Africa Up Close

One of the most interesting accounts on Twitter may be a relatively new one: that of His Excellency Mohammed El Senussi, the pretender to the throne of Libya, who established a presence on Twitter earlier this month. Twitter has thus far had little resonance in Libya, which is home to one of the lowest Twitter account numbers per capita in the Arab world. Yet, his account has been surprisingly successful, with some posts getting thousands of interactions.

Gambia Street in downtown Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, bustles with traffic. Photo courtesy of David Stanley via Flickr Commons.

Sudan’s reforms are gradual, and the country still faces insurgencies, notably in the south. However, the country’s peace process—partially brokered by Qatar—is ongoing and shows signs of bearing fruit. It was in this spirit that the Obama Administration quietly dropped sanctions against Sudan in its final month in office. As Sudan’s then-speaker of parliament, Ibrahim Ahmad Omar, told me in an interview in Washington D.C., “Sudan can play a role in dealing with terrorism and the flow of refugees from Europe all of these issues.”

Edna Adan at 76 years old has more energy than a woman half her age.  The nurse-turned-UN diplomat-turned former foreign minister of Somaliland retired to launch the Edna Adan Hospital in Hargeisa to provide competent medical care for those living in the region. She’s been likened a “Muslim Mother Teresa” and has received the French Legion of Honour. Edna Adan sold her car and poured her life savings into turning a former landfill into one of the better hospitals in rural Somalia that has a fraction of the mortality rates elsewhere in the country. Born the daughter of a Somali doctor, she was afforded opportunities that many of the other residents of British Somaliland were not. She didn’t hesitate in seizing them becoming the first woman to get a driver’s license and the first woman to become a nurse. Despite a bout of illness, she agreed to meet me in the modest office of her hospital.