Africa Up Close

October 31^st, 2013 will mark three years since the start of a bitterly contested presidential race in Côte d’Ivoire that pitted incumbent Laurent Gbagbo against opposition leader Alassane Ouattara and shook the country to its core.  The Commission électorale indépendante (CEI) certified the challenger with having received 54% of the vote to the incumbent’s approximate 46%.  Upon learning of his defeat at the hands of Ouattara and the concurrence of a plurality of election observers, Gbagbo promptly dug in his heels and refused to cede power.  The chaos that ensued during the post-electoral period is well documented.  After a five month standoff and woeful human rights violations perpetrated by both sides, 3,000 people had been killed, 150 women had been raped, refugees numbering in the hundreds of thousands had fled to Liberia, and 1 million Ivoirians were displaced internally.   Formerly considered the jewel of West Africa owing to its robust performance in cocoa and coffee export commodities, Côte d’Ivoire was now a nation in tatters, stumbling out of almost a decade of social malaise and division, conflict, and civil war.

It may be time for policymakers, especially in the United States, to hit the stop clock on the War on Drugs (WoD) for a moment and look closely not only at how “success” is measured, but at the implications of those measurements. Since President Richard M. Nixon declared war on the production, distribution, and consumption of illicit narcotics roughly 40 years ago, the aggressive policy initiative has yielded few tangible results and can hardly evade being characterized as an utter failure.

A great many observers of U.S./Africa relations have aptly questioned and even criticized President Obama’s selection of countries (Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania) during his 3^rd official visit to the continent. Some of the most dismayed have wondered why and how the President could fail to make a stop in such an important strategic and economic partner like Nigeria.

By Derek Langford, Program Assistant for the Africa Program

Sub-Saharan Africa is perhaps the riskiest place for a woman to give birth.  According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), African women comprise approximately 56 percent of the maternal deaths and 91 percent of HIV-related maternal deaths worldwide every year.  In order to bring life into this world, women in Africa literally must put their own lives on the line.  This is alarming, yet not surprising.  For some time African governments, healthcare professionals, and the international community have been acutely aware of the scope of this problem in Africa and its ramifications for the continent.  It is well understood that healthy women give birth to, and rear, healthy children who then, in turn, are able to positively impact society. Conversely, a motherless child is 10 times more likely to die prematurely than children who grow up with a maternal figure. What is shocking, but gets very little news coverage, is that we know how to impact this situation for the better – good governance is essential for positive maternal health outcomes.