Dispatches

Access to safe water and sanitation is a human right, a prerequisite for good public health and development – and a persistent challenge for most African governments (UN Water, 2021; Holtz, & Golubsk, 2021; Mason, Nalamalapu, & Corfee-Morlot, 2019). As the COVID-19 pandemic reminds us, if we needed a reminder, hygiene saves lives (United Nations, 2021).

L’impôt est considéré comme un instrument de redistribution des revenus et un moyen, pour les pouvoirs publics, d’obtenir les ressources nécessaires au financement de leur politique (Jurion, 2011).

La décentralisation en cours au Togo a pris racine dans la Constitution d’octobre 1992 et dans la loi N° 2019‐006 du 26 juin 2019 (République Togolaise, 2019). Mais ce processus visant la bonne gouvernance n’a repris qu’avec les élections locales de 2019.

As of early December 2021, Mozambique has recorded 152,120 COVID-19 infections and 1,941 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began (Africa Centers for Disease Control, 2021).

The government declared a state of emergency from March to September 2020 and mandated a temporary lockdown. Some restrictions on movement and gatherings continue under a state of public calamity (U.S. Embassy Mozambique, 2021).

In June 2021, protests against police brutality following the death of a law student quickly gained momentum and transformed into a much larger call for democratic reforms in Eswatini (Human Rights Watch, 2021). Protesters (mostly youth) across different constituencies marched to deliver petitions to their members of Parliament (MPs) calling for the unbanning of political parties and the right to democratically elect a prime minister, who is currently appointed by the king (Koogotsitse, 2021).

In June 2020, the body of 28-year-old Tshegofatso Pule, who was eight months pregnant, was found stabbed and hanging from a tree outside Johannesburg (News24, 2020).

The brutality of the murder shocked the nation. But the crime was one of many.

The damaging effects of corruption on countries, industries, and individuals are well documented, including its destructive drain on public trust and on the legitimacy of government institutions (Sullivan et al., 2012; Myint, 2000; Diamond, 2007).

On 4 December 2021, Gambians will head to the polls in their first presidential election since the end of Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year dictatorship. Incumbent Adama Barrow, who shockingly defeated Jammeh in 2016 with the backing of seven opposition parties (BBC, 2016), is seeking re-election at the head of his new National People’s Party (Fatty, 2021; Muntagadura, 2021).

Morocco has recorded more than 947,760 COVID-19 cases since 2 March 2020, second on the continent to South Africa. Deaths number more than 14,720 (WHO, 2021; BBC, 2021).

Home to some of the world’s fastest-growing economies (Mitchell, 2019), Africa has attracted the attention of leaders and economic strategists everywhere, including China. Over the past two decades, political and economic relations between China and Africa have grown rapidly, with trade volumes increasing from about $11 billion in 2000 to $192 billion in 2019

Developing countries lose $1.26 trillion a year to corruption, theft, and tax evasion, according to analysts’ estimates – a sum large enough to lift 1.4 billion people above the poverty line for six years (Fleming, 2019). Unless we control corruption, development experts say, achieving the other Sustainable Development Goals will be all but impossible (United Nations, 2019; Rubio & Andvig, 2019).

Addressing the needs of youth – for education, engagement, and livelihoods – has become a central tenet of global and continental policy discussions over the past decade. The African Youth Charter underscores the rights of youth to participate in political and decision-making processes and calls upon states to prepare them with the necessary skills to do so

Zimbabwe’s economy has been in free-fall for more than two decades. Two major explanations stand in opposition to each other. The first school of thought attributes the country’s economic malaise to sanctions imposed by Western countries. The second blames government mismanagement and corruption.

Despite its status as a middle-income country, Eswatini has suffered stagnating economic growth characterized by high unemployment, unequal distribution of wealth, and persistent poverty (World Bank, 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these challenges as restrictions on business operations and border closures constrained export-oriented industries, weakened demand, and reduced incomes. The African Development Bank Group (2021) projects modest economic growth of 1.4% in 2021.

In Uganda, restrictions on Internet and social media use are becoming common. Since 1 July 2021, Internet users have begun paying a 12% tax on Internet data, in addition to an 18% valued added tax (Mwesigwa, 2021). The Internet tax replaces the over-the-top tax, popularly known as the “social media tax,” which the government imposed in 2018 in a bid to restrict access to Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and other platforms.

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).