Africa Up Close

A news control room. Photo courtesy of Ross G. Strachan via Flickr Commons. 

For decades, the mass media has shaped the world’s view of what is important in our daily lives—our social and political realities—through its ability to influence information and how it is presented.[1] As such, the media has been, and still is, a powerful tool in shaping our perceptions of what matters in our world today. If used well, this inherent power of the media can be of great value in the prioritization of the demographic dividend framework in Africa’s policymaking processes. The media has the power to raise the profile of the demographic dividend agenda in Africa’s development conversations and sustain policymakers’ attention. At any given time, policymakers have several competing policy priorities that may be influenced by their personal interests, opinions, and worldview,[2] not to mention the complex nature of the policymaking process that involves many moving pieces.[3] Media coverage of issues relating to the demographic dividend is critical now more than ever. Despite high-level conversations on the demographic dividend over the past five years, including the 2017 African Union Summit where African leaders committed to investing in the large youthful population to steer development,[4] there is still worry that the demographic dividend ‘hype’ may die out if these conversations do not translate into action at the policymaking level.

Customers shopping at a grocery store. Photo courtesy of Amy via Flickr Commons. 

Professor Michael Porter, head of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at the Harvard University School of Business, and Mark Kramer, Managing Director of FSG, a social impact advisory firm, pulled no punches when discussing the deleterious effect that capitalism has on the state of the earth and the relationships between those who inhabit it in a 2011 article in the Harvard Business Review. The blind spot of capitalist business practice, they argue, is the belief that business is all about profit, no matter the effect on the environment, health, or welfare of those affected along the supply chain. They believe that blindly prioritizing profit has underpinned a global loss of trust in business and led some governments to adopt policies that hurt business. They also argue that corporate social responsibility investments have not helped. They often do not yield the expected positive results—not for business or for the communities or projects that should benefit from the investment.

Nigeria’s National Assembly. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.  

The Nigerian Senate, through the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information, Alhaji Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, recently announced that it was proposing a law that would seek the death penalty for perpetrators of hate speech. Skeptics thought that the legislative body was again embarking on a familiar, self-serving endeavor to further impunity in the country. Some may laugh at this proposal, but it is very shocking and alarming that such a proposal is being made in a growing democracy like Nigeria, as well as at a time when other countries across the world are making efforts to roll back the use of the death penalty. Merely proposing such legislation speaks volumes to the current state of the Nigerian Senate. Especially in the context of the recent corruption scandal, in which members of the legislature were found illegally pocketing about USD$50,000 that they allotted to themselves monthly, in a country where 65 percent of the population survives on less than one dollar a day amidst pervasive poverty.

African Women Leaders Network. Photo courtesy of the United Nations via Flickr Commons. 

Today, African leaders agree that Africa has a great opportunity to reap economic benefits from strategic investments made to the continent’s current large youthful population. In the 2013 Sixth Joint African Union Commission (AUC) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) Annual Conference of the African Ministers of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development, policymakers and experts recognized the potential of the demographic dividend to transform Africa by reducing poverty and spurring economic growth. Since then, as a result of continuous engagements between population and development experts and policymakers over the years, several other milestones have been achieved. These include the Addis Ababa Declaration on Population and Development in Africa Beyond 2014; the African Union (AU) Common African Position (CAP) on the Post 2015 Development Agenda; and the Africa Agenda 2063– The Africa We Want. These milestones culminated into the 2017 AU theme, where African leaders committed to investing in Africa’s large youthful population to drive development. We can now say that there is a continental consensus between policymakers and experts on the potential the demographic dividend has to transform Africa.

Telia company logo courtesy of Håkan Dahlström via Flickr Commons.

How to marshal the knowledge, resources, and power of the private sector to achieve good social outcomes? This has been a holy grail of many working in the social justice and non-profit sector. It may seem self-evident that achieving good social outcomes—more development, a healthier population and less violence—is in the interests of business. But, that is simply not the case. Alcohol companies that market their products aggressively in poor neighborhoods feed high levels of inter-personal violence and increase risky sexual behavior, both at great cost to the health system and society. And companies producing fast foods and sodas have contributed to high levels of obesity and diabetes globally. These are just two examples of how business interests do not always align with social interests.

African Union Headquarters. Photo courtesy of UNAMID via Flickr Commons.

The African Union (AU) is swiftly emerging as a significant security and peacebuilding actor on the international scene. It has a clear role, as a regional body under the UN Charter Chapter VIII), to deal with situations constituting threats to international peace and security. However, as continental integration accelerates, several scholars of African peace and security studies have noted worrisome trends in the African Union’s practices regarding security and growing militarization.[1] These trends also constituted the main research theme for conference “African Security and Unbridled Militarization? New Approaches to African Peace and Security Governance,” held from November 22 to 23, 2017 in Uppsala, Sweden. The conference convened leading researchers in the field of African security governance, who made a number of important observations on African peace and security.

H.E. President Emmerson D. Mnangagwa at the 25th Session of the Human Rights Council. Photo courtesy of the United Nations Geneva via Flickr Commons. 

Zimbabwe is coming in from the cold. After 37 years of mismanagement and decline under Robert Mugabe, the population of the former breadbasket of Africa had enough, and ousted its leader in November 2017. While in many respects the bloodless coup was simply a re-organization and consolidation of power in the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), Zimbabwe now has the opportunity to shed its pariah status and re-engineer its future. This will not be an easy task as cronyism, corruption, and maladministration have become so commonplace that any move towards just governance will seem radical and viewed (at least by some) as a betrayal.

Fulani herders and cattle in Nigeria. Photo courtesy of Dr. Mary Gillham Archive Project via Flickr Commons. 

The sporadic and ongoing violent conflicts between herdsmen and farmers in rural communities in Nigeria is a serious threat to human security and development in the country. The conflicts also have a strong potential to spread to other neighboring countries in West Africa, but the international community has remained silent on the possibility of the conflict spreading. On New Year’s Day, Fulani herdsmen killed about 73 people in a farming community in Benue state. The victims included women, children, and young and old residents of the community. An arrest or prosecution has yet to happen, and similar violence has occurred across the country since then. A slow response from the government has led to suspicions in the media that the government is in support of the Fulani militiamen involved in the violence. Furthermore, it is alleged that some of the Fulani militiamen migrated from other countries in West Africa to carry out the attack, due to a shared ethnicity that is present in several other countries across the sub-region.

H.E. Thabo Mbeki, Former President of South Africa at a high-level policymaker discussion conducted by the Brookings Institution Africa Growth Initiative on February 17, 2016. Photo courtesy of the Brookings Institution via Flickr Commons.  

I recently commenced my research fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. I have begun navigating the research and policy landscape of the United States and discussed elements of my research with a couple of experts in Washington.

Women and girls gather over a solar panel installation in Benin. Photo courtesy of Solar Electric Light Fund via Flickr Commons. 

Over 620 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)—roughly two-thirds of the region’s population— lack access to electricity (Figure 1).The overall electrification rate for the region is 31 percent, with less than 10 percent of rural households having access to electricity. [1] Of the region’s grid-connected households, 40 percent do not pay their bills.