ISSUE 60
Editorial – Good governance is inclusive
In setting out to interrogate what inclusive governance looks like and why it is a non-negotiable if Africa is to reach its development goals, this issue of Africa in Fact has harnessed the insights of a wide range of contributors, both old and new. A reading of the articles overall suggests that efforts to improve inclusive governance across the continent, however imperfect, require greater degrees of cooperation and transparency between government institutions and policymakers, civil...
Africa’s climate conundrum
It is no secret that Africa is facing a climate conundrum. At the core of this trilemma is the question of how the continent can balance the energy access required for development with climate mitigation and deal with the inevitable impacts. The prevailing sentiment is that getting Africa to...
What’s next for Africa’s fossil fuel economies?
Nigeria, Angola and Ghana are among the top oil producers in Africa. With revenues largely backed by fossil remuneration, the mantra to go green on fuels might sound hollow, but there are plans in place waiting for real action. At the same time, there are calls for a more realistic “neither one or...
Africa’s climate conundrum
It is no secret that Africa is facing a climate conundrum. At the core of this trilemma is the question of how the continent can balance the energy access required for development with climate mitigation and deal with the inevitable impacts. The...
What’s next for Africa’s fossil fuel economies?
Nigeria, Angola and Ghana are among the top oil producers in Africa. With revenues largely backed by fossil remuneration, the mantra to go green on fuels might sound hollow, but there are plans in place waiting for real action. At the same time,...
Weighing the cost of going green
What started as a single COVID-19 case has caused a contraction of about 2% in GDP in sub-Saharan Africa. As of 2020, the African Development Bank...
Climate change in Africa – partnerships are key
Africa is the most exposed region to the adverse effects of climate change despite contributing the least to global warming. The brunt of this human...
ESG – How the private sector can support the achievements of COP26
The motto for COP26, “keeping 1.5 degrees alive”, was in line with the Paris Climate Agreement adopted at COP21 in December 2015. There, 196 parties...
A just transition to net zero emissions
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, agreed to an ambitious deal in climate finance with leaders from Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the...
Africa tackles the challenge of reversing deforestation
The scale of deforestation in Africa is both unprecedented and increasing. According to a report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation...
Peace and security should be prioritised in climate talks
In September 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its the sixth report. United Nation (UN) Secretary General António...
East Africa braces for further food insecurity in the face of extreme climactic events
Climate change has the potential to undermine and even undo progress made in improving the socioeconomic wellbeing of many African countries. The...
Climate change will confront Africa’s cities with unprecedented biophysical risks
Fisherman Claude van Leen has been sitting idle in Hout Bay harbour near Cape Town for six months because shifting winds have made the water too...
Can South Africa’s ‘zombie utility’ Eskom afford to go green – and can it afford not to?
As the world went into unprecedented lockdown in February last year, scientists scrambled to determine what the impact of the vastly reduced traffic...
Weighing the cost of going green
What started as a single COVID-19 case has caused a contraction of about 2% in GDP in sub-Saharan Africa. As of 2020, the African Development Bank...
Climate change in Africa – partnerships are key
Africa is the most exposed region to the adverse effects of climate change despite contributing the least to global warming. The brunt of this human...
ESG – How the private sector can support the achievements of COP26
The motto for COP26, “keeping 1.5 degrees alive”, was in line with the Paris Climate Agreement adopted at COP21 in December 2015. There, 196 parties...
A just transition to net zero emissions
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, agreed to an ambitious deal in climate finance with leaders from Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the...
Malawi citizens pay a high price for polluted waterways
For more than a decade, the people of Manyenje village, located in Malawi’s southern region district, Blantyre, have longed to have safe and clean water. Though located near Blantyre city centre, this community is forced to use polluted water directly from the Mudi River for domestic purposes....
East Africa’s locust crisis reveals importance of disaster preparedness
The earth’s meteorological system has witnessed extreme variations in temperature and moisture patterns across millennia, but they were not driven by a species, until now. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s latest Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), published in August 2021,...
Bamboo plays an important role in regenerating East African transboundary wetlands
Benedict Omondi, a farmer at Siteko Village, Busia County, western Kenya, is a bamboo farmer and a stakeholder in the Sio-Siteko transboundary wetland that traverses the Kenya-Uganda border. The wetland covers an estimated 415 km2 and thousands of people live within its basin. According to...
BOOK REVIEWS
Climate change and the threat of urbanisation
Book review The Geography of Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Africa, 2019. Edited by Patrick Brandful Cobbinah and Michael Addaney The Geography of Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Africa provides a wide-ranging assessment of climate change adaptation and urban management within the continent, and through various case studies, scholars highlight Africa’s vulnerability to climate change. Although in Africa, climate change is commonly discussed in the context of flooding, warming temperatures and migration, the cases in this book analyse practices and situations that also contribute to, and/or are affected by climate change. These include urban farming, wetland destruction, national parks management and heritage-site preservation. These are presented against a backdrop of a rapidly urbanising continent that unfortunately is still riddled with extreme poverty, urban planning deficits, poor infrastructure, rapid population growth,...
The Zimbabwean nightmare and tragic optimism of Mutambara
To mention Zimbabwe and the idea of a “dream” in the same sentence, as Professor Arthur Mutambara has done, is to be provocative and challenging. The provocation and the challenge come from the troubling Zimbabwean economic and political condition that can only be...
Book review – Ethics and Accountable Governance in Africa’s Public Sector, Volume One
Ethics and Accountable Governance in Africa’s Public Sector, Volume One: Ethical Compliance and Institutional Performance. Edited by Kemi Ogunyemi, Isaiah Adisa, Robert E. Hinson, published by Palgrave Macmillan Ethics & Accountable Governance in Africa’s Public...
Book review – An action page-turner with academic precision
Hitmen for hire: Exposing South Africa’s underworld, Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2017 In September 2022 the Global Initiative (GI) Against Transnational Organized Crime released a strategic assessment of the existential threat to South Africa that is organised crime....
Making today’s African girl into tomorrow’s African leader – Book review
African Girl, African Woman – How agile, empowered and tech-savvy females will transform the continent for good by Hynd Bouhia; published by Rawan Publishing (2021) African Girl – African Woman explores the important role of women in science and technology in...
Shaping Africa’s Post-Covid Recovery
Book Review Shaping Africa's Post-Covid Recovery Edited by Rabah Arezki, Simeon Djankov and Ugo Panizza Published by Centre for Economic Policy Research, 2021 With most of the world still grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, different regions face unique...
Preserving Zimbabwe’s wetlands is key to addressing water scarcity
The right to water is enshrined in the Zimbabwean Constitution and in statute law. This is one of the most important developments effected by the 2013 Constitution because the fulfilment and enjoyment of all other rights such as food, health, life, work and education...
Land conflicts in Ghana: Are cattle ranches part of the problem?
Across West Africa, violent conflicts between farmers and herders have been regular occurrences for decades. Some analyses of these conflicts see the driver as competition over scarce resources like water and grazing land. Others point to economic, political and...
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