AfricaFocus Bulletin
June 20, 2018 Congo (Kinshasa): Ebola Response Shows Lessons Learned
The Democratic Republic of Congo has extensive experience in successfully containing
Ebola outbreaks (the one which was reported in May is the ninth since the first in
1976). But this one, with cases in Mbandaka, a river-port city of over one million
people on the country's western border, raised the nightmare scenario of spreading to
other river-port cities such as the capital Kinshasa (over 11 million people), as well
as Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo, and Bangui in the Central African
Republic. But, although victory is not assured, so far the response by national and
international health agencies has been a model of applying lessons learned.
June 4, 2018 West Africa/Global: Tax Evasion without Borders
"On paper, the company that engineered and built the [$50 million mineral sands]
processing plant [in Senegal] was SNC Lavalin-Mauritius Ltd, a local division of SNC
Lavalin [Canada]. In reality, SNC Lavalin-Mauritius wasn’t involved. It was a shell,
created for the specific purpose of helping the engineering giant avoid tax payments.
The company had no construction equipment and no office of its own. It operated from
inside the Mauritius office of the offshoring law firm Appleby, which helped SNCLavalin
create the shell company." - West Africa Leaks
May 21, 2018 Namibia/Africa: Afrobarometer Insights
In Namibia in 2014, the ruling SWAPO party decided to adopt a 50-50 gender quota for
its representatives in the National Assembly. This brought the representation of
women in the National Assembly to 41% in the election that year (more than twice the
current 19% of women in the U.S. House of Representatives). Recent survey
results show that the move has proved highly popular in Namibia, with 71% of women
and 68% of men saying that such a quota should be mandated for all political parties.
May 7, 2018 USA/Africa: Achieving 100% Renewable Energy
"We can’t have a working nation or a world if we don’t stop the climate from
careening out of control. That’s been clear for decades now, but what’s been less
clear is precisely what we should do about it. Happily, that’s no longer the case. We
now know exactly what to do, and we’re increasingly certain it can be done. We have
to switch off of coal, oil, and gas, and on to 100% wind, water, and sun energy
sources." - Bill McKibben
May 7, 2018 USA/Africa: Renewable Energy Advances on Many Fronts
Resistance to rapid renewable energy expansion is still high, despite the
acknowledged costs in climate change. The U.S. Power Africa initiative still funds
predominately natural gas, although its investment in renewables is growing. In
Kenya, the Kenyan and Chinese governments are pushing ahead with a coal-fired
generation plant in Lamu, despite strong resistance from local environmentalists and
the fact that China is rapidly abandoning coal at home. Nevertheless, technological
changes and rising awareness of the damage done by fossil fuels are propelling new
advances on many fronts.
More on:
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AfricaFocus Archive:
by date | by place | by topic
April 23, 2018
Ethiopia: Wax, Gold, and "Ethiopianness"
April 9, 2018
Africa: Storybooks in African Languages
March 26, 2018
Zimbabwe: Women Continue Protest at Hwange Coal
March 12, 2018
Africa/Global: Charting Where They Hide the Money, 2
March 12, 2018
Africa/Global: Charting Where They Hide the Money, 1
February 26, 2018
Nigeria/Global: Promising Potential for Solar Mini-Grids
February 12, 2018
Sudan: Perilous Crossroads on Refugee Map
January 29, 2018
Africa/Global: Humanitarian Attention Deficits
January 15, 2018
South Africa/USA: Inequality is Extreme and Still Rising
January 15, 2018
Africa/Global: World Trends in Inequality
December 18, 2017
Cameroon: Speech, Rights, and Aging Autocracy
December 11, 2017
Africa/Global: Paradise Papers, Plus
November 27, 2017
Zimbabwe: After Mugabe, Looking Forward
November 27, 2017
Zimbabwe: After Mugabe, Looking Back
November 13, 2017
Africa/Global: Counterproductive Counterterrorism
November 13, 2017
USA/Sahel: Questions Asked, Unasked, Half-Answered
October 30, 2017
Africa/Global: Recent Books Read & Recommended
October 19, 2017
Somalia: Not Only a Somali Tragedy
October 9, 2017
Africa/Global: Tobacco Industry Targets Africa Markets
September 25, 2017
Africa/Global: How Women Lose from Tax Injustice
August 29, 2017
Sierra Leone: Hard Lessons from Disaster
August 23, 2017
USA/Africa: No Policy? Bad Policy? Or Both?
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