sector?” The solution adopted by Tanzania and several other African countries was to use the state as the leading force of the national business sector.

This he did partly as a matter of pragmatism, as was the case in other countries. But there were also those for whom this was more than pragmatism, and in this Nyerere could also be included. Developing national entrepreneurship through state enterprise was a way to prevent foreign companies from dominating the national economies of the newly independent states. To have a national economy meant having national businesses, and the only ones readily available were state enterprises, which could be created relatively quickly by legislation. The third

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reason for supporting state enterprise was that it was a widely held view among African leaders then that steps should be taken to ensure that all citizens would benefit equitably from development. They believed that one way to achieve this was for the state to be a significant producer of goods and

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services.

During the 1980s the policy of the state playing a significant role in these economic sectors was undermined when many African countries became highly indebted and were persuaded, cajoled, or forced into abandoning

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managed them. State enterprises were not generating significant income for the nation.

Meanwhile, the potential social benefits of state enterprises were discounted. Unfortunately, there was little evidence to suggest that going forward the ruling elites would change their habits and manage things better.

So, the mantra of private sector-led growth or development (the two are of course not the same) became the dominant refrain among African governments.

To this was added “liberalisation” by the former colonisers who had morphed into “Development Partners”. Their “aid” was not designed to help build the industrial base that was so sorely needed by African countries to make them competitive. Both mantras were supported by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Equal opportunities are better provided by countries in Scandinavia than the US

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the approach. Leaders who wished to preserve the role of the state were on weak ground, not least because of the way in which the ruling elites had

Today, therefore, the African economic landscape is populated by foreign multinationals and a few

AFRICA BRIEFING NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2023

LEADER nationally-owned private sector companies, often in the commercial and service sectors. This focus on private sector-led growth has produced in Africa some of the highest levels of inequality in the world, even discounting South Africa, which has stratospheric levels of inequality.

This is something that is not surprising given the country’s history of Apartheid orchestrated by Dutch settler colonists. But several other African countries are also exhibiting high Gini coefficients – indicating high levels of income and or wealth inequality.

In the early 1990s the World Bank published a survey of the leading Asian countries to try to explain the Asian development “miracle”.

However, its approach was only able to “explain” 48 per cent of the “miracle”.

The noted development economist, Dani Rodrik, modified their model to include income and wealth inequality in these Asian counties compared to others which had not performed an economic miracle.

His study indicated that the level of inequality in these Asian miracle countries was significantly lower than

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sector-led growth but had in addition instituted measures to force the private sector to adopt business strategies that they would not have taken left to

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The strategy of the Asian high performers was not based on liberalisation

themselves. This underscored the case for a strong state to implement a clear development strategy and agenda as a way of achieving high development performance.

The emergence of equality as a positive factor in the development policy mix, alongside a state-led development strategic agenda, should have implications for the ways in which Africa tries to achieve its development outcomes. First, the strategy of the Asian high performers was not based on liberalisation as Africa’s “development partners” and the rest of the world preach, but on what could be called “strategic

Private sector-led growth has produced in Africa some of the highest levels of inequality in the world

in the countries that were not “high performing” countries. He therefore concluded that low levels of inequality were more conducive to high levels of economic performance.

Rodrik also found that the state in these countries had taken measures not just to have encouraged private

can play an important role in ensuring that all citizens are included in the development effort.

To achieve this, citizens need to

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protectionism”.

The high performing Asian economies have shown that their state-led strategic protectionist model has led to high levels of economic growth and development. Second, even in the absence of a significant state presence in the production of certain goods and services, the state

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be provided with equal opportunities.

Evidence shows that such equal opportunities are better provided by countries in Scandinavia than the US. There, the state is heavily involved in providing education, almost to the exclusion of the private sector. This ensures that the talents of children from all socio-economic backgrounds can contribute to the pool from which the nation’s scientists, industrialists, managers and politicians will come.

Other areas of state equal opportunities engagement include health and housing, necessities which should and can be provided in a manner that is affordable to the many, and not for profit. In Singapore, an often-quoted example of high performance, the state is almost exclusively the landowner, with significant positive implications for business and household rents.

Finally, the state can be the major provider of utilities such as water, electricity, transport infrastructure, transportation and even information.

So, when the Scandinavian approach is added, high standards of living for the many can be secured.

In the final analysis, that African countries are still struggling to achieve sustained periods of high levels of growth and development should be a source of great concern to all, especially Africans themselves.

AB

AFRICA BRIEFING NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2023

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COMMENT

Patrolling the rule of law in Africa T

RANSPARENCY, accountability and good governance have been buzzwords among civil society organisations in Africa – and abroad, for that matter – for ages. Foreign governments, too, have called for these to be respected when they deal with African governments.

But do these words actually matter to hard-pressed Africans? Are they being parroted just to assuage frustrated citizens, without much of an impact? Indeed, those in authority in Africa tend to play fast and loose with these concepts when it suits them.

Take, for instance, governments that have been past masters at political chicanery suddenly turning to the rule of law when they are out of power. That should not be the case. There should be steadfastness in pursuing transparency, accountability and good governance on the continent. Where the rule of law is under strain, there is immense pressure on social,

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Due diligence in economic and financial matters must be paramount

political and economic rights, leading to chaos in society.

However, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel with the launch of a new body, the Pan-African Alliance for Transparency and Rule of Law (PATROLAfrica). Its aim is to not just keep a watchful eye on the exercise of the rule of law, but to take practical action to make sure it is strictly adhered to in the interest of everyone.

My good friend, Senegalese jurist Adama Dieng, is the brains behind the project, which one hopes will be a shot in the arm for the rule of law in African countries. I have known him for more than 30 years, and I have always been impressed by his dogged nature when fighting impunity, not just in Africa but around the world.

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His credentials speak for themselves: a former UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide (2012 -2020); UN Assistant Secretary General and Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (2001-2012). He was the driving force behind the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and produced the first draft of the AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption.

So, there you are. Who better then Dieng to lead PATROL as Founding President?

After the launch of PATROL, Dieng said: “Transparency and the rule of law are fundamental components of state governance. They are pursued not at the detriment of human rights and social justice but rather to advance them.

“It is therefore critical for a society truly committed to advance peace to demonstrate its unshakable commitment to transparency and the rule of law. Our

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efforts to advance peace and justice cannot be achieved in a vacuum without institutional, policy and, above all, political will to create an environment to support these ideals.

“Peace can only be realised when pillars of any society are anchored on justice and there is genuine commitment to prevent violence through respect for the rule of law and fundamental rights and freedoms, which is the primary mission of PATROL-Africa,” Dieng said.

He is assisted by a sterling Board of Governors of seven made up of legal luminaries from The Gambia, Tanzania, Kenya. Rwanda, Senegal, Morocco and Central African Republic.

For me, though, I see PATROL as an organisation that can make a huge difference in stopping African countries

Desmond Davies being regularly ripped off by foreign elements who bypass the rule of law when it comes to business and commercial interests. Illicit financial flows (IFFs) from Africa cost the continent about $90 billion annually, which is 3.7 per cent of GDP, according to the 2020 Economic Development in Africa Report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

Tackling this will be a mammoth task, given the intricate web that has been sown by foreign lawyers, businessmen, bankers, accountants and estate agents who help siphon this eye-watering amount of money from Africa each year with impunity.

The recent case in the High Court in London involving a claim of $11 billion against the Nigerian government is one example. It was thrown out by an exasperated judge.

He was infuriated by the antics of the British lawyers for the claimant, Process & Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID), a British Virgin Island-based company.

The 20-year oil and gas deal never got off the ground. P&ID sued the Nigerian government in London and was awarded $6.6 billion in 2017, which had risen to $11 billion this year before the company lost its claim.

What irked the judge, Mr Justice Knowles, most was the fact that the deal was replete with bribery and corruption.

He said the P&ID team was “driven by greed and prepared to use corruption; [and gave] no thought to what their enrichment would mean in terms of harm for others”. He referred his judgment to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board for action against the miscreant British lawyers.

So, while it is all well and good to insist on the rule of law in politics and human rights, the issue of due diligence in economic and financial matters must be paramount. Indeed, PATROL plans to increase the capacity of the continent’s anti-corruption bodies, and help civil society organisations to strengthen their oversight of the financial process.

AB

AFRICA BRIEFING NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2023

SIERRA LEONE’S BIO PITCHES FOR BUSINESS

July-August 2019 Vol. 2 No.4

News, Analysis & Comment

SOUTH AFRICA’S BITTER IRONY GHANA: CONSTITUTIONALISM UNDER THREAT RESOURCE CURSE: ZAMBIA SHOWS THE WAY

CORRUPTION: WHERE ARE AFRICA’S BILLIONS? Eurozone 5 euros UK £3.00 North America $6.50 CFA Zone CFA2,600 Ethiopia R90 Ghana GHC12.00 Kenya KSh350 Rwanda RWF3,000 Sierra Leone LE20,000 South Africa R40.00 (inc. tax) Other Southern African Countries R35.10 (excl. tax) Tanzania TSh6,500 Uganda USh10,700 Zambia ZMK45

News, analysis and forecast 2 Redruth Close, London N22 8RN, United Kingdom Phone: +44 (0) 208 888 6693 Email: publisher@africabriefing.org

COVER STORY

Mozambique’s security conundrum After enduring a 15-year-long civil war from 1977 to 1992, followed by another country-dividing conflict between 2013 and 2019, the southern African country is now confronting a growing threat from Islamists who emerged in Cabo Delgado Province in 2017. Olinda Mabunda looks at the complex security challenges facing a country with deep Catholic foundations

M

OZAMBIQUE, a country that has grappled with its own tumultuous history, now finds itself facing a security conundrum. Having endured two separate conflict-ridden periods of civil war (19771992 and 2013-2019), the government now has to tackle security challenges presented

by Islamists.

mediated by the Gabinete de Assuntos Religiosos, the religious affairs office.

The nation has had a history of peaceful coexistence between different religious groups since independence.

But for Mozambicans in the north of the country the threat posed by Islamic

State jihadists is real. Multiple sources, such as the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), have identified the insurgents as members of Islamic State of Mozambique. Locally, they are referred to as Ahl-Sunna walJamma, a group of Mozambican Islamic

When they first struck in the northern province of Cabo Delgado in 2017, the government did not perceive religion as a potential source of conflict, given that the country, even with the roots of Catholicism well embedded, officially defines itself as secular. The issue of secularity is rooted in the legacy of Samora Machel, Mozambique's first President, who led the nation to independence from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975. Machel was not enamoured of the Catholic Church because of its ties to the former colonial regime, leading to the expulsion of numerous Catholic missionaries from Mozambique.

Historically, religion in Mozambique had not been a focal point of security concerns, as most of the Muslim population resided in the northern regions, while the south has been predominantly Christian, constituting 62 per cent of the population. Thus, the emergence of the Islamic threat in Cabo Delgado came as a surprise to both the Muslim and Christian communities in Mozambique.

To this day, many Mozambicans do not classify the armed conflict in the province as religious or Islamic in nature. Instead, it is often viewed as a war driven by political factors and competition for control over natural resources.

Whenever the occasional religious tensions arose, these have been effectively

10

AFRICA BRIEFING NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2023

COVER STORY Studies students who fell out with the Islamic Council of Mozambique for what they perceived as the adulteration of Islam.

Thus, when the violence erupted the group was called Al-Shabaab, given that its members and actions were youth-based.

But as early as 2007, Islamic leaders reported threats from Suhalehe Rafayel, an influential leader who enforced Sharia law in local mosques after his return from Tanzania where he had undergone Islamic Studies. Even after he disassociated himself from the local mosque, he still posed a threat to the Islamic community. which led to him being expelled from Mozambique back to Tanzania in 2010.

As an emerging leader, Rafayel influenced individuals like Abdul Carimo to continue enforcing extremist Sharia laws. In 2010 Carimo built a mosque, school and residences in his compound while he sent some of his followers to be trained in Tanzania, Sudan and Saudi

Arabia with the aim of creating an Islamic State in Cabo Delgado.

Muamudo Saha is another who is now said to be leading the Islamic threat in northern Mozambique. An Amir (highly respected spiritual leader), after being expelled from the Islamic Council of Mozambique in 2016, Saha, influenced

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believes the fighting in Cabo Delgado is caused by Islamists, ordinary Mozambicans believe that the insurgents are merely opportunists. Indeed, the extremists are taking advantage of the existence of socio-economic problems in the region.

Muslims in Mozambique are not

Historically, religion in Mozambique had not been a focal point of security concerns

by radical Kenyan Sheik Abdou Rogo’s teachings, became a leader of Al-Shabaab in his village, according to findings by researchers in the field in 2020.

While the international community

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deemed as a threat to national security. The Islamic threat is seen as cover for natural resource extraction in Cabo Delgado, believed to be driven by Mozambicans and Tanzanians who adhere to fundamentalist religious doctrines, embracing radical Islamic practices.

Authorities also suspect international influences contributing to the radicalisation and violence associated with Sharia Law. In 2020, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said on television that the Islamic threat involved foreign elements. He expressed willingness to negotiate with them if they disclosed their purpose, citing police reports of capturing individuals from Tanzania, Congo, Somalia, Mali and Pakistan.

Numerous theories have been explored through field research to understand the origins of the Islamic threat in Mozambique. For instance, it has been noted that one jihadist, even with a stable government job still held strong beliefs in Sharia law. Additionally, one government driver targeted for recruitment by jihadists, was enticed by the promise of a different life and employment within Al-Shabaab.

Research on this conflict suggests that many early members of Al-Shabaab were formerly garimpeiros (wildcat miners) involved in illegal ruby mining, until a private company purchased the mine and displaced them. While many theories exist as to why Mozambique is facing an Islamic threat, one field work by a researcher in 2021 on the role of women in the conflict in Cabo Delgado found that there was a clear goal of creating an Islamic state.

The women were taught the Koran twice

The insurgent group, Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jama, staged its first attack in 2017

AFRICA BRIEFING NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2023

11

COVER STORY Muslim or part of a group. The Islamic threat has removed the sense of community and trust between ethnic and religious groups as well as neighbours

The Islamic threat is seen as cover for natural resource extraction in Cabo Delgado

a week and promised a better government where there wouldn’t be injustice. The insurgents promised an end to democracy while eliminating embezzlement and corruption in government.

From the stories collected by the researcher, girls between12 and 15 years old were promised that they would be taken to Tanzania to learn English. This reveals an element of human trafficking, as most of these teenagers were never seen again. It is believed that they were sold to finance the conflict.

In addition to various illicit activities in Cabo Delgado, another motivating factor for the Islamic threat is small-scale drug trafficking. This illegal trade involves individuals of different nationalities who have been apprehended while attempting to engage in such activities in Mozambique.

faces the grim reality of brutal attacks by the insurgents, resulting in loss of life.

Members of the Muslim community who reject Sharia law have become primary targets for the jihadists, as they are accused of distorting the Islamic religion and accepting secular state rules.

Christian civilians have also been targeted, with accusations of marginalising the Islamic community. This has resulted in forced displacement, beheadings and the formation of vigilante community groups, all of which are grim realities affecting civilians in northern Mozambique.

Civilians also report of being confused with the terrorists simply because they are

In Cabo Delgado, civilians, particularly those in rural villages, have been significantly impacted by the Islamic threat, compelling many to relocate to Pemba or other areas to seek refuge. Those who have been displaced from their homes have witnessed insurgents using their houses as bases for extended periods.

The constant threat of invasion disrupts civilians' daily lives, often causing them to abandon their possessions which are often burnt by terrorists. Young people, tragically, continue to be forcibly recruited by the terrorists, conscripted into service as child soldiers. The civilian population also

Secularity is rooted in the legacy of Samora Machel, Mozambique's first President

How are civilians coping amid the threat? It is estimated that since the armed conflict began 900,000 people have left their homes, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. While most senior citizens have not accepted to leave their land amid Islamic threats, most people are in refugee camps run by international organisations. Some civilians have also taken justice into their own hands following the events in 2018 where communities decapitated two Al-Shabaab members and destroyed 17 houses that allegedly belonged to family members of insurgents.

Despite the claims and counter claims, there is compelling evidence of the existence of the Islamic threat in Mozambique, emphasising the critical role of human security in addressing the situation. The threat is symptomatic of societal exclusion, marginalisation and a lack of general social cohesion.

The security analysis of the Cabo Delgado conflict underscores the fact that the roots of the conflict go beyond political and religious factors to encompass the absence of societal consent for the exploitation of natural resources. While there has been a reduction in attacks and the involvement of numerous international and national organisations in northern Mozambique, achieving conflict resolution remains a formidable challenge.

In cases like Cabo Delgado, it is imperative for the key stakeholders to come to the table and initiate a dialogue aimed at ending the conflict. This calls for a focus on community revitalisation, allowing the people of the region to feel safe and secure in their homes. Applying restorative justice is essential, where harm is acknowledged, and the healing process commences. Subsequently, the restorative process should involve formal and informal government bodies, nongovernmental organisations, the military, key leaders in natural resource extraction companies, and prominent religious figures in Mozambique. The active participation of young people in these restorative circles is paramount to rebuilding trust.

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Olinda Mabunda has been involved in peace and conflict resolution in Mozambique. She is currently pursuing her MSc in Global Leadership and Peacebuilding at King’s College London and is an Associate Fellow with the African Leadership Centre.

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COVER STORY

Poor response to Islamist threat Despite the government's efforts to arrest potential insurgents and conduct heavily militarised operations, its success has been limited, and the region has continued to experience attacks, writes Olinda Mabunda

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INCE the emergence of the Islamic threat, the government has deployed the military to restore control in Cabo Delgado. But the attacks continue. The government has not provided comprehensive communication to the people of Mozambique about the ongoing events, and peace remains elusive for the local population.

The government has officially categorised this conflict as a foreignbacked insurgency, with Islamic State of Mozambique as proxy for the main Islamic State. The authorities have come up with various theories since 2017, including statements suggesting that the insurgents consist of individuals aiming to establish an Islamic state. While this theory is easier to be accepted, given data that proves that a radical Islamic threat in Mozambique is real, many are saying that this is down to the government’s enforcement of policies against illegal activities by various interests in the mining sector.

In 2020, data indicated that the conflict was due to outside forces acting in Mozambique. This conclusion came from the arrests of Tanzanians, Congolese and other nationalities who were part of the insurgency group. The government then conclusively identified the Islamic State of Mozambique, given the fact that IS claimed the attacks.

Although the government has not been forthcoming with information on the matter, this does not mean there has not been public understanding of the conflict. Public opinion often suggests that marginalised individuals who harbour grievances against the government are the ones who have resorted to violent responses.

This socio-political perspective supports the notion of marginalisation that has made Cabo Delgado vulnerable to any threat.

The government gave mining companies licences to operate in conflict sensitive areas without addressing the concerns of the local communities on how to undertake successful business in Cabo Delgado.

Mozambicans have informally labelled this as a natural resource conflict, and are hoping that their country does not end up

Soldiers patrol Afungi Peninsula, Palma district in Cabo Delgado

like the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But the government still has limited access to the conflict data, to the extent that the wrong people have been arrested and accused of being associated with the Cabo Delgado conflict.

Does the army itself have the capacity to deal with the threat? While the government has recruited more soldiers in the last seven years, it is important to note that the army has not been able to effectively tackle the insurgents, to the point where international private military companies and foreign troops are now involved in the fight.

According to Transparency International, Mozambique is considered one of the most corrupt states in the world scoring 147 out of 180 rated countries, which makes this a problem when it comes to funding an army that will have the capability to deal with the current Islamic threat. It has become a major human security crisis that requires a shift from a state-centric to a person-centric approach, as defined by UN. The army clearly does not have the capacity to deal with the threat, and as such ordinary Mozambicans do not feel safe.

Apart from the human security aspect, the people have to contend with failing environmental security, poor health services as well as social and economic instability These problems could not necessarily be solved through heavy militarisation. In short, the army cannot provide a wholistic

answer to the Islamic threat in the country.

Peacekeeping operations funded by the European Union and the US are being supported by a host of forces apart from the the Mozambican army: the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM}; the Rwandan army, among other groups. These are private military companies such as Russia’s Wagner Group and South Africa’s Dyck Advisory Group (DAG). There are more from Europe and South Africa The security arrangements, however, have mostly been focused on protecting the multi-billion-dollar companies while neglecting communities that face beheading by the insurgents, many cases of which have been reported by human rights bodies such as Amnesty International.

Research findings from conflict observatory site Cabo Ligado indicate a total of 1,683 cases of political violence, resulting in 4,774 reported fatalities. Among these, 2,045 were reported as civilian casualties.

These events are reported to have multiplied after the Islamic State insurgents split up and established multiple bases within Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula where they attacked at the same time, consequently spreading the army thinly on the ground. Furthermore, in the confused state, human traffickers are said to be operating with impunity.

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COVER STORY

Cabo Delgado: a province in permanent conflict Analysing Cabo Delgado's security landscape reveals its historical significance in Mozambique's independence struggle. Amidst oil and gas opportunities, private security prioritisation and organised crime loom. The need for human security stands paramount amidst international interests for peace and stability in the region, says Olinda Mabunda

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HILE analysing the security landscape in the context of the violence in Cabo Delgado, it is essential to grasp the province's historical significance as a pivotal player in Mozambique's struggle for independence during the 1960s.The history of security in the province has always been one of instability, heightened by the quest for independence. Frelimo was formed there, where it began its fight against the Portuguese colonialists. Cabo Delgado provided its easy access to Tanzania where the OAU Liberation Committee had its headquarters in Dar es Salaam.

The war for independence was launched in Cabo Delgado on September 25, 1964 and lasted for 10 years. Cabo Delgado was also in the thick of the 16-year civil war that was started by Renamo. The region has, therefore, had to transition from one war to another, and was described as a “state where war made the state and state made war”.

But with the immense financial opportunities presented by the extraction of oil and gas in Cabo Delgado, human security has been pushed to one side.

The region has become a magnet for international companies and investors interested in natural resource security rather than human security.

Privatisation of security has made it easier for rich business owners to continue their “economic development goals” at the cost of insecurity for the vulnerable who

have been dispossessed of their land and are at the mercy of private security companies.

But with a long sea coast and borders with six countries, Cabo Delgado is fertile ground for organised crime such as such as human and drug trafficking. Now, with the nature of “new wars” the lack of human security is more profound than ever before.

While the international business community sees Cabo Delgado as a gas and oil rich province to be exploited, for the people, they just want to be safe in their homes. They want leaders who will guide the country to define peace and security on its own terms and needs. Peace in Cabo Delgado and Mozambique must be achieved not through the absence of wars but the absence of violence that has disrupted the lives of Mozambicans.

A peaceful Cabo Delgado is a region that needs strong security, starting from within families to national security.

Researchers have said that Mozambique needs to respect human rights and guarantee basic needs.

The nation is safe when physical protection is efficient in local communities, where leaders do their job in safeguarding individuals even when it comes to seeking justice for a crime; and where there is mutual understanding between protection and the needs of individuals, ethnic and religious groups.

Bringing peace to Cabo Delgado, a province in permanent conflict, requires the engagement of both state and non-state actors, where there is civilian oversight and strong state involvement to ensure sustainable security. To bring about new security policies in Cabo Delgado, there must be a full understanding of previous wars and traumas.

Human security has to prevail in an environment where informal and formal powers of governance are not in conflict.

Formal powers in Cabo Delgado, starting from customary and traditional leaders to the president, must be made to follow laid down protocols for a clear transition from military security to human security.

The religious mix HOW does a strong Catholic country like Mozambique get embroiled in an Islamic armed conflict? Research shows that Cabo Delgado is home to religious diversity. There is a mix of Christians and Muslims in the region, with the later slightly more.

Given that Mozambique was colonised by the Portuguese, the educational and other institutions, such as hospitals and orphanages were strongly Catholic-based. Thus, most of those in power in the country come from a Catholic background. This social construct has been exploited by Islamic

State, which argues that Muslims cannot exist in a such an environment.

In 2020, the National Statistics Institute estimated Mozambique's population at approximately 31.7 million people, with 19 per cent practicing Islam. Notably, Cabo Delgado has the highest concentration of Muslims in the country. This was because during Portuguese colonial rule, northern Mozambicans engaged in trade with Arabs, accounting for the predominance of Islam in Cabo Delgado.

Over time, the practice of Islam in the region has intertwined with local

traditions, creating complexities for those who seek to enforce strict Sharia laws. The Alhu Sunnah wal Jammah group emerged to accommodate new radicals who did not identify with the Islamic religious practices they underwent during their upbringing.

When the attacks started in Cabo Delgado, field research found that the Islamic insurgents accused the government, and Christians in particular, of oppressing the Islamic community in the region. They even complained that there were more Christian symbols in the area than AB those of Islam.

The international business community sees Cabo Delgado as a gas and oil rich province to be exploited

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ANALYSIS

Pre-empting genocide While the existence of an international or regional framework on the prevention of genocide is crucial, it is equally important to recognise that we can effectively address this issue by adopting preventive measures to stop genocide from taking place, argues Adama Dieng

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HE involvement of the UN in genocide prevention can be traced way back to efforts undertaken in the aftermath of the Second World War. Mindful of the tragic failure of the League of Nations to stop World War II, the UN was therefore created to ensure that events witnessed during the war did not happen again.

It was in fulfilment of this commitment that one day before the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on December 9, 1948.

While this decision may be symbolic, it

Convention since its adoption. reaffirmed the gravity of the crime and the commitment of the international community It was not until the early 1990s, four to ensure its prevention and punishment. decades after its adoption, that the Genocide Convention was invoked to address the The importance of this Convention aftermath of the bloodshed in Rwanda is two-pronged. Firstly, it designates and in the Balkans. Through Resolution genocide as a crime against international 827/1993 and 955/1994, the UN Security law, whether committed in times of peace Council invoked the Genocide Convention or times of war. Secondly, the Convention to set up the International Criminal defines what constitutes genocide.

Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the However, unlike any other human International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda rights treaty, the Genocide Convention did (ICTR) to punish those who bear greatest not establish a specific monitoring body responsibilities for crimes committed or expert committee. It is this latter aspect in these territories. This invocation was which has challenged the international significant mainly because it reaffirmed the commitment to effectively implement this inherent duty of states to punish the crime

Memorial Wall at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre (Photo: Richard Wainwright.)

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ANALYSIS of genocide.

Events in the Balkans and the implosion of Rwanda are constant reminders to the international community that catastrophic failure to intervene to protect civilians from atrocities entail high costs, often paid for in lives lost and nations destroyed. That the international community failed to intervene to prevent genocide in both countries, yet managed to set up judicial institutions to punish those responsible, reaffirms the relevance and importance of this Convention, decades after its adoption.

For those who have been keen to follow the work of the ICTY and ICTR closely, the latter which I was privileged to serve as Registrar, will agree with me that these tribunals, during their existence, rendered ground-breaking decisions and contributed to a jurisprudence with huge implication on the prevention and punishment of the crime of Genocide.

Based on the work of these tribunals, other judicial institutions were set up, focused on punishing the perpetrators of the crimes of genocide and other atrocity crimes. The establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of

The ICTR rendered ground-breaking decisions on the crime of genocide

Cambodia, the Special Tribunal for Sierra Leone, Special Court for Lebanon, and the permanent International Criminal Court, all reaffirm the unwavering commitment of the international community to fight impunity in all its form.

While the existence of an international or regional framework on genocide prevention is crucial, it is equally important to recognise that we can effectively address genocide by adopting preventive measures to pre-empt it from taking place. Indeed, since the Rwanda and the Balkan tragedy, the international community has focused its efforts on preventive measures.

The 1999 Report of the Independent Inquiry into the UN’s failure to prevent or halt the Rwanda genocide was generally critical of the role of the UN and the international community at large. The

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Thus, in 2004 the Secretary General proposed the creation of the Office of the Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide. The key functions of the Office were envisaged to include the collection of existing information on massive and serious violations of human rights which, if not prevented or halted, might lead to genocide.

The Office also provides early warning to the Secretary General and the Security Council on potential situations that could result in genocide, making recommendations on actions to prevent or halt it and liaise with the UN system.

However, the role of the Special Adviser is not to make the determination whether genocide has occurred or not; rather his or her role is to enable the international community to act in a timely manner and thus prevent any repeat of genocide.

Today, armed groups are increasingly capable of unleashing brutal violence on a scale before unimaginable

overall conclusion of the Report noted that “the failure of the United Nations to prevent, and subsequently to stop, the genocide in Rwanda was a failure by the United Nations as a whole”. Clearly this was an indictment of the international community in its entirety.

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In 2005, the international community, through the World Summit Outcome Document, reaffirmed the role of the international community to protect civilians at risk of genocide. This recognition concretised the belief that while states have an inherent duty to protect their citizens, not

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ANALYSIS

“The failure of the United Nations to prevent, and subsequently to stop, the genocide in Rwanda was a failure by the United Nations as a whole”

all states are capable and willing to afford protection to their people. It was therefore essential for the international community to create a framework for a greater involvement in protecting populations at risk.

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states to protect civilians at risk, it is evident that the international community was reaffirming the fact that sovereignty is responsibility. It entails the state’s obligation towards its people.

This framework is collectively known as Responsibility to Protect (R2P). It is an evolving concept that addresses the failure of states, whether unwilling or unable, to protect their citizens. What is novel about R2P is that it challenges the primacy of state sovereignty by shifting focus from rights of states toward the rights of victims of atrocities.

Despite ongoing recognition of this responsibility to protect population from atrocities, we must acknowledge that conflict dynamics and dimensions are evolving into rather complex and unpredictable situations. Today, states are no longer an exclusive source of authority and political power. Armed groups are increasingly capable of unleashing brutal violence on a scale before unimaginable.

By endorsing the responsibility of

Today we are seeing conflicts in the

remotest parts of the world being influenced and supplied with weapons from far away actors. Reality is, the UN must evolve and adapt to these new developments. It must send an unmistakable message to all parties involved in conflicts that violence of any kind as a tool to resolve differences is unacceptable. Those who instigate, support or indeed bankroll violence will be punished.

We are moving decisively towards a new age of sovereignty as responsibility.

We are slowly, but resolutely heading towards an era where those who commit atrocities and violate the human rights of their people will be held accountable.

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ANALYSIS While, accountability may take time, the growing voices of civil societies, independent actors, unmatched technological advancement, among other factors, will continue to contribute to the collection and preservation of critical information to hold to account those who commit these atrocities. While it is evident that accountability for the sake of it will not prevent genocide and atrocity crimes immediately, it is no less true that the possibility of perpetrators of such crimes, regardless of who they are, being held to account significantly influences their actions.

With various tragedies unfolding before our very eyes, the obvious question that stands out is how are we prepared to respond to events such as those in Sudan?

Clearly, Sudan, represents the litmus test for the international community but most importantly for the Security Council and indeed the African Union. The UN Security Council has failed to speak with one unequivocal voice against the actions of both parties to the conflicts and, crucially, to take decisive steps to protect civilians who continue to face the brutal nature of

this senseless conflict.

The Council must provide moral and political leadership to stop the ongoing violence in the country. This is because within the ambit of the current Charter, it is only the Security Council which wields ultimate power and indeed political duty and moral responsibility to address challenges with international peace and security dimension.

As such, the message coming from the Council, more than anything else, will continue to determine the extent to which we can save and protect lives of vulnerable populations at risk of genocide. I do believe that we have adequate international legal frameworks to address events such as those unfolding in Sudan and elsewhere.

What is urgently required, but which is critically lacking, is the political courage and leadership of the Security Council to overcome divisions in its ranks to fulfil its role and perform its duty as enshrined in the Charter.

The failure of the Council should not be equated with the failure of the concept of the responsibility to protect or the commitment of the UN and the Secretary

General in particular to address these challenges. Rather, this failure should be seen and addressed within the ongoing debates of the UN reforms and especially the Security Council. As events in Libya demonstrated, when the Council is united and willing to overcome its differences, it is more likely to forge a consensus to protect populations likely to fall prey to genocide.

It is therefore in recognition of these political realities that the UN must continue to evolve and adapt to new situations.

Multiple armed actors, competing for legitimacy and power, will certainly continue to challenge and influence, how and in what context the UN responds to the prevention and punishment of mass atrocities, especially when the UN itself lacks unity among its ranks on how to address such challenges.

Considering the importance and growing role of technology in our day-today lives, the UN must continue to make full use of this to benefit our preventive efforts, especially in the collection and preservation of key information for future accountability.

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Adama Dieng

Adama Dieng is President of the Pan African Alliance for Transparency and the Rule of Law and a former UN Under SecretaryGeneral and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. The above is an abridged version of his paper, The United Nations and the Prevention of Genocide in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities, presented at Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford in the UK on October 9.

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ANALYSIS

Arms control worries During a recent meeting at the UN, Adedeji Ebo, Director and Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, delivered a statement highlighting key issues relating to the international security environment. Below is an abridged version of his presentation

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TATES have lamented the strain on the disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control architecture. Some have flagged the unacceptably high threat of the use of nuclear weapons, compounded by qualitative improvements to stockpiles.

Ongoing challenges to the norm against the use of chemical weapons have also been underlined as a major concern of several delegations. Many are deeply concerned about skyrocketing military spending and what this means for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Furthermore, from outer space to cyber space to artificial intelligence to biotechnology, delegations have reflected on the viability of existing norms and governance frameworks.

On the whole, states have rightly raised a few questions. One, is the multilateral system actually working? Two, are governance structures fit-for-purpose and how effective are they in addressing the pressing challenges facing the international community?

While there are no simple answers to these vital questions, there is a set of principles that underpin effective collective security, as stressed in the New Agenda for Peace: trust, solidarity and universality.

The Secretary-General has presented his vision for a New Agenda for Peace in a policy brief intended to support states in their preparations for the Summit of the Future in 2024.

It includes a set of ambitious recommendations for a more effective multilateral system. The Secretary-General identifies concrete action areas to address strategic risks and geopolitical divisions; prevent conflict and violence; and seek novel approaches to peace and potential domains of conflict.

Critically, disarmament, nonproliferation and arms control are central to these actions. The New Agenda for Peace rightly characterises disarmament 20

as a powerful prevention tool central to comprehensive peace and security responses. Its vision directly connects disarmament with the attainment of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, while recognising links between disarmament and human rights, humanitarian action and women’s empowerment.

The 2024 Summit of the Future will be an important opportunity to discuss the strategic importance of disarmament for broader peace and security and development objectives. Ultimately, it is states that bear the primary responsibility in tackling current disarmament and international security challenges, while the

Secretariat provides support.

At a time when the risk of nuclear weapon use is higher than it has been in decades, it is essential for member states to reinforce the barrier against the use of nuclear weapons, accelerate progress towards their elimination and buttress the non-proliferation regime against a growing array of threats.

Disarmament and non-proliferation are two sides of the same coin and urgent progress needed on both fronts.

Accountability for implementation of disarmament commitments must be pursued alongside strengthening of the non-proliferation regime, particularly in

Weapons being burnt during the official launch of the Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DDRR) process in Muramvya, Burundi. Burundian military signed up voluntarily to be disarmed under the auspices of UN peacekeepers. UN Photo/Martine Perret

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ANALYSIS the face of technological advances.

It is critical that states recommit to the humanitarian imperative that underpins disarmament efforts with a view to reducing the human cost of weapons.

Placing human beings at the centre of disarmament efforts is essential.

From the human cost of unconstrained military spending to the devastating humanitarian toll of the increasing urbanisation of conflict, states must recommit to saving people from violence.

States are encouraged to endorse and fully implement the Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas.

Achieving universality of treaties banning inhumane and indiscriminate weapons, such as the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the Anti-Personnel Landmine Convention, and the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and its Protocols, is another priority. Illicit small arms and light weapons continue to have excruciating and debilitating effects on many communities, often resulting in massive human suffering.

Thus, regional, sub-regional and

Adedeji Ebo, Director and Deputy to the High Representative of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA)

national efforts to combat diversion, proliferation and misuse of these weapons must be enhanced. For example, states are encouraged to consider target setting at the national and regional levels and to pursue whole of government approaches that integrate small arms and light weapons into development and violence reduction initiatives.

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norms, rules and principles to address threats through relevant UN disarmament bodies.

We must also prohibit lethal autonomous weapon systems, building on the progress made in multilateral discussions; and address the peace and security implications of artificial

Disarmament and nonproliferation are two sides of the same coin

States must remain seized of challenges related to the weaponization of emerging technologies and the dangers of potential domains of conflict. Technologies are evolving at light speed. We must ensure we are taking action at a commensurate rate.

Specifically, we must consider how to tackle the extension of conflict and hostilities to cyberspace, building on concrete progress achieved through the General Assembly; and prevent conflict in outer space, by developing international

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intelligence, including through developing norms, rules and principles around design, development and use.

Finally, an essential ingredient to attaining these and other common goals is a well-functioning and effective disarmament machinery. It is critical that states consider revitalisation of all the components of the machinery to optimise their respective roles.

Establishing an intergovernmental process to discuss how to achieve this objective would be a good place to start.

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ANALYSIS

Complex nature of Nigeria’s new migration trend Contrary to widespread assumptions, there isn't a simple cause-and-effect relationship between social media use and the decision by young Nigerians to leave their country, Damilola Adegoke finds in a detailed study of the phenomenon

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N today's heavily mediated world, it is nearly impossible for a media day to pass without a news headline about desperate migrants, mainly from Africa, facing perilous odds to make their way to European countries. Depending on the ideological persuasion of the news outlet, they are either framed as invaders or somewhere in between.

There are narrations and accounts of dismayed young immigrants who now feel the West overpromised and under-delivered.

This perhaps comes from a realisation of the contrast between the promised paradise (in movies, by unscrupulous travel agencies and by friends) and the stark realities in the destination countries battling their own challenges.

Findings from studies have shown different pull factors responsible for youth out-migration trends on the continent.

They include access to employment and economic considerations, well-being, escape from political displacement and access to better infrastructure.

Over the years, there have been different international migration trends in sub-Saharan Africa; however, the networked reality of the digital space, including social media, has amplified new kinds of out-movement, especially in Nigeria, where a new form of migration has gained popular ascendancy: the Japa trend.

Every keen follower of Nigerian cyberspace must have encountered the term – a neologism that has assumed its own distinctive grammatical characteristic and might someday find itself in a revised Dictionary of Modern English. Japa is the term which colloquially means “an escape”.

A published exploratory study in the Journal of Social Media + Society observes how the term is used in varied forms, such as Japa-ed (escaped), Japa-ing (preparing to 22

Japa migrants predominantly utilise platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as sources of information

escape).

addressed in the published study.

The Japa migrants are divided into two main groups: graduate students and health and care workers. Both routes are largely means to an end – settlement in the UK. These new migrants prefer European and North American countries – the UK and Canada being their primary destinations.

One of the pivotal findings is that social media, while undoubtedly a tool used by aspiring migrants, does not always serve as the prime motivator for migration. Contrary to widespread assumptions, our research suggests that there isn't a simple cause-andeffect relationship between social media use and the decision to migrate.

Studies have linked youth migration in Nigeria to the internet and social media influences. Factors such as diasporans' display of affluence on social media have been attributed to the desire to embark on this trend.

Is this truly the case for all the cohorts?

Since these youths are stratified across different economic, age and education categories, are their motivations and experiences similar? The digital realm has become a hub for information, connectivity and inspiration, but does it play a direct role in shaping migration choices, particularly in the context of Nigeria’s out-migration trend? These are some of the questions

Existing literature has often implied a direct link between social media and migration, but this study reveals a more nuanced reality. It emphasises the need to consider various factors, including the type of migration, gender and age of the individuals involved.

The Japa migrants, for instance, predominantly utilise platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as sources of information. However, these platforms are not unconditionally perceived as influential factors. Those most likely to embark on Japa migration are within the middle and upper-middle classes with

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ANALYSIS university degrees; they are less likely to be swayed by opulent displays of material possessions (these might persuade those of the younger age cohort) on social media than by the prospects for career advancements, better opportunities for their children and security.

These findings challenge the prevailing notion that social media is a one-size-fitsall influencer of Japa migration decisions in Nigeria. In reality, these migrants often rely on close offline social network ties they have established over the years for information. Social media technologies are seen as secondary tools that their trusted relations use to relate with them.

One surprising revelation from the study is that these migrants prefer online discussion forums, blogs, video sharing and streaming platforms over traditional social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Instant messaging applications with endto-end encryption, such as WhatsApp and Telegram, are favoured by these migrants.

These preferences are tied to privacy, trust and the conservative culture of those who dominate the Japa migration demography.

international migration – Japa migration is no exception. There is also the problem of switching to permanent immigration status because of the bottlenecks and conditions that make some migrants stay perpetually on low-skilled jobs.

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Nigeria. It underscores the complexity of migration decisions, which are influenced by various factors, including socioeconomic considerations, security and future career prospects.

Social media plays a more significant

Young immigrants now feel the West overpromised and under-delivered

Housing conditions, we discovered, pose a significant challenge for these migrants. Discrimination in the labour market, including long working hours and low pay, and in housing, affects migrants from less developed countries disproportionately. The study highlights the impact of poor housing conditions and difficult workplace experiences on their lives.

For example, in the UK, due to the increase in the inflow of migrants, rents have surged, leading to some of them living in overcrowded accommodation, especially in London. Discrimination is a bitter truth that migrants face when seeking employment or housing.

The study also delves into the experiences of Japa migrants in their destination countries. These migrants face significant integration challenges, health In summary, the study challenges issues and cultural barriers. They are vulnerable due to their living conditions and the prevailing belief in a direct, causal relationship between social media and limited social welfare. migration decisions, particularly in the It's a harsh reality that many migrants context of the Japa out-migration trend in face, shedding light on the dark side of

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role as a source of migration information rather than a primary motivator.

Understanding this multifaceted role of social media in migration decisions is crucial for policymakers, researchers and anyone intrigued by the dynamic interplay between technology and human migration.

While the findings in the study may not provide definitive conclusions, they offer valuable insights into the intricate world of modern migration, suggesting that future research should explore this complex relationship across different migration trends and demographics.

The role of social media in migration decisions remains a subject of ongoing exploration. It is clear that many factors shape migration dynamics, and social media is just one piece of the puzzle. As technology continues to evolve and shape our lives, keeping a keen eye on its changing roles and possible impacts on migration AB trends and flows is essential.

Discrimination is a bitter truth that migrants face when seeking employment or housing

Dr Damilola Adegoke is a Peter Da Costa postdoctoral research fellow and the head of the Data Lab Unit at the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London.

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ANALYSIS

The battle for women’s political empowerment in Kenya Merceline Odhiambo gives an insight into how tedious it is for women to organise politically in the country but how rewarding it could be once things are in place to make a difference

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organisations in the country, would be less controversial. Politics was a contentious word, in the view of the bureaucrats at the department.

N 2019 the Thirdway Alliance political party in Kenya was advocating for an amendment to the country’s 2010 Constitution under Article 257, commonly known as the “popular initiative”. The Bill sought to reduce the number of Members of Parliament and slash government expenditure in general.

The most contentious matter, naturally, was the reduction of the number of MPs from 416 to 147 by abolishing all constituencies in the country. The initiative went through all the stages required by law: drafting the amendment Bill, popularising it, collecting signatures, verifying them by the electoral body, and lobbying in county assemblies.

During these various phases, it was quite obvious that women were being sidelined – not just by the Thirdway Alliance but by all the political parties. This was even more disheartening, given that women constitute the majority of voters.

More women were needed to be at the top table in order to promote gender equality, inclusivity and diversity.

Merceline Odhiambo: championing women's rights in politics at the local level

the work started, and focus on political participation of women. This was easier than done.

After forming a six-member team to go through the registration process, which was followed to the letter, the team was taken aback when the Department of Social Services rejected the application because it used the word politics in its name. The department suggested the use of women empowerment, like many such

After much toing and froing, the department relented, and Grassroot Women and Politics Community-Based Organisation was officially registered in September 2021. The department must have come to realise the continuous gaps in the participation and inclusion of women in the decision-making process over the years.

The organisation is to effectively champion women’s rights in politics at the local level. It is focusing on young widows who are living with HIV/AIDS and with disabilities, especially invisible ones, to give them a voice and confidence. They are often excluded from most spaces.

Grassroot’s programmes focus on political awareness, financial literacy, sexual and reproductive health, genderbased violence and peace and conflict resolution. The organisation believes

During the pandemic, which brought the world to a standstill, people’s resilience and leadership abilities were put to the test. As Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese army general and strategist, put it: “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

That was how Grassroot Women and Politics Community-Based Organisation was born in Kanyikela-Ndhiwa Constituency in Homa Bay County with small grants from local and internal funders. Its first project was on civic education on women and political participation in the constituency.

Participants included women, men, youth, religious and local administrators to share their experiences in the highly contested areas of politics and women’s overall empowerment.

After that first engagement, it was decided that a formal body should continue 24

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ANALYSIS

GWP carried out its first community engagement in 2023 with widows in Ndhiwa Constituency, Homa Bay County - Kenya. The project is about Civic Education on Women Participation in Political Activities at the Grassroot level

that these are key areas for achieving gender equality and justice, and it has seen first-hand the positive impacts that the programmes have had on women and communities of Ndhiwa Constituency.

Much focus is on political participation of women and challenges experienced from gender-based violence (GBV), financial issues and the impact on peace in the community. These thematic areas are interrelated, making it easier for the organisation to carry out its activities.

It also undertakes virtual engagements in order to listen to the views of people from different parts of Kenya as a way of having progressive conversations that will improve the work of the organisation and, in turn, women.

The biggest challenge for Grassroot Women and Politics, just like for many budding organisations, is the lack of institutional funding, which comes with its own limitations. For now, the organisation relies on resources from the founder and donations.

This limits it from reaching a good number of women. But the organisation appreciates the progress it has made so far. For instance, in Homa Bay County where the organisation is based, the elected Governor is a female and there are three elected women MPs out of the eight constituencies in the county and six elected Women Members of the County Assembly

which is an improvement on the 2017 general election.

Grassroot Women and Politics carries out engagements in Ndhiwa Sub-County, targeting the seven administrative wards. Ndhiwa Sub-County lies in the South Nyanza region where about 70 per cent of women are illiterate and not politically informed. This is as a result of patriarchy, cultural beliefs and practices that have been, and still are, part of the community. Conversations pertaining to politics, governance and the rule of law have been left to men. In the long run, the organisation intends to achieve a number of targets that will make a difference.

These include getting more women to participate in all aspects of the political process within the seven administrative wards in Ndhiwa Sub-County; and

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skills; as well as providing women with basic entrepreneurship and financial literacy skills.

The slogan of Grassroot sums up its core message: “Nothing for Women Without Women”. Step by step, the organisation will partner with likeminded individuals and groups to ensure that progress is made and more women participate in the political process to ensure that equality, diversity and inclusion are visible and working in the spaces where decisions are made. Women need to be there to speak for themselves because no one can tell their story or understand their challenges better than themselves.

This is why Grassroot Women and Politics Community-Based Organisation believes that Kenyan women need to be

Politics was a contentious word for the bureaucrats at the Social Services Department

reducing violence and intimidation against women during political campaigns and decision-making.

Other targets are good governance within political parties at the local level to give women a fair chance of taking up leadership roles; equipping women with community mobilisation and advocacy

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actively involved in all aspects of the political process – within the community and political parties, as well as at the local, national and global levels. With women being in the majority in Kenya, there is no need for them to still be marginalised and not adequately represented.

AB

Merceline Odhiambo is Founder and Executive Director of Grassroot Women and Politics Community-Based Organisation. She is currently pursuing an MSc in Global Leadership and Peacebuilding at King’s College London and is on the African Leadership Centre’s Fellowship for African Women.

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ANALYSIS

Building a legacy for women peacebuilders in Nigeria Young people, especially women, are the future of Africa but there is still not enough invested in them, says Kaltumi Abdulazeez who is working to achieve full implementation of UN resolutions on making women equal partners in peace and security efforts

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ADIES Empowerment Goal and Support Initiative (LEGASI) is a women-led non-profit organisation started in 2017, with a vision to raise a generation of highly empowered, educated and independent women in Nigeria who will play important roles in building peace in their society.

10 youth-led initiatives in various communities, one of which has been the transformation of young people from being violent thugs to peace advocates in Trikania and Nasarawa communities of Kaduna state. These communities were victims of the inter-religious violence that ravaged the area in 2000.

LEGASI was founded on the premise of enhancing and advancing the fundamental and basic rights of women through timely and sensitive programmes in advocacy for change, policy for development, and justice for a peaceful society. UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security (WPS), adopted in 2000, laid the groundwork for women to be inclusive in peace building processes.

Even though this occurred years ago, the talk of revenge was forever present, creating more tensions in the communities.

Those displaced by the violence returned to Kaduna with plans to avenge the deaths of loved ones.

However, after a series of engagement with these groups of young people, the slow transformation began. Those who were drug abusers or who were involved in other social vices began to turn their lives around.

LEGASI’s intervention brought about healing and forgiveness. All plans to

However, this has not yielded much progress in terms of implementation in Nigeria. Not all the states in the country have domesticated UNSCR 1325.

It is on the basis of the foregoing that LEGASI is contributing to the application of Resolution 1325 through advocacy and grassroot mobilisation of women to play active and substantive roles in the prevention, management and mitigation of conflict, especially in fragile communities where women, young people and persons with disabilities (PWDs) are mostly affected.

LEGASI, through the Local Action Fund (LAF) from UK-based charity Peace Direct, is providing communities in conflict with alternative dispute resolution training, early warning and early response systems, mediation, dialogue and skills acquisition. Through its EnGAGE programme, LEGASI is building the capacity of vulnerable and marginalised groups that are seldom carried along in peace building processes.

So far, LEGASI has undertaken 26

Kaltumi Abdulazeez: LEGASI's intervention in Kaduna State brought about healing and forgiveness

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ANALYSIS

LEGASI has undertaken 10 youth-led initiatives in various communities

launch revenge attacks were forestalled, saving innocent lives and property.

LEGASI is now working on a framework to support education and provide jobs for the former combatants.

Plateau states. The aim is to support individuals who have never received such funding before, but who have been actively engaged in promoting and sustaining peace in their communities.

For LEGASI, peacebuilding involves several stages of putting together many pieces to make a whole. In the past, many civil society organisations that have focused on conflict resolution made hasty decisions in designing peacebuilding programmes without doing much analysis of the situation and failing to place community needs in context. This has resulted in a lot of unintended harm in violence-prone areas in Nigeria.

LEGASI’s workplan is designed in a way that it is flexible and can be modified, especially in cases where conflict trends are changing. This is to ensure that the needs of communities come first.

LEGASI’s focus is people-centred so that those affected directly by conflict, especially women, are encouraged to meaningfully participate in peace processes. LEGASI drives the idea of localisation and community ownership.

This approach triggers inclusivity of women to build community resilience and cohesion.

LEGASI, through the LAF, has funded local initiatives by women and youth since 2020. Each group receives a grant of $5,000 to come up with homegrown answers to the root causes of violent conflict in communities in Kaduna and

The monitoring and evaluation framework is designed to reduce complication in communities where the majority of LEGASI’s members are not educated. This ensures effective and efficient use of funds that serve the needs of the community. LEGASI has also developed measures for communities to ensure transparency and accountability while fulfilling the core humanitarian needs.

To move from conflict to peace, LEGASI supports community members and strengthens existing structures that encourage alternative dispute resolution is a sustainable manner. Engagement of women in formal mediation, negotiation and dialogue processes is crucial for the development of positive peace in Nigeria.

In all this, the issue of funding is always uppermost on the minds of

the LEGASI team. Many in the nongovernmental organisation sector would agree that international grant applications are often quite demanding and this automatically disqualifies community organisations from accessing the funds.

This is no different from the experience LEGASI has faced. The requirements are, most times, discouraging and quite exhausting.

It is understandable that “due diligence” is an essential procedure for donors to map out credible organisations.

However, it is imperative for international NGOs to go back to the drawing board and come up with models of flexible funding, putting the need of people and lives first, rather than organisational bureaucracies that do not allow room for change in a world that is dynamic and not static.

Local organisations deserve access to flexible funding opportunities to support their work. Helping to build their internal structures and organisational capacity should go hand in hand with funding.

The existing inequality in the development arena must be addressed in order to achieve the UNSCR agenda on Women, Peace and Security.

AB

Kaltumi Abdulazeez is a young female peacebuilder in Nigeria who is the founder of Ladies Empowerment Goals and Support Initiative (LEGASI). She has been working with survivors and families of violent conflict since 2016. She is currently on the African Leadership Centre’s Peace, Security and Development Fellowship programme for African Women.

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BUSINESS & ECONOMY

How will China’s Digital Silk Road play out in Africa?

It is important that the countries on the continent enforce transparent relations, equal partnership and individual policies with China to ensure that holistic African development plans are not marginalised by Sino interests, argues Shreya Dharmalingam

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FRICAN development has been significantly hindered by the legacy of colonialism, which continues to entrench patterns of underdevelopment and insecurity on the continent. Whilst there are a number of endogenous factors, such as human and capital deficiencies and socio-political instability, which have contributed to a limited capacity for sustainable growth, exogenous factors remain the determinant of such conditions.

Colonialist legacies have contributed most significantly to the structural limitations which have constrained the development of modernised economies in Africa. These structural asymmetries have limited economic transformation, such that they largely function as undiversified markets with a dependence on commodity exports. As such, limited industrialisation has correlated with underdevelopment.

This is recognised by the implementation of various neo-liberal models that have attempted to galvanise African growth following independence.

Yet, Rostow’s Five Stages of Growth, the Washington Consensus, and even the East Asian development model, have been unsuccessful in upgrading Africa’s industrial capacity.

This indicates two important points: firstly, Africa’s development is contingent on its ability to autonomously achieve its sustainable development goals by addressing structural limitations; and secondly, sustainable development is dependent on the creation of a modern industrialised economy.

Closer Sino-African relations may be the key to the achievement of these goals.

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Egypt has seen BRI investment into the energy sector

China has been Africa’s largest trading partner since 2009, and the introduction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) represents an expansion of this trade relationship. China has also been Africa’s top bilateral loan and credit partner since 2000. As a nation with both the will and means to provide funding, China is an attractive partner for African development owing to the limited development capacity it currently endures.

but in all spheres of the international system and governance.

The BRI in particular has three strategic intents for galvanising sustainability and development in Africa: economic, social, and environmental. In terms of expressing Chinese interests, it emphasises their goal of achieving regional and global comparative advantage, not just in trade,

For Africa specifically, the BRI has been implemented largely through infrastructure development projects with a focus on creating accessible global platforms for African nations through land, sea and air corridors. The central strategy behind this is that addressing infrastructure

Thus, the BRI seeks policy coordination, trade facilitation and connectivity, integration of finance, environmental protection and sustainability, and people-to-people connections through the creation of networks from Asia to Africa and the Western world. It is a broadly-based initiative which will be enacted through multiple corridors and arms.

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BUSINESS & ECONOMY deficiencies will allow the region to escape from the “income-trap” which has historically excluded Africa from global markets, capture comparative advantage, and engage in spheres of international governance.

Membership of China’s BRI is therefore a strategic move for Africa for two reasons. Firstly, the goals of the BRI coincide with the development goals of the African Union’s “Agenda 2063” and secondly, given the shared colonial history of China and Africa, the BRI serves as a means by which these regions can create an equitable world order that allows for a greater development capacity for nations of all socio-economic status. The BRI has the means to address structural asymmetries of the international system, as well as fulfil the mandate of Agenda 2063, specifically self-achievement, regional and global participation, and economic cooperation through infrastructure development.

Despite the promising mandate of the

BRI, which serves African interests of sustainable development and competitive capability in the global arena, the benefits and risks of such a partnership must be considered. The primary advantage of greater Chinse influence and BRI

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inclusive policy” regarding political and economic factors, such as regime type and socio-economic status. Thus, the BRI is an advantageous initiative for Africa as it represents the economic prowess of China and its willingness as a partner

A number of economic, political and social risks arise from stronger SinoAfrican partnership through the BRI

partnership is their willingness and material capacity to provide funding into areas which have stagnated African development.

Whilst international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF provide stringent conditional loans and subsequently limited funding, China provides accessible investment for its partners. China’s loan scheduling and aid donations occur on a more practical basis focused on “all-

for development through investment opportunities.

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More specifically, the BRI addresses the structural deficiencies in each African nation in order to allow for the diversification of their economies and capturing of comparative advantage, which has been limited by historical struggles.

Comparative advantage defines the effects of specialisation within an economy: simply

Belt and Road project: where is it heading?

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BUSINESS & ECONOMY put, the ability to produce goods at a lower cost than other markets.

Specialisation has the continued effect of encouraging a positive investment cycle as it attracts Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), given increased productivity and economic growth, and continues a circle of productivity, connectivity and investment.

This subsequently enhances the job market, skills growth, industrialisation, and welfare benefits owing to the expanding economy.

The benefits of Africa’s BRI partnership can already be seen in a number of these nations in terms of industrialisation and development. In Kenya, public infrastructure development, specifically the development of ports and railways in Mombasa and Lamu, has improved regional connectivity, facilitated trade and market gains.

Egypt has seen BRI investment into the energy sector, which has the potential to establish comparative advantage, and trade infrastructure which recognises geographical advantages in connecting East and Western economies. Egypt’s economy has already seen the establishment of a large capital base, the creation of 10,000 jobs both directly and indirectly, and the establishment of the Egypt Suez Economic Zone as a pinnacle of China’s Maritime Silk Road.

The BRI also continues to foster regional connectivity projects, according to the AU’s Agenda 2063, including the Sudan-Chad-Mali-Niger-Senegal railways and port networks, the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline, the Central African Republic water projects and the Mali-Guinea Railway scheme. Therefore, the economic advantages of African BRI partnerships have already presented themselves in numerous African nations and speak to the BRI pillar of economic development and sustainability.

However, there are a number of economic, political and social risks that arise from stronger Sino-African partnership through the BRI. The economic perspective gives rise to debate over the true strategic intent behind the BRI and its effects on sustainable economic growth in Africa.

Firstly, the negative spill over effects from closer economic ties and investment projects into Africa, and, secondly, the consistencies between Agenda 2063 and the BRI’s mandate. A study in 2021 indicated that the focus of the BRI on infrastructure development may be incorrectly targeting 30

Kenya's Lamu seaport built by a Chinese firm paves way for seamless movement of goods in the greater Horn of Africa region

the causes of African underdevelopment and consequently cause economic shrinkage.

Whilst, generally, African nations face human, infrastructural and capital deficiencies to varying extents, as well as institutional instability, the BRI may in fact catalyse further economic instability. The study shows that whilst in the short term, low to middle-income African nations may benefit from BRI partnership, sustainable development is stagnated for middle to upper income economies in the long-term.

This has two economic disadvantages: a collapse of employment structures; and that the current implementation of the BRI in Africa may not be appropriately targeting the continent’s sustainable development.

The second disadvantage pertains to the relevance of the current forms of BRI implementation, namely infrastructure and investment projects, in addressing the development deficiencies within Africa. Whilst it is evident that limited

industrialisation and competitive labour forces stagnate growth, for Africa, labour creation is minimally based on skills development and has a larger need for technological endowments for stable growth. Whilst physical and human capital deficiencies and low-skilled labour forces result in diminishing output and limited market competitiveness, growth through capital accumulation is more dependent on technology transfers and absorptions. The BRI primarily focuses on infrastructure development projects within Africa, and thus reemphasises that Chinese influence will not facilitate sustainable development.

The BRI’s investment projects currently disregard the need for technology transfers and absorptions in order to mitigate African underdevelopment. Therefore, the BRI does not provide a basis for sustainable development in the region according to Agenda 2063’s goals.

Whilst the limits to long-term sustainability of BRI partnership must

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BUSINESS & ECONOMY significant in the African context as it allows for the creation of new opportunities for employment and legitimises informal sectors which generally make up the largest labour sectors in African economies.

It cannot be denied that “unskilled” labour forces and African rural communities are “vibrant” and make up “the backbone of economic activity”. Their capacity to contribute to a country’s GDP however remains minimal. Where, previously, industrialisation resulted in upskilling labour forces, digital industrialisation rather seeks to form connections through value chains already in existence.

Therefore, technological innovation and the consequent human capital development can facilitate fourth wave industrialisation, which in turn address the international system’s structural asymmetries in order to galvanise economic development.

be acknowledged, it must also be recognised that the BRI may still be relevant to African industrialisation when considered from a different perspective.

It has been recognised that human and capital resources are key to developing industrial capacity, and Africa displays historical patterns of scarcity in these areas. African development, in particular, may benefit from the advancement of technology to allow for both transfers and absorption which contribute to overall sustainable development through fourth industrialisation.

Revolution” and in the China-Africa joint Declaration of 2015, the nation indicated that the DSR serves to “unswervingly coordinate and cooperate with [Africa]and safeguard common interests”.

This is an important statement as it reemphasises the synergies that exist between Chinese interests and the African development agenda. Therefore, the DSR has the ability to address African industrial deficits whilst promoting African selfachievement of sustainable development.

Yet, whilst the DSR has the ability to address the most significant factors that have constrained African industrialisation and therefore sustainable development, it is limited by the potential costs of forging African dependence on Chinese funding opportunities and technological goods and services. Therefore, the DSR only remains a promising partnership if Africa exerts Consequently, the Digital Silk its agency with Chinese implementation Road’s (DSR) emphasis on technology as a sustainable means for growth better of it by capturing multi-level synergy addresses African industrial capacity within Africa and closer Sino-African deficits. The DSR is the newly revitalised communication through gatherings such as arm of the BRI which focuses on the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation. technological innovation, cooperation and It is important that the continent enforces connectivity within the digital economy, transparent relations, equal partnership, finance, artificial intelligence and other and individualised policy mechanisms, forms of Information and Communication both within the region and with China, to Technology. ensure that holistic African continental The DSR has been emphasised as development through the BRI is not an attempt “to narrow the gap between marginalised by Sino interests. Contingent underdeveloped and developed countries, to on this, the DSR largely has the capacity remove bottleneck problems…., and greatly to galvanise autonomous and sustainable improve their own production capacity”. achievement of African development goals China further emphasises that they “need by pursuing Fourth Industrialisation. to keep up with the Fourth Industrial AB

Moreover, fourth-wave industrialisation is the key to structural transformation as it facilitates rapid economic growth which may mirror the transformation of the Tiger economies. Digital innovation has the ability to transform manufacturing capabilities through its labour and capital augmenting capabilities. This becomes The goals of the BRI coincide with the development goals of the African Union’s “Agenda 2063”

Shreya Dharmalingam is from South Africa. She is currently undertaking an MSc in Global Leadership and Peacebuilding at the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London.

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BUSINESS & ECONOMY

China tightens its belt on funding for Africa African countries, having grown accustomed to China providing them with loans and aid with few conditions, are now witnessing a decline in such largesse as Beijing becomes more restrained in its lending, writes Zenge Simakoloyi

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HINA’S developmental presence in Africa has left a solid footprint, evident in loans, foreign direct investments (FDI) and construction projects. This charm offensive was consolidated in 2013 when Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Primarily, from the China-Exim Bank, Chinese loans to African countries rose by 2,700 per cent from 2000 to 2021, peaking at $28 billion in 2016, according to the China-Africa Research Initiative (CARI).

China positioned itself as a noninterventionist 'win-win' player on the debt/loan scene, appearing to have fewer conditions than Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and international financial institutions (IFIs), such as the infamous Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) required of heavily indebted countries to access debt relief.

In the FDI sector, there was a similar upward trajectory, with a 3,900 per cent increase from $75 million in 2005 to $5 billion in 2021, surpassing American FDI flows in 2013. The leading destinations for Chinese FDI were the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zambia, Guinea, South Africa and Kenya. A key channel of these FDI’s is the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Today, Africa has over 200 SEZs in 38 countries.

Additionally, despite the visibility of stateowned enterprises (SOEs) in infrastructure and energy, according to McKinsey & Co., at least 90 per cent of the over 10,000 Chinese companies in sub-Saharan Africa are privately owned, representing a $300 billion value in current investments as of 2022.

The most visible aspect of China's 32

strategy are the infrastructure projects. The more politically sensitive projects can be seen as being done on a grant basis, while energy and transport projects – key nodal points in the BRI network – are based on loan agreements.

In Zambia, some of the country's largest airports were built by AVIC International and China Jiangxi Construction, with loans totalling $757 million, while in Kenya, the Nairobi-Mombasa Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) was built by the China Road and Bridge Cooperation (CRBC) with a $5 billion loan. More political projects, like the African Union headquarters built

by China State Construction Engineering and the China Architecture and Design

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a debt-trap diplomacy model in which failure to repay the debt resulted in China's acquisition of the constructed projects in question. This was the speculation about Uganda's Entebbe International Airport, although the Southern African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA) disputes these allegations as fear-mongering tactics primarily perpetuated by the US. Perhaps the most contentious case is China's Resource-for-Infrastructure (RFI) deal in the DRC. In 2007, then-President Joseph Kabila signed a $9 billion deal, later revised to $3 billion, to build his priority projects: Les Cinq Chantiers (The Five Construction sites), which included hospitals, roads, schools and infrastructure

China's loan disbursements to Africa plummeted from $28 billion in 2016 to $2 billion in 2020

Research Group, were financed by a $200 million donation, in a similar fashion to the new Zimbabwean parliament completed in 2023, which was financed by a $200 million grant.

These are just more recent examples following the China-Exim Bank's disbursement of $12 billion in construction from 2000 to 2008. By 2021, the total revenue of Chinese companies in engineering and construction stood at $37 billion.

Although China-Africa relations have been praised as a 'win-win,' they have not been without their critics who claimed that Chinese lending practices featured

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of a public goods nature. In exchange, a joint venture company called Sicomines would be established between DRC parastatal mining company Gecamines and a consortium of Chinese companies, in which China had a controlling 67 per cent share, with Gecamines holding 32 per cent.

While initially observed as an exemplification of Congo's agency in diversifying away from its developmental partnerships with the World Bank and IMF, it is also seen as incredibly lopsided in favour of China. This is something that Kabila's successor, Felix Tshisekedi, has voiced, and he visited China to renegotiate this in August 2023.

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BUSINESS & ECONOMY

The Chinese-built Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway

In the last decade, Sino-Congolese relations have seen a more cautious approach by China, shifting from grand infrastructure loans to mineral corporate acquisitions and mergers, increasingly by private companies. Consequently, with Chinese investment dominating 70 per cent of the DRC's mining sector, China has increasingly become a mineral monopoly and monopsony by being the dominant production owner and buyer.

disbursements plummeted from $28 billion in 2016 to $2 billion in 2020. Additionally, China's role as Africa's largest bilateral creditor has also faced challenges. In 2015, China refused to fund Western-sanctioned Zimbabwe's $4 billion economic recovery plan over concerns about corruption and profitability, subsequently insisting on embedding Chinese officials in Zimbabwean SOEs, thus breaking Beijing’s non-interference principle.

Judging by financial statistical data alone, China's sluggish post-covid recovery accelerated rather than necessitated its wider retreat from Africa. China's slowdown in African development can also be attributed to more domestic economic challenges, like its $6 trillion debt-stressed provinces, coupled with increasing unemployment at 21 per cent.

In June 2023, as part of debt negotiations in the G20's Common Framework Agreement, China, Zambia's largest bilateral creditor, agreed to restructure $6.3 billion of its debt owed to China. While it was praised as a landmark agreement, Beijing was blamed for an impasse whereby China insisted on both it and the IMF getting a reduction in what Zambia owed them: $13 billion in total.

This indicates a more calculating and cautious China in contrast to the initial carte-blanche, condition-less perceptions.

Although China-Africa investment and trade, primarily from private actors, increased in 2021, there is strong evidence of the Chinese state's retreat due to these compounding factors. China's loan

China’s decline in Africa is congruent

with a wider decline that has seen a 40 per cent reduction in BRI project activity.

Officially, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs put a break on fast overseas expansion in its 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP) for 2021 to 2025, reducing investments by 25 per cent from $740 billion in the 20162020 period to $550 billion, according to Fudan University.

China's economy clearly displays a slowdown and a clear end to the largesse seen in the first two decades of this century.

Its developmental retreat might be apparent on a state and SOE level, but as trade and investments are the only remaining growth spots, we can expect smaller private projects to fill the vacuum.

What is more concerning, however, is that as the chief buyer and key forex source for commodity-dependent countries like Angola, Zambia and the DRC, the Chinese state's retreat in its development should not be as concerning as the more dire effect China will have on commodity prices like copper and Brent crude.

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Zenge Simakoloyi is the host of the African political/economic affairs podcast, Africa 4 Dummies.

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BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Empowering African MSMEs through e-commerce: unveiling opportunities and obstacles As e-commerce gains traction across African markets, a GSMA report sheds light on the transformative potential it holds for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Jon Offei-Ansah reports

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ICRO, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) stand as the backbone of African economies, driving job creation and economic value. In recent years, the rise of e-commerce has presented a transformative opportunity for these enterprises, offering a gateway to wider markets and increased operational efficiency. However, a new report by the GSMA sheds light on the challenges hindering the full potential of e-commerce adoption by MSMEs in Africa.

Released on October 17 at the MWC Kigali, the report, titled E-Commerce in Africa: Unleashing the opportunity for MSMEs, draws on extensive surveys, literature reviews, and expert interviews across six African markets: Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, with additional insights from Rwanda, Senegal, and Tanzania.

While the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) suggests that digital commerce could contribute $180 billion to Africa's GDP by 2025, the GSMA report reveals that e-commerce adoption among MSMEs remains relatively low, despite its potential.

The study indicates that over 90 percent of surveyed MSMEs reported increased sales and decreased costs due to e-commerce. However, the majority of these businesses primarily utilise social media platforms for online sales rather than dedicated e-commerce marketplaces.

Direct-to-consumer platforms and B2B platforms face challenges related to trust and reaching customers in rural areas, leaving social commerce as a prevalent, albeit limited, method for MSMEs to connect with consumers.

Regulatory uncertainty poses a significant barrier to effective e-commerce adoption. The report highlights that understanding of e-commerce laws and regulations varies across surveyed countries, with only 29 percent of MSMEs in Ghana reporting comprehension. The lack of clear and updated e-commerce laws contributes to low consumer trust and limits 34

uptake.

Digital payments, considered more efficient and secure than cash on delivery, are gradually gaining traction. However, the preference for cash on delivery persists, particularly in markets with a large number of informal enterprises. Challenges related to product quality, legitimacy concerns, and low trust in delivery services contribute to the slower adoption of digital payments.

The study emphasises the need for fundamental enablers of a digital economy, including robust cybersecurity laws, intellectual property laws, and personal privacy data protection laws. Additionally, specific e-commerce regulations, such as e-transactions laws and consumer protection laws, are vital for fostering a conducive environment.

Innovations such as QR codes and virtual cards are identified as critical for encouraging digital payments. QR codes enable quick and secure transactions, support discounts and loyalty programs, and simplify returns and exchanges.

Virtual cards, exemplified by Safaricom M-PESA and Visa's collaboration, allow mobile money users to make global digital payments.

Delivery challenges, including

damaged goods, lack of delivery capacity, and slow delivery, affect 21-26 percent of MSMEs. Poor road infrastructure, inadequate national addressing systems, and fragmented delivery solutions contribute to the unreliability and expense of goods delivery. Emerging solutions, such as virtual postal addressing systems like What3Words, and informal delivery service aggregation platforms like Paps Logistique, show promise in overcoming these challenges.

Consumer trust emerges as a linchpin for the success of e-commerce in Africa.

The report underlines three key areas to foster consumer trust: the establishment of enabling policies and regulations, the widespread adoption of trustworthy digital payment alternatives to cash-on-delivery, and the facilitation of reliable and swift goods delivery.

As the GSMA report concludes, consumer readiness plays a pivotal role in unlocking the full potential of e-commerce for MSMEs. Trust-building measures, combined with supportive regulatory frameworks and innovative solutions, are essential for propelling African economies into a more digital and connected future.

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MINING

Africa's mineral riches: navigating opportunities and challenges for a sustainable future As Africa takes centre stage in the global energy transition, holding one-third of the world's critical minerals, the continent faces a pivotal moment. Balancing economic prosperity with responsible mining practices, transparent governance, and international partnerships is key to shaping a sustainable and inclusive future, writes Jon Offei-Ansah

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T the heart of a transformative opportunity lies Africa, possessing one-third of the world's mineral reserves critical for driving economies into the clean energy era. The continent holds an astonishing share of vital minerals - 85 percent of global manganese, 80 percent of platinum and chromium, 47 percent of cobalt, 21 percent of graphite, and 6 percent of copper.

Across the diverse landscapes of Africa, regions abundant in minerals paint a picture of potential economic prosperity. From Mali's significant lithium reserves to Guinea's unparalleled bauxite deposits, Gabon's manganese expertise, and Namibia's dominance in uranium exports, mineral wealth is distributed widely.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) takes the lead as a mineral-rich giant, boasting over 70 percent of the world's cobalt production. An estimation

by Michigan State University values the untapped raw mineral deposits in the DRC at an astonishing $24 trillion, encompassing a staggering 1,100 different minerals and precious metals.

However, as Africa's mining potential comes to light, uncertainties arise. The crucial question looms - will the continent grasp this opportunity or risk succumbing to the 'resource curse'? This ominous term refers to potential mismanagement, embezzlement, or exploitation by foreign corporations, posing a threat to broader economic development.

Responsible mining practices remain a pressing challenge for African nations,

DRC boasts over 70 percent of the world's cobalt production

aiming to avert environmental degradation and protect vital ecosystems. Nations aspire to engage more in 'beneficiation,' aiming to transform raw materials into higher-value finished products, yet significant hurdles persist.

with a growing trend of African nations striving for greater control over their mining sector.

In 2023, some African nations took decisive steps. Namibia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe implemented bans on the export of unprocessed critical minerals, seeking to add value within their borders. This aligns

long shadow over Africa's mining industry.

Recent coups in seven African countries, including Guinea and Mali, underscore the risks that political unrest poses to mining operations.

However, challenges persist. Shaky power grids pose a significant hurdle to mineral refining and processing across One major obstacle faced by African Africa. Guinea's aspirations for large-scale nations is the routine export of mined bauxite ore processing are hampered by a ores for processing or refining. The DRC lack of consistent and affordable energy, epitomises this issue, shipping 80 percent of while South Africa's mining industry its cobalt to China for processing, benefiting grapples with frequent power cuts, relying the global powerhouse more than its own on expensive diesel. economy.

Moreover, political instability casts a

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MINING

Namibia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe have implemented bans on the export of unprocessed critical minerals

Despite substantial mineral reserves, Africa's mining exploration budget lags behind, hindered by political instability and energy challenges. This has prompted a surge in global players rushing to secure critical minerals, positioning Africa at the forefront.

China's significant presence in Africa's mining landscape has raised concerns about over-dependence. Calls for responsible sourcing have gained traction, with the US and the European Union emphasizing the need for strategic agreements to ensure 'responsibly' sourced critical minerals.

While the US forges alliances for mineral development, Africa finds itself excluded from many partnerships and trade deals. Western hesitancy stems from governance concerns, contrasting with China's readiness to overlook weak governance in pursuit of mineral wealth.

The international spotlight on Africa's critical minerals offers a pathway to prosperity and stability. High hopes in African countries envision their mineral resources propelling development, echoing sentiments that the energy transition could 36

usher in an 'Africa transition.'

Amidst Africa's wealth lies a call for responsible mining practices.

Transparent legal frameworks, adherence to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rules, and local community benefits must be at the forefront to ensure a prosperous and sustainable future.

For Africa to attract investments and foster sustainable development, a transparent legal framework surrounding mining activities is paramount. Striking a delicate balance between attracting foreign investments and safeguarding national interests will be crucial in realizing the continent's mining aspirations.

In the pursuit of mineral wealth, adherence to ESG rules is non-negotiable.

Western business interests, driven by ESG compliance, have been cautious, creating a dichotomy between sophisticated mining companies and artisanal mining practices.

Bridging this gap requires concerted efforts in aligning African mining practices with global ESG standards.

The success of Africa's mining

endeavors hinges on ensuring that local communities directly benefit from the wealth beneath their feet. From job creation to community development initiatives, a holistic approach is needed to avoid the pitfalls of the 'resource curse' and foster inclusive growth.

The ongoing global scramble for Africa's mineral wealth is not just an economic opportunity but also a chance for the continent to lead in responsible mining practices. The imperative lies in balancing economic development with environmental sustainability, social responsibility, and good governance.

Africa's mineral reserves present a transformative opportunity for economic prosperity, positioning the continent at the forefront of the global energy transition.

The journey ahead involves navigating challenges, embracing responsible mining practices, and forging strategic alliances. As the world looks toward Africa's mineralrich landscapes, the continent stands at a pivotal moment — a moment to define its trajectory toward a more prosperous, stable, and sustainable future.

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FINTECH

Africa's digital banking revolution: a journey from mobile banking to neobanking Jon Offei-Ansah explores Africa's role as a trailblazer in digital banking, from the rise of mobile banking to the emergence of neobanks, and how governments, fintechs, and neobanks are reshaping the financial landscape, and the challenges and opportunities they present

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FRICA has long been regarded as a pioneer in shaping the future of banking, particularly in the realm of digital finance. Over the past two decades, the continent has witnessed a remarkable leapfrogging phenomenon, where many regions skipped traditional banking and embraced mobile banking, granting millions access to financial services without ever stepping into a physical bank branch.

According to The Banker, this surge in mobile banking services has been a gamechanger, especially in countries lacking robust nationwide banking networks.

What started as a means to transfer airtime between mobile accounts swiftly evolved into an alternative money transfer system.

Notable services like Kenya's M-Pesa and Nigeria's OPay have not only expanded across the continent but have ventured into other developing markets, showcasing Africa's potential as a trendsetter in the digital banking landscape.

The significance of mobile banking was further underscored during the global pandemic, where these services became a lifeline for many. African governments actively incentivised the use of mobile payments, even waiving transaction fees, to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. Today, the African Digital Banking Transformation Report 2023 reveals that 48 percent of Africa's population now utilises banking services, indicating significant progress.

While cash remains the dominant form of payment, digital banking is rapidly expanding across the continent. This growth is particularly pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa, where mobile banking takes the lead due to a lack of fixed communications infrastructure for wired Internet access.

The GSM Association, which represents

the interests of mobile network operators worldwide, ranks sub-Saharan Africa as the global leader in mobile banking, boasting nearly half of the world's mobile banking services and around two-thirds of global transaction volumes and value.

In recent years, a new player has entered the digital banking arena – neobanks. These purely digital entities operate without a branch network, offering an alternative route to financial access, especially for the underserved. Fuelled by government rule relaxations, neobanks have quickly gained ground across the continent.

Unlike traditional banks, neobanks operate at a lower cost, thanks to minimal overheads. They go beyond basic banking services, providing investment platforms, digital wallets, and budgeting apps.

Customer service is a key differentiator, with neobanks offering real-time updates, 24/7 availability, and personalised offers

through data analytics.

Traditional banks are grappling with the disruption caused by these digital innovations. The African Digital Banking Transformation Report 2023 reveals that 40 percent of surveyed banks perceive fintechs and telcos as high threats. While most African banks recognise the importance of digital technology, many are still formulating their digital strategies.

Financial constraints pose a challenge, with fewer than a third of surveyed banks allocating more than $3 million per year for digital transformation. Moreover, neobanks are not only challenging traditional banks but are also entering direct competition with mobile banking providers. Unlike their mobile counterparts, neobanks can issue conventional credit and debit cards, potentially giving them an edge in regions where mobile money acceptance is limited.

Despite the challenges, the overarching

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FINTECH goal of these digital banking advancements is to benefit Africa's large population of unbanked individuals. The World Economic Forum's EDISON Alliance underscores this objective, prioritising digital inclusion to bring millions online and provide access to critical services,

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including finance, healthcare, and education.

As Africa continues to shape the future of digital banking, the landscape is poised for further evolution. Governments, fintechs, neobanks, and traditional banks

are all pivotal players in this transformative journey, presenting both challenges and opportunities. The world watches as Africa navigates the complexities of digital finance, setting the stage for a new era in global banking.

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ENVIRONMENT

Water, water everywhere…

In many places in Africa rainfall levels are high, and the continent is home to giant river systems including the Nile, Congo, Zambezi and Volta. Dams and lakes are plentiful. The challenge lies in getting water to where it is needed, writes Geoff Hill

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RBANISATION in the past 50 years has been very rapid, creating some of the world’s largest cities. Urban demand for water is huge and supply is often pitiful. Without water, hospitals can’t function, schools close, factories often have to shut for hours at a time, food can’t be washed and diseases such as typhoid and cholera begin to spread.

The chronic water problems of African

cities – either poor or undrinkable supply – mostly come down to a shortage of electricity. Why? Because water reaches your tap by gravity, running down from a reservoir on high ground and without enough kilowatts, it can’t be pumped uphill.

Hydro power is good, but not on rivers that run low in the dry season. Wind and solar can help, as they do in Morocco, but when it comes to water there can be

no down time when the wind doesn’t blow, or at night when solar panels don’t work. Fossil fuels are therefore the most effective source of power. Gas and coal are plentiful in many countries and are key in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. In addition, several nuclear plants are being built across the continent.

Abundant energy could also bring water to drier parts. Desalination has made the desert bloom in Israel, Saudi Arabia

Water has grown as a problem in Africa since 2011

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ENVIRONMENT

Climate change is either affecting the problem or making it worse

and Kuwait. Africa has a coastline of more than 120,000 kilometres yet there has been little effort to use this simple system for turning salt water into fresh. Again, a desalination plant runs on electricity.

People living with a shortage of water, power, cooking fuel and other basic needs are unlikely to be picky as to how the problem might be fixed. Green solutions speak for themselves as a better way of doing things, but if we are to help Africa develop – and stop suicidal efforts to cross the Mediterranean and the English Channel – then Africans must be able to choose their own way of doing things.

In January 2022, The Washington Post published a story showing how water had grown as a problem in Africa since 2011.

It was based on research from renowned polling firm Afrobarometer, which conducted more than 38,000 face-to-face interviews across the continent. Water, or the lack of it, was among the top concerns

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of those interviewed, and only 41 per cent thought their government was doing enough.

The story explained how climate change was either affecting the problem or could make it worse, but that doesn’t tell us why the supply of water is going backwards. Answers are not hard to find.

The researcher and former Prime Minister of Niger, Ibrahim Mayaki, estimates that in the past 30 years, 500 million Africans have moved from a rural home to the city in search of a better life.

That’s more than the population of the US and Russia combined. Slums spread for miles around urban areas, with wires draped between the rooftops to give a makeshift electricity supply (often there’s none) and queues for a single tap.

How many of these 500 million people have less water now than when they lived in a village by a river? It’s a field waiting for research to be undertaken, but the

likelihood is surely that, in this area at least, the quality of life has not gone up.

Old pipes, long outages of power, the growing price of purification chemicals, even the price of gas to boil water before it is drunk; none of these factors help.

On the Afrobarometer graph, Cameroon had the most gripes. In recent years the army has been at war with secessionist groups in the north-east and south-west.

According to the Brussels-based Crisis Group, at least half a million Cameroonians have fled their homes because of conflict. In the chaos, has the supply of water got worse? It’s hard to imagine how any aspect of life might be on the mend.

Zimbabwe used to have one of Africa’s best circulatory (piping) systems. It also had numerous dams, built in the 20 years after World War II; at least one outside every major town. When Robert Mugabe

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ENVIRONMENT to revisit the surveys done in 2011 and a decade later, what would it find?

There are many variables: good governance, dams to trap water that otherwise goes to sea, pipes built to last, and a peace firm enough to encourage people to settle and invest. But top of the list is surely an abundant supply of baseload power that doesn’t waiver or fail.

There is huge opportunity for solar.

The output is clean, and a system can be up and running in a relatively short time. Critics call the output ‘intermittent’ because it relies on sunshine.

However, it is an option favoured by donors, and the push for renewables is unlikely to wane any time soon.

If there’s a problem with solar, it’s that pumps need to run 24/7 and, ironically, the hours of darkness can be even more important. Why? Because of the peaks and troughs in demand.

During the day, the amount of water we use may exceed the inflow from dams or rivers, but with good planning, there won’t be a snag because overnight, while the city sleeps, reservoirs refill. Obviously, this game of nocturnal catch-up needs an energy source that works in the dark.

came to power in 1980, he expanded the supply of both water and electricity.

However, a broken economy has left a treasury short of cash to pay for imports of electricity.

Look at the developing regions that have industrialised – including India, China, and South Africa – solar is a growing part of the mix, but coal, gas and hydro still dominate. And there are more fossil-fuel plants under construction.

There is an argument that the Industrial

Revolution happened thanks to coal. We now know a lot more about this fuel and the harm it can do, but we’re also able to burn it more cleanly. The argument runs that it would be hypocritical to condemn those countries who are now developing their economies through its use.

Africa’s only nuclear power station is at Koeberg, 24 miles (40km) north of Cape Town, and dates from 1984. The initial expense has ruled out nuclear for many small economies until now, but, within a decade, Koeberg will be joined by new plants: in Kenya, Uganda, Morocco, Ghana and Egypt.

When nuclear goes wrong, it not only makes headlines but also finds its way into books, films and the public mind. But, given the hundreds of reactors now in place across Asia, Europe and North America, there have in reality been relatively few accidents, and each one has led to better safety standards.

So, given how far some African countries have yet to go in providing their people with both energy and water, nuclear must play a role. People who don’t have water are unlikely to care how it’s pumped.

The goal must be to get a reliable energy system in place; not in 20 years’ time, but now.

With new technologies allowing us to use both gas and coal more cleanly, and turbine dams giving not just power and water on tap, but the chance for fishing and irrigation, should we not put all options on the table and allow Africans to choose

Residents in Harare have water delivered once a week in a council bowser.

It is not safe to drink, so there’s a trade in bottled water, while some club together and sink a borehole. Power outages can last for 15 hours at a time.

Building dams and power stations – whether solar or fossil fuel, or even nuclear – takes money, which these small economies don’t usually have. Most have been independent for 60 years or more, aid has come and gone, but the infrastructure is either old or has not kept pace with a growing population.

Human habitation cannot prevail without water. Supplying it at levels enjoyed in Europe and the US is key to the development of industry and putting an end to diseases such as cholera and typhoid.

In 2031, if The Washington Post were

Nuclear power can play a role in the continent’s water supply

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ENVIRONMENT at home”. Around 750 children die every day from an illness related to hygiene. Will they catch up by 2030? Unlikely!

After decades of aid and endless programmes to make the world better for all, how have we fallen so short? Perhaps because the focus has been on the goal rather than how to get there.

The world has water, plenty of it, from boreholes, dams, lakes, rivers and the sea. Piping it to every last building, every factory, store, school and shack should be our starting point; campaigns to dig wells in villages are not a bad idea.

First should be a commitment to the UN ideal that all people are equal, human rights are universal, and if access to water is one of these, then those who live in Mali or Congo should enjoy the same access as a family in London or Zurich, and at a price they can afford. And while the state or other supplier might limit the flow if bills are not paid, no home should ever run dry.

The UN has long declared water a basic human right

for themselves? It is they who have to live with the problem.

Across the continent there are smallscale solar pumps, some installed by aid groups to work a borehole. Morocco is an example of national transformation, with a massive $9 billion in renewables either planned or underway, including the Noor (Arab for light) solar installation, which, when complete, will see panels across an area of 2,500 hectares, or just over 6,000 acres.

Sun and wind account for 20 per cent of the country’s electricity, but nearly all the rest comes from oil, gas, and especially coal, which makes up a third of the total. There’s also a cable under the Mediterranean to import kilowatts from Spain.

The UN has long declared water a basic human right. That doesn’t stop suppliers in Africa – mostly at local government level – closing the valve to a property if the residents don’t pay. In Johannesburg, your water bill can be up to date, but arrears on rates and other charges will still see the council at your gate, threatening to leave you dry. It usually works; accounts are paid or a payment timetable put in place to clear the debt.

Illegal connections are common, and parts of the city have no meters. Makeshift shacks set up by those newly arrived in

search of work are connected to neither power nor water in what is arguably Africa’s most modern metropolis.

Outages aside, the circulation system in South Africa is advanced and extensive.

Across much of the continent it is not.

Think of a country known for being wet, and many would point to Britain with an average of 1,220 millimetres per year. Ironically, nearly a third of African countries have an equal or higher rainfall, including Liberia and Cameroon, high on

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A real agenda for water and hygiene starts with a plentiful supply – and most of Africa has that – and ample electricity to move it. That may mean a thermal plant (but not scaled for a million people in a city of 10 times that number, as so often happens in Africa).

In the future, it may also mean a solar farm – the price of panels has come down markedly – but supplying a city 24/7 is still asking too much of current technology, especially for pumping water.

With over 120,000kms of coastline, Africa has failed to use a simple technic of turning salt water into fresh

the list in The Washington Post story on a shortage of water.

The UN’s 2030 agenda’ for development centres on a pledge that “no one will be left behind”, and a promise to bring water and sanitation to the world in just a few years. By the organisation’s own figures, 4.5 billion people or 60 per cent of the global population “don’t have a toilet that safely manages human waste

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In the meantime, we should aim for power sources that can actually deliver what is needed, and just require that it be as clean as possible.

Ensuring the supply of water by 2030, or even 2050, doesn’t look likely, given how far behind we are. That doesn’t mean the aim should be abandoned. Only when we think big will we ever be able to truly open the taps.

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Geoff Hill is a Zimbabwean writer working across Africa. The above has been excerpted from his essay for Net Zero Watch (NZW).

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ENVIRONMENT

Africa’s burning issue In 2023, charcoal and firewood remain the dominant fuel for 80 per cent of households on the continent. Geoff Hill looks at how the loss of forest through the cutting down of trees is having a devastating effect on the environment

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N Africa, an area the size of Switzerland is cleared of forest every year, with an estimated 90 per cent of the wood used for cooking or to heat the home. Dust storms across the continent and on the island of Madagascar have become more serious because, with the forest gone, there is little to hold down the soil. The loss of forest leaves wildlife without a home, and has been shown to affect rain patterns and the spread of desert.

There is a need for reliable energy, and at a price local people can afford. Without

this, the forest will continue to fall and, ultimately, vanish. It is not too late to reverse the damage, but we need to begin now.

In Africa, the loss of forest has happened far faster than in other parts of the world, but since 1960 the population has doubled and doubled again, to the current 1.4 billion.

Almost half have no electricity, and so: charcoal. There are projects to reforest parts of Kenya, the Congo, Madagascar, Malawi and others, but while these

saplings are planted, 400-year-old giants come down.

The solution is to electrify. Fast! The choice of how this is done must rest with Africa. Hydro, solar, wind, coal, oil and gas – each has its own problems. What’s the point of saving a few acres of forest by powering one village, while entire regions turn to desert? We need to electrify a continent, not a speck on the map.

Any solution must be in tandem with the facts. There is no point building hydropower on a river that dries up for much of

Charcoal stands behind a devastation far greater than any war

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ENVIRONMENT the year, or laying solar panels in an area that has storms strong enough to blow them away.

The most important fact is that millions of people are used to cutting wood for free.

It’s the five-to-one rule that makes it work.

Five tons of wood can be reduced to one ton of charcoal by burning off the moisture, gas and other elements, leaving a solid block of energy.

This allows large amounts of fuel to be moved even where transport is a challenge.

The seller can pack a dozen bags on a bicycle, and for buyers, a single bag (8–12 kg) can last a week.

Charcoal is among the most important materials in the story of civilisation. It burns hotter than logs, with enough energy

to liquify metal. Without it, the Pharaohs would not have had their jewellery and gold coffins, and the Greeks, Romans and Zulus would have fought with clubs instead of spears. It is used to filter drinking water.

Today our methods for smelting and making weapons have altered, but charcoal stands behind a devastation far greater than any war. With human population now just over eight billion, and electricity unavailable or too expensive for 600 million people in Africa and half-as-many again in Asia, vast areas of forest are being used to cook and to warm the home by those who have no other fuel.

There are also regions where trees are being cleared for crops. Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s leading producer of cocoa,

and in the past 20 years around 2.4 million hectares of forest have been replaced by cocoa plantations. Ghana has suffered a similar fate.

Logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been devastating, with half a million hectares of tree cover lost every year. In 2021, a British-led initiative pledged $500 million in aid from various donors to save the jungle and re-forest a further eight million hectares across the Congo.

In the formal economy there are a few options. Logging firms can have their permits revoked if they break the rules, and crops can be farmed intensively under irrigation. But those with no other source of energy will chop trees, breaking the law if they must.

With the forest gone, there is little to hold down the soil in Madagascar

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ENVIRONMENT

More than half of the charcoal sold in Goma, a city of one million people, comes from trees felled illegally in the nearby Virunga National Park

On the Congo River, barges move slowly west with the current, decks piled high with charcoal from thousands of trees cut elsewhere, along a waterway that flows for close on 5000km, making it the second-longest in Africa after the Nile.

The forest here absorbs four per cent of the world’s carbon emissions, and is home to endangered species such as western lowland gorillas and the okapi antelope.

While the donor plan to save trees – and plant more – seems to be working, an estimated 90 per cent of Congolese use charcoal to cook their food. Where efforts are made to curb the trade, locals complain they have no other source of energy, and sellers bribe the underpaid police and army to let them continue.

The city of Goma lies in the east of the DRC, on the border with Rwanda, and is home to more than a million people. More than half the charcoal sold here comes from trees felled illegally in the nearby Virunga National Park. Armed rebels are active in the area, and the trade in timber and so-called bush-meat – wild animals killed and sold as food – is run by criminal gangs.

In an effort to change habits, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has handed out thousands of stoves that use less fuel

and burn it for longer. No question, this is a good move, but it’s still charcoal and unsustainable. Better stoves should be in the footnotes of a plan to electrify the continent.

The WWF has also sponsored farmers to plant some 20 million fast-growing trees, including Australian eucalypt and wattle. Within two years, these can be cropped and sold both for building and firewood. But while the project has been welcomed by locals, the rate of deforestation in Virunga has barely changed.

At the heart of it lies the problem of choice: there is none. Only one in five people in the DRC has the power on at home, and almost two-thirds live below the World Bank poverty line of $2.15 per day.

The long rainy season puts a question mark over solar power, which, in any case, does not produce enough current for a stove. There is room for more hydro turbines on the Congo River, but political instability has scared investors. The country has 97 million tons of coal, but uses almost none of it and, again, few are willing to risk the kind of money it would take to develop the mines and build the power plants.

And so more trees fall. Faced with buying logs from a plantation or cutting them for free in the wild, people who don’t have enough money for food choose the latter. It’s a pattern repeated from South Africa to Ethiopia and west to Nigeria, the world’s second-largest maker of charcoal after Brazil.

There are alternatives, including gas, kerosene and, where it’s available, electricity, but all come at a cost. Where trees are not replanted, the land degrades.

Forest soil is loose and powdery, and blows in the wind; soon enough, there’s a desert where the jungle once stood.

Africa produces 60 per cent of the world’s charcoal, around 25 million tons a year. Some is exported to Europe, but most is for local use. Yet it’s largely excluded from academic texts, and ignored by those who call for an end to oil, coal or gas.

This is one of our earliest fuels, but in the developed world, it’s a footnote.

Giant bureaucracies are slow and expensive. Waiting for the UN or the Commonwealth to save the forest will take too long. In the time you’ve taken to read this essay, trees have fallen…and they’re coming down 365 days a year. This loss of forest has done enormous damage to the global ecosystem.

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Geoff Hill is a Zimbabwean writer working across Africa. The above has been excerpted from his essay for Net Zero Watch (NZW).

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AFRICA ABROAD

Ghana’s Akyaaba Addai-Sebo on founding UK’s Black History Month Explore the life story of Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, a global activist and influential figure behind the UK's Black History Month. His interview, recorded by the British Library, delves into his impactful journey across continents, from Ghana to the US, shaping cultural and political narratives

Rosa Kurowska Kyffin with Akyaaba Addai-Sebo at the British Library, St Pancras, London

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AFRICA ABROAD

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ARLIER this summer the British Library recorded a life story interview with Akyaaba Addai-Sebo for the National Life Stories oral history collection Leaders of National Life. This in-depth interview covers his influential work as a campaigner and activist across three continents. From trade union organising in newly independent Ghana to his years in the US in the 1970s, where he studied peacebuilding in Washington and became close with many civil rights activists of the time, including Kwame Ture, Jewell Mazique and CLR James, who became a lifelong friend and mentor. The interview also covers his later peace-building work in Liberia and Sierra-Leone and environmental campaigning. In the UK Akyaaba has had a fundamental impact on politics and culture as one of the founders of the UK’s Black History Month.

These clips explore the origins of this month, which today is as vital a part of autumn as the cooler days and bright colours of the turning leaves.

As a young child Akyaaba quickly developed a deep understanding of the impact of politics. In 1957 when Akyaaba was just seven years old, Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana to independence from British colonial rule and established one of the first post-colonial governments in Africa.

Caught up in the ‘dynamism of the times’, Akyaaba spent his childhood observing the rallies and activism of his community: a close-knit, multilingual, multi-ethnic compound in Asawase, one of many new projects built by the socialist Nkrumah government. His early political memories are of excitement and promise, but these hopes were soon dashed as the backlash of the European powers began. One of Akyaaba’s early memories was the assassination of

Patrice Lumumba which he describes here: This incident and the betrayals that followed as later coups in Ghana took Nkrumah from power forged a powerful activist in Akyaaba, who has led a life dedicated to confronting injustice. As a child he was also frustrated by his experiences of education in the British colonial system, where he studied European classics, religion, geography and literature rather than his own region’s culture and history. He recognised the importance of the few teachers who went against this system. Later as a teenager he saw the importance of finding ‘cultural synergy’ though learning about Ghanaian and African culture and history in Nkrumah’s Young Pioneers and the Pan-African Youth Movement. In the US he also saw the impact of what was then called Negro History Week for African Americans, and the beginnings of the campaign to rename the period as Black History Month which is still celebrated there in February. In the US he became involved in delivering workshops in Washington libraries and museums and spoke at celebrations of African Liberation Day in Malcolm X Park.

His activism eventually took him back to Ghana and later to London, where he found safety having narrowly escaped persecution under the Jerry Rawlings regime in 1984. Through CLR James he became involved with a powerful group of activists based in Railton Road, Brixton, including Leila Hassan Howe, Darcus Howe and the Race Today collective. At the same time Akyaaba had started working at the Greater London Council (GLC).

At the time the GLC was a place of pioneering social policy under the leadership of Ken Livingstone, as was the Inner London Education

Authority (ILEA), whose deputy leader Bernard Wiltshire Akyaaba worked closely with. The stewardship of Linda Bellos, Chair of the London Strategic Policy Committee (LSPC) and leader of Lambeth Council, and John McDonnell, Chief Executive of the Association of London Authorities (ALA), became crucial after the abolition of the GLC by the Margaret Thatcher government on 1 April 1986.

It was an exciting time to be working in local government. With his boss and friend Ansel Wong, Akyaaba worked in the Ethnic Minorities Unit and it was there in the office that a chance encounter with a colleague set in motion the inspiration for Black History Month in the UK. In both the US and the UK Akyaaba had seen the impact that this lack of ‘cultural synergy’ was having on Black children and their families.

He was shocked that here in the UK – the ‘mother of imperialism’ – that there was so little understanding of African history and civilisation. To rectify the damage done to children like Marcus and to eliminate the odious racism that plagued the UK Akyaaba worked hard to establish Black History Month. Here he recalls some of the conversations that fed into the founding of Black History Month, and why the choice of October is so significant.

Akyaaba built support from all political parties, a process which his time in the US civil rights movement had prepared him well for. The UK’s first Black History Month events began with a series of historical talks and events in London in 1986 to which people ‘came in droves.’ Those events have now grown to become an integral part of the year with countless events happening across October and beyond across the whole country.

AB

Akyaaba Addai-Sebo was interviewed by Rosa Kurowska Kyffin in 2023 for Leaders of National Life. The interview will be available to listen to at the British Library in early 2024, collection reference number C408/37.

AFRICA BRIEFING NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2023

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