South Africa’s media played a pivotal role in exposing a corrupt presidentWhat is it to be an “African journalist”? Working in African countries can mean operating in challenging conditions, with limited resources and sometimes restrictive political environments. African media have been shaped by their histories – as colonial, revolutionary or post-independence presses, as state broadcasters, as community or development projects. To make this possible in South Africa, for example, public institutions were captured through aggressive “cadre deployment” practices, a policy of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) that has seen many key technocratic and managerial positions in the civil service…
Marcel Barbera
African economies looking for a sustainable industrialisation model find themselves at a crossroads with little time to decide the way forward. Lack of industrialisation is often pinpointed as the key factor behind Africa’s underdevelopment. Among those supporting the idea are Mike Morris and Judith Fessehaie, who wrote in their 2014 paper, The Industrialisation Challenge for Africa: “Only a massive industrialisation effort will enable Africa to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development.” According to United Nations (UN) statistics from 2019, Africa is home to more than 1.2 billion people or 16% of the world’s population, 85% of whom “are still poor…
Press freedom: the fiercest battle How South African private media played a pivotal role in mobilising civil society to expose a corrupt president and his cronies What is it to be an “African journalist”? Working in African countries can mean operating in challenging conditions, with limited resources and sometimes restrictive political environments. African media have been shaped by their histories – as colonial, revolutionary or post-independence presses, as state broadcasters, as community or development projects. To make this possible in South Africa, for example, public institutions were captured through aggressive “cadre deployment” practices, a policy of the ruling African National…
African communism: a pragmatic approach Communism was not a decisive force anywhere in Africa until the cold war made the continent a priority for the Soviet Union A high level of industrialisation is, according to Marx and Engels, the crucial trait of societies ripe for revolution. Since they first published The Communist Manifesto in 1848, however, these authors have been repeatedly contradicted by reality. In later times, communism emerged victorious in circumstances very different from those its fathers envisioned. In fact, a communist revolution gained control of a state for the first time in Russia, a mainly rural and underdeveloped…
SDG 6: clean water and sanitation More than 900 million Africans lack water-flushed toilets, hand-washing facilities, clean drinking water and related services By Marcel Gascón Barberá Giving everyone access to clean water and sanitation might well be the least engaging of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) set by the UN in 2015 to address a series of pressing global challenges. Though they are clearly important, complaints of a “lack of clean water and sanitation” rarely make it into the headlines. Moreover, unlike natural catastrophes, terrorist attacks or economic crashes, a lack of water and sanitation doesn’t occur at a…
African dynasties: a common phenomenon By Marcel Gascón Barberá Political dynasties have not been an uncommon phenomenon in post-colonial Africa. In Togo and Gabon, two families have been ruling for decades. Hereditary transmission of power is also a reality in the DRC, where Joseph Kabila succeeded his father after the latter’s assassination, and where power of a sort has been transferred from Étienne Tshisekedi, a former leader of the opposition, to his son Félix, now president. Two of the five presidents of Botswana’s history hail from the Khama family, and the current Kenyan president is the son of the country’s…
