Africa Archive

The coronavirus pandemic is challenging Algeria’s aging health care system, as the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 approach 45,000, with some 1,500 deaths. Yet rather than the virus itself, it is the Algerian regime’s use of the pandemic to quell popular dissent that is pushing the country deeper into crisis. The authorities have seized on the public health emergency to arrest activists and clamp down on the flow of information, actions that will likely only worsen Algeria’s long-running political stalemate. Anti-government demonstrators calling themselves Hirak, or “movement” in Arabic, had been taking to the streets on a weekly basis […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. After a decades-long eradication campaign, health officials declared Africa free of wild poliovirus this week, even as they called for ongoing vigilance against a rare mutation of the virus that still circulates on the continent. Wild poliovirus, which is usually transmitted through contaminated water, primarily affects children under five years old, causing irreversible paralysis and even death. As recently as 1996, the virus affected 75,000 African children. That was the year health officials launched the ambitious eradication effort, coordinating continent-wide immunization campaigns […]

“From our vantage point, the transition from empire to nation in the 20th century appears inevitable,” writes the political theorist Adom Getachew. In the 30 years after World War II, membership in the United Nations expanded from 51 to 144 countries, an astounding transformation. But in her recently published book, “Worldmaking After Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination,” Getachew argues “against the standard view of decolonization as a moment of nation-building,” painting a picture of anti-colonial nationalist movements that sought not only to build independent states, but also to undo global structures of hierarchy and subjugation that had become […]

In a recent article for The New York Times, the political theorist Adom Getachew observes that in “the past few years, decolonization has gained new political currency—inside the borders of the old colonial powers.” In many European capitals, statues of former imperialists have been defaced, toppled by protesters or removed by authorities, contributing to a resurgence of discussions about what “decolonization” means and how it can be put into action today. This week on Trend Lines, Getachew joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to talk about the history of anti-colonial nationalist movements that tried to remake the world in an egalitarian mold, […]

The last time veteran opposition leader Tundu Lissu left Tanzania, he was unconscious, aboard a medical flight to Nairobi. Unidentified gunmen had fired 16 bullets into his body outside his residence in the capital, Dodoma, in September 2017. He spent nearly three years in exile, first in Kenya, and then in Belgium, undergoing some 20 surgeries. Lissu returned to his homeland last month, greeted at the airport by cheering crowds of supporters waving green palm fronds. “I was overwhelmed by the reception I received,” he told World Politics Review in an interview. “It was absolutely thrilling and humbling at the […]

KAMPALA, Uganda—When Maria Ledochowska Nnatabi wears a red beret in her village in eastern Uganda, her neighbors whisper warnings. “My daughter, you’re going to be killed,” they tell her. “Please remove that beret—your life comes first.” She keeps it on anyway. As a 25-year-old youth leader in People Power, a political movement that is shaking up Uganda’s stifled politics, she has decided to stop being afraid. “The thing we have to do as a movement is see how can we get fear out of these people,” she says. Red emerged as the color of political resistance in Uganda in 2017, […]

When Cyril Ramaphosa became president of South Africa in February 2018, many South Africans saw it as a “new dawn” for their country. In the aftermath of Jacob Zuma’s corruption-plagued presidency, Ramaphosa seemed to offer the hope of competent leadership and accountable government. Commentators spoke of “Ramaphoria,” as the new president sought to revive the spirit of idealism that informed the early days of post-apartheid South Africa in the 1990s, and to engineer a definitive break with what he acknowledged were “nine wasted years” under Zuma. Ramaphosa promised more than just a change in the political atmospherics, however. His administration […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was forced from power in a military coup Tuesday, upending the political situation in Mali and, with the country at the epicenter of a fight against a growing Islamist insurgency, raising alarms about regional security. The coup unfolded rapidly as mutinying soldiers seized weapons from a garrison outside the capital, Bamako, then descended on the city, capturing Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse. Within hours, Keita appeared on state television to dissolve the government and announce his resignation. […]

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso—Daleba Nahounou was a university student in Abidjan, the largest city in Cote d’Ivoire, when a disputed presidential election in 2010 sent rival militias onto the streets.* The ensuing months of violence claimed 3,000 lives across the country and led to an international war crimes tribunal. “It was tragic,” Nahounou, who now helps lead a civil society organization called the Coalition of the Indignant of Cote d’Ivoire, told World Politics Review. “We have the same feeling that it could happen today.” Tensions are high in the country after President Alassane Ouattara, the opposition candidate and eventual victor in […]

Following the resignation of Elyes Fakhfakh as prime minister of Tunisia in mid-July, amid corruption allegations and after just five months in office, President Kais Saied designated one of his own advisers, Hichem Mechichi, as the new prime minister. Mechichi has until Aug. 25 to form a government that can win parliamentary approval. Should he fail, Saied has the constitutional right to call for new elections—an arduous task, particularly as Tunisia struggles with a deepening economic crisis and a spike in COVID-19 cases triggered by reopening the country’s borders in late June. Before he even takes office, Mechichi faces several […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. An emergency cleanup operation has pumped the remaining oil from a Japanese ship that ran aground off Mauritius late last month, but the island nation is just beginning to grapple with the environmental and economic costs of the 1,000 tons of fuel that spilled off its coast. The MV Wakashio, which was en route from Singapore to Brazil, went off course and struck a coral reef about a mile southeast of Mauritius. The ship’s hull began to split open as it was […]

Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic is testing and revealing the limits of state authority. Simultaneously elevated and enfeebled, the nation-state has been the principal organizing unit behind the global crisis response. But often, it has lacked the legitimacy and authority it needs to manage the pandemic in the territories it purports to govern. In disputed territories and conflict zones, on remote isles in archipelagos, in favelas and urban settlements, citizens may look to the state for protection. But there at the margins, where the world’s most vulnerable populations often live, communities are instead enduring the pandemic without help from, […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Bowing to the reality that they cannot prevent the spread of COVID-19 in classrooms full of students and teachers, Kenyan officials canceled the 2020 school year in July, at its midpoint. The implications of the decision will be felt not only domestically, where a nearly year-long break in learning could widen educational disparities, but also across the continent. Kenya initially suspended classes back in mid-March, days after the country’s first COVID-19 case and early in its academic year, which begins in January. […]

Editor’s note: The following article is one of 30 that we’ve selected from our archives to celebrate World Politics Review’s 15th anniversary. You can find the full collection here. At approximately 8:19 p.m. on the evening of May 25, Derek Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department, brought his weight down upon George Floyd’s neck. Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, arrested for the alleged crime of using a counterfeit $20 bill, struggled for breath—for life—for more than five minutes. Lying prostrate on the hot concrete, his arms handcuffed behind his back, his airways choked by Chauvin’s knee, Floyd summoned […]

In recent weeks, Mali has been beset with mass protests against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s government. At times, tens of thousands of people have poured into the streets of the capital, Bamako, to demand Keita’s resignation. The protests’ organizers, calling themselves the June 5 Movement after the date of the first demonstration, have brought together opposition political parties, religious groups, civil society organizations, trade unions and even members of the police. These disparate elements of Malian society are uniting around their deep anger at entrenched poverty and unemployment, the government’s ineffectual response to the coronavirus pandemic, and the rapid deterioration […]

When Sudan announced in April that it would officially criminalize female genital mutilation, or FGM, the news was met with a burst of support and celebration from international observers and activists. UNICEF said the ban signaled a “new era” for girls’ rights, calling it a “landmark move” in a country where around 88 percent of women and girls aged 15 to 49 have undergone genital mutilation. The measure, which amended the criminal code to make performing FGM punishable by up to three years in prison, was immediately hailed as a sign of hope for the country’s fragile transitional government, formed […]