Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Vhothusa Edward Matahela, Associate Professor: Health Sciences Education, University of South Africa

Young people in rural Limpopo, the South African province bordering Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, face high risks of HIV, unplanned pregnancy, and other societal challenges.

One reason is that they aren’t always getting sexuality education that connects with their lived realities. Schools provide lessons on reproduction, HIV prevention and relationships. But too often, what’s taught in class doesn’t match what learners are experiencing outside, leading to unsafe sexual practices.

We are part of the University of South Africa community engagement project focusing on HIV prevention among learners in Limpopo province. To understand the gaps, we ran a three-day workshop with 19 teachers (16 of them women) from rural schools near Musina. This border town is on a busy trade route, where high mobility, transactional sex and the risk of trafficking shape the everyday lives of learners.

Our goal was to hear directly from teachers about how they navigate sexuality education and to explore ways to make it more effective.

Talking about sex at school

The 19 teachers came from eight public primary and secondary schools. They all taught the Life Orientation curriculum, a mandatory subject in South African schools, which covers life skills, sexuality education and HIV prevention for learners from grades 4 to 12 (ages 9 to 18). It covers topics such as health and well-being, including sexuality education. Teachers are expected to deliver these lessons in an age-appropriate, participatory way.

Teachers told us they often struggle with this part of the curriculum. Talking about sex in the classroom is not straightforward. Some learners giggle, others stay silent, and some challenge the teacher’s authority. Teachers admitted that their own discomfort, shaped by cultural and religious beliefs, sometimes made it even harder to engage openly.

What the teachers said

During the workshop, teachers spoke candidly about the barriers they face.

• Cultural and religious taboos: Many communities expect adults, especially women, not to discuss sex openly. Teachers worried about being judged by parents or community leaders if they spoke too frankly with learners. They are held back by cultural taboos, personal discomfort, and local realities – like families depending on relationships between girls and older men.

Traditional beliefs and stigma surrounding HIV in Limpopo make it hard for teachers, parents, and learners to talk openly about prevention. Educators teaching Life Orientation are sometimes referred to as thitshere wa u funza zwavhudzimu – “the teacher who teaches forbidden topics”. This silence allows myths and misunderstandings to persist.

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Read more: Let’s talk about sex education: race and shame in South Africa

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• Limited training and resource constraints: Teachers said they had not received sufficient preparation for teaching sexuality education. Some relied only on textbooks, which they felt did not address the realities learners face, such as early sexual debut, peer pressure, or access to social media.

Teachers often feel alone. Some said they had not received enough training or materials to teach about HIV, sexual health, or sensitive issues. Sexuality is still seen as a private matter in this cultural context.

When we were brought up, it was taboo to talk about sexuality with kids. Some parents think we’re teaching forbidden things.

Some teachers have over 60 learners in a class, making it hard to give everyone attention. And, with learners speaking different languages, some important messages get lost.

Videos, posters and teaching aids are rare. Teachers have to rely mostly on talking, which does not always work for difficult topics such as sexuality.

Despite these challenges, teachers also shared how they try to adapt. Some use storytelling, role play, or small group discussions to make learners more comfortable. Others bring in health professionals to talk about sensitive topics. These approaches, despite the challenges, can make lessons more engaging while respecting local norms and working with limited resources.

What teachers can do differently

During our workshops, teachers discussed what they believed would be effective ways to deliver culturally relevant sexuality education in rural schools.

1.) Small group discussions: Teachers felt that learners are more comfortable sharing in small groups.

Learners open up more and learn from each other.

2.) Drama and role play: They suggested that acting out real-life situations, such as handling peer pressure or supporting a friend with HIV, could make lessons more real and memorable.

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Read more: We used performing arts to map out gender violence in Sierra Leone. What we found

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3.) Using videos: Short, simple videos made by the experts about HIV and relationships would help explain tough topics.

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Read more: Social media for sex education: South African teens explain how it would help them

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4.) Demonstrations: They saw value in showing, not just telling, how to use condoms (male and female), for example, to build practical skills.

5.) Storytelling and case studies: Teachers believed that sharing stories, whether true or made up, would help learners connect lessons to their own lives.

Children remember stories better. They see themselves or their families in them.

6.) Peer teaching and games: They recommended letting learners or other teachers lead parts of the lesson, and using local games and songs to keep things fun and engaging.

These suggestions by the teachers match approaches used in successful sexuality education programmes in South Africa and beyond.

Overall, the teachers’ ideas reflect proven strategies from other successful programmes and could be highly effective if adapted for rural Limpopo.

What teachers need

The Department of Basic Education reports that Life Orientation teachers receive sexuality education content during initial teacher training. The department has also developed scripted lesson plans to improve teacher confidence and curriculum consistency. In-service training is offered sporadically through workshops linked to the Life Skills and HIV/AIDS Education Programme, but these sessions are not consistently available across all provinces, creating gaps in teacher preparedness.

Studies highlight that many Life Orientation teachers still feel under-prepared, especially when dealing with learners’ trauma or sexual violence. Many teachers rely on self-study, peer networks, and NGO-supported programmes to strengthen their skills in sexuality education.

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Read more: Why sexuality education in schools needs a major overhaul

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The teachers we spoke to wanted to know more about HIV, sexual health and new treatments. They needed to know how to support children who might not fit traditional gender roles. They asked for training in how to counsel and support learners facing problems. And they called for support from other teachers, principals, and the community.

Workshops like ours can help teachers build confidence, share strategies, and support each other. The teachers told us they valued the space to reflect on their own beliefs and to practise new approaches.

What’s clear is that teachers cannot carry the burden alone. Training programmes must equip them with practical tools, not just theory. Parents, community leaders and health workers need to be engaged too, so that sexuality education is reinforced beyond the classroom.

We’ll also be tracking how these methods affect learners’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour over time.

– Talking about sex isn’t always easy for teachers in South Africa. Here’s what they told us
– https://theconversation.com/talking-about-sex-isnt-always-easy-for-teachers-in-south-africa-heres-what-they-told-us-260462

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Kenny Chiwarawara, Senior Lecturer, University of Johannesburg

Post-apartheid South Africa is characterised by frequent public protests. On average, between 2007 and 2013, there were over 11 protests daily. Research shows that protests almost doubled in the 20 years after 1997.

Service delivery protests – over basic services such as housing, electricity, refuse removal, water and sanitation – feature most prominently in these protests.

These protesters employ diverse tactics at different times: marching to government offices, barricading roads, destroying property and attacking unpopular individuals.

Often people ask why protesters resort to destroying public and private property and attacking people.

I have researched poor people’s struggles for housing and basic services in South Africa since 2012.

This article draws from a study involving 20 in-depth interviews and two focus group discussions in Gugulethu and the same number in Khayelitsha. These are low-income black townships in Cape Town.

The study investigated three inter-related questions: the reasons for protests, the tactics used by protesters, and the character and organisation of the protests. This article focuses on when, how and why different tactics are used in these protests.

It may be easy to blame protesters for barricading roads, vandalising property and attacking people. However, as my study shows, protesters often initially engage in peaceful and orderly marches. They resort to more radical tactics only when peaceful tactics fail to yield results.

Rather than placing the blame squarely on protesters, there is a need to consider the seriousness of their grievances (such as lack of water), and the failure by the authorities to respond speedily and adequately. Genuinely acknowledging and addressing the grievances discourages more militant protest tactics.

Findings

There is often a perception that communities have an appetite to engage in violent protests. But my research shows that this is not the case.

Aggrieved communities often engage in protests to push for the delivery of basic services.

Usually, poor communities first engage in rounds of orderly and peaceful means of engagement with government officials to alert them to their grievances.

These means of engagement – which are less reported by the media – include holding meetings with the officials responsible for addressing their challenges, and handing them written demands.

When all these means of engagement fail to yield fruit, communities resort to more dramatic means of engagement. These include barricading roads to pressure the government to meet their demands. Even when they turn to dramatic tactics, they first exhaust less dramatic ones.

As the scholar-activist Trevor Ngwane has rightly remarked,

When people start hitting the streets, they should have a banner saying: ‘All protocols observed’, because they’ve gone through all the channels … People feel that the only way to be heard, to get attention, is to burn tyres and engage in some of protest.

My research in Gugulethu and Khayelitsha found that a lack of response, or a poor or unsatisfactory response, led to more radical tactics.

For example, a pastor I interviewed explained the rationale for more radical protest tactics with a compelling metaphor. He explained that pain was necessary in order for someone to take action. He gave an example of a person with a sore arm, but who did nothing to address the source of the pain. He reasoned that if someone else pinched the sore arm, this would compel the patient to take necessary steps to ensure that the arm was healed.

In the same way, he explained that the government knew about the “sore arms”, or poor conditions that impoverished communities endured, but chose to ignore them.

To pressure the government to address their grievances, communities sometimes employ radical protest tactics (pinching). For communities enduring appalling service delivery, the momentary inconveniences ensuing from the “pinching” pale in comparison to the ignored service delivery challenges (sore arms).

My research, for example, highlights the precariousness of living in shacks, lacking a bathroom, toilet, running water and electricity.

It is these challenges that residents episodically protest against using primarily orderly means of engagement and sometimes more radical protest tactics to pressure (or pinch) the government to address the challenges.

What should be done?

Tactics such as the destruction of property and attacks on people that sometimes accompany protests should be discouraged. At the same time, it is important to condemn the circumstances that necessitate such radical tactics.

A more responsive government would try to make it unnecessary for people to turn to militant protests to air their grievances. The government should proactively address service delivery challenges and swiftly respond to the complaints raised by communities.

– South Africa’s service delivery crisis: why protesters are using more militant tactics
– https://theconversation.com/south-africas-service-delivery-crisis-why-protesters-are-using-more-militant-tactics-241045

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Danny Bradlow, Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria

African sovereign debtors in distress face terrible choices. They are often forced to choose between fully paying their creditors and financing the needs of their populations – health, education, renewable energy, water. Discussions with their creditors focus on financial, economic and contractual issues. The environmental and social impacts of their situation are largely excluded from negotiations.

Thanks to the initiative of some Vanuatan law students, this may be about to change.

Vanuatu is a country consisting of small islands in the south Pacific. It has been ranked as one of the countries most affected by climate change, facing threats of rising sea levels and storm surges.

In 2019, a law professor in Vanuatu, Justin Rose, asked his students to propose ways to deal with the climate threat confronting their country.

They suggested that Vanuatu ask the United Nations general assembly to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the international legal obligations of states regarding climate change. They convinced their government to adopt their proposal. They also mobilised international support, saying they wanted to take the world’s biggest problem to the world’s highest court.

In 2023, the UN general assembly agreed to seek the International Court of Justice’s advice on the following two issues:

• the obligations of states under international law to protect the environment from the impact of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions

• the legal consequences for states if they fail to meet these obligations and thereby cause significant environmental harm for present and future generations.

The case attracted unprecedented attention. The court received over 150 written submissions. Over 100 states and international organisations made oral presentations in nine days of public hearings. On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice issued a unanimous advisory opinion. It was only the fifth time in its nearly 80-year history to do so.

The court’s opinion was that the obligations of states extend beyond the treaties they have signed and ratified. They also include obligations arising from customary international law. This is the law that states practise out of a sense of legal obligation. It is binding on all states and international organisations, regardless of whether they have signed any applicable treaty.

The rules that matter

The court declared that there are two relevant customary international legal obligations.

The first is a duty to prevent significant harm to the environment. This requires states to exercise due diligence before acting in ways that could cause environmental damage. They must assess both the probability of causing serious harm and the likely extent of any expected impacts.

In making these assessments, states must take into account current binding and non-binding international standards. It also requires states to ensure that companies and individuals subject to their jurisdiction comply with these duties.

The second is a duty to cooperate with other states to protect the environment and to help solve international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian nature. Here, the court opined that a healthy environment is a pre-condition for the enjoyment of human rights. It affects the rights to life, health and livelihoods, and the rights of children, women and indigenous people.

The court, in discussing the second issue, advised that states can be held legally responsible if they do not take all measures within their power to prevent significant environmental harm. It noted that while all states have this duty, its precise contents will vary depending on their capabilities. The critical factor is the effort the states make and not the results they produce.

The debt angle

Although the court’s opinion is only advisory, it is likely to be highly influential. It was informed by a wide range of submissions. It was a unanimous decision of 15 judges who come from 15 countries.

The fact that the court grounded its decision, in part, on customary international environmental and human rights grounds means that it has implications for any state actions that can have significant adverse impacts on climate, the environment and customary human rights.

My work as an international lawyer working on sovereign debt and development finance convinces me that this includes the renegotiation or restructuring of African debt.

Whatever action African sovereign debtors take to deal with their debt crisis will affect their ability to manage their greenhouse gas emissions. It will also affect their ability to deliver on their obligations to their citizens’ rights. These include the rights to life, health and livelihoods.

This suggests that African sovereign debtors and their creditors need to understand the environmental and climate impacts of their transactions.

They must also work together to resolve their transactions’ negative environmental, social, economic and cultural impacts. Their respective responsibilities will differ depending on their capabilities.

The International Court of Justice opinion may therefore offer new opportunities to make debtor and creditor states, and creditor institutions, accept responsibility for the environmental and social impacts of their actions.

Three possible avenues for relief

There could be at least three ways to relate the climate opinion to debt.

First, the debtor and its stakeholders can use the decision to bolster their arguments for including the environmental and social impacts of debt in their negotiations. They can point out that the debtor state cannot avoid international legal responsibility for the effects of the transaction on its greenhouse gas emissions and on the human rights of its citizens.

They can also point out that its creditors and their home states also have a legal obligation to assess these impacts and cooperate in managing them.

Second, the stakeholders can remind both the sovereign debtor and its creditors about the content of their international legal responsibilities. There are international norms and standards that can help establish that content.

Some of them are:

In addition, there are many private financial institutions that have human rights and environmental and social policies that often specifically refer to these international standards.

Third, drawing inspiration from the Vanuatu law students, activists around the world can use the judgment to strengthen their arguments. They can say that creditor and debtor states have an international legal duty to prevent significant harm to the environment and to cooperate to protect the environment. This duty extends to ensuring that companies and individuals subject to their jurisdiction act in conformity with these duties. They can be held legally responsible for failing to comply with these duties.

Finally, there are international mechanisms that non-state actors can use to hold debtors and creditors accountable for failing to perform their duties. These include the National Contact Points. These exist in each state that has signed on to the OECD Principles of Responsible Conduct for Multinational Enterprises. Another possibility is the independent accountability mechanisms in the multilateral development banks.

There are also the courts in the growing number of states in which governments, central banks and private actors have been sued for violating their obligations to climate change.

States and financial institutions, of course, can avoid these consequences by respecting the court’s opinion and developing ways of managing African sovereign debt that comply with its international legal advice.

– African debt and climate change: how the ICJ’s Vanuatu ruling could be used for broader justice
– https://theconversation.com/african-debt-and-climate-change-how-the-icjs-vanuatu-ruling-could-be-used-for-broader-justice-263859

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Astrid R.N. Haas, Research associate at African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town

For decades, the dominant theories and models in urban studies have been built from the experience of a small set of mostly western cities. Other urban contexts, particularly those in Africa, Latin America and Asia, have too often been treated as peripheral, as if they simply copy or lag behind “northern” norms.

Urban geographer Jennifer Robinson has called this out, arguing that urban theory needs to take seriously the diverse realities of all cities. This means starting from places like Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial capital, and São Paulo, Brazil’s financial capital, not just as isolated case studies, but rather as central sites for understanding dynamic urban processes. The majority of urbanisation in the coming decade will take place in contexts just like these.

I came to Urban Power, a book written by professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University Benjamin Bradlow last year, with this framing in mind.

Bradlow’s focus is on three essential urban public goods in São Paulo, population 22 million people, and Johannesburg, population 6.5 million people: housing, transport and sanitation.

His central question is: why are some cities more effective than others at reducing inequalities in the built environment?

The answer lies in what Bradlow calls urban power.

What is ‘urban power’?

Bradlow defines urban power as the way formal and informal relationships come together in a city that influences how that city is governed and ultimately how the public services and infrastructures are distributed across the urban space. Two elements determine how well this functions in any given city context.

First, embeddedness – the ties between city government and social movements in civil society. Second is cohesion. This is the abiltiy of city governments to coordinate across their own departments and agencies.

Bradlow argues that effective urban power is built when both embeddedness and cohesion are strong, as these determine how well policy is informed by and accountable to those most affected.

Thus struggles to build and exercise such power form a core foundation of urban governance. This ultimately shapes both the distribution of urban public goods and how effectively they reach the most marginalised.

Basically, it’s about how those in power are willing and able to coordinate with society and within government to meet everybody’s needs fairly.

Housing: different paths

As São Paulo (1980s) and Johannesburg (1990s) entered their democratic eras, both were led by mayors who explicitly committed to redistributing wealth by extending adequate housing to the most excluded neighbourhoods.

Yet, housing is also the sector in which Bradlow finds some of the starkest contrasts in outcomes between the two cities.

During South Africa’s democratic transition, the rallying cry of “one city, one tax base” brought together neighbourhood associations, social movements and local branches of trade unions. To overcome the fiscal fragmentation left by apartheid, wealthy and largely white areas of the city were to contribute property taxes to a central fiscal administration. This central body would then cross-subsidise precisely the new capital investments in poor black townships.

But in the years that followed, the governing African National Congress (ANC) party demobilised social movements in favour of a centralised one-party system.

The effects of this were evident in Johannesburg. Weakened ties between the city government and civil society (embeddedness) led to the municipal bureaucracy becoming increasingly detached from housing movements. As a result, it was poorly positioned to challenge the dominance of private real-estate interests.

In São Paulo, the municipal bureaucracy maintained close ties with housing movements. It used this embeddedness to build cohesion within its own ranks. This enabled the city to make use of national mandates to challenge the power of real-estate interests and introduce innovations that expanded social housing.

Central to this effort was the 2001 City Statute. This piece of legislation enshrined the “social function of property,” a constitutional right, at the city level. The legal framework unlocked tools such as the Special Zones of Social Interest (ZEIS), which reserved well-located land for social housing.

Crucially, São Paulo became one of the first major Brazilian cities to adopt a master plan that explicitly advanced the redistributive goals of housing movements.

São Paulo’s housing story is far from perfect. And the city still struggles to meet the demand for affordable housing. Nevertheless, it has made important strides.

Transport: institutions or technology first?

Bradlow illustrates how São Paulo pursued an “institutions first” approach towards transport. For years, social movements had pressed for lower fares and better services to the city’s peripheries. Responding to these demands, the Erundina administration (1989-1992) restructured the relationship between private bus operators and the municipal concessioning authority. Fare revenue was collected by the authority itself. It then paid operators based on the quality and quantity of service provided.

This shift allowed the city to introduce reforms like the bilhete único, a single ticket valid across the entire network. It meant that shorter trips subsidised longer ones. This made access more equitable regardless of where one lived. In addition, large and small operators were integrated into a single system, revenue became more predictable, and planning could prioritise network-wide benefits.

Johannesburg, by contrast, led with a “technology first” approach. The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, Rea Vaya, emerged in the early 2000s. However, the minibus taxi operators, who were the backbone of existing transport, were largely excluded from the planning process.

The BRT’s economics were challenging from the outset, given Johannesburg’s spatial fragmentation. Operators were offered shares in newly created bus companies if they withdrew their taxis. But this arrangement relied on an untested profit model.

Institutional complexity (lack of cohesison) compounded the problem. Operational licences and recapitalisation were controlled at the provincial rather than the municipal level. Most importantly, the lack of embeddedness meant that resistance from the local operators was almost inevitable.

The comparison of the transport sector highlights a recurring theme. São Paulo’s slower, messier process fostered embeddedness. It treated redistribution through collective transport as a political project rather than a technocratic exercise. Johannesburg pursued a faster, technology-driven route that bypassed the negotiations which might have made the system more sustainable.

Sanitation: building accountability

If housing is a residential public good and transport a networked one, sanitation sits in between. It’s delivered to individual homes, but reliant on city-wide infrastructure.

Bradlow highlights how in São Paulo, the municipal government succeeded in creating downward accountability from the state-level sanitation company (cohesion). By doing so, it shifted decision-making power closer to the local level. This ensured that service priorities better reflected the city’s everyday realities rather than distant state-level agendas.

The new alignment made it possible to extend services into informal settlements without requiring formal tenure, a critical flexibility that had long been a barrier to inclusion. At the same time, it strengthened municipal planning and coordination capacity. Service delivery became more firmly embedded within the city’s own governance structures.

In Johannesburg, by contrast, weak cohesion, reflected in the lack of planning integration, meant housing projects were often implemented without corresponding sanitation infrastructure. Reforms had separated sanitation from broader spatial planning, fostering fragmented governance.

The city also adopted a model shaped by private-sector principles. Examples include self-financing, performance-based contracting, and competition. In practice, these led to service cuts in poorer areas where cost recovery was impossible.

The comparison illustrates how the same broad national reform agenda can play out very differently depending on municipal capacity and institutional alignment (cohesion).

Why the comparison matters

Cross-context comparisons reveal patterns and possibilities that single-city studies might miss. Bradlow’s book illuminates how rapid urbanisation, entrenched inequality and fiscal constraints intersect. These insights have significance far beyond these cases.

His book is a call for urban theory to start from the global south not as an afterthought, but as a foundation. As urban studies specialist Jane Jacobs observed:

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.

Bradlow’s book shows, with precision, what it takes, politically and institutionally, to make that vision real.

For anyone interested in the politics of making cities fairer, it is essential reading.

– Africa’s city planners must look to the global south for solutions: Johannesburg and São Paulo offer useful insights
– https://theconversation.com/africas-city-planners-must-look-to-the-global-south-for-solutions-johannesburg-and-sao-paulo-offer-useful-insights-263285

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Poppy Cullen, Lecturer in International History, Loughborough University

In the 1950s, Kenyans fought against colonial control in what came to be known as the Mau Mau rebellion. In response, the British government announced a state of emergency in 1952 and engaged in a brutal counter-insurgency campaign to secure control of colonial Kenya.

During the emergency, tens of thousands of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru – tribal groups predominantly from central Kenya – were detained without trial in camps. These detention camps relied on torture sanctioned by government to get detainees to renounce their nationalistic ambitions.

More than one million other Kenyans were forcibly relocated into new and controlled villages. These were frequently sites of forced labour, coercion and violence.

This was supported by the colonial policy of “rehabilitation”. The objective was to get Mau Mau adherents to “confess” their Mau Mau activities, give up their ties to the movement and receive education to become valuable colonial subjects.

But rehabilitation became a cover for excessive violence perpetrated against those in camps and villages.

It was not just the colonial state which engaged in rehabilitation. NGOs also employed people and spent money to help enact rehabilitation policies. These organisations included Save the Children and the Red Cross.

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Read more: Academic sleuthing uncovered British torture of Mau Mau fighters

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My recent research looks at another organisation that became actively involved: the Christian Council of Kenya. I am a historian of the relationship between Kenya and Britain before and after independence, and interested in the intersection between humanitarianism and decolonisation.

The Christian Council of Kenya was established in 1943 as an ecumenical group of missions and churches based in Kenya. It involved all the major Anglican churches, but few African Independent Churches. It was mostly made up of white European Church leaders and missionaries.

It was not a very powerful organisation until the 1950s. This all changed with the Mau Mau emergency. The council viewed its involvement in Mau Mau rehabilitation as an opportunity to evangelise and win converts to Christianity.

The council’s involvement reveals the variety of ways that NGOs became involved – and sometimes implicated – in policies of colonial violence.

The emergency provided the Christian Council of Kenya the opportunity to grow through a process of “NGO-isation”. This involved the transformation of missionary organisations into NGOs during the period of decolonisation.

As secular NGOs emerged, and policies of development increased, missions expanded their activities. This included employing new staff, fundraising, organising ambitious development projects, and working with governments and other NGOs. These were all things the council first did during the emergency.

In the process, the council became part of the colonial system of violence and mass incarceration. While sometimes directly criticising the government, it came to support the government and sanction its violence.

This was especially clear in later years when violence and torture increased but the council spoke out less against them. Through its place on a rehabilitation advisory committee and its direct connection to the governor, the council positioned itself as an ally of government rather than a critic.

The council’s involvement

In 1954, the Kenya colonial government invited the Christian Council of Kenya to help with the project of rehabilitation. This involved employing staff who could work in detention camps and new villages.

The council worked with Christian Aid in Britain, which raised funds for its activities. Christian Aid was at the time expanding from its roots in Europe. Working with the council in Kenya was Christian Aid’s first major project in Africa. The council also received colonial government grants.

The Christian Council of Kenya appointed a general-secretary, Stanley Morrison, a British national who led council efforts in the rehabilitation programme. Morrison believed that detainees would feel a spiritual lack after renouncing Mau Mau and that Christianity could fill the gap.

He saw working with Christian Aid and the government as a chance for growth and actively set about pursuing these opportunities. A key part of this involved sending priests into prisons and detention camps. This was a vast and literally captive audience for evangelism.

The council also designed a “cleansing ceremony” for detainees. This was intended to follow an extensive programme of Christian instruction, in which detainees would renounce their adherence to Mau Mau and embrace Christianity.

But the Christian revival it hoped for did not take place. The council’s activities and influence were limited, mainly due to the fact that there were hundreds of thousands in detention and over a million people in new villages. The council did not have the funds to employ enough people to meet this need. This meant that interventions like the cleansing ceremony weren’t widespread.

The complexities

The Christian Council of Kenya’s relationship with the colonial government was complicated.

On the one hand, it shared common aims with the government. On the other, the council was also concerned about the violence and abuses that occurred in the emergency.

This raised a challenge frequently faced by NGOs working in sites of violence: whether and how to voice criticism while ensuring access to their intended recipients.

Council members had different views. The group criticised the government publicly several times, but more often preferred to raise concerns privately. In this way, it ensured its friendly relationship with the colonial government.

The biggest clash was between Anglican bishop Leonard Beecher and David Steel, the moderator of the Church of Scotland. Steel favoured a direct approach against the violence, preaching a sermon that was broadcast on radio to raise awareness of abuses. Beecher criticised this as likely to damage the Christian Council of Kenya’s relationship with the government.

The government invited the council to join the Rehabilitation Advisory Committee in October 1954. This gave it the chance to mitigate excesses, but also meant it was implicated in government policy.

The council’s criticisms decreased further over the final years of the emergency. For example, when told of the “dilution technique”, which involved beating detainees who refused to confess their Mau Mau oaths, the council shrugged it off with the view that those men were probably psychiatric cases.

As the fighting wound down from 1957, the council no longer focused on rehabilitation, but on long-term development activities, such as training church leaders, running youth training programmes and working with industry.

By the official end of the emergency in 1960 when the colonial government lifted restrictions, the Christian Council of Kenya was well established as a development-focused NGO, with an active portfolio of activities, supported by Christian Aid in the UK, and with close relations to the Kenya government.

The opportunity that the council expected from the emergency – more converts – did not arise. But there was an opportunity for it in its own expansion.

The consequences

My findings highlight the need to pay more attention to missions and churches as major actors at the end of empire. They are often overlooked in favour of political actors, but could have played significant roles behind the scenes.

The council, with Christian Aid’s ongoing support, continued working in Kenya past independence, and still exists. It was renamed the National Council of Churches of Kenya. In 1963, the year of Kenya’s independence, the council appointed its first African general-secretary. Its role in the emergency helped set up its later success.

– Christians and the British empire: how a church NGO got entangled in colonial violence in Kenya
– https://theconversation.com/christians-and-the-british-empire-how-a-church-ngo-got-entangled-in-colonial-violence-in-kenya-262566

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Pierre Rochette, Emeritus professor in geophysics, Aix-Marseille Université (AMU)

Lake Iro in Chad was in the news in early August 2025 after a picture taken by a NASA astronaut was published showing it looking like a large, circular silver mirror as sunlight reflected off its surface and into space. The phenomenon is known as a sunglint and can happen to any water surface under the right conditions. The startling picture led The Conversation Africa to find out more about the lake. Pierre Rochette is an emeritus professor in geophysics from Aix-Marseille University in France. He has studied the lake, and navigated it too for a geophysical study. He answers questions about its properties as an impact crater from an ancient meteor.

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What’s there to know about Lake Iro?

The lake is in south-eastern Chad, about 120 km from the border with the Central African Republic.

Lake Iro lies in the middle of an “inland delta”, which was formed by river waters diverging from the Bahr Salamat, a river which flows in the wet season, with very limited flow in the dry season.

It has a semi-circular shape and is about 12 km in diameter. A number of rivers meander around it.

Iro Lake is a vital resource for people living in the area. It provides permanent water and fodder for the large herds of cattle migrating from the Sahelian zone when it’s too dry to keep the animals up north.

People there also produce dried smoked fish, which is exported.

What’s unique about the lake?

Iro may be the largest extraterrestrial impact crater lake in Africa. Volcanic or karstic (where rock has dissolved) crater lakes are much more abundant on Earth.

When an asteroid or comet strikes the Earth’s surface at a speed of about 10km per second, it excavates a crater about ten times larger than itself. So the extraterrestrial body must have been 1km wide in the case of Iro Lake.

My research shows several examples of such impact craters in Chad. Their age is unknown, but likely older than ten million years.

The crater that is home to Lake Iro is a bit larger than the better known Bosumtwi Lake in Ghana. Bosumtwi crater was also excavated by an asteroid strike, but more recently, about one million years ago.

Africa has only 20 proven impact craters (among which seven have a diameter larger than 10km). That corresponds to one tenth of the total proven craters on Earth.

Since 2014, no new crater has been discovered in Africa. A large number (around 49, according to some studies) and a few other potential impact structures have been proposed in Africa, mostly based on satellite imagery and topography.

But solid proof for impact in these proposed structures, including Iro lake, is lacking due to limited or non-existent field studies.

As a group of scientists we have been heavily involved in tracking down impact craters on the continent. Our most recent work involves an ongoing study of the 40km diameter Velingara structure in Senegal.

Studying large impact craters is important to better evaluate the future threat of asteroid impacts. They also provide potential resources (like water, petrol and metals) and a record of ancient climates in the sediments accumulated in the crater lake.

How do you know it started off as a meteor crater?

Proving the impact nature of a circular structure requires traces of either extraterrestrial matter or of very high pressures endured by the target material.

Due to the likely old age and thus strong erosion of Iro’s circular depression, hardly any rock can be found on the surface. Only drilling for several hundred metres can reach the impacted rocks and thus provide definitive proof. This is a very hard task in such a remote area.

Nevertheless, the known geological features of the area provide no other explanation for the presence of this circular depression, apart from an impact.

That’s why we consider Iro Lake as a potential impact structure. It’s still unproven, but likely.

What are its distinctive geological features?

The area around Iro is extremely flat, as demonstrated by the slope of the Bahr Salamat river, south of the lake, of the order of 0.2 metres per kilometre. This explains the meandering nature of the river, highlighted by the published sunglint image.

Bahr Salamat’s altitude south of Iro is 396 metres, higher by only 40 metres from its altitude 160km to the west-south-west. In fact the Bahr (“river” in the local language) seems to go around the Iro lake depression (the average altitude of the lake is 387 metres).

This is odd as the river should have been attracted towards the depression, but can be explained by the fact that the impact generated a regional uplift that resulted in the Bahr changing its course to the south, to avoid the uplifted region.

What is a sunglint?

Depending on the angle of view, any body of water can behave as a mirror for a light source, such as the sun.

Completely still water just reproduces the object emitting the light, like a perfectly still mountain lake reproduces the rocky landscape above it.

But if the water surface is disturbed by wavelets, the perfect reflection vanishes, and is replaced by blurred light – in this case from the sun. This is the sunglint.

Anybody can experience it in clear weather from an aeroplane or from the top of a mountain, looking at a landscape containing water surfaces riddled by a breeze, in the direction of the sun.

Spectacular examples of sunglints, especially when the sun is not at its highest point (at noon), are reported from satellite imagery, as can be seen here.

The visual phenomenon is not limited to satellite imagery. The term sunglint has been in use since the 1960s. Earlier mentions of the phenomenon used the term “sun glitter”.

– What makes Lake Iro in Chad so special? It’s not just a viral sunglint photo
– https://theconversation.com/what-makes-lake-iro-in-chad-so-special-its-not-just-a-viral-sunglint-photo-263228

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Caroline Séquin, Associate Professor of Modern European History, Lafayette College

Desiring Whiteness is an award-winning book by historian Caroline Séquin. It explores the intertwined histories of commercial sex work and racial politics in France and the French colonial empire, particularly in Senegal. We asked her five questions about her study.

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How was sex work regulated in France?

A new system controlling commercial sex developed during Napoleon’s Consulate in the early 1800s. It was first implemented in Paris, then across France. Known as regulationism, it tolerated, rather than banned, commercial sex. But under specific conditions.

It licensed brothels, so long as the women who sold sex (it was assumed men didn’t) were registered with the vice police. They had to undergo a regular gynaecological exam to detect any sexually transmissible infections (STIs) they might inadvertently pass to their clients.

At the time syphilis was a serious public health threat. Doctors didn’t know how to treat it. Women caught with an STI or who broke the regulationist rules were interned in hospitals or prison without proper trials.

Historians have shown how regulationism was an arbitrary and flawed system. It unfairly targeted mostly working-class women for the benefit of male heterosexual desire.

What form did it take in the colonies like Senegal?

After the abolition of slavery in 1848, French colonial authorities adopted the regulationist regime that had been developed in France.

The French empire at the time included Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Reunion, and some coastal regions of Algeria. In addition were French trading posts in Senegal and India, and several protectorates in the Pacific.

So, in Senegal regulationism was adopted in Saint-Louis and Gorée Island. There the French had built trading posts which they converted into colonial territories around the same time.

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Read more: Senegal is decolonising its heritage, and in the process reclaiming its future

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Regulationism became a way to control the bodies of formerly enslaved women. Colonial authorities saw them as a public health threat to the French men present in the region. They feared that, after abolition, women would resort to commercial sex as a means of survival. This would contribute to the spread of STIs. They extended these policies to all of colonial Senegal a year after abolition.

How did Senegal’s sex workers respond?

Not in the way that colonial authorities would have hoped. Many of the African women who were accused of engaging in commercial sex evaded the mandatory health checks or police registration. For example, they relocated to other areas to avoid detection.

And although the new colonial decree allowed for the creation of brothels, it appears none existed in the colony until the early 1900s. Authorities routinely lamented how the African women who sold sex did so “clandestinely”. Meaning outside licensed brothels and colonial control.

One shouldn’t dismiss the reality that some of these women were likely wrongly accused of being sex workers. Gender and racial bias shaped how medical and colonial authorities viewed Black women.

I haven’t found any evidence of brothels staffed with African women in Dakar or across colonial Senegal. All licensed brothels were staffed with European women and their services were reserved exclusively for European men.

The sexual reputation of white women greatly mattered to colonial authorities as it was supposed to reflect French moral superiority. Nonetheless, they tolerated their sexual activity because brothel keepers denied African male clients access to their businesses. This helped prevent interracial sex.

Sex with a white sex worker was preferrable to sexual or conjugal relationships developing with African women. Given the widespread assumption at the time that men had natural sexual needs, brothels were perceived as a “necessary evil” to maintain the social, moral, and racial order.

So, the regulation of commercial sex became an essential tool for the upholding of colonial rule. This increasingly relied on strict racial hierarchies and the preservation of French whiteness.

How does this play out today?

The regulationist regime was legally abolished in France – and colonial Senegal – in 1946. However, a few years after decolonisation and Senegal’s independence in 1960, a new law was established by Senegalese authorities. It required sex workers to be registered (with medical authorities, rather than police) and regularly checked for STIs. Those who failed to comply risked being jailed.

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Read more: Sex, intimacy and black middle-class Christianity in South Africa – a difficult history

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This is strikingly similar to the regulationist system established during the colonial period and it still stands to this day.

This was a different path than that taken by other African countries formerly under French colonial control, which associated regulationism with colonial oppression. They moved to eliminate it after independence. Some scholars, however, have lauded Senegal’s regulationist style laws as one of the main reasons why the country has the lowest reported HIV rate in the continent.

What do you hope readers will take away from your book?

The regulation of commercial sex was not simply about controlling women’s bodies and sexuality. It was also about policing racial relations.

As colonial discourses about race shifted and interracial sex and intimacy became increasingly frowned upon from the late 1800s, French authorities relied on commercial sex to limit the development of more sustained forms of intimacy across racial and colonial boundaries. In their view these threatened to dilute the myth of French whiteness by creating multiracial offspring.

What this meant for who could sell and buy sex in brothels differed in colonial Senegal and France. But, in the end, the racial logic that undergirded metropolitan and colonial brothels was the same.

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Read more: Freemasons, homosexuals and corrupt elites in Cameroon – inside an African conspiracy theory

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So, my book contributes to an ever-growing scholarship that has debunked the myth of France’s colour blindness, by uncovering how the regulation of commercial sex was just one of the many ways in which racial difference and hierarchies were produced and upheld in the century following the abolition of slavery.

In that sense, France was not exceptional but rather similar to other imperial nations like the United States, where the control of sex and conjugality became crucial for the racial project of white supremacy in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery.

– Sex workers in colonial Senegal were policed by France – book explores a racist history
– https://theconversation.com/sex-workers-in-colonial-senegal-were-policed-by-france-book-explores-a-racist-history-262999

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

Namibia celebrates 26 August as Heroes’ Day. It recalls the first military encounter between the South African army and members of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo), Namibia’s liberation movement, in 1966. Initially a German colony (1884-1915), the country was then administered by South Africa, which refused to give up the occupation.

Since independence in 1990, the heroic Swapo liberation narrative has also been inscribed in Heroes’ Acre, a monument built by North Korea.

The institutionalised public commemoration in Namibia today – rightly – recalls the sacrifices of those who were willing to fight for self determination. At the same time, it glosses over the toxic impact of the way warfare was conducted. Those involved in the struggle for independence were far from innocent in the execution of the military resistance. Yet their violations of human rights were never addressed.

This ambiguity was visible in 2025 in a public controversy when tribute poured out to the late Solomon Hawala, whose combat name was Jesus. He was a leading fighter in Swapo’s military wing, known as PLAN.

He also had a bloody track record of eliminating fellow Namibians in exile.

The celebration of Hawala finally moved me to resign as a member of Swapo, an organisation I joined when I was 24 years old. I set out my reasons in an interview accessible on YouTube.

Since the late 1970s I have specialised as an academic in Namibian history and politics. Since the early 1990s I have engaged with the traumatic side of so-called liberation. More recently I wrote a book chapter giving voice to the victims.

Patriotic history versus struggle realities

The history of liberation movements displays their authoritarian nature. Their camps in southern Africa forged bonds of comradeship. For Mozambique’s Frelimo, the African National Congress, Swapo, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola and Zimbabwe African People’s Union, Tanzania’s Kongwa camp in the 1960s provided a first operational base in preparation for the armed struggle abroad.

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Read more: Tanzania’s independence leader Julius Nyerere built a new army fit for African liberation: how he did it

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The movements then started to arrange for their own bases in host countries.

In the early to mid 1970s Swapo established the Old Farm outside Lusaka in Zambia. This was followed by Nyango. Finally, a Health and Education Centre was established in Angola’s Kwanza Zul.

The administration and management required strict discipline and reinforced repressive hierarchies.

There were several times in Swapo’s exile history when internal critics were silenced. Testimonies of the early stages in the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s offer insights by those persecuted. These included the former Swapo secretary for information Andreas Shipanga, the first generation Swapo member Hans Beukes, the former Swapo Youth League activist Keshii Nathanael and one of the first PLAN cadres, Samson Ndeikwila.

Speaking out and thereby disclosing the crimes, the Namibian chaplain in exile Salatiel Ailonga and his wife Anita were forced to seek refuge elsewhere.

Some scholars have drawn attention to the plight of the dissidents. The first waves of repression triggered two of those academics in solidarity with the liberation struggles to ask questions about liberation and democracy.

These earlier events were only a prelude to the “spy drama” in the 1980s. This was a chapter of horrendous crimes, mainly committed by a group of PLAN members at the camp in Lubango in southern Angola.

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Read more: Painted messages in Angola’s abandoned liberation army camps offer a rare historical record

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Over 1,000 Swapo members were incarcerated in dungeons. Their fate was most likely triggered by setbacks in the border war in southern Angola between the South African army and PLAN units backed by Cuban forces. In 1978, the South African army had attacked a Swapo camp at Cassinga in Angola, killing hundreds of women and children.

Members of the higher ranking Swapo military, the so-called securocrats, blamed spies for the disaster and other military setbacks. They tortured the accused to extract confessions and to implicate others. With no proof of guilt, people were often executed, disappeared or died of neglect in the dungeons. Numbers of the missing with no traces were estimated by the surviving victims at around 2,000.

Victims were, in the main, rank and file Swapo members. That South African spies had most likely penetrated the higher echelons of the movement was ignored.

Some of the victims, like Oiva Angula, have published accounts of their suffering.

Those who pointed out the unfolding terror were dismissed by the international solidarity movement as anti-Swapo propaganda. This included the early revelations by Siegfried Groth, a pastor for the refugees in Zambia. He was blamed for besmirching the image of the freedom fighters.

Glorification of the perpetrators

With the passing on of the first generation of struggle stalwarts, the number of posthumously celebrated heroes increased. Many of the veterans were put to rest in full honour by state funerals.

Hawala passed away aged 89 on 11 August 2025. Until his retirement in 2006 he had been the chief of the defence force.

President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah recognised his

distinguished military service, steadfast leadership and unwavering dedication to the cause of Namibia’s liberation and nation-building. His legacy remains a symbol of courage, patriotism, and commitment to the ideals of freedom and independence.

This triggered a public debate. It brought back memories of heinous crimes in which he played a crucial role. Named the “Butcher of Lubango” by those who survived the ordeal, he was the personification of a brutal and ruthless system targeting those accused of spying and those who dissented with the leadership.

In his defence, a former Swapo MP pointed out that he was merely acting on Swapo’s instructions. People, he argued, “were killed with the knowledge of senior Swapo leaders”, and some of these were already buried at Heroes’ Acre.

Unheroic heroism

The survivors of the dungeons who are still alive were in shock over celebrating Hawala. But as they also pointed out, he personified a system.

I argued along similar lines when I was interviewed about my resignation from Swapo after more than 50 years as a member. Before the announcement that Hawala would get a state funeral I had urged in an article that his death should be an opportunity to finally address the plight of his victims. Instead the blinkers remained.

This motivated my letter of resignation: I had joined Swapo for believing in its slogan “Solidarity, Freedom, Justice”. Out of loyalty to these values and as a matter of – albeit belated – restoration of moral integrity, I had no choice but to depart.

Praising the perpetrators as heroes adds insult to injury to their surviving victims. Such denialism and amnesia lies like a lead cloak over truth and reconciliation. It shows the limits to liberation when Heroes’ Day is celebrated.

– Namibia celebrates independence heroes, but glosses over a painful history
– https://theconversation.com/namibia-celebrates-independence-heroes-but-glosses-over-a-painful-history-263654

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Hanlie Smuts, Professor and Head of Department, University of Pretoria

In today’s world, huge amounts of data are being created all the time, yet more than half of it is never used. It stays in silos, or isn’t managed, or can’t be accessed because systems change, or isn’t needed because business priorities change. This “dark data” accumulates in servers and storage devices, consuming electricity and inflating the digital carbon footprint.

It may appear harmless, but this growing mass of digital waste has consequences for the environment. Storing unused or obsolete digital data requires constant power for servers and cooling systems. This drives up electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Dark data alone is estimated to generate over 5.8 million tonnes of CO₂ annually. This is the equivalent of emissions from 1.2 million cars per annum.

Dark data also accelerates e-waste from hardware replacement and depletes resources through manufacturing, such as using recycled raw materials, and water-intensive cooling.

Organisations collect vast volumes of information during routine operations. But it might never be analysed or repurposed. System log files that track user activity, errors and transactions remain untouched after initial storage. We’re talking about every email, photo, video, or unused spreadsheet saved on a server. Think of it like forgotten boxes stored in a warehouse, except this warehouse uses energy all the time. Managing dark data is not only a matter of working efficiently; it is a pressing sustainability issue.

The solution lies partly in effective knowledge management practices.

This means making an effort to reduce the environmental impact of digital systems, particularly those related to data storage and usage. Organisations should collect, manage and retain data with energy consumption and carbon emissions in mind.

My research aimed to find ways to do this. I collected 539 quantitative and qualitative questionnaire responses representing North America at 31.9% (172), followed by Europe at 21.5% (116) and Asia at 19.9% (107). Africa (10.8%) and Australia (9.8%) were represented too, while South America (5.8%) and Antarctica (0.4%) had the smallest shares.

The findings highlighted the need for data governance, data security and continuous learning within organisations. It showed the value of energy efficient information technology practices, centralised knowledge repositories and working across disciplines to address dark data risks.

My research also provided organisations with guidelines to make digital decarbonisation part of the way they operate and make decisions. This would improve organisational efficiency, reduce carbon footprints and promote the reuse of valuable data insights.

The digital dilemma: more data, more emissions

As digital technologies become more embedded in everyday operations, the demand for data storage and processing power surges. Globally, data centres already account for about 2% of greenhouse gas emissions, equal to the environmental impact of the aviation industry. The figure is expected to double by 2030 as digital adoption accelerates.

But dark data isn’t getting much attention. This is because it is mostly unstructured, hidden in legacy systems or backup servers. Information technology and sustainability teams tend to overlook it. It’s expensive to manage and easy to ignore. But it consumes costly storage space and drives up energy bills for powering and cooling servers. It also requires ongoing backup, security and compliance measures despite delivering no business value.

Knowledge management to tidy up dark data

Knowledge management strategies can address the dark data problem. Knowledge management acts like a smart organiser for all the information that organisations hold. It makes it possible to find hidden or forgotten files buried in systems, understand whether the data is useful or outdated, and decide on the best course of action. That can be by turning valuable data into insights or securely deleting what’s no longer needed.

This reduces wasted storage, cuts costs, lowers the environmental impact and ensures that the information kept actually supports better decision-making.

We recommend two things organisations can do: classification and streamlining.

1. Classification: organise, tag, and unlock value

Classification is the first step in bringing order to data chaos. It involves discovering, tagging, categorising and assessing data to determine its relevance and value. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning can help with this.

This approach not only reduces waste, but also unlocks hidden opportunities. For example, previously unused customer feedback data can be analysed for product innovation, or old project documentation can inform new initiatives.

2. Streamlining: stop hoarding, start reducing

Streamlining is about developing leaner, cleaner data environments. It calls for robust data governance, including clear retention policies, regular audits and employee education on digital hygiene. Using AI tools, organisations can identify duplicated, outdated, or irrelevant files and automate their safe deletion.

It’s not just a technical process. It involves cultivating a culture that values purposeful data usage and discourages unnecessary hoarding. When employees understand the environmental cost of unmanaged data, they become more responsible stewards of digital information. The outcome is a more agile, cost-effective and sustainable data ecosystem.

One example of an organisation doing this is the car brand, BMW Group. It’s made digital decarbonisation part of its production processes.

Google has invested in sustainable IT practices, including energy-efficient data storage and processing. The data centres of the company have been carbon-neutral since 2007, and it is working towards running its operations on 100% renewable energy.

Let data work smarter, not harder

Digital sustainability does not demand that organisations do less; it encourages them to do better. Rethinking dark data management is a step towards reducing digital emissions and conserving resources.

Through knowledge management strategies like classification and streamlining, organisations can turn an overlooked liability into a strategic asset.

Data should serve us, not burden us.

– Data that is stored and not used has a carbon footprint. How companies can manage dark data better
– https://theconversation.com/data-that-is-stored-and-not-used-has-a-carbon-footprint-how-companies-can-manage-dark-data-better-262966

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Satang Nabaneh, Director of Programs, Human Rights Center; Research Professor of Law, University of Dayton School of Law, University of Dayton

The Gambia’s post-dictatorship democratic transition recently suffered a setback. The Constitution of the Republic of The Gambia (Promulgation) Bill, 2024 failed to pass its second reading in the national assembly.

Passing the bill required the support of at least 75% of The Gambia’s 58-member parliament, including the speaker. Now, there’s uncertainty over the country’s democratic reforms.

This leaves The Gambia governed by the 1997 constitution drafted under Yahya Jammeh’s military junta. The 1997 constitution was widely seen as a tool for executive overreach. It didn’t have term limits, stalled key democratic reforms and lacked sufficient protection for human rights and democratic principles.

Failure to pass the new constitution is a setback to the “New Gambia” agenda, a campaign promise of the 2016 ruling coalition, which included the drafting of a new constitution and ensuring accountability for past human rights violations, and could lead to renewed political tension.

Proponents hailed the proposed new constitution as a step towards institutionalising checks and balances and strengthening civil liberties. Critics pointed to a lack of transparency, the absence of broad stakeholder consultation, and specific controversial clauses.

Those clauses included the removal of a retroactive presidential term limit, the weakening of checks and balances by reducing parliamentary oversight on appointments, and the potential erosion of judicial independence.

I am a Gambian legal scholar, researcher and human rights practitioner and I have been tracking The Gambia’s journey to solidify its democracy since the dictatorship of Jammeh. In this article, I present five of the most important things to know about this constitutional reform effort and why it failed to advance.

New constitution triggers and why it failed

1. Unfulfilled search for a new foundation:

A truly democratic constitution has been a central promise since the ousting of former president Jammeh in 2017.

An initial 2020 draft, the product of extensive nationwide consultations, also failed to pass. There were disagreements over provisions like retroactive presidential term limits. But the 2024 bill continues to face political and social hurdles.

The 1997 constitution presents a paradoxical approach to democratic governance, particularly in its mechanisms for political transition and constitutional amendment. For example, it has stringent requirements for constitutional change: a three-quarters majority vote from all national assembly members across two readings.

It also requires a national referendum, with 50% voter participation and 75% approval.

A high bar for constitution amendments can protect against impulsive alterations. But it also puts disproportionate power in the hands of a parliamentary super majority. This politicises constitutional reform, making it contingent on party allegiance and strategic manoeuvring rather than a broad national consensus.

An arrangement like the one in The Gambia could hinder the natural evolution of democratic governance and limit the nation’s capacity to adapt its basic law to the changing will of the people.

2. Unresolved concerns over presidential powers:

A key reason the 2024 draft faced such strong opposition related to presidential powers. The 2020 draft sought a two-term limit with a retroactive clause (meaning President Adama Barrow would not be able to run in the 2026 election). But the 2024 draft removed this retroactive counting.

This remained a point of contention, fuelling fears of potential term limit manipulation. More broadly, the bill proposed removing parliamentary oversight for all appointments, including ministers, the Independent Electoral Commission and independent institutions.

It also sought to grant the president more power over national assembly members. These proposals were viewed as undue centralisation of authority and a regression from the 1997 constitution.

3. Unaddressed threats to judicial independence:

The bill’s stated goal of judicial independence was undermined by certain provisions. The 2024 draft removed the requirement that the national assembly confirm the appointment of the chief justice and Supreme Court judges.

It also removed the citizenship requirement for the chief justice. Given The Gambia’s recent history where foreign judges on politically appointed, renewable contracts served as a tool of repression and eroded public trust, these changes therefore raised alarm about judicial impartiality and the erosion of oversight.

The bill left out Chapter V on “Leadership and Integrity” which was in the 2020 draft. This chapter, which outlined a framework for public officer conduct and aimed at combating corruption, was seen as vital for accountability.

4. Contentious provisions on human rights and civil liberties:

While the 2024 draft generally aimed to modernise fundamental rights and introduce additional socio-economic protections, it also contained specific restrictions that human rights advocates criticised. These included an increase in police detention periods from 48 to 72 hours, and perceived limitations on the rights to education, to petition public officials, and to freedom of assembly.

Provisions affecting citizenship by marriage (doubling the waiting period for foreign spouses to gain citizenship) and limiting media ownership and operation to Gambian citizens sparked debates over inclusivity and media freedoms.

These clauses likely contributed to the insufficient votes for the bill to pass.

5. Public fatigue amid the bill’s failure:

The failure of the 2024 constitution draft bill to pass second reading reflects a complex and polarised public discourse. While the government championed the bill as essential for stability and a modern republic, the main opposition, the United Democratic Party, opposed it.

Numerous civil society organisations expressed concerns about the diluted democratic safeguards and expanded presidential powers. In the end, a perceived lack of genuine public participation prevented its advancement.

The way forward

This outcome shows a division among the public. Some are tired of the drawn-out constitutional reform process. They want stability now. Others want to keep pursuing a genuinely transformative constitution.

This division is made worse by widespread disillusionment due to economic hardships and slow progress with various reforms since the post-dictatorship transition began.

The failure of the 2024 bill leaves The Gambia in a state of uncertainty about its foundational legal framework.

As I have noted elsewhere, it’s time for all to commit to an inclusive reform process.

– The Gambia’s new constitution has stalled again – 5 reasons why and what that means for democracy
– https://theconversation.com/the-gambias-new-constitution-has-stalled-again-5-reasons-why-and-what-that-means-for-democracy-261809