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July the 26th 2009, marked the beginning of the Boko Haram uprising in north-eastern Nigeria. Since then, the ideology has spread across the fringes of the Lake Chad region to Niger, Chad, and Northern Cameroon, A new report published by the Tony Blair Institute examines the roots and evolution of Boko Haram and the fight against insurgency and militancy. The author of the report, Bulama Bukarti joins CNBC Africa to discuss the report and its recommendations.

Lessons from the rise of  Boko Haram

Lessons from the rise of  Boko Haram, 12 years after

Content provided by APO Group. CNBC Africa provides content from APO Group as a service to its readers and does not edit the articles it publishes. CNBC Africa is not responsible for the content provided by APO Group.
African Union Member States (55) reporting COVID-19 cases (4,812,313), deaths (130,025) and recoveries (4,351,816) by region: Central (172,873 cases; 2,781 deaths; 159,001 recoveries): Burundi (4,650; 6; 4,198), Cameroon (77,982; 1,270; 72,926), CAR (7,085; 97; 6,665), Chad (4,927; 173; 4,742), Congo (11,658; 153; 10,591), DRC (31,386; 782; 27,654), Equatorial Guinea (8,476; 113; 8,146), Gabon (24,365; 150; 21,791), Sao Tome and Principe (2,344; 37; 2,288) Eastern (647,406; 12,678; 536,199): Comoros (3,949; 146; 3,719), Djibouti (11,523; 153; 11,354), Eritrea (4,022; 14; 3,812), Ethiopia (270,944; 4,139; 235,850), Kenya (170,041; 3,124; 116,018), Madagascar (41,184; 828; 40,028), Mauritius (1,356; 17; 1,181), Rwanda (26,878; 352; 25,542), Seychelles (11,145; 40; 9,936), Somalia (14,647; 768; 6,717), South Sudan (10,688; 115; 10,514), Sudan (35,289; 2,600; 27,949), Tanzania** (509; 21; 178), Uganda (45,231; 361; 43,401) Northern (1,453,109; 43,808; 1,276,107): Algeria (128,198; 3,586; 89,292), Egypt (259,540; 14,950; 190,254), Libya (184,815; 3,116; 171,279), Mauritania (19,407; 462; 18,377), Morocco (518,458; 9,135; 506,443), Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (739; 46; 691), Tunisia (341,952; 12,513; 299,771) Southern (2,066,519; 64,531; 1,933,721): Angola (33,607; 745; 27,529), Botswana (56,313; 831; 50,494), Eswatini (18,587; 672; 17,855), Lesotho (10,825; 326; 6,434), Malawi (34,323; 1,154; 32,598), Mozambique (70,697; 835; 69,232), Namibia (54,268; 807; 50,053), South Africa (1,654,551; 56,293; 1,551,520), Zambia (94,430; 1,275; 91,443), Zimbabwe (38,918; 1,593; 36,563) Western (472,406; 6,227; 446,788): Benin (8,058; 101; 7,893), Burkina Faso (13,424; 166; 13,248), Cabo Verde (30,122; 261; 28,163), Côte d&#39;Ivoire (47,195; 301; 46,591), Gambia (5,990; 178; 5,767), Ghana (93,775; 784; 91,853), Guinea (23,110; 161; 20,840), Guinea Bissau (3,760; 68; 3,511), Liberia (2,179; 86; 2,033), Mali (14,262; 516; 9,559), Niger (5,409; 192; 5,080), Nigeria (166,254; 2,071; 156,546), Senegal (41,296; 1,138; 39,932), Sierra Leone (4,140; 79; 3,128), Togo (13,432; 125; 12,644)Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
Media files

Coronavirus: African Union Member States reporting COVID-19 cases as of 29 May 2021, 9 am EAT

Content provided by APO Group. CNBC Africa provides content from APO Group as a service to its readers and does not edit the articles it publishes. CNBC Africa is not responsible for the content provided by APO Group.

UNICEF received a new contribution of US$830,000 from the Government of Japan to support humanitarian response in regions affected by armed conflict in Niger.

This generous contribution will enable UNICEF to strengthen its support to the Government of Niger to provide lifesaving water, sanitation and hygiene services and supplies for children and their families affected by conflicts in the regions of Tillabery, Tahoua and Maradi, reaching an anticipated 18,000 people, more than half of them children.
&#8220;In already fragile host communities, the burden of forced displacement increases the vulnerability of children and communities and significantly affects their health, protection, nutrition and education. Increased access to safe water as well as hygiene and sanitation services is crucial to prevent outbreaks, including water-borne diseases or COVID-19 amongst displaced people and host communities&#8221;, explains Acting UNICEF Niger Representative Aboubacry Tall.
The funding provided will also help UNICEF and its partners strengthen existing real-time data collection and analysis systems in Tillabery region. UNICEF has set-up a data collection platform called RapidPro to help the Government and partners provide a timely, coordinated and multi-sectoral humanitarian response in regions facing recurrent population displacements and other humanitarian crises.
“As a mobile tech programming tool, RapidPro allows partners to gather accurate real-time information on vital areas such as education, water, hygiene and sanitation and child protection — even in remote and hard-to-reach places — and use that data to reach those most in need”, he says.  
Niger continues to face a combination of quick onset and protracted humanitarian crises that have been exacerbated by the impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Some 3.8 million people, including 2.1 million children, will need humanitarian assistance in 2021.
“We are deeply grateful for this additional support from Japan, which came at a critical time for the survival, development and protection of children in Niger” concludes Aboubacry Tall.
 Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

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Japan supports UNICEF to accelerate humanitarian response in conflict-affected regions of Niger

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Vote counting has begun in Niger following a presidential run-off that could bring about the first democratic transition of power in the West African nation. Supporters of both candidates; Mohamed Bazoum, who is the preferred choice of the outgoing president and former president Mahamane Ousmane went to the polls on Sunday to cast their ballot. Achike Chude, Political Affairs Commentator joins CNBC Africa for more.

Vote counting begins in Niger runoff elections

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West African leaders have begun a virtual extraordinary summit to negotiate an end to the deepening political crisis in Mali. This comes after presidents from Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Ghana and Niger held talks on Thursday last week that ended in a stalemate. Onyekachi Adekoya, Managing Director of PR24 Nigeria joins CNBC Africa for more.

ECOWAS holds extraordinary summit on Mali’s political crisis

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The G5 Sahel military alliance comprising of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are due to hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez today in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott. The summit is a follow-up to talks in the French city of Pau in January that gave a political reboot of war against the jihadists. Dennis Amachree, CEO of Zoomlens Security Solutions joins CNBC Africa for more.

Assessing the security situation in Africa’s Sahel region

GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) &#8211; Huddled under a highway bridge with a small bag of belongings, a 19-year old student from Ivory Coast was desperately dialling his few contacts in China.



The student said he arrived in the southern city of Guangzhou last week, after completing his quarantine in another city, during a coronavirus clampdown that several African countries and Africans in Guangzhou say has unfairly targeted them.



“I really need help. I just don’t want to sleep on the streets again,” he said on Monday, asking not to be identified by name.



He came to China to study the language but his university shut because of the coronavirus. Hotels kept turning him away, but later on Monday he said he had found one.



Several African ambassadors wrote to China’s foreign minister last week, calling for the “cessation of forceful testing, quarantine and other inhuman treatments meted out to Africans”.



Ghana’s foreign minister on Saturday called in China’s ambassador to convey the government’s concern.



China’s foreign ministry said on Monday all foreigners are treated equally. But it also said virus controls on Africans would be lifted, apart from confirmed cases and those who have had close contact with them.



“African friends will be treated fairly, justly and amicably in China,” the ministry said.



Many foreigners in China say they have faced suspicion as the country brought its own outbreak under control, only to see new cases brought from other countries. China has barred entry to most foreigners, and the vast majority of imported cases of the disease have come from Chinese nationals returning home.



In Guangzhou, a hub for African traders, authorities said on Tuesday that 111 Africans had tested positive for the coronavirus, while a total of 4,553 Africans had undergone testing since April 4, state media reported. [nB9N2BR00V]



Several African residents said the black community was being unfairly targeted for stricter checks.



“If they do this to all foreigners, then it’s not a problem, but it’s only black people,” Soumana Toudou, a garment trader from Niger, told Reuters by WhatsApp. He said he was undergoing his second 14-day quarantine because the authorities did not believe he had completed his first.



Such decisions are made at the local level and Reuters could not independently confirm this.



The scrutiny from the authorities had triggered hostility from Chinese residents, one student said.



“The selective testing has set the Guangzhou locals into panic, thinking black people are carrying the virus,” he said. He declined to be identified.



A Communist Party social worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters on Monday that black people were specifically being made to enter a period of quarantine.



Last week, authorities announced that two neighbourhoods popular with Africans would be locked down to curb the coronavirus after five Nigerians tested positive.



On Monday, the U.S. consulate general in Guangzhou advised African-Americans, or those who believe Chinese officials may suspect them of having contact with African nationals, to avoid the city.



The provincial foreign affairs office provided no immediate comment to Reuters about complaints from Africans and embassies that Africans had been unfairly targeted.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">ENGAGEMENT</h3>



China has stepped up its engagement with Africa in recent years, with state-owned companies building infrastructure and signing hundreds of deals across the continent.



Guangzhou was home to 13,652 Africans in 2019 and about 351,000 Africans entered the city from abroad last year, official figures show.



Videos on social media in recent days showed what appeared to be Africans sleeping on Guangzhou streets after being evicted from their apartments. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.



Property agents near Guangzhou’s Sanyuanli trading hub said such evictions of foreigners, including Africans, had contributed to a glut of empty apartments.



“For a white person, you can’t rent around here now because of the virus, but you’ll be welcome again in a few months,” said one agent, referring to when the pandemic passes. She declined to give her name.



“But black people, no one will accept them.”



A spokeswoman for McDonald’s in China apologised on Tuesday after staff at a Guangzhou branch forced black customers to leave.



The fast-food chain had temporarily closed the outlet while staff completed “diversity and inclusion” training, spokeswoman Regina Hui said in a statement.



The Chinese authorities now seem to be taking a more conciliatory stance. On Tuesday, media showed hazmat-clad personnel delivering food and flowers to Africans in home quarantine.



The chairman of the African Union, Moussa Faki Mahamat, was receptive, saying on Twitter on Monday he had spoken to Foreign Minister Wang Yi.



“He reassured me of measures underway in Guangzhou to improve the situation of Africans, in line with the strong and brotherly partnership between Africa and China.”



(Reporting by David Kirton in Guangzhou; Additional reporting by Tom Daly and Sophie Yu in Beijing; Editing by Tony Munroe and Robert Birsel)



This article was first published on Reuters Africa <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKCN21Y0UY-OZATP">https://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKCN21Y0UY-OZATP</a> and is republished with its permission.



For more coverage on COVID-19 visit: <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/covid-19/">https://www.cnbcafrica.com/covid-19/</a>

Africans singled out in southern China sparks diplomatic backlash

In the wake of the global COVID-19 crisis, the <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/videos/2020/04/07/how-the-imf-is-responding-to-africa-amid-the-covid-19-crisis/">International Monetary Fund (IMF)</a> Executive Board has approved immediate debt service relief to 25 poor and vulnerable countries.



Nineteen African countries will receive immediate debt service relief, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, D.R., The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone and Togo.



The following statement provides more details:



April 13, 2020



Washington, DC – Ms. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued the following statement:



“Today, I am pleased to say that our Executive Board approved immediate debt service relief to 25 of the IMF’s member countries under the IMF’s revamped Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) as part of the Fund’s response to help address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.



“This provides grants to our poorest and most vulnerable members to cover their IMF debt obligations for an initial phase over the next six months and will help them channel more of their scarce financial resources towards vital emergency medical and other relief efforts.



“The CCRT can currently provide about US$500 million in grant-based debt service relief, including the recent US$185 million pledge by the U.K. and US$100 million provided by Japan as immediately available resources. Others, including China and the Netherlands, are also stepping forward with important contributions. I urge other donors to help us replenish the Trust’s resources and boost further our ability to provide additional debt service relief for a full two years to our poorest member countries.”



The countries that will receive debt service relief today are: Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, D.R., The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Tajikistan, Togo, and Yemen.



For more coverage on COVID-19 visit: <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/covid-19/">https://www.cnbcafrica.com/covid-19/</a>

IMF approves immediate debt relief for 25 countries amid COVID-19 crisis

IMF approves immediate debt relief for 25 countries amid COVID-19 crisis. shutterstock_94083223

BAMAKO (Reuters) &#8211; Suspected Islamist militants killed 29 Malian soldiers on Thursday in an attack on a base in the country’s northeast, the army said. 



There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in the town of Tarkint, which is about 125 km (78 miles) north of the city of Gao. Mali’s army has repeatedly suffered heavy casualties from jihadist fighters active in the area with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State. 



The army said earlier in the day that just two soldiers had died but tweeted later that the death toll had “heavily evolved” to 29 killed and five wounded. 



Vast swathes of central and northern Mali are effectively lawless, used by the jihadists as a base for attacks in Mali and into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso, where security has deteriorated markedly over the past year. 



Former colonial power France has had thousands of troops across the semi-arid band beneath the Sahara Desert known as the Sahel, but French officials acknowledge they have failed to slow the violence. 



French army chief Francois Lecointre told senators last month that the Malian, Nigerien and Burkinabe armies were losing the equivalent of one battalion per year to the militants’ attacks. 



(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Souleymane Ag Anara; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Chris Reese and Marguerita Choy)



This article was first published on Reuters Africa <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN2170TS-OZATP">https://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN2170TS-OZATP</a> and is republished with its permission.

Militant attack kills 29 Malian soldiers – army

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The joint border patrol team set up by Nigeria, Benin and Niger republics to tackle smuggling will hold their first meeting on the 25th and 26th of this month. CEO of Multimix Group, Obiora Madu joins CNBC Africa to discuss developments around Nigeria&#8217;s closed borders.

What outcome will Nigeria border-closure meeting yield?

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Nigeria Customs Service has been carrying out an investigative audit to check import duty payments by automobile dealers in Lagos and Abuja. This has been received with mixed reactions. Muda Yusuf, the Director-General of LCCI joins CNBC Africa for more.

LCCI speaks on customs clampdown on auto dealers

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Nigeria&#8217;s government says it is addressing a discrepancy where domestic Liquefied Petroleum Gas is being taxed and tax on imported gas is waived. Dada Thomas, President of the Nigerian Gas Association joins CNBC Africa to discuss this story.

Nigeria gas sector key to economic recovery – Gas Chief

<figure><img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211715/original/file-20180323-54878-d9bedj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="File 20180323 54878 d9bedj.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" /><figcaption>African leaders meet in Kigali to sign the continent’s free trade agreement. 
Paul Kagame/Flickr</figcaption></figure>
By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/prof-landry-signe-455169">Prof. Landry Signé</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/stanford-university-890">Stanford University</a>
African leaders have just signed a framework establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area, the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/africa-leaders-to-form-largest-free-trade-area-since-the-wto.html">largest free trade agreement</a> since the creation of the World Trade Organisation.
The free trade area aims to create a single market for goods and services in Africa. By 2030 the market size <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/capturing-africas-high-returns/">is expected</a> to include 1.7 billion people with over USD$ 6.7 trillion of cumulative consumer and business spending – that’s if all African countries have joined the free trade area by then. Ten countries, including Nigeria, have yet to sign up.
The <a href="https://au.int/en/ti/cfta/about">goal</a> is to create a
<blockquote>single continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business persons and investments.</blockquote>
The agreement has the potential to deliver a great deal for countries on the continent. The hope is that the trade deal will trigger a virtuous cycle of more intra African trade, which in turn will drive the <a href="https://unhabitat.org/books/structural-transformation-in-developing-countries-cross-regional-analysis/">structural transformation</a> of economies – the transition from low productivity and labour intensive activities to higher productivity and skills intensive industrial and service activities – which in turn will produce better paid jobs and make an impact on poverty.
But signing the agreement is only the beginning. For it to come into force, 22 countries must ratify it. Their national legislative bodies must approve and sanction the framework formally, showing full commitment to its implementation. Niger President Issoufou Mahamadou, who has been championing the process, aims to have the ratification process completed by January 2019.
<h2>Cause and effect</h2>
Some studies have shown that by creating a pan-African market, intra-Africa trade could increase by <a href="https://www.ictsd.org/bridges-news/bridges-africa/news/launch-of-the-continental-free-trade-area-new-prospects-for-african">about 52%</a> by 2022. Better market access creates economies of scale. Combined with appropriate industrial policies, this contributes to a diversified industrial sector and growth in manufacturing value added.
Manufacturing represents only about <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS">10% of total GDP in Africa</a> on average. This falls well below other developing regions. A successful continental free trade area could reduce this gap. And a bigger manufacturing sector will mean more well-paid jobs, especially for young people. This in turn will help poverty alleviation.
Industrial development, and with it, more jobs, is desperately needed in Africa. Industry represents <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.IND.EMPL.ZS">one-quarter to one-third of total job creation</a> in other regions of the world. And a young person in Africa is <a href="http://acetforafrica.org/highlights/unemployment-in-africa-no-jobs-for-50-of-graduates/">twice as likely to be unemployed when he or she becomes an adult</a>. This is a particularly stressful situation given that over <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/world-radio-day-2013/statistics-on-youth/">70% of sub-Saharan Africa’s population is below age 30</a>.
In addition, <a href="http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/home">70% of Africa’s youth live on less than US $2 per day</a>.
The continental free trade area is expected to offer
<blockquote>substantial opportunities for industrialisation, diversification, and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2018/02/02/foresight-africa-viewpoint-africas-bold-move-towards-integration-the-continental-free-trade-agreement/">high-skilled</a> employment in Africa.</blockquote>
The single continental market will offer the opportunity to accelerate the manufacture and intra-African trade of value-added products, moving from commodity based economies and exports to economic diversification and high-value exports.
But, to increase the impact of the trade deal, industrial policies must be put in place. These must focus on productivity, competition, diversification, and economic complexity.
In other words, governments must create enabling conditions to ensure that productivity is raised to international competitiveness standards. The goal must be to ensure that the products manufactured in African countries are competitively traded on the continent and abroad, and to diversify the range and sophistication of products and services.
<h2>Drivers of manufacturing</h2>
Data shows that the most economically diverse countries are also the most successful.
In fact, <a href="http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/learn/glossary">diversification</a> is critical as “countries that are able to sustain a diverse range of productive know-how, including sophisticated, unique know-how, are able to produce a wide diversity of goods, including complex products that few other countries can make.
Diverse African economies such as South Africa and Egypt, are likely to be the drivers of the free trade area, and are likely to benefit from it the most. These countries will find a large continental market for their manufactured products. They will also use their know-how and dense industrial landscape to develop innovative products and respond to market demand.
But the agreement on its own won’t deliver results. Governments must put in place policies that drive industrial development, particularly manufacturing. Five key ones stand out:
Human capital: A strong manufacturing sector needs capable, healthy, and skilled workers. Policymakers should adjust curriculum to ensure that skills are adapted to the market. And there must be a special focus on young people. Curriculum must focus on skills and building capacity for entrepreneurship and self-employment. This should involve business training at an early age and skills upgrading at an advanced one. This should go hand in hand with promoting science, technology, engineering, entrepreneurship and mathematics as well as vocational and on-the-job training.
Policymakers should also favour the migration of highly skilled workers across the continent.
Cost: Policymakers must bring down the cost of doing business. The barriers include energy, access to roads and ports, security, financing, bureaucratic restrictions, corruption, dispute settlement and property rights.
Supply network: Industries are more likely to evolve if competitive networks exist. Policymakers should ease trade restrictions and integrate regional trade networks. In particular, barriers for small and medium-size businesses should be lifted.
Domestic demand: Policymakers should offer tax incentives to firms to unlock job creation, and to increase individual and household incomes. Higher purchasing power for households will increase the size of the domestic market.
Resources: Manufacturing requires heavy investment. This should be driven by the private sector. Policymakers should facilitate access to finance, especially for small and medium enterprises. And to attract foreign direct investment, policymakers should address perceptions of poor risk perception. This invariably scares off potential investors or sets excessive returns expectations.
<h2>Increased productivity</h2>
The continental free trade area facilitates industrialisation by creating a continental market, unlocking manufacturing potential and bolstering an international negotiation bloc.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93827/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />Finally, the continental free trade area will also provide African leaders with a greater negotiating power to eliminate barriers to exporting. This will help prevent agreements with other countries, and trading blocs, that are likely to hurt exports and industrial development.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/prof-landry-signe-455169">Prof. Landry Signé</a>, Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University&#8217;s Center for African Studies, David M. Rubenstein Fellow at the Global Economy and Development and Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution, and Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/stanford-university-890">Stanford University</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-africas-free-trade-area-offers-so-much-promise-93827">original article</a>.

Why Africa’s free trade area offers so much promise

Niger’s economy is on course to expand 5.2 percent this year and continue at the same pace in 2018 on the back of growth in its oil and services sectors, the International Monetary Fund said in a statement on Monday.
<div id="attachment_44476" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-44476" class="wp-image-44476 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/headquarters_of_the_international_monetary_fund__washington__dc__-_wiki.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="395" />IMF Headquarters in Washington D.C</div>
“Niger’s overall macroeconomic performance remains satisfactory, despite security challenges and unfavourable commodity prices, especially for uranium,” it said. “Over the medium run, government reform efforts should be rewarded by a pickup in growth.”

Niger’s economy to grow 5.2% in each of 2017 and 2018: IMF

Nic Cheeseman | University of Birmingham
There is much to celebrate as the world marks International Day of Democracy. The last year has seen important democratic breakthroughs in Africa. In Gambia an entrenched autocrat was forced from power. In Ghana, a sitting president lost an election for the first time.
In just the last few weeks, Kenya has also joined the club of precedent- setting nations, after the Supreme Court ruled that the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta was illegal and must be held again. Not only was this a first in Kenya, it was also the first time that the election of a sitting president had been overturned by the judiciary in Africa.
These changes reflect a broader trend in sub-Saharan Africa and much of the world. An increasing number of countries are holding multiparty elections. And an increasing proportion of these states have witnessed a transfer of power from one party or leader to another.
It’s true that more elections are now being held than at any time in human history. But recent highlights in Gambia, Ghana and Kenya mask a problematic reality, namely that the expansion of multi-party politics has often gone hand-in-hand with political and economic exclusion. Over the past five years, the level of political repression and economic inequality has increased in Africa. In turn, this has called into question the extent of the continent’s democratic gains.
<h2>Rising repression</h2>
In recent times high levels of repression have been witnessed across much of the continent. These include the arrest of opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, as he campaigned against his defeat in the 2016 presidential election in Uganda. Also, in Kenya there were a high number of human rights violations when security forces cracked down on opposition protests during the election.
According to Freedom House, an American think tank that rates the level of freedom in every country in the world, the quality of civil liberties in Africa has fallen every year for a decade. Seven out of the 15 countries that showed the biggest deterioration in the quality of their political environment over the last 12 months were African. They are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Niger, South Sudan, and Zambia. Next year, Tanzania may well join that list.
Other forms of political exclusion are also prevalent. Rwanda leads the world on female legislative representation while Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda also perform well on this metric. But very few women are ever elected in the continent’s largest states such as Angola, Nigeria and the DRC.
Minority groups often suffer a similar fate. In Botswana, a state often lauded as one of those leading on democratic rights in Africa, the indigenous San community have been largely excluded from the political process. Similarly, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer citizens typically find that their human rights are undermined. Fortunately, this is not true of countries with more progressive constitutions such as South Africa.
<h2>Rising inequality</h2>
In many states, political exclusion has gone hand in hand with rising economic inequality. As a result the relative poverty – the gap between the rich and the poor – is growing. This is despite the fact that the level of absolute poverty has fallen in a number of countries.
In other words, serious developmental gains are occurring at the same time that other forms of economic exclusion are intensifying.
One of the most stunning facts about the continent is that the <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi">Human Development Index</a> – a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators – shows that
<blockquote><a href="http://africasacountry.com/2017/01/african-inequality-rising/">every country in Africa is today less equal than it was in 2010</a>.</blockquote>
More worryingly, there is no evidence that democracies are performing better than authoritarian systems on this issue. If anything, the reverse is true. Indeed, one of the most intriguing paradoxes of African democracy is that it is those countries that are most democratic that are most unequal. Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, three of the continent’s most secure democracies, feature the highest levels of inequality in the world.
The combination of political and economic exclusion in Africa is important for intrinsic and instrumental reasons. Intrinsically, democracy is failing to deliver if it is not helping the worst as much as the best off. Instrumentally, the combination of economic and political exclusion increases the risk that political grievances will develop into instability.
<h2>Building a more inclusive world</h2>
One reason that democratisation has not always reduced the degree of exclusion is that political systems in Africa, much like the rest of the world, tend not to feature inclusive political arrangements.
The continent only features a handful of states that are federal or feature high levels of political devolution. These include Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Sudan. Moreover, even within this small sample the ability of opposition parties to get elected at the sub-national level has often been limited, especially in Ethiopia and Sudan. As a result, individuals and groups that lose out in the race for national office rarely enjoy the kind of local self-government that might make them feel that they have a stake in the political system.
Institutional mechanisms to ensure a form of power sharing are also rare. By and large African states are presidential and highly majoritarian. They also do not feature constitutional provisions that guarantee minorities and losing parties a seat at the table.
Indeed, Burundi is currently the only country that comes close to the consociational “ideal type” of inclusive politics outlined by the famous political scientist Arendt Lijphart. But even there the authoritarian bent of President Pierre Nkurunziza has undermined both the letter and the spirit of the country’s carefully designed constitution.
Absent political representation, and with so few checks and balances on the exercise of power, it is unsurprising that minorities and opposition groups get such a raw deal. Of course, this is not to say that political inclusion is a cure-all: there are many established democracies with less exclusive political arrangements that have failed to reduce economic inequality. But until African political systems become less majoritarian and do a better job of protecting the rights and interests of minorities, the true benefits of democratic government are unlikely to be realised.
This article was first published in The Conversation.

Op-Ed: Democratic breakthroughs in Africa – time to celebrate but worries still linger

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The recent rescue of 92 abandoned migrants from West Africa in Niger&#8217;s Northern Agadez has brought the migration crisis to the spotlight once more.

Dealing with migration in Africa

Zeinabou Halidou cannot stop smiling and thumbing through a wad of banknotes as nearby several members of her village women&#8217;s group operate machinery to grind nuts and produce soaps and oils.
The scene is a huge change from years past for the women in this farming and pastoralist community in western Niger, where droughts and poor harvests used to send desperate women into the bush in search of wild fruit to feed their families.
Now their families have enough to eat in bad times &#8211; and they are putting away savings, even as they face more frequent droughts, unreliable rainfall and other climate change pressures.
&#8220;The tools we&#8217;ve been given and skills we&#8217;ve gained have given us opportunities we could never have imagined,&#8221; Halidou told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in her village of Tchouridi in Niger&#8217;s Tillabery region, proudly displaying the women&#8217;s products ready for local markets.
&#8220;We can now cope better with climate change, we can help our husbands and support our families&#8230;we feel more empowered and valued as women,&#8221; she added, cradling a small blue box containing the equivalent of hundreds of dollars in CFA francs.
Halidou is one of millions of people worldwide who belong to village savings and loans associations (VSLA), according to CARE International, which helped launch the savings group in Tillabery.
The saving scheme sees people pool money together, lend it to their members, and charge interest.
The microfinance model has long helped communities too poor or remote to access regular banking services sustain or expand their small businesses &#8211; from farming to shops or manufacturing &#8211; and cover expenses such as school fees and medical bills.
However, the savings groups need more support if they are to succeed in countries like Niger, where most of the West African country&#8217;s 20 million people work in agriculture, and where rising temperatures and increasingly erratic rainfall are wreaking havoc on farmers and herders, experts say.
More regular losses of crops to droughts and changing weather mean farmers need additional ways of making money to secure a regular income. But the same loss of crops means they often have exhausted the savings they need to start new climate-smart businesses.
A CARE project started in 2015, however, is providing savings groups with the help they need to bridge that gap, including tools, training and accurate information about the changing climate, to help them make better decisions.
The initiative is part of the Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters (BRACED) program, funded by the British government.
&#8220;By investing in VSLAs and supporting women to &#8230; learn new skills separate from agriculture, they can become more resilient to climate change,&#8221; said Penda Diallo, a senior resilience advisor with CARE.
BRANCHING OUT
The project is working to help 450,000 people in western Niger become better prepared for weather shocks in various ways, from improving climate information services to helping farmers find ways to better store their harvests and making savings groups better prepared to withstand pressures when crops fail.
The savings groups are traditionally self-managed and do not rely on external funding. Members collectively decide what interest rate to offer borrowers, who is eligible for a loan and what the money can be spent on.
But the groups are under pressure as a result of climate-related crop losses, and need investment and support &#8211; in the form of equipment, information and training &#8211; if they are to learn to prosper in the face of climate change, said CARE and local partners, who are working to set up more than 100 climate-resilient savings groups as part of the project.
In particular, the BRACED project is working with women to ensure they have access to and understand climate data to help them make better decisions. It is also connecting them with markets for their goods and training them in new livelihoods and how to run businesses.
Huddled around an oil press in the heart of a crowded village in Tillabery, Roukaya Jibo and several of her peers gossip, laugh and crack jokes as they take turns to feed sesame into the device and pump out oil into plastic soda bottles.
&#8220;Making oils and soaps to sell at markets used to be alien to us,&#8221; Jibo said, explaining how the women previously responded to poor harvests by dipping into their limited savings or making shawls from millet stalks and trying to sell them.
&#8220;We are still scared of climate change, but we now have solutions to help make sure we have some financial security, and enough to eat,&#8221; she added between hearty pumps of the oil press.
With the vast majority of men in Tillabery region working in farming, women in savings groups play a crucial role in supporting their families financially as droughts and floods become more frequent and harder to predict, according to climate and development experts.
&#8220;The men approve of the women&#8217;s work &#8211; whether it is turning moringa and baobab into health products or making jewelry &#8211; as it helps them in the lean season and after poor harvests,&#8221; said Jigo Moumouni of the UK-based charity Tree Aid.
GROWTH AND GAINS
Sitting next to large boxes of soaps, oils and creams, women in savings groups in several villages said they were trying to find large-scale buyers for their products, which they currently only sell at local markets, in order to grow their businesses and make more money.
&#8220;Selling at the market makes us feel useful, but we need big buyers and more support and training to move forward,&#8221; said Fati Boubacar, head of a union of 90 women working in three savings groups.
By supporting and investing in the groups, the BRACED project hopes to enable more groups to grow to a size where they are ready to open formal group bank accounts. That would allow them to invest in bigger ventures and would boost individual incomes, CARE said.
Making the groups more resilient in the face of climate change could also help them to stay together in the long term. Some savings groups disband early on because people move between communities, or because of disputes over investments. In some cases, men also oppose their wives&#8217; participation.
While savings groups aim to give women more economic power, the social impact that these women&#8217;s groups have on communities in terms of health, education and the future of children is key, according to Moustapha Ibrahim of Plan International in Niger.
&#8220;VSLAs can build communities from a rights and development perspective,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Women become more powerful in respect of their voices being heard, and by seeing their incomes improve.&#8221;
For women like Halidou, being part of a savings group and understanding better how to tailor their businesses to deal with climate shocks has made their work &#8220;less of a gamble&#8221;.
&#8220;Previously, we didn&#8217;t know if we would make or lose money when it came to business &#8230; we were in the dark,&#8221; she said, laughing with other women as they recalled how their husbands used to interfere with their work, or insist they stay at home.
But &#8220;when you play your part, come home with money and provide for the family, your husband will let you go anywhere you want&#8221;, Halidou added, grinning and winking as she shook her purse.
(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, editing by Zoe Tabary and Laurie Goering.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women&#8217;s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit <a href="http://news.trust.org/">news.trust.org</a>)

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