ADF

VOICE OF AMERICA British companies have made bigger profits investing in Africa than in any other region of the world, according to an international report. The Overseas Development Institute urges companies to seek profits on the continent rather than seeing it as a place to do charitable work. The institute said that with 1.2 billion people and eight of the world’s 15 fastest-growing economies, Africa offers world-beating returns on investment. The report looks at investment by British companies in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. Its authors say the “young population, growing middle class, and planned industrial growth make the…

World Bank Making use of vast energy potential such as solar, wind and geothermal, and a grid that is nearly 100% supplied by renewable sources, Ethiopia is undertaking an ambitious project to achieve universal electricity access by 2025.  In fact, not only is Ethiopia emerging as a role model for energy development in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is doing so while spearheading innovations on gender equality. In 2018, the Ethiopian Electric Utility decided to ensure that women are better represented in what has been an overwhelmingly male-dominated sector. In 2020, women represent 20% of the utility’s workforce. The utility wants that…

ADF STAFF The Sultanate of Damagaram was never one of Africa’s biggest empires. In what is now Niger, at its most expansive it was about 70,000 square kilometers — about the same size as modern-day Sierra Leone.  But as a commercial center, it was unrivaled in the region during its time. It was the hub of a trade route that swept from what is now coastal Libya in the north, down to what is now Nigeria in the south. Its sultans, 26 in all, ruled for 200 years until the early 20th century. At its center was the capital, Zinder,…

CLUES This city was developed in the 15th and 16th centuries with the establishment of the Sultanate of Aïr. Its center, which is divided into 11 irregular sections, was an important crossroads for caravan traders. A 27-meter mud-brick minaret, the tallest such structure on Earth, towers above the city. This city is considered a center of culture for the Tuareg people. ANSWER  Agadez, Niger

ADF STAFF May 16, 2003, is etched in the minds of many Moroccans. It was the day that five coordinated suicide bombings killed 43 people in Casablanca and shattered the security of a nation. Ten days later, Parliament passed stringent anti-terror laws. Fast-forward to 2020, and top headlines in Morocco include a terror cell dismantled, an insurgent plot foiled, and would-be militants arrested with weapons and explosive materials. Morocco’s counterterrorism operation extinguished one of its biggest and most recent threats on September 10, as agents of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations arrested five extremists who had pledged allegiance to…

ADF STAFF Illegal fishing robs nations of natural wealth and leads to food insecurity, but African countries have the tools to fight back. The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) issued a report detailing ways countries can combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The foundation’s Charter for Transparency lists several simple, low-cost steps countries can take to confront the practice. Many illegal trawlers are apt to change vessel names, fly different flags and remove ships from registers. The EJF report — available at ejfoundation.org — says one simple remedy is for all countries to publish vessel license lists and ownership details…

ADF STAFF Running from Mombasa to Nairobi, Kenya’s controversial Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) has come to represent everything that can go wrong with African nations’ complex and sometimes covert financial ties with China. As African countries confront steep economic losses because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the overwhelming infrastructure debts they owe China have begun to choke their economies. High interest-rate loans, confidentiality agreements that thwart public transparency, and loans that Chinese authorities remain unwilling to reconfigure are some of the challenges African economic leaders now face. As a result, countries find themselves pushed to the brink of default or, in…

ADF STAFF Armed members of Benin’s Navy have arrested an industrial trawler for illegally fishing in an area reserved for artisanal fishermen. Sea Shepherd Global, which works with several West African countries to eradicate illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, assisted the authorities. A Sea Shepherd vessel was en route to Benin’s Port of Cotonou when it spotted the trawler fishing in water just outside the Bouche du Roy Ecological Reserve, home to lush mangroves and lagoons critical to native fish populations. “The trawler was flagged to Benin, but I believe that the beneficial ownership is Chinese,” Peter Hammarstedt, Sea…

ADF STAFF With shots ringing out in the dead of night, a group of villagers and refugees were running away from a camp for displaced people when they saw a young girl in pain on the ground. They asked her to join them. She refused. “Seconds after, we heard the first loud explosion,” a 32-year-old man in the group told international advocacy organization Human Rights Watch (HRW). “We believe she was the suicide bomber. She could have been 14 years old or so.” In an attack as gruesome as it was depraved, Boko Haram fighters on August 2 swarmed the…

ADF STAFF Kenya’s National Border Protection Unit got a boost, thanks to a donation of vehicles, equipment and training facilities by U.S. Africa Command. The recent $1.17 million donation included 35 new Toyota Land Cruisers, 23 sets of M4 rifles and 9 mm Glock pistols, body armor, and a Multiple Incident Learning Objectives firearms simulator, along with computers and equipment for new training rooms. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta attended the presentation ceremony at the Border Police Unit (BPU) headquarters and training facility in Kitui County. “We understand that in a dynamic operating environment characterized by emerging and asymmetrical threats, investment…