Dispatches

Le Cameroun est un pays riche en cultures et en traditions. Du fait de son histoire de colonisation, le Français et l’Anglais sont les deux langues officielles, faisant ainsi une des particularités de ce pays en Afrique. La diversité culturelle est la raison pour laquelle le pays est dénommé « l’Afrique en miniature » (Serra, 2009).

In South Africa, the economic hub of Africa, years of stifled growth have been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic’s extended restriction of economic activity. The economy shrank by 7% in 2020 (World Bank, 2020), causing widespread material deprivation, job losses, and anxiety about the future. Signs of recovery, though seen for four consecutive quarters, have been modest (Statistics South Africa, 2021a).

In his inaugural speech in November 2017, President Emmerson Mnangagwa pledged to fight corruption, a scourge that he said “remains the major source of some of the problems we face as a country, and its retarding impact on national development cannot be over- emphasized” (Sithole-Matarise, 2017).

Zimbabwe’s water and sanitation crisis predates COVID-19 by decades. But it appears to be worsening, and bringing additional dangers during the pandemic.

Access to clean water has long been declining, especially in urban areas. Human Rights Watch (2020) reports that while 84% of Zimbabweans had access to safe drinking water in 1988, that proportion had shrunk to 72% by 2000 and to 64% by 2017. More than 2 million people in the greater Harare metropolitan area have no household access to safe water for drinking.

In July 2021, as South Africa grappled with a third wave of COVID-19 infections, widespread looting and rioting erupted in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, the two most populous provinces (Daily Maverick, 2021). The riots damaged businesses, public buildings, and key infrastructure and left at least 342 people dead, and order was restored only after the state deployed 25,000 army troops (Business Day, 2021; Davis, Nicolson, & Simelane, 2021).

Dans tous les États, le rôle principal de la gendarmerie et de la police consiste à assurer la sécurité des personnes et des biens et de maintenir l’ordre public. Pour cela, les agents affectés à la sécurisation doivent construire une relation de confiance avec les populations pour susciter leur adhésion.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state” as well as “the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country” (United Nations, 1948).

And the African Continental Free Trade Area aims to create a single market with free movement of goods and services between countries (World Economic Forum, 2021).

Since its first case in March 2020, Eswatini has recorded 26,628 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 806 deaths as of 4 August 2021 (World Health Organization, 2021). To contain the outbreak, the government quickly declared a national emergency and instituted night-time curfews, school closures, restrictions on non-essential travel, limited sales of alcohol, social distancing, and mandatory wearing of face masks (Government of the Kingdom of Eswatini, 2020).

The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in South Africa was identified on 5 March 2020. Since then, the country has recorded more than 2.3 million cases and at least 70,018 deaths related to the disease (National Institute for Communicable Diseases, 2021), although the real death toll could be more than twice as high (News24, 2021).

Taxation is an essential tool for domestic resource mobilization as well as policy making, shaping the distribution of resources among wealthy and less-wealthy citizens and enabling the government to address national development objectives (AFRODAD, 2011).

In 2005, the Parliament of Uganda amended the Constitution to remove presidential term limits, allowing incumbents to run for re-election indefinitely (Observer, 2012). In 2017, lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to repeal the presidential age limit requiring that presidential candidates be less than 75 years of age (BBC, 2017). This allowed President Yoweri Museveni, age 76, to claim his sixth consecutive term in the recently concluded elections.

Social media is having a huge impact on the daily lives of people throughout the world. A popular tool in both personal and professional life (Breen, 2015), social media allows users to stay updated and connected with little regard for geographical borders, and is competing with traditional media as the go-to source for information (Digital School of Marketing, 2019).

La corruption constitue l’un des plus gros freins au développement du continent africain. Elle cause, à elle seule, une perte annuelle estimée à 148 milliards de dollars, soit 25% du produit intérieur brut (PIB) de l’Afrique (Financial Africa, 2019). Pour lutter contre ce phénomène, le gouvernement du Sénégal a créé, depuis 2012, l’Office National de Lutte Contre la Fraude et la Corruption (OFNAC), une autorité administrative indépendante dotée de l’autonomie financière.

Tolerance is a pre-condition for stability in a society with a variety of cultural and religious traditions. In Ghana, a secular and heterogeneous society (Armah-Attoh & Debrah, 2015), peaceful coexistence of different ethnicities and religions is strengthened by policies that foster internal mobility, such as a national service program that allows youths to spend time outside their home regions, as well as by urbanization connecting different ethnic groups in marriage and daily life (Throup, 2011).

Zimbabwe has not been spared the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 16 June 2021, the country had recorded 40,077 confirmed cases and 1,635 deaths of COVID-19 (World Health Organization, 2021). Lockdowns have threatened many households with destitution and hunger (News24, 2021).

On 17 May 2021, former attorney general and prominent government critic Jayaram Valayden was detained by Mauritian security forces and charged with organizing a rally in contravention of the country’s Quarantine Act, a COVID-19 containment measure that prohibits public gatherings of more than 10 people (CNBC Africa, 2021).

Afin de limiter les pertes énormes de recettes à cause de la faiblesse de son système fiscal et douanier, le Togo a rendu opérationnelle depuis 2014 la politique dite « régie intégrée » avec l’avènement de l’Office Togolais des Recettes (OTR). Cette politique consiste à fusionner les services des impôts et des douanes en une seule entité dotée d’organes et d’un système de fonctionnement plus efficaces, et a pour objectif de collecter les recettes fiscales et douanières pour le compte de l’Etat et des collectivités locales (Djallo, 2015).

Public protests and civic actions have been an integral part of Liberia’s political history. In April 1979, an 18% increase in the price of rice led to violent protests against the government, resulting in the deaths of about 40 protesters (Dash, 1980).

In November 2019, Mauritians conducted their 11th general election since independence in 1968, handing the ruling Militant Socialist Movement a clear victory and Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth a five-year term. In the Economist Intelligence Unit (2019) Democracy Index that followed in early 2020, Mauritius ranked as a “full democracy,” 18th worldwide and No. 1 in Africa.

Pour les défenseurs de la démocratie, la presse est l’institution non gouvernementale la plus indispensable et la plus redoutable (Girard, 2019). Selon eux l’accès à l’information est primordial pour permettre aux citoyens de s’informer sur l’actualité économique, politique et sociale afin de demander des comptes aux dirigeants élus.