Category: English

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Joana Castro Pereira, Professor of Politics and International Relations, Universidade do Porto

Western Sahara has been carved in two since the 1980s by a wall that Morocco built to hold on to territory it occupied in 1975. Fifty years on, the conflict remains unresolved and the wall – known as the Berm – remains one of the world’s most militarised borders. The region is the focus of a project at the University of Porto exploring prospects for biodiversity restoration. Joana Castro Pereira, a professor of politics and international relations, and postgraduate researcher Simón Pardo de Donlebún Versaci explain the history of the wall and its political and ecological risks.

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What is the history of the Berm?

Built between 1980 and 1987, the Berm separates the part of Western Sahara controlled by Morocco from the strip held by the Polisario Front. The Polisario Front is a movement supported by Algeria that represents the Sahrawi people and has fought for Western Sahara’s independence since the early 1970s. It currently controls about 20% of the territory.

The Western Sahara-Morocco dispute

The Berm runs for about 2,700 kilometres. It’s the longest continuous barrier after the Great Wall of China. Alongside it runs a belt of landmines – more than 10 million – often called the world’s longest continuous minefield.

The wall was built in stages, pushing south as Morocco fought the Polisario Front for control of Western Sahara. The disputed territory is a former Spanish colony that Madrid handed over in the 1970s without ever holding the independence referendum international law required.

The Berm let Morocco do what battlefield victories hadn’t: keep the most valuable parts of the territory – coastline, phosphate mines and towns – while pushing Polisario fighters and hundreds of thousands of Sahrawi civilians into refugee camps in Algeria. The UN calls this the world’s second-longest-running refugee crisis.

Morocco did not build the Berm alone. French and Israeli military strategists advised on its construction.

What major risks does the Berm pose?

Three kinds of harm are often overlooked amid the diplomatic dispute over the territory.

The most direct is the minefield itself. The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, a civil society research initiative that tracks landmines and other remnants of war, reports 1,427 recorded casualties through 2017, while noting that the total number is unknown. Many mine-related accidents go unreported, and mines can be shifted by wind or flash floods into ground already cleared.

Secondly, the wall disrupts a whole desert ecosystem, not just a human community. Sahrawi pastoral life has always followed the wadis – the temporary rivers that flood briefly after rain and sustain wells, trees and grazing along their banks. This moves people, herds and land together across the seasons in one relational system. On one side, the wall cuts through the seasonal watercourses on which the Sahrawi depend. On the other, the embankment acts like a dam. Rainwater accumulates against it, and shrubs and grasses grow along its base. This vegetation offers food and shelter, drawing animals towards the mines laid along the wall. The very conditions that should sustain life can instead direct it towards danger.

The mines’ victims aren’t only human: camels are also killed near the wall, while deaths among wild animals may go unrecorded. These deaths are harm in themselves, not simply damage to an empty landscape.

This dynamic resembles what ecologists term an ecological trap, in which a habitat conveys misleading signals about its own safety. The situation at the Berm differs in a crucial respect: here the trap is produced by military infrastructure. The wall, the desert’s hydrological cycle and the minefields combine into a single lethal system.

Thirdly, the wall cuts across the traditional grazing routes connecting wadis, with mines and unexploded ordnance restricting Sahrawi herders’ access to water sources that become available at different times of the year. This disrupts an ancestral balance between Sahrawi communities and the desert, sustained through shared seasonal rhythms, grazing practices and inherited knowledge of routes. It is an interconnected way of life that forced settlement in the refugee camps is eroding. Even dead branches are put to use rather than wasted, reflecting a careful stewardship of scarce desert resources that displacement is making increasingly difficult to maintain.

Almost nobody can study any of this independently since the Berm is a closed military zone. Human Rights Watch has documented how tightly access is controlled, so there’s no reliable count of animals killed, no complete contamination map, and no independent record of the damage, making accountability far harder.

What does the Berm mean today in the ongoing conflict between Morocco and Western Sahara?

The wall still marks the practical frontline of a conflict most of the world stopped watching.

A UN-brokered ceasefire held for nearly 30 years until November 2020. Moroccan troops entered a UN-monitored buffer strip to clear a road blockade by Sahrawi protesters and reopen traffic to Mauritania. This prompted the Polisario Front to declare the ceasefire over and resume hostilities. Low-intensity fighting, mostly drone strikes and skirmishes along the wall, has continued since.

Diplomatically, the ground has shifted decisively in favour of Morocco, which has been on the rise economically and politically on the continent.

The US recognised Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in 2020. Spain backed Morocco’s autonomy plan – which would offer Western Sahara autonomy but under its sovereignty – in 2022. France backed this plan in 2024 and the UK followed in 2025.

In October 2025, the UN security council passed Resolution 2797, inviting both sides to negotiate on the basis of Morocco’s autonomy plan without calling for the referendum on independence that’s sought by the Polisario Front.

That resolution also requested a review of the future of the UN’s peacekeeping mission there, Minurso, while extending its mandate to October 2026. The UN mission began in 1991 and was mandated to uphold the ceasefire agreed between Morocco and the Polisario Front. The review could lead to a reduced UN presence, or even its withdrawal, affecting work that includes supporting demining and recording landmine incidents.

Whatever happens to the wall politically, questions remain about who is responsible for managing its lasting consequences for the people, animals and land around it.

– Morocco’s deadly wall across Western Sahara: why the 2,700km Berm was built and the damage it does
– https://theconversation.com/moroccos-deadly-wall-across-western-sahara-why-the-2-700km-berm-was-built-and-the-damage-it-does-292148

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Charles Shey Wiysonge, Extraordinary Professor, Global Health, Stellenbosch University; South African Medical Research Council

Africa has reached an important moment in its immunisation journey. Coverage is not rising fast enough to keep pace with population growth, persistent inequities and a growing number of vaccines. At the same time, outbreaks and financing pressures are intensifying.

Vaccination has transformed child survival. A landmark analysis found that global immunisation efforts have saved at least 154 million lives over the past 50 years, 52 million in Africa. Vaccines have virtually eliminated meningitis A epidemics and eradicated wild poliovirus from Africa.

But progress has slowed. In 2025, about 7.1 million African children (15.6% of those under a year old) did not receive even a single routine vaccine dose. Measles and other vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks are increasing, driven by immunity gaps, conflict, displacement and vaccine hesitancy. Meanwhile, donor budgets are under pressure from competing global crises. And rising debt-service costs are squeezing government spending on health.

Against this backdrop, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has launched the Continental Immunisation Strategy 2026-2030. It covers six areas:

• financing and political commitment

• data and digital systems

• life-course vaccination integrated with primary healthcare

• community engagement

• vaccine manufacturing and supply

• emergency preparedness and epidemic-ready immunisation systems.

We are immunisation practitioners, researchers and advisers who contributed to the strategy’s development and now support its implementation. We identify five priorities that apply to all these six areas. They are:

• sustainable domestic financing

• fit-for-purpose digital systems

• integration with primary healthcare

• genuine community partnership

• vaccine sovereignty linked to epidemic preparedness.

1. Put sustainable domestic financing at the centre

The greatest threat to immunisation in Africa is not whether effective vaccines exist, but whether countries can finance and deliver them reliably. International partners such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Unicef, and the World Health Organization have helped countries introduce vaccines, procure doses and strengthen delivery systems. That support remains invaluable, but it cannot substitute for predictable national budgets.

The fiscal squeeze is real. Governments must service debt while also responding to food insecurity, climate shocks and conflict, and financing education, infrastructure and other essential health services. Growing populations increase the number of children who need routine vaccines. Every interest payment reduces the funding available for vaccines, cold-chain equipment, transport and health workers.

We argue for using scarce resources better. Immunisation is a best buy that returns about US$54 for every dollar invested. Predictable domestic financing gives countries more control over priorities, makes programmes less vulnerable to donor cycles and strengthens accountability to citizens.

2. Use digital technology to reach every person who needs vaccines

Many programmes still rely on paper registers kept by health workers. These records are increasingly ill-suited to highly mobile populations, expanding vaccine schedules and the need to identify missed individuals quickly. Digital systems can help solve these practical problems.

Electronic immunisation registries linked, with privacy safeguards, to birth registration and national health-information platforms can show who received which vaccine (or missed a dose) and improve stock management. Rwanda, for example, integrated its vaccine registry with electronic birth systems in 2022.

Better data can improve efficiency and accountability.

3. Make immunisation part of resilient primary healthcare

The original Expanded Programme on Immunisation was designed primarily to protect infants against a few childhood diseases, often through fixed health facilities and periodic outreach. Today’s realities are different. Africa has a rapidly growing and urbanising population; vaccine schedules now include adolescents, pregnant women and adults.

Vaccination should therefore become a routine part of primary healthcare throughout life. The Immunisation Agenda 2030 supports expanding vaccination across the life course and linking it with other essential services.

Community health workers are especially important to connect families with services. Nigeria’s community health influencer programme, for example, identifies zero-dose children and links them to healthcare services.

4. Build trust through genuine community engagement

Immunisation programmes succeed when people trust the vaccines, the health workers who provide them and the institutions running the programme.

People are more likely to accept vaccines when they feel respected, listened to and involved. Religious leaders, traditional authorities, teachers, civil-society organisations, youth groups and community health workers can all help.

In Sierra Leone’s Kailahun District, rumours that HPV vaccination caused infertility led parents to refuse consent and girls to avoid school. Health teams listened to concerns and worked through trusted local voices to rebuild confidence. In northern Nigeria, traditional and religious leaders have similarly helped vaccination teams address rumours and identify missed children.

Trust is built through consistent service quality and partnership; it cannot be manufactured during an emergency.

5. Strengthen Africa’s vaccine sovereignty and epidemic preparedness

COVID exposed Africa’s dependence on imported products and the vulnerability of global supply chains. The continent still imports about 99% of the vaccines it uses. The Continental Immunisation Strategy therefore supports the African Union’s ambition to produce 60% of Africa’s vaccine needs locally by 2040.

Africa is not starting from zero. Existing or expanding capabilities include the Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal, Biovac and Aspen Pharmacare in South Africa, and manufacturers in Egypt and Tunisia. But sustainable manufacturing requires predictable demand, pooled procurement, technology transfer, skilled workforces, strong regulators and access to regional markets.

Reliable continental supply is most valuable when countries can quickly identify a threat, decide how vaccines should be used and deliver them equitably across borders.

Looking ahead

The Continental Immunisation Strategy already recognises these priorities. The task now is to come up with costed national plans, clear responsibilities, measurable milestones and transparent annual reporting. Governments must lead, while development partners align their support behind country priorities.

Success will be measured by whether a child in a remote village, an adolescent in an informal settlement, a pregnant woman in a fragile setting and an older person at risk can receive the vaccines they need, when they need them.

The continent will have stronger health systems, greater resilience to outbreaks and healthier populations able to contribute fully to Africa’s development.

This article was co-authored by Dr Folake Olayinka and Dr Chris Ngwa Akonwi.

– Vaccination rates are falling in Africa, but a new strategy aims to turn things around. Five things it needs to get right
– https://theconversation.com/vaccination-rates-are-falling-in-africa-but-a-new-strategy-aims-to-turn-things-around-five-things-it-needs-to-get-right-289181

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Yolandi Burger, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Gauteng City-Region Observatory

As a design researcher working in urban graphic heritage, I explore how everyday graphic objects communicate in public spaces. I have started to think of the city as a kind of living, dispersed archive. It is not an archive that replaces formal institutions, but one that exists alongside them.

In a recent mapping project that I led for the Gauteng City-Region Observatory in South Africa, almost 44,000 street names were analysed across Gauteng, the country’s economic heartland.

The aim was to explore how street names tell stories about the region, its people, associated places and cultural heritages made visible through them. It found that 57% streets were classified as names of people. This means that Gauteng’s everyday street network also functions as a vast, dispersed memorial landscape.

The mapping project used data from OpenStreetMap and grouped the street names into four broad categories: people, geographical places, plants and animals, and other names.

Grouping them revealed patterns that would be difficult to notice from individual street signs. This connects to my wider research on how ordinary graphic objects communicate heritage in the urban environment. A street name may seem like a simple tool for navigation, but each one can connect the past to the present and influence how we understand a place.

This is important when we think about belonging. The Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s most recent Quality of Life Survey shows that 21% of residents feel they do not belong where they live, while 31% feel that nobody cares about people like them.

This matters because street names do more than help us to find our way in our daily travels. They make histories and identities visible in the places we share. Through paying attention to these names we can start to ask ourselves whether our own histories and those of our communities are reflected in the places we call home, and how that may contribute to our sense of belonging.

Patterns

One of the clearest patterns in the map is the concentration of streets named after people in places such as Soweto, Mamelodi, Kagiso and Atteridgeville. These are historically black townships whose development was shaped by South Africa’s racial segregation and apartheid policies.

Across the province of Gauteng, names associated with figures who were at the forefront of the fight against apartheid, such as Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Chris Hani and Oliver Tambo, appear alongside names associated with figures who were part of the country’s colonial and apartheid history, such as Jan Smuts, Paul Kruger and Hendrik Verwoerd.

These names reflect different periods of South Africa’s history. Rather than telling a single story, the street network preserves several layers of public memory.

What also stood out was that many of the frequently repeated commemorative names refer to men. This raises questions about whose contributions become familiar through street naming and whose are less visible.

Other neighbourhoods tell quite different stories. In Cosmo City, which is a mixed-income housing development build in the early 2000s in north-west Johannesburg, street names are organised around countries and cities in Africa. In Etwatwa, a township that emerged during the final years of apartheid, names such as Arusha (a city in Tanzania), Entebbe (a city in Uganda) and Victoria Falls (a large gorge on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia) connect an everyday neighbourhood to places elsewhere on the continent.

In the south-western parts of Centurion, a residental and commercial area between Johannesburg and Pretoria, streets have names associated with plants and trees, including Begonia, Baobab and Fever Tree.

Ivory Park, which is a township in Midrand that emerged in the early 1990s, offers another interesting example, with streets named after fish, such as Snoek, Galjoen and Tilapia.

These examples show that street naming is not only about commemorating people. It can also give a neighbourhood a particular identity or connect it to places, landscapes and ideas beyond its immediate surroundings.

The stories our streets tell

In South Africa, street naming and renaming generally fall under the authority of municipal councils, although individuals and communities can propose names or changes through local processes that often include public consultation.

What interests me about these patterns is how histories and identities become visible in the places people share. The names we encounter everyday can tell us whose histories are commemorated, which places are considered meaningful and how neighbourhood identities are expressed. They also encourage us to think about what is less visible.

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Read more: Should Graaff-Reinet be renamed Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe? Residents of the South African town say no – study

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A map cannot tell us how a particular resident feels about a street name, or whether that name creates a sense of belonging. But it can reveal which stories appear repeatedly in public space and which receive less recognition.

These are important questions when we think about how communities see themselves reflected in the places they call home.

Gauteng’s street names show us that heritage is not only found in monuments or museums. It is also written into the ordinary routes travelled every day.

I encourage people to look differently at the streets around them. The next time you read a street sign or give someone directions, ask who or what the street is named after. Think about why that name is there, whether it has changed and what other stories might be less visible.

Our streets are already telling us stories. Sometimes we simply need to stop and read them.

– Street names carry stories with them. What they tell us about Gauteng in South Africa
– https://theconversation.com/street-names-carry-stories-with-them-what-they-tell-us-about-gauteng-in-south-africa-292281