AfricaFocus Bulletin

May 25, 2020  Africa: Remote Learning with African Storybooks
    Two years ago, when AfricaFocus first profiled the African Storybook project, it had available, for free reading and download, 903 storybooks in 136 different languages, including English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Hausa, Swahili, and a host of other languages spoken on the continent. This year, as Covid-19 confronts Africa as well as the world, the Johannesburg-based project has 1,373 unique storybooks with 6,085 translations in 193 languages. With a remotely connected production operation involving volunteer authors and artists around the continent, it is uniquely placed to provide continuity of resources to parents and teachers, though smartphone apps as well as through its website.

May 12, 2020  USA/Global: Contesting Health and Workers' Rights
    The global Covid-19 pandemic has made clear that the right to health is not just an aspirational value. Suddenly, it’s a matter of desperate self-interest for everyone, except, perhaps, those insulated by enormous wealth. The same is true for the rights of workers in the United States and worldwide: their work and their consumer power are indispensable to a global economy facing recession. The current crisis thus presents an opportunity to expand the recognition and exercise of these pivotal rights, accelerating efforts that were already underway before the virus hit. But all too predictably, these efforts are running up against stubborn resistance from forces that benefit (or think they benefit) from the status quo.

April 27, 2020  Africa/Global: Pandemic Mobilization amid High Vulnerability
    At a continental level as well as in almost all African countries, African institutions mobilized quickly in response to the pandemic. In most countries, the pandemic response so far has been encouraging in terms of buying time by flattening the curve, although implementation of lockdowns has been marred by human rights abuses by security forces and insufficient funding for support to those already economically vulnerable to loss of income. A minority of countries, including Tanzania, Burundi, Cameroon, and Madagascar, seem to be emulating the denial and delay pattern previously followed by the United States and the United Kingdom.

April 13, 2020  Mozambique: Cumulative Shocks, Local and Global
    As of April 10, Mozambique had registered only 20 cases of covid-19, and was carrying out an active program of screening, testing, and contact tracing for all entering the country. The success of containment was still fragile, however. In addition, 10 of the tests were traced to a worker at the multinational natural gas company Total in Cabo Delgado province, in the far northeast. In that same province, reminding us that the pandemic comes on the top of other urgent crises, jihadist insurgents are now expanding their offensive and extending their attacks inland.

April 2, 2020  Africa: Covid-19, New Africa-Specific Links
    This AfricaFocus Bulletin is very short, with no long articles, but only a selection of new links that I think very useful and important to share widely. Many of you have shared previous Bulletins, and I hope that you will also share this (and/or the links you find most useful).

More on: politics&human rights|peace&security|health|economy|ict

AfricaFocus Archive: by date | by place | by topic

March 26, 2020  
    Africa/Global: Coronavirus Reflections and Updates
March 16, 2020  
    Africa/Global: Coronavirus Updates
March 9, 2020  
    USA/Africa: Transnational Lives in Kentucky
February 24, 2020  
    USA/Global: National and Global Inequalities Are Intertwined
February 10, 2020  
    Malawi: Historic Victory for Rule of Law
January 27, 2020  
    USA/Global: Green New Deal Can and Must Be Global
January 27, 2020  
    USA/Global: Beyond Eurocentrism and U.S. Exceptionalism
January 13, 2020  
    Russia/Africa: Upping Its Stake in Multi-Player Field
December 16, 2019  
    Africa/Global: Editor´s Commentaries, 2019
December 9, 2019  
    Africa: Continental Unity and Industrialization?
November 25, 2019  
    USA/Africa: At Home in Maine
November 11, 2019  
    Tanzania: Human Rights Restrictions Mounting
October 28, 2019  
    Africa/Global: Untapped Potential for Africa Climate Actions
October 9, 2019  
    Africa/Global: Targeting Corporate Shell Games
September 18, 2019  
    Horn of Africa: Interview with Kassahun Checole
September 12, 2019  
    South Africa: Xenophobia, Deep Roots, Today´s Crisis
September 12, 2019  
    South Africa: Spotlight on Gender-based Violence
August 12, 2019  
    Africa/Global: Tax Avoidance 101
August 12, 2019  
    Africa/Global: #MauritiusLeaks Reveals Tax Dodges
July 29, 2019  
    Africa/Global: Agribusiness vs. Agroecology
July 15, 2019  
    Africa/Global: New Horizon for Off-Grid Solar
July 2, 2019  
    Kenya/Global: Big Victory for #SaveLamu/#deCOALonize