News & Issues
1. Sounding the Alarm on Africa’s Debt
By Indermit Gill and Kenan Karakülah, April 6, 2018
Thanks to debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative, debt in sub-Saharan Africa was cut by two-thirds by 2008. The relief has given the region a new lease on life.
But since 2008, public debt in sub-Saharan countries has been rising at an increasingly rapid pace. By 2016, the subcontinent’s gross public debt to GDP ratio had doubled. The increase in debt should have raised flags and triggered triage, but it didn’t. Neither the International Monetary Fund nor the World Bank sounded the alarm.
Read the story in this link:
2. When Terrorists and Criminals Govern Better than Governments
By Shadi Hamid, Vanda Felbab-Brown, and Harold Trinkunas, April 5, 2018
The Taliban claims to adhere to a strict interpretation of Islamic law, but this didn’t stop them from learning to love the poppy. The Islamic State developed an unforgiving set of laws to govern its caliphate even as it engaged in widespread smuggling of antiquities and synthetic drugs. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (the FARC) were once puritanically anti-drugs but became wholehearted supporters of the cocaine economy following their Eighth Party Congress in 1982. These ironies aren’t necessarily surprising. Despite initial protestations, militant groups often engage in criminal operations—drugs, trafficking, and smuggling—to fund their activities.
Read the story in this link:
When terrorists and criminals govern better than governments
3. Migration from Sub-Saharan Africa
By Phillip Connor, March 22, 2018
International migration from citizens of sub-Saharan African countries has grown dramatically over the past decade. Since 2010, there has been a global trend in terms of the rising inflow of sub-Saharan asylum applicants in Europe, and lawful permanent residents and refugees in the U.S. The factors pushing people to leave sub-Saharan Africa vary from country to county and from person to person. Will the future pace of migration from this region remain the same?
Read the story in this link:
At Least a Million Sub-Saharan Africans Moved to Europe Since 2010
4. Business and Politics Collide in the Horn of Africa for DP World
By Richard Wachman, March 19, 2018
DP World’s container ports business has much to be happy about. International operations are expanding and producing healthy profits and rising revenue. But the generally bright picture contains a couple of clouds and for these, look no further than recent developments that have hit the Dubai-run company in the Horn of Africa. These amply illustrate how regional rivalries are spilling into the Horn, and provide a lens to look at the wider issue of a more assertive UAE foreign policy in Africa during recent years.
Read the story in this link:
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1269046/business-economy
5. An Enormous Crack Just Opened Up In Africa, Evidence Africa Is Literally Splitting In Two
By Trevor Nace, April 2, 2018
A massive crack of the Earth suddenly appeared in Kenya, prompting new discussions on the division of Africa into two land masses. The fissure continues to grow in size as heavy rainfall in Kenya’s Narok County exacerbates the kilometer-sized chasm. The sudden appearance of the crack is related to a regional zone of weakness and broadly associated with the continued breakup of the African continent. The leading hypothesis behind the fragmentation of the African continent is caused by an underlying superheated plume. This plume is causing Africa to split in two along the eastern edge of the continent. Fortunately, the rifting process will take many millions of years. But as the crust begins to thin and sink, a small seaway will intrude the rift zone and dramatically change our global map.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/04/02/an-enormous-crack-just-opened-up-in-africa-evidence-africa-is-literally-splitting-in-two/#354865f83941
NEW BOOKS كتب جديدة
Transfers of Belonging: Child Fostering in West Africa in the 20th Century
[قضايا رعاية الأطفال في غرب أفريقيا في القرن العشرين]
Author: Erdmute Alber
In Transfers of Belonging, Erdmute Alber traces the history of child fostering in northern Benin from the pre-colonial past to the present by highlighting how child fostering practices and norms are embedded in a wider political process of change. Child fostering was, for a long time, not just a way of raising children but as the most appropriate way to do so. This attitude changed profoundly with the arrival of European ideas about birth parents being the ‘right’ parents. Further, with the introduction of schooling and the differentiation of life chances, the norm of fostering was challenged. Besides providing deep historical and ethnographical insights, Transfers of Belonging offers a new theoretical frame for conceptualizing parenting.
Publisher: Brill Publishers, 2018
The Blantyre Spiritual Awakening and its Music
[الصحوة الروحية والموسيقية في منطقة بلانتير]
Author: Brighton Kawamba
In Christian history, spiritual awakenings are a recurring and important phenomenon. The Blantyre Spiritual Awakening was characterized by an overt evangelistic fervor among bands of people that belonged to an ever-growing Born Again Movement from 1974 into the 1980s. This history covers the Blantyre Awakening which revived Evangelical Christianity in Malawi and prepared the way for the emerging Charismatic Movement.
Publisher: Luviri Press, Malawi, 2018
A Case of Love and Hate: The Book of Quotes Volume 1
[دروس في الحب والكراهية: كتاب المقتطفات — المجلد الأول]
Author: Chenjerai Mhondera
Quotes are great source of knowledge, wisdom, and insight. They help us learn from pioneers and forerunners of life paths we have yet to travel. Quotes are great tools to reinforce and reaffirm what we already know but do not understand, or what we do on a daily basis but do not make a philosophy out of. When our ignored realities become words uttered by famous or successful people, the resulting quotes help us accept and confront sidelined histories and ideas with the potential to transform our lives. Quotes uncover philosophy, strengthen a belief or ideology, and create an internal desire for listeners to pursue their dreams. They are effective weapons to both uphold and dismiss certain philosophies in our midst. They are both a sophisticated and simple art, using few words to express a lot. The book of quotes themed A Case of Love and Hate, Volume 1 is a product of such a bitter struggle, endurance and resilience by the author. To understand Mugabe, this is the book! To understand Zimbabwe, this is the book! To understand Africa, this is the book! Do not resist your chance to understand and keep in line with a Revolution in Africa!
Publisher: Mwanaka Media and Publishing, Zimbabwe, 2018
Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research World
[اختلاق البيانات: دور الثقافة والسياسة في عالم أبحاث أفريقيا]
Author: Crystal Biruk
In Cooking Data, Crystal Biruk offers an ethnographic account of research into the demographics of HIV and AIDS in Malawi to rethink the production of quantitative health data. While research practices are often understood within a clean/dirty binary, Biruk shows that data are never clean; rather, they are always “cooked” during their production and are inevitably entangled with the lives of those who produce them. Examining how the relationships among fieldworkers, supervisors, respondents, and foreign demographers shape data, Biruk details the ways in which units of information acquire value as statistics that eventually shape national AIDS policy. Her approach illustrates how the dynamics of grassroots data collection and research culture mediate the production of global health statistics in ways that impact local economies and formulations of power and expertise.
Publisher: Duke University Press, 2018
Contemporary Issues in Mental Health Care in sub-Saharan Africa
[قضايا معاصرة في مجال الرعاية الصحية النفسية في أفريقيا جنوب الصحراء الكبرى]
Author: (Editors) Olayinka Omigbodun, Femi Oyebode
Seventy percent of the global burden of mental disorders is located in low and middle income countries (of which sub-Saharan Africa is included). However, in Africa, only 0.62% of national health budgets is allocated to mental health compared to a global median of 2.8%. For patients with severe mental disorders who live in the World Health Organization’s Africa Region, the government is a major provider of their healthcare. The lack of adequate resources, such as mental health outpatient facilities, is a compounding issue for the WHO Africa Region. To address these problems, the WHO launched its Mental Health Action Gap Programme (mhGAP) in 2008 to scale-up mental health services in low and middle income countries. The book is directed to all policy makers in sub-Saharan Africa to aid decision making about the urgent need for sustainable and relevant mental health care strategies. The book should be helpful to local and international researchers in formulating research questions relevant to the African continent. Further, this work may be of interest to medical practitioners and students in the region as adjunct to standard textbooks.
Publisher: BookBuilders Editions Africa, Nigeria, 2017
