The Conversation – Page 12 – MIL Africa Engine

June 18, 2026

What’s overlooked in student mental health in South Africa: social connection and sexual wellbeing

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Jarred H Martin, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, University of Pretoria

Student mental health has become one of the defining challenges facing universities worldwide. In South Africa, these concerns are often framed around reports which point to anxiety, burnout and academic pressure. With this comes the call for expanded student counselling and crisis services.

These concerns are important. Previous research has shown that university students in South Africa face mental health challenges shaped by financial strain, inequality, academic pressure and social stressors. Studies conducted during and after the COVID-19 pandemic have also shown how isolation and loss of support affected students’ mental health and wellbeing.

But mental health is not only the absence of distress or illness. It is also the presence of wellbeing: feeling connected to others, being satisfied with one’s life overall, and having the ability to manage everyday challenges and participate meaningfully in one’s community.

Our recent study suggests that this broader view matters. As psychologists and researchers, we wanted to better understand the factors that help university students flourish.

We surveyed 1,366 students at a public, in-contact South African university to examine what influences student mental health and wellbeing. We looked at structural factors, such as socioeconomic status, food security, financial strain and living conditions. We also examined academic pressures and psychosocial factors. These included life satisfaction, loneliness, sexual wellbeing, and health-related social support (help from friends, family and others to maintain a person’s physical and mental health).

The findings suggest that students are more likely to flourish when they experience both material security and psychosocial support, including greater life satisfaction, stronger social support for their health, and lower levels of loneliness.

Coping, but not all thriving

Most students in our study were not languishing, a state characterised by low levels of wellbeing and a sense of disconnection, stagnation, or lack of purpose. But many were also not flourishing, which refers to high levels of emotional, psychological and social wellbeing.

About two-thirds (66%) of participants were classified as having moderate mental health. Just over a quarter (28%) were flourishing, while around 6% were languishing.

This matters because students with moderate mental health may appear to be coping. They may attend class, complete assignments, and continue with their studies. But coping is not the same as thriving.

The distinction is important because flourishing has been associated with stronger psychological functioning, better social relationships, improved academic engagement and greater resilience when facing life’s challenges.

For universities, this means student mental health strategies should consider not only how to address and reduce distress, but also what enables students to flourish.

Two different student profiles

One of the clearest findings from our study was that students tended to fall into two broad profiles.

The first group, which we called “Strained and Stressed”, was characterised by greater financial strain, poorer food security, lower life satisfaction, weaker social support for health, and higher loneliness.

The second group, which we called “Resourced and Supported”, had greater material security, stronger psychosocial resources, more health-related social support and higher life satisfaction. These students also reported better mental health outcomes and were less lonely.

This highlights an important reality for South African universities: student wellbeing is shaped by both material circumstances and psychosocial resources. Financial strain, food insecurity and unstable living conditions matter, but so do social connection, support, life satisfaction and the ability to manage one’s health.

In other words, student mental health is both a material and relational issue.

Why connection matters

Psychosocial factors showed the strongest associations with mental health in our study. Students who reported greater life satisfaction and social support for health reported better mental health. Loneliness was associated with poorer wellbeing.

This aligns with previous research showing that social connection and belonging are central to student wellbeing.

This does not mean universities should stop investing in counselling and psychological services. These services remain essential, particularly for students experiencing significant distress.

But counselling services alone cannot carry the full burden of student wellbeing. Universities also need to create environments in which students can build meaningful relationships and experience a sense of belonging.

This could be through promoting peer mentoring programmes, student societies, residence-based support, orientation programmes that extend beyond the first few weeks of university, and structured opportunities for students to connect across academic and social spaces.

The overlooked role of sexual wellbeing

One finding stood out because it is rarely discussed in South African higher education research: students who reported higher sexual wellbeing also tended to report better mental health.

Sexual wellbeing is not simply the absence of disease, dysfunction or risk. It includes feeling safe, respected, comfortable and able to exercise agency in intimate relationships.

This is important because much of the South African research on student sexuality has understandably focused on sexual violence and risk. These remain urgent issues.

But our findings suggest that universities should also consider the positive dimensions of sexual wellbeing as part of holistic student health. A student’s sense of safety, respect and autonomy in intimate life may be connected to their broader wellbeing.

This does not mean that sexual wellbeing should replace risk-prevention work. Rather, it suggests that student wellness programmes should be broad enough to address both protection from harm and the conditions that allow students to experience dignity, agency and wellbeing.

What universities can do

The findings highlight three priorities.

First, universities must, with the support of government and other relevant agencies, continue addressing the structural barriers that shape student wellbeing. Financial hardship, food insecurity and living conditions remain serious pressures. Support systems such as food programmes, accommodation assistance and academic flexibility are not peripheral to mental health. They are part of the conditions that make wellbeing possible.

Second, universities should invest in and support social networking interventions that create durable social connections among their student communities. Students experiencing greater loneliness are more likely to report poorer mental health. This means that belonging should not be treated as an optional aspect of university life. It is central to the wellbeing of young adults.

Third, universities should adopt a broader view of student wellbeing and implement targeted support interventions which encourage multiple dimensions of wellbeing. Our findings support a “whole-university” approach to health promotion. This integrates student wellbeing across the university ecosystem. Mental health, belonging, academic success, as well as physical and sexual wellbeing, cannot be addressed through disconnected health and support services.

Student mental health is often discussed only in terms of crisis. Our findings suggest that universities should focus equally on the conditions that help students thrive.

For South African universities, this means combining structural support with psychosocial care to create environments where students can flourish – not merely survive, but fully participate in university life and realise their potential.

– What’s overlooked in student mental health in South Africa: social connection and sexual wellbeing
– https://theconversation.com/whats-overlooked-in-student-mental-health-in-south-africa-social-connection-and-sexual-wellbeing-285001

June 17, 2026

Money, food and survival: what drives paid sex among young mums in 3 African countries

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Anthony Idowu Ajayi, Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research Center

Transactional sex, defined as the exchange of sex for money, food, or favours, is common among young people in Africa. Studies have reported that about 10% of those aged 15-24 have engaged in this exchange in South Africa, 23% in Nigeria and 25% in Uganda. The behaviour has been linked to negative consequences such as unintended pregnancy, sexual violence and HIV infections.

Transactional sex refers to sexual relationships outside marriage that are not classified as commercial sex work, but where there is an expectation that material, financial or other benefits will be exchanged for intimacy or companionship.

We are sexual and reproductive health researchers focused on the intersection of evidence, policy, and lived realities of adolescents in Africa. We recently examined the extent and drivers of transactional sex among pregnant and parenting adolescents in three African countries: Burkina Faso, Kenya and Malawi.

In our earlier qualitative research work with pregnant and parenting girls in Nairobi’s informal settlements, we found that pregnancy intensified economic insecurity. The focus of government and most NGOs, however is mainly on preventing adolescent pregnancy. Little attention is paid to the plight and realities of pregnant and parenting girls.

Our research set out to bring attention to these girls. We did this by examining the prevalence and correlates of transactional sex among adolescents in Burkina Faso, Kenya and Malawi. We surveyed 2,243 girls: 980 in Ouagadogou, Burkina Faso; 594 in Korogocho, Nairobi, Kenya; and 669 in Blantyre, Malawi. They were all either pregnant or already parenting. The youngest participants were 12 years old in Burkina Faso and 13 years old in Kenya and Malawi. The oldest girls in all three countries were 19.

Our findings indicated that transactional sex prevalence varied by context. Living in urban informal settlement environments was a risk. The results were a reminder of the need for stronger support systems for adolescents engaged in transactional sex across the three countries, including those who are pregnant or parenting.

Our findings

Our study found that 44.3% of the girls we surveyed in Kenya, 25.4% in Burkina Faso, and 13.0% in Malawi had engaged in transactional sex at some time. The particularly high prevalence in Kenya reflects the study setting in one of Nairobi’s densely populated informal settlements. There, adolescent girls face poverty, unstable support systems, unsafe living conditions, and limited opportunities for self-development. Other studies have also shown that prevalence is lower in other settings outside informal settlements.

The most common reason girls gave for engaging in transactional sex was money. Money was a reason reported by 31.3% of participants in Kenya, 20.5% in Burkina Faso, and 7.8% in Malawi. But girls also reported exchanging sex for food, rent, shelter, clothing, school fees and sanitary pads.

In Kenya, 13.5% specifically cited sanitary pads, compared to 1.0% in Burkina Faso and 1.8% in Malawi. Smaller percentages engaged in transactional sex for school fees, phones or airtime, or other needs such as baby supplies (milk, diapers, clothes).

Individual-level factors

At the individual level, being single increased the likelihood of transactional sex across all three countries. In Burkina Faso, 20% of married and 46% of single girls had transactional sex. In Kenya it was 28% of married girls and 50% of single girls. In Malawi it was 10% of married girls and 16% of single girls.

This suggests that having a partner may provide some degree of financial, material and childcare support. Without support, single adolescent mothers may face pregnancy and early motherhood with very limited resources, increasing their vulnerability to transactional relationships.

One of the surprising findings emerged from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. There, 31% of adolescents with a secondary education had engaged in transactional sex, against 21% of those with only a primary education. This challenges the common assumption that education is an immediate shield against exploitation. It suggests that remaining in school may itself become financially difficult for adolescent girls living under poverty and weak support systems. For girls who are in school from a poor background, the need for money, food and school fees may make them engage in transactional sex.

Substance use also more than doubled the risk in Burkina Faso, among girls who reported using alcohol or drugs compared to those who did not. This association was not significant in Kenya or Malawi.

Interpersonal-level factors

At the interpersonal level, orphanhood mattered, though differently across countries.

In Malawi, girls who had lost both parents faced nearly double the risk of engaging in transactional sex, compared with non-orphans. In Kenya, girls who had lost one parent were 43% more likely to engage in transactional sex. Even more significant at the interpersonal level was the impact of low parental support in Malawi, where girls who felt unsupported by their parents were three times more likely to engage in transactional sex.

Community-level factors

We asked participants questions to assess how safe they felt in their neighbourhoods. In Kenya and Burkina Faso, a higher score for perceived neighbourhood safety was associated with a lower likelihood of transactional sex. Girls said they engaged in sex in exchange for security and protection. In Malawi, feeling safe didn’t make a difference.

What needs to change

The study demonstrates that transactional sex among pregnant and parenting adolescents is less a choice than a strategy to cope with severe socioeconomic hardship. It is shaped by distinct individual risks, fracturing family support and community insecurity.

What drives transactional sex changes from country to country. Because of this, programmes to address it need to be customised for each specific place.

Interventions should address structural vulnerabilities and strengthen family and community support systems. They must also improve neighbourhood safety to reduce adolescent mothers’ reliance on transactional sex and the harms associated with it.

– Money, food and survival: what drives paid sex among young mums in 3 African countries
– https://theconversation.com/money-food-and-survival-what-drives-paid-sex-among-young-mums-in-3-african-countries-284327

June 17, 2026

Malawi’s education choices in the wake of aid cuts

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Alyssa Morley, Assistant professor, Michigan State University

Over a year has passed since the Donald Trump administration dismantled USAID, cutting more than 5,000 programmes and slashing US$40 billion in funding worldwide.

The cuts have reduced access to HIV treatment, driven up severe malnutrition among children, and resulted in an estimated 700,000 lives lost. Medication and infrastructure to treat diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and pneumonia were withdrawn.

In education, USAID’s closure has created an “unprecedented crisis”, according to a report by the European Training Foundation, an EU agency.

Aid austerity is not limited to the US. In 2025, overall official development assistance dropped by 23%, marking what the OECD described as a “historic decline in foreign aid”. Cuts came from the US, Germany, the UK, France, Canada and Japan.

As a transnational team of education scholars, we take a critical approach to development aid. While we recognise that aid can improve and even save lives, it is not an inherent good. It can reproduce inequities.

We have spent decades studying educational interventions in Malawi and have documented how, even while aid has delivered benefits to individuals, its structures sideline local organisations, serve the interests of donor countries, and mimic colonial relations.

For these reasons, we’ve been thinking about whether USAID’s closure, while painful and damaging, might give rise to a new arrangement beyond aid.

Malawi is an ideal setting to explore this moment of change. The US alone contributed 13% of the country’s overall budget and provided one-quarter of education development spending. Interested in how Malawians make sense of aid austerity and imagine alternatives, we are launching a three-year (2026-2029) qualitative study of post-USAID possibilities in Malawi’s education sector. We are asking civil servants, NGO workers and aid workers how they see the future of education amid aid austerity.

To prepare for the project, we conducted a pilot study of the immediate aftermath of USAID’s closure, from January to June 2025, with first-round follow-up interviews in May 2026. The 20 education experts we spoke to held very mixed opinions on the post-USAID landscape. Some saw potential to redress power imbalances; others emphasised the obstacles to self-resourcing. We pause now to reflect on these themes.

Malawi’s relationship with aid

Prior to the cuts, Malawi was saturated with international development – one informant called it “a development playground”. From 2019 to 2023, foreign governments contributed 80% of funding to Malawi’s education capital projects (school and classroom construction projects), according to Unicef.

In 2024, USAID allocated US$34 million to education projects that promoted early-grade literacy and higher education. In turn, USAID’s portfolio buttressed US soft power while garnering opportunities for US businesses and contractors.

In our research, we’ve purposefully included individuals with diverse perspectives on development and aid. Some participants have been employed directly by USAID, while others hold experience with local NGOs, government, and universities.

For some, the closure of USAID was a welcome change. One former development worker called the previous status quo “more immoral than the cruel reality” of aid cuts themselves, as

it was appearing as if the right things were happening, when in actual sense, the wrong things were happening.

Comparing aid relations to “coating a bitter thing with sweet on top”, she was relieved by what felt like a break from the conditionalities and hidden agendas of US aid. She explained that, despite the rhetoric of improving Malawian education, USAID tended to funnel money to US consultants and international (rather than Malawian) NGOs. The projects ended up misaligning with Malawi’s needs. Recently, political scientist Dan Banik urged Malawi to “say ‘no thank you’ to donors” when funding doesn’t support national priorities.

Given the fickle nature of donor funding, some study participants shared stories of how their organisations had already moved towards self-resourcing models prior to USAID cuts. While one Malawian NGO had incorporated a business division with facility and vehicle rentals, another introduced a farming scheme whose profits supported the NGO’s operational expenses. Both NGOs focused on community-driven, holistic and multi-generational education. Innovations like these, together with diversified funding sources, were imagined to help local organisations survive in a rapidly changing financial landscape that includes shocks of austerity.

Still, others worried that Malawi’s economic realities make alternative funding arrangements and aid refusal impossible. One faculty member at the University of Malawi explained that the country’s economic growth has stagnated for years. Speaking in early 2025, this scholar warned that idealistic visions of post-aid Malawi were naive at best.

Malawi’s economy is in crisis, facing mounting debt borrowed from the World Bank, IMF and African Development Bank. After the 2025 aid cuts, the Malawian government increased its debt to compensate for lost funding flows. Debt payments have reached 90% of Malawi’s GDP.

At the same time, respondents pointed to recent global developments that have only worsened the country’s financial situation. Wars in Iran and Russia/Ukraine have led to bottlenecks in key supply chains. Fuel costs in Malawi are among the highest in the world and fertiliser shortages foreshadow food insecurity for Malawi’s subsistence farming population. Opportunities for steady salaried employment in the development sector have vanished, as have the financial ripples these salaries create for the broader economy. International staff and projects, now reduced in numbers, are infusing less foreign exchange into the economy.

In the absence of cash flows, self-resourcing efforts become increasingly untenable. Instead, new forms of more nakedly transactional aid have begun to appear, for example in US-led MOUs that are “turning health aid into leverage.”

No matter what comes next for education in Malawi, it is clear that we are in a transitional space where the terms of development are being rewritten. Emerging funding mechanisms — such as self-resourcing, debt-financed investments, and transactional aid — could amplify power imbalances instead of ameliorating them. This landscape demands continued intellectual and ethical scrutiny.

Dr Steve Sharra, director of academic affairs at Malawi School of Government, contributed to this research and article.

– Malawi’s education choices in the wake of aid cuts
– https://theconversation.com/malawis-education-choices-in-the-wake-of-aid-cuts-284725

June 17, 2026

Xenophobia in South Africa: state’s complicity with gangs and vigilantes is threatening its ability to govern

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Loren B Landau, Co-Director of the Wits-Oxford Mobility Governance Lab, University of the Witwatersrand

Marches, Mozambicans murdered, state-sponsored evacuations, a nationally televised presidential address. Anti-immigrant mobilisation has again drawn the world’s attention to South Africa. The continental backlash threatens tourism, trade, diplomacy and investment opportunities in Africa’s largest economy, and is derailing its constitutional democracy.

Many citizens demand the country restore its sovereignty – the state’s ability to govern itself and determine its own laws within its borders – by tightening border controls. Parties promise to deliver walls, raids and deportations.

What these popular debates over sovereignty and border control overlook is that politics is not defined on the borders. It comes from control over resources and production. In South Africa’s past, this was mines. Now it is cities, townships, and the infrastructure that connects them. This is where the country’s political future is being forged. This is where sovereignty is being lost. And the state is helping to make this happen.

Over the past 20 years, we have investigated the politics of migration and xenophobia in South Africa. Together we founded Xenowatch and the Mobility Governance Lab to document incidents of xenophobic discrimination and evaluate strategies to promote secure mobility and social cohesion.

In a paper published in 2022 we argued that xenophobic mobilisation in South Africa was not merely a grassroots phenomenon by frustrated communities. Nor is it the result of a “third force” or external actors out to embarrass the country. Rather, we argue, it is a political enterprise co-produced by vigilante groups and the state through acts of commission and omission. These include failing to censure those who exclude through violence and other forms of illegal conduct. It also includes migration policies and practices that demonise those from other countries.

This has resulted in the state consistently legitimising and rewarding the criminal conduct of vigilante groups.

Our research shows that xenophobic discrimination has become a feature of post-apartheid South Africa’s socio-political landscape. We argue that the only interventions capable of disrupting xenophobic mobilisation are those that lower, or ideally eliminate, its political, economic and social benefits. This must include holding people accountable for their actions, consistent and impartial application of the law to address both illegal migration and criminal vigilante exclusion of migrants, and joint efforts by the state and civil society to counter anti-migrant mobilisation.

On the ground

Our investigations show that in townships, “community development” associations run protection rackets determining who can live, build, or conduct business in their “communities”. They work in collaboration with local police to remove unwanted people.

Elected leaders often look away or embrace them to win votes. This is not about enforcing law or creating opportunities for all. It is not about immigration control. It is about using social division to extract resources and build power. There is often strong local support for these measures and those leading them. However, they are illegal and institutionalise state complicity in extractive violence that weakens, rather than enforces, the rule of law.

From mid-2025, Operation Dudula – an anti-immigrant social movement that has now registered as a political party – and March and March – a self-described “grassroots” civic organisation focused on illegal immigration – systematically blockaded public health facilities, denying migrants access to at least 53 clinics across KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Gauteng provinces.

The South African Human Rights Commission found that despite engagement with the Department of Health and the National Commissioner of Police (both of which committed to intervening) vigilante conduct continued. In some instances the police refused to take statements from victims.

Despite court rulings interdicting Operation Dudula, the unlawful operations continued across the country.

Without state enforcement, court orders are only paper. Rather than being sanctioned, March and March confirmed that it had

an agreement with the SAPS (South African Police Service) and Metro Police, which don’t interfere with them.

A co-authored political enterprise

Between 2022 and 2025, Xenowatch recorded 406 verified incidents resulting in 75 deaths. This translates into an average of 102 xenophobic discrimination incidents per year.

In 2025 alone, 151 incidents were recorded. In the first five months of 2026, a further 22 verified incidents were recorded. Of the 22 incidents, 14 were violent attacks that largely followed anti-migrant protests in some parts of the country.

The recent attacks resulted in at least four people dead and hundreds displaced. Despite this, officials regularly argue this is “normal” criminality. In 2008, 2010, and again in 2026, there have been accusations of a third force determined to undermine the country’s successes or punish it for its positions on Israel and Russia.

Rather than intervene effectively, the government has addressed the rise of these political formations with a National Action Plan on Racism and Xenophobia. It contains almost no plan. Rather than marshal state resources against the anti-immigrant campaigns, it focuses on education and public events intended to foster goodwill and social cohesion. Debates and dialogues are welcome. But they do little to erode the power of gangsters and criminal networks.

When the state has acted, it helps reinforce precisely the kind of political fragmentation and profit taking it purports to prevent. Its largest police operation to protect foreigners – Operation Fiela – resulted in police demanding additional bribes from migrants, a loss of economic activity and tax revenue, and only a small reduction in immigrant numbers.

All this was done in the name of restoring citizens’ faith in the immigration system. There were winners: not immigrants or citizens, but law enforcers who line their pockets and boost their operational budgets.

A recent meeting convened at the official seat of government, the Union Buildings, provides another example. On 25 May 2026, senior government ministers convened a high-level meeting with the leadership of March and March and other organisations “to address illegal immigration and the rise in anti-immigration protests in the country”.

In our view, granting groups like this access to the highest political office lends them legitimacy and gives them a place in the South African political system. Their words are broadcast on national television and radio stations. Their ultimatums come to represent legitimate political demands.

The state may temporarily quell crises. But it emboldens these groups to carry on. The results are a politics of fragmentation and self-made laws.

What needs to be done

Protecting South Africa’s constitutional democracy requires three things done simultaneously.

First, genuine accountability for perpetrators: not symbolic arrests, but prosecutions that result in meaningful consequences for instigators and perpetrators.

Second, consistent and impartial enforcement of the rule of law to address both illegal migration and criminal vigilante exclusion of migrants.

Third, the building of political will and muscle by the state and civil society, to hold politicians accountable when their rhetoric or conduct emboldens exclusionary violence and practices. This is not an issue of migration management and border control. It is one of sovereignty and law.

Civil society organisations are already pursuing litigation and winning cases in court. But court orders flouted with impunity are not victories; they are further evidence of the problem. Without the political muscle to hold the state accountable for its complicity, the co-creation of exclusion will continue.

– Xenophobia in South Africa: state’s complicity with gangs and vigilantes is threatening its ability to govern
– https://theconversation.com/xenophobia-in-south-africa-states-complicity-with-gangs-and-vigilantes-is-threatening-its-ability-to-govern-285280

June 16, 2026

Great Zimbabwe: debunking the myth of tyrants and forced labour

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Robert T. Nyamushosho, Assistant Professor, Queens College, CUNY

For more than a century, Great Zimbabwe has stood at the centre of a powerful story about the Zimbabwe culture. This remarkable African civilization flourished in southern Africa during the Middle Ages, constructing more than 200 dry-stone palaces, locally known as madzimbahwe (houses of stone).

These towering monuments, immense gold wealth, and an array of exotica including glass beads and glazed ceramics from distant lands, have often been interpreted as proof that southern Africa’s early states were ruled by authoritarian kings. Leaders who exercised near-absolute control over their subjects.

In archaeology textbooks, museum exhibitions, and even political discourse, the image of Great Zimbabwe – rivalled in size and grandeur only by the Egyptian pyramids – has often been reduced to one of a despotic African kingdom ruled from above by divine kings.

This idea about African civilisations has often been mobilised to excuse modern forms of political despotism. But what if this story about the Zimbabwe culture is wrong – or at least incomplete?

Our new research in Mberengwa in south-central Zimbabwe is starting to challenge these long-held assumptions.

As an anthropological archaeologist, I use both excavated remains and the study of human cultures to understand how societies organised themselves. Far from revealing a rigid, centralised political system, evidence from Mberengwa suggests the opposite. Governance within the Zimbabwe culture may have been far more collective and negotiated than imagined.

Culture sites and ancient mines in Mberengwa. Robert T. Nyamushosho, Author provided (no reuse)

Rather than monuments built solely through coercion, we may instead be looking at societies where power flowed through multiple layers of community organisation. Where ordinary households retained significant autonomy.

This challenges simplistic views. It reveals a more diverse history of governance that included consultation, negotiation and collective decision-making.

How we got here

For decades, archaeology has interpreted the Zimbabwe culture through outdated evolutionary models. These frameworks portrayed African societies as hierarchical, with kings monopolising wealth, labour and political authority.

Great Zimbabwe, Mapungubwe and Khami were viewed as capitals of centralised states in southern Africa. Rulers were assumed to have commanded vast territories, controlled mining and long-distance trade. They compelled subjects to build monumental stone architecture.

This interpretation was deeply shaped by colonial thinking. Early European historians and anthropologists often portrayed African rulers as tyrants ruling through fear, superstition and violence. The Zulu king Shaka, for example, was cast as the archetypal African despot. Similar assumptions were later projected backwards onto Iron Age civilisations like Great Zimbabwe.

Colonial scholarship like this helped to justify colonial domination.

In these narratives, monuments and massive stone walls could only have been built through forced labour directed by authoritarian elites.

Across the world, archaeology has increasingly challenged these simplistic models. Research in places like Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia and the Niger Delta now shows that complex societies were not always governed through top-down domination. Many ancient states relied on consensus-building, shared authority and cooperative systems of governance.

Southern Africa has lagged behind in this intellectual shift. Interpretations of Great Zimbabwe continue to suffer from what has been called a “neo-evolutionary hangover”. The persistent assumption that political complexity must automatically mean centralised despotism.

What Mberengwa reveals about power

Mberengwa, in Zimbabwe’s mineral-rich south-central region, has long been framed as peripheral to Great Zimbabwe. Archaeologists assumed its communities fell under the control of rulers at Great Zimbabwe, over 100km away. But ongoing excavations and surveys reveal something more complicated.

Remnants of mining at Mount Buhwa. Robert T. Nyamushosho, Author provided (no reuse)

Mberengwa contains numerous settlements – both walled and unwalled – some dating to the same period as Great Zimbabwe. These sites contain evidence of farming, metallurgy, mining, hunting and long-distance trade. They also reveal multiple centres of political authority rather than a single centralised state.

What’s striking is how political organisation appears to have operated across several levels of society. At the grassroots were the misha (homesteads) of ordinary families. These were not politically insignificant spaces. Archaeological evidence suggests households managed their own livestock, agriculture, craft production and local affairs with considerable autonomy.

Above the homestead was the dunhu, or ward, which brought together clusters of households. Here, cooperative labour systems such as nhimbe played a central role in social life. Communities came together voluntarily to plough fields, build houses, herd cattle, and conduct hunting expeditions.

Dry-stone walling at Chumnungwa. Robert T. Nyamushosho, Author provided (no reuse)

At the territorial level was the nyika, overseen by rulers known as madzimambo (kings). But even here, power appears to have been negotiated rather than absolute. Oral traditions and ethnographic evidence from precolonial Shona societies suggest that rulers governed alongside advisory councils. They worked within systems of customary law and communal expectations.

Several Shona proverbs emphasise this political ethic. “Dare haritongwi nepfumo” means a court is not governed by a spear. “Ane ziso rimwe haatongi” warns that a person with one eye cannot govern fairly. Such philosophies suggest consensus and accountability were central to governance.

Rethinking the dry-stone walls

This perspective forces us to reconsider the monuments themselves.

The dry-stone walls of Zimbabwe culture sites have often been interpreted as symbols of elite power. But architectural analysis from Mberengwa reveals something else. Many walls were built using different styles and degrees of craftsmanship, often within the same structure.

Kongezi, where royalty is thought to have lived. Robert T. Nyamushosho, Author provided (no reuse)

This doesn’t indicate a centrally controlled labour force. It suggests multiple groups contributing collaboratively to construction over time. There’s also little evidence for armies or policing systems needed to control coerced labour. In societies where people could relocate, coercion would anyway have been difficult to maintain.

Communal labour traditions offer a more plausible explanation. Just as communities gathered for agricultural work, monumental construction may also have emerged through cooperative participation. This suggests social obligation, political loyalty, and collective identity.

Homestead remains excavated at Chesvingo. Robert T. Nyamushosho, Author provided (no reuse)

This doesn’t mean these societies were perfectly egalitarian (democratic). There were rulers, hierarchies and inequalities. Royal residences stood above ordinary settlements, and political authority clearly mattered. But hierarchy is not the same thing as tyranny.

Archaeological discoveries from Mberengwa indicate the existence of multiple autonomous centres of power. Sites such as Chumnungwa and Mundi contained royal burials, political insignia, gold artefacts and monumental architecture. They’re comparable to finds at a supposed centre like Great Zimbabwe.

The emerging picture is one of overlapping and competing polities. These were connected through trade, kinship, ritual and shared traditions.

Why this debate matters

The way we interpret the African past shapes how African political systems are understood in the present.

Unfortunately, some of those assumptions continue to echo today. By portraying despotism as historically “natural” to Africa, they normalise authoritarianism in the modern era. But archaeology tells a more complicated story.

A typical homestead (musha) in Mberengwa today. Robert T. Nyamushosho, Author provided (no reuse)

Mberengwa suggests that political life within the Zimbabwe culture was dynamic, layered and collective.

That possibility deserves far greater attention. Not only for understanding the past, but for imagining African political futures beyond the shadow of authoritarianism.

The African Archaeology Hub at Queens College collaborates with colleagues from the National Museums of Zimbabwe, Oxford University, the Field Museum, the Midlands State University, Great Zimbabwe University, and the local communities of Mberengwa.

– Great Zimbabwe: debunking the myth of tyrants and forced labour
– https://theconversation.com/great-zimbabwe-debunking-the-myth-of-tyrants-and-forced-labour-283990

June 15, 2026

Pianist Abdullah Ibrahim crafted a magnificent new culture for South Africa

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria

Adolph Johannes Brand was born on 9 October 1934 in Cape Town. He would become better known as Dollar Brand and then Abdullah Ibrahim, an artist of mixed ethnic descent who personified the city’s multiculturalism and represented it on the world’s stages.

He went to school in District Six, a municipal inner city area with residents of diverse backgrounds. Due to the enforcement of apartheid it was declared a “white area” in 1966 and the community was removed by force in 1982. It was the creative ambience in which he started to play piano aged seven.

A bebop-inspired jazz musician performing as Dollar Brand, he had his first musical successes in the mid-1950s. He became Abdullah Ibrahim when converting to Islam in 1968, and his deep religious spirituality was an essential ingredient to his music.

Ibrahim’s more than 70 records received numerous prestigious awards. His deep spirituality, solemn dignity and soul has also been captured in the documentary films A Brother with Perfect Timing in 1987 and A Struggle for Love in 2005.

As a political scientist of southern Africa, I have written about Ibrahim as a defiant public intellectual, placing his work within his unique worldviews.

He personified the special brand of multiple identities and belief systems, consolidated and transmitted over generations among a variety of descendants in the urban settings at the Cape. His spirituality was not only a source of resilience but also defiance, his humanity political without any need for ideology.

In search of genuine expressions through music, he became an icon of a counter-world to the apartheid regime, taking sides by being and living up to what he was.

The early years

In 1959 he began to play in the Sophiatown-based band Jazz Epistles with other South African legends Kippie Moeketsi, Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa, Johnny Gertze and Makaya Ntshoko. They recorded Jazz Epistle Verse One as the first black South African jazz LP record.

In 1962 Ibrahim left for Europe, touring (with Gertze and Ntshoko) as The Dollar Brand Trio. In Switzerland the South African jazz vocalist Sathima Bea Benjamin put them in contact with Duke Ellington. Together Ellington and the Trio made two recordings (including Benjamin on the second one).

The Trio entered the circuit of international jazz festivals and toured Europe. In 1965 Ibrahim and Benjamin married and moved to New York, where he played at the Newport Jazz Festival. He continued close collaboration with Duke Ellington and interacted with some most renowned jazz musicians of the time.

Despite his international fame, he never forgot where he came from. Mandla Langa, a writer who was the African National Congress-in-exile’s cultural attaché in Europe, has observed:

He could have lost all connection with South Africa, but he chose not to.

A personal experience illustrates the point: when performing in West Berlin in the mid-1970s, a few exiled Namibians living there visited him backstage before the concert. When on stage to play before a packed auditorium, he stopped after intonating a few notes on the piano. Turning around, he looked at the group and declared, “Ek speel net vir julle.” (I only play for you).

Mannenberg and Cape jazz

A turning point in Ibrahim’s career (then still mainly known as Dollar Brand) – and a watershed for South African musical history – was his short return to South Africa during the mid-1970s.

Mannenberg, a 14-minute track capturing the atmosphere of the Cape Flats, was recorded in June 1974 in one take as an act of collective improvisation. It was released on the album Mannenberg – Is Where It’s Happening.

As historian John Edwin Mason observed, its unique combination of musical vocabularies and idioms, rooted in South Africa, yet aware of international trends, helped to make it “the most iconic” composition in South African jazz history.

Within a year it sold more copies than any other South African jazz album. Being subsequently performed by some of the band’s members at political protest gatherings, it became a song of resistance and resilience. A fellow jazz musician from District Six declared it “the most powerful anthem of the struggle in the 1980s … which had no words, it simply referred to a series of styles of music that was influenced by black culture”.

These were automatically associated with being free, to have an identity. Ibrahim’s fusion of melodies in his improvisations resembled a mixture of American jazz with local genres such as marabi and mbaqanga, but also langarm, vastrap and ticky draai. This blend is known as Cape jazz. More recordings followed with African Herbs (1975), Banyana – Children of Africa and Black Lightning (both 1976).

Triggered by the Soweto uprising of 16 June 16 1976, Ibrahim declared his support for the African National Congress and returned to New York. In 1978 he released Anthem for the New Nation. Another milestone became African Marketplace, recorded in 1979 with a 12-piece-band – ranked as number 70 in a list of The 100 Jazz Albums that Shook the World.

Returning home

A legend in his own lifetime, Ibrahim returned to South Africa after he met the newly-released Nelson Mandela 1990 in Germany, who told him to come home. In 1994 he performed with a symphony orchestra on occasion of Mandela’s inauguration as president. Mandela reportedly referred to him as “our Mozart”.

In 1999 Ibrahim founded an academy for South African musicians in Cape Town, where he also initiated the Cape Town Jazz Orchestra, launched in 2006. In 2016 he performed with Hugh Masekela for the first time since 1960, reuniting the legendary Jazz Epistles to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Soweto uprising.

A solo piano recording was released in 2008 as Senzo (meaning ancestor in Chinese and Japanese, and a nod to his father’s name, Senzo, which also means creation in South Africa’s Nguni languages). As a review in All About Jazz ended:

Abdullah Ibrahim is a true inheritor of the ancestral name.

Upon release of The Balance in 2019, his first album after five years, The Wall Street Journal titled: A Jazz Master Continues to Grow.

In 2024 he released his final recording, an expansive and critically acclaimed double album called 3.

A legacy beyond music

Ibrahim has been a midwife to musical expressions under apartheid, which were a form of resistance based on one’s own human dignity, self-respect and confidence as protest against oppression and discrimination. He did this without noise, rather – like his personal habitus – calm, steadfast and determined, resting in himself.

He contributed to a new culture under – and after – apartheid. Abdullah Ibrahim played a significant role in the creation of something new. There will be no other like him.

– Pianist Abdullah Ibrahim crafted a magnificent new culture for South Africa
– https://theconversation.com/pianist-abdullah-ibrahim-crafted-a-magnificent-new-culture-for-south-africa-155059

June 15, 2026

Kenya wants to close refugee camps: the promise and risks of its ambitious new plan

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Edwin Mutyenyoka, Senior Researcher, Arnold Bergstraesser Institute

Kenya hosts nearly a million refugees, mainly from South Sudan and Somalia. Many of them have been living in refugee camps for decades.

Now, the country is attempting a major shift in refugee policy. The Kenyan government and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) developed the Shirika Plan, launching it in March 2025. The policy aims to move refugees away from long-term encampment and integrate them in society.

Drawing on their research on refugee governance and migration in Kenya, Edwin Mutyenyoka and Franzisca Zanker explain the opportunities and challenges the plan presents for refugees and host communities.

What is the Shirika Plan?

The Shirika Plan seeks to shift refugee management away from a camp-based system largely overseen by the UN towards a government-led model centred on inclusion into the local economy. The plan is a by-product of Kenya’s Refugee Act of 2021, which seeks to include and protect refugees better.

The plan builds on the success of two pilot models: the Kalobeyei Integrated Socio-Economic Development Plan and the Garissa Integrated Socio-Economic Plan. They showed that refugee inclusion can strengthen both refugee and host economies.

The Shirika Plan will convert camps into county-administered municipalities. There will be investment in roads, water systems, healthcare and education in places that host refugees. Developments are designed to serve refugees and host communities.

The plan is closely aligned with the UN’s refugee frameworks. These encourage governments to move beyond emergency assistance and towards allowing refugees to work, use public services and contribute to local economies.

The plan’s six pillars include sustainable economic development and climate action.

Implementation is expected to take place in three phases and requires an estimated US$943 million.

The first phase (2025-2028) is the transition period. It lays the foundations: putting regulatory and policy frameworks in place and turning camps into municipalities. There’s an emphasis on building local capacity too.

The second phase (2029-2032) is the stabilisation period. It will evaluate the transition, and strengthen institutional capacity and financial management. This phase will also build on peaceful co-existence between refugees and host communities.

The final phase (2033-2036) – the resilience period – aims to fortify financial structures, diversify revenue and build the resilience of communities. This is to reduce dependence on external support.

Why does Kenya need such a plan?

Kenya has become a major destination for both forced and economic migrants in the region. This is due, in part, to the country’s relative political and economic stability. A higher Human Development Index, vibrant secondary economy and a largely welcoming host society have created a good environment for refugees.

Kenya was home to 954,851 refugees and asylum seekers in 2025. This makes it the fifth biggest host in Africa and 13th largest in the world.

Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps in the northern region are home to over 800,000 refugees and asylum seekers between them. They are two of the biggest shelters for forced migrants in the world.

Most of the refugees in these camps – mostly from Sudan and Somalia – have lived there for up to 30 years.

In addition, surveys by organisations such as the Mixed Migration Centre and IOM Kenya estimate that between 100,000 and 200,000 refugees – mostly not registered – live in cities like Nairobi and Mombasa.

Kenya has gone through significant challenges, however, between the Refugee Act of 2021 and the launch of the Shirika Plan in 2025. A severe economic crisis ignited fierce protests and put mounting pressure on public services. In addition, humanitarian aid cuts, both globally and in Kenya, have been swift and severe.

Rather than relying on repeated emergency appeals, the Shirika Plan aims to attract development financing, while reducing tensions between refugees and host communities through shared access to services and economic opportunities.

This reflects a broader shift towards linking emergency assistance with longer-term economic and social inclusion.

The plan also offers a chance to address protracted displacement by making camps obsolete, while enhancing local development in remote areas.

What happens next?

The next challenge is implementation. The first years of the Shirika Plan are vital to show it can actually work.

In the first phase, planned initiatives centre on expanding livelihood opportunities, strengthening local services and improving coordination between humanitarian and development actors. Financing will be critical for success.

Kenya has secured substantial international support for refugee-hosting and economic integration. This includes a Sh155 billion (US$2 billion) loan from the World Bank in 2024 that requires Kenya to integrate 400,000 refugees into the economy by 2027.

For Kenya, the plan is a complete change of policy direction, away from a focus on security concerns and threats to close refugee camps. Closure threats happened most recently in 2021 but were quashed by the high court in 2024.

The emphasis is now on inclusion, local development and burden-sharing.

Success will depend not only on funding, but on the government’s ability to deliver tangible benefits for both refugees and host communities.

What are the risks?

First, the Shirika Plan relies on a system of differentiated assistance. This means support is tailored to refugees’ levels of need rather than provided equally to everyone. However, misconceptions of preferential treatment risk fuelling tensions between different refugee groups.

Second, moving vulnerable refugees out of camps could create new challenges. Many have spent years with limited access to education, jobs and public services. Competing in open labour markets could be particularly challenging for refugees who have long lived under UNHCR-operated enclosures.

Third, although more than 75 public engagement forums have been held across Kenya, some refugee and host-community representatives report feeling excluded from the design of the plan and broader decision-making processes. Concerns have also been raised about public awareness, accountability and oversight mechanisms. This is a worry as public support is vital to the plan.

Fourth, funding shortfalls are a risk to the plan. Supporting programmes aimed at building capacity during the transition period require consistent financial investments.

Where does this leave the plan?

The alternative – continuing to confine nearly a million people to underfunded camps – carries far greater risks than the challenges outlined above.

As the wheels of the Shirika Plan start turning, there is a need to invest in the municipalities hosting refugees.

A gradual reduction in UNHCR’s direct role should also create greater space for refugee-led organisations, whose local knowledge and community ties are useful to identify needs and support integration efforts.

– Kenya wants to close refugee camps: the promise and risks of its ambitious new plan
– https://theconversation.com/kenya-wants-to-close-refugee-camps-the-promise-and-risks-of-its-ambitious-new-plan-283486

June 15, 2026

South Africa is short of 2.6 million homes: Vienna’s approach to social housing offers useful lessons

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Andreas Scheba, Associate Professor, University of the Free State

South Africa faces a housing backlog of at least 2.6 million units, for more than 12 million people. The state supply of new, subsidised housing has declined over the past decade and the government’s housing policy is shifting.

It sees the private sector as becoming the main provider of “affordable housing”. The market, according to the Banking Association of South Africa, is households earning up to R34,400 gross per month (US$2,111). Yet most residents in South African cities earn far less than that. (The national median household income in 2023 was R7,980 or US$490.) Much more affordable accommodation is therefore needed.

We are housing and urban scholars based in South African and Austrian universities, who have conducted extensive research on how housing ideology, policies and practices shape urbanisation.

In this article we draw on research we have done on social rental housing in South African cities and in Vienna, Austria. We don’t suggest the policies should be the same. After all, these are very different places. But a side-by-side look can be useful.

Vienna is often considered the capital of social housing. About 43% of the Viennese housing stock is state-subsidised rental housing, including municipal-owned flats and apartments run by limited-profit housing associations.

South African cities have seen a massive roll-out of state-sponsored, low-density ownership housing, but the housing backlog and informality continue to grow. Delivery of subsidised rental housing and higher-density, mixed-income apartments has remained slow.

We believe at least three aspects of Vienna’s social housing policy have potential for South African cities:

sustained political commitment – policies, laws and regulations backed up by adequate financial and institutional investments
a pro-active and market-shaping state
making social housing part of the urban fabric and the public consciousness.

Sustained political commitment

Vienna’s large social housing stock is the result of a century of political commitment and investment in housing as a human right, recognising its powerful role in improving workers’ welfare and building integrated cities.

For the city, housing was never just a revenue-generating asset. Dating back to the Red Vienna period (1919–1934), interrupted by Austro-fascism and the Nazi regime, the social democratic city government has made housing central to its urban welfare politics. Especially subsidised rental housing.

Housing projects were considered part of social infrastructure, together with public facilities (clinics, transport, education), outdoor spaces, social amenities (creches, laundries, libraries), art, and employment opportunities.

Colloquially called “people’s palaces”, social housing apartment blocks symbolised the political promise of providing high-quality living to working-class people.

The city planted subsidised rental in all areas to promote social mixing.

Proactive and market-shaping state

Translating this political commitment into results required a capable and active state. It demanded a government that shaped land and property markets to maximise public value.

Vienna has taken an active role in social housing delivery, whether as a direct provider, regulator or collaborator. And, unlike many other cities in Europe, it never sold off its own municipal housing stock in the late 20th century.

The city currently manages over 220,000 rental apartments, accommodating a quarter of the total urban population. This makes Vienna the largest public landlord of social housing in Europe. After a period of non-expansion, it decided a decade ago to resume investment in rental stock.

A key element of its policy is the use of private capital and third sector (neither state nor profit-driven) organisations to promote the delivery of affordable rental accommodation. So-called limited-profit housing associations – private, cooperative, or non-profit entities – provide apartments at cost-based, regulated prices.

These organisations plan, develop and manage social housing accommodation and are bound to the Austrian Limited-Profit Housing Act. This law says any surpluses must be reinvested in building new rental housing.

Regulation includes rental caps, indefinite-term contracts and quality assurance requirements.

The city’s Fund for Housing Construction and Urban Renewal is a professional property management company, governed by a trust chaired by the city council. It buys, manages and releases land for state-subsidised housing construction and subsidises urban renewal projects. Active land management and a social housing zoning law allow affordable land to be designated for state-subsidised housing.

Working closely with city departments, especially planning and infrastructure, the entity acquires, prepares and releases land for social housing.

Another vital role is organising developers’ competitions, which function as a quality assurance mechanism. Interdisciplinary juries assess competing proposals according to four criteria: economy, architecture, ecology and social sustainability. Development rights are then awarded to the highest-quality project consortium.

Financing is a mix of federal and regional subsidies, loans, and earmarked contributions. For example the housing subsidy levy is a payroll-based contribution shared equally between employers and employees.

Social fabric of social housing

Social housing in Vienna is central to the overall housing system rather than a safety net for the poorest. Income thresholds are set to include large parts of the population and support social mixing.

Barriers for newcomers are still in place: they must live in the city for two years before they can access municipal housing. But renting remains a secure form of tenure that is widely accepted by the population.

Quality sustains this broad-based appeal. Social housing offers attractive, well-designed living environments.

This process draws on a deep pool of expertise, within the municipal administration and among non-profit housing providers, planners, academics and independent advisors.

Social housing is spread across Vienna rather than pushed to the periphery. People from different backgrounds live side by side.

Reflections for South Africa

Vienna’s experience provides a useful point of reference for reflecting on how social housing delivery could work in South Africa’s cities.

Firstly, social rental housing should be understood as an urban and economic policy. Its benefits go far beyond providing shelter, as it can make the city a more egalitarian, inclusive and productive space. It can improve workers’ welfare, reduce poverty, and promote socio-economic mobility.

As such, it deserves greater political commitment and resources from all spheres of government.

Secondly, getting results requires the state to actively shape property and land markets for public value. The City of Vienna has never just focused on enabling private-sector development. It shows what municipalities can achieve when they strategically use their assets, regulatory powers and resources to get public value from private investments.

Third is the importance of embedding social housing into a city’s social fabric.

The key is to appreciate social rental housing as shared wealth. Not to idealise individual property ownership. The public has to understand the benefits of well-located, higher-density, subsidised rental accommodation.

It also requires tapping into the technical, financial, organisational and other expertise across sectors and spaces in South Africa. Residents, housing justice movements and civil society organisations all have something to offer.

– South Africa is short of 2.6 million homes: Vienna’s approach to social housing offers useful lessons
– https://theconversation.com/south-africa-is-short-of-2-6-million-homes-viennas-approach-to-social-housing-offers-useful-lessons-282638

June 15, 2026

Conflict hits schooling hardest where children are the target – study

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Roos van der Haer, Assistant professor of International Relations at the Institute of Political Science, Leiden University

According to Unesco, around 250 million children (16%) globally are out of school although they are of an age to be at school in their countries. Available evidence suggests that out-of-school numbers are extremely high in conflict-affected countries, though the exact number is hard to quantify. For example, in the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Eritrea, more than 50% of primary school-age children are not going to school.

Research has long shown that conflict disrupts education. But armed groups do not all operate in the same way. Some use tactics that directly target children, such as recruiting child soldiers or committing sexual violence against minors. These tactics do more than create general insecurity. They directly threaten children’s safety and wellbeing.

We are a group of researchers who work on understanding the human consequences of conflict. In our recent publication on warfare’s impact on schooling, assessing 30 sub-Saharan African countries, we argue that this distinction between general violence and child-targeted tactics is key to understanding school enrolment decisions.

When children are targeted by armed groups, parents and caretakers reassess safety and the risk that they are willing to take. In some cases, schools may no longer be seen as safe spaces, and the risk of sending children to school, especially younger or more vulnerable children, can feel too high.

We show that when armed groups use child recruitment or sexual violence, the impact of conflict on school enrolment is much more severe than conflicts in which these tactics are not used. They also widen existing inequalities, especially for girls.

These new findings highlight a point that’s often overlooked: education systems cannot function if children do not feel safe. Protecting schooling in conflict settings therefore goes beyond rebuilding infrastructure. It requires addressing the threats that keep children out of classrooms.

Evidence from 700,000 potential school starters

Our study used nationally representative data from 59 Demographic and Health Surveys across 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa conducted between 2010 and 2021. In total, this covered almost 700,000 children of the age that should have been starting primary school during this period. We combined this information with detailed data on where and when armed conflict occurred, and whether child soldier recruitment and sexual violence against minors took place within 25km of where children lived in the year before they were due to start school.

The results confirm a pattern many might expect: children living in areas affected by conflict are less likely to start school. But the effect is much stronger when conflict involves tactics that target children, such as recruitment and sexual violence.

In areas where children are recruited into armed groups, school enrolment falls by about 3.2% compared to children living in conflict-affected areas where this tactic was not used.

In places where they are exposed to sexual violence, the decline is even larger, around 9.5%.

These effects are not the same for all children. Girls are hit especially hard. Their likelihood of enrolling in school drops by roughly twice as much as that of boys. This is true even in contexts of child soldier recruitment – an issue often thought to mainly affect boys.

Fear, risk and parental decision-making

Why do these types of violence have such strong effects on school enrolment?

Although we cannot test this directly, anecdotal evidence suggests that fear plays a central role. When armed groups that are known to recruit children or commit sexual violence against them are active in the area, parents may begin especially to see the journey to and from school as unsafe. In some cases, it is not only the journey but also the schools themselves that are considered to be unsafe, as they are targeted or occupied by armed groups.

For example, in South Sudan in 2014 armed groups attacked schools and forcibly recruited more than 100 pupils into their ranks. In other cases, children have been exposed to sexual violence during or after school attacks, or while travelling to and from school. One stark example comes from early March 2017, when a militia attacked a school in the Congolese province of Luiza, beating male students and raping several schoolgirls.

In these contexts, fear can decrease the willingness of children to go to school. For example, a witness of a Boko Haram attack on a school in Buni Yadi, Nigeria, told the interviewer:

After the attack, I went home. I was too afraid and decided not to go back. I told my parents I would never go back to school. They were also too afraid.

Parents and caretakers are affected too. For example, after more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted from Chibok in northern Nigeria by Boko Haram in 2014, a local parent-teacher association leader told journalists that the attack

has left families traumatised and entire communities living in fear that if their children went to school, they might never return home.

When insecurity increases, these existing challenges can tip the balance, making schooling feel like a less safe or less realistic option, especially for daughters. Girls are often perceived as particularly vulnerable during times of insecurity. At the same time, they often face additional barriers to education, such as early marriage and household responsibilities.

Implications

Our findings add an important layer to how we understand the relationship between conflict and education. It is not enough to know whether conflict is present or how intense it is in terms of casualties. What also matters is how conflict is carried out, and whether children are directly targeted.

For policymakers and international organisations, this has clear implications. Many efforts to support education in conflict-affected areas focus on rebuilding schools, providing learning materials or improving access. These are crucial steps, but they are not enough on their own.

If children are not going to school in the first place, it is often because families do not feel it is safe to send them there. This means that protecting education also requires establishing and implementing policy that decreases child recruitment and sexual violence in conflict settings. It requires safe routes to and from school, and addressing gender-specific barriers.

– Conflict hits schooling hardest where children are the target – study
– https://theconversation.com/conflict-hits-schooling-hardest-where-children-are-the-target-study-283595

June 14, 2026

Want to learn a South African language? Your options are limited – here’s why

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Mbali Sunrise Dhlamini, Lecturer on the New Generation of Academics Programme (nGAP) in African Language Studies, University of the Western Cape

It’s 50 years since the Soweto uprising in South Africa. On 16 June 1976, tens of thousands of young black South Africans protested against being taught in the Afrikaans language (alongside English) at school.

At the time, under apartheid laws, language, ethnicity and race were all treated as characteristics that defined identity and belonging. Geographic settlement (the artificial system of homelands) added another layer of ethnolinguistic affiliation.

In the case of language, the government designated Afrikaans, now spoken by 10.6% of the population, and English, now spoken by 8.7% of the population, as the two official languages. African languages – spoken by 78.6% of the population at present – had no official status except in the homelands.

These policies made languages political:

black South Africans regarded Afrikaans as the language of the white oppressor
English was seen as the language of education, advancement and opportunities
African languages were maintained as carriers of cultures and ethnic identities.

Each African language of a homeland was linked with ethnic affiliation. This embedded the idea that if one spoke isiZulu (the language), for example, one identified as umZulu (a Zulu person) and one was meant to live in KwaZulu (the “homeland”).

The homelands were abolished in 1994 and nine provinces were created. These provinces, however, still promote official African languages based on their first language dominance in the previous homelands.

As scholars of African languages, it’s our view that the manufactured notions of ethnic allegiance and belonging continue to bar the promotion of African languages in the country.

In a recent paper we looked at the distribution and teaching of languages at South African universities.

We found that English and Afrikaans remain interprovincial languages and are offered across South African universities. African languages still primarily determine the university and province in which prospective African language students can study.

The results suggest that the apartheid pattern of language use hasn’t been broken in the democratic era.

African languages at universities

Our research involved interviews with 10 academics in African language departments. We approached eight South African public universities that offered any of the four official South African isiNguni languages (isiZulu, isiXhosa, siSwati, isiNdebele). These can be classified as varieties of the same language. The research participants were lecturers who taught these languages.

Apartheid policies used language and ethnic affiliation to determine admission to universities in the homelands. So we enquired about the language policies of universities today, especially for admission to study African Languages.

We also asked about the language varieties that the academics accepted for learning, teaching and assessment.

English and Afrikaans are offered in South African universities across the provinces.

But a student’s own language still matters for admission to study an African language. When deciding who to accept, university African languages departments use the African language the applicant studied as a home language in grade 12.

The National Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions, published in 2020, supports the provincial language distribution. So do institutional language policies.

Some languages favoured over others

African language courses are taught based on the first languages that the students and most of the lecturers speak.

English and Afrikaans courses at the same institutions accommodate students and lecturers who speak different first languages.

This linguistic setup creates another layer of inclusion and exclusion for African languages in the democratic era. The findings revealed that African languages that many people speak as first languages enjoyed priority over African languages that a minority speak. For example, isiZulu (spoken by 24.4% of the population) and isiXhosa (spoken by 16.3%) were offered by seven of the eight universities in our study. Just one of the eight universities offered isiNdebele (spoken by 1.7%) and siSwati (2.8%).

We found that some academics accepted only the standard language version of the isiNguni language that they taught in their own classrooms. They argued that their teaching practices were guarded by the rules of the standard language. They said this promotes a “pure” and “correct” language variety. Other academics said they accepted all language varieties of the isiNguni languages in their classrooms. They acknowledged that students’ linguistic profiles at universities have changed in the last few decades. Hence, they said their approach was based on respect for all students’ language rights, preservation of all African language varieties, and promotion of student engagement and belonging in the classroom.

Some academics were still upholding the standard language ideology that the apartheid government imposed in the learning and teaching of African languages. Others were opting for approaches that recognise what students actually speak.

Promoting African languages

Based on our findings we recommend the following:

African languages should be promoted at a national rather than provincial level.
Higher education institutions should develop their own system of benchmarking language proficiency instead of relying on grade 12 certificates.
Official African languages should incorporate standard and non-standard language varieties.
African languages that are official in some provinces should be taught as second languages in provinces where they are not official. For instance, although Xitsonga first language speakers are concentrated in Limpopo, the language could be taught as a second language in KwaZulu-Natal. Similarly, siSwati could be taught as a second language in the Free State.

This would achieve several goals.

Firstly, it would encourage collaboration between African language scholars across the country. It could break silos in the promotion of African languages.

Secondly, African languages could cross provincial borders just like English and Afrikaans. This might change how languages are perceived.

Thirdly, African languages would be accessible to everyone instead of just language experts and their first language speakers.

This could enhance training of teachers, particularly for the advancement of mother tongue-based bilingual education. And it would preserve African language varieties, regardless of the number of their speakers and official status.

Overall, changing the teaching of African languages to avoid the provincial pattern would promote language inclusion and social cohesion.

– Want to learn a South African language? Your options are limited – here’s why
– https://theconversation.com/want-to-learn-a-south-african-language-your-options-are-limited-heres-why-284961