A Comrade Falls

Suhuyini Nbang-Ba, the socialist activist, journalist and teacher died at home in the Gambia on 16th September 2020.  He was nine days short of his sixty-first birthday and is survived by a brother, a sister, three nieces and four nephews.

Suhuyini was born in the small town of Ejura, near Kumasi in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.  He was, however, a Dagomba, a member of the Muslim tribe of that name from Ghana’s Northern Region. He was originally named Mohammed Yacabou, and known as M.Y. to his friends, but chose the name Suhuyini Nbang-Ba in later life.  This was a political act reclaiming his ancestry and history — his Muslim name could be traced back to colonisation of the Dagomba area by traders between the 12th and 15th centuries.  Instead, Suhuyini chose a name in his mother tongue, Dagbani — ‘Suhuyini’ meaning ‘unity’ (literally ‘one heart’) and ‘Nbang-Ba’ meaning ‘I know them’— a reference to his ancestors and the act of reclaiming them embodied in changing his name.  In fact, having previously been very religious and renowned for his piety, as a young man in the early eighties he renounced Islam and publicly denounced both the activities of certain Muslim leaders and religion in general.  

As a schoolboy, Suhuyini was sent to live with his aunt in the north so he could attend Tamale Secondary School.  He was also educated at the prestigious University of Ghana, Legon, where he took his undergraduate degree and then later began an MPhil in African and European history.  While at university, he became very active politically and was a member of the United Revolutionary Front (URF), an underground anarchist movement opposed to the military junta led by Jerry John Rawlings.  However, Suhuyini later opposed armed struggle.  During his time as an undergraduate, he was beaten up by the military, hospitalised and placed under house arrest due to the student union’s opposition to the military junta.

Suhuyini then spent two years as a teacher back in the Northern Region, also setting up a self-help association for impoverished women and a drama troupe.  

In the late eighties, when the ruling regime introduced District Assemblies to lend a semblance of democracy to the dictatorship, Suhuyini contested the Nalung Constituency seat and won 75 percent of the vote. He became one of the first members of the Tamale District Assembly (a sort of district parliament.)

After his time in the north, Suhuyini returned to Accra to take his MPhil. While studying for this he joined the communist Weekly Insight newspaper as a reporter and columnist; the Insight was at that time the only non-governmental newspaper.  His column was titled “The Dark File” and targeted corrupt government officials. As he did not use a pseudonym, he started receiving anonymous threats from the top echelons of Ghanaian society and from hit-men of the military dictatorship.  Despite this he continued his political work.

When he could stand the threats no longer, and when the military turned up at his home while he was out, he fled on foot to the Gambia, having to sell the very shoes he was wearing to pay for his passage and to bribe border guards.  Once in the Gambia he continued his teaching and journalism.

During this period, five of Suhuyini’s close Gambian friends were rounded up by the military on suspicion of being involved in a failed coup attempt; all of them died while being transported between prisons.  Officials claimed at the time that they had died when the car they were in crashed, but the circumstances surrounding the event were suspicious and his fears for his safety led to Suhuyini finally giving up his political journalism in the Gambia.

However, Suhuyini continued his political work by writing for publications based outside West Africa.  He was a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) and contributed articles to the party’s journal The Socialist Standard.  He also edited a magazine of the SPGB called African Socialist which was later renamed Socialist Banner.

At the time of his death Suhuyini was working on a book of essays, despite limited access to a computer and an erratic electricity supply.  Although the hospital did not give a cause of death, he had been increasingly weak for a year with little appetite.  

I came to know Suhuyini in the late nineties when he was living in Nsawam, Ghana teaching English literature and French at secondary school and working at the Weekly Insight.  Here he was known by pupils and teachers alike by yet another name: Afah, a Dagomba word meaning a Muslim teacher. This name had sprung up spontaneously and was indicative of the respect in which his pupils and colleagues held him.  

Tellingly, it was not widely known outside his home region that Suhuyini was born into Dagomba royalty.  In fact I doubt any of his colleagues in Nsawam knew of this fact.  His father was the sub-chief of the tribe and he was the only son of his mother, the tribal queen. However, when Suhuyini became an atheist he also chose not to inherit the chieftaincy and he kept his royal lineage as secret as possible.  I only became aware of it myself at the school where we both taught when one of his pupils, also a Dagomba, prostrated herself on the ground before him as a sign of respect.  Suhuyini quickly told her to get up and that she did not need to do this.  It was only when pressed by me that he explained the meaning behind her actions, otherwise he would not have mentioned it.

This was typical of the man.  There are some people who make a show of espousing socialism in theory, but fall short of its principals in the way they live their lives.  This was never true of Suhuyini — his political views were deeply held and stemmed from his character; he lived socialist principles.  Unlike some of his nominally socialist colleagues in West Africa, he refused to bribe his way into a lucrative post, preferring to remain a poorly-paid teacher with his principles intact.  He tenaciously battled depression, ill-health and constant technical problems to work on his political writing, and throughout his life he campaigned tirelessly, experiencing violence and risking death many times for his principles.

More than that, Suhuyini treated everyone he met as an equal and spoke to everybody with the same friendly respect, from the highest born to the most lowly street-seller.  While teaching in Nsawam he sponsored a schoolboy through his education, even though the child was no relation, out of pure compassion.  He sponsored a child again later in the Gambia, despite his own limited means.  When he died in the Gambia, the family where he rented a room told me he had been like a son to his landlady and like a second father to her grandchildren, who knew him affectionately as ‘Baba.’

He certainly had a life-long effect on me.  When I first met him I was seventeen, and my discussions with him then and over the intervening years helped form the political beliefs I still hold today.  

Indeed, Suhuyini left his mark on everyone he met.  He held strong views, yet was always willing to hear others out — debates never became rows — and with his humanity, sharp wit and easy, infectious laugh he enriched the life of all who knew him, no matter which name they knew him by.  He is deeply missed by those he left behind and the world is a lesser place without him.

Suhuyini Nbang-Ba, political campaigner, journalist, teacher and loved one, born 25th September 1959; died 16th September 2020. 

Anoushka Alexander

Kenya's Climate Crises

 Kenya accounts for less than 0.1% of global emissions and has a per capita emission of less than half the global average but suffers disproportionately from related disasters. 

Kenya needs $62bn (£46bn) to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis in the next 10 years, according to a government document sent to the UN framework convention on climate change. It equates to almost 67% of Kenya’s GDP.

The report illustrates the scale of the challenge as the country aims to cut greenhouse gases by 32% within the next decade. It will rely on international sources to fund close to 90% of the expenditure. Securing such a colossal amount of often contentious climate financing from rich countries yet to honour their commitments to the $100bn target pledged during the 2015 Paris agreement will be a tall order.

Low-emitting countries such as Kenya are suffering the most from the effects of climate change, and are poorly equipped to effectively respond or build resilience to key hazards such as drought and flooding. For example, a 2011 drought in Kenya caused damage estimated at $11bn, while another in 2014-18 left 3.4 million people in food insecurity and half a million lacking access to water. In 2018, floods displaced 230,000 people in Kenya, including 150,000 children, drowned 20,000 livestock and led to the closure of 700 schools.

The country also lost 8,500 hectares (21,000 acres) of crops in a country where 84% of the land is “arid and semi-arid, with poor infrastructure and other developmental challenges, leaving less than 16% of the land to support over 80% of the population”. Such losses, the document says, continue to knock about 3-5% off the country’s GDP.

Food security, warns the report, will worsen because Kenyan farmers are almost entirely weather-dependent. In addition, major rivers are seeing reduced flow as glaciers on the country’s biggest water tower, Mount Kenya, shrink. They are already down to 17% of their original size and will disappear in 30 years, the report says.

Erratic rainfall has hampered hydroelectric generation and forced Kenya to look at exploiting 400m tonnes of coal reserves with proposals to build two power plants: one using local coal and the other imported coal. Providing cheap fuel will come with negative environmental and social impacts. The report says: “The use of coal is accompanied by strong environmental impacts, such as high emissions of sulphur dioxide, heavy metals and harmful greenhouse gases. The country is therefore faced with choosing between the exploitation of her fossil fuel resources to realise her development objectives and forgoing their exploitation for environmental reasons. To forgo all the benefits of exploiting the fossil fuel resources, Kenya will need significant international support.”

The climate crisis is also having an impact on national security with the scramble for meagre natural resources leading to violent conflicts. The report says: “Increased intensities and magnitudes of climate-related risks in Kenya aggravate conflicts, mostly over natural resources. This has frequently forced the country to reallocate development resources to address climate-related emergencies.”

Imperial College Business School and Soas University of London for the UN in 2018 showed how developing countries lack the resources required to stem the tide of climate crisis, with the lack of resilience and mitigation measures driving them into unsustainable debt. “For every 10 dollars paid in interest by developing countries, an additional dollar will be spent due to climate vulnerability. This financial burden exacerbates the present-day economic challenges of poorer countries. The magnitude of this burden will at least double over the next decade,” the research findings state.

Kenya faces $62bn bill to mitigate climate-linked hunger, drought and conflict | Global development | The Guardian

The Year of the Locusts

 In 2020, a locusts plagued the Horn and East Africa, ravaging crops and pastures and driving the level of human hunger and economic hardship higher in parts of the region. 

Now in 2021, the United Nations has warned that a second and maybe even deadlier re-invasion of locusts has already begun.

"It's a continuation of the 2020 locusts swarm. The adults have flown to various areas and are laying eggs", Frances Duncan, Professor of Animal, Plant & Environmental Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, told DW. "If we have good rains like it is the case at the moment in most areas, the hoppers will hatch, and we get the second wave of the swarm." 

Five countries have been especially hard hit by the African migratory locusts: Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. As a result, more than 35 million people suffer from food insecurity. FAO estimates this number could increase to 38.5 million if nothing is done to control the new infestation.

The FAO warns that numerous immature swarms have already formed in eastern Ethiopia and central Somalia during December, now they have reached northern Kenya. More swarms will arrive in January and spread throughout Ethiopia and Kenya. In northern Somalia, swarms laid eggs in areas affected by Cyclone Gati. Heavy rains in the region had turned out to favor the locusts, the UN says. New immature swarms could start to form in early February. Adult groups and a few swarms appeared on the coast of Sudan and Eritrea in December.

"If the locust swarm is not controlled, it can completely destroy the crop and wipe out animal feed. This poses a serious threat to food security in the region and can lead to human and social crises," Amh Yeshewas Abay, Head of Natural Resources Office in South Omo Zone Hamer Woreda in Ethiopia, said in a DW interview. "We are working to eradicate locusts in northern Kenya and on the border with Somalia."

Keith Cressman, FAO's Senior Locust Forecasting Officer, explains,  that the livelihoods of the population need to be protected. 

"If a farmer has crops planted and his crop has been wiped out, and he does not have resources to buy new seeds to replant, the FAO can assist. For pastoralists, if there is not enough food for animals, the FAO can provide animal feed." 

According to Daniel Lesego from Kenya's National Disaster Management Unit, the locust invasions come with multiple risks apart from food insecurity. "If there will be competition over pasture, space, and water, then it is likely to trigger conflict, resource-based conflict, and that is something that we do not want to see in Kenya," 

East Africa braces for a return of the locusts | Africa | DW | 05.01.2021

Africa's Slump

 The World Bank said that in Sub-Saharan Africa activity shrank an estimated 3.7% last year.

The decline in per capita income is expected to set average living standards back by a decade or more in a quarter of Sub-Saharan African economies.

South Africa and Nigeria, the two largest economies in the region, saw output fall sharply in 2020 and agriculture growth slowing. Both countries also saw a dramatic drop in per capita income, which has pushed tens of millions more people into extreme poverty.

It said in a press statement that the pandemic has caused “a heavy toll of deaths and illness, plunged millions into poverty, and may depress economic activity and incomes for a prolonged period”.

Nigeria and the threat of famine

 Before colonisation, hunger and famine were almost alien to most African countries as there was widely-acknowledged food sustenance. 

Each household practiced one form of farming or the other and consequently, there was enough to feed the family while the excess was exchanged by barter through some other forms of payment. This boom in food production had the effect of boosting the economy and therefore, the concept of begging for alms was nearly unheard of. There was no poverty, famine, or the incidence of begging in Africa. Such is the importance attached to food sustenance that the Yorubas have a saying that, “once feeding ceases to be a challenge to a man, he has conquered poverty”.

Lord Macaulay, in his address to the British Parliament on February 2, 1835, aptly remarked thus:

"I have travelled across the length and breadth of Africa and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient educational system, her culture. For if the African thinks that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation."

However, it seems that this is no longer the state of affairs as regards poverty and hunger. Nigeria is currently experiencing its most severe food crisis which is manifested in the country’s inability to produce enough food to feed its population. Food shortage and hunger have resulted in the incidence of malnutrition and forced some Nigerians to engage in armed robbery, prostitution, child trafficking, corruption, among others, to sustain themselves. Since time immemorial, food shortages has been linked to lawlessness as the hungry are easy targets for recruitment by ill-meaning politicians to foment trouble. 

As a result of this insecurity, food scarcity is imminent, and if left unbridled, famine is inevitable, particularly in the coming year. The killing of farmers in northeastern Nigeria by armed Jihadists and disputes with the pastoral Fulani herdsmen, food production has grossly reduced from this region. Farmers now have to submit to the payment of harvest fees from the farmers. Farmers who failed to comply would either be killed or maimed, with the whole harvest getting destroyed. As a result of this insecurity, food scarcity is imminent,

As the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which occasioned a lockdown of business activities in several states in Nigeria, many farmers were for months, at the time they were supposed to be planting, unable to access their farms and suppliers. By the time the government relaxed the lockdown to allow farmers the opportunity to farm, the damage had been done. While the lockdown was laudable and was the Nigerian government’s immediate response to the pandemic just as in other foreign nations, the Nigerian government, however, failed to put in place the measures taken by those foreign governments to alleviate the sufferings of the masses. Several foreign governments gave out financial assistance to individuals and businesses. Therefore, the paralysis of business activities and the failure of the Nigerian government to effectively put adequate mitigating measures in place, no doubt, contributed to unemployment and the incidence of begging particularly among Nigerians who depend on the daily income for sustenance.

Then, of course, there is the effects of climate change as a contributory factor to the incidence of food scarcity in Nigeria. The planting season usually commences in March, particularly in Southwest Nigeria. From time immemorial, much rainfall use to occur in the months of March, April and May to late August, September, October, November. However, in 2020 farmers’ expectation of rain failed. Between May and July, the farms were flooded. The crops which were planted in late August and early September dried up due to unexpected drought in the month of November. The immediate effect of this, therefore, is that farmers that planted maize, rice, beans, etc., in early September lost most of if not all the crops. This has resulted in an increase in the production cost of poultry farming, frozen chicken and egg production.

Maize will be scarce in 2021; Maize farmers raise alarm, farmers in Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State reportedly decried the failure of the Nigerian government to support agricultural production and unstable rainfall.

The head of the maize farmers’ union reported:

"...They lost millions in bank loans and borrowing from family and friends to plant maize, many cannot even pass by their farms to see the withered maize farms, we are so hurt by this occurrence… Our fear, for now, is what will be the fate of poor Nigerians that depend largely on basic food items that are sourced from maize. It is easy to predict that there will be a scarcity of maize next year..."

 2021 presents a gloomy near-future for food production and sustenance in Nigeria which possibly be plunged into full-fledged famine.

2021 may be year of famine (vanguardngr.com)

Understanding Nigeria

 We fail to adequately understand what Nigeria really is. It is not a state in the classic sense but a colonial invention.

Nigeria as an entity on the map was created by the British for bureaucratic convenience. They lumped together more than 350 different ethnic groups which had never had anything in common before. And they did this fairly recently. The British established a colony in Lagos only in 1860, unified the country only in 1914 and then left in 1960. Furthermore, there was no independence movement that transcended ethnic and religious divisions in the country and that could provide an impetus toward national unity as it did in Kenya, or as it did in Algeria. There was opposition to British rule, but it was based ethnically rather than nationwide. It was against colonialism and racism rather than for Nigeria.

Edinburgh produces more electricity than Nigeria’s entire national grid. Nigeria, with 205 million people, has a GDP that’s less than that of the state of Maryland, with 6 million.  There are many, many more mouths to feed. If the country is to be food self-sufficient, it would have to require massive development in agriculture. And that simply won’t happen.

If you’re going to call Nigeria a failing state or a state that risks failure — and many, many Nigerians believe that — you’re implying that Nigeria is a nation-state as the world traditionally defines it. By that criteria, Nigeria is failing. But if you look at Nigeria as some other type of entity, then it seems to me, while it may well be increasingly dysfunctional, you can’t say that it’s failing. In fact, for the top 1-2% of the Nigerian population that has grown wealthy from oil revenue, the current situation is relatively satisfactory. They send their children abroad for education, not to boarding schools in Nigeria where they’re subject to kidnapping. They go to London or Johannesburg for medical attention, not to the public hospitals, which are failing. The current political arrangements provide a venue for sharing out political offices and oil revenue. Estimated 80 percent of the oil revenue probably ends up in the hands of 1% of the population

 The Biafra War, a major civil war that left up to two million people dead, and that resulted in a generation of military rule just as oil came on stream in enormous quantities. In other words, an almost unimaginable flow of wealth into an entity which had very, very weak institutions and in which those who exercised power were military officers. The oil curse is the short explanation. When oil came on board, the way you got rich was essentially by capturing the state, capturing oil revenue. You didn’t get rich through investment in agriculture.

On top of that, Nigerian society is organised into patronage-clientage networks, which go from the top of the social pyramid to the bottom. The elite sense that they were entitled to state wealth. Prebendalism refers to political systems where elected officials and government workers feel they have a right to a share of government revenues, and use them to benefit their supporters, co-religionists and members of their ethnic group. Keep in mind that government authority has only rarely been nationwide. Mostly, it’s islands of central authority in a sea of spaces that are governed by sub-national or non-governmental groups.

Abridged and slightly adapted from an article by former United States Ambassador to Nigeria and Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations John Campbell

Greetings for the New Year

 

WORLD SOCIALISM

We hope that the new year will find our blog visitors in good health and spirit. We hope that they will spread socialist message further among working people. Let us all redouble our efforts in the coming year to bring closer the day when the socialist revolution will be a reality. New Year’s Greetings to all comrades and friends in the spirit of world socialism.

Our socialist solidarity makes all differences of race, creed, color, and nationality disappear. It celebrates the unity of all workers everywhere. It crosses all national frontiers, it transcends all language barriers, it ignores all religious schisms. It makes clear the irreconciliable chasm between wage-slaves and their masters. In 2021 we reaffirmed our commitment to a new world, a class-free world, a peaceful world, a sustainable world without poverty or hunger, the true harmony of humanity. We clasped hands and we embrace fellow-workers across all borders. There is but one race – the human race. We say we are all the same one family, brother and sister. 

THE WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

Merry Marxmas

 

Uganda's Aid to be Cut

 Over 1 million refugees in Uganda will face reduced food rations as a lack of international funding forces the UN World Food Programme to cut its relief program.

"COVID-19 must not be an excuse for the world to turn its back on refugees at this terrible time," said WFP Country Director El-Khidir Daloum. "We appreciate that donors fully funded our refugee operation in Uganda in 2019 but right now we are unable to keep up even basic food assistance and the poorest will suffer the most as we have to cut still further." 

Uganda hosts the largest number of refugees of any country in Africa, including thousands who have fled conflicts in the Congo, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Burundi. However, the WFP, the world's largest humanitarian aid organization has only secured half of the money it needs to support them. 

WFP spokesperson Tomson Phiri said the organization immediately needs another $95.8 million (€78.7 million) to avoid slashing refugee caloric intake and other aid. If the WFP is forced to take this step, it would be the second cut in Uganda since April.

Refugees in Uganda: Funding shortfall forces cut to UN food rations | News | DW | 22.12.2020

More Foreign Troops for CAR

 The Central African Republic is suffering re-newed violence days before voting set for 27 December. The violence comes following a major spike in political tensions exacerbated by the decision of the country’s Constitutional Court to block former President Francois Bozizé from running in elections. As the election draws closer, several armed groups entered the fray in what now looks like an attempt to halt the elections and depose Touadéra.

CAR has witnessed continuous fighting of varying intensity for decades and has been in a protracted crisis since 2013. In that year, a mostly Muslim rebel coalition known as the Seleka from the country’s north east rose against Bozizé’s government and briefly held power until regional countries pushed it to stand down. Non-Muslim “anti-balaka” forces sprang up to defend non-Muslims against the Seleka’s predation. Since this crisis, both former Seleka and anti-balaka factions have splintered, while new ones have formed. These armed groups have been responsible for widespread insecurity across the country as they battle each other and government forces for influence.

Russia will deploy 300 military "instructors" to the Central African Republic (CAR) to deal with what its foreign ministry calls a "sharp degradation of security".

 Russian mercenaries have already been working in CAR providing security for the government and helping safeguard key economic assets.

Rwanda, which has troops serving in the UN mission in CAR, has also announced it is bolstering their numbers in support of the government. At least 750 Rwandan soldiers and police officers have been operating under the UN peacekeeping force Minusca. The newly deployed forces will have "different rules of engagement which will enable them to protect our forces from being attacked, and protect civilians", Rwandan President Paul Kagame said. 

The CAR is one of Africa's poorest and most unstable countries, even though it is rich in resources like diamonds and uranium. The UN estimates that half of the population are dependent on humanitarian assistance and up to a fifth have been displaced.

Russia sends 300 military instructors to Central African Republic - BBC News

The Locust Plagues Persist

 The swarms of locusts have not disappeared even if the headlines have from the media.

Despite an "intense" international effort to combat a major, climate crisis-fueled invasion of desert locusts in Eastern African communities since January, a new generation of locust swarms is threatening the food security of millions of people in the Horn of Africa and Yemen, a United Nations agency warned.

FAO, which has been coordinating the global response, said in a statement that pest control actions across 10 countries costing about $200 million have prevented the loss of an estimated 2.7 million tonnes of cereal, worth nearly $800 million—enough food to feed 18 million people for a year.

"However, favorable weather conditions and widespread seasonal rains have caused extensive breeding in eastern Ethiopia and Somalia," FAO explained. "This was worsened by Cyclone Gati which brought flooding to northern Somalia last month allowing locust infestations to increase further in the coming months. New locust swarms are already forming and threatening to re-invade northern Kenya and breeding is also underway on both sides of the Red Sea, posing a new threat to Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen."

"For Kenya, the threat is imminent, it could happen any time now," Keith Cressman, the FAO's senior locust forecasting officer, told BBC News, which pointed out that this year had already featured the region's worst locust invasion in 70 years—and in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. "It could be as bad as what we've seen in the past year because the area of breeding ground in these countries is as big as 350,000 sq. km. (135,000 sq. miles)."

Noting that pest control efforts could slow or halt early next year without additional funding, FAO is seeking $40 million to increase its locust-related activities in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen in 2021. The agency warned that over 35 million people in total are already acutely food insecure across those five countries—a number that could rise by 3.5 million in the absence of urgent action.

"We have achieved much, but the battle against this relentless pest is not yet over," said FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu. "We must not waiver. Locusts keep growing day and night and risks are exacerbating food insecurity for vulnerable families across the affected region."

"We lost so much of our pastures and vegetation because of the locusts and as a result we are still losing a good number of our livestock," Gonjoba Guyo, a pastoralist in North Horr, Kenya, told the BBC.

"Most of the farms in Jowhar town have been destroyed by floods in the last six months now. The water is stagnant on the grounds and no one can farm in this state. On top of this flood problem, we have had locusts destroying the few vegetables and fruits remaining," said farmer Yusuf Ahmed.

UN Warns New Wave of Locust Swarms Threatens Food Security of Millions in East Africa | Common Dreams News

Hunger in Zimbabwe

 Acute malnutrition cases are on the rise in Zimbabwe, as food shortages continue to take their toll. Statistics show that one in three children in Zimbabwe suffers from malnutrition. By the end of 2020, projections indicate that the number of hungry Zimbabweans will have risen by almost 50% to 8.6 million.

A Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment (ZimVac) report shows that the percentage of children receiving the minimum acceptable diet necessary for growth and development declined from 6.9% in 2019 to 2.1% in 2020.

Matabeleland, in the south-west of the country, has the highest cases of global acute malnutrition, with an estimated 74,267 children under the age of five affected, including at least 38,425 with severe acute malnutrition.

The declining situation in Zimbabwe, with both prolonged drought and the coronavirus lockdown, is now characterised by high stunting rates, and maternal and child mortality.

ZimVac says there is real concern around infant and young child malnutrition. Only 19% of women of childbearing age ate a diet that met the minimum nutritional limit this year, down from 43% in 2019. This has led to high maternal death rates, according to humanitarian agencies.

As the food crisis worsens in Zimbabwe, the World Food Programme (WFP) has been providing food supplements for malnourished children.

Last week, however, the WFP Zimbabwe director, Francesca Erdelmann, announced that the UN agency is facing a funding gap. “For our portfolio in Zimbabwe between now and the next six months we are short by about $240m [£180m]. These are not amounts of money that are easy to mobilise, and for most of our donors, it’s tough for them too,” Erdelmann said.

“So we really have to try and make sure that we can reach our targets and deliver the support to the people. But if we can’t, we are going to have to make some tough choices and target only the most vulnerable groups.”

‘We could have lost her’: Zimbabwe's children go hungry as crisis deepens | Nutrition and development | The Guardian

Chocolate and Capitalist Competition

 The 100,000 cocoa farmers of Ghana’s Kuapa Kokoo co-operative eke out hardscrabble lives despite producing the raw material for a global chocolate industry worth an annual $100bn in retail sales.

The world’s two largest cocoa producing countries, Ivory Coast and Ghana, which account for 60 per cent of global production, have added a supplement to the sale price in an effort to alleviate poverty. But a dispute over whether global buyers were prepared to pay illustrates how hard it will be for the two nations to control and lift prices in an industry dominated by millions of smallholders.

“We are not asking too much from industry, just meet our cost of production and help us get something small to live,” said Mr Okyere aa representative of the co-operative. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask, because once they do that they can still make big profits.”

Antonie Fountain of the Voice Network said some of the confectionery groups were putting profits ahead of farmers’ wellbeing.

The disagreement centred on a $400-a-tonne “living income differential” (LID) added to the price of cocoa harvested from this crop year, bought from Ivory Coast and Ghana. In the past few years they have collaborated to try to raise the share farmers earn — just 6.6 per cent of the sale price of a bar of the confectionery.

The Ivorian Conseil du Café-Cacao and the Ghana Cocoa Board this month accused the chocolate producers of trying to avoid the LID after US group Hershey took the rare step of sourcing cocoa beans from the futures market in New York. Analysts said this meant it did not have to pay the supplement.  It demonstrated the limited leverage held by producers.

Kobi Annan, Accra-based consultant at Songhai Advisory, a business intelligence firm asked, “...why do countries who produce 60 per cent of a commodity have no real power in setting its price?” 

A Ghanaian official commented: “Your negotiating position is not that strong, so you’re entirely dependent on public sentiment, environmental sustainability concerns, child labour concerns, income inequality concerns, to make the other party feel a little guilty so they contribute more.”

“If you want prices to rise, you do not produce considerably more than the market needs,” said Derek Chambers, former head of cocoa at French trader Sucden, remarked.

Part of the problem is that rising farmgate prices — set by the government — and an increase in sustainability programmes have encouraged millions of small farmers who are desperate for cash to produce more, weighing on market prices. This year, an election year in both countries, governments jointly raised the price by about 20 per cent to $2,600 a tonne, still $500 less than the Cocoa Barometer estimates farmers need to earn a living wage.  Global cocoa output has grown 18 per cent over the past five years to 4.7m tonnes, with top producer Ivory Coast producing 2.1m tonnes in the last crop year, up almost a third, according to the International Cocoa Organisation of producing and consuming countries. Ghana produced 800,000 tonnes, up 3 per cent.

There is now rising concern that Ivory Coast and Ghana will be left holding unsold cocoa in a year when the harvest is expected to be at record levels, analysts say.

Analysts said efforts by Ivory Coast and Ghana to collaborate and control prices would struggle — partly because of smallholders’ desire for cash and rival producers’ ability to expand market share.

West Africa vs Big Chocolate: Battle over price sours relations | Financial Times (ft.com)

Coronavirus Vaccine Shortage

 Dr John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), called on developed countries to “show global cooperation” and “global solidarity”, warning that the continent of 1.3 billion people might not receive any vaccinations until April next year.

Dr Nkengasong said that rich countries had purchased “in excess of their needs while we in Africa are still struggling with the Covax facility.”

 Most African countries are relying on the Covax facility -  a global alliance of countries and institutions that seek to provide developing nations equitable access to vaccines. The Oxford-AstraZeneca partnership is currently the only vaccine-developer that has a deal to provide vaccines to the facility. 

 The People’s Vaccine Alliance estimated that around 90 per cent of the people in poorer countries will not be vaccinated next year. Around 70 poor countries will only be able to vaccinate one in 10 people, it said.

Africa’s top health official slams unequal distribution of Covid-19 vaccines (telegraph.co.uk)

Nigeria's Wealthy Migrants

 Every year poor Nigerians flee poverty and unrest at home. Now, rich Nigerians are planning their escape too. And they’re taking their money with them. Golden visas are the lesser-reported side of the Nigerian migration story. Every year thousands of Nigerians make their way to Europe via perilous crossings over the Sahara and Mediterranean. Now their wealthier counterparts are also making their way to Europe but via a different route.

Dapo has had a “backup plan” for getting out of Nigeria for some time. “I have Maltese citizenship. I can leave for there any time.”  Maltese citizenship can be acquired for a minimum investment of 800,000 euros ($947,180) through the Malta Citizenship by Investment Programme. He describes it as his “Plan B’’.

 A rapidly growing number of Nigerians who have bought so-called “golden visas” or foreign citizenships-by-investment this year. 92 countries around the world now allow wealthy individuals to become residents or citizens in return for a fee, sometimes as low as $100,000 but often several million dollars. 

“Flying out” of Nigeria is hard and not just because of the coronavirus pandemic. Just 26 countries allow Nigerian passport holders visa-free entry, many of them part of West Africa’s ECOWAS arrangement. Both the United Kingdom and Europe’s Schengen zone require Nigerians to obtain visas ahead of travelling.

For the wealthy, this is too much hassle. They don’t want to be queueing for visas for any EU country or whatever. Instead, why not purchase the citizenship of a country with visa-free access to Europe?

'Bimpe', a wealthy Nigerian, has three passports. One Nigerian, which she says she never uses, and two from Caribbean nations: St Kitts and Nevis; and Grenada. The St Kitts and Nevis passport, which cost her $400,000 via a real estate investment programme, was useful when she travelled between London and New York on business as it allows for visa-free travel to the UK and Europe. Her investment to gain a Grenada passport for herself and her sons took the form of a $300,000 stake in the Six Senses La Sagesse hotel on the Caribbean island, which she bought in 2015 through a property development group called Range Developments. Like most countries offering their citizenship for sale, Grenada allows real estate investments to qualify for a passport. Bimpe has never been to Grenada. In fact, since there is no obligation for citizenship investors to ever visit Grenada.

Investing in a foreign citizenship is not illegal for Nigerians, but the issue of wealthy citizens moving their assets overseas is a thorny one in Nigeria, where about $15bn is lost to tax evasion every year, according to the country’s Federal Inland Revenue Service. Much of that money finds its way to the Caribbean.

The tax benefits of an overseas citizenship are undoubtedly attractive. Citizens can become tax residents of countries like Dominica, where there is no wealth or inheritance tax, or Grenada which offers “corporate tax incentives”. In Europe, Malta has long been courting hedge funds with its light-touch regulations.

The loss of wealth from Nigeria has severe implications for levels of employment in the country. With wealthy businesspeople investing their capital outside Nigeria rather than in it, there is less funding for local businesses or government projects which might otherwise generate employment. This, in turn is causing more poorer Nigerians to want to move overseas as well, in search of better work opportunities. The more wealth taken out of Nigeria, the fewer jobs available to its poorest.

The wealthy Nigerians buying citizenship overseas | Nigeria News | Al Jazeera

Kenya's Over-Paid Politicians

 The High Court in Kenya has ordered the country's 416 lawmakers pay back 1.2bn shillings ($10m; £7.5m) after ruling that the money had been unlawfully given to them as housing allowances, local media report.

The Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) had encroached on the mandate of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) by granting the lawmakers the allowance, it ruled.

Each lawmaker would be required to repay 2.8m shillings to the government within the next year, Kenya's Star newspaper reported.

Kenyan MPs are among the highest paid in the world, and have often been accused by non-governmental organisations of fleecing taxpayers.

Morocco and America - Tit for Tat

 Morocco has become the latest Arab League country to agree to normalise relations with Israel which for all practical purposes was simply legitimising an existing relationship between the two nations. Back in 2017, The Economist carried an article that  50,000 Israelis feel safe enough to visit an Arab country, Morocco, every year. 110 synagogues have been refurbished there. Morocco also issues hundreds of passports each year to Israeli Jews of Moroccan descent, of whom there are almost half a million live in Israel —“the better to travel in the Arab world,” says a recent recipient. It takes a month, no security questions asked.

But to get Morocco to formally establish normal relations with Israel, the USA has now recognised Morocco's claim over the disputed Western Sahara territory. 

 Sidi Omar, the Polisario Front's representative to the UN, said Western Sahara's "legal status is determined by international law and UN resolutions".

"The move shows that Morocco's regime is willing to sell its soul to maintain its illegal occupation of parts of Western Sahara," he wrote.

Morocco latest country to normalise ties with Israel in US-brokered deal - BBC News

Nigeria's Baby-Factories

 Police have rescued six women and four children from a “baby-making” factory after raiding the unlawful premises in the Mowe area of Ogun, a state in southwestern Nigeria. The women told police they had been forcibly detained and raped before their newborn children were illegally sold on the black market.

Children born in so-called baby factories are typically put up for adoption, forced into child labour, trafficked into sex work, or even killed as part of rituals. One of the enslaved women told reporters newborn boys were sold for 250,000 Nigerian naira (£491) and girls are sold for 200,000 naira (£393).

Tsitsi Matekaire, at Equality Now, a non-government organisation which promotes the rights of women and girls, told The Independent so-called baby factories have been operating in Nigeria for many years. The campaigner added: “As far back as 2006, UNESCO reported the first cases. This phenomenon is prevalent in many parts of Nigeria and has been previously reported in the states of Abia, Lagos and Ebonyi. The ‘baby factories’ are often disguised as orphanages, maternity homes, or religious centres, and involve large networks of operators. There is no doubt that this is a form of sexual exploitation and abuse." Matekaire went on to explain, “The victims are extremely vulnerable women and girls, who are trafficked or coerced to these places. They are held against their will, raped, forced to carry pregnancies and then have their babies sold to profit their exploiters.”

She said Equality Now and local women’s organisations in Nigeria flagged this issue to the government and the African Union Committee on the Rights and Welfare of Children back in 2019.

Tigray and the Eritrean Refugees

 The United Nations has sounded the alarm over the severe effect of food shortages on the thousands of Eritrean refugees sheltering in camps in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, requesting “urgent access” to be able to deliver badly needed aid.

Communications and transport links to Tigray have been severed, and the UN and humanitarian agencies have pleaded for access to provide food, medicines and other supplies in the camps that sheltered nearly 100,000 Eritreans before the hostilities began.

“We, as humanitarians, have lost access and contact with the refugees since the last month that this fighting has been ongoing, and now there are worrying reports of attacks, of abductions and also of recruitments in and around these refugee camps,” UN refugee agency spokesman Babar Baloch told Al Jazeera. “The camps will have now run out of food supplies – making hunger and malnutrition a real danger, a warning we have been issuing since the conflict began nearly a month ago.”

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, and he has rejected the idea of dialogue with the TPLF rebel leadership.

Will Biden Benefit Africa

 Democrat and Republican presidents have approached Africa primarily for access to, and control of extractive industries and for counter-terrorism operations. This approach, under the influence of the cold war, translated into the US supporting Africa’s strongmen.

The most prominent of these strongmen, including but not limited to Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, in power since 1979; Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, head of state since 1986; Djibouti’s Ismail Omar Guelleh, in post since 1999; Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, ruling since 1994, and Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki, in power since 1993 have been responsible for more than 22 million deaths on the continent since independence in 1960. That is almost twice as many people forcibly transported from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade. Yet it seems no US president has found this troubling. The bloodiest killing field has been the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where brutal US-backed strongmen killed more than 5.4 million Congolese people over access and control of minerals between 1998 and 2008, and sparked outbreaks of disease, famine and the use of rape as a weapon of war.

Obama delivered almost nothing meaningful; not because of a Russian or Chinese veto at the UN security council but because in the first few years of his presidency some in his team sought to protect people such as Joseph Kabila, former president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose security forces were linked to killings and torture, and Paul Kagame, whose tight grip on the Rwanda presidency has earned him the tag of “benevolent dictator”. The result? Tragic. During the Obama presidency, 11 African strongmen clung to power, killing thousands of their citizens and displacing millions more. Yet almost not a single one of them faced a serious tit-for-tat consequences from the US – and this has been a colossal disaster for democratic forces across the continent.

The result? Tragic. During the Obama presidency, 11 African strongmen clung to power, killing thousands of their citizens and displacing millions more. Yet almost not a single one of them faced a serious tit-for-tat consequences from the US – and this has been a colossal disaster for democratic forces across the continent.

 Will the Biden-Harris administration end the US’s longstanding but shortsighted and destructive support for Africa’s strongmen? How may President Biden respond to #EndSars, a movement against police brutality in Nigeria, or #CongoIsBleeding, a campaign against exploitation in the mines of the DRC? What will he do to de-escalate growing tensions inside Ethiopia or in Eritrea.

Many are wondering whether or not Biden will refocus US policy and push for peace in Somalia, Libya, Cameroon or Mozambique? Will he support the creation of an international criminal tribunal for Congo to end the continuing killings and use of rape as a weapon of war and, simultaneously, jump-start development in Africa’s great lakes – a region that seems pitifully prone to strongmen and mass killing?

Answers to these questions are unclear. 

Obama didn’t deliver for Africa. Can Biden show black lives matter everywhere? | Global development | The Guardian