AfricaFocus Bulletin

July 6, 2020  Africa/Global: Not Pessimism or Optimism but Possibilism
    “The evidence—gathered both from our own long experience of working with African governments and from the work of others—is that there are in fact cadres of thoughtful, public-spirited policy officials and even politicians; and furthermore that there is ample demand from wage workers and the intelligentsia for industrial policies rooted in evidence rather than abstruse economic theory.” - Christopher Cramer, John Sender, and Arkebe Oqubay

June 22, 2020  Africa/Global: Fossil Fuel Viability to Decline Sharply
    “Falling demand and rising investment risk is likely to slash the value of oil, gas and coal reserves by nearly two thirds, sending shock waves through the global economy by hitting companies, financial markets and countries reliant on exports, finds a new report from Carbon Tracker. It warns that the fossil fuel industry is approaching terminal decline because of competition from clean technologies and tougher government policies to achieve climate targets and increase energy security. The COVID-19 crisis is now accelerating this: demand for oil could fall by 9% in 2020 according to the International Energy Agency.”

June 8, 2020  USA/Global: Racial Pandemic and Viral Pandemic
    The twin pandemics of racism and coronavirus are colliding, in reality and in metaphor. Anti-racism scholar Ibram X. Kendi writes in the Atlantic of “the racial pandemic within the viral pandemic.” And the meme of “America's two deadly viruses” has gone viral on Twitter. But while one is a literal (and new) virus and the other an endemic condition that has persisted over centuries, the scope of each spans the range from local communities to the entire planet.

June 8, 2020  Africa/Global: Thinking Post-Covid-19
    “Calls for debt relief—or more timid debt service moratorium—are drops in the ocean. Something much more ambitious and radical should be envisaged. This crisis allows us to think big. … [F]or these exceptional times, we need exceptional solutions. This virus does offer Africa an opportunity to exercise agency and embark on a more robust structural transformation process. Building on the gains of the last few years and the resilience of its population, there will probably be no better time to fast-track change.” - Carlos Lopes, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

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.

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AfricaFocus Archive: by date | by place | by topic

May 12, 2020  
    USA/Global: Contesting Health and Workers' Rights
April 27, 2020  
    Africa/Global: Pandemic Mobilization amid High Vulnerability
April 13, 2020  
    Mozambique: Cumulative Shocks, Local and Global
April 2, 2020  
    Africa: Covid-19, New Africa-Specific Links
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