ADF

ADF STAFF Ghanaians are proud of their country’s reputation throughout Africa as a pillar of stability. Late in the fall of 2020, they celebrated and reinforced it. Former President Jerry John Rawlings, a mammoth figure in Ghana and a symbol of the country’s democracy, died at age 73 in the midst of a contentious presidential election. Rawlings led Ghana for 20 years, first as the engineer of two coup d’etats, then as a two-term president who completed the fledgling nation’s transition from corruption and authoritarianism to stable democracy. Luis Franceschi, leader of the Commonwealth of Nations’ team of election observers,…

ADF STAFF The industrial fishing trawler Lu Rong Yuan Yu 956 was detained in Ghana in 2019 for using nets with a mesh size below the legal minimum and catching undersized fish. The vessel’s owner was fined more than $1 million but refused to pay. As the case returned to court, the vessel’s fishing license was renewed, and it was back in the waters of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. As the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) reported, officials apprehended the trawler again on the same charges in Ghana in May 2020. The Lu Rong Yuan Yu 956 saga highlights the ways…

ADF STAFF Social media blackouts and internet shutdowns are increasingly common across Africa. In the past five years, at least 15 African nations have shut down the internet during elections, protests or times of crisis. Shutdowns last anywhere from days to months, causing a cascade of problems for the nations along the way. Government officials say the blackouts are needed to preserve social order. Internet advocates call it censorship. “Internet shutdowns during elections simply mean some African countries are unable to carry out free and fair elections,” Oluwatomiwa Ilori, a researcher with South Africa’s Centre for Human Rights, told ADF.…

ADF STAFF Cooperative efforts and military professionalism were the topics of U.S. Africa Command’s 2021 gathering of the continent’s chiefs of defense. The conference included 46 defense chiefs or their designees, who met virtually due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Gen. Stephen Townsend, AFRICOM commander since 2019, reminded the assembled chiefs that whether the subject is defeating violent extremists, disrupting illegal fishing or fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. and African interests are intertwined. “We are in this together,” Townsend said. “Your opportunities are our opportunities. Your challenges are our challenges. Your successes are our successes.” On the subject of cooperation and…

ADF STAFF Sierra Leone’s government is battling tax evasion in the maritime sector in its continuing efforts to eliminate illegal fishing, which costs the country about $29 million a year. The government says it will close businesses, take court action or withhold port clearance certificates from companies that don’t pay taxes. The country also has invested in six boats to patrol coastal inshore waters and in radio equipment, electronic tablets and Android phones to “strengthen the monitoring, control and surveillance of the fisheries sector,” President Julius Maada Bio said in a Sierra Leone Telegraph report. Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU)…

ADF STAFF Raised by a hard-working mother on a small farm in Kenya, John Oroko experienced many hardships and developed a passion for problem-solving. As an adult he built a digital platform that integrates small-scale farmers, pastoralists and fishing communities into global supply chains. He and his co-founder named their company Selina Wamucii to honor their mothers. Last year, Oroko witnessed the devastation wrought by desert locusts. It was a call to action. Selina Wamucii recently launched a mobile app called Kuzi that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to fight the crop-devouring swarms while a second wave is hitting East Africa.…

ADF STAFF Liberia has embarked on a four-year, $3 million project that will aid local fishermen in their battle against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The Communities for Fisheries project will train local fishermen to take geotagged photos of trawlers suspected of IUUfishing. It is a partnership between the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) and Liberia’s National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority (NaFAA). “In some cases, we will provide some smartphones to trained fishermen to trail illegal fishing [vessels and issue reports] using our monitoring app that allows geotagged photos to be taken,” EJF Executive Director Steve Trent told ADF in…

ADF STAFF China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was supposed to tie large portions of the world together, but the project may be coming apart in Africa due to debt, poorly designed and vetted projects, and the damage of COVID-19. “The image that you get of the Belt and Road in grand halls is different than the reality on the ground,” researcher Jonathan Hillman told Australia’s United States Study Centre. Hillman is senior fellow and director of the Reconnecting Asia Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He recently published a book assessing BRI. In writing his book,…

ADF STAFF China has made a push to promote clean energy domestically in response to complaints about polluted skies and waterways. When it comes to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Africa, however, many projects still run on coal. Chinese banks and companies have a hand in financing at least 13 coal projects across Africa with nine more in the works, according to Greenpeace. Since 2000, China has invested more than $50 billion in coal overseas. The China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China alone have pumped $6.5 billion into African coal projects, according to data from…

ADF STAFF Niger’s Air Force celebrated the return of a refurbished C-130H Hercules transport plane that will be used to carry materiel and troops to defend its borders. U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett and U.S. Ambassador to Niger Eric Whitaker presented the plane to Nigerien Defense Minister Issoufou Katambe and Chief of Defense Gen. Salifou Modi at Air Base 101 in Niamey earlier in January. The ceremony marked the return of the plane to the Nigerien fleet after being repaired and refurbished. Capt. Ouma Laouali, Niger’s first female C-130 pilot, also took part in the event. The…