Category: Africa

By J C Suresh | IDN-InDepthNews Feature

TORONTO | ABIDJAN (IDN) – The African Development Bank (AfDB) is upbeat about 2016 and hopes to build on unprecedented development in 2015 which in its view would go down in history as a year “when the world decided that the time had finally come to set aside individual differences and to forge a new development paradigm for the planet”.

By Sonia Nguyen* | IDN-InDepthNews Feature

CHIBOK (IDN) – Repeated attacks on civilians from Boko Haram have led to massive displacements and negatively impacted livelihoods in North Eastern Nigeria. Displaced people rely on the limited resources of their host communities, placing the most vulnerable households under extreme pressure.

By Jutta Wolf | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

BERLIN (IDN) – A man raped a nine-year old girl who was on her way to school and infected her with HIV. The Zimbabwean police initially arrested the attacker, but then released him in secret. The reason: he paid bribe.

This case is by no means an exception The police and private sector have regularly been rated as highly corrupt, says Transparency International in a report entitled People and Corruption: Africa Survey 2015, adding: “we hear stories like this every day . . . In many countries you can pay off police officers to ignore any crime, however horrific and devastating – it’s just a matter of price.”

In fact, says the report, bribery affects more than one-in-five Africans. “Shockingly, we estimate that nearly 75 million people have paid a bribe in the past year – some of these to escape punishment by the police or courts, but many also forced to pay to get access to the basic services that they desperately need.”

For this latest African edition of the Global Corruption Barometer, Transparency International partnered with the Afrobarometer, which spoke to 43,143 respondents across 28 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa between March 2014 and September 2015 to ask them about their experiences and perceptions of corruption in their country.

By Friday Phiri | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe (IDN) – Just as climate change has been getting popular in development discourse over the past two decades, so has been climate financing, which refers to local, national or transnational funding, drawn from public, private and/or alternative sources.

By Jeffrey Moyo | IDN-InDepthNews Feature

HARARE (IDN) – As the battle to attain the Sustainable Development Goals hits up across the globe, the government of Japan through its development organisation, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has covered a myriad of development areas in this Southern African nation.

By Robert Johnson | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

BRUSSELS (IDN) – The 28-nation European Union (EU) has decided to strengthen relations through “high level dialogues” with the world’s fourth largest uranium producer Niger during the EU foreign and security affairs chief Federica Mogherini’s first visit to Sub-Saharan Africa. Uranium is of critical importance for both civilian and military purposes.

By Jutta Wolf | IDN-InDepthNews Report

BERLIN (IDN) – Amnesty International has appealed to the international community to increase its support to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Libya.

By Mirjam van Reisen* | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

BRUSSELS (IDN) – At the height of the Ebola-crisis, scenarios predicted the deaths of around 1.4 million people, or around 20.000 deaths a month. Now the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared Ebola-free. This means that no new cases have been diagnosed in the last 42 days. The total number of lives claimed by the disease in Liberia is 10,722 deaths. What lessons can be drawn from this and what should be done now?

News of a first Ebola patient in Liberia was spread in March 2014. A doctor at a large public hospital in Monrovia had attended a meeting at the University and left that same night to sound the alarm. The danger was immediately recognised by the leaders of the healthcare system in Liberia. Nonetheless, a large number of doctors and healthcare workers died in the first period, because the knowledge and means to properly face and control the disease were lacking.

By Misha Boutilier* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

TORONTO (IDN) – The Central African Republic (CAR) is in the throes of an extreme political crisis that exploded in early December 2013 with mass killing in the streets of the capital Bangui. Despite a French military intervention under UN auspices, an increase in aid funding for the CAR, and the accession of a new president committed to national reconciliation, the situation is still dire.

UN officials warn that there is a “high risk of crimes against humanity and genocide,” and the French Ambassador to the UN Gerard Araud has emphasized that the 6,000 peacekeepers currently deployed are insufficient to quell violence between Muslim Seleka fighters and Christian anti-balaka militias.