ADF

ADF STAFF People who depend on fish for food and income in Senegal are speaking out against Chinese-owned fishmeal and fish oil factories that have operated there for years. Fishmeal factories pulverize fish into powder to feed to farmed seafood, such as shrimp, as well as pigs, chickens and other animals. China is the world’s top importer of fishmeal and one of the world’s top shrimp exporters. The factories pose a dire food security threat because they usually are supplied by large foreign trawlers that catch tons of fish a day — far more than artisanal canoes — sometimes illegally.…

ADF STAFF Close on the heels of Zambia’s default on its Eurobond debt in November, Angola may be next in line to declare itself unable to service its huge international debt, nearly half of which is owed to China. The Southern African country has a debt equal to 120% of its gross domestic product. Debt payments eat up about $9 billion a year, about a quarter of its national revenue. As the debt has risen, the value of its currency, the kwanza, has fallen along with demand for oil, Angola’s biggest export. “Even before COVID-19 we were coming from a…

ADF STAFF Nongovernmental and volunteer organizations such as Sea Shepherd Global and Greenpeace are playing critical roles in the battle against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Africa and around the globe. China, which operates the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet, is the most notorious IUU fishing offender, supporting fishing vessels that steal food and income from nations that have insufficient maritime security forces. In West Africa, Chinese trawlers have decimated fish stocks to the brink of collapse, but more countries are contracting with Sea Shepherd, a direct-action group that operates a fleet of vessels that help local authorities…

ADF STAFF A locust invasion has laid siege to East Africa since December 2019, and it could get worse. Hundreds of billions of the insects destroyed crops across the region in early 2020, multiplying by a factor of 20 per generation, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). A second generation in March and April numbered in the trillions. Now ideal conditions have cultivated another wave that threatens crops and livelihoods across the eastern and southern parts of the continent. “Early and ongoing rains have led to a new cycle of breeding, and fresh swarms are forming…

ADF STAFF Twenty months ago a political earthquake rocked Sudan. A popular uprising led to a military coup that ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir and sent shockwaves around the world. Since then, revolution has given way to reality. Under the leadership of a transitional government, Sudan now faces daunting challenges, including an economic crisis, severe flooding and tensions with neighboring Ethiopia. “Sudan is at a critical juncture,” United Nations political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the Security Council on December 8. “It can move forward decisively in its transition, but that progress can still be derailed by the many challenges it…

ADF STAFF Mamadou Dien huffed as he dragged his brightly painted fishing canoe onto the beach of a tiny village in Senegal. After four fruitless hours at sea, he held up his meager catch using only his thumbs and index fingers. “Today, the catch was not good,” he told Voice of America (VOA). “When it’s a good catch, you can make up to 70,000 francs (about $130) per day.” Nearby, a dejected Abdullah Dieta said he caught four grouper in three hours. “Our grandfathers tell us they could see the fish in abundance from here, from the beach,” Dieta told…

ADF STAFF Chad’s Armed Forces have launched a pilot project to create a self-sustaining food supply for the military by developing farms on military outposts. Graduates of the Chadian Army Farm School started the first on-base farm at the military’s training center in Koundoul. The tilled and irrigated farm, covering about 6.5 hectares within the military compound, has raised crops such as rice, okra, beans, melons, hibiscus, tomatoes, eggplant and onions. “The creation of the Land Forces Farm jump-started skills we learned at Koundoul,” Lt. Adam Eritero Cordubo, a 2019 graduate of the farm school, told ADF. “Our skills from…

ADF STAFF Experts point to China’s enormous fishing fleet as a cause of economic and environmental harm around the world. Since China began building its distant-water fishing fleet in the mid-1990s, it has become the world’s worst illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing offender, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime. IUU fishing is particularly harmful in West Africa where it has led to poverty and unemployment. According to Greenpeace, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone and The Gambia lost about $2.3 billion a year from 2010 to 2016 due to IUU fishing. In Ghana, illicit fishing threatens to…

ADF STAFF When he decided to defect from the extremist group al-Shabaab, Abdul was overwhelmed with fear. But he had a plan and a phone. His family found someone they trusted to take him to a safehouse. “At the beginning I walked by night, my feet lacerated by thorns,” Abdul, using a pseudonym to keep him safe, told the BBC. “I was petrified I would be stopped and sent back to certain death, by execution in a public place. “That is what al-Shabaab does to defectors.” The safehouse is part of Somalia’s Defector Rehabilitation Program (DRP), which might be the…

ADF STAFF Above the busy streets of Kampala, Nairobi and other cities, closed-circuit cameras keep an unwavering watch on the people moving beneath them. The cameras are part of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei’s Safe City initiative, which has found buyers across the continent from Morocco to South Africa. Huawei launched the first Safe City project in Nairobi, Kenya, installing 1,800 high-definition cameras across the city. African nations are increasingly embracing offers from Chinese technology companies to provide high-speed internet, 4G and 5G cellphone services, and closed-circuit security camera networks. Such networks now are in place in more than a dozen…