Here’s the latest edition of Africa Update! We’ve got 1.4 million resumes to review in Nigeria, the (possible) end of tsetse flies, Kenya’s first online archive of LGBT+ life, anti-colonial acronyms, and more.
West Africa: Ghana is trying to raise US$3 billion in investment with a new bond targeted at the diaspora. Unfortunately that money might go to vanity projects like replacing all of the country’s still-functional electronic voting machines. Burkina Faso is taking a big gamble in arming local vigilantes to fight Islamic rebel groups. Unemployment is a serious problem in Nigeria, where 1.4 million people recently applied for 5000 civil defense jobs.
Central Africa: Rwanda is still trying to make English the official language used in schools, despite rich evidence that students learn best in the language they speak at home. Rwanda is also locking up and abusing children living on the streets in the name of “rehabilitation.” Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza isn’t running for president again in the next elections, but he is getting a golden parachute with a lifetime salary and a luxury villa after stepping down.
East Africa: Sudan is opening up its gold market and doubling civil servant salaries while slashing fuel subsidies in an attempt to jump-start its moribund economy. Check out this a great cartoon about the upsides and downsides of urbanization in Ethiopia. In Kenya, gambling is increasingly seen as a chance to learn a livelihood outside of state-funded patronage networks. Kenya’s foreign policy towards Somalia has grown increasingly bellicose over recent years. This was a heartbreaking piece about the civilians killed by US airstrikes in Somalia.
Southern Africa: A new law means that South Africa can block refugees from seeking asylum if they engage in political activism in their home countries. Meet the activists fighting for the rights of domestic workers in South Africa. In Lesotho, the prime minister has resigned after evidence came out that his current wife may have had his ex-wife murdered so that she could be the official First Lady. The billionaire Zimbabwean owner of Econet is paying the country’s striking doctors to return to work out of his own pocket. Zimbabwe has run out of money to deport undocumented immigrants, leaving many of them languishing in jail for months. In a landmark ruling, the high court in Malawi has ordered the country to re-run its recent election.
Politics & economics: Check out this interactive map of upcoming elections across Africa. Here’s a good summary of the political history of African states before colonization. What are some reasons to be optimistic about economic growth and life expectancy in Africa? This is some useful background on West African countries’ plan to replace the CFA currency with the eco. As transport routes with China are shut due to coronavirus fears, many Ugandan traders are also facing shortages of imported goods.
Environment & resources: Climate change is almost uniformly a bad thing, but one possible exception is that rising temperatures might kill off the tsetse fly and end the spread of sleeping sickness across Africa. In Uganda, people in gold mining communities are being poisoned by the mercury used to refine the gold. The DRC’s long-delayed Inga III mega-dam project has just been pushed further down the road with disputes among the major contractors about the dam’s design.
Health: A new study in Liberia finds that motorcycles are still more efficient than drones for transporting medical supplies. In Zambia, rates of stroke are rising as the population ages, but there are only five neurologists being trained to deal with this. Meet the researchers who are coordinating the African fight against coronavirus at the Institut Pasteur in Senegal. This Nigeria researcher is working to develop anti-cancer drugs from indigenous African plants.
Gender: Meet 14 inspiring women in science from across Africa. What can African governments do to reduce the burden of unpaid care work for women and girls? Women who run for political office in Uganda can increasingly expect to face online harassment from men. In Tanzania, women often don’t ask to use contraception because they feel that their husbands won’t approve. Climate change might increase the risk of premature births in countries like the Gambia, where many women are subsistence farmers who work outside all day and can’t avoid increased temperatures.
Globalization: The Oxford English Dictionary is adding dozens of words from Nigerian English in recognition of the language’s global use. Here’s how American consulting firms helped Angola’s Isabel dos Santos try to legitimize the money her family had corruptly acquired. Meet the Soviet-era architects who shaped the visual landscapes of Accra and Lagos. Read about the 10 critical issues which will shape China-Africa relations in 2020. Here’s why the Gambian Minister of Justice sued Myanmar at the ICC to force the country to stop persecuting the Rohingya.
Culture: Check out KumbuKumbu, the first online archive of LGBT+ life in Kenya. What are the top 10 things to know about getting young Kenyans engaged in politics? This was a lovely essay about polychronic time-keeping and food in South Africa. Meet the first professor with a PhD in African indigenous astronomy. I can’t wait to watch the Netflix adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy!