Policy papers

Mob justice is a form of extrajudicial punishment or retribution in which a person suspected of wrongdoing is typically humiliated, beaten, and in many cases killed by vigilantes or a crowd. Mob action takes place in the absence of any form of fair trial in which the accused are given a chance to defend themselves; the mob simply takes the law into its own hands (Ng’walali & Kitinya, 2006). Mob justice is not only criminal but also amounts to a violation of human rights (Uganda Human Rights Commission, 2016).

L’approche des élections présidentielles du 31 octobre 2020 en Côte d’Ivoire rime avec des tensions dans le paysage politique ivoirien. Depuis plusieurs mois, les partis politiques de l’opposition et les citoyens ordinaires manifestent publiquement leur contestation, en réaction à un potentiel troisième mandat du président sortant, ainsi que par rapport à la révision de la liste électorale qu’ils estiment opaque et non inclusive.

Not only did the COVID-19 disease arrive on Africa’s shores (and at its airports) later than in Asia, Europe, and North America (Loembé et al., 2020), but for months the numbers of infections and deaths also appeared to remain relatively low. As of early August, the continent had experienced more than 1 million confirmed cases and 23,000 deaths (Africa CDC, 2020), though these figures were increasing rapidly.

According to UNESCO (2020), approximately 1.2 billion students and youth worldwide are affected by school and university closures because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To adjust to these new circumstances, governments must develop innovative solutions to ensure inclusive learning opportunities during this period of unprecedented educational disruption.

Over the past two decades, the emergence and spread of local and transnational extremist organizations have become primary sources of insecurity in Africa. These include Al Shabaab, spreading from Somalia throughout East Africa; Boko Haram, from northern Nigeria into the greater Lake Chad region; Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, from Algeria to other states across the Sahel; and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), continuing to make inroads into the continent (Mets, 2019).

La démocratie est un mode de gouvernance par lequel le peuple décide de dessiner son avenir. Elle incarne ainsi l’expression de la reconnaissance de l’État de droit et des droits de l’homme. Depuis les années 1990, les états africains ont massivement adhéré à ce modèle de gouvernance, et l’Union Africaine (2007) continue d’inviter ses membres à le promouvoir sur le continent à travers la Charte Africaine de la Démocratie, des Elections, et de la Gouvernance.

Education is a powerful tool to fight poverty, enable upward socioeconomic mobility, and empower people to live healthier lives. But while the global adult literacy rate continues to increase, from 81% in 2000 to 86% in 2018 (World Bank, 2019), the challenge of access to quality education remains particularly severe in Africa. Even before the COVID-19 crisis, globally one out of five children aged 6-17 years were not in school; more than half of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Economic destitution – whether measured as the frequency with which people go without basic necessities or as the proportion of people who live on less than $1.90 a day – declined steadily in Africa between 2005 and 2015. However, the findings of Afrobarometer Round 7 surveys, conducted in 34 African countries between late 2016 and late 2018, demonstrate that improvements in living standards have come to a halt and “lived poverty” is once again on the rise.

Climate change is “the defining development challenge of our time,” and Africa the continent most vulnerable to its consequences, according to the African Union (2015) and the United Nations (UN Environment, 2019). Farmers in Uganda waiting endlessly for rain (URN, 2019), cyclone survivors in Mozambique and Zimbabwe digging out of the mud and burying their dead (Associated Press, 2019) – these images bring home what changing climate and increasingly extreme weather conditions may mean for everyday Africans.

Les questions relatives à l’emploi et plus précisément l’emploi des jeunes constituent une préoccupation particulière pour tous les états du monde, car le développement de leur nation de même que le bien-être des citoyens en dépendent. L’emploi étant l’un des moyens permettant de lutter contre la pauvreté (Hull, 2009), l’Organisation des Nations Unies, en lançant ses Objectifs de Développement Durable (ODD), a fait de l’accès à un emploi décent pour tous une de ses priorités (UNICEF, 2015).

Observers now commonly assert that multiparty elections are institutionalized as a standard feature of African politics (Posner & Young, 2007; Bratton, 2013; Cheeseman, 2018; Bleck & van de Walle, 2019). By this they mean that competitive electoral contests are the most commonplace procedure for choosing and changing political leaders across the continent.

In a democracy, citizens delegate powers to individuals and political parties charged with building and maintaining institutions that will ensure the people’s well-being. In this arrangement, trust is one of the most important ingredients in the legitimacy and sustainability of political systems (Blind, 2006).

Protection of individual rights and liberties has been on both the African continental agenda and the global agenda for decades, shaped especially by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. But the reality on the ground is often a far cry from the high standards set forth in these documents. 

Le Togo a modernisé ces dernières années plusieurs de ces textes de lois et pris plusieurs initiatives pour la promotion de l’égalité genre dans le pays.

After the Constitutional Court upheld the election results of 30 July 2018, Zimbabwe’s leading opposition party ended its online public response with the following message to newly confirmed President Emmerson Mnangagwa: “You can rig the elections. You can capture ZEC [Zimbabwe Electoral Commission]. You can capture [the] judiciary. But you will never capture the people. Their will shall prevail. The people shall govern!” (Movement for Democratic Change, 2018).

La mobilisation des ressources à travers la collecte des impôts et taxes est l’un des moyens pouvant permettre à une nation de renforcer sa capacité financière et améliorer la fourniture des biens et services publics pour le bien-être de la population. Cependant, les pays en voie de développement, qui ont un besoin énorme en termes de fourniture des biens et services publics, présentent une faible capacité à mobiliser les taxes (Besley & Persson, 2014).

For a moment, Zimbabwe’s July 30, 2018, elections seemed to promise relief from a traumatic political past. An aging autocrat had been deposed and his successor intoned pledges of “a new dispensation.” A dormant opposition movement began to reawaken to opportunities for open political campaigning. At home and abroad, Zimbabwe’s well-wishers allowed themselves a cautious hope that change was finally afoot. But change was not to be.

Another disputed election

Decentralization occurs when resources, power, and tasks are delegated to local-level governance structures that are democratic and largely independent of central government (Manor, 1999). Decentralization can thus be an important vehicle for ensuring that sustainable development policies and programs are implemented at the local level and bring socio-economic relief to the grass roots.