Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Christian Moretti, Senior Researcher, Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

The cost of electric vehicles (EVs) has long looked like a barrier to adoption in Africa. Most researchers didn’t expect battery power to become affordable enough to replace petrol or diesel on the continent before 2040.

But falling battery costs, surging global EV production and abundant solar resources are changing that view.

Our new research shows that EVs, particularly when paired with off-grid solar charging, may be cheaper than petrol- or diesel-powered cars in many African countries in the not-so-distant future. However, several factors are still limiting up-take. We argue that financing is a big one.

We are researchers working on energy policy, life-cycle assessment and low-carbon technologies at ETH Zürich and the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI. With African university partners, we’ve spent the past two years examining whether African countries can proceed directly to electric mobility, bypassing older technology. This study came out of the need for context-specific evidence to assess whether EVs can play a meaningful role in the region’s transport future. This could improve local air quality and also transform the emissions trajectory of one of the world’s fastest-growing transport sectors.

The main challenge is not whether electric mobility makes sense technically for the African context – it does – but rather, how to make financing work at scale.

High interest rates, risk premiums and limited access to long-term credit still make electric vehicles unaffordable for most Africans. But in lower-risk countries such as Botswana, Mauritius and South Africa, the financing conditions today are already close to making costs the same for electric and fossil fuel cars.

Our research shows that if an EV is purchased with cash upfront, excluding taxes, in certain scenarios it would be cost-competitive already today.

There is a need for focused research into scalable financing solutions to unlock accelerated growth of EVs in Africa. We outline four potentially relevant points for researchers, African policymakers and international finance institutions.

Financial de-risking alongside indirect public subsidies

Africa’s EV market is growing fast, reaching US$17.4 billion in 2025 and expected to hit US$28 billion by 2030, despite currently being less than 1% of the total on-road vehicle fleet.

Our research looks at the total cost of ownership competitiveness of EVs across 52 African countries in six passenger vehicle segments: small and medium two-wheelers; small, medium, and large four-wheelers; and a minibus segment. We also looked at three timeframes: 2025, 2030 and 2040.

We found that, for more than half the countries examined, financing costs would need to fall by 7-15 percentage points for EVs to reach cost parity with conventional vehicles by 2030. That drop can reduce lifetime financing expenses by thousands of dollars, often enough to shift a vehicle from being unaffordable to firmly within reach.

Technology risk is no longer the problem: EVs are now commercially mature and widely used around the world and increasingly in Africa.

Country-specific risk is more the problem. It reflects several perceived or actual investment risks such as macroeconomic or institutional instability, currency volatility, or unfamiliarity with EV business models among lenders, which results in elevated purchase prices.

Indirect subsidies such as tax or import duty exemptions for EVs are helpful and popular in many African countries.

But to accelerate and sustain EV adoption, countries may also need tools that transfer financial risk from private lenders to public actors. This could lower the overall price of the vehicle.

Among these tools could be credit guarantees, concessional loans and blended finance structures. In practice, this means governments or other public financial institutions would absorb part of the risk associated with EV loans. This would make lenders feel more comfortable to finance EVs. By absorbing some risk, these instruments could lower interest rates to levels that make EVs more affordable – speeding up adoption and shortening the window where public subsidies are needed.

EVs as financial assets

EVs are well suited to de-risking. Cars and charging systems are standardised assets with predictable cash flows. Loans can be bundled and securitised, meaning individual vehicle loans are pooled together and converted into tradable financial products. A similar thing happens with mortgages, but not with most infrastructure projects. In this sense, EV financing could be simpler and more scalable than traditional development finance.

Packaging thousands of small EV loans into investable products could attract pension funds, insurers and impact investors – capital pools far larger than traditional development aid.

Multilateral development banks play a critical role here, not as primary lenders but as market makers. By helping structure financial products, setting standards and offering partial guarantees, they can crowd in private capital at scale.

Public financing to reinforce private sector momentum

Private companies are already proving that electric mobility can work in lower-risk African markets.

In Kenya and Rwanda, firms offering battery-swapping, leasing and pay-as-you-go models for electric two- and three-wheelers are expanding rapidly. These business models reduce up-front costs for consumers and generate operating data that builds confidence among investors.

The opportunity now is to secure public funding to build on these early successes. Private firms can bundle vehicle loans and charging assets into regional portfolios, spreading risk across countries and customer segments. Once these portfolios are established, public actors, like development banks or climate funds, could scale them, particularly in higher-risk markets. They could help to, for example, build pan-African EV financing platforms that channel capital smartly across high and low risk environments.

EV policies and country-specific financing conditions

Financial de-risking efforts for EVs in Africa must be developed along with broader EV policy. Clear, predictable national policy frameworks can reduce investment uncertainty and directly lower financing costs.

Kenya’s National Electric Mobility Policy is a leading example. In addition to offering incentives to increase EV adoption, the policy strengthens regulatory frameworks and supports expansion of charging infrastructure. It encourages local EV manufacturing and assembly too, potentially helping to create opportunities for green economic growth.

This does not mean every country needs aggressive EV mandates tomorrow. Within the continent, there are strong cross-country differences in both financing needs and policy environments for e-mobility. Some countries may require more public intervention than others.

Effective policy measures may include:

• temporary import duty exemptions

• targeted purchase incentives for lower-income buyers

• fuel tax reforms

• clear strategies for phasing out high-polluting used vehicles.

Policies should be time-bound and regularly reviewed, avoiding long-term fiscal burdens as EV prices fall naturally.

Targeting incentives towards smaller, mass-market vehicles can also improve equity. This would ensure that public support benefits first-time buyers rather than wealthier households.

The evidence is clear, Africa does not need a technological breakthrough to electrify passenger transport. What it needs is cheaper capital and supportive policy environments for accelerated EV adoption.

– Electric vehicles could soon be cheaper than petrol cars in Africa – if financing barriers fall
– https://theconversation.com/electric-vehicles-could-soon-be-cheaper-than-petrol-cars-in-africa-if-financing-barriers-fall-275732

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Suleman Lazarus, Visiting Fellow, Mannheim Centre for Criminology, London School of Economics and Political Science

When former US secretary of state Colin Powell took to a London stage alongside Nigerian artist Olu Maintain in 2008 and danced to a song called Yahoozee, he almost certainly didn’t know that the track is widely understood in Nigeria as a celebration of internet fraud.

The moment became a striking illustration of something my research keeps returning to: how music can carry the moral codes of cybercrime far beyond their origins, laundering them in rhythm, recognition and prestige.

Over the last ten years I’ve studied cybercriminal pathways, romance fraud, victimisation of senior citizens, business email compromise, and the cultural politics of cybercrime.

My latest collaborative study examines 40 Afrobeats songs released between 2023 and 2025, looking for themes.

Afrobeats is the broad label often used for contemporary Nigerian and west African popular music that has come to dominate global streaming culture in the 2010s and 2020s. Driven by artists such as Burna Boy, Wizkid, Davido, Tems and Asake, it has grown from a regional sound into a global cultural force, filling arenas, winning major awards and shaping youth culture far beyond Africa.

Yet some of what travels with Afrobeats is more ambivalent. In the Nigerian context, the cybercrime most often referenced in music is linked to Yahoo Boys, a popular term for online fraudsters involved in scams such as romance fraud and advance fee fraud. In some lyrics, these figures are framed not simply as offenders but as resourceful hustlers or icons of success.

The songs in our study all contain explicit references to online fraud. All were performed by male artists. And all were globally available on platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube. What we found goes well beyond glorification. Afrobeats, we argue, is functioning as a moral text – one that actively rationalises, spiritualises and normalises cybercrime for millions of listeners worldwide.

In other words, some of this music is doing more than making crime sound cool. It is helping listeners make sense of online fraud as acceptable, even justified. It wraps criminal behaviour in the language of hustle, survival and divine favour, making it feel not just normal, but earned. And because Afrobeats is now heard everywhere, these ideas are travelling with it.

More than just ‘hustle culture’

It is tempting to dismiss fraud themed lyrics as bravado. They can seem like a form of performative edginess, not unlike gangsta rap. Gangsta rap is a branch of hip hop in which hustling, toughness and street survival became both narrative material and cultural style.

But that reading misses the depth of what’s happening. Our analysis shows that these songs use subtle rhetorical moves to present fraud as something other than wrongdoing.

One of the most pervasive techniques is what researchers call euphemistic labelling. Fraud is rarely called fraud in Afrobeats songs. It becomes “hustle”, “grind” or “blessing”. Lyrics frame scamming as honest work blessed by God, stripping away its moral weight. In one track, the phrase “work and pray for the payday” wraps a reference to cybercrime in the language of religious devotion and diligence.

Victims fare even worse. In these songs, they are rarely granted humanity. They become “maga” or “mgbada”, terms linked to the Igbo word for antelope, casting the fraudster as hunter and the victim as prey. In this language, victims are no longer people to be harmed, but targets to be chased: “clients”, “profiles”, even “cash cows”. We argue that this dehumanisation is not incidental. It makes exploitation feel rational, even honourable.

God, juju, and the spiritual economy of fraud

Perhaps the most striking finding in our research is the pervasiveness of what we call cyber-spiritualism. Across multiple tracks, success in online fraud is framed not as a product of skill or cunning but as a matter of divine favour and ritual protection.

This aligns with a broader phenomenon scholars have documented in Nigeria known as “Yahoo Plus” or cyber spiritualism, a variant of internet fraud in which digital scamming is combined with spiritual practices such as juju rituals, charms and incantations. The idea is that metaphysical forces can be mobilised to manipulate victims, attract luck and protect perpetrators.

What is striking is how openly some of these beliefs appear in music. One track includes lyrics invoking Aje – a Yoruba deity associated with wealth – while another frames a ritual object (“soap”) as essential spiritual insurance for a fraudster. Another song merges Islamic thanksgiving phrases with references to successful scam transactions, as if divine gratitude and financial crime can occupy the same moral space. Fraud, in this framing, is not a choice. It is destiny.

Why this matters beyond Nigeria

The genre now circulates across continents, through algorithms and playlists, reaching audiences who may know little about Nigeria’s specific struggles. These include a high unemployment rate, elite corruption, and the longer afterlives of British colonial rule. In some of these lyrical worlds, fraud is not framed simply as greed but as a way of taking back from a global order understood to have first taken from them. Similar justifications also appeared in interviews with active scammers in Ghana.

The fraud narratives in these songs emerge from real and painful structural conditions: blocked opportunities, absent institutions, the pressure on young men to provide for their families. Understanding those conditions is essential. But as these lyrics travel globally, they become detached from their context. For diasporic or international listeners, “maga don pay”, meaning “the senseless animal has paid”, stops being a commentary on poverty and starts sounding like a lifestyle aesthetic, a marker of ingenuity, cosmopolitan hustle and transgressive cool.

Our research also reveals a telling career dynamic. Emerging artists lean heavily on fraud references to establish credibility and street authenticity. More established artists tend to drop them as their careers develop. Fraud talk, in other words, is a currency for those still trying to break through. This makes it all the more concentrated among the youngest, most influential voices in the genre.

What should be done?

I want to be clear: this research is not a moral panic about Afrobeats. The genre is not responsible for cybercrime, and reducing it to a crime soundtrack would be both inaccurate and deeply unfair to its richness and complexity.

But music is never politically or morally neutral. When lyrics consistently dehumanise fraud victims, frame exploitation as a divine blessing and circulate these ideas to hundreds of millions of people, the cultural consequences are real. My previous study on scammers and their allies reports on that.

Streaming platforms must take seriously their role in amplifying these narratives. Policymakers, educators and the music industry itself need to understand the moral ecosystems in which cybercrime thrives.

– Afrobeats celebrates cybercrime and it’s becoming a global problem
– https://theconversation.com/afrobeats-celebrates-cybercrime-and-its-becoming-a-global-problem-277543

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Fanny Georges, enseignant-chercheur, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3

His name is Khabane Lame, but he is known worldwide as Khaby Lame. Born in Dakar, Senegal, he is the most followed content creator on TikTok.

He became famous for video clips in which he reacts to absurd “life hack” videos with a blank, slightly annoyed face, showing the hack wasn’t needed.

At the time of writing he has over 160 million followers: a world record achieved without uttering a single word. In January he sold his brand rights for nearly US$1 billion.

But there’s another dimension to his story that the western media rarely mention: Khaby Lame is a practising Muslim and a hafiz, a Muslim devotee who has memorised the entire Quran. This after being sent to a Quranic school near Dakar at the age of 14.

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Read more: Nigerian TikTok star Charity Ekezie uses hilarious skits to dispel ignorance about Africa

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The tension between the sacred body of the hafiz and the commercialisation of the influencer’s digital life makes his journey a rich case study.

For me, as a researcher of digital identity, his online career also raises questions about turning personal data into digital assets.

From the suburbs of Turin to the top of the global stage

Khaby Lame’s story reads like a modern-day myth. Not because it’s hard to believe, but because it mirrors the core narratives of digital modernity. It starts with hardship, goes through a period of creative isolation and ends with global recognition.

This is what the French thinker Roland Barthes called “mythical speech”, a story that seems natural and simple, but is actually shaped by deeper forces and structures.

In 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Khaby Lame lost his job as a factory worker. He was stuck at home and locked down in social housing in the suburbs of Turin, Italy, where his parents had moved when he was a baby.

Out of this hardship he made a simple decision: he started filming short videos. Just 17 months later, he reached more than 100 million followers on TikTok. He was the first content creator based in Europe to reach that milestone.

His story reflects the promise often promoted by TikTok that the platform can lift anyone up. All you need, it suggests, is a mobile phone, and talent will quickly be rewarded with global fame.

This should be celebrated. But the myth of instant success also needs a closer look. Behind every viral rise lie smart decisions, hard work, and the powerful, and often unpredictable, role of the platfom’s algorithm.

Comic tradition

What sets Khaby Lame apart from almost all the creators before him is the semiotic system (of signs and symbols) he invented – or rather reactivated. He brought back an old comic tradition.

Many compare him to British comedy actor Charlie Chaplin. Others see echoes of US comedian Buster Keaton. Both were masters of Hollywood’s silent slapstick comedy.

Khaby Lame revives the codes of 1930s Hollywood silent comedy cinema: mime, meaningful glances, no dialogue, and burlesque sketches (short theatrical scenes) that convey messages. But the Chaplin connection ends there, as the two men inhabit their bodies in radically different ways.

Chaplin’s films carry emotional weight, driven by social and political themes. His character, the tramp, is a poor wanderer pushing back against an unfair industrial world.

Khaby Lame’s style is closer to Keaton’s. He says nothing. He simply shows how unnecessary and complicated these internet quick fixes are. His absolute impassivity in the face of the absurd is what Keaton perfected with his famous “great stone face”.

But while the comic structure is similar, their relationship to their bodies is not. Throughout his life, Keaton remained completely indifferent to religion or metaphysics in any form. Khaby Lame is the opposite. He is a hafiz. The separation of his digital identity from his physical person is notable.

Wordless humour allowed him to build a global audience because there are no language barriers, just as silent film stars like Charlie Chaplin became global icons a century ago.

TikTok’s algorithm favours content that anyone can understand instantly. Chaplin needed a movie theatre, Khaby Lame needs only a phone and an algorithm. The mechanics are similar. The way it spreads has completely changed.

Digital identity

In January 2026, Khaby Lame’s carefully crafted expressive persona took on a new status. It became a financial asset. He sold his company, Step Distinctive Limited, for US$975 million to Rich Sparkle, a publicly traded company based in Hong Kong. The agreement includes the transfer of rights to use his image, voice and behavioural models to create an artificial intelligence-powered digital twin.

This digital twin will produce multilingual content, including material for advertising and promotions. Companies will be able to run commercials in several countries without Khaby being physically present. According to Rich Sparkle, this could help generate over US$4 billion in annual sales, especially through livestream e-commerce (a format already dominant in Asia), broadcast simultaneously around the world.

This transaction marks a turning point. Digital identity no longer merely represents a person. It becomes an asset that can be separated from the individual who created it. Now, a creator is no longer a brand ambassador, but a brand in its own right. In theory, Khaby Lame’s digital being is now legally separate from Khaby Lame himself.

The digital twin is, in this sense, the Buster Keaton body that digital platform capitalism has always dreamed of – impassive, reproducible, available across all time zones.

Signature gesture

Khaby Lame’s signature gesture is to place both palms open and turned upward. This seems simple and easy to understand, a light and humorous sign of of disbelief. But the gesture carries deeper meanings.

In Islamic tradition, as in many African cultures, this same gesture is linked to dua, the act of raising one’s hand in supplication to God. What millions of viewers read as a comic signature is also a spiritual practice.

Yet Khaby Lame’s digital double is not simply an image. It can act in his name. It can speak with his voice. It can repeat his familiar gestures. This is no longer simple representation. It is a form of transferring his way of expressing himself onto a digital system.

The same open hands, the same expressive gaze, the same voice that once recited the suras of the Quran in a school in Dakar are now the attributes of a commercial transaction valued at nearly a billion dollars.

There is an ethical question in handing over his active identity to financial markets.

An ethical question

For many young Africans, especially in Senegal, Khaby Lame embodies the possibility that digital spaces are territories where Africans can succeed, where the hierarchies inherited from colonial history can, at least symbolically, be overturned.

But the deal raises a difficult question: what does it mean to sell your digital self in a world where Black and African bodies have been used and profited from for centuries without consent and fair compensation?

Is this a win or a new form of exploitation? Can the financial benefits balance the transfer of his identity?

More African creators are building global audiences every year. That means these questions will become harder to ignore. Who owns a creator’s digital twin once it’s sold? Who set the rules for its use?

Khaby Lame is not just a social media success story. He is a revelation of the future and, perhaps unwittingly, a pioneer.

– Khaby Lame is the world’s most followed TikToker: the story of a Senegalese-born star who sold his identity
– https://theconversation.com/khaby-lame-is-the-worlds-most-followed-tiktoker-the-story-of-a-senegalese-born-star-who-sold-his-identity-276910

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Nadia Zahoor, Associate Professor, Queen Mary University of London

The informal economy is the basis of everyday economic life across sub-Saharan Africa. In Ghana, as in many low- and middle-income contexts, a lot of retail trade, food distribution, artisanal production and service provision happens outside formal regulatory frameworks.

Women occupy a prominent position in this world. They trade in open-air markets, process and sell foodstuffs, produce garments, provide hairdressing services and manage micro-enterprises that sustain households and anchor local economies.

Many do this work because they haven’t been able to get an education, a formal job or formal finance.

The informal economy is easier to enter – but also less secure. Enterprises tend to work without firm tenure, enforceable contractual protections or social insurance mechanisms. Income streams are volatile, exposure to risk is routine and it’s difficult to expand the business.

Despite these challenges, women’s informal enterprises play an important developmental role. They generate income where few alternatives exist, finance children’s education and contribute to local supply chains.

Public debates often portray them as vulnerable victims of poverty or as heroic symbols of resilience.

Both pictures oversimplify a far more complex reality.

We are researchers specialising in gendered entrepreneurship and informal economies. We conducted a study to explore how women in Ghana with low or no formal education sustain businesses where they are at a disadvantage, and how they deal with being portrayed as “weaker vessels”.

The research sheds light on what entrepreneurship looks like when resources are scarce, institutions are fragile and gender norms remain powerful. Our findings show resilience, as well as the hidden costs of survival in an economy where formal support systems are largely absent.

Our findings suggest that by supporting women in Ghana’s informal economy, policymakers can strengthen local markets, reduce economic precarity and enhance inclusive economic growth. Informal enterprises are deeply embedded in broader supply chains and community networks. Recognising and supporting them can increase productivity, stabilise livelihoods and create spillover benefits for the wider economy.

Life on the ground

We interviewed 21 women in southern Ghana and observed market spaces. The women were invited to share stories of actions they believed had enabled their businesses to survive despite limited resources.

These conversations highlighted the advantages associated with formal education, like access to networks, skilled labour and government programmes.

We also learned how informal women entrepreneurs kept ventures going without that kind of support. The findings pointed to informal-formal collaboration as an important, if often overlooked, linkage.

Participants described an environment marked by pervasive uncertainty:

• threats of eviction

• fluctuating input costs such as wholesale food prices, transport overheads and cooking fuel

• ad hoc levies imposed by local market associations, informal gatekeepers and neighbourhood officials

• harassment by municipal authorities.

This instability shaped how they operated.

As one trader explained:

Today you are selling peacefully. Tomorrow they can tell you to move.

The women also said they couldn’t get conventional bank finance because they didn’t have collateral, formal documentation or credit histories. Instead, they relied on rotating savings and credit associations (locally known as susu), kin-based financial support and reinvestment of modest profits.

The bank will ask for papers I don’t have. So we depend on our susu (rotating savings system).

Risk diversification was a key survival strategy. Some managed multiple activities. For example, they combined food vending with petty trading or seasonal commodity sales.

If one business is slow, the other one helps.

Equally critical were dense social networks. Fellow traders provided short-term loans, shared information about changes in prices and regulations, and offered psychosocial support.

Informal subcontracting relationships with formal enterprises sometimes provided extra income streams. This showed that informal entrepreneurship is embedded within broader economic circuits.

Participants also had to deal with people’s ideas about women as inherently fragile or dependent. Yet women’s survival depends on physical endurance, negotiation skills and financial acumen. One market trader put it this way:

If you are weak in this market, you cannot survive.

Rather than openly rejecting what people expected of women, some used those ideas to their advantage. They framed entrepreneurial activity as caregiving. This made income-generating work look more socially and morally acceptable.

I tell them I am doing this for my family. Then people accept it.

The women also spoke of the physical and psychological strains they worked under. They managed multiple income streams, absorbed market shocks and fulfilled unpaid care responsibilities.

Implications

Several recommendations emerge from our study.

First, informal women entrepreneurs should be formally recognised and supported. Simplified registration processes and flexible regulatory frameworks can help reduce barriers to formalisation. They can also give access to legal protection, institutional support and market opportunities.

With legitimised informal businesses, women would be able to operate more securely and plan for sustainable growth.

Second, access to context-sensitive finance is essential. This could include microfinance schemes, low-barrier credit products and support for community-based savings mechanisms.

Third, targeted capacity-building and social support programmes would help. This could include:

• literacy and context-sensitive training in business management, financial literacy and digital skills

• social protection measures like affordable childcare and healthcare access

• time-saving interventions such as improved water and energy infrastructure.

Finally, links between informal and formal sectors need to be strengthened. Policies that encourage collaboration through subcontracting, supply chains or networking platforms can improve income stability, access to resources, and long-term business sustainability.

These measures can create an enabling environment where women’s informal enterprises don’t just survive, they thrive, and contribute to economic development.

– How do women entrepreneurs survive in Ghana’s informal economy? We went to a local market to ask them
– https://theconversation.com/how-do-women-entrepreneurs-survive-in-ghanas-informal-economy-we-went-to-a-local-market-to-ask-them-277634

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Lauren Johnston, Associate Professor, China Studies Centre, University of Sydney

China’s President Xi Jinping announced in February 2026 that from 1 May China would be granting zero-tariff treatment to 53 African countries. (That is all of them bar Eswatini, which supports Taiwan.)

China-Africa trade reached US$348 billion in 2025, up 17.7% from 2024. Chinese exports to Africa dominate trade flows, and amounted to US$225 billion, an increase of 25.8%. This compares to US$123 billion in imports from Africa, which grew by just 5.4%. Such a rising trade deficit between Africa and its largest sovereign trade partner points to the timeliness of new China policies that support African exports to China.

Beyond potential for trade facilitation and diplomacy, at a time of trade rivalry between the great powers, what might the change mean?

Based on years of study of China-Africa trade relations, I argue that there will be two probable main effects – one positive, one negative.

First, on the positive side, zero tariffs could provide incentives for cross-country export cooperation within Africa. On the negative, it risks creating conditions in which Africa’s stronger economies capture the most gain at the expense of weaker economies.

The existing regime

China’s Africa-specific trade preferences have evolved through the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, established in 2000. China’s own global trade integration since its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 has also evolved.

Since 2005, African least developed countries have enjoyed zero-tariff access to China across 100% of tariff lines. Least developed countries are low-income countries confronting severe structural impediments to sustainable development. They are highly vulnerable to economic and environmental shocks and have low levels of human capital.

This policy restricted zero-tariff trade access to around 33 countries (subject to change owing to income growth and diplomatic recognition of Beijing). Africa’s middle-income exporters were excluded from the trade preferences.

South Africa, for example, continued to face tariffs on most exports, including fruits, wine and processed foods. Many were between 10% and 25%.

A handful of research papers have explored earlier Chinese trade preferences for Africa. For example, policy researcher and economist Adam Minson estimated that the least developed country tariff-free arrangements of 2005 would bring some countries as little as an additional US$100,000 annually.

My own PhD research found that by 2009 these preferential trade policies had not had any significant impact on exports. More recently, economists Zhina Sun and Ehizuelen Michael Mitchell Omoruyi found that the existing zero-tariff policy had promoted diversification of manufacturing exports to China and of regional trade. But there had been little effect on agriculture and mining export diversification.

One recurring recommendation has been to expand equal tariff treatment across African regional blocs. These include the East African Community, Southern African Customs Union and the Economic Community of West African States.

This could lead to production for export being organised regionally rather than distorted or even hampered by tariff differentials.

The reforms announced by Xi in February are a shift in this direction.

An incentive to co-operate?

By extending zero tariffs to almost all African countries, China has neutralised an element of distortion in its earlier tariff policy. When only some countries enjoyed tariff-free export benefits, investors and producers had incentives to locate export production in least developed countries to secure tariff-free access.

This worked some of the time, but not all the time. The reason for this is that least developed countries find it difficult to become exporters because they face inhibiting barriers to trade in general. Examples include unreliable electricity and poor infrastructure.

The zero tariff will put least developed countries at a disadvantage as they will lose the “special status” afforded them in the old regime. But the change could open another door. Production decisions can now take advantage of existing and potential cross-country and intra-regional supply chains based on comparative advantage – in place of being located where export tariffs were smallest.

Also, lowering tariffs for more developed African economies may enable African entrepreneurs to work across borders to engage in trade without facing different trade barriers by locality. That in turn may support Africa’s own agenda of trade integration.

To boost trade, China has also signalled it will expand trade facilitation measures. This includes upgraded “green lanes” for African imports. Prospective examples include:

• faster customs clearance

• streamlined phytosanitary procedures (rules governing food safety). An example would be setting up a clear set of criteria that enable an approved exporter, say of Kenyan avocados, to enjoy pre-approval for customs clearance.

• greater investments in training and trade-related logistics.

China has also set up a dedicated China-Africa trade facilitation hub in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. The aim is to have a central point of trade-related expertise and industries, making it easier for African and Chinese firms do business.

The risk of uneven gains

There is a risk that the new tariff regime will mean that production for export will concentrate in more developed countries, such as South Africa, Morocco and Kenya. These economies are better positioned to expand exports when it comes into effect.

In contrast, least developed countries will continue to struggle with:

• constructing efficient trade-related infrastructure like telecommunications, electricity and port connectivity

• production at export scale

• reaching trade-related compliance standards such as the necessary fruit sizes and colour consistency.

China’s policy change calls for Africa’s frontier exporters to China to build trade-related supply chains across African borders to garner the scale and competitiveness to expand their own – soon tariff-free – exports to China. In turn, this would reduce the burden on least developed countries to need to export directly to China. Instead, they would only need to join regional trade supply chains.

Ideally within African sub-regions this could develop into a new incentive to create trade-related value chains.

The potential for equalisation

The May Day tariff reforms are a positive in removing formal tariff barriers at a time when tariffs are going up, led by the United States. This change simplifies incentives and eliminates structural asymmetries in China’s Africa trade regime.

Tariffs, however, are seldom the main constraint for African industrial transformation and export hopes. On top of this, uncertainty is complicating the global trade environment.

Nonetheless, these reforms are a step towards fostering sub-regional supply chains if African countries coordinate production strategies.

– China’s new tariff-free regime for Africa: the potential upside and downside
– https://theconversation.com/chinas-new-tariff-free-regime-for-africa-the-potential-upside-and-downside-277247

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Peter Twesigye, Research Lead: Power Market Reforms and Regulation, University of Cape Town

Millions of Kenyan households and businesses have been subjected to interruptions of electricity supply since late 2024 owing to production shortfalls. President William Ruto acknowledged this, explaining that “daily load-shedding” had become necessary and that power would be switched off in some areas between 5pm and 10pm to stabilise the national grid.

Until now, Kenya’s electricity supply has been mostly adequate to meet supply. However, there were multiple nationwide blackouts between 2020 and 2024. These disruptions were due to technical failures rather than unmet demand.

The uncomfortable truth is that Kenya’s demand surge is testing the limits of what grid engineers call “firm and operationally available capacity”. This is what can be counted on when the evening peak demand rises sharply, stretching the system’s ability to maintain frequency and voltage within limits.

By the end of January 2026, the published system peak was 2,439.06 MW compared to firm capacity of 2,495 MW. There was a narrow reserve margin of only 2.3%. This peak was recorded on 4 December 2025, and was framed by Kenya Power itself as a historic high.

Kenya has a reserve of nearly 800 MW on paper, but only about 56 MW of breathing room on firm capacity. This is a razor-thin margin for a system that must ride over:

• transmission constraints such as transformer overloads due to unexpected demand spikes and equipment failure

• inadequate generation forces for dispatchable baseload, from post-sunset loss of solar output of 514 MW and at times wind of 436 MW with low capacity factors

• limited flexibility to support timely ramping (how fast the rest of the system must move up or down when a generation unit trips).

My research focus is power market reforms, regulation and utility performance – including Kenya’s. My assessment is that Kenya’s power sector is not short of renewable energy resources to exploit. It is short of capital and a well-planned procurement pipeline of investments in new power plants and grid resilience.

Policy makers have to do more to keep up with an economy whose peak demand now resets with unsettling frequency, affecting businesses and home users.

Kenya’s optimum outcome is not simply higher installed megawatt capacity. It is the combined effect of:

• sufficient energy capacity

• the system’s capacity to meet fluctuating demand, changes in generation output and unexpected outages

• ability to operate, refurbish and maintain the grid network to meet set technical regulatory standards.

How did supply fall behind demand?

Three structural drivers explain the current crisis.

First, no new interconnected power plants have been commissioned during the past four years. Kenya’s new capacity pipeline was constrained by a moratorium on new plants imposed in 2021. The moratorium was only lifted in December 2025 by the National Assembly, reopening the door to new procurement via competitive auctions.

Second, peak demand growth accelerated over the same time period. In February 2025, for instance, peak demand grew by the largest margin in five years. This growth was driven mainly by industrial and commercial users, a growing fleet of electric vehicles, new data centres, and an aggressive domestic power connectivity programme.

The utility surpassed 10 million customers with over 401,848 new connections in the year to 30 June 2025. This resurgence translates into a growth in sales to 11,403 GWh in just one financial year, 2024/25. The result was that a planning problem became an operational one. The mass connectivity programme stepped up over the past eight years is a triumph as the country rushes to achieve universal electrification goals. But it is also the core demand-side force compressing reserve margins.

The third factor that’s affected the power network is that industrial and commercial consumers are increasingly financing their own supply. Instead of waiting for grid reliability to improve, firms have been building their own dedicated power plants. By June 2025, so-called captive (self-consumption) capacity reached 603.8 MW (about 15.72% of total installed capacity), dominated by captive solar PV and bioenergy.

While these are cheaper and more reliable sources, they are not failure-free and also serve to mask the growing national deficit.

Furthermore, this trend complicates system planning because Kenya Power’s revenue base and load profile become less predictable, leading to system imbalances and frequent outages.

What’s behind the instability of Kenya’s electricity grid?

Kenya’s energy mix is renewables-led. Renewable energy stands at 80% of the energy mix and has been steadily rising over the last 10 years.

The largest technology shares are: geothermal 943 MW (25.92%), hydro 872.5 MW (23.9%), solar 514.1 MW (14.1%), wind 436 MW (11.9%), and bioenergy 163.8 MW. The country also imports electricity from Ethiopia and Uganda, accounting for 10.6% of the total.

This picture shows why system flexibility and network reliability are key. When solar and wind power aren’t available, the system must turn to geothermal, hydro and thermal while maintaining reserves.

With firm capacity only modestly above the latest peak, even a single contingency can force controlled load-shedding to preserve system integrity.

Kenya’s grid instability is not one problem, however. Network reliability is undermined by system leakages from unbilled or stolen energy. In 2025, average annual losses amounted to 23.36% – far above the regulator’s allowable benchmark of 17.5%. Reliability is improving, but still a far cry from best practice.

Another major factor is inadequate transmission infrastructure, primarily its high-voltage transmission lines. This means that Kenya also needs to massively invest in expanding its transmission system. Indeed, the power transmission monopoly – Ketraco – warns in its 2025-2044 master plan that keeping up with demand growth requires a multi-billion-dollar buildout. It points to an estimated financing gap of roughly US$4.38 billion across planned transmission investments.

What’s needed

Four options stand out for consideration.

The first is rebuilding the pipeline of new power plants. The quickest reliability gains will come from adding new low-carbon capacity from geothermal rehabilitation and new gas units. Policymakers must also ensure adequate extra generation capacity to provide power within seconds or minutes to cover a likely generation failure or demand spike.

Second, the system needs modern flexibility tools, such as battery storage, gas and imports. This is because storage and grid-stability investments can improve system flexibility and reduce the need for load-shedding when supply from renewables dips during peak demand.

Third, private capital participation is unavoidable if the grid is to stay ahead of demand. The most concrete step so far is the transmission monopoly’s US$311 million (KES 40.4 billion) public-private partnership signed in December 2025 with Africa50 and Power Grid Corporation of India.

Finally, stability depends on addressing system losses. This can be achieved by scaling up smart metering, restructuring distribution lines, and reducing vandalism and illegal connections. This can translate into added capacity.

– Power cuts are the new normal in Kenya – what went wrong and how to fix it
– https://theconversation.com/power-cuts-are-the-new-normal-in-kenya-what-went-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it-276611

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan, Professor, Biological Sciences Department, University of Cape Town

In biology and palaeontology (the study of extinct organisms) there are a few ways to estimate the age of an animal’s skeleton. One is the extent of fusion of sutures in the skeleton – how much the plates of bone have joined together as the animal matured. Another is the texture of the bone surfaces. Then there are growth marks recorded in the microscopic structure of bone.

Many modern animals grow in periodic spurts (fast at times, slowly at other times). It’s generally thought that they grow fast in the good seasons when the environment is better for them in terms of food, temperature and water. They are thought to grow more slowly during unfavourable seasons, when the growth marks form in their bones, rather like the rings formed in trees. By counting the number of growth marks inside the bone tissues, scientists estimate the age of the animal. This method is called skeletochronology.

Over the years there have been a few studies that have determined when the different growth cycles formed, and have proposed the utility of skeletochronology for age determination.

The application of skeletochronology has been particularly important in working out the age of extinct reptiles like dinosaurs. It’s also been used as the basis for constructing graphs showing how the animal grew over time and comparing the rate of growth of different dinosaurs. This is very useful when trying to assess how extinct animals (like dinosaurs) grew up, and in some cases reached gigantic proportions.

Our work in our palaeobiology laboratory at the University of Cape Town has shown that juvenile (wild and captive) caimans, American reptiles related to crocodiles and alligators, under one year of age showed growth marks in their bones. This was unexpected because the animals were too young to show annual periods of quick and slow growth.

This study by our team suggested there was a need for a more cautious approach to estimating the age of skeletons. This caution was reinforced by similar findings in our later work on Nile crocodiles.

More growth marks than expected

Our work on the Nile crocodiles began as an investigation into their growth dynamics. On three occasions we administered antibiotics to two-year-old crocodiles at the Le Bonheur Reptiles and Adventures farm, about 60km from Cape Town in South Africa. These antibiotics became incorporated into the bones of the growing crocodiles.

Later, when the crocodiles died, we skeletonised the carcasses and prepared thin sections of their bones which we examined under the microscope. The antibiotic markers allowed us to deduce how much bone growth had occurred in specific time periods.

Much to our surprise, we found that aside from a slowdown in growth during the unfavourable (winter) season, extra growth marks formed during the favourable (summer) season when fast growth was expected. These extra growth marks tell us that the crocodile responded to some environmental factors (perhaps temperature, rainfall, or competition) by slowing down their growth and forming a growth ring.

We found that the two-year-old crocodiles had as many as five or six growth cycles in their bones. We would have expected only one per year. This meant that if we applied skeletochronology, we would have overestimated the age of the crocodiles. Until now, most of the time when skeletochronology was applied, the concern has been about under-estimating the age of the animal (because growth marks are sometimes removed during normal growth processes).

Questions about method of establishing bone age

Our study of these living relatives of dinosaurs raises questions regarding the accuracy of using skeletochronology for estimating the age of dinosaurs. We know the four crocodiles were raised on a crocodile farm, which perhaps does not ideally reflect their a natural environment. But we are also aware that on the farm, they would have had optimal conditions for growth – and yet, under these ideal circumstances, they formed extra marks.

Currently investigations into dinosaur skeletochronology are plagued by several issues such as the presence of multiple closely spaced growth marks that are difficult to separate out, as well as some growth marks that cannot be followed around the whole circumference of the cross section of the bone. Added to this, we suggest that since living relatives of dinosaurs (birds and crocodiles) can form extra growth marks, some of the growth marks in dinosaur bones could well be “extra” and therefore unrelated to their age.

More research is clearly needed to investigate this matter. An obvious first step is to undertake a similar study of crocodiles and alligators in the wild – a feat easier said than done.

– Crocodiles can have extra growth cycles in a year – why this matters for estimating the age of dinosaurs
– https://theconversation.com/crocodiles-can-have-extra-growth-cycles-in-a-year-why-this-matters-for-estimating-the-age-of-dinosaurs-276077

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Atta Addo, Senior Lecturer in Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Surrey

On a humid afternoon in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, a young trader in electronics pulls out his phone and opens Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform by trading volume. He’s not monitoring the Bitcoin market or chasing the next crypto craze. He’s paying a supplier in the Chinese port city of Guangzhou for 500 smartphones.

Like numerous other traders at the Lagos Computer Village, he has a Binance digital wallet to store, send and receive cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar (USDT). Within minutes, his payment lands in China. His supplier confirms. The phones will ship tomorrow.

Five years ago, this transaction would have been nearly impossible. The Lagos phone buyer would have had to queue at the nearby commercial bank; fill out forms for foreign exchange; and wait as long as 7-21 days for clearance. On top of that, there was no guarantee of foreign exchange approval being granted. The other alternative was turning to the black markets, which attract exorbitant rates.

Now? Welcome to Nigeria’s quiet cryptocurrency revolution. He taps his screen a few times. Done.

Developing countries are recording high cryptocurrency adoption rates surpassing more advanced economies. Nigeria stands out, with one of the highest rates of crypto adoption globally. But the reasons aren’t clear.

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Read more: Crypto countries: Nigeria and El Salvador’s opposing journeys into digital currencies – podcast

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The focus of my scholarly research is digital innovation and entrepreneurship. My co-researcher and I sought to examine cryptocurrency adoption and diffusion and its use for cross-border payments in the Nigerian context. We took a case study approach. Data collection involved two rounds of interviews with retailers from Nigeria, suppliers from China, informal exchangers, crypto brokers, and mediators.

One might think cryptocurrency’s appeal lies in its technology: decentralisation, the fact that it cannot be altered once recorded, all that. But our research found something else. Crypto works in Nigeria because of human networks of trust.

We have evidence to suggest that crypto adoption and diffusion in this context occurs through:

• a reinforcing process of technology transformation, adoption and use

• a strong coalition of the interests of diverse actors

• a dynamic relationship between the technical elements of crypto and contextual political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental influences.

Insights from the study might be useful for addressing adoption challenges and designing inclusive financial systems in similar contexts.

Meet the crypto brokers

Located in the capital of Lagos State, south-western Nigeria, the Computer Village hosts over 5,000 informal micro, small and medium enterprises. It is billed as Africa’s largest market for information and communication technology accessories. This was the focal point of our case study.

We interviewed retailers importing from China, the crypto brokers who help them, Chinese suppliers, and the network of intermediaries who make it all work. What emerged was a sophisticated parallel financial system processing millions monthly, built entirely outside traditional banking. Between July 2023 and June 2024, Nigeria is estimated to have processed US$59 billion in crypto transaction value, up to 85% of it from retail trade.

Here’s how it works in three quick steps lasting less than an hour:

• A crypto broker sits in a small office near the market. Retailers call in with the local currency, naira.

• The naira is converted into USDT using peer-to-peer exchanges; the stablecoin is sent to contacts in China.

• These Chinese traders convert USDT to yuan and pay the supplier directly.

One broker told us:

Retailers don’t need to understand blockchain. That’s my job. They just know their supplier gets paid fast, and they save money.

Crypto brokers charge lower fees than banks or Western Union. But speed matters even more than cost. In Nigeria’s volatile economy, prices can shift overnight. A delayed payment might mean your supplier raises prices or your goods arrive after competitors have restocked. Crypto eliminates that risk.

These brokers didn’t emerge from fintech accelerators or venture capital. Many were young tech-savvy relatives of traders who saw a problem and built a solution. They positioned themselves as indispensable – the only way to get past Nigeria’s restricted financial system and and do global trade.

Brokers guarantee payments personally. If something goes wrong, they cover losses from their own pockets to maintain reputation. One broker told us he absorbed a ₦2 million loss (about US$2,500) when a Chinese intermediary disappeared with funds. Retailers recommend brokers to fellow traders in the tight-knit market community. Chinese crypto traders work only with verified contacts, often through elaborate referral systems.

Cryptocurrency here doesn’t replace human relationships. It’s technology that enables and extends existing trust networks, letting them operate at global scale.

The infrastructure of resilience

The system relies on more than just brokers and goodwill. Stablecoins like USDT solve volatility. Mobile wallets work on basic smartphones. QR codes enable transactions even when internet is patchy. Peer-to-peer exchanges bypass bank restrictions legally. Nigeria’s central bank had banned banks from crypto transactions since 2021 but reversed its decision in 2023, citing global regulatory trends.

When suppliers in China initially refused to accept cryptocurrency, brokers enrolled Chinese crypto traders as intermediaries. These traders buy USDT from Nigerian brokers (often at slight discounts, giving them profit), convert it to yuan, and pay suppliers through conventional Chinese banking. The supplier never touches crypto. They just receive payment.

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Read more: Why do identical informal businesses set up side by side? It’s a survival tactic – Kenya study

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This is innovation through adaptation. It is not building a perfect system from scratch, but cobbling together solutions from available pieces until something works.

Computer Village itself plays a role. Concentrated markets create information flow. Success stories spread fast. A trader mentions his broker completed a payment in 20 minutes, and suddenly five more retailers want introductions. Physical proximity accelerates network growth in ways digital advertising never could.

What happens when the state pushes back

In 2021, Nigeria’s central bank ordered commercial banks to close accounts dealing with cryptocurrency. The government worried about speculation, money laundering and capital flight. This sounded the death knell for crypto in Nigeria.

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Read more: Digital trade protocol for Africa: why it matters, what’s in it and what’s still missing

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Instead, the network adapted. Brokers shifted to peer-to-peer platforms. Over-the-counter exchangers (informal traders who swap crypto for cash) expanded operations. Transaction volumes continued to grow.

What this means for Africa and beyond

Nigeria isn’t alone. Similar patterns appear across developing economies – Kenya, Ghana, Vietnam, India. Wherever formal financial systems strain under inflation, currency controls or institutional weakness, cryptocurrency fills gaps.

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Read more: Stablecoins are gaining ground as digital currency in Africa: how to avoid risks

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This isn’t speculation. Traders are using stablecoins as dollar-equivalent tokens that move faster and cheaper than wire transfers.

It’s also not “banking the unbanked” in the usual sense. Many of these traders have bank accounts. Banks just can’t provide what they need: rapid, affordable, reliable cross-border payments.

For policymakers, the lesson should be humbling. You can’t ban away an innovation that solves real problems. When formal institutions fail to serve economic needs, informal systems emerge. The question is whether governments will learn from these systems or simply fight them.

Mayowa Joy David contributed to the research on which this article is based.

– Nigeria’s crypto boom isn’t just about technology – trust plays a role in the local gadget trade with China
– https://theconversation.com/nigerias-crypto-boom-isnt-just-about-technology-trust-plays-a-role-in-the-local-gadget-trade-with-china-268319

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Vincent Tawiah, Assistant Professor in International Financial Reporting, Dublin City University

China’s economic footprint in Africa has grown fast over the last two decades. Across the continent, Chinese-backed mines, oilfields, railways and industrial zones have gone from being ambitious projects to central pillars of national development plans.

This has been made possible by over US$181 billion in infrastructure loans and about US$50 billion in foreign direct investment.

The China-Africa relationship is often portrayed as one of two things: either a threat to sovereignty or a development opportunity.

But the findings in a recent paper suggest it’s not so simple. Foreign investment becomes harmful only when domestic institutions allow it to be. Some forms of foreign engagement – such as natural resources for loans – may add to environmental pressures. But some strategic investment can support greener development. This is particularly true in infrastructure and productive sectors.

Based on these findings, and my work on economic, governance and environmental implications of Chinese investment and trade in Africa, it’s clear that Chinese engagement offers substantial economic opportunities. But it can also lead to the rapid depletion of vital energy and forest resources, undermining long-term development goals, if institutional “guardrails” are weak.

The results suggest that policymakers must insist on institutional reforms and environmental accountability if they want to achieve sustainable economic growth. Foreign economic activities must contribute to lasting national wealth rather than short-term extraction.

Beyond sustainability

The research looked at how Chinese foreign direct investment and trade influenced resource depletion across 28 African nations from 1998 to 2022.

It found that Chinese foreign direct investment accelerated depletion. This was notable in the energy and forestry sectors of countries with weak institutions.

Investment tended to push extraction beyond sustainable levels when:

• environmental standards are unclear

• enforcement bodies are underfunded

• governance is compromised.

Forests shrank faster, mineral reserves were exploited aggressively and energy resources were depleted with little long-term planning.

The same study also noted that these risks were lower where governance is robust.

It found that foreign investment did not automatically lead to greater resource depletion were countries had stronger institutions, clear regulatory frameworks and credible oversight.

Botswana and Mauritius are examples.

Botswana has successfully averted the “resource curse” – when resource wealth leads to economic stagnation and corruption. It has done this by anchoring its economy in a robust rule of law and transparent institutional oversight. Central to this strategy is the Pula Fund, a sovereign wealth fund established in 1993.

The fund manages the long-term proceeds from the diamond industry by reinvesting them into foreign currency assets. This ensures that non-renewable mineral wealth is converted into sustainable financial capital for future generations.

Similarly, Mauritius uses regulations to ensure industrial investment does not harm the environment.

When oversight was credible, investment was channelled into sustainable, inclusive growth. This preserves national wealth for future generations.

But where governance was weak, the same investment could result in environmental degradation.

The Democratic Republic of Congo illustrated this. It has the world’s largest cobalt reserves. But weak government and persistent conflict have made it difficult to enforce mining codes. Artisanal and industrial mining practices cause severe water pollution and deforestation.

Similarly, Equatorial Guinea has an economy almost entirely dependent on oil. Producing more oil is seen as more important than meeting environmental standards. Transparency and accountability are poor.

The findings suggest that the environmental impact of Chinese involvement is not fixed. It hinges on whether African states have the institutional capacity to manage extraction responsibly.

Trade matters too, but governance still determines outcomes

Over the last two decades, China-Africa trade has rocketed. It shot up from US$10 billion in 2000 to $348 billion in 2025.

China exports high-value manufactured goods like electronics and solar panels. African exports mainly raw materials.

South Africa, the DRC, Nigeria and Angola together account for nearly half of the continent’s total trade volume with China.

The research found that trade with China played a more mixed role than investment.

On its own, trade didn’t appear to cause widespread environmental degradation. But in countries with weak governance, soaring trade demand often reinforced unsustainable practices. The energy sector was a case in point.

Without the referees of strong institutions, the pressure to meet export quotas encouraged intensified, unregulated extraction.

South Sudan and Nigeria illustrate this well. Conflict or corruption compromised oversight. Massive demand for crude oil led to bypassed environmental audits and severe localised pollution.

This creates a resource trap. Angola, for example, values immediate trade revenue over long-term ecological health. This leaves local communities to bear the cost of degraded landscapes and contaminated water.

What African governments can do

Across all forms of economic engagement, one factor shaped the outcome: governance quality.

The findings point towards what’s needed.

Firstly, stronger environmental regulation and enforcement.

Secondly, clear standards, independent oversight bodies and well-resourced regulatory agencies.

Thirdly, environmental safeguards in investment agreements. As part of project approvals, governments can require:

• environmental restoration plans

• transparent reporting of environmental impacts

• community consultation.

Fourth, long-term resource management. Natural resources underpin energy security, biodiversity and future economic growth.

Fifth, transparency and public accountability. Open contracting, environmental disclosures and accessible data empower citizens and civil society to hold governments and investors to account.

Africa’s natural resources will become even more strategically valuable as global demand for minerals, energy and agricultural land continues to rise. Ensuring that this benefits African societies, rather than eroding their ecological foundations, will depend on one central factor: the strength of governance across the continent.

– China in Africa: investment and trade work well when there’s strong oversight, and badly when there isn’t
– https://theconversation.com/china-in-africa-investment-and-trade-work-well-when-theres-strong-oversight-and-badly-when-there-isnt-273815

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Laura Derksen, senior researcher at the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research, University of Oslo

In the global fight against HIV/Aids, one of the most exciting innovations is not a new drug, but a better filing system.

This is what we’re seeing in Malawi, one of the most HIV-affected countries in the world. About 7% of the population there live with the virus.

The country is one of the few meeting the United Nations 95-95-95 targets (95% of people living with HIV are diagnosed, 95% of those diagnosed are treated, and 95% of those on treatment have a viral load below 200 copies per millilitre). Sustaining this progress is a massive challenge in large clinics, and requires not only medical staff and supplies but efficient management of patient data.

Effective HIV treatment requires lifelong consistency. Patients must visit clinics every few months to refill prescriptions for antiretroviral therapy, a combination of drugs that prolongs life and prevents HIV transmission. In high-volume, under-resourced clinics, tracking who has missed an appointment is difficult.

As a team of management and global health economists, we wanted to know whether better data management could help explain Malawi’s success. Our recent research used an event study to analyse a gradual rollout of an electronic medical record system, to replace paper-based records, in 106 Malawian HIV clinics between 2007 and 2019. Event study analysis, which involves comparing outcomes before and after a policy change while accounting for clinic and year fixed effects, is a method for causal inference widely used by health economists.

At the time of electronic records adoption, roughly half of patients had stopped coming for treatment. The switch to electronic medical records allowed clinics to track patients more efficiently and support return to care among lapsed patients. Five years after the system was adopted, the annual number of patients who died was estimated to have fallen by 28%.

As with any study, there are important caveats to keep in mind. The findings are based on 106 clinics in Malawi, and while HIV clinics face common challenges across sub-Saharan Africa, results may not translate directly. The study also relies on administrative data, which means patient deaths could be slightly under-counted, and some patients who lapsed from care and returned under new identifiers may not have been accurately identified. Finally, it is not possible to directly observe whether clinic staff used the system to trace lapsed patients; instead, we infer this mechanism from the increase in the total number of patients actively returning to care after electronic records were introduced.

Paper records in a digital age

HIV care in Malawi is managed by the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with local and international organisations. HIV patient clinics are typically situated within larger hospitals or health centres. The 106 clinics in the study were responsible for treating 358,843 active patients as of 2018.

Under the traditional paper-based system, identifying a patient who missed a crucial appointment meant that staff had to manually sift through thousands of physical files. In an understaffed clinic, this often simply did not happen.

To address this, the Ministry of Health collaborated with Baobab Health Trust, a local NGO, to develop and implement a new electronic medical record system. The system involves touchscreen workstations designed for durability and ease of use. Because the system was designed to be user-friendly, it did not require hiring new, specialised personnel. Existing clinic staff were trained to operate the system in sessions as short as half a day.

How the system saves lives

The electronic system did not change the medication patients received, nor did it increase the number of doctors. Instead, it improved managerial efficiency. The system automatically generates a list of patients who have missed their appointments by a specific margin. This allows clinic staff to quickly identify who needs help and use their limited time to trace these patients. They could then call them or visit their homes to encourage them to return to care. According to the clinic staff we interviewed, patients often view this outreach as a form of social support and a sign that the clinic cares about their well-being.

The effects were immediate. In clinics equipped with electronic medical records, the probability of a patient being lapsed from care dropped significantly. In the year following its adoption, clinics saw a 17% increase in the number of patients actively in care.

The benefits were most profound for the most vulnerable patients: children. Children under the age of 10 are uniquely dependent on caregivers and are at the highest risk of dropping out of treatment. Before the electronic medical records were introduced, 57% of children had lapsed from care.

These lapses result in many child deaths, as HIV/Aids is fatal without treatment. Within five years of the adoption of electronic medical records, the number of children in this age group dying fell by 44%. The electronic system acts as a safety net, ensuring that when a child misses a visit, the clinic notices and acts before it is too late.

A cost-effective solution

The electronic medical system played an important role in Malawi’s success in the fight against HIV/Aids. By 2019, the rollout of this system across the 106 clinics in our study had prevented an estimated 5,050 deaths. The system helped clinics identify patients who had stopped receiving lifesaving care and encourage them to return.

The total cost for an average clinic to adopt the system, including hardware, installation and training, was approximately US$34,050. This was funded by the government with support from international donors.

Based on the number of deaths prevented within the first five years, we estimate the cost to be US$448 per life saved.

To put this in perspective, some of the world’s most highly rated charitable life-saving programmes are estimated to cost around US$4,500 per life saved. In the US, implementing electronic medical records to monitor the health of newborn babies costs roughly $531,000 per life saved.

The future of digital health in Africa

While the study focused on the transition from paper to electronic records up to 2019, the system has continued to evolve and scale. The 106 study facilities represent only a fraction of the more than 700 HIV clinics in Malawi. Scaling and sustaining this system across the remaining facilities represents a challenge and opportunity.

Our findings prove that digital health tools are not a luxury, and should not be reserved for rich countries. In low-resource settings, where staff are overburdened and patient volumes are high, managerial technologies like electronic medical records are a frontline, life-saving intervention. They allow health workers to shift their focus away from managing thousands of paper files and towards addressing patient needs.

As international aid dwindles, these kinds of efficiency gains will be key to delivering lifesaving care and maintaining progress in the fight against HIV/Aids.

– HIV in Malawi: digital filing system saved lives and boosted care – research
– https://theconversation.com/hiv-in-malawi-digital-filing-system-saved-lives-and-boosted-care-research-274646