Africa Up Close

From toilet paper and baby formula shortages to skyrocketing global gas prices, the past two years presented challenges across the globe In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War have highlighted the interconnectedness of the world’s economies, especially regarding resource management and supply chains. It has also exposed, more than ever before, who benefits and suffers in these interconnected trade deals. As the most natural resource-rich continent on the planet, yet widely considered the most impoverished, this disconnect raises the question: where is Africa’s wealth going?

From September 12-16, 2022, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Africa Program hosted the 2022 Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP) Annual Conference, “Business Unusual: A Rapidly Changing World Calls for Adapting Peacebuilding in Africa.”

The conference convened 26 members and representatives in Washington D.C. from 21 SVNP organizations, SVNP scholar alumni, members of the public, policymakers, practitioners, experts, and international stakeholders to assess the current state of peace and security in Africa and analyze how peacebuilding approaches can or should change to fit the current environment. 

Amidst Ethiopia’s political transition beginning in 2018 along with the ongoing war, the completion of Ethiopia’s fourth decennial national census has slipped through the cracks. Now five years past its originally scheduled date in 2017, the government postponed the census a third time in June 2020. Initially delayed over domestic security concerns, the 2020 rescheduling was in response to COVID-19 hindering the preparation and implementation of the count. As a result, the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) released its first electoral constituencies map in March 2020 using census data from 2007. The electoral map demarcation used census data from 1994—when Ethiopia’s population was roughly half of what it is today. When asked in 2019 about the census, NEBE Chairwoman Birtukan Mideksa said it had no bearing on the then-upcoming election because the NEBE only needed the number of registered voters to structure polling stations and hold elections.

From June 16-17, 2022, members of the Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP) hosted the Regional Policy Conference, “Peacebuilding in the Great Lakes Region,” in Kampala, Uganda. The Women’s International Peace Centre (The Peace Centre), the Centre d’Etudes pour l’Action Sociale (CEPAS), the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR-Rwanda), and the Centre for Conflict Management (CCM) of the University of Rwanda co-hosted the conference.

Fig. A: Independent research by Pearl Matibe, Research Scholar. Source: US Department of State

How and why do we see more diplomatic engagement between Africa and the United States since the Russia-Ukraine war?

In comparison to the analysis of the 2017-2022 US Department of State’s Public Schedules to 2022’s first six months, travel to Africa tripled for secretaries of state, undersecretaries, and assistant secretaries. In 2017, under Secretary Rex Tillerson, it was over four-times lower, whereas, under Secretary Michael Pompeo in 2018, data indicates increased activity. Compared to prior years, travel to African countries increased threefold, from 6 percent to just under 18 percent after the war started under Secretary Antony Blinken.

This blog was originally posted on NewSecurityBeat, a blog of the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center.

“The food system is complex; it is not just about food production,” said Florence Odiwuor, a Kenyan Southern Voices for Peacebuilding Scholar, at a recent event on the role of food security systems in sustainable peacebuilding in Africa hosted by the Wilson Center’s Africa Program. As a lecturer at the School of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Environmental Studies at Rongo University, Odiwour observed that given the food system’s interconnectedness with issues like education, gender, finance, and labor, “disruptions or failures in the [food] system have caused a lot of conflict in [Kenya].

In African countries, agriculture is the backbone of most economies, contributing about 25 percent to their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) yet it is dominated by smallholder farmers. Smallholder farms account for only 12 percent of the world’s farmland, yet they provide an estimated 80 percent of the food produced in Asia and Africa. Although smallholder farmers play a key role in contributing to global food security, they are vulnerable and often neglected by policy strategies—leaving them poor and hungry. As a result, smallholder farmers increasingly face several constraints. They have limited resource endowment, and production systems which is marked by simple, outdated technologies, low returns, high seasonal labor fluctuations and further constrained by climate and market price fluctuations. Their outputs are often rain-fed with relatively small food volumes produced primarily for local consumption, although a few commodities may be marketed. Additionally, smallholder farmers are prone to a spectrum of emerging climatic, health, price, and financial risks.

Background

Nigeria is a diverse country manifested by culture, religion, ethnicity, language, climate, occupation, and education. Diversity is usually preached as strength when the country faces ethno-religious crises that threaten its unity and peaceful coexistence. But its cohesive role is relegated when either ethnicity or religion is invoked to curry favor or to outwit one another in politics. There have been different perspectives to the narrative about the problems of Nigeria, with insignificant efforts to solve the issues and strengthen the unity of the country.

This blog was originally posted on NewSecurityBeat, a blog of the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center

Seeing Loreta sort and dry her Omena sardines at the shores of Lake Victoria in Western Kenya, one may dismiss this small, middle-aged woman as an ordinary fishmonger struggling to earn a living.

Introduction 

Elections are among the most effective ways of promoting participation in governance, representation, and uniting diverse groups–where the process is free, fair, and just. Nigeria has conducted many elections and witnessed a plethora of electoral problems, which the roots lay in systemic disjuncture amid efforts by government and election management bodies to transform the electoral processes and safeguard the integrity of election outcomes. While there has been persistent agitation against exclusion, the government has made some efforts to use legislation and eliminate the semblance of disparity in opportunities for elective positions. The essence is to mitigate exclusion that countermands the quest for inclusive electoral process. However, monetized politics introduced and sustained by older politicians remain a disincentive for youth participation. The problem has become a dilemma for the extant politicians that are wealthy and influence the system in their favor and the emerging forces of youth agitations in Nigeria.