The Conversation – Articles (AFRICA)

Zambia’s farmers are working in dangerous heat – how they can protect themselves

2026-02-04T13:36:17Z

Farming is central to life in Zambia, with about 60% of the country’s labour force relying on rain-fed agriculture for their livelihood or income. Seasonal rains shape planting and harvesting, and temperatures can rise to 40°C. On small farms, men generally manage livestock such as cattle and cash crops like maize, while women maintain vegetable gardens and cultivate crops like cassava.

I am a researcher with over seven years of experience working on public health topics such as climate change and heat stress among rural farmers. Driven by the research gap on climate change and human health, I looked at whether the rising global temperatures represent an emerging public health crisis for Zambia’s small-scale farmers.

Temperatures in Zambia have been rising since the 1980s at about 0.01°C per year, accelerating to 0.08°C annually since the 2000s. Temperatures are projected to increase by nearly 2°C by 2050 under a situation where a moderate to high amount of greenhouse gas continues to be emitted.

I spent two years interviewing 671 farmers (362 men and 309 women) across Monze (in Zambia’s south) and Sioma (in the west of the country). These are two districts that illustrate the country’s contrasting farming environments. Sioma lies at a lower altitude and is generally warmer and receives less rainfall than Monze. It is also close to the Zambezi River, unlike Monze.

My research found that farmers in both areas, despite the differences in the environments, are experiencing increasingly hotter farming seasons. When they work outside, they suffer headaches, dizziness, dehydration, muscle pain, rash, sweating, tiredness, a loss of concentration, and dry lips, throat and mouth.

Globally, these conditions are getting worse because of climate change. But in Zambia, although the heat is getting worse, there is no formal reporting system in hospitals and clinics for heat stress or heat stroke. I found that the ministry of health only records the increasing trend in heat rashes.

I also found that farmers don’t always recognise their symptoms as heat stress – and may even consider them a normal part of difficult farming in hot weather.

This means that heat exposure is not getting the attention it deserves. It actually should be treated as an emerging public health risk. Heat stress deserves as much awareness as other occupational and environmental health threats such as injuries at work, and poor water and sanitation conditions.

The public health system in Zambia must track cases of heat related illnesses. Farmers and farm workers must get early warnings during extreme heat, and basic health education on how to stay safe on very hot days.

What working in extreme heat is like

Heat stress happens when excess heat raises the core body temperature above 37°C. This can impair normal physiological functioning. To determine the heat levels in Monze and Sioma, I trained farmers to take temperature readings so that we could see when the safe thresholds for outdoor work were exceeded.

I also asked the farmers to make lists of their outdoor activities and workloads on hot days. Together, we created community maps of water sources, woodlands, plains, and infrastructure like schools or clinics in the farming area to see if places existed where the farmers could cool down.

We also discussed what was preventing them from adapting to climate change and heat stress. The major barriers identified by the farmers were the scarcity of water to cool down with, deforestation (a lack of shady trees), little information about heat stress, and limited protective clothing.

Social factors also prevented farmers from devoting time and energy to staying cool while working. These factors included community tensions and unequal access to land or support programmes for impoverished farmers and women. For example, impoverished farmers often lacked access to tools and labour saving equipment, meaning they had to work longer hours in the sun. Women frequently balanced farm work with household duties, increasing their overall heat exposure.

The farmers spoke about symptoms that indicated they are experiencing moderate to high heat stress risk:

I had a health problem last week because of heat to a point of bleeding from the nose and that kind of dizziness as if I was drinking beer. I feel like I have blacked out and that’s when I would rest a bit. So, when I went to the clinic – that’s when I was told that I should avoid working in the sun.

Farmers also said that extreme heat affected their cognitive ability. This directly affected agricultural productivity and safety:

There is also loss of concentration when it becomes very hot. If it’s the time of planting, you find that someone starts to plant more seeds than required. Sometimes the dizziness makes us fall down and leaves people wondering what it could be, while in the actual sense it’s the heat. Some people would even suspect that you have epilepsy.

The sun really burns! Some people try to adapt to the heat by putting on hats but they still sweat because of the heat.

My research found that farmers tended to normalise their symptoms or endure them because they had to work to earn a living:

The people I work with have never complained because we look at the target that we have. We just have to work hard because that’s the only job that we depend on. So even if it gets too hot or too cold the job just has to be done at the end of the day.

What needs to happen next

Preventing heatstroke does not need a huge amount of expensive equipment. Simple public health measures such as recognising heat illnesses in clinic reporting systems, training health workers to identify symptoms, sharing heat alerts through radio and mobile phones, and giving farmers practical advice on hydration, rest breaks and working during cooler hours would help. In India, the Ahmedabad Heat Adaptation Plan has reduced heat related illnesses and saved lives by doing this.

Rural areas have persistent water shortages, a lack of transport to health facilities and limited funding for protective equipment such as sun hats or shelters for shade. The government could source funding for hats, water containers and locally built shade shelters that would further protect farmers without placing a heavy burden on government budgets.

The Zambian healthcare system tends to focus on infectious diseases over occupational environmental risks like heat stroke. Health authorities need to recognise heat as a health risk, collect routine data and work with meteorological services to provide early warnings and basic safety guidance to farmers. Climate and health agencies also need to work together. They currently work separately, which means the health system often reacts to heat illnesses after they happen instead of preparing communities in advance.

Meanwhile, farmers are coming up with local solutions that deserve more funding and support. These include setting up traditional shade shelters on the farms, digging more wells and using storage containers such as clay pots for storing water. Farmers have also been wrapping water bottles in wet cloth or reeds to keep drinking water cool. These local solutions could be strengthened and promoted as low-cost adaptation strategies.

The research of this article was supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) within the framework of the climapAfrica programme with funds of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The publisher is fully responsible for the content.

Grazing and digging put some herbivores at greater risk from toxic elements in soil – new research

2026-02-04T13:36:10Z

If you’ve watched a giraffe browsing in the tree canopy, a white rhino meandering across open grassland or a warthog shuffling around on its knees in South Africa’s Kalahari desert, you know what they eat: leaves, grass, shoots and roots. With every mouthful, they swallow something less obvious – soil.

Some ingest more soil than others, but all are exposed to toxic elements, such as arsenic, lead or chromium.

I study how environmental pollutants affect wildlife health. I led a team that investigated how and why soil ingestion varied between 16 African herbivore species at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, in South Africa’s southern Kalahari desert.

Ultimately we wanted to identify which species are most vulnerable to toxic elements in the soil – insights that can guide wildlife species reintroductions to re-establish ecological balance at rehabilitation, restoration and rewilding sites.

Over two years we collected surface sediments and vegetation around 25 waterpoints across the reserve to identify which toxic elements were more concentrated in soil. From there, we moved on to the animals themselves. Faeces from each species allowed us to estimate their exposure – what was passing through the digestive system. Fur samples provided a longer-term record of which elements were actually taken up into the body over time.

Using a unique combination of established non-invasive approaches allowed us to trace how toxic elements move from soil, to plants and into wildlife.

Our findings showed that some toxic elements were more concentrated in soils than plants. We also found that animals that eat leaves from higher up in the tree canopy may be less vulnerable to toxic element exposure than those that eat grass or roots and feed closer to the ground. So where they eat, not just what they eat, strongly influences how herbivores are exposed to toxic elements.

Knowing how herbivores interact with soil and soil-borne toxins in their environment allows conservationists to better understand how the natural low presence of toxic elements differs from new contamination levels caused by human activities such as mining, farming, or other land-use changes.

How animals feed determines how much soil they swallow

One of the clearest patterns to emerge was that soil ingestion is different across species.

Burrowing species such as warthogs and porcupines ingest the most soil during digging, burrowing and rooting for food.

Grazing animals, particularly blue wildebeest, white rhinoceros and African buffalo, also stood out. This makes sense because these species feed close to the ground, often uprooting grass or cropping vegetation coated in dust, especially in dry environments like the Kalahari.

Browsers like giraffe that eat leaves, buds and pods from the top of trees naturally ingested much lower amounts of soil.

When eating soil becomes a problem

Soil isn’t inert. Its characteristics – including its mineral makeup, how acidic it is, how much decomposing plant and animal material there is and how easily water moves through it – influence toxic element levels in the soil. These factors also influence how toxic elements and nutrients – some of which are necessary for survival – are transferred to plants and animals.

Human activities such as mining, agriculture, industrial emissions, and water management can increase metal concentrations. This puts animals that ingest large amounts of soil, particularly grazers and burrowing species, at greater risk.

In the soils we studied, vanadium, aluminium, lead, chromium, tin, cobalt and arsenic were concentrated. Browsing species, including black rhino, showed low exposure and retention compared to other herbivores. Eland and springbok, which graze in the wet season and browse during the dry season, are known as mixed feeders. Because they don’t only eat leaves, they ingest more soil when grazing on grass. This means their exposure to soil-borne elements is higher than that of black rhinos.

Because animals have evolved to cope with natural levels they ingest from soil, the presence of toxic elements in wildlife tissues does not necessarily indicate pollution or ecological harm.

Teeth reveal which species are at risk from toxins in the soil

Grasses naturally contain high levels of abrasive silica, a hard, sand-like mineral that wears down teeth. In dry environments, grass is often coated with fine soil and dust. So herbivores that feed on grass or soil-covered food items, like bulbs and roots, experience greater tooth wear.

To cope with high abrasion, some species have evolved teeth with a high enamel crown, which reduces wear over time. This specialised tooth structure has been linked to levels of soil ingestion, making it a potentially useful indicator to assess which species are vulnerable to toxic element intake.

When toxic elements are highly concentrated in soil, we found a strong relationship between tooth structure and toxic element levels in faeces and fur. This means conservation managers can use tooth structure to better identify species that are at risk and monitor them more closely.

Why this matters

Animals are not passive recipients of toxic elements. Their behaviour, anatomy, evolutionary history and environment shape what they encounter and how they cope. Our study shows that soil ingestion is a natural part of herbivore ecology, but not all species face the same level of risk.

Conservation increasingly focuses on ecosystem restoration and reintroducing large herbivores such as rhino and elephants. Our study sets up a framework that will help prioritise monitoring, flag species most likely to be affected by landscape change, and avoid misinterpreting contamination as natural exposure.

Recognising these differences helps conservation managers make informed decisions grounded in the realities of how animals interact with their environment, right down to the soil beneath their feet.

Andrea Webster received funding from the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation SARChI chair of Mammalian Behavioural Ecology and Physiology, South Africa, the University of Pretoria Post-graduate Scholarship Programme and the Tswalu Foundation, South Africa.

Sierra Leoneans who live off the sea don’t trust farmed fish – but wild fish are in decline

2026-02-04T13:36:01Z

At dawn in Tombo, one of Sierra Leone’s largest fishing towns, small-scale fishers begin landing fish from the sea. A portion of the catch is sold at the landing sites, while the rest is taken home to feed the family.

Fish here is not simply food, it is part of everyday care and trusted to sustain strength and long life. However, as pressure on marine fish stocks intensifies, efforts to secure food and nutrition are reshaping how fish is produced and accessed.

Wild fish stocks are in decline all over the world under the combined pressures of overfishing and climate change. This is true for the coastal waters of west Africa too. One response is promoting fish farmed on land. In Sierra Leone, this is generating growing policy attention.

We teach and research global sustainable development and African small-scale fisheries. We joined a team in 2023 to ask people in three Sierra Leone communities whether, in their view, farmed fish could replace wild fish caught at sea. Our respondents were from households that survive from wild capture fishing and fish farming.

Our research showed a persistent problem. In fishing-dependent communities like Tombo, fish farming has failed to take off because small-scale fishing households don’t trust it.

They are sceptical of its quality and ability to deliver the same nutrition as wild fish. People eat a wide variety of wild fish species whereas it’s mainly catfish and tilapia (fresh water fish) that are farmed.

For this to change, farmed fish would need to be produced in ways that meet local standards of nourishment and that people trust are healthy, especially for children and elders.

Wild fish as nourishment, care, and key to long life

Fish farming in Sierra Leone was introduced in the 1970s through government-led projects. It initially focused on oyster farming and later expanded to small-scale pond systems in communities.

At this time, the government and international donors promoted pond fish farming as a way to improve food security. But this was largely driven from the top down, with limited attention to local livelihoods, cultural food preferences, or the everyday realities of fishing-dependent households, and it did not gain popularity.

Our study found that small-scale fishing households in Tombo view wild marine fish as the foundation of strength, healthy ageing, and long life and as a food source that doesn’t need to be seasoned to be tasty.

One fisherman explained that wild fish is “tastier even without seasoning”, adding that its natural salt “helps our children and old people develop stronger bones”.

A retired master fisherman in his eighties attributed his continued health to eating fish from the sea every day:

There is no salt in farmed fish. Our fish sustained our grandparents, and they lived long lives.

Only one small-scale fisher reported buying farmed fish in the past ten years. Everyone else relied on wild fish. As one fisherman explained:

Our fish contains everything we need. That is why we eat it every day.

The problems

Our research identified a number of negative views about farmed fish:

Nearly a third of the fishers we interviewed associated the white colour of wild fish with the marine environment and its nutrients. Farmed fish, on the other hand, was a darker colour which fishers linked to poor water quality and reduced nutritional value. However, fish colour is shaped by genetics and not just rearing environment, diet, and water conditions. The nutritional composition of fish depends largely on what fish eat and the conditions in which they grow, rather than on wild capture or farming alone.

Fishing communities did not reject farmed fish on principle. Several said they would eat fish farmed in open sea water, because the taste and colour would probably resemble their wild fish more.
One of the reasons people rejected farmed fish was that they could not verify the quality or trust farmed fish to nourish them. This distinction is important because it suggests that people in the fishing towns don’t reject the innovation of farming fish on land, but were judging farmed fish based on their quality.

We also researched 15 fish farms in two inland districts, Bo and Tonkolili, and found problems with the fish farming practices themselves. Fish feed was too expensive and difficult to find and fish farmers were mixing it with bread, cassava and potato leaves. Fish farmers also mixed rice, ground fish heads, palm kernel cake, and maggots from chicken waste for the fish or poured fertilisers into ponds to stimulate algae growth for fish to eat.

As one fish farmer explained:

I am poor. I cannot be looking for money to feed my family and money to feed fish.

Two expert assessments conducted as part of our study in Bo and Tonkolili found that most farms lacked standard methods and relied on poor-quality feeds and water management, which could affect how fish grow and what nutrients they contain. Their conclusion was clear: without proper feed, water quality and basic standards, these farmed fish would not provide the same nutritional value as wild fish.
Fingerlings (young fish) were not readily and consistently available. This led to slow and uneven growth in farmed fish, delayed harvests, inconsistent sizes, and uneven quality of the farmed fish.
Most farms waited six months or more before harvesting and still reported that farmed fish were smaller than expected.

What needs to happen next

If fish farming is to contribute meaningfully to nutrition and reduce dependence on declining wild stocks, particularly in coastal communities like Tombo, it must produce fish that small-scale fishing households find genuinely nourishing.

A nutrition-sensitive approach is needed, designing fish farming around nutritional quality from the outset, rather than focusing primarily on production or income.

It means that government authorities must set and enforce basic standards for feeds, water management, fingerlings and testing, so that quality is assured.

Our research has shown that unless fish farmers can show clearly that farmed fish is as nutritious as fish caught in the ocean, it will never earn the trust of communities in places where wild fish have come to mean long life.

Nwamaka Okeke-Ogbuafor receives funding from AXA Research Fund and UNESCO

Salieu Kabba Sankoh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Anti-poverty programmes can change how people see the state and each other

2026-02-04T13:35:49Z

When floodwaters washed away Woudou Oumar’s home in northern Cameroon, he and his family lost not only shelter but hope. Then a government-supported cash transfer arrived. “The money transfer was a real boost for me and my family,” he says, explaining how he rebuilt his house, bought seeds for farming, paid for his daughters’ schooling, covered his son’s medical care after the disaster, and became more hopeful.

Stories like Woudou’s highlight how social transfers can shape more than incomes: they anchor people in their communities and influence how they experience and judge governmental support.

Governments and development partners around the world are now pouring unprecedented resources into social protection. From rural Bangladesh to urban Brazil, more than 120 low- and middle-income countries now provide some form of cash transfer to their poorest citizens. These programmes have succeeded in reducing poverty in both the short term and long term, improving education outcomes and promoting better health.

But what else are they doing and at what cost, or benefit, to social and political life?

Our new study reveals that social transfers are systematically reshaping how citizens relate to their governments and to one another. We reviewed nearly 90 empirical studies across six continents in a bid to establish causal effects of social transfers on outcomes beyond welfare and livelihoods. We found that these programmes influenced how people voted, how much they trusted institutions, whether they participated in civic life, and even how they felt about their neighbours.

The studies spanned Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. The review included studies in 11 African countries – some in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Our findings identified consistent patterns alongside important contextual variation.

The effects weren’t always what policymakers expected, and they depended heavily on programme design, recipient characteristics, and political context.

As governments and donors expand safety nets, one reality deserves more attention: social transfers don’t operate in a vacuum. They shape how citizens perceive authority, belonging, and the fairness of their political institutions. They can strengthen political and social trust or erode it, build cohesion or fuel resentment.

Our review shows that design, delivery, and local context shape whether transfers unify or divide societies. While many effects are positive, they are neither automatic nor uniform. Getting this right means seeing social protection not only as a tool to fight poverty, but as a force that can help – or hinder – the building of political trust and community life.

Across settings, three things stood out: how transfers reshape state legitimacy, how they affect trust and political behaviour, and how they alter relationships within communities.

Reshaping relationships with the state

Social transfer programmes, such as cash transfers or food aid, are designed to reduce poverty and cushion households against income shocks. But they also shape how people understand the social contract between citizens and the state.

In fragile settings especially, even small benefits can become symbols of state presence and capacity. Good delivery looks boring – but it is powerful. Programmes that pay on time and apply clear eligibility rules tend to build political trust. In these settings, recipients understand not only that help is coming, but why – and from whom.

Bad delivery, by contrast, often involves delays, opaque targeting, or inconsistent payments. When citizens cannot predict whether benefits will arrive, or suspect that selection is arbitrary or politicised, transfers lose their legitimising effect and may even undermine confidence in public institutions.

When citizens perceive these programmes as fairly targeted and effectively delivered, they often respond with higher satisfaction with public services and their political leaders, and increased political participation. Many begin to see their governments as more legitimate and responsive.

In fact, the most consistent empirical finding across nearly 90 studies was that social transfers boosted support for political incumbents, particularly when programmes were seen as credible, well targeted, and appropriately delivered.

Still, not all effects were positive.

We identified conditions under which social transfers had little effect – or even negative consequences – for state-citizen relations. In some cases, this reflected poor implementation capacity. In others, citizens credited NGOs or donors rather than their government for programme delivery. Where attribution was unclear, benefits didn’t necessarily translate into political support.

A mixed picture at community level

We also examined how transfers shaped relationships between citizens themselves. Here, the evidence was more mixed.

In some settings, transfers increased community engagement, strengthened informal support networks, and built trust between groups.

But in other cases, transfers fuelled jealousy or worsened inter-group tensions. The evidence suggests, for instance, that transfers can increase crime or conflict when benefits leak to better-off households or are perceived to help outsiders.

Equity and deservingness concerns emerged as especially important. When programmes excluded those who perceived themselves as equally needy, or when non-beneficiaries perceived recipients as undeserving, political resentment built. These dynamics were especially salient in contexts of high displacement, high inequality, or deep social cleavages.

Design details matter

One of the clearest takeaways from our review is that the design and delivery of anti-poverty programmes makes a real difference for political and social outcomes.

Inclusive programmes that reached broader populations were less likely to generate resentment than narrowly targeted ones. Programmes that come with conditions that promote the acquisition of civic skills (through job training, for example) and increase engagement with state and community organisations (through the receipt of a national identification card, for example) serve to more effectively boost political participation.

Attribution is also crucial. When citizens clearly associated benefits with their government, transfers were more likely to build trust in institutions. And having mechanisms for grievance redress, feedback and community dialogue amplified the positive effects.

We also found that trust and social cohesion impacts were greater among marginalised groups such as women, unskilled workers and the very poor. Citizens like these often have the most to gain from the material support and the recognition that programmes represent.

Policy lessons for expansion

As social protection becomes more central to development strategies, understanding these effects is critical. Cash transfers are not just economic tools. They shape political attitudes, community cohesion, and perceptions of fairness.

The core message is simple but consequential: social protection is never politically or socially neutral. Its effects depend not only on how much is transferred, but on who receives it, how programmes are explained, and whether citizens experience them as fair, corruption-free, and delivered by a state that is accountable to them.

To maximise the benefits of social transfer programmes and minimise unintended harms, governments and donors should consider five key principles:

Target transparently and fairly. Programmes should strive for clear eligibility rules that are well communicated. Programmes must also actually deliver what is promised in a timely way that is visibly free from graft.

Design for dignity and civic engagement. Programmes that provide opportunities for feedback, or positive interactions with those providing public services, can promote social inclusion.

Ensure state visibility and attribution. When recipients understand the government’s role in delivering benefits, they are more likely to see the state as responsive and capable, reinforcing positive relations and encouraging more political participation.

Promote social cohesion through complementary efforts. Transfers may strengthen community ties when paired with initiatives like local meetings or community-based trainings. These features can be just as important as the cash itself for ensuring broad programme acceptance.

Measure relational impacts, not just economic ones. Evaluation should go beyond income and consumption to assess how transfers affect trust, cohesion, political efficacy and perceptions of fairness – among both beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries.

As social protection scales globally, the question is no longer whether transfers reduce poverty – they do. The harder question is whether they help build the kinds of states and societies that can sustain development over time. Getting the design right is not just good policy. It can meaningfully strengthen bonds among citizens and between citizens and the state.

Katrina Kosec receives funding from the CGIAR Science Program on Food Frontiers and Security.

Cecilia Hyunjung Mo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Private credit rating agencies shape Africa’s access to debt. Better oversight is needed

2026-02-03T13:52:21Z

Africa’s development finance challenge has reached a critical point. Mounting debt pressure is squeezing fiscal space. And essential needs in infrastructure, health and education remain unmet. The continent’s governments urgently need affordable access to international capital markets. Yet many continue to face borrowing costs that make development finance unviable.

Sovereign credit ratings – the assessments that determine how financial markets price a country’s risk – play a central role in this dynamic. These judgements about a government’s ability and willingness to repay debt are made by just three main agencies – S&P Global, Moody’s and Fitch. The grades they assign, ranging from investment grade to speculative or default, directly influence the interest rates governments pay when they borrow.

Within this system, the stakes for African economies are extremely high. Borrowing costs rise sharply once countries fall below investment grade. And when debt service consumes large shares of budgets, less remains for schools, hospitals or climate adaptation. Many institutional investors also operate under mandates restricting them to investment-grade bonds.

Countries rated below this threshold are excluded from large pools of capital. In practice it means that credit ratings shape the cost of borrowing, as well as whether borrowing is possible at all.

I am a researcher who has examined how sovereign credit ratings operate within the international financial system. And I’ve followed debates about their role in development finance. Much of the criticism directed at the agencies has focused on: their distance from the countries they assess; the suitability of some analytical approaches; and the challenges of applying standardised models across different economic contexts.

Less attention has been paid to the position ratings now occupy within the global financial architecture. Credit rating agencies are private companies that assess the likelihood that governments and firms will repay their debts. They sell these assessments to investors, banks and financial institutions, rather than working for governments or international organisations. But their assessments have become embedded in regulation, investment mandates and policy processes in ways that shape public outcomes.

This has given ratings a governance-like influence over access to finance, borrowing costs and fiscal space. In practice, ratings help determine how expensive it is for governments to borrow. This determines how much room they have to spend on public priorities like health, education, and infrastructure. Yet, credit rating agencies were not created to play this role. They emerged as private firms in the early 1900s to provide information to investors. The frameworks for coordinating and overseeing their wider public impact – which grew long after they were established – developed gradually and unevenly over time.

The question isn’t whether ratings should be replaced. Rather, it’s how this influence is understood and managed.

Beyond the bias versus capacity debate

Discussions about Africa’s sovereign ratings often focus on two explanations. One is that African economies are systemically underrated, with critics pointing to rapid downgrades and assessments that appear harsher than those applied to comparable countries elsewhere.

Factors often cited include the location of analytical teams in advanced economies, limited exposure to domestic policy processes in the global south, and incentive structures shaped by closer engagement with regulators and market actors in major financial centres.

The other explanation emphasises macroeconomic fundamentals, the basic economic conditions that shape a government’s ability to service debt, such as growth prospects, export earnings, institutional strength and fiscal buffers. When these are weaker or more volatile, borrowing costs tend to be more sensitive to global shocks.

Both perspectives have merit. Yet neither fully explains a persistent pattern: governments often undertake significant reforms, sometimes at high political and social costs, but changes in ratings can lag well behind those efforts. During that period, borrowing costs remain high and market access constrained. It is this gap between reform and recognition that points to a deeper structural issue in how credit ratings operate within the global financial system.

Design by default

Credit ratings began as a commercial information service for investors. Over several decades, from the 1970s to the 2000s, they became embedded in financial regulation. United States regulators first incorporated ratings into capital rules in 1975 as benchmarks for determining risk charges. The European Union followed in the late 1980s and 1990s. Key international bodies followed.

This process was incremental, not the result of deliberate public design. Ratings were adopted because they were available, standardised and widely recognised. It’s argued that private sector reliance on ratings typically followed their incorporation into public regulation. But in fact markets relied informally on credit rating assessments long before regulators formalised their use.

By the late 1990s, ratings had become deeply woven into how financial markets function. The result was that formal regulatory reliance increased until ratings became essential for distinguishing creditworthiness. This, some have argued, may have encouraged reliance on ratings at the expense of independent risk assessment.

Today, sovereign credit ratings influence which countries can access development finance, at what cost, and on what terms. They shape the fiscal options available to governments, and therefore the policy space for pursuing development goals.

Yet ratings agencies remain private firms, operating under commercial incentives. They developed outside the multilateral system and were not originally designed for a governance role. The power they wield is real. But the mechanisms for coordinating that power over public development objectives emerged later and separately. This created a governance function without dedicated coordination or oversight structures.

Designing the missing layer

African countries have initiated reform efforts to address their development finance challenge. For instance, some work with credit rating agencies to improve data quality and strengthen institutions. But these efforts don’t always translate into timely changes in assessments.

Part of the difficulty lies in shared information constraints. The link between fiscal policy actions and market perception remains complex. Governments need ways to credibly signal reform. Agencies need reliable mechanisms to verify change. And investors need confidence that assessments reflect current conditions rather than outdated assumptions.

While greater transparency can help, public debt data remains fragmented across databases and institutions.

A critical missing element in past reform efforts has been coordination infrastructure: dialogue platforms and credibility mechanisms that allow complex information to flow reliably between governments, agencies, investors and multilateral institutions.

Evidence suggests that external validation can help reforms gain market recognition. In practice, this points to the need for more structured interaction between governments, rating agencies, development partners and regional credit rating agencies around data, policy commitments and reform trajectories.

One option is the Financing for Development process. This is a multistakeholder forum coordinated by the United Nations that negotiates how the global financial system should support sustainable development. Addressing how credit ratings function within the financial system is a natural extension of this process.

Building a coordination layer need not mean replacing ratings. Or shifting them into the public sector. It means creating the transparency, dialogue and accountability structures that help any system function more effectively.

Recognising this reality helps explain how development finance actually works. As debt pressures rise and climate adaptation costs grow, putting this governance layer in place is now critical to safeguarding development outcomes in Africa.

Daniel Cash is affiliated with UN University Centre for Policy Research.

Cape Town project tests what hydroponic farming can do in urban spaces

2026-02-03T13:52:14Z

Imagine a world where fresh vegetables and herbs sprout in the heart of our cities without the need for sprawling farms.

Hydroponics – a method of growing plants without soil – uses a nutrient-rich water solution instead of earth and is useful in areas where soil quality is poor, land is frequently flooded, water supply is unreliable, or there simply isn’t enough space.

Hydroponically cultivated plants use 90% less water than soil-based agriculture. They grow upwards in stacked layers and occupy 99% less land.

Some hydroponic crops can yield ten times more produce compared to traditional cultivation methods, depending on crop type and the scale and design of the system.

Hydroponic farming has great potential in cities that are grappling with rapid urbanisation, limited green spaces, and climate change. These problems make traditional farming methods increasingly unsustainable.

In South Africa’s low income areas, people find accessing fresh, nutritious food difficult. Hydroponics could offer a modern, urban farming solution. Because they don’t need soil, hydroponic systems can be set up on rooftops, in disused urban spaces like abandoned warehouses, parking lots and railway lines.

This is already happening in Johannesburg’s city centre. In the US, urban vertical farms contribute significantly to local food production. In India, research found that hydroponics could improve food security and nutrition, if farmers were trained and governments adopted supportive policies.

I’m an urban geographer and research the ways in which impoverished communities in cities create livelihoods and food systems.

Together with research assistant Busisiwe Miya Noxolo, I interviewed 20 farmers to find out if hydroponic farming could be a useful way of creating food security in Cape Town. These hydroponic farmers had all received training six months earlier at the Handpicked City Farm, a non-profit hydroponic project.

My research found that hydroponic farming works well in water scarce cities with densely populated urban areas, like Cape Town. But the high initial cost of setting up the system (equipment, nutrients, and infrastructure) is a problem. Without reliable electricity and water supplies, it will also be difficult to maintain the controlled conditions hydroponics require.

My research found that the full potential of hydroponics in Cape Town will only be realised if the technology is made affordable and training is provided. Hydroponic farming also has to be included in city planning, and supported over the long term.

Water scarcity

Cape Town is a city of stark contrasts. Affluent suburbs exist alongside working class and impoverished communities where unemployment is high.

The hydroponic farmers I interviewed all came from Langa, one of Cape Town’s oldest Black working class communities (locally known as townships). Established during apartheid for manual labourers, Langa remains one of the most under-resourced areas in the city. Many households in Langa depend on informal food networks (borrowing and sharing food and buying from small vendors), government grants, and irregular income from casual work to meet their nutritional needs.

Cape Town is water scarce and has previously experienced droughts of up to three years long. Low-income areas like Langa have weak infrastructure and inconsistent service delivery. The scarcity of water means soil-based agriculture is not always feasible.

Benefits of hydroponic farming

Hydroponic farming happens in a controlled environment where plants are fed exactly what they need to grow. This reduces the risk of crop failure.

The farmers I interviewed said hydroponic farming gave them a high degree of control over plant nutrition and growth conditions. This led to more consistent and reliable crop production than traditional farming, where crops depend on unpredictable weather conditions and soil quality.

They also welcomed being able to farm all year round. They were not affected by the changing seasons because hydroponic systems are housed in controlled environments where temperature, humidity and light can be regulated.

Some farmers I interviewed benefited from using less water for their crops:

I water my plants once every two days, depending on the weather conditions.

The farmers added that their crops grew faster and better when they farmed hydroponically. Within six months, they successfully cultivated lettuce, spinach, spring onion, tomatoes, a range of herbs such as basil, thyme, and mint, as well as edible and ornamental flowers like nasturtium and marigold.

Costs and training

My research found that the main challenges were high start-up costs, specialised equipment needs, and ongoing expenses for nutrients and maintenance. A lack of local support and training for hydroponic farmers is another obstacle to getting started.

Hydroponics is an excellent way of growing small, fast-growing crops like lettuce and herbs. But it is less suitable for growing South Africa’s larger staple crops like maize. The most common crops the farmers wanted to grow included large vegetables like maize, butternut and pumpkin. Other crops included spinach, beetroot, peas, beans, tomatoes, mangoes and granadillas.

However, one farmer I interviewed used hydroponics to grow seedlings for staple crops that he planted in soil. This hybrid approach – combining hydroponics with traditional farming – can meet the needs for different crops. This also shows that hydroponics alone cannot solve urban food security.

What needs to happen next

For hydroponics to realise its full potential in Cape Town, these efforts are required from policymakers, community organisations and the private sector:

Make hydroponics affordable – the government could subsidise the cost of hydroponic systems, and offer low-interest loans to farmers to get started. Community-based projects could be set up for farmers to share equipment.
Offer training and education – urban farmers need to be equipped with the knowledge and skills required to operate these systems efficiently and sustainably.
Local government should make hydroponics part of urban planning – this means setting aside space for urban farming. It also means supporting the development of rooftop gardens and community greenhouses.
Governments, non-governmental organisations and private companies should partner to make sure that hydroponic farmers in working class communities have access to new technology and other forms of support.

Tinashe P. Kanosvamhira does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Nigerian women and contraceptives: study finds big gaps between the haves and the have-nots

2026-02-03T13:52:02Z

Nigerian women who are wealthier, more educated and urban are more likely to use modern contraceptives than poorer, less educated and rural women. This is one of the findings of a study that assessed patterns of inequality in modern contraceptive use. This highlights persistent inequalities in access to family planning services. Obasanjo Bolarinwa, a global public health researcher, unpacks the findings.

What’s behind differences in contraceptive use in Nigeria?

I analysed data from the Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys 2003 and 2018 using the WHO Health Equity Assessment Toolkit to assess contraceptive use in the country.

My analysis shows that use of modern contraceptives of all types has increased modestly among sexually active women of reproductive age (15 to 49) – from 8.2% to 12% between 2003 and 2018.

However, the women who use these methods are constrained by persistent structural inequalities.

Age was one of the strongest factors driving disparity. Women aged 20-49 were far more likely to use modern methods than adolescents. Use among adolescents aged 15-19 was extremely low and declined from just 3.8% in 2003 to 2.3% in 2018.

Wealth also played an important role. Women in the richest households were the main users of contraceptives. Those in poorer households faced barriers which could be linked to cost, access and competing basic needs.

Education emerged as another clear divider. Women with primary and secondary or higher education were significantly more likely to use modern methods than those with no formal education.

Place of residence also mattered: urban women had higher use than their rural counterparts.

Sub-national regions showed distinct patterns too. The South West was consistently ahead; the North West and North East lagged. This could be a result of longstanding regional inequalities in development and service access. It is further exacerbated by sustained conflict and insecurity in the northern region of the country.

Why are these findings significant?

They’re important for two reasons.

Firstly, they point to a family planning landscape where socio-economic and demographic advantages strongly determine a woman’s ability to prevent unwanted pregnancy. This deepens existing inequalities. Disadvantaged women are more exposed to unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion, and preventable maternal health risks.

Secondly, the data show that the drivers of inequality identified in the study are not marginal. They reflect the fact that poverty is widespread – and unevenly distributed – in Nigeria.

This affects women’s ability to afford transport to clinics or purchase preferred modern contraceptive methods.

Similarly, educational disparities persist. A large share of Nigerian women, especially in rural northern regions, still have no formal education. The literacy level among women aged 15 and above in the country is 62.4%. It is 37% for North East and 32% for North West.

This limits their autonomy, knowledge of options, and access to reproductive health information.

Urban-rural divides are also pronounced. Urban centres such as Lagos and Abuja continue to benefit from better-resourced health systems. These have a broader mix of contraceptive methods, and more trained personnel.

Rural areas often struggle with stockouts, weak infrastructure, and limited access to outreach services. Regional differences mirror broader development patterns. The South West, for example, has maintained the highest prevalence of contraceptive use, while northern regions lag. This is due to socio-economic, cultural and systemic constraints, including zonal conflicts.

Adolescents form another sizeable and vulnerable population group. The most recent 2024 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey reports that approximately 15% of girls aged 15-19 have experienced pregnancy. With early marriage common in some regions and comprehensive sexuality education still limited, young women face unique challenges in accessing contraception.

These structural factors are not isolated; they are deeply embedded in Nigeria’s social fabric. Without deliberate action, contraceptive inequality will remain widespread. It will remain a barrier to achieving reproductive health goals.

What are the dangers of this inequality?

Unequal access to contraception poses risks to sexually active women, families, and the country’s development.

When poorer, younger, less educated, or rural women cannot access modern contraceptives, the likelihood of unintended pregnancies increases. Such pregnancies often lead to unsafe abortions, maternal health complications, and higher maternal and infant mortality. Nigeria’s rate of 1,047 deaths per 100,000 births in 2020 is the third-highest maternal mortality in Africa. Unequal contraceptive access continues to worsen this reality.

Unchecked inequality also reinforces cycles of poverty. Women who cannot space or limit their births face challenges in pursuing education or employment, which reduces household economic stability. Adolescents are particularly at risk. Limited access to contraception contributes to early and closely spaced pregnancies, which undermine long-term health and socio-economic prospects.

High fertility rates continue to strain Nigeria’s health, education and economic systems. Regions with low contraceptive use tend to have higher fertility and greater unmet need, entrenching regional disparities. Gender equality is also compromised when women lack control over their reproductive lives.

Without addressing systemic barriers, progress in women’s health and national development will remain slow and uneven.

How can the gaps be closed?

Closing these gaps requires a multi-layered and equity-focused approach.

First, adolescents need targeted interventions. This could include youth-friendly services, improved sexuality education, and community engagement to reduce stigma around contraceptive use.

Service delivery must also prioritise rural areas through better supply-chain systems, and mobile clinics. There must also be community health workers who can reach hard-to-access populations.

Addressing economic inequalities means ensuring contraceptives are consistently free or subsidised and that essential methods are widely available.

Health insurance coverage for reproductive services must be strengthened. This can reduce out-of-pocket costs that discourage uptake among women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Education is an important enabler. Investing in girls’ education improves health-seeking behaviour and long-term contraceptive use. Adult women with limited schooling also need targeted outreach, counselling, and culturally appropriate communication strategies.

Regional inequalities call for decentralised planning. States and local governments should tailor family planning programmes to their specific barriers. Collaboration with religious and community leaders can help shift norms and increase acceptance.

Continuous monitoring using tools such as the WHO HEAT toolkit, and long-term investment in health systems, are also important.

Ensuring all women – regardless of age, income, education, or location – can access modern contraceptives will advance Nigeria’s progress towards reproductive justice and sustainable development.

Obasanjo Bolarinwa is affiliated with York St John University.

We run writing workshops at a South African university: what we’ve learnt about how students are using AI, and how to help them

2026-02-03T13:51:49Z

Much is being said about the wonders of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it is the new frontier. And while it provides amazing possibilities in fields like medicine, academics are debating its advantages for university students. Peet van Aardt researches student writing and presents academic writing workshops at the University of the Free State Writing Centre, helping students to build clear arguments, summarise essay structure and express their opinions in their own voice. He also spearheads the Initiative for Creative African Narratives (iCAN), a project that assists students in getting their original stories published. Here he shares his experiences and thoughts on the use of generative AI at university.

What are your biggest concerns about the growth of AI-generated material from students?

The use of generative AI to compose assignments and write essays is widely reported, and its potentially detrimental effects on critical thinking and research are clear.

My biggest concern is that it takes away academic agency from students. By that I mean it takes the proverbial pen out of our students’ hands. If they over-rely on it (which we see they tend to do), they no longer think critically and no longer express their own voices.

Student voice might be lost when AI does the writing. Clout, Unsplash, CC BY

This is particularly important in African universities, where student voice and the intellectual contribution of students to society are drivers of social change and decolonisation.

How can you tell if a text is written by a student or is AI generated?

Flawless grammar and clichés are the first two signs. Generic, shallow reasoning is another. Finally, the generative AI answer does not tend to relate well to topics set in a local context.

If I take student short stories that have been submitted to our iCAN project as an example, I see more and more tales set in some unnamed place (previously, students’ stories often took place in their own towns) or adventures experienced by characters named Stacey, Rick, Damian or other American-sounding people.

Another example: third year students studying Geography were asked to write a ten page essay on the history and future of sustainability and how it applied to Africa. To guide them, the students were referred to a report that addresses challenges in sustainability. What we saw during our consultations in the writing centre were texts that discussed this report, as well as relevant topics such as “global inequality and environmental justice” and “linking human rights, sustainability and peace” – but nowhere was South Africa even mentioned. The students clearly prompted their generative AI tool to produce an essay on the first part of the assignment instructions.

Also, it’s quite easy to determine whether somebody did their own research and created their own arguments when they have to reflect on it.

When students don’t understand the text of their essay, it’s a sign that they didn’t produce it. As academics and writing coaches we increasingly encounter students who, instead of requiring help with their own essay or assignment, need assistance with their AI-produced text. Students ask questions about the meaning and relevance of the text.

Writing centre consultations have always relied on asking the students questions about their writing in an attempt to guide them on their academic exploration. But recently more time needs to be spent on reading what the students present as their writing, and then asking them what it means. Therefore, instead of specifics, we now need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Not all students use generative AI poorly. That is why I still believe in using AI detection tools as a first “flag” in the process: it provides a place to start.

What interventions do you propose?

Students should be asked questions about text, like:

Does what it is saying make sense?
Does this statement sound true?
Does it answer the lecturer’s question?

In some instances teaching and learning is moving back to paper-based assignments, which I support. If possible, we should let students write with pens in controlled environments.

It’s also becoming more important to reignite the skill of academic reading so that students can understand what their AI assistant is producing. This points to the importance of reading for understanding, being able to question what was read, and being able to remember what one has read.

Generative AI is quite western and northern-centric. I believe we in academia have an opportunity to focus, where possible, on indigenous knowledge. Students should be encouraged to reflect on indigenous knowledge more often.

Lastly, academics should not over-rely on generative AI themselves if they don’t want their students to do so. As student enrolment numbers rise, time is becoming a rare luxury for academics, but we cannot expect students to take responsibility for their learning when we want to take shortcuts in our facilitation.

Have you changed your approach given these insights?

We have been revisiting our workshop materials to include more theory and practice on reading. Well-known strategies like the SQ3R method (to survey, question, read, recite and review a text) and the PIE approach (understanding that paragraphs Point to a main idea, support this by Illustration and Explain how and why the writer supports the main idea) are infused, along with various activities to ensure students apply some of these.

Our one-on-one consultations between students and trained, qualified academic writing experts continue to be integral.

If we as academics want to continue facilitating the learning process in students – and truly put them at the centre of education – we have to empower them to think critically and express themselves in their own voices.

Peet van Aardt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Ransomware : qu'est-ce que c'est et pourquoi cela vous concerne ?

2026-02-03T09:43:02Z

Le ransomware ou rançongiciel est un type de logiciel malveillant qui rend les données, le système ou l'appareil de la victime inaccessibles. Il les verrouille et les crypte (en les rendant illisibles) jusqu'à ce qu'une rançon soit payée aux pirates.

Il s'agit de l'une des formes de cyberattaques les plus répandues et les plus destructrices qui touchent les organisations à travers le monde. Un rapport d'Interpol a identifié les ransomwares comme l'une des cybermenaces les plus répandues en Afrique en 2024. L'Afrique du Sud a signalé 12 281 détections et l'Égypte 17 849.

Malgré les efforts mondiaux pour le freiner, le ransomware continue de prospérer, alimenté par l'appât du gain rapide des cybercriminels à la recherche de gains financiers rapides. Dans son rapport du premier trimestre 2025, la société mondiale de cybersécurité Sophos a révélé que 71 % des organisations sud-africaines touchées par des ransomwares ont payé une rançon et récupéré leurs données. Mais le coût total d'une attaque par ransomware est difficile à quantifier. Il va au-delà du paiement de la rançon et inclut les pertes de revenus pendant la période d'indisponibilité du système et les dommages potentiels à la réputation.

Les cybercriminels choisissent souvent des organisations où une interruption de service peut avoir des répercussions importantes sur le public ou les opérations, ce qui augmente la pression pour payer la rançon. Les réseaux électriques, les systèmes de santé, les réseaux de transport et les systèmes financiers en sont des exemples. Lorsque les victimes refusent de payer la rançon, les malfaiteurs menacent souvent de divulguer des informations sensibles ou confidentielles.

L'une des raisons pour lesquelles les ransomwares sont devenus si répandus en Afrique est le retard du continent en matière de cybersécurité. De nombreuses organisations ne disposent pas de ressources dédiées à la cybersécurité, ni des compétences. Il leur manque aussi la sensibilisation, les outils et les infrastructures nécessaires pour se défendre contre les cyberattaques.

Dans cet environnement, les pirates informatiques peuvent opérer relativement facilement. Tous les chefs d'entreprise, en particulier ceux qui supervisent les technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) ou gèrent des données sensibles, devraient se poser une question cruciale. Notre organisation peut-elle survivre à une attaque par ransomware ?

Il ne s'agit pas seulement d'une question technique, mais aussi d'une question de gouvernance. Les membres des conseils d'administration et les équipes de direction sont de plus en plus responsables de la gestion des risques et de la cyber-résilience.

En tant que chercheur et expert en gouvernance des technologies de l'information et en cybersécurité, je constate que la région africaine est en train de devenir un foyer majeur pour les cyberattaques. Les organisations doivent être conscientes des risques et prendre des mesures pour les atténuer.

Les attaques par ransomware peuvent être extrêmement coûteuses, et une organisation peut avoir des difficultés à se remettre d'un incident, voire y succomber.

Les faiblesses qui augmentent le risque de ransomware

Le rapport 2025 de l'entreprise de télécommunications Verizon sur les violations de données a révélé que le nombre d'organisations touchées par des attaques par ransomware avait augmenté de 37 % par rapport à l'année précédente. Cela montre à quel point de nombreuses organisations sont mal préparées pour prévenir une attaque.

Un plan de continuité des activités détaille la manière dont une entreprise poursuit ses activités en cas de perturbation. Un plan de reprise après sinistre informatique fait partie du plan de continuité. Ces plans sont essentiels pour assurer la continuité des activités après l'attaque, car les entreprises touchées subissent souvent des temps d'arrêt prolongés, une perte d'accès aux systèmes et aux données, ainsi que de graves perturbations opérationnelles.

Les hackers professionnels vendent en fait des outils de ransomware, ce qui permet aux cybercriminels de lancer plus facilement et de manière plus rentable des attaques sans se soucier de leurs conséquences.

Les pirates peuvent infiltrer les systèmes de différentes manières :

contrôles de sécurité faibles, tels que des mots de passe ou des mécanismes d'authentification peu sûrs
réseaux non surveillés, où il n'existe pas de systèmes de détection d'intrusion capables de signaler toute activité réseau suspecte
erreur humaine, lorsque des employés cliquent par erreur sur des liens dans des e-mails qui contiennent des ransomwares.

Une surveillance insuffisante du réseau peut permettre aux pirates informatiques de rester indétectables suffisamment longtemps pour collecter des données sur les vulnérabilités et identifier les systèmes clés à cibler. Dans de nombreux cas, les employés introduisent à leur insu des logiciels malveillants, des liens ou des pièces jointes provenant d'e-mails de phishing. Le phishing est une attaque d'ingénierie sociale qui utilise diverses techniques de manipulation pour inciter un utilisateur à divulguer des informations sensibles, telles que ses coordonnées bancaires ou ses identifiants de connexion, ou pour le piéger en le poussant à cliquer sur des liens malveillants.

Payer la rançon

Les attaquants exigent généralement un paiement en bitcoins ou autres cryptomonnaies, car ces paiements sont très difficiles à tracer. Le paiement de la rançon n'offre aucune garantie de récupération complète des données ni de protection contre de futures attaques. Selon la société mondiale de cybersécurité Check Point, des groupes de ransomware notoires tels que Medusa ont popularisé les tactiques de double extorsion.

Ces groupes exigent un paiement et menacent de publier les données volées en ligne. Ils utilisent souvent les réseaux sociaux et le dark web (une partie d'Internet accessible uniquement à l'aide d'un logiciel spécial), ce qui leur permet de rester anonymes et introuvables. Leur objectif est d'humilier publiquement les victimes ou de divulguer des informations sensibles, afin de faire pression sur les organisations pour qu'elles se plient à leurs exigences.

Ces violations contribuent également aux escroqueries par hameçonnage, car les adresses e-mail et les identifiants exposés circulent sur Internet, ce qui entraîne davantage de violations de données. Des sites web tels que Have I Been Pwned peuvent vous aider à vérifier si votre adresse e-mail a été compromise lors d'une précédente violation de données.

Renforcer la résilience des organisations

Les organisations doivent renforcer leur cybersécurité de plusieurs manières.

Mettre en place des mesures techniques et administratives solides pour assurer la sécurité des données. Il s'agit notamment de contrôles d'accès efficaces, d'outils de surveillance du réseau et de sauvegardes régulières des systèmes et des données.
Utiliser des outils qui bloquent les attaques de logiciels malveillants à un stade précoce et émettent des alertes en cas d'activités suspectes. Cela inclut l'utilisation d'une protection solide des terminaux, garantissant que tout appareil connecté au réseau dispose de systèmes de détection d'intrusion qui aident à repérer les activités réseau inhabituelles.
Doter le personnel des connaissances et de la vigilance nécessaires pour détecter et prévenir les menaces potentielles.
Élaborer, documenter et communiquer un plan d'intervention clair en cas d'incident.
Faire appel à des experts externes en cybersécurité ou à des services de sécurité gérés lorsque l'organisation ne dispose pas des compétences ou des capacités nécessaires pour gérer seule la sécurité.
Élaborez, maintenez et testez régulièrement des plans de continuité des activités et de reprise après sinistre des TIC.
Souscrivez une cyberassurance pour couvrir les risques qui ne peuvent être totalement évités.

Les attaques par ransomware constituent une menace grave et croissante pour les particuliers et les organisations. Elles peuvent entraîner des pertes de données, des pertes financières, des perturbations opérationnelles et une atteinte à la réputation. Aucune mesure de sécurité ne peut garantir une protection totale contre de telles attaques. Mais les mesures décrites ici peuvent vous aider.

Thembekile Olivia Mayayise does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Minéraux critiques d'Afrique : le cadre du G20 définit les moyens d'en profiter

2026-02-03T09:41:37Z

Alors que le monde se tourne vers les énergies propres, les minéraux tels que le lithium, le cobalt et le manganèse sont devenus aussi importants que l'était autrefois le pétrole. L'Afrique détient d'importantes réserves de ces minéraux critiques. Pourtant, ils sont principalement exportés sous forme de matières premières, puis reviennent sous forme de technologies vertes coûteuses fabriquées dans des usines à l'étranger. La présidence sud-africaine du G20 a mis en place un nouveau cadre pour les minéraux critiques. Ce cadre vise à aider les pays africains riches en minéraux à tirer davantage profit de la transformation et de la fabrication locales. Les géoscientifiques Glen Nwaila et Grant Bybee expliquent ce qu'il faut faire pour extraire les minéraux en toute sécurité et transformer les richesses souterraines en valeur économique en Afrique.

Que sont les minéraux critiques et quelle place occupent-ils dans les ressources africaines ?

Le cobalt, le manganèse, le graphite naturel, le cuivre, le nickel, le lithium et le minerai de fer sont tous essentiels à la fabrication de panneaux solaires, d'éoliennes, de batteries pour véhicules électriques et d'autres équipements liés aux énergies vertes.

L'Afrique abrite d'importantes réserves de minéraux critiques. Le continent détient 55 % des gisements mondiaux de cobalt. Il abrite 47,65 % de tout le manganèse mondial et 21,6 % du graphite naturel.

Environ 5,9 % du cuivre, 5,6 % du nickel, 1 % du lithium et 0,6 % du minerai de fer mondial se trouvent en Afrique.

L'Afrique du Sud possède entre 80 % et 90 % des métaux du groupe du platine dans le monde et plus de 70 % des ressources mondiales en chrome et en manganèse. Ces métaux sont essentiels pour fabriquer les composants pour les technologies d'énergie propre et l'électronique.

L'Agence internationale de l'énergie prévoyait en 2025 que la demande en lithium serait multipliée par cinq entre 2025 et 2040. La demande en graphite et en nickel doublera. Entre 50 % et 60 % de cobalt et d'éléments de terres rares supplémentaires seront nécessaires d'ici 2040. La demande en cuivre augmentera de 30 % au cours de la même période.

Quels sont les principaux défis auxquels sont confrontées ces ressources précieuses ?

Dans beaucoup d'économies africaines, les minéraux critiques sont exportés à l'état brut ou semi-transformés, pour être utilisés dans la production de diverses technologies d'énergie verte. Les pays africains importent ensuite ces technologies, passant ainsi à côté des emplois et des industries qui pourraient être créés s'ils fabriquaient eux-mêmes des composants liés aux énergies vertes.

La transformation des minéraux et éléments critiques en Afrique permettrait de créer environ 2,3 millions d'emplois sur le continent. Cela augmenterait le PIB continental d'environ 12 %. Cela contribuerait à résoudre un problème de chômage chronique. Par exemple, l'Afrique du Sud affiche un taux de chômage de 31,9 %. Chez les jeunes âgés de 15 à 34 ans, le taux de chômage atteint 43,7 %.

Quelles solutions sont proposées ?

Le nouveau cadre pour les minéraux critiques du G20 définit des règles et des normes claires afin de garantir une plus grande valeur ajoutée au niveau local (par exemple en transformant les minéraux là où ils sont extraits au lieu de les expédier à l'état brut). C'est ce qu'on appelle la promotion de « la valorisation locale à la source » ou « la création valeur et la rétention de valeur ».

Le cadre soutient la diffusion de l'exploitation minière, du transport, de la transformation et de la vente dans différents pays.

Cela permettra de réduire la dépendance à l'égard d'un seul pays ou d'une seule entreprise. Cela favorisera également la mise en place de chaînes d'approvisionnement plus fiables, moins susceptibles d'être perturbées.

Le cadre propose également que l'exploitation minière des minéraux critiques soit soumise à des règles strictes et équitables qui protègent les populations, les économies et l'environnement, conformément aux lois et politiques propres aux pays africains.

Il vise également à créer une carte claire (ou un inventaire) de l'emplacement de tous les minéraux critiques sur le continent, afin que l'exploration (en particulier dans les zones sous-explorées) puisse se faire sans nuire aux communautés ou à l'environnement.

Il encourage les nouvelles idées, les nouvelles technologies et les formations afin que les gens puissent acquérir les compétences nécessaires pour travailler dans les industries des énergies vertes.

Bien qu'il s'agisse d'un document volontaire et non contraignant, il est essentiel en tant que guide des meilleures pratiques.

En quoi le rôle des géoscientifiques est-il essentiel ?

Les géosciences influencent la vie quotidienne, ce qui n'est pas évidente pour la plupart des gens. Les hydrogéologues contribuent à garantir que les villes, les fermes et les mines disposent d'une eau fiable et propre sans nuire à l'environnement. Les géophysiciens sont capables de « voir » sous terre à l'aide d'outils spécialisés pour trouver des minéraux. Ils déterminent également les endroits où il est sûr de construire des routes, des tunnels et des centrales électriques, et surveillent les risques naturels tels que les tremblements de terre.

Il existe beaucoup de domaines dans les géosciences. Les géométallurgistes cherchent à déterminer comment traiter plus efficacement les roches extraites, en utilisant moins d'énergie et d'eau et en produisant moins de déchets. Les scientifiques spécialisés dans les géodonnées transforment les images satellites et les données terrestres en cartes qui sont utilisées pour planifier les villes et s'adapter au changement climatique. Les géologues spécialisés dans les ressources estiment la quantité de minéraux ou de métaux précieux pouvant être extraits, ainsi que les risques associés.

Les géologues ingénieurs contribuent à la sécurité des bâtiments, des tunnels, des barrages et des installations de traitement des déchets miniers. Les géologues environnementaux surveillent les sols, l'eau et l'air afin de s'assurer que le développement ne nuit pas aux personnes ni à l'environnement.

Les vastes réserves de minéraux critiques de l'Afrique ne peuvent créer des emplois, favoriser la croissance économique et le développement durable que si les pays disposent d'un nombre suffisant de géoscientifiques bien formés pour les trouver, les extraire et les traiter. Leur expertise permet de transformer les ressources souterraines en véritables opportunités économiques.

L'Afrique continue de former beaucoup de géoscientifiques talentueux. Ceux-ci travaillent dans les chaînes de valeur des minéraux critiques et apportent une contribution précieuse. Cependant, des compétences plus avancées en science des géodonnées, en géométallurgie, en modélisation prédictive et en leadership sont nécessaires. À l'heure actuelle, d'importantes lacunes subsistent en Afrique.

Pour combler ces lacunes, les gouvernements africains, les universités, les partenaires industriels et les collaborateurs internationaux doivent investir de toute urgence dans des programmes d'éducation et de formation ciblés. Ceux-ci devraient se concentrer sur la formation en science des géodonnées avancée, en géométallurgie, en modélisation prédictive, en science des systèmes minéraux et en développement du leadership. Des partenariats doivent être mis en place avec des entreprises privées. Les étudiants doivent participer à des échanges de connaissances internationaux.

Les entreprises minières doivent être incitées à partager leurs connaissances afin que les professionnels africains soient formés pour effectuer eux-mêmes des travaux de haute valeur dans le domaine des géosciences et de l'exploitation minière.

Cela permettrait à l'Afrique non seulement d'extraire, mais aussi d'exploiter pleinement ses richesses minérales souterraines. Cette croissance favoriserait une croissance économique inclusive, la création d'emplois et une transition énergétique juste.

Glen Nwaila reçoit un financement de recherche de la part de l'Open Society Foundations, en collaboration avec le Southern Centre for Inequality Studies de l'université de Wits, afin de soutenir ses travaux sur les minéraux critiques en Afrique.

Grant Bybee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Angola’s Lobito Corridor is being revived – but who stands to gain?

2026-02-02T13:32:58Z

The Lobito Corridor is a massive infrastructure axis linking Angola’s shore on the west of Africa to the mineral-rich interior. Built in the first three decades of the 1900s to export cheap commodities to colonial Portugal, it later fell into disrepair. Its main railway was rebuilt during Angola’s post-war reconstruction. More recently it has attracted renewed and competing international interests.

Daniel Tjarks has researched Angola’s political and economic geography, the spatial development of colonial Angola and the current role of international actors in the country. Angola’s post-war spatial development and the government’s plans to promote more balanced and equitable growth also feature in his PhD dissertation. He questions some of the celebratory political claims made about efforts to revitalise the corridor. In particular, whether it will help Angola diversify its oil-dependent economy and benefit ordinary citizens.

What is the Lobito Corridor?

The Lobito Corridor is a logistics corridor. At its heart is a 1,300km rail line that connects the port of the Angolan city of Lobito to the mineral-rich parts of Zambia and Congo to the east.

Its most important component, the Benguela Railway, was constructed between 1903 and 1931 under Portuguese colonial rule by Scottish engineer Robert Williams.

At the time, it was one of three separate railways linking the colony’s ports to its hinterland. This way, colonial Angola could provide Portugal with cheap commodities.

During Angola’s post-independence civil war (1975-2002), the line was largely destroyed. As Angola entered the peace period, the country was able to rebuild its infrastructure thanks to its booming oil business.

Chinese capital and construction companies enabled the resurrection of the railway between 2006 and 2014.

In 2023, a western consortium outbid Chinese competitors for a 30-year concession for the line’s operation. The consortium consists of Swiss commodity trader Trafigura, Portuguese construction company Mota-Engil and Belgian rail operator Vecturis. It has committed to invest US$455 million in the corridor’s development in Angola alone. Trafigura CEO Jeremy Weir says it will not only “create a western route to market for goods and materials” but also “boost the development of sectors along the line”.

Why is the corridor attracting so much attention again?

A lot is at stake in the Lobito corridor. Much more than a regional infrastructure project, it has gained strategic importance in the global scramble for critical resources.

Cobalt and copper from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo are key to the clean energy transition and modern communication technology. The DRC and Zambia together account for about 14% of the global mine production of copper and the DRC for 73% of cobalt.

Control of access to these minerals is at the heart of growing US-China competition, at times referred to as a “second cold war”.

The Lobito corridor has therefore become a project of global importance.

For this reason, the railway line has attracted high-ranking visits in recent years. In 2024, then US president Joe Biden inspected the rail line, marking the first visit of a US president to the continent since 2015 and the first of a sitting US president to Angola. In 2025, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier also made the trip – again, the first of a German president to the country.

Even the Trump administration seems to have decided it will not break with commitments to support development of the corridor.

In 2024, the US, Europe, the African Development Bank and the three host countries signed a memorandum of understanding to extend the line to the east and mobilise investment alongside it.

At the seventh AU-EU summit in November 2025, European commission president Ursula von der Leyen described these commitments as evidence of the “European model” of investment and the two continents’ “unique and strategic partnership”. The commission promised to mobilise loans and private investments for the corridor worth no less than US$2 billion.

As the US and EU are trying to counter Chinese capital investment in Angola and in the wider region, the Lobito Corridor will continue to play a key role.

Who will benefit from the Lobito corridor?

There are good reasons to remain sceptical about the corridor’s promised benefits.

First, recent background reports point to major challenges facing the development of the soft infrastructure of customs and regulations. Others have pointed to the corridor’s unclear commercial viability. Ships having to call at the secondary port of Lobito will incur higher costs. There’s also competition from other routes – mostly, the Chinese-built Tazara railway, connecting Zambia to Dar-es-Salaam.

Second, the economic model at the heart of the Lobito corridor is anything but a break with exploitative extractivism. Throughout Angolan history, primary commodities have left the country, while hopes for broad-based growth have repeatedly been frustrated.

The consortium that now operates the railway grounds its investment primarily in expectations of future demand for critical minerals. And while the political emphasis on complementary investments is laudable, the corridor does not, as one background report puts it,

immediately lend itself to linking minerals and wider development.

Moreover, the country has already seen decades of large-scale oil exports that have delivered few tangible results for the wider population. Instead they have propelled blatant corruption and growing discontent with a ruling party that has been in power since independence.

Angolan economists Alves da Rocha and Wilson Chimoco have argued that “expectations on the impact on economic diversification are very low”.

Angolan government critic and journalist Rafael Marques de Morais has even called the corridor

a mirror of everything negative the continent endures: Chinese debt, Western opportunism, Congolese blood, Angolan misrule.

For him

if hypocrisy needed a railway, it would look exactly like the Lobito Corridor.

If the project really is to benefit all, the government will have to live up to promises that fewer and fewer Angolans seem to believe it capable of delivering.

Daniel Tjarks does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Medicinal plants support men’s health in South Africa: why this knowledge needs safekeeping

2026-02-02T13:32:17Z

Men’s sexual and reproductive health may be awkward to talk about, but there’s a need to do so. For example, about one-sixth of all couples worldwide have difficulty conceiving children, and in half the cases the man’s fertility is part of the problem. In South Africa, nearly 65% of men attending primary healthcare facilities report some level of erectile dysfunction, as do 57.4% of men in Nigeria.

Not only is there a cultural stigma around these issues, there aren’t always enough healthcare professionals and services to help. Consequently, traditional medicine is not just an alternative to “western medicine”, it’s at the frontline in African countries rooted in ancient knowledge. It’s also sustained by necessity.

However, this knowledge is at risk as societies and cultures change.

These traditions can be lost when there is no systematic documentation and cross-cultural analysis of their uses. They have equally been excluded from mainstream medical discourse. Preserving and integrating traditional medicinal practices is critical to safeguard cultural heritage. It also has the potential to unlock new medical treatments and care for people’s overall wellbeing.

We are medicinal plant experts and recently researched the value of medicinal plants for men’s health in South Africa.

We searched various scientific databases for published articles focusing on the use of medicinal plants for male health in South Africa from 1996 to 2023. We identified and analysed 51 eligible studies. We looked at similarities and differences in how the ethnic groups in South Africa treat these health issues, how widely certain plants are used, and the types of health conditions treated.

Our study found that traditional plant remedies reinforce cultural identity and address essential health needs in men. This is even more important where there is limited access to conventional healthcare.

However, this knowledge is at risk as societies and cultures change. These traditions can be lost when there is no systematic documentation and cross-cultural analysis of their uses. They have equally been excluded from mainstream medical discourse.

We conclude from our findings that preserving and integrating traditional medicinal practices is critical to safeguard cultural heritage. And that the plants in question should be protected to preserve both biodiversity and cultural heritage.

Indigenous health knowledge

We recorded 337 plants used for male health in rural communities across seven South African provinces.

Erectile dysfunction was the most treated urogenital condition, with 133 plants; these plants were also deemed aphrodisiac. Over 250 medicinal plants were used for sexually transmitted infections such as gonorrhoea, HIV, chlamydia and genital warts. Hypoxis hemerocallidea (African potato), Entada elephantina (elephant’s root) and Carica papaya (pawpaw) were the most common plants for managing health conditions affecting men.

African potato was used to treat erectile dysfunction, sexually transmitted infections, prostate enlargement and bladder disorders. Its potential has been shown in a study of its effect on rats. There is a need for further validation studies to see if it could help men.

Some of the studies we reviewed suggest that other natural ingredients in the African potato could contribute to balance hormones and support reproductive function. It also contains compounds that fight germs and reduce inflammation. These indicates potential to help the body defend itself against infections, including sexually transmitted infections and urinary tract infections.

Traditionally, the corm is either boiled or ground into powder and mixed with water or milk to drink. In some practices, preparations are applied to the lower abdomen or groin area to relieve inflammation and improve circulation. Collectively, these bioactive components make African potato a potentially valuable natural remedy for male reproductive and urinary health.

In traditional settings elephant root and pawpaw are used to treat male reproductive conditions such as erectile dysfunction, infertility, prostate enlargement and sexually transmitted infections. Elephant root is valued for its roots, which contain flavonoids, tannins, phenolic compounds, triterpenoids, saponins and glycosides, according to the studies reviewed. These exert antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and aphrodisiac properties. They support blood flow, hormonal regulation and infection control.

Traditionally, the roots of elephant root are harvested, dried and boiled to prepare a decoction (a concentrated liquid). It is then consumed to treat infections and improve sexual function. In some communities, the powdered root is mixed with water and taken as a tonic, or it’s applied to the body surfaces to relieve inflammation and enhance circulation.

Pawpaw is rich in bioactive compounds such as papain, chymopapain, alkaloids, flavonoids, phenolic acids, tannins, saponins, β-sitosterol and vitamins. They all contribute to improved circulation, reduced inflammation, immune enhancement and reproductive health. Pawpaw seeds and leaves are crushed or boiled to extract active compounds, and administered orally or applied externally to support reproductive health. They are also used to treat sexually transmitted infections.

Looking ahead

This research highlights the value of indigenous knowledge and its preservation. Since it is passed down orally, it can be lost over time. Assessing and documenting the usefulness of these plants will contribute towards preserving biodiversity and cultural heritage, and towards innovation.

Providing scientific validation and credibility for these herbal remedies could stimulate rural economy development and strengthen cultural identity. It could also pave the way for more inclusive and integrated healthcare

It also aligns with the World Health Organization’s Traditional Medicine Strategy (2025-2034). This encourages scientific validation and integration into healthcare systems.

Adeyemi Oladapo Aremu receives funding from the National Research Foundation, South Africa. He is affiliated with the South African Association of Botanists and currently serves as the Vice President. He is also an Associate Editor for the South African Journal of Botany.

Makhotso Lekhooa receives funding from South Africa National Research Foundation, South African Medical Research Council, International Brain Research Organization and The Wellcome Trust. She is affiliated with South African Society of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology

Mompati Vincent Chakale works for Univeristy of Mpumalanga, and PhD candidate at North-West University. He receives funding from DSTI-CSIR Inter-programme bursary 2024, Kopano Youth Club study funds, UMP staff support, and NWU Postgradute bursary. He is affiliated with South African Association of Botanist.

Nigeria’s open borders promised more trade and free movement: but crossings are chaotic and corrupt

2026-02-02T13:32:03Z

West Africa has pursued one of the world’s most ambitious border liberalisation schemes in the past four decades. The Ecowas Free Movement Protocol, signed in 1979, enables citizens of 16 member states to cross international borders with minimal documentation. The intention was to promote economic integration and prosperity across the region.

For instance, Nigeria’s open borders promise trade. Yet at Nigeria’s border posts, a troubling reality emerges. The open border system has become a vehicle for systematic exploitation of travellers.

My research towards my PhD at the University of Lincoln under the supervision of Dr Joshua Skoczylis focuses on west African migration and border governance. Together, we have examined how the region’s free movement protocol operates in practice at Nigeria’s frontiers.

Using the examples of two contrasting Nigerian border crossings – Idi-Iroko on the Benin border and Chikanda on the Niger border – I sought to understand the protocol’s impact on border security in Nigeria. Through qualitative interviews with policymakers, frontline security staff and community leaders, the research reveals how information gaps between officials and citizens transform an integration policy into an instrument of corruption.

While these sites cannot claim to represent all of Nigeria’s 84 manned official border posts, they illustrate the institutional dynamics reported across major crossing points in the region.

My findings show that the Ecowas Free Movement Protocol is an example of what policy scholars call an implementation gap: the chasm between what policies promise on paper and what happens on the ground. This protocol establishes free movement principles without prescribing mechanisms or standard practices. But Nigeria has failed to develop its own ways to manage its borders.

The current chaotic system is crying out for changes: these should include standardised operating procedures, proper remuneration for border personnel, accountability mechanisms and intelligence sharing.

When nobody knows the rules

The protocol’s basic requirement is straightforward: travellers need a valid travel document (a passport) and an international health certificate. Yet interviews with dozens of border community members revealed that most had never seen these requirements written down, let alone understood them.

“I think the protocol is good for trade between countries,” one Idi-Iroko resident told me, “but I don’t really know what it says.” Another community member was more direct: “International passports? Those are a waste of time and money. You don’t need them to cross the borders.”

When citizens remain uncertain about requirements, officials can demand payments for unknown violations, charge fees for services that should be free, and accept bribes to overlook supposed irregularities. What looks like bureaucratic failure becomes a feature of the system for those who benefit from it.

Multiple residents confirmed they crossed regularly without documents, recognised by officials who “know them” as locals.

Border residents understand that in practice, rules matter less than relationships with officials. Documentation requirements are negotiable, and informal payment often smooths passage more effectively than proper papers.

The strategic information gap

Security agencies claim they regularly conduct community information programmes. Immigration officials described visiting market squares and motor parks to distribute flyers about trafficking dangers and documentation requirements. “We do enlightenment campaigns constantly,” one senior officer insisted. Yet my requests for programme documentation, schedules, attendance records, or evaluation reports yielded nothing.

None of the community members interviewed across two border zones recalled such programmes. Most had gleaned their understanding of border operations from informal conversations and personal experience.

The real implementation gap

Free movement doesn’t mean unregulated movement. Even within a borderless zone, states retain legitimate security interests: preventing trafficking, controlling smuggled goods, monitoring public health threats, and maintaining basic records of cross-border flows. The protocol acknowledges this by allowing member states to refuse entry on grounds of security, public health, or public order. Rules are needed to distinguish between these legitimate security functions and arbitrary restrictions that undermine the integration agenda.

The protocol assumes member states will create necessary institutional capacity: motivated, well-resourced security forces working collaboratively. But in reality there are ten competing agencies at major Nigerian posts, earning vastly different salaries, following separate mandates, jealously guarding information. As one military officer explained: “One organisation tries to be smarter, working individualistically instead of in cooperation.”

Frontline officers exercise enormous discretion in this under-regulated environment. They become de facto policymakers. They don’t simply implement policy poorly, they effectively create policy through their daily choices about whom to stop, what to inspect, and which violations to overlook.

A customs official candidly admitted to me:

Many people don’t go there for patriotism or duty. They go for survival. Even if you have the numbers, they’ll always try to see where the honey tastes better.

In this context, systematic corruption isn’t aberrant behaviour – it’s a strategy within deficient systems that national governments have failed to develop.

Why technology won’t fix this

Security officials often cite lack of technology as their main challenge. They argue that scanners, biometric systems and digital monitoring could help verify travellers’ identities, flag security threats, and create audit trails of border transactions. In theory, that could reduce opportunities for officials to demand arbitrary payments or wave through prohibited goods.

But technology won’t solve the fundamental problem my research uncovered.

The issue isn’t capacity for enforcement. It’s the incentive for exploitation. Sophisticated surveillance equipment won’t prevent officials from accepting bribes if their salaries are inadequate and accountability mechanisms are absent.

Anyway, most border posts lack electricity infrastructure to power such technology. And equipment placed in remote areas becomes vulnerable to theft or vandalism. Investment in hardware simply creates more expensive ways to fail.

What needs to change

Forty-six years after the protocol’s enactment, Ecowas needs to confront uncomfortable realities. Real reform requires several interconnected changes:

Genuine transparency about requirements: sustained, accessible public information about what documentation is legally required, what fees are legitimate, and how to report violations.
Standardised operating procedures across member states.
Adequate compensation for security personnel.
Accountability mechanisms with genuine consequences for exploitative behaviour.
Coordination frameworks that reduce inter-agency competition and enable intelligence sharing.

Until Ecowas confronts this reality, the free movement protocol will continue delivering the opposite of its promise: not integration and prosperity, but fragmentation and exploitation.

This article is based on doctoral fieldwork conducted in Nigeria between 5 June 2024 and 1 August 2024. Interview data and full findings will be available in the forthcoming PhD thesis at the University of Lincoln.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Hausse de la demande de karité : un succès mondial qui ne profite pas aux femmes qui collectent les noix

2026-02-02T10:54:31Z

Le beurre de karité est devenu un ingrédient très recherché dans l'industrie mondiale des cosmétiques et de l'alimentation. Depuis le début des années 2000, son utilisation comme substitut au beurre de cacao a entraîné une augmentation spectaculaire de la demande internationale. L'industrie du beurre de karité a connu une croissance de plus de 600 % au cours des 20 dernières années.

Le karité pousse à l'état semi-domestiqué dans toute la région de la savane sèche, au sein de ce que l'on appelle une « ceinture du karité ». Celle-ci s'étend d'ouest en est, du Sénégal au Soudan du Sud, et sur environ 500 km du nord au sud. Il n'est pas planté, mais protégé au sein des terres agricoles et se trouve également dans les zones boisées communales.

On estime que 16 millions de femmes récoltent et transforment les fruits du karité dans les zones rurales d'Afrique de l'Ouest. Elles les transforment en amandes sèches destinées à la vente ou en beurre de karité.

Les entreprises mondiales, les agences de développement et les ONG présentent souvent l'industrie du karité comme un moyen d'autonomisation économique des femmes dans la région.

Pour approfondir cette idée, nous avons mené une étude sur la manière dont l'augmentation de la demande en beurre de karité a affecté les femmes cueilleuses au Burkina Faso et au Ghana. Ces deux pays figurent parmi les principaux exportateurs d'amandes de karité séchées.

Cette étude s'inscrit dans le cadre de nos travaux sur les changements agraires, l'écologie politique et les moyens de subsistance. Nous étudions les relations entre les producteurs et les autres acteurs des chaînes de valeur mondiales, ainsi que les impacts des changements induits par des facteurs externes sur les petits exploitants.

Nous avons combiné les données d'une enquête menée auprès de 1 046 collecteurs dans 24 communautés avec les données issues d'entretiens avec 18 collecteurs.

Nos résultats montrent que l'essor du karité a intensifié la concurrence pour l'accès aux arbres. Plus de 85 % des collecteurs interrogés ont signalé une augmentation du nombre de collecteurs de noix de karité dans leur communauté au cours des dix dernières années. Nous avons également documenté la manière dont l'accès aux arbres à karité devenait de plus en plus restreint, en particulier pour les femmes qui dépendent le plus du karité pour leur subsistance.

Nos résultats indiquent un accroissement des inégalités au sein de la population des collecteurs, alors même que la valeur globale du secteur du karité augmente.

La demande mondiale se heurte aux régimes fonciers locaux

Historiquement, l'accès aux noix était régi par un ensemble de règles coutumières et de normes sociales. Les femmes pouvaient généralement les récolter librement sur les terres communales, ainsi que sur les terres agricoles appartenant à leur foyer ou à leurs proches. Le karité était souvent considéré comme une ressource à accès semi-libre, accessible aux femmes de la communauté en fonction de leurs besoins.

Ce système est aujourd'hui remis en question.

Premièrement, comme les prix ont augmenté au cours des trois dernières décennies, le nombre de collectrices a également augmenté.

Ensuite, les terres communes se réduisent. L'expansion et la mécanisation de l'agriculture, la croissance démographique et le développement périurbain ont réduit les zones qui servaient autrefois d'espaces de cueillette partagés.

Plusieurs femmes que nous avons interrogées ont fait remarquer que des terres auparavant considérées comme des « broussailles » avaient été converties en champs, supprimant ainsi un important filet de sécurité pour ceux qui ne possèdent pas de terres agricoles.

En conséquence, l'accès au karité est de plus en plus lié à l'accès à des terres privées. Plus de 55 % des personnes interrogées dans le cadre de notre enquête ont déclaré que la cueillette sur les champs privés était devenue plus restrictive, les propriétaires fonciers imposant des limites plus strictes. Cette évolution reflète une tendance plus générale dans les deux pays à l'individualisation des droits fonciers à mesure que les ressources acquièrent une valeur marchande.

Troisièmement, la pression sur les ressources a donné lieu à de nouvelles formes de conflits, comme l'intrusion sur les terres. Les conflits renforcent l'exclusion, car les propriétaires fonciers deviennent de plus en plus réticents à autoriser des personnes extérieures à leur famille à pénétrer sur leurs champs.

Effets inégaux selon les groupes de collectrices

Notre recherche distingue trois types de collectrices :

les collectrices spécialisées, qui tirent la totalité de leurs revenus annuels de la collecte et de la vente de noix de karité
les collectrices qui diversifient : elles combinent la collecte de karité avec l'agriculture ou d'autres activités
les collectrices-commerçantes, qui non seulement collectent des noix, mais les achètent également à d'autres pour les revendre à des prix plus élevés plus tard dans l'année.

Ces groupes vivent l'essor du karité de différentes manières.

Les collectrices spécialisées ont l'accès le plus difficile aux terres privées. Seules 16 % d'entre elles récoltent dans leurs propres champs, contre 38 % à 43 % pour les autres groupes. Ils dépendent de la brousse communautaire.

Les collectrices qui diversifient ont un meilleur accès aux champs privés que les collectrices spécialisées, mais elles sont confrontées à des défis similaires en raison du rétrécissement des zones de brousse. De plus, elles ont moins de temps à consacrer à la collecte, ce qui limite leur capacité à compenser la concurrence croissante.

Les collectrices-commerçantes bénéficient d'un accès plus sûr aux champs privés et reçoivent davantage d'aide de la part des membres de leur famille. Plus de la moitié d'entre elles déclarent recevoir l'aide d'hommes, par exemple pour transporter les noix ou protéger les champs contre les intrus. C'est nettement plus élevé que les collectrices spécialisées ou diversifiées. Cette main-d'œuvre supplémentaire leur confère un avantage stratégique.

Plus de travail, mais pas plus de revenus

La hausse des prix pourrait laisser penser que les femmes gagnent aujourd'hui plus d'argent grâce au karité qu'il y a dix ans. Pourtant, ce n'est pas le cas pour la plupart des collectrices. Seules 48,7 % d'entre elles ont signalé une augmentation de leurs revenus liés au karité au cours des dix dernières années, malgré l'essor international de ce produit.

Le revenu annuel total tiré du karité reste très faible, avec une moyenne de seulement 174 dollars américains (parité de pouvoir d'achat) par an, avec des différences entre les collectrices.

Pour les collectrices les plus pauvres, plusieurs facteurs limitent l'augmentation des revenus :

l'accès limité aux karités restreint le volume de noix qu'elles peuvent récolter
beaucoup doivent vendre leurs noix tôt dans la saison, souvent à bas prix, pour répondre à leurs besoins immédiats en liquidités. Les collectrices-commerçantes plus aisées peuvent acheter les noix à bas prix, les stocker et profiter de prix plus élevés plus tard dans l'année.

Repenser le discours du « gagnant-gagnant »

Ces résultats remettent en question l'affirmation selon laquelle l'intégration des femmes dans la chaîne de valeur mondiale du karité leur donnerait plus d'autonomie et réduirait la pauvreté. L'essor de cette industrie a certes créé de nouvelles opportunités économiques, mais celles-ci sont réparties de manière inégale. L'expansion du marché a renforcé la position de celles qui ont un meilleur accès à la terre et au capital financier. Dans le même temps, elle a compromis les moyens de subsistance de celles qui dépendent exclusivement de cette ressource.

Notre étude ne prescrit pas de mesures politiques spécifiques, mais ses résultats indiquent plusieurs pistes d'intervention possibles.

Premièrement, les mesures qui renforcent les droits des femmes sur la terre et les arbres peuvent être essentielles. Des travaux récents sur la périphérie urbaine du Ghana, par exemple, préconisent l'élargissement des droits des femmes sur la terre et les arbres à karité dans le cadre des réformes politiques et foncières.

Deuxièmement, des études empiriques sur les femmes actives dans le secteur du karité au Ghana suggèrent que l'organisation collective, un meilleur accès au financement et à des infrastructures améliorées (notamment des installations de stockage) qui peuvent renforcer la position des femmes.

Enfin, des données provenant du nord du Ghana indiquent que les femmes elles-mêmes recommandent des changements dans les pratiques agricoles afin de préserver les ressources.

Ce projet a été financé par le Fonds danois pour la recherche indépendante (DFF - Obstacles, Grant 2102-00030B) et le Fonds de l'innovation danois (Innovationsfonden - Sheaine, Grant 9067-00030B)

What’s stopping sunny South Africa’s solar industry? Court case sheds light on the wider problem

2026-02-01T09:06:05Z

A South African solar manufacturer, ARTsolar, is taking the government and several renewable energy developers to court. The case focuses on local content rules for renewable energy projects. ARTsolar says it invested in new manufacturing capacity because it expected these rules to lead to orders for locally assembled solar panels. That did not happen.

Wikus Kruger has researched renewable energy financing and procurement in Africa for 15 years. He argues that the ARTsolar court case points to a deeper policy problem. Local manufacturing requirements were added to South Africa’s renewable energy programme without a clear industrial strategy. The government created obligations, but not the conditions needed for local production to succeed. The result has been conflict between manufacturers, developers and the state – and localisation efforts that have delivered far less than expected.

Why is ARTsolar’s court case more than just a legal battle?

The dispute highlights a common policy mistake. Government treated local content rules as if they were an industrial strategy.

Under South Africa’s renewable energy procurement programmes, projects must meet local content thresholds. This usually means spending at least 35% of total project value on locally made goods and services. The rules also allow formal exemptions when local suppliers cannot produce enough equipment, deliver fast enough, or meet technical standards. The ARTsolar dispute seems to centre on how these exemptions were granted, and whether they were justified.

But the deeper issue sits behind the legal arguments. Local content rules were introduced on their own, without a wider plan for building an industry.

Because there was no such plan, many practical questions were left unanswered. Would factories receive steady orders? Would projects become more expensive or be delayed? What would this mean for electricity prices? Once these questions were ignored, problems were inevitable. Exemptions became common, and disputes followed.

This pattern is not limited to solar. In South Africa’s wind energy sector, manufacturers also invested in local factories in response to procurement signals. While wind and solar are different industries, they faced similar risks. Several wind component manufacturers closed as a result of delayed or cancelled bidding rounds.

Seen this way, the ARTsolar case is not just about whether rules were followed. It shows what happens when procurement tools are used on their own, without a clear industrial plan to support them.

What does this say about South Africa’s renewable energy industrial strategy?

South Africa’s renewable energy policies list many goals, but few clear priorities. There is no single government body in charge of green industrial development. Different departments deal with energy, trade, skills and finance, but they often work in silos.

This matters because building manufacturing industries is difficult. Global experience shows how demanding localisation can be. China, for example, leads the world in making solar panels. Its success came from decades of careful planning across the economy.

China did not rely on local content rules alone. The government ensured steady demand for solar power. It supported exports. It provided cheap and reliable energy for factories. It offered long-term funding that allowed firms to grow over time.

The state also protected key industries in other ways. It invested in skills and research. It used trade measures to protect local manufacturers. It coordinated closely across national and local government. It linked panel production to chemicals, machinery, logistics and export markets. This helped firms scale up quickly and stay competitive.

The lesson for South Africa is not to copy China. It is to recognise that competing in global manufacturing markets requires coordination, scale and strong institutions. This goes far beyond adding local content rules to procurement.

Why is cost effective, reliable electricity so important for South Africa’s development?

There is strong evidence that reliable and affordable electricity underpins growth, investment and job creation. This is especially true in energy-intensive sectors.

South Africa’s development plans still rely heavily on mining, minerals processing, basic manufacturing and agro-processing. These sectors depend on stable and reasonably priced power.

When electricity becomes unreliable or expensive, firms cut back. They delay investment or shut down entirely.

Some wealthy countries can cope with high electricity prices because they built their industrial base when energy was cheap. Today they can rely more on services and high-productivity manufacturing. South Africa is not yet in that position.

For the foreseeable future, affordable electricity remains a key condition for growth. This is why localisation efforts need to be designed carefully: raising electricity costs before the economy can absorb them risks undermining the very development they are meant to support.

What’s needed to boost localisation?

International experience shows that renewable energy manufacturing succeeds only where governments create the right conditions. Firms need predictable demand, affordable power, skilled workers and access to finance. Policy also needs to be coordinated across energy, trade and industry.

These choices cannot be made without understanding their wider economic effects. Localisation does not only affect factories. It also affects electricity prices and investment decisions across the economy.

A recent example is the 10% import duty on solar panels introduced in 2024. Like local content rules, a tariff can be a useful industrial policy tool. But only if it is part of a broader strategy.

Introduced on its own, the tariff could not create a competitive solar manufacturing industry. What it could do was raise the cost of power.

This is another example of policy being applied in pieces. Individual tools were used without a clear plan for how they fit together or how they would affect the electricity system as a whole.

South Africa would likely see greater benefits by focusing on areas where it already has strengths. These include construction, engineering and balance-of-plant components such as cables, mounting structures, inverters and transformers.

The country is also strong in grid equipment, operations and maintenance, and project development. These activities create many jobs, build useful skills and support faster expansion of affordable power.

Finally, industrial strategy should consider the whole electricity system. South Africa’s grid expansion through the Transmission Development Plan and Independent Transmission Projects offers opportunities to involve local firms in steel, electrical equipment, construction and maintenance. But current procurement and contracting structures often favour larger, international players. This leaves local technical firms stuck with small, secondary roles instead of giving them meaningful work and growth opportunities.

The ARTsolar dispute should not be reduced to a story of heroes and villains. It should be treated as a warning: without a coherent industrial strategy, localisation efforts will continue to disappoint.

Wikus Kruger receives funding from the GET.Transform initiative and the DANIDA Fellowship Centre.

Freetown’s property tax is designed to plug funding gap: how Sierra Leone’s capital went about it

2026-02-01T09:05:35Z

Property taxes remain one of the most underperforming sources of revenue for urban development across Africa. One reason is that they are often opposed by the economic elites and large property owners. Freetown, the economic and administrative hub of Sierra Leone, has successfully implemented a property tax regime aimed at raising revenue the city needs for its development.

Freetown is where 15% of the country’s population lives, out of a total population of nearly 9 million. The city accounts for 30% of Sierra Leone’s economic output as measured by gross domestic product (GDP). GDP in 2024 was nearly US$7 billion.

Urban economist Astrid R.N. Haas asked Manja Kargbo, who leads the Mayor’s Delivery Unit in the Freetown City Council, how Freetown pulled it off.

Can you walk us through the process Freetown went through to design and implement its property tax reform, from the initial idea to where you are today, including why you decided to focus on property tax reform?

Freetown’s property tax reform began in September 2019 with a recognition that the city’s revenue base was severely underutilised, and property tax offered a sustainable, locally controlled source of funding. Freetown could not rely on central government transfers to finance core urban services. In recent years these grants to the city have continued to fall.

Therefore, the reform was designed to increase the city’s own source revenue by improving fairness, transparency and compliance while modernising outdated property identification, valuation, billing and enforcement systems.

The reform process included:

Creation of a digital platform, (Moptax), to manage assessments, billing and payments.
A comprehensive valuation cycle supported by satellite imagery, field discovery and digital mapping.
Development of standard operating procedures for each stage of the tax cycle, from the identification of a new property within the city’s boundaries to enforcement.
Strategic engagement with stakeholders, including councillors, community leaders and taxpayers, to build trust and understanding.
A phased rollout of the new property tax system, starting with pilot testing, training of council staff and continuous feedback loops.

The reform has now reached a point where the city has institutionalised many of these processes, with the Freetown City Council administration taking the lead and the reform team providing technical support.

Property tax is often referred to as the “tax people love to hate”. How did you attain the necessary buy-in and a sense of fairness around Freetown’s new system?

Stakeholder engagement was central to the reform’s success.

Key strategies included:

digital town hall meetings across 31 wards to explain the reform and gather feedback
radio, posters, WhatsApp and community meetings to demystify the tax
transparent communication about how revenues would be reinvested locally, including a commitment to allocate 20% of ward-level revenue to community projects
engagement with councillors and the Communications Committee to ensure political buy-in and local ownership
a help desk and appeals process to address taxpayer concerns and ensure fairness.

Digital tools have been central to your reform. How did you ensure that technology worked for the city rather than the other way around?

Technology was designed to serve the reform, not drive it, reflecting lessons drawn from earlier property tax reforms in Sierra Leone and comparable cities where technology-led approaches had underperformed in the absence of political buy-in, administrative capacity and public trust.

We ensured this by:

building Moptax around the city’s operating cycles, so that digital processes aligned with operational needs
training Freetown City Council staff through a “train the trainer” model, ensuring local capacity to manage and adapt the system
using satellite imagery and GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping to improve accuracy, but validating data through fieldwork and appeals
creating dashboards and audit trails that supported transparency and accountability
ensuring that all digital tools were backed by policy decisions, council resolutions and community feedback.

What were some of the most unexpected challenges your team faced along the way, and how did you adapt?

Some of the key challenges included:

resistance to change from internal departments. This was addressed through structured training and leadership engagement.
bank reconciliation with property tax payments issues. This required deep dives with finance teams and meetings with bank representatives to resolve.
data tampering by enumerators and audit capacity gaps. This led to the creation of an internal audit framework and training for the audit department.
limited internet and technological infrastructure, such as sufficient data storgage capacity. This was mitigated by cloud hosting and procurement of equipment like MiFi devices and power banks.
repeated outreach efforts began to lose their effectiveness and residents became disengaged. The city then shifted towards multimedia and community-led messaging.

What advice would you give to other African cities that want to embark on property tax reform but feel daunted by where to start?

Start with clarity of purpose and build from the ground up:

Map your processes before digitising them. Technology should follow strategy.
Engage stakeholders early and often – reform is as much about trust as it is about systems.
Invest in training and documentation to build institutional memory.
Pilot, learn and adapt – don’t wait for perfection before starting.
Use data to drive decisions, but always validate it with field realities.
Celebrate small wins to build momentum and confidence.

Astrid R.N. Haas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Should private sector executives sit on the boards of non-profits? There are risks and benefits

2026-02-01T09:05:14Z

Serving on a non-profit board can be deeply fulfilling and beneficial to the cause – but only if you’re fully committed and prepared for the role.

It must be flattering to be offered a seat on the board of a non-profit organisation (NPO). After all, the non-profit sector has long valued for-profit executives for their business acumen, result-orientation and decision-making abilities.

Along with their expertise in areas such as finance, legal, human resources, marketing and management, the ability of for-profit executives to translate broad strategic goals into actionable decisions can help non-profit boards navigate complexity and ambiguity with greater confidence. They also often bring extensive networks that can open doors – be it for partnerships, fundraising or advocacy – which can significantly enhance an NPO’s ability to achieve its mission.

The appeal to serve on the board of an NPO may be an emotional one: service and meaning. As a bridge between the government, society and the business sector, NPOs play a vital role in addressing market and government failures. They advocate for accountability, counterbalance profit-driven motives, mediate between stakeholders, complement government services and even foster social innovation.

At the same time, non-profits have reached a transformation moment. As public donations shrink – a trend now accelerating with recent shifts in aid policies by the United States and Europe – non-profits must take a proactive approach by refining their priorities, strengthening operational resilience and preparing for future shocks.

But to achieve these, NPOs need strong leadership and effective governance. This is where the board comes in.

In an ideal world, the relationship can be mutually beneficial. But executives without prior board experience may struggle to transition from an “action-oriented” mindset to one of board oversight and, as a result, sometimes slip into micromanagement and undermine the delineation of roles between governance and management. Also, there is the question of fit.

Before embarking on the journey as a non-profit board member, it is critical for both the executive and NPO to assess their readiness and alignment. We’ve developed a set of questions to consider, drawing from our work in this field, as well as the insights gained from non-profit board members, executives, governance practitioners and academic experts whom we meet at Governance and Leadership Community of Practice meetings we’ve been organising regularly.

Assessing your motivation, capacity and commitment

Do I share a genuine passion for the non-profit’s mission and values? Would I feel fulfilled contributing to this cause, even if it didn’t yield professional benefits?

Do I have the time and energy to commit to this role? Am I truly prepared to attend meetings, participate in committees and provide support beyond the boardroom when required?

Can I balance this commitment with my professional and personal responsibilities? What impact might this role have on my other obligations? Can I really commit to the task, especially when it requires additional commitment in times of crisis?

Am I honest to myself and the organisation about my real motivation? Is it to give back, support a cause I’m passionate about, expand my network, for professional development, or a mix?

Evaluating your expertise

Can my skills and experience contribute to the non-profit’s success? Are there specific areas, such as strategy, fundraising or financial oversight, where I can add value?

Do I have a full appreciation of the specific complexities and challenges of non-profit governance? Am I prepared to navigate the differences between for-profit and non-profit operations, such as stakeholder dynamics, funding models and mission-driven objectives?

Understanding the role

Am I clear about the expectations and responsibilities of a board member in this organisation? Have I reviewed the organisation’s bylaws, financial status and strategic priorities to understand the role fully?

Do I understand (or am I willing to learn) the oversight role of a trustee or director? Can I maintain a strategic, supervisory perspective without micromanaging the management team?

Am I comfortable asking tough questions and holding the organisation accountable? Will I speak up when necessary to ensure transparency, ethical behaviour and good governance?

How can I align my expectations with the non-profit’s operating realities? Non-profits often lack the resources and support that for-profit organisations possess. Faced with a different operational reality, it can be challenging to understand whether what is being delivered is all that can be expected or if there is room to push for more.

Evaluating risks

Am I prepared to associate my personal reputation with this NPO? Have I researched the NPO’s reputation, leadership, financial health, bylaws and legal compliance, and am I willing to accept any potential risks that could impact my professional ambition?

Are there potential conflicts of interest? Could my professional role or personal interests lead to ethical challenges or perceived biases?

Am I prepared to use my network repeatedly? Engaging your network can be one of the most powerful ways to support a non-profit, whether for fundraising, partnerships or advocacy. However, you should consider whether you’re ready to tap your network repeatedly as the organisation’s needs arise.

Committing to learn and engage

Am I open to learning and adapting to the non-profit sector? Am I willing to invest time in understanding the mission, community and operational nuances of the non-profit world?

Can I work collaboratively with diverse stakeholders? Am I prepared to engage with and learn from individuals from varying professional, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds?

Put mission at the core

Serving on a non-profit board can be rewarding, both personally and professionally. However, this role requires more than experience – it also demands knowledge of the NPO sector, self-awareness, intentionality and a genuine commitment to the organisation’s mission. A for-profit executive’s skills and experience can help shape the strategic direction and success, but only if approached with the focus, time and humility the role demands.

For non-profits, the inclusion of for-profit executives brings valuable expertise, networks and decision-making capabilities that can elevate their professionalism and impact. Yet, non-profits should not overestimate their added value and must ensure their boards are balanced, with diverse skills and perspectives that complement the organisation’s needs.

A final reflection for the passionate executive: If you truly care about the mission, periodically ask yourself (as well as your fellow board members and management): “Am I the best fit to help advance it?” Reflect on whether you are bringing your fullest value or if stepping aside might better serve the organisation and its purpose.

Ultimately, by prioritising the mission, both non-profits and for-profit executives can forge partnerships that build stronger, more effective organisations that drive meaningful and lasting change. Keeping the mission at the core ensures every decision contributes to lasting impact.

Caelesta Braun is affiliated with the Dutch Council for Public Administration

Agota Szabo and Ron Soonieus do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

South Sudan’s White Army explained: what it is – and what it isn’t

2026-01-30T15:15:39Z

The UN issued warnings of potential mass violence between the South Sudanese government and the White Army in January 2026. A peace agreement ended a five-year civil war in the country in 2018. This was followed by a period of relative calm that ended in 2025 in the wake of clashes between the government and White Army. Attempts to bring peace since have faltered. The government has charged and suspended first vice-president Riek Machar over claims he commanded the White Army during the violence in Nasir, Upper Nile State. Jan Pospisil, who has studied South Sudan’s conflict dynamics, explains the origins of the White Army and its political impact.

What is the White Army?

The White Army is best understood as a set of temporary, community-mandated self-defence mobilisations, organised along sectional and clan lines.

The term “White Army” refers to the ash traditionally used in Nuer cattle camps to repel mosquitoes. The ash is smeared on the bodies and faces of young men and gives them a whitish appearance. The Nuer are one of South Sudan’s largest ethnic groups. They primarily keep cattle and inhabit the greater Upper Nile region.

Authority in the White Army flows upward from communities, not downward from political leaders.

The White Army’s orientation is primarily defensive: protecting cattle, land and local autonomy in an environment where the state is experienced less as a provider of security than as a source of threat.

But this defensive logic coexists with raiding and inter-communal violence.

Its history explains its ambivalent role.

The White Army grew out of Nuer youth self-defence formations that had existed since the 1960s.

In 1991, the White Army started to pro-actively use this name and was drawn into national conflict around the so-called Nasir split. This is when suspended vice-president Riek Machar and other predominantly Nuer commanders broke with John Garang’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. Garang, who died in 2005, was from another of South Sudan’s major ethnic groups, the Dinka.

White Army forces fought alongside the Nasir faction (led by, among others, Machar) and were central to a massive attack on Bor later in 1991. The Bor massacre led to the death of several thousand Bor Dinka, a sub-group of the Dinka people who primarily inhabit Jonglei State.

Attacks were carried out largely by White Army fighters pursuing revenge over cattle raids and local objectives that aligned only partially with Machar’s political aims. This is an episode Machar apologised for in 2011, saying he

was responsible for both the good things and the bad things that came as a result of the Nasir Declaration.

The apology was revealing. It acknowledged political responsibility without implying operational command.

The Bor massacre remains a dominant lens through which many Bor Dinka understand the White Army: as an organised anti-Dinka force opposing the ruling party. This is understandable, but is also a source of lasting misperception about how the group operates.

What’s the relationship between Riek Machar and the White Army?

Machar has benefited politically from White Army mobilisation. But he does not direct it.

His current prosecution is therefore deeply ironic. Machar is accused of commanding a force that has, time and again, demonstrated its structural resistance to sustained external control, including his own.

He is now being tried for exercising a form of command that he has long sought but never fully possessed.

From the 1991 Nasir split to the civil war between the government and the Machar-led opposition that erupted in December 2013 and the renewed violence of 2025, White Army forces have repeatedly fought alongside Machar’s forces.

However, the White Army exists as an amalgamation of community militias that are tied to particular areas rather than as one organised force. Their size depends on the capacity of regional leaders to mobilise the youth at a given time.

During the civil war, White Army mobilisations delivered some of the opposition’s most significant battlefield successes.

Yet these forces often withdraw once immediate objectives – such as the defeat of militias aligned with the government in a certain territory – are achieved. This leaves opposition units unable to hold territory.

The assumption that’s made is that these temporary alliances equate to control of the White Army. They don’t. Confusing the two has repeatedly distorted how South Sudan’s conflicts are understood – and mismanaged.

Conflating the White Army with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-in-Opposition (SPLM/A-IO) serves a political purpose. It legitimises state counterinsurgency, including airstrikes over the course of 2025 that hit civilian areas. It recasts local resistance as elite manipulation.

But it also obscures deeper drivers of South Sudan’s violence: the collapse of civilian protection, the outsourcing of force to allied ethnic militias such as the Agwelek or the Abushok, and the ethnicisation of political belonging since 2013.

If the White Army continues to be misunderstood, the danger is further ethnicisation of South Sudan’s politics. This is where complex communal violence is reduced to criminal conspiracy and used to legitimise militarised state responses.

Treating political crises as matters for prosecution rather than compromise risks deepening the very dynamics that have fuelled South Sudan’s wars since 2013.

The state portrays the White Army as a terrorist group: why is this a problem?

In the case it has brought against Machar, the government is advancing a familiar claim: that the White Army is an armed wing of the SPLM/A-IO acting on Machar’s orders.

The charge matters. It underpins not only Machar’s prosecution, but also a wider narrative that treats community mobilisations as opposition conspiracy in South Sudan.

The claim rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what the White Army is, and has been for more than three decades.

Firstly, the group draws on long-standing Nuer community self-defence traditions, even if it became politically visible in national conflict in the early 1990s. It is neither purely protective nor purely predatory. This makes the White Army difficult to incorporate into elite peace agreements, and easy to mischaracterise as irrational or terrorist.

Secondly, the White Army is not a standing militia, nor an insurgent organisation with a central command. Authority flows from the community.

To understand why the White Army mobilises as it does, it is important to consider December 2013. The mass killing of Nuer civilians in Juba at the outbreak of civil war marked a decisive rupture in South Sudan’s political order. Violence that had previously been mediated through elite rivalry and fragmented local conflicts became overtly tribalised.

For many Nuer communities, December 2013 was experienced not as a power struggle within the ruling party, but as an existential attack marked by mass killings, displacement and the collapse of civilian protection.

This interpretation – whether accepted or rejected by external observers – has shaped mobilisation ever since. White Army fighters interviewed by journalists and researchers over the past decade have been consistent: they did not fight because Machar was removed from office, but because Nuer civilians were killed.

And since 2013, Nuer diaspora networks across North America, Europe and east Africa have played a role in supporting White Army mobilisations. This support has taken multiple forms: fundraising, advocacy and social media campaigning, logistical assistance, and political pressure on opposition leaders.

Diaspora involvement reinforces White Army mobilisation by amplifying narratives of collective victimhood and unfinished justice, often from a distance that strips away the everyday constraints faced by communities on the ground.

As a result, South Sudan’s 2013 war did not merely fragment the state; it reshaped political identities far beyond its territory.

Jan Pospisil receives funding from the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), funded by UK International Development from the UK government. However, the views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies. Any use of this work should acknowledge the authors and the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform.

PIB du Sénégal : comment le nouveau calcul redessine les marges de manœuvre de l’État

2026-01-30T11:17:23Z

Aucune économie ne peut être correctement gérée sans données économiques fiables. Cette idée, qui traverse toute l’histoire de la pensée économique – d’Adam Smith à Simon Kuznets, le père de la comptabilité nationale moderne – est au cœur du débat sur sur le “rebasing” du Produit intérieur brut (PIB) sénégalais.

Le Sénégal, comme beaucoup d’économies africaines, a décidé en 2023 de réviser la base de calcul de son PIB. Derrière cet exercice technique se joue un enjeu central : disposer d'indicateurs crédibles pour évaluer les politiques publiques et la performance économique du pays, de même que la soutenabilité de la dette. Les comptes nationaux du Sénégal ont ainsi changé d'année de base au mois de novembre 2025.

La révision de la base du PIB — ou rebasing — est un outil stratégique pour corriger les distorsions dans la mesure de l'activité économique. Au Sénégal, cette opération intervient dans un contexte de tensions macroéconomiques, de découverte de passifs cachés et de négociations difficiles avec le Fonds monétaire international (FMI).

Ce rebasing intervient dans un contexte de marges de manœuvre budgétaires limitées et où le FMI maintient une posture prudente, voire dilatoire, face aux demandes d’ajustement alignées sur l’agenda national de transformation économique, appelé “Sénégal 2050”. Cette situation révèle un dilemme structurel : concilier discipline macroéconomique, souveraineté dans le choix des politiques économiques et impératif de croissance économique durable et inclusive.

En tant qu'économiste spécialisé dans les statistiques et politiques macroéconomiques, je propose ici une analyse des enjeux macroéconomiques et financiers liés au rebasing au Sénégal. J’examine également la manière dont cette opération statistique pourrait contribuer à renforcer la crédibilité des réformes et éclairer les arbitrages stratégiques nécessaires pour une transformation durable de l’économie sénégalaise.

Qu’est-ce que le rebasing ?

Le rebasing consiste à actualiser l’année de référence utilisée pour calculer le PIB et donner aux utilisateurs des données économiques fiables, c’est-à-dire :

• Actualiser les prix relatifs;

• Réviser les pondérations sectorielles;

• Intégrer de nouvelles sources de données;

• Ajuster les méthodes statistiques;

• Identifier et mesurer les nouveaux secteurs d’activité.

Pour la nouvelle base de 2021, l’Agence nationale de la statistique et de la démographie (ANSD) a mobilisé des enquêtes essentielles : secteur informel, orpaillage, extraction de sable et de sel, transport, marges commerciales, flux transfrontaliers non enregistrés, institutions sans but lucratif, recensement de l’élevage, etc.

Pourquoi le rebasing était nécessaire pour le Sénégal

Dans un pays comme le Sénégal, cette mise à jour régulière du PIB est indispensable pour plusieurs raisons structurelles :

1. Une économie en mutation rapide

En effet, l’économie sénégalaise ne ressemble plus à celle d’il y a dix ou quinze ans. Le poids des télécoms, du numérique, des services financiers dématérialisés (paiements mobiles, fintechs), du commerce tertiarisé (processus de fournir des services à la population dominée par le petit commerce au détail), du développement pharmaceutique, des chaînes de distribution et des industries culturelles est devenu considérable.

Or, tant que l’année de base reste ancienne, ces secteurs sont sous-estimés ou ignorés.

2. Une meilleure prise en compte du secteur informel

Le Sénégal, comme la plupart des économies africaines, possède un secteur informel large et diversifié. Les techniques statistiques modernes permettent une meilleure prise en compte de cette partie de l'activité économique longtemps mal mesurée.

3. Une meilleure prise en compte des investissements

Les changements dans l’investissement public (infrastructures, énergie, transport), l’investissement privé dans les activités pétrolières et gazières, dans les chaînes de valeur privée n’étaient pas correctement reflétés par l’ancienne base (2014)

4. Une démographie jeune et dynamique

Le récent recensement de la population (2023) révèle une croissance démographique très dynamique caractérisée par une population jeune - âge médian moins de 19 ans - et urbaine. Comptant parmi les pays les plus jeunes au monde avec près de 75 % de la population âgée de moins de 35 ans, le Sénégal peut exploiter judicieusement ce dividende démographique. En effet, les jeunes de 15 a 34 ans représentent 59 % de la population en âge de travailler mais la majorité d'entre eux (63 %) sont sans emploi.

5. Des enjeux de crédibilité internationale

Une économie sous-évaluée statistiquement peut sous-évaluer sa richesse réelle et surestimer artificiellement ses ratios d’endettement, entraînant une mauvaise perception des investisseurs étrangers sur sa trajectoire économique.

Un rebasing plus précoce aurait permis d’intégrer ces changements dès leur apparition sur la scène économique. De plus, il aurait favorisé un renforcement de la planification économique en permettant une meilleure identification des moteurs de la croissance de l’économie sénégalaise et un alignement plus rigoureux entre politiques économiques et structures productives.

Ce retard de presque dix ans a eu des conséquences importantes sur les ratios macro-économiques du pays qui ont affecté la cohérence des politiques publiques, des prévisions macro-économiques et de la communication avec les partenaires financiers.

Ce qui change après le rebasing

Le rebasing a plusieurs effets mécaniques et importants sur les indicateurs macro-économiques et les critères de convergence de l'Union économique et monétaire ouest africaine (Uemoa).

1. Un PIB plus élevé

Pour le Sénégal, la nouvelle base intègre mieux les services modernes, l’économie numérique et l’informel. Elle actualise les méthodes de collecte de données, et corrige les prix relatifs et les structures de production pour obtenir un PIB plus fiable.

Avec le rebasing, le PIB passe de 15,261 milliards de FCFA à 17,316 milliards de FCFA (27,5 millions à 31,2 millions de dollars US), soit une hausse de 14 %. Cette revalorisation s’explique par une meilleure couverture statistique et l'intégration de nouvelles enquêtes. Le rebasing a aussi eu des implications majeures sur la soutenabilité de la dette publique sénégalaise. .

Dans un contexte marqué par la découverte d’une dette cachée et par l’accroissement des besoins de financement, la soutenabilité de la dette constitue un enjeu central. Ainsi un rebasing du PIB entraîne généralement une baisse mécanique du ratio dette/PIB, une amélioration des indicateurs de convergence et une atténuation des pressions pour une consolidation budgétaire immédiate du fait de l’élargissement des marges de manœuvre fiscales. Pour le Sénégal, le solde budgétaire global rapporté au PIB est passé de -13,3 % à -11,8 % en 2021.

• Le taux de pression fiscale s’établit en 2021 à 15,9 % contre 18,0 % dans l’ancienne base (2014).

• Le taux d’endettement public est ressorti en 2021 à 80,0 % contre 90,8 % du PIB avec l’ancienne base.

• Le solde extérieur courant rapporté au PIB s’est situé en 2021 à -10,7 % contre -12,1 % avec l’ancienne base.

Toutefois, cette amélioration ne modifie pas les flux réels de dette qui demeurent inchangés malgré l’ajustement des indicateurs. Ces indicateurs peuvent contribuer à la restauration de la crédibilité macro-économique, à l’amélioration des conditions de financement sur les marchés, et enfin au renforcement de la position du Sénégal dans les discussions bilatérales et multilatérales.

2. Une reclassification sectorielle plus fidèle

Le poids du secteur tertiaire en 2021 a ainsi enregistré une augmentation, passant de 50,5 % à 53,4 %.

Le poids des activités du primaire a été relativement stable (15,6 % avec l’ancienne base à 15,4 % avec la nouvelle base). En revanche, celui du secteur secondaire s’est replié, passant de 23,9 % à 22,6 %.

La part des dépenses de consommation finale dans le PIB est passée de 81,7 % à 84,7 % alors que celle de l’investissement est passée de 38,4 % à 32,8 % à la suite du rebasing. En revanche, le poids des exportations nettes de biens et services s’établit à -17,5 % dans la nouvelle base contre -20,1 % dans l’ancienne.

Ainsi les services modernes deviennent plus importants, le secteur primaire, notamment l’agriculture, diminue en proportion et le secteur industriel régresse. Cette nouvelle structure sectorielle permet des politiques publiques plus ciblées, une meilleure compréhension de la productivité et des chaînes de valeur et aussi une réactualisation ou une amélioration du Plan de redressement économique et social (PRES), voire une meilleure planification de l’Agenda national de développement économique, de la Vision 2050 et des stratégies sectorielles.

Ce qui ne change pas

En revanche, le rebasing ne crée pas de richesse mais permet de mieux la mesurer dès l’instant où la capacité productive réelle du pays ne change pas avec cette opération. Il ne réduit pas non plus la dette publique réelle car seul le dénominateur du ratio dette publique augmente. Par contre, il peut refléter une bonne soutenabilité de la dette, même si les échéances restent inchangées. Il peut aussi alléger la pression sur la trésorerie de l'État.

Les problèmes budgétaires tels que la rigidité des dépenses publiques, les tensions sur la masse salariale, les subventions à l'énergie, la faible pression fiscale, les retards de paiement ou les arriérés ne disparaissent pas ni ne sont résolus. De même les défis structurels de l’économie sénégalaise – une productivité très faible, une dépendance alimentaire, une vulnérabilité aux chocs externes, une dualité entre secteur moderne et secteur informel et une faible industrialisation – demeurent sans solution. Bien que le rebasing améliore la perception extérieure, il ne garantit ni croissance future ni investissements nouveaux.

Dès lors, des réformes structurelles, la création d’un meilleur climat des affaires, un État stratège plus efficace, et une mobilisation fiscale renforcée doivent être mises en place pour l’achèvement des objectifs économiques du pays.

Ce qu'il faut retenir

Le rebasing n’est pas une simple opération statistique : dans le contexte actuel du Sénégal, il s’agit d’un levier stratégique pour restaurer la crédibilité macroéconomique, clarifier l’état réel des finances publiques et rééquilibrer les relations avec les partenaires internationaux.

Il offre au gouvernement une opportunité de consolider son agenda de transformation structurelle de l’économie, à condition de l’accompagner d’une gouvernance renforcée, d’une transparence accrue et d’un cadre de réformes cohérent.

Dans un environnement mondial incertain et face à des attentes sociales grandissantes, la capacité du Sénégal à articuler discipline macroéconomique, innovation institutionnelle et ambition de développement sera déterminante. Le rebasing constitue une étape majeure vers cette recomposition nécessaire.

Souleymane Gueye receives funding from the Fulbright Foundation. He has been affiliated with the American Economic Association since 2010

Fossil hunters find a new dinosaur track site on South Africa’s coast – the youngest so far

2026-01-30T09:14:56Z

Southern Africa is world renowned for its fossil record of creatures that lived in the very distant past, including dinosaurs. But, about 182 million years ago, a huge eruption of lava covered much of the landscape (the inland Karoo Basin) where most of the dinosaurs roamed. After that, the dinosaur fossil record in the region goes abruptly quiet for the Jurassic Period (which lasted from 201 million to 145 million years ago).

Two exciting recent discoveries confirm, however, that there is more to find of dinosaurs that lived in southern Africa a long time after those lava flows.

First, dinosaur tracks aged around 140 million years were reported in 2025 on a remote stretch of the coast in South Africa’s Western Cape province. These were the first to be found in the region from that geological time period (the Cretaceous, 145 million to 66 million years ago).

Now, we’ve found more.

Our work as a team of ichnologists (studying fossil tracks and traces) often takes us to the Knysna area of the Western Cape coast, where we investigate tracks in coastal aeolianites (cemented sand dunes) in the age range of 50,000 to 400,000 years old.

During one of these visits, early in 2025, we decided to visit a small patch of rock that formed during the early Cretaceous Period. It’s the only place in the vicinity where rock of this age is exposed, and much of it is underwater at high tide. We thought we might be lucky enough to find a theropod (dinosaur) tooth like the one discovered in those rocks by a 13-year-old boy in 2017.

We were pleasantly surprised when instead Linda Helm, a member of our party, told us in a state of excitement that she had found dinosaur tracks. Further examination of the deposits revealed more than two dozen probable tracks.

This so-called Brenton Formation exposure is tiny, no more than 40 metres in length and five metres in width, with cliffs rising from the shore to a maximum of five metres. To find dozens of tracks in this small area suggests a considerable dinosaur presence in the region during the Cretaceous.

In our study we estimate that these tracks are 132 million years old, making them the youngest known dinosaur tracks in southern Africa (50 million years younger than the youngest tracks reported from the Karoo Basin). They form the second record of dinosaur tracks from the South African Cretaceous, and the second record from the Western Cape province. Some of them occur on rock surfaces, while others occur in the cliffs in profile.

Dinosaur fossil treasures

Southern Africa has a wealth of vertebrate tracks and traces from the Mesozoic Era (the “Age of Dinosaurs”, from 252 million to 66 million years ago, a time span that includes the Jurassic) in the Karoo Basin – a vast inland basin filled with thick piles of sedimentary deposits.

Dinosaur tracks from the Triassic and Jurassic periods are abundant in Lesotho and surrounding areas in South Africa’s Free State and Eastern Cape provinces.

But vast quantities of lava, now referred to as the Drakensberg Group, overlaid these track-bearing deposits as a result of large-scale eruptions. A few dinosaurs appear to have briefly survived the initial effects of the lava flows, and were probably among the last vertebrates to inhabit the Karoo Basin.

Then, as the supercontinent of Gondwana fragmented at the end of the Jurassic Period and in the early Cretaceous Period, limited Cretaceous terrestrial deposits formed in rift basins in what are now the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa.

Dinosaur body fossils have been reported from those deposits, mostly from the Eastern Cape. They include the first dinosaur to be identified in the southern hemisphere, now identified as a stegosaur, as well as sauropods, a coelurosaurian and iguanodontid hatchlings and juveniles.

The only examples of dinosaur skeletal material from the Western Cape are a few isolated sauropod teeth, disarticulated bones of a probable sauropod, and two cases from the Knysna area: the theropod tooth mentioned above and a portion of a tibia.

But now we’re after their tracks.

Dinosaurs of Knysna

The tracks we found at Knysna are in the modern intertidal zone, where the high tide covers most of them twice a day.

It would be difficult to imagine a more different scene, 132 million years ago, than the spectacular coastline, magnificent estuary, and lots of development by humans that we encounter today. Back in the early Cretaceous, many dinosaurs would have been visible in the area, perhaps inhabiting tidal channels or point bars (river beaches). The vegetation would also have been very different from that of today.

The Brenton Formation tracks were made by theropods, possibly ornithopods (both these kinds of dinosaur were bipedal, walking on two legs), and possibly sauropods (huge dinosaurs with very long necks and very long tails that were quadrupedal, walking on four legs). Theropods were meat eaters, while ornithopods and sauropods were plant eaters.

It can be challenging at times to distinguish theropod tracks from ornithopod tracks. Sauropod tracks are larger and don’t always have clear digit impressions, also sometimes making them hard to identify with confidence.

In most cases, we have chosen not to “over-interpret” which types of dinosaurs made which tracks, as they just aren’t clear enough. Our research paper simply intends to document that dinosaur tracks of this age are relatively plentiful in the Brenton Formation.

The fact that early Cretaceous dinosaur tracks have now been identified in both the Robberg Formation and the Brenton Formation suggests that more may be found if a search is conducted in appropriate places. There are a number of other exposures of non-marine Cretaceous rocks in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. Systematic exploration of these deposits is now indicated, in the hope that in addition to finding more dinosaur skeletal material, more dinosaur tracks (and potentially those of other vertebrates) will be identified.

Mark G. Dixon and Fred van Berkel of the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University, contributed to this research.

CAN 2025 de football : les réussites et les ratés de l'édition marocaine

2026-01-29T15:47:43Z

La 35e édition de la Coupe d'Afrique des nations (CAN) 2025, organisée par le Maroc, a été riche en frissons et en rebondissements avec du bon et du moins bon. Elle s'est terminée par une victoire du Sénégal, qui remporte ainsi son deuxième titre de champion d'Afrique. Si la victoire 1-0 contre le Maroc était méritée, la finale s'est terminée sur une note amère. Les supporters ont envahi le terrain et l'équipe victorieuse a quitté le terrain pendant 16 minutes.

Je suis chercheur en communication sportive et auteur de plusieurs ouvrages sur le football en Afrique.

Les quatre points positifs du tournoi ont été les suivants :

des matchs de qualité disputés sur des terrains impeccables
une couverture médiatique élargie
un intérêt mondial accru
une augmentation du nombre de supporters.

En revanche, nous avons assisté à l'abandon de l'équipe sénégalaise lors de la finale, à de mauvaises décisions arbitrales, en particulier dans les matchs impliquant le Maroc, et à des problèmes de billetterie.

Cette CAN 2025 a offert des exemples à suivre comme la qualité des terrains et le marketing réussi, dont les futurs pays organisateurs devraient s'inspirer. Cependant, la Confédération africaine de football (CAF) doit tirer les leçons de ce tournoi en matière de sécurité autour du terrain et de formation des arbitres.

Ce qui a bien fonctionné

Les infrastructures de la CAN ont démontré que le Maroc était prêt à accueillir la Coupe du monde plus tard dans l'année. Rien que pour les six stades, le pays a dépensé 1,4 milliard de dollars américains. Pas moins de 10 milliards de dollars américains ont été dépensés pour les infrastructures publiques connexes dans le domaine des transports. Les matchs ont été de grande qualité et se sont déroulés sur d'excellentes pelouses.

Les supporters qui ont assisté à ce spectacle de football ont été transportés par un système ferroviaire à grande vitesse et d'autres moyens de transport fluides.

La qualité des surfaces a peut-être contribué au fait qu'il y ait eu moins de surprises ou de bouleversements. Les quatre équipes qui ont atteint les demi-finales – l'Égypte, le Maroc, le Nigeria et le Sénégal – étaient toutes en tête de leur groupe.

Finalement, la finale a opposé les deux équipes africaines les mieux classées. Le match a été exceptionnel, les grands noms ayant produit un football mémorable tout au long du tournoi.

Couverture médiatique élargie

La décision de s'étendre à d'autres marchés a conduit à une couverture médiatique élargie en Chine, au Brésil et sur les principaux marchés européens. La participation de plusieurs joueurs de renom issus de clubs européens a permis d'assurer une audience mondiale au tournoi. Des équipes telles que le Real Madrid, le PSG, le Bayern Munich, Manchester United et Liverpool ont vu certains de leurs joueurs participer à la compétition.

À ceux-ci s'ajoutaient des joueurs de renommée mondiale tels que Sadio Mané, Riyad Mahrez et Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Ces noms étaient assurés d'attirer l'attention des médias du monde entier.

L'audience a globalement augmenté, avec des hausses remarquables en Europe. La France a enregistré 3,4 millions de téléspectateurs et le Royaume-Uni 1,7 million de téléspectateurs.

Intérêt mondial accru

La CAF a annoncé une augmentation de 90 % de ses revenus. Le chiffre d'affaires s'est élevé à 192,6 millions de dollars (114 millions de dollars américains de bénéfices), contre 105,6 millions de dollars dont 72 millions de bénéfices lors de la précédente CAN. Cela montre une augmentation constante, avec le nombre de partenaires qui passe de 9 à 17 entre 2021 et 2023. Une plus grande couverture médiatique a suscité l'intérêt commercial autour du tournoi.

L'affluence dans les stades a aussi nettement progressé. Les chiffres annoncés à la fin de la compétition ont montré que 1,34 million de personnes ont assisté aux matchs. En 2023, en Côte d'Ivoire, le nombre de spectateurs était de 1,1 million.

Cela montre clairement l'intérêt croissant pour le tournoi. La proximité du Maroc avec l'Europe a également été un facteur déterminant. Davantage de spectateurs ont fait le déplacement depuis le continent et d'ailleurs.

Les primes remises aux équipes lors du tournoi ont également battu des records, le Sénégal remportant 11,6 millions de dollars. Les équipes éliminées lors de la phase de groupes ont reçu chacune 1,3 million de dollars américains.

Erreurs

Scènes de colère : La finale a été gâchée par un retrait du terrain des Sénégalais, qui protestaient contre un penalty accordé au Maroc pendant les arrêts de jeu. Le match a été suspendu pendant 16 minutes. Les Sénégalais étaient furieux suite à l'annulation de leur but dans les dernières minutes du temps réglementaire. Les protestations contre le penalty accordé au Maroc ont duré jusqu'à ce que l'une des figures emblématiques de l'équipe, Sadio Mané, demande à ses coéquipiers de poursuivre le match.

À ce moment-là, les supporters sénégalais en colère avaient arraché des sièges dans les tribunes et de nombreuses bagarres ont éclaté. Finalement, le Maroc n'a pas réussi à convertir le penalty et le Sénégal a marqué un but mémorable pour remporter la victoire.

Questions relatives à l'arbitrage : Tout au long du tournoi, le Maroc a semblé être favorisé par plusieurs décisions et absences de décision arbitrales. La CAF devrait envisager des programmes d'échange d'arbitres avec d'autres confédérations afin d'améliorer l'arbitrage. Cela aiderait non seulement la CAN, mais permettrait également aux arbitres de découvrir d'autres événements continentaux.

Il est également préoccupant que des ramasseurs de balles marocains aient été vus en train d'arracher les serviettes des gardiens de but des équipes adverses lors des matchs Nigeria-Maroc et Sénégal-Maroc.

Problèmes de billetterie : Il y a également eu des problèmes de billetterie. Alors que les billets étaient tous vendus, plusieurs stades étaient déserts pendant les matchs de groupe. Cela peut s'expliquer par des problèmes liés au fait que les revendeurs secondaires ont peut-être acheté plus de billets qu'ils ne pouvaient en revendre. Néanmoins, chaque match a attiré en moyenne 21 167 spectateurs. La présence des médias a également augmenté pendant le tournoi. Selon certaines informations, plus de 3 800 journalistes ont couvert l'événement depuis le Maroc.

Perspectives

La compétition a démontré que le Maroc était prêt à accueillir les matchs de la Coupe du monde en 2030. Le Maroc, ainsi que l'Espagne et le Portugal, accueilleront les matchs, auxquels participeront 48 équipes. Les six villes utilisées pour la CAN 2025 accueilleront le monde entier en 2030. Le Portugal n'aura que deux villes hôtes et l'Espagne fournira neuf sites.

Il sera difficile pour les pays hôtes de la CAN 2027 d'égaler la réussite du Maroc.

Les trois pays hôtes de la CAN 2027 – le Kenya, la Tanzanie et l'Ouganda – devraient au moins atteindre le niveau de la Côte d'Ivoire qui avait accueilli l'édition de 2023.

Ils peuvent au moins s'inspirer de la Côte d'Ivoire en cherchant à améliorer le système de billetterie, la sécurité autour des stades et former les ramasseurs de balles afin de protéger les équipes en déplacement.

Mais les perturbations sur le terrain ne doivent occulter ni les nombreuses réalisations de ce tournoi ni les infrastructures déployées.

Chuka Onwumechili does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Banning Rafiki was unlawful: why new court ruling is an important moment for African film

2026-01-29T15:18:58Z

The film Rafiki is a charming love story that plays out in urban Kenya. It follows two teenage girls whose close friendship slowly turns into first love. Directed by rising filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu, it was celebrated as groundbreaking by critics and at festivals when it was released in 2018. But back home in Kenya, where homosexuality is criminal, the film was banned.

On 23 January 2026, after an eight-year legal campaign by the film producers, the Kenyan Court of Appeals ruled that the 2018 ban was not reasonable in terms of the country’s constitution. This means they and director Wanuri Kahiu can now submit the film for classification under Kenya’s Films and Stage Plays Act as part of the process to allow public screenings.

The court stressed that depicting a same-sex relationship doesn’t amount to promoting illegal conduct, which is how the state-funded Kenya Film Classification Board had justified the ban in 2018. The film’s happy ending was perceived to be “promoting homosexuality”. The ban quickly became a symbol of the problems filmmakers face whenever they challenge traditional views on sex, gender and morality.

The ruling marks more than the ongoing rehabilitation of a single film. It signals a subtle but significant shift in how African film might negotiate censorship in the years to come.

Wanuri Kahiu in 2025. Bryan Berlin/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-SA

My research as a scholar of African queer cinemas has focused on how such moments reveal the fragile yet transformative possibilities through which African film cultures negotiate visibility and legitimacy. And the right to imagine queer futures and freedom of speech on their own terms.

At first glance, the ruling might appear modest. Kenya has not decriminalised same-sex relations, and legal restrictions on LGBTIQ+ lives remain firmly in place. Even so, Rafiki’s chance of a return is very important.

It marks the first time a Kenyan film previously prohibited for queer content has been potentially permitted public circulation. Other recently banned queer-themed films like I am Samuel remain banned.

Although largely symbolic, the gesture disrupts long-standing assumptions about what African films can show, who they can centre, and which lives can be made visible.

Censorship and representation

African film industries have historically operated under difficult systems of moral, religious, and political regulation. From colonial censorship boards to postcolonial classification authorities, film has been treated as requiring constant surveillance.

Sexuality, especially queer sexuality, has been one of the most heavily policed domains. Films tackling same-sex desire have often been banned, restricted to festival circuits, or forced into underground circulation. In South Africa, the film Inxeba/The Wound was effectively banned from mainstream cinemas. In Nigeria, the first independent queer film Ìfé was prohibited from cinemas.

Rafiki’s initial banning followed this pattern. Despite being selected for screening at the important Cannes Film Festival, it was deemed unsuitable for Kenyan audiences. An internationally celebrated Kenyan film could be screened overseas but not in Nairobi.

So the ruling disrupts this asymmetry. It shows that national cinemas cannot indefinitely insulate themselves from transnational circuits. Overseas, African queer films increasingly gain visibility, prestige and market value.

Kenyan law appears, in this sense, to be more flexible and changing in response to international attention, cultural pressure and public image.

African audiences

One of the most significant implications of the potential unbanning concerns the question of audiences. Bans don’t just suppress content; they also actively shape who is imagined as the viewers. For decades, queer African films have been implicitly addressed to foreign audiences, festivals and academic readers, rather than to local publics.

Allowing Rafiki to screen at home will challenge this idea. It will open a space, even if it’s a fragile one, for Kenyan audiences to encounter queer lives. Not as abstract political controversies but as intimate, everyday narratives. Rafiki tells a deliberately modest story, grounded in the innocence of first love and the textures of everyday life in the city.

This matters because being represented is not only about being visible. It’s also about producing audiences. More than depicting queer lives, films like Rafiki shape new viewing communities and new forms of recognition.

In this sense, the ruling contributes to a slow reconfiguration of African film publics. It suggests that African audiences are not uniformly conservative or inherently hostile to queer narratives. Instead, they are plural and capable of engaging with complex stories about identity, love and desire.

These publics have been changing, thanks in part to streaming platforms and digital technologies. Even where films are banned from cinemas, viewers can still watch, share and debate them online. This shift is important as cinema spaces themselves are declining across many African countries.

African filmmakers

For African filmmakers, the ruling carries both practical and symbolic importance. Practically, it signals the possibility that national classification regimes may become more negotiable and more responsive to legal challenges and public pressure. The 2018 High Court ruling that temporarily lifted the ban to allow limited screenings had already established an important precedent. The current unbanning consolidates that into institutional practice.

Symbolically, the decision offers a measure of protection to filmmakers who dare to take aesthetic and political risks. Rafiki was shot cautiously in order to evade state surveillance.

It teaches us that queer storytelling is no longer automatically incompatible with national cinema. This may encourage a new generation of African directors, screenwriters and producers to pursue narratives once seen as too dangerous, too marginal, or too commercially unviable.

But caution should not be thrown to the wind. The ruling does not signal the end of censorship, nor does it guarantee a hospitable environment for filmmakers. Classification boards still retain broad powers, and political backlash remains likely.

A fragile opening …

The unbanning of Rafiki should not be overstated. Legal prohibitions against same-sex relations remain in force. Violence against queer communities persists, and cultural backlash is inevitable. Yet openings in cultural policy often precede legal and social change, not the other way around.

Cinema, precisely because it works through emotions and the visual, can create the conditions for new ethical and political sensibilities to emerge.

Rafiki’s return would ultimately represent a possibility that African films can speak more openly about intimacy, vulnerability and difference. A possibility that African audiences can encounter these stories on their own terms.

This story was updated to clarify details of the legal ruling.

Gibson Ncube receives funding from the National Research Foundation (South Africa).

African migration: focusing on Europe misses the point – most people move within the continent

2026-01-29T15:18:34Z

Images of rubber dinghies overcrowded with refugees heading for Europe and narratives about mistreatment and exploitation of migrants on unsafe migration routes have come to dominate how African migration is perceived in European public and policy debates.

They suggest a continent on the move, driven mainly by conflict and heading to the global north. These narratives are deeply misleading. Nevertheless, they shape public opinion and political decision-making.

Fears of large-scale migration from Africa to Europe are exaggerated. Data shows migration from Africa has been growing, but more slowly compared to growth rates of migration worldwide – and largely takes place on the continent.

Because migration from Africa is seen primarily as a looming crisis for Europe, policy responses tend to focus on border control and deterrence, rather than on cooperation, the development potential of migration or protection.

We are researchers working on migration, forced displacement and data analysis. We combined our expertise in a new working paper to analyse the latest data from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) on global migration. We also looked at current data on forced displacement.

We found that:

most African migration happens within Africa
the majority of African migrants moving across borders are not fleeing violence
the vast majority of those forced to flee never leave their own country or region, let alone the continent.

Understanding these mobility patterns is essential for more realistic and effective European migration policies.

The data

The UN DESA migration estimates that our paper is based on are the most comprehensive global data source available on migration. The estimates measure how many migrants live in a country at a given point in time (stock data). However, they don’t capture when they moved (flow data) or why. In addition, UN DESA figures exclude movements within countries.

Our paper complements these estimates with data provided by the UN Refugee Agency and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre on forced displacement. This includes internal displacement, which is particularly widespread in Africa.

This research found that most African migration takes place within Africa.

Globally, there were about 304 million international migrants in 2024. Africans made up around 15% of that total.

In other words, the majority of the world’s migrants are not from Africa.

Even more striking is where African migrants actually go.

In 2024, around 25 million Africans were living in an African country outside the one they were born in or held citizenship of. This exceeded the number of Africans living outside the continent (20.7 million) by around 21%.

This means that African migration is predominantly intracontinental, a long-standing trend that has become even more pronounced over time.

Several factors help explain this.

Travel within Africa is often cheaper and safer than journeys to other continents. Regional free movement agreements, such as those in west and east Africa, enable cross-border mobility. At the same time, legal pathways to Europe, North America or Asia remain limited and costly for most Africans, with high visa rejection rates and few opportunities for regular migration.

African migration is also gendered. Men are more likely to migrate than women, especially when moving beyond the continent. This gap is smaller for migration within Africa. This suggests that more accessible legal routes and less dangerous journeys help with overcoming migration barriers for women.

Forced displacement

War and conflict are forcing more people to leave their homes worldwide, and Africa is no exception.

By the end of 2024, more than 120 million people globally were forcibly displaced by war and violence. However, the majority of them (73.5 million, or 60% of the forcibly displaced globally) never left their own country to seek asylum elsewhere. They remained internally displaced in their countries of origin.

This is particularly true for the African continent, where almost half of all internally displaced people worldwide lived.

Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo account for almost 80% of internal displacement in Africa.

Even when Africans do cross borders to seek protection, they usually stay close to home.

In 2024, almost 87% of the 12.2 million African refugees and asylum seekers worldwide lived on the African continent. Only a small minority sought protection outside Africa.

This challenges the widespread idea that forced displacement in Africa automatically translates into large-scale migration to Europe.

In reality, neighbouring countries – often themselves affected by poverty or instability, and sometimes both countries of origin and destination for forcibly displaced people – carry most of the responsibility for hosting displaced populations.

Even when taking into account future displacement scenarios driven by the climate crisis, the World Bank estimates that affected people will remain within their regional neighbourhoods.

Still, globally, as well as in Africa, voluntary migration dominates: out of 45.8 million African migrants globally, refugees and asylum seekers make up 12.2 million.

This is also true for African migration to countries of the European Union, where residence permits for work, education or family reasons (2024: about 670,000) significantly exceed first-time asylum applications (2024: about 240,000).

Why these findings matter

First, the data shows clearly that African migration is not primarily about Europe. It is, above all, about Africa itself. For European and other global north policymakers, our findings suggest a need to rethink priorities. Supporting refugee-hosting countries in Africa, expanding legal migration pathways and investing in reliable migration data may ensure more effective migration management. Focusing narrowly on deterrence is misplaced.

Second, our findings highlight the importance of African countries and regions as migration destinations and refugee hosting states. Countries such as Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa or Nigeria host millions of migrants and refugees, often with far fewer resources for integration and protection than wealthier states. For African governments, this means continuing to strengthen regional and continental mobility frameworks. These would allow people to move safely and legally for work, education or family reasons. Intra-regional migration is already the backbone of African mobility. It is likely to remain so.

Third, the analysis demonstrates that UN DESA data is indispensable but incomplete. It excludes domestic migration, undocumented migration and many forms of temporary or circular mobility common in Africa. Funding cuts to international data-collection institutions risk further weakening evidence-based policymaking.

Understanding how people actually move – and why – is essential for designing fair and realistic migration policies.

Nadine Biehler works at SWP for the research project "Strategic Refugee and Migration Policy", funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Emma Landmesser works at SWP for the research project "Strategic Refugee and Migration Policy", funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Rebecca Majewski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Africa, rating agencies and the cost of debt

2026-01-29T15:18:18Z

How much we pay for the debt that we incur determines a great deal in our lives. This is true of countries too. In the world of sovereign debt – money raised or borrowed by governments – the cost of debt is dependent on, among other factors, how rating agencies “grade” a country.

It’s a sensitive issue. Three agencies dominate the rating business. A criticism often meted out is that they judge African countries more harshly than others, which pushes up borrowing rates. These tensions lie behind the acrimonious fall-out between one of the big three – Fitch – and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).

On 28 January 2026 Fitch announced it had downgraded the bank’s credit rating to junk status, and that it was ending its relationship with the bank.

Fitch’s decision was preceded by Afreximbank announcing that it was severing all ties with the rating agency. A few days later the African Union weighed in, issuing a statement from its watchdog, the African Peer Review Mechanism, backing the bank’s decision, and warning Fitch not to issue any credit assessments of the bank. The rating agency clearly chose to ignore the warning.

Below you can find articles from our archives that examine various dimensions of Africa’s debt challenges.

Africa’s development banks are being undermined: the continent will pay the price

African countries need strong development banks: how they can push back against narratives to weaken them

Africa’s new credit rating agency could change the rules of the game. Here’s how

Eurobonds issued by African countries are popular with investors: why this isn’t good news

African countries are bad at issuing bonds, so debt costs more than it should: what needs to change

African finance ministers shouldn’t be making bond deals: how to hand over the job to experts

Senegal’s rating downgrade: credit agencies are punishing countries that don’t check their numbers

South Africa’s debt has skyrocketed – new rules are needed to manage it

Student well-being comes from care, but is caring enough? Academics reflect on 3 stumbling blocks

2026-01-29T15:17:24Z

Christina @ wocintechchat.com via Unsplash, CC BY

Students’ well-being in higher education has been a growing concern globally since the coronavirus pandemic, which disrupted learning and lives generally.

Well-being has been described as “the combination of feeling good and functioning well; experiencing positive emotions such as happiness and contentment as well as the development of one’s potential, having some control over one’s life, having a sense of purpose, and experiencing positive relationships”.

Well-being is important for student engagement, achievement and belonging, which all make for a more positive learning and teaching experience.

We teach in an academic literacy module at a historically disadvantaged university in South Africa. Since the pandemic, we’ve continued to see that students’ well-being is often neglected, especially by students themselves. This neglect could potentially lead to lack of motivation, lack of interest and burnout.

In South Africa, first-year students’ well-being is often precariously placed, as they have to navigate socioeconomic and familial stresses, while adjusting to the demands of higher education. One of the many hurdles that students face is due to the “digital divide”, and it includes having to learn how to use unfamiliar technological resources. There are high dropout rates for first-year students.

That’s despite the efforts of universities to support them.

As academic literacy practitioners, we aim to help students to understand what’s required of them academically. In the last five years, since the pandemic, we’ve revised our module to foster a more caring, responsive and engaging environment. The idea is to smooth the way into university studies and to enhance student well-being.

We recently published a paper on what we’ve learnt so far. Our main finding is that creating a “care-full” environment for learning is not as simple as it sounds. Care has to be offered at various levels – and also received. Universities, lecturers and students still need to overcome some barriers to receiving care.

Getting to know students

Our academic literacy module is offered to first-year undergraduate students and runs for both semesters, with a different group of students each semester. In line with the university’s mandate, the module is concerned with student flourishing and success.

During the pandemic (2021-2022), we became aware of our students being in emotional distress, and so, to focus more deliberately on student well-being, we adopted a more “care-full” approach to learning and teaching. We embedded “care” into our module, by considering how we might equip students better to deal with the demands of higher education. We listened to our students’ experiences and needs and made the necessary adjustments to provide a more supportive, holistic, care-full classroom. This continued in our post-pandemic classroom.

The changes included adding assignment-specific guides, more resources, more focused discussions on time management and organisation, regular reminders of due dates, and links to work apps.

We also had regular conversations with the students as our way of getting to know them and finding out how they were coping. We wanted them to know that we were there to care for them, not just to impart knowledge.

But we came to realise that by 2023 students were still struggling with the same issues as before, despite the changes we had made. This became clear from student questionnaires, end-of-semester feedback forms, and the informal conversations we had with them.

An analysis of our data showed that certain challenges acted as impediments to care and negatively affected students’ well-being. The three main impediments were:

resources
time management
anxiety.

In other words, these problems prevented students from “receiving” and benefiting from the care we offered.

Resources

Resources present a dual impediment to students’ well-being. Firstly, students might not have access to resources like laptops and a stable internet connection. Secondly, they might not know how to use the available resources efficiently.

For example, many of our students indicated that they struggled to find lecture content or to submit assignments on the university’s Learning Management System. This was even though we had made “how-to” guides for students showing step-by-step instructions and the university scheduled workshops on how to navigate it. Resources became another hurdle instead of helping as intended.

Organisation and time management skills

Many students struggle with meeting deadlines and balancing their social and university lives. During the pandemic, the online environment provided little structure to their days, so some of them struggled with managing their workload. This continued when classes were back on campus. It is not a problem that is unique to South Africa, but time management is important for well-being (and thus student success).

Feelings of inadequacy and anxiety

The last impediment we identified related to feelings of inadequacy and anxiety. These feelings may be a result of struggles with resources and time management skills, but they might also be related to students’ own perceived competence in their studies. Anxiety has become a challenge for many students in university, not just in South Africa, but globally. These feelings may stop students from reaching out for help.

Getting past the impediments

We’ve realised these challenges act as impediments to care. That is, despite the efforts educators may put into creating a “care-full” environment, certain challenges can hamper their effectiveness. In our context, we weren’t able to make all our students feel cared for. This realisation could negatively affect the well-being of students and educators alike. Academics are at risk of burnout too.

We still think academics have to be “care-full” with students, but they can’t do it alone, and their care has to be reciprocated if it’s to result in academic success and well-being. Care requires input from both the educators (the carers) and the cared-for (the students). When it works both ways, a “care-full” approach might improve students’ well-being.

Both parties need to take responsibility. Students must be willing to receive care by taking care (that is, asking for advice, accepting the advice and resources that have been made available, doing what they can).

We understand that they might feel uncomfortable or anxious; we are not blaming them. Educators must take care in interactions with students, in pedagogical choices, and in content. University structures and processes are also involved in care. And the issue extends beyond the confines of the university into the national health, welfare and safety landscape. Care requires buy-in from all parties. Otherwise there may be limits to how care is received.

Martina van Heerden is a member of the South African Association of Academic Literacy Practitioners.

Sharita Bharuthram does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Indigenous trees might be the secret to climate resilient dairy farming in Benin, says this new study

2026-01-28T13:59:54Z

In the drylands of Benin, west Africa, livestock farming is under growing pressure. These vast, hot landscapes cover roughly 70% of the country’s land area. Their sparse pastures and scattered trees sustain around six million grazing animals, including 2.5 million cattle, one million sheep and 2.4 million goats which walk with herders over long distances in search of food and water.

Rainy seasons in the Benin drylands are becoming shorter and less predictable. Pastures dry out earlier than they used to. Heatwaves are more frequent.

When cows eat less because the grasslands have dried out and when they can’t cool down in the heat, milk production falls. Diseases like mastitis, tick-borne diseases, trypanosomiasis and gastro-intestinal parasitic infections increase. All of these are made worse by the cows’ weakened immunity and poor body condition.

For households that rely heavily on livestock, these changes can quickly translate into food insecurity and income loss.

I research climate-smart livestock systems and agroforestry (growing crops, livestock and trees together).

I was part of a team who monitored 447 dairy cows on 40 smallholder farms in northern Benin’s drylands to see how the cattle fared under climate stress living on traditional farms versus agroforestry systems (growing crops and trees together). In the traditional systems, cattle were raised to graze openly in natural pastures, with very limited on-farm tree cover. Although herders traditionally supplemented cattle diets with tree leaves they collected during the dry season, trees were generally scattered throughout the landscape and not included in the animals’ grazing area.

The agroforestry farms were existing smallholder systems where farmers had intentionally integrated trees with crops and livestock over several years.

This comparison allowed us to assess how long-standing agroforestry practices influence cattle health, milk production and resilience under increasing climate stress. In our recent paper, we set out our findings into how the different ways of farming influenced the amount of milk the cows produced and their success in breeding.

Our study found that silvopastoral farming (where livestock graze under trees) and agrosilvopastoral systems (where trees, crops and livestock are managed together on the same land) are helping farmers adapt to changes in the climate. The trees provide cattle feed, shade and healthier landscapes when grass and water are scarce.

We found that cows raised in tree-based farming systems produced up to nearly three times more milk per day than those kept in conventional open grazing systems. Calf survival rates were also higher, suggesting that improved nutrition and reduced stress have long-term effects on herd productivity.

Policymakers and development finance institutions should use our research results to set up ways of encouraging and financing smallholder dryland dairy farmers to include trees and crops on their farms.

Livestock farming under growing climate pressure

Trees have always played an important role in livestock systems in west Africa. Long before climate adaptation became part of development finance agendas, farmers used native trees and shrubs to feed animals during the dry season. Leaves, pods and fruits from species such as the African mahogany (Khaya senegalensis), African rosewood (Pterocarpus erinaceus) and Afzelia africana (another type of African mahogany tree) were commonly eaten by livestock during drought when grasses disappear.

But as land pressure and agriculture expanded, farming livestock under trees became less possible. Today, what was seen as a traditional or informal practice is recognised as a climate-smart response by farmers to global warming.

The farmers who took part in the research shared that trees and livestock are farmed together in various ways. Some pastoralists depend mainly on natural rangelands, where animals eat from trees and shrubs on their own. Other farmers said they developed systems where they planted crops edible by humans with fodder trees and plants for livestock to forage on.

My research found that the cooler microclimates under tree canopies help cool livestock down. Tree leaves provide cows with protein and minerals that are lacking in dried out grasses. This prevents weight loss and keeps livestock in a good condition for breeding.

Including trees on dairy farms enriches the soil (when fallen leaves, or leaf litter, decompose on the ground). The trees enrich livestock manure, which fertilises fields. Some tree species also provide fruits, firewood, timber or medicinal products, giving farming households a more diverse range of resources.

Cattle herders in northern Benin face drought and feed shortages every dry season and agroforestry families coped better. My research found that smallholder farming families had more reliable animal feed, steadier milk production and additional food and income from trees during the dry season than families who grazed their cows in pastures. They were better able to cope with climate shocks and economic uncertainty.

Tree-livestock integration also contributes to climate change mitigation. Trees store carbon in their biomass and soils, helping to offset greenhouse gas emissions from livestock.

Farmers do not describe their farming practices as a way of reducing their carbon footprints, yet their systems align closely with global sustainability goals. What makes these approaches particularly valuable is that they are locally developed and adapted to specific ecological and social contexts.

What needs to happen next

As climate change intensifies, the experience of livestock farmers in Benin’s drylands offers an important lesson. Adaptation does not always come from new technologies or complex interventions. Sometimes, it comes from valuing and strengthening practices that farmers have refined over generations, where trees, animals and people coexist in resilient farming systems.

Despite their potential, tree-livestock systems remain under-recognised in agricultural policy. Livestock development strategies often focus on improved breeds or external feed inputs, overlooking the role of landscapes and ecosystems.

Farmers need specific support to strengthen these systems. They need secure land tenure, access to tree and crop seedlings and for agriculture extension officers from governments to recognise that local knowledge must be built on and not replaced.

Dr Alassan Assani Seidou receives funding from German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) through Climate Research for Alumni and Postdocs in Africa (ClimapAfrica) programme.

Life in fossil bones: what we can learn from tiny traces of ancient blood chemicals

2026-01-28T13:59:32Z

Blood tests are useful tools for doctors and scientific researchers: they can reveal a lot about a body’s health. Usually, a blood sample is taken to get a picture of the large molecules that are present, such as cholesterols, lipids and proteins. This is called a metabolic profile.

For more specific information, another kind of blood test looks at the tiny traces of chemical processes taking place at tissue, organ, and even cellular levels. This fine-scale kind of test, metabolomics, studies metabolites – the by-products of metabolism (the body’s way of producing energy and recycling chemicals).

You’d never think this kind of test could be done for animals that lived millions of years ago. But what was very recently science fiction is now reality: it’s called “palaeometabolomics”.

Why would anyone want to know about the metabolites of long-dead creatures?

Metabolites are a way for scientists like me (a biological anthropologist) to learn more about the health, diet, environment and evolution of those creatures – including early humans.

What makes this possible is the way bones are formed: by special cells secreting a soft matrix – mainly collagen – that later crystallises and hardens into a porous material.

Metabolites in the blood that leak from blood vessels during bone formation are so tiny that they become trapped inside the bone matrix (the material that makes up bone) as it hardens. The spaces where they are trapped are so small (nanometre in scale) that bacteria and fungi, which are much bigger, can’t always get in there. Not even in a million years. And because bone mineral structures at these fine scales contain minute traces of water, metabolites are preserved there in fossils.

Studying the metabolites in animal fossils has given us a new way to discover more about the environment at sites where early humans evolved.

My colleagues and I looked at rodent fossils from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania (about 1.8 million to 1.7 million years old); elephant tooth fossil material from the Chiwondo Beds in Malawi (2.4 million years old); and an antelope bone fossil from Makapansgat in South Africa (about 3 million years old). Fossils of ancient relatives of humans (species of Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and early Homo) have also been found at these sites.

For 100 years, scientists have devised methods for reconstructing the environment that early humans lived in and adapted to. Until now, these methods depended mainly upon geological clues and the kinds of animal and plant fossils found at a site. Now, by performing palaeometabolomics – especially by analysing the chemical traces left in animal bones by the plants that the animals ate – we have established a “molecular ecological” approach for describing ancient habitats.

This new method can add very specific information to other kinds of reconstructions. The metabolites allow us to describe soil pH, minimum and maximum rainfall and temperature, the type of tree cover, and elevations above sea level of plants.

We also made a surprising finding about the relationship between soil and living things.

How to give a fossil a blood test

To perform palaeometabolomics, we established a method to dissolve bits of bone no larger than a pea in a tube containing weak acid. The acid is strong enough to slowly pass the mineral into a solution, but weak enough not to degrade the metabolites. This take several days. We then let the large proteins sink to the bottom of the tube and spin it at high speed in a centrifuge, which leaves the smallest and lightest molecules at the top. We inject the metabolite “soup” into a mass spectrometer, a piece of equipment designed to measure the weights of all small molecule compounds, and refer these to a library of known masses. That’s how we identify the metabolites.

The ones generated within the body – “endogenous” metabolites – offer clues about the health and well-being of an animal. That’s interesting enough, but it’s not the full picture.

All living organisms produce metabolites, including plants. Plants also have metabolisms reflecting their physiological adaptations to the environment. If an animal eats a plant, metabolites of that plant circulate through the animal’s bloodstream and are also trapped at developing bone surfaces. These are called “exogenous” metabolites, and they tell us about the diet of the animal.

What was just interesting now becomes remarkable, because if we can identify the plant that a metabolite came from, we should also be able to reconstruct the environment the plant was adapted to.

What the body says about the bigger picture

The endogenous metabolites we identified from our fossils depict a variety of normal mammalian biological functions and disease states. The exogenous metabolites provide evidence of the environment in the distant past.

For instance, some of our fossil samples had a metabolite derived from the parasite that causes sleeping sickness in humans after a bite from an infected tsetse fly. Wild animals are tsetse fly reservoirs for the parasite. Tsetse flies have very specific environmental conditions, so that helped our reconstructions.

We also identified plant metabolites which implied that the Tanzanian and South African sites were wetter than they are now. Minimum temperatures were warmer, and the landscape contained more forest shade. It seems to have been a mixed, seasonally dry and wet tropical habitat. The reconstructed conditions of the Malawi site indicate a wetter environment, also with wet and dry seasons.

Reading the soil

There was one particularly interesting surprise.

Going into this study, we assumed that metabolites from ancient soils surrounding the fossils – known as palaeosols – should be considered contaminants and be disregarded from our analyses. But when we analysed metabolites of modern animals of the same fossil species living near the sites, whose bones never touched the soil, we found that both the modern and fossil animals shared large percentages of the palaeosol metabolites.

This means that the palaeosol reflects the lives of all the organisms living there. Once plants and animals live on that soil, their metabolites become a part of the soil matrix. The animals and the soil are completely connected by shared metabolites, which represent the flow of materials that sustain the habitat. They are not contaminants to be disregarded.

Our biomolecular approach – using metabolites from fossil bones and teeth as a way to reconstruct ancient environments – is a new one. It might one day make it possible to describe past habitats as precisely as we can describe modern ones.

Timothy G. Bromage receives funding from The Leakey Foundation.

Tanzania is losing fertile land to soil erosion: what’s happening and what can be done

2026-01-28T13:59:09Z

Across large parts of northern Tanzania, gully erosion – soil erosion caused by flowing water – is cutting deep scars through fertile farmland, grazing areas, roads and even villages. These gullies grow faster every year and what was once a slow environmental process has accelerated into a humanitarian threat. It has serious consequences for food and livelihood security, infrastructure and biodiversity.

Soil erosion is a natural process. Rainfall breaks soil into particles, and flowing water transports them downslope into rivers and lakes. In Tanzania, however, erosion has intensified dramatically over the past 120 years.

The region’s steep terrain, highly variable rainfall and fragile volcanic soils make it naturally vulnerable. What has turned this into a crisis is the change in how people interact with the land.

The Jali Ardhi (Swahili for “Care for the Land”) programme is an international collaboration of scientists from several universities. We use interdisciplinary tools to investigate what’s causing increased soil erosion and how communities can restore the land. Results from multiple projects over a decade point to runaway gully erosion as a key driver of land degradation in Tanzania. Urgent and widespread restoration programmes are needed.

From fertile volcanic soils to runaway gully erosion

The Tanzanian highlands are blanketed by soils formed from volcanic basalt erupted over millions of years as the East African Rift opened. These volcanic soils are rich in fine clay minerals with high levels of exchangeable sodium and calcium. Contact with water after a dry period can cause them to rapidly disperse into fine particles in the water.

Normally, these soils are covered by a stable topsoil layer protected by plant cover, roots and soil organic carbon. But land clearing – the removal of natural vegetation for agricultural purposes – and overgrazing remove the natural protection of these soils and increase runoff. When intense rainfall follows, water rapidly flows downhill, concentrating in valleys and carving out gullies.

Indigenous land conservation practices such as seasonal grazing and shifting cultivation recognised this vulnerability by allowing the vegetation and soil to recover. However, these were gradually eroded by colonial and postcolonial governance, which prioritised formal land tenure and permanent settlement but paid little attention to soil productivity and protection from erosion. In the meantime, Tanzania’s population has been growing fast, doubling roughly every 25 years for the past century, and is now exceeding 70 million.

Large areas of natural forests and savannahs have been cleared for agriculture. Pastoralist groups, such as the Maasai, were forced into permanent settlements, replacing their traditional practice of moving livestock seasonally to follow rainfall and fresh pasture. Livestock densities have tripled over the past half century and areas that were once allowed to recover are now farmed and grazed year-round, leaving soils permanently exposed to the elements.

Rainfall in these regions is naturally erratic, alternating between dry spells and wet years. We have not observed a long-term change in rainfall but wet conditions following drought can trigger massive erosion events.

Together, these pressures pushed the landscape past a critical threshold. Once gullies form in these volcanic soils, they are difficult to stop. Like a boulder pushed downhill, erosion accelerates once it starts. Gullies can continue growing even if the original trigger, such as deforestation or overgrazing, has ended. They form highly connected channels that quickly remove rainfall, nutrient-rich topsoil, and seeds away from the land. This makes it difficult for vegetation to recover and the landscape to stabilise.

The cost of losing land

We calculated that the erosion rates in Tanzania are about 20 times higher than they were a century ago. Over 50% of the total area of Tanzania is experiencing rapid land degradation. It is one of the fastest degrading areas in the world.

When land is lost to erosion, so too is food and income. Since roughly 70% of Tanzanians are smallholder farmers and they produce most of the country’s food intake, over 50% of the population has already experienced moderate to severe food insecurity. The consequences are potentially disastrous.

To make matters worse, we saw from repeat visits and photographs that these mega gullies undercut roads and bridges as quickly as a decade after construction. This is an enormous loss in a country working to develop basic services. Farmers tell us that they are cut off from market access and are forced to grow less-perishable or subsistence crops such as maize and beans, instead of higher-value agricultural production. This reinforces low-income and low-investment cycles.

The effects do not stop here, though.

Eroded sediments fill reservoirs and lakes, threatening water availability, fisheries, biodiversity and tourism. We found that Lake Manyara National Park, a Unesco Man and Biosphere Reserve, is filling up due to the enormous amounts of sediment coming from its catchment. This places pressure on an ecosystem that supports more than 350 bird species as well as iconic wildlife such as elephants and lions.

Working together to join the cracks

Despite the scale of the problem, solutions do exist. Across east Africa, communities have long used indigenous techniques such as earth bunds (banks), stepwise terraces, leaky dams, and re-establishment of grasses and trees. These work with natural processes and materials to slow water flow and capture soil.

NGOs such as the LEAD foundation and Justdiggit are revitalising these community-led approaches. We set up a soil and gully monitoring network combining scientific sampling and sensor technology with citizen science approaches to evaluate the evolution of gullies and success of restoration approaches.

In some cases, collective community action has successfully stabilised small gullies and improved soil quality. But many mega gullies are now too large for resource-poor communities to address alone. While the Tanzanian government has committed to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification’s Land Degradation Neutrality initiative, long‑term investment and action plans are lacking. This is partly due to the mismatch between national politics and local action needs.

Ultimately, erosion control cannot be treated as a solely environmental problem. Halting this crisis will require coordinated and large-scale land restoration investment, while simultaneously addressing socio-economic issues linked to poverty, corruption, education and economic development. More than half of Tanzanians are under 18, growing up on landscapes already under strain. Whether these systems can continue to support a growing population will require action before the cracks in the earth widen any further.

Maarten Wynants receives funding from the European Union Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellowship - AsFoRESEEN - 101109315, and from the VLIR-UOS short initiative 'From Monitoring to Managing Soil and Water Degradation in Tanzanian Gullies'.

Maroc : des fossiles humains très anciens éclairent une période clé de l'évolution humaine

2026-01-28T11:26:15Z

Mandibule (mâchoire inférieure) du spécimen d’homininé ThI-GH-10717, mise au jour lors des fouilles de la carrière Thomas, au Maroc. Avec l'aimable autorisation de Abderrahim Mohib, Fourni par l'auteur

Et si une grotte marocaine détenait une pièce essentielle du puzzle des origines de l'humanité ? Des fossiles humains vieux de 773 000 ans découverts au Maroc apportent de nouveaux éléments au débat sur le dernier ancêtre commun de l'Homo Sapiens. Ces fossiles pourraient en effet constituer le chaînon manquant de l'histoire humaine. La découverte suggère une continuité évolutive en Afrique du Nord bien antérieure à l'Homo Sapiens. Elle confirme aussi le rôle de l'Afrique dans les grandes étapes qui ont façonné l'espèce humaine. Abderrahim Mohib, chercheur spécialiste de la préhistoire, conservateur principal des monuments et sites au Maroc, l'un des auteurs de cette recherche, explique les enjeux de cette découverte à The Conversation Africa.

Qu'avez-vous découvert au Maroc et en quoi cette découverte est-elle majeure ?

Dans le cadre du programme de recherche maroco-français [« Préhistoire de Casablanca »]porté par l’Institut national des sciences de l’archéologie et du patrimoine (Rabat, Maroc) et le ministère français de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères, des fouilles ont été entreprises depuis 1994 dans la Grotte à Hominidés à la carrière Thomas I au sud-ouest de la ville de Casablanca (Maroc).

Ces fouilles ont permis de mettre au jour des fossiles humains associés à des milliers de restes fauniques et environ 300 artefacts en quartzite et en silex. L'ensemble provient d'un espace qui semble avoir servi de tanière à des carnivores. En atteste un fémur humain portant des traces de mâchonnement et de consommation par un grand carnivore de type hyène.

L’ensemble des restes d’hominines comprend, en plus du fémur, une mandibule adulte presque complète, une hémi-mandibule adulte, une mandibule d’enfant d’un an et demi, des vertèbres cervicales et thoraciques et des restes dentaires.

Cette découverte est majeure dans le sens où elle apporte un éclairage inédit sur une période clé de l'évolution humaine marquée par une rareté extrême de fossiles humains en Afrique, en Europe et en Asie et elle documente des populations encore mal connues situées entre les formes anciennes du genre Homo et les lignées plus récentes.

Par ailleurs, ces restes humains représentent les fossiles les plus anciens du genre Homo jamais découverts au Maroc dans un contexte chronologique indiscutable. De plus, la Grotte à Hominidés est voisine d’un autre site plus ancien dans la même carrière Thomas I (nommé ThI-L), reconnu sur plus de 1000 mètres carrés. Daté de 1 million 300 mille ans, ce site documente l’occupation humaine la plus ancienne au Maroc attribuée au premier stade de la culture matérielle Acheuléenne en Afrique du Nord-Ouest.

Photo de tous les fossiles humains, image publiée dans la revue Nature, le 7 janvier 2026. Fourni par l'auteur

Quel âge ont ces premiers humains et comment avez-vous pu déterminer leur ancienneté avec précision ?

Ces restes humains mis au jour à Casablanca ont été datés par le paléomagnétisme - - étude du champ magnétique terrestre ancien – avec une grande fiabilité chronologique autour de 773 000 ans. En effet, les sédiments de la Grotte à Hominidés ont bien enregistré les variations du champ magnétique terrestre. Grâce à un échantillonnage à très haute résolution (tous les 2 cm), nous avons pu identifier la dernière inversion géomagnétique d’une polarité inverse (Matuyama) à une polarité normale (Brunhes) (Matuyama-Brunhes M/B). Cela veut dire que nous avons identifié une période où le champ magnétique de la Terre s’est inversé, un phénomène naturel qui sert de repère pour dater les couches du sol.

Cette inversion constitue un marqueur chronologique très solide et largement accepté. Ce qui est extraordinaire, c’est que nos restes fossiles se placent précisément au moment de l’inversion, offrant ainsi l’une des datations les plus fiables d’hominines fossiles du Pléistocène. Par ailleurs, ces données sont cohérentes avec le cadre géologique et les restes paléontologiques.

Ces découvertes modifient-elles nos connaissances sur le lieu et le processus d'évolution de l'homme moderne?

Les fossiles de Casablanca fournissent de nouveaux éléments pour nourrir notre connaissance de l’évolution humaine. Ils appartiennent en effet, à une période marquée par la dispersion de l’Homo erectus hors d'Afrique, ainsi que par l'extinction de groupes d'hominines plus anciens tels que les genres Australopithecus et Paranthropus.

D’un point de vue morphologique, ils combinent des traits archaïques de type Homo erectus et des traits dérivés plutôt apparentés à Homo sapiens. Ils comblent également un vide important du registre fossile africain, à un moment où les données paléogénétiques situent la divergence entre la lignée africaine menant à Homo sapiens et les lignées eurasiatiques à l’origine des Néanderthaliens et des Dénisoviens. La combinaison originale de caractères primitifs et plus évolués, témoigne de populations humaines proches de cette phase de divergence.

On peut définir cette population marocaine comme une forme évoluée d’Homo erectus qui présente des caractéristiques plus dérivées que les fossiles plus anciens d’Homo erectus trouvés en Afrique et en Asie, et ne possèdant pas non plus les traits dérivés présents chez les Néanderthaliens ou les Homo sapiens anatomiquement modernes.

Si auparavant, les fossiles d’Homo antecessor mis au jour dans le site de Gran Dolina d'Atapuerca en Espagne étaient les seuls à montrer des caractères dérivés liés à Homo Sapiens, les fossiles de la Grotte à Hominidés offrent une nouvelle perspective. Ils ouvrent la possibilité d'un lien évolutif avec les plus anciens fossiles d’Homo sapiens connus, ceux du Jebel Irhoud au Maroc, datés d'environ 315 000 ans. Ces découvertes éclairent l’émergence de la lignée Homo Sapiens tout en renforçant l’idée que ses racines profondes sont africaines.

Il s’agit enfin, d’après la mosaïque de leurs caractères archaïques et dérivés d’une population africaine, sœur d’Homo antecessor, proche de la divergence entre les lignées eurasiennes et africaines du Pléistocène moyen.

Pourquoi l'Afrique du Nord, et particulièrement le Maroc, est-elle si importante pour comprendre les origines de l'humanité ?

vue générale du gisement de la carrière Thomas I avec ses deux sites : le site L en blanc, 1,3 million d'années, le point de référence de l’occupation humaine la plus ancienne au Maroc et la grotte à hominidés datée de 773 mille ans. Avec l'aimable autorisation de l'auteur., Fourni par l'auteur

L'Afrique du Nord-Ouest, avec l'Afrique de l'Est et australe, représente l'une des régions clés où nous avons actuellement une nouvelle fenêtre sur l'évolution des hominines du Pléistocène. La Méditerranée a probablement agi comme une barrière biogéographique majeure, contribuant à la divergence entre les populations africaines et eurasiennes.

Le Sahara, dont l'étendue a considérablement varié au fil du temps, a probablement joué un rôle important dans la structuration des populations africaines. Les fossiles marocains confirment l’ancienneté et la profondeur des racines africaines de notre espèce, tout en soulignant le rôle clé de l’Afrique du Nord-Ouest dans les grandes étapes de l’évolution humaine.

Mohib Abderrahim does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

South Africa’s floods turned deadly because Limpopo wasn’t prepared – how to prevent a repeat

2026-01-28T09:27:17Z

Limpopo, in northern South Africa, home to 6.6 million people, several large mines and the Kruger National Park (one of Africa’s largest game reserves), experienced unusually severe floods in mid-January 2026. Rural villages remained cut off from the world following the week-long heavy rains. The Kruger National Park was evacuated after camps and roads were flooded. The flooding caused an estimated R1.7 billion (US$106 million) worth of damage to homes, schools, roads and bridges. Climate change adaptation researcher Ephias Mugari explains that the impact of the floods was worsened by the poor shape of key infrastructure and limited plans for community-level evacuation. Clearer warnings, simple community measures and better flood preparedness could have saved lives.

Why was the Limpopo flooding so severe?

The recent flooding was unusual in its severity and impact. However, it wasn’t unexpected, given the fluctuating rainfall trends in Limpopo. I was part of a team who studied extreme rainfall and flooding patterns in parts of Limpopo in 2024. We found that extreme rainfall (in excess of 40mm per day) is becoming more common. Periods where it rains for more than five consecutive days are becoming more frequent. There’s also more intense rainfall over a short time in Limpopo. All are linked to flooding.

Our research indicated that extreme rainfall interacts with other factors to intensify flooding in Limpopo. In this case, rain had fallen incessantly, saturating the soil and leaving the ground unable to absorb more.

Forecasting itself did not fundamentally fail. The South African Weather Service constantly issued impact-based, high-level warnings, including a rare Red Level 10 warning for heavy rainfall.

Rather, the floods exposed weaknesses beyond forecasting and early warning. These included:

A lack of functional community evacuation plans in place. Our earlier study attributed this to limited funding from government to institutionalise and mainstream disaster risk reduction in local development planning.
Misinformation on social media platforms. The South African Weather Service had to debunk a hoax message warning of a storm called Baron and explain the expected weather conditions.

The failure by some residents to heed early warnings when they received them. Often, people think they are safe from flooding and ignore calls to evacuate or avoid crossing flooded rivers and bridges.
Poor infrastructure, such as badly maintained drains and bridges, and houses built in flood-prone areas.

What might have saved lives and property?

Some interventions were implemented – 18 people were rescued from the flooded Olifants River by the South African National Defence Force. Others were saved from the northernmost camp in Kruger National Park by the park’s flying rescue teams, the defence force and private helicopter companies.

I was glad to see stakeholders in the Limpopo Provincial Disaster Management Advisory Forum and local platforms such as the Vhembe District Disaster Management Advisory Forum preparing for the floods, sharing real time updates and directing help to affected people after the rains hit.

Floods damage roads, communications and electricity infrastructure. This means that measures must be in place before floods hit to ensure that all areas can be accessed and that those cut off from communication can be catered for.

Drones could have been used to provide real-time aerial surveillance from the time the rains started. This would have enabled faster, more accurate early warnings and targeted evacuations in vulnerable communities.

Drones could also have guided search-and-rescue teams to marooned people, especially in areas cut off by damaged infrastructure.

Even with earlier, clearer community-level warnings and proactive evacuations, only stronger preparation for floods, coupled with adequate funding, could have reduced fatalities and property damage. Nonetheless, such disasters offer opportunities for learning, better planning and more preparedness.

What short-term solutions are needed?

Our study shows that some simple, low-cost actions can be rolled out quickly and save lives without spending billions of rands:

Impact-based early warnings of floods must be sent out via radio, loudspeakers, SMS, WhatsApp, and local volunteers or disaster management committees. These warnings must be linked to simple household evacuation plans for low-lying areas and floodplains. Such actions can prevent the unnecessary loss of lives, such as when people get washed away by intense floods.
Government officials, scientists and other key stakeholders must work with local communities to co-create maps of historical flooding in Limpopo. These maps must be based on local knowledge. This way, routes can be planned to guide households towards shelters and safe ways out of floods.

Public awareness campaigns and evacuation drills must happen. These help people understand risks and respond quickly.
Appointing local flood wardens and forming community-based disaster management committees can improve coordination and support for vulnerable households.
Clearing out garbage from drains, culverts and river channels will also protect communities ahead of the rainy season.
Household-level actions such as sandbagging, raising valuables, and preparing emergency kits can help preserve property and lives.
Protecting and restoring local vegetation allows more water to soak into the ground instead of flooding. When humans and businesses remove natural vegetation, this causes a flooding risk.

What should the government do over the long term?

Disaster management is everyone’s business and needs a whole-of-society approach. Different government departments, weather services, disaster management authorities, emergency services, local municipalities, traditional leaders, civil society, businesses and local communities must be part of a coordinated response.

Authorities must stop construction in floodplains and support safer relocation of the communities currently facing high flood risks. All land-use planning must be hazard-informed so that new land developments are designed to be sustainable and climate-resilient. This can be done by taking into consideration the projected or future rainfall patterns when designing buildings, and not only relying on past rainfall rates.

Early warnings must be part of local government plans to prepare for flooding, and trigger concrete protective actions. It is critical that local communities also heed evacuation calls or take early warning alerts more seriously.

Disaster systems need to be funded by specific climate adaptation finance that is handed over in good time. Climate change loss and damage funding must kick in to compensate families affected by floods, and to pay for investment in robust flood management systems.

Managing floods means combining engineered flood controls with nature-based solutions. This includes restoring indigenous vegetation in wetlands and degraded areas. This will slow down surface run-off (the amount of rainfall that rushes fast across the surface of the ground) and moderate peak flows.

Groups like the Limpopo Provincial Disaster Management Advisory Forum need to look for ways to pool resources, such as working with commercial farmers organised under Agri Limpopo. This will contribute to effective disaster management, where preparedness and response actions are coordinated.

Without addressing these structural drivers and systemic bottlenecks, the extreme rainfall recently experienced in Limpopo province will continue to translate into recurrent loss and damage to lives, livelihoods and property.

Ephias Mugari is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Global Change at the University of Limpopo.

Afcon drama: what went wrong and what went right at the continent’s biggest football cup in Morocco

2026-01-27T14:28:58Z

The 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, hosted by Morocco, produced thrills and several story lines, some good and others not so good. It ended in a victory for Senegal – their second Afcon championship. While the 1-0 victory over Morocco was deserved, the championship game ended on a sour note as fans invaded the field and the winning country abandoned the game for 16 minutes.

I’m a sports communications scholar and an author of multiple books on football as it relates to Africa.

The top four positives of the tournament were:

quality matches played on impeccable surfaces
expanded media coverage
increased global interest
higher attendance figures.

On the downside, however, we had the Senegalese team walkout during the final, bad refereeing decisions, especially in games involving Morocco, and ticketing challenges.

This 2026 Afcon provided examples of quality pitches and marketing that future hosts should learn from. However, providing better security around the field and better trained match officials are lessons that CAF (the Confederation of African Football) must learn from this tournament.

What went well

The infrastructure at Afcon showed Morocco’s readiness to host the World Cup later in the year. On six stadiums alone, the country spent US$1.4 billion. As much as US$10 billion was spent on allied public infrastructure for transport. The matches were of high quality on excellent surfaces.

The fans who watched the spectacular football on the field were transported by a high-speed rail system and seamless other transportation means.

The quality of the surfaces may have contributed to the fact that there were fewer surprises or upsets. All four teams that reached the semi-final stage – Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal – were top ranked in their groups.

Eventually, the championship game was contested by the two top ranked African teams. The game was outstanding as the well-known names produced memorable football throughout the tournament.

Expanded media coverage

The decision to expand to additional markets led to expanded media coverage in China, Brazil and key European markets. With several well-known players from European clubs participating, a global audience was assured. Teams like Real Madrid, PSG, Bayern Munich, Manchester United and Liverpool had players participating.

Beyond those were recent world renowned players such as Sadio Mane, Riyad Mahrez and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Those names were certain to attract media audiences across the world.

Viewership rose overall, with remarkable increases in Europe. France recorded 3.4 million viewers and the UK had 1.7 million viewers.

Increased global interest

CAF announced a 90% increase in revenue. This year’s revenue was US$192.6 million (US$114 million profit) compared to US$105.6 million and US$72 million profit in the previous Afcon. This shows the steady rise from just nine partners in the 2021 tournament to 17 in the 2023 tournament and 23 in this one. Greater media reach resulted in commercial interest.

Attendance figures have also risen remarkably. Figures announced at the end of the competition showed 1.34 million attended the games. The number of attendees in 2023 in Côte d'Ivoire was 1.1 million.

This clearly shows increased interest in the tournament. Morocco’s proximity to Europe was also a critical factor. More attendees travelled from the continent and elsewhere.

The prizes awarded to teams at the tournament also set records, with Senegal taking home US$11.6 million. Teams eliminated at the group stage received US$1.3 million each.

Errors

Angry scenes: The championship game was marred by a Senegalese walkout following protest over a penalty kick awarded to Morocco during the extra time. The game was delayed for 16 minutes. Senegal was angered by the cancellation of its goal late in regulation time. Its protest over the penalty awarded to Morocco lasted until one of its famous faces, Sadio Mane, asked his teammates to continue the game.

By then angry Senegalese fans had torn seats in the stands and multiple fights broke out. In the end, Morocco could not convert the penalty award and Senegal scored a memorable goal to emerge winner.

Umpiring questions: Throughout the tournament, Morocco appeared to be favoured by several refereeing decisions and non-decisions. CAF should consider match official exchange programmes with other confederations as a way of improving officiating. This would not only help Afcon but expose officials to other continental events.

Also of concern, Moroccan ball boys were seen seizing the goalkeepers’ towels for opposing teams in both Nigeria v Morocco and Senegal v Morocco.

Ticketing challenges: There were ticketing challenges also. While tickets were sold out, several stadiums during the group games were deserted. This may be attributed to hiccups where secondary sellers may have bought more tickets than they could re-sell. Nonetheless, an average 21,167 attended each game. Media attendance also rose during the tournament. Reports indicated over 3,800 journalists covered the event from Morocco.

Looking ahead

The competition demonstrated Morocco’s readiness to host World Cup games in 2030. Morocco, along with Spain and Portugal, will host the games, featuring 48 teams. All six cities used for the 2025 Afcon will host the world in 2030. Portugal will have only two host cities and Spain will provide nine venues.

It will be difficult for the host nations for the 2027 Afcon to match Morocco’s accomplishment.

The three hosts for 2027 – Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda – should at least measure up to what Côte d'Ivoire accomplished hosting the 2023 event.

They can look to improve the ticketing system, at the least. Further improving security around stadiums and educating the ball boys would help in protecting visiting teams.

But the on-field disturbances should not take away from this tournament’s numerous accomplishments off the field and the available facilities.

Attacks on Nigeria’s energy systems weaken the country – research unpacks costs, risks and ways forward

2026-01-27T14:28:29Z

Energy systems are coming under attack globally because disrupting power or fuel supplies offers strategic, economic or political leverage. This can be in local conflicts or large-scale geopolitical confrontations.

Nigeria illustrates this clearly: militants in the Niger Delta sabotage pipelines to assert control and tap into oil revenues, while the extremist group Boko Haram and armed bandits in the north hit power lines to weaken state presence.

These incidents reveal how conflict actors weaponise energy systems.

We recently published a study assessing how militancy, insurgency and armed banditry undermine Nigeria’s energy systems by disrupting oil, gas and power infrastructure. We compiled novel datasets of energy related incidents, mapping their timing, location and cost from 2009 to 2025.

Our findings show that more than 2,300 separate attacks were recorded. We see a widening pattern of energy insecurity that drains national revenue, drives away investment, and worsens environmental injustice.

This explains why Nigeria’s energy insecurity has become one of its most serious development and security challenges.

We recommend investment in decentralised systems, community engagement in oil regions, and policies supporting industrial decarbonisation to strengthen resilience and advance climate goals.

The price

According to our estimates, between 2009 and 2024, approximately US$20 billion was lost as a result of attacks. During the 2013-2016 surge in militancy, losses peaked at roughly US$17 billion.

We found that the South-South (Niger Delta) region remains the epicentre of oil sabotage, with peak revenue losses of US$8.62 trillion (2009-2012) and sustained environmental damage.

Attacks and oil theft along the Trans-Niger Pipeline were particularly devastating. This pipeline moves 450,000 barrels of crude oil daily from oil-producing fields in Niger Delta region to export terminals. Each disruption not only shuts down production but also deprives the government of huge revenues.

Since 2021, tactics have shifted. Over 40 attacks have targeted transmission lines in the North-East and North-Central, largely linked to Boko Haram and armed bandits.

Case studies of the 2016 Shell Forcados terminal bombing and the 2024 Shiroro transmission line attack show reliance on backup generators increased electricity costs by 3.2-6.0 times.

Beyond the financial toll, communities suffer respiratory illnesses, unsafe drinking water and food insecurity.

Disruptions have made Nigeria’s grid more unstable and pose risks to critical infrastructure projects nearing completion, including gas pipelines.

Attacks threaten regional energy trade and integration projects, such as the West African Power Pool, West African Gas Pipeline, Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline, and the proposed Nigeria-Algeria-Gas-Pipeline, which rely on secure cross-border energy infrastructure.

Foreign investors view these risks as prohibitive. Due to attacks on energy infrastructure, in 2020, Nigeria lost around US$40 billion in foreign direct investment.

Oil theft and sabotage have also left a toxic legacy in the Niger Delta. Each pipeline rupture spills crude into rivers and farmland, wiping out livelihoods.

We find that clean-up costs from oil spills on the Trans-Niger Pipeline alone ranged from US$150 million to US$290 million per period (2009-2012, 2013-2016, 2017-2020, 2021-2024), highlighting continuous environmental degradation in the Niger Delta area.

In line with this, the United Nations Environment Programme estimated that a US$1 billion 30-year clean-up is needed in Ogoniland, while Reuters reported that addressing oil pollution in Bayelsa State alone might require US$12 billion over 12 years. When compared to Nigeria’s GDP of US$375 billion in 2024, these figures underscore the substantial financial strain that this attack-induced environmental crisis places on national resources.

Our analysis indicates that insurgents and bandits have shifted tactics since 2021. We see increased disruption and attacks on power infrastructure in the northern part of the country.

More than 40 incidents targeting high-voltage transmission lines have been recorded in just four years, a 20-fold increase from the previous decade. Two major examples show the consequences: the 2016 Forcados terminal bombing cut national power generation by 3,132MW, while the 2024 Shiroro transmission-line attack left the north-western part of the country in darkness for two weeks.

During attack-induced outages, businesses and households switch to diesel or petrol generators. We find that this backup electricity costs three to six times more than grid power, with the North-East and North-West experiencing the highest cost increase.

Each attack also carries an invisible environmental cost. Backup generators release far more carbon dioxide than grid electricity. During the 2016 and 2024 outages, we estimated sharp spikes in CO₂ across the South-West and South-South, Nigeria’s most energy-hungry regions.

This trend undermines Nigeria’s commitments under the National Climate Change Policy 2021-2030, which aims to cut emissions and expand energy access using renewable energy. Insecurity, therefore, is not just an economic or social problem – it is an obstacle to climate progress.

How Nigeria can respond

Our research points to several steps that could make the energy systems more resilient:

Invest in decentralised and modular power systems: Smaller, locally managed plants – such as the 52-megawatt Maiduguri Emergency Power Plant – are harder to sabotage and quicker to repair.
Rebuild trust with host communities: Environmental remediation and transparent benefit-sharing can reduce grievances that drive sabotage. Local participation in energy projects must move beyond tokenism.
Adopt technology for early warning and monitoring: Pressure sensors, drones and predictive analytics can detect tampering and leaks in real-time. Government contracts with former militants to guard pipelines must be coupled with strict accountability.
Accelerate innovative clean-energy deployment: In the light of Nigeria’s commitment to achieve climate goals, it is important to explore emerging decarbonisation pathways, including clean hydrogen.

Nigeria’s energy wealth has long promised prosperity, but persistent insecurity has made it a liability. The financial losses, pollution and emissions caused by repeated attacks erode resilience and deter investment. This challenge is not unique to Nigeria; it reflects a broader global reality in which energy transitions depend on secure infrastructure.

Achieving a stable, decentralised and low-carbon system will require protecting the assets that make it possible.

Haruna Inuwa receives funding from Petroleum Trust Development Fund, Nigeria. However, the views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the Nigeria government’s official policies.

Stephanie Hirmer receives funding from the Climate Compatible Growth (CCG) Programme which is funded by UK aid from the UK government. The views expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the UK government's official policies.

Alycia Leonard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Donkeys are a common sight in northern Namibia – what colonial history has to do with it

2026-01-27T14:27:55Z

Donkeys are an unassuming yet ubiquitous presence in northern Namibia. They traverse sandy village roads, pull carts stacked with firewood, and graze freely along the northern edge of the Etosha National Park.

The story of how they came to occupy such a central role in rural life – and in such large numbers – is a fascinating one that’s linked to the country’s colonial history, the management of wildlife versus domestic animals, and the role of migrant workers.

We are historians who specialise in Namibia and Southern Africa. Our research focuses on colonial legacies in nature conservation and land. In a research paper we retraced the routes of the domesticated donkey through a conservation landscape.

We found that donkeys occupy a contradictory status in communities in northern Namibia. They are indispensable, yet undervalued. For example, they remain central to tasks such as ploughing, hauling water and transporting logs. Yet their social status remains curiously low. They are rarely used in ceremonies, have little monetary value, and are strongly associated with those who cannot afford tractors or cars.

We conclude that this ambiguity has arisen from the long histories of colonial rule, labour migration, conservation and veterinary control that shaped northern Namibia.

The great trek north

We traced donkeys’ ability to move across one of the country’s most significant borders: the veterinary cordon fence known as the Red Line. The Red Line is an inner-Namibian border, over 1,000 kilometres long, running from west to east and separating the country into two distinct parts. It originated under German colonial rule (1884-1915) and was fully implemented under South African rule (1915-1990).

It still exists today.

The Red Line separated the more densely populated northern parts of the country from the settler-colonial heartland, the so-called Police Zone in central and southern Namibia. The Etosha Game Reserve served as a buffer zone between the Police Zone and the Owambo region in the central north, conceptualised as a migrant labour reservoir.

Donkeys entered Namibia’s central north relatively late, and only became common in the 1920s and 1930s. Their presence across the region was driven largely by migrant labourers working on contract. As thousands of men travelled between the Police Zone and Owambo, many returned home with equines – especially donkeys – purchased in the south.

Cheap, hardy, and resistant to many diseases, donkeys became essential companions on the workers’ long journeys. Donkeys carried heavy loads of clothes, tools and other goods, including gramophones and radios, earned through contract labour.

Since they were associated with commodities, donkeys also became a symbol of modernity expanding from the thriving settler economy in the south.

Today, people still recount how returning labour migrants used donkeys to haul luggage through predator-rich landscapes within Etosha, or how villagers took their carts to meet these men halfway. Donkeys also served as ambulances during emergencies in the Namibian Liberation War (1966-1989).

Their presence has also been entangled with colonial border regimes and conservation policies.

The tensions

During the rinderpest epidemic of 1896-97, in a failed attempt to stop the disease from entering the colony, German colonial authorities established a cordon of military outposts along the southern edge of the Etosha Pan. Although intended to control the movement of cattle, this cordon would later become the Red Line.

The devastation of rinderpest prompted German forces to import donkeys and mules as disease-resistant alternatives to oxen. These animals gradually filtered into civilian hands in the Police Zone, the heartland of settler colonialism in central and southern Namibia, and became increasingly common by the 1910s.

The establishment of Game Reserve 2, comprising today’s Etosha National Park and the areas north-west of the Etosha Pan, was part of a policy to seal off Owambo from the Police Zone. Hunting and human movement in the reserve became highly regulated.

In 1915 South Africa defeated the German forces and took over Namibia. The new colonial power maintained the inner border and formalised it as the Red Line in the 1920s and 1930s. They banned cattle movement across the Red Line but allowed equines, provided they carried veterinary certificates.

Donkeys thus became one of the few domestic animals permitted to cross the border legally.

As migrant labour expanded, so too did the flow of donkeys northward. By the late 1920s and 1930s, hundreds of donkeys passed through Etosha each year. In Owambo, they were quickly adopted for local agriculture and transport. Even as motorised lorries and buses began to dominate long-distance travel from the 1930s onward, many migrant workers still preferred to buy donkeys as durable companions.

By the 1940s, however, administrators in Owambo began to worry about the donkeys’ impact on grazing. Restrictions were introduced, but donkeys continued to slip into the north through unofficial routes.

From the 1950s onward, the situation changed dramatically as the Etosha National Park was transformed into a fenced conservation area. Residents and livestock were expelled, and by 1961 the southern boundary was fully fenced. Donkey traffic through Etosha came to an end.

Meanwhile, the northern boundary of Etosha became a flashpoint. The government of the pseudo-independent new Ovamboland homeland resisted efforts to fence this border and insisted on continued movement of wildlife out of Etosha – especially zebra, an important local food source. Conservation officials accused communities of using donkeys to disguise poaching tracks and allowing their animals to stray into the park.

New rules

With Namibia’s independence in 1990, new animal-movement regulations emerged, but donkeys retained their special status. Unlike cattle, they were still permitted to cross the Red Line.

Their symbolic and practical importance has changed. Migrant workers no longer return with donkeys from the south, and motorised transport dominates even in rural areas.

But donkeys remain deeply woven into the fabric of northern Namibian life. They continue to support poorer households, endure harsh environments, and live in proximity to wildlife. Their presence evokes conflicting memories – of difficult journeys and colonial border regimes, but also of development and modernity.

South Africa’s new immigration policy takes a digital direction – will it succeed?

2026-01-27T14:27:02Z

South Africa has a new draft white paper on immigration, citizenship and refugees. This, the fourth in three decades, represents a step change from the previous efforts. It is a genuine attempt to develop an efficient but humane set of policies.

Based on my work on migration over two decades, I am convinced that the policies in this new paper are far more ambitious than previous reforms. They represent a genuine attempt to address a complex and sensitive set of challenges in a comprehensive way, using state-of-the-art technological tools. The key question is: are the reforms practically and politically feasible?

The first post-apartheid immigration white paper, published in 1997, led to the new Immigration Act of 2002. This was the second significant reform to immigration policy in the post-apartheid era. The first was the Refugee Act of 1998. The Refugee Act represented a bold realignment. In it South Africa acceded to global and African refugee treaties. It also placed human rights at the centre of the policy.

The 2002 Immigration Act was reformist rather than revolutionary. It was rightly criticised for not getting to grips with the legacy of migration patterns in southern Africa.

The white paper represents a far more coherent and systematic rethink than previous South African piecemeal reforms or similar attempts elsewhere in Africa.

The changes are being driven by Home Affairs minister Leon Schreiber. Schreiber is unusual among politicians. He is a real political scientist with real expertise in public policy. He is ambitious and seems determined to accomplish as much as he can in the current term of government. The impression I get is that his senior officials buy into the reforms – indeed, they devised many of them.

The generational change is essentially digitisation. All civil records about citizens, migrants, prospective migrants, visitors, asylum seekers and refugees will be digitised and integrated. If it works, it could result in a watertight management system for immigration, citizenship and refugee protection. This would be a huge step up from the current jumble of paper-based and incomplete datasets.

If completely successful it would eliminate both the massive inefficiency of the Department of Home Affairs, and the fraud and general confusion which still plague the governance of migrants and refugees in South Africa.

Fit for the 21st century

Digitisation and integration of information systems was recommended by the Lubisi enquiry into documentation fraud commissioned by the previous minister.

In my own work on South Africa’s migration policies, I made similar recommendations, with the benefit of the evidence in the Lubisi report and other sources.

At the heart of the system being proposed in the new white paper is an Intelligent Population Register. This is a modern, digitised system to manage and use comprehensive population data. Countries like Estonia and Denmark have pioneered such systems, and India has shown how a digital ID system can be extended to its massive population. Botswana already has an integrated civil registration system similar to the one South Africa is planning.

As the minister of Home Affairs put it, an intelligent population register

uses advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, biometrics, interoperability and real-time data integration, to improve governance, integrated service delivery, and national planning.

The new system will require mandatory birth and death registration, and biometric data not only for citizens but also for foreigners, regular and irregular, who reside in the country. This would provide data that enables far more effective social and economic policies than the current incomplete population register.

Irregular foreigners, including asylum seekers and others whose status is yet to be determined, will be:

counted
allowed to use the banking system irrespective of their status
expected to pay tax.

Other improvements are that it will be:

more difficult for unethical visa applicants to game the system
easier to keep track of refugees and asylum seekers
more difficult to carry out identity theft.

The other major change is that the new system will introduce a “merit-based path” to naturalisation, in contrast to the existing “mechanical and compliance-based” pathway.

Merit is preferred to years served. After five years of permanent residence, naturalisation will be acquired according to a set of accomplishments that are yet to be detailed. This will be available to immigrants who have come in through a points-based system as well as to current citizens of Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Angola holding exemption permits. The yet to be finalised points system will include assessments of educational qualifications, acquired skills, and some measure of social impact.

The points-based system for skilled immigrants will replace or, for now, complement the critical skills list.

Other immigration reforms include a new start-up visa for tech firms, a subset of an investment visa which replaces the business visa, and new age and income requirements for retiree immigrants. The recently introduced Trusted Employer Scheme, Trusted Tour Operator Scheme and the remote work visa are endorsed in the white paper.

Reforms are proposed to speed up the asylum applications process, including a dedicated immigration court. Even those who obtain refugee status may be returned to the “first safe country” that they passed through when exiting their perilous country.

Countries which are safe for returnees would be designated by government – those which do not have raging civil wars or extreme repression or similar hazards for their citizens. South Africa would have to get agreement from the designated safe countries that they would accept returnees without prejudice.

Caveats and concerns

None of these reforms will be easy. Some, like the various points-based systems for entry, permanent residence and citizenship, and the establishment of dedicated refugee courts, are complex proposals not yet fully explained.

Other concerns include the privacy implications of the intelligent population register and the willingness of other countries to agree to being designated first safe country. Both issues are vulnerable to court challenges. Prospective first safe countries may require some incentive to cooperate, and South Africa might have to offer to accept a considerable share of the refugees.

There are also some issues covered in previous white papers not addressed here. Whether and how to draw on the financial and networking resources of the South African diaspora is not discussed. Nor is the issue of proactive policies to promote the social integration of foreigners.

Also not covered is the issue of lower-skilled migrants. However, migrant labour, mostly low-skilled, is the focus of the White Paper on National Labour Migration Policy republished by the Department of Employment and Labour last year.

The ambition signalled in the new policy paper is impressive. Whether it is doable, and whether the project will be completed, depends on many things, political, technical and judicial.

Alan Hirsch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Quand l'IA fait parler les morts : une prouesse peu réconfortante

2026-01-27T10:26:44Z

Depuis que les humains enterrent leurs morts, ils cherchent à les maintenir symboliquement à leurs côtés. Les portraits du Fayoum — ces images saisissantes de réalisme insérées dans les bandelettes des momies égyptiennes — fixaient des visages voués à demeurer présents bien après que la vie a quitté le corps.

Les effigies de différentes cultures avaient le même objectif : rendre présent l'absent, garder le mort à proximité sous une forme ou une autre.

Mais toutes ces tentatives avaient une limite fondamentale. Elles étaient vivantes, mais elles ne pouvaient pas répondre. Les morts restaient morts.

Au fil du temps, une autre idée a émergé : celle des morts actifs. Des fantômes qui revenaient dans le monde pour régler des affaires inachevées, comme des esprits liés à de vieilles maisons. Cependant, lorsqu'ils parlaient, ils avaient besoin d'un médium humain, d'un corps vivant pour leur prêter sa voix et sa présence.

Les médias ont évolué pour amplifier ce désir ancien de faire revenir ce qui est absent. Photographie, cinéma, enregistrements audio, hologrammes. Chaque technique a ajouté de nouveaux niveaux de détail et de nouveaux modes pour faire revivre le passé dans le présent.

Aujourd'hui, l'IA générative promet quelque chose d'inédit : la résurrection interactive.

Elle offre une entité qui converse, répond et s'adapte. Une célébrité décédée, contrainte numériquement à interpréter des chansons qui ne lui ont jamais appartenu. Une femme assassinée dans une affaire de violence domestique réanimée pour « parler » de sa propre mort. Des profils en ligne ressuscitent les victimes de tragédies, « revivant » leur traumatisme à travers des récits présentés comme des avertissements ou des leçons.

Nous sommes des chercheurs qui étudions depuis de nombreuses années les liens entre la mémoire, la nostalgie et la technologie. Nous nous intéressons particulièrement à la manière dont les gens donnent du sens et se souviennent, et à la façon dont les technologies accessibles façonnent ces processus.

Dans un article récent, nous avons examiné comment l'IA générative est utilisée pour redonner vie aux morts dans des contextes du quotidien. La circulation facile de ces fantômes numériques soulève des questions urgentes : qui autorise ces vies après la mort, qui parle à travers eux et qui décide comment les morts sont mis à contribution ?

Ce qui donne leur force à ces fantômes audiovisuels, ce n'est pas seulement le spectacle technologique, mais la tristesse qu'ils révèlent. Les morts sont transformés en artistes à des fins auxquelles ils n'ont jamais consenti, qu'il s'agisse de divertissement, de consolation ou de messages politiques.

Cette démonstration de la puissance de l'IA révèle également à quel point la perte, la mémoire et l'absence peuvent être facilement adaptées pour atteindre divers objectifs.

Et c'est là qu'une émotion plus discrète fait son apparition : la mélancolie. Nous entendons par là le malaise qui surgit lorsque quelque chose semble vivant et réactif, mais manque d'autonomie.

Ces personnages IA bougent et parlent, mais ils restent des marionnettes, animés selon la volonté de quelqu'un d'autre. Ils nous rappellent que ce qui ressemble à une présence n'est en fin de compte qu'une performance soigneusement mise en scène.

Ils sont ramenés à la vie pour servir, pas pour vivre. Ces personnages ressuscités ne réconfortent pas. Ils nous troublent et nous invitent à une réflexion plus profonde sur ce que signifie vivre dans l'ombre de la mortalité.

À quoi ressemble la « résurrection » ?

Dans notre étude, nous avons recueilli plus de 70 cas de résurrections alimentées par l'IA.

Ils sont particulièrement fréquents sur les plateformes riches en vidéos telles que TikTok, YouTube et Instagram.

Compte tenu de leur prolifération actuelle, nous avons tout d'abord comparé tous les cas et recherché des similitudes dans leurs objectifs et leurs applications. Nous avons également pris note des données et des outils d'IA utilisés, ainsi que des personnes ou des institutions qui les emploient.

L'une des utilisations les plus courantes de l'IA générative consiste à ressusciter numériquement des personnalités emblématiques dont la valeur commerciale, culturelle et symbolique s'intensifie souvent après leur mort. Parmi celles-ci, on peut citer :

Whitney Houston – ressuscitée pour interpréter ses propres chansons et celles d'autres artistes, circulant en ligne comme une relique malléable du passé.
La reine Elizabeth II – ramenée à la vie sous les traits d'une rappeuse du quartier pour se produire avec une assurance inspirée de la culture urbaine noire. Cette transformation illustre comment des personnalités nationales importantes, autrefois tenues à distance dans leur tour d'ivoire, deviennent une forme de propriété publique après leur mort.

Ces vies après la mort algorithmiques réduisent les défunts à des actifs de divertissement, convoqués à la demande, dépouillés de leur contexte et refaits selon les caprices contemporains. Mais la résurrection par l'IA prend également une tournure plus sombre.

Une femme qui a été violée et assassinée en Tanzanie est réapparue dans des vidéos générées par l'IA, où elle est amenée à avertir les autres de ne pas voyager seuls, transformant ainsi sa mort en message d'avertissement.
Une femme est convoquée par l'IA pour revivre le jour le plus tragique de sa vie, réanimée numériquement pour raconter comment son mari l'a tuée, intégrant ainsi un avertissement contre la violence domestique.

Ici, les fantômes de l'IA fonctionnent comme des avertissements, des rappels de l'injustice, de la guerre et des blessures collectives non cicatrisées. Dans ce processus, le deuil devient un contenu et le traumatisme un outil pédagogique. L'IA ne se contente pas de faire revivre les défunts. Elle réécrit leurs vies et les remet en circulation en fonction des besoins des vivants.

Si de telles interventions peuvent surprendre au premier abord, leur poids éthique réside dans l'asymétrie qu'elles révèlent : ceux qui ne peuvent refuser sont appelés à servir des objectifs auxquels ils n'ont jamais consenti. Et cela est toujours marqué par un triangle de tristesse : la tragédie elle-même, sa résurrection et le fait de revivre de force cette tragédie.

La mélancolie

Nous suggérons de distinguer deux registres de mélancolie afin de localiser l'origine de notre malaise et de montrer à quel point ce sentiment peut facilement nous désarmer.

Le premier registre concerne la mélancolie liée aux morts. Dans ce mode, les célébrités ou les victimes ressuscitées sont rappelées pour divertir, instruire ou rejouer les traumatismes mêmes qui ont marqué leur mort. La fascination de les voir se produire à la demande émousse notre capacité à percevoir l'exploitation qui est en jeu, ainsi que le malaise, la gêne et la tristesse inhérents à ces performances.

Le deuxième registre est la mélancolie liée à nous, les ressuscités vivants. Ici, le malaise ne provient pas de l'exploitation, mais de la confrontation. En regardant ces spectres numériques, nous sommes rappelés à l'inévitabilité de la mort, même si la vie semble prolongée sur nos écrans. Aussi sophistiqués que soient ces systèmes, ils ne peuvent pas restituer la plénitude d'une personne. Au contraire, ils réaffirment discrètement le fossé entre les vivants et les morts.

La mort est inévitable. Les résurrections par l'IA ne nous épargneront pas le deuil ; au contraire, elles nous confrontent plus frontalement avec la réalité inéluctable d'un monde façonné par ceux qui ne sont plus là.

Plus troublant encore est le pouvoir spectaculaire de la technologie elle-même. Comme pour tout nouveau média, la fascination exercée par les « performances » technologiques nous captive détournant notre attention des questions structurelles plus difficiles concernant les données, le travail, la propriété et le profit, ainsi que sur qui est ramené à la vie, comment et dans l'intérêt de qui.

Du malaise, pas de l'empathie

Plus une résurrection se rapproche de l'apparence et de la voix humaines, plus nous remarquons clairement ce qui manque.

Cet effet est illustré par le concept connu sous le nom de « vallée dérangeante », introduit pour la première fois par le roboticien japonais Masahiro Mori en 1970. Il décrit comment des figures presque humaines, mais pas tout à fait, ont tendance à susciter un malaise plutôt que de l'empathie chez les spectateurs.

Il ne s'agit pas uniquement d'un problème de défauts techniques dans les résurrections, les imperfections pouvant être réduites grâce à de meilleurs modèles et des données à plus haute résolution. Ce qui reste, c'est un seuil plus profond, une constante anthropologique qui sépare les vivants des morts. C'est la même frontière que les cultures et les traditions spirituelles tentent de franchir depuis des millénaires. La technologie, dans son audace, tente à nouveau de la franchir. Et comme celles qui l'ont précédée, elle échoue.

La mélancolie de l'IA réside précisément ici : dans son ambition de réduire la distance entre la présence et l'absence, et dans son incapacité à le faire.

Les morts ne reviennent pas. Ils ne font que scintiller à travers nos machines, apparaissant brièvement comme des lueurs qui révèlent à la fois notre désir et les limites de ce que la technologie ne peut réparer.

La lutte contre le changement climatique au Sahel aggrave les conflits : une nouvelle étude montre comment

2026-01-27T08:33:17Z

Le Sahel, région semi-aride d'Afrique qui s'étend de l'océan Atlantique à l'ouest à la mer Rouge à l'est, est devenu l'épicentre du terrorisme mondial, en raison du nombre élevé d'attaques perpétrées par des groupes armés et des pertes humaines qui en résultent, y compris parmi les civils. Cette évolution trouve son origine dans un enchevêtrement complexe de facteurs. Parmi ceux-ci figurent la fragilité des États, les économies illicites, la présence limitée du gouvernement dans les zones rurales et les conflits liés à la raréfaction des ressources due aux chocs climatiques.

Je suis politiste et spécialiste des conflits, de la sécurité et du développement en Afrique de l'Ouest. Dans une récente note d'orientation rédigée pour un programme de recherche, j'ai exposé comment les efforts d'atténuation du changement climatique dans les communautés sahéliennes ont intensifié les tensions préexistantes.

La recherche a donné lieu à un travail de terrain approfondi et à des entretiens menés en juillet et août 2025 auprès de membres de communautés au Burkina Faso, au Mali, au Niger et au Nigeria. L'objectif était de comprendre l'interaction entre divers points de tension et les crises auxquelles ils font face.

Les moyens de subsistance sont mis à rude épreuve en raison du changement climatique. Les ressources deviennent rares et réparties de manière inégale. Les structures de gouvernance sont faibles et les groupes armés se disputent le contrôle des territoires.

Les conclusions de l'étude sont claires : l'action climatique peut soit exacerber les crises, soit contribuer à les atténuer.

De nombreux projets de lutte contre le changement climatique prennent la forme d'initiatives de grande ampleur. Il s'agit de parcs solaires, de vastes programmes de reboisement ou de plantations de biocarburants. L'initiative de la « Grande Muraille Verte » et le projet de développement de chaînes de valeur agricole résiliente au climat au Niger en sont des exemples.

Ces projets sont considérés comme essentiels pour réduire l'empreinte carbone. Mais leur mise en œuvre dans des États fragiles présente un risque. Au Sahel, une élaboration de politiques de sécurité environnementale mal conçue peut avoir des effets néfastes et même alimenter l'insécurité qu'elle vise à prévenir. Les approches imposées d'en haut entrent souvent en contradiction avec les réalités sociales et écologiques locales.

A partir de ces constats, je suis arrivé à la conclusion que l'approche des Nations unies en matière d'atténuation du changement climatique au Sahel nécessite une réévaluation. Il faut privilégier des actions d'adaptation :

sensibles aux conflits
menées par les communautés et adaptées au contexte
conçues dans le cadre d'un processus transfrontalier. En effet, les interventions sont susceptibles d'influer sur les économies politiques, les dispositifs de sécurité et les relations communautaires au-delà des frontières, et pas seulement à l'intérieur de celles-ci.

Un environnement fragile

Mes recherches confirment que le changement climatique dans les communautés sahéliennes a exacerbé les tensions préexistantes. Parmi celles-ci, on peut citer :

Insécurité : Les populations locales sont exposées à des conflits aggravés par les pressions induites par le climat. Il s'agit notamment des conflits entre agriculteurs et éleveurs liés à la diminution des pâturages, des affrontements intercommunautaires pour l'accès aux ressources en eau limitées et des tensions ethniques et religieuses aggravées par la concurrence pour les moyens de subsistance.

Les entretiens menés avec des agriculteurs, des éleveurs et des chefs de communauté, entre autres, ont mis en évidence la manière dont les changements dans les régimes pluviométriques, les longues sécheresses et les récoltes imprévisibles compromettent directement les moyens de subsistance. Les populations sont contraintes d'adopter des stratégies de survie au quotidien qui accentuent parfois les conflits locaux.

Fragilité de l'État : Les entretiens menés avec des informateurs clés, notamment des membres des milices locales, montrent l'incapacité des gouvernements à assurer la sécurité, à fournir des services de base ou à servir de médiateurs dans les conflits de plus en plus nombreux.

En conséquence, les communautés sont obligées de se tourner vers d'autres formes de gouvernance et de protection. Il s'agit notamment des milices locales, des autorités traditionnelles et des comités informels de gestion des ressources.

Réseaux criminels : La vulnérabilité climatique et la fragilité de l'État ont créé un environnement qui permet à des organisations extrémistes violentes d'opérer et d'étendre leur influence.

Ces groupes vont de simples bandits armés aux organisations extrémistes violentes telles que Boko Haram et Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). Ils ne sont pas seulement le résultat d'une idéologie. Ils sont le produit d'un système en crise. Ils exploitent stratégiquement l'insécurité et les griefs créés par le changement climatique et la fragilité de l'État.

Un leader communautaire malien l'a parfaitement exprimé. Il a averti que si une communauté

devient une terre aride … le groupe armé peut profiter de cette occasion pour s'y implanter.

Vers une approche sensible aux conflits

Les propos recueillis lors des entretiens mettent en avant des solutions simples, mais profondes.

Le message principal est clair. Il faut une appropriation locale et une implication de la communauté.

Un chef traditionnel du Burkina Faso, par exemple, a insisté sur le fait que :

si des projets sont mis en place, ils doivent inclure la communauté dès le début, afin que les gens se sentent respectés, que la confiance s'instaure et que les solutions répondent aux besoins réels.

Une personne interrogée au Nigeria a également expliqué que « lorsque les habitants s'engagent auprès du gouvernement, de nombreuses solutions voient le jour ». Au Niger, un acteur local a souligné la nécessité « d'impliquer davantage la population dans le processus décisionnel qui la concerne ».

Ces témoignages plaident pour de nouvelles orientations politiques. Ils militent en faveur d'un abandon du modèle de développement imposé d'en haut, et piloté par les experts.

Pour que l'atténuation du changement climatique soit un facteur de paix, elle doit être intégrée aux efforts de consolidation de la paix et de renforcement de l'État. La participation des autorités locales et des institutions communautaires à la prise de décision peut conduire à des interventions adaptées au contexte, plus légitimes et plus en phase avec les réalités locales.

Cela veut dire concrètement relier le financement climatique à des projets qui ne se limitent pas à des infrastructures d'énergie renouvelable, mais s'étendent aussi à des écoles, des centres de santé et des moyens de subsistance durables. Cela implique un dialogue transparent, mené par la communauté, afin de résoudre les conflits avant qu'ils ne s'étendent à toute la région du Sahel.

Quelques pistes de soltions

La situation critique du Sahel est une leçon importante pour la communauté internationale. L'interconnexion entre le changement climatique, la fragilité des États et les conflits constitue un système complexe et interdépendant. Elle ne peut être résolue par des interventions sectorielles isolées. Les défis sont trop étroitement liés et les enjeux trop importants.

Les politiques internationales en matière de développement et de climat doivent évoluer. L'atténuation du changement climatique n'est pas un exercice technique, mais une occasion de reconstruire les contrats sociaux rompus, de renforcer la résilience des communautés et de promouvoir un développement équitable.

S'attaquer aux causes profondes plutôt qu'aux symptômes peut transformer un cercle vicieux de fragilité en un cercle vertueux de paix et de développement.

Folahanmi Aina does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Crime-fighting in Lagos: community watch groups are the preferred choice for residents, but they carry risks

2026-01-26T14:58:14Z

Criminal activities have developed into a security crisis in Nigeria. Alongside the responses of security agencies such as the police and military, there has been a huge local response, with community groups mobilising in the face of criminal attacks.

For example, communities in Zamfara State, north-west region, repelled a bandit attack, causing the death of 37 bandits in August 2024. In Sokoto State, north-west region, residents rescued kidnapped individuals and recovered the body of the deceased village head in August 2024. In Kwara state, north-central region, community groups rescued people from their abductors in December 2025.

But how effective are these community-organised interventions?

I’m an urban and community safety researcher who has studied various aspects of insecurity in Nigeria, particularly in the country’s south-west, for more than a decade now.

In a recent paper I sought to answer this question in relation to Lagos. As Nigeria’s largest city with an estimated population exceeding 20 million, Lagos faces severe, complex crime challenges driven by rapid, poorly managed urbanisation and high unemployment rates. I surveyed 62 stakeholders in a bid to evaluate community-driven crime prevention strategies. Respondents included residents, members of the state and community groups who were playing important roles in the city’s security processes. This was qualitative research.

Many respondents expressed little or no trust in formal security agencies. Their expectations that the police could protect them were low.

A resident interviewed for the study said that while people like politicians got police protection, ordinary citizens did not:

That is why everyone has devised ways to protect themselves and family.

My research found that these commmunity-organised interventions have emerged in different forms. The commonest is community vigilante groups. These are self-appointed resident security volunteers who take it upon themselves to confront criminals in their neighbourhood. This is common in low-income neighbourhoods of Lagos because they have to deal with crime but feel they can’t rely on the police to patrol, unlike elite neighbourhoods.

A successful urban security strategy

Lagos community vigilante groups range from small groups of volunteers on streets, and informal neigbourhood watches, to well structured local community bodies. Community vigilante members are mostly men. But women are not explicitly excluded, and they are an important source of information.

The groups were using local knowledge to help the police. They compiled information on crimes, suspicious activity and criminal suspects in their area and provided it to the police as needed. In some cases, they joined the police intelligence response team to raid hideouts of criminals in their areas.

A resident interviewed for the study said:

We are local people. We know our community very well. We can easily spot strangers and suspicious movements. This local knowledge is what we have, that the police do not have. So, we complement their efforts by providing dependable intelligence for their work. Beyond that, we also escort police patrol, and our presence has helped them to penetrate streets they would not have been able to navigate by themselves.

The relationship between the police and community groups was “semi-formal”. Arrangements were made by the communities with little or no intervention by the state. The collaborations were owned, structured and sustained by residents.

Some of those involved in the groups were remunerated through financial contributions by residents. However, they “occasionally” received financial support from the local government authorities, individual local politicians and donors.

Successes

My research showed there had been some positive results. Residents confirmed that the collaborations brought safety to their community and had helped to reduce crime and insecurity, particularly where the police were lacking.

A resident interviewed for the study said:

Things are a little better. Before now, it was dreadful as criminals and hoodlums operate openly. Although there is still a long way to go, there has been a commendable level of improvements in our security in the last five years.

Some ongoing issues

Despite its success, several concerns were raised in my study.

First, community vigilante groups are a patchwork of isolated groups. Organisations are fragmented and weak. This could be dangerous because it creates unaccountable groups that can easily change from being protectors to being a threat. That can be seen in the Bakassi Boys (south-east Nigeria), Yan Sakai (north-west Nigeria) and global examples like Mungiki (Kenya) and Autodefensas (Mexico).

Second is the question of the legality of community groups in terms of the provisions of the Nigerian constitution, the Police Act and the Public Order Act. Their legal status is “complex” as they operate in a grey area. Most of them do not have the backing of the federal government, which has the constitutional authority to manage policies regarding them.

Third, while community vigilante groups fill security gaps created by an under-resourced police force, their activities sometimes lead to conflicts because they act as judge, jury and executioner.

A police officer interviewed for the study said:

The activities of vigilantes are usually unlawful in the way and manner they deal with suspected criminals … The lawful thing for them is to report suspected criminals to the police, but many times, they take law into their own hands.

Still, residents view the groups as legitimate because of their perceived effectiveness, deep local knowledge, community ties and quick action.

Fourth, relationships between community groups and the police range from amiable and collaborative to distrustful and hostile. Mutual distrust risks escalating violence rather than reducing it.

A member of a vigilante group put it this way:

We cannot totally entrust suspects and our community to the police. We have situations where suspects were released without any investigation and prosecution. Not only that, corrupt police officers do give hints to these suspects about key vigilante members behind their arrests, and these criminals go all-out for them after their unlawful freedom from the police custody.

Moving forward

To overcome the challenges, the following steps should be taken:

reform of Nigeria’s security governance, allowing states to create their own police forces
formal recognition and support of community groups
adopting policies to curb the proliferation of the groups
working more closely with community groups to deal with some of the underlying reasons for insecurity. These include political negligence, youth unemployment, poverty and inequality.

Adewumi Badiora does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Climate change is hurting Kenyan women working in coastal tourism – they explain how

2026-01-26T14:58:11Z

I returned home to Kenya’s coast after months of winter in Germany, and the heat felt extreme. Temperatures rose past 35°C by midday under the blazing sun of Kilifi, a tourism destination on Kenya’s shores of the Western Indian Ocean. It is here that international visitors come for pristine beaches, marine excursions, and trips to nearby islands and creeks.

As a tourism researcher, I study how women earn a living through coastal small businesses in times of environmental change. My research work in Kilifi brought me into close contact with the everyday realities of climate change in Kenya’s coastal tourist towns: rising temperatures, rising ocean levels, drought and floods.

In Kilifi, local women’s groups cultivate mangrove seedlings in rows of small plastic bags along the ocean water’s edge. The seedlings are crucial in replanting and regenerating forests in dense mangrove areas.

However, while mangrove trees survive in coasts, estuaries and river mouths where saltwater from the sea mixes with freshwater from rivers, their seedlings generally rely on freshwater to grow before they are gradually acclimatised to the salinity and tidal conditions at the coast. And these seedlings were dying because freshwater was drying up.

When mangrove forests die off or are cut back, this has a direct impact on women tour guides, souvenir item sellers, hoteliers and seafood suppliers, said one of the women I interviewed:

If mangroves are flourishing, we get plenty of prawns. But now that all this has been cut, those prawns run away, and they are not found. Crabs are also found here in the mangroves.

My research found that women tourism operators also experienced the changing climate as a deeply personal loss of identity, culture and community.

For example, women whose sense of self comes from preparing local cuisines saw their culinary traditions vanish when crab and prawn stocks dwindled or when cashew and coconut trees failed to bear fruit.

Community bonds were also lost when shared cooking practices weakened. This affected the tourism industry because cultural traditions support the growth of tourism. The human experience of travel is deepened when local people share heritage, meaning and traditions with visitors.

When climate change affects women’s sense of identity and culture, it affects their livelihoods and well-being too. These impacts ripple through the tourism industry, affecting the experiences and services that millions of visitors rely on in Africa’s tourism. Women are particularly affected; in Kenya they occupy the bulk of jobs in tour guiding and hospitality.

Traditional coastal cuisines decimated by climate change

As part of my research, I held workshops with women involved in cooking and food businesses. “Cooking is part of our heritage as coastal women,” one explained. Their coastal cuisine is rooted in specific plants and ingredients, learned through practice and shared across generations. Most importantly, it’s a part of how people know who they are and where they are from.

When baobabs dry out, or when any other coastal plant withers, longstanding recipes are forced to change. Food flavours disappear, and culinary knowledge becomes harder to pass on.

These changes affect gastro-tourism, a growing part of the local tourism economy, where visitors come for traditional dishes and the coastal culinary experience.

Seafood, important in tourist hotels, is increasingly affected by mangrove loss and rising ocean temperatures. These destroy fish nursery habitats and force fish to migrate to waters far out of the reach of artisanal fishers, women who supplied seafood to restaurants told me.

Homes and land are being swallowed by the sea

Another person I interviewed pointed out that land had disappeared under rising sea levels. “What used to be land is now water,” she said, recalling a land beacon that once marked the boundary of a piece of land. “That beacon is still there,” she said, “but now it stands in the ocean waters.”

Such loss of land can have profound effects – displacement, the loss of family burial sites, the need to adapt to new neighbours, and psychological distress.

The women also told me that small-scale beachfront traders were being displaced as the ocean water rose, affecting their livelihoods.

This is not only an economic loss but also a loss that unfolds gradually, erasing the meaning of place. When women are displaced from the coastline, it also means they have far less chance of being part of decision making in the ocean economy.

Economic and non-economic losses unfold together

People experience the cost of climate change when ecosystems erode and they lose the income they’d once been able to earn from working with natural resources. However, climate change also brings about a loss of heritage, knowledge, and sense of place. This carries deep consequences for identity and community.

The United Nations has a mechanism to help vulnerable countries cope with climate damage that can’t be prevented or adapted to, such as floods, storms and sea-level rise. This acknowledges culture, identity and sense of place as important non-economic dimensions of global warming.

But local voices are essential for defining what such loss means on the ground and how responses should unfold.

One of the findings from my research was that the “ocean economy” idea focuses too narrowly on extracting economic value from the sea. It often overlooks the non-economic cultural practices and relationships that actually sustain tourism, fisheries and other small coastal businesses.

What needs to happen next

My research shows that climate policy needs to account better for the human and cultural dimensions of climate change. When governments only focus on the economic losses caused by climate change, this contradicts the lived experiences of women working in coastal tourism in Kenya who rely on non-economic cultural practices and relationships that actually sustain tourism, fisheries and other small coastal businesses.

Coastal livelihoods give communities living near the sea more chance of being able to cope with climate change. Cultural practices are closely tied to caring for ecosystems. When policy overlooks culture, it weakens the very people whose everyday work helps sustain and protect these environments.

Planners of climate action and adaptation need to recognise non-economic losses alongside economic concerns. It also means using gender sensitive assessments within adaptation efforts, to avoid further excluding women who work in informal enterprises from the ocean economy.

Lucy Atieno does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Uganda’s boda-boda drivers: the digital economy hasn’t been the route to formal work and better protection – research

2026-01-26T14:58:07Z

Digital labour platforms – like fast food delivery and cab hailing services – are having a dramatic impact on people’s labour rights and working conditions around the world.

In western countries like the UK and the US, their rise has intensified a process of labour casualisation already several decades in the making. Under the guise of “flexibility”, platforms have heralded a return to insecure, temporary forms of employment that offer few rights or benefits to workers.

But in “less developed” countries like Uganda, the growth of the digital gig economy is often considered a boon. Across the global south, it has been claimed that platforms are not only creating millions of new jobs, but they are actually helping to formalise an informal economy so vast it accounts for an estimated 70% of total employment in low- and middle-income countries.

Existing research suggests that by guiding informal workers towards compliance with registration and licensing requirements or making them more visible to state authorities, digital labour platforms are capable of “counteracting informal economic activity”.

But is it all as straightforward as it seems?

In a new research paper I put this claim to the test through a case study of moto-taxi work in the Ugandan capital city, Kampala.

Moto-taxi (or boda boda) work is a hugely important source of income in Uganda, providing livelihoods for an estimated 350,000 people in the capital alone. Over the past decade, ride-hail platforms have descended upon this vast industry, claiming to offer safer, better paid work and a step towards formality.

Drawing on 112 interviews, 370 driver surveys and scans of relevant media, my research reaches a different conclusion. Despite shifting online, digital moto-taxi drivers remain as they always were – informal workers in an unprotected labour market.

This raises fundamental questions about the capacity of digital labour platforms to bring about positive transformations in the global informal economy.

Fallacies of ‘plat-formalisation’

As the new paper shows, moto-taxi workers’ inclusion within the new platform economy brings them no closer to formal labour status in any meaningful way.

This is illustrated by three key insights from my findings.

First, despite early collaborative engagement with state actors, Uganda’s ride-hail companies have tended to operate in unilateral, platform-specific ways that undermine prospects for sectoral standardisation. Each platform enforces its own rules over drivers, and these do not always line up with government legislation.

Take driver licensing, for example. While some companies insist that drivers must have a valid driving permit before working through their apps, others bypass this requirement completely. Market leader SafeBoda, for instance, instead chooses to enrol new drivers in road safety training at a purpose-built “academy”. Though a positive step towards safer driving standards, this is not the same as formalisation.

Second, Uganda’s ride-hail platforms accept zero legal responsibility for the welfare and safety of those using their apps, including cases of “bodily injuries, death, and emotional distress and discomfort”. Despite claiming to help regulate the industry, these companies’ designation of informal moto-taxi workers as independent “gig workers” keeps drivers distanced from state labour regulation.

And third, my findings indicate corporate reluctance to share data with government. According to one city planner I talked with, while the platforms tended to talk positively about public-private collaboration, when push came to shove they would often “withhold their data”. Recent evidence suggests this is continuing to happen, further highlighting the limits of private data ownership and non-binding agreements around data sharing. Without access to this information, it is difficult for governments to register workers, tax them effectively and extend labour protections.

Profiting from informality

Ride-hailing may not have led to better, more formalised work for Uganda’s moto-taxis. But what is has done is open up new revenue streams for the various local and international companies involved. The result: a formalisation not of drivers’ labour but of their wealth.

As detailed in the paper, some of the techniques here include:

Commissions. Drivers regularly lose 15%-20% of their trip fares in the form of company commission fees. With digital technology, these are increasingly being captured via cashless payment systems that deduct fees and other equipment-related debts automatically.
Equipment. Many companies operate by selling drivers the gear they need to function in the ride-hail economy. SafeBoda, for instance, regularly charges new riders somewhere in the region of US$140 for a smartphone, crash helmets and branded uniforms. Drivers often take this on as debt and pay it back incrementally over time, only to later discover that this does not, in all cases, entitle them to actual ownership. As one former employee at the company told me:

The helmet itself is a business. It’s on the side, you can’t see it. The phone is a business. It’s about business besides riders. It’s all about getting commission on things.

Corporate tie-ins. Through a series of funding relationships and “private-private partnerships”, Uganda’s ride-hail platforms make drivers visible and accessible to a whole host of banks, insurance agencies and alternative credit lenders. These financial actors are all keen to find lucrative new markets at the “bottom of the pyramid”. Ride-hailing is simply the vehicle for this.

The formalisation agenda remains important. It is central to achieving better working conditions and stronger labour protections for hundreds of millions of workers around the world.

But for private digital platforms operating across Africa’s informal economies, the bottom line is often not about “counteracting informal economic activity” at all. It is about profiting from it.

This article draws on doctoral research, for which the author received funding from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Global demand for shea butter is growing: but it’s not all good news for the women who collect the nuts

2026-01-25T05:05:30Z

Shea butter has become a highly sought-after ingredient in cosmetics and food manufacturing worldwide. Since the early 2000s its use as a substitute for cocoa butter has driven a dramatic rise in international demand. The shea butter industry has grown by more than 600% over the last 20 years.

The shea tree is semi-domesticated across the dry savannah region in a “shea belt” west to east from Senegal to South Sudan, and about 500km north to south. It is not planted but protected within farmland and also found in communal bushland.

An estimated 16 million women collect and process shea fruits in rural west Africa, turning them into dry kernels for sale or processing the kernels into shea butter.

Global companies, development agencies and NGOs frequently present the shea industry as a pathway to women’s economic empowerment in the region.

To explore this idea, we conducted research into how the rise in demand for shea butter has affected women collectors in Burkina Faso and Ghana. These two countries are among the lead exporters of dry shea kernels.

The study formed part of our work on agrarian change, political ecology and livelihoods. We study relationships between producers and other actors of global value chains, as well as the impacts of externally induced changes on smallholders.

We combined data from a survey of 1,046 collectors in 24 communities with data from interviews with 18 collectors.

Our results show that the shea boom has intensified competition for access to trees. Over 85% of collectors surveyed reported an increase in the number of shea nut collectors in their community over the past 10 years. We also documented how access to shea trees was becoming more restricted, especially for women who rely most heavily on shea for their livelihoods.

Our results point to widening inequality within the collector population, even as the overall value of the shea sector grows.

Global demand meets local tenure systems

Historically, access to nuts was governed by a combination of customary rules and social norms. Women could usually collect freely on communal land, and also on farmland belonging to their households or relatives. Shea was often treated as a semi–open-access resource, available to women of the community according to need.

This system has come under pressure.

Firstly, as prices have increased over the last three decades, so have the number of people collecting.

Secondly, the common land is shrinking. Expansion and mechanisation of agriculture, population growth and peri-urban development have reduced the areas that once served as shared collection spaces.

Several collectors we interviewed noted that land previously considered “bush” had been converted into fields, removing an important safety net for those without farmland.

As a result, access to shea trees is increasingly tied to access to private land. Over 55% of our survey respondents reported that collection on private fields had become more restricted, with landowners enforcing boundaries more tightly. This shift reflects a broader tendency in both countries for land rights to become more individualised as resources acquire market value.

Third, resource pressure has introduced new forms of conflict, like trespassing on land. Conflicts reinforce exclusion, as landowners become more reluctant to allow non-family members onto their fields.

Unequal effects across collector groups

Our research distinguishes three types of collectors:

dedicated collectors, who derive all of their annual income from collecting and selling shea nuts
diversified collectors, who combine shea collection with farming or other activities
collector–traders, who not only collect nuts but also purchase them from others to sell at higher prices later in the year.

These groups experience the shea boom in different ways.

Dedicated collectors have the most limited access to private land. Only 16% of them collect from their own fields, compared to 38%-43% among the other groups. They depend on the communal bush.

Diversified collectors have better access to private fields than dedicated collectors, but still face similar challenges as bush areas shrink. And they have less time to spend collecting, limiting their ability to compensate for increasing competition.

Collector-traders maintain more secure access to private fields and receive more assistance from household members. Over half report receiving help from men, such as transporting nuts or protecting fields from trespassers. This is significantly more than dedicated or diversified collectors. The additional labour gives them a strategic advantage.

More work, but not more income

Rising prices might suggest that women would earn more from shea today than a decade ago. Yet this is not what most collectors experience. Only 48.7% reported an increase in shea income over the past 10 years, despite the international boom.

Total annual income from shea remains very low – on average only US$174 (purchasing power parity) per year, with differences between collectors.

For poorer collectors, several factors suppress income gains:

limited access to shea trees constrains the volume of nuts they can gather
many have to sell nuts early in the season, often at low prices, to meet immediate cash needs. Better-off collector-traders can purchase nuts cheaply, store them, and profit from higher prices later in the year.

Rethinking the ‘win-win’ narrative

The findings challenge the claim that integrating women into the global shea value chain will empower them and reduce poverty. The boom has indeed created new economic opportunities, but these are unevenly distributed. Market expansion has strengthened the position of those with greater land access and financial capital. At the same time it’s undermined the livelihoods of those who rely exclusively on the resource.

Our study does not prescribe specific policy measures, but its findings point to several possible avenues for intervention.

First, measures that strengthen women’s land and tree rights are likely to be critical. Recent work on peri-urban Ghana, for example, calls for wider rights to land and shea trees for women in policy and tenure reforms.

Second, empirical studies of female shea actors in Ghana suggest that collective organisation, better access to finance and improved infrastructure (notably storage facilities) can enhance women’s position.

Finally, evidence from northern Ghana indicates that women themselves recommend changes in farming practices to sustain the resource base.

Francois Questiaux is a Postdoc at the University of Copenhagen. This project was funded by a grant from the Danish Independent Research Fund (Obstacles, Grant 2102-00030B) and a grant from the Innovation Fund Denmark (Sheaine, Grant 9067-00030B)

Marieve Pouliot is an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen. This project was funded by a grant from the Danish Independent Research Fund (Obstacles, Grant 2102-00030B) and a grant from the Innovation Fund Denmark (Sheaine, Grant 9067-00030B).

Nigerian farmers talk about how climate change is affecting staple food crops – and what can help

2026-01-25T05:04:50Z

In Nigeria, agriculture contributes about 40% to national gross domestic product and supports the livelihoods of about 60% of the population. Finding ways to farm through climate change is vital for national development and poverty reduction.

Climate change remains one of the most critical challenges confronting Nigeria’s farming sector. The country’s agriculture is mainly rain-fed (not irrigated). This makes it highly vulnerable to changes in climate and extreme weather events such as prolonged droughts, erratic rainfall, flooding, and rising temperatures.

These climate-induced shocks reduce agricultural productivity, threaten food security through crop losses, damage rural livelihoods, and create economic stability. The increasing unpredictability of weather patterns disrupts planting and harvesting calendars, shortens growing seasons, and intensifies pest and disease outbreaks. Yet there hasn’t been much research into the problems that global warming causes for specific crops.

This creates a gap in understanding how individual crops and households are affected by specific climatic extremes. These insights are needed though, in order for Nigeria to plan how to adapt to climate change.

We are agriculture, climate change and food security researchers who study how crops can be adapted to global warming. We interviewed 480 smallholder farmers from across Nigeria, to find out how their key food crops – maize, cassava, sorghum, rice, millet, soybean and yam – were affected by extreme weather.

These crops are extremely important to Nigeria’s food security and rural livelihoods. They’re the staple sources of nutrition and income for millions of smallholder farmers.

Our research found that drought is the biggest climate-related threat to food crops. Maize and cassava are most at risk of dying in times of drought. Flooding is also a serious concern, especially for maize. Changes in temperature have a smaller, more short-term effect.

Millet and yam can withstand some flooding but are still susceptible to drought. This means they are also vulnerable to climate change.

We found that rice is very sensitive to floods, which can greatly reduce its yield. Soybean is moderately affected by occasional waterlogging and heat. Sorghum, though usually drought-tolerant, suffers when droughts are long or severe. However, it handles short-term flooding better than other crops.

These results show that each crop reacts differently to climate stresses, so adaptation strategies should be tailored to each staple crop’s specific needs.

This is vital because if Nigeria’s staple crops are almost wiped out by extreme weather, the country will have less food and these crops will cost more, meaning they may become unaffordable for millions of people.

Nigerian farmers are battling extreme weather

Nigerian farming is marked by two distinct seasons: the wet season, from the middle of April to October, and the dry season, from November to March. We looked at the five major agro-ecological zones in Nigeria – south-east, south-west, north-west, north-east, and north-central regions – and how the farmers cope in the two seasons.

We then asked the farmers how many crops they grew, how big their families were, and how much they sold their crops for in the 2024 agricultural season.

We also asked the farmers what they knew about climate change, how much at risk they thought they were, and what they were doing to adapt. A crop vulnerability scale was developed to assess the sensitivity of major crops to extreme climate events such as droughts, floods, excessive heat, wildfires and dry spells.

Most (62.9%) of the farmers were men. Previous research has found that male smallholder farmers have better access to resources such as land, credit and agricultural extension services compared to women farmers. A large number (72.6%) had developed other ways of earning money to cope with climate shocks.

Membership of cooperative societies was high, with 77.2% of farmers participating, which told us that the support farmers got from each other was very important. Over 80% of the farmers also had contact with government officials from the agricultural department whose job it was to offer support and advice to farmers (extension officers).

However, only 42.3% received information about climate change. This limited farmers’ ability to make informed adaptation decisions.

Cassava and maize hit hard by climate change

The study found that climate change is a serious threat to food crop production in Nigeria.

Drought was the most severe risk, particularly affecting maize and cassava. Flooding was the second major threat. It drowned maize and cassava and caused their roots to rot. Millet and yam were able to adapt to different amounts of rain.

High temperatures had a smaller direct effect on the plants. However, prolonged heat increased pest infestations, which damaged the crops.

This is worrying because droughts in Nigeria have become more frequent and prolonged over the past two decades. The number of extreme dry spells has increased by an estimated 28% compared to the 1990s. The number of places in Nigeria that are affected by flooding has increased due to more erratic rainfall and poor drainage.

What needs to happen next

We recommend that proactive adaptation measures are needed urgently. These include:

Drought-resistant crop varieties, such as improved maize or millet varieties that tolerate prolonged dry spells.
Efficient water management, like constructing small-scale rainwater harvesting or drip irrigation systems.

Improving drainage systems by clearing blocked channels and creating raised beds to reduce waterlogging.
Bringing smallholder farmers into cooperatives. These are collectives that can arrange shared resources, collective marketing, and access to inputs (fertiliser, equipment) at lower costs.
Since the farmers have good access to extension services, these officials should be used to provide new technology and training about climate-smart agriculture to the farmers.

Also, early warning systems are essential for reducing climate risks. But in the absence of these, farmers can still adopt practices like crop diversification, staggered planting, and community-based monitoring to anticipate and reduce losses.

Governments, agricultural extension agencies, farmer cooperatives and development partners must collaborate to provide resources, knowledge and support to help smallholder farmers adapt.

Africa’s critical minerals are a huge economic opportunity: G20 framework sets out ways to seize it

2026-01-25T05:04:14Z

As the world shifts to clean energy, minerals such as lithium, cobalt and manganese have become as important as oil once was. Africa holds large reserves of these critical minerals. Yet they are mostly exported as raw materials, returning as expensive green technologies made in factories overseas. South Africa’s G20 presidency set up a new critical minerals framework that aims to help Africa’s mineral-rich countries benefit more from local processing and manufacturing. Geoscientists Glen Nwaila and Grant Bybee explain what’s needed to extract the minerals safely and turn underground wealth into economic value in Africa.

What are critical minerals and how do they fit into Africa’s resources landscape?

Cobalt, manganese, natural graphite, copper, nickel, lithium and iron ore are all critical for building solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicle batteries, and other green energy equipment.

Africa is home to large reserves of critical minerals. The continent has 55% of the world’s cobalt deposit. It houses 47.65% of all manganese globally and 21.6% of natural graphite.

About 5.9% of copper, 5.6% of nickel, 1% of lithium, and 0.6% of iron ore globally are found in Africa.

South Africa has between 80% and 90% of the world’s platinum group metals, and more than 70% of global chromium and manganese resources. These are essential in making components for clean energy technology and electronics.

The International Energy Agency predicted in 2025 that the demand for lithium would increase fivefold between 2025 and 2040. The demand for graphite and nickel will double. Between 50% and 60% more cobalt and rare earth elements will be needed by 2040. The demand for copper will rise by 30% over the same period.

What are the biggest challenges facing these precious resources?

In many African economies, critical minerals are exported in raw or semi-processed form, to be used in the production of various green energy technologies. African countries then import these technologies, missing out on the jobs and industries that could be created if they manufactured green energy components themselves.

Processing critical minerals and elements in Africa would create around 2.3 million jobs on the continent. It would raise continental GDP by about 12%. This would help address a chronic unemployment problem. For example, South Africa has an unemployment rate of 31.9%. For younger people aged 15 to 34, the unemployment rate is 43.7%.

What solutions are being proposed?

The G20’s new Critical Minerals Framework spells out clear rules and standards to make sure more value is added locally (like processing minerals where they are mined instead of shipping them out raw). This is known as promoting “local beneficiation at source” or “value addition and retention”.

The framework supports spreading mining, transport, processing and sales across different countries. This will reduce dependence on a single country or company. It will also support more reliable supply chains that don’t get disrupted easily.

The framework also proposes that critical mineral mining be done under strong and fair rules that protect people, economies and the environment in line with African countries’ own laws and policies.

It also aims to create a clear map (or inventory) of where all the critical minerals are located across the continent, so that exploration (especially in places that are under-explored) can be done without damaging communities or the environment.

It pushes for new ideas, technology, and training so people can gain the skills needed to work in green energy industries.

Although it’s a voluntary and non-binding document, it is crucial as a guide to best practice.

How is the role of geoscientists critical to this?

Geoscience shapes everyday life in ways most people never see. Hydrogeologists help make sure cities, farms and mines have reliable, clean water without damaging the environment. Geophysicists are able to “see” underground using specialised tools to find minerals. They also decide where it is safe to build roads, tunnels and power plants, and track natural hazards like earthquakes.

There are many fields within geoscience. Geometallurgists work out how to process mined rock more efficiently, using less energy and water and producing less waste. Geodata scientists turn satellite images and ground data into maps that are used to plan cities and adapt to climate change. Resource geologists estimate how much of a valuable mineral or metal can actually be mined, and at what risk.

Engineering geologists help keep buildings, tunnels, dams and mine waste facilities safe. Environmental geologists monitor soil, water and air to ensure development does not harm people or the environment.

Africa’s vast reserves of critical minerals can only create jobs, economic growth and sustainable development if countries have enough well-trained geoscientists to find, extract and process them. Their expertise is what turns underground resources into real economic opportunities.

Africa continues to graduate a large number of talented geoscientists. They work in critical minerals value chains and make valuable contributions. However, more advanced skills in geodata science, geometallurgy, predictive modelling, and strong leadership is needed. Currently, significant gaps remain in Africa.

To close these gaps, African governments, universities, industry partners, and international collaborators must urgently invest in targeted education and training programmes. These should focus on training in advanced geodata science, geometallurgy, predictive modelling, ore system science, and leadership development. Partnerships must be set up with private companies and students should attend international knowledge exchanges.

Mining companies must be given incentives to share knowledge so that African professionals are trained to do high-value geoscience and mining work themselves.

This would enable Africa to not only extract, but fully harness its subsurface mineral wealth for inclusive economic growth, job creation, and a just energy transition.

Glen Nwaila receives research funding from the Open Society Foundations, in collaboration with the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at Wits University, to support work on critical minerals in Africa.

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland: the strategic calculations at play

2026-01-25T05:03:36Z

Somaliland is not internationally recognised as a sovereign state, though it declared independence from Somalia in 1991. A territory becomes a sovereign state when its independence is recognised by the United Nations. For this reason, it has no seat at the UN and is considered, under international law, part of Somalia.

Nevertheless, Somaliland holds elections and maintains relative internal stability. It is also attracting increasing informal diplomatic engagement – though not formal recognition – from Ethiopia, the United States and, most recently, Israel.

This growing interest highlights a geopolitical paradox. An unrecognised polity has become strategically relevant in the Red Sea region, along the Gulf of Aden at the Horn of Africa. This is a key corridor linking the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.

On 26 December 2025, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel’s recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign state. This made Israel the first UN member to do so. While the concrete effects of the decision remain uncertain, Israel’s move fits into a broader strategy to strengthen its presence in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region.

Of all the African states, landlocked Ethiopia has come closest to formally recognising Somaliland, driven by its wish to get direct access to the Red Sea via the port of Berbera. This has become more urgent amid regional competition and instability.

US officials have defended Israel’s right to recognise Somaliland, but the US itself hasn’t done so despite speculation that it might.

I have studied the political dynamics in the Horn of Africa and recently published a book on the competing interests in the Red Sea. For me, this latest development raises two key questions: what is Somaliland’s strategic importance and why the growing interest now?

In short, Somaliland is important because it is located on one of the world’s most critical maritime routes. Current regional instability has increased the importance of partners that can provide security, access and political stability, even without formal recognition.

Israel’s strategic calculation

Israel has framed its recognition of Somaliland primarily in terms of regional security and strategic stability. It has cited the need to safeguard maritime routes in the Red Sea and counter growing threats in the Horn of Africa.

Beyond these stated reasons, however, Israel is motivated by national security considerations. Following the 7 October 2023 attacks and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the importance of existing strategic priorities in the Red Sea region has increased.

Somaliland’s location on the Gulf of Aden puts the territory – and any external actors with a presence there – in a position to monitor some of the world’s most important maritime and undersea communication routes.

Of particular concern to Israel is the threat posed by Iran-aligned actors, such as Houthi fighters in nearby Yemen. Engaging with Somaliland provides strategic depth and the potential for an early warning system.

Iran has capacity to exert indirect influence through proxy forces that target maritime routes and regional security.

Attacks on shipping by Houthi missiles and drones launched from Yemen take place just a short distance from Somaliland.

Establishing a presence in Somaliland, or simply relying on it as a partner, would enhance Israel’s ability to monitor Houthi activities and counter threats to maritime traffic.

An increased presence also provides a counterweight to the growing influence of Saudi Arabia and Turkey through diplomatic, economic and – in Turkey’s case – military engagement across the region.

Israel and the UAE both view Somaliland as a relatively non-aligned actor capable of reducing Turkish and Saudi influence in the Horn of Africa.

For Israel, engaging with Somaliland is a calculated risk, based on the belief that the strategic benefits outweigh the diplomatic and political risks.

Ethiopia: the vital need for sea access

Ethiopia is another catalyst of Somaliland’s growing importance. Eritrea’s secession in 1993 made Ethiopia a landlocked country. At present it relies heavily on Djibouti for sea access.

The Red Sea region

The port of Berbera in Somaliland offers Ethiopia politically stable and geographically convenient access. This explains Ethiopia’s interest in signing a memorandum of understanding with the breakaway state in January 2024. Although the agreement has not been widely implemented, it has drawn international attention back to Hargeisa’s claims.

Ethiopia’s cautious approach has aimed at avoiding further regional tensions.

Domestic political factors also influence its tepid response. The country is dealing with several potentially secessionist insurgencies within its borders. There could be consequences for supporting a secessionist movement.

An additional factor is Ethiopia’s close political and economic relations with China and Turkey, which both strongly support Somali territorial integrity.

It is this combination of regional ambition and domestic constraint that explains Addis Ababa’s cautious response to Israel’s announcement.

The United States: balancing realism and norms

Washington officially continues to support Somalia’s territorial integrity, largely due to its counter-terrorism cooperation with the federal government in Mogadishu.

However, Israel’s recognition of Somaliland has reignited debate within US strategic and policy circles. Some favour Somaliland’s recognition. They point to US security interests and global trade.

There is growing openness to engaging with Somaliland incrementally, stopping short of fully breaking diplomatic ties with Mogadishu.

Much of the US debate focuses on recognition itself, but this risks missing the more consequential issue: the precedent Somaliland could set.

Not all that glitters is gold

The typical portrayal of Somalia as a failed state and Somaliland as a democratic oasis is simplistic.

Unlike many secessionist movements, Somaliland is not a newly formed political entity. Consequently, beneath its apparent internal cohesion lie deep and persistent fault lines. Hargeisa does not control all the territory it claims. The eastern regions have never entirely accepted Somaliland’s authority.

This cleavage came to a head in violent clashes in Las Anod between 2022 and 2023. Local militias took control of the area, which now functions as a self-administered entity recognised as a federal state within Somalia.

Somaliland’s growing strategic relevance masks its unresolved internal divisions. It illustrates a broader trend in geopolitics now: stability and utility increasingly matter more than legal status alone.

For external actors, engagement with Somaliland may offer short-term gains in a volatile region. But without addressing its internal fractures and contested sovereignty, recognition risks creating new sources of instability rather than resolving old ones.

Federico Donelli is affiliated with the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), and the Orion Policy Institute (OPI)

Edwin Mtei, Tanzania’s first central bank governor, left lessons on leadership

2026-01-24T11:51:29Z

Edwin Mtei, who passed away on 20 January 2026, was the first governor of Tanzania’s Central Bank after independence from Britain.

He filled the post until 1974.

Mtei was appointed by Julius Nyerere, who served as president from 1964 until his resignation in 1985. Nyerere once said of Mtei: “Once a governor, always a governor”, as quoted in Mtei’s autobiography, From Goatherd to Governor. He meant Mtei would always carry the title of governor, given his contribution to starting the Central Bank. Nyerere continued to call Mtei “Governor” even after he transferred him to other posts.

The life and work of Mtei is of central interest to my research as a political scientist who has studied Tanzania’s political history and development politics.

Mtei didn’t take over an established office. The country had obtained its independence only four years before the establishment of the bank in 1965. The newly independent country was using a common currency under the East African Currency Board. Once Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda each decided to be autonomous in 1965, it fell upon Mtei to set up the bank in Dar es Salaam from scratch. He presided over both on technical and logistical matters, including monetary policies, architectural design of the bank’s building, and a design for the national currency.

His work was remarkable as it contributed to the institutionalisation of the country’s economic and financial structures.

Following his tenure as governor, Mtei assumed a bigger government role. He became the secretary general of the East Africa Community from 1974 to 1977 and minister of finance from 1977 to 1979.

As finance minister he took a stand against many of the policies championed by Nyerere, in particular his customised socialist policies – known as ujamaa. Mtei had a different view on how to address the economic problems facing Tanzania. He expressed these to the president – a bold step, given that most government leaders of the time didn’t dare express different views from those of the president.

Mtei resigned in 1979. After Tanzania amended its constitution in 1992 to allow a multiparty system, Mtei founded an opposition party, Chadema, with a liberal ideology that reflected the economic views he had proposed as finance minister.

Chadema has survived to be the leading opposition party in the country to date, despite the limited civic space for opposition politics in Tanzania.

In each of his various roles, Mtei made a mark on Tanzania’s political history.

He leaves several lessons for leaders. Leadership is about conviction. Losing a position for taking a moral stand will eventually lead to a better position with bigger impact. It is professional to give credit even to your opponents. Different views do not mean enmity.

Differences with Nyerere

Nyerere’s economic policies, as set out under the Arusha Declaration, began to show signs of strain.

Following a number of crises such as the oil crisis in 1979 and the Uganda-Tanzania war in 1978-1979, the policies could not facilitate economic recovery in the country. The late 1970s and 1980s were bad years for Tanzania’s socio-economic welfare. All economic variables were negative: for example, inflation rose to 29% per year from 1978 to 1981; between 1979 and 1984, rural income declined by 13.5% in real terms and non-agricultural wage income fell by 65%.

Frustrations about how he was expected to lead the ministry and rescue the country’s economy led him to take a bold step. He resigned in 1979.

Nevertheless, Mtei continued to respect Nyerere. He expressed admiration for Nyerere’s conviction and his determination to build the nation, albeit with an “ineffective” approach.

The farmer

Following his resignation, Mtei became a coffee farmer. He was also active in policy advocacy in the coffee sector as chair of the Tanganyika Coffee Growers Association and a member of Tanzania Coffee Board and Tanzania Coffee Curing Company.

His coffee farm was an estate that he bought after selling his house in a prestigious neighbourhood in Dar-es-Salaam. He actively maintained his coffee estate up to his old age and died in his farm house.

His mastery of finance and economics as well as international knowledge and contacts must have played a big part in his success in the coffee business.

Early life

Mtei came from the Chaggaland on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. He was brought up by a single (widowed) mother with limited resources. In his autobiography he narrated how, at a very young age, he would count banana and coffee trees and identify different species.

Mtei had an entrepreneurial spirit, like two other figures from the same era and region: Erasto N. Kweka and Reginald Mengi.

Kweka was bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania’s Northern Diocese. He served from 1976 to 2004. During his tenure, the diocese was involved with development projects including a bank, hotels, hospitals, schools and universities. He came to be known as “Bishop of Projects”.

Mengi owned media and manufacturing industries in Tanzania. Kweka, Mengi and Mtei were all born in the 1930s and grew up in Chagga land. Reading from their biographies, they shared similar childhood experiences and upbringing.

The three peers became prominent national figures in different capacities. All three were raised in the context where coffee had been introduced and they saw and experienced the economic impact of coffee through the establishment and development of a cooperative society, in particular the Kilimanjaro National Coffee Union (KNCU). The union provided education scholarships and other financial services to the farmers and their families. It contributed directly and indirectly to the education and interactions of Kweka, Mengi and Mtei.

Mtei was appointed executive director for African affairs at the International Monetary Fund in 1983. To his credit, Nyerere didn’t hold grudges and recommended him for the post.

Mtei saw his main job as proposing reforms in fiscal policies to solve Tanzania’s economic problems. In his autobiography he said Nyerere started to understand the imperative of the reforms and allowed negotiations to begin with the Bretton Woods institutions.

But events intervened. Nyerere was stepping down, though Mtei tried to convince him to stay.

Mtei noted in the autobiography that he thought Nyerere would be the most effective person to lead the reform. In contrast, President Ali Hassan Mwinyi’s autobiography gives all credit for reforms to Mwinyi, who ran Tanzania between 1985 and 1995.

Given the level of political polarisation seen in Tanzania and the personalisation of politics, the life of Mtei offers many lessons.

Aikande Clement Kwayu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Colonial tax records hold 3 lessons for South Africa today – economic historian

2026-01-22T13:53:38Z

In 1825, a tax collector compiling a census in South Africa’s Cape Colony paused to write a poem in the margin of his work. In it, he complained about the idle chatter of townsmen in Stellenbosch and uncooperative taxpayers. It is a tiny window on the regular frustrations of a 19th-century taxman. But the poem survives only because the bureaucracy did.

Year after year, from the 1660s to the 1840s, local officials appointed by the Dutch East India Company and, after 1806, the British colonial government, recorded settler households, their harvests and their labour obligations in ledgers known as opgaafrolle (tax censuses). Read closely, these records provide fleeting glimpses of lived experience; taken together, they allow us to trace long-term social and economic dynamics.

We often treat the past as distant. But the 18th-century Cape Colony also serves as an experiment for current-day economic historians in state capacity, market trust and inequality. Those themes remain central to South Africa today, and to the experience of many African economies shaped by colonial institutions.

Over the past year, my team and I at the Laboratory for the Economics of Africa’s Past at Stellenbosch University have published three studies that return to the Cape’s archival record with new data and new methods. Together, they suggest three lessons that still resonate: the non-neutrality of administrative data; how markets are social as well as economic institutions; and how inequality endures.

1. Data is never neutral

The opgaafrolle were fiscal instruments, introduced under Dutch East India Company rule in the second half of the 17th century and maintained under Batavian and British administrations in the early 19th century. Their purpose was straightforward: to record who lived where, what they owned, what they produced and what could be taxed.

In a paper co-authored with colleagues and students, we analyse the complete series of tax censuses for Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, two of the earliest and wealthiest districts of the Colony, close to Cape Town, between 1685 and 1844. These records allow us to trace kinship networks, marriage patterns, changes in agricultural output and the evolution of slave ownership over nearly 160 years.

The Cape was a slave economy. Enslaved people, brought from territories across the Indian Ocean, were recorded as assets in settler households. Indigenous Khoesan people are not included in these records, although there is little doubt that they, too, worked on settler farms. They are traced in later records.

For this study, we simply wanted to know what these detailed records, unique for their time, revealed about life at the Cape. We found they could be used to understand not only the economy, but also social life. For example, surnames showed marriage patterns that preserved wealth within the family.

The broader lesson is that data – in this case, administrative data – is never neutral. Some things are never recorded, like the Khoesan workers on farms. And when things are recorded, they can easily be biased, for a variety of reasons. Cape farmers underreported production to reduce their tax burden, for example. Enslaved people, by contrast, were recorded with far greater consistency in the censuses, partly because “owners” were not required to pay a slave tax.

Any serious engagement with administrative data, past or present, therefore requires attention to incentives and institutions. This is particularly important as South Africa today debates policy using census and administrative data whose limitations are often poorly understood. There are real consequences for planning and accountability.

2. Markets are social institutions before they are economic ones

Tax records tell us what households declared about their productive activities. To understand more about their consumption, we need different sources.

In another paper, we turn to the Cape Orphan Chamber’s auction records. These auctions were held when estates were liquidated, often after a death, and they recorded who bought what, at what price, and from whom. The dataset covers the period from 1701 to 1825 and has recently been fully transcribed.

What emerges is a picture of markets embedded in social relationships. Auctions were public events. Family members often bid on household goods to keep them within the family or to support widows and children. Credit – borrowing to invest in new tools or to acquire enslaved people – flowed along kinship lines. Consumption – buying an ox, or a wagon, or a Bible – was a public signal of status, belonging and obligation.

This matters for contemporary Africa. Economic policy often treats markets as anonymous spaces where prices alone coordinate behaviour. Yet across much of the continent, markets still operate through trust and reputation. For example, one recent study shows African firms in historically pastoral regions remain smaller, partly because pastoralists are less likely to trust those outside the immediate family.

Even today, credit access, business partnerships and labour arrangements remain deeply relational. The Cape’s auctions remind us that markets have always been social institutions and that ignoring this leads to poor policy design.

3. Inequality is not a modern deviation but a historical constant

South Africa’s extreme inequality is often attributed to 20th-century industrialisation, apartheid policy and post-apartheid failures. While all of these matter, they do not tell the full story.

In another paper, I measured inequality in the Cape Colony between 1685 and 1844. The study used an expanded set of tax censuses, as well as probate inventories – lists of assets that people owned when they died – and slave valuation rolls – the lists created to compensate slave owners during the period of emancipation.

Wealth was highly unevenly distributed from the earliest periods of settlement. Today the situation would be described as severe inequality.

Even if we only consider settlers (and exclude enslaved and Khoesan inhabitants), wealth was very skewed. A small elite owned most productive resources.

Even more surprising, similar patterns appear in the limited records we have for Khoesan settlements.

In other words, wealth was severely unequally distributed not only between groups but also within.

This perspective forces us to rethink how we talk about inequality today. If inequality has deep historical roots, then it cannot be understood simply as a recent malfunction of modern capitalism, nor fixed by narrow technical adjustments to tax rates or social transfers.

Inequality, in other words, is not an anomaly to be corrected back to some imagined baseline of equality, but a recurring outcome of how societies organise power and production. That does not make severe inequality morally acceptable, but it does shift the policy question. The relevant issue is not whether inequality exists, but whether those at the bottom are becoming less poor and are more able to move up.

Looking back to think forward

The 18th-century Cape Colony does not offer ready-made policy solutions. What it offers is perspective. It shows how states govern through what they can observe and record, how markets operate through social ties as much as prices, and how inequality can persist across centuries.

The frustrated tax collector in Stellenbosch could not have imagined that his tax records would one day inform debates about governance, markets and inequality. Yet they can. They remind us that the past continues to shape the constraints within which policy is made, and the possibilities for change.

Johan Fourie receives funding from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.

En Afrique de l'Ouest, deux modèles de souveraineté face à face

2026-01-22T07:37:41Z

Depuis les luttes d’indépendance, la souveraineté occupe une place centrale dans les débats politiques africains. Elle renvoie à la conquête de l’autonomie, la quête de légitimité et la capacité des États à définir librement leur destin. Cette quête est continue et en lien profond avec l’histoire coloniale des Etats ouest-africains.

L’émergence de l’Alliance des États du Sahel (AES) – Mali, Burkina Faso et Niger– en septembre 2023, a ravivé ces débats ? plaçant au coeur des discussions les notions de souveraineté, de panafricanisme, de démocratie, alimentant les discussions à travers les médias classiques et sociaux. La souveraineté est ainsi devenue un marqueur idéologique structurant, cristallisant des oppositions entre des « pro-0ccident » vs « pro-bloc sino-russe ».

Cette recomposition se manifeste à travers deux dynamiques distinctes: d’un côté, l’AES qui prône une souveraineté de rupture, articulée autour de la sécurité, de la dignité nationale et du rejet des tutelles extérieures ; de l’autre, des démocraties consolidées comme le Sénégal, le Cap-Vert, le Bénin et le Ghana, qui défendent une posture fondée sur la légitimité électorale, la coopération régionale et l’ouverture internationale dans une égale dignité, comme fondement de leur souveraineté internationale.

Pour avoir étudié les régimes politiques et les questions de gouvernance en Afrique de l'Ouest, j'ai observé que là où les régimes militaires du Sahel central revendiquent une souveraineté défensive, parfois exclusive, les États démocratiques côtiers manifestent une autonomie de décision politique basée sur une tradition d’ouverture internationale.

Dès lors, une question s’impose : quels facteurs expliquent la divergence entre ces deux conceptions de la souveraineté en Afrique de l’Ouest, et que révèlent-elles des transformations actuelles de l’État postcolonial africain ?

Deux conceptions de la souveraineté

L’usage contemporain de la souveraineté en Afrique de l’Ouest renvoie moins à une définition juridique univoque qu’à deux idéaux-types de gouvernement, construits à partir de trajectoires politiques contrastées.

La souveraineté de rupture : l’Alliance des États du Sahel

Le premier idéal-type est celui d’une souveraineté de rupture, incarnée par l’Alliance des Etats du Sahel (AES), née de la Charte du Liptako-Gourma en septembre 2023. Dans ce modèle, la souveraineté cesse d’être exclusivement nationale pour prendre une forme régionalisée, articulée autour d’une architecture de défense collective et d’assistance mutuelle (article 2 de la Charte). Elle est pensée comme une capacité à protéger, à combattre le terrorisme et la criminalité en bande organisée (article 4 de la Charte).

Trois piliers structurent cette souveraineté. D’abord, la sécurité comme fondement premier de l’État : l’autorité souveraine se légitime par la lutte contre le terrorisme et la reconquête territoriale. Ensuite, un discours panafricaniste de rupture, qui présente la souveraineté comme émancipation vis-à-vis des puissances occidentales et des institutions régionales jugées dépendantes.

Enfin, la volonté de reconstruire un État fort et centralisé, où l’armée devient l’acteur principal de la refondation nationale et du contrôle des ressources stratégiques. La souveraineté y est défensive, symbolique et identitaire, indissociable de la dignité nationale et de la survie de l’État.

Plus que la lutte contre le terrorisme, l’objectif de l’alliance est fondamentalement politique et souverainiste. A ce propos, le président de transition du Mali Assimi Goïta dans son discours à la nation du 31 décembre 2025, déclarait :

L’année qui s’achève a consacré une avancée majeure dans notre combat pour la souveraineté avec la consolidation de l’Alliance des États du Sahel. Avec le Burkina Faso et le Niger, nous avons choisi l’unité, la solidarité et la défense collective comme réponses aux défis sécuritaires, politiques et économiques auxquels nos peuples sont confrontés.

La souveraineté de consolidation : les démocraties côtières stabilisées

À l’opposé, le second idéal-type est celui d’une souveraineté de consolidation, portée par des États côtiers comme le Sénégal, le Cap-Vert, le Bénin ou le Ghana. Ici, la souveraineté repose sur la légitimité électorale, la stabilité institutionnelle et la continuité de l’État de droit. Elle ne s’exerce pas contre l’ordre régional, mais à travers lui. Le président du Sénégal Bassirou Diomaye Faye déclarait lors de son discours d'investiture le 2 avril 2024 que

le Sénégal doit exercer pleinement sa souveraineté, dans le respect de ses engagements internationaux, mais en plaçant en priorité les intérêts du peuple sénégalais.

Ces États conçoivent la souveraineté comme une capacité d’action collective, fondée sur la coopération, l’intégration régionale et le multilatéralisme, notamment au sein de la Communauté économique des Etats d'Afrique de l'Ouest (Cedeao). La souveraineté n’y est pas synonyme d’isolement, mais d’influence partagée et de consolidation progressive de l’État.

Cinq points de divergence

Ces deux modèles se distinguent à travers cinq indicateurs.

- La centralité de la force armée

La souveraineté est pratique et se mesure à la capacité des armées à protéger, à sécuriser des territoires, à administrer, à user et imposer la force. Dans l’espace AES, la souveraineté est associée à la puissance militaire. Ainsi le militaire est partout comme instrument de coercition et au cœur du pouvoir politique. La sanctuarisation de l’état d’urgence, la médiatisation des succès militaires, la rhétorique de la guerre et la mise en scène d’un Etat protecteur participent à l’entretien de cette souveraineté militaire défensive.

En contraste, dans les démocraties côtières, la souveraineté repose moins sur l’omniprésence du militaire que sur la primauté de l’Etat de droit. La sécurité est une politique publique soumise au contrôle civil parlementaire. Toutefois au regard du contexte régional, l’insécurité constitue un défi et justifie un renforcement des capacités étatiques et une attention aux armées.

- Les fondements de la légitimité politique

La distinction entre les deux modèles est forte autour de cet indicateur. Dans les régimes de l’AES la légitimité n’est pas fondée par les urnes. Les transitions sont prolongées et perdent leur sens. L’insécurité fragilise les institutions. Le pouvoir repose sur la force populaire, pas sur les urnes. Les dirigeants cherchent légitimité par la rue plutôt que par la démocratie.

Dans les États dits démocraties stabilisées, la souveraineté est indissociable de la légitimité électorale.Les citoyens refusent tout report ou blocage des élections. Pourtant, dans certains pays, l’exclusion des principaux opposants dévoie la compétition électorale.

Dans les deux modèles la souveraineté cherche à s’ancrer dans une forme de reconnaissance populaire, mais par des mécanismes radicalement différents.

- Sécurité et droits

Pour les régimes militaires, la sécurité est une priorité absolue. Elle justifie ainsi la suspension ou la relativisation de droits et libertés. Au nom d’un état d’urgence, la lutte contre le terrorisme et la survie de l’Etat priment sur les garanties individuelles.

A l’inverse dans les souverainismes démocratiques, la sécurité est liée aux droits, à la justice, à la gouvernance inclusive. La souveraineté elle-même repose sur un cadre juridique.

- Place des oppositions et des contre-pouvoirs

La conséquence du tout sécuritaire dans l’espace AES est la remise en cause de la place centrale des oppositions politiques, des contre-pouvoirs dans la gouvernance politique. Les droits et libertés sont largement restreints. Les oppositions politiques sont écartées et la presse encadrée.

Les régimes militaires protègent leur légitimité face aux menaces internes. Dans les souverainismes démocratiques, le pluralisme et les libertés garantissent la légitimité de l’État.

- Rapport à l’international et à l’intégration régionale

Enfin les régimes de l’AES défendent une souveraineté de rupture vis-à-vis des institutions régionales et des partenaires occidentaux, accusés d’ingérence. Cette posture ne signifie pas l’autarcie : elle s’accompagne d’alliances alternatives (Russie, Chine) et d’une affirmation d’idéologie panafricaine parfois présentée en modèle sahélien.

Les démocraties côtières assument une souveraineté coopérative, fondée sur le multilatéralisme, la Cedeao, l’intégration régionale. La souveraineté ici n’est pas exclusive ou contre l’international mais à travers lui.

Les facteurs de la divergence

Les divergences s’enracinent dans des contextes historiques, politiques et économiques profondément asymétriques.

- Un contexte sécuritaire asymétrique

Le premier facteur explicatif tient à la géographie différenciée de la violence armée. Le Sahel central est devenu l’épicentre de l’insécurité depuis 2010. L’expansion des groupes djihadistes et la porosité des frontières ont affaibli l’autorité étatique. La souveraineté devient une urgence existentielle face à cette crise. La militarisation du pouvoir s’impose comme réponse pour préserver l’unité et la survie de l’État.

À l’inverse, les États côtiers comme le Sénégal ou le Ghana n’ont pas connu une telle intensité de violence armée. Cette relative stabilité sécuritaire a permis la continuité institutionnelle, la consolidation de l’État de droit et une souveraineté pensée dans la durée plutôt que dans l’urgence.

- Dynamiques politiques et crise différenciée de la légitimité démocratique

Le second facteur est politique. Dans l'espace AES, la montée des régimes de transition reflète une crise électorale. Les coups d’État et la perte de confiance expliquent le recul de la démocratie. Cette « fatigue démocratique » nourrit un souverainisme sahélien. Le peuple devient source directe du pouvoir, par la rue et le soutien populaire.

À l’inverse, dans les démocraties côtières, les alternances régulières consolident la confiance. La souveraineté y reste liée au suffrage et au respect des procédures.

- Des économies politiques contrastées

Les structures économiques jouent un rôle clé. Les pays enclavés du Sahel dépendent d’économies agro-extractives fragiles. Les conflits ont désorganisé la production et affaibli l’État. Cela renforce la tentation d’un pouvoir autoritaire centré sur les ressources.

De leur côté, les États côtiers, plus diversifiés et ouverts, privilégient la stabilité et l’intégration économique régionale.

- Reconfigurations géopolitiques et rapports à l’international

Enfin, les divergences tiennent à de profondes recompositions géopolitiques. Au Sahel, le retrait occidental et la rupture avec la Cedeao ont favorisé une souveraineté de défiance. Les régimes militaires recherchent des alliances alternatives. La souveraineté y devient protection et affirmation identitaire.

À l’opposé, le Sénégal et le Ghana privilégient, eux, une souveraineté coopérative. Ils s’inscrivent dans le multilatéralisme, tout en redéfinissant certains partenariats, notamment militaires. Au Sénégal, les autorités, tout en privilégiant des relations coopératives, ont remis en cause des accords de défense avec la France et rendu effectif le retrait des armées françaises du sol sénégalais.

Que retenir ?

Les deux modèles de souveraineté qui coexistent aujourd’hui en Afrique de l’Ouest ne sont pas des anomalies, mais les expressions d’une même quête d’autonomie dans des contextes différenciés.

Le souverainisme de rupture de l’AES répond à une crise de survie étatique, tandis que celui du Sénégal, du Ghana, du Cap-Vert, du Bénin, repose sur la stabilité institutionnelle et cherche à consolider une autonomie de décision à travers les institutions démocratiques.

Ces trajectoires traduisent deux manières d’adapter la souveraineté africaine au monde contemporain : l’une par la résistance et le refoulement de la tutelle occidentale, l’autre par l’intégration régionale politique et éconnomique.

Christian Abadioko Sambou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Tanzania’s president raised hopes for women’s political representation – the 2025 elections show much remains to be done

2026-01-21T14:21:26Z

President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s historic rise as Tanzania’s first woman head of state broke a decades-old tradition of male dominance. In keeping with political precedent, she also became chairperson of the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party. That made Hassan the first woman to hold this position.

For decades, women’s representation in Tanzania’s parliament has relied heavily on reserved quota seats rather than direct electoral success. With a woman as president, women’s rights organisations held high expectations for reforms that would dismantle systemic barriers to women’s political participation.

The reform priorities they championed included defined gender representation in party leadership. They also sought measures to address weaknesses associated with reserved seats. The quota system could be improved by introducing uniform nomination procedures, geographical accountability and term limits. Lobbyists also sought robust laws to end violence against women in elections.

Nine months into her tenure, Hassan established a taskforce to review Tanzania’s multiparty democratic framework. Among other things, its report made two important proposals to promote gender inclusion in political participation:

a requirement that no gender should constitute less than 40% of leadership positions within political parties
a mandate for all political parties to entrench equality and strengthen internal democracy.

The taskforce report crystallised in three key laws:

These new laws contained several positive developments. All political parties were required to implement gender and social inclusion policies. Gender-based violence was recognised as an electoral offence.

I am a legal scholar with a research interest in women’s political participation on the continent, both at the national level and within political parties. I was keen to assess how the reforms undertaken in 2024 would pan out in the 2025 elections.

My analysis of the 2025 election results shows that there were some minor gains. Women constituted 32.2% (558 out of 1,735) of parliamentary candidates in 2025, up from 23.3% in 2020. This suggests a modest expansion of women’s participation at the candidacy stage. But it also underscores the persistence of structural barriers to equal political competition, with men comprising 68% of parliamentary candidates.

However, the limited progress observed at the parliamentary level collapses sharply at the local level. Only 9.6% (700 out of 7,289) of candidates for local councils were women. This is an alarmingly low figure, given the importance of these positions for developing future leadership pipelines.

It’s my argument that the 2025 elections demonstrate that the presence of a woman at the helm, while symbolically powerful, does not necessarily translate into a gender-equitable electoral environment.

Reform gaps

Public participation was made a central part of the legislative process. This was a welcome shift from the previous administration’s approach in which most laws were passed under certificate of urgency. But the reforms glaringly failed to advance tangible progress.

Conspicuously missing were mandatory quotas for women’s representation across crucial spheres: party leadership, nomination lists, and electoral-management bodies.

Furthermore, there are no political-party financing mechanisms or public subsidies to women, youth, or persons with disabilities that would improve equity. The lack of exemptions from election deposits for marginalised groups further reinforced existing structural barriers to political participation.

The appointment procedures outlined in the Independent Electoral Commission Act offered no assurance of gender balance within the electoral management body’s composition.

What can be said for the reforms is that they strengthened accessibility measures for persons with disabilities and illiterate voters. Also significant was the expansion of the Independent Electoral Commission’s mandate to include local-government elections. This addressed long-standing demands to detach the local elections from ministerial influence.

A particularly significant change was the abolition of unopposed victories. All candidates, even in uncontested races, would now face a mandatory “Yes” or “No” vote. The abolition of unopposed victories removed a key mechanism through which electoral outcomes were previously engineered at the nomination stage.

Under the old system, party elites could secure automatic wins by blocking or pressuring rivals – often women aspirants – out of the race. This often left more influential candidates to be declared elected without voter input. Requiring a mandatory “Yes” or “No” vote reintroduced voter scrutiny, reduced the incentive to manipulate nominations, and limited the use of procedural exclusion to sideline women candidates.

Political parties as gendered gatekeepers

My analysis of party practices towards the 2025 general elections shows that these limitations in national law found parallels in political-party practices. In January 2025, Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema)’s internal elections resulted in all top positions being retained by men. This continued a trend dating back to 1992.

Chadema’s “No Reform, No Elections” stance led to its controversial exclusion from the 2025 polls. Its absence carried gendered implications, given the party’s consistent record of fielding a higher number of female candidates than other parties.

In 2020, Chadema fielded 58 women candidates, compared to CCM’s 24. While all CCM women candidates reportedly won their seats, only one Chadema woman did so. Chadema’s absence in the 2025 elections therefore reduced the overall pool of female aspirants.

At ACT-Wazalendo, the party’s Dorothy Semu was sidelined in favour of Luhaga Mpina for the presidential race. Mpina, a CCM defector, was then barred from contesting due to legal and procedural battles.

Against this backdrop, CCM appointed Asha Rose Migiro as its first female party general secretary, a milestone in a wider context of political manoeuvring.

Women as candidates

Women were represented as presidential candidates (18%) and as running mates (53%). The United Movement for Democracy became the first party in Tanzanian history to field women for both executive positions. For the first time, Zanzibar featured women, Laila Rajab Khamis, Isha Salim Hamad and Naima Salum Hamad, on the presidential ballot.

There were 272 elective parliamentary seats in 2025. This translates to 115 reserved seats for women. The 155 are joined by 36 women elected from constituencies. The representation of 39.5% is an improvement over the 2020 election outcome of 37.5%.

The 2025 national elections unfolded amid nationwide demonstrations which prompted a curfew in the capital and a nationwide internet shutdown. President Hassan was announced to have received 97.6% of the votes and was sworn in. However, both the Southern African Development Community and African Union missions reported that the elections fell short of regional standards for democratic and inclusive processes.

Opposition sources and later the government reported widespread electoral violence that led to death and destruction of properties.

Symbolism without structural change

The results of this election show that Tanzania is yet to address the structural challenges associated with women’s reserved seats.

For real change to occur, high-level representation must be accompanied by deep structural reforms. These include:

mandatory party quotas within political party leadership structures and candidate lists
gender quotas in the composition of Independent National Electoral Commission
a proportional representation electoral system
equitable resourcing for women aspirants and candidates
allowing independent candidacy
a mindset shift that challenges societal biases and affirms women’s leadership among citizens and electoral stakeholders.

The political commitment for substantive gender equality must go above merely numerical representation.

Victoria Melkisedeck Lihiru does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

What should education look like today? 6 essential reads on learning together

2026-01-21T14:16:06Z

Kelly Skema, Unsplash, CC BY

The United Nations made 24 January the International Day of Education to highlight the role of education in peace and development. In 2026 the theme is “the power of youth in co-creating education”. This refers to “involving young people and students in global decision making in education” and to young people’s initiatives to safeguard everyone’s right to education.

To mark the occasion, we’re sharing some of the articles our authors have contributed in the past year.

Learning to flip

School children don’t always seem too enthusiastic about their role in learning. An official education policy might encourage active learning and critical thinking, but all too often the reality in schools is “chalk and talk”, or rote learning, where only the teacher’s input counts.

What stops educators from using more effective methods? Lizélle Pretorius tells the story of what happened when she asked teachers to “flip the classroom” – getting learners to contribute more.

Nigeria’s private school closures

Simply getting into school and staying there is a challenge for many children in Nigeria, where authorities have been shutting down private schools on safety and quality grounds. Thelma Obiakor studied the reasons that children are enrolled in these schools in the first place, and what the consequences of closing them could be.

Violence at school

It’s hard to imagine young people being able to co-create their education if they are exposed to violence at school. This is a problem in southern African countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini, Zambia, Malawi and Angola, according to researchers. Gift Khumalo, Bokang Lipholo and Nosipho Faith Makhakhe reviewed the studies to learn more about what’s creating this problem and how it can be solved.

The dangers of AI

What does co-creating education mean in a world where artificial intelligence (AI) can do so much? Well, human expertise and critical thinking matter more than ever, argue Sioux McKenna and Nompilo Tshuma. They outline four dangers facing students, and three steps universities can take to prepare them.

AI as an opportunity

AI is actually an opportunity to learn critical thinking, writes Anitia Lubbe. Let AI take some pressure off educators by doing certain kinds of tasks, freeing up more time for self-directed learning. And test the uniquely human skills and attributes of students.

Measuring what matters

In the academic world, you get what you test for. Researchers are judged and rewarded on the basis of indicators like citation counts and journal impact factors – and these are biased against African scholarship, according to Eutychus Ngotho Gichuru and Archangel Byaruhanga Rukooko. They propose a new, complementary metric which puts a value on the local relevance and community impact of academic output. This would also measure co-creation of knowledge with communities, interdisciplinary teamwork and other cooperative efforts.

Bats, bushbabies and aardvark edge closer to extinction in southern Africa

2026-01-21T11:59:36Z

A new list of threatened mammals in South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini shows that 11 more species have edged closer to extinction since 2016. Those that have joined the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s regional Red List for mammals at risk are: Lesueur’s hairy bat, the laminate vlei rat, the thick-tailed bushbaby, the aardvark and the African straw-coloured fruit bat. The Namaqua dune mole-rat showed one of the sharpest declines, jumping from Least Concern to Endangered. Joseph Ogutu is a statistician who researches collapsing wildlife populations in Africa. He explains that of the 336 mammals assessed, 70 are now threatened and 42% of the mammals only found in South Africa are at risk of extinction.

What does an uplisting on the Red List actually mean?

The latest, 2025 Red List is compiled by the Endangered Wildlife Trust and South African National Biodiversity Institute. If an animal is “uplisted” on the list, it has been moved to a higher extinction‐risk category.

An uplisting can reflect either:

a genuine deterioration in the mammal’s population (a real decline, worsening threats or a loss of habitat) or
that new knowledge has come to light (for example if the mammal’s numbers were previously over- or underestimated).

An uplisting isn’t a headline-grabbing label. It’s the science catching up to whether the risk to the mammals has worsened or not, or whether conservationists have developed more accurate ways of measuring the risk.

The latest Red List assessments are based on evidence gathered by 150 experts through the Endangered Wildlife Trust and South African National Biodiversity Institute between 2016 and 2025. Over this time, they monitored mammal species’ populations carefully through surveys and calculated how much the mammals’ habitat was shrinking (leaving them less space to live on and less chance of survival). They’ve also used the data recorded by citizen scientists who logged sightings of the mammals during this time.

This latest Red List recognises that mammals are declining because of drought, heat, water shortages and less opportunity to forage and graze.

Even previously common animals are now on the list. Does this mean southern Africa’s mammals are doomed?

The uplisting shows that humans continue to drive wildlife loss. The expanding human footprint signals that pressures on mammals will increase further, placing not only rare mammals in danger but also species that were previously assumed to be resilient.

This does not mean mammals are generally doomed. It means the margin of safety for mammals is shrinking. Without decisive, consistent action to reduce pressures on the mammals and protect their habitats, the outlook – especially for large mammals – remains bleak in a warmer world where the human population is increasing.

A wide range of mammal species are adversely affected, including both endemic (those only found in southern Africa) and non-endemic (those found in other places too) species. They range from less widely known bat species to well known large mammals such as the thick-tailed bushbaby and the aardvark.

In fact, the latest regional Red List shows that 67 mammals (about 20%) are deemed to be threatened with extinction, and 39 (11.5%) are Near Threatened. The species most in danger are those affected by where they live. In other words, how fast their habitat is changing, and how little room remains for ecological “error”. They are the mammals that can’t “move away” from change, because they can only live in a limited area.

These mammals have less protection than was earlier thought. And to make matters worse, their habitat is contested by competing land uses: cultivation, grazing, settlement, infrastructure and extractive development, often under overlapping community, private, and state claims.

I would dare say, when “common” species start becoming more at risk of extinction, it’s not a verdict of doom, it’s a stark warning, like a smoke alarm.

Some species’ numbers improved. What worked?

Three species improved – the roan antelope was downlisted from Endangered to Vulnerable, while the southern elephant seal and Hartmann’s mountain zebra were both moved to Least Concern.

This downlisting is due to successful interventions. These could have included sustained conservation, which reduced the threats to these mammals. It’s likely there were more efforts to protect their habitats. Working in public-private partnerships with businesses could have helped. Even using better quality data to make better decisions would have been effective.

The practical lesson from this is that improvement is rarely driven by one thing. Rather, it comes from ongoing measures that reduce the deaths of mammals, secure their habitat, and force managers to update tactics as monitoring shows what’s working – and what isn’t.

Downlisting isn’t luck – it’s what happens when protection is real, threats are reduced, and monitoring is good enough to prove it.

What needs to happen next?

The government, private sector and citizens need to do much more, and invest more, in protecting wildlife and habitats. The recurring trends where large land mammals are moving closer to extinction shows that not enough is being done to protect southern Africa’s mammals.

More money is needed to protect species and the kind of environment they need to live in.

There are at least three things that need to be done urgently:

Development of housing, farms, roads and energy infrastructure must be designed around the environment.
Conservation can no longer happen in isolated, fenced off islands. A landscape systems approach will protect mammals and other threatened species better. This is where reserves are connected, governments work together to protect animals that live in cross boundary areas and where conservation also happens outside park fences.

Climate-proof conservation is needed. This is where conservation recognises that heat, drought and water scarcity are going to become ongoing, chronic pressures on animals as the climate heats up. They will not be rare shocks.

The uplisting of so many species shows that conservation will not be saved by better words; it will be saved by better choices – funded, enforced and maintained.

The next phase of conservation needs to be about more than just saving species. It must be about redesigning the human footprint so that mammals are assured of spaces that still have enough suitable habitat (food, cover, water), lower human pressure (less use of wild land for human purposes, conflict, poaching), and stronger protection and management (parks, well-run reserves, and some conservancies).

Joseph Ogutu is a Senior Statistician and Researcher at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany. He is affiliated with The Greater Serengeti-Mara Conservation Society and the One Mara Research Hub.

Adaptation climatique : pourquoi les indicateurs de Belém comptent pour l’Afrique

2026-01-21T09:17:03Z

Lors du sommet mondial sur le climat de 2025, la COP30, qui s'est tenu à Belém, au Brésil, une décision a eu des conséquences majeures pour l'Afrique. Les pays se sont mis d'accord sur un nouvel ensemble d'indicateurs pour mesurer les progrès.

Les « indicateurs d'adaptation de Belém » ont été élaborés au cours d'un processus de deux ans mené par les Nations unies.

Bien que le nom puisse sembler technique, l'idée est simple. Pour la première fois, les pays disposent désormais d'un moyen commun de déterminer si le monde s'adapte réellement mieux aux effets du changement climatique. L'adaptation au climat consiste à prendre des mesures pour se préparer et faire face aux effets du changement climatique. Ces effets comprennent les inondations, les sécheresses, les vagues de chaleur, l'érosion côtière, les pertes de récoltes et les déplacements de populations liés au climat.

Les indicateurs de Belém

Alors, que sont exactement les indicateurs de Belém et comment fonctionnent-ils ?

Il s'agit d'un nouvel ensemble de 60 mesures simples qui aident les pays à suivre leur niveau d'adaptation au changement climatique. Ils examinent les éléments qui affectent la vie quotidienne des populations. Il s'agit notamment de la sécurité de l'approvisionnement en eau, des systèmes alimentaires, de la santé, du logement, des systèmes d'alerte précoce, des écosystèmes et des économies locales. Au lieu de se concentrer uniquement sur les politiques écrites sur papier, les indicateurs examinent si les communautés deviennent réellement plus sûres et mieux à même de faire face aux inondations, aux sécheresses, aux vagues de chaleur et aux autres menaces climatiques.

Les indicateurs sont regroupés en thèmes clés, tels que :

réduire les risques climatiques : systèmes d'alerte précoce, préparation aux catastrophes
renforcer la résilience : systèmes de santé, sécurité alimentaire et hydrique
protéger les écosystèmes : forêts, zones humides et zones côtières
soutenir les personnes vulnérables : genre, handicap, groupes autochtones
suivre les finances et les ressources : comment les fonds destinés à l'adaptation sont acheminés vers les communautés.

Ensemble, ces 60 mesures offrent aux pays un moyen commun de comprendre et de suivre les progrès réalisés et les domaines dans lesquels un soutien est nécessaire de toute urgence.

Pendant des années, l'adaptation a été abordée en termes généraux, souvent sans mesures claires des progrès réalisés. Les indicateurs de Belém visent à changer cela en fournissant un langage commun pour décrire ce qu'implique la résilience et si les populations, en particulier les plus vulnérables, deviennent plus sûres.

En tant que spécialiste de la réduction des risques de catastrophe et de l'adaptation au changement climatique, j'ai examiné les nouveaux indicateurs de Belém et leur pertinence pour l'Afrique. Ils représentent une étape importante à l'échelle mondiale, mais leur succès dépendra d'un financement solide, d'une conception inclusive et d'une mise en œuvre localement ancrée Avec la COP32 qui se tiendra à Addis-Abeba, l'Afrique peut contribuer à transformer ces indicateurs d'ambition en impact réel.

Pourquoi est-ce important pour l'Afrique ?

L'Afrique subit certaines des conséquences climatiques les plus graves au monde. Dans l'ouest et le centre de l'Afrique, les inondations ont déplacé des centaines de milliers de personnes. Parallèlement, une chaleur record dans tout le Sahel met à rude épreuve les systèmes de santé, de production alimentaire et de systèmes d'énergie.

Dans le même temps, les communautés africaines trouvent leurs propres solutions, qu'il s'agisse de systèmes d'alerte précoce locaux, de projets basés sur la nature, de groupes d'épargne communautaires ou de pratiques agricoles innovantes.

Mais jusqu'à présent, il n'existait aucun moyen global de reconnaître ces efforts, de suivre les progrès ou d'identifier les endroits où l'aide est la plus nécessaire. Les indicateurs de Belém commencent à combler cette lacune.

Pour l'Afrique, c'est important. Trop souvent, les moyennes nationales masquent de fortes inégalités. Elles cachent des écarts entre les zones rurales et urbaines, entre les familles riches et pauvres, et entre les groupes exposés à des menaces climatiques très différentes. Mettre l'accent sur l'équité permet d'éviter que les personnes les plus exposées ne soient ignorées.

Mais les indicateurs ne sont pas parfaits

Si l'adoption des indicateurs d'adaptation de Belém constitue une avancée majeure, ils ne sont toutefois pas, à mon avis, l'outil abouti dont le monde a besoin.

De nombreux négociateurs, observateurs et experts techniques ont noté que plusieurs éléments ont été édulcorés lors des dernières phases de négociation, rendant certains indicateurs plus généraux ou moins précis que prévu initialement. D'autres nécessitent des informations que de nombreux pays africains ne sont pas encore en mesure de collecter régulièrement, faute de systèmes ou de ressources.

Les pays manquent souvent de données fiables sur les dommages annuels causés par les effets du changement climatique, tels que les inondations ou les sécheresses. Ils ne disposent pas toujours d'évaluations locales permettant d'identifier les communautés les plus exposées et les raisons de cette exposition. En outre, ils ont du mal à vérifier si les fonds alloués à l'adaptation parviennent réellement aux personnes qui en ont besoin.

Ces défis ne remettent pas en cause la valeur du cadre. Ils mettent plutôt en évidence une réalité pratique : s'accorder sur des indicateurs mondiaux n'est qu'une première étape. Pour les rendre significatifs, mesurables et équitables, en particulier pour les pays confrontés aux risques climatiques les plus élevés, il faudra les affiner davantage. C'est pourquoi la prochaine phase de travail est d'une grande importance.

Deux ans pour agir : de Belém à Addis-Abeba

Afin de renforcer les indicateurs, les pays se sont mis d'accord sur ce qu'on appelle la «Vision Belém-Addis», un processus de deux ans visant à affiner le cadre et à le rendre plus pratique. Le moment est symbolique : la COP32, en 2027, se tiendra à Addis-Abeba, en Éthiopie. Le monde s'attend à ce que les indicateurs soient plus clairs, plus faciles à utiliser et mieux adaptés aux différentes régions d'ici là.

Ce parcours de deux ans, de Belém à Addis, offre une opportunité unique à l'Afrique. La COP32 sera le premier véritable test pour déterminer si ces indicateurs peuvent aider les pays à évaluer et à communiquer les progrès réalisés en matière d'adaptation.

L'Afrique peut montrer la voie, et non se contenter de suivre

La contribution de l'Afrique sera essentielle pour deux raisons.

Premièrement, les défis climatiques du continent sont divers et évoluent rapidement. Les solutions qui fonctionnent dans un domaine peuvent ne pas fonctionner dans un autre. Cette diversité fait de l'Afrique le meilleur terrain d'essai pour les indicateurs mondiaux qui visent à refléter la complexité du monde réel.

Deuxièmement, l'Afrique est déjà une source d'innovation. La préparation communautaire aux catastrophes, les systèmes de connaissances autochtones, les services d'information climatique locaux et les stratégies de gestion de la mobilité climatique offrent des enseignements dont le monde peut tirer parti. Ces expériences devraient être intégrées dans le cadre des indicateurs, plutôt que d'être considérées comme des éléments secondaires.

Mais pour que l'Afrique puisse jouer ce rôle, elle aura besoin d'aide.

Une étape importante, mais le travail reste à faire

Les indicateurs d'adaptation de Belém apportent au monde ce qui lui manquait depuis longtemps : une approche commune, compréhensible et ciblée pour discuter de l'adaptation, axée sur ce qui importe le plus, à savoir la sécurité et le bien-être des populations. Mais ils ne sont pas une solution définitive. Ils sont un point de départ.

Avec la COP32 qui se tiendra à Addis-Abeba, l'Afrique a une occasion rare d'influer sur la prochaine génération d'outils d'adaptation mondiaux et de s'assurer qu'ils fonctionnent pour ceux qui vivent en première ligne du changement climatique.

Si le voyage de Belém à Addis est utilisé à bon escient, le monde sera mieux outillé pour construire des sociétés résilientes. Sinon, un temps précieux aura été perdu dans une décennie où chaque année compte.

Olasunkanmi Habeeb Okunola est chercheur principal à l'Institut pour l'environnement et la sécurité humaine (UNU-EHS) de l'Université des Nations Unies. Il a reçu de nombreuses bourses de recherche axées sur l'adaptation au changement climatique et la réduction des risques de catastrophe.