Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Alan Hirsch, Senior Research Fellow New South Institute, Emeritus Professor at The Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town

South Africa has a new draft white paper on immigration, citizenship and refugees. This, the fourth in three decades, represents a step change from the previous efforts. It is a genuine attempt to develop an efficient but humane set of policies.

Based on my work on migration over two decades, I am convinced that the policies in this new paper are far more ambitious than previous reforms. They represent a genuine attempt to address a complex and sensitive set of challenges in a comprehensive way, using state-of-the-art technological tools. The key question is: are the reforms practically and politically feasible?

The first post-apartheid immigration white paper, published in 1997, led to the new Immigration Act of 2002. This was the second significant reform to immigration policy in the post-apartheid era. The first was the Refugee Act of 1998. The Refugee Act represented a bold realignment. In it South Africa acceded to global and African refugee treaties. It also placed human rights at the centre of the policy.

The 2002 Immigration Act was reformist rather than revolutionary. It was rightly criticised for not getting to grips with the legacy of migration patterns in southern Africa.

The white paper represents a far more coherent and systematic rethink than previous South African piecemeal reforms or similar attempts elsewhere in Africa.

The changes are being driven by Home Affairs minister Leon Schreiber. Schreiber is unusual among politicians. He is a real political scientist with real expertise in public policy. He is ambitious and seems determined to accomplish as much as he can in the current term of government. The impression I get is that his senior officials buy into the reforms – indeed, they devised many of them.

The generational change is essentially digitisation. All civil records about citizens, migrants, prospective migrants, visitors, asylum seekers and refugees will be digitised and integrated. If it works, it could result in a watertight management system for immigration, citizenship and refugee protection. This would be a huge step up from the current jumble of paper-based and incomplete datasets.

If completely successful it would eliminate both the massive inefficiency of the Department of Home Affairs, and the fraud and general confusion which still plague the governance of migrants and refugees in South Africa.

Fit for the 21st century

Digitisation and integration of information systems was recommended by the Lubisi enquiry into documentation fraud commissioned by the previous minister.

In my own work on South Africa’s migration policies, I made similar recommendations, with the benefit of the evidence in the Lubisi report and other sources.

At the heart of the system being proposed in the new white paper is an Intelligent Population Register. This is a modern, digitised system to manage and use comprehensive population data. Countries like Estonia and Denmark have pioneered such systems, and India has shown how a digital ID system can be extended to its massive population. Botswana already has an integrated civil registration system similar to the one South Africa is planning.

As the minister of Home Affairs put it, an intelligent population register

uses advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, biometrics, interoperability and real-time data integration, to improve governance, integrated service delivery, and national planning.

The new system will require mandatory birth and death registration, and biometric data not only for citizens but also for foreigners, regular and irregular, who reside in the country. This would provide data that enables far more effective social and economic policies than the current incomplete population register.

Irregular foreigners, including asylum seekers and others whose status is yet to be determined, will be:

• counted

• allowed to use the banking system irrespective of their status

• expected to pay tax.

Other improvements are that it will be:

• more difficult for unethical visa applicants to game the system

• easier to keep track of refugees and asylum seekers

• more difficult to carry out identity theft.

The other major change is that the new system will introduce a “merit-based path” to naturalisation, in contrast to the existing “mechanical and compliance-based” pathway.

Merit is preferred to years served. After five years of permanent residence, naturalisation will be acquired according to a set of accomplishments that are yet to be detailed. This will be available to immigrants who have come in through a points-based system as well as to current citizens of Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Angola holding exemption permits. The yet to be finalised points system will include assessments of educational qualifications, acquired skills, and some measure of social impact.

The points-based system for skilled immigrants will replace or, for now, complement the critical skills list.

Other immigration reforms include a new start-up visa for tech firms, a subset of an investment visa which replaces the business visa, and new age and income requirements for retiree immigrants. The recently introduced Trusted Employer Scheme, Trusted Tour Operator Scheme and the remote work visa are endorsed in the white paper.

Reforms are proposed to speed up the asylum applications process, including a dedicated immigration court. Even those who obtain refugee status may be returned to the “first safe country” that they passed through when exiting their perilous country.

Countries which are safe for returnees would be designated by government – those which do not have raging civil wars or extreme repression or similar hazards for their citizens. South Africa would have to get agreement from the designated safe countries that they would accept returnees without prejudice.

Caveats and concerns

None of these reforms will be easy. Some, like the various points-based systems for entry, permanent residence and citizenship, and the establishment of dedicated refugee courts, are complex proposals not yet fully explained.

Other concerns include the privacy implications of the intelligent population register and the willingness of other countries to agree to being designated first safe country. Both issues are vulnerable to court challenges. Prospective first safe countries may require some incentive to cooperate, and South Africa might have to offer to accept a considerable share of the refugees.

There are also some issues covered in previous white papers not addressed here. Whether and how to draw on the financial and networking resources of the South African diaspora is not discussed. Nor is the issue of proactive policies to promote the social integration of foreigners.

Also not covered is the issue of lower-skilled migrants. However, migrant labour, mostly low-skilled, is the focus of the White Paper on National Labour Migration Policy republished by the Department of Employment and Labour last year.

The ambition signalled in the new policy paper is impressive. Whether it is doable, and whether the project will be completed, depends on many things, political, technical and judicial.

– South Africa’s new immigration policy takes a digital direction – will it succeed?
– https://theconversation.com/south-africas-new-immigration-policy-takes-a-digital-direction-will-it-succeed-274038

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Haruna Inuwa, DPhil Candidate, Energy Systems, University of Oxford

Energy systems are coming under attack globally because disrupting power or fuel supplies offers strategic, economic or political leverage. This can be in local conflicts or large-scale geopolitical confrontations.

Nigeria illustrates this clearly: militants in the Niger Delta sabotage pipelines to assert control and tap into oil revenues, while the extremist group Boko Haram and armed bandits in the north hit power lines to weaken state presence.

These incidents reveal how conflict actors weaponise energy systems.

We recently published a study assessing how militancy, insurgency and armed banditry undermine Nigeria’s energy systems by disrupting oil, gas and power infrastructure. We compiled novel datasets of energy related incidents, mapping their timing, location and cost from 2009 to 2025.

Our findings show that more than 2,300 separate attacks were recorded. We see a widening pattern of energy insecurity that drains national revenue, drives away investment, and worsens environmental injustice.

This explains why Nigeria’s energy insecurity has become one of its most serious development and security challenges.

We recommend investment in decentralised systems, community engagement in oil regions, and policies supporting industrial decarbonisation to strengthen resilience and advance climate goals.

The price

According to our estimates, between 2009 and 2024, approximately US$20 billion was lost as a result of attacks. During the 2013-2016 surge in militancy, losses peaked at roughly US$17 billion.

We found that the South-South (Niger Delta) region remains the epicentre of oil sabotage, with peak revenue losses of US$8.62 trillion (2009-2012) and sustained environmental damage.

Attacks and oil theft along the Trans-Niger Pipeline were particularly devastating. This pipeline moves 450,000 barrels of crude oil daily from oil-producing fields in Niger Delta region to export terminals. Each disruption not only shuts down production but also deprives the government of huge revenues.

Since 2021, tactics have shifted. Over 40 attacks have targeted transmission lines in the North-East and North-Central, largely linked to Boko Haram and armed bandits.

Case studies of the 2016 Shell Forcados terminal bombing and the 2024 Shiroro transmission line attack show reliance on backup generators increased electricity costs by 3.2-6.0 times.

Beyond the financial toll, communities suffer respiratory illnesses, unsafe drinking water and food insecurity.

Disruptions have made Nigeria’s grid more unstable and pose risks to critical infrastructure projects nearing completion, including gas pipelines.

Attacks threaten regional energy trade and integration projects, such as the West African Power Pool, West African Gas Pipeline, Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline, and the proposed Nigeria-Algeria-Gas-Pipeline, which rely on secure cross-border energy infrastructure.

Foreign investors view these risks as prohibitive. Due to attacks on energy infrastructure, in 2020, Nigeria lost around US$40 billion in foreign direct investment.

Oil theft and sabotage have also left a toxic legacy in the Niger Delta. Each pipeline rupture spills crude into rivers and farmland, wiping out livelihoods.

We find that clean-up costs from oil spills on the Trans-Niger Pipeline alone ranged from US$150 million to US$290 million per period (2009-2012, 2013-2016, 2017-2020, 2021-2024), highlighting continuous environmental degradation in the Niger Delta area.

In line with this, the United Nations Environment Programme estimated that a US$1 billion 30-year clean-up is needed in Ogoniland, while Reuters reported that addressing oil pollution in Bayelsa State alone might require US$12 billion over 12 years. When compared to Nigeria’s GDP of US$375 billion in 2024, these figures underscore the substantial financial strain that this attack-induced environmental crisis places on national resources.

Our analysis indicates that insurgents and bandits have shifted tactics since 2021. We see increased disruption and attacks on power infrastructure in the northern part of the country.

More than 40 incidents targeting high-voltage transmission lines have been recorded in just four years, a 20-fold increase from the previous decade. Two major examples show the consequences: the 2016 Forcados terminal bombing cut national power generation by 3,132MW, while the 2024 Shiroro transmission-line attack left the north-western part of the country in darkness for two weeks.

During attack-induced outages, businesses and households switch to diesel or petrol generators. We find that this backup electricity costs three to six times more than grid power, with the North-East and North-West experiencing the highest cost increase.

Each attack also carries an invisible environmental cost. Backup generators release far more carbon dioxide than grid electricity. During the 2016 and 2024 outages, we estimated sharp spikes in CO₂ across the South-West and South-South, Nigeria’s most energy-hungry regions.

This trend undermines Nigeria’s commitments under the National Climate Change Policy 2021-2030, which aims to cut emissions and expand energy access using renewable energy. Insecurity, therefore, is not just an economic or social problem – it is an obstacle to climate progress.

How Nigeria can respond

Our research points to several steps that could make the energy systems more resilient:

1. Invest in decentralised and modular power systems: Smaller, locally managed plants – such as the 52-megawatt Maiduguri Emergency Power Plant – are harder to sabotage and quicker to repair.

2. Rebuild trust with host communities: Environmental remediation and transparent benefit-sharing can reduce grievances that drive sabotage. Local participation in energy projects must move beyond tokenism.

3. Adopt technology for early warning and monitoring: Pressure sensors, drones and predictive analytics can detect tampering and leaks in real-time. Government contracts with former militants to guard pipelines must be coupled with strict accountability.

4. Accelerate innovative clean-energy deployment: In the light of Nigeria’s commitment to achieve climate goals, it is important to explore emerging decarbonisation pathways, including clean hydrogen.

Nigeria’s energy wealth has long promised prosperity, but persistent insecurity has made it a liability. The financial losses, pollution and emissions caused by repeated attacks erode resilience and deter investment. This challenge is not unique to Nigeria; it reflects a broader global reality in which energy transitions depend on secure infrastructure.

Achieving a stable, decentralised and low-carbon system will require protecting the assets that make it possible.

– Attacks on Nigeria’s energy systems weaken the country – research unpacks costs, risks and ways forward
– https://theconversation.com/attacks-on-nigerias-energy-systems-weaken-the-country-research-unpacks-costs-risks-and-ways-forward-271366

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Giorgio Miescher, Associate Researcher University of Basel and University of Namibia, University of Basel

Donkeys are an unassuming yet ubiquitous presence in northern Namibia. They traverse sandy village roads, pull carts stacked with firewood, and graze freely along the northern edge of the Etosha National Park.

The story of how they came to occupy such a central role in rural life – and in such large numbers – is a fascinating one that’s linked to the country’s colonial history, the management of wildlife versus domestic animals, and the role of migrant workers.

We are historians who specialise in Namibia and Southern Africa. Our research focuses on colonial legacies in nature conservation and land. In a research paper we retraced the routes of the domesticated donkey through a conservation landscape.

We found that donkeys occupy a contradictory status in communities in northern Namibia. They are indispensable, yet undervalued. For example, they remain central to tasks such as ploughing, hauling water and transporting logs. Yet their social status remains curiously low. They are rarely used in ceremonies, have little monetary value, and are strongly associated with those who cannot afford tractors or cars.

We conclude that this ambiguity has arisen from the long histories of colonial rule, labour migration, conservation and veterinary control that shaped northern Namibia.

The great trek north

We traced donkeys’ ability to move across one of the country’s most significant borders: the veterinary cordon fence known as the Red Line. The Red Line is an inner-Namibian border, over 1,000 kilometres long, running from west to east and separating the country into two distinct parts. It originated under German colonial rule (1884-1915) and was fully implemented under South African rule (1915-1990).

It still exists today.

The Red Line separated the more densely populated northern parts of the country from the settler-colonial heartland, the so-called Police Zone in central and southern Namibia. The Etosha Game Reserve served as a buffer zone between the Police Zone and the Owambo region in the central north, conceptualised as a migrant labour reservoir.

Donkeys entered Namibia’s central north relatively late, and only became common in the 1920s and 1930s. Their presence across the region was driven largely by migrant labourers working on contract. As thousands of men travelled between the Police Zone and Owambo, many returned home with equines – especially donkeys – purchased in the south.

Cheap, hardy, and resistant to many diseases, donkeys became essential companions on the workers’ long journeys. Donkeys carried heavy loads of clothes, tools and other goods, including gramophones and radios, earned through contract labour.

Since they were associated with commodities, donkeys also became a symbol of modernity expanding from the thriving settler economy in the south.

Today, people still recount how returning labour migrants used donkeys to haul luggage through predator-rich landscapes within Etosha, or how villagers took their carts to meet these men halfway. Donkeys also served as ambulances during emergencies in the Namibian Liberation War (1966-1989).

Their presence has also been entangled with colonial border regimes and conservation policies.

The tensions

During the rinderpest epidemic of 1896-97, in a failed attempt to stop the disease from entering the colony, German colonial authorities established a cordon of military outposts along the southern edge of the Etosha Pan. Although intended to control the movement of cattle, this cordon would later become the Red Line.

The devastation of rinderpest prompted German forces to import donkeys and mules as disease-resistant alternatives to oxen. These animals gradually filtered into civilian hands in the Police Zone, the heartland of settler colonialism in central and southern Namibia, and became increasingly common by the 1910s.

The establishment of Game Reserve 2, comprising today’s Etosha National Park and the areas north-west of the Etosha Pan, was part of a policy to seal off Owambo from the Police Zone. Hunting and human movement in the reserve became highly regulated.

In 1915 South Africa defeated the German forces and took over Namibia. The new colonial power maintained the inner border and formalised it as the Red Line in the 1920s and 1930s. They banned cattle movement across the Red Line but allowed equines, provided they carried veterinary certificates.

Donkeys thus became one of the few domestic animals permitted to cross the border legally.

As migrant labour expanded, so too did the flow of donkeys northward. By the late 1920s and 1930s, hundreds of donkeys passed through Etosha each year. In Owambo, they were quickly adopted for local agriculture and transport. Even as motorised lorries and buses began to dominate long-distance travel from the 1930s onward, many migrant workers still preferred to buy donkeys as durable companions.

By the 1940s, however, administrators in Owambo began to worry about the donkeys’ impact on grazing. Restrictions were introduced, but donkeys continued to slip into the north through unofficial routes.

From the 1950s onward, the situation changed dramatically as the Etosha National Park was transformed into a fenced conservation area. Residents and livestock were expelled, and by 1961 the southern boundary was fully fenced. Donkey traffic through Etosha came to an end.

Meanwhile, the northern boundary of Etosha became a flashpoint. The government of the pseudo-independent new Ovamboland homeland resisted efforts to fence this border and insisted on continued movement of wildlife out of Etosha – especially zebra, an important local food source. Conservation officials accused communities of using donkeys to disguise poaching tracks and allowing their animals to stray into the park.

New rules

With Namibia’s independence in 1990, new animal-movement regulations emerged, but donkeys retained their special status. Unlike cattle, they were still permitted to cross the Red Line.

Their symbolic and practical importance has changed. Migrant workers no longer return with donkeys from the south, and motorised transport dominates even in rural areas.

But donkeys remain deeply woven into the fabric of northern Namibian life. They continue to support poorer households, endure harsh environments, and live in proximity to wildlife. Their presence evokes conflicting memories – of difficult journeys and colonial border regimes, but also of development and modernity.

– Donkeys are a common sight in northern Namibia – what colonial history has to do with it
– https://theconversation.com/donkeys-are-a-common-sight-in-northern-namibia-what-colonial-history-has-to-do-with-it-273058

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Chuka Onwumechili, Professor of Communications, Howard University

The 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, hosted by Morocco, produced thrills and several story lines, some good and others not so good. It ended in a victory for Senegal – their second Afcon championship. While the 1-0 victory over Morocco was deserved, the championship game ended on a sour note as fans invaded the field and the winning country abandoned the game for 16 minutes.

I’m a sports communications scholar and an author of multiple books on football as it relates to Africa.

The top four positives of the tournament were:

• quality matches played on impeccable surfaces

• expanded media coverage

• increased global interest

• higher attendance figures.

On the downside, however, we had the Senegalese team walkout during the final, bad refereeing decisions, especially in games involving Morocco, and ticketing challenges.

This 2026 Afcon provided examples of quality pitches and marketing that future hosts should learn from. However, providing better security around the field and better trained match officials are lessons that CAF (the Confederation of African Football) must learn from this tournament.

What went well

The infrastructure at Afcon showed Morocco’s readiness to host the World Cup later in the year. On six stadiums alone, the country spent US$1.4 billion. As much as US$10 billion was spent on allied public infrastructure for transport. The matches were of high quality on excellent surfaces.

The fans who watched the spectacular football on the field were transported by a high-speed rail system and seamless other transportation means.

The quality of the surfaces may have contributed to the fact that there were fewer surprises or upsets. All four teams that reached the semi-final stage – Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal – were top ranked in their groups.

Eventually, the championship game was contested by the two top ranked African teams. The game was outstanding as the well-known names produced memorable football throughout the tournament.

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Read more: African football won the 34th Afcon, with Côte d’Ivoire a close second

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Expanded media coverage

The decision to expand to additional markets led to expanded media coverage in China, Brazil and key European markets. With several well-known players from European clubs participating, a global audience was assured. Teams like Real Madrid, PSG, Bayern Munich, Manchester United and Liverpool had players participating.

Beyond those were recent world renowned players such as Sadio Mane, Riyad Mahrez and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Those names were certain to attract media audiences across the world.

Viewership rose overall, with remarkable increases in Europe. France recorded 3.4 million viewers and the UK had 1.7 million viewers.

Increased global interest

CAF announced a 90% increase in revenue. This year’s revenue was US$192.6 million (US$114 million profit) compared to US$105.6 million and US$72 million profit in the previous Afcon. This shows the steady rise from just nine partners in the 2021 tournament to 17 in the 2023 tournament and 23 in this one. Greater media reach resulted in commercial interest.

Attendance figures have also risen remarkably. Figures announced at the end of the competition showed 1.34 million attended the games. The number of attendees in 2023 in Côte d’Ivoire was 1.1 million.

This clearly shows increased interest in the tournament. Morocco’s proximity to Europe was also a critical factor. More attendees travelled from the continent and elsewhere.

The prizes awarded to teams at the tournament also set records, with Senegal taking home US$11.6 million. Teams eliminated at the group stage received US$1.3 million each.

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Read more: Nigeria wins its 10th Wafcon title – but women’s football has never been more competitive

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Errors

Angry scenes: The championship game was marred by a Senegalese walkout following protest over a penalty kick awarded to Morocco during the extra time. The game was delayed for 16 minutes. Senegal was angered by the cancellation of its goal late in regulation time. Its protest over the penalty awarded to Morocco lasted until one of its famous faces, Sadio Mane, asked his teammates to continue the game.

By then angry Senegalese fans had torn seats in the stands and multiple fights broke out. In the end, Morocco could not convert the penalty award and Senegal scored a memorable goal to emerge winner.

Umpiring questions: Throughout the tournament, Morocco appeared to be favoured by several refereeing decisions and non-decisions. CAF should consider match official exchange programmes with other confederations as a way of improving officiating. This would not only help Afcon but expose officials to other continental events.

Also of concern, Moroccan ball boys were seen seizing the goalkeepers’ towels for opposing teams in both Nigeria v Morocco and Senegal v Morocco.

Ticketing challenges: There were ticketing challenges also. While tickets were sold out, several stadiums during the group games were deserted. This may be attributed to hiccups where secondary sellers may have bought more tickets than they could re-sell. Nonetheless, an average 21,167 attended each game. Media attendance also rose during the tournament. Reports indicated over 3,800 journalists covered the event from Morocco.

Looking ahead

The competition demonstrated Morocco’s readiness to host World Cup games in 2030. Morocco, along with Spain and Portugal, will host the games, featuring 48 teams. All six cities used for the 2025 Afcon will host the world in 2030. Portugal will have only two host cities and Spain will provide nine venues.

It will be difficult for the host nations for the 2027 Afcon to match Morocco’s accomplishment.

The three hosts for 2027 – Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda – should at least measure up to what Côte d’Ivoire accomplished hosting the 2023 event.

They can look to improve the ticketing system, at the least. Further improving security around stadiums and educating the ball boys would help in protecting visiting teams.

But the on-field disturbances should not take away from this tournament’s numerous accomplishments off the field and the available facilities.

– Afcon drama: what went wrong and what went right at the continent’s biggest football cup in Morocco
– https://theconversation.com/afcon-drama-what-went-wrong-and-what-went-right-at-the-continents-biggest-football-cup-in-morocco-273819

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Adewumi I. Badiora, Senior Lecturer, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Olabisi Onabanjo University

Criminal activities have developed into a security crisis in Nigeria. Alongside the responses of security agencies such as the police and military, there has been a huge local response, with community groups mobilising in the face of criminal attacks.

For example, communities in Zamfara State, north-west region, repelled a bandit attack, causing the death of 37 bandits in August 2024. In Sokoto State, north-west region, residents rescued kidnapped individuals and recovered the body of the deceased village head in August 2024. In Kwara state, north-central region, community groups rescued people from their abductors in December 2025.

But how effective are these community-organised interventions?

I’m an urban and community safety researcher who has studied various aspects of insecurity in Nigeria, particularly in the country’s south-west, for more than a decade now.

In a recent paper I sought to answer this question in relation to Lagos. As Nigeria’s largest city with an estimated population exceeding 20 million, Lagos faces severe, complex crime challenges driven by rapid, poorly managed urbanisation and high unemployment rates. I surveyed 62 stakeholders in a bid to evaluate community-driven crime prevention strategies. Respondents included residents, members of the state and community groups who were playing important roles in the city’s security processes. This was qualitative research.

Many respondents expressed little or no trust in formal security agencies. Their expectations that the police could protect them were low.

A resident interviewed for the study said that while people like politicians got police protection, ordinary citizens did not:

That is why everyone has devised ways to protect themselves and family.

My research found that these commmunity-organised interventions have emerged in different forms. The commonest is community vigilante groups. These are self-appointed resident security volunteers who take it upon themselves to confront criminals in their neighbourhood. This is common in low-income neighbourhoods of Lagos because they have to deal with crime but feel they can’t rely on the police to patrol, unlike elite neighbourhoods.

A successful urban security strategy

Lagos community vigilante groups range from small groups of volunteers on streets, and informal neigbourhood watches, to well structured local community bodies. Community vigilante members are mostly men. But women are not explicitly excluded, and they are an important source of information.

The groups were using local knowledge to help the police. They compiled information on crimes, suspicious activity and criminal suspects in their area and provided it to the police as needed. In some cases, they joined the police intelligence response team to raid hideouts of criminals in their areas.

A resident interviewed for the study said:

We are local people. We know our community very well. We can easily spot strangers and suspicious movements. This local knowledge is what we have, that the police do not have. So, we complement their efforts by providing dependable intelligence for their work. Beyond that, we also escort police patrol, and our presence has helped them to penetrate streets they would not have been able to navigate by themselves.

The relationship between the police and community groups was “semi-formal”. Arrangements were made by the communities with little or no intervention by the state. The collaborations were owned, structured and sustained by residents.

Some of those involved in the groups were remunerated through financial contributions by residents. However, they “occasionally” received financial support from the local government authorities, individual local politicians and donors.

Successes

My research showed there had been some positive results. Residents confirmed that the collaborations brought safety to their community and had helped to reduce crime and insecurity, particularly where the police were lacking.

A resident interviewed for the study said:

Things are a little better. Before now, it was dreadful as criminals and hoodlums operate openly. Although there is still a long way to go, there has been a commendable level of improvements in our security in the last five years.

Some ongoing issues

Despite its success, several concerns were raised in my study.

First, community vigilante groups are a patchwork of isolated groups. Organisations are fragmented and weak. This could be dangerous because it creates unaccountable groups that can easily change from being protectors to being a threat. That can be seen in the Bakassi Boys (south-east Nigeria), Yan Sakai (north-west Nigeria) and global examples like Mungiki (Kenya) and Autodefensas (Mexico).

Second is the question of the legality of community groups in terms of the provisions of the Nigerian constitution, the Police Act and the Public Order Act. Their legal status is “complex” as they operate in a grey area. Most of them do not have the backing of the federal government, which has the constitutional authority to manage policies regarding them.

Third, while community vigilante groups fill security gaps created by an under-resourced police force, their activities sometimes lead to conflicts because they act as judge, jury and executioner.

A police officer interviewed for the study said:

The activities of vigilantes are usually unlawful in the way and manner they deal with suspected criminals … The lawful thing for them is to report suspected criminals to the police, but many times, they take law into their own hands.

Still, residents view the groups as legitimate because of their perceived effectiveness, deep local knowledge, community ties and quick action.

Fourth, relationships between community groups and the police range from amiable and collaborative to distrustful and hostile. Mutual distrust risks escalating violence rather than reducing it.

A member of a vigilante group put it this way:

We cannot totally entrust suspects and our community to the police. We have situations where suspects were released without any investigation and prosecution. Not only that, corrupt police officers do give hints to these suspects about key vigilante members behind their arrests, and these criminals go all-out for them after their unlawful freedom from the police custody.

Moving forward

To overcome the challenges, the following steps should be taken:

• reform of Nigeria’s security governance, allowing states to create their own police forces

• formal recognition and support of community groups

• adopting policies to curb the proliferation of the groups

• working more closely with community groups to deal with some of the underlying reasons for insecurity. These include political negligence, youth unemployment, poverty and inequality.

– Crime-fighting in Lagos: community watch groups are the preferred choice for residents, but they carry risks
– https://theconversation.com/crime-fighting-in-lagos-community-watch-groups-are-the-preferred-choice-for-residents-but-they-carry-risks-273667

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Rich Mallett, Research Associate and Independent Researcher, ODI Global

Digital labour platforms – like fast food delivery and cab hailing services – are having a dramatic impact on people’s labour rights and working conditions around the world.

In western countries like the UK and the US, their rise has intensified a process of labour casualisation already several decades in the making. Under the guise of “flexibility”, platforms have heralded a return to insecure, temporary forms of employment that offer few rights or benefits to workers.

But in “less developed” countries like Uganda, the growth of the digital gig economy is often considered a boon. Across the global south, it has been claimed that platforms are not only creating millions of new jobs, but they are actually helping to formalise an informal economy so vast it accounts for an estimated 70% of total employment in low- and middle-income countries.

Existing research suggests that by guiding informal workers towards compliance with registration and licensing requirements or making them more visible to state authorities, digital labour platforms are capable of “counteracting informal economic activity”.

But is it all as straightforward as it seems?

In a new research paper I put this claim to the test through a case study of moto-taxi work in the Ugandan capital city, Kampala.

Moto-taxi (or boda boda) work is a hugely important source of income in Uganda, providing livelihoods for an estimated 350,000 people in the capital alone. Over the past decade, ride-hail platforms have descended upon this vast industry, claiming to offer safer, better paid work and a step towards formality.

Drawing on 112 interviews, 370 driver surveys and scans of relevant media, my research reaches a different conclusion. Despite shifting online, digital moto-taxi drivers remain as they always were – informal workers in an unprotected labour market.

This raises fundamental questions about the capacity of digital labour platforms to bring about positive transformations in the global informal economy.

Fallacies of ‘plat-formalisation’

As the new paper shows, moto-taxi workers’ inclusion within the new platform economy brings them no closer to formal labour status in any meaningful way.

This is illustrated by three key insights from my findings.

First, despite early collaborative engagement with state actors, Uganda’s ride-hail companies have tended to operate in unilateral, platform-specific ways that undermine prospects for sectoral standardisation. Each platform enforces its own rules over drivers, and these do not always line up with government legislation.

Take driver licensing, for example. While some companies insist that drivers must have a valid driving permit before working through their apps, others bypass this requirement completely. Market leader SafeBoda, for instance, instead chooses to enrol new drivers in road safety training at a purpose-built “academy”. Though a positive step towards safer driving standards, this is not the same as formalisation.

Second, Uganda’s ride-hail platforms accept zero legal responsibility for the welfare and safety of those using their apps, including cases of “bodily injuries, death, and emotional distress and discomfort”. Despite claiming to help regulate the industry, these companies’ designation of informal moto-taxi workers as independent “gig workers” keeps drivers distanced from state labour regulation.

And third, my findings indicate corporate reluctance to share data with government. According to one city planner I talked with, while the platforms tended to talk positively about public-private collaboration, when push came to shove they would often “withhold their data”. Recent evidence suggests this is continuing to happen, further highlighting the limits of private data ownership and non-binding agreements around data sharing. Without access to this information, it is difficult for governments to register workers, tax them effectively and extend labour protections.

Profiting from informality

Ride-hailing may not have led to better, more formalised work for Uganda’s moto-taxis. But what is has done is open up new revenue streams for the various local and international companies involved. The result: a formalisation not of drivers’ labour but of their wealth.

As detailed in the paper, some of the techniques here include:

• Commissions. Drivers regularly lose 15%-20% of their trip fares in the form of company commission fees. With digital technology, these are increasingly being captured via cashless payment systems that deduct fees and other equipment-related debts automatically.

• Equipment. Many companies operate by selling drivers the gear they need to function in the ride-hail economy. SafeBoda, for instance, regularly charges new riders somewhere in the region of US$140 for a smartphone, crash helmets and branded uniforms. Drivers often take this on as debt and pay it back incrementally over time, only to later discover that this does not, in all cases, entitle them to actual ownership. As one former employee at the company told me:

The helmet itself is a business. It’s on the side, you can’t see it. The phone is a business. It’s about business besides riders. It’s all about getting commission on things.

• Corporate tie-ins. Through a series of funding relationships and “private-private partnerships”, Uganda’s ride-hail platforms make drivers visible and accessible to a whole host of banks, insurance agencies and alternative credit lenders. These financial actors are all keen to find lucrative new markets at the “bottom of the pyramid”. Ride-hailing is simply the vehicle for this.

The formalisation agenda remains important. It is central to achieving better working conditions and stronger labour protections for hundreds of millions of workers around the world.

But for private digital platforms operating across Africa’s informal economies, the bottom line is often not about “counteracting informal economic activity” at all. It is about profiting from it.

– Uganda’s boda-boda drivers: the digital economy hasn’t been the route to formal work and better protection – research
– https://theconversation.com/ugandas-boda-boda-drivers-the-digital-economy-hasnt-been-the-route-to-formal-work-and-better-protection-research-270993

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Federico Donelli, Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Trieste

Somaliland is not internationally recognised as a sovereign state, though it declared independence from Somalia in 1991. A territory becomes a sovereign state when its independence is recognised by the United Nations. For this reason, it has no seat at the UN and is considered, under international law, part of Somalia.

Nevertheless, Somaliland holds elections and maintains relative internal stability. It is also attracting increasing informal diplomatic engagement – though not formal recognition – from Ethiopia, the United States and, most recently, Israel.

This growing interest highlights a geopolitical paradox. An unrecognised polity has become strategically relevant in the Red Sea region, along the Gulf of Aden at the Horn of Africa. This is a key corridor linking the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.

On 26 December 2025, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel’s recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign state. This made Israel the first UN member to do so. While the concrete effects of the decision remain uncertain, Israel’s move fits into a broader strategy to strengthen its presence in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region.

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Read more: Somaliland has been pursuing independence for 33 years. Expert explains the impact of the latest deal with Ethiopia

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Of all the African states, landlocked Ethiopia has come closest to formally recognising Somaliland, driven by its wish to get direct access to the Red Sea via the port of Berbera. This has become more urgent amid regional competition and instability.

US officials have defended Israel’s right to recognise Somaliland, but the US itself hasn’t done so despite speculation that it might.

I have studied the political dynamics in the Horn of Africa and recently published a book on the competing interests in the Red Sea. For me, this latest development raises two key questions: what is Somaliland’s strategic importance and why the growing interest now?

In short, Somaliland is important because it is located on one of the world’s most critical maritime routes. Current regional instability has increased the importance of partners that can provide security, access and political stability, even without formal recognition.

Israel’s strategic calculation

Israel has framed its recognition of Somaliland primarily in terms of regional security and strategic stability. It has cited the need to safeguard maritime routes in the Red Sea and counter growing threats in the Horn of Africa.

Beyond these stated reasons, however, Israel is motivated by national security considerations. Following the 7 October 2023 attacks and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the importance of existing strategic priorities in the Red Sea region has increased.

Somaliland’s location on the Gulf of Aden puts the territory – and any external actors with a presence there – in a position to monitor some of the world’s most important maritime and undersea communication routes.

Of particular concern to Israel is the threat posed by Iran-aligned actors, such as Houthi fighters in nearby Yemen. Engaging with Somaliland provides strategic depth and the potential for an early warning system.

Iran has capacity to exert indirect influence through proxy forces that target maritime routes and regional security.

Attacks on shipping by Houthi missiles and drones launched from Yemen take place just a short distance from Somaliland.

Establishing a presence in Somaliland, or simply relying on it as a partner, would enhance Israel’s ability to monitor Houthi activities and counter threats to maritime traffic.

An increased presence also provides a counterweight to the growing influence of Saudi Arabia and Turkey through diplomatic, economic and – in Turkey’s case – military engagement across the region.

Israel and the UAE both view Somaliland as a relatively non-aligned actor capable of reducing Turkish and Saudi influence in the Horn of Africa.

For Israel, engaging with Somaliland is a calculated risk, based on the belief that the strategic benefits outweigh the diplomatic and political risks.

Ethiopia: the vital need for sea access

Ethiopia is another catalyst of Somaliland’s growing importance. Eritrea’s secession in 1993 made Ethiopia a landlocked country. At present it relies heavily on Djibouti for sea access.

The Red Sea region

The port of Berbera in Somaliland offers Ethiopia politically stable and geographically convenient access. This explains Ethiopia’s interest in signing a memorandum of understanding with the breakaway state in January 2024. Although the agreement has not been widely implemented, it has drawn international attention back to Hargeisa’s claims.

Ethiopia’s cautious approach has aimed at avoiding further regional tensions.

Domestic political factors also influence its tepid response. The country is dealing with several potentially secessionist insurgencies within its borders. There could be consequences for supporting a secessionist movement.

An additional factor is Ethiopia’s close political and economic relations with China and Turkey, which both strongly support Somali territorial integrity.

It is this combination of regional ambition and domestic constraint that explains Addis Ababa’s cautious response to Israel’s announcement.

The United States: balancing realism and norms

Washington officially continues to support Somalia’s territorial integrity, largely due to its counter-terrorism cooperation with the federal government in Mogadishu.

However, Israel’s recognition of Somaliland has reignited debate within US strategic and policy circles. Some favour Somaliland’s recognition. They point to US security interests and global trade.

There is growing openness to engaging with Somaliland incrementally, stopping short of fully breaking diplomatic ties with Mogadishu.

Much of the US debate focuses on recognition itself, but this risks missing the more consequential issue: the precedent Somaliland could set.

Not all that glitters is gold

The typical portrayal of Somalia as a failed state and Somaliland as a democratic oasis is simplistic.

Unlike many secessionist movements, Somaliland is not a newly formed political entity. Consequently, beneath its apparent internal cohesion lie deep and persistent fault lines. Hargeisa does not control all the territory it claims. The eastern regions have never entirely accepted Somaliland’s authority.

This cleavage came to a head in violent clashes in Las Anod between 2022 and 2023. Local militias took control of the area, which now functions as a self-administered entity recognised as a federal state within Somalia.

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Read more: Somaliland crisis: delayed elections and armed conflict threaten dream of statehood

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Somaliland’s growing strategic relevance masks its unresolved internal divisions. It illustrates a broader trend in geopolitics now: stability and utility increasingly matter more than legal status alone.

For external actors, engagement with Somaliland may offer short-term gains in a volatile region. But without addressing its internal fractures and contested sovereignty, recognition risks creating new sources of instability rather than resolving old ones.

– Israel’s recognition of Somaliland: the strategic calculations at play
– https://theconversation.com/israels-recognition-of-somaliland-the-strategic-calculations-at-play-273817

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Francois Questiaux, Researcher, Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen

Shea butter has become a highly sought-after ingredient in cosmetics and food manufacturing worldwide. Since the early 2000s its use as a substitute for cocoa butter has driven a dramatic rise in international demand. The shea butter industry has grown by more than 600% over the last 20 years.

The shea tree is semi-domesticated across the dry savannah region in a “shea belt” west to east from Senegal to South Sudan, and about 500km north to south. It is not planted but protected within farmland and also found in communal bushland.

An estimated 16 million women collect and process shea fruits in rural west Africa, turning them into dry kernels for sale or processing the kernels into shea butter.

Global companies, development agencies and NGOs frequently present the shea industry as a pathway to women’s economic empowerment in the region.

To explore this idea, we conducted research into how the rise in demand for shea butter has affected women collectors in Burkina Faso and Ghana. These two countries are among the lead exporters of dry shea kernels.

The study formed part of our work on agrarian change, political ecology and livelihoods. We study relationships between producers and other actors of global value chains, as well as the impacts of externally induced changes on smallholders.

We combined data from a survey of 1,046 collectors in 24 communities with data from interviews with 18 collectors.

Our results show that the shea boom has intensified competition for access to trees. Over 85% of collectors surveyed reported an increase in the number of shea nut collectors in their community over the past 10  years. We also documented how access to shea trees was becoming more restricted, especially for women who rely most heavily on shea for their livelihoods.

Our results point to widening inequality within the collector population, even as the overall value of the shea sector grows.

Global demand meets local tenure systems

Historically, access to nuts was governed by a combination of customary rules and social norms. Women could usually collect freely on communal land, and also on farmland belonging to their households or relatives. Shea was often treated as a semi–open-access resource, available to women of the community according to need.

This system has come under pressure.

Firstly, as prices have increased over the last three decades, so have the number of people collecting.

Secondly, the common land is shrinking. Expansion and mechanisation of agriculture, population growth and peri-urban development have reduced the areas that once served as shared collection spaces.

Several collectors we interviewed noted that land previously considered “bush” had been converted into fields, removing an important safety net for those without farmland.

As a result, access to shea trees is increasingly tied to access to private land. Over 55% of our survey respondents reported that collection on private fields had become more restricted, with landowners enforcing boundaries more tightly. This shift reflects a broader tendency in both countries for land rights to become more individualised as resources acquire market value.

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Read more: Customary land governance holds in Ghana. But times are changing and not for the better

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Third, resource pressure has introduced new forms of conflict, like trespassing on land. Conflicts reinforce exclusion, as landowners become more reluctant to allow non-family members onto their fields.

Unequal effects across collector groups

Our research distinguishes three types of collectors:

• dedicated collectors, who derive all of their annual income from collecting and selling shea nuts

• diversified collectors, who combine shea collection with farming or other activities

• collector–traders, who not only collect nuts but also purchase them from others to sell at higher prices later in the year.

These groups experience the shea boom in different ways.

Dedicated collectors have the most limited access to private land. Only 16% of them collect from their own fields, compared to 38%-43% among the other groups. They depend on the communal bush.

Diversified collectors have better access to private fields than dedicated collectors, but still face similar challenges as bush areas shrink. And they have less time to spend collecting, limiting their ability to compensate for increasing competition.

Collector-traders maintain more secure access to private fields and receive more assistance from household members. Over half report receiving help from men, such as transporting nuts or protecting fields from trespassers. This is significantly more than dedicated or diversified collectors. The additional labour gives them a strategic advantage.

More work, but not more income

Rising prices might suggest that women would earn more from shea today than a decade ago. Yet this is not what most collectors experience. Only 48.7% reported an increase in shea income over the past 10 years, despite the international boom.

Total annual income from shea remains very low – on average only US$174 (purchasing power parity) per year, with differences between collectors.

For poorer collectors, several factors suppress income gains:

• limited access to shea trees constrains the volume of nuts they can gather

• many have to sell nuts early in the season, often at low prices, to meet immediate cash needs. Better-off collector-traders can purchase nuts cheaply, store them, and profit from higher prices later in the year.

Rethinking the ‘win-win’ narrative

The findings challenge the claim that integrating women into the global shea value chain will empower them and reduce poverty. The boom has indeed created new economic opportunities, but these are unevenly distributed. Market expansion has strengthened the position of those with greater land access and financial capital. At the same time it’s undermined the livelihoods of those who rely exclusively on the resource.

Our study does not prescribe specific policy measures, but its findings point to several possible avenues for intervention.

First, measures that strengthen women’s land and tree rights are likely to be critical. Recent work on peri-urban Ghana, for example, calls for wider rights to land and shea trees for women in policy and tenure reforms.

Second, empirical studies of female shea actors in Ghana suggest that collective organisation, better access to finance and improved infrastructure (notably storage facilities) can enhance women’s position.

Finally, evidence from northern Ghana indicates that women themselves recommend changes in farming practices to sustain the resource base.

– Global demand for shea butter is growing: but it’s not all good news for the women who collect the nuts
– https://theconversation.com/global-demand-for-shea-butter-is-growing-but-its-not-all-good-news-for-the-women-who-collect-the-nuts-273242

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Aikande Clement Kwayu, Lecturer, Tumaini University Makumira

Edwin Mtei, who passed away on 20 January 2026, was the first governor of Tanzania’s Central Bank after independence from Britain.

He filled the post until 1974.

Mtei was appointed by Julius Nyerere, who served as president from 1964 until his resignation in 1985. Nyerere once said of Mtei: “Once a governor, always a governor”, as quoted in Mtei’s autobiography, From Goatherd to Governor. He meant Mtei would always carry the title of governor, given his contribution to starting the Central Bank. Nyerere continued to call Mtei “Governor” even after he transferred him to other posts.

The life and work of Mtei is of central interest to my research as a political scientist who has studied Tanzania’s political history and development politics.

Mtei didn’t take over an established office. The country had obtained its independence only four years before the establishment of the bank in 1965. The newly independent country was using a common currency under the East African Currency Board. Once Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda each decided to be autonomous in 1965, it fell upon Mtei to set up the bank in Dar es Salaam from scratch. He presided over both on technical and logistical matters, including monetary policies, architectural design of the bank’s building, and a design for the national currency.

His work was remarkable as it contributed to the institutionalisation of the country’s economic and financial structures.

Following his tenure as governor, Mtei assumed a bigger government role. He became the secretary general of the East Africa Community from 1974 to 1977 and minister of finance from 1977 to 1979.

As finance minister he took a stand against many of the policies championed by Nyerere, in particular his customised socialist policies – known as ujamaa. Mtei had a different view on how to address the economic problems facing Tanzania. He expressed these to the president – a bold step, given that most government leaders of the time didn’t dare express different views from those of the president.

Mtei resigned in 1979. After Tanzania amended its constitution in 1992 to allow a multiparty system, Mtei founded an opposition party, Chadema, with a liberal ideology that reflected the economic views he had proposed as finance minister.

Chadema has survived to be the leading opposition party in the country to date, despite the limited civic space for opposition politics in Tanzania.

In each of his various roles, Mtei made a mark on Tanzania’s political history.

He leaves several lessons for leaders. Leadership is about conviction. Losing a position for taking a moral stand will eventually lead to a better position with bigger impact. It is professional to give credit even to your opponents. Different views do not mean enmity.

Differences with Nyerere

Nyerere’s economic policies, as set out under the Arusha Declaration, began to show signs of strain.

Following a number of crises such as the oil crisis in 1979 and the Uganda-Tanzania war in 1978-1979, the policies could not facilitate economic recovery in the country. The late 1970s and 1980s were bad years for Tanzania’s socio-economic welfare. All economic variables were negative: for example, inflation rose to 29% per year from 1978 to 1981; between 1979 and 1984, rural income declined by 13.5% in real terms and non-agricultural wage income fell by 65%.

Frustrations about how he was expected to lead the ministry and rescue the country’s economy led him to take a bold step. He resigned in 1979.

Nevertheless, Mtei continued to respect Nyerere. He expressed admiration for Nyerere’s conviction and his determination to build the nation, albeit with an “ineffective” approach.

The farmer

Following his resignation, Mtei became a coffee farmer. He was also active in policy advocacy in the coffee sector as chair of the Tanganyika Coffee Growers Association and a member of Tanzania Coffee Board and Tanzania Coffee Curing Company.

His coffee farm was an estate that he bought after selling his house in a prestigious neighbourhood in Dar-es-Salaam. He actively maintained his coffee estate up to his old age and died in his farm house.

His mastery of finance and economics as well as international knowledge and contacts must have played a big part in his success in the coffee business.

Early life

Mtei came from the Chaggaland on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. He was brought up by a single (widowed) mother with limited resources. In his autobiography he narrated how, at a very young age, he would count banana and coffee trees and identify different species.

Mtei had an entrepreneurial spirit, like two other figures from the same era and region: Erasto N. Kweka and Reginald Mengi.

Kweka was bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania’s Northern Diocese. He served from 1976 to 2004. During his tenure, the diocese was involved with development projects including a bank, hotels, hospitals, schools and universities. He came to be known as “Bishop of Projects”.

Mengi owned media and manufacturing industries in Tanzania. Kweka, Mengi and Mtei were all born in the 1930s and grew up in Chagga land. Reading from their biographies, they shared similar childhood experiences and upbringing.

The three peers became prominent national figures in different capacities. All three were raised in the context where coffee had been introduced and they saw and experienced the economic impact of coffee through the establishment and development of a cooperative society, in particular the Kilimanjaro National Coffee Union (KNCU). The union provided education scholarships and other financial services to the farmers and their families. It contributed directly and indirectly to the education and interactions of Kweka, Mengi and Mtei.

Mtei was appointed executive director for African affairs at the International Monetary Fund in 1983. To his credit, Nyerere didn’t hold grudges and recommended him for the post.

Mtei saw his main job as proposing reforms in fiscal policies to solve Tanzania’s economic problems. In his autobiography he said Nyerere started to understand the imperative of the reforms and allowed negotiations to begin with the Bretton Woods institutions.

But events intervened. Nyerere was stepping down, though Mtei tried to convince him to stay.

Mtei noted in the autobiography that he thought Nyerere would be the most effective person to lead the reform. In contrast, President Ali Hassan Mwinyi’s autobiography gives all credit for reforms to Mwinyi, who ran Tanzania between 1985 and 1995.

Given the level of political polarisation seen in Tanzania and the personalisation of politics, the life of Mtei offers many lessons.

– Edwin Mtei, Tanzania’s first central bank governor, left lessons on leadership
– https://theconversation.com/edwin-mtei-tanzanias-first-central-bank-governor-left-lessons-on-leadership-274160

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Johan Fourie, Professor, Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University

In 1825, a tax collector compiling a census in South Africa’s Cape Colony paused to write a poem in the margin of his work. In it, he complained about the idle chatter of townsmen in Stellenbosch and uncooperative taxpayers. It is a tiny window on the regular frustrations of a 19th-century taxman. But the poem survives only because the bureaucracy did.

Year after year, from the 1660s to the 1840s, local officials appointed by the Dutch East India Company and, after 1806, the British colonial government, recorded settler households, their harvests and their labour obligations in ledgers known as opgaafrolle (tax censuses). Read closely, these records provide fleeting glimpses of lived experience; taken together, they allow us to trace long-term social and economic dynamics.

We often treat the past as distant. But the 18th-century Cape Colony also serves as an experiment for current-day economic historians in state capacity, market trust and inequality. Those themes remain central to South Africa today, and to the experience of many African economies shaped by colonial institutions.

Over the past year, my team and I at the Laboratory for the Economics of Africa’s Past at Stellenbosch University have published three studies that return to the Cape’s archival record with new data and new methods. Together, they suggest three lessons that still resonate: the non-neutrality of administrative data; how markets are social as well as economic institutions; and how inequality endures.

1. Data is never neutral

The opgaafrolle were fiscal instruments, introduced under Dutch East India Company rule in the second half of the 17th century and maintained under Batavian and British administrations in the early 19th century. Their purpose was straightforward: to record who lived where, what they owned, what they produced and what could be taxed.

In a paper co-authored with colleagues and students, we analyse the complete series of tax censuses for Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, two of the earliest and wealthiest districts of the Colony, close to Cape Town, between 1685 and 1844. These records allow us to trace kinship networks, marriage patterns, changes in agricultural output and the evolution of slave ownership over nearly 160 years.

The Cape was a slave economy. Enslaved people, brought from territories across the Indian Ocean, were recorded as assets in settler households. Indigenous Khoesan people are not included in these records, although there is little doubt that they, too, worked on settler farms. They are traced in later records.

For this study, we simply wanted to know what these detailed records, unique for their time, revealed about life at the Cape. We found they could be used to understand not only the economy, but also social life. For example, surnames showed marriage patterns that preserved wealth within the family.

The broader lesson is that data – in this case, administrative data – is never neutral. Some things are never recorded, like the Khoesan workers on farms. And when things are recorded, they can easily be biased, for a variety of reasons. Cape farmers underreported production to reduce their tax burden, for example. Enslaved people, by contrast, were recorded with far greater consistency in the censuses, partly because “owners” were not required to pay a slave tax.

Any serious engagement with administrative data, past or present, therefore requires attention to incentives and institutions. This is particularly important as South Africa today debates policy using census and administrative data whose limitations are often poorly understood. There are real consequences for planning and accountability.

2. Markets are social institutions before they are economic ones

Tax records tell us what households declared about their productive activities. To understand more about their consumption, we need different sources.

In another paper, we turn to the Cape Orphan Chamber’s auction records. These auctions were held when estates were liquidated, often after a death, and they recorded who bought what, at what price, and from whom. The dataset covers the period from 1701 to 1825 and has recently been fully transcribed.

What emerges is a picture of markets embedded in social relationships. Auctions were public events. Family members often bid on household goods to keep them within the family or to support widows and children. Credit – borrowing to invest in new tools or to acquire enslaved people – flowed along kinship lines. Consumption – buying an ox, or a wagon, or a Bible – was a public signal of status, belonging and obligation.

This matters for contemporary Africa. Economic policy often treats markets as anonymous spaces where prices alone coordinate behaviour. Yet across much of the continent, markets still operate through trust and reputation. For example, one recent study shows African firms in historically pastoral regions remain smaller, partly because pastoralists are less likely to trust those outside the immediate family.

Even today, credit access, business partnerships and labour arrangements remain deeply relational. The Cape’s auctions remind us that markets have always been social institutions and that ignoring this leads to poor policy design.

3. Inequality is not a modern deviation but a historical constant

South Africa’s extreme inequality is often attributed to 20th-century industrialisation, apartheid policy and post-apartheid failures. While all of these matter, they do not tell the full story.

In another paper, I measured inequality in the Cape Colony between 1685 and 1844. The study used an expanded set of tax censuses, as well as probate inventories – lists of assets that people owned when they died – and slave valuation rolls – the lists created to compensate slave owners during the period of emancipation.

Wealth was highly unevenly distributed from the earliest periods of settlement. Today the situation would be described as severe inequality.

Even if we only consider settlers (and exclude enslaved and Khoesan inhabitants), wealth was very skewed. A small elite owned most productive resources.

Even more surprising, similar patterns appear in the limited records we have for Khoesan settlements.

In other words, wealth was severely unequally distributed not only between groups but also within.

This perspective forces us to rethink how we talk about inequality today. If inequality has deep historical roots, then it cannot be understood simply as a recent malfunction of modern capitalism, nor fixed by narrow technical adjustments to tax rates or social transfers.

Inequality, in other words, is not an anomaly to be corrected back to some imagined baseline of equality, but a recurring outcome of how societies organise power and production. That does not make severe inequality morally acceptable, but it does shift the policy question. The relevant issue is not whether inequality exists, but whether those at the bottom are becoming less poor and are more able to move up.

Looking back to think forward

The 18th-century Cape Colony does not offer ready-made policy solutions. What it offers is perspective. It shows how states govern through what they can observe and record, how markets operate through social ties as much as prices, and how inequality can persist across centuries.

The frustrated tax collector in Stellenbosch could not have imagined that his tax records would one day inform debates about governance, markets and inequality. Yet they can. They remind us that the past continues to shape the constraints within which policy is made, and the possibilities for change.

– Colonial tax records hold 3 lessons for South Africa today – economic historian
– https://theconversation.com/colonial-tax-records-hold-3-lessons-for-south-africa-today-economic-historian-273407